Unedited, un-beta'd, not very good writing.
Some people, when they have a bad day at work, get chewed out by their boss or accidentally make four hundred copies of the wrong document or lose a client or forget about a meeting.
Tony had bad days like that. Well, not quite. Pepper was technically his boss, and while she wasn't shy about chewing him out, she usually recognized the futility of doing so. Tony didn't do mundane things like make copies, either, and though he forgot about meetings all the time, there were never really any repercussions. But he still had bad days. Sometimes he set things on fire, or blew things up, or made a typo in his code that he had to spend an hour searching for.
Just nice, normal bad days.
Tony was having a bad day right now, but not a nice, normal bad day. No, currently he was having a bad day of a different sort.
A Bad day with a capital Bad.
It had started when he'd been woken up at 3:30 because a group of assholes decided that 3:30 was the perfect time to test out their new explosive projectiles in a subway station. Things had gone downhill when, upon arriving at the scene with his Superhero Friends, instead of deftly stopping the Bad Guys of the Week, he got hit with an explosive projectile and blasted through a wall.
Things had further deteriorated upon regaining consciousness. Tony discovered that he was not in a nice safe hospital (hey, a guy can hope) but was instead in some kind of dark, creepy underground lair.
With a throbbing headache and what felt a lot like a broken hand.
Without his high-tech suit of armor.
Without...anything. Alone. And...helpless.
Tony didn't like being helpless.
Coughing, he tried to sit up and get his bearings. He was alone in a room that was empty but for the cot on which he was lying and a metal folding chair. Sitting up tugged at a pulled muscle in his back, and Tony hissed in pain, trying to adjust himself on the cot using only one hand. The other one, he could see in the dim light cast from a single dingy light bulb in the ceiling, was bruised and swollen and probably, as he'd suspected upon waking, broken.
Tony swallowed roughly, wishing for a drink-water or scotch, he wasn't picky-and wondering how long he'd been out. There was no clock, and patting his pockets revealed that he didn't have his phone. Well, what kind of moronic kidnappers would let him keep his phone?
No, he really was helpless.
He'd been helpless before. In Afghanistan, first, and then when he'd flown into a portal to a different dimension. Both times, he'd vowed to never be helpless again. Both times, he'd vowed to be prepared, to never let it happen again.
And now he'd been stripped down again, his defenses dismantled.
Without the suit, he felt naked. Raw.
But Tony wasn't the type to dwell. To distract himself, he swung his legs over the edge of the cot and stood slowly, trying and failing not to aggravate any of his injuries. This was a mistake, as standing made him suddenly and violently nauseated which turned into sudden, violent vomiting.
The hard, gray cement floor slammed into Tony's knees as he fell. He managed to stop himself from tipping over into his own vomit by catching himself with one hand-his bad hand. Pain shot up his arm and he gagged again, regretting his choice to get off the cot in the first place.
The cot was safe. The cot was good. Yes. He would get back to the cot. Then he would go back to sleep and wake up in a nice, safe hospital.
He rolled onto his side, away from the puke, at least, and tried to sit up. Which made the pulled muscle in his back twinge unhappily.
Tony groaned.
Well, if nothing else, he'd been adequately distracted from the whole 'prisoner in a creepy lair' thing.
At least momentarily.
Slowly, slowly he uncurled and got to his knees, pausing when nausea spiked in his gut. Tony took a few deep breaths and the nausea passed, and Tony got to his feet.
For a moment, he looked longingly at the cot. Then he looked at the door. The cot. The door.
He sighed. He staggered to the door.
It was, predictably, locked, which wasn't exactly a surprise. Tony wondered why he'd put himself through hell to ascertain something that he'd, honestly, already known. Especially when the cot was calling to him.
It was Ingrained masochism, probably, or stupidity. Either or. Maybe both. Both made sense. Yeah.
Tony took a moment to appreciate that the way his thoughts were wandering, combined with the nausea from a few minutes ago, probably meant he had a concussion.
Then he dismissed that thought because it was neither relevant nor helpful. Especially given his desire to go back to sleep. Weren't you supposed to stay awake if you had a concussion? Ergo, he didn't have a concussion.
He limped back to the cot and slowly lowered himself onto it, lying down with a hiss. Nap time.
Except...that wasn't productive. And Tony knew it, damn it. Just like he knew he had a concussion. Ignoring it wasn't going to help.
And if he couldn't ignore it, then he had to face it. Ugh. That was always the worst.
Tony sighed, wishing again for a drink. He'd gotten out of worse situations than this. Sure he had. It was just a matter of time until he thought of something.
Of course, it wasn't like he had a cellmate this time with a convenient death wish to help him escape.
Tony dismissed that thought as irrelevant and unhelpful, quelling the swell of something that tasted a bit like panic that was rising in the back of his throat.
It may have just been bile.
Had to be, because Tony Stark didn't panic.
Think, he told himself. This sucks, but it's not the end of the world. The others are gonna figure out where you are and get you out of here.
Unless they'd all been killed in the attack.
Tony sighed. That wasn't likely. They'd survived the end of the world, after all. It really was a matter of time until they got him out of here.
He just had to survive that long.
After another minute of staring rather blankly at the locked door, Tony exhaled, willing the tension out of his shoulders. Unless he could use the chair to jimmy the lock-not entirely impossible, but probably not likely-it looked like all he could do was wait for rescue or wait until whoever had brought him here decided to come out and play.
Helplessly.
In the meantime, Tony decided to try to go back to sleep, concussion be damned. But now that he was awake, he couldn't ignore the pounding in his head or the throbbing from his hand and back. And he couldn't help but worry, even though he was Tony Stark and Tony Stark did not worry. The fact was that he'd been surrounded by superheroes in that subway station. Given that, the fact that the Bad Guys of the Week had managed to spirit him away was troubling. What if everyone else was dead?
Stop thinking that, he told himself harshly. You're being stupid. They'll get you out of here.
But the idea of waiting for rescue made his stomach twist. He was Unprepared. Helpless. A situation he'd been avoiding since That Day in Manhattan. He itched to build, to fix, to do something.
He was Tony Stark and he could build his way out of anything, but not if he had nothing.
And right now, he had to accept that he had nothing. Just a cot and a chair and a concussion and a busted up hand.
With a sigh, Tony shut his eyes, willing himself to relax. Que sera sera and all that.
And so he tossed and turned for some indeterminate amount of time. He had, in fact, almost managed to doze off when the heavy metal door slammed open against the wall.
Tony jumped-he hadn't even heard the lock opening-and that aggravated all of his injuries. He didn't have a lot of time to dwell on that, though, because a group of men entered the room and one of them, a huge guy, bigger even than Thor, grabbed Tony up off the cot by the front of the shirt he wore under the suit. He drew back and punched Tony square in the face.
Well, that was unexpected.
Tony's head snapped back and he tasted blood in his mouth where his teeth had cut the inside of his cheek. Then the pain hit and his vision went blurry.
When it cleared, he found himself slumped in the chair with a gun in his face.
All in all, this encounter wasn't going well.
Tony's heart rate kicked up a notch as adrenaline coursed through his veins, and then his mouth was moving without any input brain. Tony wanted to blame this on the concussion as well, or the panic simmering just under the surface, but if he was honest with himself, his mouth usually acted without his brain under normal circumstances. "Is this what you guys call foreplay?" He slowly took his eyes off the barrel of the gun and followed the hand holding it up the arm and to the guy's face.
Despite his recent head injury, Tony was fairly sure he recognized this guy. He'd been with group in the subway station. Leading them, in fact, as much as one can lead a group of people throwing what amounted to highly explosive tennis balls.
Tony wondered vaguely where they would even get an idea like that.
Glancing behind the Head Goon, Tony took in the rest of the group. One or two seemed familiar from the subway, and Tony's heart rate kicked up again. Why were they here and not defeated?
This, he was certain at this point, was not a Good Day, was, in fact, a Very Bad day. Capital Very, capital Bad.
In response to Tony's question, the Head Goon took a step back and then, abruptly, whacked Tony across the face with the butt of his gun.
Tony could feel a tooth rolling around in his mouth. He hoped it wasn't an important one.
"Shut up," Head Goon said. "You might have noticed that you're in a bit of a situation here."
Tony had, in fact, noticed that. But he didn't say anything, for once. Mostly because he was trying not to black out as his recently-jarred brain was jarred again. Also because he was finding it hard to catch his breath. He spat out a mouthful of blood and, probably, his tooth, and then let his head drop, dizzy and in pain. He tried to ignore the persistent, high-pitched keening noise that had started up in the last few seconds.
He realized, upon taking a gasping breath, that it was him.
"You see," the man with the gun said, "We needed to borrow you for a bit. Blowing up a subway station got your attention." He shrugged. "Got the attention of the rest of 'the Avengers' too, but once we had you, getting away was easy enough."
So that explained it. They'd retreated instead of being defeated. Lovely. "You know," Tony mumbled, trying to get his double vision to resolve, trying to get the awful tightness in his chest to abate, "You could have just invited me over." The blow to his head had sent him reeling, and he was finding it hard to stay awake. There was something itchy running down his face, and he raised a heavy arm to swipe at the annoying sensation.
His hand came down smeared with blood.
"Perhaps" the man agreed, almost amicable. "Either way, here you are. And now that you are here, we aren't going to let this opportunity go to waste." He took a step back, gun still aimed vaguely at Tony. "You see, I'm something of an inventor myself, and I'd like to get your input on a few things."
Tony didn't answer. He let his eyes drift closed instead, feeling suddenly very tired. Dealing with crazy hadn't been on his agenda, and dealing with this level of crazy wasn't something he felt like doing. No, he thought he'd much rather sleep instead. And maybe when he woke up, he'd be back in bed. Or at the very least, back at the subway station. Or even in a nice, safe hospital.
Right now, he'd take that gladly.
Tony was jarred back to reality when one of the Lesser Goons jerked his chair and he nearly fell out of it. He was saved from sprawling rather ingloriously on the floor only by the fact the Head Goon had grabbed him by the shirt. Still, he was startled, and he lashed out with a pathetic punch, not even managing to connect with anything.
The Head Goon wasn't too impressed with Tony's sad attempt at self-defense, though, and he nodded to one of the Lesser Goons, who moved to Tony's side.
"Mr. Stark, that was uncalled for."
Even with multiple head injuries, Tony wasn't the type to apologize. He set his mouth in a stubborn line.
The Head Goon nodded to his goon subordinate and faster than Tony could track (which, at this point, wasn't that fast-his double vision was making him sick) the Lesser Goon grabbed Tony's hand-the unbroken one-and bent the index finger back sharply.
The resulting crack was very loud, at least to Tony, and the feeling of something in his hand shifting in a way it was never meant to, more than the pain, made him retch.
"Now let's try again. You saw my invention in action at the subway station, but you see, I've been having some trouble with the size. I'd like for the devices to be...bigger."
"Why?" Tony gasped out. "Are you compensating?"
Head Goon sighed and shook his head. He nodded at his subordinate.
Who grabbed Tony's hand and and snapped the middle finger back.
This time, Tony didn't just gag-he threw up what little there was left in his stomach, acrid bile burning his throat and, disturbingly, his nose.
"Mr. Stark," Head Goon said. "I can do this all day. Can you?"
It took Tony several seconds to answer, the pain in his hand radiating up past his elbow. But he finally managed to choke out. "I don't know, try me."
God he hated his mouth.
This time, instead of snapping a finger, someone kicked Tony's chair over, causing him to sprawl across the floor. Before he could recover from that, someone else kicked him in the back, in the stomach, in the chest, in the ass. Steel-toed boots connected all over his body, each kick a unique burst of agony.
Tony didn't scream-he couldn't get enough air into his body to produce that much sound.
As he writhed around on the floor, he was hauled up by his armpits and placed back into the chair that someone had graciously put upright. Sitting was excruciating and Tony let out something that was humiliatingly close to a whimper.
And still the Head Goon asked questions. Tony earned himself two more broken fingers, two black eyes, a fractured wrist, a broken nose, and a dislocated shoulder.
Finally, when it became apparent that Tony couldn't answer any questions even if he wanted to, the Head Goon signaled to his henchmen to stop. "Mr. Stark," he said, "It didn't have to be like this." He held up the gun that he'd been dangling loosely at his side, pointing it at Tony's head.
Yes,this was an Extremely Bad day. Capital Extremely. Capital Bad.
This wasn't how he'd imagined his life ending. He wondered, briefly, if it would hurt.
He decided it couldn't possibly hurt more than he already did.
Tony shut his eyes.
He didn't open them when the door burst open.
He'd already passed out.
When he came to, he was afraid to open his eyes lest he see that he was still staring down the barrel of a gun.
He was afraid to move lest he find out he was still being beaten within an inch of his life.
But then-
"Are you awake?" came a voice on his left.
It was Pepper.
And the wave of relief that rushed through him at her voice was almost enough to make him forget that he'd been looking death in the face. Finally, a Nice Safe Hospital.
"Are you awake?" she asked again. "I can't ask you to squeeze my hand because both of yours are broken and I can't ask you to blink if you can hear me because both of your eyes are swollen shut so I need you to put in some work here." The tone was joking, but there was a strain under it that spoke of worry and fatigue.
"Yeah," Tony tried to say. It came out more like a cough. In fact, it was a cough. Immediately, he felt water at his lips, and he took a small sip. He tried again. "Yeah. I'm awake. Wish I wasn't."
"He's awake," Pepper said. Her own relief was almost palpable in her voice.
Tony tried to crack his eyes open, but his vision was blurry and the light hurt, so he gave up on that endeavor. Really, all he wanted was to be unconscious again. Everything hurt. Were they skimping on the good painkillers?
"Thank god," came another voice. Bruce. "With the multiple head traumas, we didn't know if you'd be...well, you."
"Shh..." Tony said. There was too much talking and not enough sleeping. "Morphine?"
"You're getting morphine," said Bruce. "Are you still in pain?"
"More morphine," Tony asserted. "I've had a Really Extremely Bad Day."
And, well, no one could disagree with that.