Anthony "Tony" Stark (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
narcissistictendencies) wrote2015-08-17 09:17 pm
narcissistictendencies) wrote2015-08-17 09:17 pm
[Extremis AU] Hold me down, Hold me down
"Selfish, taking what I want and call it mine,
I'm helpless, clinging to a little bit of spine,
They rush me, telling me I'm running out of time,
They shush me, walking me across a fragile line."
The surgery had gone well. Each piece of shrapnel had been removed and the arc reactor housing extracted. The hole had been filled in with synthetic tissue, courtesy of some brilliant young foreign doctor whose name he couldn't quite remember. Dr. Chi? Dr. Chu? He'd look her up later. He still had a good month of healing time, according to her. She had a device in mind that would make healing almost instantaneous, but it wasn't quite in the prototype phase yet. He had to say, he was incredibly impressed. On the surface, you couldn't even tell he'd been through surgery. Slight scarring, nothing horrific and certainly not the mess he expected to be left of his chest after the reactor was removed.
There were bound to be complications. He was Tony Stark. When did things ever go well with him? So when he started having a new chest pain, he chalked it up to the healing process. When the pain only got worse, he moved onto painkillers, but refused JARVIS' suggestion of medical attention. It wasn't until he collapsed that he realised something was very, very wrong. He woke to alarms and JARVIS' concerned voice.
"Okay, cut the alarms, Jay. I'm--I'm back. I'm up."
"Sir, your vitals are crashing. Please, I must insist you allow me to contact medical and--"
"No. I'll suit up. Run a scan."
"Sir--"
"Jarvis." Tony was met with silence and he couldn't help but roll his eyes as he pushed back to his feet, holding his chest as if that would stop the pain. "Silent treatment now? Mature, Jarvis. Real mature." He muttered and made his way down to the workshop. The majority of it was still under construction. Making the Tower liveable had been his first priority after the mansion went for a swim, but his suits were designed to keep precise readings of his vitals and any damage sustained. As soon as it closed around him, and the HUD lit up, JARVIS started the scan.
"Sir, I'm detecting internal bleeding. A cavity around your heart has been filling with blood. It's beginning to put pressure on the--" JARVIS stopped.
"Jar? Hey, Jarvis?"
"I am detecting... a nearly microscopic sliver of metal, Sir. It seems to have pierced your heart." If the AI could sound more human than he did at that moment, Tony had never heard it before. He sounded both gutted and astonished. "Contacting medical."
To his credit, Tony felt how JARVIS sounded. They'd missed a piece? Of course, microscopic shards of metal were somewhat harder to detect, but you'd think that would have been something they would have looked into more carefully. They didn't have the equipment he did. He should have done a scan first thing. If JARVIS had trouble detecting it, then it shouldn't surprise him that they hadn't. "Yeah..." His heart was pounding in his chest now, panic and fear. He'd lived with a reactor in his chest for so long, survived so much, only to lose to a small metal shard.
"Sir, you are going to have to calm down. Your elevated heart beat is only exacerbating the situation. Between your workout this morning and your current state of duress, I suspect the shrapnel is only tearing a larger wound." He paused. "An ambulance is on the way, but with current traffic conditions, the ETA is well over an hour. Trauma-Hawk cannot take off in this extreme weather. Might I suggest--Where are you going?"
As JARVIS spoke, Tony exited the suit and started towards the door, not even pausing when JARVIS asked where he was going. "Banner's lab."
"Sir, Doctor Banner is out."
"Yeah, I know."
"I do not understand."
"I know. Not many people do when it comes to my brain." Tony replied right back, moving quickly through the halls, taking the elevator to avoid any extra stress on his heart. Another sharp stab of chest pain made his world spin, but he fought to keep conscious, urging the elevator to hurry up. Either JARVIS could read his mind or had the same thought, because it did indeed move a bit quicker, but still safely. The doors opened and Tony staggered down the hall to Bruce's lab. JARVIS anticipated every door and lock he came to, opening it without the need for Tony's passcode.
He moved to the central computer console in the room and activated the holographic screen, bringing up restricted files that he and Banner had played with. When he found the file he was looking for, he brought it up and moved across the room to the freezer storage where Banner kept samples of this and that, but there was one sample there that Tony had added to the collection. One labelled "Potts".
"Extremis, Sir? Do you believe that is wise?"
"Nope. But I'm not using Maya's formula, exactly. I don't need to fully nuke myself, just jumpstart the healing." Tony moved back to the holographic display, pulling up a screen, rewriting a few formulas, a few lines of code, and reworked some math. He pulled up a few other samples and ran some quick simulated tests. Found a solution to suspend the new, modified Extremis in and spent the last thirty minutes on this diluted formula. Several times he tipped forward, writhing in severe pain, almost losing consciousness more than once, but he persisted. If it would take them an hour to get to him, it would take another hour to get him back to the hospital where they could preform emergency surgery, assuming he was even still alive by then. He couldn't risk flying the suit in that condition. So, with no other option, he injected the new formula into his arm and shortly thereafter, blacked out.
When Tony finally came to, he was in a hospital bed, a breathing tube down his throat and heart monitor on his chest, but a quick inspection of his chest showed not only had they not operated on him, but he no longer bore the scarring from the first. He sat up, pulling at the tube in his throat, choking on it until it was out. Next came the sensors for the heart monitor, which immediately began screaming when they no longer detected his pulse. The sound was obnoxious and hell on his headache. All he could think about was making his legs work so he could turn the damn thing off--and the sound died.
Tony blinked, looking up and over at the machine. It had been completely powered down. Now, that was just odd. A sharp pain, much like a wasp sting, pinched at his chest. He pulled the hospital gown down and saw a thin sliver of metal work its way through his skin as if it had just decided to crawl out of his body. He pinched it and pulled it out, dropping it on the medical tray beside the bed. It was so small. Half the width of a strand of hair and only a few millimetres long. Not quite microscopic, but damn small. He touched the small red dot in his skin where it had been pushed out, wiping the small bead of blood away, the hole was already gone. That was... weird.
"Tony!" The voice was welcome, even if it was full of both fear, relief, and accusation all in one go. Only one person could pull that off.
"Pepper." He scooted back on the poor excuse for a bed and fixed his gaze on her. "I'm not dead so don't give me that look."
"That doesn't--Of course I'm going to give you this look! Why do I have to find out from the news that you were admitted? I should have been the first--well, I guess the second person you have Jarvis contact!"
"I--What? It made the news already? Wow. That was... fast." Tony's defensive denial had quickly morphed into astonishment.
"Already?! Tony, it's been two days! You were pronounced dead! They don't know why or how you came back! They tried everything..." She didn't hold back her tears very well as her anger tapered into exhaustion. "They didn't think you'd wake up and if you would, they couldn't be sure you would... you would be you."
Tony was stunned into silence. He'd been dead? For how long? If they weren't sure he'd wake up again or might have brain damage, it must have been long enough to be problematic. "Pepper I... I don't know what to say. I'm sorry." He held a hand out to her and she reluctantly took it. He worked circles into the palm of her hand with his thumb. "I'm sorry." He repeated and she smiled lightly.
"I forgive you."
Later in the week, he put on the suit and found somehow that the neural connection was instant. The suit reacted immediately, as if it were part of his body. And if he thought hard enough? He could actually reach out to certain wireless devices and communication systems. It was almost surreal, but he kept this all to himself. And JARVIS, of course. He swore the AI to secrecy.
I'm helpless, clinging to a little bit of spine,
They rush me, telling me I'm running out of time,
They shush me, walking me across a fragile line."
The surgery had gone well. Each piece of shrapnel had been removed and the arc reactor housing extracted. The hole had been filled in with synthetic tissue, courtesy of some brilliant young foreign doctor whose name he couldn't quite remember. Dr. Chi? Dr. Chu? He'd look her up later. He still had a good month of healing time, according to her. She had a device in mind that would make healing almost instantaneous, but it wasn't quite in the prototype phase yet. He had to say, he was incredibly impressed. On the surface, you couldn't even tell he'd been through surgery. Slight scarring, nothing horrific and certainly not the mess he expected to be left of his chest after the reactor was removed.
There were bound to be complications. He was Tony Stark. When did things ever go well with him? So when he started having a new chest pain, he chalked it up to the healing process. When the pain only got worse, he moved onto painkillers, but refused JARVIS' suggestion of medical attention. It wasn't until he collapsed that he realised something was very, very wrong. He woke to alarms and JARVIS' concerned voice.
"Okay, cut the alarms, Jay. I'm--I'm back. I'm up."
"Sir, your vitals are crashing. Please, I must insist you allow me to contact medical and--"
"No. I'll suit up. Run a scan."
"Sir--"
"Jarvis." Tony was met with silence and he couldn't help but roll his eyes as he pushed back to his feet, holding his chest as if that would stop the pain. "Silent treatment now? Mature, Jarvis. Real mature." He muttered and made his way down to the workshop. The majority of it was still under construction. Making the Tower liveable had been his first priority after the mansion went for a swim, but his suits were designed to keep precise readings of his vitals and any damage sustained. As soon as it closed around him, and the HUD lit up, JARVIS started the scan.
"Sir, I'm detecting internal bleeding. A cavity around your heart has been filling with blood. It's beginning to put pressure on the--" JARVIS stopped.
"Jar? Hey, Jarvis?"
"I am detecting... a nearly microscopic sliver of metal, Sir. It seems to have pierced your heart." If the AI could sound more human than he did at that moment, Tony had never heard it before. He sounded both gutted and astonished. "Contacting medical."
To his credit, Tony felt how JARVIS sounded. They'd missed a piece? Of course, microscopic shards of metal were somewhat harder to detect, but you'd think that would have been something they would have looked into more carefully. They didn't have the equipment he did. He should have done a scan first thing. If JARVIS had trouble detecting it, then it shouldn't surprise him that they hadn't. "Yeah..." His heart was pounding in his chest now, panic and fear. He'd lived with a reactor in his chest for so long, survived so much, only to lose to a small metal shard.
"Sir, you are going to have to calm down. Your elevated heart beat is only exacerbating the situation. Between your workout this morning and your current state of duress, I suspect the shrapnel is only tearing a larger wound." He paused. "An ambulance is on the way, but with current traffic conditions, the ETA is well over an hour. Trauma-Hawk cannot take off in this extreme weather. Might I suggest--Where are you going?"
As JARVIS spoke, Tony exited the suit and started towards the door, not even pausing when JARVIS asked where he was going. "Banner's lab."
"Sir, Doctor Banner is out."
"Yeah, I know."
"I do not understand."
"I know. Not many people do when it comes to my brain." Tony replied right back, moving quickly through the halls, taking the elevator to avoid any extra stress on his heart. Another sharp stab of chest pain made his world spin, but he fought to keep conscious, urging the elevator to hurry up. Either JARVIS could read his mind or had the same thought, because it did indeed move a bit quicker, but still safely. The doors opened and Tony staggered down the hall to Bruce's lab. JARVIS anticipated every door and lock he came to, opening it without the need for Tony's passcode.
He moved to the central computer console in the room and activated the holographic screen, bringing up restricted files that he and Banner had played with. When he found the file he was looking for, he brought it up and moved across the room to the freezer storage where Banner kept samples of this and that, but there was one sample there that Tony had added to the collection. One labelled "Potts".
"Extremis, Sir? Do you believe that is wise?"
"Nope. But I'm not using Maya's formula, exactly. I don't need to fully nuke myself, just jumpstart the healing." Tony moved back to the holographic display, pulling up a screen, rewriting a few formulas, a few lines of code, and reworked some math. He pulled up a few other samples and ran some quick simulated tests. Found a solution to suspend the new, modified Extremis in and spent the last thirty minutes on this diluted formula. Several times he tipped forward, writhing in severe pain, almost losing consciousness more than once, but he persisted. If it would take them an hour to get to him, it would take another hour to get him back to the hospital where they could preform emergency surgery, assuming he was even still alive by then. He couldn't risk flying the suit in that condition. So, with no other option, he injected the new formula into his arm and shortly thereafter, blacked out.
When Tony finally came to, he was in a hospital bed, a breathing tube down his throat and heart monitor on his chest, but a quick inspection of his chest showed not only had they not operated on him, but he no longer bore the scarring from the first. He sat up, pulling at the tube in his throat, choking on it until it was out. Next came the sensors for the heart monitor, which immediately began screaming when they no longer detected his pulse. The sound was obnoxious and hell on his headache. All he could think about was making his legs work so he could turn the damn thing off--and the sound died.
Tony blinked, looking up and over at the machine. It had been completely powered down. Now, that was just odd. A sharp pain, much like a wasp sting, pinched at his chest. He pulled the hospital gown down and saw a thin sliver of metal work its way through his skin as if it had just decided to crawl out of his body. He pinched it and pulled it out, dropping it on the medical tray beside the bed. It was so small. Half the width of a strand of hair and only a few millimetres long. Not quite microscopic, but damn small. He touched the small red dot in his skin where it had been pushed out, wiping the small bead of blood away, the hole was already gone. That was... weird.
"Tony!" The voice was welcome, even if it was full of both fear, relief, and accusation all in one go. Only one person could pull that off.
"Pepper." He scooted back on the poor excuse for a bed and fixed his gaze on her. "I'm not dead so don't give me that look."
"That doesn't--Of course I'm going to give you this look! Why do I have to find out from the news that you were admitted? I should have been the first--well, I guess the second person you have Jarvis contact!"
"I--What? It made the news already? Wow. That was... fast." Tony's defensive denial had quickly morphed into astonishment.
"Already?! Tony, it's been two days! You were pronounced dead! They don't know why or how you came back! They tried everything..." She didn't hold back her tears very well as her anger tapered into exhaustion. "They didn't think you'd wake up and if you would, they couldn't be sure you would... you would be you."
Tony was stunned into silence. He'd been dead? For how long? If they weren't sure he'd wake up again or might have brain damage, it must have been long enough to be problematic. "Pepper I... I don't know what to say. I'm sorry." He held a hand out to her and she reluctantly took it. He worked circles into the palm of her hand with his thumb. "I'm sorry." He repeated and she smiled lightly.
"I forgive you."
Later in the week, he put on the suit and found somehow that the neural connection was instant. The suit reacted immediately, as if it were part of his body. And if he thought hard enough? He could actually reach out to certain wireless devices and communication systems. It was almost surreal, but he kept this all to himself. And JARVIS, of course. He swore the AI to secrecy.