The dust was settling in the wake of the sonic blast, dirt and stone still buffeting against the surrounding buildings like crashing waves, pocking and staining their faces like a fire had scorched their bases. Iron Man was still staring up at where Cyclops had disappeared with a shattering crash through the roof of one, sending up his own cloud, trying to pinpoint where he lay and assess his condition from a distance. The heat dripped around him like molten lava, but he didn't appear to be moving. He would become part of the cool blue landscape of the rest of the building soon enough.
Iron Man raised his hand to the empty pit where his arm had been, curling his fingers around the torn edge of metal to find himself hollow and the wound scabbing over like it was soldered just by the heat of the sun. It hurt. His human core was not with him, held easily without his help by a mere man too far away. Tony needed his help, and Captain America would die.
He had just dropped his hand and looked back the way he had come when he was halted by the taunt. Iron Man's gouged and ash blackened face turned to Hawkeye with a growl like a sputtering engine, blank face forgiving none of his surprise that the archer had survived the crash, or that he had evaluated and registered what the man held as his last resort. It would be a death rattle. It would be lost in the glare of the sun. Iron Man shot into the air like a bullet, then split both left and right, an Iron Man cutting a wide arc around Hawkeye to veer down on him from either side.