WinterIron one shots

Not just a billionaire

Word count: 1010

Summery: the arc reactor is pressing against the geniuses lungs, and although he is stubborn enough to ignore it most of the time - one day the pressure gets too much - and a certain super soldier comes to his rescue. Maybe he could help.

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It's not like he'd kept it a secret or anything. Anyone who'd heard the tale of the emergency surgery that had necessitated the arc reactor in the first place, or who had seen the x-rays, would come to the conclusion that it wasn't terribly comfortable with only a moment's thought. Anyone who'd seen the thing sitting in the center of Tony's chest would find his mild germophobia more than understandable.

And how would you bring that up, anyway? "By the way, I'm in near-constant pain and sometimes my lungs don't work quite right because there's a huge hunk of metal pressing on them, but hey, I am still totally on board with fighting bad guys and getting the shit kicked out of me on a regular basis, don't even worry about it!"

Yeah, no.

So Tony didn't talk about it. And none of the Avengers were terribly eager to dwell on each other's scars – physical or mental – so they didn't bring it up, which was fine, because if they were going to talk about his quality of life with the arc reactor, then they'd also have to talk about the fact that Clint showed up every couple of weeks with fresh injuries that hadn't been sustained in any Avengers-related battles, or that Steve rarely slept more than two hours at a time, or the way Natasha's hands shook after every PR event. Which: no. None of them were prepared to deal with any of that.

So Tony smiled for the cameras and did the superhero thing and when it was a bad day, he shut himself in the workshop and tried to drown out the way his chest ached with each breath and heartbeat with music so loud he could feel the bass in his bones. He was fine, or at least as fine as he was ever going to be, and that was going to have to be fine enough.

And it was, right up until he found himself slowly rousing back to consciousness, his head cradled in someone's lap, a hand gently stroking his hair. That part was kind of nice, actually, even if it was almost overshadowed by the way his lungs were apparently on fire and it felt like he was having to drag each breath in through a coffee stirrer straw.

"–nk he's waking up a little. Tony? Tony, can you hear me?"

Was that Bucky?

Tony tried to answer, but the darkness still had its hooks in him. He couldn't seem to move, even to open his eyes.

"Here, I found the inhaler they gave me when I had my lung punctured that one time, it might help with the breathing." And that was Clint, voice getting louder as he came nearer.

Tony managed to get his eyes open, and saw Steve and Natasha kneeling on either side of him, with – he'd been right – Bucky at his head. Christ, were they all here? "The hell?" he managed to gasp.

"You passed out and JARVIS issued a general alert," Steve said. He was frowning down at Tony's chest. "That looks bad, Tony; why didn't you say something?"

Tony followed Steve's gaze, but it looked pretty normal, really. Except for his shirt hanging from his arms in tatters. What the hell had happened to his shirt?

Panicking super-soldiers, apparently.

Tony tried to sit up, but Bucky put a hand on his chest and put a stop to that. Unfair: Bucky wasn't even pushing, just resting that metal hand on him. (It felt kind of nice, though, the cool metal against his inflamed skin.) "Just rest a minute," Bucky said. "And answer the question."

Question? Oh, right. "Nothing to say, Cap," Tony rasped. "All status quo here. More or less."

Steve's face morphed into an expression of determination. Tony inwardly groaned. "Passing out in the middle of your workshop is status quo?" Steve challenged.

"I said more or less," Tony defended. "Maybe a little less than more today. Look, what was I going to say? No offense, but what exactly were any of you going to bring to the table of 'fist-sized hunk of metal pushing on my lungs'?"

"Maybe not much," Bucky conceded, "but I can sure as hell shed some light on the 'convincing your body not to reject the metal implant' front."

Tony looked up in surprise, and Bucky grinned down at him. "You know how the scar tissue around my arm is all white and flat, and not, you know, red and scary?"

"Um," Tony said intelligently.

Steve snorted. "You got this, Buck?"

"I got this," Bucky confirmed. "I'm going to put Mr. Stoic here to bed, and then I'm going to go get my old file and have a nice long chat with Bruce."

Tony didn't argue - in fact to him it sounded alright. He never took time to dwell on the arc reactor - and therefore these kind of situations were hardly uncommon , just happened when there were less people. But he had never passed out before.

Sure - every breath he took was agony but no one wanted to hear about that. It would have been too painful to admit it out loud anyway. So he lived with it, put up with it until he was half dead.

" yeah okay," he muttered.

Everyone filed out of the room leaving him on Bucky's lap.

Bucky looked down at hype piece of machinery keeping him alive - yet causing the man so much pain.

" you should have said something," he whispered.

" on one wants to hear a billionaire whin. I'm not dead - so it's all good."

Feeling the fatigue slowly consume him he heard the soldier above him who was running his human hand threw his hair whisper :

" your not just a billionaire to me,"