LYING OUT LOUD |2| Avengers

{Twenty Two: Hey, Maybe Don't Kidnap People}

Tony Stark had his baseball cap pulled low over his face, sunglasses just resting on the bridge of his nose as he navigated the hospital halls.

In a perfect world, Dani would be transferred to his private hospital in the States, away from prying eyes and the easy access of having a general public on the doorstep. But it was a long flight, and while Dan was fairly stable, he didn't want to chance it. 

He had purposely chosen a route and a hall that was mostly empty, away from the crush of critical care. The radiotherapy unit had a small waiting room, populated only by a small boy wearing headphones and staring at a picture book without reading it, his legs swinging in the empty air. The music from his iPod was blaring so loud that Tony could hear it from where he stood. For the first time in a few days, Tony felt something other than gut-punching fear, guilt and anger. He remembered that there were battles other than his being fought all over the world, all the time, by people with much less than him, and he felt his heart go out to this little boy.

The coffee machine was fairly new-looking, but for some reason did not have an option for a quadruple shot expresso. Tony pushed up his glasses a little to rub his eyes. His left arm was still in a sling, and he had to fumble with the change.

A euro slipped away from him, and went rolling across the floor to rest just next to the boy's trainer. He stopped pretending to read, hopped down, picked up the euro and trotted over to Tony, holding out his hand with the coin in it.

"Thanks." Tony said, "Uh, danke."

The boy stared up at him, eyes widening. He said something in German that Tony didn't understand, except that it had the word 'man' in it, and that he definitely knew.

"Iron Man?" Tony pulled a face, "Never heard of him."

While the language barrier was very much a thing, the boy was definitely picking up on the attitude. The look he gave Tony in return was extremely unimpressed.

"Seriously." Tony said, "I'm an alien. The space kind, so watch out because I am all kinds of dangerous."

He opened his mouth to say something else, but at that moment, a tired-looking woman emerged from one of the rooms down the corridor. She said something to someone inside and then caught sight of the boy. Soon, she was kneeling next to him, obviously berating him in German for bothering the nice man.

She then said something to Tony, he assumed some kind of apology. But it was all he could do to smile, nod, and take his coffee.

The woman and her son were heading off towards the elevator banks, but Tony wandered aimlessly for a minute or two before heading back to Dan's room. It was the first time he'd stretched his legs in hours, even if the scenery wasn't that great. 

He was heading through the lobby, when at the end of the hall he saw the man in the suit (the guy who was meant to be guarding Dan right now), walking with great purpose. The man was followed by all of his security team. Two of this team were pushing a hospital bed with Dan on it.

"Hey!" Tony yelled. He started pushing people out of the way in a rush to get to them, "Hey, stop! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

The man held up his hand, and four of his team fell back to stand with him, while the ones with Dan kept going.

"It is my job to see that all those who aided and abetted the breaking of the Accords are incarcerated." The man said, "For the good of the world."

"The good of the world?" Tony asked incredulously, tapping the side of his sunglasses to call FRIDAY to action, "She can't even open her eyes! Who's she a danger to?"