p • r • e • s • s • u • r • e

what did you do?

"Mmm?"

"The reactor, why'd you take it out?"

"What? Oh. I had to do repairs. Also I'm making a new one, I think."

"You think."

"Yeah-" He looked to his right and sure enough, it was there. He hadn't been hallucinating. 

"Yes, yes I was look it's right-wait, how did you know I-ow! The fuck are you doing?"

Bruce swiped an alcohol wipe against one of the slightly larger scratches, and carefully thumbed a bandaid over it.

"Something that shouldn't have needed doing in the first place."

Tony's eyes flitted over the ground.

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not. Can you take off your hoodie?"

"Why?"

"There's glass in your back."

"Wh..." He glanced over his shoulder.

"Huh. So there is."

He tossed it aside and swivelled his chair from Bruce, who sucked in a breath.

"What?"

"How did this happen?"

"Is it bad?"

"It certainly isn't the alternative."

"Well-does it need stitches?"

"Don't think so..."

"Then get off my ass, it's not that bad."

"That's a terrible way to gauge the severity of an injury."

He breathed a little chuckle on the blunt edge of a smile.

"Tony, tell me what happened."

Bruce started excavating the sparkling little shards with the help of his phone's flashlight, and they hit the old ceramic dish with a clink.

"Uh-I was-I dropped a glass, and then I fell."

"No you didn't."

"Why would I lie?"

Bruce yanked out a piece with a little more force than was necessary, prompting a hiss from Tony.

"I think there's more to the story."

"All right Monsieur Poirot, what do you think happened?"

"Well, Hastings-"

"Captain Hastings."

I'd say you took your arc reactor out for some reason. You started shaking-partly because you're hypoglycaemic, since you didn't eat lunch again-but mostly because your heart rate dropped. I don't know what the fuck happened with the glass, but I doubt it ended up in your skin by accident."

Tony scrambled.

"...in this allegory am I both the handsome companion character and the unidentified perpetrator?"

"Tony-"

"Sorry. But God, you're so suspicious of me. It was just-just a stupid mistake."

Bruce sighed.

"JARVIS, what really happened?"

"JARVIS, don't you dare."

"I mean it-"

"I will shut you down!"

JARVIS cleared his throat-which was odd, since he didn't fucking have one.