Food Poisoning
“Greetings mighty team! I have returned from my adventures in Asgard and have brought food for us to feast on!” Thor’s voice booms as he enters the common room.
Tony, who sits on the couch, pulls off his reading glasses and takes in the large man holding a bulging sack over his shoulder- not unsimilar to Santa Claus. “Sorry Point-break, everyone is gone on their own missions. No one is here.”
Thor frowns and drops the sack to the floor. “Well surely you and I can start the feast without them? The food must be eaten fresh.”
Tony eyes the mysterious sack. “I’m not very-”
“Please?” Thor pleads, pouting.
Tony sighs deeply, “Fine.”
Thor lights up and starts unloading the sack onto the dining table. The multitude of food spans the whole table and Tony gets nervous at all the weird colored dishes. He swears he sees several of them move.
As soon as the billionaire sits, Thor is shoving food into Tony’s mouth, rambling about his travels and barely giving him time to chew. Tony doesn’t know what he is eating exactly, but has to admit some of it isn’t so bad.
He is given a break when hours later Clint comes back from his Shield mission. Thor’s eyes widen at his new victim and shoves Clint into a seat.
Tony gives Clint a silent signal when Thor isn’t looking of what not to try as the Asgardian re-rambles everything he told Tony.
Clint takes a few bites but when he interrupts Thor’s speech to ask about the ingredients in one of the dishes, both humans promptly spit out everything in their mouths when Thor tells them the ‘noodle worms’ are made with actual alive space worms.
The two hold it together until Thor thanks them for sharing the feast with him and retires to his room. As soon as Jarvis tells them the man reached his floor several levels down, they both start vomiting.
“What the fuck, Tony!” Clint says in between heaves.
“What did I do?” Tony shouts.
“Why didn’t you tell me we were eating literal aliens!”
“I didn’t know! He didn’t tell me what was in the food! He just said that he got it from Asgard.”
“You’re a fucking dumbass,” Clint scowls, turning to leave. “It doesn’t take a genius to know they probably don’t eat twinkies in Space! You should have asked. If I die from this, I'm blaming you!”
Tony sighs and starts cleaning up the mess. “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. You didn’t see how excited he was,” Tony mutters to Clint’s back.
Clint ignores him as the elevator doors close.
Halfway through cleaning, Tony’s stomach starts bubbling uncomfortably. He gives one last look at the messy table and rushes to his room.
He doesn’t even make it to the toilet before he collapses to the floor and starts puking violently. His body slowly sags until he can’t even pick up his head and lets the vomit fall out of his mouth messily.
He doesn’t even realize his eyes have closed until he wakes up to knocking on his bedroom door.
“Man of Iron?” Thor’s voice booms.
“What’s up Point-break?” Tony moans, blinking his eyes half-way.
“Before I rest, I wanted to thank you again for this evening’s feast. I very much enjoyed it and I appreciate you embracing the culture of Asgard with me,” Thor says through the door.
“No problem, buddy. I enjoyed it too,” Tony coughs.
Tony could practically see Thor’s large smile. “I am glad. Good-night!”
Tony waits until he hears Thor’s footsteps disappear to start audibly heaving again. Upon waking he realizes his stomach hurts even worse than earlier and is cramping painfully.
Tony wants to get up to get some medicine but he can’t even think about moving. His body feels heavy and weak but at this moment he couldn’t do anything about it. He can’t even call his boyfriend because he has no idea where his phone is. It was one of the many times he cursed Steve for wanting ‘privacy’ in their bedroom and asked him to disable Jarvis in there.
His stomach cramps were getting worse and he was forced to close his eyes from the pain. He forced himself to sleep, hoping things would be better in the morning.
They weren’t, everything was worse.
Tony woke up in the same spot on the floor surrounded by dry vomit and in a puddle of sweat. His clothes and hair clung to his skin and his body was trembling violently. His stomach cramps were so painful that he had to force himself not to scream.
He could see the light from the window and figured it was mid-morning. He licked his dry lips and wished to the gods for a bottle of water. Instead, they decided to curse him by increasing the pain of his cramps, causing him to bite his lip against the escaping whimpers.
It was hours until he finally heard a knock at his door. “Uh Tony, are you in here? Thor said you didn’t come up for breakfast,” he heard Clint’s voice say.
Tony squeezed his eyes shut. “M’ not hungry,” he forced his voice to sound normal.
Clint sighed. “I guess not, after yesterday.” He watched Clint’s feet linger for several silent seconds. “Guess i’ll see you later then.”
At this point Tony had his hand in his mouth to muffle the pain-filled shouts that were forcing themselves out. Clint took his silence in stride and simply walked away.
As soon as he heard the elevator door shut he pulled his fist out of his mouth and let loose the screams of pain. He couldn’t even care that vomit was getting into his hair as his body shook violently against the cramps.
Like a cycle, a few minutes later he was back to dry heaving. None of the food wanted to leave his body, instead it all sat at the bottom, refusing to move up or down.
Tony knew his body was aching for water, but he didn’t know what to do. He literally couldn’t move. He decided to go to his next best plan- trying to contact Jarvis.
“Jarvis, Jarvis,” Tony rasped, hoping to be heard through the sound-proofed door. He shouted for another three hours against his raw throat until a coughing episode rid him of his voice. After that, he knew there was nothing he could do except close his eyes.
He should have just sucked it up and asked Clint for help. He hoped the man would come back. He would tell the truth this time, he promised. And he would apologize for making Clint upset.
Clint did come back, hours later, with his boyfriend and other Avengers in tow. They had gotten back from their own missions and Clint had told them about Thor’s feast and how he ended up sitting on the toilet until his butt was numb. When he had told them about Tony’s absence, Steve was naturally concerned and asked Jarvis.
“Sir has not left his bedroom since yesterday evening,” Jarvis reported.
“Is he okay?” Steve asked, alarmed.
“I cannot check sir’s vitals from the bedroom,” Jarvis explained.
“I talked to him this morning, he seemed fine,” Clint shrugged.
“You saw him?” Bruce asked.
“No, I talked to him through the door,” Clint said.
Steve scrunched up his face. “That doesn’t seem concerning to you?”
“No? He was probably talking a massive shit like I was,” Clint laughed but quieted when he saw everyone’s stares.
Steve huffed and took off for Tony’s room. He found the door to be locked. “See I tried to get in but he locked me out,” Clint said.
“Again, concerning?!” Steve huffed. Clint moved his guilty gaze to his feet.
“Jarvis, unlock the door please,” Steve asked.
“Password?” Jarvis’ accented voice requested.
“Capsicle,” Steve rolled his eyes.
The door swung open and the group gasped.
Tony laid in the middle of the floor curled inward on his side surrounded by several piles of vomit. He was trembling and his body was covered in a thick layer of sweat. His lips were cracked and dry and he was pale aside from his fever-red cheeks.
Bruce was the first to take charge and kneel on Tony’s vomit-free side. He checked Tony’s vitals and grimaced at how hot his forehead was. “Natasha go run a bath, Steve help me get his clothes off. While we are doing that, Clint- run and get a cold bucket of water with cloth and some heating pads,” Bruce ordered.
Everyone moved, Tony’s whimpers encouraging them to work faster. Soon Tony’s body was shaking from the cold air as well once his body was stripped of it’s stained clothing.
Steve carried Tony to the bath, but decided to get in the tub with his boyfriend when he saw Tony couldn’t hold himself up. Steve cleaned Tony’s body while Bruce washed his hair and soon they were drying him off and placing him in the bed.
“He’s dehydrated,” Bruce observed as Steve replaced Tony’s clothes. “I’m going to go get an IV.” Bruce left the room.
Steve sat on the edge of the bed next to Tony. “Baby?” He moved Tony’s wet curls off of his forehead. “Tones?”
Tony’s eyes fluttered as he fought to wake up. His body was exhausted and he could feel his stomach start to rumble again.
“There’s my smart-guy,” Steve smiled as he saw Tony’s eyes peek open.
Tony groaned in response, and tried to curl into Steve.
“How do you feel, baby?” Steve whispered, running his fingers through Tony’s hair.
“Hurts,” Tony rasped.
Natasha came out from nowhere and handed Steve a water bottle. Steve thanked her and brought the bottle to Tony’s lips. Immediately Tony started gulping down water greedily. Steve had to forcibly pull the bottle from Tony’s lips. No sooner, Tony started to heave and Natasha tossed a garbage can under his chin just in time. All of the water he had consumed ended up right back in the bin.
“I knew that was going to happen,” Bruce sighed as he stared at the sight from the doorway. He walked over to Tony’s bedside when the man finished heaving and grabbed his arm.
Steve turned Tony’s head away from where the needle was entering, knowing the sight would just make Tony more nauseous.
It wasn’t long before Tony’s whimpering turned into cries of pain.
“I’m going to have to touch your stomach, okay Tones? I just need to check what’s happening,” Bruce says.
Tony lets out a cry but doesn’t fight as Steve pulls his shirt up. Tony immediately flinches as Bruce’s cold hands land on his stomach and he lets out screams as Bruce palpates all around his abdomen. He can’t even focus as Steve whispers softly in his ear, it felt like knives were stabbing him over and over.
Finally Bruce takes a step back. “Fortunately it looks like it’s just food poisoning, but his stomach feels really hard and tense so it might be several hours until it's out of his system.”
Steve nods as Tony curls into him. Clint returns with the bucket so Bruce places the cold cloth over Tony’s forehead and neck to bring down his fever, and places the heating pad on the man’s stomach. Before the others leave Bruce gives Tony two spoonfuls of medicine.
When the door closes and the room is silent, Steve takes Tony into his arms and cuddles him tightly. “Baby, why did you eat that food?” Steve whispers into the silence.
“I didn’t want to hurt Thor’s feelings,” Tony rasped back.
Steve sighed. He both loved and hated Tony’s big heart. “You can’t please everyone, baby. If you just explained to Thor he would understand. You don’t have to practically sacrifice your life for someone else’ happiness, Tones.”
Tears leaked from Tony’s eyes. “M’ sorry,” he whimpered.
“It’s okay, baby. Focus on getting better,” Steve said softly, running his fingers through Tony’s curls.
“And don’t be so nice next time,” Steve laughs.