Avengers Stories //Oneshots//

May and Peter to the Rescue - Part 2

Hey y'all! It's been since September since I posted the first part of this story and while I had the first part of this written not long after, I recently edited it completely. I want from 2,000 words to 4,000 on just one part. Man, I remmeber when 3,000 words was long to me. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy. I hope that anyone who reads will see my improvement in six months.

May wrung her hands together nervously for a moment, looking down at the person she considered her friend as he laid limply on the couch. She was a nurse, but even this was difficult for her to watch for a few reasons, two of them being that he was her friend and he was so sick, looking almost like a fragile kitten. Five minutes before, they finally got some soup into Tony's stomach. Some as in very few spoonfuls because he thought he couldn't take anymore without throwing up. He was resting now, with May placing ice packs around him and pulling a thin blanket up to his neck. He was shivering and while he may have convinced Peter that he was asleep (the only reason the teen had been convinced he could leave to grab a water pitcher), May knew that he wasn't. He was a good faker, but she had dealt with many patients who pretended to be asleep. She got extra practice with Peter. When he was younger, he would try and hide under his blankets with a flashlight to read novels and comic books. Now she was catching him faking after coming into patrol late.

"Tony," she said, tapping his shoulder lightly. His eyes opened instantly, still dull but thankfully aware. They'd managed to stop his fever from rising, but it had barely gone down. Hopefully the medicine from earlier would start to kick in soon. "Why didn't you call for help? You had to know that you had a fever higher than you could handle. Friday said you disengaged protocol." She wasn't sure if questioning him now was quite the right move. The question had been burning inside her since she saw him with his head down on the work table and unmoving. She had never known someone who wouldn't pick up the phone and text someone if they were running a 104 fever. Of course, Tony wasn't exactly someone people called 'normal' due to his maniac genius ways and superhero job, but did he really think he could handle this all on his own?

The genius shrugged, not giving her a verbal answer, which was expected with how he looked like absolute crap and he didn't usually talk about his feelings much. At all. He started coughing again and she helped him sit up, slipping another one of the pillows that Dum-E, the friendly robot that Peter told her about in many happy rambles, had brought from the closet behind his back. They were old and thin, and she thought they should get better ones - there had to be some quality pillows in this giant building.The robot was currently in the small kitchen area of the lab, making a smoothie out of healthy fruits and a substantial amount of motor oil. She cringed, but the bot was so happy to help that she didn't say anything. She would dump the smoothie in the trash when he wasn't looking.

"He does that," the man croaked after following her line of sight. She looked back at him and saw that his fever glazed eyes had a fond look to them, similar like what they had when he looked at Peter. May didn't think he realized that. "He wants to help, but he doesn't understand that humans don't need machine oil to work." He coughed a little into his elbow before he pushed the blanket away, his legs swinging over the side of the couch and effectively knocking some ice packs onto the floor.

"No, no, no," she quickly chastised, voice firm yet gentle to try and coax him back to laying down, but he ignored her and started to stand. She pushed him back down lightly, him too tired to fight back yet defiance and other emotions burned in his eyes. He went to get up again and she repeated the action. "Tony, you're not getting off that couch until your fever has gone down, but then you're moving to an actual bed." She forced herself to sound a bit more firm and insistent despite how much just the sight if him made her heart ache with sympathy.