Fic: Technobiosis, chapter 5/6
Title: Technobiosis
Author: Veldeia
Series: Takes up right where Thermobiosis left off, but should work as a stand-alone.
Fandom: Iron Man (movieverse)
Characters: Tony, Pepper, Rhodey, Happy. Gen/friendship.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Medical realism based on online research meets comic book medicine inspired by Iron Man canon. Permanent things happen. Unbetaed.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the universe, I just like torturing them. Poor things.
Summary: "It's finished. The surgery is scheduled for the day after tomorrow."
"Whoa, Tony, aren't you rushing this a little?"
"I'll rather die trying than put this off and wait and die of device malfunction, an infection or a clot."
5.
"Yes?"
"Doctor Santini? This is Tony Stark. I'm going to make you the offer of your lifetime."
"If this is a business proposition, you've called the wrong person."
"No, this isn't about finances, this is all about research and development. I heard you've been working on an artificial heart."
"Yes, the CardioWare CyberCor, but that model's already finished and undergoing clinical trials."
"Any success with those?"
"Out of the seven patients who've received an implant so far, three are still alive after six months."
"Not all that great, then."
"Actually, it isn't bad. Keep in mind that these are very, very sick people we're talking about - the procedure is only allowed as a last resort."
"Believe me, I know all about that. I'm one of those people. That's why I'm offering you the chance to get your name down in medical history as co-designer of the first artificial heart that really works."
"If this is some kind of a joke -"
"This isn't a joke, and there's no catch - well, except that I'm sort of in a hurry, because it'd be really annoying if I'd drop dead before we can finish the project."
"Hold on a second. Projects like this aren't finished in weeks or months, they take years and years of work, not to mention the testing phase, and all the medico-legal paperwork. It's not exactly easy to get approval for clinical trials."
"Yeah, that's why you could call this a catch. We're not going to do all that. I'm the testing phase. I'd do the whole thing all on my own if I could, but let's face it, I'm an engineer. I simply don't know enough. I need someone with experience in this sort of devices. You can name your pay, I'll triple it. We'll have all Stark Industries' resources at hand for this, and I'm sure we can negotiate a deal of some sort with the company you work for. Are you in?"
"Well, Mister Stark, this is really sudden, and it's kind of late, maybe I could call you back tomorrow?"
"Come on, you're never going to get another offer like this. Don't tell me you're not intrigued."
"Of course I am, but -"
"Then just say yes. We can work out the details later."
"I... All right, yes. I'm in."
"Great! So, I'll call you again in the morning, and we can start talking about specifications."
There. He had a medical advisor. Yeah.
He'd gone through the list of names Dr. Walton had given him, googled them, and decided that Dr. Santini was his first choice, since the stuff he had done so far looked promising. Not nearly good enough, but something to start from. Most importantly, he had developed a biosynthetic material which promised there'd be no need for anticoagulation or anti-rejection meds. Tony could definitely use that, if he'd be able to get the rights - and he was sure he would.
After the phone call, he started studying, first basic anatomy, then the history of artificial hearts so far, up to the designs currently in existence, all the time making mental notes about what seemed like a good idea and what didn't, and what he was going to do differently. He would've kept going all through the night, but at around eleven, Pepper cruelly snatched his laptop from him and told him that he needed to sleep.
"I'll give this back to you in the morning," she said, and walked away with it.
He was annoyed, of course, but she did have a point. He tried to keep on working, drawing rough sketches on a piece of paper, but he fell asleep in the middle of it. It was the first time since the assault that he slept a good night's sleep without any sedatives in his system.
The first thing in the morning, Tony called Dr. Santini. He probably woke him up by doing that, but he wanted to get things in motion as fast as possible. He ran his preliminary specifications by the doctor, both because he was eager to hear comments, and because he wanted to give Dr. Santini an idea of what he had in mind. The doctor tried to shoot down every item on Tony's list, but Tony had already thought them through.
"One: needs to work indefinitely. Two: needs to have a power source that won't run out."
"But that's simply not possible -"
"Actually, I've already got one of those. It also sort-of covers three: needs to be fully implantable, no external parts. Four: needs to be silent."
"I really wouldn't see that as a very important point -"
"I'm tired of sounding like the crocodile from Peter Pan. Besides, it shouldn't be too difficult to accomplish. It's an engineering issue. I'll handle it. Five: needs to automatically adapt to changing circumstances. Your previous design comes with a fixed heart rate, right?"
"Not exactly. There's an external control unit that can be used to adjust it."
"Try imagining me in the middle of a battle and you can see why that simply won't do. We've been doing a lot of work on biosensors at Stark Industries, so I think we can handle this, too."
All in all, Dr. Santini started out cynical, but by the end of their conversation, Tony thought he was beginning to sound genuinely excited. Excited enough that he was willing to clear his busy schedule as much as he could to work on Tony's project.
Tony was pretty excited, himself. The technical details were the interesting and fun part, especially since this was a brand new project with challenges unlike anything he'd faced before. Unfortunately, there were other parts, too. Normally, Tony wanted to build everything himself, but here, he had to admit it simply wasn't possible. Since Stark Industries didn't have the facilities for manufacturing this sort of medical technology, he ended up calling CardioWare's CEO and a bunch of board members, and spending a consequential amount of money, to get their full cooperation.
By the end of the day, he had made most of the practical arrangements, and Pepper had gotten plane tickets and a hotel reservation for Dr. Santini, so that they could really get to work. The doctor would have to spend his time shuttling between LA and Phoenix, where he usually worked, but he seemed all right with that.
If Tony had been a difficult patient before, over the following days he became an impossible one. His room's floor was soon littered with sketches and notes, and he had a better computer setup brought in, because his laptop wasn't good enough. He hated being interrupted when he was working on a project, so he wasn't exactly kind to the nurses, who were just doing their jobs. Not to mention that he nearly gave a heart attack to the poor girl who entered the room when he was poking at the insides of the VAD console, just because he was interested to see how it worked. She didn't seem entirely convinced when he told her he wasn't stupid enough to press the off-button.
Dr. Walton wasn't too happy, either - she was glad to see that Tony was doing better, but she expressed her worry about the mad pace he was working at. Sure, there were times when Tony felt dizzy and weak, but he refused to let that slow him down. He knew he only had a limited amount of time left. Luckily, Dr. Walton listened to Dr. Santini when he told her that he was with Tony at least half the time, and would keep an eye on him.
It quickly turned out that picking Dr. Santini as a medical advisor had been a great choice. He wasn't Yinsen, of course, but he was very good at what he did, and so pedantic that there was no way he'd accept anything that didn't seem absolutely foolproof. He was also willing to work almost around the clock, and Tony was pretty sure it wasn't because of the money, but because he was genuinely interested. On the downside, he did pretty much completely lack a sense of humor.
After two weeks of design work, simulations and actual tests run at Stark Industries and CardioWare, they had blueprints for what Dr. Santini insisted on calling the Stark-Santini Total Artificial Heart, instead of any of the more creative suggestions Tony had come up with. Dr. Walton still claimed that this was insane, and what Tony was most likely to achieve was a very showy and expensive assisted suicide, but even she had to admit that as far as she could tell, the design looked flawless, and was light years ahead of any artificial heart she had ever seen.
Tony wasn't the least bit worried about the design, himself. He knew it was good. He had done most of it, after all. What he was worried about was the assembly, because it took place at CardioWare's facilities in Phoenix, and he couldn't be there to oversee it. He had to rely on a video connection. At least Dr. Santini went over there to supervise the process, which was better than nothing.
As he waited for the completion of the assembly, Tony found himself with lots of spare time on his hands. Not that he had any trouble coming up with things to do. He did arrangements for the surgery - it took a lot of negotiating, because the project was unlike anything anyone had ever done, not to mention that the lack of official approval put it in a morally gray area. He also spent time catching up on everything he had missed, from Stark Industries finances to PR to talking with Rhodey about the investigations concerning the assault, even though he still had nightmares about it every single night, and the subject made him feel very uncomfortable.
After another week had passed, Dr. Santini returned with the finished result of their endeavor. Tony stared at the device, turning it around in his hands. Set within a transparent, sterile casing, it was an odd-looking thing: slightly bigger than his fist, shaped like an extremely irregular sphere, and made of a matte white material that looked like plastic. Breaking the smooth surface were the port for the wire from the arc reactor, and the holes where his veins and arteries would connect to the device.
Now that he was concretely faced with it, the idea was disturbing. Even though he had lived with the arc reactor for a year, and currently had the four VAD cannulas sewn into his chest, this was something completely different. Those were just add-ons, this would be a total replacement. He might've made a joke or two about the arc reactor being his heart, but that had been metaphorical. This was literal. He was actually holding his heart in his hands.
Both his friends and his doctors asked him to reconsider. He had been on the VAD for around a month, he could go on a bit longer. He could take more time to have the artificial heart tested more thoroughly. He shook his head. Either this worked, or he was done, it was as simple as that.
The night before the surgery, he lay in his bed, listening to the beeps and clicks for the last time, his hands resting on his chest, over his feeble, old heart. Unlike he would've expected, he didn't feel scared. Instead, the thought of what was to come was relieving. If something went wrong, he would die on the operating table without ever waking up. He'd asked the doctors to take every precaution that he'd stay deeply unconscious - he was sure that after the murder attempt, an anesthesia awareness experience would leave him a nutcase for good. If he wouldn't make it, it might not exactly be a heroic death, but at least no one could blame him for not trying hard enough. He wasn't afraid of dying. The truth was, it was the other option that made him slightly nervous.
Rhodey didn't think Tony had been on an engineering frenzy like this since the time when he had started working on the Iron Man armor. At first, Rhodey wondered if accidentally giving him such an idea had been a bad thing to do - after all, he wasn't exactly the picture of health, and the project wasn't the most realistic one he'd ever tackled. Then again, like Happy pointed out, at least Tony wasn't miserable anymore. He was actually excited. He even became physically more active, and came to visit them in his wheelchair several times.
Two weeks after Tony's eureka-moment, when Happy had been discharged, and Rhodey was working on an excruciating physical therapy program so that he might gain at least some mobility, Tony actually walked into Rhodey's room, hauling the VAD console along. Of course, he had a team of bodyguards following him, but he didn't pay them any attention.
"Bigger than a car battery, but at least it's got wheels," Tony commented. "How's it going?"
"Not bad, though I'll probably break both my legs again before I actually manage to walk. How's the project coming along?"
"Done, and out of my hands."
"What? It's finished?" Two weeks - that was a ridiculously short time for something like this.
"Well, not entirely finished, I obviously don't have the device yet. That's going to take at least another week. In the meantime, I'm trying to make myself useful. Tell me about the investigations."
"Huh? Well, all right. I haven't heard from S.H.I.E.L.D. in a few days now, I've been concentrating on getting better, for a change. I think Happy and Pepper were going to meet with them today."
"Not Pepper, she's at Stark Industries, arranging the manufacturing of my new arc reactor socket."
"Okay. Anyway, the last I heard, they've - wait a moment, you don't even know about the leak, do you?"
"I don't think so. What leak?"
Rhodey studied Tony for a while before answering. As far as he knew, Tony hadn't had a full-blown panic attack in weeks, but he still hadn't really talked about the assault with anyone. Rhodey would hate to have him freak out and take a turn for the worse now, when things were going well.
"The information leak. The reason that guy who attacked you knew about the arc reactor," Rhodey said cautiously. Tony looked a little tense, but nothing worse than that. "After a lot of detective work, we found out that there was this nurse who worked on you after the incident in the Arctic. We had to give them the basic details about the arc reactor - they were bringing you back from a full arrest, after all. They all signed confidentiality papers, of course, but this one nurse went missing afterwards. The last time I heard from S.H.I.E.L.D., they were on her trail."
"Her trail. So, it's not..." Tony began, obviously a bit uneasy with the subject. "It was a guy who... Who did this to me. So, we're not talking about him?"
"No, he's still an unknown, I'm afraid. All we know is that he was most likely a professional, and a skilled one, too, with friends in high places. No ID on him in any databases, worldwide."
"If he was in disguise..."
"That's possible. Happy fought him, though, and is pretty sure that he wasn't. Anyway, if they catch that nurse who went missing from Fairbanks, they can find out who she sold the information to."
Tony nodded. "Great. Keep me informed."
"Of course I will."
He got a call from S.H.I.E.L.D. a few days later. They had found her. Unfortunately, that had left them with another mystery to solve - she had been approached by a person under a false name, and finding out who he really was and who he worked for would take more time. Before they got there, Tony appeared in Rhodey's room, a look of frantic excitement on his face.
"It's finished. The surgery is scheduled for the day after tomorrow."
"Whoa, Tony, aren't you rushing this a little?"
"I'll rather die trying than put this off and wait and die of device malfunction, an infection or a clot."
The following day, they had another similar conversation, with both Pepper and Happy joining Rhodey in trying to convince Tony not to hurry this needlessly.
"Tony," Pepper began, sitting on his bed, her hand touching the side of his arm. "You've talked this through with Doctor Walton, right? She thinks you need more time, more research -"
"She's just afraid I'll put her out of a job. Doctor Santini's got no problem with this."
"But we don't even know him all that well! I'm certain that Doctor Walton thinks about what's best for you, above all else. Do you even know Doctor Santini's real motivations? Maybe you're just a test subject to him, maybe he's eager to get this done because he's curious and doesn't care about you - have you even considered that?"
"Pepper, that's preposterous. I've worked with him for weeks, I know him well enough to tell that he's not some modern-day Mengele. Besides, Doctor Walton knows him. I wouldn't have contacted him if she hadn't given me his number. If you trust her, you can trust him as well."
"Still, Pepper's right, boss," Happy accompanied her. "We're not talking about putting a band-aid on a paper cut here. You should think this through, think real hard."
"Why's everyone being so negative? I've come this far, I'm not going to turn back now. Trust me. I know what I'm doing. See you later."
Those were the last words they heard him say before the operation.
Fourteen hours later, Rhodey found himself in an observation room with Pepper, Happy, and Dr. Walton. He could guess half the hospital staff would've given a week's pay to be able to witness this, but the security risks were too great. This wasn't a public event.
They had kept as low a profile as possible. They hadn't given any kind of a press release, even though reporters had noticed the cooperation between Stark Industries and CardioWare, made the connection to Tony's heart problems, and started asking questions. There were armed guards outside the operating room, and every person working on the procedure had gone through a meticulous background check. The operation itself was dangerous enough, they couldn't risk any outside interference.
Rhodey had seen enough blood and guts and battlefield medicine before that he was all right with observing the operation. The unhurried, calculated precision and perfect cooperation of the surgical team were a marvel to watch, and a mind-boggling contrast to the brutal nature of the procedure.
As he watched Dr. Santini make the first incision across Tony's already scarred chest and remove the arc reactor housing, Rhodey wondered if he'd have the courage to do something like this himself, were he in a similar situation. He didn't think he would. The thought of replacing one of his vital organs with a purely technological creation was unimaginable.
Rhodey knew Tony was desperate, but unlike he had claimed himself, he might've had other options. His heart had been weak, but not entirely useless. Besides, he'd been ruled out from the transplant list because of things he might've been able to change. Maybe he could've switched to an implantable VAD and taken up rehab, proven the transplant committee that he'd be able to lead a different kind of life. This procedure was unnecessarily extreme, but that was the way Tony had always been. He'd always pick a high-risk solution with instant payoff before a slow, low-risk one.
The surgeons were working on the VAD tubing now, switching Tony to cardiopulmonary bypass. Rhodey couldn't make out the details from this far, but he knew that if he could, he would see the last, faint contractions of Tony's original, biological heart. Then, there was nothing but a straight line on the heart monitor screen. Unlike in any other hospital setting, it wasn't the end. If all went well, it would be a new beginning.
Chapter 6
Author: Veldeia
Series: Takes up right where Thermobiosis left off, but should work as a stand-alone.
Fandom: Iron Man (movieverse)
Characters: Tony, Pepper, Rhodey, Happy. Gen/friendship.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Medical realism based on online research meets comic book medicine inspired by Iron Man canon. Permanent things happen. Unbetaed.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the universe, I just like torturing them. Poor things.
Summary: "It's finished. The surgery is scheduled for the day after tomorrow."
"Whoa, Tony, aren't you rushing this a little?"
"I'll rather die trying than put this off and wait and die of device malfunction, an infection or a clot."
5.
"Yes?"
"Doctor Santini? This is Tony Stark. I'm going to make you the offer of your lifetime."
"If this is a business proposition, you've called the wrong person."
"No, this isn't about finances, this is all about research and development. I heard you've been working on an artificial heart."
"Yes, the CardioWare CyberCor, but that model's already finished and undergoing clinical trials."
"Any success with those?"
"Out of the seven patients who've received an implant so far, three are still alive after six months."
"Not all that great, then."
"Actually, it isn't bad. Keep in mind that these are very, very sick people we're talking about - the procedure is only allowed as a last resort."
"Believe me, I know all about that. I'm one of those people. That's why I'm offering you the chance to get your name down in medical history as co-designer of the first artificial heart that really works."
"If this is some kind of a joke -"
"This isn't a joke, and there's no catch - well, except that I'm sort of in a hurry, because it'd be really annoying if I'd drop dead before we can finish the project."
"Hold on a second. Projects like this aren't finished in weeks or months, they take years and years of work, not to mention the testing phase, and all the medico-legal paperwork. It's not exactly easy to get approval for clinical trials."
"Yeah, that's why you could call this a catch. We're not going to do all that. I'm the testing phase. I'd do the whole thing all on my own if I could, but let's face it, I'm an engineer. I simply don't know enough. I need someone with experience in this sort of devices. You can name your pay, I'll triple it. We'll have all Stark Industries' resources at hand for this, and I'm sure we can negotiate a deal of some sort with the company you work for. Are you in?"
"Well, Mister Stark, this is really sudden, and it's kind of late, maybe I could call you back tomorrow?"
"Come on, you're never going to get another offer like this. Don't tell me you're not intrigued."
"Of course I am, but -"
"Then just say yes. We can work out the details later."
"I... All right, yes. I'm in."
"Great! So, I'll call you again in the morning, and we can start talking about specifications."
There. He had a medical advisor. Yeah.
He'd gone through the list of names Dr. Walton had given him, googled them, and decided that Dr. Santini was his first choice, since the stuff he had done so far looked promising. Not nearly good enough, but something to start from. Most importantly, he had developed a biosynthetic material which promised there'd be no need for anticoagulation or anti-rejection meds. Tony could definitely use that, if he'd be able to get the rights - and he was sure he would.
After the phone call, he started studying, first basic anatomy, then the history of artificial hearts so far, up to the designs currently in existence, all the time making mental notes about what seemed like a good idea and what didn't, and what he was going to do differently. He would've kept going all through the night, but at around eleven, Pepper cruelly snatched his laptop from him and told him that he needed to sleep.
"I'll give this back to you in the morning," she said, and walked away with it.
He was annoyed, of course, but she did have a point. He tried to keep on working, drawing rough sketches on a piece of paper, but he fell asleep in the middle of it. It was the first time since the assault that he slept a good night's sleep without any sedatives in his system.
The first thing in the morning, Tony called Dr. Santini. He probably woke him up by doing that, but he wanted to get things in motion as fast as possible. He ran his preliminary specifications by the doctor, both because he was eager to hear comments, and because he wanted to give Dr. Santini an idea of what he had in mind. The doctor tried to shoot down every item on Tony's list, but Tony had already thought them through.
"One: needs to work indefinitely. Two: needs to have a power source that won't run out."
"But that's simply not possible -"
"Actually, I've already got one of those. It also sort-of covers three: needs to be fully implantable, no external parts. Four: needs to be silent."
"I really wouldn't see that as a very important point -"
"I'm tired of sounding like the crocodile from Peter Pan. Besides, it shouldn't be too difficult to accomplish. It's an engineering issue. I'll handle it. Five: needs to automatically adapt to changing circumstances. Your previous design comes with a fixed heart rate, right?"
"Not exactly. There's an external control unit that can be used to adjust it."
"Try imagining me in the middle of a battle and you can see why that simply won't do. We've been doing a lot of work on biosensors at Stark Industries, so I think we can handle this, too."
All in all, Dr. Santini started out cynical, but by the end of their conversation, Tony thought he was beginning to sound genuinely excited. Excited enough that he was willing to clear his busy schedule as much as he could to work on Tony's project.
Tony was pretty excited, himself. The technical details were the interesting and fun part, especially since this was a brand new project with challenges unlike anything he'd faced before. Unfortunately, there were other parts, too. Normally, Tony wanted to build everything himself, but here, he had to admit it simply wasn't possible. Since Stark Industries didn't have the facilities for manufacturing this sort of medical technology, he ended up calling CardioWare's CEO and a bunch of board members, and spending a consequential amount of money, to get their full cooperation.
By the end of the day, he had made most of the practical arrangements, and Pepper had gotten plane tickets and a hotel reservation for Dr. Santini, so that they could really get to work. The doctor would have to spend his time shuttling between LA and Phoenix, where he usually worked, but he seemed all right with that.
If Tony had been a difficult patient before, over the following days he became an impossible one. His room's floor was soon littered with sketches and notes, and he had a better computer setup brought in, because his laptop wasn't good enough. He hated being interrupted when he was working on a project, so he wasn't exactly kind to the nurses, who were just doing their jobs. Not to mention that he nearly gave a heart attack to the poor girl who entered the room when he was poking at the insides of the VAD console, just because he was interested to see how it worked. She didn't seem entirely convinced when he told her he wasn't stupid enough to press the off-button.
Dr. Walton wasn't too happy, either - she was glad to see that Tony was doing better, but she expressed her worry about the mad pace he was working at. Sure, there were times when Tony felt dizzy and weak, but he refused to let that slow him down. He knew he only had a limited amount of time left. Luckily, Dr. Walton listened to Dr. Santini when he told her that he was with Tony at least half the time, and would keep an eye on him.
It quickly turned out that picking Dr. Santini as a medical advisor had been a great choice. He wasn't Yinsen, of course, but he was very good at what he did, and so pedantic that there was no way he'd accept anything that didn't seem absolutely foolproof. He was also willing to work almost around the clock, and Tony was pretty sure it wasn't because of the money, but because he was genuinely interested. On the downside, he did pretty much completely lack a sense of humor.
After two weeks of design work, simulations and actual tests run at Stark Industries and CardioWare, they had blueprints for what Dr. Santini insisted on calling the Stark-Santini Total Artificial Heart, instead of any of the more creative suggestions Tony had come up with. Dr. Walton still claimed that this was insane, and what Tony was most likely to achieve was a very showy and expensive assisted suicide, but even she had to admit that as far as she could tell, the design looked flawless, and was light years ahead of any artificial heart she had ever seen.
Tony wasn't the least bit worried about the design, himself. He knew it was good. He had done most of it, after all. What he was worried about was the assembly, because it took place at CardioWare's facilities in Phoenix, and he couldn't be there to oversee it. He had to rely on a video connection. At least Dr. Santini went over there to supervise the process, which was better than nothing.
As he waited for the completion of the assembly, Tony found himself with lots of spare time on his hands. Not that he had any trouble coming up with things to do. He did arrangements for the surgery - it took a lot of negotiating, because the project was unlike anything anyone had ever done, not to mention that the lack of official approval put it in a morally gray area. He also spent time catching up on everything he had missed, from Stark Industries finances to PR to talking with Rhodey about the investigations concerning the assault, even though he still had nightmares about it every single night, and the subject made him feel very uncomfortable.
After another week had passed, Dr. Santini returned with the finished result of their endeavor. Tony stared at the device, turning it around in his hands. Set within a transparent, sterile casing, it was an odd-looking thing: slightly bigger than his fist, shaped like an extremely irregular sphere, and made of a matte white material that looked like plastic. Breaking the smooth surface were the port for the wire from the arc reactor, and the holes where his veins and arteries would connect to the device.
Now that he was concretely faced with it, the idea was disturbing. Even though he had lived with the arc reactor for a year, and currently had the four VAD cannulas sewn into his chest, this was something completely different. Those were just add-ons, this would be a total replacement. He might've made a joke or two about the arc reactor being his heart, but that had been metaphorical. This was literal. He was actually holding his heart in his hands.
Both his friends and his doctors asked him to reconsider. He had been on the VAD for around a month, he could go on a bit longer. He could take more time to have the artificial heart tested more thoroughly. He shook his head. Either this worked, or he was done, it was as simple as that.
The night before the surgery, he lay in his bed, listening to the beeps and clicks for the last time, his hands resting on his chest, over his feeble, old heart. Unlike he would've expected, he didn't feel scared. Instead, the thought of what was to come was relieving. If something went wrong, he would die on the operating table without ever waking up. He'd asked the doctors to take every precaution that he'd stay deeply unconscious - he was sure that after the murder attempt, an anesthesia awareness experience would leave him a nutcase for good. If he wouldn't make it, it might not exactly be a heroic death, but at least no one could blame him for not trying hard enough. He wasn't afraid of dying. The truth was, it was the other option that made him slightly nervous.
Rhodey didn't think Tony had been on an engineering frenzy like this since the time when he had started working on the Iron Man armor. At first, Rhodey wondered if accidentally giving him such an idea had been a bad thing to do - after all, he wasn't exactly the picture of health, and the project wasn't the most realistic one he'd ever tackled. Then again, like Happy pointed out, at least Tony wasn't miserable anymore. He was actually excited. He even became physically more active, and came to visit them in his wheelchair several times.
Two weeks after Tony's eureka-moment, when Happy had been discharged, and Rhodey was working on an excruciating physical therapy program so that he might gain at least some mobility, Tony actually walked into Rhodey's room, hauling the VAD console along. Of course, he had a team of bodyguards following him, but he didn't pay them any attention.
"Bigger than a car battery, but at least it's got wheels," Tony commented. "How's it going?"
"Not bad, though I'll probably break both my legs again before I actually manage to walk. How's the project coming along?"
"Done, and out of my hands."
"What? It's finished?" Two weeks - that was a ridiculously short time for something like this.
"Well, not entirely finished, I obviously don't have the device yet. That's going to take at least another week. In the meantime, I'm trying to make myself useful. Tell me about the investigations."
"Huh? Well, all right. I haven't heard from S.H.I.E.L.D. in a few days now, I've been concentrating on getting better, for a change. I think Happy and Pepper were going to meet with them today."
"Not Pepper, she's at Stark Industries, arranging the manufacturing of my new arc reactor socket."
"Okay. Anyway, the last I heard, they've - wait a moment, you don't even know about the leak, do you?"
"I don't think so. What leak?"
Rhodey studied Tony for a while before answering. As far as he knew, Tony hadn't had a full-blown panic attack in weeks, but he still hadn't really talked about the assault with anyone. Rhodey would hate to have him freak out and take a turn for the worse now, when things were going well.
"The information leak. The reason that guy who attacked you knew about the arc reactor," Rhodey said cautiously. Tony looked a little tense, but nothing worse than that. "After a lot of detective work, we found out that there was this nurse who worked on you after the incident in the Arctic. We had to give them the basic details about the arc reactor - they were bringing you back from a full arrest, after all. They all signed confidentiality papers, of course, but this one nurse went missing afterwards. The last time I heard from S.H.I.E.L.D., they were on her trail."
"Her trail. So, it's not..." Tony began, obviously a bit uneasy with the subject. "It was a guy who... Who did this to me. So, we're not talking about him?"
"No, he's still an unknown, I'm afraid. All we know is that he was most likely a professional, and a skilled one, too, with friends in high places. No ID on him in any databases, worldwide."
"If he was in disguise..."
"That's possible. Happy fought him, though, and is pretty sure that he wasn't. Anyway, if they catch that nurse who went missing from Fairbanks, they can find out who she sold the information to."
Tony nodded. "Great. Keep me informed."
"Of course I will."
He got a call from S.H.I.E.L.D. a few days later. They had found her. Unfortunately, that had left them with another mystery to solve - she had been approached by a person under a false name, and finding out who he really was and who he worked for would take more time. Before they got there, Tony appeared in Rhodey's room, a look of frantic excitement on his face.
"It's finished. The surgery is scheduled for the day after tomorrow."
"Whoa, Tony, aren't you rushing this a little?"
"I'll rather die trying than put this off and wait and die of device malfunction, an infection or a clot."
The following day, they had another similar conversation, with both Pepper and Happy joining Rhodey in trying to convince Tony not to hurry this needlessly.
"Tony," Pepper began, sitting on his bed, her hand touching the side of his arm. "You've talked this through with Doctor Walton, right? She thinks you need more time, more research -"
"She's just afraid I'll put her out of a job. Doctor Santini's got no problem with this."
"But we don't even know him all that well! I'm certain that Doctor Walton thinks about what's best for you, above all else. Do you even know Doctor Santini's real motivations? Maybe you're just a test subject to him, maybe he's eager to get this done because he's curious and doesn't care about you - have you even considered that?"
"Pepper, that's preposterous. I've worked with him for weeks, I know him well enough to tell that he's not some modern-day Mengele. Besides, Doctor Walton knows him. I wouldn't have contacted him if she hadn't given me his number. If you trust her, you can trust him as well."
"Still, Pepper's right, boss," Happy accompanied her. "We're not talking about putting a band-aid on a paper cut here. You should think this through, think real hard."
"Why's everyone being so negative? I've come this far, I'm not going to turn back now. Trust me. I know what I'm doing. See you later."
Those were the last words they heard him say before the operation.
Fourteen hours later, Rhodey found himself in an observation room with Pepper, Happy, and Dr. Walton. He could guess half the hospital staff would've given a week's pay to be able to witness this, but the security risks were too great. This wasn't a public event.
They had kept as low a profile as possible. They hadn't given any kind of a press release, even though reporters had noticed the cooperation between Stark Industries and CardioWare, made the connection to Tony's heart problems, and started asking questions. There were armed guards outside the operating room, and every person working on the procedure had gone through a meticulous background check. The operation itself was dangerous enough, they couldn't risk any outside interference.
Rhodey had seen enough blood and guts and battlefield medicine before that he was all right with observing the operation. The unhurried, calculated precision and perfect cooperation of the surgical team were a marvel to watch, and a mind-boggling contrast to the brutal nature of the procedure.
As he watched Dr. Santini make the first incision across Tony's already scarred chest and remove the arc reactor housing, Rhodey wondered if he'd have the courage to do something like this himself, were he in a similar situation. He didn't think he would. The thought of replacing one of his vital organs with a purely technological creation was unimaginable.
Rhodey knew Tony was desperate, but unlike he had claimed himself, he might've had other options. His heart had been weak, but not entirely useless. Besides, he'd been ruled out from the transplant list because of things he might've been able to change. Maybe he could've switched to an implantable VAD and taken up rehab, proven the transplant committee that he'd be able to lead a different kind of life. This procedure was unnecessarily extreme, but that was the way Tony had always been. He'd always pick a high-risk solution with instant payoff before a slow, low-risk one.
The surgeons were working on the VAD tubing now, switching Tony to cardiopulmonary bypass. Rhodey couldn't make out the details from this far, but he knew that if he could, he would see the last, faint contractions of Tony's original, biological heart. Then, there was nothing but a straight line on the heart monitor screen. Unlike in any other hospital setting, it wasn't the end. If all went well, it would be a new beginning.
Chapter 6