Work Text:
It was a miserable day in Manhattan; the sky was cloudy and there was a tingle of thunder in the air. Tony was in a mood as he left the Tower to go for a walk, it was his attempt to calm down from the team meeting he’d just been in. He’d spent the last hour listening to how useless he was outside of his suit. So the second the meeting was over, he’d stood up and stormed out refusing to acknowledge his teammates as they called to him.
Sure, they hadn’t exactly stated that he was useless without his suit, but they went on and on and on about how Tony needed to learn self-defence. He didn’t. He knew how to defend himself; he grew up with his Aunt Peggy, who taught him. She was the only reason that Tony had been able to escape so many kidnappings when he was little because Howard sure as hell didn’t step in to pay the ransoms. He was also made weapons and he tested them, so he knew how to fire a gun if need be. Rhodey had also made sure Tony could defend himself after an incident at MIT.
The point was, Tony knew how to defend himself; he wasn’t on the same level as Natasha or Clint, but he could protect himself or at least get himself out of situations. For example, Afghanistan. Sure, he got kidnapped. But he also got himself out of it.
Suffice to say, Tony wasn’t impressed by their comments.
——LINE BREAK——
Within seconds, the sky darkened and there was a roar of thunder that had Tony rushing back to the tower. He was in an expensive suit without an umbrella or coat and he didn’t want to get caught in the downpour. He was so lost in his thoughts as he walked that he didn’t notice the figure beside him until he was being roughly shoved into the nearby alleyway, tripping over his feet as he fell to the ground.
——LINE BREAK——
“Get up,” he heard a gruff voice demand as he stumbled to his feet, “give me your money,” Tony looked around in search of an escape, but the only one was past the mugger, who had a knife in his hand. Tony wasn’t stupid enough to try anything. Carefully reaching into his blazer, he slowly pulled out his wallet and grabbed the wad of money he had. The genius threw it on the ground and as the mugger went to pick it up, he moved to run.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a new voice from behind him startled the genius into place, “after all, there’s only a few hundred in that wad and splitting that between two… well, it’s a bit unfair. You, however, look like a rich man with that suit of yours.”
“Wondered when you’d show, Johnny,” the first mugger called as he finished counting the money,
“Been here the whole time Greg,” he replied as he placed a knife to Tony’s throat, “how much we got?"
“Only two-fifty when split. Bit poor.”
“You heard him,” Greg stated turning his attention to Tony, who found himself annoyed that no matter his self-defence knowledge, he couldn’t safely get himself out of this mess. Which consequentially proved his team right, “strip.”
“What?” Tony exclaimed almost jumping away only to remember the knife at his neck,
“Give us your jacket and trousers; they’re clearly expensive and considering you’ve given us a measly five-hundred bucks, it’s only fair you give us your clothes.”
“Hang on a minute, you’re mugging me and talking about how unfair it is that I don’t have more cash for you?”
“Yes. Now get on with it.”
“No!” Tony shouted only for Greg to grab him and shove him into a wall,
“Johnny, get over here and help me out!” Greg called to his fellow-mugger and with his help, the two managed to get the suit’s jacket, waistcoat and trousers off the struggling man. Tony was pushed to the ground, left in his underwear and his now dirty white shirt. Bloody and bruised, he looked up at the two muggers who had trapped him against the wall; it seemed like now that he was out of his expensive clothing, the two had no qualms about getting violent.
They took his pricey Italian shoes and red tie along with his ridiculously priced Breguet watch. They raided his trouser pockets for his phone and wallet despite already stealing his trousers. They wanted everything. Including his dignity and pride. Between the two, it was clear to Tony that Greg was the one with a thirst for violence; during the struggles, Greg had been the rough one, he had been the one to draw blood. Johnny was clearly the one with a bit more of a conscience or perhaps he was just a bit more worried about getting caught as he kept looking over his shoulder; barely paying attention to his friend who had begun to kick at Tony.
——LINE BREAK——
“Time to go, Greg,” Johnny called and with a final parting kick to a semi-conscious Tony’s chest, the two fled the scene taking everything Tony had on his person barring his shirt, underwear and socks. Neither realised that Greg’s kick had dislodged the genius’ arc reactor ever so slightly.
——LINE BREAK——
The genius came around about half an hour later in the pouring rain; he was shivering and shaking in his soaked shirt, underwear and socks. With a pained groan, he heaved himself to his feet; stumbling as he tried to walk out. The streets were empty enough that no one paid attention to the bleeding and blatantly injured man; Tony just shook his head at the lack of humanity.
Somehow, he managed to drag himself back to the Tower. When he entered, he noticed through blurry eyes that someone was trying to get him to leave, thinking him to be some random person that wasn’t meant to be in the building. All he could think then was that this security man would either get a talking to or be fired; why on earth would someone try to make a clearly injured and almost naked man leave instead of getting them help.
His legs seized as the man went to grab him and Tony collapsed to the floor. Distantly, he could hear his name being called out as he found himself unable to breathe; a fire erupted in his chest.
——LINE BREAK——
The Avengers had gone out looking for Tony when JARVIS alerted them to the fact that he no longer had a trace of Tony's heartbeat and was worried because Tony wouldn’t just lose his phone, which kept JARVIS up to date on the genius’ vitals.
They’d spent an hour looking for him when they’d decided to regroup at the Tower, all of them were worried because, as JARVIS had pointed out, Tony wouldn’t just go off-grid; he would have at least let his AI know. Which likely meant something unfortunate had happened. None of them were thinking about the self-defence comments they’d had made towards him, all they were thinking about was him being injured and them not knowing.
As they were discussing what to do, a sudden commotion had them looking up from where they had taken up numerous sofas on the ground floor by reception. Steve stepped forward as a security guard shouted at someone and as the blond got closer, he could see that the victim of the shouting was half-naked and bleeding. He went to intercept as the guard reached out to grab the man only to watch as his legs shook and he plummeted to the floor.
“Tony!” Steve heard Bruce shout and suddenly all of them were rushing over to the seizing man on the floor.
——LINE BREAK——
It shouldn’t have surprised Tony that when consciousness returned to him, he was surrounded by beeping monitors, white walls and attached to wires. Groaning quietly as he pushed himself up in the uncomfortable hospital bed, he looked around to find his team sprawled out across the room in various positions as they slept.
He drifted back off to sleep knowing that the minute his team woke up, they’d be eager to know what happened and no doubt tell him how useless he was outside of the suit.
——LINE BREAK——
“Hey Tony, how are you feeling?” Bruce asked when the genius woke up; casting his eyes around the room, he noticed that everyone else was awake as well and looking at him.
“Sore,” was all he said suddenly feeling ashamed of himself as he remembered what had happened to him; for all his (mental) preaching about his skills in self-defence, he’d still wound up being useless.
“What happened?” Thor asked uncharacteristically quietly, his eyes bright with concern,
“Got mugged,” Tony muttered looking away in shame,
“Tony,” Natasha murmured as she placed her hand under his chin and turned his head towards her, “you don’t need to feel bad about it. We've all realised that we were perhaps a bit harsh during the meeting. We understand that you’ve had training before, but what you might not get is that we were saying it out of love, not cruelty.”
“What?”
“We care about you Tony,” Clint cut in, “and we want to make sure that something like this,” he gestured to the injured man, “doesn’t happen again. We don’t want you getting hurt.”
“We meant no offence, my friend,” Thor added, “we care for you and you are strong both with and without your suit, but you cannot deny that you are vulnerable outside of it.”
“I know,” Tony whispered his throat tightening, “I know. I just… I just got so annoyed when all you guys did was call me useless -I know you didn’t explicitly say that, but it was all I could infer from what you were saying.”
“We’re sorry, Tony. That wasn’t at all our intention. You mean so much to us that we want to make sure you have every way to look out and defend yourself,” Steve commented with a gentle and apologetic smile.
“Now. Tell us what happened,” Natasha demanded somewhat gently and with a slight hesitation, Tony recounted his mugging before listening to Bruce inform him of his injuries. Apparently, his arc reactor was kicked out of place, which led to him having a small heart attack. Thankfully, he was alright and just on bedrest.