Side Effects May Include... Part 2
So i'm completely ignoring 'Art of Life' and 'Mirror, Mirror' and working on Cap/Iron man fics now >_< Oh well...
Title: Side Effects May Include... Step 1 - To Wean
Author:To-Shiki
Rated: PG
Beta read: Nope
Universe: No clue. Tony has the arc reactor as a night light. I would think it to be a mix of MovieVerse and ComicVerse. There's the flesh and blood Jarvis and the AI Jarvis that Tony created to help run the house/annoy in Malibu.
Summary: Steve has noticed how bad Tony's addiction is. Now steps are being taken...
Disclaimer: If these guys belonged to me all these fanfics would be made into offical comic books and sold for all to enjoy. Since this has not happened...they are not mine ~_~
Notes: So I haven't read comic books in about 10 years, so I have no idea what's been going on except from what I've read from 'fics. So things will probably be mixed up.
To wean: to withdraw (a person, the affections, one's dependency, etc.) from some object, habit, form of enjoyment, or the like
~www.dictionary.com
Steve had it all planned out. The amount of caffiene that Tony consumed within a 24 hour period was way too much. Obviously. Yes, he may have developed a very high tolerence but that in itself was not healthy. He would have to gradually wean him off of the substance. Maybe even encourage him with rewards of sorts. Not the best idea: trading one thing for something else. For now, it was all he had to go on.
Step 1
The very first step was to get the others into this as well. Pepper and Rhodey were thrilled at the idea and very skeptical at the same time. Both of them, along with some assistance from both Jarvis's, had attempted this very thing several times before.
All had failed spectacularly.
But steve had some new ideas. Some things that they hadn't thought to try, despite how obvious they should have been.
Pepper was incharge of testing out different types of coffees without caffeine. She would take him his daily pick me up with slightly less amounts of caffeiene and see if he noticed at all.
In the beginning he did.
One red eyebrow raised in distained approval of how far her boss was able to spit the coffee. It nearly reached the other side of the office. Her eyes glared at the cup held in Tony's hand. "Something wrong, Tony?"
If he didn't know any better, he'd say that she was plotting something. Again.
"Yeah, there's something wrong, Pepper. This tastes like shit." He glared down into the murky brown that dared to call itself authentic coffee. The cup was handed back to her, almost forceful enough to spalsh some over the edge. Thankfully she had excepted that and moved her hand accordingly. "What is that crap?"
"Shit, appearantly." She handed him a pile of papers. "Sign where I've highlighted and I'll get you something else. The normal crap you drink was out when I got this."
This routine was repeated daily, every morning at 9:05 A.M., for close to two weeks before a brand of caffeine-free coffee was discovered. Kopi Luwak was it's name and was an astounding $160 a pound for the decaffeineated version. Granted what Tony normally...inhaled...was expensive as well, it wasn't that bad.
Not only did it pass the test but just the idea of telling him what it was made her giggle just a little on the inside. She made sure that at least the cameras in his offices and work areas were functional so that she wouldn't miss the look on his face when he looked it up.
The only fall back to the testing of coffees meant that he would drink more of the boring name brand coffee that the other office workers survived on. It didn't have that much more caffeine in them than the usual, for which all were thankful of. If there had been more then all this would have been in vain.
All the while, Tony was oblivious to the stuble change. It was Rhodey's job to make sure of that. He was charged with occupying Tony's attention when he wasn't working in the office or lab or there were no emergencies that required his attention.
This was no easy matter.
Considering the fact that tony used caffeine to stay awake to work required Rhodey to get creative in ways of keeping him moving. It tended to make he remember watching parents trying to keep their young entertained enough to wear them down. As soon as he saw Tony attempt to reach for a cup of coffee he would ask him a question or drag him out of wherever they were to some place that kept him from his caffeine.
Both the Jarvis in the Avengers mansion and the one running Tony's home in Malibu were under strict instructions from Steve to quickly destroy all remaining traces of the legal drug while Rhodey distracted Tony. Several Avengers groaned and pleaded with Jarvis to just hide the 'real' coffee but he merely turned up his nose and replied, "It wouldn't work. I've tried it before. Master Tony can somehow locate it with both eyes closed and mostly asleep on his feet."
The AI Jarvis had a bit harder time removing the substance. That's where Steve stepped in. He was able to replace it all with the Kopi Luwak while Tony was away. This meant opening all the containers or bags that housed the horrendous chemical, swap it with the Kopi Luwak and follow Jarvis's instructions on how to reseal it so that it appeared undisturbed.
Now granted that while Tony was away on business there was no way that any of them could possibly monitor his caffeine intake. None of them were too worried about it since they had gradually decreased the amount he was taking in while in their presence.
As the days passed they noticed the side effects taking place as his body slowly but surely began purging the drug from his system.