Tony Stark-⎊-Oneshots

ARC REACTOR PROBLEMS: 1

Pairing: Pepper x Tony
Summary: All the pain episodes of the Arc reactor
Word count: 1590
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Tony had been struggling with the reactor all day. It was one of those days again, where he wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed after downing a bottle of painkillers and listen to JARVIS reading some book to him until he fell asleep. But no, it was Friday and he had things to do. Somehow he had convinced Pepper to let him come to work at eleven instead of nine, which gained him an extra three hours of curling up in bed once he factored in traffic time. That barely helped though, and he had to sit through two meetings and a bunch of R&D stuff while trying not to think about the pain in his chest. Now he had to go to a charity gala that in all honesty he had forgotten what it was for but Pepper was going to kick his ass if he didn't show up and as lovely as that image was he would really prefer for her to not right now cause, you know, arc reactor.

So he was stuck in his room tying his tie just a little looser than normal and cringing as he slipped into his vest and jacket. Damn three-piece suits. He checked himself over in the mirror. The arc reactor was reduced to just a faint glow that was only visible in the current near darkness of his room. Unless the power happened to go out at the gala, that was covered. His red tie stood out nicely against his black suit (he'd decided against wearing the Iron Man patterned one he'd bought on a whim a few months ago, he didn't need to give Pepper another reason to yell at him right now), and his beard seemed fine. His hair was a mess, but he didn't have the energy or really ability to fix it. As long as there wasn't oil and grease in it, which there wasn't, he was fine. Confident that he was presentable, he grabbed the bottle of painkillers from his bathroom and swallowed three.

"JARVIS, Happy ready?"

"He is waiting outside, Sir."

Tony winced his way down the stairs and out the door and got into the car as casually as he could. "Drive, Happy," he said, lounging back in his seat. He felt the car pull smoothly out of his front-drive and speed off to the gala.

Tony drifted in a haze for the car ride, snapping himself out of it only when Happy pulled up in front of the building. He stepped out of the car and put on his media smile. Immediately a herd of reporters jumped him, peppering him with questions that he couldn't even really hear and taking pictures and the lights were blinding and that wasn't good. He nodded at them and kept his smile on and maneuvered his way through the crowd into the hall where the gala was being held. He was fairly certain that he wasn't somehow sponsoring this and thus he didn't have to give a speech which was a good thing; he didn't think he was quite in a position to make sense, as much as autopilot had taken over at this point.

Somehow he made it through an hour, attempting to distract himself by listening to the gossiping elite. Tony was pretty sure that none of them were actually here for whatever the event was sponsoring (was it the firefighters gala? Was it that time of year? Or the Maria Stark foundation? That was normally in December and the firefighters gala was November and it was March so he was pretty sure it was neither, but his brain wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders right now). Either way, their gossip wasn't particularly interesting. He didn't want to know which actors were vying for the new top movie or who Taylor Swift was dating now or who was fucking who and why did none of these people ever talk about something interesting? He shouldn't have to stoop to boring gossip to distract himself from the pain in his chest. He couldn't even drink anything to make the gossip bearable because it'd react badly with the pain meds that were the only things keeping him operating.

Tired of dealing with uninteresting people and in pain, Tony grabbed some water and hid himself in the back of the room for a little break.

"There you are," a familiar voice said, approaching from his left, "Have you been hiding back here all night?"

Tony turned slightly and saw his red-haired angel approaching. She was wearing that blue gown he had 'bought' for her last year which set off her hair and her red lipstick was the perfect shade not to clash. Just seeing her it was like a weight was lifted off his chest and he could breathe past the pain again. Or maybe it was the pain meds, although those should've kicked in a while ago. Maybe he was just delirious with pain and had actually passed out in the car and this was all a dream. "No, Pep, I've been mingling like a good boy. Just taking a break."

Pepper smiled at him and took a sip of her drink, standing next to him. "Well, you don't seem to have pissed anyone off yet, so that's a good sign."

Tony managed a mock gasp at her statement. "Yet? I'll have you know that I never piss anyone off."

They were smiling at each other and giggling at Tony's hilariously false statement. A few moments of happy silence passed before Pepper narrowed her eyes at something. "You look a little pale, are you okay?"

Tony blinked. Shit, if Pepper was noticing then other people might notice and then he was gonna end up all over the news tomorrow for.... something, he didn't know, he wasn't at full capacity, okay? He quickly looked away from her as he tried to think up a lie. If there was someone he was bad at lying to, it was Pepper. "Uh, nope, I'm fine. It's probably just the horrible lighting in here."

Pepper miraculously seemed to accept that. "Yeah, they really messed it up remodeling," she snorted, "You'd think they'd put in good lights when upgrading a dance hall to the newest definition of 'classy' but nope, it just washes everyone out."

The rest of the night was a lot more bearable with Pepper by his side. He brushed off various women's invitations to dance with flimsy excuses that were accepted anyway, and managed to avoid many of the worst gossipers. There were a few big name people that he knew SI would love contracts with that he attempted to butter up, but given his current mental state he wasn't exactly sure how well he succeeded. Pepper praised him after one of them left, which reassured him that he wasn't doing horribly at hiding his pain.

When the event started winding down he said his goodbyes to Pepper, and hopped in his car. He had offered Pepper a ride home, but she'd said she was fine, she had a friend that she needed to drive home and she'd only had one drink and that was an hour ago. It was probably a good thing for him that she hadn't tagged along, because the minute he got into the car the pain came crashing back in full force. His pain meds had definitely worn off by this point, other people in the car would not be fun. Happy knew better than to question Tony at this point, and was likely to chalk whatever he did up to exhaustion anyway. Lord knows he didn't get the required amount of sleep on a normal day.

"Bad day, Sir?" Happy asked when he got in the car.

"Little," he lied through his teeth.

The minute Tony got into his house he stumbled to the elevator and collapsed into his bed.

"Sir, I must request that you change out of your suit before you fall asleep. And perhaps you should take some more painkillers."

Tony groaned and curled into a ball around the reactor. Somehow he convinced himself to pull his shoes off, which was at least a step in the right direction.

"Sir, at least take your tie off."

Tony obligingly undid the knot and threw the tie in the general direction of his closet. He followed it up by sitting up long enough to pull his jacket off and drop it on the floor.

A whirring noise came from outside his room and Dum-E appeared. The robot poked his arm into the bathroom and grabbed the bottle of painkillers, then trundled over and handed them to Tony. He took it and poured three into his hand, quickly swallowing them dry. He handed the bottle back to the bot, who placed it back in the bathroom and then scooted over to his dresser, grabbing a pair of sweats and a random shirt. Dum-E plopped them on the bed next to Tony, then picked up the jacket on the floor and moved it to its hanger. Tony sighed, taking the bot's presence as a subtle prod from JARVIS, and slipped out of the rest of the suit as carefully as he could. Dum-E beeped at him and gathered up the discarded clothing as Tony shuffled his way into the pyjamas.

"Happy now, J?" Tony mumbled as he curled back up into a ball.

"Very, Sir."