Tony Stark is not a man of subtlety.
Black Widow and Hawkeye, Natasha and Clint, are two people that live and breathe subtlety. Bruce, when not embroiled in rage, has also learned the art of not drawing attention to himself while in public. How those three manage when they have the looks of movie stars is beyond even his brilliant mind, but even then, one of the very few things that had always been out of his reach is empathy.
In fairness, Tony is almost certain he would be spectacular at it, if he wanted to try. While landing among a group of working class people in his Iron Man armour, blaring We Are The Champions through several different speakers likely isn't the best way to start.
Tony smiles and waves as he makes his way to the front of the line, the people he's bypassing too enamoured with his simple appearance to care. He stops halfway to accept a somewhat awkward hug, though judging from the lucky woman's excited babble, she either doesn't notice or doesn't care. The crowd has grown in the minutes between finding the Master of Death's location and the travel, likely a result of his own arrival.
Eventually, the surrounding populace figure out that his coming here isn't due to random circumstance. He absently nods his thanks as people begin to step aside, hurrying the last few moments to the food truck. It wouldn't do for the… alien? God? It wouldn't do well for the entity to leave before he gets a chance to talk. Once he's close enough, he places his hands on the counter, and he is greeted by a collection of warmth before he can even make a single noise.
Burger, coffee, and smile.
Steam slowly curls in the air above the coffee cup as the man (Or was he a boy? He was shorter up close than Tony had been expecting) holds it out to him. The burger is filled with different meats and vegetables, stacked high, immaculately balanced, with sunlight glistening off juices and looking entirely too much like something the Capsicle would shove into his mouth… and Tony realises in that moment that he can't actually remember the last time he ate.
(There was a small bite of shawarma in between a pitiful breakfast and now, but after a restless night and fending off an alien invasion, he feels justified to a little forgetfulness.)
The man hasn't yet said anything, so Tony simply accepts the offered items. The world around then has gotten quiet, too quiet for it to have happened naturally. Tony glances around, not appearing scared in the least, because he holds very little fear in that moment.
If he had, then he would have difficulty hiding it. After all, Tony Stark is not a man of subtlety.
Everyone has stopped. Or, it is more accurate to say that everything has stopped. Tony can see birds on the sidewalk that are frozen in the act of pecking for errant crumbs, the cars that had moments before been bustling for more space on the packed roads all paused. Mannequins filled the street, people with limbs defying gravity and expressions stuck like an adage concerning changing winds.
The only people who aren't affected seem to be the two in the food truck before him. The lady is bustling away further in the back, while the man is swiping across his grill with a rag.
Tony takes everything in, the cars and pedestrians and wildlife, documenting the information at speeds that would put some computers to shame. He then turns back to the thing in front of him and performs the first action that comes to mind.
He takes a bite out of his burger.
It's great. Not the best he's ever tasted, but still great.
"So what are you, exactly?"
Tony speaks before he's even finished chewing. Some food slips out of his mouth while it is open, which he chases after in a fashion that is distinctly unattractive. Interestingly enough, when the piece of lettuce hits the ground it vanishes; to where, Tony doesn't know, nor does he like his chances of finding out.
The being before him inclines its head slightly in greeting. The woman working behind him hides a silent giggle behind the coffee cup in her hand. In a move that feels contrary to his very reason for existing, Tony ignores her.
"My name is Harry." The now identified Harry's voice is startlingly… British. Not that Tony really had any expectations as to what 'Harry' would sound like. He was barely expecting a human language at all. "I doubt you'll believe me, but I am human."
Tony allows a second to himself to contemplate that.
"Ah." He takes another bite of his burger, nodding his head as he chews. Damn, it is a very good burger. "Fair enough. I believe you."
Harry has no reason to lie to him, after all, not when it's apparent that the very laws of death don't apply to him. And even so, The Hulk is technically human, so Tony can consider his views officially expanded.
Harry laughs. He laughs quietly, like an old man remembering a grand joke a friend told him five decades ago. Tony takes a sip from his coffee and immediately decides to never order another ever again unless the situation is dire; his personality is addictive enough as is, and there is no viable excuse for how awake he feels in that moment. Today would be a day of scientific achievement and jittery hands, he can already tell.
"A lot happens in your mind, Tony Stark. So much that I don't even understand some of it." Harry has turned back to his cooking, reaching for tools and spices that Tony never bothered to learn the names of. The man moves with familiarity, not needing to look to see where what he needs is resting, not having to speak for his as-of-yet unnamed friend to hand him exactly what he's asking of her. "That hasn't happened to me in a while."
"You can read minds?" That's a significant revelation. Part of Tony feels as though he should feel exposed, offended, perhaps even violated. After a moment, he finds that he doesn't mind nearly as much as he probably should, because he can't wait to see Fury's face when he tells him. "Ooh, let's play a game. What am I thinking about right now?"
Harry glances at Tony from the corner of his eye. There's a glimmer behind his glasses.
"You're admiring my colleague's behind?"
The behind in question, as well as everything else connected to it give a slight jump. True to form, Tony's eyes slowly slide up from where they had been resting. They travel past long, light hair and alight on a pretty face, the woman in question shooting him a raised eyebrow from over her shoulder.
Because he is not a subtle man, Tony simply gives her a roguish grin and winks, before turning back to Harry.
"Damn, you're good." The burger is only a quarter of the way gone, yet Tony already knows that he wants to leave with another one. "So how old are you?"
Harry gives Tony a look that the engineer can't quite identify. His face is blank, devoid of all emotion, but Tony can't help but feel that it's all still there anyway. Like a veil that he can't, or shouldn't, pull to the side.
"I don't think you're ready to hear the number of zeroes in that answer."
Tony can't help it; he scoffs. He builds and programs his own robots, has built the single most advanced artificial intelligence known to the planet. Zeroes, along with ones, make up a significant portion of his life. He decides to not push that particular issue, however, because Harry has supplied him with food and coffee and both are vastly better than anything he'd been expecting to consume today.
A quick glance around confirms that everything is still frozen. Later on, Tony would have to look into how he was still breathing when the air itself was still.
"How about a question that has no zeroes then? Harry tilts his head, gesturing Tony to go forth. The gesture is appreciated, but it wasn't like Tony wasn't going to ask anyway. He is a curious genius, after all. "Why'd you help out yesterday? Shouldn't death be impartial, or something?"
Harry begins to laugh uproariously. It's so sudden that he has to rest one hand against the counter to keep from falling over, and Tony drops his burger, a nanosecond from instinctually activating the repulsor beams in his palms before his brain catches up with him.
The burger stops in mid-air centimetres above the ground, before flying back into Tony's hand just as quickly as it had fallen. It isn't as big a deal as Tony feels it should be.
"I am not death, Mr. Stark. I'm the Master of Death. Once you die, then there is nothing more that I will do for you." Harry takes his glasses away from his face, rubbing at his eyes with a sleeve. His clothes are so boring that Tony hadn't even paid them any attention, which is probably by design, now that he takes the time to notice and think about it. "But until that point, there is no reason in cutting life short in the events that happened yesterday. Tell me, Mr. Stark, what purpose would it serve for mortals to die in a battle demanded and carried out by Gods?"
Tony just shrugs and returns to his burger, looking for all the world uninterested in the conversation. It couldn't be further from the truth, he's just never paid any mind to philosophy until recently and still wasn't as good at it as he would have wished.
"Perhaps life is not fair, but it's not callous, and neither am I." Tony watches as a sack of potatoes floats up behind Harry. The man waves his hand, and the bag contorts for a moment, before tipping upside down and pouring a series of perfectly sliced vegetables into a deep-fryer that Tony could have sworn hadn't been tucked away into that corner a moment ago. "The Chitauri are a race that I have interacted with before, and suffice it to say that win or lose, I granted them a painless death as opposed to what was waiting for them. Attacking a planet as new as Earth for the sake of a grudge has already thrown them out of whatever favour they may have had with the powers that be. Right now, I'm just hoping that knowledge of me being here will distract them from proper punishment."
Tony is now halfway through his burger, the coffee finished and cup having been thrown expertly into a bin a little way down the road. He hasn't really given anything conceptual much thought over the last little while; having no real means of getting answers through his available equipment typically put him in a foul mood. There were certain things that couldn't be tested in a lab, and it was on Tony's list to build machines that could circumvent that little hiccup as soon as possible.
Until then, it was far more productive to continue with that which he'd already been doing, rather than run his own mind in circles. It wasn't even on him to understand this type of threat. As Fury was often eager to point out, he is merely a consultant.
"Cool- is that lobster? Hmm, good burger- Ahem." Tony finally chokes on a bit of burger, pounding his metal chest plate with a gauntlet ineffectually until he remembers how to swallow correctly. "I wasn't actually expecting you to tell me."
Harry laughs once more. This time it is far more contained, hardly even a chuckle.
"Short of condemning yourself, Tony, you can't force us to interact again. Considering what could have been yesterday, I doubt some things."
Ironically enough, Tony feels a chill run down his spine, like someone has just stepped over the spot of his future gravestone.
"What could have been?" He repeats, wracking his mind for anything yesterday that could have proven deadly. There was the invasion, obviously, and that little moment he shared with Loki, but aside from that, he'd probably been the one on the team putting himself in the least amount of danger throughout the entire debacle.
Harry neglects to answer him, having already turned back to the grill. He puts the finishing touch on a series of burgers, wraps, and other assorted barbecued foods, his female helper putting each into their own paper bag as he finishes. Two trays of coffee are stacked neatly on the counter already, and under Tony's watchful eye, Harry pulls out a paper bag of similar size to the others out of thin air, following that by waving his hand over the assorted bags. Small pictures appear along the sides of the bags, a shield carrying a star and a bow being the only two Tony can catch a glimpse of before Harry is waving his hand again and the bags are moving.
The float into the bag, heedless of the fact that it should have struggled to contain even one of them. The coffee trays follow them in, blatantly ignoring the laws of physics as their significantly wider edges disappear into the paper bag's depths.
"Take these to your teammates, Mr. Stark." The bag's top is curled in such a way as to fit perfectly into his gauntlet's fist. Even looking directly at it, Tony can barely feel that it's there. It has absolutely no weight, despite the contents, and he's already drawing up schematics in his head for how he wants to run tests on it later. "It's quite likely we'll meet again sometime soon. Say goodbye, Death."
The single word brings Tony up short, and his head whips around to see who Harry is talking to. The blonde woman is eyeing him with obvious amusement when his gaze falls on her, mimicking his earlier roguish grin and wink perfectly. The armour has never felt this uncomfortable around his very alive flesh more than in that moment.
Death says nothing to him, and in that moment, Tony has a decision to make. His choice comes to him quite quickly, not feeling like the life-altering event it very clearly is.
He inclines his head to Harry, who waves in response. He then turns his back on Death, and blasts off with a roar of engines, rock music, and the hustle and bustle of the reanimated city.
Nobody who looks up into the sky after him, with no knowledge of what has just happened to them, can call him a subtle man.
