-T-Minus Twelve Hours-
Tony was no longer fooled by his nightmares. Over many, many years, he’d constructed an honest-to-God taxonomy, sorting and labeling each and every midnight terror according to its themes, its images, and its provenance. So the moment the enormous fleet obscured the sugary spread of foreign stars, he knew exactly where he was — and knew, intellectually, that what he was seeing was not a present threat.
Unfortunately, no amount of meditation - or reading on the phenomenon of lucid dreaming - had yet empowered Tony to wrest control from his damnable subconscious — or calm his more primordial instincts. He was stuck, forced to watch as the Chitauri mothership detonated, a brand new nuclear star. He was stuck - paralyzed, heart racing, his vision clouding - as his arc reactor flickered and died. He was stuck as he plummeted like a stone through the icy black.
He was stuck — until Pepper roused him with a gentle shake of his shoulder.
“You okay?” she asked.
A minute - and a recitation of pi out to the fiftieth digit - passed before Tony could respond. “Yeah,” he hissed, hand splayed at his collar. “Just one of the reruns.”
“Thanos?”
Tony shook his head. “Nope. Only the wormhole. You woke me up before it went farther.” Peeling off his sweat-soaked sheet, he swung his legs off the edge of the bed, made a beeline for the en suite, and clicked the door shut behind him.
“It’s been a while since your last nightmare,” Pepper observed, her voice filtering in from the bedroom. “Any idea what brought this one on?”
Tony shrugged, then realized Pepper couldn’t see that from where she was sitting. “Probably what I ate last night,” he speculated after clearing his throat. It almost took the roof of Tony’s mouth off, that curry — which was how Tony liked it. That’s why he was the Avengers’ standing Ghost Pepper Challenge champion, thank you very much.
After attending to his personal business, Tony took off his shirt and leaned over the sink, studying his haggard reflection in the mirror with self-critical exactitude. The bloodshot eyes, the crow’s feet, the silver in his hair — they were all pointing to the same incontrovertible truth. Hell: despite his regular workouts, even his formerly respectably-toned muscles were starting to lose some of their definition. Looking down, he pinched off some belly fat — and frowned.
Preoccupied as he was, he didn’t notice Pepper had snuck into the bathroom behind him until she’d wrapped her arms around his bare chest, interlacing her fingers above his reconstructed breastbone. “Happy belated birthday, gorgeous,” she murmured in his ear, her warm breath kissing his skin.
“Don’t remind me,” Tony grunted in displeasure. Though he was genuinely looking forward to the modest party Pepper had planned for later that afternoon, he’d been feeling just a little out-of-sorts since he’d hit the big 5-0 two days before.
“Oh, stop. You look incredible — especially given your penchant for self-destruction. As a matter of fact,” Pepper moved her hands, slipping them into Tony’s boxers and pulling them down, “if you’re up for it —”
Okay, maybe being a greybeard doesn’t have to be so bad, Tony mused one sloppy shower later. He was breathless - and a bit dizzy - as he toweled himself off, but the preceding naughty fun times were totally worth it.
-T-Minus Five Hours-
“Whew! I think someone in here might need a change.” Tony turned on his stool and graced his daughter with a teasing look. “Are you the culprit, little miss?”
Iron Man plushie in hand, Morgan happily pulled herself upright in her playpen, babbling “da da da!” as Tony approached. Tony swung her up, sniffed her padded bottom, and grimaced. “Yep. And of course, we get the dirty diaper after you used up the last one in my workshop stash.”
Juggling the baby onto his hip, Tony headed for the house, huffing and puffing under Morgan’s weight.
As he ascended the staircase inside, he gradually slowed as an unexplained yet eerily familiar heaviness settled into his limbs. The climb became so difficult, in fact, that by the time he was halfway up, he had to stop cold to catch his breath and wipe away the chilly perspiration that had dripped into his eyes.
For the past several hours, he’d been quietly struggling. Indeed, for reasons he couldn’t quite pinpoint, he couldn’t even finish his morning exercise routine. Mid-way through a set of pull-ups, his arms simply refused to function, no longer able to support a body that felt like it had been molded out of molten lead. Still, he powered through his usual chores — though he rapidly tired each time he exerted himself even a little, his throat tightening, his thighs and abdominals burning from the strain.
“FRIDAY?” Tony queried as he slumped against the bannister. “Can you check my vitals real quick?” An inchoate worry was making itself known in the back of his mind, and he wanted to settle the question before its specifics rose to full consciousness.
After a pause, FRIDAY replied, “Temperature 98.3 degrees Fahrenheit. Pulse 140. Respiration rate 30 breaths per minute. Oxygen saturation 90%. All are within previously recorded ranges after physical activity.”
That was all FRIDAY could perceive without the full medical suite in Tony’s armor. But she was right: none of the numbers sounded wildly out of spec — not even the O-sat, which often read that low given the repeated injuries Tony had sustained to his lungs.
Thus, when he finally reached the hallway at the top of the stairs, Tony made what turned out to be a fateful decision: he didn’t retrieve his RT from his nightstand. Instead, he took Morgan straight to her changing table.
Much later, Tony would recognize this moment for what it was: textbook denial.
-T-Minus Two Hours-
“Tony, are you sure you’re alright? You look pale.”
After hanging his own birthday banner, Tony had nearly lost his balance on the ladder, suddenly overcome by another wave of vertigo. And with Pepper standing right beside him, he couldn’t just wave it off. Not after the commitment he’d made to be honest with her.
“I’ve been feeling off all day,” he confessed, lying back on the couch at Pepper’s insistence.
“Did you eat while I was at the bakery?”
“Couple waffles and one of DUM-E’s shakes.”
“And a whole pot of coffee too, I’m guessing.” Pepper’s forehead creased as she pressed the back of her hand against Tony’s face. “Hmm. No fever.”
“I could’ve told you that, babe. I’ve already checked with FRIDAY.”
“Could be low blood sugar — if DUM-E forgot to add the protein powder.”
That was entirely possible. Loyal DUM-E, bless him, was not the brightest bot in Tony’s shed. And at the time, Tony was clearing up his garage — and, therefore, was thoroughly distracted.
“Just rest for a bit,” Pepper soothed, patting his shoulder. “I’ll get you some apple juice.”
Tony nodded and closed his eyes. The whispers of his anxious inner voice were growing more dire, but its conclusions seemed impossible — even hysterical. After all, he wasn’t feeling any pain. Not really.
It can’t be that, he said to himself. He knew - intimately - what that felt like: a terrifying, crushing agony that completely robbed him of his air. That wasn’t this. This was just — a mysterious exhaustion.
-T-Minus Thirty Minutes-
“So, Tones, how does it feel to be officially over the hill?”
Because the evening weather was dry and warm, Tony, Rhodey, Nebula, and Happy had drifted out onto the porch after dinner to watch the lake ripple in the pleasant breeze.
Tony slipped on his shades and leaned back in his patio chair, cracking a smirk that wobbled only slightly. “Ha! I embody the definition of ‘aging gracefully.’” He smacked a mosquito that landed on his forearm, then took a careful sip of his ginger ale. “Admit it, Platypus: you’re secretly jealous of my stunning good looks.”
At that, Rhodey laughed — thank God. It was taking everything Tony had to keep up appearances in front of his guests. True: every single one of them had seen him at his most vulnerable — including and especially Rhodey, who once nursed Tony through a concussion the so-called genius had sustained by jumping into an empty pool while high on his own batch of LSD (among other things). But the last thing Tony wanted to do was to bring down their celebration by revealing that he was feeling ill. That, as he joked casually with his found family, the barbecue they’d just eaten was churning uncomfortably in his gut.
“Based on my observations of your primitive planet,” Nebula cut in, “I believe you are both quite well for Terrans of your age.”
“Thank you, Blue,” Tony returned wryly. “As a ‘primitive Terran,’ I think I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Hey!” Pepper called from the door. “Can someone out there give me a hand with this before it sets off the smoke detector?”
Happy, who was closest, jumped up from his seat and gingerly lifted the flaming birthday cake from Pepper’s outstretched hands.
“Fifty candles?” Tony groaned. “You actually lit fifty candles?”
Pepper chuckled and ran her fingers through Tony’s hair. “I know you wanted to avoid the spectacle this time around — ”
Damn straight. Tony still hadn’t lived down the scandal of his fortieth.
“ — but,” Pepper continued, “I just couldn’t resist.” She bent down and kissed Tony on the nose. “Make a wish, honey.”
A pall fell over the party. Everyone read Tony’s expression and apparently understood exactly what he was thinking — probably because they were thinking the same thing. I wish we could bring them back. Every single one. Two years on, it remained the prayer of every birthday boy — and every stargazer.
Tony blew and blew with all the force his pathetic lung volume could muster — until, at last, the early summer zephyr did what he could not.
-T-Minus Ten Minutes-
Tony excused himself and stumbled into the kitchen, knowing as saliva filled his mouth that what he’d been resisting for the past ten minutes was no longer avoidable no matter what he did. Lurching for the sink, he folded — and heaved, violently expelling one cheeseburger and the two bites of cake he’d managed to consume before, without warning, he lost the ability to swallow.
“Easy, easy, Tony. You’re gonna be fine. Just relax.”
“Fuck me,” Tony gasped when the retching stopped. His nose streaming and his stomach quivering, he spit mucus into the sink and wiped his mouth with the wet cloth Pepper immediately proffered. “And why today of all days?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Pepper replied, rubbing Tony’s back. “But I guess this means it wasn’t just DUM-E, huh?”
Tony moaned and, his legs trembling, pushed himself away from the smell of his own sick — just in time to spot Rhodey’s worried face as his oldest friend poked his head through the doorway. “Everything okay in here?”
“Not exactly. Tony just lost his dinner. Can you do me a favor and get the Nauzene from the medicine cabinet upstairs?”
“You got it.”
And here — here was where Tony’s memories of that Sunday ended.
-T-Plus One Minute-
One of the things Rhodey remembered most, meanwhile, was the all-too-human alarm in FRIDAY’s voice. “Ms. Potts!” the AI exclaimed almost the instant Tony dropped in a heap, unconscious. “The Boss’s watch monitor has stopped reporting his pulse!”
The second thing Rhodey remembered most was performing chest compressions on the man he loved more than life itself as FRIDAY dialed 911 and Pepper fled upstairs to retrieve Tony’s RT. Once, during first aid training he’d pursued on top of his SABC, his instructor had stated, in one casual aside, that CPR could crack ribs if it was being done correctly. At Tony Stark’s fiftieth birthday party, Rhodey experienced that first hand.
And the last thing Rhodey remembered most? The determination in Pepper’s teary eyes as she affixed the RT to Tony’s chest and slapped it on. You’re not going to drop dead today, Tony, it seemed to say. Not while I’m here.
“Ventricular fibrillation detected. Initiating defibrillation protocol. Please step back.”
It took three shocks to yank Tony from the brink. By then, an ambulance was screaming up the drive, its lights flashing on the cabin’s northward facing wall.
No comments:
Post a Comment