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Chapter Text

Tony woke up and immediately knew that today was gonna be one of those days. His head was throbbing and he hadn’t even opened his eyes, he couldn’t breathe through his nose, and his throat was sandpaper. He tried to take a deep breath just to see how bad his sinuses were and- Oh god.

Holy shit did his chest hurt. He moaned in pain and curled into a ball. This was not happening today, come on. Tony Stark did not get sick and he did not succumb to the stupid chronic pain that the arc reactor inflicted on him. He was Iron Man, he didn’t do this, thank you very much.

“Sir, you need to get up, Miss Potts expects you to be ready in ten minutes and I have been attempting to wake you for ten.”

Tony ignored the AI and curled further into his ball. He was not getting up and putting any weight on his arms please and thank you that would be hell for his chest.

“Sir.”

“Go ‘way, J,” he mumbled. The AI was mercifully silent again, and Tony drifted in a haze of pain for a while.

There was a noise somewhere in the hallway and Tony finally dared to open one eye. The windows were still tinted, which was strange considering JARVIS had been yelling at him to get up. He shifted to sit up and see if he could find some tissues and a tickle at the back of his throat made itself known. Panicking a bit, he pushed himself into a sitting position just in time to start coughing, and coughing, and coughing and oh god that hurt and he couldn’t breathe help his chest was a constricted mass of nothing and pain and—there was a hand on his back? It had long fingers and was soothing and was massaging his spasming muscles as he tried to get his breathing back under control. Eventually he managed to calm his breathing to something resembling a normal pace, just extremely shallow.

The hand on his back was still there, and there was a dip in the bed next to him. He opened eyes that he didn’t remember closing and turned his head to see a very concerned Pepper sitting next to him.

“You are not okay, don’t you dare go all ‘I’m fine’ on me.”

Tony gave a weak laugh and instantly regretted it, wincing in pain and curling over his chest. “Just a cold,” he rasped.

Pepper didn’t look convinced. “People don’t normally hack a lung out when they have a cold.”

Tony’s breathing wasn’t exactly the most stable of things. His next words came out in pained chunks:“Okay so. Maybe. Reactor kinda. Interferers. A lot. I’ll be fine. I’m late. Aren’t I.”

“Nope. You are taking a sick day and I am working from your living room.”

“What- Pepper, you were yelling at me all throughout yesterday-” Tony cut himself off with another coughing fit. This one didn’t devolve to the point where he couldn’t breathe, but it hurt nonetheless.

When he stopped Pepper was staring at him with sympathy. “JARVIS, is there cough syrup in the house?”

“I already sent U to grab it, he will be there momentarily.”

Tony sat hunched over on the bed, arms curled protectively around the reactor. Pepper resumed rubbing his back, her hand cold against his flushed skin. He leaned against her and closed his eyes.

“Does it hurt?”

It hurt like a bitch. He was starting to suspect that, on top of the cold, his body had decided that today was going to be one of those days where he was very aware of every little movement of his ribs and the weight of the arc reactor and the damaged nerves in his chest were shooting up signals to his brain that could only be interpreted as a hell of a lot of pain. Add in the cold and all the extra fluid in his lungs and every little movement bumped his lungs against the reactor casing and his chest and if he coughed too much he was going to end up just being one giant bruise. So yes, it hurt.

“Only a little,” he lied through his teeth. Pepper didn’t seem to pick up on the obvious lie, for once. Either that, or she decided to ignore it as U came in with a jar of cough syrup and Dum-E followed after with a smoothie.

“Thank you,” she said, taking the syrup from U and the spoon from the smoothie Dum-E had. She poured out a spoonful and held it out to Tony. He mustered a glare. When Pepper started making it wave around like an airplane he begrudgingly grabbed the spoon and swallowed the syrup, then grabbed for the smoothie. He winced as he moved one of his arms wrong and felt the stretch against the arc reactor but hid it. He didn’t want to worry Pepper about him, he just had a cold, nothing to worry about here, nope, no chronic pain that decided to be worse today. Sipping at the smoothie, he looked at Pepper. She was tapping away on her phone, undoubtedly sending emails and rescheduling meetings. He was so glad she’d stuck around while he was on his little ‘vacation.’

“JARVIS, do you have a good soup recipe?”

“I have several, Miss Potts. Would you like me to project them in the kitchen?”

“Yes, please,” Pepper answered, standing up.

On impulse, Tony reached out and grabbed her hand. “Hey, Pep.”

Pepper turned to look at him. She had a strange look on her face that he couldn’t quite place. He ignored it in favour of saying “Thanks.”

She gave him a soft smile and ruffled his hair. “You rest, I’ll go make you some soup.”

Chapter Text

Tony had been struggling with the reactor all day. It was one of those days again, where he wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed after downing a bottle of painkillers and listen to JARVIS reading some book to him until he fell asleep. But no, it was Friday and he had things to do. Somehow he had convinced Pepper to let him come to work at eleven instead of nine, which gained him an extra three hours of curling up in bed once he factored in traffic time. That barely helped though, and he had to sit through two meetings and a bunch of R&D stuff while trying not to think about the pain in his chest. Now he had to go to a charity gala that in all honesty he had forgot what it was for but Pepper was going to kick his ass if he didn’t show up and as lovely as that image was he would really prefer for her to not right now cause, you know, arc reactor.

So he was stuck in his room tying his tie just a little looser than normal and cringing as he slipped into his vest and jacket. Damn three piece suits. He checked himself over in the mirror. The arc reactor was reduced to just a faint glow that was only visible in the current near darkness of his room. Unless the power happened to go out at the gala, that was covered. His red tie stood out nicely against his black suit (he’d decided against wearing the Iron Man patterned one he’d bought on a whim a few months ago, he didn’t need to give Pepper another reason to yell at him right now), and his beard seemed fine. His hair was a mess, but he didn’t have the energy or really ability to fix it. As long as there wasn’t oil and grease in it, which there wasn’t, he was fine. Confident that he was presentable, he grabbed the bottle of painkillers from his bathroom and swallowed three.

“JARVIS, Happy ready?”

“He is waiting outside, Sir.”

Tony winced his way down the stairs and out the door and got into the car as casually as he could. “Drive, Happy,” he said, lounging back in his seat. He felt the car pull smoothly out of his front drive and speed off to the gala.

Tony drifted in a haze for the car ride, snapping himself out of it only when Happy pulled up in front of the building. He stepped out of the car and put on his media smile. Immediately a herd of reporters jumped him, peppering him with questions that he couldn’t even really hear and taking pictures and the lights were blinding and that wasn’t good. He nodded at them and kept his smile on and maneuvered his way through the crowd into the hall where the gala was being held. He was fairly certain that he wasn’t somehow sponsoring this and thus he didn’t have to give a speech which was a good thing; he didn’t think he was quite in a position to make sense, as much as autopilot had taken over at this point.

Somehow he made it through an hour, attempting to distract himself by listening to the gossiping elite. Tony was pretty sure that none of them were actually here for whatever the event was sponsoring (was it the firefighters gala? Was it that time of year? Or the Maria Stark foundation? That was normally in December and the firefighters gala was November and it was March so he was pretty sure it was neither, but his brain wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders right now). Either way, their gossip wasn’t particularly interesting. He didn’t want to know which actors were vying for the new top movie or who Taylor Swift was dating now or who was fucking who and why did none of these people ever talk about something interesting? He shouldn’t have to stoop to boring gossip to distract himself from the pain in his chest. He couldn’t even drink anything to make the gossip bearable because it’d react badly with the pain meds that were the only things keeping him operating.

Tired of dealing with uninteresting people and in pain, Tony grabbed some water and hid himself in the back of the room for a little break.

“There you are,” a familiar voice said, approaching from his left, “Have you been hiding back here all night?”

Tony turned slightly and saw his red-haired angel approaching. She was wearing that blue gown he had ‘bought’ for her last year which set off her hair and her red lipstick was the perfect shade not to clash. Just seeing her it was like a weight was lifted off his chest and he could breathe past the pain again. Or maybe it was the pain meds, although those should’ve kicked in a while ago. Maybe he was just delirious with pain and had actually passed out in the car and this was all a dream. “No, Pep, I’ve been mingling like a good boy. Just taking a break.”

Pepper smiled at him and took a sip of her drink, standing next to him. “Well, you don’t seem to have pissed anyone off yet, so that’s a good sign.”

Tony managed a mock gasp at her statement. “Yet? I’ll have you know that I never piss anyone off.”

They were smiling at each other and giggling at Tony’s hilariously false statement. A few moments of happy silence passed before Pepper narrowed her eyes at something. “You look a little pale, are you okay?”

Tony blinked. Shit, if Pepper was noticing then other people might notice and then he was gonna end up all over the news tomorrow for.... something, he didn’t know, he wasn’t at full capacity, okay? He quickly looked away from her as he tried to think up a lie. If there was someone he was bad at lying to, it was Pepper. “Uh, nope, I’m fine. It’s probably just the horrible lighting in here.”

Pepper miraculously seemed to accept that. “Yeah, they really messed it up remodeling,” she snorted, “You’d think they’d put in good lights when upgrading a dance hall to the newest definition of ‘classy’ but nope, it just washes everyone out.”

The rest of the night was a lot more bearable with Pepper by his side. He brushed off various women’s invitations to dance with flimsy excuses that were accepted anyway, and managed to avoid many of the worst gossipers. There were a few big name people that he knew SI would love contracts with that he attempted to butter up, but given his current mental state he wasn’t exactly sure how well he succeeded. Pepper praised him after one of them left, which reassured him that he wasn’t doing horribly at hiding his pain.

When the event started winding down he said his goodbyes to Pepper, and hopped in his car. He had offered Pepper a ride home, but she’d said she was fine, she had a friend that she needed to drive home and she’d only had one drink and that was an hour ago. It was probably a good thing for him that she hadn’t tagged along, because the minute he got into the car the pain came crashing back in full force. His pain meds had definitely worn off by this point, other people in the car would not be fun. Happy knew better than to question Tony at this point, and was likely to chalk whatever he did up to exhaustion anyway. Lord knows he didn’t get the required amount of sleep on a normal day.

“Bad day, Sir?” Happy asked when he got in the car.

“Little,” he lied through his teeth.

The minute Tony got into his house he stumbled to the elevator and collapsed into his bed.

“Sir, I must request that you change out of your suit before you fall asleep. And perhaps you should take some more painkillers.”

Tony groaned and curled into a ball around the reactor. Somehow he convinced himself to pull his shoes off, which was at least a step in the right direction.

“Sir, at least take your tie off.”

Tony obligingly undid the knot and threw the tie in the general direction of his closet. He followed it up by sitting up long enough to pull his jacket off and drop it on the floor.

A whirring noise came from outside his room and Dum-E appeared. The robot poked his arm into the bathroom and grabbed the bottle of painkillers, then trundled over and handed them to Tony. He took it and poured three into his hand, quickly swallowing them dry. He handed the bottle back to the bot, who placed it back in the bathroom and then scooted over to his dresser, grabbing a pair of sweats and a random shirt. Dum-E plopped them on the bed next to Tony, then picked up the jacket on the floor and moved it to its hanger. Tony sighed, taking the bot’s presence as a subtle prod from JARVIS, and slipped out of the rest of the suit as carefully as he could. Dum-E beeped at him and gathered up the discarded clothing as Tony shuffled his way into the pyjamas.

“Happy now, J?” Tony mumbled as he curled back up into a ball.

“Very, Sir.”

Chapter Text

Tony woke up several minutes after Pepper left and was greeted with the fact that it was one of those days. He groaned and curled up around the arc reactor, wishing that days like this would just stop. Wasn’t Extremis capable of fixing this stuff?

“Sir, I would like to remind you that the reason we did not have Extremis fix the nerves is that calculations predicted the pain would be this bad on a good day,” came JARVIS’s voice.

Okay well then Extremis certainly was capable of stopping the nerve signals then? Surely that was a thing that could happen? Right now?

“Sir, that is not how nerves nor Extremis work.”

Tony sighed and slowly made his way to a sitting position. He’d grab some painkillers and go hide in the shop for the day. The team couldn’t bother him down there and Dum-E and U were always understanding. He did build them, after all.

“Are you sure you would not prefer to stay in today, Sir? I am certain the Avengers would not mind, and Ma’am is due to come home early.”

Nnnnope. If he stayed in bed the team was gonna ask why and he was not dealing with that. Hiding in the shop was his best course of action.

Tony could feel JARVIS give a sort of sigh across the Extremis connection. The emotions and thoughts he could feel across it felt something like “Sir is entirely too stubborn and not taking care of himself but what do I expect.” He rolled his eyes and slowly stood up, careful not to use his arms too much. He stumbled his way in a pain fueled haze to the bathroom. He’d certainly had worse days, but that didn’t mean that today wasn’t going to be miserable. He fished through the cabinet for the bottle of painkillers they kept on hand for days such as today and downed two dry. It was kinda sad to him that he’d had to take them often enough that he could swallow the rather big pills dry. He wished he didn’t, but there really wasn’t a conceivable way that he could stop having days like today or not take the pills.

Tony rubbed his eyes and stared at himself in a mirror. He looked like he hadn’t slept well. Unfortunately normal, but at least he probably didn’t look bad enough for Nat or Steve to start pestering him about what was wrong. This of course didn’t mean that in a few hours he’d look much worse, but he’d deal with that then.

He mused his way into the elevator before realizing that he should probably put in some sort of appearance for the team. He also would love a cup of coffee right now. Well, two birds with one stone, right? He told JARVIS to drop him at the common floor first and simply focused on not focusing on the pain.

When the doors opened he stumbled out in as much of his normal morning mood as he could muster. Namely, all of it and more considering his painkillers hadn’t kicked in yet. The rest of the Avengers were splayed out around the kitchen in various degrees of breakfast. He ignored them all and made a beeline for the coffee maker.

“Goodmorning, Tony,” Steve told him, a hint of amusement in his tone. What was the captain laughing at? Him?

“Coffee,” Tony grunted. He ignored the rest of the team and fumbled around for his mug, wincing internally every time moving his arms stretched some muscle that hit the arc reactor. Finally finding the red and gold mug (they had a set of Avengers mugs he’d bought on a whim in some misguided attempt to get a rise out of one of them but of course they’d all happily started using theirs) he slid it under the nozzle. He poked it through Extremis and it poured him out coffee, mixing it just how he liked it. He loved his newfound technopathy. He cradled the mug in his hands, embracing its warmth, and took a sip. He wasn’t quite sure if it was due to the coffee or the painkillers kicking in, but he suddenly felt much better. He turned around, mug still cradled up by his face because lowering his arms was going to mean not getting them back up for a while, and looked between the five people in the room. Cap was still looking at him with a funny expression like he would be laughing but wasn’t quite sure if he should be.

“What?” He mumbled, taking another sip.

“Nothing. You’re just so focused on the coffee maker, more so than normal.”

Tony humphed in Steve’s general direction. “Up late working on some SI stuff before Pep and I leave day after tomorrow. Speaking of which I got a few more things I gotta finish, so I’m going down to the shop. Call me if you need me.”

Tony did try to work on SI stuff that day, but it quickly devolved into him curled on the couch in his shop with coffee and a blanket, watching movies with the bots. U had somehow managed to go upstairs and grab him the painkiller bottle without incident and Dum-E had successfully managed to make him a smoothie without pouring motor oil or grease in it which meant he had some sustenance in him and a constant supply of painkillers when the stuff wore off. In addition there was the small miracle that none of the team had come down to bug him about anything.

Of course he was halfway through a Star Wars marathon with the bots when an Assemble Order came through.

When the alarm went off Tony immediately buried his face in the blanket. Oh gods, why today, Fury? Couldn’t the supervillain of the week have waited until tomorrow? Or showed up yesterday? Any day but today? Please?

“Sir, I am not certain you should-”

“Oh hell no, J. You are not stopping me from suiting up. Gimme a sitrep.” He sat up, still clutching the blanket.

“Sir, I must insist. You are in a significant amount of pain and I do not believe it would be wise for you to fight.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“Not during an Assemble Order.”

“Sitrep, JARVIS.”

He felt the AI’s frustration across the Extremis connection, but the AI complied anyway, after a fashion. “SHIELD has not sent over details. They should be here once you suit up.”

Tony nodded and stood up as fast as he dared. Walking over to his suit up station down in his shop, he repeated a mantra that ‘he just had to ignore his chest and not move his arms the wrong way, he’d be fine. He was perfectly capable of being Iron Man right now,’ which he could tell all three bots were skeptical of. The suit up rig seemed to be going slower than normal as he stepped into the boots. The greaves clicked into place with the cuisses and boots as the cutlet locked into the cuisses. The gauntlets folded around his arms and locked with the rerebraces as the backplate clicked with the cutlet. He watched as the breastplate lowered onto his chest. He swore he could feel the magnets locking onto the arc reactor and extending the connections. Something jostled in his chest as the breastplate snaked its tendrils to the arc reactor and he hissed in pain.

“Sir?” JARVIS asked, pausing the rig.

“Fine, J, just jostled something. I’m fine.”

“The suit does not normally-”

“ Continue, J. ”

The rig started up again and the breastplate locked with the cutlet and backplate. The pauldrons and collar lowered down and secured everything. With a final flourish his helmet clicked into place and started the suit’s pre-battle diagnostics. Extremis connected with the suit in full battle mode and his HUD appeared with his full vision. It fed him the diagnostics almost instantaneously. All systems operational. He was ready to go.

“Sir, at least before you go take some more painkillers.” U appeared next to him with the bottle.

Tony sighed and obliged the bots. “JARVIS, I know I pretty much built you for the purpose but you gotta stop mothering me.”

“I cannot disregard my core programing, Sir.”

“Oh come on, you’ve done that so many times.”

“At the behest of a higher power.”

“Yeah yeah, Pepper somehow out-mothers you, I get that. Alright, link me in.”

He heard his comm click and was immediately assaulted with the rest of the team yelling about suiting up.

“You are all very loud would you please calm down. These things are Stark tech; you don’t need to yell to be heard, trust me.” As he talked he launched into his special shaft out of his workshop that dumped him on the roof of the tower and zoomed out in the general direction JARVIS outlined in his HUD.

“Sorry, Man of Iron!” Thor yelled. Luckily his next sentence was at a normal level. “Yes, we do not doubt that your inventions will keep us running. They have not failed us in the past, even that time in Afghanistan-”

“If I may interrupt the current chaos, we have a mission we need to be running,” Nat cut him off. “Has anyone seen Cap’s helmet.”

Tony poked JARVIS and the AI quickly scanned the security feeds. “Tell the dear capsicle his helmet’s sitting under his shield.”

He could hear the hint of a smile in Nat’s next words. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear that.”

“My extra pants are on the quinjet, right?” Bruce’s quiet voice came over the comm.

“Yes they are, Brucey-bear,” Tony answered him, looking at the camera feed from the quinjet.

“Quinjet’s up and running whenever you are,” Clint said. He sounded almost bored. “Although at this rate I don’t know why Fury bothers with us. Tony just flew past and I think that’s a new record for how fast he can get up here before you guys.”

If Tony could’ve given a mock bow he would’ve. “I’ve been working on ways to make the rig faster but not go straight to just using the prehensile functions because I don’t wanna dip into the suit’s backup power before even lifting off. Do you all need something to make you go faster? I can threaten you with technobabble or-oh even better!”

The beginning notes of “Back in Black” blasted through the comm.

“Tony, please spare us right now,” Cap’s voice finally came across the comm. Tony smiled and obligingly shifted the music to just his helmet. He loved the chaos that was his pre-mission family. It had also distracted him from his chest for a little bit, which he guessed was an added bonus.

“JARVIS, those mission details over?” Tony heard Steve ask as the four Avengers finally trooped their way up to the quinjet.

“Yes, Captain Rogers. The threat is in the north-east Atlantic Ocean. It appears to be some sort of deep sea beast, like a giant squid or an octopus, but mutated even beyond estimates for such creatures. It has captured several cargo ships of different nationalities: Dutch, Norwegian, British, and French. This has caused a bit of an international scuffle, but once the monster was shown to be radioactive SHIELD was quickly called in. It is not radioactive enough to harm any of you due to your superhuman traits, but it is best to be careful nonetheless. Director Fury called you in because of the monster’s sheer size, slight radioactivity, and seeming impermeability to conventional weapons. In addition to the team, the Helicarrier is currently anchored nearby for use as a platform and potentially somewhere safe to transport the crews of the vessels.”

“So we go in there, free the ships, bust the thing up, go home?” Clint inquired, “Seems a little normal for our line of work.”

“Normal or not, if we’re the only ones that can damage it we’ve got a job to do,” Steve said.

“Alright, here’s how we’ll take this. Tony, your suit is good for underwater currently right?”

Tony could feel JARVIS poking at him to say no but the suit was technically fine for underwater. It was just him that might not deal with it well. Sometimes it was hard to tell what would trigger that particular horrible thing and what wouldn’t. JARVIS would warn him that his present discomfort and focus on the reactor might make him recall previous times that discomfort existed in relation to water if he was underwater, but he figured that since he was being told that he was going underwater and he was in full armor then the suffocating feeling wouldn’t jump on him. “Yep, right as rain, gills working.”

“Okay. Tony you’re going to be the stinger of this operation. Fly around underwater-”

“There’s a word for that, Cap.”

“But your suit flies it doesn’t swim. You’re using the same system.”

“Yeah and the same system monitors my brain waves as keeps my heart beating. Things can do more than one thing.”

“Okay let’s not get hung up on my word choice, Tony. You’ll swim around and try and find the thing’s weak spots and try and damage it. Clint, Natasha, Thor, and I are trying to damage the monster, but from above water. Thor, try not to use your lightning too much, we don’t need to electrocute everyone in a half mile radius especially since Tony will be underwater. We need to have them free with as little damage as possible ASAP. Bruce, you’ll man the quinjet unless we have need for a code green. Everyone clear?”

There was a chorus of yeses.

“Good. Everyone stay on comms, code names only, Avengers channel and personal channels. Mission starts now.”

There was a final flurry of shoving comms into ears and clinking of helmets. Tony ignored it in favor of suppressing a hiss as a flare of pain made its way past his painkillers. This mission had better not take too long; he was pretty sure the pain had been getting worse over the course of the day and he no longer had access to painkillers. JARVIS seemed to notice his discomfort and poked at him over Extremis, warning him to be careful and saying that he could back out at any time, which the both knew was never going to happen.

The monster appeared over the horizon all too soon. It was a gross pink mussel-like color from what he could see, tentacles wrapped over huge cargo ships like vices. He did a fly over and scanned it. His suit’s sensors confirmed the radioactivity, in addition picking up its enormous size and vital signs. There also seemed to be quite a lot of metal in places it shouldn’t be. As he watched the thing wrapped a tentacle around a cargo box and dropped it in its mouth. JARVIS told him the box was full of metal parts for cars.

“Guys, you better be careful, this thing just dropped a box of car parts in its mouth and ate it, box and all. In fact I think it’s done that several times because my scans are picking up a lot of metal where it shouldn’t be.”

“Roger that, Iron Man.”

As the Avengers’ quinjet came into view Tony dipped underwater, intent on looking at the belly of the beast. He didn’t get very far before one of the tentacles whipped at him. Cursing, he jerked upwards and breached the surface, the tentacle still swinging after him. Diving back underwater and whooshing away from the tentacle he said “JARVIS, wanna tell me where the tentacles are attached?”

“Sensors are having trouble with the radiation that the monster is giving off.”

The AI fed him a bunch of info through Extremis. Apparently not only was the thing shooting off alpha and beta radiation, but gamma radiation which was playing hell with his sensors. He made a note to add shielding the long-range sensors better to the to-do list. They should have been able to withstand most radiation, but whatever this thing was sending off was doing it in just the right way to fuck with him. If he got closer he’d probably be able to use the short range scanners which were better shielded on account of not being so large (size was relative here, but apparently mattered enough that he did need to get closer).

“Hey Thor, you got a count of its tentacles?”

“There seem to be about eleven up here, Man of Iron.”

Well, counting the one that had whacked him, that was twelve at least. Reacting to his thoughts, Extremis labeled each tentacle with a little orange marker for better keeping track of. He needed to get in closer and figure out how the tentacles attached, and if it was better to just cut them off or attack the thing in some way to make it let go of the ships.

One of the tentacles whipped at him from the shadows of the water; he dove down more and looped up to where he estimated the center of the thing was. He looked up and came face to face with what looked like the hull of a ship. Had he calculated wrong?

A radioactive-green eye blinked open in the ‘hull’. This was definitely not the bottom of a ship. Scans indicated it was made of rock and various metals, likely whatever non-organic things the monster ingested became part of its shell. Part of him was curious how it did that, did it act like Extremis did? Or was there some other process it used and how useful would it be to simulate in a robot.

A tentacle he didn’t have labeled struck at him, landing a hit before he could react and pushing him deeper underwater. Gasping at the sudden shoot of pain he shot a hand out and blasted the tentacle on instinct. The resulting shockwave sent him spinning backwards through the water.

Evidently the thing did something upstairs as well because the comm was suddenly full of people shouting again.

“What the fuck did it just do?”

“Was that a scream or a seismic event?”

“Widow, go go go! Thor, grab Hawkeye! Hulk, go we’re all on!”

“Iron Man, what the fuck just happened?”

Tony had to admit he had absolutely no idea. Well, he had some idea, but it wasn’t very clear. “Tentacle hit me, I hit back,” he managed to gasp out past the pain that was not going away and that was not good. “Guessing I triggered some defense mechanism. Sound wave based so yes it would be both a scream and a seismic event depending on how deep this thing was at the time.” He had to stop and cough, that hit had jostled him bad and he had a feeling the painkillers were the only reason he wasn’t unconscious right now. “Think this thing is a deep sea creature that got hungry and wandered upwards. It seems to inject rock and metal and use them to build a protective shell. And maybe bones? I dunno a lot of it is made of metal which is probably why SHIELD couldn’t take it down. Hulk and Thor can probably do significant damage with their strength, I don’t know about anyone else.” He stopped again and tried to focus on his breathing, which was still not stable. Maybe if he got above water it would help? He shot up out of the water and hovered in the air for a moment, watching the quinjet as hovered out of reach next to him. Pain was still radiating out from the arc reactor and it must have been worse than that morning because his pain killers shouldn’t have worn off completely yet but it was bad.

JARVIS started yelling at him through Extremis. He waved the AI off and looked at the scans he’d managed of the monster before it smacked him. The AI pushed the scans out of his view and monopolized the Extremis connection. Sir, for goodness sake, would you listen to reason and drop out of this battle? appeared in his vision.

Rolling his eyes, Tony thought-typed back JARVIS, when do I ever listen to you when you say that.

Sir, I do believe that you should this time. You are in significant pain and while the adrenaline and pain killers are helping one of those is going to wear off soon and the other will not be able to suppress it for long after that. That is not mentioning the new dent in the chestplate nor your potentially bruised ribs, both of which are not helping the pain.

If you’re so set on getting me out of this battle, perhaps it would go faster if you helped me figure out where to hit this thing and how.

“Tony, are you okay?”

“Is the dear Captain breaking protocol and using my name?”

“Iron Man, I’ve been talking to you for at least a minute and you haven’t responded.”

Tony blinked. He poked at the battle log and Steve had indeed been talking to him for a while without his registering. “Sorry, talking to J. I think we have a way to at least injure this thing.”

“Iron Man, answer my question first.”

Tony supposed he couldn’t avoid that question but he was not going to give an honest answer to that. “I'm fine. Now, my scans suggest that the monster has weak points at the tips of its tentacles, which are full of nerves. Attacking those will likely make it extend the tentacles out at which point we can move the ships out of its reach. The thing also likely has a weak spot on its belly, which just so happens to be pointing straight up currently. One good hit there will likely kill it. Catch is that we can’t just kill it because it will probably coil all the tentacles up and squish the ships into oblivion.”

“Alright. Hawkeye, Hulk, you’re in charge of hitting the tips of the tentacles. Iron Man, Thor, can you drop me and Widow on two of the ships so we can make sure the tentacles stay away until the crews can get them out of the monster’s reach? You two take the others.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Tony swooped in and picked up Natasha, dropping her on the Norwegian ship; Thor dropped Steve on the French ship. He then zipped over to the Dutch ship while Thor landed on the British ship. The Avengers’ quinjet hovered above the battle with Clint perched on top, bow at the ready. “Everyone ready?” Clint asked, “because this sucker’s coming down.”

“We’re ready, Hawkeye.”

With that two arrows shot out of Clint’s bow in a flash. Another shockwave rocked the boats, but true to his predictions the monster released the ship that Natasha was on. The ship started smoothly away from the monster while its tentacles thrashed underwater. One by one the rest of the ships were released and piloted away, the on-board Avengers making sure the tentacles didn’t wrap around again.

While he was successful in defending his ship, Tony was acutely aware that his painkillers were definitely worn off. His chest felt like a mass of pain and he was having a little trouble filling his lungs even with his reduced capacity. Whether that was due to the reactor or the dent in his armor he wasn’t quite sure, but the effects were the same. He’d turned his mic to only turn on when he poked it through Extremis for the moment so no one would hear his gasping breaths.

Once they were all out of range, Steve said, “Alright! Thor, hit it!”

The god of thunder grinned and twirled Mjolnir. He shot up into the air and hovered for a split second, gathering electricity in his hammer, before he came crashing down on the monster. The strongest shockwave yet sent waves outwards, pushing the boats and even went as far out as the Helicarrier. The monster screamed and thrashed, but it didn’t seem to be dying. Tony frowned and took off. He hovered over the monster as Thor took a little too much glee in smashing his hammer down again. The thing still wasn’t dying. Tony activated his scanners again, discovering that while the thing was certainly injured, there seemed to be some sort of non-conductive case around its brain and important organs. There was one hole in it though. Gritting his teeth through the worst spike of pain yet that day, Tony dove underwater.

“Iron Man, what are you doing? That water’s electrified and your suit is damaged-”

“Suit’s always fucking damaged, Cap, it’s not a puncture I’ll be fine,” Tony muttered under his breath. Above it and past the pain that apparently wasn’t just spiking but growing, he gasped out, “It’s not dying and I’m the only one who can go underwater for the last weak spot.”

He ignored the confusion on the comm because he really couldn’t be bothered right now, he could only focus on so many things at once and right now he needed to focus on not dying, not passing out, breathing, and shooting this thing in the eye. He weaved through the thrashing tentacles toward the monster’s stone carapace. The radioactive-green eye was still open, staring straight at him. It seemed to narrow as he approached, the tentacles getting faster. Tony shot the damned thirteenth tentacle before it could get him again and then lined up and sent a unibeam through the thing’s eye.

He instantly regretted that choice as it sent a flare of pain radiating from the reactor again, but it was the only way he could make sure there was enough power to kill the thing. Oh man that hurt why did he do that. The shockwave the thing released sent him tumbling through the water. With no horizon to lock onto his HUD rolled about with him and black encroached on his vision. The pain was almost unbearable at this point and he couldn’t manage to get enough air in his lungs, enough oxygen to his brain to stop the black from enoraching. Clicking his mic back on, he managed to gasp out: “Hey. Cap? Next time. Remind me. To listen. To J.” before succumbing to unconsciousness.

The first thing he registered was the feeling of fluffy blankets wrapped around him. The second was something warm next to him. The third was a familiar hand running through his hair. Tony turned his head into the hand and mumbled a “Hi Pep.” He was pretty sure she murmured something back to him, but his brain wasn't quite processing correctly yet. He didn’t feel like moving. This was nice, Pepper sitting next to him, smushed in blankets like a burrito, no responisb- shit the battle. What had happened? They got all the ships out, did they kill the monster? Oh no, no no no, his stupid chronic pain hadn’t taken him out in the middle of it, had it? His eyes shot open and he moved to sit up but was greeted with a lance of pain when he tried to move.

“Whoa, hey, easy there, Tony. You're fine, sitting in bed in Avengers Tower,” Pepper reassured him.

“What happened?”

“You killed the monster and promptly passed out. Everyone's fine, they're sitting in our floor’s common room. You scared the shit out of them though.”

Tony sighed and levered himself up slower. Pepper shifted her hand to his back to help support him, pushing him so he was leaning against her. “I guess I should explain things to them, huh.”

“You probably should, but right now I need to make sure you’re okay. No funny buisness.”

Tony turned slightly so he could hug her better, smushing his face into her neck. “I’ve been better,” he mumbled. He felt her poking at him questioningly through Extremis, asking if she could see. He opened his mind to her, letting her see every spike of pain, every painkiller that didn’t help, every movement that hurt, every hit he took, every pull into unconsciousness he’d shoved aside. He felt her arms wrapping around him, hugging him close to her.

“You remember that promise you made me? The one that you’d tell me when the pain got bad again?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this morning. I just didn’t think it would matter today.”

“JARVIS told me anyway because he knows you’d forget. But I’m not mad about that. I want you to make the same promise to the team.”

Tony frowned into her neck. “Why would I do that? Just so Fury can kick me off?”

“First of all, Fury won’t kick you off, Tony. You’re a valuable asset to the team and SHIELD knows that. Second, he doesn’t need to know, just the team. I just want them to be able to help you when you need it and I can’t.”

He didn’t exactly fully believe her first point, which they both knew. Old insecurities and problems were hard to get rid of. Pepper backed up her second point by gently squeezing him in her hug and pouring her emotions into their Extremis connection. It was like a big fluffy blanket in wrapping him up out of worry and love.

“Okay.”

They sat like that for a few minutes, simply enjoying each other’s warmth, enjoying the silent communication of the fully open Extremis connection. Eventually Pepper pulled back and looked him in the eye. “Let’s go try and un-scare-the-shit-out-of the team.”

Pepper slipped off one side of the bed as Tony swung his legs off the other. He hissed at some movement and Pepper shot him a worried look as she walked around the bed. He waved her worry away through Extremis, but she still slung an arm around his waist and pulled him up so he didn’t have to use his arms. Him leaning against her slightly, they made their way out to their floor’s common area.

When they walked into the room all the Avengers’ heads immediately swiveled towards them. Pepper left Tony by the door and walked over to the coffee bar. The Avengers’ stares were penetrating and Tony resisted the urge to cower before them. Was this what their enemies felt?

“Hey,” Tony said, a little sheepish. Before he could get more out he was suddenly surrounded by super-soldier arms.

“Don’t you dare ever do that again.”

“Steve, you’re kinda squeezing the reactor.”

Steve released him from the hug and stepped back a bit, but was still right there. The rest of the Avengers had gotten up and were in hugging distance as well.

“Soooooo, what exactly am I not doing? Everything gets kinda hazy after we get the boats out of the thing’s range.”

Natasha was picking at her nails, but he knew her well enough to see the concern she was radiating. “Fighting when you’re in horrible pain already. Seriously, Tony, you could get someone killed that way.”

“You gasped out ‘Remind me to listen to J’ and then just went silent! You were still underwater and not responding to anyone and never do that again,” Steve was insistent and radiating worry. “It took five minutes for JARVIS to get you out of the water and tell us you’d passed out.”

“Steve, it’s not something I can control,” Tony snapped. “I’ve been living with this for years and I know what I can handle.”

“Well you couldn’t handle it today!”

“It.....got worse quicker than I expected.”

“Well what exactly is it? We can help if you just tell us things. I’d feel better if I heard it from you and not JARVIS or Pepper.”

Tony looked over Steve’s shoulder at Pepper. She gave him an encouraging smile and nod. Tony took a deep breath and winced at the reminder of the pain the reactor was still causing him. “You’re familiar with chronic pain, aren’t you, Steve? Well I’ve got some damaged nerves from the arc reactor and some days they flare up. A lot.”

Steve had a look of sympathetic horror on his face. “Do you have anything to help? Does Extremis help? Painkillers?”

“Yes, no, yes.”

Tony was suddenly lightly dragged to the couch and plopped in the middle, Steve on one side and Natasha on the other. “You stay there and don’t move the rest of the day. Just, let us take care of you? Please? You don’t have to do this alone, Tony.”

Tony sighed and gave in. Pepper had to leave for her last meeting of the day soon enough, leaving him to the whims of the ultimate mother-hen: Steve Rogers. He hated being mother-henned, but the Avengers seemed to know just the right balance between letting him do stuff himself and preventing him from doing anything.

After a little while Nat spoke quietly to him. “I’m sorry for that report.”

“Nat, I think you’ve apologized for that daily at this point.”

“I know. But you keep proving me wrong. Every day I see something different that contradicts what I wrote in that. Your masks are good, Stark, good enough to fool me. But when you take them off, you’re like all I’ve heard of Jarvis.”

Tony smiled slightly and sunk back into the couch more. He may have fallen asleep and woken up a few hours later with Pepper next to him, the Avengers all squished on the couch, Dum-E and U hovering behind them all, watching Star Wars.

He really did appreciate his family. And maybe, maybe, he’d try not suffering though the bad days alone.