I is for Ice
THIS CHAPTER IS STONY IF YOU WEAR STONY GOGGLES - IF NOT, ITS REALLY CUTE FAMILY FLUFF.
Thank you for all the reviews, everyone. Now, I had originally wanted to do hypothermia for H, but the hypnosis prompt was very full of angst and lots of fun to write. But, since ice starts with "i", I figured I would just freeze poor Tony in this chapter instead.
I know a lot of you wanted "injection" or "illness", but i promise all those themes are to come! This one is Domestic!Hero Tony.
ALSO there is established CLINTASHA from now on. I love them.
As for THOR in this chapter, please just assume he is still in Asgard from the last chapter – I am sorry, but I promise the next fic chapter will feature our favorite god of thunder.
ENJOY and PLEASE WRITE ME A REVIEW. 10,000 PEOPLE HAVE READ MY STORIES AND ONLY LIKE 70 OF YOU HAVE REVIEWED IT'S A LITTLE DISCOURAGING.
This was going to be the worst blizzard Manhattan had seen in over 50 years.
Shops were closing down, the whole city was in a state of emergency – police were clearing homeless people from the streets and corralling them into schools, churches, and municipal buildings. Shelters were being stocked up on food and water, blankets, and towels. Stark Industries had supplied each public shelter with a self-sustaining generator for free; this allowed residents to charge their devices, make phone calls to love ones, watch cable, or simply sit in warmth.
Thousands of salting trucks stood on standby, ready to go at the drop of a hat, just waiting for the first snowflake to fall.
And when it fell, the heavens came with it.
It snowed for days, dumping almost three feet of the white stuff per night all over the greatest city on earth. Doors were covered, sidewalks unplowable, streets unmaneuverable. The city that never sleeps was wrapped in a quiet blanket of white for three days.
But nobody was expecting what came next. Nobody was expecting the cold.
The snow let up around the end of the weekend, and the millions of residents of New York City both thanked and cursed their gods for not letting the weather interfere with the work week as much as everyone thought it would.
But all thoughts of going to work disappeared the moment they stepped outside. In Fahrenheit, it was negative 19 degrees with a wind chill coming off the ocean of almost negative 30. The antifreeze in cars solidified, bursting engines all over the city. If you went outside, you froze. If you stayed outside, you died. End of story.
Schools were cancelled, businesses told their employees to stay home. It was New York's unofficial January Holiday; and if people had actually been able to go outside to enjoy themselves, they may have had some fun. However, as it was, people had been cooped up inside now for almost a week, and New Yorkers don't do well without activities.
Least of all, Anthony Edward Stark...
"I'm so boreddddddddddd…" Tony groaned for the sixteenth time that hour. Natasha, who had been enjoying the relative quiet this past week, had to (yet again) resist the urge to get up and put a muzzle on him.
"Stark," she warned. "If you cannot stay silent, I will do it for you." She flipped a page, calmly. "Go bother Barton, he's just as stir crazy as you are – no doubt you and he can find entertainment somewhere." She brought her eyes up from her book and locked with his. "Somewhere, of course, being elsewhere."
Tony just groaned again and pulled himself off the couch, getting the hint. He had been wearing the same pair of sweatpants for two days now, and his T-Shirt was ripe…ahhh, just like when he was a teenager during Christmas break. Lots of sleeping, lots of eating, lots of computer, and not lots of showering.
He trudged his way into the kitchen, grabbing another mug of coffee, and caught the elevator going down to the training rooms where Barton would undoubtedly be climbing something he shouldn't be.
The elevator dinged and Tony stepped out,mug in hand, blowing gently on his first sips to avoid burning his tongue. He shuffled over to Barton's locker, his socks keeping his toes toasty warm on the chilly hardwood floor.
"Hey Clint."
"Hey Tony!" Clint smiled from across the room, dropping his free weights and striding over to clap his friend on the shoulder. Clint brought the engineer in for a brotherly hug and pulled back quickly, his nose scrunched up.
"Were you working out today, too?" the archer asked.
"No, why?" Tony took another sip.
"Cuz you smell terrible," he laughed, waving his hand in front of his nose. "When was the last time you showered, asshat?"
Tony's eyes went wide in indignation. "C'mon, I don't smell that bad!" Tony made the grand gesture of sniffing his own armpits, and froze, pulling away. "Alright, yah, that's, uh- phew, pretty nasty." Both men laughed. Steve, who had been running on the treadmill on the other side of the gym, just looked on in disgust and humored exasperation. He might be the one from the 40's, but these two were absolutely primitive.
"If you boys are done sniffing yourselves," Steve called across with no small level of sass, "maybe you'd be kind enough to go interrupt someone else's workout?"
Tony and Clint rolled their eyes almost simultaneously – honestly, ninety-five percent of the time, they looked more like brothers than friends.
"Honestly, Cap," it was Barton who spoke up first. "Why do you even bother working out? You're DNA is basically nothing but steroids. You could sit on a couch every waking minute for the next fifty years and still get up and run a marathon without breaking a sweat."
Tony followed up. "Spangles, I've literally used algebraic functions and extrapolation graphs to project at what age and under what conditions you will get fat – and so far, it's not mathematically possible." Barton scoffed and Steve just laughed, only slightly winded after being on the treadmill for over an hour at a ten mph run.
"It relaxes me!" he protested, but Clint and Tony were both firm believers that running should only be done if someone was chasing you, so his arguments were lost on their ears.
After several more comments on his body odor, Tony finally caved and went upstairs to shower. Clint retreated to his own suite to do the same. When the two friends emerged, Barton was in a crisp T shirt and sweatpants fresh out of the dryer. His hair smelled beautifully like Old Spice, and when he sat down next to Nat, she ran her fingers through his wet locks and smiled at the familiar scent. He laughed a little, shaking his head and splashing small droplets on her book. She gently swatted his cheek, pretending to be angry; he laughed again, leaning in for a quick kiss.
Rogers watched all this from the kitchen counter where he leaned, drinking from his water bottle and inhaling a ham sandwich. Sometimes, it was easy to forget that Clint and Tash were a couple, they hardly ever interacted outside the house – but it was times like this, when they were all cooped up together, that the two let their walls down and flirted and teased and kissed and cuddled. It was really quite adorable.
"EW GROSS! GET A ROOM, YOU TWO!"
Well, at least Steve thought it was adorable.
Tony's juvenile, teasing face peered out from behind the doorframe. That same face then had to duck rapidly to the left to avoid getting murdered by Tash's flying book. Tony just giggled and darted to safety.
Steve laughed, returning to his sandwich. It was while he was chewing that he noticed something off about the resident engineer. He gave Tony a quick once over, confusion settling on his features. Barton had come out in a t shirt and trackpants, but Tony had emerged from his bath wearing a pressed button down, a sweater, and heavy jeans. He was now by the door pulling on arctic-wear boots and wrapping himself in layers.
"You going somewhere, Stark?"
"You bet your spandexed ass, I am." Tony announced loudly, lacing his boot with a grunt. "If I walk in on those two sucking face again, I might vomit." The inventor was clearly teasing about Nat and Clint, but they could all detect the real edge to his voice - he was in desperate need of some free space - even if that free space meant turning into a snowman.
"Stark, you're not going outside, its freezing outside – people have actually died." Steve was getting that tone in his voice, that tone that heralded the arrival of his Mother Hen side. Next would be the nagging, the scolding, the threats, and then, when all else failed, the guilt trips.
Now, Tony had grown up around a lot of Italian women. If there was one thing Maria Stark had taught her son, it was the power of a catholic mother's guilt. But if there was one thing Howard Stark had taught his son, it was how to ignore it.
Sure enough, Steve's eyebrows knitted together in exaggerated concern, almost looking wounded. "You can't seriously be going for a walk right now – do you have a death wish? Don't you know how cold it is? Negative thirty, Tony. NEGATIVE THIRTY. That is an unholy level of cold - and that's coming from someone who spent decades in an ice cube."
But Tony ignored him, shrugging on his zip up fleece over his sweater before donning his enormous down coat, making a point silently of how many layers he was applying.
"I don't care how many jackets you wear, Tony Stark. You could get frostbite, you could lose an ear – your nose – what will you do if you don't have any fingers, Tony? If you don't have your hands, you can't build a prosthetic to REPLACE YOUR HANDS!"
On cue, Tony pulled on a pair of mittens followed by a pair of leather gloves followed by hand warmers being pointedly thrown into his pockets. He wrapped a scarf carefully around his neck and lower face, and snugly pulled his warmest, fluffiest hat onto his head, letting it cover his ears entirely.
Tony looked smug.
Steve looked horrified.
"Fine, Tony. Fine."
Here comes the guilt.
"Fine, just go out and freeze to death because you couldn't stand being cooped up in this tower with your team for any longer. Obviously we aren't entertaining enough for you. Go - go for your walk around Manhattan. Come back as a icicle; see if I come running to wrap you in blankets when you show up at the door absolutely blue in the face and hypothermic with chilblains. Just go, see if I will - just see." And with that, Steve threw his hand into the air and just waited for Tony's reply.
Tony just shot a look at him, raised a single eyebrow, and sighed. Barton giggled from the corner, and Tash smirked into her tea – because they all knew that that's exactly what Steve would do.
"You two are NOT HELPING!" Steve shot them a frustrated glance.
"Yah, uh, guys? I'll be back in an hour." Tony gave them a wave at the door. "If I'm not back in an hour," he turned to Steve this time, but with genuine meaning in his eyes. "Then you have my full permission to call the National Guard and send an arctic expedition crew out to find my body."
Barton and Nat laughed again, but Steve's glare was angry in that motherly way. "Don't say that Tony, that's terrible." He paused, pouting a little bit more before sighing and accepting defeat. "Fine, Tony, just…just promise you'll be back in an hour. I'm serious, not a minute later."
Tony sighed, halfway in the elevator, and turned back towards them all. "I promise. One hour." And he pressed the button for the ground floor, the door closing behind him...
...That was yesterday...
Tony didn't come back within the hour. Tony didn't come back after the hour.
Tony didn't come back for dinner.
Tony didn't come back, not when he had thirty missed calls and unanswered texts on his phone.
Tony didn't call back when Pepper called the police and sent the city on a manhunt at around 1 am that got called off because the officers were freezing to death.
Tony didn't come back at 3 am when the avengers were still up, waiting in the lobby, expecting him to stagger, half dead, through the door at any minute with mumbled excuses of going snow blind or getting lost or getting too drunk to walk home at some bar on 5th.
Tony didn't come back.
Tony didn't come back because he was covered in his own blood, lying in a dumpster, freezing to death.
He didn't come back because he could not move, with tears frozen to his cheeks as if they were suspended in time, silently begging for his friends to bring him home.
12 hours earlier
Cold.
It was the cold that hit Tony the moment he stepped out of the lobby at Stark Towers.
The wind whipped at his face so painfully that the only option was to walk backwards on certain streets so that the ocean breeze didn't crack his skin. His layers were his armor, and they served him very well, keeping his heat in and breaking the chill for the most part, but there was a deeper cold in the city – a bone drilling cold that sat in the air. No amount of parkas could protect you from it for too long, Tony knew. He would keep this walk short, maybe spare Steve the stress and come back within a half hour instead.
Tony was the only one on the streets that afternoon – something he had never experienced in all his years of living in the Big Apple. Usually, these sidewalks were packed so thick that if you looked down, you didn't know which feet were yours. But today, Tony was alone. The silence here was unsettling. This neighborhood should be filled with shouting of vendors and horns honking impatiently from intersections. Pedestrians should be screaming at taxis and rude bikers, children should be laughing on class field trips and snapping photos – shops should be open and warm and alight with old, familiar faces. The corners should be occupied by apocalyptic zealots and naked cowboys with guitars.
It was so quiet.
Tony trudged along on the side of the road – sidewalks were buried four feet down, only the driving lanes were plowed – but no cars were on the streets either. Tony was alone, save for the rare plow truck that whizzed at a distant perpendicular intersection.
Tony walked for almost two miles in the silence, beginning to appreciate it the way he had seen Tash do so many times; but it was the same blissful quiet that made the nastiness in the nearby alley so much more sinister.
"No, please-no, HELP! Stop! PLEASE, NO- P –PLEASE, HELP! HELP ME!" a young woman's voice was frantic, screaming and begging. There were sounds of a struggle, and her sobs being smothered.
Tony was already running, the weight of his clothes and his boots straining his muscles but not slowing him down.
The Avenger burst up the snowbank into the alley and stood in a defensive stance, ready to save the damsel in distress –
But no one was there.
Tony blinked once.
Stark didn't even have time to be confused before a white hot pain pierced his back, just to the left of his spine. He gasped, in too much pain and too much shock to let out anything other than a warbling cry.
"Uhn, uhn," Tony exhaled, guttural sounds escaping his mouth as he dropped to his knees. Soon, two figures came into view at the edge of his vision.
"Thank you for the coat, my friend – and your pretty boots. They'll keep me 'n my girl here nice and warm." The older man smiled, his teeth brown and stained. His hair was disheveled and his own coat was in tatters. The girl that stepped out from beside him was no different – her own teeth were brown and black as well – heroin for the both of them, no doubt. She looked as though she hadn't washed her hair in months. They both had tattered old jackets on, and nothing but sneakers for their feet – but they would have been dead by now if they had been living outside. They must have been staying in a shelter…one powered by Stark Technologies.
Oh the irony, Tony thought before another wave of pain hit him.
The man unsheathed the knife from Tony's muscle, and immediately, Stark let out a strangled yelp. Hot crimson flowed down Tony's back and soaked into his fleece. It hadn't been a big switchblade, only about two inches long, but a stab wound was a stab wound. Tony need to get back to Stark Towers – Bruce would take care of him. Bruce would…stitch him...make...better..
"Bruce…Bruce…" Tony stuttered airily, unaware he had been saying it out loud.
"My names not Bruce, friend." The man crouched in front of him with a dreadful, stinking sneer. "It's Chuck – but it doesn't matter that you know me, you won't be around long enough to tell anyone." And with that, he gave a kick to Tony's stomach. Tony felt two of his ribs snap, and the pain sent the young man reeling over, gasping for breath; but that movement aggravated his stab wound, sending more blood pulsing out of the gash. Tony felt faint, and he was sure he was going to be sick.
Without warning, the girl was upon him now, grabbing him roughly, ripping his gloves and mittens off – wrenching his neck around in order to steal his scarf from where he had so carefully tucked it to prove to Steve that he would be fine….Steve…He should have listened to Steve.
Tony couldn't be bothered to fight the two crackheads – he was too weak and too afraid that they would kick his ribs again. They stripped him of his jacket, and not gently. The man, Chuck, circled around Tony like a vulture, let out a laugh, and plunged the heel off his own boot into the stab wound on Tony's side, sending him face first into the gravel and snow in the shallow alley. Tony let out a cry, weakly crawling to get away, before the men grabbed Tony by the leg, ripping his boots off, and dislocating Tony's ankle in the process.
The engineer let out a howl of pain, clawing at his boot, just begging the man to untie it and take it off, but Chuck was sadistic, and probably high out of his mind, and he just kept pulling and pulling until it finally gave way, leaving a limp and purpling left ankle hanging in the cold air.
Tony just saved them the trouble of the next one and untied it for them, handing the boot over with shaking hands.
Tony simply held up his hands. "Enough," he called. "Enough, please. I-I haven't done anything t-to you."
But they were not done, and they figured they may as well take whatever Tony had left. So they shook him and went through his pockets, fishing out his wallet and taking his cash, stripping him of his watch, his cards, and his cellphone.
In a stroke of genius, Tony thought to call out for JARVIS. The AI was always active on his phone.
He flicked a nervous glance to his captors, who were too busy staring in awe at the amount of cash their victim carried with him, no doubt imagining how many fixes it would buy them. I hope you overdose on it, Tony couldn't help but spit vehemently in his mind. He looked to his phone sitting crudely in the girl's filthy hands. It was now or never.
"JARVIS, 911 PROTOCOL, CLEARANCE CODE 3-" But Tony didn't finish the activating the protocol. The girl shrieked, catching on too quickly, and threw the phone down. She smashed it under her heel, stomping and stomping until not even the great Tony Stark could put it back together again. The man scowled in outrage at Tony's attempted rescue, and he took out his rage on Tony's face. Mr. Stark could only watch the fists coming towards him.
When Chuck was through, Anthony Stark looked like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone. His left eye was swollen completely shut, his nose was broken, his bottom lip was cut, and there was a steady trickle of blood coming from where Chuck's fist had split his cheekbone.
To add insult to injury, they took his favorite hat and stripped him off his fleece as well, despite the large bloodstain on its back.
Now all he had on was his jeans, his button up, and a ripped pullover cashmere - basically what he had left his bedroom in.
They were also kind enough to leave him his socks.
Meanwhile
Back at Stark Tower, Steve watched the clock, frustration growing rampant with every minute that passed.
It was exactly sixty five minutes since Tony had left, and on the hour, Tash had been forced to physically withhold the phone from Steve's grasp because he was sincerely about to call the national guard.
"It's Tony," she had sternly reminded him. "Stark will be late to his own funeral! Just let him enjoy his walk, he'll be back when he feels like it."
And so Steve had settled down.
But now the second hour was approaching, and he even caught Tash sending discreet but worried glances at the clock. He noticed she hadn't turned her page in about ten minutes, which meant that she was just as preoccupied with Tony's absence as Steve was.
"Maybe…maybe we should just call him." She suggested quietly from the couch. She didn't have to say it twice.
"JARVIS," Steve called into the empty room. "JARVIS, call Tony immediately."
There was a pause and a few soft dial tones as Jarvis brought up Tony on caller ID.
"Captain, there appears to be a problem. My system cannot interface with Sir's cellular device – it appears to have been severely damaged."
"Dammit, Stark!" Steve huffed. He crossed his arms and paced ever so slightly, "Just – Just try again, will you?"
"Yes, Captain."
But Tony never picked up.
When that bastard, Chuck, and that squirrelly bitch left Tony to rot in the alley, Tony remembered taking deep breaths. He remembered thanking a God he had long since abandoned for not letting them kill him. He had just been so thankful they had left, that they had let him be.
He didn't remember closing his eyes in relief. He didn't remember his brain drawing back into itself against the pain.
He certainly didn't remember falling asleep.
But now Tony was awake, and the sun had set. New York City was dark and eerily quiet and Tony was afraid.
He was afraid because the only warmth he could feel was the wound on his back and the swelling radiating from his face. His hands were numb and almost purple with cold; his feet were soaking wet and absolutely blue beneath his heavy woolen socks, he could tell. His dislocated ankle was blissfully sensationless, but Tony knew that that wasn't a good thing, as nice as it may be for the time being.
Tony had to get home- back to the tower, where Steve would be waiting for him with a big blanket and hot drinks just like he said he wouldn't be.
The beaten man shuffled painfully to his feet, his injured back and cracked ribs screaming all the while, but he had to move – he needed to get home.
His walk had taken him far from residential Manhattan and more into the industrial parks and warehouses near the docks; Tony was seriously regretting ever getting out of his sweatpants this morning.
Tony braced himself up against the brick wall, scooting himself behind a big blue dumpster to break the wind's howling chill. Sure enough, it was noticeably warmer next to the garbage, although the smell was far from charming. Tony took a few quick pulls of the frigid air, bracing himself for the pain, and wrapped one hand around his lower calf and one hand around his foot. Before he could give himself any time to hesitate, he jerked his ankle back into place with a sickening pop and let out a scream between his teeth. The pain ebbed away quickly, actually feeling much better than it had before, but dots still swam in Tony's vision – and when he closed his eyes to breathe and assess his other injuries – Tony noticed the shivering.
It was a full body trembling that was so violent he could hardly move. His body was trying so hard to keep him warm, but with only jeans, socks, a button up and a sweater on, in this weather, Tony was bound to freeze to death in another hour if he stayed exposed like this. He needed to move.
He used the edge of the dumpster to haul himself to his feet, he tentatively tested the strength of his ankle. Now that it was in its proper position, the swelling was going down ever so slightly, but it still couldn't hold any real weight.
Tony scowled, cursing his luck and his own stupidity. He curled in on himself, desperately trying to stay warm, but still feeling hypothermia take effect. After all, he had been asleep for at least two hours, unsheltered and wet, losing blood and probably concussed. This was not a good day.
Tony blinked a few times to clear his head and his thoughts. Practicality sank in over his flight or fight.
If he ran, he would leave the shelter of the alley and the dumpster, most likely dropping unconscious by the time it took him to go a mile from the sheer cold and extent of his injuries. His stab wound still oozed blood, but not nearly as much as it had. Still, Tony was incredibly faint from the loss, and his whole body ached in protest with every movement. There as no way he would make it to Stark Towers alive.
If he stayed where he was, the alley would protect him from the snow and the wind. The dumpster could keep him warm, albeit smelly. He just needed warmth. His body was absolutely frozen – the water in his eyes stung every time he blinked.
Besides, soon enough, the team would get worried enough that they would call him. Upon him not answering, Tony reasoned, they would track his last GPS signal which would lead them right to this alley.
All Tony had to do was wait.
So, Tony Stark, billionaire MIT graduate and superhero, crawled pitifully into the New York City dumpsters, nestling himself under the warm black plastic bags filled with composting foods and unholy garbage. The scent assaulted his nose, affronting him directly as if he'd run into a wall. The heat wasn't much, but to Tony it was beautiful. The warmth enveloped him, like a baby being swaddled. He curled up in a ball, ignoring the scream of his pulling wound and his shifting, popping ribcage, and felt exhaustion take him back down the path of unconsciousness.
It wouldn't be long. His team would find him – they always find him.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T FIND HIM?!" Pepper Potts did not often lose her professional composure, but when she did, she was absolutely terrifying. Barton almost felt sorry for the unassuming Junior SHIELD Agent staring open-mouthed at his computer screen, willing it to give him some other answer if only to save himself from this screaming woman.
"M-Ma'am, I am sorry, b-but the storm – It took down half the cell towers in New York. We can't bounce his GPS signal any further. A-All we know is that he is somewhere in this dead zone – r-right here!" And the poor kid pointed with a shaking hand to a zone of red on his satellite map covering at least six square miles of Manhattan.
Steve sucked in a breath, exhaustion and stress apparent on his face. Tony could be anywhere in that radius – it would take too long to check everywhere – they needed to narrow it down.
It was approaching 2 in the morning now. Tony had been missing since six o'clock that evening.
"I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO, OR HOW YOU DO IT – FIND HIM." Pepper almost grabbed the kid by his shirt collar, but a calming hand from Natasha just made Pepper stutter for breath before her eyes welled up in tears.
"Why does he do this to me, Natasha?" Pepper mumbled, tears in her eyes and panic ebbing with every word. "He gives me heart attacks at least once a month and sometimes I think he enjoys it – I cannot do this anymore, my health cannot handle this much stress…" Pepper trailed off, completely dazed and unaware that Tash was basically leading her out of the room. She exited, all the while mumbling and throwing her hands up in surrender, fresh sobs escaping her throat.
Steve watched Pep go with an aching in his chest. The NYPD had called the hunt off an hour ago, and frankly, Steve couldn't blame them. Even with the serum turning him into a human oven, Steve had been cold. Colder than he had been since – well, Steve didn't like to think about the plane, but he couldn't help but picture Tony, alone and scared and deathly cold if not already…No, Tony Stark would not die from a little snowstorm – if anything, his stubbornness would prevent it.
Steve walked to the door of the command room and suited back up, wrapping himself in as many layers as he could stand. He printed off the map on the GPS locator screen. Six mile radius be damned, Captain Rogers would search every last inch of it. He never left a man behind.
Tony Stark would not die. Not tonight.
Not when Steve still had to tell him "I told you so".
Four o'clock in the morning
The snow began falling again sometime during the night. Tony wasn't exactly sure when – all he knew is that the unwelcome little bastards were invading his dumpster and landing on the bags, melting from the heat, and dripping into his hair.
Tony was exhausted, and he had certainly warmed up in the pile of waste. His toes were less numb, and his hands seemed slightly less blue and just pale...which heralded a whole new problem.
Sometime in his slumber, he had contorted his back and reopened the stab wound. Blood had poured freely. Tony could tell by his swimming vision and severe fatigue that his blood loss was reaching crucial levels – never mind if the switchblade punctured anything important – Tony could have mere hours left to live.
Where were his friends? Where was his team? Had they abandoned him? Forgotten about him completely?
When he didn't show up for dinner, they probably all laughed and cheered, so glad to be rid of him after these last few days. He couldn't help but remember Tash's glares of annoyance – Steve's scolding looks – even Bruce had kept himself occupied in the labs and had actually had to ask Tony to leave at one point because he was getting so badly on his nerves his eyes flashed green.
Tony had been an impetuous child, he knew that – but he couldn't believe that his friends would just leave him out here like this. Tears began to well in the engineer's vision, but he wiped them away quickly, knowing that they would freeze to his face and scratch his eyes if he was not careful.
Tony knew it was just his weakness and the cold that were making him think so cynically, but knowing they were falsehoods didn't banish the thoughts from his head. Knowing he was being melodramatic didn't make him feel any less abandoned.
Tony was deep in thought until he noticed it.
And when he noticed it, he should have panicked. He should have felt adrenaline fill his veins; he should have burst from the dumpster and sprinted home, ankle be damned.
But when he noticed it, all he could bring himself to do was mouth a quiet little "oh," and let his body start to shut down.
Tony Stark had stopped shivering.
The clock was ticking.
Six o'clock in the morning
Tony watched the sunrise bathe the sky with a taunting light – a promise of warmth that wouldn't come.
The night had been long and dark, and there had been times that Tony shivered so violently he thought he might die from the pain, but here he was, alive, but supposed he really should be impressed that he lasted this long. The garbage pile, the heat of the decomposition, had kept him fighting like a life support – but the night is always coldest before the dawn, and Tony could feel none of his extremities by the time the sun peaked around the skyline. The only reminder that he was still alive was his sluggish heartbeat and the occasional blink that he had to remind himself to take because his brain was functioning much to slow.
He tried to keep himself alert – some simple math problems maybe.
Derivative of e to the power of x?
He went to respond – then he realized he didn't know.
Its ok, he told himself, it's been a long time since calculus. How 'bout some simple trigonometry, Tony?
What's the sin value of pi/6?
Square root of 3 over 2, he proudly told himself….or was it square root of 2 over 2? No, that was sin pi/4, wasn't it?
Wasn't it?
Tony felt fear at the back of his throat – but it left as soon as it came. Fatigue was washing over him now. The pull of sleep was so inviting. He hardly felt cold anymore – in fact, the snow melting into is hair was almost warm.
This is a certainly one of the more peaceful ways to go, Tony mused. Besides, it's best that I die here in a dumpster with some dignity than have to listen to the countless streams of "I told you so" from Miss America.
Tony tried to laugh at his own joke, but couldn't bring himself to expend that much energy. The frost on his lashes tickled his frostbitten cheeks – wait, when did he close his eyes?
Oh well, I guess this is it then… Tony's heart swelled, sluggish as it was. The engineer's chin quivered, and a stray tear slid down his face. This time, Tony had to let it freeze there.
He couldn't have brought up his hand to catch if it he tried.
The darkness was rushing towards him, Tony could feel it. It wasn't scary, it wasn't ominous - It was a little intimidating, but Tony had faced down worse. He had died several times in his life, he thought suddenly with a smirk, but this was certainly not the worst.
It was as Anthony Edward Stark was making his peace with this world that he heard it.
It was a sound that made him hold his breath for fear it would come again – because if it came again, it would fill him with so much desperate hope that he would sob if it turned out to be a trick of the mind.
But sure enough, it came again.
"…Tony...?"
Far off, to be sure, but undoubtedly the stubborn and hoarse shout of the one and only Steve Rogers.
"…TONY STARK...?" Steve's voice was getting closer, and the engineer would have sobbed with joy if he could muster the strength to inhale.
"St-"the sound was pathetic. Tony tried to call louder. "Steve?" It was still quiet, but the super soldier had enhanced hearing – Stark just prayed it was enhanced enough.
Tony could make out the sounds of Steve's heavy winter boots, now. The soldier was getting closer and closer to Stark's humble little alley.
"TOOOO-NYYYYY?" The captain called into the abandoned industrial yards, cupping his hands around his mouth. Honestly, Steve was exhausted and frigid and was almost completely out of hope. He had searched every grid block of the radius – this was the last one. If he didn't find his friend then…Tony wouldn't make it another night, if he had even managed to survive this past one...Steve shuddered again, but not from the cold. He was afraid - afraid of not finding Tony...but also afraid of what he might find.
"Steve" Tony's voice was hoarse and quiet, but this was it. This was his last shot as survival. Somehow, he managed to fidget, to move and crinkle to garbage bags. "Ste-"He coughed out. No, he would not die today. Do Better, he commanded himself. Mustering up his last ounces, he let a final attempt escape his icy throat and part his blue lips.
"STEVE" He cried, and then faltered completely. His body was giving up, his vision was tunneling, and he was spiraling down, down, down…
"TONY?! TONY!" And that's when Tony felt Steve's body shake the trash bin, his hands digging furiously under mountains of rotten smells until he found it – that feel of solid flesh and bone, of ice cold limbs…and a barely breathing man.
Steve Rogers had never prayed in a dumpster, but he shot a glance to the sky and thanked God as he pulled Tony's frozen form from the trash.
Tony was completely blue – head to toe, barely clinging to life. Steve was stripping out of his clothes immediately, bundling Tony in everything he had without reservation. Steve noticed the brutal stab wound on Tony's back, but now was not the time to interrogate the poor man – now was the time to save him from severe hypothermic shock.
To Tony, the mittens and boots forced onto his lips were blisteringly hot – they stung at his skin and the pins and needles they caused were absolute agony.
Steve's jacket was intoxicatingly warm, and Tony felt himself falling asleep fast, his body still refusing to shiver. Steve had found him – but it might still be too late.
Steve, now completely shirtless and only wearing his snow pants and socks, scooped Tony off the hard alley floor and jarred his face with a quick slap, guilt immediately sinking low in his stomach as he took in the heavy bruising around Tony's eyes and mouth – and a particularly nasty gash on his cheek.
Tony needed medical attention urgently, and without cell service, and not wanting to leave the poor man to find reception, he knew he had but one choice.
He was determined to keep Tony awake, and he forced the engineer to talk to him the whole run to the hospital – and yes, it was a run. Steve Rogers was sprinting half naked down snowy, arctic streets of Manhattan carrying a bundled up Tony Stark in his arms like an injured child,
"So tell me, Tony," Rogers panted. "What are some projects you've been working on?"
If Tony could have felt his face, he would have smirked.
"A-a..you..tryin' t' flirt w'me, Cap..?"
"Get your mind out of the gutter, Stark, just some small talk to make sure you don't get to sleep when I haven't had a nap in over 24 hours - just wouldn't be fair, would it?" Steve gave a breathy laugh, still running, but felt his heart sink hen Stark couldn't even muster a reply.
"Tony, talk to me. I'm serious. Tell me about your projects."
"I 'ave dis…new…'bot…I d'nno wa' t' call…'er…yet, b-but she's…b'tiful…" Tony could hardly form words, but Steve was slightly reassured by the fact that Tony's lips were less blue than they had been five minutes ago. Pink almost danced at their edges.
"What does the new robot do, Tony?" Only five more blocks to go, Steve was counting. He wrapped Tony tighter against his chest, trying to share as much of his own warmth as he could. Five more Blocks. He picked up his speed.
"She...picks...up...arrows...f'r…Clint…"
"That's pretty cool, Tony. Clint's gonna love that, so you gotta make sure you finish that project soon and give it to him before our next mission." Steve waited for a reply.
"Tony?"
Nothing.
"TONY?!" Steve looked down at the brown haired man. His eyes were shut and his breathing was coming much too slow. Steve's ears could pick up his heartbeat.
It was slowing down. He was succumbing to the cold - he was dying in Steve's arms.
"No, no, no, NO, NO, NOOO!" Steve cried. If he thought he had been sprinting before, he was wrong. He went ripping around corners, desperately wishing for a cab to show up, or a plow truck, or a cruiser – anything to get to the hospital faster. But as it was, Steve's transponder had lost all service in the dead zone, leaving him unable to relay Tony's position. At this point, just continuing with the run was faster than waiting for SHIELD.
Steve was breathing heavy when the hospital came into view, but he still managed to shout at emergency workers near the ambulance bay. He ran straight past the waiting nurses, straight past the check in desk at the emergency room, and straight past the "DO NOT ENTER" doors on the intensive care unit.
Steve burst down the first door of a room he could find, thanking god again that it was empty (because that would have been really awkward) and he ran into the bathroom.
He could not care less at the stampede of footsteps well behind him, chasing him up to where he'd ran. Steve rogers was much too occupied with turning the shower on warm, not hot, but warm, and stripping Tony Stark down to his ridiculously expensive silk boxers. Then, casting his own snow pants off, Steve stood in his plain cotton drawers, supporting the engineer with all his strength. He lowered them both into the tub, pulling the stop on the drain so that the tub would fill.
The water was warm, Steve knew, not scalding – but still, when it came in contact with even the super soldier's skin, it was such a drastic temperature change that it felt like a burn. Steve winced, but never let go of Tony, running the warm water over his torso, over the arc reactor, and then rubbing his hands and feet, trying to get the blood flow back into the engineer's extremities. Bile crept up the Captain's throat as he remembered teasing Tony earlier today, telling him that he would be useless if he lost his hands.
Now, looking at the engineer's blue and purple fingers, he would give anything to take it back.
The nursing staff caught up with them eventually, but by then, Steve and Tony were fully immersed in a warm tub. Steve was turning the temperature of the water up every few minutes, allowing Tony's frozen form to adjust without bursting his blood vessels. Steve didn't take a deep breath until Tony gave a small cough and shifted, pressing his frostbitten nose into the crook of Steve's collarbone. It was cold as all hell, and made Steve want to pull back and away, but instead he leaned into the smaller man's touch, providing as much warmth as he could.
The nurses watched from the side, taking Tony's vitals – only once Steve had given them permission to touch him, of course. To say Steve was being protective was the understatement of the century. His eyes were crazed, like an animal, and you would have had to put a bullet between in his head to get him to let go of the smaller man.
The doctors just sort of admitted Tony to the room – after all, he was already in the tub - and they tried to tell Steve to take him out of the water so they could examine him, but Steve blatantly refused. He told them of the stab wound, he let them inspect the injuries to Tony's face and the deep purple bruising of the engineer's ribs, but Steve was very adamant that until Tony was warm, everything else could wait. In the meantime, he did allow the nurses to attach a heated IV line to the engineer's arm. They knelt beside the tub, disinfectant and gauze in hand, and expertly inserted the tap line into the man's frozen veins. Steve nodded his appreciation as they hooked up a transfusion bag to Mr. Stark, who, as Steve had helpfully told them, was blood type A+.
It took thirty minutes of soaking in the tub, increasing the temperature step by step, until Tony was almost pink and pruney. Steve had almost cried with relief when he had started shivering again. The engineer had opened his eyes a few times, weakly called out names, and flailed slightly, shivers racking his body – but he had survived.
The hardest part was getting Tony out of the tub. The avenger was in a delirium of hypothermic shock and exhaustion. The moment Steve lifted him from the tub, he shivered even harder, crying out as he tore at the obviously infected stab wound on his lower back. Then, Tony had clung to Steve with all his failing strength, striking out at anything or anyone who tried to pry them apart.
So, it ended up being that Captain America had to cradle the cold and shaking form of Iron Man as nurses draped them both with electric blankets and switched out Tony's blood transfusion for warmed IV fluids mixed with a sedative.
Tony was unconscious instantly, allowing the nurses to patch up his back and the various abrasions on his face, as well as brace his ankle and his ribs. He stirred only slightly, once, when Steve tried to remove himself from the sheets, and he started wailing in his sleep to the point that Steve just gave up and returned to the chattering icebox of a man, the super soldier now almost sweating with how much heat was coming off the electric blankets.
However, Tony was looking much better. His skin was completely pink now, albeit pale and wane.
His fingers were still blue around the nails, but the doctors had assured him that Tony Stark would miraculously leave this hospital with all ten fingers and all ten toes. His breathing was steady and loud, and his heart was slow but completely steady and assuring.
His face looked a little worse for wear; now that there was no cold to keep the swelling down, the bruises and cuts exploded across his face, and the nurses had smeared a thick salve on the blackened tips of his nose and ears - basically, he looked terrible. Pepper, bless her heart, would probably have an absolute fit when she saw the state he was in, but at least he was alive.
Steve had made one of the nurses call Stark Towers for him about 15 minutes ago to give the team an update – he knew they would be here any minute, no doubt incredibly angry at him for disappearing and going to search by himself. They wouldn't be seriously mad, just concerned and frustrated and desperate to yell at someone who wasn't on death's door.
Basically, Steve was going to be their Tony stand-in and get scolded to the end of the universe and back.
"Well," Steve cast one more glance down at his teammate, silent and peaceful in sleep. "Tony, I hate to say I told you so…" And he trailed off, a laugh sitting on his upturned lips. He clutched the smaller man tighter, and Steve allowed himself to breathe easy for the first time since Tony had stepped out the door.
For the next week that Tony was back at Stark Towers, people never left his side. Someone was always putting extra socks on his feet or handing him a hot beverage or placing an extra blanket across his lap.
There was always a hand ready to sit him closer to the fireplace or turn the thermostat up or put burn cream on his frostbite or put warming pads under his seat.
Everyone volunteered to change the dressing on his stab wound or rebind his ribs or get him the remote or pick up his favorite takeout.
People dropped off new slippers or canned soup, hats and mittens – hell, his goddamn accountant even sent him a scarf.
If Tony had to look at one more article of winter clothing he was going to vomit.
But, he couldn't ask to be left alone, because as it was just his luck, he had contracted a serious case of pneumonia after his escapade in the dumpster, and he needed people to wake him up and give him his meds or fetch him his inhaler when he couldn't breathe or turn him on his side if he was having a coughing fit which made his ribs ache which pulled at his stitches which just fucking sucked.
It was Hell.
But at least Hell had Natasha, rubbing circles on his chest with Vicks VapoRub when his lungs were too clogged. Hell had her, reading him the inspirational messages on his Halls wrappers.
Hell had Bruce regaling him with details of his new studies and experiments, asking for Tony's opinion on theories he was coming up with, laughing when one of them was disproved because Bruce had been exhausted and accidentally added 12 and 1 to get 14. Tony had laughed so hard he cried, all the while hacking up a lung. But he didn't care, it was goddamn hilarious
At least he had Barton to make him soup for three meals a day without a single complaint, even when Tony would sneeze into the bowl mid-dinner and splash it everywhere - forcing Barton to pour him a new serving and wipe down the table with as much disinfectant as he could find.
At least Hell had Steve and Pepper, fussing over him, changing his bed when his fever ran high and he threw up on his quilt or sweated through the sheets. They were there, helping him in and out of the shower when his ankle throbbed or his head spun or he couldn't pull in enough air and he got dizzy. They took care of him, every step of the way.
At least he was home.
At least he had his family.
Ok, I loved this chapter guys, and I think it had a really great insight into aftercare, which I know a lot of you guys were wanting to see more of.
PLEASE REVIEW!
