Bruce looked at the rest of his team then back to Tony. He sighed.
"What was so important that you let the arc reactor get infected, Tony?" He asked, He let go of both of Tony's hands and sat back down. Tony looked bewildered for a moment before it dawned on him.
"Oh." He started to push himself off of the bed but Natasha shot up and pinned him down. He looked at her, took a good look at her face, and his protests died in his throat.
"The new communication system. I was working on that. I must have gotten preoccupied." Again, he spoke slow and deliberate. Natasha leveled a glare at him as he spoke. He flinched away from her.
"Hey! It wasn't on purpose. I just sort of skipped a few cleanings. I didn't think it would be such a big deal." He responded defensively. He shrugged off her hands and scooted upright. Bruce sighed and shook his head.
"Tony, you nearly died. It's a very big deal." Bruce said, already exasperated with the engineer. Tony flinched again, this time at Bruce's tone of voice.
"But look, I'm fine. I'm good to go." Tony said dismissively, even as he reached across his chest to pop the reactor back in. Bruce caught his hands and prevented that from happening.
"No, you're not. And that's not going back in until the infection is completely gone. You're going to stay right here and heal properly. If you're good, you can have a tablet. But that's it." Bruce's tone brooked no argument and Tony stopped trying to break his hands free. He finally paused and looked around at the rest of his team. His eyes settled on Clint and he grinned.
"What the hell happened to you, bird brain?" He prodded. Clint gave him a shit-eating grin.
"Fell down some stairs and I'm still in better shape than you, shell head." He responded, still grinning. The entire team turned as the door flew open and a rather irate Pepper Potts stormed in. Everyone besides Bruce and Tony instinctively took a step back.
"Anthony Stark! I can't believe you! We leave you alone for a few days, a few hours, and you manage to do this. Do we need to hire you a full time babysitter? You turned off JARVIS! I swear, Tony, I'm going to lock you in a room with no windows and no electronics until you learn how to take care of yourself longer than five minutes!" Nobody said anything, letting Pepper rant at Tony, who finally looked chagrined. He was pressed against the bed, as if the CEO's words were a physical force pinning him back. Phil Coulson followed behind at a sedate pace, only Clint and Natasha were able to tell just how angry he was. They both took another step back, dragging Steve and Thor with them. Coulson strode up to beside Tony and dropped a pile of folders in his lap.
"Paperwork, Coulson? I didn't know you cared…." Tony trailed off at the look the agent was giving him. Pepper's explosive anger he could deal with, Coulson's silent fuming was a new and unknown phenomenon.
"Don't do it again, Stark. Or I'll make good on my earlier threat. Except this time you will subjected to The Bachelorette." He said dryly, nodding to the others.
"You're covered for a week." He added before leaving. Tony watched him leave, wondering just what the hell that meant. He turned back to Pepper. She glared at him.
"I didn't realize it would turn into this." He said by way of an apology. Pepper sighed and visibly deflated.
"Tony, with you I've come to expect certain things. But I do not welcome calls in the middle of the night telling me you've let the giant hole in your chest become infected. You need to take better care of yourself." Tony knew she cared, even after they had broken up. Steve spoke up finally.
"We're not letting you do this again, Tony." The rest of the team murmured their assent. Pepper excused herself, saying she needed to take care of Stark Industries business.
Over the next few days Tony much improved and Bruce, true to his word, let the engineer have a tablet while making him stay on the medical floor. The second day he tried to escape.
"Stark, what do you think you're doing?" Natasha had caught him trying to make his way to the elevator. Somehow, he had procured clothing, but that was the least of Natasha's worries at the moment. She snagged the back of his collar and all but towed him back to his bed. Tony was still quite weak, and even if he had been at full strength, she would have had no problem manhandling him back into the bed. She then, rather creatively Tony thought, tied him to the bed. Enough that he could move, but couldn't leave the bed.
"I have Bruce's permission to do this, if it will keep your ass in bed long enough to heal." She said, crossing her arms over her chest. Tony wisely kept silent, because contrary to popular belief he did have some self-preservation skills. Which meant not angering Natasha. Tony petulantly picked up his tablet and buried his attention into it.
The rest of Tony's convalescence was fairly uneventful. He'd learned his lesson well enough, and the Avengers themselves didn't have a single call. Most of their time was spent keeping Tony occupied, a partial reason there was not a second escape attempt. It didn't take long for everything to settle back into routine, with the exception of the Avengers keeping an extra eye on their resident engineer. If Tony noticed that, he didn't comment.
Note: This is part of a series, next story will be called Luck of the Draw and will be Natasha centric.