You've Been Spiked
Story Info
Title: You’ve Been Spiked
Author: Del Rion (delrion.mail (at) gmail.com)
Fandom: Iron Man (MCU)
Timeline: Between ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Iron Man 2’
Genre: Hurt/comfort, drama
Rating: M / FRM
Characters: J.A.R.V.I.S., Pepper Potts, Tony Stark (Iron Man)
Summary: Tony’s reputation doesn’t always work to his advantage - not when he’s emotionally outgrown said reputation but has to maintain the illusion of his playboy lifestyle. Enter a group of drunken women, a drink spiked with an ED drug and some post-Afghanistan ‘heart problems’ - not to mention an offended AI - and the recipe for disaster is nigh complete. As expected, Miss Potts will be there to mop up the mess.
Complete. Part of “Genius, AI & Bots” series.
Written for: A plotbunny/prompt given to me by starkind (FF.net)
Also fills a square on my card on Hurt/Comfort Bingo’s (hc-bingo) round 5 (square: “drugged”)
Warnings: Light sexual references & unwanted sexual propositioning, drunkenness & irresponsible drunken behavior, drink spiking, medical issues, language.
Disclaimer: Iron Man and Marvel Cinematic Universe, including characters and everything else, belong to Marvel, Marvel Studios, Jon Favreau and Paramount Pictures. In short: I own nothing; this is pure fiction created to entertain likeminded fans for no profit whatsoever.
Beta: Mythra (mythras-fire)
Story and status: Below you see the writing process of the story. If there is no text after the title, then it is finished and checked. Possible updates shall be marked after the title.
You’ve Been Spiked
~ ~ ~
You’ve Been Spiked
Malibu, California
Tony had spent the better part of the day with his entourage of three twenty-something girls; they had hooked up at a club by the beach at noon, had several drinks together, and after the girls had swam topless in the club’s water fountain, Tony had been asked - very politely - to take them and leave.
So, they had migrated to his house, and for all intents and purposes all was going as planned.
Ever since his captivity in Afghanistan and his rise to fame as an armored superhero, Tony had kept up appearances of being every inch the party animal he used to be. The truth was, though, that that part of his life was over.
He hadn’t slept with a single person since coming back home, whether it was snuggling or sex. There were times, like at an impromptu party in Dubai, where he devised a plan that looked like he was planning on getting laid - only to escape the situation at the last moment by using a clever ploy in order to suit up and fly off for a discrete mission in his suit. Mostly he entertained people at one of his many properties until it came time to usher them out in a practiced way that made most of them assume he had select company staying behind with him and that Tony wanted to get rid of everyone else - when there was, in fact, no one staying but himself.
Hosting parties and hanging out publicly ensured that no one saw the shift in Tony’s personality. Even the people closest to him were yet to notice the change, distracted by the news that he was Iron Man. The only one who knew was J.A.R.V.I.S., and Tony trusted the AI enough to not worry about the truth leaking out just yet.
In the beginning, J.A.R.V.I.S. had subtly questioned his motives, assuming the issue was mostly superficial in nature, centered around the arc reactor and the mass of scars that surrounded it on his chest. It was a good guess and a big part of the reason.
The truth was, though, that Tony couldn’t afford to be vulnerable - especially after what had happened with Stane. In order to protect himself, his old lifestyle had to disappear. It wasn’t as if he had been an idiot in the past; there had been people out there who wanted to hurt him, and found their way into his bed in order to do so. He had dealt with that, had people hired to do a screening process, and perhaps he could have done that now, too.
Perhaps the issue was the scars, in the end…
Whatever the problem, Tony felt weary of the pretense, yet he knew it was too early to drop the lifestyle he had enjoyed for most of his life. These days, there were a dozen and one projects waiting for him in the workshop, from armor upgrades to tests he needed to finish before the next flight, and running wild around town didn’t accomplish anything in that department.
He was starting to regret bringing his three female companions home with him, but seeing as it was not yet time to escort them to the door - he was tactful when he chose to be, and disappointed people talked, and talking led to rumors - he decided to have a few more drinks instead. He always had a better time with a drink in his hand, after all.
A little over an hour later, after he and his companions had finished off a bottle of rum - rum cocktails for the ladies, straight up for Tony - and Tony had spent a good fifteen minutes smiling good-naturedly at the ‘why is the rum gone?’ joke that his guests seemed so amused by, he excused himself to go to the bathroom.
He noted he was definitely drunk when walking straight became a bit of a problem, but he made it to the bathroom in one piece and took his time emptying his bladder, leaning on the wall by the toilet for balance.
“Sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. spoke up while he was still in the middle of it. “I must notify you that your guests are engaging in undesired behavior.”
“Are they getting undressed again?”
“No, sir.”
“Are they trying to get into the shop?”
“No.”
“Then I’m not concerned,” Tony decided.
“But, sir -”
“Zip it, J,” Tony ordered. “Go run the final calculations I left for you to deal with.”
“They are all done, sir. Again, under the Protocol One mandatory warnings, I must insist on informing you -”
“Stop talking back to me!” Tony snapped, irritated. “Go into sleep mode or something. The next time I need you, you’ll be calling a cab for the ladies.”
There was no reply. His AI got the hint, albeit slower tonight than on most nights.
Tony nodded with approval, shook his dick and shoved it back in his pants, then flushed the toilet and moved over to the sink to wash his hands. He almost missed his footing on the way there, leaning heavily on the marble tabletop, then straightened himself, managed to clean up without falling down, and then made his way back to the living room.
His guests tittered and shifted excitedly on the couch as he approached. None of them had gotten sick, which was definitely an upgrade from most of his parties. Some people just couldn’t hold their liquor and wasted it by throwing up on Tony’s property, whether it was furniture, the floor, a house plant, or something equally disgusting. That was one of the reasons why Tony rarely if ever let people into his workshop.
“We got some more drinks, Tony,” one of the girls declared and shifted a glass towards him; they had already learned he wouldn’t accept anything directly offered to him.
He raised the glass to his lips, sniffing. Whiskey. Sipping carefully, he didn’t detect anything girly mixed into it, which was also an improvement; he could have a tropical drink every now and then, an umbrella on top, but he was a grown man and liked his drinks like he preferred most things in life: stiff and with an after burn.
That really made it sound like something completely different from what he had originally gone for. Maybe he was drunker than he thought.
One of the girls slid her hand onto his thigh, higher than had been appropriate several hours ago, and Tony took a proper drink from his glass, telling himself to play along a little bit longer; soon he could talk the girls into leaving without it looking like he hadn’t planned anything to begin with.
“Tony,” the girl crooned, leaning heavily against his side. Her hand moved higher, then to the inside of his thigh. She clearly lacked the experience to know exactly where to look, but she was going in the right direction and Tony started feeling like he was being backed into a corner. He didn’t like that - had never liked it, but especially after Afghanistan…
“It’s getting late,” he said out loud, sipping his drink again as if it would give him the strength to boot the girls out the door without losing face. He was Tony Stark, though, and he could do what he wanted, especially in his own home.
“Maybe we should go to bed,” the girl beside him stated, a bit too eager.
The other two tittered, shifting, the one with the largest breasts showing off her goods on purpose while rearranging her top. They were drunk enough to not mind that there were three of them and that he probably wouldn’t want to choose between them. Hell, they had probably planned this from the get-go, which meant he was about to disappoint all three of them in equal measure.
He felt a little flushed, suddenly, his skin assaulted by invisible pins and needles while his heart began, without any prompting, to beat faster in his chest. His fingers tightened against the cool glass in his grip, the sensation somewhat muted beneath the prickly tingling that was messing up his touch-based sensory input. A pressure-like sensation tightened his muscles, jump-starting a headache, making him feel a little dizzy even where he sat.
“You’re looking a little flushed,” the girl beside him stated. “Maybe you should take your shirt off.”
It was an unexpected leap of logic and Tony glanced at her. She didn’t seem surprised. In fact, she was smiling, and her hand was still searching, sliding over his crotch.
“Are you hard?” she asked, and his gaze zeroed in on her painted lips, reading the words from them as if his ears didn’t get the message in real time.
Why would he be…?
He jerked and dislodged her hand, moving it away from his body. His vision swam a little as he pushed up to his feet, his balance failing and almost dropping him to the floor. Leaning heavily on the couch, he set the glass of whiskey down on the table, a small amount sloshing onto his hand.
His chest was burning up a little, his heart still pounding and the tension making the arc reactor feel heavy and unfitting in his skin. “You should leave,” he said, voice wavering a bit.
“Aww,” another one of the girls pouted and all three of them got to their feet, watching him. “We were just starting to have fun.”
“If you’re feeling uncomfortable, we can always go lie down,” the blonde with the rack suggested.
“We’ll make you feel better,” the handsy one declared.
Back in the day, he would have just rolled with it. Well, not when he was feeling the way he was; his stomach started to cramp, forcing him to turn tail and go back to the bathroom, locking the door behind him.
With a pained gasp he leaned onto the marble tabletop, feeling its coolness on his overheated skin, and glanced at himself in the mirror. His eyes were a little bloodshot, his skin flushed, and a small dab of blood was slowly inching its way out of his nose. He blinked at it and raised his hand to wipe it away, the motion encouraging more of it to flow out.
“J.A.R.V.I.S.,” he called out, then added a gasped fuck and allowed himself to sink to the floor, pulling up his legs as the ache in his abdomen increased.
“Sir,” the AI replied coolly.
“I think something’s… wrong,” he said, jaw tense. He felt like banging his head against the cabinet doors behind him, to get rid of the pounding in his head that was now matching his heartbeat.
“Indeed, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. went on in a superior kind of way. “As I was attempting to tell you earlier, your three companions added sildenafil citrate to your drink - which you then consumed on top of all the other alcoholic beverages you have enjoyed tonight.”
Tony’s breathing caught. “Sildenafil?” His brain was ineffectively circling the word which he should have known - which he did know - but couldn’t translate in his head.
“Viagra, sir.”
Well, that explained the tactless suggestions…
“How much?” he asked, knowing from experience this reaction was not supposed to happen.
“Three pills.”
“Fuck,” he gasped again, feeling like his heart was climbing right out of his chest. Rationally, he knew it was the arc reactor that was causing the sensation, being jostled microscopically in his chest cavity. He was still getting used to it, though, and the alien pain sent warning bells ringing in his brain.
It would pass, he knew. He didn’t require medical assistance or J.A.R.V.I.S. would have interfered, no matter Tony’s earlier spitefulness. Still, he felt like crap, and didn’t expect that to change for the next few hours.
To remind him of the depths of his predicament, a tap came from the other side of the door. “Tony?” one of the girls called out. “Come on out,” she added, and he could hear all three of them giggle. “We know you’re feeling a bit… constricted, but we can help you with that.”
“Yeah,” another chorused. “We would love to give you a hand.”
Tony grit his teeth and gave the door a baleful look, then reached out for some toilet paper and stuffed some up both his nostrils to control the nosebleed. “J.A.R.V.I.S., please be a charmer and inform the ladies you’re calling them a cab.”
Mutedly, he heard the AI do just that.
“There’s no reason to hide!” one of the girls declared loudly through the door. “We came here to spend the night. Come on, Tony, stop hiding like a little kid. It’s a little embarrassing.”
“No, it’s not,” another girl protested, as if thinking her friend was doing a bad job at cajoling him to come out - which she was. “We know you’ve got a big boner. Let us help you with that.”
Tony closed his eyes and leaned against the cabinet doors. He could have given them a piece of his mind, seeing as spiking someone’s drink was very bad form - especially when targeting filthy rich people who moonlighted as armored superheroes. He was also tempted to point out that getting a surprise hard-on seemed to be the last thing resulting from their little trick, but he wasn’t sure who would be more humiliated at that point.
Three pills of Viagra and no boner to speak of. Ha fucking ha.
“We’re not leaving until you come out,” the girls informed him.
“Shall I call the police, sir?” J.A.R.V.I.S. asked.
“No,” Tony ground out. It was bad enough. “Call Happy.”
“Mr. Hogan has the weekend off, sir. He’s currently in Las Vegas, watching a boxing match at MGM Grand Garden Arena.”
Well, that was inconvenient.
“What about Rhodey?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes is currently visiting his mother. He left you a note saying that.”
“Of course he did,” Tony rolled his eyes. Damn, that hurt. “They’re not leaving?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
He sighed. “Call Pepper.” The pain in his abdomen was getting a little bit worse, although it felt like his heart had finally exhausted itself and calmed down fractionally. The aching still persisted, thrumming along the arc reactor’s casing, and he knew he was in no condition to go out there and get rid of his guests.
Those three would be lucky if he didn’t sue their asses, but in doing so he would ruin every small chance at them having a proper future - as unlikely as that was, considering their stunt tonight.
Let Pepper deal with them, he decided.
- - -
Pepper got the call a little after 2 a.m. She had been comfortably asleep, but the special ringtone that played when J.A.R.V.I.S. was contacting her jolted her right out of her dreams.
Forty-five minutes later she was approaching the house, lit up against the darkness surrounding it, an unhappy frown already on her face. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to get up and drive to Tony’s house in the middle of the night. The trips had not lessened after he came back from Afghanistan, although they had changed a little in nature.
She had expected a party; loud music, people stumbling around the yard, the usual. What she found were three young women who looked barely legal, giving her wide-eyed looks when she entered with her own key.
“Mr. Stark has asked that you leave,” Pepper stated, and just then a cab appeared in the driveway.
The girls looked at each other, clearly preparing to protest.
Pepper held the door open for them and fixed them with a somewhat impatient look. It was, after all, 3 a.m. by now. She looked impeccable, as always, but there was no mistaking the fact that she had been dragged out of bed for this.
“I expected him to be more fun,” one of the girls murmured.
“Maybe he’s getting old,” another mused.
Pepper wasted no time shutting the door after they were through, then waited until the cab pulled out of the driveway. The house remained empty around her and she glanced around, wondering if Tony had gone down to the workshop and left the three ladies on their own.
“J.A.R.V.I.S., where is he?” she asked.
“In the bathroom,” the AI replied promptly.
Her frown was back and she made her way across the floor to the nearest bathroom, then tapped on the door that she found, unsurprisingly, was locked. “Tony?”
She heard a shuffling sound on the other side, then the door was unlocked and pulled open just a bit. Tony was sitting on the floor, giving the hallway outside a suspicious look.
Pepper tried not to sigh and failed. “Are you so drunk you cannot even stand? If that’s the case, you can just stay there, because I’m not cleaning up after that again.”
Tony’s eyes flashed up towards her face. They were bloodshot, and his face was flushed, as if he had sat in the sun too long. There was toilet paper crammed up his nose. “Pepper,” he hummed. “Beautiful, competent Pepper.”
“It’s three in the morning,” she reminded him.
“And I appreciate you coming all the way out here,” he told her, quicker than usual. “I, uh…” He leaned against the bathroom wall, looking exhausted - looking sick.
“Are you okay?” Pepper asked, carefully crouching down to Tony’s level.
“I’ll be fine,” Tony said evasively.
“Do I have to ask J.A.R.V.I.S.?”
“He won’t tell you.”
“Actually, sir, your safety protocols for this type of situation do suggest that I may, at my own discretion, inform people such as Miss Potts -”
“Okay, fine!” Tony snapped, then sagged a little and wrapped his arms around his middle. “I was discourteous towards you earlier and could have avoided this entire incident had I only allowed you to do your work. Satisfied?”
“Quite, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said somewhat haughtily.
“What kind of incident?” Pepper asked.
Tony gave her a look, clearly debating whether to tell her. “They put something in my drink,” he finally revealed.
Pepper stiffened. “Do I need to call an ambulance?” It was just like Tony to dismiss the obvious issue and start off by getting everyone out of the house.
“No,” he replied tersely.
He did look sick, still, and Pepper felt like calling the ambulance anyway, just to teach him a lesson. “What did they put into your drink?” she asked, giving him a chance to come clean - especially since she was losing sleep over this. “Do you know?” she pressed, because it was entirely possible he did not, seeing as the girls had managed to do it behind his back.
“Viagra,” Tony mumbled.
Pepper very carefully kept her expression calm. “Do you need a moment?”
Tony gave her another look and moved his arms, leaving his clothed groin in clear view of her eyes. She didn’t want to look, but obviously she was supposed to - and saw nothing at all. “No awkward hard on,” Tony noted, shifting again. “A hell of a headache, though, and my stomach hurts, plus it feels like I’ve been rolling in pins and needles…”
“Can you get up?” Pepper asked, feeling like it was her job to make sure he got what he needed to make this pass.
Tony nodded and started to lever himself from the floor, but half-way there it was clear he wasn’t going to make it, so Pepper reached out and gave him a hand, the small amount of support helping Tony to his feet.
“Bed,” the man said shortly, and Pepper took him to the elevator, not wanting Tony to try his luck with the stairs.
Once upstairs, Tony tugged off his shirt, leaving on the top he wore beneath it to conceal the light of the device in his chest, then yanked down his pants and rolled, falling back onto the bed, kicking off the pants the rest of the way.
“Do you require anything else?” Pepper asked, not picking up the clothes.
“Get me some water and then go home - or sleep in the guest room,” he offered, already curling onto his side, tugging over one of the pillows for comfort.
Pepper got him two bottles of water, made sure they were within his reach on the nightstand and then left. “If he gets worse, call me,” she told J.A.R.V.I.S.
“Of course, Miss Potts.”
“You’re able to monitor him, right?”
“Yes,” the AI said shortly. “Mr. Stark is in good hands.”
Pepper nodded and walked to the door, the lights dimming and going dark behind her as J.A.R.V.I.S. turned them off, leaving the house in a sense of calm that hadn’t been there just a half an hour ago when Pepper arrived. It was surprising how fast things changed - and how they didn’t, when it came to Tony and the things he got himself into.
The End
Title: You’ve Been Spiked
Author: Del Rion (delrion.mail (at) gmail.com)
Fandom: Iron Man (MCU)
Timeline: Between ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Iron Man 2’
Genre: Hurt/comfort, drama
Rating: M / FRM
Characters: J.A.R.V.I.S., Pepper Potts, Tony Stark (Iron Man)
Summary: Tony’s reputation doesn’t always work to his advantage - not when he’s emotionally outgrown said reputation but has to maintain the illusion of his playboy lifestyle. Enter a group of drunken women, a drink spiked with an ED drug and some post-Afghanistan ‘heart problems’ - not to mention an offended AI - and the recipe for disaster is nigh complete. As expected, Miss Potts will be there to mop up the mess.
Complete. Part of “Genius, AI & Bots” series.
Written for: A plotbunny/prompt given to me by starkind (FF.net)
Also fills a square on my card on Hurt/Comfort Bingo’s (hc-bingo) round 5 (square: “drugged”)
Warnings: Light sexual references & unwanted sexual propositioning, drunkenness & irresponsible drunken behavior, drink spiking, medical issues, language.
Disclaimer: Iron Man and Marvel Cinematic Universe, including characters and everything else, belong to Marvel, Marvel Studios, Jon Favreau and Paramount Pictures. In short: I own nothing; this is pure fiction created to entertain likeminded fans for no profit whatsoever.
Beta: Mythra (mythras-fire)
Story and status: Below you see the writing process of the story. If there is no text after the title, then it is finished and checked. Possible updates shall be marked after the title.
You’ve Been Spiked
~ ~ ~
You’ve Been Spiked
Malibu, California
Tony had spent the better part of the day with his entourage of three twenty-something girls; they had hooked up at a club by the beach at noon, had several drinks together, and after the girls had swam topless in the club’s water fountain, Tony had been asked - very politely - to take them and leave.
So, they had migrated to his house, and for all intents and purposes all was going as planned.
Ever since his captivity in Afghanistan and his rise to fame as an armored superhero, Tony had kept up appearances of being every inch the party animal he used to be. The truth was, though, that that part of his life was over.
He hadn’t slept with a single person since coming back home, whether it was snuggling or sex. There were times, like at an impromptu party in Dubai, where he devised a plan that looked like he was planning on getting laid - only to escape the situation at the last moment by using a clever ploy in order to suit up and fly off for a discrete mission in his suit. Mostly he entertained people at one of his many properties until it came time to usher them out in a practiced way that made most of them assume he had select company staying behind with him and that Tony wanted to get rid of everyone else - when there was, in fact, no one staying but himself.
Hosting parties and hanging out publicly ensured that no one saw the shift in Tony’s personality. Even the people closest to him were yet to notice the change, distracted by the news that he was Iron Man. The only one who knew was J.A.R.V.I.S., and Tony trusted the AI enough to not worry about the truth leaking out just yet.
In the beginning, J.A.R.V.I.S. had subtly questioned his motives, assuming the issue was mostly superficial in nature, centered around the arc reactor and the mass of scars that surrounded it on his chest. It was a good guess and a big part of the reason.
The truth was, though, that Tony couldn’t afford to be vulnerable - especially after what had happened with Stane. In order to protect himself, his old lifestyle had to disappear. It wasn’t as if he had been an idiot in the past; there had been people out there who wanted to hurt him, and found their way into his bed in order to do so. He had dealt with that, had people hired to do a screening process, and perhaps he could have done that now, too.
Perhaps the issue was the scars, in the end…
Whatever the problem, Tony felt weary of the pretense, yet he knew it was too early to drop the lifestyle he had enjoyed for most of his life. These days, there were a dozen and one projects waiting for him in the workshop, from armor upgrades to tests he needed to finish before the next flight, and running wild around town didn’t accomplish anything in that department.
He was starting to regret bringing his three female companions home with him, but seeing as it was not yet time to escort them to the door - he was tactful when he chose to be, and disappointed people talked, and talking led to rumors - he decided to have a few more drinks instead. He always had a better time with a drink in his hand, after all.
A little over an hour later, after he and his companions had finished off a bottle of rum - rum cocktails for the ladies, straight up for Tony - and Tony had spent a good fifteen minutes smiling good-naturedly at the ‘why is the rum gone?’ joke that his guests seemed so amused by, he excused himself to go to the bathroom.
He noted he was definitely drunk when walking straight became a bit of a problem, but he made it to the bathroom in one piece and took his time emptying his bladder, leaning on the wall by the toilet for balance.
“Sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. spoke up while he was still in the middle of it. “I must notify you that your guests are engaging in undesired behavior.”
“Are they getting undressed again?”
“No, sir.”
“Are they trying to get into the shop?”
“No.”
“Then I’m not concerned,” Tony decided.
“But, sir -”
“Zip it, J,” Tony ordered. “Go run the final calculations I left for you to deal with.”
“They are all done, sir. Again, under the Protocol One mandatory warnings, I must insist on informing you -”
“Stop talking back to me!” Tony snapped, irritated. “Go into sleep mode or something. The next time I need you, you’ll be calling a cab for the ladies.”
There was no reply. His AI got the hint, albeit slower tonight than on most nights.
Tony nodded with approval, shook his dick and shoved it back in his pants, then flushed the toilet and moved over to the sink to wash his hands. He almost missed his footing on the way there, leaning heavily on the marble tabletop, then straightened himself, managed to clean up without falling down, and then made his way back to the living room.
His guests tittered and shifted excitedly on the couch as he approached. None of them had gotten sick, which was definitely an upgrade from most of his parties. Some people just couldn’t hold their liquor and wasted it by throwing up on Tony’s property, whether it was furniture, the floor, a house plant, or something equally disgusting. That was one of the reasons why Tony rarely if ever let people into his workshop.
“We got some more drinks, Tony,” one of the girls declared and shifted a glass towards him; they had already learned he wouldn’t accept anything directly offered to him.
He raised the glass to his lips, sniffing. Whiskey. Sipping carefully, he didn’t detect anything girly mixed into it, which was also an improvement; he could have a tropical drink every now and then, an umbrella on top, but he was a grown man and liked his drinks like he preferred most things in life: stiff and with an after burn.
That really made it sound like something completely different from what he had originally gone for. Maybe he was drunker than he thought.
One of the girls slid her hand onto his thigh, higher than had been appropriate several hours ago, and Tony took a proper drink from his glass, telling himself to play along a little bit longer; soon he could talk the girls into leaving without it looking like he hadn’t planned anything to begin with.
“Tony,” the girl crooned, leaning heavily against his side. Her hand moved higher, then to the inside of his thigh. She clearly lacked the experience to know exactly where to look, but she was going in the right direction and Tony started feeling like he was being backed into a corner. He didn’t like that - had never liked it, but especially after Afghanistan…
“It’s getting late,” he said out loud, sipping his drink again as if it would give him the strength to boot the girls out the door without losing face. He was Tony Stark, though, and he could do what he wanted, especially in his own home.
“Maybe we should go to bed,” the girl beside him stated, a bit too eager.
The other two tittered, shifting, the one with the largest breasts showing off her goods on purpose while rearranging her top. They were drunk enough to not mind that there were three of them and that he probably wouldn’t want to choose between them. Hell, they had probably planned this from the get-go, which meant he was about to disappoint all three of them in equal measure.
He felt a little flushed, suddenly, his skin assaulted by invisible pins and needles while his heart began, without any prompting, to beat faster in his chest. His fingers tightened against the cool glass in his grip, the sensation somewhat muted beneath the prickly tingling that was messing up his touch-based sensory input. A pressure-like sensation tightened his muscles, jump-starting a headache, making him feel a little dizzy even where he sat.
“You’re looking a little flushed,” the girl beside him stated. “Maybe you should take your shirt off.”
It was an unexpected leap of logic and Tony glanced at her. She didn’t seem surprised. In fact, she was smiling, and her hand was still searching, sliding over his crotch.
“Are you hard?” she asked, and his gaze zeroed in on her painted lips, reading the words from them as if his ears didn’t get the message in real time.
Why would he be…?
He jerked and dislodged her hand, moving it away from his body. His vision swam a little as he pushed up to his feet, his balance failing and almost dropping him to the floor. Leaning heavily on the couch, he set the glass of whiskey down on the table, a small amount sloshing onto his hand.
His chest was burning up a little, his heart still pounding and the tension making the arc reactor feel heavy and unfitting in his skin. “You should leave,” he said, voice wavering a bit.
“Aww,” another one of the girls pouted and all three of them got to their feet, watching him. “We were just starting to have fun.”
“If you’re feeling uncomfortable, we can always go lie down,” the blonde with the rack suggested.
“We’ll make you feel better,” the handsy one declared.
Back in the day, he would have just rolled with it. Well, not when he was feeling the way he was; his stomach started to cramp, forcing him to turn tail and go back to the bathroom, locking the door behind him.
With a pained gasp he leaned onto the marble tabletop, feeling its coolness on his overheated skin, and glanced at himself in the mirror. His eyes were a little bloodshot, his skin flushed, and a small dab of blood was slowly inching its way out of his nose. He blinked at it and raised his hand to wipe it away, the motion encouraging more of it to flow out.
“J.A.R.V.I.S.,” he called out, then added a gasped fuck and allowed himself to sink to the floor, pulling up his legs as the ache in his abdomen increased.
“Sir,” the AI replied coolly.
“I think something’s… wrong,” he said, jaw tense. He felt like banging his head against the cabinet doors behind him, to get rid of the pounding in his head that was now matching his heartbeat.
“Indeed, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. went on in a superior kind of way. “As I was attempting to tell you earlier, your three companions added sildenafil citrate to your drink - which you then consumed on top of all the other alcoholic beverages you have enjoyed tonight.”
Tony’s breathing caught. “Sildenafil?” His brain was ineffectively circling the word which he should have known - which he did know - but couldn’t translate in his head.
“Viagra, sir.”
Well, that explained the tactless suggestions…
“How much?” he asked, knowing from experience this reaction was not supposed to happen.
“Three pills.”
“Fuck,” he gasped again, feeling like his heart was climbing right out of his chest. Rationally, he knew it was the arc reactor that was causing the sensation, being jostled microscopically in his chest cavity. He was still getting used to it, though, and the alien pain sent warning bells ringing in his brain.
It would pass, he knew. He didn’t require medical assistance or J.A.R.V.I.S. would have interfered, no matter Tony’s earlier spitefulness. Still, he felt like crap, and didn’t expect that to change for the next few hours.
To remind him of the depths of his predicament, a tap came from the other side of the door. “Tony?” one of the girls called out. “Come on out,” she added, and he could hear all three of them giggle. “We know you’re feeling a bit… constricted, but we can help you with that.”
“Yeah,” another chorused. “We would love to give you a hand.”
Tony grit his teeth and gave the door a baleful look, then reached out for some toilet paper and stuffed some up both his nostrils to control the nosebleed. “J.A.R.V.I.S., please be a charmer and inform the ladies you’re calling them a cab.”
Mutedly, he heard the AI do just that.
“There’s no reason to hide!” one of the girls declared loudly through the door. “We came here to spend the night. Come on, Tony, stop hiding like a little kid. It’s a little embarrassing.”
“No, it’s not,” another girl protested, as if thinking her friend was doing a bad job at cajoling him to come out - which she was. “We know you’ve got a big boner. Let us help you with that.”
Tony closed his eyes and leaned against the cabinet doors. He could have given them a piece of his mind, seeing as spiking someone’s drink was very bad form - especially when targeting filthy rich people who moonlighted as armored superheroes. He was also tempted to point out that getting a surprise hard-on seemed to be the last thing resulting from their little trick, but he wasn’t sure who would be more humiliated at that point.
Three pills of Viagra and no boner to speak of. Ha fucking ha.
“We’re not leaving until you come out,” the girls informed him.
“Shall I call the police, sir?” J.A.R.V.I.S. asked.
“No,” Tony ground out. It was bad enough. “Call Happy.”
“Mr. Hogan has the weekend off, sir. He’s currently in Las Vegas, watching a boxing match at MGM Grand Garden Arena.”
Well, that was inconvenient.
“What about Rhodey?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes is currently visiting his mother. He left you a note saying that.”
“Of course he did,” Tony rolled his eyes. Damn, that hurt. “They’re not leaving?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
He sighed. “Call Pepper.” The pain in his abdomen was getting a little bit worse, although it felt like his heart had finally exhausted itself and calmed down fractionally. The aching still persisted, thrumming along the arc reactor’s casing, and he knew he was in no condition to go out there and get rid of his guests.
Those three would be lucky if he didn’t sue their asses, but in doing so he would ruin every small chance at them having a proper future - as unlikely as that was, considering their stunt tonight.
Let Pepper deal with them, he decided.
- - -
Pepper got the call a little after 2 a.m. She had been comfortably asleep, but the special ringtone that played when J.A.R.V.I.S. was contacting her jolted her right out of her dreams.
Forty-five minutes later she was approaching the house, lit up against the darkness surrounding it, an unhappy frown already on her face. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to get up and drive to Tony’s house in the middle of the night. The trips had not lessened after he came back from Afghanistan, although they had changed a little in nature.
She had expected a party; loud music, people stumbling around the yard, the usual. What she found were three young women who looked barely legal, giving her wide-eyed looks when she entered with her own key.
“Mr. Stark has asked that you leave,” Pepper stated, and just then a cab appeared in the driveway.
The girls looked at each other, clearly preparing to protest.
Pepper held the door open for them and fixed them with a somewhat impatient look. It was, after all, 3 a.m. by now. She looked impeccable, as always, but there was no mistaking the fact that she had been dragged out of bed for this.
“I expected him to be more fun,” one of the girls murmured.
“Maybe he’s getting old,” another mused.
Pepper wasted no time shutting the door after they were through, then waited until the cab pulled out of the driveway. The house remained empty around her and she glanced around, wondering if Tony had gone down to the workshop and left the three ladies on their own.
“J.A.R.V.I.S., where is he?” she asked.
“In the bathroom,” the AI replied promptly.
Her frown was back and she made her way across the floor to the nearest bathroom, then tapped on the door that she found, unsurprisingly, was locked. “Tony?”
She heard a shuffling sound on the other side, then the door was unlocked and pulled open just a bit. Tony was sitting on the floor, giving the hallway outside a suspicious look.
Pepper tried not to sigh and failed. “Are you so drunk you cannot even stand? If that’s the case, you can just stay there, because I’m not cleaning up after that again.”
Tony’s eyes flashed up towards her face. They were bloodshot, and his face was flushed, as if he had sat in the sun too long. There was toilet paper crammed up his nose. “Pepper,” he hummed. “Beautiful, competent Pepper.”
“It’s three in the morning,” she reminded him.
“And I appreciate you coming all the way out here,” he told her, quicker than usual. “I, uh…” He leaned against the bathroom wall, looking exhausted - looking sick.
“Are you okay?” Pepper asked, carefully crouching down to Tony’s level.
“I’ll be fine,” Tony said evasively.
“Do I have to ask J.A.R.V.I.S.?”
“He won’t tell you.”
“Actually, sir, your safety protocols for this type of situation do suggest that I may, at my own discretion, inform people such as Miss Potts -”
“Okay, fine!” Tony snapped, then sagged a little and wrapped his arms around his middle. “I was discourteous towards you earlier and could have avoided this entire incident had I only allowed you to do your work. Satisfied?”
“Quite, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said somewhat haughtily.
“What kind of incident?” Pepper asked.
Tony gave her a look, clearly debating whether to tell her. “They put something in my drink,” he finally revealed.
Pepper stiffened. “Do I need to call an ambulance?” It was just like Tony to dismiss the obvious issue and start off by getting everyone out of the house.
“No,” he replied tersely.
He did look sick, still, and Pepper felt like calling the ambulance anyway, just to teach him a lesson. “What did they put into your drink?” she asked, giving him a chance to come clean - especially since she was losing sleep over this. “Do you know?” she pressed, because it was entirely possible he did not, seeing as the girls had managed to do it behind his back.
“Viagra,” Tony mumbled.
Pepper very carefully kept her expression calm. “Do you need a moment?”
Tony gave her another look and moved his arms, leaving his clothed groin in clear view of her eyes. She didn’t want to look, but obviously she was supposed to - and saw nothing at all. “No awkward hard on,” Tony noted, shifting again. “A hell of a headache, though, and my stomach hurts, plus it feels like I’ve been rolling in pins and needles…”
“Can you get up?” Pepper asked, feeling like it was her job to make sure he got what he needed to make this pass.
Tony nodded and started to lever himself from the floor, but half-way there it was clear he wasn’t going to make it, so Pepper reached out and gave him a hand, the small amount of support helping Tony to his feet.
“Bed,” the man said shortly, and Pepper took him to the elevator, not wanting Tony to try his luck with the stairs.
Once upstairs, Tony tugged off his shirt, leaving on the top he wore beneath it to conceal the light of the device in his chest, then yanked down his pants and rolled, falling back onto the bed, kicking off the pants the rest of the way.
“Do you require anything else?” Pepper asked, not picking up the clothes.
“Get me some water and then go home - or sleep in the guest room,” he offered, already curling onto his side, tugging over one of the pillows for comfort.
Pepper got him two bottles of water, made sure they were within his reach on the nightstand and then left. “If he gets worse, call me,” she told J.A.R.V.I.S.
“Of course, Miss Potts.”
“You’re able to monitor him, right?”
“Yes,” the AI said shortly. “Mr. Stark is in good hands.”
Pepper nodded and walked to the door, the lights dimming and going dark behind her as J.A.R.V.I.S. turned them off, leaving the house in a sense of calm that hadn’t been there just a half an hour ago when Pepper arrived. It was surprising how fast things changed - and how they didn’t, when it came to Tony and the things he got himself into.
The End