Work Text:
"Jay, you're recording? Okay." The engineer appears in the frame and sits down on the stool. He rubs his hands together, he's nervous.
"Okay,"he says again."So. It's a bit... it's a lot cliché but if you see this, I'm dead. I don't... I hope it was useful, that I didn't just get jumped in a dark alley, because that would suck... Fiting, though..."
He seems to get lost in thoughts before snapping out of it and getting his focus back to the camera.
"Anyway, just don't be upset. It would have happened sooner than later." He makes a self-depreciating laugh and taps on the reactor casing. " If I dropped dead in front of anyone, my bad really. It's this thing's fault. I'm trying to fix it. I don't know if I can." Peter can see deep black lines coming out of Tony's collar and wonders how he ever missed them.
The tapping stops and he drops his hand back on his lap.
"Anyway.. Jarvis must have sent you the paperwork already, I tried to work something out so that the Avengers Tower stays as independent as possible, I hope it'll be okay with you all."
His gaze gets lost behind the camera, a frown appears on his face.
"Jay, what is dum-e doing with the WD-40 ?
"A smoothie, sir, I am afraid."
"Fu-"
The recording cuts on Tony getting up, and the next frames he is sitting back down.
"Okay so, where were we ? Ah yes. So, the tower. As long as the team wants to stay in it, your floors stay yours and everything stays the same. But uhm... you might want to speak with Pepper about that, she'll explain better than me. She did most of the legal stuff and papperwork so... yeah."
"It was… it was an honnor to fight alongside people like you. I'm sorry for all the shit i put you through. But thank you. For putting up with me. For helping me make a difference. See you."
The recording stops.
Peter's gaze drifts from his phone to the man walking six feet ahead of him. He sees the other avengers check their phones and one by one they stop walking, half of them have their eyes glued in confusion on their screens, the others exchange puzzled looks.
Tony keeps walking and talking with his hands, explaining how glad he is that the viliain's attack only had temporary effect on the suit. Steve is next to him, listening and scolding him for taking unecessary risks like he always does. The captain checks his phone, and Tony stops dead in his tracks when his voice comes from the speakers. He snatches the phone from Steve's hands and turns his head to the rest of the group, all of them now glaring at him.
"What the fuck, Jay!" he exclaims, taking a step back, Steve's phone still in his hand, his own recorded voice stopped mid sentence.
Peter doesn't hear Jarvis's answer. The recording plays in his head over and over. "It's this thing's fault. I'm trying to fix it. I don't know if I can." The avengers' heartbeats quicken around him.
"What is this?" Natasha waves her phone in front of her, a deep frown cutting her forehead. The battle has taken its toll on everyone and even the spy looks exhasted.
Tony's face could only be discribed as mortified. Lips pinched together, jaw tight and visibly rolling, eyes wide and scared. He opens his mouth and closes it, a far cry from his usual smooth persona. He takes another step back when Clint asks if it's true.
Steve turns to him, confused, before Natasha shoves the video in his hands. Peter watches his face decompose. He sways on his own feet. His head snaps up to look at Tony, who's still silent. His eyes are fixed on the ground.
Peter hears the hums of the arc reactor. He can't hear anything else anymore. The shuffle of Thor's feet, the national road behind the hill, the wind in the trees, it's all lost on him.
"Is it the palladium core?" he hears himself ask. "It's poisonning you." It's not a question. It explains a lot, the carelessness, the weightloss, the sudden change of heart concerning his and Miss Potts'relationship. ("It just wasn't working, Pete.")
Tony finally looks at him a fraction of second and looks back down. It only confirms Peter's thoughts.
"What's that?" Clint asks, an urgency in the voice.
"It's nothi-"
"Heavy metal poisoning. Kidney and liver failiure, muscle cramps, immune sys-"
"Peter," Tony warned but he can't stop. He could cite the symptoms on top of his head. He's not sure why, maybe a late night down the Wikipedia rabbit hole, or one too many rewatch of House MD with May.
"Nerve pain," he continues," Memory loss, arhythmia, heart failiure-" his eyes sting, his throat is closing on itself. "Death." Natasha's hand on his shoulder doesn't help.
"Is that true?" Steve is way calmer than Peter, stern and composed as usual. "Tony?" There's something in Steve's voice that makes Tony looks at him, a sort of desesperate pleading that only his close friends have ever hear.
"I'm working on it," he says as an admition. "It's not that bad."
"Yet," Peter can't help muttering.
"I'll fix it. I'm working on it." Peter can't say if he really believes in what he's saying.
"It's so fine you made a farewell video about it." Clint pointedly nods at Natasha's phone, still in Steve's hand.
"I just prepared for the worst case scenario, it's what I do. You never should have seen that I don't know why the fuck JARVIS sent it!"
He throws his arms in the air in frustration and starts again towards the quinjet. They all follow after a moment of hesitation, exept Peter. He doesn't trust his legs to walk more than a few feet. They feel like jello, and he's not sure he remembers how to breathe.
"If I dropped dead in front of anyone, my bad really."
He has a very vivid image on his mind of Tony, eyes and chest empty. Dead. Gone. Like his father, like Ben. Like Gwen.
He chokes back tears. He can't see what's around him. The battlefield is completely gone behind Tony's lying corpse. He knows it's not real, it can't be, because if it is, he's alone. Completely and utterly alone. Why do they always leave ? Why can't they just stay ? It's all his fault anyway. If it wasn't for him, Richard wouldn't have been in the plane. Ben wouldn't have been in that alley. Gwen wouldn't have been targeted by Connors. Tony wouldn't have a giant gaping hole in place of his heart. It's all his fault. Maybe he deserves the excruciating ache in his chest.
A hand pushes him down and he doesn't resist, whatever happens he deserve. Another holds his head upright.
"Kid talk to me."
His own hand is placed on something in front of him. It's thick fabric, but there's something cold and hard underneath. It vibrates slowly like a refrigerator. But there's something else beneath it he can't identify.
"Come on, breath with me."
Peter does as he's told, even though it feels impossible to expand his lungs. His ribs seem to hold them down, crushing him until his heart burst. The thing behind the metal has a regular beat and he tries to follow it.
"Good, good very good," the voice say, and the beat starts to slow down but doesn't stop. A heart, he realises when he hears the second valve beating behind the first.
His eyes open slowly, he couldn't say when he closed them. His knees are on the ground, facing someone else's. His eyes follow the black fabric and the blue lines and end up on a bright circle, half hidden by his own hand.
"Hey look at me, I'm here, I'm fine, okay ?"
He looks up and finds Tony's face, distorded by barely cancelled worry.
"You with me? You okay?"
Peter nods. He's not sure if okay would be the right word. Barely a minute ago he felt like he was dying. Like he was about to throw up his own lungs. Tony lets out a relieved sigh and the tension on his shoulder seem to decrease.
The arc reactor keeps humming, oblivious to Peter's - or Tony's for that matter - problems. It keeps humming under Peter's palm like it wasn't actively killing one of the most important person in Peter's life.
"I'm sorry I didn't-" Tony stops himself and lets his hand fall at his sides. Peter does the same. "I'm not good at this," he adds after a moment.
Peter doesn't trust his voice to answer, so he rolls his shoulder in a half admission. He couldn't disagree if he tried.
"How long ?" he asks after a long pause, when his head stops spinning.
"It won't come to that."
"How long ?" he insists.
"Two or three months. Maybe four."
He digs his nails in his palms when the tears threaten to fall again and stares at the ground, hoping it would help. Tony take his hand on his own and opens his fingers. There's blood on his plam and nails. He gently dabs the blood with the undersuit's sleeve and proceeds to do the same for the other hand.
"I'll fix it, I promise."
Peter doesn't believe him. He wants to, god he wants to.
"I'll fix it," he repeats, more to himself than to Peter.