Tony watched the sun rise on the first day of the new decade in Chile. The hours before the dawn went from an all encompassing black, the full moon that had made the Earth seem so bright gone so suddenly and quietly, the air untainted by the neon lights of New York or even the warm glow of a nightlight from the window of any home, miles away from where Iron Man stood, to a tentative mist of blue over the unending ink of space, to the shyest pink, clean, new, making Tony's eyes water. The temperature remained constant in the armor, but he shivered, and he continued his search, though his only clue was clutched in his hand, and it noted only his location on the map he kept displayed before his eyes. A red dot on the vast world, pale, faded out, designed to be reassuring, she was here, right here, no need to worry, not until the colour intensified. The ring he found on the side of a dirt path, just tucked under a bougainvillea plant, disturbed pink petals crunching in his hands when he lifted the lifeless silk (gold, she was wearing gold, they would have matched, he hadn't seen her all night, he hadn't even noticed) then let it all drop back to the dirt.
The ring he kept. So he still held it when he wandered that beach, 10.43 miles from the discovery point, when the first dawn of the new decade came. She wasn't in Chile. The blue dot on the map was intense, 100% saturation, and still for the moment. Hopefully with someone to slow his heart, keep it from bursting from his chest. He had to be ready for when they found Wanda. Because she wasn't in Chile, and Nick had gone silent, and something had clicked.
Tony didn't eat, though he felt meat squeeze between his fingers, on the first day of the new decade. He didn't sleep, though he had spent this day sleeping away hangovers enough in his life, and perhaps this was a blessing. A sign for the year to come. It would be a productive one, if not one that brought immediate results. He would see them soon, though, he knew that. He knew Sinister had something to do with this. He knew he held Wanda to a sick pact and her part was long overdue; how the last had ended and with the months that passed without incident, they were given false security. Tony didn't eat and he didn't sleep, but he scoured Italy to catch those eating and sleeping off-guard, demanding to know what they knew and learning little. A weak lead, and a fruitless one; because he took her there once didn't mean he would do it again.
So on the first night of the new decade, numbed and burning and weakened and tireless all at once, Tony stood on another beach on the far side of the world, this one muddy and rocky and blackened by the city, staring across a channel at another, a pale red dot on a map.
He stood with the same blank loss in the sterile hospital room, all whites, the biting salt of the sea forgotten though it hardened and held and faded the colours of his armor, a white film like the white room. When he was first called back from his search, he had stood outside this room for 1.45 hours, then counted to thirty, held his breath for another ten, and couldn't stay. From then, he would return for three, five minutes at a time, however long it took to get a doctor to tell him she remained unchanged, and go again.
This was the first time he had been inside the room. He remained by the door, still and unresponsive through the doctor's anxiety and the professor's explanation, hating this waiting and wanting action and answers and something real to put back together. He needed something in his hands.