Secret Santa for sapphiremint (Avengers, Tony)

[VividBubbles!]

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, @sapphiremint!!

So yeah, I may have cut it close to the deadline. Whoops. When I first signed up, I thought that I'd have a bunch of free time to work on this but I totally forgot about college applications! So this is what I could come up with while in between writing college admission essays. I HOPE THAT YOU LIKE IT!!!

***

“Sir, should I alert the Captain?”

Tony stares down at the watch on his wrist which, among many other things, monitors his vitals. He glares at the the reading on the screen.

Temperature: 100.6°F

“No, JARVIS. I’m fine. It’s just a slight fever.”

“Sir, my systems also detect an elevated level of congestion, a decrease in appetite, fatigue—”

“JARVIS!” Tony snaps. "I said I’m fine. Do not alert Rogers or any of the other Avengers. Am I clear?”

“Yes.”

Tony sighs, turning back to his tablet to finalize the design he’s been working on. He can hear the indignation in JARVIS’ voice at being snapped at. Sometimes he wishes that he hadn’t made the AI so lifelike. He hates feeling guilty.

Head cradled in his left hand, staring down at his tablet as his fingers glide across its smooth surface, this is how Tony falls asleep.

***

“Iron Man, status report!”

Steve Rogers just barely has time to bark the command into his comm before he gets distracted once more. He raises his shield to defend his face, blocking the blast that would have taken off his head.

Another alien race had invaded New York, this time touching down in Brooklyn (which Steve had taken personal offence to), before trying to fan off into different areas of the city, chaos seeming like their only objective. The Avengers had been assembled immediately (well, all except one) and had begun herding the creatures back toward one another as to limit the damage radius of the invasion.

Fighting the aliens wasn't particularly difficult work. The Avengers had dealt with invasions before and these things didn't have the weapons or the numbers of some of their previous encounters. However, the issue was that they had touched down in Brooklyn, the most populated area in all of New York. Steve and the other Avengers had made sure to limit the casualties, but without the Hulk, who would likely hurt more than he would help, Thor, who was back on Asgard for now, and with Iron Man absent, they were really struggling.

Just as his shield connects with another alien's head, he hears the sounds of jet-propulsion engines nearing closer and closer before finally seeing a streak of red and gold shoot across the sky above him. Even with the anger still prevalent in his thoughts, he gives a sigh of relief.

"You're late," he says, voice hard and strict over the comm.

"Yeah, Cap, I can expla—"

"No, Stark." He cuts Tony off, the irritation obvious in his voice. "We'll talk about this later."

"Oh, um, okay... Sorry, Cap."

Steve is surprised at the words. No arguing? No excuses? Maybe he's finally getting to Tony. Maybe the man is finally going to start taking responsibility for his actions and consider how they affect other people.

***

Steve’s face flashes in front of him, his blue eyes as cold and hard as the ice that had imprisoned him for decades, the rest of his body merely a silhouette in the darkness that surrounds them, although Tony can just barely make out the glint of Captain America’s shield.

“You’re irresponsible, Stark. You’re reckless. The Avengers will never work while you’re still holding us back.”

The words ring in his ears, even as Steve’s face begins to blur and finally fade beck into the darkness. Natasha replaces him.

“You’re weak, Tony. You can barely function on your own. The Avengers can’t fight with you when you can’t even pull you own weight.”

He wants to defend himself, but he can’t find the words and when he opens his mouth to try, nothing comes out.

Next is Clint. His normally friendly eyes, eyes that sparkle with humor and mischievousness, are dull and unsympathetic.

“You knew this was coming, Stark. Just face it. You’re only a burden to us. You were lucky we kept you on for this long.”

As Clint begins blur, Tony swears that he can see a small smirk cross his face. The look is familiar, but before he can place it, Clint is once again absorbed by the darkness.

Tony takes a breath in, readying himself for the next verbal assault, when suddenly the darkness surrounding him dissipates and is instead replaced with a blinding white light and the loud, repetitive, blaring sound of an alarm.

***

When Tony wakes, the first thing his sees is the blinding light of a flashlight, its beam shining directly into his eyes which slam closed again. Immediately he can feel a sharp itch shoot up his nose, barely having time to take residence before it’s expelled. He only has time to gasp in one breath of air before releasing three rapid-fire, throat-scraping, uncovered sneezes.

Hhh! Hh’PTSCH’iuu! Eptsschh! Ign’nTCHhshh—ahh!

Holy shit, he thinks, keeping his eyes closed as the world sways around him. When he finally opens his eyes again, the first thing he sees is Dummy, flashlight in claw, slowly rolling backwards away from Tony, chagrin obvious in its movements. The second thing he sees are the flashing red lights outside his labs. Only then does he finally detect the muffled sound coming from outside his labs. It’s an alarm. A loud, blaring (when it’s not being muffled by the thick, pretty-much-everything-proof glass of his labs), repetitive, distinctive alarm. It’s the alarm that calls for the Avengers to assemble.

Tony makes the connection immediately (hey, he may be sick, but he’s still a genius).

“JARVIS!!” He roars. The yell grates at his throat, making him cough. JARVIS waits until he’s done coughing before he responds.

“Sir?” The tone is questioning, innocent. It only infuriates Tony more.

“Why didn’t you alert me when the call went out?” Tony’s voice is low and quiet but brimming with anger.

“Sir, your temperature has risen to 101.4°F. In the past three days, you have only had a total of 7 hours of sleep. In that same time, you have only consumed a total of 800 calories and your fluid consumption has mainly consisted of coffee and energy drinks. I did not think that it would be wise for you to try to assist your teammates in your current state.”

“That wasn’t—hh”

He pauses. He knows that JARVIS isn’t physically there and, even if he was, he still couldn’t contract Tony’s illness, but out of a politeness that’s been instilled in him since birth, he turns away from the direction of JARVIS’ voice before releasing the sneeze into a clenched fist.

Hh’HRRUSSCHHuh!... hihhh… hihh’hh!... hh’uhh

The second sneeze dissipates, but leaves Tony with a fluttering feeling in his nose, as if it could return at any time. He turns back around to where JARVIS’ voice had previously been coming from.

“That wasnd’t your decisiond to mbake, JARVIS.” Tony winces at the congestion in his voice and gives a deep sniff. It has the added benefit of calming the tickle left over from his lost sneeze, at least for now, but it also causes him to give a deep, congested cough.

“Sir,” JARVIS’ tone is reasoning, almost pleading. “You’re ill. In your current state, you would most likely only be a hindrance on the efforts of the other Avengers.”

Tony clenches his fist as he feels the hurt flash through him. He knows JARVIS doesn’t really mean it that way but… 

A hindrance to the other Avengers, he thinks. What else is new?

Tony pushes the thoughts away. After all, he’s late to whatever world-threatening, apocalypse-inciting, weird-as-shit crisis that the Avengers are the only people capable of handling. He doesn’t have time for wallowing in self-pity right now.

“JARVIS,” he says, his tone of voice allowing no objections from the AI. “Get me my suit. You’ll brief me on the way there.”

***

So I actually thought about ending it here, but then I realized that in your SS request you said that you like fluff and angst with a happy ending and this is honestly kind of the opposite of that. Whoops again. So I went back and added in a bit of a plot so that I could go somewhere with this if I get back to it, but I have a huge problem with continuing things so I don't want to promise anything. However, this is your SS gift, so feel free to do with it whatever you want. You could leave it as is and I'll try to continue it if/when I can, you could take it to use in a fic that you write, or if you want to, we could even collab and try to write the rest of this thing together!

But anyway, I hope you like your gift even though I kind of sucked at including what you wanted. Feel free to be mean to me in the comments!

[SleepingPhlox]

I know this isn't for me and I should let the intended recipient respond first but DAMN I've been hoping like you wouldnt believe that someone would post some Sick!Tony.  The forum needs more of it.  The world needs more of it.  This is quality stuff.  Your recipient is extremely lucky!!!  I'm lucky too because I got to read it.

[Red]

Just found this and I love it! Sick Tony is so damn cute! I really hope to read more of it 

[TouchOfGrey]

Agree with the above comments  I will never get tired of Tony sickfics.

[sapphiremint]

Ahh thank you so much!! This is perfect!!  I'm always game for sick!Tony. 

On 1/1/2017 at 2:35 AM, VividBubbles! said:

He pauses. He knows that JARVIS isn’t physically there and, even if he was, he still couldn’t contract Tony’s illness, but out of a politeness that’s been instilled in him since birth, he turns away from the direction of JARVIS’ voice before releasing the sneeze into a clenched fist

I LOVED this part so much <33

 

On 1/1/2017 at 2:35 AM, VividBubbles! said:

Tony clenches his fist as he feels the hurt flash through him. He know JARVIS doesn’t really mean it that way but… 

A hindrance to the other Avengers, he thinks. What else is new?

UGH my heart... a guilt-ridden Tony always pulls at my heartstrings.