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Entry tags:
Fic: Iron & Irony, chapters 5-6
Rating: PG-13 for some language etc
Category: Crossover, angst, drama, hurt/comfort, romance, suspense
Spoilers: Iron Man, the movie / House MD late season 4
Pairings: Tony Stark/Pepper Potts
Summary: An Iron Man movieverse / House MD crossover. When Tony suspects he's caught a mystery illness, he turns to the best doctor he can find. But can House solve this puzzle?
Chapter 5: "I'm on a tight schedule"
Iron Man was standing near to the rim of the swimming pool, the turquoise water still behind him, the sunlight reflected from his red and gold armor so that it was almost blinding. But something wasn't right, Pepper knew it right away.
From some crack in the floor, from behind a pool-side chair, from numerous little hiding-places here and there, mouses emerged. Tiny, harmless creatures, fuzzy with black, brown and even white fur, sort of cute on their own, but there were so many, and they were all heading towards Iron Man, like swarming locusts. He fought uselessly, kicking around, waving his hands, as they climbed his armor, gnawing at it, stopping at the locking mechanisms, and as absurd as it was, they were opening it, eating their way through it.
One by one, pieces of his armor fell off and clattered to the floor, some of them splashing to the pool. Soon, it was all gone, and Tony stood there, in his dark undersuit, which was already torn by minute but sharp rodent teeth. And more and more mice kept appearing, seemingly out of nowhere, covering him so that she couldn't even see his face, just his eyes, wide with horror.
As frightened as she was herself, she stepped closer, reached for him, but there was nothing she could do. The weight of what had to be hundreds of mice was pushing him backwards, he stumbled, stepped over the rim and fell to the pool, the animals still hanging on to him, gathered on him, pushing him all the way to the bottom, and though he was struggling, she saw it was in vain, he was going to drown...
"Miss Potts!"
Bewildered and shaky, Pepper woke up to meet the empathetic dark eyes of Doctor Kutner. She was lying on a couch in a hospital hallway, wrapped in the blanket Rhodes had snatched for her, her shoes on the floor. She'd thought she'd rest a little, since it had been a long and difficult day. She hadn't been planning on falling asleep - and what horrible dreams she had had!
She blinked, trying to clear the sleep out of her eyes. "What time is it?"
"Quarter past one in the morning," Kutner answered. "I'm sorry I woke you up, but we've found out something and I thought you'd want to know."
"No need to apologize. Is Tony... I mean, Mr. Stark..." the dream was still playing itself over and over in her head, the vision of Tony pushed to the pool by the huge mass of tiny mice, drowning...
"He's holding on. It's the diagnosis that has changed."
"It's not the hantavirus thing after all?"
"Looks like it isn't. House is talking to Mr. Stark now. We don't know anything for sure anymore. It looks like the cause of his illness is an artificial, nanotechnological thing."
"Oh!" Pepper exclaimed, placing a hand over her mouth. She knew that nanotech had been the main field of research in the Brazil biotech complex, but she hadn't thought... He had known! She remembered how Tony had acted about this whole thing, and it was obvious he had suspected something like this all along. Why hadn't he told her?
He had told Rhodes, she guessed. Before she'd gone to sleep, Rhodes had stopped by after talking to Tony and told her that Tony had given him a task of some sort. He hadn't explained it more than that, had said that he didn't know himself what it was about, exactly, but that it had seemed important. He'd been heading out of the hospital to concentrate on the investigation, and had suggested to Pepper that maybe she should leave too, get a good night's sleep at a hotel and return first thing in the morning. She had disagreed, she had wanted to stay near to Tony, since he could take a sudden turn to the worse any moment.
"You know anything about this?" Kutner asked, dragging her back to the present.
"I don't, but I'm sure Tony does," she replied, feeling more than a bit vexed. Deciding not to care about the fact that she probably looked completely disheveled, her hair a mess, her clothes creased, she tossed aside the blanket, straightened her shirt and skirt, put on her shoes and headed towards Tony's room, Kutner following right at her heels.
Tony and House seemed to be in the middle of something, but she didn't care. "If you knew, if you had any idea about this, why didn't you tell me?" she shouted. "And you told Rhodes and sent him to investigate this stuff and you left me out! Did you think I couldn't handle it? You think I'm just some... Some damsel in distress who needs to be protected?"
House stood aside, making room for her at Tony's bedside. Tony had the bed raised in a seated position, and oddly enough, he was wearing his Iron Man helmet, the faceplate open since he also had an oxygen mask covering half his face. One red gauntlet rested on his lap. He had been scribbling something on a piece of paper when she'd stormed in, and now he'd stopped writing, staring at her, dumbfounded.
He lifted the mask aside to speak, but all he managed was "Pepper, I..."
"I know you just wanted what's best for me, but don't you think it's sometimes better to tell the hard, scary facts earlier, so that I've got some time to wrap my mind around them?"
It wasn't the way he looked, nor the way he was surrounded with medical machinery, IV's and wires and what not all around, that made her think he seemed even worse now, more ill than before. It was the way he seemed to be slow on the uptake, the way he failed to instantly come up with witty answers.
"I did want to protect you. And I didn't want to send you away," he finally admitted. "After all, what would they," he waved a hand at Kutner and House, "think if I didn't have any girls around?" he added, in a half-hearted attempt at his usual banter.
"And what's going on now?" she asked, her anger ebbing gradually. He'd hear about this later, she'd see to that. As soon as he was better.
"I'm working on a cure."
"You're the doctor now? And House is letting you? What's happened to you two?" she was baffled.
"This is a technological problem, he's the technological genius," House answered, sounding only slightly sarcastic. "We're just random life support crew now."
"And Miss Potts," Tony drew her attention back to himself. "Since you're so eager to... I've got an errand for you," he said, offering her the slip of paper he'd been writing on.
On a quick glance, it looked like a shopping list, but it didn't contain groceries. "What's this?"
"We're going to hit the bug with an EMP," he explained. "Which might kill it before it kills me. I need some supplies to modify the repulsors for this."
She stared at the list. Mostly it contained tools and stuff that made sense, but there was also, "Tin foil? A microwave oven?"
"Stuff that's easy to find. This is more MacGyver than my usual style, but I'm," he coughed, "on a tight schedule," he finished, placing the oxygen mask over his face again.
"Go with Kutner, he knows the building and has a pass that should open any doors and stop the guards from pestering you," House continued the explanation. "If they give you any trouble, tell them to call Cuddy, I'll call her first and let her know about this. She'll have no objections, since Stark has already promised to pay generously for everything he takes. The guards will keep waking her up, she'll be annoyed, and you'll be able to get the stuff. Everyone wins."
Rhodey had just gotten settled in his hotel room, opened his laptop, and was looking at the first of a long list of files on the screen, when Pepper Potts called. As she explained the news about how Tony's illness wasn't actually caused by a virus as they had thought, but some artificial thing, Rhodey eyed the file. It contained a list of research projects at Stark Industries biotech in Brazil, some of which were highlighted in bold, probably by Tony.
Nanomaterials in Protective Clothing
Nanotechnology/Biology Interface - Risks, Benefits and Practical Possibilities in Medicine
Nanotechnology in Genetic Engineering
Nano-sized Recording Devices
Self-Replicating Nanotechnology in Biological Environments
The list went on, but none of the other headings were marked. Pepper's uneasy explanation of what the doctors had found out coincided all too well with what Rhodey saw on the list. He sighed, shaking his head to himself. What a mess Tony had gotten himself into, once again... For a moment, Rhodey considered whether he should just leave the investigation for later and return to the hospital, but then again, this might prove useful and important. He'd stay where he was now.
"Tony sent me data that has to do with his sickness and the trouble in Brazil," he told Pepper. "I'm working on it now, I'll let you know instantly if I find out anything that might be helpful. Hang on in there, you two. Good night."
Rhodey skimmed through the stuff Tony had sent him, and downloaded a program that somehow connected Jarvis to his laptop so the AI could advice him. He quickly learned everything Tony had found out so far, and completely agreed that this looked big, and nasty. What Rhodey couldn't quite figure out was, where to go from here. As far as he saw, none of the data contained anything that would be useful to Tony right now. They'd need to reach some of the missing scientists for that, but Rhodey knew it was extremely unlikely he'd be able to, all alone and in the middle of the night.
It was past 2 AM and as anxious as Rhodey was to do something to help, he was getting really tired. Finally, he settled on sending email to a S.H.I.E.L.D representative. They surely wouldn't answer before the morning, so he decided he might just as well try and get some sleep.
He'd barely slept a few hours when his cell phone rang. He was instantly wide awake, afraid that it was bad news about Tony, but instead, the caller introduced himself as "Agent Sitwell, S.H.I.E.L.D, currently standing behind your door, sir."
Rhodey got up, dressed quickly and opened the door to face the agent. Sitwell was young, and probably looked even younger than he was, thanks to his boyish, pimpled face. Even though they were well into the small hours, he didn't look tired, but eager and alert.
"I'm stationed hereabouts, I came as soon as I got your message," Sitwell said, his voice a nervous tenor matching his looks.
"Great, then you know what this is about already. I've got a lot of data I need to hand over to S.H.I.E.L.D, I'm sure you'll be able to handle this investigation far better than me alone. Um, is there some way..." he turned to glance at the laptop. He didn't think he should just forward the email he'd gotten from Tony, since it didn't contain the stuff directly, but directions to access and download it through Stark Industries intranet and servers.
Sitwell produced what looked like a standard USB memory stick from his pocket. "Just download it in here. This is S.H.I.E.L.D special issue, can be tracked if it's stolen and remotely triggered to explode, and the encryption is..."
"Yeah, really nifty," Rhodey interrupted the younger man, grabbed the memory stick and inserted it to the USB port in his laptop. He couldn't quite decide whether he was just amused or also annoyed by Sitwell's over-eager attitude.
He had only just started the download when his phone rang again. It was just the sort of call he had been fearing the last time.
"Rhodey?" Pepper sounded like she was on the verge of tears, or crying already. "It's... Tony's... He stopped breathing."
This time, Rhodey didn't waste time considering whether he should stay or go. "You can take care of this on your own, right? Just remember to close the door after you when you leave," Rhodey told Sitwell. He left the young agent to wait for the download to finish, and headed back to the hospital as fast as he could.
It had taken Tony over an hour to sketch a complete blueprint for what he was going to do. He'd used the helmet HUD and a gauntlet as an improvised 3D-modeling device, giving Jarvis an exact idea of what he had in mind. It'd been a strenuous hour, since he needed to close the faceplate to be able to see the screen, and he couldn't fit the oxygen mask inside the helmet. So, he'd work with the faceplate down until he started feeling so out of air that he was about to faint, then opened the helmet to catch his breath, and then went on working again. In the end, he was sure the effort had cost a good part of whatever time he had remaining before he got too sick to do anything at all, but he'd needed to do it anyway. If he couldn't finish this project himself, someone else would need to do it, and they needed instructions.
During his more than an hour of pre-planning, Pepper and Kutner had managed to gather everything he needed. Then, Tony had moved on to the actual tinkering. It wasn't too easy either, not when he was so spent that he needed to ask for help when he needed a bolt unscrewed. He had split open a gauntlet and was working on its insides. This was such a ridiculous bubblegum and duct tape sort of solution that anyone who had any knowledge of engineering would've laughed their asses off, unless they knew Tony's reputation and skills. He had pulled off such stunts before, and this was fairly simple - if he really had actually figured it out correctly, and the whole idea wasn't just an insane creation of a fever-ridden, oxygen-deprived mind.
How many hours since he'd last been able to draw breath properly? He had lost count. He'd gone over his situation with House, and House had been plain about it: it looked bad. Even if they managed to set off an EMP, they didn't know what, exactly its effects would be, and even if the EMP would stop the nanovirus, he might still be too sick to make it. It definitely wouldn't be long now before he wouldn't be able to breathe on his own anymore, and once they intubated him, he wouldn't be able to talk, and if things went bad...
He needed to talk to Pepper.
He put his work aside for a while, and asked for Thirteen, who was currently on call by his bedside, to go fetch her. House had left to catch a nap in his office, leaving his team to take turns watching over Tony. Tony had told Pepper to try and get some sleep as well. There was nothing she could do to help him right now, and she'd be more helpful later if she wasn't a completely sleep-deprived zombie. He could guess she wasn't probably sleeping anyway, so he didn't feel too guilty about waking her up in the middle of the night... or morning, or whatever the time was. Tony himself felt so bad in general and so fixed on the task at hand that he hardly even noticed his own lack of sleep.
Pepper appeared by his side in mere minutes. He couldn't see all of her face through the transparent part of the face of her protective suit, but her eyes told him enough. She didn't know why he'd called her here, but she could guess it wouldn't be anything nice.
"Pepper, there's something... I wanted to tell you," he struggled to get the words out properly with the little air he had. "If I don't make it..."
"Don't say that!" she cried out, her hand seeking his, once again.
He knew this wasn't the right way to do this. If he didn't make it, it'd only make her miserable, and if he did, it'd make things very awkward. But if he died without ever saying it to her straight up, without flirting, without innuendoes...
"You know I've made love... to more girls than we'd care to count," he began, cringing at himself for such a bad start. "But... Pepper... You're the only girl... I've ever loved."
She pulled her hand away from his, crossed her arms, and took a few steps back. As much as he tried, he couldn't read the look on her face. Sad, angry, surprised? Hadn't she guessed this much already? He'd been dropping her plenty of hints, but then again, he kept dropping hints at all the girls around him, just out of habit. And did she feel anything for him, anything more than friendship and loyalty?
She didn't say anything, but turned on her heel and walked out of the room.
Well, that went well, Tony thought to himself. Back to work, then. Now, in addition to everything else, there was a nasty suffocating feeling at his throat that had nothing to do with what was physically wrong with his body.
House turned around awkwardly, supporting his right thigh with both hands, and tugged the blanket a bit higher. No matter what he did, he couldn't find a comfortable position on his accustomed chair in his office. He couldn't sleep. His leg was paining him worse than it had in weeks, and his mind was too busy going over everything that'd happened.
It wasn't like him to lose sleep over a patient, but then again, he told himself, that wasn't what was going on tonight, either. He wasn't all "sob sob, oh no, but it's Tony Stark, he can't die". Instead, he was deeply annoyed by the pure impossibility of the case. He often spent sleepless nights thinking over a diagnosis, and this was the same sort of thing, except that they already had a diagnosis. "Hantavirus-like cardiopulmonary syndrome caused by a previously unknown bionanotechnological organism". It was worse than a diagnosis that was terminal and had no cure: it was something so alien that he had no means for understanding it properly. It was unfair. The universe wasn't playing by the rules anymore, tossing him with something like this.
He got up, stretching the muscles he'd already managed to jam while trying to sleep in an uncomfortable position. He decided he could just as well go and see how Stark was doing.
House was quite impressed by the fact that Stark was still awake and working. It was plain amazing that he was lucid at all. House glanced at the monitors, and grimaced. O2 sat was below acceptable levels, cardiac index had sunk lower while House had been trying to sleep - if this was some other patient in some other situation, House would've been seriously considering putting him on ECMO soon, but that wasn't an option here, with the EMP plan they had.
"Morning already?" Stark breathed, casting a sideways glance at House, most of his attention still on the vandalized Iron Man gauntlet he was working on. It looked like a piece of modern art built from scrap metal.
"For the very early birds."
"Why're you here, then?" Stark asked, with enough emphasis on the word "you" to make it clear that he didn't expect House to be an early riser.
"To gloat on my enemy when he's down, of course."
"Well, enjoy yourself... oh mighty Superdoc."
House sat down on a chair by the wall, next to Taub, who was on call. They sat in silence for over half an hour, Stark working, Taub and House just staring at him.
Suddenly, without warning, Stark dropped the gauntlet, which fell to the floor, some of the parts he had attached to it coming off and flying into different directions. Several monitors were blaring with alarms. He was still struggling weakly to breathe, but obviously unable to get any air.
"We knew this was coming, sooner or later," House told Taub. "Get the intubation kit."
Chapter 6: "Our doctors are doing their best"
Pepper landed heavily on the sofa and buried her face in her hands, bending so low that her hands touched her knees, and she cried, all the tears she'd held back during the day and the endlessly long night.
"You're the only girl I've ever loved," Tony had said.
He had had to come this far before telling her that - only when he was lying on what might end up being his deathbed, he'd decided that he could let her know... She didn't know what to think, what to feel.
She was angry beyond description - he should've told her earlier. Never mind that he'd kept her in the dark about the nanovirus and his company trouble, but to keep her in the dark about his feelings for her? Why'd he do that? Because he was afraid she wouldn't return the feelings? But he was Tony Stark, for God's sake, he knew all girls loved him!
In that one account, Pepper was like all girls, but then again, not the same, because the others loved a portrait painted by the media, a public facade he kept, a man that didn't exist, and she loved the real Tony Stark, with all the flaws and the bad habits, but also the true heroism that no one who wasn't close to him could ever really know... And one part of her felt joyful, happy beyond imagining to know that it wasn't just one-sided after all, that he loved her too - if only he had told her about it earlier, in some happier circumstances, who knew what might've come out of it.
Above all else, she was anguished. It was like physical pain, like some icy hand gripping at her heart, to think that those might've been the last words he'd ever say to her.
She spent far too much time wrapped up in her thoughts, crying, trying desperately to get a grip on herself, and it took her far too long to realize what she had done. What he'd done, confessing his love like that, had been both wonderful and very mean at the same time, but what she'd done had been downright cruel. She'd walked out on him, left him unaware of why she'd done it, whether she'd rejected him or what... She needed to get back to him, and fast!
She was too late.
When she reached the outermost door of the decontamination-airlock-door system to his room, Taub stepped out through it. He looked slightly startled to see her there.
"Miss Potts, I was just about to go looking for you. Mr. Stark was going into respiratory arrest, we've now hooked him up to a ventilator and he's stable again, for the moment."
She stared at the doctor, not really grasping what he said. Tony was... what? He'd almost stopped breathing, that was what. But she needed to talk to him!
"Can I go see him?" she asked.
"Of course, but he's unconscious, we sedated him for the intubation. Makes it easier on both us and him. Having a tube stuffed down your throat isn't exactly a pleasant experience."
Pepper needed to see him nevertheless, so she walked past the doctor, suited up and entered Tony's room. As she stepped in, all she saw was him, in the center of the room, on the bed, completely still and silent - which was something he never, ever was.
She stopped by his side, and placed her hand on the arc reactor on his chest. It was just as before, unchanged, glowing its soft blue light. The one part of him that hadn't been affected by this illness, though it wasn't a real part of him, it was a device that kept his heart safe. Her eyes followed the tube leading from his mouth to the machine that was now breathing for him, and she shivered. What next? How many machines did it take to keep him alive?
She slid her hand upwards, cupping the side of his face. "There's something I need to tell you, Tony. But I want you to be awake, it won't do any good otherwise," she whispered to him.
She stood there, by his side, for a good long while, before she realized she wasn't alone in the room. In the corner, surrounded by the tools and spare parts she and Kutner had collected, sat a figure in a protective suit. She didn't know who it was. Then, the person looked up - and though the transparent window in the suit's face, she saw the red-and-gold face of Iron Man.
She stumbled back a few steps, bewildered. What was going on in here? Was she still asleep?
"Don't mind me, I wouldn't want to disturb your cute, angsty moment," the helmet-headed person told her, and even though the helmet changed his voice, she could instantly recognize House's ironic tone.
"You! How... How dare you!" she stuttered.
"Someone has to finish this," he motioned at the Iron Man gauntlet which he was working on. "And I always wanted to try on the helmet."
"No, take it off!"
"Look, seriously," House said matter-of-factly, "he asked me to."
"But he hates you, why would he want you to continue his work?"
"Because we have things in common, and I'm not talking about how we're both superhuman über-geniuses. Neither of us can accept defeat, and we're both prepared to use almost any means to get what we want. Me, maybe even a bit more than him," House explained.
It almost made sense to her, and it sounded like the two had finally reached an understanding, which she was glad about, but to see House wearing Tony's helmet, and Tony lying there so helpless... It was too weird, too wrong. She couldn't take it. She ran out of the room again.
She collapsed on the first chair she could find, and called Rhodes, though she could barely say anything that made sense. Then she sat there, staring at the floor in a haze, a semi-conscious, half-asleep state. Rhodes arrived, talked to her, asked if she was all right, and she mumbled something in response. He was going to see Tony, but she didn't want to follow, she felt like she couldn't stand seeing him again.
She had drifted into a dreamless, yet restless sleep, when her phone rang. As she answered it, she looked at the time. 8 AM already.
"Miss Potts, this is Doctor Lisa Cuddy. I hope I didn't wake you up?"
"It's okay," she replied sleepily.
"I know this is a really short notice, but I can't stall the media any longer, we need to give an official statement. I'm making arrangements for a press conference at 11 AM. I take it that you've got something to tell? House hinted that there's a diagnosis."
"Sure..."
She finished the conversation as quickly as she could, agreeing to meet Doctor Cuddy at the hospital cafeteria at 10. Before that, she needed to find a shower, change her clothes, and somehow collect the fragmented mess that was her mind.
How on earth could she handle a press conference now? She didn't do those often, Tony did, because he was brilliant at them and the media loved him. But he couldn't, now, and that left her and Rhodes. He was military, while she was employed by Stark Industries. Besides, she had meant what she'd told Tony earlier. She wasn't a damsel in distress who needed protection. She'd do it.
They couldn't tell the truth about the nanovirus, that would be a disaster, it would cause a panic in the public and would be very bad for the company. The solution came to her quickly: just tell everyone it's the hantavirus. It was almost true. She'd have to lie in front of all those people and cameras, but she'd manage. For Tony.
Lisa Cuddy had had yet another sleepless night courtesy of Gregory House, MD. He'd woken her up with a phone call at around half past one, with some vague explanation about how Tony Stark needed some supplies for some insane engineering project, and that he'd borrow them from the hospital and pay lavishly for it. Since Stark really was rich and they could use the money, and they were talking about tools and such things, not medical equipment - and because she just wanted to go back to sleep and not be pestered by House any longer - she had said OK.
Less than fifteen minutes after House's call, the first guard had called. She'd gotten four phone calls like that during the next few hours. Puzzled guards and one nurse on a night shift had told her that people were sneaking around the hospital, taking things, and that one of them had the ID of Doctor Kutner of the Diagnostics Department. "Yes yes, I know about this, it's all right, let them take whatever they want," she'd tell them, bury her head under the pillow and try to fall asleep while waiting for the next call.
At quarter past seven in the morning, when she'd actually caught a few hours of solid sleep, she received another sort of phone call, and then, a few more, and when she opened her email inbox, she found it flooded with over a hundred new messages. The media. She'd been doing her best to hold them at bay, but this was the third day for Stark at Princeton-Plainsboro, and they really needed to tell them something. So, she started arranging things for a press conference, and called Stark's assistant. Miss Potts sounded tired and distressed, and Cuddy could only wonder what had been going on during the night. She tried calling House to ask about it, but he didn't answer. Typical. She did reach Thirteen, who told her that Stark had HPS, and his condition was deteriorating rapidly.
Cuddy met Potts at the cafeteria for late breakfast. Despite the way she'd sounded on the phone, Stark's assistant looked sharp enough, her hair neatly done, and the signs of a sleepless night on her face expertly covered by make-up.
"How can you put up with House? I mean, I know he's brilliant, but he's just so..." Potts asked her over a cup of coffee.
"Such a total jerk?" Cuddy answered, smirking. "Well, from what I hear, people have asked the same question about you and Mr. Stark," she said, and only when she'd finished the sentence, she realized how inconsiderate it was of her - Stark was badly ill, after all.
Potts looked down at the table, a wave of emotion going over her face, but it passed quickly. She looked up again and chuckled, wistfully, but smiling nevertheless. "Oh, you have no idea."
Cuddy and Potts spent most of the hour before the press conference on small talk instead of business, because they didn't have that very many details to go over. The news they had to give was clear enough, and they agreed that they would keep the event as short as possible, no extra questions answered.
The auditorium of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital was filled to its brim. During all her time as hospital administrator, Cuddy had never had this many media people gathered here. It was no wonder there were so many. Everything Stark did was a major news event, and his being sick was not only interesting to the public, but also affected his company stock. Luckily, having a large audience wasn't a problem for Cuddy. She didn't enjoy public speaking and didn't consider herself much of a rhetorician, but she wasn't afraid of talking to large crowds, and she knew how to handle people. It was part of her job, after all. She was slightly worried about Potts, though - she seemed edgy, eyeing the gathered reporters like they were an execution crew.
They stepped on the podium, and the whole hall fell silent, as if everyone was holding their breath.
"I'm Doctor Cuddy, Dean of Medicine of this hospital. I know you have all been waiting for almost three days to hear something, and I'm sorry we have kept you in the dark. It was necessary, as it took our doctors this long to find out what is wrong with Mr. Stark. Here's Miss Potts, his personal assistant," she motioned at Potts to step to the microphone.
Cuddy felt impressed as she noticed that the look on Potts's face had changed completely. It was now stern with resolve, almost cold. "I'm afraid the news aren't good," she spoke in a steady voice. "Mr. Stark is ill with hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a potentially deadly disease. The next day or so will show if he survives."
The hall exploded with a hubbub of questions, but Cuddy silenced them with a wave of her hands and spoke again. "Our doctors are doing their best. Doctor Gregory House is responsible for the case, and he's the best we have."
"This has no effect whatsoever on the running of Stark Industries," Potts added. No word of Iron Man, Cuddy thought, and the reporters had noticed it as well, since she could hear the word in their shouted inquiries and their talk amongst themselves.
"We will let you know as soon as we have more news. This is all we have to say for now," Cuddy finished.
The noise became even louder, the air still full of questions - "What about Iron Man?" "Can we interview Stark?" "How contagious is this disease?" "Where did he get it from?" and so on, endlessly.
Cuddy spoke up again. "We're not taking any questions. Good day."
Potts was looking nervous and shaky again, so Cuddy took her by the hand and lead the way out of the auditorium. Once they'd reached the hallway, they went their separate ways, Potts to visit her employer, Cuddy to her office.
She found Kutner, Taub and Thirteen there, waiting for her. "Doctor Cuddy," Taub said. "We could use some help. We need to evacuate the patients from the rooms around where Stark's staying."
Tony blinked, trying to force his sleepy, blurry vision to focus on the nearly finished EMP-device.
He was feeling beyond bad, he just felt incredibly weird. He'd never experienced anything like this. It was an experience he could've lived without, too. His system was still full of drugs, so he was drowsy, like he was almost, but not quite, drunk enough to pass out. And there was the plastic tube going all the way down his throat, and the machine filling his failing lungs with air.
The situation was made even weirder by the fact that House now wore the Iron Man helmet under his protective suit, so Jarvis could lead him through the adjustments. From what Tony could see, they were doing a good job, too. House had successfully repaired the damage the device had taken when it'd fallen to the floor. He obviously didn't understand what he was doing, but he was very precise, and had steady hands.
Fine, but could use some flair, Tony wrote on the clipboard he was now using to communicate. His handwriting was horrible, but apparently House could read it, since he answered.
"I'll paint little golden Iron Man -figures on it once I've made the last connections."
House returned to his place in the corner of the room to continue working. Tony closed his eyes. He had no idea what time it was. He hadn't seen Pepper since she'd walked out on him. Rhodey had stopped by a few times. The last time he'd said he'd go and check on the investigation and return later, and Tony hadn't heard from him since. Then, it'd been just him and House in here, plus occasional visits from the younger doctors in House's team.
It occurred to Tony that this was like some freakishly twisted re-enactment of what had happened in Afghanistan, with House, of all people, playing the role of Yinsen. Of course, everything was different, the situation, the surroundings, the people, but still, here he was, dying because of something that he'd helped to create - although saying that he was responsible for the nanovirus in any way was stretching it - and fighting to save his own life through technology.
He was drifting towards sleep or unconsciousness, when suddenly, a hand landed softly on his chest, on the arc reactor. He knew who it was before he'd even opened his eyes. He felt his weakened heart skip faster with the thought.
"Tony? Are you awake?"
He raised his eyebrows and blinked a few times to let her know.
"Go away. Give us a moment alone," Pepper shouted at House. To his surprise, Tony heard no sarcastic protests, but the sounds of House getting up, limping to the door and out of the room.
She went on as soon as the door had closed. "Tony, I just need you to know... how much you mean to me. You're like an arc reactor," she said, tapping the device lightly with her slender fingers. "I'm sure my heart would stop if you'd die."
She paused, and he stared at her, amazed. He'd hardly ever seen her this sentimental, and he'd never dared to hope to hear such words from her.
"So, I guess, what I'm trying to say is, I love you too, Tony Stark," she finished.
Tony reached for the clipboard and drew a little heart on it, with "Tony" and "Pepper" written on its sides. Tony loves Pepper. Then he crossed out the heart, and sketched a tiny arc reactor above it, to replace it.
She grinned at him, but before she got to saying anything, there was a noise from the door, and the sound of uneven footsteps. House had returned.
"Visiting hour is over," he declared. "It's almost time to start shooting at the bad guys. Bugs. Nanoviruses. You know what I mean."
House had to use every bit of patience and resolve he'd got to keep himself from going "eww" at the mushy conversation he was eavesdropping on. Well, at least that solved one mystery: no, Stark and Potts had not had a relationship before they came here, probably simply because they'd been shy as seventeen-year-olds about opening up to each other about their feelings. Now, with him dying of the nanovirus and her of worry, they'd finally talked things through.
Once Potts had told what she'd come to tell and Stark had answered him in writing (which House couldn't see, which slightly annoyed him), he stepped into the room again. He wondered if the thought had even crossed the couple's mind that he might've been spying on them. Probably not, they were too into each other to think about something like that.
"That wasn't very nice of you," a refined voice with a British accent spoke in his ear. House had forgotten about the damn AI - when he wore the helmet, it'd know exactly what he was looking at, or listening to. He wouldn't be bothered by the AI much longer, though, since the helmet's internal power source would run out soon. Luckily, he only needed its help a while longer.
"Shut up. I'm sure you're just jealous of her because you're in love with him too," House quipped. For a computer program, Jarvis had an excellent sense of irony, so he figured it would understand.
House made his way to the corner where he'd been working, and grabbed the gauntlet. "What do you think?"
"I'm an artificial intelligence, Doctor House, and a such, I don't really think. However, it is a perfect match to the parameters given by Mr. Stark."
House needed Stark's opinion as well, because Jarvis could only know what Stark had programmed in it, and lacked the intuition and the technical genius that had created the design. So, he walked over and placed it on Stark's lap, even though Stark was staring at him murderously. Potts was wearing more of an embarrassed, "caught in the act" sort of a look.
Stark went over the device carefully, lifting it closer to his face, turning it this way and that. "A device" might've been too fancy a word for it, though. It was a collection of scavenged parts attached to a mangled Iron Man gauntlet, and it looked just like what it was. House wondered if it'd really do anything at all.
Perfect, Stark wrote. When can we do it?
"I sent my minions to handle the evacuation of the nearby rooms. Then, we need to see to the things in this room. After that, we're all set."
House was glad they had had time to go over the details of the plan before they'd had to intubate Stark. Stark had assured him that the EMP the device produced would have a very small radius, so small that it should be limited to his room alone. Nevertheless, they had agreed that it would be safest to relocate the patients who were Stark's neighbors, just in case. A worst case scenario would be that Stark had miscalculated completely and the device would cause a major blackout, but there was nothing they could do to prepare for that. To announce it to the authorities in advance would mean giving out a clue that this was something more than just a regular case of HPS, and they couldn't do that.
Then, there was the problem of the medical paraphernalia currently surrounding Stark. Most of it was for monitoring purposes, so removing it wouldn't harm him. The IV could be switched to a simple drip instead of an infusion pump, so that was easy as well. They could move the equipment out of the room, and if the EMP should go wider than they expected, they could bring in new ones from elsewhere in the hospital. Stark had enough money that the expenses would not be an issue. The ventilator was the biggest concern, since it was clear enough that Stark would quickly suffocate without it. So, they needed to have someone bagging him manually all through the process. Tedious, but they had no choice.
The real problem was how they were going to handle Stark himself when they triggered the EMP. Stark had assured House that the all-important arc reactor was shielded - or rather, "should be perfectly shielded, but it's never been tested". Stark had given House the same answer when he'd asked what would happen if they needed to defibrillate him. "It should be okay." So many unknown, unpredictable variables. House didn't like it.
It took them the better part of an hour to finish all the preparations. During that time, Stark fell unconscious. That wasn't very fair of him, House thought - this way, Stark wouldn't be around to take the blame if his science project went haywire and caused a city-wide chaos. Potts never left his side, and once Colonel Rhodes, apparently a good old friend of Stark's, returned, he stayed glued to Stark's bedside as well.
Finally, it was all done. They took their positions: Potts and Rhodes standing by the wall, out of the way, Thirteen bagging Stark, Kutner standing by in case something unexpected happened, and Taub waiting outside with a few nurses and the medical equipment.
House himself, naturally, played the coolest part of their little drama. Standing next to the bed, he connected a wire from the EMP device to Stark's arc reactor, which worked as the power source.
He looked around, the modified gauntlet in one hand, a finger held dramatically over the button that'd set off the EMP.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said. "It's showtime."
And he flipped the switch.
Back to chapters 3 & 4
On to chapters 7 & 8
Category: Crossover, angst, drama, hurt/comfort, romance, suspense
Spoilers: Iron Man, the movie / House MD late season 4
Pairings: Tony Stark/Pepper Potts
Summary: An Iron Man movieverse / House MD crossover. When Tony suspects he's caught a mystery illness, he turns to the best doctor he can find. But can House solve this puzzle?
Chapter 5: "I'm on a tight schedule"
Iron Man was standing near to the rim of the swimming pool, the turquoise water still behind him, the sunlight reflected from his red and gold armor so that it was almost blinding. But something wasn't right, Pepper knew it right away.
From some crack in the floor, from behind a pool-side chair, from numerous little hiding-places here and there, mouses emerged. Tiny, harmless creatures, fuzzy with black, brown and even white fur, sort of cute on their own, but there were so many, and they were all heading towards Iron Man, like swarming locusts. He fought uselessly, kicking around, waving his hands, as they climbed his armor, gnawing at it, stopping at the locking mechanisms, and as absurd as it was, they were opening it, eating their way through it.
One by one, pieces of his armor fell off and clattered to the floor, some of them splashing to the pool. Soon, it was all gone, and Tony stood there, in his dark undersuit, which was already torn by minute but sharp rodent teeth. And more and more mice kept appearing, seemingly out of nowhere, covering him so that she couldn't even see his face, just his eyes, wide with horror.
As frightened as she was herself, she stepped closer, reached for him, but there was nothing she could do. The weight of what had to be hundreds of mice was pushing him backwards, he stumbled, stepped over the rim and fell to the pool, the animals still hanging on to him, gathered on him, pushing him all the way to the bottom, and though he was struggling, she saw it was in vain, he was going to drown...
"Miss Potts!"
Bewildered and shaky, Pepper woke up to meet the empathetic dark eyes of Doctor Kutner. She was lying on a couch in a hospital hallway, wrapped in the blanket Rhodes had snatched for her, her shoes on the floor. She'd thought she'd rest a little, since it had been a long and difficult day. She hadn't been planning on falling asleep - and what horrible dreams she had had!
She blinked, trying to clear the sleep out of her eyes. "What time is it?"
"Quarter past one in the morning," Kutner answered. "I'm sorry I woke you up, but we've found out something and I thought you'd want to know."
"No need to apologize. Is Tony... I mean, Mr. Stark..." the dream was still playing itself over and over in her head, the vision of Tony pushed to the pool by the huge mass of tiny mice, drowning...
"He's holding on. It's the diagnosis that has changed."
"It's not the hantavirus thing after all?"
"Looks like it isn't. House is talking to Mr. Stark now. We don't know anything for sure anymore. It looks like the cause of his illness is an artificial, nanotechnological thing."
"Oh!" Pepper exclaimed, placing a hand over her mouth. She knew that nanotech had been the main field of research in the Brazil biotech complex, but she hadn't thought... He had known! She remembered how Tony had acted about this whole thing, and it was obvious he had suspected something like this all along. Why hadn't he told her?
He had told Rhodes, she guessed. Before she'd gone to sleep, Rhodes had stopped by after talking to Tony and told her that Tony had given him a task of some sort. He hadn't explained it more than that, had said that he didn't know himself what it was about, exactly, but that it had seemed important. He'd been heading out of the hospital to concentrate on the investigation, and had suggested to Pepper that maybe she should leave too, get a good night's sleep at a hotel and return first thing in the morning. She had disagreed, she had wanted to stay near to Tony, since he could take a sudden turn to the worse any moment.
"You know anything about this?" Kutner asked, dragging her back to the present.
"I don't, but I'm sure Tony does," she replied, feeling more than a bit vexed. Deciding not to care about the fact that she probably looked completely disheveled, her hair a mess, her clothes creased, she tossed aside the blanket, straightened her shirt and skirt, put on her shoes and headed towards Tony's room, Kutner following right at her heels.
Tony and House seemed to be in the middle of something, but she didn't care. "If you knew, if you had any idea about this, why didn't you tell me?" she shouted. "And you told Rhodes and sent him to investigate this stuff and you left me out! Did you think I couldn't handle it? You think I'm just some... Some damsel in distress who needs to be protected?"
House stood aside, making room for her at Tony's bedside. Tony had the bed raised in a seated position, and oddly enough, he was wearing his Iron Man helmet, the faceplate open since he also had an oxygen mask covering half his face. One red gauntlet rested on his lap. He had been scribbling something on a piece of paper when she'd stormed in, and now he'd stopped writing, staring at her, dumbfounded.
He lifted the mask aside to speak, but all he managed was "Pepper, I..."
"I know you just wanted what's best for me, but don't you think it's sometimes better to tell the hard, scary facts earlier, so that I've got some time to wrap my mind around them?"
It wasn't the way he looked, nor the way he was surrounded with medical machinery, IV's and wires and what not all around, that made her think he seemed even worse now, more ill than before. It was the way he seemed to be slow on the uptake, the way he failed to instantly come up with witty answers.
"I did want to protect you. And I didn't want to send you away," he finally admitted. "After all, what would they," he waved a hand at Kutner and House, "think if I didn't have any girls around?" he added, in a half-hearted attempt at his usual banter.
"And what's going on now?" she asked, her anger ebbing gradually. He'd hear about this later, she'd see to that. As soon as he was better.
"I'm working on a cure."
"You're the doctor now? And House is letting you? What's happened to you two?" she was baffled.
"This is a technological problem, he's the technological genius," House answered, sounding only slightly sarcastic. "We're just random life support crew now."
"And Miss Potts," Tony drew her attention back to himself. "Since you're so eager to... I've got an errand for you," he said, offering her the slip of paper he'd been writing on.
On a quick glance, it looked like a shopping list, but it didn't contain groceries. "What's this?"
"We're going to hit the bug with an EMP," he explained. "Which might kill it before it kills me. I need some supplies to modify the repulsors for this."
She stared at the list. Mostly it contained tools and stuff that made sense, but there was also, "Tin foil? A microwave oven?"
"Stuff that's easy to find. This is more MacGyver than my usual style, but I'm," he coughed, "on a tight schedule," he finished, placing the oxygen mask over his face again.
"Go with Kutner, he knows the building and has a pass that should open any doors and stop the guards from pestering you," House continued the explanation. "If they give you any trouble, tell them to call Cuddy, I'll call her first and let her know about this. She'll have no objections, since Stark has already promised to pay generously for everything he takes. The guards will keep waking her up, she'll be annoyed, and you'll be able to get the stuff. Everyone wins."
Rhodey had just gotten settled in his hotel room, opened his laptop, and was looking at the first of a long list of files on the screen, when Pepper Potts called. As she explained the news about how Tony's illness wasn't actually caused by a virus as they had thought, but some artificial thing, Rhodey eyed the file. It contained a list of research projects at Stark Industries biotech in Brazil, some of which were highlighted in bold, probably by Tony.
Nanomaterials in Protective Clothing
Nanotechnology/Biology Interface - Risks, Benefits and Practical Possibilities in Medicine
Nanotechnology in Genetic Engineering
Nano-sized Recording Devices
Self-Replicating Nanotechnology in Biological Environments
The list went on, but none of the other headings were marked. Pepper's uneasy explanation of what the doctors had found out coincided all too well with what Rhodey saw on the list. He sighed, shaking his head to himself. What a mess Tony had gotten himself into, once again... For a moment, Rhodey considered whether he should just leave the investigation for later and return to the hospital, but then again, this might prove useful and important. He'd stay where he was now.
"Tony sent me data that has to do with his sickness and the trouble in Brazil," he told Pepper. "I'm working on it now, I'll let you know instantly if I find out anything that might be helpful. Hang on in there, you two. Good night."
Rhodey skimmed through the stuff Tony had sent him, and downloaded a program that somehow connected Jarvis to his laptop so the AI could advice him. He quickly learned everything Tony had found out so far, and completely agreed that this looked big, and nasty. What Rhodey couldn't quite figure out was, where to go from here. As far as he saw, none of the data contained anything that would be useful to Tony right now. They'd need to reach some of the missing scientists for that, but Rhodey knew it was extremely unlikely he'd be able to, all alone and in the middle of the night.
It was past 2 AM and as anxious as Rhodey was to do something to help, he was getting really tired. Finally, he settled on sending email to a S.H.I.E.L.D representative. They surely wouldn't answer before the morning, so he decided he might just as well try and get some sleep.
He'd barely slept a few hours when his cell phone rang. He was instantly wide awake, afraid that it was bad news about Tony, but instead, the caller introduced himself as "Agent Sitwell, S.H.I.E.L.D, currently standing behind your door, sir."
Rhodey got up, dressed quickly and opened the door to face the agent. Sitwell was young, and probably looked even younger than he was, thanks to his boyish, pimpled face. Even though they were well into the small hours, he didn't look tired, but eager and alert.
"I'm stationed hereabouts, I came as soon as I got your message," Sitwell said, his voice a nervous tenor matching his looks.
"Great, then you know what this is about already. I've got a lot of data I need to hand over to S.H.I.E.L.D, I'm sure you'll be able to handle this investigation far better than me alone. Um, is there some way..." he turned to glance at the laptop. He didn't think he should just forward the email he'd gotten from Tony, since it didn't contain the stuff directly, but directions to access and download it through Stark Industries intranet and servers.
Sitwell produced what looked like a standard USB memory stick from his pocket. "Just download it in here. This is S.H.I.E.L.D special issue, can be tracked if it's stolen and remotely triggered to explode, and the encryption is..."
"Yeah, really nifty," Rhodey interrupted the younger man, grabbed the memory stick and inserted it to the USB port in his laptop. He couldn't quite decide whether he was just amused or also annoyed by Sitwell's over-eager attitude.
He had only just started the download when his phone rang again. It was just the sort of call he had been fearing the last time.
"Rhodey?" Pepper sounded like she was on the verge of tears, or crying already. "It's... Tony's... He stopped breathing."
This time, Rhodey didn't waste time considering whether he should stay or go. "You can take care of this on your own, right? Just remember to close the door after you when you leave," Rhodey told Sitwell. He left the young agent to wait for the download to finish, and headed back to the hospital as fast as he could.
It had taken Tony over an hour to sketch a complete blueprint for what he was going to do. He'd used the helmet HUD and a gauntlet as an improvised 3D-modeling device, giving Jarvis an exact idea of what he had in mind. It'd been a strenuous hour, since he needed to close the faceplate to be able to see the screen, and he couldn't fit the oxygen mask inside the helmet. So, he'd work with the faceplate down until he started feeling so out of air that he was about to faint, then opened the helmet to catch his breath, and then went on working again. In the end, he was sure the effort had cost a good part of whatever time he had remaining before he got too sick to do anything at all, but he'd needed to do it anyway. If he couldn't finish this project himself, someone else would need to do it, and they needed instructions.
During his more than an hour of pre-planning, Pepper and Kutner had managed to gather everything he needed. Then, Tony had moved on to the actual tinkering. It wasn't too easy either, not when he was so spent that he needed to ask for help when he needed a bolt unscrewed. He had split open a gauntlet and was working on its insides. This was such a ridiculous bubblegum and duct tape sort of solution that anyone who had any knowledge of engineering would've laughed their asses off, unless they knew Tony's reputation and skills. He had pulled off such stunts before, and this was fairly simple - if he really had actually figured it out correctly, and the whole idea wasn't just an insane creation of a fever-ridden, oxygen-deprived mind.
How many hours since he'd last been able to draw breath properly? He had lost count. He'd gone over his situation with House, and House had been plain about it: it looked bad. Even if they managed to set off an EMP, they didn't know what, exactly its effects would be, and even if the EMP would stop the nanovirus, he might still be too sick to make it. It definitely wouldn't be long now before he wouldn't be able to breathe on his own anymore, and once they intubated him, he wouldn't be able to talk, and if things went bad...
He needed to talk to Pepper.
He put his work aside for a while, and asked for Thirteen, who was currently on call by his bedside, to go fetch her. House had left to catch a nap in his office, leaving his team to take turns watching over Tony. Tony had told Pepper to try and get some sleep as well. There was nothing she could do to help him right now, and she'd be more helpful later if she wasn't a completely sleep-deprived zombie. He could guess she wasn't probably sleeping anyway, so he didn't feel too guilty about waking her up in the middle of the night... or morning, or whatever the time was. Tony himself felt so bad in general and so fixed on the task at hand that he hardly even noticed his own lack of sleep.
Pepper appeared by his side in mere minutes. He couldn't see all of her face through the transparent part of the face of her protective suit, but her eyes told him enough. She didn't know why he'd called her here, but she could guess it wouldn't be anything nice.
"Pepper, there's something... I wanted to tell you," he struggled to get the words out properly with the little air he had. "If I don't make it..."
"Don't say that!" she cried out, her hand seeking his, once again.
He knew this wasn't the right way to do this. If he didn't make it, it'd only make her miserable, and if he did, it'd make things very awkward. But if he died without ever saying it to her straight up, without flirting, without innuendoes...
"You know I've made love... to more girls than we'd care to count," he began, cringing at himself for such a bad start. "But... Pepper... You're the only girl... I've ever loved."
She pulled her hand away from his, crossed her arms, and took a few steps back. As much as he tried, he couldn't read the look on her face. Sad, angry, surprised? Hadn't she guessed this much already? He'd been dropping her plenty of hints, but then again, he kept dropping hints at all the girls around him, just out of habit. And did she feel anything for him, anything more than friendship and loyalty?
She didn't say anything, but turned on her heel and walked out of the room.
Well, that went well, Tony thought to himself. Back to work, then. Now, in addition to everything else, there was a nasty suffocating feeling at his throat that had nothing to do with what was physically wrong with his body.
House turned around awkwardly, supporting his right thigh with both hands, and tugged the blanket a bit higher. No matter what he did, he couldn't find a comfortable position on his accustomed chair in his office. He couldn't sleep. His leg was paining him worse than it had in weeks, and his mind was too busy going over everything that'd happened.
It wasn't like him to lose sleep over a patient, but then again, he told himself, that wasn't what was going on tonight, either. He wasn't all "sob sob, oh no, but it's Tony Stark, he can't die". Instead, he was deeply annoyed by the pure impossibility of the case. He often spent sleepless nights thinking over a diagnosis, and this was the same sort of thing, except that they already had a diagnosis. "Hantavirus-like cardiopulmonary syndrome caused by a previously unknown bionanotechnological organism". It was worse than a diagnosis that was terminal and had no cure: it was something so alien that he had no means for understanding it properly. It was unfair. The universe wasn't playing by the rules anymore, tossing him with something like this.
He got up, stretching the muscles he'd already managed to jam while trying to sleep in an uncomfortable position. He decided he could just as well go and see how Stark was doing.
House was quite impressed by the fact that Stark was still awake and working. It was plain amazing that he was lucid at all. House glanced at the monitors, and grimaced. O2 sat was below acceptable levels, cardiac index had sunk lower while House had been trying to sleep - if this was some other patient in some other situation, House would've been seriously considering putting him on ECMO soon, but that wasn't an option here, with the EMP plan they had.
"Morning already?" Stark breathed, casting a sideways glance at House, most of his attention still on the vandalized Iron Man gauntlet he was working on. It looked like a piece of modern art built from scrap metal.
"For the very early birds."
"Why're you here, then?" Stark asked, with enough emphasis on the word "you" to make it clear that he didn't expect House to be an early riser.
"To gloat on my enemy when he's down, of course."
"Well, enjoy yourself... oh mighty Superdoc."
House sat down on a chair by the wall, next to Taub, who was on call. They sat in silence for over half an hour, Stark working, Taub and House just staring at him.
Suddenly, without warning, Stark dropped the gauntlet, which fell to the floor, some of the parts he had attached to it coming off and flying into different directions. Several monitors were blaring with alarms. He was still struggling weakly to breathe, but obviously unable to get any air.
"We knew this was coming, sooner or later," House told Taub. "Get the intubation kit."
Chapter 6: "Our doctors are doing their best"
Pepper landed heavily on the sofa and buried her face in her hands, bending so low that her hands touched her knees, and she cried, all the tears she'd held back during the day and the endlessly long night.
"You're the only girl I've ever loved," Tony had said.
He had had to come this far before telling her that - only when he was lying on what might end up being his deathbed, he'd decided that he could let her know... She didn't know what to think, what to feel.
She was angry beyond description - he should've told her earlier. Never mind that he'd kept her in the dark about the nanovirus and his company trouble, but to keep her in the dark about his feelings for her? Why'd he do that? Because he was afraid she wouldn't return the feelings? But he was Tony Stark, for God's sake, he knew all girls loved him!
In that one account, Pepper was like all girls, but then again, not the same, because the others loved a portrait painted by the media, a public facade he kept, a man that didn't exist, and she loved the real Tony Stark, with all the flaws and the bad habits, but also the true heroism that no one who wasn't close to him could ever really know... And one part of her felt joyful, happy beyond imagining to know that it wasn't just one-sided after all, that he loved her too - if only he had told her about it earlier, in some happier circumstances, who knew what might've come out of it.
Above all else, she was anguished. It was like physical pain, like some icy hand gripping at her heart, to think that those might've been the last words he'd ever say to her.
She spent far too much time wrapped up in her thoughts, crying, trying desperately to get a grip on herself, and it took her far too long to realize what she had done. What he'd done, confessing his love like that, had been both wonderful and very mean at the same time, but what she'd done had been downright cruel. She'd walked out on him, left him unaware of why she'd done it, whether she'd rejected him or what... She needed to get back to him, and fast!
She was too late.
When she reached the outermost door of the decontamination-airlock-door system to his room, Taub stepped out through it. He looked slightly startled to see her there.
"Miss Potts, I was just about to go looking for you. Mr. Stark was going into respiratory arrest, we've now hooked him up to a ventilator and he's stable again, for the moment."
She stared at the doctor, not really grasping what he said. Tony was... what? He'd almost stopped breathing, that was what. But she needed to talk to him!
"Can I go see him?" she asked.
"Of course, but he's unconscious, we sedated him for the intubation. Makes it easier on both us and him. Having a tube stuffed down your throat isn't exactly a pleasant experience."
Pepper needed to see him nevertheless, so she walked past the doctor, suited up and entered Tony's room. As she stepped in, all she saw was him, in the center of the room, on the bed, completely still and silent - which was something he never, ever was.
She stopped by his side, and placed her hand on the arc reactor on his chest. It was just as before, unchanged, glowing its soft blue light. The one part of him that hadn't been affected by this illness, though it wasn't a real part of him, it was a device that kept his heart safe. Her eyes followed the tube leading from his mouth to the machine that was now breathing for him, and she shivered. What next? How many machines did it take to keep him alive?
She slid her hand upwards, cupping the side of his face. "There's something I need to tell you, Tony. But I want you to be awake, it won't do any good otherwise," she whispered to him.
She stood there, by his side, for a good long while, before she realized she wasn't alone in the room. In the corner, surrounded by the tools and spare parts she and Kutner had collected, sat a figure in a protective suit. She didn't know who it was. Then, the person looked up - and though the transparent window in the suit's face, she saw the red-and-gold face of Iron Man.
She stumbled back a few steps, bewildered. What was going on in here? Was she still asleep?
"Don't mind me, I wouldn't want to disturb your cute, angsty moment," the helmet-headed person told her, and even though the helmet changed his voice, she could instantly recognize House's ironic tone.
"You! How... How dare you!" she stuttered.
"Someone has to finish this," he motioned at the Iron Man gauntlet which he was working on. "And I always wanted to try on the helmet."
"No, take it off!"
"Look, seriously," House said matter-of-factly, "he asked me to."
"But he hates you, why would he want you to continue his work?"
"Because we have things in common, and I'm not talking about how we're both superhuman über-geniuses. Neither of us can accept defeat, and we're both prepared to use almost any means to get what we want. Me, maybe even a bit more than him," House explained.
It almost made sense to her, and it sounded like the two had finally reached an understanding, which she was glad about, but to see House wearing Tony's helmet, and Tony lying there so helpless... It was too weird, too wrong. She couldn't take it. She ran out of the room again.
She collapsed on the first chair she could find, and called Rhodes, though she could barely say anything that made sense. Then she sat there, staring at the floor in a haze, a semi-conscious, half-asleep state. Rhodes arrived, talked to her, asked if she was all right, and she mumbled something in response. He was going to see Tony, but she didn't want to follow, she felt like she couldn't stand seeing him again.
She had drifted into a dreamless, yet restless sleep, when her phone rang. As she answered it, she looked at the time. 8 AM already.
"Miss Potts, this is Doctor Lisa Cuddy. I hope I didn't wake you up?"
"It's okay," she replied sleepily.
"I know this is a really short notice, but I can't stall the media any longer, we need to give an official statement. I'm making arrangements for a press conference at 11 AM. I take it that you've got something to tell? House hinted that there's a diagnosis."
"Sure..."
She finished the conversation as quickly as she could, agreeing to meet Doctor Cuddy at the hospital cafeteria at 10. Before that, she needed to find a shower, change her clothes, and somehow collect the fragmented mess that was her mind.
How on earth could she handle a press conference now? She didn't do those often, Tony did, because he was brilliant at them and the media loved him. But he couldn't, now, and that left her and Rhodes. He was military, while she was employed by Stark Industries. Besides, she had meant what she'd told Tony earlier. She wasn't a damsel in distress who needed protection. She'd do it.
They couldn't tell the truth about the nanovirus, that would be a disaster, it would cause a panic in the public and would be very bad for the company. The solution came to her quickly: just tell everyone it's the hantavirus. It was almost true. She'd have to lie in front of all those people and cameras, but she'd manage. For Tony.
Lisa Cuddy had had yet another sleepless night courtesy of Gregory House, MD. He'd woken her up with a phone call at around half past one, with some vague explanation about how Tony Stark needed some supplies for some insane engineering project, and that he'd borrow them from the hospital and pay lavishly for it. Since Stark really was rich and they could use the money, and they were talking about tools and such things, not medical equipment - and because she just wanted to go back to sleep and not be pestered by House any longer - she had said OK.
Less than fifteen minutes after House's call, the first guard had called. She'd gotten four phone calls like that during the next few hours. Puzzled guards and one nurse on a night shift had told her that people were sneaking around the hospital, taking things, and that one of them had the ID of Doctor Kutner of the Diagnostics Department. "Yes yes, I know about this, it's all right, let them take whatever they want," she'd tell them, bury her head under the pillow and try to fall asleep while waiting for the next call.
At quarter past seven in the morning, when she'd actually caught a few hours of solid sleep, she received another sort of phone call, and then, a few more, and when she opened her email inbox, she found it flooded with over a hundred new messages. The media. She'd been doing her best to hold them at bay, but this was the third day for Stark at Princeton-Plainsboro, and they really needed to tell them something. So, she started arranging things for a press conference, and called Stark's assistant. Miss Potts sounded tired and distressed, and Cuddy could only wonder what had been going on during the night. She tried calling House to ask about it, but he didn't answer. Typical. She did reach Thirteen, who told her that Stark had HPS, and his condition was deteriorating rapidly.
Cuddy met Potts at the cafeteria for late breakfast. Despite the way she'd sounded on the phone, Stark's assistant looked sharp enough, her hair neatly done, and the signs of a sleepless night on her face expertly covered by make-up.
"How can you put up with House? I mean, I know he's brilliant, but he's just so..." Potts asked her over a cup of coffee.
"Such a total jerk?" Cuddy answered, smirking. "Well, from what I hear, people have asked the same question about you and Mr. Stark," she said, and only when she'd finished the sentence, she realized how inconsiderate it was of her - Stark was badly ill, after all.
Potts looked down at the table, a wave of emotion going over her face, but it passed quickly. She looked up again and chuckled, wistfully, but smiling nevertheless. "Oh, you have no idea."
Cuddy and Potts spent most of the hour before the press conference on small talk instead of business, because they didn't have that very many details to go over. The news they had to give was clear enough, and they agreed that they would keep the event as short as possible, no extra questions answered.
The auditorium of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital was filled to its brim. During all her time as hospital administrator, Cuddy had never had this many media people gathered here. It was no wonder there were so many. Everything Stark did was a major news event, and his being sick was not only interesting to the public, but also affected his company stock. Luckily, having a large audience wasn't a problem for Cuddy. She didn't enjoy public speaking and didn't consider herself much of a rhetorician, but she wasn't afraid of talking to large crowds, and she knew how to handle people. It was part of her job, after all. She was slightly worried about Potts, though - she seemed edgy, eyeing the gathered reporters like they were an execution crew.
They stepped on the podium, and the whole hall fell silent, as if everyone was holding their breath.
"I'm Doctor Cuddy, Dean of Medicine of this hospital. I know you have all been waiting for almost three days to hear something, and I'm sorry we have kept you in the dark. It was necessary, as it took our doctors this long to find out what is wrong with Mr. Stark. Here's Miss Potts, his personal assistant," she motioned at Potts to step to the microphone.
Cuddy felt impressed as she noticed that the look on Potts's face had changed completely. It was now stern with resolve, almost cold. "I'm afraid the news aren't good," she spoke in a steady voice. "Mr. Stark is ill with hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a potentially deadly disease. The next day or so will show if he survives."
The hall exploded with a hubbub of questions, but Cuddy silenced them with a wave of her hands and spoke again. "Our doctors are doing their best. Doctor Gregory House is responsible for the case, and he's the best we have."
"This has no effect whatsoever on the running of Stark Industries," Potts added. No word of Iron Man, Cuddy thought, and the reporters had noticed it as well, since she could hear the word in their shouted inquiries and their talk amongst themselves.
"We will let you know as soon as we have more news. This is all we have to say for now," Cuddy finished.
The noise became even louder, the air still full of questions - "What about Iron Man?" "Can we interview Stark?" "How contagious is this disease?" "Where did he get it from?" and so on, endlessly.
Cuddy spoke up again. "We're not taking any questions. Good day."
Potts was looking nervous and shaky again, so Cuddy took her by the hand and lead the way out of the auditorium. Once they'd reached the hallway, they went their separate ways, Potts to visit her employer, Cuddy to her office.
She found Kutner, Taub and Thirteen there, waiting for her. "Doctor Cuddy," Taub said. "We could use some help. We need to evacuate the patients from the rooms around where Stark's staying."
Tony blinked, trying to force his sleepy, blurry vision to focus on the nearly finished EMP-device.
He was feeling beyond bad, he just felt incredibly weird. He'd never experienced anything like this. It was an experience he could've lived without, too. His system was still full of drugs, so he was drowsy, like he was almost, but not quite, drunk enough to pass out. And there was the plastic tube going all the way down his throat, and the machine filling his failing lungs with air.
The situation was made even weirder by the fact that House now wore the Iron Man helmet under his protective suit, so Jarvis could lead him through the adjustments. From what Tony could see, they were doing a good job, too. House had successfully repaired the damage the device had taken when it'd fallen to the floor. He obviously didn't understand what he was doing, but he was very precise, and had steady hands.
Fine, but could use some flair, Tony wrote on the clipboard he was now using to communicate. His handwriting was horrible, but apparently House could read it, since he answered.
"I'll paint little golden Iron Man -figures on it once I've made the last connections."
House returned to his place in the corner of the room to continue working. Tony closed his eyes. He had no idea what time it was. He hadn't seen Pepper since she'd walked out on him. Rhodey had stopped by a few times. The last time he'd said he'd go and check on the investigation and return later, and Tony hadn't heard from him since. Then, it'd been just him and House in here, plus occasional visits from the younger doctors in House's team.
It occurred to Tony that this was like some freakishly twisted re-enactment of what had happened in Afghanistan, with House, of all people, playing the role of Yinsen. Of course, everything was different, the situation, the surroundings, the people, but still, here he was, dying because of something that he'd helped to create - although saying that he was responsible for the nanovirus in any way was stretching it - and fighting to save his own life through technology.
He was drifting towards sleep or unconsciousness, when suddenly, a hand landed softly on his chest, on the arc reactor. He knew who it was before he'd even opened his eyes. He felt his weakened heart skip faster with the thought.
"Tony? Are you awake?"
He raised his eyebrows and blinked a few times to let her know.
"Go away. Give us a moment alone," Pepper shouted at House. To his surprise, Tony heard no sarcastic protests, but the sounds of House getting up, limping to the door and out of the room.
She went on as soon as the door had closed. "Tony, I just need you to know... how much you mean to me. You're like an arc reactor," she said, tapping the device lightly with her slender fingers. "I'm sure my heart would stop if you'd die."
She paused, and he stared at her, amazed. He'd hardly ever seen her this sentimental, and he'd never dared to hope to hear such words from her.
"So, I guess, what I'm trying to say is, I love you too, Tony Stark," she finished.
Tony reached for the clipboard and drew a little heart on it, with "Tony" and "Pepper" written on its sides. Tony loves Pepper. Then he crossed out the heart, and sketched a tiny arc reactor above it, to replace it.
She grinned at him, but before she got to saying anything, there was a noise from the door, and the sound of uneven footsteps. House had returned.
"Visiting hour is over," he declared. "It's almost time to start shooting at the bad guys. Bugs. Nanoviruses. You know what I mean."
House had to use every bit of patience and resolve he'd got to keep himself from going "eww" at the mushy conversation he was eavesdropping on. Well, at least that solved one mystery: no, Stark and Potts had not had a relationship before they came here, probably simply because they'd been shy as seventeen-year-olds about opening up to each other about their feelings. Now, with him dying of the nanovirus and her of worry, they'd finally talked things through.
Once Potts had told what she'd come to tell and Stark had answered him in writing (which House couldn't see, which slightly annoyed him), he stepped into the room again. He wondered if the thought had even crossed the couple's mind that he might've been spying on them. Probably not, they were too into each other to think about something like that.
"That wasn't very nice of you," a refined voice with a British accent spoke in his ear. House had forgotten about the damn AI - when he wore the helmet, it'd know exactly what he was looking at, or listening to. He wouldn't be bothered by the AI much longer, though, since the helmet's internal power source would run out soon. Luckily, he only needed its help a while longer.
"Shut up. I'm sure you're just jealous of her because you're in love with him too," House quipped. For a computer program, Jarvis had an excellent sense of irony, so he figured it would understand.
House made his way to the corner where he'd been working, and grabbed the gauntlet. "What do you think?"
"I'm an artificial intelligence, Doctor House, and a such, I don't really think. However, it is a perfect match to the parameters given by Mr. Stark."
House needed Stark's opinion as well, because Jarvis could only know what Stark had programmed in it, and lacked the intuition and the technical genius that had created the design. So, he walked over and placed it on Stark's lap, even though Stark was staring at him murderously. Potts was wearing more of an embarrassed, "caught in the act" sort of a look.
Stark went over the device carefully, lifting it closer to his face, turning it this way and that. "A device" might've been too fancy a word for it, though. It was a collection of scavenged parts attached to a mangled Iron Man gauntlet, and it looked just like what it was. House wondered if it'd really do anything at all.
Perfect, Stark wrote. When can we do it?
"I sent my minions to handle the evacuation of the nearby rooms. Then, we need to see to the things in this room. After that, we're all set."
House was glad they had had time to go over the details of the plan before they'd had to intubate Stark. Stark had assured him that the EMP the device produced would have a very small radius, so small that it should be limited to his room alone. Nevertheless, they had agreed that it would be safest to relocate the patients who were Stark's neighbors, just in case. A worst case scenario would be that Stark had miscalculated completely and the device would cause a major blackout, but there was nothing they could do to prepare for that. To announce it to the authorities in advance would mean giving out a clue that this was something more than just a regular case of HPS, and they couldn't do that.
Then, there was the problem of the medical paraphernalia currently surrounding Stark. Most of it was for monitoring purposes, so removing it wouldn't harm him. The IV could be switched to a simple drip instead of an infusion pump, so that was easy as well. They could move the equipment out of the room, and if the EMP should go wider than they expected, they could bring in new ones from elsewhere in the hospital. Stark had enough money that the expenses would not be an issue. The ventilator was the biggest concern, since it was clear enough that Stark would quickly suffocate without it. So, they needed to have someone bagging him manually all through the process. Tedious, but they had no choice.
The real problem was how they were going to handle Stark himself when they triggered the EMP. Stark had assured House that the all-important arc reactor was shielded - or rather, "should be perfectly shielded, but it's never been tested". Stark had given House the same answer when he'd asked what would happen if they needed to defibrillate him. "It should be okay." So many unknown, unpredictable variables. House didn't like it.
It took them the better part of an hour to finish all the preparations. During that time, Stark fell unconscious. That wasn't very fair of him, House thought - this way, Stark wouldn't be around to take the blame if his science project went haywire and caused a city-wide chaos. Potts never left his side, and once Colonel Rhodes, apparently a good old friend of Stark's, returned, he stayed glued to Stark's bedside as well.
Finally, it was all done. They took their positions: Potts and Rhodes standing by the wall, out of the way, Thirteen bagging Stark, Kutner standing by in case something unexpected happened, and Taub waiting outside with a few nurses and the medical equipment.
House himself, naturally, played the coolest part of their little drama. Standing next to the bed, he connected a wire from the EMP device to Stark's arc reactor, which worked as the power source.
He looked around, the modified gauntlet in one hand, a finger held dramatically over the button that'd set off the EMP.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said. "It's showtime."
And he flipped the switch.
Back to chapters 3 & 4
On to chapters 7 & 8