So this is my first story in a while, and its really more of a drabble than anything.

I like to just sit down and write occasionally, and this kind of popped into my mind.

Summary: Tony Stark has just escaped from the terrorists that had held him captive, trying to force him to create a weapon of mass destruction. With Yinsens help, he had escaped. Now, Tony Stark playboy-billionaire-philanthropist, was stuck in a pile of sand and sorting out his life.

Metaphorically, again.

The sand was ten feet high in most places, and its trough deeper still. The calm had been broken by a giant human sized meteor seconds before, and all was still.

It was there, in the smokey remains of his suit that Tony Stark first had an inkling of the life he would have.

It was inbetween the time that steam and smoke passed his eyes that got him blinking and after the crash that send his bones jolting. As his hand shook with a strange concoction of fear and adrenaline and he tossed off his makeshift gauntlet, but before he breathed his first puff of gritty freedom. Right in the second as he looked towards the blue, blue, blue sky, a smile curling and tugging at his chapped lips as the sun blinded him with white circles and ultraviolet blue lights. In the best way possible. He wanted to laugh. But the raw, itching in his throat had never quite left since the first time he had awoken. Like an itch, just waiting for someone to scratch it.

Tony Stark was a changed man, and he hadn't quite realized.

It took him a while to even try and wiggle his way out of his suit, if one could call it that, his mind too muddled with what had happened back in the cave. His body too malnourished and weak. The giant hunk of metal that was currently keeping him prisoner in one of the peaks of the sand dunes was a prototype so clunky and dense, it was a miracle it had lasted as long as it had. The wiring was impressive, but even he had to admit to his own short-sightedness. Especially when that kept him trapped in a ton of metal, in a desert hotter than an oven.

Stark heard the phantom sounds of gun shots and the smell of the freshly dead. It didn't take him long to go downward from there. The smile slowly falling.

Copper wiring hadn't been able to save his friend. Nor had his somewhat dazzling design. His friend had still been trapped and shot and bruised and dying. And he had been left without him, as the spark had left his eyes. There hadn't been time, nor the resources, for Tony to bring him along.

Stark's eyes were too dry to shed a tear, but he mourned deeply as he forced his waist through the small port in the suit. His first few attempts were weak and his muscles gave out more times than he could count. His hand kept slipping in something slippery, and it would take him quite a while to understand it was his friends blood that was making purchase difficult.

In his current state of mind, he couldn't realize that it was because of the great sadness that his limbs seemed heavier. That even in his shaking, he knew instinctively that he had done worse. He had created a weaponized suit, hadn't he? He had escaped, hadn't he? So why couldn't he do this?

This was mostly in effect because Stark hadn't had anything remotely alcoholic for three months; and he had never gone through such heart ache without copious amounts of booze and plenty of beautiful women. He hadn't even gone through many of his successes without the very same treatment. No matter what Pepper told anyone.

Yinsen's face flashed in Tony's mind as his hand slipped again. His forehead found a niche in between his forearm and elbow, and he hid away from the blaring sun as he remembered the familiar truth Yinsen had spoken to him. It was easy to forget the battle before and after, when all he could remember was Yinsin slowly fading in front of him.

It had been the first time he had witnessed death.

Death followed him. Death was a constant companion. He'd lost his own parents not too terribly long ago. But it had never been like this. Heart wrenching watching the light leave bright eyes.

Tony Stark did not thank many people. There were a handful of people he had genuinely thanked and he could count them on a chicken's foot. Yinsen had managed to find a spot in Tony's shattered and iron ladened heart. And he had managed what others could only have dreamed of.

Don't waste it. He had said.

Tony wasn't planning on it.

And there were so many ways Tony Stark could waste his life. So many. He knew it. And Yinsen had known it too.

And Tony did laugh at that. The pure idiosyncratic notion that his life, his, was worth more than the precious life of the man who had given him life, after he had practically thrown it away like a dirty rag. Life crashed around him as the unfairness that permeated everyone's life, finally made some kind of semblance of sense to his. His weapons killed people. The doctors hands alone saved them. It was pure unfair life that was currently ruling the world, and Tony didn't want to stand for that. Refused to stand for it.

He had a purpose. He didn't quite know what it was yet, but he had hours to decide. Maybe days.

With determination that had kept him fueled since accepting to 'make' the weapon for the terrorists, Tony started walking.

And walking. And walking.

The sand under his feet felt like some sick carnival ride, where the rug was pulled from underneath your feet, and as it did, he staggered over what felt like mountain after mountain of sand. Trying to keep his balance as his head pounded from lack of water, food, and sleep. It was not a new feeling, but definitely a new level of… intensity.

It was in this state of mind, half delirious with need, that Rhodney found him. Hours later. Hours after the bases destruction and his own consequential escape.