SleepingPhlox Does Drabbles

[SleepingPhlox]

This is what I'm like, guys, I see people doing a thing and then I want to do the thing too.     But this does seem like a good way to get those story fragments that I can't seem to grow into fully fledged stories out of my head.

Probably going to be heavily Marvel-centric, possibly with some Star Trek:The Next Generation and Star Trek: Enterprise thrown in or whatever on earth else pops into my little head.  I would be open to entertaining prompts, providing I feel I can do the characters or ideas justice. 

So here's my first one-I've had this idea for AGES and could never make it into a proper story so it's fitting it gets to start the party:

________________________________________________________

1.

Fandom:  Marvel

Characters:  Tony Stark/James Rhodes (non pairing)

Reason For Sneezing:  Cold

There was some disagreement among the Avengers as to what length of time was the point one of Tony’s disappearances went from “Oh, it’s just Tony being Tony” to “Okay, guys, maybe we should worry.”  In Steve’s opinion, that line had been crossed 24 hours ago.  On the other side of the spectrum was Thor, who continued to insist that a man who had retreated to his “man cave” must not be bothered under any circumstances.  Thor was both proud of his knowledge of the phrase “man cave” and his (admittedly recent) knowledge that it was a figurative phrase and there was no literal cave.

Thor was disappointed there was no literal cave.

But one thing they all agreed on was that it was Rhodey’s turn to go check on him.  There were exactly two people that were granted access to Tony’s most guarded of sanctuaries and Bruce had checked on Tony the last time he pulled his disappearing act.  Fair was fair.  Though Rhodey wasn’t even sure why he had the access code to Tony’s lab.  Sure, Bruce had it because he was allowed to go in there and...do mad scientist stuff?  He actually had no idea what it was Bruce did.  Tony had tried to tell him once, but he suspected Tony used as convoluted language as possible to confuse him on purpose, solely and expressly so he could roll his eyes and act all superior.

They were friends and all, but damn, Tony could be infuriating.

Now was one of those times.  Would it kill the man to check in with everyone once in a while?  Surely he must know that he had friends that would worry about him if he let stuff like this go on for too long.  

Oh, wait.  No.  It was Tony.  Tony was having trouble grasping the “people who care about him” concept.  Tony was still stuck on his whole lone-wolf-saving-the-world bullshit.  So yeah, infuriating.

“Tony,” he called out as he entered the dimly lit lab.  What was the point of that?  It was nearly impossible to see so...was Tony being dramatic?  That was a good guess, given the personality of the man in question, but he probably wasn’t intending to be discovered.  “Tony?  Damn it, JARVIS, put the lights up, would you?”

“Would you like to suggest a specific percentage, or quantity of lumens, Colonel?” a calm, vaguely British voice came from nowhere, yet everywhere at once.

“Not really, no...” Rhodey replied, looking distracted as he scanned the room.

“Very well,” the voice replied, and the room was suddenly lit to a far more tolerable level.  

The first thing Rhodey’s eyes fell upon was the sight of Tony slumped over at a desk.  All at once his worst fears came rushing into his mind.  He had seen Tony near death from having his arc reactor removed, then again from the palladium poisoning...that damn thing in his chest seemed to want to come up with new and inventive ways to destroy him.  Damn it.  He could only hope he wasn’t too late this time.  He rushed to his friend’s side and grabbed him roughly by the shoulder.

“Tony?  Tony!  Oh, god, speak to me.  Can you hear me?  Can you tell me what’s happened to you?”

Tony turned his head listlessly.  “Oh...*sniff*...hey, Rhodey.  Uh, bei’g a little...hehhh...ISSSHHU!...hehhhKTCHHHU!...hehh'iigggghtchhh!...drabatic, do’d you thi’g?”

It took Rhodey a moment to piece all the evidence together:  Tony’s weary sounding and extremely congested voice, his reddened nose and cheeks, his pale and sweaty skin.  And he was evidently making some sort of concession to the idea of working, poking halfheartedly at a 3D projected blueprint with a stylus.  Tony sniffled again and ran a sleeve under his nose before asking “Uh, did you wa’d sobethi’g or did you just cobe dowd here to stare at be?”

“I came down here to see if you were okay!  I was worried about you.  Everyone was worried about you.  And this is why we haven’t seen you in three days?  Because you have the sniffles?  Come on.  Go up to your bed, you’ll be more comfortable there.”  He made the offer knowing full well what Tony was like when it came to resting.  Or taking breaks.  Or admitting he even needed said rest.

“NDo, I’ll...*sniff*...be bored there.  Hey, as lo’g as you’re here, be a doll and grab be that bla’gket od the bedch over there...*sniff*...thi’gk I bight put by head dowd a'd take a dap.”

Rhodey sighed and shook his head, but complied, placing the blanket over Tony’s shoulders gently.  It might not be an ideal way to rest, but it was rest and it was some sort of progress at least...

 

 

[Rook]

Awwwwwwwwww my brotrop Plox this is amazing

[SneezyHolmes]

Oh my god this was adorable! I really do adore their bromance!  

[Arc Reactor]

This was so adorable I love Rhodey and Tony's bromance so much. Well done!

[AngelEyes]

This is awesome.

9 hours ago, SleepingPhlox said:

Thor was both proud of his knowledge of the phrase “man cave” and his (admittedly recent) knowledge that it was a figurative phrase and there was no literal cave.

Thor was disappointed there was no literal cave.

LOL! So Thor!

 

9 hours ago, SleepingPhlox said:

Tony was having trouble grasping the “people who care about him” concept.  Tony was still stuck on his whole lone-wolf-saving-the-world bullshit.  So yeah, infuriating.

He does have that tendency.

[SleepingPhlox]

Guys thank you so much for your comments.  It's very much appreciated.  I love Tony and Rhodey's bro-ship but I can't quite seem to ever flesh out an idea into a full story so at least that scene that's been in my head forever finally got to have a home. 

I've been binging on Star Trek lately in the run up to the new series so I've got a lot of Star Trek on the brain so I couldn't resist a little scene with one of my favourite doctors (the other being Dr. Crusher...she will be along shortly in a drabble of her own! )  Some Andorians might also be on the menu soon.  Hopefully my free time keeps up so I can indulge myself!!!

Fandom:  Star Trek: Enterprise

Characters: Dr. Phlox / Hoshi Sato (Sort of pairing.  I ship it hard but it's not written outright in this)

Person sneezing:  Dr. Phlox

Reason For Sneezing:  Allergies (Mysterious alien planet allergies.  Those are the best kind)

 

Birds were singing in the air around them.  Well, at least they sounded like birds to Ensign Hoshi Sato, according to her frame of reference.  They could be anything, she had learned that lesson well in her so far short career exploring alien planets.  She jumped at something cracking in the branches overhead, then quickly checked herself and looked to see if her companion had noticed her slight nervousness.  He had not appeared to.

Dr. Phlox flicked his startling blue eyes this way and that, as if impatient to take in all the sights all at once.  His natural curiosity and enthusiasm was boundless and it was difficult, when around him, not to get swept up in his insatiable appetite for more knowledge, more new experiences, and more discoveries.  The more away missions she accompanied him on, the more she found her apprehension and timidity over space exploration fade away.  Plus she got to spend time with him, which was a plus.  Only a moment ago he had stopped abruptly to examine holes made in a thick tree truck by burrowing...somethings...Hoshi would have assumed insects, but again they could have been anything.  The sap oozing from the holes had been a peculiar colour, and he marvelled at it, wondering what it must consist of to be tinted so vibrantly.  And of course he'd had to collect a sample for analysis.  Anything he found remotely interested was scooped up into a small specimen container to be thoroughly studied at his leisure.

So when he stopped suddenly again, she thought nothing of it.  Until he uttered the words:

"Oh dear."

Then her heart began to beat at a slightly higher pace than before.  Oh dear, what, exactly?  Huge alien creature?  Huge hungry alien creature?  Angry humanoids their sensors hadn't picked up before? Sentient body-snatching slime?  Okay, maybe she watched too many movies.

"What is it?"  she asked in a small voice, edging closer to him for protection although really, technically, she was the only one between them who was trained for combat.  She was a linguist.  She never asked to be a soldier.

He held up a finger and appeared to be listening for something, his gaze far away though not fixed on any particular thing.  "I don't wish to alarm you so I should give you fair warning..."

Now her heart was well and truly racing.

"...I'm about to..." he took a sharp breath and finished in a strangled breath.  "Sneeze."

"What?" she exclaimed with a laugh, so loudly that some creature overhead was disturbed and took off for a quieter locale.  "That's it?  I've heard people sneeze before, Phlox.  Like, a lot.  Humans sneeze too.  All the time.  I won't be-"

"Hgghhh...HAGGHHK-FTCCHHUUU!"

The resulting noise made her jump despite herself, and despite the warning she had been given.  It was like the loudest human sneeze she had ever heard, multiplied several times over in volume.  Yet there was no "voice" to it.  He hadn't screamed out or anything, it was all expulsion of air.  Like any normal sneeze, with the volume turned up.  He pitched forward with the sheer effort of it, then stumbled backwards as he straightened himself up, rubbing his nose with his finger and sniffling.

"There, now, I did warn you, didn't I?" he said, a look of slight amusement crossing his vaguely-human-but-not-quite face.

"W-what...what on Earth..?"

"Ah, but we're not on Earth, are we?" He said with a wink, still rubbing vigorously at his nose.  "I do find that humans get rather startled when I do that without warning, so I started giving a little, as Trip would say, 'heads-up' beforehand."

He spoke English nearly perfectly, though with a crisp and lilting accent that gave his voice a happy and friendly sort of sound, and spoke to her trained linguistic ear of the lyrical undertones of his native Denobulan language.  It seemed fitting that their writing system looked a bit like musical notes to a human eye.  But there was a slight stuffiness pervading his speech, and that coupled with the fact that he had not stopped rubbing his nose as if it were on fire, told her that perhaps she ought to brace for another explosion.

"Human sneezes," Phlox said with a smile.  "Are such...hihhh...peculiar things...apologies...HAHHH-FFTCCCCHHAAAH!...so very small it's a wonder they can do any good at all!  Of course it's all to do with physiology.  My species has far larger and more complicated lungs.  Quite frankly when I saw human innards for the first time I was surprised your species can survive at all with such rudimentary and tiny lungs.  And your hearts!  My goodness!  But it's a testament to the human flair for survival, I suppose, that you are able to not just survive, but thrive despite...hahhhhh...oh dear...such...hahhhh...HAHHH-FFFTCHHHGHHHUUU!...setbacks and limitations."

"Uh...thanks, I think," Hoshi replied, raising an eyebrow.  She had known the eccentric alien doctor to know that he meant this purely as an observation based on a statement of facts, but she still wasn't sure how she felt about being told that her internal organs were essentially inferior.  "Hey...are you all right?"  She reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, but stopped herself, remembering that his species on a whole found that gesture very uncomfortable.

"Oh, I should be fine," he said airily, or an attempt at approximating such a thing in his current condition.  "This has all the hallmarks of an...of an...HAHHH-FFFTCHHHUUU!...allergic reaction.   Although it's very strange.  An allergy does not develop immediately, it should take more than one exposure to the culprit before the body can form a response.  I shouldn't...*sniff*...have a reaction upon my fi...my fi...HAHHH-FFFFFTCCCHHHGGHK!...visit to a planet.  I must imagine something here bears a similarity to any variety of your tree pollen back on Earth.  I did suffer quite badly from the mating habits of several types of tree until I got the correct medicine shipped over.  It's quite some distance between our home planets when you're waiting to st-...to st-...HAHHHH...EHHHHFTCHHHUUU!... to stop sneezing every few seconds."

"But we have antihistamines on Earth!"

"Ah, and the differences in physiology rear their head again.  We may both stand upright, walk on two legs, see with two eyes, but our species are astonishingly different.  I could go on for days..."

Hoshi shook her head.  He was appearing more and more afflicted by the second.  Though he was intent on keeping up his incessantly chipper attitude, his voice had become so stuffy that if it were not for his insistence on crisply pronouncing most consonants, what he was saying would be left indiscernable.  His eyes were watering and had become alarmingly puffy in a short space of time, though he would probably dismiss it as a quirk of his physiology if she pointed it out.  And his nose was beginning to run, she had nothing to offer him for it, and she wasn't sure constantly wiping it on his long, loose sleeve was entirely the best course of action.

"Come on, you can tell me all the fun medical facts you want to back on the ship," she said gently.  "I think you are badly in need of sickbay, Doctor.  Luckily I happen to know a very helpful volunteer trainee nurse who would be more than happy to take on some extra work outside her normal shift."  She bit her lower lip and caught his eyes, hoping that he might just take the bait.  And for a moment, it looked as if he might.  But then he waved his hand.

"I'm not going to let this get in the way of a little exploration.  Besides, there is a potentially exciting breakthrough here.  Two separate things on two completely different planets, causing the s-...the s-...HAHHHH-FFFTCHHHGGHHHU!...the same allergic reaction?  Doesn't that just excite you?"

He pressed ahead through the foliage, wiping his nose on his sleeve again.  She followed with a sigh.  What else could she do?

 

[AngelEyes]

Oh my. You have Dr Phlox down Perfect!!!! I'm working my way through Enterprise right now as well in readiness for Discovery. Your Dr Phlox could stand up off the page and walk onto the screen! LOL. Fantastic!

14 hours ago, SleepingPhlox said:

The sap oozing from the holes had been a peculiar colour, and he marvelled at it, wondering what it must consist of to be tinted so vibrantly.  And of course he'd had to collect a sample for analysis.  Anything he found remotely interested was scooped up into a small specimen container to be thoroughly studied at his leisure.

I can totally see this.

 

14 hours ago, SleepingPhlox said:

"There, now, I did warn you, didn't I?" he said, a look of slight amusement crossing his vaguely-human-but-not-quite face.

LOL

 

14 hours ago, SleepingPhlox said:

"Ah, but we're not on Earth, are we?" He said with a wink, still rubbing vigorously at his nose.  "I do find that humans get rather startled when I do that without warning, so I started giving a little, as Trip would say, 'heads-up' beforehand."

This is so him. And his little "in quotes" reference to a phrase someone else uses is perfect.

 

14 hours ago, SleepingPhlox said:

"Human sneezes," Phlox said with a smile.  "Are such...hihhh...peculiar things...apologies...HAHHH-FFTCCCCHHAAAH!...so very small it's a wonder they can do any good at all!  Of course it's all to do with physiology.  My species has far larger and more complicated lungs.  Quite frankly when I saw human innards for the first time I was surprised your species can survive at all with such rudimentary and tiny lungs.  And your hearts!  My goodness!  But it's a testament to the human flair for survival, I suppose, that you are able to not just survive, but thrive despite...hahhhhh...oh dear...such...hahhhh...HAHHH-FFFTCHHHGHHHUUU!...setbacks and limitations."

I love his little tangential rambling about human anatomy.

 

14 hours ago, SleepingPhlox said:

"Ah, and the differences in physiology rear their head again.  We may both stand upright, walk on two legs, see with two eyes, but our species are astonishingly different.  I could go on for days..."

I'm sure!

 

14 hours ago, SleepingPhlox said:

"I'm not going to let this get in the way of a little exploration.  Besides, there is a potentially exciting breakthrough here.  Two separate things on two completely different planets, causing the s-...the s-...HAHHHH-FFFTCHHHGGHHHU!...the same allergic reaction?  Doesn't that just excite you?"

LOL, not one to let a trifle such as an allergy attack get in the way of scientific exploration!

[SneezyHolmes]

Gonna preface this with that fact that I've never watched Star Trek so I had to google the characters but this was still an enjoyable read and I do find aliens sneezing to be a rather interesting subject/story topic!  

[SleepingPhlox]

@DevilsGaze Thank you!  You give such thoughtful comments and I really appreciate the thought that you put into them.  Thank you so much! 

@HauntingHowlmes  Thank you so much, I really appreciate that you took the time to read it despite not knowing the characters.  I always find that a huge compliment.  And I love alien sneezing.  It's right up there with robots. 

Quick Tony Stark drabble, it's another scene that I'd been storing in my brain to use in a future fic that just never quite found a proper home.  This is the part where I usually babble on for a bit but I'm tired and I can't words right now. 

Fandom:  MCU Avengers

Characters: Tony Stark, DUM-E

Person sneezing:  Tony, duh

Reason For Sneezing:  Illness

“No.  No.  I asked for a three quarter inch wrench.  This is one inch.  Not three quarters of an inch.  Get it right or I’ll use this one inch wrench to make you into scrap metal.  Got it?”

Tony’s harsh words were met by a dejected whirring, if a mechanical noise could be assigned such an emotion.  Three metal fingers closed and drooped, and the large wheeled mechanical arm turned slowly away.  Tony put his head in his hands and ignored the rather melodramatic display.  After all, who would know better than he that this was all just an approximation of emotion, the arm being perfectly programmed to give certain responses to certain stimuli.  Getting scolded resulted in this sort of sulking.  Him entering the room resulted in the arm perking up and making a noise not unlike the chirp of a cat.  Always predicable  Simulated emotions, nothing more.  After all, he had programmed them himself.

Fortunately for the last thread of his patience, the robotic arm returned with the correct size wrench gingerly gripped within its triad of thick fingers.  Tony grunted at it and turned away then, despite himself, said “thank you” gruffly over his shoulder.  Well that was a fantastic decision.  He winced as the two short syllables tore through the sore throat he’d been nursing all day and what was it for?  The damn robot didn’t care if it got thanked or not.

It chirped and turned it’s “head” which was also it’s “hand” - which only didn’t make sense if you thought about it for too long, so he therefore just didn’t think about it at all.  Then it wheeled itself a few feet away to patiently await further orders.

Tony sniffled and drew his sleeve under his arm.  This would be so much easier if he didn’t have a headache.  Or a sore throat.  Or didn’t feel like shit.  Or...

“Hehhh...ehhhSHHHUUU!....hehhhGHHHKssshh!...hehhh...ehhh...hehhESSSHHHuuu!”“

Or that.

He wiped his nose on his sleeve.  Again.  That was kind of a recurring theme since he had voluntarily sequestered himself in his lab in a truly heroically selfless effort to not spread germs.  Or to get the hell away from everyone because his temper was on a hair trigger right now and he just didn’t need to deal with that.  Either/or.  Whatever.

He turned back to the task at hand, still sniffling and wiping away with his sleeve.  He was pretty sure the task at hand would go a whole lot easier if he didn’t get distracted every time he started to remember what he...

What he...

Oh god damn it.

“HiihhhKTCCCHHGGH!...hehhhEEESSSHHuuu...hehhh...ehhh...ehhSHHUUUU!”

He sighed and wiped his watering eyes, pressing a finger to his temples and sniffling again.  He raised his arm to wipe his nose with his sleeve again, and quickly thought better of it.  The spot was getting a little more...damp than he was strictly comfortable with.  He eyed a square of flannel that he had been using to wipe up extra grease.  It was filthy, seriously filthy, but so tempting...

Oh hell, what was a little grease compared to the nasty crap pouring out of his face anyway.  He reached for the filthy square just as the fiery tickle flared up in his nose yet again...

“Hehh...hiiiiiGGKHHHTchh!...hehhhESSHHHuuu!...hehhh...ehhh...hngkTCHHHU!”

With an exasperated yet exhausted sigh, he rubbed his temples before reaching to bring the grease-coated flannel square up to his nose.  In an instant, he was sure he could hear a quick mechanical whirring right next to his ear. This did not quite get him to turn around, but the tapping on his shoulder sure did.

There was the damned robot arm, a single tissue held delicately in its fingers.  Tony raised an eyebrow, and slowly reached up and plucked it from the machine’s grasp, then eyed it warily and suspiciously as he raised the tissue to his nose, continuing to eye the machine from over the top of his tissue as he blew his nose.

Always predictable.  Perfectly programmed responses to given stimuli.

He hadn’t programmed it to do that.

[Arc Reactor]

1 hour ago, SkeletalPhlox said:

There was the damned robot arm, a single tissue held delicately in its fingers. 

awww this was absolutely adorable! DUM-E never gets enough love and he cares about Tony so much

This story is amazing, I loved it!

1 hour ago, SkeletalPhlox said:

It chirped and turned it’s “head” which was also it’s “hand” - which only didn’t make sense if you thought about it for too long, so he therefore just didn’t think about it at all. 

This was hilarious

[SneezyHolmes]

Aww, how cute! I adore DUM-E and Tony's interactions in this!

[AngelEyes]

OMG. I love how you wrote DUM-E. Perfect. And I love Tony's hitching breaths with the sneezes. Mmmm.

[SleepingPhlox]

I dreamt I wrote this last night so I figured I'd try to write it for real today while I had a spare moment or two! 

Fandom:  MCU Avengers

Characters: Tony Stark, Bruce Banner (pairing vaguely hinted at at the end but 99% non-shipping)

Person sneezing:  Tony

Reason For Sneezing:  Illness

Tony had already been tapping his foot impatiently for the last two minutes, a manifestation of his resentment at having to endure the indignity of a digital thermometer protruding from his lips.  As the cold metal of the stethoscope hit bare skin just to the left of his arc reactor, he squirmed and grunted his displeasure.  Bruce sighed and leaned back in his chair, pulling off his glasses to one-handedly rub at his eyes, his face awash in the sort of weariness and frustration that only dealing with a sick Tony Stark could bring.

“I do need you to sit still.  It’s hard enough to hear your lungs around that thing, and you’re not really helping matters.”  The thermometer beeped and Bruce leaned forward to pluck it from Tony’s mouth, clucking with disapproval at the reading.  Tony’s temperature had not gone down since he’d examined him last, instead having gone up by a degree.  That was not a good sign.

Tony scowled.  “I keep telling you there’s nothing wrong with my lungs.  It’s all up here.”  He gestured with his finger, an oval encircling his face.  And his general appearance and sound of his voice did agree with that assessment.  His nose was an angry shade that skin should never be, rubbed raw from days of repeated wiping and blowing with an untold amount of tissues.  His voice was congested to the point of nearly being indecipherable, and though he tried to sniff repeatedly to clear it, it was at that point where it was like sailing out to sea and trying to pull back the tide with a household vacuum cleaner.

“Yes,” Bruce said with forced patience.  “And I want to check and make sure everything plans on staying that way.  I know that touching the arc reactor brings back bad memories, but I need you to-”

“Excuse me,” Tony snapped.  “Who said anything about that?  That damn thing is just cold, is all.  And it’s pointless.  I keep telling you, my lungs are fine.  Just give me something to keep me going like I asked you in the first place.”

“Tony...you know I have to check.  It’s for your own good.  Now come on, just sit still for one measly minute and then we can both carry on with our lives.”

“Oh...no can do...” Tony said, holding up a finger and turning his head to the side.  “I’m...hehhh...ehhhKTCHHU!...hihhhhPTChGGGHH!...hehhh....ehhhh...ehhhKTCHgghhk!...ugh”  He looked over at the surface of the desk they were sitting next to, and tried to surreptitiously wipe the droplets he had adorned it with away with his sleeve.

Bruce said nothing, but quietly reached over to the tissue box and plucked one, offering it over to Tony with the air of a man who had done this several times already.  Tony nodded as a sort of thank you, then pressed the delicate square of paper under his nostrils, snuffling into it, unable to bear the thought of rubbing it against his sore and painful skin.  Bruce put his glasses back on tilted his head to the side and gazed at Tony with a mixture of compassion and resignation.  He could tell the sneezes had caused Tony pain, both from the harsh and tearing sound and the wince on Tony's face when he'd finished.  Though Bruce was frustrated with Tony right now, he couldn't help but feel sorry for him.  Sneezing with a sinus infection wasn't fun.

“Okay, look.  How about a compromise.  I’ll trust you that your lungs are fine...if you actually listen to me this time and take my advice for getting better.  Which, I might add, if you’d done in the first place you wouldn’t be feeling nearly as miserable right now.”

Tony lowered the tissue and rolled his eyes.  “Because your advice was terrible.  You wanted me to stay in bed all day.  I can’t do that.  And staying in bed for a simple little cold is kinda overkill.  Seriously.”  He punctuated his statement with a loud liquid sniff and clearing his throat, which did nothing to help his argument.

“Yes, well, two weeks ago it was a simple little cold.  Last week it was a simple little cold and a sinus infection.  And this week it’s a simple little cold with a sinus infection and an ear infection because you also chose to ignore my advice that taking the suit out and flying at high altitudes was a bad idea and could lead to exactly that.  I specifically warned you about the ear thing and flying, Tony.  And now here we are.”  He folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, letting his head flop back wearily so that he was gazing up at the ceiling and added with a sigh.  “You know, you are very bad for my blood pressure.”

“Well what do you expect me to do?” Tony argued.  “Not go out and save lives because I have the sniffles?  You know I can’t-...oh for fuc-...hehhhISSHHHEW!...hahhhKTCHH!...hehh...eeehhpTCHHU!...ugh...come on, you know the drill.  Give me something to give me some energy and stop my face from hurting, and stop my ear from hurting and something to stop all the sneezing would be cool too.  Just to keep me going until this clears up.”

“TONY!”  Bruce sat upright suddenly, slamming his palm down onto the desk and removing his glasses with the other hand and flinging them onto the desk.  “I’ve had enough!  You call me up here whenever you decide you need someone to whine to.  You don’t ask if I’m busy or if I’m in the middle of doing something, or even ask me if there’s anything I’d rather be doing.  You expect me to jump at your beck and call like your hired help but, oh, here’s the best part!  You don’t even pay me!  You just assume I exist for this, just to come running every time the high and mighty Tony Stark snaps his fingers and decrees it.”

His voice started out clipped and controlled, and rose in volume as his rant when on, growing less controlled and far more frantic, slowly being accompanied by hand gestures that too became wilder and tempestuous until he was alternately flinging his arms dramatically or slamming the side of his hand into the desk.  And...did he sound snarly?  Tony was pretty sure he sounded snarly.

Tony was now sitting bolt upright, his back rigid as he watched the rant unfold, with a mix of wariness and fascination.

“Hey Buddy...” he ventured.  “Wanna maybe go take a walk and cool off?  Maybe...somewhere that...isn’t my lab?  Possibly?  Maybe?”

“I’m fine!  I must be fine because I just said so.  Who cares about anything else.  Isn’t that how it works?”  He brought his hands up to his head, pressing the heels of his hands up against his temples as hard as he could.

“Hey...Hey...lets make a deal.  Okay, pal?  I’m going to go get right into my bed.  Okay?  And I’m going to take my antibiotics three times a day without forgetting a single time.  And you’re going to know that I’m sticking to it because JARVIS is going to keep track and report back to you.  And if my lungs start to feel even a little bit weird you're gonna be the first to know about it.   And you’re going to take some really good deep breaths and think about kittens.  How does that sound?  Look, I’m going now.  Straight to my bed.  Promise.”

Bruce nodded, and dropped forward, bringing his head between his knees, still keeping his hands pressed firmly to his temples, rocking slightly as he forced himself to take long, deep, but jagged breaths.  He was nearly oblivious to Tony’s movements as he reached to the desk to grab the bottle of antibiotic pills from the desk and tiptoed - yes, actually tiptoed - across the room to the door, which opened with a soft swish nearly imperceptible to the human ear.

And then closed with a similar though not identical swish.

Bruce sat up with a sigh of relief, shaking his head and rolling his eyes as he reached over to retrieve his glasses from the desk.  He didn’t really like to pull that trick on Tony, or anyone really, but it was for Tony’s own good.  Besides, it wasn’t like he did it all that often...really.

Where on earth had his glasses landed?  Oh, there they were.  He picked them up and inspected the lenses for scratches by holding them up to the light before sliding them onto his face...where they seemed to be a little crooked.  Damn, they’d gotten bent in all the excitement.  And he’d just gotten those ones, too.  What a shame.

Oh well.  He’d gotten Tony to finally look after himself. That was worth sacrificing a pair of glasses for.  He shook his head again, but this time with a hint of a smile on his face.

[TheMaster]

Oh I really liked that last one. It was really cute and funny. 

[SneezyHolmes]

Oh my god, Bruce you stinker! xD Another lovely drabble, Phlox!  

[AngelEyes]

This was great. Go Bruce!