Tony and his Kids

Embers

Warnings: bombs and guns

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The sound of his own heart beating on the monitor had been Tony's only companion for the past ten minutes. He'd woken up with a nurse and doctor at his side, asking him a lot of questions. The doctor informed him that he was in a New Jersey hospital before giving him water. The lyrics from Hamilton's "Blow Us All Away" rang in his head: 'Everything is legal in New Jersey.' He hoped that wouldn't ring true in this case.

The nurse and doctor had left shortly after taking his vitals and giving him water. At first, Tony was happy with the silence, but that joy was quickly dried away by the gaping black hole of loneliness that had closed in around him.

He lied on his back, remaining careful still so not to agitate his bandaged burns on his left arm and side along with the bruises around his cracked rib on his right. Air moved in and out of him with measured, rhythmic breaths.

In. Out. In. Out.

Tony had always hated hospitals or anything to do with doctors poking and prodding at him. Even when Edwin Jarvis or his mother took him for a yearly check up when he was young, he would do everything in his power to try and avoid the appointment. They always got there on time though, no matter his best efforts, and he would glare at the white walls, scrunch his nose up at the smell of antiseptic, and hold the hand of whoever he was with in a tight grip.

His dislike never wavered, only growing as he got older. He only went if he needed to, and only then it was because Rhodey would threaten to carry him to his appointment, as he'd done multiple times back in college. Other times it was Happy tricking him to get in the car and go under the pretense they were getting coffee, or Pepper's soft words making him listen to her.

Pepper was usually the one who came to all his appointments, even if she wasn't the one to get him there. She would place her hand on his arm if he needed a shot or let him bury his face in her shoulder when he had a deliriously high fever. Pepper might think he didn't remember when the latter happened, but he did.

Afghanistan pushed that extreme dislike to hate. He could remember bits and pieces of the surgery Yinsen had done on him and they haunted his dreams sometimes. When he was rescued after three months in that horrible place, he had guarded his chest from any doctors. It had taken a lot of persuasion on Rhodey's part to get Tony to let them check his arm. It was dislocated, and Rhodey was the one to put the sling on.

His next doctor's appointment was more him being rushed into the hospital with a cold that had turned into pneumonia due to his decreased lung capacity.

After he got into the superhero business, he got hurt quite a lot. Nothing too serious, but Pepper insisted she bandage him up every single time. From nursing him with a concussion to bandaging the smallest cut, she took care of him even before they were an official couple.

And here, lying in the dark hospital room with no one to keep him company, Tony wishes she were here. But if the clock on the wall is any indication, he hadn't been here for long and she would only be halfway back from China if she got on a plane right after the attack.

The attack.

Oh, how he'd been so blind...

Peter nearly got hurt so many times. The thought of Peter, the boy who had wormed his way into Tony's heart despite the metal barriers around it. The kid he thought of as his own son yet never admitted it to himself until a near-death experience. The only consolation of Peter almost being injured was that Tony took the hits for him, which resulted in the burns and bruises that would hurt him for at least a week or two.