Everlasting • Tony Stark✔️

12 | the arc reactor

LYRA walked around the kitchen while Pepper was listening to the news on the television. She listened intently at the backlash Tony was getting for closing his weapons side of business.

"Pepper?" Tony's voice came over the intercom. "Is Lyra out there? I just tried her room—"

"In the kitchen," Pepper called, muting the television.

The intercom crackled before Tony called, "Lyra? How big are your hands?"

Lyra dropped the towel she was using to wipe the dishes. "What?"

"How big are your hands?"

Lyra glanced at Pepper to see her snorting a laugh. Her eyes fell to her hands. "I don't understand why—"

"Get down here. I need you."

Lyra walked passed Pepper with a shrug as she walked down the stairs to Tony's lab. She pressed her numbers and entered Tony's workshop to find Tony lying shirtless on a chair. There were wires stuck to his chest hooked to a machine next to him.

"Hey. Let's see them. Show me your hands. Let's see them." Lyra held up her hands as she walked closer to him. "Oh, wow. They are small. Very petite, indeed. I just uh.. need your help for a sec."

Lyra saw the arc reactor hardly lit as he pointed to the table where the new arc reactor laid. "Oh, my God, is that the new one?"

"It is. This is now an antique," he said with a grin. "That is what will be keeping me alive for the foreseeable future. I'm swapping it up for an upgraded unit, and I just ran into a little speed bump. Your notes were a large help, Ly."

Lyra cocked a brow. "Speed bump, what does that mean?"

"It's nothing. It's just a little snag. There's an exposed wire under this device. And it's contacting the socket wall and causing a little bit of a short. It's fine." Tony pulled out the old device, handing it to Lyra. She frowned at the pain in his face.

Lyra sighed. "What do you want me to do?"

Tony pointed to the table. "Put that on the table over there. That is irrelevant." Tony gulped as she did so. "I want you to reach in, and you're just gonna gently lift the wire out."

"Is it safe?"

"Yeah, it should be fine. It's like Operation. You just don't let it touch the socket wall or it goes 'beep,'" Tony said with a laugh.

Lyra furrowed her eyebrows. "What do you mean, 'Operation?'"

"It's just a game, never mind. Just gently lift the wire."

"Okay," Lyra said softly as she began to place her hand in the hole.

"Okay? Great," Tony said as she retracted her hands.

Lyra shook her head. "You know, I don't think that I'm qualified to do this."

Tony grabbed her hands with a grin. "No, you're fine. You're the most capable, qualified, trustworthy person I've ever met. You're gonna do great. Is it too much of a problem to ask? 'Cause I'm—" he gestured to his hole.

"Okay, okay," she said softly.

Tony smiled as she brought her hands back to his chest. "I really need your help here."

"Okay," she whispered as she slid her hand into the hole in Tony's chest. "Oh, there's pus!"

Tony rolled his eyes with a grin. "It's not pus. It's an inorganic plasmic discharge from the device, not from my body."

"It smells!" Lyra exclaimed with a scrunch of her nose.

"Yeah, it does. The copper wire. The copper wire, you got it?" Tony said with a snort. He watched her eyes focus on his chest with a grimace.

"Okay, I got it! I got it!" she said with a laugh.

"Okay, you got it? Now, don't let it touch—AH—" Lyra yelped in fright as she tried to keep the wire in the middle. "—the sides when you're coming out!"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Tony waved his hands to keep her quiet. "That's what I was trying to tell you before. Okay, now make sure that when you pull it out, that you don't—" Lyra ripped the whole wire out, thus pulling the magnet at the end. The machines he was attached to began to beep horribly. She also began to freak out. "There's a magnet at the end of it! That was it. You just pulled it out."

"Oh, God!

"Okay, I was not expecting—"

"Okay, what do I do?" Lyra said, about to shove it back in.

"Don't put it back in! Don't put it back in!"

The machines were still beeping causing her to throw the wire aside as she tried to figure out what to do "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I'm just going into cardiac arrest—"

"Shit! You said it was safe!"

"—'cause you yanked it out like a trout... We gotta hurry. Take this. Take this. You gotta switch it out really quick," Tony said as he shoved the reactor in her hand. She glanced at it worriedly.

"Okay. Okay. Tony?"

"What?"

"It's going to be okay. Okay?"

"Is it?"

"It's gonna be okay. I'm gonna make this okay."

"Let's hope. Okay, you're gonna attach that to the base plate. Make s-sure you—" Lyra shoved the reactor into his chest causing him to scream when it attached. "Was that so hard? That was fun, right? Here, I got it. I got it. Here. Nice."

Lyra took her hands off his chest as he clicked it into place. The machines went stable as he took a deep breath. "Are you okay?" she asked softly.

Tony grinned. "Yeah, I feel great. You okay?"

Lyra smacked his arm. "Don't ever, ever, ever, ever ask me to do anything like that ever again."

Tony grabbed her hand as he said quickly, "I don't have anyone but you. Anyway—" Tony ripped the wires off and stood up.

Lyra picked up the old arc reactor. "What do you want me to do with this?"

"That? Destroy it. Incinerate it."

Lyra frowned. "You don't want to keep it?"

"Ly, I've been called many things. 'Nostalgic' is not one of them."

"Will that be all, Tone?" Lyra asked softly.

Tony glanced at her with a smile. She stood before him with her hair in a messy bun and eyes alight with worry and anxiety. He thought she was beautiful. "That will be all, Lyra." Lyra began to walk out of the room while Tony began to talk to DUM-E. "Hey, Butterfingers, come here. What's all this stuff doing on top of my desk? That's my phone, that's a picture of me and my dad. Right there. In the garbage. All that stuff."