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Bruce tells him to go lie down.
He looks like hell, Steve says.
Clint looks repulsed, and Tony knows that that is probably a good fucking sign that he needs a nap. Or a drink. They're pretty much the same thing.
He passes out in the hall before he can really make it out, and the only one who notices is a goddamned physicist. His lot in life, he figures.
"You need a doctor."
"I don't," he says. "I really fucking don't."
"You really fucking do." Tony manages to get in a good whack in Bruce's side, but it translates into more of a mosquito swat than anything else. Bruce manages to get him into a room with a couch and sets him down. Tony grabs his wrist.
"Don't you pick up that phone."
"Generally you call a doctor. Ambulance."
"Not for me."
Tony sits up and takes off his shirt, which is only a little bit unnerving, but not nearly as much as the reactor in the center of Tony's chest, which is mostly working, but for the occasionally flicker that is obviously giving Tony a fucking heart attack or something. Bruce backs away.
"No, no. Not now. We have a rodeo to finish." He gently undoes the containing cap around the reactor and it comes loose. Bruce flashes back to his first surgery, green and a physicist still, trying to keep his own fucking problems under check and here's this kid, splayed out like a Picasso, his arms in places arms should not be, guts in someone's hand and he is trying to figure out how you say He's going to die in fucking Czech. He says it now, and maybe Tony knows something Slavik (he must, he really must) but he flinches and closes his eyes and looks just like a boy with his guts in his hands.
"There's a wire coming loose," he says. Bruce blinks. Comes back. Everything still smells so metallic.
"Wire--"
"After my last beating. I don't know, it's been like this a couple of days. It's hard to tell what's wrong at first. Look I know this is like, prize-winning science fair shit, and I'm sure you're in fucking freak heaven or whatever, but I need you to focus on me for like, two seconds, and reach into the hole in my chest, and fix what's broken."
And holy shit is that a metaphor. That is one goddamned beautiful metaphor and Bruce is going to go upstairs and write that down and remember that Tony fucking Stark said it for the rest of his life.
"Right," he says. And rolls up his sleaves.
He is trying not to look at Tony's face but it's really hard because he has the most bizarre expression on his face. And Bruce is beginning to realize that it must be so invasive to have something like this in your body, with the great weight of keeping you alive attached to it -- which must weigh more heavily and invade more painfully, than anything in the world.
Bruce finds the wire. He finds it and finds where it goes and in a second, Tony groans, like someone's just popped his shoulder back into place, sucked him off, and fed him cake all in one go. His face is flushed and slick with sweat and there is something really strange on the end of Bruce's fingers. He wipes them instinctively on his pants and does not look away when Tony reattaches the reactor and closes his eyes.
"You okay?" Bruce sits on the very end of the couch, watching. "Tony--"
"I'm great. Peachy. Probably run a mile before bed."
"Sounds like you." Tony laughs and Bruce finally gets up, wanting desperately to go wash his hand and maybe cut it off and get a new one because it was in Tony's chest and there is something so strange about that--
"Thanks for saving me. Again."
"I didn't--"
"I mean, you did. Exposed wires near your heart are, I hear, a bad thing. Probably some physicist-turned-surgeon wrote it." Tony gets up and puts a hand on Bruce's shoulder, and it stays there, for just a second, and there is something very comforting and very human in his eyes -- like it's okay, it wasn't weird, I am grateful I will repay you -- and then he's gone.
He does that.