Warning for graphic dream sequence
Chapter 26: Invasion
Clint fell first. Thor's family left that morning, and he spiked a fever by eight o'clock that night. Fevers in people like Clint with suppressed immune systems constituted medical emergencies. The doctors immediately isolated him and took blood to find out what was causing it, or so Clint told them in the group chat. Tony thought his hands might be shaking from the prevalence of typos in his messages, although that could also be attributed to him not thinking straight through the fever and the fear.
This was Tony's first experience with a cancer kid spiking a fever and admittedly he was terrified. On the surface, he'd known that it was dangerous because it had been explained to him at some point, but actually experiencing it happen to one of his friends made it so much more real. As a kid, a fever for Tony had meant staying home from school and Mom's homemade soup, but for these kids a fever meant being whisked away from everyone, bloodwork, and terror. Even though Clint wasn't constantly around them on a normal day, his absence in the common room the next morning was palpable.
"I really hope he's going to be okay," Tony sighed. After the news reached him he hadn't slept much last night.
"He will be," Steve assured. He paused to cough for a few moments. "They have to be super cautious because of his immune system, but antibiotics should do the trick. I've seen this happen before."
"Fevers suck," Natasha admitted. "But they know how to fix them. And they caught it early. Should be fine."
Tony trusted their opinions on this matter, of course, but he couldn't help but worry. Nobody else, not even the nurses, seemed perturbed, so he felt rather alone in his fretting. He'd never been a worrywart before, but being hospitalized for a potentially fatal heart condition tended to make one more cautious in general.
He almost shouted when Thor tensed up and fell to the floor, despite having seen it happen at least a dozen times before and knowing it wasn't particularly harmful. His body moved to cushion Thor's head on autopilot, Steve right behind him. Steve started timing it while Tony slid the sofa backwards far enough that Thor wouldn't strike it. The phone clattered to the floor, stopwatch still running, as Steve threw an arm over his mouth to cover it, the other hand clutching his chest as he coughed. This wasn't unusual for him, but Tony noticed it seemed more forceful than normal. He thought maybe he was just paranoid from worrying about Clint, but then Steve didn't stop.
"You okay, man?" Tony asked, trying not to let fear creep into his voice. He watched Steve carefully and swore he saw him shake his head back and forth. It was impossible to tell with him doubled over and practically convulsing from the strength of the coughing.
"He does not look okay," Natasha stated.
Thor's seizure ceased just shy of four minutes, leaving Steve's coughing the only sound in the room. Just when Tony braced himself to stand up and go fetch help, Steve stopped. Tony sighed in relief, but it turned into a yelp when Steve picked his head up to look at him. Wet red splotches decorated the crook of his elbow.
"Um, Steve…is that what I think it is?" Tony asked.
Steve nodded tersely. He stood up and started for the door, only for another fit to strike and halt him in his tracks. Natasha darted out of the room and Tony walked over and put what he hoped was a comforting hand on Steve's back. He could feel every violent spasm of muscle trying to force whatever-it-was out of Steve's lungs. Steve coughed all the time, but never like this. The first tendrils of panic grasped at Tony's mind, but he fought them off. Naturally, his body didn't agree with his decision not to panic and he barely managed to let go of Steve before his defibrillator fired. Natasha returned with Peggy just as Steve hacked up another quarter-sized puddle of blood.
"Come on," Peggy invited without wasting a second. She guided Steve back to his room to look after him, leaving Tony alone in the common room with Natasha. They stared at each other in stunned silence, wondering what could have caused this. Now Tony had two friends to worry about, and he didn't particularly enjoy that.
Parker staggered into the room seconds after Tony collapsed on the sofa in exhaustion. "What's going on?" Parker asked. "I just saw Peggy walking Steve down the hall and he was coughing pretty bad."
"He coughed up blood," Tony stated, still dumbfounded by what he'd seen.
"What? That's not good."
"No, it's not."
"Oh, man." Parker rubbed at his head with both hands.
Tony finally got a good look at him and noticed he was even paler than usual. That didn't bode well either. "How are you, Parker?" he asked cautiously, almost afraid to hear the answer.
"Honestly? I don't feel so good," he admitted.
Tony's mind started to put pieces together that he wished would remain apart. "Go back to your room and call in a nurse, tell them exactly what's going on," he instructed.
"Tony, what is wrong?" Natasha asked.
"Something's not right," Tony said. "Three people getting sick in the span of a day?"
"This is a hospital," Parker reminded him. "People get sick."
"I know, but I don't trust whatever's going on right now. Have Clint's labs come back yet, do they know what it is?"
"I do not know."
"Well, until we find out—" he was interrupted by Maria's arrival.
"I want you all in your rooms, now," she stated affirmatively.
"What's going on?" Parker questioned.
"We'll tell you when we know for sure. Now go."
They didn't waste any more time, scampering out and back to their rooms. Tony closed his door and finally released the half-sob, half-scream he'd been holding back since Parker admitted he wasn't feeling great. Phantom alarms blared in his head, making his ears ring and his temples throb. "We'll tell you when we know for sure." The phrase stuck in his mind. They didn't know what was going on, but clearly whatever it was frightened them. Anything that could frighten the Gravesen staff posed a massive threat. Even the Code Silver hadn't really tested the resilience of the doctors and nurses here; they'd handled it with practiced calm and ease. But this unknown threat, whatever it was, had them worried.
He checked the group chat to see if anyone had learned anything more, only to find nothing but his friends experiencing the same confusion and fear. Tony wrote, "The second you get any information from anyone let us know," and everyone agreed to share anything they found out. Tony took a deep breath to try and steady himself. He felt a little weak and shaky, though he couldn't tell if it was from a lack of sleep, stress, or somehow related to his ICD firing. Most likely it was some combination of all three. He lay there, half-listening for any new texts while simultaneously trying to drown out the outside world and calm down. He'd almost gotten it to work when Happy came in. Tony could tell from his face that he had news.
"What's going on?" Tony asked.
"Clint's labs came back," Happy announced.
"And…?
"He has an infection caused by a bacteria called Streptococcus chitauri," he explained. "It usually presents similarly to strep throat or a cold, but with compromised systems like you all have it can turn into pneumonia or get into the bloodstream. It's also highly contagious. You and everyone else on the ward need to stay away from each other to prevent it from spreading."
"So I'm basically grounded?"
"To put it bluntly, yes."
"Is it…serious? I mean, is Clint gonna be okay?"
"It's not known to be resistant to antibiotics, and it usually runs its course pretty quickly with treatment, so he should be fine."
"Should be?"
"You know I can never make promises, Tony," Happy sighed. "For now he's stable. But I do have another reason for being here, which is screening you for symptoms. Are you feeling okay?"
"Besides being super stressed out?" Tony tried half-heartedly for humor and fell short. Happy procured a thermometer, took his temperature, and stared at the result. "What is it?" Tony asked.
"Just a tad high," Happy said. "Do you feel feverish?"
"Not really. I am pretty tired, but that's because I didn't sleep much."
"What about a sore throat? Achiness? Respiratory symptoms? Anything like that?"
"I certainly haven't been coughing like Steve. My ICD fired earlier when Steve was really going at it, but no chest pain or anything. I'm just exhausted, I think."
Happy pursed his lips unhappily. "We'll definitely keep an eye on everything. I'll see what the doctors on the case say. If anything changes, you know how to call me."
"Okay," Tony sighed as Happy tidied up and left. He checked the group chat again and found a very important message.
"I just learned something," Thor texted. "My parents just called to tell me Loki's sick. He started complaining of a sore throat on the flight home."
"I think we just found our Typhoid Mary," Nick wrote. Could the kid really be responsible for this, or was it just a coincidence? The puzzle pieces fit together too perfectly for it to be a coincidence. Loki's worst trickery of them all had been achieved without any conscious effort on his part. Tony wondered if he would celebrate if he knew that he'd gotten three, potentially four of them sick.
Make that six.
Within the next four hours, both Natasha and Bucky sent frantic texts to the group chat reporting they too had fevers. Steve and Parker both stated they'd tested positive for strep chitauri. Parker only had mild flu-like symptoms, but Tony could hear Steve's continued coughing from next door and he doubted the boy would be able to fight this off easily. He was already on antibiotics for whatever other infection lived in his lungs, how were they going to battle this new one? Tony only hoped it didn't spiral into pneumonia as Happy said it might; the last thing Steve needed was running the risk of requiring intubation again.
Tony himself felt noticeably worse than he had when Happy was here, and not just because so many of his friends suffered. His throat definitely hurt now, when a few hours ago he could have passed it off as a tickle. Reluctantly, he pressed the call button and told Happy the verdict. He took his temperature again and Tony knew without him having to say it that it had gone up.
"How high?" Tony asked.
"101.3," Happy read.
"Yikes."
"Yikes indeed."
~0~
How did Steve cope with this all the time? IV antibiotics were miserable. Compounded with his worsening symptoms, the side effects of the meds made him wish he could sleep this whole experience away. He lay practically paralyzed in a state of exhaustion and nausea severe enough to make him request a basin. The sensation sat constantly below the threshold of actually throwing up, but close enough that his stomach muscles seemed coiled in anticipation.
He couldn't even bring himself to be disappointed at being grounded. In his current state he doubted he could tolerate company anyway. He just wished the rest of them remained safe from this monstrous bacterial invasion. The nurses provided continuous updates on everyone whenever they came in to recheck his temperature or adjust the contents of his IV. So far Thor, Bruce, Quill, and Nick hadn't reported any symptoms. Hopefully, it remained that way.
Steve and Natasha apparently had it the worst, with his ruined lungs and her devastated immune system. They had him stabilized on whatever was a step below intubation to help his breathing, and Natasha's intestines were reacting badly to the infection. Clint and Bucky were miserable but seemingly in less immediate danger than Nat, and Parker was just exhausted and sore. All things considered, Tony considered himself among the lucky ones, although Rhodes paid him his first visit since the shooting to inform him they'd recheck all his heart function parameters after he cleared the infection to see if it had weakened. He fell asleep late that night after flip-flopping between freezing and overheating in a feverish haze for hours. What he didn't expect to become a part of his misery were the dreams.
Tony found himself in a dark, cluttered room, a mountain of rubble before him. The very air tingled with fear, and despite his anticipation of something leaping out at him he startled anyway. A massive worm-like monster that reminded him of sketches of bacteria in his old biology textbook swooped over him. Tony ducked and covered his head with his arms, panting. The beast soared onwards and over the mountain. When Tony finally stood up, he was no longer alone in the room.
The mountain was littered with the corpses of his friends.
Bruce lay curled up on his side, as if his last moments were spent self-comforting or protecting himself from cold. Natasha sprawled on her back, eyes open but lifeless and yet somehow still staring accusingly at Tony. Beside her, Clint sat defeated, body leaned up against the rubble behind him. Tony had watched Thor seize countless times, but the figure on the mountain thrashed more violently than he'd ever seen. Dislodged rocks and scraps of metal cascaded down towards Tony, some soaked in Thor's blood. Instinct told Tony to run to him and protect him from hurting himself, but he couldn't move.
After what felt like ages, Thor finally stopped, but he remained more stillthan Tony had ever seen. He looked more closely and recognized the key difference: Thor's chest didn't gently rise and fall. This was one postictal nap he would never awaken from. Just above Thor's body sat Quill, hideously discolored with one hand at his throat from a failed attempt to get oxygen into his lungs. Bucky lay face down, his left side towards Tony. Instead of a clean, healing stump, there was a mangled bloody hole as if someone had taken a chainsaw to his shoulder blade. Nick slumped nearby, both of his eyes gouged out and dripping blood onto his cheeks like tears.
Closer to Tony, at the bottom of the mountain, Parker lay unmoving with his too-thin limbs bent at disturbing angles. And at his feet lay Steve, beaten and bloodied. Tony crouched down beside him, finally able to move again, and reached forward. Steve's eyes snapped open and his hand wrapped itself around Tony's wrist with impossible strength and prevented him from escaping. Steve spoke, and the accompanying rasp and wheeze made Tony want to rip his own ears off. "You…could've…saved…us."
How? What could Tony have done to stop whoever committed these atrocities? He tried to wrestle his arm back from Steve, but the boy wasn't letting go. Tony tried to look away, but unless he turned his head all the way around his gaze fell on one or more of his dead friends. "Why didn't you do more?" Steve pleaded. All at once, his grip loosened and his eyes lost their clarity, staring blankly at the sky above.
"I don't know!" Tony screamed as more monsters streamed through the sky above his head. "I don't know! I don't know!" he repeated the phrase over and over again until his throat felt like it might rip to shreds if he spoke another word. The temperature rose and the smell of blood and decay overwhelmed his senses. Tony sank to his knees in tears.
"—burning up!" he heard from the sky. It sounded distorted.
"He can't—"
"—the ice!"
Tony awoke with a jolt and found himself surrounded by frantic people. He recognized the aftershock-y feeling of his ICD firing, though it was tamped down by the feeling of a thick layer of sweat coating his skin.
"Tony, are you with us?" he recognized the voice as Happy's. Tony blinked heavily and tried to wipe his memory of the horrific dream. He didn't think fast enough to acknowledge the nurse's question before he went ahead anyway. "Tony, your fever's getting dangerously high. We need to bring it down, okay?"
Tony mumbled something incoherent. He felt like he was about to expand so much that he burst out of his skin. His eyes flitted around like a rabid animal's as people maneuvered all over the place. He registered the striking difference in temperature as they placed cool packs around his neck, underarms, and inner thighs. Between the terror of the dream and the confusion of right now, tears forced their way to the forefront and ran trails through the sheen of sweat on his face.
"It's alright," Maria assured him. She swept away a tear with her thumb and Tony managed to focus his eyes enough to meet her gaze for a brief moment. "Everything's gonna be okay."
He wanted to scream, "It's not me I'm worried about!" All he could think about were the images of his battered friends stamped onto his retinas. Before he'd fallen asleep, Steve and Nat were the primary concerns, but with so many people here Tony must have climbed that list. Who was taking care of them? What if something happened while they were busy handling Tony? Then it would be entirely his fault, just like in the dream. That's what the dream was: a warning about the future. All of his friends were going to die because Tony stole all the attention.
He gathered his thoughts and forced his vocal cords to cooperate, "No! Save…them."
"Save who?" Happy asked.
"Everyone! Don'—don't let…them die." The words spilled out almost incoherently with his heaving breath.
"Tony, nobody's dying," Maria assured him.
"No?" He didn't believe her.
"Really. Tony, you need to relax, take some deep breaths." When Tony failed to comply, she had him match her rhythm. "Everything's going to be alright." She adjusted a pack on his neck and he felt the coolness seep into him.
"How—how are they?" he asked. "S-Steve…and Nat?"
"They're doing okay. They're fighting it off," Happy informed him.
"'N the others?"
"Getting better."
"Good. I w's worried," he slurred.
"I'm sure they're worried about you too, but everything's okay for now. Think you can go back to sleep for a bit?" Tony's vague nod turned into him nodding off and he slipped into a—thankfully dreamless—sleep.