Summary:
There were no classic warning signs. That's why Tony didn't recognize his developing heart attack for what it was.
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3
-Wednesday Night, Early-
“Didn’t like the chicken salad tonight, Mr. Stark?”
Tony followed his nurse’s gaze to his half-eaten dinner and shrugged. “Just didn’t have much of an appetite, Roshi.”
“Hey, I get it,” the bearded nurse laughed as he popped a thermometer in Tony’s mouth. “Nutrition does its best, but our ‘heart healthy’ diet can get a bit dull. Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t asked your wife to —” He stopped, his brow furrowed. “Hmm. Mind if I take a peek at your incision? I promise I won’t get fresh.”
Tony was too tired to come up with a snappy retort. In lieu of his usual repartee, he simply closed his eyes and leaned back against his pillows, listless as Roshi popped open the snaps of his gown and fussed over his bandages.
“You have a bit of a fever,” he explained. “Low grade. Just want to make sure that — no, everything looks perfect at both sites. Pain any worse?”
Tony coughed a little and winced. “Respiratory exercises are definitely no fun at all. But nah, not really.”
“Well, low-grade fevers are not unheard of in the first week after a major surgery. We’ll keep an eye on it, but chances are you don’t really have anything to worry about.”
-The Overnight-
Hours later, the chills and the wracking cough began. So much for probabilities.
It was pneumonia. Tony could feel it. The heaviness that had settled in his chest was unmistakable. But before he could ring the nurse’s desk to report this unfortunate development, another patient on the other side of the ward had coded. Thus, for the present, he was left to gut it out alone, teeth chattering, his thin hospital blankets pulled up to his chin.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, Tony thought bitterly. Probably shoulda told Roshi my dice are loaded.
-The Overnight, Later-
“Mr. Stark, what on Earth?”
Tony was standing - trembling, head spinning - beside his bed. When they’d hung the new bag of antibiotics the doctor on call had ordered, they’d forgotten to push back his bedside table. But he didn’t dare explain that in words. He didn’t dare do anything but keep his jaw clamped tightly shut.
Roshi, thankfully, was quick on the uptake. Reading Tony’s flailing gestures, he snatched up an emesis bag and guided his charge back into a seated position, resting one professional hand on the space between Tony’s shoulder blades.
Tony could feel his abdominal and chest muscles cramping, but for a long time, he resisted nature’s demands, swallowing repeatedly and breathing shallowly through his nose. He really, really didn’t want to do this again. The first several times had brought him nothing but white-hot agony.
“Mr. Stark.” Then Roshi switched tack, adopting a gentler tone. “Tony — just let go, okay? Fighting it is just prolonging your misery.”
“Hate you,” Tony growled before he convulsed, bringing up yet more blood-streaked, green-tinged phlegm.
-Thursday-
It shouldn’t have shocked Pepper to see Tony’s nasal cannula the following morning. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen precipitous declines like this before. Yet the instant she stepped into her husband’s room, her heart skipped a beat.
“Oh, Tony. Bad night?”
“Do bears shit in the woods?” Hunching forward over the kidney basin in his lap, Tony hacked up something unmentionable — then muttered one of his filthier imprecations. “Drug-resistant pneumonia, they think. Because this is the absolute state of my life.”
That certainly explained why Craig’s prophylactic antibiotic regimen hadn’t done the trick.
Pepper took Tony’s basin over to the sink to rinse it out, pushing down her instinctive emotional reaction to its rust-colored contents. “The doctor seems to think the new meds should kick it,” she said, raising her voice a little to be heard over the running water.
Tony humphed in reply. The sound was only barely audible.
When Pepper returned to Tony’s side, she was toting just about everything: a razor and shaving cream; a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a travel-sized bottle of mouthwash; a small bottle of soap, a towel, and several moistened washcloths; and, of course, Tony’s ersatz spittoon. “May I?” she asked, holding up one washcloth.
Here was the thing about Tony Stark: the media almost always got him wrong. They couldn’t see the subtleties in the man’s face — or the feelings manifest in the depths of his eyes. Unlike Pepper, they couldn’t read an expression like the one Tony wore now: an expression that somehow combined vulnerability with cockiness, love with frustration, and longing with retreat to form one complex whole.
Pepper knew: Tony wanted to say yes — and he also didn’t.
“I think you’ll feel at least a little better,” Pepper added. It’s only us. Please — let me catch you one more time.
At length, Tony nodded, relenting. Pepper pressed the washcloth against Tony’s cheek — and Tony leaned into the touch with a shuddering sigh.
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