Well, well, well, what do we have but another chapter! I hope you will like this chapter, I got quite a few suggestions and I think I will try to incorporate the ideas from some of them...
Previously on "The Side-Effects" : Tony finds out that Stark Tower has been cut in half, the other avengers have been crushed, and where is Pepper? On top of that, he continues to suffer these completely random side-effects from Bruce's experimental drug...now, read on!
Tony made it up to the penthouse and entered with ease, seeing as half the building wasn't there anymore. He found Pepper curled behind the bar, shaking. He walked over and opened his visor, his face creased in worry that she might be hurt.
"Pepper, are you alright?" Tony bent down in his armor and gently held Peppers hand, making sure she knew he was there. Her face was streaked with tears and her hand trembled in the armor's grasp.
"Wha- yeah. I- I don't know, Tony, I was just standing and- if just- one step forward and I-" Pepper shook and dissolved into tears again as Tony helped her up and hugged her as tight as he could with his suit on. "What happened?"
"I'm not sure. I was in the lab. Bruce, Steve, Clint, and Natasha are all down there. Don't worry, they're alive." Tony added when he saw the look of panic on Peppers pale face. She was still quite shaken, and Tony felt she had the right since she had been standing millimeters from death. "It's over now, you made it, we all made it. Well, except for half the building… Anyways, I'm going to fly you to the helicopter deck and call in SHIELD to pick you up until we know who did this."
Tony held onto Pepper and shot up to the helicopter deck, which had been lucky enough to survive the attack. He signaled SHIELD and Fury (reluctantly) agreed to send one jet to pick up Pepper. With one last hug, he made sure Pepper would be okay. She gave him a kiss on his cheek to say good luck.
With Pepper safely out of the way, Tony turned and shot down to ground level to help the Hulk locate the rest of the team. He found Thor sorting through the debris at the bottom too.
"Find anyone yet?" Tony switched his visor to heat sensitive and quickly located the three heat signatures pulsing under the rubble. "I've got three life signs showing up, check over there, and there." Tony pointed to two of the blobs and then headed to the third himself.
Hulk and Thor both immediately began tearing up the debris, which was piled two stories high and currently blocking traffic on the streets. Tony paid no attention to that, only focusing on clearing the pile and saving his friends. He used his wrist laser to cut through a steel beam, revealing Steve's arm underneath.
"Steve, can you hear me? Wave your arm if you can." Tony yelled. He watched in silence as the fingers twitched on Steve's hand. Tony quickly removed the rest of the debris and pulled Steve from the wreckage.
"Glad to have you back Cap." Tony stood back once Steve could stand on his own. The concrete slab they stood on shifted for a moment and they both nearly lost their balance.
"Glad to be back. Do we have orders?" Steve replied, dusting his shoulders off and regaining his balance before looking around for his shield. He found it sticking out of a section of ceiling a few meters away.
"No, SHIELD is taking no part in this." Tony's voice came out harsher than he intended and Steve looked up from where he was pulling free his shield. "Did you get a glimpse of what did this?"
"No, when you stepped into the bathroom all I saw was a blur and then the entire building was collapsing on us. Like some giant spatula just flattened half the building." Steve and Tony began walking towards Thor and Hulk who had retrieved Natasha and Clint from the rubble.
"I believe they will survive, although the archer has sustained a broken ankle, so it appears." Thor reported.
Clint was laying on his back, breathing shallowly and still unconscious. His ankle was twisted in a weird position and it was turning an ugly shade of purple. Natasha sat up nearby and rubbed her neck, she didn't seem to be hurt. Tony suspected her extreme flexibility to be the culprit. The Hulk punched a wall and then slowly turned back into Bruce Banner, who immediately tugged his extremely oversized pants up to cover himself.
"Okay, everybody's here, did anyone see what caused this?" Tony took charge, opening his mask to get a better look around.
"No, I saw nothing."
"Nada, I think I got knocked out before the Hu- the other guy came out."
"I thought I heard something, like a buzz or a whine, right before the building collapsed. Stark, how did you get down here?"
"I was right on the edge of the slice, if I had been standing right outside the bathroom, I'd be cut in two right now." Tony was becoming very confused. Who had done this? Who had the power to do this? Why wasn't SHIELD even interested in this? And where was the person responsible?
Tony shook his head and gathered his thoughts, first order of business, find out what caused the collapse. Since it wasn't the structure (too irregular and the building was super re-enforced anyway), it had to have been an outside blow. If that, then what and where was the cause?
Tony looked up into the sky and was blinded by the sun. He blinked and his mask shut and turned on 'sunglasses protocol' allowing him to see into the bright mid-day sky. He had to concentrate hard and use his visor to zoom in on what he was seeing before he would confirm it with himself. It was a squadron of hovering single-person vehicles that Tony had never seen before. Riding each vehicle was a semi-alien looking man. Tony couldn't tell any details since they were hovering so high in the sky.
"Guys, can you see that?" Tony pointed up at the squadron.
Thor immediately spun his hammer and launched himself into the sky after the hovering beasts. The rest of the team watched as, when Thor approached, the aliens scattered and disappeared from view. He landed a moment later in a cloud of dust.
"I did not get a very good glimpse of the beings before they scattered. Although I can assure you I have never seen the likes of them before." Thor spoke as the dust settled. The Avengers were now standing on top of the massive pile of Stark Tower pieces. Clint was still unconscious, and being tended to by Natasha. Tony glanced up once more and saw the quinjet leaving with Pepper safely inside.
"I say we get up to the helicarrier and tell SHIELD about this. What do you think Captain?" Bruce watched the quinjet leave and turned to Steve.
"I think that's probably a good idea. Stark?" Steve looked at Tony, waiting for the complaining retort, Tony never liked informing SHIELD about anything. None came though and, Thor tapped on Tony's helmet, wanting a response.
"Huh, Oh, yeah sure, let's get to the Helicarrier, I sent a quinjet there with Pepper on board. I need to see if she's okay." The worry seemed to dissipate in the team's eyes. "Just one thing, how are we going to get there?"
This threw a loop in their plan. Clint was slowly gaining consciousness, but would be unable to move for a while. Natasha, Steve, and Bruce couldn't fly anywhere. And Tony and Thor couldn't carry everyone. There was an awkward silence as they each tried to come up with a solution.
"Why don't we make a stretcher and Thor and Tony can carry it on strings?" Clint mumbled, finally able to form a coherent thought. Natasha had set his ankle and fancied a splint out of some metal beams.
"Well, there certainly is enough material here. Stark, think you could whip one together and carry four people?" Steve asked. Tony nodded yes and, with help from the others, managed to stick together a make-shift platform. He attached some metal coils to the corners and handed two to Thor.
"All aboard the Stark Express. Next stop, the Helicarrier." He mocked, holding the other two wires and waiting for Natasha to help Clint lay down on the board. When everyone had settled on, Tony nodded to Thor and they slowly rose away from the destruction and out towards the Atlantic.
They were making slow progress. Thor seemed to have infinite strength, but Tony was wearing down. His suit was at 30 percent power, and his arms were cramping from holding the wires so tightly. They had been this way for nearly an hour, and they were about one mile off shore, and two miles from the Helicarrier. They were also about five-thousand feet in the air.
Tony concentrated, shifting his hands to get a better grip on the wire holding his friends. His vision went blurry and he tensed, anticipating another sort of side-effect. He was right, his vision drifted and then faded altogether, leaving Tony flying blind.
"JARVIS, keep me on course." Tony instructed, but he could barely hear his own voice, much less JARVIS's response.
Tony was losing feeling in his feet. He felt a tingle, and then nothing as the loss of feeling slowly spread up from his toes. He panicked, he knew that if he lost feeling in his arms and hands, he would drop his friends into the ocean below. He turned his head, and with all the strength he could muster, shouted to Thor to take the load. Then he blacked out.
Natasha felt something was wrong the second she felt a waver in the otherwise smooth flight of the platform. She had looked up from where she was tending to Clint, only to see the arc reactor flicker. It was barely anything, so she wrote it off as such, and looked away. But something deep insider her said that things were going to get much, much worse, before they got better. Which is why, when Tony Stark let go of the wire, she was prepared. She had tied Clint to one edge of the platform, and was in position to grab Steve and Bruce before they could fall off. Thor, miraculously, managed to hold the weight and prevent them from all plummeting like Tony was.
Natasha looked down from her perch on the edge of the vertical platform and spotted the tumbling metal suit far below. It didn't seem to be slowing down. She thought this scene was all too familiar for her liking.
"Woah, he's not stopping. What happened? He was fine a second ago!" Clint had jerked awake when Tony let go.
"He must have blacked out or something." Bruce was surprisingly calm, he couldn't risk another Hulk out.
"We've got to get him out of the suit, he'll drown if he isn't awake." Steve said, and, without a second thought, dropped off the platform and shot after Tony.
Steve was gaining on the plummeting body below, but he wasn't going to make it in time to catch Tony before he hit the water. He saw the splash and readied himself for impact a moment later. Holding his shield out to split the water, Steve dove in after the rapidly sinking metal man.
The water was dark and cold, and hundreds of bubbles floated up around Steve, leading him towards his fallen comrade. He made it, wrapping his arms around Tony's torso, kicking hard and slowly pulling the heavy man towards the surface. His lungs were burning, and his eyes stung with the salt water. He felt his heart beat faster as it struggled from lack of oxygen. Then he broke the surface and took a huge breath. He couldn't remain above the water though, Tony's weight dragged him back under.
Steve writhed around and began ripping away pieces of the suit in an attempt to lighten the load. As he tore off the gauntlets he realized the arc reactor was flashing violently. Steve hauled and managed to get Tony's head above the water, his helmet was still on, but the lights were out.
"JARVIS? JARVIS! Can you hear me?" Steve spluttered, his mouth filling with salty water.
"It appears I have taken on a large amount of damage. Mr. Stark is unconscious, I cannot diagnose at this time." The speakers were fuzzy from water damage, but Steve's heart leapt with hope.
"JARVIS, I need you to let Tony out of the suit! I can't hold him up any-" Steve was once more submerged in the cold water. He fought desperately to regain the surface, but the waves sucked him under. He kept a firm hold on Tony, still inside what was left of his suit. The cold murk of the water sucked the warmth and strength from Steve's body.
Just as Steve felt his arms going limp the metal jerked underneath his weakening grip and the suit released Tony. Unfolding from the man's limp body with a burst of hydraulic bubbles and drifting off into the depths. Steve found enough strength to once more kick and paddle, holding the limp, yet lighter, body of Tony Stark. He surged to the surface, pulling Tony up with him. He unslung his shield and used it as a signal and watched as Thor lowered the platform into the water, where it surprisingly floated.
Steve hefted Tony's limp form onto the platform, rolling him onto his back, before dragging himself on after.
"Does anybody know CPR?" Steve said, he remembered taking the safety class when he was in the army, but wanted someone who had been more recently versed to take over, plus, he barely had enough strength to hold himself on the raft.
"I do, move back." Bruce took charge in a slightly uncharacteristic way, moving quickly to begin compressions on Tony's chest. The arc reactor was now only flickering a dull blue color. "Captain, I need you to radio for SHIELD to help us. Now."
"Got it." Steve pressed his hand to his ear to activate the radio, but realized he had lost it in the water. "Natasha, I don't have my radio, can you call SHIELD?"
"Yes." Natasha moved to the far side of the small raft and began talking quietly on her radio.
Bruce was pounding at Tony's chest, after every five pounds he would blow a breath into the unconscious man's mouth, then he would take a pulse. The process was repeated almost twelve times before Tony finally took a huge breath and vomited sea water all over the place. He coughed and spluttered, unable to gain control of his body, he was so weak. Bruce, panting, nearly fainted with relief.
"Wha- What happened?" Tony's voice was horse and his lips had turned a sickly shade of blue. His breathing was husky and he coughed after every breath.
"You just went down, nearly dropped us too! You're lucky Nat has good reflexes." Clint was still laying down, but his strength was coming back.
"It was another side-effect. Black outs. I should have expected it." Bruce was shaking and he was rubbing his knuckles furiously.
"Woah, calm down Bruce. I'm fine, we're going to SHIELD right?" Tony sat up, the color coming back into his face. His arc reactor was shining a bright blue once more. "Wait, what happened to my suit?" He said with sudden realization.
"Oh, yeah…about that…I kind of... had to let it sink…" Steve rubbed the back of his neck and wouldn't make eye contact with Tony.
"You WHAT?! Do you know how much that suit costs! Damaging it in battle is one thing, cause I can fix that, but dropping in the ocean! I just-" Tony stopped, out of breath and on the verge of passing out. He took a deep breath before continuing. "I'm not talking to you anymore."
"Could you act like more of a child!? I just saved your life you know, a little thanks wouldn't go unnoticed!" Steve exploded, he was tired, and wet, and a breeze had just picked up, sending him into shivers.
"Whatever." Tony didn't have long to sulk before Natasha interrupted them.
"Guys, SHIELD isn't responding." Her voice was calm.
"I believe I can pull the raft to the Helicarrier without much problem." Thor boomed, hovering over the raft.
"Good idea, I wonder what's going on with them. First they don't come to help at the tower, and now they aren't answering their radio…odd." Steve mused, pushing aside his anger at Tony for a moment. "What do you think Stark."
"I think, Fury is up to something." Bruce noticed that Tony's breathing had been steadily getting worse since he had woken. The scientist was almost constantly coughing.
"Tony, are you sure you're alright. I think you may have some sort of respiratory problem."
"I'm *cough* fine. *cough* Just get to the Helicarrier *cough*." Tony was curled into a tight ball, his eyes scrunched shut with each cough. Natasha rested her hand on his shoulder. Thor began to swing his hammer and propel them towards the Helicarrier like a jet-ski.
When they were almost underneath the huge flying headquarters, Thor grabbed the coils of wire and heaved, flying the entire group up and landing on the deck of the craft. As usual, there was a bustle of activity going on, and they were soon greeted by some agents. Two medical teams came out pushing stretchers to carry Clint and Tony to the infirmary. Tony complained the whole time about being carried around when he was fine, but Bruce knew that if they had made Tony walk, he wouldn't have made it.
The infirmary was quiet, Clint was in surgery to fix his ankle, and Tony had been given a sedative for falling off the gurney. Twice.
Fury had yet to appear, and the Avengers were left sitting in the hallway, half asleep, for two hours. A loud crash made Natasha and Steve shoot to their feet, Bruce was slower to get up, but he soon followed the others to the source of the noise. It happened to be Tony's room, and they entered to find a nurse trying to help the half-drugged scientist back into the hospital bed.
"Third time, huh." Steve muttered. Natasha nodded, she knew Clint would have been in hysterics, but he was still asleep from the surgery.
When Tony was finally situated back on the bed, he shooed the nurse and turned to his teammates.
"How long have I been out?"
"Just a few hours, they sedated you, remember?" Bruce answered.
"I remember. I also remember someone whining about not getting a thank you, so this is it: Thanks." He glowered at Steve, who shrugged and accepted what thanks he would get. He knew it was childish for him to ask for a thank you, but some sort of resentment kept him from apologizing.
"So what does Fury think?" Tony continued.
"We haven't actually seen him this entire time." Bruce admitted.
"That's certainly odd. Here, let's go look, Nat, help me up." Tony swung his legs off the side of the bed and clutched the bedside table to help himself stand. Natasha came over and let him cling to her shoulder while he fought the surge of drug and side-effect nausea that threatened to envelope him again. "Okay, okay, I'm good, let's get out of this hospital, I hate hospitals."
The four teammates (Thor had drawn the short straw and was keeping watch for the aliens on deck outside) made their way out of the infirmary and decided to first check the bridge. The hallways were empty as they got closer to the bridge. Tony was feeling better and had stopped relying on Natasha and the walls for support.
The bridge was very quiet when the Avengers walked in. Fury stood at his usual post, surrounded by lower agents. While there was a bustle of activity, the room seemed to soak up the sound, leaving an eerie silence in it's wake. Fury didn't even turn around when Tony greeted him.
"Fury, what's the deal with all this apathy?" Tony walked right up behind the Director. "Hey, are you even paying attention-"
Tony had moved in front of the Director and froze in shock.
"Tony, what is it?" Steve walked up to see what Tony was seeing.
"He's just, frozen. Like a shop dummy." Tony's voice was smaller than usual.
The rest of the team ran up to Fury, and they too were shocked speechless. As they stood there in silence, something else occurred to them. The rest of the room had slowed to a stop, all of the other agents that had been moving only moments ago, were frozen as well. Their eyes glassy and skin like plastic.
"Quick, we need to get to the infirmary and grab Clint, then we need to get off this hunk of metal. I think it's spreading." Natasha was the first to come to terms with the slightly disturbing sight.
They ran off the bridge, leaving the statues behind. Tony brought up the rear, intending to split from the group and grab his spare suit from the weapons room. He voiced his thoughts out loud and a chorus of agreement and "meet on the deck" came back. He turned down the hallway for the weapons room, quickly unlocked the door with his passcode, and walked confidently up to his suit. The cool metal enveloped him and the bright icons quickly assimilated on his dash. JARVIS gave his usual greeting, and apologized for allowing the suit to sink.
"It's okay J, you had no control over it since I was in manual mode anyway. I'm fine now, but in the future, if I black out, set automatic protocol to go." JARVIS pinged in response, and Tony fired up the repulsers. He pulled the large red lever to open the exit ramp, and flew out, curving around to land on the deck, right next to Thor. A few minutes later, Natasha, Bruce, and Steve came running out, tugging the stretcher that Clint was on with them. They found a quinjet on deck that was open, plastic soldiers sat inside, waiting for takeoff. Steve un-strapped the soldiers from their seats and gently set them on the deck, muttering sorry's when he accidentally bumped them. Tony and Thor decided to ride with the team in the jet, and as Natasha was turning onto the runway, they realized they had no idea where they were going.
"I say we go back to the Tower and see if we can find any clues in the wreckage. Maybe some security tapes survived." Steve suggested.
"No, I had JARVIS scan all of the security footage from the attack, there isn't anything there." Tony spoke, his visor open to see his team better.
"Maybe we should go to the lab and see if we can scan the crew members. Find out what's wrong with them and how it's spreading." Bruce spoke up.
The team agreed this was best, and Natasha elected to fly the quinjet around the helicarrier and search for some sort of entry point. Clint woke up as they were getting off the quinjet and decided he wanted to go with her. They strapped him down and stacked a box under his foot to keep his cast-bound ankle elevated. The quinjet took off without a hitch, and the rest of the team started walking back to the lab. Tony had no idea what could have turned so many people into plastic in such a short time, and with such stealth. He was contemplating this thought as they marched down the halls to the lab, when Steve nearly jumped.
"Guys! If everyone on the ship's plastic, who's steering?" This gave them all a pause, and Thor became very worried.
"I shall use Mjolnir to push the metal beast in the right direction if it is required." He hefted the large hammer to show his seriousness.
"No meatswing, it's fine. Steve, the ship should be on Autopilot. It'll just hover in one position until it's turned off. Remember I designed the software." Tony wasn't worried about that, he was agitated that he wasn't in the lab yet; his curiosity was nearly overwhelming.
They finally made it to the lab and Tony immediately had three computer screens actively scanning each crew member and determining chemical compositions. He had another screen up that was scrolling through security images, one window showed a black and white view of the bridge from one hour ago. Tony watched as the bustle slowed and finally came to a stop as the people turned to plastic.
"Bruce, get a load of this." Tony rewound the video and played it again. It was only two minutes long, but Bruce was dumbfounded when it ended.
A beep sounded from the other computers as the software scanning the crew finished it's job and popped the results up. Tony turned away from the paused video and began scrolling through the results. His frown grew more and more pronounced as he scrolled. Bruce hovered behind his back and read what he was reading. Steve couldn't stand it anymore and broke the silence.
"What? What is it?" He stood up, and the two scientists looked through the glass screen at him, concern and worry evident in their eyes.
"Um, well, you tell 'em big guy." Tony kept his eyes on the results, as if they could change any second.
"You're not going to like it." He paused.
"Well we have to deal with it, so spit it out." Steve said.
"Okay, well the good thing is, they aren't actually plastic. The bad thing is, they're still conscious. There isn't anything in their chemical make up that is out of the ordinary. But we've registered active brain waves going on in all of the crew members. It's like they've just been frozen in time." Bruce rubbed his knuckles.
"Do you think the aliens we spotted above the tower have anything to do with this?" Thor asked, having listened intently to their conversation.
"We can't say for sure. It's probably some new chemical compound that our tracers can't detect. Steve, do you think you could get me a DNA sample from one of the agents?" Tony finally looked away from the readouts.
"DNA, got it." Steve dashed out. There was a few moments of silence as Tony closed the charts and began programming the DNA scanner. Steve returned with a few strands of brown hair.
"Thanks." Tony took the sample and stuck it on a clean slide, pushing it into the scanner and pressing start. "It'll be about half an hour before this baby is ready to study." Tony reported, his fingers flying over the keyboard as the machine started to hum.
"We should make sure that the attacker doesn't get back in the Helicarrier. Thor, go report to Natasha and see if she's seen anything. Bruce, can you help me? I have an idea." Steve took charge and they ran out of the room, leaving Tony alone with the computers.
Tony finished the coding in a few minutes, but still had to wait for the DNA sample to finish. He sat down in a nearby chair and spun around a bit. Contemplating the crazy situation he was in. First, he had accepted being tested on by a mad scientist and began to get intense and unpredictable side-effects. Then Stark Tower got sliced and crushed in half. Now all of SHIELD was down because they had been frozen in time. Tony jerked with a sudden realization, he hadn't seen Pepper amongst the agents and crew members. She should have been aboard.
"JARVIS, scan all life signs on the ship, locate Pepper Potts." Tony instructed the AI.
"Life scan complete. Miss Potts is not aboard the Helicarrier." JARVIS's response filled Tony with relief, and then dread. What if she had been captured by the aliens? What if they tortured her? What if- Tony collapsed on the floor, writhing as agony ripped through his body. He squirmed to find a position that would alleviate the pain, but with no success. His only thoughts were of how much he was going to kill Bruce when this new side-effect ended.
Only it didn't end. The pain became a constant. Tony had quickly tired of moving around and was laying on the ground, flat on his back, breathing heavily and squeezing his eyes closed. The pain itched and burned at his skin, but did not penetrate any deeper than that. Tony felt as though every movement sent a wave of fire-ants breathing fire down his skin.
"JARVIS…call…Bruce…help…" Tony's voice was hoarse from his heavy breathing.
"Yes sir." JARVIS pinged back, and a few minutes later (which felt like an eternity to Tony) Bruce was rushing into the lab, followed by Steve.
"Tony, another side-effect? What are you feeling?" Bruce knelt down next to Tony's face, his hands ghosting over Tony's body, waiting instructions.
"Bruce…it…it hurts so much…" Tony struggled to speak, wincing when each movement shot out more pain.
"Where does it hurt? Try to take deep breathes and calm down." Bruce gave instructions, hating himself for being so helpless and for also being the cause of his friend's pain.
"Just, everywhere…when I move…" Tony shut his eyes, feeling the energy slowly draining from his body. The cool floor was not helping as he felt his body overheating.
"It's going to be okay. Steve, grab me one of the bottles with a blue label on it in that cabinet." Bruce pointed to a cabinet that had color-coded drugs inside. Steve nodded and grabbed the specified bottle. Bruce grabbed a syringe and filled it with the clear liquid. Then he slowly stuck it in Tony's arm, pressing the liquid into his vein. "That should stop the pain."
Tony's body slowly relaxed as a numb feeling filtered through his bloodstream. He relaxed his body and fought off sleep as his eyelids drooped. Bruce let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, and put the syringe away. He was about to help Tony up, when Thor burst into the room.
"I bring terrible news!"
And end scene... I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I am really just making up side-effects as I go on as an excuse for more Tony!Whump (which if you haven't noticed, is my favorite)
Please review with feedback, criticism, anything!