Work Text:
Tony already knew when he woke up that it was going to be another shitty day.
His boyfriend wasn’t in bed, ostensibly, he had gone on a morning run or something equally as dumb as not staying in bed. Tony wanted to complain at that unfairness; James had only gotten back from a week long mission the night before, and Tony deserved morning cuddles, dammit!
Worse, Tony’s chest hurt, and his throat was dry and scratchy. He ticked off the signs of illness in his mind; trouble breathing, chest pains, headache, and dry throat.
FRIDAY rattled off the date and the weather as Tony tried to drag his aching body out of bed. The Avengers had had a rough battle the day before, and Iron Man had taken a few more hits than usual. Add that to the fact that, prior to the battle, he hadn’t slept in two days, Tony was not a happy camper.
“Boss,” FRIDAY said hesitantly. “You have a fever of 102.5 degrees, I think you should stay in bed and let me call Sergeant Barnes for you.”
“Abort, Fri,” Tony said weakly. “That’s not even that bad. I’ll take some Advil and I’ll be good as new.” Tony stood up and stretched with a groan. He dry-swallowed two Advil from the bottle next to his bed, moving groggily. Trying to calm his spinning head, he made his way to the communal kitchen to get coffee, planning on escaping to the lab again, like he had been doing all week to hide his illness.
Unfortunately for him, the communal kitchen was not empty.
“Good morning, Tony,” Steve said to the genius, who waved a hand in response and made a beeline for the (thankfully full) coffee pot. Steve thought little of the non-response; after all, it was morning and before Tony had his first cup of coffee, and everyone knew uncaffeinated Tony was practically nonverbal (the Avengers had found out that tidbit after an unfortunate coffee shortage in the tower after one of Tony’s engineering binges).
In reality, the headache was enough to have woken Tony. He wasn’t talking to disguise the scratchiness of his voice, significantly worse than the last week. It was to the point where he couldn’t pass it off as exhaustion, especially not to Steve, who was intimately familiar with sickness in all its forms.
Natasha was also in the kitchen, back from her op with James. She frowned at Tony, confused by his silence. Clint, who was sitting next to her, munching on a truly disgusting concoction of Lucky Charms and Fanta, caught on to her confusion and explained.
“Stark’s been talking my ear off all week,” he said. “He probably lost his voice, serves him right for never shutting up.”
Tony flinched imperceptibly. He had been talking to Clint because he needed specification on the new arrows he was making. He didn’t realize he had been that irritating…
“Tony, do you know where Bucky is? I wanted to talk to him about his mission,” Steve asked, once he deemed the genius caffeinated enough. Tony just shrugged, still unwilling to talk.
“Sergeant Barnes is in the gym, Captain Rogers,” FRIDAY chimed in for her creator. Steve frowned at the genius’s rudeness- why wouldn’t he respond? Steve wrote it off as Tony being an asshole for no reason, like usual.
“Thanks, FRIDAY ,” he said pointedly. Tony just left the kitchen, coffee pot in hand.
“Damn,” Clint mused. “What crawled up Stark’s ass and died?”
----------
The minute Tony was out of hearing range, he collapsed against the wall in a coughing fit. Little flecks of blood dotted his hands as he pulled them away from his mouth, signs that he had completely torn up his throat with his coughs. Pulling himself up ( Stark men are made of iron) , Tony put on a weak smile, in case he passed anyone in the hall on the way to his lab. Not that it would matter if he was smiling, he mused, because the team would still think he was an asshole. How nice of them.
Tony managed to get to the lab without another fit.
Lockdown, he signed to FRIDAY, unwilling to use his tortured vocal cords more than he needed to. He had the foresight to update FRIDAY to understand ASL after another bout of illness, worse than this one, that left him unable to talk for a week. Tony collapsed on the couch in the corner of his lab, his bots wheeling worriedly towards him. He rubbed around his reactor, hoping to ease some of the pain there.
Ever since the reactor, sickness and Tony had been mortal enemies. Even a common cold could render him useless because of how immunocompromised the reactor left him. With his reduced lung capacity, every cough was painful, and his lungs couldn’t expel the phlegm well, which in turn made his sickness worse. Tony did his best to stay healthy, but with his work schedule and suboptimal sleeping and eating, it was a losing battle.
Even James, his wonderful mother-hen of a boyfriend, couldn’t keep him healthy all the time.
Pathetic, Tony thought to himself. He goes away for one week and suddenly you’re too sick to function. You’re too stupid to even take care of yourself.
Tony willed his dark thoughts away; if he fell into a spiral of self-loathing, he’d never finish today’s upgrades. He threw himself into upgrades to the team’s body armor, ignoring the spikes in his fever and how his head felt like it had gone a few rounds with the Hulkbuster armor and lost.
The klaxon call to Assemble sent another spike of pain through his skull.
Fri, suit, he signed.
“Boss,” she began. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go, your fever is at 103.1 degrees. You should seek medical attention, not go out in the suit.”
It’s okay, baby girl, Tony signed. I have a doctor’s note.
FRIDAY deployed a suit with a long-suffering sight that she learned from Pepper. “Writing yourself a doctor’s note doesn't count, Boss. You’re not that kind of doctor.”
----------
Thankfully, the battle didn’t require Tony to talk at all. He just pointed and shot at the small army of evil pigeon robots from their villain of the week. He tried, once, to respond to one of Clint’s many bird jokes, but his voice cracked on the first syllable. He had FRIDAY play it off as a coms malfunction, but he caught James sending him a suspicious look and exchanging one with Natasha across the field.
After the pigeon bots had all been put down, Tony tried to fly off before someone could try to talk to him. When Steve came up to berate him as usual, FRIDAY, bless her, claimed that the suit was malfunctioning, and the communications inside the suit were not working. Steve looked mildly pissed at that, because it meant that barring taking off his helmet, Tony couldn’t hear or say a thing. When FRIDAY relayed that to Tony, he barked out a hoarse laugh and took off, ignoring Steve’s calls for a debrief.
Back at the lab, Tony collapsed yet again on the sofa. DUM-E wheeled over, his arm delicately holding a water bottle and two pills. Tony took the pills and drained the bottle.
How am I doing, Fri? Tony signed at the cameras in his lab.
“Frankly, not well, Boss,” she said, sounding more than a little upset. “Your fever is at 104.2 degrees. Because of preexisting protocols, I informed Sergeant Barnes as soon as he returned to the Tower.”
Tony shot up, ramrod straight. His signs were a flurry of angry motions. Lock down the lab, Fri. We’re going to talk about this later.
The door to the lab opened mid-sign, admitting one angry, Winter-Soldier-esque James Barnes.
“So,” he said, faux-casually. “FRIDAY here tells me that you have a bit of a fever?”
Tony glared waspishly. He took a deep breath. “I’m fine,” he said hoarsely, determination making it easier to talk through the gritting pain in his throat.
James matched his glare with a nonchalant stare. “104.1 isn’t fine , Tony.”
“She’s exaggerating, it’s not that high.”
“No, it is,” FRIDAY chimed in, utterly unhelpfully.
James continued, exasperated. “Why did you come to the fight if you weren’t feeling well?”
“I feel fine ,” Tony’s glare intensified. “And besides, I had a doctor’s note clearing me.” Tony didn't mention that he was the doctor, and James didn’t think to ask, just arched an eyebrow. “If you’re going to just stand there and judge me,” he continued. “Can you do it from outside like everyone else? I have work to do.” He pointedly stood up from the couch and walked over to a workbench, his back to James. He pulled up a project, ignoring the pounding in his head from standing up too quickly ( Stark men are made of iron ).
James shook his head, knowing he wouldn't be able to get Tony to admit to being sick. “Doll,” he sighed. “Let me take care of you?”
“I don’t need taking care of, James. I’m not a fucking invalid.”
Weak, pathetic, can’t handle the sniffles, you need to be babied, pathetic creature, Tony’s mind provided.
“I know,” James soothed. “But I missed you, this week, and I just wanna hold you for a bit. Please?” He knew he was playing dirty, but needs must. And Tony needed to lay down before he passed out.
Tony shut down his screens with a glare at the ceiling. “Fine,” he conceded. “But I’m not sick.”
Inside, James was doing his happy dance. On the outside, however, he radiated sweetness with a touch of apprehension. “Thanks, Doll.”
----------
Tony woke up from his super-soldier induced nap an hour later with a killer coughing fit. Instantly, James was up, rubbing circles against his back as he hacked up phlegm. Every inhale, every expansion of his lungs, brushed the sensitive tissue against the hard metal of the arc reactor casing, sending jolts of pain through his chest.
‘’M fine, ‘m fine, go back to sleep,” he urged James, who was already out of bed, searching for a water bottle to give Tony.
“Fine, my foot,” James muttered. “Why won’t you let me help you?”
Tony froze. James swore under his breath, that was clearly the wrong thing to say.
“I don’t need your help,” Tony said, voice cold, but thick with pain. Before James could protest, the genius swung himself out of bed. “I have work to do.”
Tony walked down to the lab as steadily as he could, ignoring James’s worried voice behind him. Not wanting to take any more chances with unexpected visitors, he ordered FRIDAY to lock down the lab- no exceptions. In a misguided display of foresight, he also banned FRIDAY from sharing details of his sickness with anyone, which she did with a disapproving protest before he muted her.
Instead of getting to work, he crashed onto his couch and let the fever dream overtake him.
“Daddy,” young Tony whimpered, standing in front of his father. “It’s too cold, my head hurts, I don’t wanna go to school today, Daddy.”
A starburst of light exploded behind his eyes as Howard’s backhand connected. “Go the fuck to school, you pathetic thing. You were stupid enough to get sick, now you have to deal with it.”
His hand twitched with the urge to touch his head and check if it was bleeding. He didn’t, because that would be showing weakness, and he couldn’t do that in front of his dad ( Stark men are made of iron ).
“Yes, sir,” he said hoarsely.
“Pathetic piece of shit,” Howard mumbled. “Captain America was sick all the time before the serum, he never took a day off. Spoiled brat.”
At that moment, Tony decided that no one would ever need to take care of him if he was sick again. He wouldn’t be that weak. He was iron. (He was five years old).
Similar scenes ran through his head; Howard’s screaming at him for getting sick, Maria’s apathy, preferring the bottle to her son’s care, and Jarvis’s love, trying to convince him that it was okay to need help once in a while. Howard’s ghost taunted him as he replayed scenes with the arc reactor ( admitting weakness got your heart torn out of your chest, idiot boy) and the palladium poisoning ( too stupid to find a cure without daddy’s help ) and his inability to engineer Extremis into something he could use to remove the glaring weakness in the center of his chest.
Tony’s dreams reached incoherency as his fever peaked around 104.7. All he felt was pain, pain, pain…
----------
The Avengers Alarm blared. FRIDAY muted it, hoping the team wouldn’t summon Boss. Steve Rogers was having none of that, however.
“FRIDAY, where’s Stark?” he asked gruffly.
“Boss is… indisposed. He is unable to respond to the call to Assemble.”
“Tough shit. We need air support, we’re already down an Avenger.” James was still resting after a week long mission, Steve reasoned, so it was fine that he wasn’t here. “FRIDAY, tell him that he better get his ass up here before I drag him.” Steve replied, anger clear in his voice.
“I am on mute in his workshop, Captain Rogers. I am unable to comply with that order.” the AI responded petulantly. If Steve didn’t know better, know that she was just a bunch of lines of code, he would’ve parsed deeper into her tone and heard the worry there. As it stood, he didn’t, he just shouted his override codes to contact Tony.
After a brief moment of silence in which Steve assumed FRIDAY was talking to her creator, she said, “He is en route to the scene.” Her voice was clipped, as if she was angry at Steve for something.
“Finally.”
----------
Tony arrived at the battle before any of the other Avengers, which was good, because he did not stick the landing. He almost toppled over, legs jelly inside the suit. Only FRIDAY’s autopilot kept him from hitting the concrete painfully.
“Boss,” she said hesitantly. “I think you should go back and rest. And call a doctor, your vitals are… suboptimal.”
“Dear, I am a doctor. I’m fine, let’s just kill these things and get out of here.” Tony leapt up into battle, repulsors flaring. His flying was less than coordinated, and FRIDAY had to take over more than once to avoid a collision with a building.
They were fighting gigantic slime monsters (which Tony found gross and fascinating in equal parts, until one exploded on him. Then they were just gross.). He followed Cap’s orders to the letter, unwilling to give the other man something to criticize. Those orders, however, led to him taking a few more hits than usual, abusing his sore muscles. He didn't cry out ( Stark men are made of iron ) and after the battle, he didn’t let on how hurt he was.
FRIDAY was giving him a running list of his injuries in his ear. “... four cracked ribs, fractured tibia, major concussion…” she said clinically. There were too many for Tony to pay attention to, so he just tuned them out. His head was throbbing, and he could feel the sweat beading on his forehead and sticking his hair to his skull. Tony figured he was ghost pale and made the decision to keep his faceplate down.
“Iron Man,” Steve barked. Tony hadn't been paying any attention to the Captain’s litany of comments about the battle. “Do you need the med bay?”
Internally, Tony panicked. Do I look that weak? I need to get out of here before they see how pathetic I am.
Externally, his voice radiated self-assuredness through the tinny speakers of his suit. “I’m fine, Cap, this marvel of engineering kept me from feeling any of the bad hits.”
The team, minus James (who was at home) and Bruce (who was suspicious of why Tony hadn’t yet taken off his faceplate) rolled their eyes at Tony’s perceived ego.
“Didn’t stop you from complaining last week,” Clint muttered. Tony’s flinch was invisible in the rigid metal suit. Rather than responding, Tony took off, flying back to the tower.
Bruce looked concerned. “What’s going on with him?” he asked his teammates as they piled in the car taking them to Avengers Tower. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was sick. Did you hear how bad his voice was?”
Natasha shook her head. “Clint said this morning that he was probably losing it, apparently he wouldn’t shut up all week.”
Bruce’s frown deepened. “That man can talk the ear off anyone for any amount of time. I’ve seen him do it for weeks on end, he’s never lost his voice because of it.”
“He’s probably hungover,” Clint chimed in. “If he were sick, he’d be milking it for all it was worth.”
Bruce sighed. He had seen Tony sick often enough to know that wasn’t true at all. “Maybe James will know,” he said. “Tony’s been sober for over two years now, Clint.” Bruce’s eyes flashed green. “He isn’t hungover.”
Clint gulped, but stayed silent. He knew all about alcoholics, and he figured Tony fell off the wagon (if there ever was a wagon to begin with, he wasn’t so sure).
“If I may,” FRIDAY interjected into all of their ears through their compiece as they pulled up to the building. “Boss has collapsed on the landing pad. Sergeant Barnes is on his way, but he isn’t a doctor. Doctor Banner, if you would please go to Boss? The elevator on the far right will take you directly there.”
Bruce all but ran, the rest of the team still with confusion.
“FRIDAY, what’s happened to him? Did he get injured in the fight?” Steve asked, concern evident in his tone.
“Override code, please, Captain Rogers?” FRIDAY prompted. When Steve gave it, she continued frostily. “Boss forbade me from sharing this information, but he didn’t think to block your override code.” The ‘ he didn’t think you , of all people, would ask ’ was implied, and gave Steve a lump in his throat. “Boss has been running a fever for the past week. I have identified his illness as pneumonia, but he mutes me every time I try to tell him so.
“Because of the arc reactor, Boss is unable to clear his lungs properly. His symptoms should have been prevalent all through this week, if you had looked.” FRIDAY’s tone was outright hostile at this point, making it clear who she blamed for missing Tony being sick.
“Hold up,” Clint said, raising a hand. “The arc reactor has nothing to do with his lungs. What do you mean it’s making him sick?”
Natasha smacked him in the arm. “It's a giant hunk of metal embedded six inches deep into his sternum, of course it affects his lungs.” The team paled, thinking of how painful that must be, and how Tony never showed it, never even hinted at it. At their horrified looks, Natasha continued. “Did you guys not know this? Did none of you read his file?”
“I did!” Steve said defensively. “It was on the flash drive Fury gave me when I woke up, it barely mentioned the arc reactor!”
Natasha wanted to scream. “You read the electronic version ? You do realize that Tony Stark is probably the best hacker in the world? SHIELD doesn’t keep electronic versions of important documents anymore because of him! Any file you got from SHIELD on him electronically has been edited by him to say only what he wants it to say.” Natasha resisted the urge to add ‘ dumbass ’ to the end of her sentence, figuring it would only undermine her point by putting Steve further on the defensive.
Steve, for his part, looked horrified. “How does he fight?” he asked quietly.
The elevator doors opened silently as he spoke to show one murderous James Barnes. “One week,” he said, tone dangerous, Russian accent bleeding into his words. “I was gone one fucking week and you went and nearly killed my boyfriend. Steve, I told you to watch over him before I left! I told you that I thought he was coming down with something!”
“He said he was fine!” Steve cried. “Why would he lie about being sick?”
James actually did facepalm. “Stevie, that man has a stubborn streak a mile wide and the acting skills to fake whatever the hell he wants. He was taught that being sick was a weakness, of course he lied about it! I thought you would be able to see through that, but I guess not.”
“Who taught him that?” Steve looked aghast.
“Doesn’t matter!” Tony said, appearing out of nowhere (read: a different elevator), looking like death warmed over. “I’m completely fine. Just a touch of fever, really, you’re all overreacting.”
Clint, who had been silent after Natasha’s revelations about the arc reactor, scoffed. “Stark, you look like hell. You’re not fooling anyone.”
Tony just raised an eyebrow. “I look barely worse than I have all week. If you think this is bad, then you were fooled all week.” A combination of Tony’s skeptic eyebrow and James’s murder glare behind him had Clint muttering apologies and hiding behind Natasha. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” He made like he was going to the lab but stumbled and fell against the wall. “Or I’ll just stay here for a second.”
James wrapped an arm around Tony’s waist. “You’re not going anywhere but up to bed,” he said sternly. Tony waggled his eyebrows at the obvious innuendo but stayed silent. “Even if I have to drag you up there and tie you down.” Tony couldn’t resist this time.
“Kinky,” he joked. “My safe word is pumpernickel.”
James huffed, either in exasperation or humor, Tony couldn’t tell. “Let’s go,” he said, and the elevator closed, taking the two upstairs, with James shooting one last glare at Steve and Clint.
“Well, shit,” Clint said, summing up what they were all thinking. “I guess he really isn’t hungover.”
Natasha slapped him.
----------
Tony spent the next few days in a fevered haze, with James by his side the whole time. Every time he woke up gasping for air from another fever-induced nightmare, his boyfriend was there to comfort him. As he slowly started to gain more coherence with each waking, he noticed that the other Avengers were often in his room, as well, watching over him. Tony didn’t know how to feel about that; were they all cataloguing his weakness? Figuring out how to hold it over him later? Tony immediately dismissed the thought that they could be concerned with Howard’s voice in his mind telling him that it was impossible that anyone could care about a weakling like him.
On the third day of his enforced bedrest (he tried to escape late night on day two and was lovingly manhandled back to bed by his super soldier boyfriend), Tony deemed himself well enough to function and proceeded to make his way down to the lab. Only, he didn’t make it past the bedroom door before he was stopped by a super soldier. Not his own, unfortunately, but one Tony did not want to talk to. He didn’t need the pity from Steve that he was sure was forthcoming, and he definitely didn’t need to be berated for not telling anyone.
“What can I do for you, Capsicle?” Tony said confidently, deciding that if he couldn’t avoid the conversation, he sure as hell could control it. When Steve didn’t respond immediately, Tony carried on. “Let’s make this quick. We can pretend you chewed me out and I was appropriately chagrined. I’d tell you that it won’t happen again, but it probably will and there’s no point in me lying to you about it. But, if it makes you feel better, I’ll bring a doctor’s note clearing me for the next fight.”
Even (what seemed to Steve like) Tony promising to see a doctor didn’t perk Steve up. “Tony,” he started. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. I should’ve seen that you weren’t doing well, Bucky warned me to keep an eye on you and I didn’t. So, I’m sorry.”
Tony was shocked, but he shook it off. “No need to apologize, Cap. No harm done, I’m perfectly fine. But I am about three days behind on work, so if you’ll excuse me,” Tony pointedly stared at Steve until he moved to the side, unblocking the hallway.
“Wait!” Steve blurted out, staring at Tony’s retreating back. Tony didn’t turn around, but he did stop, which Steve took as a sign to keep going. “Why didn’t you tell anyone that the arc reactor affects you like this? We’re your team, Tony.”
“Ah, yes,” Tony said dryly, walking away again. “Why didn’t I tell a bunch of people who can easily overpower me with one hand my biggest weakness? Take an educated guess, Capsicle.”
Steve just stood there in shock as Tony disappeared into a chrome elevator.
FRIDAY spoke up. “Captain, I have been ordered to tell you by Ms. Romanoff that they are holding a team meeting in the common room and demand your presence.”
----------
“So, in conclusion,” Natasha said. “Howard Stark was a dick, and Tony has all sorts of issues because of him.” Natasha had been telling the team, to the best of her knowledge, why Tony acted the way he did. She didn’t ask Tony (or James) for input, because she figured that Tony at least would not approve of her telling the team.
Well, easier to ask forgiveness than permission, as Tony always said.
Steve looked shell-shocked at all he had learned about his old friend from the war. “Does that mean every time I’ve asked Tony about Howard-“ he began, but a vaguely green-looking Bruce cut him off.
“Yep.” He said, teeth gritted. “Maybe you should never do it again, just a thought.”
Clint also looked shocked. “How much of this is verified?” he asked, ever the SHIELD agent.
“Most of it is inference, but all of the medical records are verified two times over. The hospital visits are as close to confirmation as we have that Howard beat Tony, because nobody ever reported it. But it’s pretty obvious what was happening, yeah? Everything post-Howard is piecemeal at best; Tony never shared what happened with Stane, but a bit of hacking revealed everything we know, which isn’t much.” Natasha replied clinically. She retreated into her Black Widow persona, unable to stay objective without it. If Stane and Howard hadn’t already been dead…
“Why didn’t he say anything?” Clint wondered aloud.
“He didn’t want to show weakness,” Steve answered dully. “He told me earlier that that’s why he hid the problems the arc reactor gives him; he didn’t want to show us his weaknesses.”
Bruce sighed. “He also didn’t want the confirmation that none of you cared enough to look,” he said with no small amount of anger. “He has a giant piece of metal inside his chest, did you honestly think that caused him no pain? He had surgery in a cave to put it in, so the internal work probably caused more damage than it would in a hospital setting. He’s missing pieces of his sternum, and none of you guys thought maybe that hurt him a little bit? How many of you have asked him how he’s doing, ever?” Bruce left at that, ostensibly on his way to the Hulk Room because of how green he was looking.
The Avengers hung their heads at Bruce’s harsh words. One by one, they resolved to do better in the future. They couldn’t change the past, but maybe they could make Tony feel like he could trust them next time this happened.
----------
“Fri, baby, vitals,” Tony called out as he strode into his lab.
“Your fever is down to 99.5 and your blood pressure is within normal parameters. You should take the Advil on your workbench, and you’ll probably be clear in a couple hours.” FRIDAY complied.
Tony took the pills and threw himself into a project. He was working on upgrades for the newest StarkPhone, lost in the world of formulas and code, when James walked into his lab.
“What’s up, Snowflake?” he called from behind a couple holoscreens. He was working on a particularly stubborn bit of code, focus entirely on the numbers in front of him.
James came around behind him and wrapped him in a hug. “Can’t I just want to say hello to my wonderful boyfriend?” he laughed. Now that the immediate danger of Tony’s death-by-pneumonia had passed, James was a lot less tense.
“You can,” Tony pointed out. “But I’m sensing an ulterior motive.”
“You got me,” James sighed. “We need to have a talk about why you don’t trust anyone on the team with your health.”
Tony pouted. “Or, we could not do that and instead have wonderful, life-affirming sex and ignore the whole topic?”
“Talk, kotenok.”
“Howard didn’t like it when I was sick,” Tony started. “And by didn’t like it, I mean absolutely hated it. It was just another sign that I was weaker than Captain Goddamn America, and he didn’t tolerate that. So, I hid it. It was fine, I guess, because I didn’t get sick much as a child. When I got to college, the first time I got sick in front of Rhodey, I thought our friendship would be over, that he’d see me as weak and pathetic and want someone different. Instead, he bundled me up in his blankets and called his mom, who brought me homemade soup and made me feel safe.
“I thought it was a one off, that Rhodey was just a special kind of person. But he eroded my walls, and when I came back from Afghanistan with souvenirs, I wasn’t as careful as I should’ve been. Obie- I mean, Stane- took care of me the first time a bug got really bad with the reactor. I trusted him with my illness, even though Howard told me never to do that. That it made me weak.
“The next week, he ripped the reactor out of my chest and left me to die. I figured I deserved it, because I let him see me weak. Because of that, I didn’t tell anyone during the palladium scare, either. I couldn’t risk another betrayal, another kick when I was down. That attitude persists to this day. If people know I’m weak, what’s to stop them from using that knowledge? Even if they don’t do it personally, I have plenty of enemies who would pay out the nose for information on my weaknesses, especially the arc reactor. You’re the only living person, besides Rhodey and Pepper, who know how pathetic I really am, and I’d like to keep it that way. That’s why I didn’t tell anyone I was sick.” Tony concluded, turning away from James’s soft eyes and back to the code he was working on.
James pressed a gentle kiss to Tony’s temple. “We are your team, kotenok,” he said softly. “We aren’t ever going to hurt you. And anyone who ever tries to make you feel weak will get a nice chat with the Winter Soldier.”
Tony was silent, but James could see in his eyes that his words cracked something, something deep and hidden, inside of Tony. That was confirmed when, instead of deflecting with something snarky and hurtful, Tony just turned, curling up against James’s chest.
“I love you,” Tony whispered.
“I love you, too,” James said. “Let’s go back to bed. Emotions wear me out.” Rather, they wore Tony out, but James knew that without prompting, Tony would stay in the lab and hide all day.
FRIDAY shut everything down behind them, staying quiet as James slowly led Tony out of the lab like a spooked kitten.
Tony knew right then that he’d be okay, because he wasn’t alone. James didn’t leave him because he was weak, he loved him anyway.
Suck on that, Howard, Tony thought with a smirk.