When Loki looks down, to indicate that his plans center on Tony, even he stops. Something is emwrong/em. Tony's stopped moving, and his shirt is soaked through in several places with blood, but not the dark, oozing from a torn blister. It does correlate with where Loki booted him, but even Coulson could see that was a light nudging, not anything that should have hurt him.

Natasha kneels, and carefully pulls Tony's shirt up. What had been dark, damaged areas, were now deep, bleeding ulcers, dead flesh hanging off, where it had been displaced by Loki's boot. Natasha looks up at Loki. He shakes his head, expression blank with surprise.

Natasha carefully pushes on Tony's shoulder, rolling him onto his side, pressing her hand to his forehead. He only half seems to react, turning his head a little into the ground, nose squishing against the dirt, little dirt clumps rolling a tiny bit away, then a tiny bit back, with his labored breathing.

Because Tony emwould/em hide this from them, thinking he would get away with it because everyone smelled like rotting flesh anyway. Of course he would. Coulson shouldn't be remotely surprised. Nauseated and worried, though, he feels entitled to.

Nobody was paying attention to Rogers. Coulson would kick himself later, for not. But the punch lands, unseen. Loki staggers back two feet, and falls onto his rear. Rogers stands over him, and Coulson knows he's seen the Hulk look calmer.

"Steve."

Rogers looks, at Natasha. She and Banner are trying to move Tony, who has come to, and is trying to get up with their help. Rogers abandons Loki, and lifts Tony onto his shoulder. Thor and Clint stay to supervise Loki's relocation of the playful creature, Coulson takes off in the chopper, with Rogers and Banner and Natasha keeping the increasingly agonized Tony from getting hurt.

For an emaciated, bleeding man, Tony is emstrong/em and insistent. He very much does not want to be on the stretcher, nor does he want any needles in his arms. He especially does not want the restraints. However, when the ER doctor puts cooling packs at his groin and armpits, because he's running a fever high enough they need to bring it down, he stops fighting. He lies still, on his stomach, and stares straight forward, unseeing, completely lost in terror. His jaw works, for a minute, and then blood starts dripping onto the white sheets, from his mouth.

Rogers is the first to notice, having completely given up on whatever was holding him back, gluing himself to the head of the stretcher, and just daring anyone to ask Captain Fucking America to leave his friend. Someone did make him put on a yellow poofy suit, with booties and a hood, when they moved Tony into a burn unit room, though he ripped two sets of gloves before they found an extra large size box.

The cooling packs are removed, immediately, the first by Rogers throwing it across the room, the other two by the nurse. Tony keeps chewing, and they shove guards into his mouth, causing him to only bruise, not cause further lacerations. Rogers leans over him, and Coulson doesn't catch what he says, from outside the sealed room, but his expression holds worry, and more than a trace of fear..

Between blankets, and Rogers' touch, Tony seems to come back to himself after a little bit. He glares, as he pulls the guards from his mouth, the dips in the clear molded plastic pooled with blood, and drops them on the floor. Rogers grips his hands, leaning in, putting his head right in front of Tony's face. Tony stares at him, then looks down, and to the side, a little.

Rogers pulls Tony against himself, careful of his wounds, and buries his face in Tony's hair. Tony stares forward, chin on Rogers' shoulder, surprise and confusion clear on his face. Rogers lets go, and stands for a minute, staring at Tony, then flees the room. Tony just sits on the hospital bed, watching Rogers jet past Coulson, standing in the hall. Coulson meets Tony's eyes, and Tony nods, for him to enter.

Coulson seats himself on the edge of the bed, "that was interesting."

Tony nods, taking his paper and pencil off the bedside table, 'he's been weird. Can't believe I'm suggesting this, but maybe he's due for a debrief. And, like, some vacation time. Or at least some booze. Or a lot of booze, given...''

Coulson shrugs, keeping his suspicions to himself, "your doctor said you're stable enough to leave. Thor and Clint are on their way here...actually, should be here any time, now.."

Tony nods, then writes, again, 'did Loki give any more information while I was...occupied?'

"Not really. He said you would be able to create a portal using his powers."

'I don't think the Asgardians have the same type of powers needed for that.'

Coulson shrugs, "that's all he said."

Tony sighs, and sits up, a bit, crossing his legs, and pulling his blankets up to his chest, blocking the blue glow coming through his hospital robe. He looks at Coulson, and shakes his head, writing, again, letting the blankets fall back into his lap, 'I'm going to be a liability. I'm going to need to go back to the tower, build some way to use'

He stops, and glares, indignantly, as Coulson stole his notepad, "you almost died. After being missing, for months, presumed dead. Because you didn't tell anyone how badly hurt you were. It's been decided, by vote and mostly by Rogers freaking out, that you are to keep yourself safe, and recover, above all else."

Tony snatches the notepad back, but his glare has faded to mild annoyance, and his reply isn't exactly the most malicious thing he could have come up with, 'I don't want to.'

"I think that was kind of their point. They're worried you're self destructive, not just stupid."

'I'm not. I just refuse to be useless.'

"Then be useful some other way than fighting. You are officially grounded."

'You do realize that, like, the last time you tried to ground me, I left for two days before you noticed? And I'm not actually part of SHIELD, or even the Avengers Initiative. I'm just a consultant, remember?'

Coulson can actually detect a little bit of hurt, when Tony is scribbling that last sentence, and it surprises him. It doesn't come through in the reports, how different Tony is now, than he was before Afghanistan, or even before the battle with Loki. His actions have changed, but he does an excellent, and Coulson guesses, very calculated, job, of masking that with stupid stunts and an occasional youtube clip. And right now, he's trying desperately, to mask how fucked up he is, so that he can keep fighting alongside his friends. That's almost certainly why he hid how severe his injuries were becoming.

Coulson nods, realizing the decision is pretty clear, orders or no, "no, you're right. It's a bad idea. If there's anything guaranteed to emmake/em you do something stupid, it's not letting you do something at least comparatively intelligent. But Rogers, and I think, at this point, probably Thor and Natasha and as well, will just about murder you if you put yourself in harm's way. Understood?"

Tony gives him a very strange look. But then, slowly, he nods. Then shivers, and pulls the blankets up again, turning his head to look out the window, signaling that he's ready for the conversation to be over. A moment later, the door opens, and Thor bursts in, followed much more sedately by Clint..and, standing in the doorway, Loki. Thor immediately sweeps Tony up, into a careful, but still somehow highly over-enthusiastic hug. Clint reaches in, gripping Tony's hand, briefly, "you look better. Less dead."

Tony manages to finagle his way free of Thor's embrace enough to glare at Clint, then sees Loki standing behind them all. He frowns, and looks at Clint. Clint nods, "it's okay."

Clint looks at Coulson, "where's Tash?"

"In the waiting room, with Banner. Their turn to nap."

Clint nods, "I'll go get them, and then we can go. Or...where's Steve?"

Coulson shrugs, "I'll have them page him."

Clint leaves, and Thor still hasn't let go. Tony is giving Coulson a pleading look, but for all the act he's putting up, he's closed his hand on a fold of Thor's cape, and pressed his cheek a little against Thor's neck. Coulson gets up, and goes to have Rogers paged, passing Loki without really acknowledging him. When he glances back, Tony's closed his eyes, leaning into the arms of a friend. Coulson wonders, what would be happening now, if Tony had been captured before the battle for the Tesseract. He stops thinking about that, because he's imagined dead Tony more than enough for one lifetime.

Rogers shows up a total of maybe twenty seconds after he's been paged, at an awkward, not-quite-a-run, bumping into a counter, bouncing off, and then going a little bit faster. He stops, when he sees Coulson, and straightens, "sir?"

"He's fine. He's getting let out, we're leaving soon."

Rogers nods, face blank. Clint, Natasha, and Dr. Banner walk up, Banner puts a hand on Rogers' shoulder, "ready?"

Rogers nods, and follows the other two back to Tony's room. Coulson hangs back, to text a quick report to Fury and Hill. When he gets to the room, Thor is comparing the wheelchair a nurse brought to a chariot, Rogers looks like he wants to murder Loki, who is standing probably purposefully on the other side of the bed from him. Natasha and Banner are carefully helping Tony to get off the bed and shuffle two steps to the wheelchair, and Clint is standing back, watching it all with a mix of amusement and careful watchfulness.

When Tony is finally seated, Coulson notices that he's gone several shades paler, and sweat has broken out across his forehead and cheeks. This is...is going to be an interesting week.

Tony ends up sitting between Thor and Loki, in the middle row of the SUV, because Thor lifted him in, and Natasha and Clint took the two seat back row, and Rogers and Banner are in the front, and Loki has enough self preservation to not want to sit next to either of them. Shotgun remains reserved for the nearly human sized pile of paperwork Coulson has to do when they get back to the tower, secured surprisingly efficiently by the seatbelt.

Tony leans forward, at one point, and pokes Roger's shoulder, passing him a scrap of note paper. Rogers reads it, and turns, looking over the back at Tony, "emI/em am fine, Tony."

Tony rolls his eyes at the emphasis on the "I", and starts poking the back of Rogers' head. Banner smirks, at that, and Coulson has to wonder if the quiet doctor isn't quite the reserved, serious man he projects himself to be. He also reflects that purchase of a baby mirror was probably the best fifteen bucks he ever spent.

"I do not understand this ritual," frowns Thor, leaning forward, as through considering joining in.

"It isn't a ritual, Thor, he's just being annoying," sighs Loki, looking glumly out the window at the passing trees.

Thor considers this for a moment, pokes Rogers twice, and then quickly sits back, and looks innocent. It takes Banner a good two minutes to stop chuckling.

Coulson has found himself investing more and more in equipment generally meant for parents of small children. It started with the child-view mirror, which actually was purchased for keeping any eye on anyone, not specifically...well, Tony. The baby powder was a stand-in for fingerprint powder. The baby monitor, though...that one's all Tony. The look Coulson got when he put the clunky pastel trimmed, off-white radio on the table in Tony's room was legitimately impressive, especially given the dose of pain meds Tony had taken.

However, he finds himself vindicated when repeated knocking crackles him awake around five in the morning. He picks up the radio, assures Tony that he's on his way, and then walks down the hall. The other end went silent when he spoke, except for harsh, labored breathing. Coulson overrides the lock, and slips inside. Tony is on the floor, the table knocked over. He isn't bleeding, and he doesn't seem to have injured himself, but he's clearly suffering. Coulson kneels, and places his hand on Tony's shoulder, carefully.

Tony looks up at him, and his lips are slightly swollen, the lower one chewed almost raw. That's new. Coulson sighs, grips Tony under the armpits, and lifts him up to a sitting position. Tony leans against the bed, catching his lower lip between his teeth. Coulson grips his jaw, and he releases his lip, looking away. He's still breathing hard, and he couldn't have been paler if he'd been bleached.

"What's wrong? I brought paper..."

Tony shoves the pad away, Coulson rolls his eyes, "Tony."

Tony looks back at him, sighs, and grabs his hand, writing onto the palm, 'hurts.'

"You have pain meds, pretty strong ones, given how loopy you were earlier."

Tony nods, and indicates the door to the bathroom, 'put them in the pill cabinet.'

He looks quite frankly embarrassed, but he's also caught his lip again, and as Coulson moves, blocking less of the light, he can see that Tony's nightshirt and hair are soaked with sweat. How long was he suffering before he deigned to call for help? Coulson gets the appropriate pill bottle, and returns with it, and a glass of water. Tony's head is down, now, and he starts when Coulson grips his wrist, snapping his head up, and staring straight through Coulson for a moment, before he actually seems to see him.

Tony's hands shake badly, as he puts the two pills in his mouth, and lifts the glass to his mouth. When the glass comes away, there's a smear of blood on the rim. Coulson takes it without comment. As skinny as Tony is, lifting him will be difficult because of his back, and Coulson doesn't want to mess up and hurt him more.

"I need help to get you back up."

Tony looks at him, flatly, for a moment, then picks up the pen, and paper, 'Clint or Natasha. Or Bruce.'

Coulson takes a gamble, "not Rogers?"

'You know damned well not Rogers. I don't want him to see this, he's been weird enough as it is, and I think this would really bother him. Thor would also be fine, he's just louder, and Clint's room is across the hall.'

"I seriously doubt Clint is actually in his room."

Tony nods, 'Natasha's is around the corner, third door on the left.'

Coulson gets up, and goes to find the two spies.