Fic: Crisis
Title: Crisis
Fandom: Iron Man/Marvel
Rating: T
Disclaimer: If I owned it, the gay would be way more obvious.
Summary: It's a body, he thinks, but then it moves.
Note: spazzer_mctwich finally persuaded me to write a prompt I thought of like a year ago, involving Tony trying to help/not do further damage with Justin Hammer, who's been raped by Vanko. Takes place in a slight AU, where Natasha fights Hammeroids with Rhodey, so Tony can go to Hammer Industries to try and take out Vanko.
Crisis
Tony lands as quietly as he can in the shadows of the Hammer Industries building. Natalie-- Natasha-- whatever-- said she would hold off the Hammeroids for as long as she could, while he looks for Vanko, but he doesn't want to push his luck. He moves quickly, trying to avoid being spotted from the skies outside, and enters the building.
The security there goes down without too much of a fight, though Tony's pretty sure one or two of them will be conscious again and after him in a few minutes. He can't bring himself to properly incapacitate them, they're just doing their jobs after all, so he just moves further into the facility.
He stops in a large room, some kind of factory, and takes a moment to grudgingly admire the place. The tech being manufactured in there is shit, of course, but the enormous room with all those computers and robot arms seems like a damn playground to Tony. He's about to move on through the room, look for a door on the other side, when he sees something in front of the racks where the Hammeroids were probably being stored. It's a body, he thinks, but then it moves, back hunching slightly towards Tony as the legs, pants down around the ankles, are tucked up a little more tightly against the stomach. Tony moves forward, a little cautious, but fairly certain there's no threat. A shudder goes through the curled-up figure as Tony's footsteps echo in the large, deserted room.
When he comes around where he can see the face, Tony stares. It's Justin Hammer. Justin. Hammer. Justin Hammer with his pants ripped and tangled around his ankles, Justin Hammer with bent glasses still hanging onto his face, Justin Hammer with a shallow knife wound on his cheek and rope burn around his neck. Tony swallows hard and opens the suit's mask, leaning down. "Hammer," he says, voice unsteady. Shit. How do you handle a situation like this? Hammer barely moves. "Justin?" Tony tries.
Hammer's eyes open slightly, red behind his glasses. He makes a rough noise, trying to clear his throat, and croaks, "Tony." Tony's mouth opens and closes as he struggles to find something to say.
"I'll uh," Tony says, straightening up as he gives up on finding the right thing to say, "I'll just uh go get the police, shall I? If you uh. Wanted to sit tight, I guess?"
Hammer's hand wraps weakly around Tony's armored ankle, and his voice is shaking. "Don't," he says pathetically.
"Don't what?" Tony asks. He's firmly ignoring a memory of saying the same thing to Rhodey, a long time ago.
"Don't... don't leave me alone," Hammer says, sounding humiliated. "Please," he adds.
Tony's pretty sure Hammer has never said "please" to him before. He sighs, resigning himself to another awkward attempt at finding the right thing to say. "Let me, uh. Let me just call them, okay?" he says in what he really hopes will come across as a gentle tone, and not one of absolute panic, because shit, emotions are not his thing. He stands up and steps back just enough that Hammer can't reach his foot from where he's curled up (trying to ignore the feeling of guilt as Hammer's hand clenches into a fist and he makes a fearful noise). JARVIS is already calling the police, and Tony's almost surprised when the operator first picks up.
"May I help you?" she repeats in a crisp tone.
"Uh... yeah, I. I'm at the Hammer Industries headquarters, and uh. There's a man here, he's been attacked, I think."
"I'm sending a unit there now, sir. Is the victim breathing? Is he bleeding"
"Yeah, he was talking to me and everything," Tony says, kind of relieved that he knows the answer. "And I don't see much blood, other than a couple cuts. Oh, and uh," he adds, suddenly thinking of something, "there might be security here that's gonna be hostile? So I'd tell your men to be careful."
"Thank you, sir. I'll tell them that." There's a sound of commotion in the background. "I'm sorry, sir, we're getting flooded with calls. Will you be okay waiting on your own if I end this call?" Tony's relieved to hear the professional exterior crack, like maybe he's not the only one freaking out today.
"Yeah, I think I'll be okay."
"Thank you, sir. Units should be there in about forty minutes." Traffic must be snarled up from the Hammeroids.
When the call disconnects, Tony takes a moment to call Natalasha or whatever the hell. "Stark? What is it?" she says, sounding breathless.
"I'm gonna need you to hold down the fort for about forty more minutes."
She curses. "What the hell are you doing?"
Tony looks down at Hammer, who's just sort of looking dully at Tony's feet. "Hammer's been attacked. I... I'm waiting with him until the paramedics get here."
She doesn't speak for a moment, and Tony winces as he hears the sound of a loud explosion. "I'll do the best I can, Stark. Ask your AI how long it'll be before we get Rhodey back."
"I'm nearly there, Ms. Romanov," JARVIS interjects crisply. "Hopefully it will be within three minutes."
"Tell me if anything changes," she says, and then she hangs up.
Aaaand Tony's alone with Hammer. He looks down. Shit. What do you do in this situation? "Justin?" he says quietly, leaning down again. Hammer's eyes flick up to meet Tony's for a second, before flicking away again. "Listen, uh," he says awkwardly, "I should probably check you for injuries, you know." Hammer's eyes meet his again, and Tony sees fear there. "Okay, what if..." he says slowly, "what if I told you everything I was doing, and you could tell me as soon as you felt uncomfortable?" Hammer blinks, breath ragged. "I need to make sure you aren't about to die, Hammer. You know that would mean way more paperwork than I could sit through." That actually makes Hammer let out a weak, wheezy chuckle, which encourages Tony a bit. He moves forward, ready to start checking Hammer over, and Hammer recoils quickly. Tony backs off.
"Okay, okay," Tony says. He undoes the gauntlets and takes them off, placing them carefully on the floor. "Okay, how about I just start on your arm?" He picks up Hammer's hand as gently as he can, turning it over and checking it for bruises. "Not so bad, is it?"
Hammer slowly lets Tony check him for injuries. He pulls up Hammer's pants for him without checking him too closely there, and Hammer makes a small sound that Tony thinks might be "thanks". The bruises on Hammer's neck make Tony hiss through his teeth. "Can you breathe okay, man?" he asks, and Hammer nods weakly.
"Hurts like hell, though," Hammer says. Tony looks at the way his chest rises and falls, and thinks there's probably a broken rib or two in there, but if blood isn't soaking through the fabric he isn't going to undress the man unnecessarily.
When he's finished making sure Hammer isn't about to die on him, Tony sits back, at a loss. There are still about thirty minutes before someone who knows what they're doing is supposed to be arriving, and Tony finds himself faced with the idea of making small-talk with a rape victim who also happens to be his rival. He's saved from his first, probably terrible, stab at conversation by a flutter of wings. A cockatoo lands on Tony's shoulder. Tony stares at it, wondering what the hell just happened.
Hammer lets out a pained laugh. He still hasn't sat up, is still curled up in the fetal position, looking up at Tony. "I got him that bird, you know. He insisted on getting his bird from Russia, but come on, man," Hammer says, sounding a little odd. "How the hell do you hunt down a dead man's bird in fuckin' Siberia? I just told him that was the same bird. He knew, though."
"Vanko?" Tony asks, even though he knows. To be honest, he kind of just feels like he needs to contribute to the conversation.
Hammer flinches a little at the name, probably without even realizing it. "Yeah," he says. "He just looked for a second, and he knew. He took care of that bird there, though."
Tony frowns. "That seems a little out of character," he says.
"Doesn't it?"
They lapse into silence. Tony feels like this is some kind of critical moment, like the last stage of a really tricky build when he needs to be there to supervise everything. It's like Hammer really needs someone here right now who can talk to him, give him emotional support, keep him from getting some kind of a complex about it all, and instead all he has is goddamn Tony. Tony doesn't know if he's ever felt so woefully unequipped for a situation. "Uh..." he says, very intelligently.
"I tried to stop him," Hammer says suddenly. Tony blinks, not sure what he's supposed to say. "I did," Hammer says, voice getting surprisingly insistent.
"I believe you," Tony says. He's pretty sure he's really supposed to be saying something else, but he just doesn't know what to do.
Hammer's eyes are staring dully across the room now, and his voice is shaking again. "I couldn't do anything," he says.
Tony swallows, thinking of Obie's hands on his chest. "I know," he says softly. "Sometimes... sometimes you just can't stop them." That makes Hammer meet Tony's eyes again, and Tony sees the question there. He takes a deep breath, and now he's the one staring across the room. "I trusted someone I shouldn't have," he says, and dammit, just like every time he thinks about Obie, his hands are protectively over the arc reactor again. With a great effort, he puts them down. There's a noise outside the room, and Tony's on his feet, pulling on the gauntlets again, shutting the mask. The cockatoo flies off to perch somewhere near the ceiling as Tony steps around Hammer, ready for the threat.
It looks like two of the security guards are up again. They don't seem to realize that their boss in on the floor, and pull out guns. Tony quickly charges up the hand repulsors, blasting them off of their feet. One hits his head against the wall and slides down to the floor, unconscious (please be unconscious, please don't be dead, I didn't want to kill you), but the other one is still clutching his gun. He gets off a shot, and Tony just barely stops it from hitting Hammer, who's painfully crawling to cover now. Another hit and the guard goes down, but Tony stands there for a few more minutes, listening, not quite ready to believe that the danger is over.
When he doesn't hear anything else, he turns around to look. Hammer is leaning awkwardly against a computer terminal, shaking in pain. Tony moves closer, putting out an arm. "You probably shouldn't be walking, man," he says.
The moment Tony's gauntleted hand touches Hammer's back, Hammer falls apart. Tony steps back in alarm as the other man screams angrily, pushing the computer to the ground. The monitor shatters with a crack, glass tinkling softly as it falls, as Hammer throws the keyboard, the mouse, making noises of fury that honestly kind of scare the shit out of Tony. When Hammer stumbles, leg skidding on a piece of the monitor, Tony barely manages to catch him. Tony pulls Hammer a little distance from the ruined computer and eases them both to the floor, letting Hammer lean against him as he shakes.
It suddenly strikes Tony how weird this is, how much he hates Hammer normally, how little he wants to one-up the bastard now. He's still pretty sure that he isn't handling this the right way at all (but then, when has Tony handled anything the right way?), and he starts worrying that maybe he's hurting Hammer more, maybe he's somehow going to fuck it up so that Hammer won't ever recover properly, and he almost gets up and backs away, but Hammer has a tight grip on Tony's arm.
"I tried to stop him," Hammer says again, as the sirens move in and Tony absently undoes his gauntlets again.
"I know you did," Tony says, hand moving unconsciously to wrap around Hammer's shoulders. "I know."
Fandom: Iron Man/Marvel
Rating: T
Disclaimer: If I owned it, the gay would be way more obvious.
Summary: It's a body, he thinks, but then it moves.
Note: spazzer_mctwich finally persuaded me to write a prompt I thought of like a year ago, involving Tony trying to help/not do further damage with Justin Hammer, who's been raped by Vanko. Takes place in a slight AU, where Natasha fights Hammeroids with Rhodey, so Tony can go to Hammer Industries to try and take out Vanko.
Crisis
Tony lands as quietly as he can in the shadows of the Hammer Industries building. Natalie-- Natasha-- whatever-- said she would hold off the Hammeroids for as long as she could, while he looks for Vanko, but he doesn't want to push his luck. He moves quickly, trying to avoid being spotted from the skies outside, and enters the building.
The security there goes down without too much of a fight, though Tony's pretty sure one or two of them will be conscious again and after him in a few minutes. He can't bring himself to properly incapacitate them, they're just doing their jobs after all, so he just moves further into the facility.
He stops in a large room, some kind of factory, and takes a moment to grudgingly admire the place. The tech being manufactured in there is shit, of course, but the enormous room with all those computers and robot arms seems like a damn playground to Tony. He's about to move on through the room, look for a door on the other side, when he sees something in front of the racks where the Hammeroids were probably being stored. It's a body, he thinks, but then it moves, back hunching slightly towards Tony as the legs, pants down around the ankles, are tucked up a little more tightly against the stomach. Tony moves forward, a little cautious, but fairly certain there's no threat. A shudder goes through the curled-up figure as Tony's footsteps echo in the large, deserted room.
When he comes around where he can see the face, Tony stares. It's Justin Hammer. Justin. Hammer. Justin Hammer with his pants ripped and tangled around his ankles, Justin Hammer with bent glasses still hanging onto his face, Justin Hammer with a shallow knife wound on his cheek and rope burn around his neck. Tony swallows hard and opens the suit's mask, leaning down. "Hammer," he says, voice unsteady. Shit. How do you handle a situation like this? Hammer barely moves. "Justin?" Tony tries.
Hammer's eyes open slightly, red behind his glasses. He makes a rough noise, trying to clear his throat, and croaks, "Tony." Tony's mouth opens and closes as he struggles to find something to say.
"I'll uh," Tony says, straightening up as he gives up on finding the right thing to say, "I'll just uh go get the police, shall I? If you uh. Wanted to sit tight, I guess?"
Hammer's hand wraps weakly around Tony's armored ankle, and his voice is shaking. "Don't," he says pathetically.
"Don't what?" Tony asks. He's firmly ignoring a memory of saying the same thing to Rhodey, a long time ago.
"Don't... don't leave me alone," Hammer says, sounding humiliated. "Please," he adds.
Tony's pretty sure Hammer has never said "please" to him before. He sighs, resigning himself to another awkward attempt at finding the right thing to say. "Let me, uh. Let me just call them, okay?" he says in what he really hopes will come across as a gentle tone, and not one of absolute panic, because shit, emotions are not his thing. He stands up and steps back just enough that Hammer can't reach his foot from where he's curled up (trying to ignore the feeling of guilt as Hammer's hand clenches into a fist and he makes a fearful noise). JARVIS is already calling the police, and Tony's almost surprised when the operator first picks up.
"May I help you?" she repeats in a crisp tone.
"Uh... yeah, I. I'm at the Hammer Industries headquarters, and uh. There's a man here, he's been attacked, I think."
"I'm sending a unit there now, sir. Is the victim breathing? Is he bleeding"
"Yeah, he was talking to me and everything," Tony says, kind of relieved that he knows the answer. "And I don't see much blood, other than a couple cuts. Oh, and uh," he adds, suddenly thinking of something, "there might be security here that's gonna be hostile? So I'd tell your men to be careful."
"Thank you, sir. I'll tell them that." There's a sound of commotion in the background. "I'm sorry, sir, we're getting flooded with calls. Will you be okay waiting on your own if I end this call?" Tony's relieved to hear the professional exterior crack, like maybe he's not the only one freaking out today.
"Yeah, I think I'll be okay."
"Thank you, sir. Units should be there in about forty minutes." Traffic must be snarled up from the Hammeroids.
When the call disconnects, Tony takes a moment to call Natalasha or whatever the hell. "Stark? What is it?" she says, sounding breathless.
"I'm gonna need you to hold down the fort for about forty more minutes."
She curses. "What the hell are you doing?"
Tony looks down at Hammer, who's just sort of looking dully at Tony's feet. "Hammer's been attacked. I... I'm waiting with him until the paramedics get here."
She doesn't speak for a moment, and Tony winces as he hears the sound of a loud explosion. "I'll do the best I can, Stark. Ask your AI how long it'll be before we get Rhodey back."
"I'm nearly there, Ms. Romanov," JARVIS interjects crisply. "Hopefully it will be within three minutes."
"Tell me if anything changes," she says, and then she hangs up.
Aaaand Tony's alone with Hammer. He looks down. Shit. What do you do in this situation? "Justin?" he says quietly, leaning down again. Hammer's eyes flick up to meet Tony's for a second, before flicking away again. "Listen, uh," he says awkwardly, "I should probably check you for injuries, you know." Hammer's eyes meet his again, and Tony sees fear there. "Okay, what if..." he says slowly, "what if I told you everything I was doing, and you could tell me as soon as you felt uncomfortable?" Hammer blinks, breath ragged. "I need to make sure you aren't about to die, Hammer. You know that would mean way more paperwork than I could sit through." That actually makes Hammer let out a weak, wheezy chuckle, which encourages Tony a bit. He moves forward, ready to start checking Hammer over, and Hammer recoils quickly. Tony backs off.
"Okay, okay," Tony says. He undoes the gauntlets and takes them off, placing them carefully on the floor. "Okay, how about I just start on your arm?" He picks up Hammer's hand as gently as he can, turning it over and checking it for bruises. "Not so bad, is it?"
Hammer slowly lets Tony check him for injuries. He pulls up Hammer's pants for him without checking him too closely there, and Hammer makes a small sound that Tony thinks might be "thanks". The bruises on Hammer's neck make Tony hiss through his teeth. "Can you breathe okay, man?" he asks, and Hammer nods weakly.
"Hurts like hell, though," Hammer says. Tony looks at the way his chest rises and falls, and thinks there's probably a broken rib or two in there, but if blood isn't soaking through the fabric he isn't going to undress the man unnecessarily.
When he's finished making sure Hammer isn't about to die on him, Tony sits back, at a loss. There are still about thirty minutes before someone who knows what they're doing is supposed to be arriving, and Tony finds himself faced with the idea of making small-talk with a rape victim who also happens to be his rival. He's saved from his first, probably terrible, stab at conversation by a flutter of wings. A cockatoo lands on Tony's shoulder. Tony stares at it, wondering what the hell just happened.
Hammer lets out a pained laugh. He still hasn't sat up, is still curled up in the fetal position, looking up at Tony. "I got him that bird, you know. He insisted on getting his bird from Russia, but come on, man," Hammer says, sounding a little odd. "How the hell do you hunt down a dead man's bird in fuckin' Siberia? I just told him that was the same bird. He knew, though."
"Vanko?" Tony asks, even though he knows. To be honest, he kind of just feels like he needs to contribute to the conversation.
Hammer flinches a little at the name, probably without even realizing it. "Yeah," he says. "He just looked for a second, and he knew. He took care of that bird there, though."
Tony frowns. "That seems a little out of character," he says.
"Doesn't it?"
They lapse into silence. Tony feels like this is some kind of critical moment, like the last stage of a really tricky build when he needs to be there to supervise everything. It's like Hammer really needs someone here right now who can talk to him, give him emotional support, keep him from getting some kind of a complex about it all, and instead all he has is goddamn Tony. Tony doesn't know if he's ever felt so woefully unequipped for a situation. "Uh..." he says, very intelligently.
"I tried to stop him," Hammer says suddenly. Tony blinks, not sure what he's supposed to say. "I did," Hammer says, voice getting surprisingly insistent.
"I believe you," Tony says. He's pretty sure he's really supposed to be saying something else, but he just doesn't know what to do.
Hammer's eyes are staring dully across the room now, and his voice is shaking again. "I couldn't do anything," he says.
Tony swallows, thinking of Obie's hands on his chest. "I know," he says softly. "Sometimes... sometimes you just can't stop them." That makes Hammer meet Tony's eyes again, and Tony sees the question there. He takes a deep breath, and now he's the one staring across the room. "I trusted someone I shouldn't have," he says, and dammit, just like every time he thinks about Obie, his hands are protectively over the arc reactor again. With a great effort, he puts them down. There's a noise outside the room, and Tony's on his feet, pulling on the gauntlets again, shutting the mask. The cockatoo flies off to perch somewhere near the ceiling as Tony steps around Hammer, ready for the threat.
It looks like two of the security guards are up again. They don't seem to realize that their boss in on the floor, and pull out guns. Tony quickly charges up the hand repulsors, blasting them off of their feet. One hits his head against the wall and slides down to the floor, unconscious (please be unconscious, please don't be dead, I didn't want to kill you), but the other one is still clutching his gun. He gets off a shot, and Tony just barely stops it from hitting Hammer, who's painfully crawling to cover now. Another hit and the guard goes down, but Tony stands there for a few more minutes, listening, not quite ready to believe that the danger is over.
When he doesn't hear anything else, he turns around to look. Hammer is leaning awkwardly against a computer terminal, shaking in pain. Tony moves closer, putting out an arm. "You probably shouldn't be walking, man," he says.
The moment Tony's gauntleted hand touches Hammer's back, Hammer falls apart. Tony steps back in alarm as the other man screams angrily, pushing the computer to the ground. The monitor shatters with a crack, glass tinkling softly as it falls, as Hammer throws the keyboard, the mouse, making noises of fury that honestly kind of scare the shit out of Tony. When Hammer stumbles, leg skidding on a piece of the monitor, Tony barely manages to catch him. Tony pulls Hammer a little distance from the ruined computer and eases them both to the floor, letting Hammer lean against him as he shakes.
It suddenly strikes Tony how weird this is, how much he hates Hammer normally, how little he wants to one-up the bastard now. He's still pretty sure that he isn't handling this the right way at all (but then, when has Tony handled anything the right way?), and he starts worrying that maybe he's hurting Hammer more, maybe he's somehow going to fuck it up so that Hammer won't ever recover properly, and he almost gets up and backs away, but Hammer has a tight grip on Tony's arm.
"I tried to stop him," Hammer says again, as the sirens move in and Tony absently undoes his gauntlets again.
"I know you did," Tony says, hand moving unconsciously to wrap around Hammer's shoulders. "I know."