Disclaimer: I don't own Iron Man, and I really wonder who does. I am not making money off of this fanfiction posting, however much I wish I were.
A/N: Originally completed 9/31/09. This story kind of explores those quick flashes of scenes in the movie that you could barely pick up before they were gone: the surgical removal of shrapnel from Tony's chest. Tell me what you think in the reviews!
Rated T for blood/medical procedures.
Waking Nightmare
Surrounded by men with guns all trained on him, the great Tony Stark didn't dare to move. The man who was talking seemed to yammer on forever in Urdu for the benefit of the video camera. Was it possible to get bored when your life hung in the balance? Stark didn't think so. The bright light in his eyes and the long speech were never-ending; on the other hand, maybe it was far too soon when he was finally prodded in the back and forced to stumble his way down a grim tunnel of rock.
Soon he came into a larger cave. His kidnappers swarmed around him while they shouted and gestured at one another. Stark was just starting to hope they'd forget about him in the mayhem when one of them pulled his shirt off roughly.
"Hey, what are you—?" he started to say, but a foreign word barked in his face—and a gun muzzle brandished threateningly—made him think better of finishing the thought. Three of them ripped and yanked at his clothes until they had completely stripped him. Two sets of hands laid hold of him and pushed him down onto a crude bed. A strip of cloth was placed over his sternum and fastened underneath the table. They bound his waist, arms, and legs down, as well. Someone switched on another lamp and angled it just enough, it seemed, so that it was right in Stark's eyes. Turning his head to the side to avoid the blinding light, he saw a balding man pulling on rubber gloves. From the assortment of surgical tools on his tray, the man chose a wicked-looking medical knife and began sterilizing it with a rag and ordinary rubbing alcohol. Stark did not like where this was going.
The man bent over him. Tony felt a cold blade tickle his chest and heard the snip, snip, of scissors cutting his bandages. As the bandages were pulled away from his skin, a chilling warmth seeped out. Stark was fighting off panic; he was losing blood again; he didn't know how much more he could stand to lose. On top of that, he was at the mercy of a merciless cadre of Afghanis. . . and how was he to know what they were planning to do to him? Because he was still blinded by the light, it came as a burst of shock when a knife slit into his chest.
He let out a scream at the burning pain. The knife was withdrawn almost immediately, but the pain didn't stop there. Now it felt as though there were a bird pecking at his open wound, trying to pluck out his pectoral muscles strand by strand.
"Stop! Stop it!" he bellowed. He thrashed in agony as fingers dug into the incision and probed relentlessly, ignoring his screams. Whatever they were searching for, they must have found quickly, for they soon pulled away and left Stark gasping for breath.
But then the scalpel attacked again, and the plucking bird returned. Tony screamed and jerked helplessly against his restraints. Slicing, plucking, rummaging. His chest was like a gold mine, to be dissected until the bird found what he wanted.
The pain stopped, leaving him no time for a breather before it began anew, just as bad as the last time. Again. And again. There was no tally. Stark could no more keep count of how many times he was cut into than he could measure his pain on a scale. It wasn't a bird, he knew that with the far-distant logical side of his brain. It was the man, the doctor. Was he a doctor? To be so coldly unresponsive to a man's screams, the man had to be either utterly inhumane or legally deaf. Whatever he was, he wasn't an M.D.; Tony knew that much for sure.
The moment came when the knife went deeper into his chest than it had ever gone before. Stark's scream went unbroken for so long, he started to wonder what would explode from the stress first: his lungs, screaming for air; his chest, afire with pain; or his head, pounding like a jackhammer. He writhed so violently that shouting broke out overhead, and numerous hands pressed him back down against the bed.
"Stop! Please! Stop!" he shouted, his voice made almost incoherent by the volume and the slur of his words. There was no rest for the wicked, as the knife worked its way onward. Stark screamed desperate screams, sobbed hysterical sobs. They tortured him to no purpose. They let him live a nightmare but wouldn't let him die. He swung his head from side to side, and his eyes took in double images, images juxtaposed with their own shadow. He stared at them through a glaze. If he focused on them hard enough, would the pain subside?
No. The pain didn't go away, it merely changed form. The knife was gone, and it its place something heavy pressed into the soft tissue near his breastbone. He panted wildly. It was making his chest smaller, he was sure of it. There would be no room to breathe. He would suffocate. . .
Yet he was still alive. He knew that was true because he could feel a needle of fire incising him all around the heaviness. It was unbearable, and it would never end. A broken moan escaped his lips. Was he about to die? But wouldn't that be better than living?
The pain was gone, he realized in a daze. His face was wet, his mouth was dry, and he was alone. They had finally left him in peace.
No, not quite. The same balding man came at him again with a cloth in his hand. Stark shrank away.
"No more," he croaked. "Please."
Speaking for the first time, his tormentor answered quietly, "Don't be afraid."
Don't be afraid? Of you? Right. While he was at it, Tony reminded himself not to be afraid of sharks. Or lions. Or grizzly bears. He rolled his head in the opposite direction from the man's reach, but the hand clamped the gauze securely over his mouth and nose. Before he knew it, Stark was breathing and growing sleepy at the same time.
So that was it. The man used anesthetic after the surgery was complete. The last sensible thought that crossed Tony's head before he fell into heavy sleep was that he fervently wished someone would untie him. Not so that he could run away. He just wanted to grab the scalpel from the little tray and stab the "doctor" right in the chest.
The End