p • r • e • s • s • u • r • e

nervosa

A/N Yeah so I decided to cut the *relationship* between Tony and Bruce,  I'm sorry. It just seemed so out of character, and I think the bigger challenge will be to write them as friends and keep it interesting. There's also a certain amount of intimacy that's important for their dynamic so I'm trying to get around that, but in the end I think it's better this way. 

It's 3 AM and Tony might be alive. He pondered it, turned the concept over in his mind. 

Alive? What exactly did that entail? And was it something he wanted?

His hands fumbled for something to do and when cracking his knuckles failed, cautious fingers wandered up to the stitches in his abdomen.

He flipped through all the reasons he hated himself like a rolodex, subconsciously trying to justify his coming painful 'indulgence'.

Hands squeezed lightly, and he shivered.

Pepper's bedside table was bare except for a hair clip. It was metal, thick and heavy. One of those clamshell-style ones, and it had a strong spring at its spine. He eyed it warily, and against his better judgement, reached across the bed and picked it up. It was then, as it hung heavy in his hands that he realised he'd made it for her with Morgan. 

"What should I get mommy for Christmas?"

He put down the welding torch.

"Well, what does she need?"

Morgan frowned.

"Yesterday she broke her hair clip, she said it was a special one."

"There you are, then."

"But where can we buy one?"

He looked at the discarded sheet metal and grinned. 

"We don't."

Had she left it there on purpose? He couldn't tell. 

Tony opened and shut it, its teeth gnashing together. 

No wonder it's hefty, he thought. Vibranium. 

Can't be too bad, right?

Breathing heavily, Tony opened the clip and let it snap shut around the wound. 

He cried out. 

And he panicked. 

Tony clawed but his fingers had lost all dexterity, his coordination had gone out the window. He curled forward and tried to stop screaming and remove the damned thing but his hands were wet now, how had they gotten wet? And it was all slippery, and-

"What's wrong? What happened?"

Bruce had sprung from the sofa in his sitting room and was fretting. It took him a moment to find the current source of Tony's pain.

"Shit."

The scientist unfastened the clamp and tossed it aside, using the sheets to stem the bleeding.

"Hold that there," he instructed, and his strong hands were replaced with quaking fingers.

He disappeared briefly and returned with a first aid kit. Tony wasn't sure where he'd got it, but he tried rather desperately to focus on literally anything unrelated while Bruce quickly disinfected and bandaged his wound. 

"It's gonna hurt, I'm really sorry."

He scrambled for formulas, equations, anything.

"Adiecies in mortario asparagorum praecisuras, quae-quae proiciuntur-" he winced, trying to focus over the pain.  "-teres, suffundes vinum, colas." he recited through clenched teeth.