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The third time Tony nicks something in the arm with one of the tiny precision tools he’s fiddling in there with, Bucky uses his flesh hand to grip the man’s wrist and tug it upwards, away from complex wiring that’s not taking any to kindly to the uncharacteristically inept handling.
“You with me?” he asks, when Tony looks up, startled. His eyes are glassy, and if he didn’t know better, Bucky would be certain he’s running a fever. But super-humans don’t run fevers. Or. Wait. Despite appearances - carefully contrived appearances, Bucky’s less kind thought stream points out, Tony is not a superhuman.
“Alright, not with me. Obviously. Who should I call to deal with you?”
“I’m fine, Sparky,” Tony mutters, a statement not exactly corroborated by the flush of his cheeks and the pinpoints of moisture gathering at his temples.
“Sit,” Bucky growls at him, using a register he knows functions as a damn near dead drop for most of humanity.
Tony shrugs, glances behind him at the stool he should have been sitting on to begin with, and drops onto it. He grumbles in the general direction of the floor that he’s not a child.
“Stop acting like one,” Bucky shoots back. “Who do I call to parent at you?”
It’s the wrong choice of words. Tony’s on his feet and swinging with speed someone that obviously unwell should not possess. The positive, though, is that the speed lacks anything resembling coordination.
Bucky deflects the first few blows, blocks the next few with a little more force, and grabs Tony by the biceps when the next round sends the guy off balance and toppling towards the floor. Tony’s panting, exhausted by the relatively brief exertion, and the heat coming off him is definite proof that the man’s running a lot warmer than he ought to be in ways not at all related to his temper or Bucky’s inept attempt at banter.
“Hey, hey, I’m sorry. That was out of line.”
He’s trying to get Tony maneuvered toward one of the benches, hoping once he gets him sitting again he can call Pepper, or Rhodey, he’d settle for Sam at this point, though all that is good and right in the world knows that’s a match that’s made only in desperate times. Instead, he hears a noise that has been warning him of bad things on the horizon since the 1930s and a tin can of an apartment with a skinny, sickly Steve.
Tony hiccups a few times, giving Bucky time enough to at least get him facing away from anything likely to be irreparably damaged by whatever is coming. All the gods in all the heavens are smiling on them, and when Tony lets out an ominously wet belch there’s little but a spurt of mucus to show for it. He’s shirt’s a loss as a result, but Bucky gets him to the bench and a metal trash can in his hands before the next heave brings up a gush of blue tinged liquid. There is nothing in the natural world that makes that particular shade, so Bucky decides Tony made a go a medicating himself into functionality at some point.
He fishes his phone out of his pocket as he stands awkwardly next to a now emptily retching Tony, scanning the contacts until he finds Pepper. It only rings once.
“I’m on my way,” she answers without giving time for pleasantries of normal dialogue. She comes through the door a moment later and Bucky remembers that the AI monitors the labs. He’s more than happy to hand charge of Tony off to someone better equipped than he is, no matter how the summoning went down.