"Seriously. Do I need to start selling backstage passes?" Tony jokes, going along with Pepper's attempt to lighten the mood to disguise his discomfort. And he's not the only one feeling uncomfortable, it looks like: there's something weird going on between Valdis and Jacob. What's that about?
He doesn't have much time to wonder: Tony picks up on the weird noises coming from the machine right about when Cain does, and he turns to look at it, frowning. "No, it's never—" The machine lets out a deafening rattle and bang, and Cain yells, Get down!
Now, Tony has had proper lab safety drilled into him since he could crawl. He knows that when a big piece of machinery starts going haywire, you get away from it. There are very few dramatic mechanical malfunctions that can be repaired by hand in the span of a few seconds, and attempting it is just a recipe for disaster (the gruesome, missing-limbs-and-third-degree-burns kind of disaster). Lab accidents can get ugly, and there's no piece of lab equipment that's worth life and limb(s). But Tony has gotten used to being much sturdier than usual, both in and out of the armor - and most importantly, there are other people in the lab to worry about. So his first impulse isn't to take cover, but to worry about what the hell is going wrong over there and how to stop it before anyone gets hurt.
Fortunately for him - and unfortunately for Valdis - she knocks him to the floor before he can make a dive for the machine.
And then all hell breaks loose.
Even though he can't see it, with his face mashed into the floor and Valdis shielding him, Tony can feel the explosion. It's a feeling he knows all too well. The wall of unbearable heat, the flying debris, the noise— but most of all, the shockwave. The feeling of being punched in the gut by a battering ram, and being squeezed from all sides at once, and your bones shuddering inside you. He's been blown up plenty of times, but being caught in an explosion unarmored, unprepared— Tony flinches and has to convince himself, for a moment, that he isn't thirty thousand feet up and falling.
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He doesn't have much time to wonder: Tony picks up on the weird noises coming from the machine right about when Cain does, and he turns to look at it, frowning. "No, it's never—" The machine lets out a deafening rattle and bang, and Cain yells, Get down!
Now, Tony has had proper lab safety drilled into him since he could crawl. He knows that when a big piece of machinery starts going haywire, you get away from it. There are very few dramatic mechanical malfunctions that can be repaired by hand in the span of a few seconds, and attempting it is just a recipe for disaster (the gruesome, missing-limbs-and-third-degree-burns kind of disaster). Lab accidents can get ugly, and there's no piece of lab equipment that's worth life and limb(s). But Tony has gotten used to being much sturdier than usual, both in and out of the armor - and most importantly, there are other people in the lab to worry about. So his first impulse isn't to take cover, but to worry about what the hell is going wrong over there and how to stop it before anyone gets hurt.
Fortunately for him - and unfortunately for Valdis - she knocks him to the floor before he can make a dive for the machine.
And then all hell breaks loose.
Even though he can't see it, with his face mashed into the floor and Valdis shielding him, Tony can feel the explosion. It's a feeling he knows all too well. The wall of unbearable heat, the flying debris, the noise— but most of all, the shockwave. The feeling of being punched in the gut by a battering ram, and being squeezed from all sides at once, and your bones shuddering inside you. He's been blown up plenty of times, but being caught in an explosion unarmored, unprepared— Tony flinches and has to convince himself, for a moment, that he isn't thirty thousand feet up and falling.