Tony hits the rock floor still sputtering and gasping, water streaming off of him (still sliding down the back of his throat). The door clangs shut and he thinks half-hysterically, I don't know that crack, staring at the hole in the rock that is shaped sort of like a lightning bolt and is right in front of his nose. Someone touches his arm and he jolts away hard enough that it sets his over-taxed heart to agonizingly thundering again.
"Don't," he snaps ferociously. He can't stand one more set of hands touching him, and if that makes him look like a wild-eyed madman baring his teeth at a threat, so be it.
"Easy," says the tall, lanky man crouched several feet away, his hands raised with his palms out. "I come in peace."
Tony backs up on his hands and ass until he runs into an unfamiliar obstacle (a table leg), and he stops there. "Where the hell am I?" he demands, pretending that his voice is not shaking as strongly as it is. This is a cell, but it is larger and better-equipped than the one he knows; there's light and chairs and a desk covered in sheets of old-fashioned paper.
"Home sweet home," says the stranger, his eyes flicking across Tony's furiously defensive hunch and his soaked bandages and his rapidly bruising face. It is a briskly assessing, professional glance. "Mei, tāmāde húndàn, what have those philistines done to all my hard work?"
"You're--" Tony wipes water from his mouth with the back of his hand, not coming one bit closer. "You're the doctor. The one who did this to me." His hand reflexively presses against the gaping hole in his chest, its ugly maw hidden by bandages with wires protruding.
"Yep," the man says steadily. "I do a lot of things to people. It's kind of my job. And you're Tony Stark."
"Yeah." The two men crouch on the uneven ground in silence for a long moment, the only sound that of Tony's heaving breaths.
"I'm going to have to at least check the power source, make sure it didn't short circuit," the doctor says, finally. "Call it Catholic guilt."
(2/2) (with profuse apologies for the character voice)
Tony hits the rock floor still sputtering and gasping, water streaming off of him (still sliding down the back of his throat). The door clangs shut and he thinks half-hysterically, I don't know that crack, staring at the hole in the rock that is shaped sort of like a lightning bolt and is right in front of his nose. Someone touches his arm and he jolts away hard enough that it sets his over-taxed heart to agonizingly thundering again.
"Don't," he snaps ferociously. He can't stand one more set of hands touching him, and if that makes him look like a wild-eyed madman baring his teeth at a threat, so be it.
"Easy," says the tall, lanky man crouched several feet away, his hands raised with his palms out. "I come in peace."
Tony backs up on his hands and ass until he runs into an unfamiliar obstacle (a table leg), and he stops there. "Where the hell am I?" he demands, pretending that his voice is not shaking as strongly as it is. This is a cell, but it is larger and better-equipped than the one he knows; there's light and chairs and a desk covered in sheets of old-fashioned paper.
"Home sweet home," says the stranger, his eyes flicking across Tony's furiously defensive hunch and his soaked bandages and his rapidly bruising face. It is a briskly assessing, professional glance. "Mei, tāmāde húndàn, what have those philistines done to all my hard work?"
"You're--" Tony wipes water from his mouth with the back of his hand, not coming one bit closer. "You're the doctor. The one who did this to me." His hand reflexively presses against the gaping hole in his chest, its ugly maw hidden by bandages with wires protruding.
"Yep," the man says steadily. "I do a lot of things to people. It's kind of my job. And you're Tony Stark."
"Yeah." The two men crouch on the uneven ground in silence for a long moment, the only sound that of Tony's heaving breaths.
"I'm going to have to at least check the power source, make sure it didn't short circuit," the doctor says, finally. "Call it Catholic guilt."
Tony barks a sharp sound of amusement.