Exhaustion had finally set in, forcing the engineer to concede defeat and crawl upstairs to his bed to sleep. It took him under a minute to fall asleep and within moments he was snoring softly. Not long into the night, the dreams started.
A thin sheen of sweat coated the sleeping man’s body, his eyes moving rapidly beneath his eyelids. Muscles tensed and twitched, soft keening noises forming in the back of his throat as nightmare images flashed in his mind. His chest hitched and his breath caught painfully until he woke with a pained gasp.
Trying to force himself to breathe, Tony felt his entire body shaking as he tried to take large, gulping breaths. The monitor around his wrist flashed red, warning him of a dangerously elevated heart rate. Trying to climb out of bed to go find someone to help talk him down, Tony stumbled hard and fell. Landing hard on his hands and knees, his teeth cut into his lower lip hard enough to draw blood.
“J-J-Jarvis?! Get…. help…”
She hadn’t been asleep. But then, Guild Wars 2 tended to absorb her attention to the exclusion of everything else, and the chatter on Vent had been lively.
So the hideous jolt of someone having a massive panic attack jerked her out of her contented reverie with a quickness. “What the blue and purple fuck! Guys, I gotta go. Something just went off.” She left the headset on while she tracked the direction of emotion. “Maybe in someone’s head,” she shot back. “No, it’s emotion. I’ll be fine.”
Dropping the headset to the floor, she skipped shoes and strode out the door, headed for Stark Tower. She hit the landing pad lightly, and went straight for the glass doors, rapping sharply. Stark fucking Tower.
“Please let me in, I’m here to help,” she called.