Summary: Obligatory Sick Fic! An old frenemy abducts and drugs Tony against his will for a payday from gossip magazines. But, she gives him too much too fast, and Tony is unlikely to survive the overdose. Bruce, Steve, and the others scramble to save his life! Inspired by the 'Starsky and Hutch' episode, 'The Fix.' Whump, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Bromance.

Junkie
PenPatronus
Chapter 1

Pepper never asked Happy to go grocery shopping with her. Actually, she never even told him when she was going. Yet, somehow, he was always there—either driving her car or waiting in the passenger seat, all business with his suit unwrinkled and his shades on. In the store he "kept his distance" (by his definition, at least). He "let her" push the shopping cart and "let her" go through the check-out lane alone. But this time he went up front with her. He went with her because his body was broad enough to keep her from seeing all the gossip magazines on the racks with her face on them. But Happy didn't put up a big fight—not in public—when she insisted that he step aside so she could look.

"Please don't," he begged.

She flipped her own sunglasses up on top of her ginger head. "I'll just Google them in five minutes," she said. "Happy… I can handle it."

He looked down at their shoes: his clean, black loafers and her pristine nude-colored pumps. "I'm sorry you have to."

Pepper knew what to expect. She wasn't surprised. She did wonder how on earth some reporter got a picture of her makeup-less and in her pajamas inside Avengers Tower (a disturbing security breach), and which one of her high school classmates betrayed her with that candid pic of her scratching her pimpled nose at a chess tournament. (Actually, that picture didn't bother her. She went all-state that year.) But, she wasn't the main event of the story. She was in that little square of shame on the bottom left of the cover—an afterthought—the betrayed woman to be pitied by all the peasants.

Some of the headlines read:

Stark Caught in Compromising Position(s)

Sex Scandal Rocks Stark Legacy

Avenger Deserves Vengeance for Cheating on Girlfriend

'Reformed' Sex Addict Stark Caught

Stark Paid Former Lover for Sex (and Erotic Pics!)

Former Playboy Plays Again

And the pictures on the magazine covers?

A bloodshot Tony staring at a needle sticking out of the inside of his elbow.

A wildly grinning Tony sliding hundred-dollar bills into a woman's thong.

A disoriented but lustful Tony looking up at a naked woman in his lap.

A shirtless Tony with half of his face blurred away looking back over his shoulder, surprised, while a woman beneath him dug her fingernails into his shoulders.

A clearly high, clearly naked Tony behind a woman bent over a pool table…

And that woman? "Vanity Fair" journalist Christine Everhart. The woman Pepper passive-aggressively referred to as "trash" when they first met all those years ago after yet another one of Tony's one-night stands…

A heavy hand rested on her shoulder. "It's over, now."

Pepper shook her head as if shaking off a nightmare… Then, while Happy watched sadly, she tenderly touched a flawlessly painted fingernail against the image of Tony's cheek and whispered to him, "I forgive you."

Both Happy and Pepper preferred the nearby newspaper headlines to the gossip trash:

Tony Stark Abducted, Exploited by Ex-Lover

Medical Forensics Confer with Court on Stark Snatching

Witnesses Agree That Stark was Drugged Against His Will

What Better Character Witness Than Steve Rogers?

Stark Victim of New, Still Unnamed Combination of Street Drugs

Tony Stark Cleared in Sex / Drug Scandal

Avengers' Sleuthing Confirms Stark's Side of the Story

Stark's Scorned Ex Prosecuted for Kidnapping

Everhart Caught in Lies, Stark Absolved

Tony Stark Survives Overdose

Avengers Fight Aliens, Fight for Each Other

Everhart and Accomplices Sentenced

ONE MONTH AGO

48 hours passed before the world realized that Tony Stark was missing.

It wasn't any one person's fault. When Tony wasn't with Pepper, he was boxing with Happy or getting a beer with Rhodey. When he wasn't with them, he was with all or one of the Avengers: science-ing in the lab with Bruce, watching movies with Thor, practicing knife-throwing with Natasha, having long conversations with Steve over a game of chess, or eating cheeseburgers with Barton while they played pool (he made Clint hold the cue with only his teeth). And if he wasn't with any of them then he was somewhere public: giving the commencement speech at a university, attending a high-profile wedding, meeting with the Board of Directors, or cutting the ribbon to celebrate the opening of yet another branch of Stark Industries.

It was at such an event that the first alarm was raised. A giant pair of scissors, 200 workers, and nearly as many reporters waited outside a plant in Cleveland due to produce "bricks and beams for baby hospitals" (because screw you, Obadiah Stane, that's why!). Tony never showed. The plant manager made phone calls right up the chain of command until he reached Ms. Potts herself. Pepper dropped everything she was doing and contacted Bruce. He dropped everything he was doing (literally, the tablet in his hand) and, together, they contacted anyone and anything that might have eyes on Tony. Bruce even constructed a fly-by-night algorithm that simultaneously hacked every surveillance system from the ATM camera from the outside of Tony's favorite shawarma place to a gaggle of satellites measuring icebergs at the south pole. Banner pushed Tony's specs out into the world and then sat back and waited for the world to track him down.

The 13-year-old boy who found Tony Stark was searching every alley in Manhattan for his missing dog. Instead of a poodle, he found a crazed, barefoot, sweat soaked man in a three-piece-suit hiding behind a dumpster who wouldn't stop muttering about more alien leviathans attacking Earth. The boy told the police. The police summoned an ambulance. And, before it reached the nearest hospital, the ambulance was intercepted by the Quinjet. While Natasha calmly informed the anxious paramedics that it was for Tony's own good that they were abducting him ("He could be infected with an alien virus, you know"), Steve and Bruce hurried to the back.

Tony squawked in pain when sunlight preceded his friends through the double doors. He was strapped down on a stretcher—two leather strips across his torso and one for each wrist and ankle. With Captain America-esque strength, he'd managed to yank his right arm and left leg free. Bloodshot eyes rolled in their sockets and blood leaked from both nostrils. Bruises on his neck and forehead matched the color of the five-o'clock shadow on his cheeks. The bottom left quadrant of his lower lip had taken a punch. Tony wore a layer of mud on his feet, a red tie stained with redder blood, and his watch face was scratched nearly opaque.

"Oh, my god." Bruce pocketed his glasses in his plum-colored button-down shirt, knelt on one knee beside the stretcher, and cupped Stark's sweaty face between both of his hands. "Tony, what the hell happened to you?"

Squirming limbs stilled at the sound of Bruce's voice. "Wanna go home," Stark rasped. He sounded like he was speaking with a throat full of porcupine quills. "No! I want—I want it. Bruce—Bruce, give it to me. I need it."

"Need what?" Banner looked up at Steve for recognition. He found none. Bruce leaned in closer and examined Tony's face. "Steve, look how dilated his pupils are."

Steve must have seen something else, because he suddenly reached for Tony's sleeve and yanked it up to his elbow. Above scratches caused by Stark's own hands (judging by the red splatters under his fingernails) were a dozen deep puncture wounds. Both men gasped. "Look at how bruised his wrists are," Steve said softly. "Look at the contusions."

Bruce did. "He was handcuffed. Cuffed and tied up."

"He didn't do this to himself." Steve placed his palm against Tony's scruffy cheek and then patted the pad of his thumb against his friend's temple. "He didn't… Right, Doc?"

Tony suddenly latched onto Steve's long-sleeved navy t-shirt with both hands. "C-Cap. Can't feel my fingers. Can you feel my fingers? I can't feel my fingers…"

Bruce started unbuckling the leather straps. "We need to get him back to the Tower so I can figure out what they injected him with."

"Yes!" Tony shouted. "Figure it out—figure it out so… So you can get me more. More, hear me? Bruce, I need more!"

Banner's light-olive skin paled. "Tony, listen to me. Listen, will you? I'm going to need you to tell me everything you remember. Names, colors, dosages—everything."

Tony tried a bargain. "I tell you everything, you get me more stuff, right? Hack the police records, find out where it's being sold—there's cash, 5K, 5K in my office safe, Bruce. And, and the code is—"

Bruce cut him off. "Tony—Tony! We're going to get you well, all right? I swear we'll fix this. But the first thing we gotta do is keep you away from that stuff, understand? We can't put anymore in your system. Cold turkey, buddy. That's the only way forward."

Tony inched away from Bruce like he'd just slapped him. "Did you hear that?" he whispered conspiratorially to Steve. "He's going to kill me, Cap. He wants to kill me! You gotta believe me, Steve, the only way I'm not going to die is if I get more medicine. That's it—it's medicine! Medicine, Steve. Don't let him keep me from it or I'll die!"

Steve Rogers wasn't a stranger to Tony's behavior. Drugs ravaged more than one platoon during the Second World War where terrified soldiers did everything they could to keep their heads on straight. More than once Steve had to help a crashing friend. "Tony, Bruce is right. We're here to help. Best intentions. You gotta let us handle this, ok? Trust us."

Tony recoiled from them both. His breaths hitched, then sped into overdrive. He spoke faster and in a higher pitch with each sentence: "This is going to kill me—and you're going to let it? I thought we were teammates—I thought you were my friends! I've saved your lives how many times and now—now you're going to let me die in agony? I'm just asking for a little, just a little but you sons of bitches—" Tony started thrashing in his bonds. His chin connected with Steve's and Bruce took a punch to the throat. "Shit, hell, dammit—hey, hey, somebody help me!" Tony shouted through the open doors. "These guys are going to kill me. They're going to kill me! HELP!"

Bruce fumbled with the buckles. "Dammit, Tony, you're just being paranoid! It's us! It's Bruce and Steve—you know we're not going to let anything bad happen to you!"

Bloodshot eyes widened to their limits. "Anything bad?" Tony parroted. Something resembling clarity settled over him. "Anything bad? Do you know—do you have any idea what she made me do? What those drugs made me do? There were drugs and women and I couldn't think straight, couldn't… And I think… I think someone took pictures… Oh, God, Pepper…"

Steve helped with the straps. They freed Tony in seconds and helped him sit up.

He gagged once, twice, three times—and then vomited right on their shoes.

To Be Continued