The desert was a furnace. Heat shimmered over an endless expanse of gold, and the horizon swayed like a mirage that refused to settle.
Tony Stark stumbled forward, each step sinking into the hot, shifting sand. Behind him, the Mark I lay like a gutted carcass, half-buried, stripped of anything worth taking. His throat felt like it had been lined with dust; each breath scraped at the back of his mouth like dry parchment.
Ethan was gone.
The thought came like a weight in his chest, but he pushed it away, the same way he had been pushing himself for hours. There was no one left out here, no allies, no enemies, just wind, heat, and the slow erosion of will. The sun beat down without mercy, and even his thoughts began to unravel in its glare.
Then he heard it.
A sound that didn't belong to this wasteland.
It drifted on the wind, light, melodic, impossibly pure. It was delicate, like the subtle trickle of a hidden spring, and with every note, the pain in his lungs seemed to ease.
Music.
Tony froze. A hallucination, had to be. But the melody persisted: soft, deliberate.
Through the waves of heat, he saw a figure atop a dune. A child, or at least, something wearing the shape of one. The figure was dressed in flowing green and white, fabric lifting on the breeze as though it obeyed a rhythm only it could hear. A long, dark braid spilled over one shoulder, the end tied with a pale ribbon that caught flecks of sunlight.
In his hands, a small harp shimmered; each note he played seemed to take shape in the air before dissolving into it.
The boy looked untouched by the desert, no sweat on his brow, no dust clinging to his skin.
He was... otherworldly. Divine in a way Tony couldn't explain.
Their eyes met. The harp fell silent for just a heartbeat, and then.
"EhE."
It wasn't quite a laugh. More the sound of someone who knew something he didn't, a private joke whispered between the earth and the wind.
Tony's voice cracked when he tried to speak. "Uh… hi? You lost, kid?"
"You're the one wandering without direction," the boy replied. His words carried easily across the sand, as though the wind itself was delivering them to Tony. "Your steps are heavy. Your heart, heavier still."
'Great' poetic heatstroke. Tony rubbed a hand down his face. "If you're real, point me to water."
The boy plucked a bright chord from the harp. "Is that all you seek?"
"Right now? Yeah, pretty much top priority."
The faintest smile touched the boy's lips. "Follow me. The wind knows the way."
He turned and began walking, his shoes barely leaving a trace in the sand. Something in the air felt cooler as the music returned. Weighing his options, Tony followed.
They moved through the dunes in silence, save for the soft threads of melody. The sun began its slow descent, shadows stretching long over the sand. The ache in Tony's legs hadn't gone away, but it no longer felt like the desert was swallowing him whole.
Eventually, the dunes gave way to rock. A ridge rose ahead, and beyond it, a patch of green. Sparse, Grass clung to the edges of a spring, rippling under the breath of the wind.
Tony stumbled to its edge and drank greedily, cool water spilling over his hands.
When he looked up, the boy was watching him.
"I don't know what you are," Tony said embarrassed, wiping his mouth, "but… thanks."
The boy knelt, meeting his gaze with eyes that seemed older than the desert itself. "You carry a storm within you, Man of Iron. It will break, sooner or later. When it does, remember: 'Even the fiercest winds can bring change, not only destruction.'"
Tony: ???
Before Tony could respond, the wind rose. Sand swirled around them, the boy's form unraveling like threads in a tapestry.
"Wait-" Tony began, but the music swelled, lifting on the breeze before fading entirely.
Silence returned.
The spring remained, its water cool and real under Tony's hands. That alone was proof enough that it had happened-or maybe that it didn't matter if it had.
He stood, casting one last glance toward the empty dunes, half-listening for that strange, lilting "EhE."
'Nothing'
With a long breath, he turned toward the setting sun and began walking.