p • r • e • s • s • u • r • e

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He squirms under the pressure, trying to make himself smaller.

His chest heaves, trying to breathe, trying to breathe. He wheezes. With his last breath, he yells.

"BRUCE!!"

"Help me, please help me..." he chokes.

Rubber-soled feet come pounding into the room and around the corner.

"Oh my god, Tony! How do I stop this thing?"

Tony's flickers, black spots dancing and crowding the edges.

"R-rem-mote," he croaks.

The scientist spots the small device on the ground and spins the dial, raising the press. Tony heaves, the breath in his throat wet and coppery. Bruce is at his side in an instant.

"What the hell were you thinking??"

His chest is still on fire, and he struggles to roll over on his side, coughing up blood. The scientist picks him up bridal style and carries him upstairs to his bed, stripping him down to his boxers and laying him in bed, his head lolling back gruesomely.

"What the hell, Tony?"

It's then that Bruce notices the arc reactor smoking, cracked and stuck inside his chest cavity.

"Shit...we gotta get this out."

"Hulk, I need your help."

"Metal man hurt, metal man broken. Me break metal man?"

"No buddy, you're good. He broke himself."

"No...save Metal Man, fix Metal Man."

"I need your hand, buddy."

"Help Metal Man?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna help him."

Bruce's fist swells up and turns green, his shoulders struggling to hold its weight.

He takes hold of the reactor and pulls, trying desperately not to hurt Tony.

"N-no, Bruce pleeehease...l-leave it, d-on't take it o-hout."

Tony looks up at him with pleading eyes that convey too much. They're begging to leave it in, to let him die, to take care of Morgan when he's gone, begging him to donate his inventions, begging for things Bruce didn't know eyeballs could beg for. The scientist looks down at him, and denies his pleas.

It pops out of his chest with a 'zing', and a small shower of sparks. Bruce throws it to the corner.

Tony screams, his chest inflamed and burnt from the electrocution.

"Where's your other one?"

"Down-down-st-stairs, down-stairs, l-leave me."

"Got it."

"H-hurry."

Bruce tears down the stairs, his weight lopsided as his hand slowly shrinks back. He ignores the pain of his bones snapping and twisting back into place in his fist as he runs frantically through the garage, spotting the shiny new reactor on the table. He pops the front panel back into place, hoping to god it'll work. Typically, Tony would be able to make it awhile without the reactor, but he wasn't so sure now...

He bursts into the bedroom with the reactor. Tony's sweating, breathing hard.

"Do I just click it into place?"