tyler_gone | Stark Industries, Later Friday Night

	As soon as the paralysis started to wear off, Tony rolled himself off the couch. Something that was both painful and stupid when he thought about it. But he wasn't thinking about it, he was thinking more about the fact that his chest felt like he was being stabbed and that Obie was going after Sam. Crawling down the stairs did not sound like a fun plan, but it was all he had right now.
	They'd already had a couple beers -- Tyler because he always did, Jack because it was the best coping mechanism he was likely to find on the island -- when the idea of going to visit Tony was raised. "I gotta know who you're drinking with since I went bye-bye, man," Tyler said. "He at least an anarchist?" Jack snorted. "I'm pretty sure that's a no," he said, raising a finger. "He is, was, an arms dealer. Really smart guy." "Think he has a gun for us?" Tyler was halfway off his barstool. "Come on, you have to introduce me to this master of war." They bickered blearily about it, an old married couple, until they got to the shop, where Tyler opened the door without knocking. "Tony? You around?" Jack wandered over to the hole down to the lab, which he looked at with some confusion. He was pretty sure it hadn't been there when he slept over.
	So dragging himself to the top of the stairs had taken much longer than he had expected it to. And now he was shaking and sweating more than strictly necessary for that kind of work out. And his chest was feeling like it was in a fucking vise. "Tyler?"
	Two voices carried up the stairs. "What?" After an impatient look from the other, the man Tony knew as Tyler took over, climbing the stairs closer to the voice. "My 'maginary evil twin," he said, almost buoyantly. "He's visiting. He's not Rusty and I'm not goin' crazy. Don't think." He finally got to the top of the stairs, saw Tony clearly. "Jesus, what happened to you?"
	Tony snorted and tried for a nice and sardonic grin. "I'm having a kinda bad day." He gasped, eyes shut tight. Okay, that hurt. "I need my--" Tyler would have no clue what an ark reactor was. "--battery."
	Tyler was kind of getting the impression this wasn't a great day for Tony. "Where is it?" he asked, already starting to roam the space. His other half was following him up the stairs, bounding. He leaned over Tony almost rudely. "Hi."
	Just staring at him for a moment, Tony very slowly looked back at Tyler. "Hi. Downstairs. In the lab."
	"You get it," Tyler ordered Jack, who was already heading down the stairs and therefore shot him a dirty look. "I wanna stay here and get to know your friend with the great fucking big hole in his chest." A beat. "How'd you get that, anyhow?"
	Tony watched Tyler go, kinda wishing he'd stick around because this man might possibly be dumber than anyone he's ever met. "Shrapnel. Can you ask him to hurry up?" Tony wheezed, placing his hand over the hole and using his other hand to try and push himself up to lean against the wall. Raising his voice wasn't quite in the cards.
	Tyler raised his head. "Evil Twin, your friend's falling apart," he hollered downward, then reached out a surprisingly steady arm to help Tony up. "Here." He followed that with a jab of his other finger to the hole. "How do you work with a thing like that through you?"
	"Jesusfuck!" Tony batted at his hand and gasped for air. "Stop that."
	Tyler took a deliberate step backward, hands raised. "I'm not doing anything," he said. There was an undercurrent of you pussy in his voice. That was when Jack reemerged with the arc reactor. "Okay, how does this go - " He glanced from Tyler to Tony. "Don't break my friends." Tyler rolled his eyes elaborately but said nothing.
	Tony looked from one to the other and really wished he had the repulsor gauntlets on to shoot someone with. "There's a--" He swallowed, closing his eyes for a moment to collect his thoughts. "--plug on the end of those wires. It hooks into a socket in my chest." That sounded appealing, right?
	Tyler gave him a skeptical look as he stepped further backward. "You trust this guy to poke his hands around in your chest." Sarcastically, to Jack, he added, "Right, that's not gay at all."
	"Oh, shut the fuck up for five minutes," Jack said, distracted by a genuine concern for doing this right. He put the arc reactor in place as delicately as he could manage, fumbling a bit with the plug and socket. "Is this right?"
	Tony nodded, breathing shallow now. "And if it's between that and continuing to have a cardiac arrest, I think I'll go with gay."
	"I cannot entirely blame you," Tyler had to agree, reflecting that one nice thing about life as a figment of the imagination was that he didn't have to worry about his heart. "Call it metrosexuality with a White's Body twist."
	"Clever. I can see he's the genius part of you," Tony muttered, more concerned with what was happening in his chest. "Careful not to touch the sides."
	"You didn't ask him about making nitroglycerin at 7-Eleven," Jack explained dryly, rotating the arc reactor in place until it seemed to have caught.
	There was a click and Tony's breathing relaxed a little bit. Less shallow and no longer trying to keep from panting to just get some more oxygen. "Any monkey with a brain can make nitroglycerin," He said, finally not thinking about his own immanent demise.
	"I like you," Tyler decided with a sudden guffaw. "Any monkey with a brain and some orange juice concentrate, yeah. Just don't ask this guy" -- he indicated Jack -- "about paraffin as a stabilizer. He can't manage it."
	And now it was Jack's turn to glare at Tyler. "I worked that out," he muttered, then scratched his ear, unsure of what was next. "So do we take you to the clinic now, Tony?"
	Completely ignoring the little bit of sibling squabbling, Tony shook his head. "Help me up," He said, reaching for Tyler's hand. "I need to make sure Sam's okay."
	Working together, the two Tylers hauled him to his feet. "Need me to come with you?" Jack asked. He expected the answer to be no.
	The whole walking thing needed a few more minutes to be online. He always hated that damn paralyzer. It had been a bad idea. "Get me to my lab and," He said, lifting his chin despite the weakness. "I need to stop someone before they hurt the kid." He was Tony Stark, damn it.
	"The lab being the part down through that big hole?" Tyler asked skeptically, taking Tony's right side as Jack walked around to the left. "All right. We'll help." "Does someone have Sam?" Jack asked, as they started to walk/carry/drag Tony along.
	"Well that would be a little hard to tell when I've been busy having a heart attack for the last ten minutes," Tony ground out. "My former business partner just tried to kill me and went after him because he walked in. So, my guess is that he's in trouble."
	Jack went pale, thought the story didn't seem to bother his other half. " Bad stock deal?" he quipped. "I think that's a good guess." In an attempt to mollify Jack, he added, "Tell us what to do and we'll do it."
	"He hired my lovely friends in Afghanistan," Tony muttered, nodding over toward what looked almost like an assembly line. "Over there."
	"The assembly line?" Jack asked, walking Tony along. He wasn't entirely liking the sounds of this. "You taking a tank after this kid?"
	"...something like that," Tony replied with a crooked smile, pushing them away to hobble slightly up onto the small platform. "Jarvis, begin sequence." That would be when things got a bit... weird as the robots started to help Tony into his suit.
	On this, the Tylers were in agreement: They were going to stare. And then boggle. And then stare some more. "Not from our universe?" Tyler asked Jack as easily as if he were munching popcorn. Jack shook his head, looking worried. "I think he's one over. Or else things were a lot tripper in 2008 than we remember." To Tony, he added, "Is it comfortable in that thing?"
	"It's... more comfortable than the last time," Tony said, putting the helmet down. That would be because the bullet holes were repaired, sir, A calm dry, British voice from... all around the room. "...Now's not the time, Jarvis."