When Tony woke up next, it was not because he was shivering, or coughing, or anything boring like that. It wasn't even because hallucination Clint was singing to him.
Nope, his hallucinations had gone from slight alterations to his reality to completely rewriting it.
Because yeah, that had to be the only explanation for why he was staring at a bit of an explosion from a not at all comfortable position draped over Clint's shoulder.
"P'me down," he mumbled to hallucination Clint, who really, shouldn't have needed to be spoken to, since he was Tony's subconscious or whatever.
Clint totally didn't listen, and Tony attempted to hit him, but there was a lot of blood rushing to his head and everything hurt and also it was cold, so it maybe didn't happen.
When he drifted back next, it wasn't to the dungeon that he'd been kept in for the past whatever. Close, but not quite. This place was more of a hollow in the side of a cliff, not even deep enough to be called a cave.
And Tony was... warm. Which was weird. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been warm. Certainly it was before this whole kidnapping thing.
Maybe he was in the stage of hypothermia where he couldn't feel anything anymore. Maybe he was numb, and not actually warm.
He nodded to himself. That made more sense.
"Tony?" Clint asked, appearing in his line of sight.
Tony squinted at him. Still hallucinating then, which was unfortunate. But if he was so cold that he was feeling warm, and hallucinating, then he was pretty close to dying.
Pepper was gonna kill him.
Tony sighed, and closed his eyes again.
"Hey, Tony, look at me," the hallucination urged, shaking Tony gently. It hurt.
Tony really had no clue why he was being so demanding, but obeyed. He squinted at Clint again. He looked the same as he had before in the earlier hallucinations, same shirt and sweatpants. His sweater was still missing, and he looked dirtier. His hair was a mess, which was normal, but his one eye was darkened and his face was peppered with small scratches and cuts.
"Sup," he said, rolling the word around in his mouth. His tongue felt heavy, and his throat was dry.
Clint sagged with relief.
"Fuck, Tony, don't do that."
Tony frowned. What had he done now? "What?"
Clint rolled his eyes. "I can't actually hear you, and it's a bit dark in here to read lips, but I'm assuming you either denied doing anything, or can't remember what you did."
Tony needed a minute to process that, but Clint didn't give him the time, just continued talking.
"We're not in the castle of that guy anymore. When he moved us into the same cell, and still denied my existence to you, because apparently there was some mind fuckery going on before that where he tried to convince you I didn't exist, I started plotting. You were no help during the entire thing, what with being concussed and broken and sick, which you still are by the way. I think your fever finally broke now, which is why you're awake. But don't do that again, seriously. You've been having nightmares and moaning and sometimes you try to attack me and it's just..." he sighed. "The rest of the team would kill me if anything happened to you. Or Pepper. I think I'm more afraid of Pepper than I am of Steve or Bruce to be honest."
Tony blinked.
That was a lot to process, and thinking was like wading through molasses (which he had done before, or at least the equivalent of, freaking aliens) so it took him a minute to come to a conclusion.
That either, one, he was still hallucinating, and still in the cement prison, and all this was a hallucination right before he was about to die. Or two, that what Clint was telling him was true, that he was deaf, and the entire thing had been an elaborate setup by Stone to try and make Tony lose his mind.
One of them was obviously preferable.
He nodded sagely, closing his eyes again. "Cool," he mumbled, attempting to make his hand into a thumbs up sign, but his limbs were very far from his brain, and he was super tired, and it might not have happened before he drifted off to sleep again.