Outside the pediatrics ward, a regular stop on Iron Man's rotation, the founding Avengers lingered with a loose tilt of his hip and head, with a very important looking person in a doctor's coat looking through the windows to the solitary nurse beyond fussily sorting through a cart in the hall. "None of the cases have a geographical link, as far as we can tell," the doctor woman was saying, "it's just their age. Once the twelfth came in with the same symptoms, we tried to find out where they were picking it up. They're all very frail to start with, none of them travel much, many have family caring for them that has a complete log of their activities. There was nothing. I was hoping you could help us exonerate any of the medical equipment; most of them are using Stark branded mobility assistance."
"You don't sound sure," Iron Man replied.
"This is coming from the patients. They think there's some kind of conspiracy. They want answers."
"And you?"
"I want answers, too, but..."
"Most of this hospital relies on Stark manufacturing."
"I don't know if I just don't want to believe it, because we'd have nothing, or I can't because why not anyone already here, surrounded by it?"
"It might still be environmental," Iron Man proposed, shifting slightly to stand up taller, turning to watch the nurse as well for a moment while she pushed the cart away around the corner. "It might just be the Sphere. Imperfect gravity simulation or radiation containment. If anything isn't balanced correctly, it's going to be hard on all of our bodies. They're just showing it." He was already setting up diagnostic systems to begin a global performance check, down to the smallest failures, not sure if there could be one small enough that he couldn't detect. That was an unfamiliar feeling. Tony could count on one hand the number of times his math had been wrong. Maybe he should be taking this to Pepper.