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If somebody were to ask Tony what the worst part was about having a chunk of metal the size of a tin can crammed into his chest, he would probably ask them how the fuck they knew that given that everyone who knew that should either be dead or locked up in a very secure prison. Let's say it's Rhodey or Pepper, though, or Fury or Natashalie or any of the handful of people who know what's going on with the blue light in his chest. He would—well, he would brush it off, probably.
This thought experiment is really showing Tony he doesn't tell people a lot of things. He purses his lips, drums his fingers against the table as he stares at the mock-up of a grappling-hook arrow he's mostly working on for his own amusement. "J, let's toss in—" his voice is rough and strained, and he only makes it halfway through the sentence before he's coughing.
Pain erupts, sharp and crushing as his lungs trying to inflate against the reactor casing taking up valuable real estate. Tony's hands grab at his shirt, scrabbling fruitlessly against his chest as every cough just sends ribs against metal. Fuck! He curls down and over himself, little strained noises escaping as he desperately tries to stop himself from coughing, which isn't effective because it's a reflex.
The world narrows to the blue glow and the metal tube keeping it in place, as Tony chokes on his own pain and tries not to throw up or pass out or something equally lame. The coughing stops. He remains folded over himself in his desk chair, face wet with tears, which is really just embarrassing. Every breath hurts. He remains there, eyes screwed shut, for a few seconds more before forcing himself back into a seated position.
Tony wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. It comes away a stark and vibrant red. That's probably not good, he thinks with a sense of detached amusement.
Right. The answer to his previously-raised hypothetical question: The worst part of the arc reactor is, without a doubt, getting sick.
He leans his head back, kicking at a table leg to spin his chair in a circle as the high ceiling rotates above him. As if the reduced breathing capabilities and heart problems and literal shrapnel weren't all bad enough, his immune system has been pretty much screwed to shit. That's what having chunks of yourself hacked out and replaced with a rusty car battery in a cave in the desert does to a person, apparently.
Clint called him germaphobic, a week ago when Bruce had sniffled and Tony had immediately found himself on the other side of the room. Yeah, Tony hadn't said, try having this thing in your chest and not being wary of germs. Instead, he'd just snarked it off and then found the first available excuse to go lock himself away in his lab for the next… however long it would take for this cold to make its way through the tower.
Fat load of good it did him. Tony drops his head down on his desk and lets out an unintelligible groan.
"Sir," Jarvis says in that flat yet concerned tone, "May I suggest eating something?"
"Shush, J," he flaps a hand, face still smushed against the desk, "Can't you see I'm wallowing in my misery over here?" Feeling unpleasantly like he's going to cough again, Tony fumbles blindly next to him for the smoothie Dum-E made him sometime in the last… forty-eight hours? The 'blindly' aspect of the fumbling ends up being his downfall, though, as his hand collides with the cup and sends it splattering to the ground. Of course. He squeezes his eyes shut. He can feel Jarvis's judgement.
"Fine!" Tony sits up, shakes his head against the dizzy rush of getting up too quickly. "Fine, you've made your point." His first step nearly sends him falling to the concrete floor and landing in the smoothie puddle that U is currently cleaning up (rather ineffectively). Everything hurts, he internally bemoans as he makes his way over to the elevator and slumps against one mirrored wall inside.
He blinks slowly at his reflection on the other wall. Four days of hiding out while gradually growing closer to death by common cold hasn't done any favours for his overall appearance. Tony grimaces as he looks at his bedraggled hair, scruffy unshaven face, the dark purple pits under his eyes. His nose is running, too, and he's just been wiping at it with his sleeve like a grubby kindergartener. Great. Well, hopefully there's not anybody on the common floor.
The elevator doors slide open. …His hopes have gone unrealised.
"Jeez, you look like shit," greets the resident archer.
Tony slouches miserably past and into the kitchen, intent on finding himself something to eat and disappearing right back into his lab. "Thanks, Barton," he says dryly. Well, the tone is dry. His voice is rough and crackling with phlegm in his throat.
"Ooh, you got it too? Bad luck." Tony would love it if he just stopped talking. Feels a bit ironic to think that when probably hundreds of people had wished that about Tony himself, but "It's pretty shit. I'm on the tail-end now, thank God, though it looks like it hit you a lot harder." Something's going to hit Barton pretty damn hard if the man doesn't shut up.
He opens a random cabinet, barely glances in before grabbing the first box of cereal he sees and commandeering it for his own purposes. Tony grabs a handful of Fruit Loops and shoves them in his mouth, not having realised how hungry he was until now. He looks back up from the box and is met by the one and only Captain Spangles standing entirely too close for comfort. Mouth full, he raises an eyebrow.
"Are you alright, Stark?" God, and the concern is just picture-perfect, isn't it? Of course the man who hasn't been sick since fucking 1940-something is standing here with this pitying look in his baby blues. Tony wants to punch him in the face. …He thinks being sick might make him more irritable than usual.
"Peachy keen, Cap," he says, swallowing his mouthful of artificially fruit-flavoured sugar loops. Delicious artificially fruit-flavoured sugar loops, though his taste buds may be affected by the fact that he hadn't really eaten much since he'd become sick. America's best and blondest looks at him with this single raised eyebrow signifying I know you're lying and also am better than you.
Tony returns the stare with a raised eyebrow of his own. Ha. See, two can play that game, Rogers. A tickle in the back of his throat begins to build, and that's his cue to leave. He sidesteps Rogers and ignores Bruce's call of "Tony?" and is almost at the elevator when he can't hold it in any longer and coughs.
Once it starts, it doesn't stop. The bright red toucan-themed box slips from his grasp, hands coming up to his chest as sharp agony pulses through his body with every convulsion of his chest. He can barely get himself to gasp in a painful breath between hacking coughs. Every inch of the arc reactor casing is felt in moments like this as his chest attempts to expel the pesky giant chunk of metal getting in the way of his lungs.
There's hot red iron coating his tongue, now, and when he blinks teary eyes he can see it splattered against the otherwise-clean floor. He's ended up on his knees, doubled over himself. The sounds of voices and concern blur together into a backdrop for the lovely melody of Tony Stark in the process of coughing himself to death. Somewhere in the back of his brain he thinks dimly that this is a new level of humiliation, but it's fleeting because the only thing able to stick on his mind is pain, pain, pain.
The coughing grows weaker and turns into wet gasps for air. Tony blinks down at the droplets of blood and four pairs of feet in his field of view. There's a hand on his shoulder, large and warm. He shrugs it off, rolling his shoulders back and straightening up while doing his best to ignore the shooting pain.
"Tony?" Bruce asks, with cautious concern. Rogers looks downright horrified, Barton somewhat pale. Natasha's expression is hard to read, given that she's the Tower's resident spy, but Tony can definitely see some sort of knowing pity there.
He drags his sleeve across his mouth, aware he probably looks like some extra from a horror movie right now. "Right," he says, moving to get to his feet. "I'll be off, then," and he makes some vague gesture towards the elevator behind him.
"No," says Cap, face set in that I've-made-a-decision-and-my-decision-goes sort of way.
Tony raises an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware you dictated where I could go?" His legs wobble slightly, because his body hates him. Irritation flickers over Roger's face.
"Man, come on," Barton says, waving one arm haphazardly, "What even—you were literally just coughing up blood on the floor." Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. For a guy named Hawkeye, you'd think he'd be better at spotting the obvious.
Natasha is staring at him, and he'd really prefer not to be picked apart like this while being ravaged by the common cold, thanks very much.
"How—how deep in your chest does that thing go?" Bruce asks with barely-constrained horror. Tony gritshis teeth, doesn't flinch because he can handle a group of superheroes figuring out his biggest weakness, no issues here.
"What?" Blurts Rogers, eyes wide and shocked, "That—it's inside you?" Talk about phrasing. "Why would you do that?"
At that, Tony stiffens, eyes narrowing sharply as his mouth flattens into a harsh slash. "Shockingly enough," he bites out, shaping each word into a pellet of pure disdain, "This wasn't my first plan in life."
"But—" And thank God for Natasha, he's almost not mad at her for stabbing him with a needle that one time now, because she easily shuts Steve up with just a look. There's a pro to having terrifying women around, he supposes.
Then she's passing him a glass of water that seemingly came straight out of nowhere. Tony drinks it, because his throat feels like sandpaper. Even though he'd really just like to disappear back into his lab forever. He feels like he's in a display case with all these stares. He drains the cup, places it down next to him.
"Right. Sparknotes—blown up by terrorists, shrapnel in my chest, this—" and here he knocks a fist against the reactor before instantly regretting it because that hurts— "keeps the shrapnel from shredding my heart into hamburger meat. That enough for show-and-tell?" Nobody answers. Tony's not sure why that stings. He claps his hands, gets to his feet. "Right, well, see you guys." He walks into the elevator, jabs at the button for his lab.
"Wait—" Barton blurts, hesitating briefly when he meets Tony's eyes. "Uh, we were about to show Steve Star Wars, if you wanted to. Join us."
He purses his lips. Casts his eyes over the four faces, none of which whom look like they want to object to this offer. "…Starting with the originals?"
"Duh," Clint huffs, looking almost offended.
"Well, I guess I could spare some time to educate our favourite fossil," he lets a smile tug at his lips. In what has to be less than a minute, he finds himself on the couch with a blanket over his legs, box of tissues on the table at his side and a mug of tea which has to have been made in record speed. As the opening credits roll, he lets himself settle back into the cushions slightly. Maybe there are a few not-so-terrible parts to being sick, too. Or maybe that's just being part of a team.