hisnameisagent | (no subject)

It's a sound that has Coulson moving toward it, rather than the "away from" that one would usually expect. Somehow he's not surprised to see a familiar metal suit make an impact near the lake, but he's more than a little concerned when it comes to a stop and then doesn't move at all.

"Stark?" he says, raising his voice. Even still, he's not sure if Tony will be able to hear him through the suit.

While Tony is unable to hear Coulson, there is someone listening.

[Good afternoon, Agent Coulson - Mr. Stark is currently unconscious, but does not appear to require any immediate medical intervention.]

JARVIS is a little too cheerful given the situation, but it had been a good test-flight, up until five minutes ago when the left stabilizer shorted out and sent the entire suit into an unrecoverable spiral.

"You and I must have a different definition of what requires medical help, JARVIS," Coulson says, crouching down next to Tony. "I take it there isn't any medical reason for me not to try and flip him over?"

[Aside from the suit being a bit heavy...no sir. There are no medical concerns of note at this time.]

This version of the suit is light enough that with a solid shove, Coulson will be able to easily roll Tony over onto his back.

Which Coulson does, though it's still a little painful to strain his chest muscles like that.

"Are you able to open the faceplate, JARVIS?" Coulson asks, as he's unlikely to do so with anything less than a crowbar.

[Of course. One moment, Agent Coulson. I'll have to reset the security parameters...]

There is a brief pause, and then a whirr followed by a small shower of sparks that erupt off of one ear flap, followed by a clink-clink as the locks on the helmet shift and allow the faceplate to rise, exposing a still-unconscious Tony.

[Should I try and rouse him with the medical assistance programming, or would you like to try first?]

Coulson lifts one of Tony's eyelids, then the other. Well, at least his pupils looked okay.

"I can try, JARVIS."

He pats Tony on the cheek--or at least what isn't covered by the helmet. "Stark? Come on Stark, eyes open."

At first, there is no response - but after Coulson touches his face again, Tony's eyes flutter weakly before he groans, screwing them shut tight.

"Jus' a'couple more minutes, c'mon," he responds, voice slightly slurred.

"One more minute and I'll drag you to the infirmary, Tony. Come on, look at me."

Whenever he does open his eyes, he'll see...well, Tony will see the usual unflappable Coulson. If Pepper was around, she'd notice that Phil looks worried, because she knows what to look for.

It's too damn bright as far as Tony is concerned - which granted at the moment, he's not really concerned with much of anything - and there is a brief moment of uncoordinated attempts to roll onto his side, which are made nearly impossible by the weight of the suit and his confused limbs.

(His hip really freaking hurts, too.)

Blinking against the sunlight, he offers Coulson a tight smile.

"Hi, Agent," he murmurs, brain still foggy. He squints and tries to focus on the Agent's face. "What're y'doin' in my yard?"

"Better question: how did you get into Milliways?" Coulson asks, leaning back once Tony's blinking up at him.

"Milli...what?"

He tries to sit himself up, but with the suit powered down, he's pinned on his back.

"That is a new one. I wasn't trying to get here," he says. "I just needed to do a test on the suit, and I guess when it malfunctioned I got shifted...huh. JARVIS?"

[Yes, Mr. Stark?]

"Did the GPS tracking give any indication we slipped into a different universe?"

[The information seems to have been encoded. I will have to unscramble the coordinates. The programming used is quite...unusual.]

"Huh."

"While JARVIS is doing that, how many fingers am I holding up?" Coulson asks. He holds up--no, not just his middle finger, he has more professionalism than that--four fingers where Tony can see them.

"Go ahead and reroute the power conversions to the arc, I want to get this thing upright again," he says, before turning his focus to Coulson. "You've got fi...four. Four fingers up. JARVIS, c'mon, today would be nice..."

[Sir, I believe it would be beneficial if you had yourself examined by a physician prior to any further test flights.]

"I don't want to fly it, I just want to walk--"

[The structural integrity of the outer hull has been compromised.]

"How bad?"

[You would be wise to have someone fetch you another tote in which to carry the pieces back in to the bar once you have removed yourself from the suit.]

"Dammit."

"Can you get the suit off, with that damage?" Coulson asks.

This was not the kind of "debriefing" he ever expected to do with Tony Stark.

"Yeah, it's just a bitch to put it back together--JARVIS, go ahead and unlock all connection points."

There is a fair amount of sparking and metallic sounds as the suit unlocks, and Tony sighs.

"Will you pull some of these torso and chest plates off? If I can sit up, it's easier."

With some wiggling, Coulson will find that the pieces actually separate quite easily.

"As long as you're fully clothed under there."

Coulson wiggles and tugs--a little too hard on one or two occasions, drawing a slight wince--until the chest plates separate and come off.

"...you do not want to imagine the chafing that would occur if I went commando in the suit," Tony says, expression one of mild horror. "Hell, I don't want to imagine the chafing. Don't hurt yourself, Agent," he adds.

Once he sits up, he can free his hands and arms, and then promptly lifts his shirt to examine the arc embedded in his chest, running a fingertip around the edge of the seal to ensure that it hasn't been damaged.

"Everything still intact?" Coulson asks.

The arc reactor looks okay to him, but he doesn't really have much to go on other than "still glowing" and "casing isn't cracked". And it's not his heart it's protecting.

"If there was a leak, we'd both be in some serious trouble right now," he admits. "So would most people within...yeah, it's fine."

He's not going into details right now.

"Give me a minute to get these legs off..."

He leans forward, and bites down a yelp as he does so, reaching for the main hip and groin assembly.

Coulson doesn't want to get his hands anywhere near Tony's groin, encased in a metal suit or not, so he's more than happy to let Tony do that part.

The fact that something's bothering him hasn't gone unnoticed, however.

"Problem?"

"I think I bruised my hip on impact. It's just a little sore," he says, shaking one leg free of metal plating, then the other. With no small amount of effort, he pushes himself up and out of the suit, and ends up on his side in the grass, near where Coulson is crouched.

The small pile of 'scraps' is pretty impressive, disassembled as it is, like some robot skeleton abandoned.

"How've you been," he asks, looking up. "How's the back?"

"Doing better," Coulson says with a shrug. He's eternally grateful that that movement doesn't really hurt anymore.

"I saw the door back to our world when I came down earlier, so I think the bar has decided I've recovered enough to be allowed out."

Now he just has to see what time he goes out to, and whether SHIELD's medical staff think he's recovered enough to get back to work. He's still going to need some work to get his strength back, and probably some practice time on the range.

And a meeting with a shrink. Probably no way he can put that off.

"That's good," he says. "I will warn you, there's still a lot of clean up to be done, though."

Wincing, he pushes himself up and flexes all of his limbs - all of his toes still move inside his Doc Martens, so that's a plus, and he's not missing any fingers.

Getting the suit parts inside might be trouble, though maybe he will just send a few waitrats out with a few tote boxes, and make a sizable donation into one of the charity funds as 'payment' for the favor...

"You going to hang around another couple days or just go on back out?"

"Considering what was happening on the helicarrier the last time I was there and what I've heard about the damage in Manhattan, I'm not surprised."

Coulson watches Tony carefully as he moves, just in case.

"If the door opens to the helicarrier I might have to, at least until I know that the director's informed people there that I'm not really dead. It could cause some alarm, otherwise."

Not that the thought of walking onto the helicarrier feels entirely comfortable at the moment. He doesn't think he'll be going near the containment room any time soon.

"Yeah. I don't know if he has. We haven't really talked much--"

Slowly, carefully, he pushes himself onto his hands and knees, then makes an effort to stand - and manages without falling, but only because this hurts less than some of the injuries he's taken in the last few years.

"That is going to leave a mark," he groans, stretching his back. "Okay. I think I need a beer now."

And maybe a muscle relaxer or three.

He pulls out his cell phone and activates the security field on the remaining pieces of the suit, then looks at Coulson. "You want one? I'll buy."

"I mentioned that he should tell people when I saw him a few days ago. I may have given him the impression that when the door appeared I would come back whether he had or not, so hopefully he has."

Coulson gets to his feet, glancing at the pieces of armor. "Sure. I wouldn't want to waste the chance before I'm back at work and you rescind the offer."

There might be some Supernannying depending on what what drugs Tony wants to mix with the beer, though.

It's not like Tony's going to just light up a joint at the counter, Coulson!

"The suit will keep," he says, moving to limp towards the back door, one palm resting against his side. The problem with testing an experimental version of a suit is not having installed all of the impact-protection padding, yet. "Fury comes here?"

"Occasionally; he has the door appear at random moments, like anyone else. Luckily for me, it turned out."

Coulson gives Tony one of his probing looks.

"Sure you shouldn't see someone in the infirmary about that?" he asks.

Not to mention about the knock-out he had a few minutes ago.

"I..."

I'm fine, he wants to say, but he doesn't. If Pepper finds out about this (which she will, because it's Pepper and she knows things about him that even he doesn't know) she'll be mad at him for not getting it looked at right away.

But on the other hand...

"Let me try and walk it off for a few minutes first," he offers, as a halfway point they can both agree on.

And if Pepper doesn't figure it out on her own, Coulson will likely rat Tony out the next time he sees her by asking how Tony's doing after that crash.

However, Coulson isn't Tony's parent, and he's not Pepper, so he accepts the compromise.

"How has the reconstruction been going, by the way?"

"Good, actually. I mean, the penthouse is still trashed, and I can't work on the exterior framework until I get some of the steel from the builders, but it's going well," he admits honestly. "We've got most of the debris out, at least. Pepper and I have been staying at a few of the other places in the city until I've gotten the security breach issues ironed out at the Tower."

Just because Coulson can override his systems doesn't mean he should be able to.

"I'll have to remember to bring the latest decoding gadget that R&D has come up with the next time I drop by. Might as well get some real-world testing out of it."

Coulson chooses to see Tony's security measures as more of a challenge than a deterrent.

"You should drop by. We've decided to have movie night on Thursdays," he says. "Watching Capsicle try to wrestle the popcorn in the microwave is amazing."

Coulson Does Not Approve of Stark's laughing at his childhood hero.

"Oh really? And what movies have you watched?"

He can think of a number of movies that would be a very bad idea for the team to watch, for so many reasons.

"Last week we watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," Tony says. "Wilder, not Depp."

That was also amusing as all hell.

"Before that it was...oh yeah. Dodgeball."

Coulson doesn't look impressed. "Dodgeball? I'm not sure you're showing early-twenty-first-century Midgardian culture at its finest. Or even at its 'fairly good'."

"Hey," he actually looks wounded. "It was funny. Thor kept insisting we go down and play in one of the labs, and we actually did, until Banner went all gamma-cray-cray and popped the ball."

He'd facepalm, if it wouldn't break his Phil Coulson: Zen Master demeanour.

"I wouldn't think competitive sports that involve trying to hit someone would be the best idea with Dr. Banner around."

"I was in the suit," Tony adds. "'Tasha and Legolas refused to join us, so it wasn't actually that dangerous until the big green guy got pissed off at how fast Cap was running back and forth. The man can dodge."

"Romanoff and Barton sound like the smart ones here," Coulson says, opening the door to the bar. "Do all your movie nights end like that?"

"Most of the time we just end up sprawled on the couch or on the floor, someone half-asleep," he shrugs. "They're really not all that exciting. Except for the popcorn."

"Any embarrassing drooling? Because if that's the case, I mat have to stop by just so I can get some blackmail material."

"No drooling," he says. "Sorry to disappoint."

He limps his way to the counter and leans against it, grateful for the support.

"What do you want to drink?"

"I'll have to rely on Photoshop, then," Phil says, leaning against the bar.

"I'll have a beer; Bar knows what I like." In a moment, a pint glass appears, filled with a dark beer with a thick head on it. Coulson isn't exactly sure just what kind of beer it is, but doesn't care.