Work Text:
Strange quirked an eyebrow at Tony's uncharacteristically disheveled appearance as he walked into the workshop.
"You're late," he accused, and Tony glared.
"And you're annoying; are we just stating facts, or are we here to work?"
Stephen blinked a few times, slightly taken aback. "Jesus, what's your problem?" he asked. "Fury chew you a new one or something?"
Tony massaged his temples, then pressed his thumb to his eye socket, the pinched look never leaving his face. A headache, then, maybe a migraine. Could be a hangover.
"Rogers," Tony admitted, "but... whatever. Sorry. I just want to be done with this."
Stephen nodded. "Then we'd better get started."
Tony didn't argue with Stephen when he requested the Pop 100 Charts be played instead of his normal hard rock cafe lineup--in fact, he'd insisted he could care less. Every half hour, nearly to the minute, Tony asked FRIDAY to turn the music down until it was barely playing at all anymore.
As time passed, it didn't escape Stephen's notice that Tony seemed to be slowing down.
"Stark," he prompted, taking a meditative breath when he actually heard Tony startle from being nearly asleep at his workbench, "come on. Fury's gonna have both our asses if we don't get this new Quinjet design done by the time the engineers are supposed to pick it up."
Tony nodded. "Yeah," he shook himself, "I know; I know. Sorry."
"Just stay on task," Stephen grumbled. "Power through, then you can nap."
Now, the silence was tense. Stephen could barely hear Adele on the stereo from how low Tony had turned the volume, and it made him all the more aware of the ticking of the clock.
Tony, however, was losing steam rather than feeling things coming together under the pressure of a deadline.
He'd been trying to ignore the bug he'd woken up with, but sweat was starting to pool in his eyes, making it hard to see, and the shivering was making it frustrating to keep his hand still. He needed a break. He needed a nap. He, at the very least, needed a glass of water.
"Strange," Tony caved, setting his tablet down on the table in front of him, "can we take five?"
It took all his energy not to slam his hands on the table.
"Seriously?" he barked. But Tony didn't look back to his work; didn't even really look all that embarrassed about asking for a break so early in the day. "Fine. Five minutes."
As moments creeped by, Stephen couldn't help but wonder if he'd been too hard on Tony. Maybe he'd gotten more done than he'd appeared to, and Stephen had yelled at him for no reason. Sparing no more than a quick glance toward the door to make sure Tony wasn't going to catch him in the act, Stephen rolled his chair over to Tony's computer and began to open his Recently Edited.
His jaw dropped. None of the numbers made sense. The calculations were crossed through and crossed through again, wrong each time, and half the formulas aren't relevant to the project at all.
"What in the hell..." hu murmured, flipping to the next one. Tony had made so many typos that he'd ended up just deleting entire, vital lines of code. For several hours of work, he'd finished with nothing even remotely comprehensible.
"Dr. Strange," FRIDAY prompted over the speaker, startling him into closing the windows he'd opened and kicking away from Tony's computer, "Tony is in need of medical assistance."
That had him up and running toward the door Tony had exited through. He found Tony collapsed in the hallway, clambering to get up but unable to find something to grip.
Tony's eyes took a moment to focus. "What're you doin' here?" he slurred, "I still got a minute."
Stephen frowned. "FRIDAY said you needed help," he explained, "and I'm inclined to believe her." Stephen began on the routine that was so second nature to him after years of performing it. He checked Tony's pulse--high, but not dangerously so, implying low blood pressure. Pressed his thumb into Tony's fingernail and watched it sluggishly turn from white to pink--dehydrated. Counted his breaths--fast. Skin, pale, sweaty. He pressed his hand to Tony's forehead and nearly cursed himself for being so blind.
"FRIDAY," he called, partially to be thorough and partially to be an ass, "was Stark poisoned in any way?"
"No, Doctor," she replied.
"Was there an assassination attempt? A head wound? An issue with the arc reactor?"
"Negative, Doctor," FRIDAY said again.
Strange drew an unfriendly gaze lazily back to Tony. "So you've just got the flu?" he asked.
Tony squirmed. "I didn't tell her to call you," he defended. Being on the ground, at least, seemed to be helping him gain some lucidity back.
"You collapsed," Stephen accused. "God, you nearly gave me a heart attack!"
Tony shrugged out of his grip and wriggled to try to stand by himself, pretending it wasn't an embarrassing, pitiful attempt that ended in Strange helping.
Finally, Stephen sighed. "I get it," he admitted, "I do. But... look, now you've lost a whole day on work that isn't even coherent, probably to set your recovery back a whole day or two. Fury's gonna be more pissed about that than if you'd just fessed up."
The look on Tony's face broke Stephen's heart.
"What do you mean not coherent?" he asked.
Stephen bit the inside of his cheek. Shit, he probably could have waited to mention that part.
"Yeah, I, uh, saw your files."
"You mean the ones on my locked tablet?"
He grimaced. "So you know them."
Tony groaned.
"I'm sorry; I was curious. But, Tony, it all needs to be redone. If we use any of the designs you came up with, the engineers are going to be trying to fly an island on a couple of K-Mart box fans."
Tony pressed his palms deeply into his eyes and took a shaky breath.
"Sounds about right," he admitted. "My brain doesn't work for shit when I'm sick. Dad used to get pissed about it, too."
Stephen, who had now finally managed to get Tony wrestled back onto the couch in the workshop, froze.
"You think I'm pissed at you?" he asked slowly. Tony's silence was enough. "I'm--Jesus, your dad is an asshole--no. I just don't want you to continue to think you have to nearly die to get attention," he said. "It's very on-brand for you, and it's not attractive."
Tony grinned. "Lies," he argued, "everything about my brand is attractive."
A blanket hung on the back of Tony's workshop couch, and Strange covered Tony with it. Stephen continued working on the Quinjet blueprints while Tony napped, thinking about how he might like this off-brand Stark better.