Out Of Time

forty

In the morning, Tony decided to get donuts to help with the hangover. He was angry at himself as he sat in the giant donut eating the fried pastry. Angry about how he treated Y/N, Pepper, and Rhodey, but especially Y/N. The last he remembered of her was blood dripping down her face and the awfully hurt expression that was under the blood. Tony hated himself for causing all that pain, all that hurt. She had already been through so much, and he just had made it all worse.

"Sir!" He was pulled out from his thoughts by Nick Fury, who was standing in the parking lot below him. "I'm gonna have to ask you to exit the donut."

Tony rolled his eyes before getting down from the donut and following Fury into the donut shop. Fury sat in one end of the booth while Tony slid into the other.

"I told you I don't wanna join your super-secret boy band," Tony stated.

Fury chuckled. "No, no, no," Fury started. "See, I remember, you do everything yourself. How's that working out for you?"

"It's-it's-it's-it's-I'm sorry. I don't wanna get off on the wrong foot. Do I look at the patch or the eye? Honestly, I'm a bit hung over. I'm not sure if you're real or if I'm having-"

"I am very real. I'm the realest person you're ever gonna meet."

"Just my luck. Where's the staff here?"

"That's not looking so good," Fury pointed to the rash on Tony's neck.

"I've been worse."

"We've secured the perimeter but I don't think we should hold it for too much longer," Nat stated, walking over to the men in her SHIELD uniform.

"Huh." Tony looked over the top of his sunglasses at Nat. "You're fired."

"That's not up to you," she retorts, sliding in next to Fury.

"Tony, I want you to meet Agent Romanoff," Fury reintroduced Nat.

"Hi," Tony responded.

"I'm a SHIELD shadow," Nat said. "Once we knew you were ill, I was tasked to you by Director Fury."

"I suggest you apologize."

"You've been very busy," Fury moved on. "You made one of your girls your CEO, you're giving away all your stuff. You let your friend fly away with your suit. Now, if I didn't know better-"

"You don't know better. I didn't give it to him. He took it."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. He took it? You're Iron Man and he just took it? The little brother walked in there, kicked your ass and took your suit?" Fury turned to Agent Romanoff. "Is that possible?"

"Well, according to Mr. Stark's database security guidelines," she began, "there are redundancies to prevent unauthorized usage."

"What do you want from me?" Tony asked.

"What do we want from you?" Fury repeated. "Nuh-uh-uh. What do you want from me?" Nat got up and left. "You have become a problem, a problem I have to deal with. Contrary to your belief, you are not the center of my universe-"

"Yeah, I get it."

"-I have bigger problems than you in the southwest region to deal with." Nat came back with an injection. "Hit him." Nat injected something into his neck.

Tony hissed. "Oh, gosh, are you gonna steal my kidney and sell it?" Fury and Nat watched at the rash disappeared. "Could you please not do anything awful for five seconds? What did she just do to me?"

"What did we just do for you. That's lithium dioxide. It's gonna take the edge off. We're trying to get you back to work."

"Give me a couple of boxes of that. I'll be right as rain."