ratherastory (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratherastory) wrote2012-09-13 12:14 pm
ratherastory) wrote2012-09-13 12:14 pm
Entry tags:
Just A Broken Lullaby 4/4
[Master Post]
[Part 3]
"Was it lonely?"
Steve starts a little, realizes his attention wandered without his intending it to. He's sweating a little under the bedclothes, the room kept hotter than he usually likes it, in an attempt to keep the sick kid with him warm enough. Tony hasn't moved, still curled up against his side, one end of the comforter pulled up over his shoulders. The antibiotics that were supposed to be helping to clear up the infection in his appear to have been only a temporary fix, and he's already starting to sicken again, after less than two days of relief.
"Was what lonely?"
"When you were under the ice. Were you lonely?"
He shakes his head. "No, I was—unconscious, I guess. Or in a coma. Something. I didn't know what was happening."
"Were you dead?"
The question makes sense, even if it's not the first time Tony has asked. Any normal human would have died, and Steve still doesn't have a good answer. "I don't know. I guess not. Just frozen. The serum kept me alive, I think, if barely."
"Did you dream?"
"Maybe. I don't remember any of it."
"Are you sure you weren't dead?"
"Tony, why are you asking?"
Tony shrugs and coughs, and Steve can tell by the way the comforter is moving that he's rubbing at the arc reactor again. He reaches under the covers, is startled when he realises how cold Tony's hand is, in spite of the fever. The fingernails are tinged with blue, and Steve forces himself to keep his voice calm.
"How does your chest feel, Tony?"
Another shrug. Now that he's listening for it, he can hear the wheeze and crackle of every breath in Tony's lungs. "I dunno. Like there's something pressing on it."
"I think maybe it's time I took you to see Dr. Richards and Dr. Pym, let them give you some better medication to help you breathe."
"You mean they're going to put me on a ventilator," Tony says quietly, and Steve sighs.
"Not right away, but yeah. It's getting much harder to keep you healthy here, but S.H.I.E.L.D. has a hospital wing that's state of the art. I bet they'll even let you poke around all the equipment if you're feeling up to it. Would you like that?"
"I guess. When do we have to go?"
"Probably today. I don't like the sound of your breathing. I'd like to make sure you're closer to a medical facility than you are right now."
Tony's voice is almost inaudible when he speaks again. "Am I gonna die, Uncle Steve?"
Steve wraps both arms around the narrow shoulders and pulls him closer. "No. No, you're not."
"What if they can't figure out how to put me right?"
"We will."
~*~
The news isn't encouraging. Tony doesn't have enough strength to do much other than lie in the hospital bed at S.H.I.E.L.D. and look very small and very fragile and very scared. Reed gently kicks Steve out the door while he and Hank Pym examine Tony again, at and that's when Steve finds himself all but ambushed by Nick Fury, flanked by Phil Coulson and Clint Barton.
"A word please, Captain?"
It turns out not to be a word, so much as the delivery of depressingly grim news. Steve doesn't bother sitting down as Fury tells him that there’s no evidence that what happened to Tony is in any way based in science—regular science or even the kind of science that made Steve who he is today. Steve is a little startled when Clint chooses to stand next to him, a few inches behind his left shoulder, rather than next to Coulson, who's his handler and mentor, not to mention his friend, but he appreciates it nonetheless. For once, Barton's presence is solid and reassuring, grounding even.
Coulson clears his throat. "We have reason to believe that the squid creatures were magical in origin, and that whatever weapon they were using is therefore at least partly magical. Dr. Richards and Dr. Pym both agree that, whatever form of magic it was, it was somehow altered when it encountered the Iron Man armour, which is why Tony survived rather than being outright drained. Unfortunately, it also means that what we have at our disposal isn't going to be enough to reverse the effects."
Fury picks up where Coulson leaves off. "At this juncture, Thor is our best hope. If he can find the origin of the creatures, or at least identify the magic being used, then we might be able to replicate and then reverse the effects."
"And if he doesn't?" Steve doesn't want to ask, but sometimes there is no choice other than to ask the hard questions.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," is the only answer Fury gives, but it's enough. Steve nods, not trusting himself to speak around the sudden tightness in his throat.
"I should go back, check on Tony," he manages after a moment, and Fury dismisses him with a nod.
"I'll come with you," Clint falls into step next to him, shutting the door to Fury's office behind them. He puts a hand on Steve's bicep, gives his arm a quick squeeze. "How you holding up, Cap?"
"Me? I'm fine. Serum-enhanced super soldier, remember?" Steve forces himself to keep his tone light, but apparently Clint isn't fooled at all.
"That's not what I meant, and you know it. We all know how you feel about Tony."
Steve's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. "What?"
Clint makes a noncommittal gesture. "I'm just saying, you'd probably make a terrible poker player. You don't have to talk to me, but you should talk to someone. Bruce is pretty good at listening, or you could go old school and talk to one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. shrinks."
"I'm fine."
Clint nods. "Sure you are. But, you know, if you're not, there's nothing wrong with that, either. We all like Tony, you know, even if we make a point of not letting him know. We'd never hear the end of it."
He grins at Steve, and Steve can't help but return the smile, though it's tinged with sadness. "I'm beginning to think that maybe we've been wrong about that, the whole time."
Clint's smile fades. "You might have a point."
~*~
Pepper is back by the wee hours of the morning, the jet bringing her back from her meetings as soon as humanly possible, and the whole team spends an uncomfortable few hours at S.H.I.E.L.D. trying to figure out just what to do with themselves while they wait. Of a common accord, everyone takes a turn sitting with Tony to keep him company, but it's Steve who ends up spending the majority of the time in the sparsely furnished room, listening to the beeping of monitors by the bed, watching the increasingly erratic rise and fall of the small chest. Tony spends most of the time asleep or half-asleep, a cannula feeding oxygen into his nose, but even then he reaches seemingly instinctively for Steve's hand. It seems to help, somehow, so Steve keeps his chair right next to the bed and wraps the tiny hand in his own large one until Tony settles with a quiet sigh. Whenever Steve hasn't been around, the others tell him that Tony won't sleep at all, plagued by nightmares and pain, so he stays as much as he possibly can, holding onto the small fingers as though he might be able to bodily anchor Tony in this world.
"The dreams aren't as bad when you're here," Tony tells him, and Steve is pretty sure that at the rate his heart keeps breaking over this boy, Tony will long outlive him.
"Is it still the same dream? The one with the monsters and the light?" he asks, and Tony nods.
"They always come after me with the light rays, and you're far away except I can hear your voice. And then the light gets really bright and everything sort of hurts, and then I fall…"
Steve has to strain to catch the quiet explanation, but suddenly things start to click into place. "Tony, the monsters, did they look like praying mantises? Like really big bugs, maybe?" When Tony nods again, he leans back in his chair, blowing out both cheeks in a sigh that's at once relief and worry. He can't believe it took him this long to figure out that Tony's been having nightmares about the very creatures who did this to him.
Tony clutches at his wrist. "You're not leaving?"
"No, buddy," Steve smooths his hair off his forehead. "I'm not leaving until you fall asleep, I promise. Even then, I won't be far. I just had an idea I need to talk to Dr. Richards about."
"'kay. Don't go yet."
"Promise. You should sleep, buddy. The more you rest, the easier it'll be to get better."
"I'm not tired," comes the petulant reply. It's a blatant lie—Steve can see the deep circles under his eyes—but Tony is clearly fighting going to sleep with every fibre of his being. Then again, if all he has to look forward to are nightmares…
"How about if I read you a story?" Steve offers, only to be met with a headshake. Then inspiration strikes, and he clears his throat. He's never fancied himself much of a singer, but he figures that Tony won't mind if he's a little off-key, and the melody Natasha taught him is simple enough that he won't wreck it completely.
"Sim uznayesh, budit vremya, branoye zhityo; smyelo vdyenish nogy f stremya I vazmyosh ruzhyo…"
After that, it doesn't take much time before Tony succumbs to the pull of sleep again, fingers clasped loosely around Steve's thumb.
At three o'clock in the morning, Tony stops breathing. Steve jolts out of a doze as the monitors begin blaring in alarm to find Tony lying entirely too still on the bed, eyes rolled back in his head, hands limp by his sides. A moment later Steve finds himself being gently pushed aside by Reed Richards, barely recognizable under a surgical mask.
"Let us through, Steve. We have to work."
He finds himself relegated back to the waiting room along with the whole team and Phil Coulson, too, of all people. Steve is a little surprised to see him—he didn't think Coulson particularly liked any of them, apart from Clint and Natasha and, of course, Pepper. Everyone loves Pepper. Even his earlier hero-worship of Captain America had luckily has faded considerably over the past few days. Spending this much time in each other's direct company seems to have put a lot of things into perspective, for which Steve is grateful.
They're all here together for the first time in days. Clint and Natasha are seated next to each other, his arm around her shoulders, and she favours Steve with another of those small, controlled smiles. Bruce is sitting upright in his chair, eyes closed, apparently focused on his breathing, but Pepper is holding on tightly to one of his hands, their fingers laces together. Out of all of them, Bruce is probably the closest to the adult Tony, the one who understands him best, or at least who understands the scientific aspect of his mind. With a pang of guilt Steve realises that, in all this, he was so focused on Tony that he forgot his duty to the rest of his team, to make sure that they were all holding up under the strain. When this is over, he tells himself, he'll make it up to them.
The only member of their team missing is Thor, Steve thinks with a small twinge of sadness that's gone almost as quickly as it came as a familiar silhouette appears in the doorway to the waiting room. Steve springs to his feet.
"You're back!" he can't help the grin of relief that spreads over his features at the sight of his friend. "Did you… were you able to find something?"
Thor claps him on the shoulder. "Do not worry yourself," he says, his tone unusually subdued. "I must confer with your doctors about Tony, but I believe I may have found something that could be of assistance in healing him."
It's only then that he remembers his earlier revelation. "Damn it, I forgot… I need to come with you, to talk to Hank and Reed, when they're done."
Thor nods toward the door to Tony's room. "Your wish is about to be granted. They appear to be approaching now."
Hank Pym is talking in low, urgent tones to Reed as they come out of the room, but he stops short when he sees both Steve and Thor waiting for them. Reed appears to figure it out first, though.
"You have something?" he asks, and Steve and Thor nod simultaneously.
Immediately Bruce is out of his chair, coming to stand by Steve's side. "What can I do to help?"
"Come with me."
He leads the way down the long corridors to the lab that he and Hank have been using to run their tests, gestures them toward chairs, only to have the offer ignored. He shrugs, turns to Thor.
"We'd better start with you. You were able to find something?"
"Aye, though it was not much," Thor admits. "I was able to identify the source of the creatures' magic, and bring back a similar kind of energy, thanks to the Allfather. I took the precaution of having it delivered directly here, for study, should you need it."
Reed rubs a hand over his face. "Well, it's a start. We've already figured out that the rays acted like a power drain of some kind. They didn't just kill by brute force, but rather by draining life force. If it's magical, though…"
"I've been thinking about that, actually," Steve breaks in. "I… Tony's been having nightmares. About the creatures that came through the porthole. I think they're not just nightmares, I think he might be reliving what happened to him without really knowing what it means. He said there was a light, and that it felt like he was being electrocuted."
Both Pym and Richards are staring at him as though he's the second coming. "That's… very interesting," Hank says finally.
"The suit is biotech, right?" Steve presses on. "So maybe the combined biotech of the suit and those—bug things—maybe it all interacted in a way it wasn't supposed to? I'm out of my depth, here, but…"
"No, no, I think you're onto something," Hank is already scribbling notes on a pad of paper. "If we assume the energy drain was only meant for contact with living flesh, having it interact with the Iron Man suit… Maybe we can reverse the process. Reed?"
Richards nods. "Give us some time. Bruce, we could use an assist on this, if you're up to it."
"Of course." Bruce steps up, then looks back at Steve. "You should go be with Tony. Both of you," he adds. "I'll make sure you're kept in the loop."
"Okay, thank you."
Steve backs out of the room, and practically sprints the short distance back to Tony's bedside.
~*~
The plan, when it's laid out, sounds deceptively simple. The theory, as Reed explains, is that since the magic was disrupted by having to go through the Iron Man armour, then in order to reverse the effects all they have to do is route the new energy brought back by Thor through the armour as well.
Super-soldier serum or not, Steve is pretty sure his knees are about to give out. It doesn't help that all he can see is Tony, looking tiny and vulnerable under what looks like a half-ton of medical equipment, a plastic tube in his throat the only thing keeping him breathing. Pepper, Clint, Natasha and Thor have been banished from the room, along with Coulson and all other 'non-essential' personnel, including Bruce (perhaps especially Bruce, under the circumstances), but no one has so much as suggested that Steve shouldn't be here. He exhales shakily, takes a few careful steps backward in order to sink into a chair, scrubbing at his face with both hands. Bruce squeezes his shoulder reassuringly.
"They know what they're doing. They would have had to intubate Tony anyway, for what they need to do. His body's too weak to handle it otherwise. It'll be okay, Steve."
Steve clasps his hands between his knees in a futile attempt to keep them from shaking. "I hope to God you're right."
"Really, we only need the breastplate," Reed is saying, apparently oblivious to Steve's little anxiety attack. "It's powered by the arc reactor, and that's the center of it all. The reactor itself is fine, which under the circumstances is something of a minor miracle, but it works to our advantage."
Steve nods. He's actually kind of grateful that they're not trying to explain it to him in detail. It would go over his head, and he already thinks he might be losing his mind with worry. "Is he awake? Does he know what's happening?"
"No," Reed shakes his head. "We're keeping him sedated, now that the vent's in place. It's hard even for adults to be on a ventilator, and I don't want to risk him fighting the vent or getting panicky. This is giving his body a chance to rest, to not have to struggle for every breath. He'll need every chance we can give him, if we want this to work."
"Can—can I be there? If I won't be in the way, I mean. I just—having a familiar face there, I think it could help, in case he wakes up." What he really means is that he can't bear the thought of leaving Tony's side, let alone the room, but luckily Reed is too preoccupied with his work to pay any attention whatsoever to Steve's dubious motivations.
"Oh, sure. You won't be in the way, we're just rigging up the armour's breastplate and letting the technology do its thing. You won't be able to touch him, though, not during the treatment. We don't know how it might affect you, after all."
"Right."
They spend an inordinate amount of time scrubbing down in preparation for the treatment. It won't be anything like surgery, but Reed doesn't want to take any chances, and Steve trusts him with this. They've fitted the breastplate of the armour right over Tony's bed to connect it to the arc reactor, and it looks ridiculous and ungainly and huge, settled as it is over Tony's thin frame, dwarfing him. Tony looks exactly the way he did when Steve left him, skin so pale it seems translucent, a blue plastic tube taped in place and snaking into his mouth, small chest rising and falling in time with the click-whoosh of the ventilator.
"What's going to happen?" he asks, taking up his old spot by the bed and taking Tony's cold hand in his.
"Honestly, I don't know," Reed admits. "We're going to feed the energy back through the breastplate, and that should reverse the effects. But I don't know if it's going to be instantaneous or gradual, or if it'll even work at. Frankly, we're going at this mostly blind, which is not a way I enjoy working, but in this case we have very little choice. Tony's just not strong enough to last long enough for us to run all the possible simulations, so I'll have to go with an educated guess."
"An educated guess from you is better than years' worth of research from just about every other doctor and scientist."
"That's what I'm banking on," Reed says grimly, then turns away briskly to where Hank Pym is setting up some sort of equipment that Steve can't even begin to identify.
There's a quiet moan from the bed, and when Steve turns back he's astonished to see that Tony's eyes are open, his fingers tightening ever so slightly around Steve's thumb. Steve forces himself to smile.
"Hey, you're awake," he manages, and feels his smile falter when a tear slides down Tony's face and into his hair. "Hey, hey, it's okay. It's okay, Tony," he reaches up with his free hand to stroke his hair. "I know it's scary, but we're going to fix this, okay? The tube is just there to help you breathe. You hang onto my hand, okay? Just like that," he says encouragingly, hoping his own terror isn't as apparent. "You hang on, and this'll be over before you know it," he promises rashly. "Close your eyes, okay Tony?"
Tony does as he's told, tightening his grip on Steve's thumb, but he's shivering slightly, obviously terrified out of his mind. Steve strokes the back of his hand, wishes there was something, anything he could do to make this less terrible. He can only think of one thing that's worked so far, so he swallows, wills his throat to stay open, and starts singing again, loud enough to be heard over the ventilator. The effect is almost instantaneous. The shivering stops, and Tony relaxes under his touch.
"There you go," he says, keeping his tone reassuring. "You're doing so well. Just hang in there, Tony."
He doesn't look up as a loud electrical hum starts up in the corner of the room where Reed and Hank are working feverishly, just keeps singing quietly, willing Tony to stay calm, even as he feels the air in the room begin to crackle with power. The arc reactor is glowing even more brightly than usual, pulsing in time with the equipment, and only at the last minute does he remember to let go of the boy's hand. Steve stops singing when the noise gets too loud, and abruptly has to slam his eyes shut as a blinding light fills the whole room with a sound like a clap of thunder. There's another crash, and Steve is thrown backward, head snapping back to crack painfully against the far wall, and everything goes dark.
He's not sure how long he's out, but he figures it can't be more than a few minutes. The room is a shambles, broken equipment scattered over the floor along with overturned tables, shattered glass gleaming on the linoleum. Gingerly Steve picks himself up, sees Reed and Hank slumped in the opposite corner of the room. When he's satisfied that they're both beginning to stir on their own, he turns his attention to the bed.
Tony is sitting up, fully-grown again and looking more than a little bemused. . The ventilator tube is long gone, as is the pajama top he was wearing, leaving only the familiar blue glow of the arc reactor in the middle of his chest. He coughs once, looks around at the debris surrounding him, his mind obviously working overtime to take in and parse what he's seeing. When he opens his mouth to speak, his voice cracks painfully.
"What the hell?"
It takes all of Steve's self-control not to throw himself at him and fling both arms around his neck.
~*~
Disappointingly, the fix doesn't turn out to have a miracle cure thrown into the mix. By the time the worst of the mess is cleared away and everyone has been brought up to speed, Tony is looking exhausted, lying back with his eyes at half-mast, coughing painfully. Grown again or not, the lung infection that brought them all here is still firmly entrenched, and he's hooked up to a new oxygen tank more appropriate for a man his size. Still, he manages a weak smile in Steve's direction, once they're alone.
"So how much blackmail material does Barton have on me? I should call Pepper, see if she's still talking to me, and start her on the non-disclosure paperwork…"
Steve smiles. "Clint has a fair bit, but not nearly as much as I've got. You really don't remember any of it?"
Tony makes a pained face. "Et tu, Cap? I thought you were a pillar of moral rectitude. And I remember some of it. It keeps coming back in bits and snatches, and it's all mixed up."
"I am a pillar of rectitude," he confirms. "But even a man with the most moral fortitude would be hard-put to resist the lure of taking a photo of mini-you in Captain America footie pajamas."
"Oh, God. I'm never going to live this down, am I?" Tony breaks off, coughing painfully until Steve holds up a cup of water with a straw for him. "At least I know you won't release the pictures to the public," he says. He doesn't acknowledge the gesture, but the look he casts Steve is grateful. "I'll just threaten to rig the toaster to explode if Barton tries anything."
"Please don't. I think Coulson might just have an aneurysm if you rig anything else to explode. And no, Tony, that's not meant as encouragement," he adds quickly, then stops when he sees Tony's expression flicker. "What?"
To his surprise, Tony's lips quirk up into a small smile. "That's the first time you've ever called me by my first name."
"Is it?" Steve is honestly a little shocked by that. He's been calling Tony by his first name for days without thinking about it, after all. He hadn't realised how formal he'd kept their relationship, up until recently. "Oh. I…"
"Don't worry about it. I figured you wanted to keep it professional. Genius here, after all, I can read between the lines. Just because we work together doesn't mean we have to be friends."
It's hard not to remember that, a few hours ago, this was the little boy who wanted nothing more to be exactly like Captain America. "Of course we're friends. I'm sorry if I haven't been acting like one," Steve manages.
"Oh, you mean like by sticking around the entire time I was whammied, keeping me out of trouble, and helping to cure me? No, not acting like a friend at all," Tony rolls his eyes. "And yes, that was my convoluted way of saying, you know," he makes a vague circular motion with one hand, "thank you. For all of it."
"You don't have to thank me for that. Not ever. I would do it over again every single time."
Tony looks away at that, and Steve figures he shouldn't be surprised about that. It's not like either of them are any good at this sort of thing, anyway. Tony's fading fast, what little energy he had left draining from him, so Steve decides to let him off the hook, for now at least.
"Get some sleep, Tony."
Tony snorts derisively. "Sleeping sucks. I just want to know when I can get out of here, already."
"Not for a while yet, and the more you resist sleeping and eating properly, the longer it'll take," Steve keeps his voice stern, fighting back the smile that keeps trying to creep over his face. "Seriously, if you can't sleep, I can ask the doctors to give you something to help…" he offers, only to have Tony shake his head.
"Got enough drugs being pumped into me as it is. Maybe…" he starts, then gives another shake of his head. "No, never mind."
"What?"
"It's stupid, forget it."
Steve isn't one to get flashes of intuition—he tends to leave those to Tony and Natasha and sometimes Bruce—but this time he thinks he understands. Tony as a child didn't like sleeping much either, and there was really only one thing that worked.
"I won't tell anyone if you don't," he half-jokes, but the look Tony turns on him is deadly earnest and, Steve thinks, a little sad. He doesn't say anything, though, so Steve just clears his throat, hoping he's read him correctly.
"Spi mladyenets, moi prekrasný, bayushki bayu; tikho smotrit myesyats yasný f kolýbyel tvayu. Stanu skazývat' ya skazki, pyesenki spayu; tý-zh dremli, zakrývshi glazki, bayushki bayu."
He closes his eyes, trying to remember the words of the unfamiliar language, until the words trip along his tongue as though they've always been there.
"Dam tibye ya na darogu obrazok svyatoi; tý yevo, molyasya bogu, stav pyered saboi. Da, gotovyas v boi apasný, pomni mat' svayu; spi mladyenets, moi prekrasný, bayushki bayu."
When he opens his eyes again, Tony is asleep, one hand stretched out just far enough to rest on top of Steve's own. And if Steve doesn't move at all from where he's sitting, he tells himself it's just because he doesn't want to risk waking him, nothing more. He settles slightly more comfortably in his chair, and decides simply to enjoy the warm feeling it gives him, deep in his chest. Whatever this is, it can at least wait until morning.
~END~
[Part 3]
"Was it lonely?"
Steve starts a little, realizes his attention wandered without his intending it to. He's sweating a little under the bedclothes, the room kept hotter than he usually likes it, in an attempt to keep the sick kid with him warm enough. Tony hasn't moved, still curled up against his side, one end of the comforter pulled up over his shoulders. The antibiotics that were supposed to be helping to clear up the infection in his appear to have been only a temporary fix, and he's already starting to sicken again, after less than two days of relief.
"Was what lonely?"
"When you were under the ice. Were you lonely?"
He shakes his head. "No, I was—unconscious, I guess. Or in a coma. Something. I didn't know what was happening."
"Were you dead?"
The question makes sense, even if it's not the first time Tony has asked. Any normal human would have died, and Steve still doesn't have a good answer. "I don't know. I guess not. Just frozen. The serum kept me alive, I think, if barely."
"Did you dream?"
"Maybe. I don't remember any of it."
"Are you sure you weren't dead?"
"Tony, why are you asking?"
Tony shrugs and coughs, and Steve can tell by the way the comforter is moving that he's rubbing at the arc reactor again. He reaches under the covers, is startled when he realises how cold Tony's hand is, in spite of the fever. The fingernails are tinged with blue, and Steve forces himself to keep his voice calm.
"How does your chest feel, Tony?"
Another shrug. Now that he's listening for it, he can hear the wheeze and crackle of every breath in Tony's lungs. "I dunno. Like there's something pressing on it."
"I think maybe it's time I took you to see Dr. Richards and Dr. Pym, let them give you some better medication to help you breathe."
"You mean they're going to put me on a ventilator," Tony says quietly, and Steve sighs.
"Not right away, but yeah. It's getting much harder to keep you healthy here, but S.H.I.E.L.D. has a hospital wing that's state of the art. I bet they'll even let you poke around all the equipment if you're feeling up to it. Would you like that?"
"I guess. When do we have to go?"
"Probably today. I don't like the sound of your breathing. I'd like to make sure you're closer to a medical facility than you are right now."
Tony's voice is almost inaudible when he speaks again. "Am I gonna die, Uncle Steve?"
Steve wraps both arms around the narrow shoulders and pulls him closer. "No. No, you're not."
"What if they can't figure out how to put me right?"
"We will."
~*~
The news isn't encouraging. Tony doesn't have enough strength to do much other than lie in the hospital bed at S.H.I.E.L.D. and look very small and very fragile and very scared. Reed gently kicks Steve out the door while he and Hank Pym examine Tony again, at and that's when Steve finds himself all but ambushed by Nick Fury, flanked by Phil Coulson and Clint Barton.
"A word please, Captain?"
It turns out not to be a word, so much as the delivery of depressingly grim news. Steve doesn't bother sitting down as Fury tells him that there’s no evidence that what happened to Tony is in any way based in science—regular science or even the kind of science that made Steve who he is today. Steve is a little startled when Clint chooses to stand next to him, a few inches behind his left shoulder, rather than next to Coulson, who's his handler and mentor, not to mention his friend, but he appreciates it nonetheless. For once, Barton's presence is solid and reassuring, grounding even.
Coulson clears his throat. "We have reason to believe that the squid creatures were magical in origin, and that whatever weapon they were using is therefore at least partly magical. Dr. Richards and Dr. Pym both agree that, whatever form of magic it was, it was somehow altered when it encountered the Iron Man armour, which is why Tony survived rather than being outright drained. Unfortunately, it also means that what we have at our disposal isn't going to be enough to reverse the effects."
Fury picks up where Coulson leaves off. "At this juncture, Thor is our best hope. If he can find the origin of the creatures, or at least identify the magic being used, then we might be able to replicate and then reverse the effects."
"And if he doesn't?" Steve doesn't want to ask, but sometimes there is no choice other than to ask the hard questions.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," is the only answer Fury gives, but it's enough. Steve nods, not trusting himself to speak around the sudden tightness in his throat.
"I should go back, check on Tony," he manages after a moment, and Fury dismisses him with a nod.
"I'll come with you," Clint falls into step next to him, shutting the door to Fury's office behind them. He puts a hand on Steve's bicep, gives his arm a quick squeeze. "How you holding up, Cap?"
"Me? I'm fine. Serum-enhanced super soldier, remember?" Steve forces himself to keep his tone light, but apparently Clint isn't fooled at all.
"That's not what I meant, and you know it. We all know how you feel about Tony."
Steve's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. "What?"
Clint makes a noncommittal gesture. "I'm just saying, you'd probably make a terrible poker player. You don't have to talk to me, but you should talk to someone. Bruce is pretty good at listening, or you could go old school and talk to one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. shrinks."
"I'm fine."
Clint nods. "Sure you are. But, you know, if you're not, there's nothing wrong with that, either. We all like Tony, you know, even if we make a point of not letting him know. We'd never hear the end of it."
He grins at Steve, and Steve can't help but return the smile, though it's tinged with sadness. "I'm beginning to think that maybe we've been wrong about that, the whole time."
Clint's smile fades. "You might have a point."
~*~
Pepper is back by the wee hours of the morning, the jet bringing her back from her meetings as soon as humanly possible, and the whole team spends an uncomfortable few hours at S.H.I.E.L.D. trying to figure out just what to do with themselves while they wait. Of a common accord, everyone takes a turn sitting with Tony to keep him company, but it's Steve who ends up spending the majority of the time in the sparsely furnished room, listening to the beeping of monitors by the bed, watching the increasingly erratic rise and fall of the small chest. Tony spends most of the time asleep or half-asleep, a cannula feeding oxygen into his nose, but even then he reaches seemingly instinctively for Steve's hand. It seems to help, somehow, so Steve keeps his chair right next to the bed and wraps the tiny hand in his own large one until Tony settles with a quiet sigh. Whenever Steve hasn't been around, the others tell him that Tony won't sleep at all, plagued by nightmares and pain, so he stays as much as he possibly can, holding onto the small fingers as though he might be able to bodily anchor Tony in this world.
"The dreams aren't as bad when you're here," Tony tells him, and Steve is pretty sure that at the rate his heart keeps breaking over this boy, Tony will long outlive him.
"Is it still the same dream? The one with the monsters and the light?" he asks, and Tony nods.
"They always come after me with the light rays, and you're far away except I can hear your voice. And then the light gets really bright and everything sort of hurts, and then I fall…"
Steve has to strain to catch the quiet explanation, but suddenly things start to click into place. "Tony, the monsters, did they look like praying mantises? Like really big bugs, maybe?" When Tony nods again, he leans back in his chair, blowing out both cheeks in a sigh that's at once relief and worry. He can't believe it took him this long to figure out that Tony's been having nightmares about the very creatures who did this to him.
Tony clutches at his wrist. "You're not leaving?"
"No, buddy," Steve smooths his hair off his forehead. "I'm not leaving until you fall asleep, I promise. Even then, I won't be far. I just had an idea I need to talk to Dr. Richards about."
"'kay. Don't go yet."
"Promise. You should sleep, buddy. The more you rest, the easier it'll be to get better."
"I'm not tired," comes the petulant reply. It's a blatant lie—Steve can see the deep circles under his eyes—but Tony is clearly fighting going to sleep with every fibre of his being. Then again, if all he has to look forward to are nightmares…
"How about if I read you a story?" Steve offers, only to be met with a headshake. Then inspiration strikes, and he clears his throat. He's never fancied himself much of a singer, but he figures that Tony won't mind if he's a little off-key, and the melody Natasha taught him is simple enough that he won't wreck it completely.
"Sim uznayesh, budit vremya, branoye zhityo; smyelo vdyenish nogy f stremya I vazmyosh ruzhyo…"
After that, it doesn't take much time before Tony succumbs to the pull of sleep again, fingers clasped loosely around Steve's thumb.
At three o'clock in the morning, Tony stops breathing. Steve jolts out of a doze as the monitors begin blaring in alarm to find Tony lying entirely too still on the bed, eyes rolled back in his head, hands limp by his sides. A moment later Steve finds himself being gently pushed aside by Reed Richards, barely recognizable under a surgical mask.
"Let us through, Steve. We have to work."
He finds himself relegated back to the waiting room along with the whole team and Phil Coulson, too, of all people. Steve is a little surprised to see him—he didn't think Coulson particularly liked any of them, apart from Clint and Natasha and, of course, Pepper. Everyone loves Pepper. Even his earlier hero-worship of Captain America had luckily has faded considerably over the past few days. Spending this much time in each other's direct company seems to have put a lot of things into perspective, for which Steve is grateful.
They're all here together for the first time in days. Clint and Natasha are seated next to each other, his arm around her shoulders, and she favours Steve with another of those small, controlled smiles. Bruce is sitting upright in his chair, eyes closed, apparently focused on his breathing, but Pepper is holding on tightly to one of his hands, their fingers laces together. Out of all of them, Bruce is probably the closest to the adult Tony, the one who understands him best, or at least who understands the scientific aspect of his mind. With a pang of guilt Steve realises that, in all this, he was so focused on Tony that he forgot his duty to the rest of his team, to make sure that they were all holding up under the strain. When this is over, he tells himself, he'll make it up to them.
The only member of their team missing is Thor, Steve thinks with a small twinge of sadness that's gone almost as quickly as it came as a familiar silhouette appears in the doorway to the waiting room. Steve springs to his feet.
"You're back!" he can't help the grin of relief that spreads over his features at the sight of his friend. "Did you… were you able to find something?"
Thor claps him on the shoulder. "Do not worry yourself," he says, his tone unusually subdued. "I must confer with your doctors about Tony, but I believe I may have found something that could be of assistance in healing him."
It's only then that he remembers his earlier revelation. "Damn it, I forgot… I need to come with you, to talk to Hank and Reed, when they're done."
Thor nods toward the door to Tony's room. "Your wish is about to be granted. They appear to be approaching now."
Hank Pym is talking in low, urgent tones to Reed as they come out of the room, but he stops short when he sees both Steve and Thor waiting for them. Reed appears to figure it out first, though.
"You have something?" he asks, and Steve and Thor nod simultaneously.
Immediately Bruce is out of his chair, coming to stand by Steve's side. "What can I do to help?"
"Come with me."
He leads the way down the long corridors to the lab that he and Hank have been using to run their tests, gestures them toward chairs, only to have the offer ignored. He shrugs, turns to Thor.
"We'd better start with you. You were able to find something?"
"Aye, though it was not much," Thor admits. "I was able to identify the source of the creatures' magic, and bring back a similar kind of energy, thanks to the Allfather. I took the precaution of having it delivered directly here, for study, should you need it."
Reed rubs a hand over his face. "Well, it's a start. We've already figured out that the rays acted like a power drain of some kind. They didn't just kill by brute force, but rather by draining life force. If it's magical, though…"
"I've been thinking about that, actually," Steve breaks in. "I… Tony's been having nightmares. About the creatures that came through the porthole. I think they're not just nightmares, I think he might be reliving what happened to him without really knowing what it means. He said there was a light, and that it felt like he was being electrocuted."
Both Pym and Richards are staring at him as though he's the second coming. "That's… very interesting," Hank says finally.
"The suit is biotech, right?" Steve presses on. "So maybe the combined biotech of the suit and those—bug things—maybe it all interacted in a way it wasn't supposed to? I'm out of my depth, here, but…"
"No, no, I think you're onto something," Hank is already scribbling notes on a pad of paper. "If we assume the energy drain was only meant for contact with living flesh, having it interact with the Iron Man suit… Maybe we can reverse the process. Reed?"
Richards nods. "Give us some time. Bruce, we could use an assist on this, if you're up to it."
"Of course." Bruce steps up, then looks back at Steve. "You should go be with Tony. Both of you," he adds. "I'll make sure you're kept in the loop."
"Okay, thank you."
Steve backs out of the room, and practically sprints the short distance back to Tony's bedside.
~*~
The plan, when it's laid out, sounds deceptively simple. The theory, as Reed explains, is that since the magic was disrupted by having to go through the Iron Man armour, then in order to reverse the effects all they have to do is route the new energy brought back by Thor through the armour as well.
Super-soldier serum or not, Steve is pretty sure his knees are about to give out. It doesn't help that all he can see is Tony, looking tiny and vulnerable under what looks like a half-ton of medical equipment, a plastic tube in his throat the only thing keeping him breathing. Pepper, Clint, Natasha and Thor have been banished from the room, along with Coulson and all other 'non-essential' personnel, including Bruce (perhaps especially Bruce, under the circumstances), but no one has so much as suggested that Steve shouldn't be here. He exhales shakily, takes a few careful steps backward in order to sink into a chair, scrubbing at his face with both hands. Bruce squeezes his shoulder reassuringly.
"They know what they're doing. They would have had to intubate Tony anyway, for what they need to do. His body's too weak to handle it otherwise. It'll be okay, Steve."
Steve clasps his hands between his knees in a futile attempt to keep them from shaking. "I hope to God you're right."
"Really, we only need the breastplate," Reed is saying, apparently oblivious to Steve's little anxiety attack. "It's powered by the arc reactor, and that's the center of it all. The reactor itself is fine, which under the circumstances is something of a minor miracle, but it works to our advantage."
Steve nods. He's actually kind of grateful that they're not trying to explain it to him in detail. It would go over his head, and he already thinks he might be losing his mind with worry. "Is he awake? Does he know what's happening?"
"No," Reed shakes his head. "We're keeping him sedated, now that the vent's in place. It's hard even for adults to be on a ventilator, and I don't want to risk him fighting the vent or getting panicky. This is giving his body a chance to rest, to not have to struggle for every breath. He'll need every chance we can give him, if we want this to work."
"Can—can I be there? If I won't be in the way, I mean. I just—having a familiar face there, I think it could help, in case he wakes up." What he really means is that he can't bear the thought of leaving Tony's side, let alone the room, but luckily Reed is too preoccupied with his work to pay any attention whatsoever to Steve's dubious motivations.
"Oh, sure. You won't be in the way, we're just rigging up the armour's breastplate and letting the technology do its thing. You won't be able to touch him, though, not during the treatment. We don't know how it might affect you, after all."
"Right."
They spend an inordinate amount of time scrubbing down in preparation for the treatment. It won't be anything like surgery, but Reed doesn't want to take any chances, and Steve trusts him with this. They've fitted the breastplate of the armour right over Tony's bed to connect it to the arc reactor, and it looks ridiculous and ungainly and huge, settled as it is over Tony's thin frame, dwarfing him. Tony looks exactly the way he did when Steve left him, skin so pale it seems translucent, a blue plastic tube taped in place and snaking into his mouth, small chest rising and falling in time with the click-whoosh of the ventilator.
"What's going to happen?" he asks, taking up his old spot by the bed and taking Tony's cold hand in his.
"Honestly, I don't know," Reed admits. "We're going to feed the energy back through the breastplate, and that should reverse the effects. But I don't know if it's going to be instantaneous or gradual, or if it'll even work at. Frankly, we're going at this mostly blind, which is not a way I enjoy working, but in this case we have very little choice. Tony's just not strong enough to last long enough for us to run all the possible simulations, so I'll have to go with an educated guess."
"An educated guess from you is better than years' worth of research from just about every other doctor and scientist."
"That's what I'm banking on," Reed says grimly, then turns away briskly to where Hank Pym is setting up some sort of equipment that Steve can't even begin to identify.
There's a quiet moan from the bed, and when Steve turns back he's astonished to see that Tony's eyes are open, his fingers tightening ever so slightly around Steve's thumb. Steve forces himself to smile.
"Hey, you're awake," he manages, and feels his smile falter when a tear slides down Tony's face and into his hair. "Hey, hey, it's okay. It's okay, Tony," he reaches up with his free hand to stroke his hair. "I know it's scary, but we're going to fix this, okay? The tube is just there to help you breathe. You hang onto my hand, okay? Just like that," he says encouragingly, hoping his own terror isn't as apparent. "You hang on, and this'll be over before you know it," he promises rashly. "Close your eyes, okay Tony?"
Tony does as he's told, tightening his grip on Steve's thumb, but he's shivering slightly, obviously terrified out of his mind. Steve strokes the back of his hand, wishes there was something, anything he could do to make this less terrible. He can only think of one thing that's worked so far, so he swallows, wills his throat to stay open, and starts singing again, loud enough to be heard over the ventilator. The effect is almost instantaneous. The shivering stops, and Tony relaxes under his touch.
"There you go," he says, keeping his tone reassuring. "You're doing so well. Just hang in there, Tony."
He doesn't look up as a loud electrical hum starts up in the corner of the room where Reed and Hank are working feverishly, just keeps singing quietly, willing Tony to stay calm, even as he feels the air in the room begin to crackle with power. The arc reactor is glowing even more brightly than usual, pulsing in time with the equipment, and only at the last minute does he remember to let go of the boy's hand. Steve stops singing when the noise gets too loud, and abruptly has to slam his eyes shut as a blinding light fills the whole room with a sound like a clap of thunder. There's another crash, and Steve is thrown backward, head snapping back to crack painfully against the far wall, and everything goes dark.
He's not sure how long he's out, but he figures it can't be more than a few minutes. The room is a shambles, broken equipment scattered over the floor along with overturned tables, shattered glass gleaming on the linoleum. Gingerly Steve picks himself up, sees Reed and Hank slumped in the opposite corner of the room. When he's satisfied that they're both beginning to stir on their own, he turns his attention to the bed.
Tony is sitting up, fully-grown again and looking more than a little bemused. . The ventilator tube is long gone, as is the pajama top he was wearing, leaving only the familiar blue glow of the arc reactor in the middle of his chest. He coughs once, looks around at the debris surrounding him, his mind obviously working overtime to take in and parse what he's seeing. When he opens his mouth to speak, his voice cracks painfully.
"What the hell?"
It takes all of Steve's self-control not to throw himself at him and fling both arms around his neck.
~*~
Disappointingly, the fix doesn't turn out to have a miracle cure thrown into the mix. By the time the worst of the mess is cleared away and everyone has been brought up to speed, Tony is looking exhausted, lying back with his eyes at half-mast, coughing painfully. Grown again or not, the lung infection that brought them all here is still firmly entrenched, and he's hooked up to a new oxygen tank more appropriate for a man his size. Still, he manages a weak smile in Steve's direction, once they're alone.
"So how much blackmail material does Barton have on me? I should call Pepper, see if she's still talking to me, and start her on the non-disclosure paperwork…"
Steve smiles. "Clint has a fair bit, but not nearly as much as I've got. You really don't remember any of it?"
Tony makes a pained face. "Et tu, Cap? I thought you were a pillar of moral rectitude. And I remember some of it. It keeps coming back in bits and snatches, and it's all mixed up."
"I am a pillar of rectitude," he confirms. "But even a man with the most moral fortitude would be hard-put to resist the lure of taking a photo of mini-you in Captain America footie pajamas."
"Oh, God. I'm never going to live this down, am I?" Tony breaks off, coughing painfully until Steve holds up a cup of water with a straw for him. "At least I know you won't release the pictures to the public," he says. He doesn't acknowledge the gesture, but the look he casts Steve is grateful. "I'll just threaten to rig the toaster to explode if Barton tries anything."
"Please don't. I think Coulson might just have an aneurysm if you rig anything else to explode. And no, Tony, that's not meant as encouragement," he adds quickly, then stops when he sees Tony's expression flicker. "What?"
To his surprise, Tony's lips quirk up into a small smile. "That's the first time you've ever called me by my first name."
"Is it?" Steve is honestly a little shocked by that. He's been calling Tony by his first name for days without thinking about it, after all. He hadn't realised how formal he'd kept their relationship, up until recently. "Oh. I…"
"Don't worry about it. I figured you wanted to keep it professional. Genius here, after all, I can read between the lines. Just because we work together doesn't mean we have to be friends."
It's hard not to remember that, a few hours ago, this was the little boy who wanted nothing more to be exactly like Captain America. "Of course we're friends. I'm sorry if I haven't been acting like one," Steve manages.
"Oh, you mean like by sticking around the entire time I was whammied, keeping me out of trouble, and helping to cure me? No, not acting like a friend at all," Tony rolls his eyes. "And yes, that was my convoluted way of saying, you know," he makes a vague circular motion with one hand, "thank you. For all of it."
"You don't have to thank me for that. Not ever. I would do it over again every single time."
Tony looks away at that, and Steve figures he shouldn't be surprised about that. It's not like either of them are any good at this sort of thing, anyway. Tony's fading fast, what little energy he had left draining from him, so Steve decides to let him off the hook, for now at least.
"Get some sleep, Tony."
Tony snorts derisively. "Sleeping sucks. I just want to know when I can get out of here, already."
"Not for a while yet, and the more you resist sleeping and eating properly, the longer it'll take," Steve keeps his voice stern, fighting back the smile that keeps trying to creep over his face. "Seriously, if you can't sleep, I can ask the doctors to give you something to help…" he offers, only to have Tony shake his head.
"Got enough drugs being pumped into me as it is. Maybe…" he starts, then gives another shake of his head. "No, never mind."
"What?"
"It's stupid, forget it."
Steve isn't one to get flashes of intuition—he tends to leave those to Tony and Natasha and sometimes Bruce—but this time he thinks he understands. Tony as a child didn't like sleeping much either, and there was really only one thing that worked.
"I won't tell anyone if you don't," he half-jokes, but the look Tony turns on him is deadly earnest and, Steve thinks, a little sad. He doesn't say anything, though, so Steve just clears his throat, hoping he's read him correctly.
"Spi mladyenets, moi prekrasný, bayushki bayu; tikho smotrit myesyats yasný f kolýbyel tvayu. Stanu skazývat' ya skazki, pyesenki spayu; tý-zh dremli, zakrývshi glazki, bayushki bayu."
He closes his eyes, trying to remember the words of the unfamiliar language, until the words trip along his tongue as though they've always been there.
"Dam tibye ya na darogu obrazok svyatoi; tý yevo, molyasya bogu, stav pyered saboi. Da, gotovyas v boi apasný, pomni mat' svayu; spi mladyenets, moi prekrasný, bayushki bayu."
When he opens his eyes again, Tony is asleep, one hand stretched out just far enough to rest on top of Steve's own. And if Steve doesn't move at all from where he's sitting, he tells himself it's just because he doesn't want to risk waking him, nothing more. He settles slightly more comfortably in his chair, and decides simply to enjoy the warm feeling it gives him, deep in his chest. Whatever this is, it can at least wait until morning.
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