Work Text:
The room hummed with fluorescent light and old metal, the kind of sterile buzz that made Tony’s teeth itch.
Their weapons were gone, armor stripped. Thor and Steve's wrists locked in magnetized cuffs that made movement feel like swimming through concrete.
Tony’d been fine. Mostly fine. Running on fumes and sarcasm. The arc reactor still glowed through the thin cotton of his (only slightly ripped) undershirt, steady and soft as a heartbeat.
Then the lights flickered. A whine built somewhere overhead. Natasha’s head snapped up a half-second before the pulse hit.
For a split second, everything went silent. Clint swore, yanking his hearing aids out as they started sparking.
The room went bright for an instant—then black.
Tony’s knees buckled. A spark jumped off the metal at his sternum; the glow guttered and died. He didn’t even make a sound. Just seized once and went down hard.
“Stark!” Steve was already at his side, trying to haul him up. His hands met something solid under the shirt, something too cold to be skin.
"Don't move him," Bruce snapped, moving closer.
The arc reactor sat dark in the center of his chest, a dead circle of glass and metal. Around it, faint blue lines spidered out under the skin like frost.
Steve pressed two fingers to Tony’s neck. Nothing.
He started compressions, wrists aching. “Come on, come on—”
“Cap, stop.”
Thor crouched beside them, eyes wide. “His light. It is gone.”
“Yeah,” Natasha said, already tearing into a wall panel with the edge of a broken cuff. “And unless one of you can cough up a generator, he’s not getting it back.”
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
Tony’s chest stayed still.
Then, Bruce rushed over, yanking out a wire from the panel. “Here. We reroute this into the casing—bypass the regulator—”
“English, Banner,” Steve barked.
“Shock him manually,” Bruce snapped.
“So, he needs lightning.”
“Absolutely not,” Bruce snapped. “You’ll cook him.”
But Thor was already stepping forward, the restraints sparking in protest. “Only a touch. Just enough to awaken the heart.”
“Thor—”
The cell filled with white light and the sharp crack of thunder. The smell of ozone stung the air. Tony’s body seized again— then slumped.
For a beat, no one moved.
Then, faintly, the reactor flickered.
Once. Twice.
Finally, a weak, steady glow returned, pulsing against the skin like a ghost heartbeat.
Tony gasped — a rough, broken sound, halfway between a scream and a choke. He rolled to his side, coughing, dragging air into his lungs like it hurt to breathe.
His irises glowed a ghostly shade of blue, deepening for a moment before receding like tidewater, their usual brown returning.
“Tony.”
Natasha’s voice cut through the static hiss of the lights. Quiet, but sharp. She was already at his side, hand hovering like she wasn’t sure where it was safe to touch.
He coughed again, harsh and wet, his whole frame shuddering with it. The arc reactor’s light pulsed weakly with every gasp, struggling to catch a rhythm.
“God,” he rasped, voice scraped raw. “That. Was. Awful.”
Bruce exhaled shakily. “You went into cardiac arrest, Tony. The EMP— it must’ve—”
“Yeah,” Tony wheezed, trying for a grin that didn’t land. “Pretty sure that’s what death feels like. Would not recommend.”
Natasha turned to face Clint, letting him read her lips. "He's good."
Clint gave a shaky thumbs-up, still blinking like he couldn’t decide if the world was actually tilting or if that was just him.
“Good’s a stretch,” Tony muttered. His voice came out thinner than it should’ve — ragged, breathy— and when he tried to sit up, he trembled hard enough that Bruce had to steady him.
“Easy,” Bruce said, gentling the word like he's talking to a panicked animal. “Just breathe. You’re okay.”
Tony’s laugh was low and ugly. “Yeah.”
He blinked hard, disoriented. The blue glow in his eyes flared again—too bright, too sharp, catching the reflection of the arc reactor’s sputtering light. It faded as quickly as it came, but not fast enough for them to miss it.
“Tony,” Steve said slowly, “your eyes—”
Tony groaned. “Oh, great. Here we go.”
“What’s happening?” Bruce asked, leaning in before Tony could dodge. He caught Tony’s chin in one hand, turning his face toward the light. “Jesus. Your pupils are constricted. They’re—They’re reflective.”
Tony jerked back. “Okay, Banner, personal space!” He clapped a shaky hand over his face. “It’s a long story, okay? Not really the time for science class.”
Bruce didn’t move back right away. His gaze flicked between the reactor’s unsteady light and Tony’s face, like he was trying to reconcile two separate equations that didn’t add up.
“Tony,” he said quietly, “how long have you been—”
“Glowing in the dark? Since it was cool,” Tony cut him off. When no one said anything, he sighed. “I guess the new element had some side effects. But, at least its not killing me, right?”
“It’s… not supposed to do that,” Bruce muttered, almost to himself. “It’s binding to you. Not just magnetically, biologically. That’s—”
“Insanely sexy, I know,” Tony interrupted. His voice was flat, rasping, his smirk more reflex than intention. “Science can take a number. We’ve got bigger problems, right?”
“Tony.” Steve’s tone softened, the way it always did when he wasn’t sure whether to scold or worry. “You died.”
Tony waved a shaky hand. “Yeah, but, you know. Didn’t stick.”
“That’s not normal.”
Tony laughed, short and breathless. “Says the 30-something-year-old man from the Great Depression sitting in a cell with a Norse god.”
The reactor flared weakly again—enough to cast a brief, eerie halo over his ribs. The blue threaded through his veins brightened with it, thin and branching like lightning trapped beneath the skin.
Natasha’s voice was low. “It looks like it’s getting worse.”
“Nah,” Tony said too fast. “It’s just recalibrating. Happens all the time.”
“You stopped breathing a minute ago,” Bruce said, sharper now. “That doesn’t ‘happen all the time.’”
"You guys are really stuck on the whole 'dying' thing. I'm fine. Really." Tony shifted, sitting up more properly. "We've gotta get out of here. Then we can do a Q&A."
Steve exhaled through his nose, rubbing a hand down his face. “I’m gonna kill him,” he muttered.
“You’ll have to get in line,” Natasha said dryly.