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Chapter Text

Whumptober
No. 1
Theme: Shaky Hands
Fandom: Avengers
Whumpee(s): Tony Stark, Clint Barton
Caregiver(s): Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, Clint Barton

C8H10N4O2
PenPatronus

JARVIS woke the Avengers in the middle of the night and summoned them to Tony Stark’s beta lab on the sixth floor of Avengers Tower. Panicking, a pajama-clad Steve Rogers snatched his shield and sprinted down the nearest staircase. Banner was ahead of him—half Hulked-out so that he could swing down the banisters like a monkey down a tree. Clint, wearing sweatpants and a sleeveless black t-shirt, descended slowly in the elevator, weaponless and yawning.

“We thought there was an emergency!” Clint heard Banner bellow when he stepped out of the elevator. Bruce and Steve stood on either side of a chuckling Tony Stark. “It’s 4am!”

“Sorry, but I couldn’t wait.” Stark clapped his hands together and grinned. He was wearing the same clothes he had on 48 hours before when Clint had last seen him. “They’re done. You gotta see them.”

Steve set his shield against a lab table. “See what?” he sighed.

Tony pointed at something above Clint’s head. Clint looked up and saw that he was standing beneath a grated platform. He turned and walked backwards, not taking his eyes off a red curtain covering something or some things. When he joined the group, Stark pushed a button, and declared, “Voila!” as the curtain fell.

Three vibranium Iron Man suits stood side by side. Not Iron Man, Clint quickly realized. One suit was blue and silver, the second green and purple, and the third purple and black. Each turned slowly, giving the audience a 360-degree view of the sleek designs and gadgets. Stark stampeded up the platform stairs and pointed at the suits like a magician at the rabbit he’d just pulled out of his hat. “Well? What do you think?”

Clint’s jaw dropped. “That is the most badass thing I’ve ever seen.” He nodded at the purple and black one. “That thing’s for me?”

Tony gestured at a bow and vibranium arrows attached to the suit’s back. “You’ll keep your style,” Stark assured him, “but you’ll be better protected.” A waist-high railing stood between Tony and the edge of the platform. He leaned forward against it and folded his hands together. Stark squeezed his hands tight, and with his hawk’s eyes, Clint saw that they were shaking. “Cap, what do you think?”

Steve was trying to suppress a childlike grin. “Can I still use my shield?”

“I promise you full maneuverability. And, Bruce, when you need to Hulk out you’ll just have to hit a button and the suit will open for you.” Tony cleared his throat, then, and rubbed his stomach. Clint frowned. The half-moons beneath Stark’s eyes were almost black. His hands were shaking consistently now. Barton wondered if it was from excitement or caffeine. How many stimulants had Tony taken to stay awake for two days straight? It had to be dozens of cups of coffee, if not dozens of shots in the arm of stimulants.

“You’ll be completely protected in the field,” said Tony with a grin. “Nothing bad will happen to you ever again.”

Bruce, Clint, and Steve shared pointed looks. “Tony…” Bruce approached the platform and folded his arms against his chest. “I know you think you can protect us from everything but…”

“That’s right,” Tony all but yelled. “I can.” He lowered himself and sat on the edge of the platform. All three of his friends noticed when he put a palm against his chest. Stark pointed down at Clint and declared, “If Clint was in a suit, that never would’ve happened!”

Clint sighed and looked down at his left leg and the cast and boot around it. The room went silent, almost in mourning. A victorious battle with arms dealers a week before had come with a price. Clint had been pushed off a cliff and shattered half of the bones in his leg when he landed. “Tony, shit happens, man.”

“Did,” Stark insisted. Then he said, barely audible, mostly to himself, “I won’t let any of you get hurt again. I swear. I… I…” Tony put both shaking hands over his heart. “I… I won’t but… Guys, I—I think—”

Cap bolted forward caught Tony who fell forward and dropped from the platform. “Shit,” Steve hissed. The two other Avengers went into action and immediately cleared off a lab table so Steve could lay Tony down across it. The inventor’s limbs spasmed for a solid ten seconds, then went limp. “Bruce.”

Banner pushed his fingers against the pulse point of Tony’s neck. “Arrhythmic.” He placed the back of his hand against his friend’s forehead. “No fever but, Tony, does your abdomen hurt?”

Stark’s arms were pressed around his stomach. “A little,” he admitted, his words slurred.

“Have you vomited?” Clint asked.

“A little.”

“What,” Steve demanded. He looked back and forth from Bruce to Clint without ever taking his hand off Tony’s trembling arm. “What are you thinking?”

“I think he just had a minor seizure,” Bruce diagnosed.

“And I think it’s because he’s ingested too much caffeine,” said Clint.

Bruce nodded in agreement. “You have, haven’t you?” He pushed his palm into Stark’s sweaty hair and left it there. “Tony? How much caffeine?”

Stark licked his lips. “A little,” he repeated.

Steve shook his head. “Caffeine can cause seizures?”

“We need to get him to a hospital,” Bruce decided.

Clint plucked Stark’s cellphone out of the inventor’s pocket. “Calling 911.”

Tony mumbled something that the other three Avengers didn’t hear. Steve lowered his ear to Tony’s lips and encouraged him to repeat himself. “I’d do it again,” Stark whispered. He nodded his head up at the three suits watching the scene with expressionless metal faces. “To protect you…”

The End

Chapter Text

Whumptober
No. 2
Theme: Explosion
Fandom: Avengers
Whumpee(s): Clint Barton
Caregiver(s): Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner

Inferno
PenPatronus

Clint Barton willingly accepted three punches to the face. That, he knew, was the secret to hand-to-hand fighting. You have to know when to punch, when to block a punch, and when to take one.

Hawkeye lowered himself after each punch until he was crouched like a catcher holding up his glove for a pitch. From the ground he had full access to the arm’s dealer’s unprotected stomach, and that’s where Barton thrust up his knife. His enemy howled and stumbled backwards. Clint leapt up and kicked and, a moment later, the arms dealer lay unconscious on his back beside a burning tree.

Nearly every tree surrounding the clearing Barton stood in was on fire. The flames roared like wind as they inched closer. Smoke hovered. Apathetic stars ignored him in the night sky. Clint looked around for his bow, but it was missing, likely on fire amongst dry debris on the ground. The arms dealers had decided to destroy their headquarters rather than let it be captured by the Avengers. The fire had spread.

A tickle preceded a cough in Clint’s throat. He cleared it with a loud grunt. Sparks of flame circled around him like curious fairies. “Anyone have eyes on Clint?” he heard Natasha shout into his earpiece. Clint started to respond but he inhaled more smoke than oxygen when he opened his mouth, and the deep coughs began. He tried to speak. He tried his hardest. The fire wouldn’t let him.

He didn’t see the arms dealer get up through the fog. A double-legged kick to Clint’s chest sent the archer reeling backwards. He collided with a flaming tree, quiver first. Barton felt his arrows shake.

Time slowed down. Life unfurled in slow motion. The fire ate through Clint’s quiver faster than he thought possible and, in that moment, he regretted turning down the vibranium quiver Tony had offered him. Too heavy, he said. Too awkward. Too… It just wasn’t what he was used to. He was used to leather and titanium—the weight of it, the way it fit against his back, the smell of the straps. None of that mattered, now. None of that mattered because Hawkeye’s quiver wasn’t sealed up tight with only the iron fletching sticking out. Instead, the arrows were exposed. Exposed, in this case, to fire. And more than half of those arrows housed unique tech, including explosives.

And everyone knows what gunpowder does when exposed to fire.

Clint undid straps and shrugged out of the quiver lightning fast. With all his might, he launched the entire thing towards his enemy and the arms dealer instinctively caught it. When the arrows exploded in his face they sent a wave of sharp vibrations and screaming fire across the clearing. The blast hit Clint in the chest and sent him flailing backwards into the same tree. His spine was on fire. His chest was on fire. Clint collapsed, facedown.

Voices in his ear: “I can’t find him!” “He was on the west side of the compound last I saw him.” “Barton, come in! Come in!” “Clint!”

Clint decided that his burnt frontside hurt too much, so he rolled onto his back. That side hurt even more, but now he was too weak to do anything about it. He lay there looking up at the midnight stars, inhaling ashes, watching the sparks swirl around him like he was in a snow globe of fire.

Lousy way to die, he decided. So I won’t.

Clint swallowed a throat-full of ashes when he opened his mouth wide and managed with fire in his lungs to sputter, “Here.”

“Clint!” Nat. “Where are you? Are you ok?”

“Fire.”

“You’re in the fire?”

Clint said “goodbye” to the stars and closed his eyes. “Sorry.”

A hurricane of wind woke him up. So strong was the wind that it bent the trees and rolled Clint head over heals with the grace of a tumbleweed. Bit by bit, inch by inch, spark by spark, the fires surrounding the clearing disappeared, leaving behind ashes like black flower petals. Clint saw Thor fly overhead with his hammer spinning, sending wind across the entire forest. Tornadoes sprouted from his body. Iron Man flew overhead 30 seconds later in the opposite direction. Another 30 seconds passed and the Hulk, who was bulldozing his way through the forest, thundered right past him.

“Dumbasses,” Clint croaked, “I’m right here.”

It was Steve who found him. Cap was sprinting through the woods calling Clint’s name when he discovered the clearing. Wincing with empathy, and wordless, Steve lifted Clint up into his arms in a princess carry and made his way to the ship. Natasha was waiting inside with a gurney already set up. She said something to him, but Clint couldn’t hear. He couldn’t hear anything. Couldn’t feel anything. And then, suddenly, he couldn’t see anything.

----------

“Flare arrow,” a voice said in the distance. “Simple enough. Shoot it at the sky, purple smoke pops out, and we’ll know where he is.”

“Yeah, but a fireworks display will also tell the enemy where he is,” Natasha said in response to Tony’s suggestion.

“Iron Man-seeking arrow. He shoots it in any direction and the arrow comes straight to me. Distress call without the yelling. I’ll just have to follow the arrow back the way it came.”

Steve spoke next on the outskirts of Clint’s hearing. “Keep your voices down, you two. Let the man sleep.”

“Too late,” Clint sighed. He opened his eyes and found himself in the Tower’s infirmary. Thor stood at the door, Nat sat on the side of his bed, Steve and Tony sat in chairs at the end of the bed, and Bruce was in the middle of changing a bag of saline. He dropped the bag when Clint spoke, and liquid sprayed everywhere.

Tony clapped his hands together once. “There he is.”

Nat swooped in and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re ok,” she assured him. “Just a smoke inhalation and a few third-degree burns.”

Clint stared up at her. “Nat…”

Tears hovered in her eyes. “Yeah?”

“I, uh…”

“Clint? What is it?”

“I… I…”

Everyone leaned in close.

Clint spoke louder, and everyone chuckled when he said, “How about a confetti arrow?”

The End

Chapter Text

Whumptober
No. 3
Theme: Delirium
Fandom: Avengers
Whumpee(s): Steve Rogers
Caregiver(s): Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Clint Barton

Mistaken
PenPatronus

A frustrated Tony Stark, after having used everything in his Iron Man arsenal short of a missile, finally loosened the vibranium door and tossed it down the hallway like a frisbee. “Oh, God,” he whispered when he entered the half-lit HYDRA lab.

Lying down in a cryostasis tube, unmoving and blue-skinned, was an unconscious Captain America. Tony’s mask retracted back into the bulk of the suit and he examined the dozens of buttons on the machine. “Hang on,” he told his unconscious friend. “Coming for you.” Stark’s million-miles-a-minute mind and flying fingers hacked in and the cradle lid popped open. Freezing air blasted him in the face and Tony had to step back.

“JARVIS, on the floor,” Tony ordered. The suit immediately released him and laid itself on the floor, spread open. Ignoring the pain of the cold, Tony slid one arm under Cap’s knees and the other under his spine. He bent his knees and, growling, lifted Steve up out of the chamber and, as gently as possible, lowered him into the suit. “JARVIS, warm him up,” said Tony, “slowly.” Fans whirled and warm air exited tiny vents.

A breathless Clint Barton appeared at the door. “Tony?” Barton dropped his bow and slid on his knees to Cap’s side. “It you say ‘Capsicle’ at any point, Stark, your face will meet my fist.” Tony, who was about to make that very same joke, pouted wordlessly. Barton picked up Steve’s right hand and started massaging his frozen fingers.

An equally breathless Bruce Banner appeared at the door. “Tony? Clint? Geeze, is this where he’s been this whole time?”

“Not the whole time,” Stark diagnosed. “That machine was only at 20%. The cryo cycle only started about an hour ago.”

“Which means there could still be agents around here.” Bruce, who had yet to Hulk-out, reached for a door to close and, finding none there, shrugged and sat Indian-style at Steve’s head. The second that Bruce placed a hand across Cap’s nostrils to make sure he was breathing, the super soldier woke up with a start.

“Sorry!” Steve gasped. Warm tears suddenly cascaded down his cheeks, leaving slight steam behind. “Sorry, please don’t.”

Tony, Clint, and Bruce looked at each other, each wanting the other to speak. That’s why all three of them said “Steve?” at the same time, which must have sounded like a yell to Cap’s ears. He flinched, and squirmed, and the three Avengers had to add their weight to him to keep him from rolling right out of the warm Iron Man suit.

“Please don’t tell her…” Steve’s eyes locked on Tony’s and he begged, “Don’t tell her I’m sick, Buck.”

Tony looked at Bruce for help. “He’s delirious. Go with it,” Banner recommended. “Anything to keep him calm. He’s not out of the woods.”

Tony cleared his throat. “Don’t tell who, Cap—I mean, Steve?”

“Mother. Don’t tell Mother, Bucky. She’ll buy medicine and we can’t afford it.”

“Uh,” Stark stammered. “I—I promise. I promise I won’t tell her, all right?”

“Swear it.”

“I swear.” Tony looked at Bruce for more help, but it was Clint who encouraged him to keep Steve talking. “It’ll keep him conscious,” he whispered. And Tony did while they all sat there, while Steve was taken to the jet, while they traveled back to the Tower, until Steve recovered enough to ask Tony what the hell he was doing…

The End

Chapter Text

Whumptober
No. 4
Theme: Human Shield
Fandom: Avengers
Whumpee(s): Tony Stark
Caregiver(s): Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner

More
PenPatronus

The five hundred guests who attended the Stark Relief Foundation fundraiser endured facial recognition scans, CT scans, and retinal scans before they got within a hundred yards of Tony Stark and the Avengers. It should’ve been safe. It should’ve been secure. Nobody should’ve been hurt.

The six Avengers sat with their meals on a raised stage on either side of the podium. The assassin at table four wore silver chains up and down her fashionable red dress, four bracelets, two anklets, a necklace, a thick belt, a belly ring, rings and toe rings, numerous barrettes in her black hair, and ten rings and studs in her ears. One of those studs turned out to be a heavy lead bullet that was fired by a tiny gun made when all the jewelry fit together. The bullet was aimed not at Tony Stark, who stood on the raised podium telling jokes, but at Steve Rogers who sat on Stark’s right, quietly drinking a glass of wine as he listened to Tony’s speech.

Captain America was a super soldier, yes, but no one could survive a bullet between the eyes.

That was, when Tony clocked the gunwoman and measured the bullet’s trajectory, why he dove from the podium and intercepted the projectile with his body. It was a gamble—if he didn’t time it right he’d take the bullet through his eye socket, but in that moment Tony thought about his vision—the one where a dead Steve Rogers asked him why he didn’t do more. Tony was challenging that question.

He did more.

The bullet slammed into Tony’s chest and imbedded in a rib. The force of it sent Stark falling backwards against Cap, who managed to stand and maneuver his arms fast enough to catch the inventor before he collapsed to the floor. Two more gunshots echoed throughout the large room. Clint and Nat had taken care of the assassin.

Bruce Banner shoved everything off the table and gestured for Steve to lay Tony on it. Rogers, arms shaking, laid Tony down and pressed a pristine white tablecloth against the gushing wound. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he whispered to Tony through a tight throat.

“What was I supposed to do?” Tony grunted, equally soft. “Dammit, this suit is a rental…” Sweat shone on his pale skin.

Bruce appeared on the other side of the table with another tablecloth. He shrugged off his suit jacket and added it and the cloth to Steve’s pile, pushing down on top of the already red fabric. Steve adjusted his grip and, together, the two pairs of hands held back the blood fleeing Tony’s body.

“Dammit, Tony,” Bruce said with a clogged throat. “Say you’re sorry. Say you’re sorry right now.”

“What the hell for?” mumbled Stark.

“For getting yourself killed.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Excuse me, but isn’t this the part where you tell me I’m going to be all right? Where’s the bedside manner? Where are the lies about how I’m going to get through this?”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Steve repeated. One tear built up in one corner of his eye and hovered there.

“I hate you so much,” Bruce said between clenched teeth.

“Love you, too.” Tony suddenly jerked under them. He grabbed both of his friends’ arms, then went completely limp, his eyes rolling back into his skull. When the paramedics arrived, they had to drag Bruce and Steve away from Tony’s body.

The End

Chapter Text

Whumptober
No. 5
Theme: Gunpoint
Fandom: Avengers
Whumpee(s): Tony Stark
Caregiver(s): Natasha Romanoff

Untitled Story Where Natasha Accidentally Hurts Tony
PenPatronus

“Now inch your way backwards,” Natasha instructed while holding a fake gun three feet away from Tony’s back.

“I’m sorry, you want me to go towards the weapon that’ll kill me?”

It was a Sunday afternoon at Avengers Tower, and Nat and Tony were working out in the gym. He wanted to box, she wanted to do Tai Chi, so they compromised by coming up with a third option which had, more often than not, included Nat kicking his ass. She was trying—emphasis trying—to teach him self-defense for the times when he wasn’t in the Iron Man armor. For a genius, he was having a hard time understanding some of the most basic concepts. Natasha had threatened him more than once.

“Don’t look in the mirrors. You won’t have mirrors when you’re robbed in a back alley for Pepper’s jewelry.”

Stark lowered his palms-out, “I surrender” hands. “You know I have a bodyguard when we go out, don’t you?”

Nat rolled her eyes. “Stark, Happy is a good guy but do you really think he could defend you from someone like me?”

“I thought we were pretending that it was just some random meth head in a back alley?”

“Well, now we’re pretending that it’s a sexy assassin trying to take you hostage. Now, back up towards the gun.”

“Why—”

“Stark, just do it!”

“Fine! Sheesh.”

“And stop looking in the mirrors. There won’t be mirrors.”

“There could be mirrors.”

“There won’t be mirrors!”

Obediently, Tony took a step backwards, closer to the gun. “Like this?”

“Well, that was as subtle as a cannonball but at least you’re getting the picture.” Nat switched the gun to her opposite hand and shoved it hard against Tony’s spine. “No, don’t flinch away.”

A frustrated Tony made two fists. “How can I not flinch when there’s a gun pointed at me?”

“Do you want to learn this or not?”

“Starting to think Barton would be a better teacher,” Tony mumbled almost out of earshot.

“Clint would’ve shot you by now—for real.” Natasha, who caught Tony looking in the mirrors that surrounded the gym again, winked at him playfully before returning her attention to the lesson. “Now, what you’re going to do is suddenly whirl around in a wide arc and grab the gun.”

“Whirl around?”

“Quick as you can. That’s the last thing the bad guy will expect. You’ll do it wide enough that if he shoots, you’ll avoid it, and quick enough that you’ll be able to wrestle him for the gun.”

“This is gonna get me killed, if you ask me.”

“Nobody asked you, Stark, now twirl.”

“Twirl?”

“Twirl, whirl, turn, pivot—I don’t care what you want to call it, just do it!”

Tony spun. He shouted “Ha!” when he successfully grabbed the gun and stopped there, assuming that particular phase of the lesson was over. Instead, Natasha had decided to take that moment to show him what would happen if he didn’t actually wrestle the gun out of her hands. Mouse-quick, she slammed her boot into the side of Stark’s knee, bringing him to the floor, then pulled him by the shirt and twisted him around, launching him behind her. Unfortunately, for them both, she’d forgotten how close she was to the mirrors. The entire 4’ by 7’ pane shattered from the force of Tony’s forehead.

“Oh, God,” Natasha gasped. She turned to see Tony roll onto his back and start clawing wildly at his face. “Stark, stop! Tony, freeze!”

“Is there glass in my eye? Is there glass in my eye?”

“No, God, but hold still!” Nat bolted to the first aid kit hanging on the wall beside the gym entrance. She’d already taken tweezers and gauze out by the time she raced back to him. Tony was on his back. He’d shoved his hands under his ass to keep himself from accidentally imbedding the glass further into his face while trying to pull it out. “Hold still,” Nat instructed.

“Ow!” Tony bellowed when she plucked out the largest shard, which was less than an inch from his right eye. “Dammit, Romanoff, why’d you do that?”

“You know I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she said. Tony could tell that was as close to an apology as he was going to get. “Now turn your face towards me. Let me see the other side of—Oh, God.”

Tony’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Um…”

Streaks of blood rolled down Tony’s skin. “Romanoff!” He started to sit up to look at himself in the next mirror over.

“Tony, don’t move! There’s a piece deep in your temple.” She added her weight to his chest. “It might be deep—maybe to your skull. JARVIS?”

“There’s an ambulance on its way, Miss Romanoff,” the AI crisply replied.

“I’m sorry,” Nat suddenly whispered. Surprised by that, Tony froze and looked up at her. Tears were in her eyes, he realized, surprised again. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve been more careful. Especially with you.”

Tony sighed. “Because without my armor I’m the weakest link in the team?”

A single, half-hearted laugh left Nat’s chest. “Tony Stark, you are many things, but “weak” isn’t one of them.” He lowered his eyes. They both heard the approaching sirens in the distance. She dabbed at the blood. “Tony you’re… precious. To all of us. More than you know.”

He gave her a soft, grateful smile. “You’re precious to me, too, Natasha,” he said, using her first name for the first time. “More than you know.”

The End

Chapter Text

Whumptober
No. 6
Theme: Dragged Away
Fandom: Avengers
Whumpee(s): Tony Stark
Caregiver(s): Steve, Natasha

Untitled Story Where Natasha Does CPR
PenPatronus

There were three reasons why the semiconscious Tony Stark knew that whoever dragged him a good hundred feet was not one of his fellow Avengers:

1. If Iron Man got taken out by an EMP cannon, as he had during this particular scuffle with arms dealers, the team knew to put their arms under Tony’s armpits and pull him backwards instead of tugging on a limb. Tony’s left arm popped right out of his shoulder with the first yank.

2. He heard grunts and growls coming from whoever had him. They were struggling with the dead armor, so it wasn’t Steve, and it wasn’t Thor. Banner and Barton could probably drag him at their best, but their voices weren’t this deep.

3. Whoever it was didn’t go straight for the emergency release under Tony’s left thigh. The Avengers all knew to push that button and tug that lever. The suit would open automatically.

Tony needed the suit to open automatically in that moment. He’d fallen at least six stories and the landing dented his chest plate. The indent was right below his left ribs and pushing up against his lungs. He was struggling to breathe and wouldn’t last much longer. Without the HUD he saw nothing—nothing but the stars sprinkling his vision. Unfriendly boots kicked his side. Unfriendly hands pulled on his helmet. Then, suddenly, during the last of his consciousness, Tony heard a shout, a smack, and the hands let go of his helmet.

_____

Steve rolled Tony over on his side and hit the release button on the Iron Man armor. Springs sprung, switches flipped, and the suit opened up to reveal a bleeding, bruised, unbreathing Tony Stark. Steve shoved his leather gloves aside and cupped Tony’s blue face with shaking bare fingers. “What do I do?” he demanded of his half-dead friend. “Tony, what the hell do I do?”

A body barreled into him. Steve was surprised that the slim Natasha had summoned enough strength and momentum to shove his weight aside. But, she did. And she ignored Steve’s questions. She tipped up Tony’s chin. She plugged his nose. And she plastered her lips around his and breathed into him. Stark’s chest rose three times, one for each breath, but didn’t continue rising on its own.

Bruce ran into the alley. Thor and Clint were right behind him. Bruce groaned at the sight of the blue Tony and Thor put his hand on his shoulder.

Natasha did a second round of CPR.

Nothing. She cursed.

“Nat,” Clint said, “keep trying!”

Round three.

“Nat!”

Round four.

“Nat!”

Tony’s eyes snapped open halfway through round five. The other five Avengers each took a step backwards in shock. Each thought he was gone for good. But, there he was. Breathing. Grinning. Then making a joke of the looks on their faces. Nat put her lips to his again, just a short peck of relief. The four men knelt around him and each put a hand on his shoulder, or his chest, or his ankle. The arms dealers could be dealt with later—at anytime—but for now it was time to retreat. Not because they had lost the day, but because they had won back a life.

The End

Chapter Text

Whumptober
No. 7
Theme: Isolation
Fandom: Avengers
Whumpee(s): Tony Stark, Bruce Banner
Caregiver(s): Tony Stark, Steve Rogers

Time Bomb
PenPatronus

DAY ONE

Bruce Banner awoke to a single moss-yellow, flickering lightbulb hanging from a cement ceiling. “What the hell?” he tried to say, but only vowels came out. The room, with its dirt floor and cement walls, smelled like his great-grandmother’s cellar and he instinctively looked around for a shelf of pickled eggs.

A voice in his left ear. “Hey, buddy.” A bedraggled Tony Stark leaned over him and held his wrist up to show that they were shackled and chained together. “How you feeling?”

“Drugged,” Bruce said, and he managed to get the word out successfully. He looked around and noted that they were in a closet-sized space barely wide enough for them to both lie down. Tony, wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a ripped sleeve, looked unharmed except for a fist-sized bruise above his left eye. Relief trickled through Bruce’s limbs. “You’re ok.”

Tony winced. “You’re not.”

Bruce, confused, whispered, “I’m not?”

“Haven’t tried to move, yet, have you…”

Bruce tried right then. Pain zigzagged from his right ankle to his jawline and deep into his brain. It woke up the Other Guy who roared so loudly in Bruce’s ears that they started to ring. “Easy!” Tony shouted. “Bruce, take it easy. Your leg’s broken and you’re losing blood! Try not to move!”

Banner, ignoring the order, turned on his side towards Tony and watched, mesmerized, as his own blood swirled down a drain in the center of the room. It was flowing from a stab wound in his gut. “Oh,” he said. Then he looked at the chains and the tiny space they were in. Neurons fired in his brain and he finally put the scene together. “Oh, no.”

“Oh yes, Dr. Banner,” said a voice from a camera and speaker beside the lightbulb. “If you Hulk-out now, you’ll probably kill your best friend.”

“I…” The drugs were still leaving Bruce’s system… “What? I…”

Tony gripped Bruce’s shoulder. “Let him out, buddy. You have to heal.”

Bruce looked up at the speaker. “What’s happening? Who are you?”

“Oh, just your run-of-the-mill HYDRA scientist, Doctor. One who has always been very, very curious about you.”

Banner, with Tony’s help, sat up and leaned back against a locked, reinforced steel doorway—the only way in or out of the tiny room. “A lot of men are curious about me,” he growled, rolling his eyes. “What do you want?”

“I want to watch the moment, Doctor, when you can no longer contain your green friend. I want to watch you kill Tony Stark.”

Bruce shook his head. “Not going to happen. Never going to happen.”

“You better hope it doesn’t, Doctor. This little cage is in a very special place—the last place you’d want the Hulk rampaging through.”

Impatient, Tony barked, “Spit it out, already!”

“You, gentlemen, are about a hundred feet below an orphanage. If Hulk tries to get out of here, he’ll either end up hurting or even murdering up to 800 innocent girls.”

Bruce and Tony looked at each other. “Stay awake!” Tony said at the same time Bruce spouted, “I gotta stay awake.”

“Can you hold him in?” Tony asked, looking back and forth from Banner’s eyes to his broken leg and stabbed stomach. “The pain you must be in…”

“I can. I will,” Bruce said between clenched teeth when a fresh wave of pain sent stars into his eyeline. “I have to, Tony, but you gotta help me.”

“Good luck, boys,” said the man in the speaker. They never heard his voice again.

DAY TWO

Tony clapped his hands loud beside Bruce’s ear and the doctor startled from a half-asleep state. His head had fallen to the left and landed on Tony’s shoulder. The pain made him so tired, and the tiredness loosened his hold on the Hulk… If he didn’t stay awake then… He could barely stand the thought.

“Keep going!” Tony said, louder than he needed to. “Ohio.” He shrugged Bruce off him and repeated, “Ohio!”

Bruce blinked. “Columbus.”

“New York.”

“Albany.”

“Penn…” A yawn interrupted Tony mid-word. “Pennsylvania.”

Bruce eyed the dark, swollen half-circles beneath his friend’s eyes. “Tony, you gotta sleep.”

“No,” Tony declared.

“Tony, I’m the one who has to stay awake, not you!”

“You’ll fall asleep without me.”

“I won’t. I swear I won’t.”

“Bruce, I’m not leaving you.”

“Tony—”

“I’m not leaving you!”

DAY THREE

The lightbulb went out. The darkness was suffocating. Bruce Banner lay on his back in the center of the room staring at blackness, holding onto Tony’s voice like a life raft, while Tony mopped the sweat accumulating on his brow. “Pi,” Tony said. “To 62 digits.”

“Tony…”

“62. To start with.”

“Tony, I can’t do this…”

“Fine. 55 digits.”

“That’s not what I—Tony, I have a fever. Neither of us has had food or water… I’m going to pass out. I’m going to kill you—God, I’m so sorry.”

“Stop it.”

“Tony…”

“You have to hang on. Just a little while longer, buddy, all right? Cap and the others are coming for us any second now—”

The second was then. A hammer suddenly pierced the iron door. It flew through the room, almost beheading Tony, then ricocheted back the way it came. A boot blasted the rest of the door open and a ray of light coming down a steep staircase revealed Thor and Steve. “Tony!” Steve rushed forward and helped a dizzy, swaying Stark to his feet. “You two ok?”

“Where the hell have you been?” Tony demanded. He tried to step away from Cap but regretted it instantly. Steve had to swoop back in and take Tony’s weight once more.

“We, uh…” Steve shared a slightly shamed look with Thor. “We didn’t even realize you two were missing until this morning.”

“What?” Banner croaked.

“We had assumed the pair of you had holed up in one of Stark’s labs and were doing your sciencey-things. You always tell us to leave you alone when you’re—how do you say it? In the zone?” Tony and Bruce both rolled their eyes at the god. Thor pointed down at Banner with his hammer. “What’s wrong with you? Where’s Hulk? Why didn’t you use him to get out of here?”

Bruce, who still laid spread-eagled on the floor, turned beet-red and stammered, “Don’t you think we thought of that? There are kids up there! I couldn’t risk it!”

“Kids?” Confused, Steve looked from Bruce to Tony and asked, “What kids?”

“The HYDRA creep who brought us here said we’re under an orphanage,” Tony explained. “What, did you just not notice when you were digging us up?”

Steve’s eyes went wide. Wordlessly, he led Tony around Bruce to the door. “What’s going on?” Tony asked when Steve all but carried him up the stairs as fast as he could.

Thor scratched the back of his head with Mjolnir. “Banner, there’s no orphanage. We’re in an abandoned army base… in the middle of the desert. There’s no one around for miles.”

Bruce ignored the pain and rolled onto his stomach. “WHAT?”

Thor started inching his way up the stairs. “You’re probably about to get very… upset.”

“Get Steve and Tony away from here,” Bruce instructed, climbing to his feet. “I am about to get. Very. Very. ANGRY!”

The End

Chapter Text

Whumptober
No. 8
Theme: Stab Wound
Fandom: Avengers
Whumpee(s): Clint Barton, Steve Rogers
Caregiver(s): Natasha Romanoff, Bruce Banner

Never Better
PenPatronus

The underwater minefield surrounded the gigantic sunken submarine in a one-mile radius. Iron Man couldn’t swim through them—the mines were so close together and the vibrations caused by the suit would set off the explosives. That’s why Natasha and Clint had to suit up in scuba gear and swim down themselves.

Black and red, the HYDRA logo stretched across the airlock. It took a quarter of an hour and every lock-picking device they had to get inside. Once the water drained, Nat and Clint took off their face masks and breathed in stale air with a metallic “aftertaste.” Both sensed that the air was shallow, sparse. Hoping the air inside the submarine’s hold would be better, Barton shouldered open the iron door and stepped inside.

The knife plunged into his stomach was serrated so when it was twisted and yanked back out, it did more damage than going in. Clint shouted and went down instantly, and Natasha leapt over his body and intercepted the bloody knife before it went into the back of his neck. Before the hidden HYDRA agent regrouped, the assassin yanked him by the throat, pivoted around him, then kicked him into the open airlock. She punched the button and the door closed, sealed, and locked. Without a second thought, Nat hit another button—the one that allowed the airlock to fill with water.

“Clint!” Nat rolled her best friend onto his back. His face was already ashen. “Guys, Clint’s down!” she yelled over the com. “And his suit’s been pierced—he won’t make it back up to the surface!”

“I’m suiting up now!” Steve said in their ears. “I’ll bring another scuba suit with me.”

“There isn’t another one! We only have three!”

Silence over the coms. “We’ll figure something out. I’ll be down soon.”

“Hurry!”

Steve swam down at super soldier speed. Romanoff let him in, then finished setting the charges that would burn up the inside of the sub, taking out the Chitauri tech hidden inside. At least the mission was a success…

Clint, who lay on the iron floor clutching his wrapped stab wound, started to get up when Cap began stripping out of his scuba suit. “No,” Clint growled at him. “Absolutely not.”

“Romanoff, help me get this on him.” Steve handed her a sleeve, but she didn’t take it. Not at first. Then she saw the blood seeping from Clint’s wound, and the determined look on Steve’s face, and started to help. They practically had to wrestle Clint to force him into the scuba suit. He protested the whole time—shouting threats and begging that they leave him there to die. But it was Captain America he was up against. Nat and Steve finished zipping Clint up, then attached the full face mask and stuck the breathing mechanism into his mouth like a pacifier into a sobbing toddler.

Nat put on her own mask, adjusted her swim fins, then turned to face Steve. “You’ll get the bends… Assuming you don’t drown.”

Steve nodded. “I’ll make it.”

“If you… Steve, I won’t be able to carry you. Iron Man can’t save you. Mjolnir will set the explosives off if Thor dives in after you… Hulk can’t even fit between the mines. Steve… Even if I get to the surface and we put one of the guys in my suit, it’ll be too late.”

“I’ll make it,” Steve repeated. He gave her his no-nonsense “you can shut up now” look, and she closed her mouth. Together, they helped Clint into the airlock. Romanoff took both men’s hands and squeezed like she’d never let them go. Steve took the deepest possible breath and Nat opened the door.

Clint passed out halfway up.

Natasha pulled on his arms and Steve pushed his legs. The only reason why they got him to the surface was because Tony, Thor, and Bruce leapt into the water, weaponless, and helped. The Avengers all got back into the Stark yacht including Steve, who would’ve drowned if Tony and Bruce hadn’t swam with him the moment that it was clear Thor could carry Clint. Steve collapsed onto the deck beside Clint, and coughed for a solid 20 minutes. By that point the others had Clint stabilized and were piloting the ship back to shore as quick as possible.

Steve was on his feet for a full two seconds before the pain kicked in. He fell to his knees, hugging his stomach and rubbing his elbows. “Legs are numb,” he announced.

Bruce reached him. “Drive faster, Tony!” he yelled over the wind and surf of the ocean. “We have to get Cap in a hyperbaric chamber! He’s got decompression sickness!”

Tony couldn’t drive faster so, instead, he donned the Iron Man armor and flew behind the boat, pushing it forward at three times the speed it could ever have gone before!

The End

Chapter Text

Whumptober
No. 9
Theme: Shackled
Fandom: Avengers
Whumpee(s): Tony Stark
Caregiver(s): Clint Barton, Steve Rogers

That Companionable Silence
PenPatronus

The cage was Vibranium, and so were the chains and shackles holding Clint and Steve against the rear wall. Still, the two Avengers fought their bonds. The pulled the cuffs, yanked the chains, tried to squeeze their wrists free. Neither could stand to be still, to sit, to do nothing. Every time they heard the screams they fought harder. They were even more afraid by the sudden absence of the screams than their echoes from down the hall. Silence in the HYDRA base made them extra antsy. And what if… What if their tortured friend was dead, and that was why he’d stopped screaming? What if…

Steve stepped forward to the limit of his chains and yelled, “Tony! Tony! ”

Two guards entered the room dragging a half-conscious Tony Stark between them. They punched in the numbers that opened the cage door, then tossed Tony inside where he rolled towards Clint and Steve, coming to a stop facedown. The shirtless Tony Stark was one big bloody bruise—a punching bag of a man. The HYDRA agents had nearly beaten the life out of him. Then they’d taken a knife and cut Tony’s body from top to bottom, leaving behind raw, seeping slashes in his skin. They weren’t deep, but they were many. And they were bleeding.

Steve and Clint rushed forward to him, but the chains only let them get within six feet. Clint stretched himself forward as far as he could and called his friend’s name. Tony stirred. He slowly turned his face towards them. Hollow eyes blinked slowly. A swollen tongue licked bloody lips. “Tony, take my hand,” Steve instructed. He lay flat on his stomach and stretched. “Tony, you gotta crawl. You gotta get to me. Come on.”

Tony frowned slightly. “Hurts…” he half-croaked, half-whispered.

Steve bowed his head—half-rage, half-sorrow. “Tony,” said Clint, “we need to stop the bleeding. You have to get to us.”

Tony let his eyes fall shut. “Can’t…”

“Yes, you can. Come on—you’re Tony Stark! Of course you can!”

“Mmm…” Tony groaned.

Steve and Clint exchanged desperate looks. The best and brightest idea came to Clint, first. “Tony—Tony! Tony, your belt. Tony—we need your belt. They cut up Steve’s leg. He’s losing a lot of blood and we have to make a tourniquet.”

Tony started out of a half-asleep state. “Huh?”

“Tony, you gotta hurry. Steve’s losing a lot of blood.”

“Cap, you’re hurt?” Tony whispered.

Steve hated himself for lying. But he would do it—he’d do just about anything for Tony. “I’ve got maybe a minute left. You better hurry.”

“Steve’s hurt,” Tony said to himself. “Come on,” he coached, “come on, move… Steve’s hurt.” Tony didn’t give a damn if he died there lying on the metal floor surrounded by HYDRA goons. But, let that happen to Steve? No way.

Moaning, Tony raised himself onto his elbows, extended a forearm and slithered forward half a foot. He tried again and made it another four inches. An age came and went while Clint and Steve watched their friend crawl. The moment Stark was within arm’s reach, the two Avengers grabbed his wrists and pulled him the rest of the way. Gently, they sat him up with his back against the wall and got busy binding his wounds with what little fabric they had from their own clothes.

Tony was fingering his belt buckle with shaking hands. “Don’t you need…?” He looked Steve up and down, then gave Clint a death glare and declared, “You liar…”

“You can punch me when you’re feeling better,” Clint promised him.

Tony rolled his eyes, and then closed his eyes. He teetered to the left where he fell against Cap’s shoulder. Steve supported him, wrapping an arm around his chest and allowing Tony to stay comfortable where he was. Clint found the least painful looking spot on Tony’s right arm and wrapped his hand around it in support. And then they waited. The three friends waited together, in a companionable silence, listening to the soothing sound of each other’s breathing until finally—finally—they heard the Hulk’s roar in the distance…

The End

Chapter Text

Whumptober
No. 10
Theme: Unconscious
Fandom: Avengers
Whumpee(s): Tony Stark
Caregiver(s): Steve Rogers

Some More
PenPatronus
Note: This is a continuation of “More,” story #4.

Steve Rogers hadn’t slept in 48 hours. Whenever Clint, or Pepper, or one of the other Avengers entered the unconscious Tony Stark’s room they found him standing at the window, looking outside like he was waiting for someone to come home. It was unexplainable, then, why Steve rushed out of the room when Tony finally woke up. Pepper kissed Tony. Bruce and the others gave him brief hugs followed by a shoulder pat. But Steve? He bolted.

He bolted to the bathroom and vomited.

Once he’d cleaned up and swirled enough water around to get the taste of rotten bile out of his mouth, Steve leaned over the bathroom sink and stared up at his reflection. The memory of Tony stepping between him and that assassin’s bullet hovered around his mind like fog. Catching Tony’s body… Lifting him onto the table… Trying desperately to stop the bleeding… Hearing Bruce speak as if through a narrow tunnel… Tony going limp… Paramedics tearing him away from his friend’s body…

Steve shook his head, then flailed it back and forth like he was trying to get water out of his ears. Eventually, he went back to Tony’s room. The others vacated when they saw the look on his face. Even Pepper. They knew that the pair of Avengers needed a moment alone.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Steve said for the third time. The first time was when Tony got shot. The second time was right before Tony passed out, and they all figured he’d die. Now… Now he meant it more than ever. Meant it so passionately that he became enraged and red flooded his face. “Dammit, Tony, why the hell did you do that?”

The still-delicate Stark shifted under his covers. He breathed unsteadily and the canula in his nose and wires protruding from his body made Steve sick to his stomach again. “I had a dream,” Tony said softly. He sniffed. His expressionless face paled and his lower lip briefly trembled. “A vision, I guess.”

The beeps coming from the heart monitor sped up. Steve willed himself to speak slowly, softly, gently: “What vision?”

“I saw you die,” Tony said simply, and he shrugged, as if he’d just reported a change in the weather. “You were all dead. And it was my fault. I… I could’ve done more.”

“You took a bullet for me because of a dream?”

Redness replaced the pale in Tony’s face. “I took a bullet for you because I couldn’t bear to see you die again!”

Again, the beeps increased. Steve held his palms up and pumped them down repeatedly—a gesture encouraging Tony to calm down. He kept his voice even but failed to keep himself calm when he said, “And you think I want to watch you die? You think that isn’t my nightmare?”

Stark blinked. “I didn’t think—It’s not the same. You don’t know what I was shown. You don’t know what I—what I felt.”

Water dripped from the corner of Steve’s eye. “Scared? Devastated?” There was a hitch to his voice. “Because that’s what I felt when I saw you lying there, dying. And it was real, Tony. It wasn’t some damn vision. I watched you die—for real!”

Tony lifted his right hand and placed it perpendicular to his left. Time out. “Steve… Let’s drop the vibrato, buddy. Let’s speak… Plainly. Honestly. Let’s both of us say what we’re really thinking and leave it at that, all right?”

“All right.” Steve crossed his arms tight against his chest. “You first.”

Tony chuckled. “Maybe this is the meds in me talking but… Cap, you’re one of my best friends. I love you and I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you.”

Steve admired the vulnerability. “Tony, you’re one of my best friends,” he said. “I love you and I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you.”

Tony blushed. Neither acknowledged that both of them were blushing. “We good?” Tony confirmed.

“We’re good,” Steve agreed. “Except your wound’s bleeding.”

“Oh.” Tony looked down at the blood seeping through his t-shirt. He started to fiddle with the gauze but Steve’s hands were suddenly there, adding more.

“Let me,” Steve whispered. He tossed the old gauze into the trashcan and applied fresh tape over the new gauze. Neither said another word as Steve worked…

The End

Chapter Text

Whumptober
No. 11
Theme: Stitches
Fandom: Avengers
Whumpee(s): Steve Rogers, Tony Stark
Caregiver(s): Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers

The Beat of Your Heart
PenPatronus

“Ow,” Steve growled between clenched teeth.

“Sorry,” both Clint and Bruce said simultaneously, both wincing. Clint flinched because he was the one who accidentally sliced Steve between his back ribs during a midnight training session. Bruce flinched because he was the one with the needle sewing stitches into the super soldier’s swollen skin.

“I could try to numb the area again,” Bruce offered.

Steve rolled his eyes. “Didn’t work the first three times.”

Clint dipped his head to the side. “Metabolism. The one drawback of the serum. Glad I’m not a super soldier.”

Steve offered the archer a wry smile. “You were born a super soldier, Barton.” The two friends bumped fists.

Tony Stark, clad in his pajamas of a black top and gray sweatpants, entered the Tower’s sick bay by kicking open the door. His eyes were extra wide, and his fingers twisted together back and forth as he wrung his hands. “What the hell happened?” he demanded. “JARVIS reported that someone was hurt.”

Steve, who sat on a gurney with his shirt off, looked over his shoulder at Tony and nodded down at his wound. “Just need a little cut, Stark. Not a big deal.”

In full mother hen mode, Tony stuck a finger in Barton’s face and asked, “Did you do this to him?”

Clint, who’d never responded well men this close in his space, managed to stop himself from twisting Tony’s wrist. “Stark, it was an accident. Calm down, man.”

“Tony,” said Bruce, “I’m just giving him a few stitches. He’s fine.”

“I, uh…” Tony took a deep breath. Sweat shone on his forehead. “I just, uh…” Suddenly, Tony stepped forward and thrust his middle and forefinger against the pulse point on Steve’s neck. He left it there for a full half minute before he was satisfied. “Wanted to make sure you were…” Just as suddenly, Tony seemed to come back to himself. He took a step back and let his hands drop into his pockets.

Steve, Clint, and Bruce stared at him. “Tony, what the hell was that?” Bruce, the gentlest of the three, asked. “Tony?”

“I—I—I…” Tony managed. “Sorry.” Without another word, Stark turned on his heel and fled the room.

The trio looked at each other. “Um, ok,” Barton began, “why did he just check Cap’s heartbeat?”

Steve rubbed the spot on his neck. “His fingers were shaking.”

Bruce stared at the door Tony had just exited. “I think he was having some sort of anxiety episode.”

“Stark? Anxiety?” Barton snorted. “That man has the most money, the best friends, the coolest job, the biggest home, the hottest woman in the world… What does he have to be anxious about?”

Bruce took his glasses off and set them on the lab table. “What makes you anxious, Clint?”

Barton recoiled a bit. “Losing my family,” he admitted. Bruce spread his palms out—gesturing at all three of them. “Oh.”

Steve bowed his head a couple inches. “Should I go talk to him?” he asked Bruce.

“I have a better idea.”

Bruce found Tony in his lab an hour later. “Put this on,” he instructed, handing Tony a smart watch.

Tony didn’t argue. He latched the watch around his left hand and then activated the screen. The first screen had an “S” in the center of it that blinked blue. The second was green with a “B.” The remaining four were a “P,” “N,” “T,” and “C.” “What’s this?” Tony asked.

Bruce held his wrist up and revealed a tiny, clear electrode against the pulse point on the inside. “We’re all wearing one,” he explained. “Steve, me, Pepper, Nat, Thor, and Clint. That blinking? That’s our hearts beating. That’s the exact speed of our pulses.”

Tony scrolled through the screens again. He left it on “S” and looked up at Bruce. “Thank you,” he sighed.

Bruce nodded. “Whenever you’re like—like this, Tony—just tell us, and we’ll put these on, ok?” Bruce pointed at his electrode. “We’re alive. We’re ok. Our hearts are beating.”

Tony nodded. His entire body visibly relaxed almost to the point of going limp. Bruce walked him back to the bedroom without either of them saying a word.

The End

Chapter Text

Whumptober
No. 12
Theme: “Don’t Move”
Fandom: Avengers
Whumpee(s): Steve Rogers
Caregiver(s): Clint Barton

The Minefield
PenPatronus

It was Fury’s fault. He was the one who sent the four Avengers stumbling through a Siberian forest in the middle of a midnight snowstorm to get intel on a HYDRA base. His fault that Tony’s hands were nearly frozen, Clint’s feet were walking ice cubes, Steve was having flashbacks to his ice age, and Banner was longing for the Hulk’s thick skin. His fault that the team wandered into the invisible minefield surrounding the base. His fault that Steve stepped on a mine, got launched into the snowy air, and landed in a heap of tangled limbs on the snow-covered forest floor. His leg looked like it had been mauled by a tiger. Blood sprayed about—decorating the pristine white snow illuminated by the full moon.

“Don’t move!” Barton bellowed when both Bruce and Tony started to step towards their unconscious teammate. Clint slipped his sidearm back into his white jacket’s pocket. He zipped up everything tight including the hood covering his head. Bruce and Tony watched their teammate patiently, knowing that this was his turf. To keep off the base’s radar, the only tech they’d brought with them were guns. They didn’t even have their coms in so that they could summon the Quinjet or call for help. All they really had in that moment was a hawk’s eyes.

“Guys,” Clint said, pointing at Bruce and Tony, “follow your footsteps back the way you came. Follow them exactly, all right? Just follow them all the way to the jet. There’s no telling how far out this minefield goes. We might’ve been walking through it for a hundred yards and just got lucky.”

“What will you do?” Bruce asked.

Clint studied the snow around him. “Try to get to Cap,” he sighed, “without dying.” Banner and Stark disappeared into the trees.

“Well…” Clint sighed. He knelt into a catcher’s crouch and examined the ground. He saw them now—the little divots in the snow. Small, but perfectly spherical. He counted three between him and a straight A to B line to Cap. “This should be fun…” Clint felt around the safe ground a bit and came up with a few rocks. He tossed the first forward. When it landed on the spot he’d aimed for without exploding, Clint stood and took a step into that spot. He repeated the process again, and again, all the way to Cap’s side. The assassin knelt once more. Steve’s left heel was inches away from a mine. His right arm had one cradled against his elbow. Clint had no idea how he was supposed to pick Cap up in a motion smooth enough that he wouldn’t hit any of the mines.

The choices were few: try to pick up Cap and get the hell out of there, or stand there forever.

Clint knelt, slid his hands under Cap’s ankles and chest and… Stood.

Steve’s body was directly on top of yet another mine. Clint looked down straight at it, then closed his eyes and waited for the mine to kill him.

When it didn’t, he thanked every single drop of snow that had somehow short-circuited the weapon, and turned in the direction of the jet. Bruce and Tony returned with a flimsy stretcher between them. They watched—breaths held—as Clint stepped his way through the minefield to his own footprints, carrying Cap in his arms. One he was safely in the imprint left behind by his own boots, he sped up and dropped Steve on the stretcher and the three men rushed their way back to the Quinjet.

While Tony flew back towards the Tower, Bruce and Clint busied themselves with cleaning and bandaging Steve’s leg. Cap woke up halfway through and mumbled, “Did I get blown?”

“Blown up, Cap,” Clint corrected.

“What’s the difference?”

Clint and Bruce shared a look, and then a chuckle.

The End

Chapter Text

Whumptober
No. 14
Theme: Tear-Stained
Fandom: Avengers
Whumpee(s): Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff, Steve Rogers
Caregiver(s): Bruce Banner, Tony Stark

Paralyzed in Moscow
PenPatronus

Clint jumped and grabbed the bottom rung of a retractable fire escape ladder, and his weight pulled it down to the street. Icicles and sheets of snow showered down on him and the freezing iron made the ladder difficult to climb. Twice Barton slipped and almost fell backwards to a likely death.

On the dark streets below the full moon lay overturned fire trucks and police cars, and half of them were on fire. Most of the Russian civilians were scrambling in the opposite direction, desperate to escape the very things Clint was hurrying towards. Barton reached the roof and booked it forward through ankle-high snow. He jumped from one rooftop to the next. Then, less than 50 feet from the edge of a taller building, Clint unsheathed his bow, loaded a grappling hook arrow, skewered a chimney with it and soared forward and upwards across the gap between the two roofs. Barton perched on the corner of the building like a stone gargoyle and started raining down rocket arrows at the HYDRA tank terrorizing the city.

He saw the grenade a second too late. Not a grenade, he realized, seconds after it landed beside him. Something else. Something he’d never encountered before. The golf ball-sized device hummed at him, and suddenly Clint was paralyzed. His bow and arrow fell from motionless hands. And then he fell—straight backwards—and landed on the ground in the exact same position he’d been standing in. He couldn’t move.

Natasha saw him fall from her own archer’s position across the street and four buildings down. She sheathed her sidearms and, after reporting over the coms that Clint was down, booked it around the tank and ran upstairs, taking the steps three at a time. She made it ten feet in front of Clint before the still active device affected her as well. Nat was paralyzed, too, and she landed on the roof. The two Avengers were stuck on the ground facing each other, eye to eye, hands trying to stretch towards one another and failing. Half a dozen blood vessels in their eyes snapped. Their veins protruded from their necks and faces—veins blushing black.

“Romanoff, report!” Steve barked over the coms. He was on top of the tank slamming his shield into the hull, looking for a weak spot to puncture. A HYDRA agent opened the top door and dove at Cap who merely sidestepped him and allowed the bad guy to fall right off the tank. “Barton? Does anyone have eyes on Nat and Clint?”

“I’m still two minutes out,” came Stark’s voice.

“I, too, am on my way,” announced Thor. They’d been taking care of a coup two countries away.

And Hulk? He was ten blocks away wrestling with two other tanks.

Steve ran up the stairs just like Natasha. He fell like Natasha. The three Avengers’ bodies formed a triangle on the ground.

Six HYDRA goons came out from behind the chimney with glowing plugs in their ears. One man wearing a black baseball cap over his black uniform picked up the small device and disabled it, then wagged it at the three friends, pointing out that the weapon said “Stark Industries” on it. He pocketed it, then spoke. “Obadiah Stane let these loose on the market years ago,” the man in the baseball cap explained. “Don’t worry,” he soothed, “you’ll only be paralyzed for 15 minutes or so. Captain America, probably for only 5 but by then we’ll have you all tied up like livestock.”

Natasha discovered that she could move her eyes just a tiny bit. They widened, and she looked at Clint to see the same frightened expression in his eyes. Cap just looked frustrated. In their ears, Thor and Tony explained that they were one minute out. Tears stained Nat’s cheeks as the bad guys hogtied them all with straps so tight that she lost feeling in her extremities almost immediately. The three Avengers were carried downstairs and tossed into the back of a black van. The vehicle took off. When Cap’s fingers started to twitch, the HYDRA agents put their plugs back in their ears and turned on the device again. The paralysis hit them all again at full force. Nat could no longer move her eyes.

They’d only gone half a mile, each Avenger calculated, when the van suddenly shuddered. It bounced twice, then lifted into the air. The nine occupants all rolled backwards into a pile against the rear door. Suddenly, something opened that door. The pile dropped. Ten feet before Natasha, Clint, and Steve would’ve smashed into the snow-covered Moscow street, green arms caught them and held them close. Tony and Thor tossed the van aside and the whole team took refuge down a nearby alley.

Hulk de-Hulked back into Bruce. He hovered over Natasha and checked her pulse. The tears staining her cheeks were freezing in the snow. “What the hell happened to them?”

Tony stepped out of his standing armor and rushed to Cap. “I’ve seen this before,” he said, and he pointed at the protruding veins. “My, uh, company created a paralyzing device back in the old days. HYDRA must have gotten a hold of it.” He looked from Cap to Clint to Nat and back again. “Sorry, guys. I’ve been there. I know it’s uncomfortable and frustrating.”

A grunt-growl left Steve’s chest and Tony flinched at the anger he saw in his friend’s eyes.

A tank rumbled closer. “I’ll stay with them, Tony told Bruce and Thor. “Go finish this.” Both Thor and Bruce hesitated. They helped Tony arrange their downed teammates up against a wall behind a dumpster and then jumped back out into the battle.

Tony sat down in the snow beside Steve. The air froze in front of each of their mouths. “Sorry,” he said softly, only loud enough for Rogers to hear. “Back when I had this idea I was a bit of a jerk.” Steve grunted again and Tony rolled his eyes. “Ok, more of a jerk.” Tony gently took Steve’s left hand into his and rolled the fingers like he was trying to heat them up. “It’ll wear off soon, Cap. I promise…”

The End

Chapter Text

Whumptober
No. 16
Theme: Pinned Down
Fandom: Avengers
Whumpee(s): Steve Rogers, Tony Stark
Caregiver(s): Bruce Banner

Quaked
PenPatronus

“I thought you weren’t the Da Vinci of our times because you don’t paint!” a voice called.

Tony, who thought he was alone in the compound’s rear warehouse, jumped at the sound of Steve’s voice. He almost whirled around but, in the interest of safety, calmly and carefully descended the long ladder that stretched almost a story in the air to the highest steel grated shelf where he kept what was left of his collection of Jackson Pollock paintings. “I didn’t paint those,” he said once he descended. “You uncivilized goon.”

Steve chuckled. He wore sneakers, jeans, and a blue t-shirt. Tony wore almost the same except for a flannel shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Cap pointed up at the visible paintings. “Shimmering Substance, 1946. The Deep, 1953. Greyed Rainbow, also 1953.”

“Didn’t know you were so into art,” said Tony. “Thought you were just a brainless soldier,” he continued with a slight smile. “Also didn’t know you’d listened to every single interview I’ve ever done—ever.”

“Didn’t know you were so into art.”

“Pepper is. I bought all these back in the old days to… Impress her. Didn’t even realize I was doing it at the time.”

“Why do you have all of those if you don’t even display them,” Steve wondered. “You just keep them in this warehouse of rusty spare parts gathering dust?”

Tony shrugged and looked around. “Have some of my dad’s old toys around here. Inventions half-invented. Couple of these rusty spare parts made you.”

Steve’s eyebrows shot up. “Could I see them?”

“Not much to see. A few gears. A few rivets. Couldn’t exactly walk out of the lab with more than a few small gizmos.” Tony led the way to the far side of the warehouse, climbed up another ladder, then descended with a crumpled, dirty old brown box. Steve reached in and picked out a rusty nail, held it between his fingers, examined the craftsmanship, wondered what it held together.

“Keep it.”

Steve met Tony’s eyes. “I couldn’t. It’s your dad’s.”

Tony gestured around the complex. “I have plenty of my dad’s junk. Keep the nail, Steve.”

Cap pocketed it. “Thanks.” They walked side by side back to the paintings. “I interrupted you. What are you up to?”

Tony looked up at the row of paintings. “Think I’ll sell them all. They are just gathering dust. They should be enjoyed. And the money is needed.”

One of Steve’s eyebrows lifted. “Tony Stark in need of money? Aren’t you the richest guy in history?”

“Not for me,” Tony laughed. “Not even for us. Got an idea. The Stark Relief Foundation. It’ll step in during crises… Help the local first responders and authorities… Cleanup, help get people back up on their feet, pay for rebuilding…”

“Crisis from, what? A hurricane or something?”

“From us. The Avengers. When we make a… A mess.”

“Oh.” Steve looked up at the paintings and pretended to examine them closely. “It’s not our fault when there’s a… Mess.”

“I know. It’s just… After New York… After all these little skirmishes with arms dealers. What if Hulk goes on a rampage again? What if more aliens come? When we fight there’s always collateral damage. I want to start putting money aside for that.”

Steve looked at his friend. He examined him like a painting. “I think that’s a good idea.”

Stark chuckled. “Glad you approve.”

“I do.” Steve dipped his head to the side. “That’s thoughtful, Tony.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve made so many messes in my life it’s about time I start to clean some of that up,” Tony said. Steve opened his mouth to confront that statement, but Tony continued speaking. “You need something? Did you come looking for me?”

“Yeah…” Steve put his fists in his pants pockets and lowered his eyes. “Nothing important. Just heard you were on base.”

“On base? I like to think of the compound as a home, don’t you?”

“Well—”

“Do you need a harder bed? I’ll get you a harder bed. I’m having a pool put in next week—”

The earthquake hit out of nowhere—not that earthquakes ever happen out of anything but nowhere. The two Avengers were probably in the worst spot possible on the compound: standing between 1-story tall steel shelves packed with metal pipes, engines, shards of metal, and more. The pair shared a brief wide-eyed look, then Steve grabbed Tony by the shoulders, shoved him to the ground, rolled his friend into a fetal position, and braced his body over his.

Everything but the ceiling fell in those few seconds. The shelves sank one after the other, toppling like dominoes. The weight of it all would’ve squished Tony. It would’ve broken his bones, those bones would’ve punctured his every organ, and all that would be left of him would be pieces on the ground. He’d be dead, if not for the super soldier protecting him. Steve formed a perfect roof. He took all of the weight, absorbed anything sharp, and managed to stay conscious because if—if he passed out—then Tony would die, too.

Bruce, Nat, Clint, and Thor sprinted to the warehouse with Maria Hill and 50 SHIELD agents. They stopped short just inside the door. The debris was still settling and looked as fragile as it was. One corner of the ceiling was drooping, and the whole place echoed with the sound of sprockets and screws still bouncing off the floor.

Clint took Nat’s hand. Bruce approached the edge of the debris and called out, “Tony!”

“Captain?” Thor shouted. “Steve!”

“TONY!”

Clint heard the sound first—a voice, not scraping or dinging. He hissed at the others to shut up and they all obeyed. “We’re here!” came a gasping voice. “We’re over here!”

Hawkeye pointed to their left at about the 10:00 position. “There.”

Bruce waded into the debris and started tossing stuff aside. Thor scooted out in front of him and joined in. Everyone followed their lead and within ten minutes they could see the blue of Steve’s shirt. “Steve, you ok?” Natasha asked when she was sure that he would be able to hear her.

“He’s not ok,” came Tony’s voice. “He’s very much not ok. That’s not water raining down on me.”

“Raining?”

“Hurry,” Tony said.

Then, Steve growled, obviously in pain and straining, “Hurry.”

The moment Clint and Bruce pulled Tony by the wrists out from under Steve’s protection, the captain collapsed facedown and didn’t move. He was skewered through the thigh by a lengthy shard of glass that had nicked Tony’s leg, as well. Hundreds of pounds of steel and aluminum and titanium had piled on top of his back. The fact that he’d protected Tony from all of that stunned the onlookers. Thor shouldered the debris off Cap who let out a long exhale and started coughing.

The six Avengers hurried to the infirmary with Steve in Thor’s arms and Tony carried between Bruce and Clint.

Hours later, Tony woke up in the sickbay to find Bruce sitting at his side. “Is he all right?” Tony grunted.

Bruce snorted. “Those were his first words when he woke up.” He nodded at the next bed over. Steve was watching them silently. He was bandaged up all over. A cast wrapped around his left arm. He reached out his right arm, then, and Tony reached out his left. The two friends grasped hands and in that moment, each knew the other would be ok.

The End

Chapter Text

Whumptober
No. 26
Theme: Abandoned
Fandom: Avengers
Whumpee(s): Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Clint Barton
Caregiver(s): Hulk

Hulk Help
PenPatronus

The Quinjet was low in the night sky when the HYDRA fighter knocked out both of its engines. It was so low that even if the Avengers had time to parachute out, they were too close to the ground to land without breaking both legs. Steve shouted out a codeword and quick as they could, he, Clint, and Tony all dove for Bruce and wrapped themselves around him and each other. Hulk emerged. He pulled his teammates close to his body, into a little ball of limbs. When the ship hit the forest ground the Hulk bounced around like he was in a pinball machine—off the dashboard to the ceiling, from the ceiling to the rear door, from the rear door to the wall, from the wall to the floor, and back again. He tried his best to make sure that it was his body that got hit, but it was impossible to keep every inch of his teammates protected.

Hulk rolled out of the burning craft and started running deep into the woods. The plane had already circled around. It shot down at what was left of the Quinjet and it exploded so hard that it knocked Hulk over, sending him careening against a cliffside. The HYDRA agents must have thought they’d destroyed them all because if flew off without a second look. Still, Hulk kept running into the moonlit woods until he was sure that the bad guys were gone. He found a shallow stream and a cave beside it and, once he found the softest, barest spot, he dropped the three men. Limbs disentangled. Bodies rolled. Clint, Tony, and Steve ended up on their backs.

All three were unconscious.

Frustrated, Hulk huffed at them. He toed Clint’s boot and growled, “Arrow man… Up!” Then he flicked his middle finger against Tony’s thigh and said, “Tin Man, wake up!” Then, he picked up Steve by the ankle, shook him back and forth, and then dropped him right on his head. Hulk snorted, angry at his friends for abandoning him. His rage built deep in his chest and he roared at the trio the same way he’d roared at Tony when he appeared dead at the tail end of the Battle of New York. It didn’t work this time. None of them magically woke up.

Hulk lifted his head towards the moon and roared at it.

The following morning, all three Avengers still lied where they were, still unconscious. At least, Hulk hoped so. He sniffed at them even once in awhile to make sure that they were still alive. Their smells were off—all three of them but especially Tony—but they were breathing. Hulk decided then that if he couldn’t wake up his friends, he had to help them some other way.

What would Banner do?

Hulk found a rock. He pounded on it until there was a hole the size and depth of his fist. He filled it with water and put it beside the three humans so that they would have something to drink when they woke up. Then he caught a rabbit, a squirrel, and a gopher, broke their necks, and laid them at each human’s feet so that they would have something to eat. Finally, he gathered bunches of leaves. He couldn’t remember if the humans like to sleep over comfortable things or under them, so he just sprinkled them everywhere—nearly covering the three Avengers completely in debris.

When the giant bird hovered overhead—a helicopter, Bruce Banner screamed at him—he yelled at it and at the figure who descended. But then he recognized the man from the “Don’t Smash These People” pictures Natasha showed him. He was the man with the name he liked. Fury. Hulk liked fury, so he liked Fury. No smash Fury. Fury good.

Fury took care of his friends.

The End

Chapter Text

Not Yet
PenPatronus

Zombie Chitauri. 200 of them. Armed with their original weapons. Alien strength, alien speed, alien anger without the sentient choices… Someone had gathered them after the Battle of New York, resurrected them, and now set them loose near the southeastern coast of a moonlit Staten Island. The six Avengers rushed into the Quinjet and made it to the island from Avengers Tower in seconds. Thor jumped out swinging. Hulk fell out punching. Iron Man flew out shooting. Clint found a place to land the plane and he rushed to a high archer’s position while Nat and Cap ran right into the thick of the creatures to drive them away from the most populated areas. But, before Steve could land even one punch or Clint could shoot one arrow, the 200 aliens suddenly simultaneously fell over—dead, once more. Clint said over the coms what everyone was thinking: “What the hell?”

A sound like a cannon firing made everyone look up. Light flashed across the night sky. The EMP blasted Tony right in the chest. The Iron Man armor shut down immediately and Tony fell backwards at an angle—fell right into the water, and sunk, and disappeared.

“Guys, I don’t think this circus was an alien attack,” Clint hypothesized.

“This was about Tony,” Natasha gasped.

Steve exchanged a terrified look with her. “This is an assassination attempt.” Together, the two Avengers raced towards the shoreline. Clint joined them, and Thor flew out in front hammer-first. It was Hulk who reached the water before anyone else. A dozen black boats were closing in fast over the spot where Tony sunk. Hulk hopped from a dock onto the first one and started tossing HYDRA agents into the water four at a time. Thor landed on a second boat and did the same.

Steve, Clint, and Nat rushed out onto the dock as the fleet of HYDRA boats retreated into the night. “Did you see where he landed?” Nat asked Clint.

Silent, jaw clenched, Clint took out a string of steel and attached it to a nearby lamp post. There were a dozen lamp posts along the long dock. Seven of them worked, providing the only light other than the moon above. Barton attached an arrow to the string and shot it into the water. “There,” he said, pointing down at the water. “I think he landed there.”

Cap put down his shield and started ripping off his boots. “The Iron Man armor is waterproof, right?”

“Should be.” Clint dropped his weapons and took off his shirt and boots.

Natasha, who had stripped down to her underwear, wasn’t so sure. “That new suit he’s been using… He almost drowned when his house was blown up… If he’s using that suit tonight then… It’s not waterproof.”

With only the barest light to see by, water at least 50 feet deep, and only a steel string that might or might not be anywhere near where Tony crashed, the three Avengers took deep breaths, and dove. Hulk cannonballed into the water seconds behind them. Thor dropped his hammer on the dock and jumped in as well. An entire 60 seconds went by. Nat and Clint emerged emptyhanded. Thor and Hulk also came up with nothing. Steve surfaced… With the empty Iron Man helmet.

“Right beside the arrow,” he explained between coughs.

There was no time to talk. They had seconds.

They dove again.

They dove a third time.

Suddenly, without explanation, Hulk tossed each of them up onto the dock, and then followed. He stood above the water, flexed his arms, then clapped them together so hard that the water beneath him parted like the Red Sea. The Avengers saw anchors, boots, cell phones, plastic trash, various fish—but no Tony Stark. Growling with rage, Hulk wound up again and parted the water in another direction.

He did it again.

He did it a fourth time.

Steve saw gold and red and he dove at it without a second thought. The water splashed back into place at once, but he was already halfway down, and knew which way to swim. Swimming upwards holding the Iron Man armor under the armpits took a precious ten seconds and Steve was painfully aware that they were probably already too late. Tony was completely limp. His head was motionless as they climbed. The others were waiting on the dock and they pulled both Tony and Steve up the moment they emerged. They laid Tony on his back and Thor ripped the chest armor off with one tug. Tony’s face was blue. His eyes were open and unseeing. Water drained from his mouth but he didn’t cough.

A soaking wet Steve immediately breathed air into Tony’s dead lungs. Thor pushed down on his heart and Clint pushed up on his stomach to force the water out. Hulk shifted back into Banner who groaned, “Oh, God, no,” at the sight. He clung to Natasha and she clung back. Both watched, helpless and praying, as the boys tried to revive Tony.

Days later, when Tony was released from the hospital, he admitted to his friends what happened. He—and it was impossible but true—he found himself looking down at them. He saw his own body on the wooden dock. He saw Steve breathing for him, Thor pumping his chest, Clint squeezing his stomach. He saw Natasha and Bruce swaying, dripping wet, holding onto each other and watching, terrified. And then—this was equally impossible but true—Tony heard a voice. That voice, his dad’s voice, said, “Not yet,” and the next thing he knew he was puking on Steve’s lap. Clint, Steve, and Thor immediately yanked him up into a sitting position as he started to cough. Tony rotated to his side a few degrees closer to Steve, who patted him on the back as he spasmed. Bruce took Thor’s place kneeling beside Stark and encouraged his friend to keep coughing. Clint stood and took Natasha’s hand.

The Avengers only sighed with relief when Tony finally caught his breath. The second that happened, Tony went completely limp and Steve barely got his hand underneath the back of Tony’s head before he slammed into the dock. By the lamplight, Tony looked up into Steve and Bruce’s faces and kept staring until his breath was not only caught, but settled. The ambulance arrived mere seconds after Tony was finally breathing normally. The paramedics approached with a stretcher, but Steve waved them away. He scooped Tony up himself and stayed with him during the ambulance ride.

The End

Chapter Text

Kill Me Before I Kill You

PenPatronus

Normally, the Avengers weren’t firefighters. But, when a series of bombs went off inside the Empire State Building, they stopped eating lunch together and hurried to the scene. Firetrucks and ambulances from all over NYC roared in within minutes. Tony got in his giant silver and red “Crowd Control” suit that held thousands of gallons of water. He went straight to the tip of the building and started raining. Thor soared around the building plucking civilians out of windows while Hulk smashed his way through fiery hallways doing the same. Clint, who perched on the highest, nearest building, used his hawk’s eyes to spot civilians waving from windows, then directed his teammates to them. Cap and Nat borrowed oxygen masks from the NYFD and joined the firefighters sprinting up the stairs.

Tony returned to the Tower and switched to Mark 42 after he ran out of water. Between the firefighters and the Avengers, the majority of the flames were all put out within an hour. Most if not all of the people were saved but Tony flew around and around the building anyway checking for life signs. Thor returned to the Tower. Natasha and Steve descended and debriefed with the firefighters. Hulk shrunk back into Banner who was helping with the wounded. Clint remained on the roof, vigilant. The scene reached that tipping point—the point where everyone was ok, the crisis had passed, and it was time for cleanup. It was at that moment when Tony heard a voice in his ear that wasn’t JARVIS or any of his teammates.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Stark,” the female voice purred. “Sorry to interrupt the Avengers’ lunch. That salmon casserole you cooked looked good.”

“I’m sorry, who’s this?” Tony asked. He landed on what was left of the Empire State Building’s top observation deck. “How did you access this channel?”

“A fine last meal,” the voice mused. “I hope your teammates enjoyed it.”

Tony didn’t find that very damn funny. “Look, lady, I’m kind of busy right now. If you’re going to threaten us, get it over with so I can get back to work.”

“Does the name ‘Justin Hammer’ ring a bell, Mr. Stark?”

Tony flinched. “Nope,” he lied. “Is that supposed to be on my radar?”

“My name is Justine. His daughter.”

“Right,” Tony sighed. “I supposed this is the part where you swear to get revenge? Seriously, lady, Hammer was out of his league and you are, too.”

“Am I?”

Tony was relieved—thrilled, even—that his teammates didn’t see what happened next. He raised his right fist and punched himself right in the face. Well, he didn’t raise his fist. The suit did. The suit raised its fist and punched itself. What the hell.

“What the hell?” Tony yelped. “JARVIS?”

“JARVIS isn’t here right now,” said Justine.

Tony’s right leg stomped on his left foot. “Guys—Avengers—I’ve got a problem here.”

“What is it?” Cap asked over the coms.

“I, um, I can’t control the suit.”

“What?”

“The suit is under someone else’s control.” The boosters suddenly popped on and Tony floated up into the air. “Repeat—I’m compromised!”

“I’ve thought for years about how to make you pay for what you did to my father,” Justine continued. “I’m going to make that suit kill you, Stark. Your own technology is going to twist your neck until it breaks.”

The suit raised its right arm. A pulse built up in Tony’s hand, which was pointed right at Clint Barton.

“But first, I’m going to make you murder your friends.”

Tony summoned all his strength, but he couldn’t move his hand. He was helpless. “Barton, run!” he barked over the coms. “All of you—get as far away from me as you can!”

“Tony, tell us what’s happening!” Natasha shouted.

“Clint!” Tony yelled. “Clint, GO!”

“With love from the Hammer family,” Justine said with finality in her voice. “Have fun killing your friends.”

A repulsor ray erupted from Tony’s palm and Barton disappeared amid fire and smoke. “CLINT!”

Bruce joined the conversation. “Tony? What—What happened to Barton?”

“Bruce, Nat, I need you two to get to my lab and reboot the suit,” Tony ordered. “Hurry!”

“We’re on it,” she promised.

The Iron Man armor rose higher in the air. The computer started locking smart missiles on civilian targets as well as the Avengers. Beside him, dense smoke still rose from the Empire State Building. “Thor! Come get me. I need you to take out this suit!”

“Say that again?” came the god’s voice over the coms.

The suit raised its hands again. Flaps opened and the smart missiles poked out. Energy built up in Tony’s chest plate. “I’M NOT IN CONTROL! YOU HAVE TO STOP ME FROM KILLING EVERYONE!”

It was deafening, so many weapons going off at once. The suit unleashed its artillery then dove and dropped bombs into the crowds, knocking ambulances into storefronts and firetrucks right into the Empire State Building’s lobby. Tony heard screams. He saw faces terrified of him and, for a minute, he knew what it felt like to Bruce when people looked at him like he was a monster. The suit landed and started swinging its arms, knocking first responders around like they were hollow dolls. It shot lasers into the surrounding buildings, pounding cement and stone and other debris down on the defenseless crowd. Tony remembered when Vanko took over Rhodey’s suit, and he felt sorry for his friend. What a unique torture this was…

Finally—thankfully—a hammer landed between his shoulder blades. The armor was knocked down flat, but it came up swinging. Before a fist could connect with Thor’s nose, a shield hit it under the armpit, and Tony went down on one knee. He popped up instantly, blocked two punches from Cap, and dodged Mjolnir. “Duck!” Stark shouted over the coms.

Cap and Thor instantly dropped to the dirty street and a second later, lasers burst from the suit’s shoulders. The suit kicked before the two Avengers could get back up on their feet, and both Cap and Thor landed on their backs. “Tony,” Steve gasped, “how do we stop this thing?”

“Focus on disabling THE weapons first!” The armor rose into the air and aimed its repulsors down. “Go for the chest plate first—Look out!” Steve and Thor dove aside and barely avoided the pulses. The suit suddenly twisted in midair and took to the skies. Thor raised Mjolnir and flew after him. “Thor, wait, this doesn’t feel right…” The god stayed right on the armor’s tail as they both went straight up. Up, up, up.

“I’ve got it,” Thor declared, his voice strained like he was speaking between clenched teeth.

“Thor, I mean it, back off!”

Mjolnir was inches away from a good swing. “Almost there…”

Suddenly, right before they broke the atmosphere, the armor spun around and grabbed Thor by the throat with both hands. Ringing erupted in Tony’s ears and there was a flash of light. The armor produced a magnetic field that wrapped itself around the metal that made up Thor’s armor. The god’s arms went to his chest and although he was still holding the hammer, he couldn’t swing it. Once the suit was sure that Thor was incapacitated, it turned him over and pushed down on his back—pushed down until they almost reached supersonic speed. Thor crashed face-first into the New York City street and disappeared down somewhere into the sewers, if not the earth below.

“Thor, report!” Steve called over the coms. “Thor?”

No answer. Tony cursed. The armor landed in front of Steve and crouched down almost like a defensive lineman. “Steve, just run!” Tony advised. “Dammit, Cap, there’s nothing I can do—I’ll hurt you. Please, run!”

“And let that thing hurt other people? Not a chance,” Steve declared. He raised his shield like a matador with his red cape. Like the armor was a bull about to run him down.

“Cap…” Sweat joined the water already in Tony’s eyes. “Steve, please! Just get out of here!”

Fire in his eyes, Steve said, “No.”

The armor went horizontal and shot at Cap like a bullet. Tony had to close his eyes.

Hulk intercepted him. They rolled into the Empire State Building—and blasted out the other side. “Tony, we couldn’t hack into the system!” Nat apologized.

Tony tried to pat Hulk on the shoulder as they rolled apart. “That’s my guy,” he said. “Now, hit me!”

Hulk roared so loud that the noise rattled every window within a 3-block radius. He charged forward, grabbed the armor by the ankles, and slammed it against the ground over and over like a hammer driving in a nail. Tony felt something pop in his arm and pain seared up to his chin. The assault did nothing to the suit and Tony cursed himself for making the damn thing so invincible. Hulk took a repulsor blast to the face, then the neck and chest, and then over and over again in the stomach. He swung hard, but the armor dodged, pivoted around, and hammered him in the kidney. Hulk pushed his elbow back, but the armor sidestepped it easily, and Hulk took another punch in the face. He growled, and his eyes shown with fury. He pulled the armor into a hug and squeezed so hard that Tony thought his ribs would break. When they didn’t—when Hulk slammed him back against a building and tried and failed to rip the chest plate off, Tony realized what was happening.

“Hulk,” Tony said, “nod if you can hear me.” The great green beast did. “Buddy, you’re holding back. I can tell. You can’t do that.” Hulk made a sound almost like a frustrated sigh. “All your strength, buddy. You have to take this thing down.”

“You,” Hulk harrumphed. “No smash Tony.”

“Hulk, you have my permission. Smash Tony.” Tony flexed his arm. Yep, broken.

Hulk took a kick to the chest and he staggered backwards. “No.” He charged again, and they wrestled.

Steve approached in the background. The armor saw him at the same time Tony did, and Tony heard gears revving up beneath him. “Hulk—Bruce—It’s going to hurt Steve. You can’t let it hurt Steve!”

Hulk tried again for the chest plate. Again, he failed. “Dis…able,” he managed to pronounce. “Disable, not smash. Never smash Tony.”

“Hulk, smash.”

“No!”

Tony’s heart ached. He imagined his own hands ripping out Cap’s throat. “Don’t let me hurt Steve!”

“NO!”

Tony summoned all his strength and, after he spoke, he found peace waiting for him: “Hulk… Kill me.”

Hulk raged at the sky. Then he wrapped one hand around Tony’s knees and the other around Tony’s neck, and pulled…

The shield dropped soundless to the road. From Cap’s perspective, with Hulk’s wide body between him and Tony, it was obvious that the beast had just ripped Iron Man in half. He tossed the legs to the left, and the torso and head to the right. Vomit rose up Steve’s throat and he spat out a mouthful. He groaned and braced his hands against his knees. Water rose and fell from his eyes like the ashes falling from the Empire State Building. What a lovely lunch they’d been having and now… Now Tony Stark was in two pieces.

Hulk shrunk back into Banner in a blink. It was then that Steve saw there was a body in front of him—a body wearing the same sneakers, jeans, t-shirt and flannel button down as Tony. Relief sent trickles of ice down Steve’s spine and caused a dizzy spell that nearly knocked him over. Hulk had ripped the armor in half, but not Tony. Tony’s body had slid right out like the yoke between two halves of a cracked egg.

Steve, when he finally gathered himself, sprinted over and collapsed to his knees beside Tony and Bruce. Blood covered Tony’s clothes. His heart was beating, and his lungs were breathing, but he’d never looked worse. Blue hinted at the skin beneath his cheekbones. His lips were white. Blood flooded from his left temple and both of his knees were twisted. Although he was unconscious, his body twitched and spasmed, as did his eyes behind their lids.

“I – I think I broke his back,” Bruce stuttered in a desperate whisper. “His arm… Look at it… I – I think it’s broken, too.” Bruce plastered his palms to his face and rocked forward and back. “Oh my god, what did I do…”

An ambulance squealed behind them. Steve sat up straighter and waved the paramedics over. He took his friend’s trembling hand. “Stay with us Tony.” He spoke like he was giving a soldier an order. “Tony, stay with us!”

--------

Two Weeks Later

Tony woke from his medically-induced coma to see his five friends staring down at him. Thor looked no worse for wear, but Clint still had burns healing down his left cheek, neck, and arm. Natasha was all smiles for him. Steve nodded a greeting while Bruce stuck to the rear of the group like a scared child. Once it was obvious that Tony could actually stay awake, Steve approached and sat beside him on the hospital bed. He gently lifted Tony’s right hand, interlaced their fingers, and squeezed.

“Do you feel that?”

“Yes,” Tony tried to say. He cleared his throat. “Yes.”

“Can you feel your arms?”

“Yes.”

“Can you wiggle your toes?”

Bruce peered over Clint and Nat’s shoulders and stared at Tony’s feet. Yes.

The five Avengers broke out into cheers so loud that Tony had to plaster his palms to his ears. Bruce stepped forward and took Tony’s other hand. “Thought I killed you,” he whispered.

Tony shrugged, then immediately winced. “I told you to.”

Water entered Steve’s eyes. “Glad you stayed with us, Tony.”

 The End

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Chapter Text

Blood for Bread
PenPatronus

The prison cell Steve woke up in wasn’t quite as large as a king’s size bed. Dull yellow light from the damp, narrow underground hallway outside cast elongated shadows that made the iron bars look like claws. The place smelled like recently smelted metal and the humidity was so dense that it felt like a hand around Steve’s throat. He coughed. Dust and dirt went out of his mouth but also up his nose. Sitting up took some doing, and so did crawling over to his two teammates who lay beside the iron door. Clint was already awake and making his way to Tony who sported a bleeding bruise over his left eye. “Wha’ ‘appened?” Tony groaned. With Clint and Steve’s help he sat up against the wall.

“Don’t remember,” Clint grunted through a cough. “Cap?”

Steve shook his head. “You two ok?”

“Bruce… Wasn’t Bruce with us?” Tony wondered.

“Why yes,” said a stranger’s voice. “Yes, yes he was.”

The three Avengers got to their feet and stood in formation in the center of the room: Steve up front with Clint behind him with Tony safely in the rear. A 6’6” tall man with broad shoulders and a scar across his neck unlocked the cell door, then stepped aside so that two more large HYDRA goons could escort a limping Bruce Banner inside. Bruce’s shoes were missing. He wore brown khakis and a dark green shirt which was ripped in several places. There was sand in his hair and blood under his fingernails. When the HYDRA agents tossed him inside he failed to catch himself and collapsed right into Steve’s arms. Steve caught him and lowered him to the floor, then left him in Clint and Tony’s hands so that he could approach their captors. “What the hell do you want from us?” he demanded.

6’6” gave him a smug smile. “Your friend did well.” From his pocket, 6’6” retrieved half a loaf of bread and a canteen. He tossed them at Steve’s feet, then locked the door and left them alone. Steve plucked up the food and water and turned to his friends.

Bruce crawled into and curled up in Tony’s lap. He shuddered as if from cold. “Easy, buddy,” Tony soothed, patting him on the back.

Clint went to place his hand on Bruce’s shoulder but when the scientist cringed and clung tighter to Tony, he backed off. “Banner, what happened?”

Bruce shook his head. “Not yet,” he whispered.

The three friends exchanged confused looks. “Bruce, what do you mean?” Steve asked.

Banner grabbed Tony’s arm and wrapped both of his around it. “Not yet,” he said. “I just… Just give me a minute.”

“Ok. All right.” Steve and Clint sat down, forming a small circle with the trembling Bruce in the center. After taking a sniff from the canteen to confirm that it was water, Steve handed it to Tony, who held it up to Bruce’s lips.

“No,” Bruce groaned. “Clint should have it. All of it.”

“Why’s that, buddy?” Tony asked softly.

“Because he’s next.”

---------

They left with Clint. They returned with him an hour later—with most of him. His black and dark purple uniform was sliced up and there were bruises visible beneath the shredded fabric. Because he was half-conscious, they had to drag him into the cell by his wrists where they dropped him, facedown and left, but not before tossing in another half a loaf of bread and a canteen. Tony and Steve went to him, helped him roll onto his back, helped him get comfortable. Bruce, who sat in the corner with his legs out in front of him and his hands limp in his lap, asked quietly, “Did you do it?”

Both of Clint’s eyes were black. “I did it,” he whispered.

---------

They left with Tony, next. He was completely knocked out when the brought him back. The HYDRA goons made a game of tossing his body by his wrists and ankles into the cell like they were throwing a friend into a lake. Steve caught him right before his head slammed into the wall. This time they got 2/3 of a loaf and only half a canteen of water.

---------

Steve wasn’t scared when it was his turn. He didn’t know what had happened to his friends—all of them seemed too traumatized to say anything other than that they were hurt—but he knew that his super soldier strength would endure. What could they do to him, really?

The roar of a crowd greeted him when he and his escorts emerged into a round room of sand with a domed ceiling. Sneering and jeering from bleachers and stands were hundreds of HYDRA agents. They shook their fists and spat at him. Many threw rocks and half-empty bottles of beer. Steve was put in the center of the stadium, left to stand in ankle-deep sand stained with his teammates’ blood.

A spotlight landed on the high rise directly in front of him. He looked up and saw the leader sitting on a throne-like chair. Beside him sat a terrified Natasha Romanoff. A second agent held a gun to her head.

“Here’s how the game is played!” the leader announced. “If you try to escape, we’ll kill her. If you fight back, we’ll kill her. If you even make a single sound… We’ll kill her.”

Before Steve could even nod his acknowledgement, a dozen agents leapt down from the stands and started beating him with bottles, kicking him with boots, slicing him with knives, and whipping him with belts. Steve plastered his hands against his mouth and shut his eyes. When they dragged took him back to the cell with his leaking canteen and half a loaf of bread, he sat down with a sigh beside Clint. The archer asked him, “Did you do it?”

Steve spat a mouthful of blood on the ground. “I did it.”

---------

Thor and all of SHIELD came for them. Five missing Avengers? Of course the entire international agency rallied together. Thor, Coulson, Hill, and Fury got to Natasha first and once they freed her she led them to the cell that housed their friends. Clint met her at the door and neither of them could hold in a cry of joy / sob of sorrow when they hugged. Bruce was limping but on his feet. Hill pulled his arm around her shoulders and helped him outside. Tony hadn’t woken since he’d first passed out, so it was up to a half-conscious, no, half-alive Steve to pick him up and carry him out of the base. Coulson and Fury tried to help—Thor actually reached for Tony—but Steve shrugged them all off and marched along. The moment that Tony was safely in the hands of medical personnel, Steve toppled over, unconscious.

The four friends never spoke about what happened. None ever looked at the permanent scars on their bodies. They didn’t look at the swollen skin or the bruises. What did they look at? Each other. In a whole new light. They did it because of one moment they endured together:

After Steve came back, and after they shared that round of food and water, the four Avengers were assaulted again. 6’6” and his goons went up to the doorway and threw in razors, lit matches, bottles, rocks, and more. Each Avenger tried to protect the other. Each dodged. Each stayed silent. Then, when they all realized there was nothing they could really do, the four friends stood side by side in the back of the cell, enduring the assault, hands held tight together the whole time.

The End

Chapter Text

This is What We Do
PenPatronus

Tony didn’t wake up so much as gradually claw and crawl his way to consciousness. He then literally clawed and crawled his way over to Steve, who felt cold and was knocked out cold, likely thanks to that swollen bruise above his eye. Tony shook his friend’s shoulders. Steve made a noise that sounded like a half-sneeze, half-hiccup, but didn’t wake up. Steve’s sky-blue t-shirt and khakis were as dirty as Tony’s navy shirt and jeans. The last thing Tony remembered was having a conversation with Steve about his art while they strolled around the block that circled Avengers Tower.

They were in a candlelit cave. Stalactites hung above them like the blades of guillotines. As Tony’s dizziness rescinded and the spots before his eyes gradually disappeared until he could see clearly, the black-robed figures came into view. They stood in a circle around what looked like a pair of iron antlers and a small fire burning between them. Tony recognized their shape: exactly like that bizarre antler-like, tiara-like headpiece that Loki wore when he attacked New York. The snark rose in Tony. “Loki worshippers?” he hollered. “Are you kidding me?”

Half of the black figures jumped, startled. Half of that half were short and wore dirty sneakers. Most of the figures were adults, though, judging by their shape and size. All of them were men, Tony deduced. All except for the one figure who broke from the group and approached, dropping her hood. The woman wore an emerald dress. Her feet were bare, and she wore her long blonde hair in a complicated braid. The smaller set of antlers on her head was worn like a crown.

“I am Sigyn,” the woman said. “Wife of Loki.”

Tony snorted. “You’re probably a real estate agent from Jersey,” he accused. “You probably have six cats and fetish for Norse mythology. You, lady, have never actually met Loki. And you’re no god.”

“Goddess,” the woman corrected. “And I don’t need to meet Loki to love him.” She smiled at him, but it wasn’t strong. The lack of strength behind her smile betrayed her. She was anxious, unsure, not convinced that what she’d gotten herself into was the best decision she’d ever made. Tony observed how she shifted her weight back and forth and cracked her knuckles compulsively. The woman, whoever she was, was no threat.

Tony rose to his feet and stood taller by half a foot. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to point my buddy and I to the exit. Then, you’ll surrender yourself to the authorities, plead guilty to kidnapping charges, and go to jail. If you choose not to let us go, I promise you that we will leave anyway. One way or another.”

Something gripped Tony’s ankle and yanked him to the cave floor. A millisecond later a bullet, fired by the closest black-robed worshipper, embedded itself in the cave wall straight past where Tony had been standing. “Close one,” Steve Rogers muttered.

The gunman lowered his hood and stood side-by-side with the woman. “Nobody speaks to our goddess like that,” he declared. This guy had a short, scrubby beard and greasy black hair.

Tony got back up to his feet and brought Steve with him. “You good?” he asked his teammate.

Steve shook his head quickly like he was trying to dislodge water from his ears. “Almost,” he admitted. “Give me a minute.”

“I’ll buy you two. Then we’re getting out of here.” Tony turned his attention to the gunman. He made sure to keep his body between the weapon and the dizzy Steve. “You just brought us here to kill us, huh? Well, get if over with already.”

“Good plan,” Steve approved, all sarcasm.

The gunman tilted his head to the side. “We only need one sacrifice to summon our god.”

“That’s your game plan? You think killing us will bring Loki back?”

“The hole in the sky will open again,” said the woman, raising her hands towards the ceiling. “Our lord will descend, and he will reward us for our loyalty.”

“He tried to take over the world. Hundreds of people died that day in New York—all because of him.”

“He was trying to free us,” the woman argued.

“This is a fallen world,” said the man. “He came to save us. We’re grateful.”

“You’re idiots,” Tony spat. Steve put his hand on Tony’s shoulder. It was a silent order to “shut up.” Tony shrugged him off. “Loki is our enemy. He’s insane. He’s manipulative. He’s the trickster, for God’s sake! Now, why don’t you put your little gun away and let us walk out the door, huh?” He turned towards the woman. “Out of the way,” he growled. “I won’t ask again.”

The man re-raised his gun and fired it at Tony’s unprotected chest. Before Tony could even blink, Steve ducked, pushed him aside, and the bullet nicked him in the side of his head, not far from the original injury. Steve stumbled, teetered for a moment, then collapsed backward, landing flat on his spine. “Cap!” Tony floundered back to his friend and grasped his shoulders. “Oh god, Steve…” Tony’s knee landed in a puddle of blood.

Thunder suddenly reverberated through the cave. The candles flickered from sudden wind. The hairs on everyone’s arms stood on end. Something smelled hot, and it wasn’t the fire in the antlers. “You wanted an angry, alien Norse god?” Tony asked. “Well, you’re about to get one.”

Lightning flashed down the hall. Thor came for his teammates.

----------

24 Hours Later

“I’m so sorry,” Tony said for the fourth time as he sat on the bed on Steve’s right. “I can’t believe my big mouth got you shot.”

“It was bound to happen one of these days,” Steve half-chuckled, half-scolded. He lay back in the hospital bed with a bandage around his head and a saline IV in his arm. “It’ll probably be the death of me someday.”

“That’s not funny,” Tony said, and he meant it. “I’m sor—”

“Tony.” Steve summoned his Army voice. “Stop it. This is what we do, right? This is what we do for each other.”

“I’m usually the one in the bed,” Tony whispered. “I’d rather be there than here, in this position—in the receiving spot. This is worse.”

“I know. I know what you mean,” Steve assured him. “And you usually are the one in the bed,” he agreed. “I’ve seen you lay down on the wire dozens of times, Tony. And that, my friend, is why I did this.”

The End

Chapter Text

Steve awoke to find himself suspended from a ceiling by a rope with iron shackles around his wrists. His fingers, hands, and wrists were white and numb from the strain of his body weight. He couldn’t touch the ground even on tiptoes. Muted sunshine soared through small open window near the ceiling. Birds chirped outside. Goosebumps erupted from his skin and he shivered. The iron-barred cell was so cold that his teeth started chattering.

He started to swing on the rope—forward and back, forward and back. After bumping against the wall behind him he caught it with his boots and jumped upwards. Even numb, his fingers found the rope and gripped it tight, allowing Steve to climb the rope up to the ceiling. He then hung from the lead pipe the rope was wrapped around, and he started to swing again, each time yanking his body higher and letting it fall harder. Within minutes the pipe broke, and Steve landed cat-like on the floor. Then, using his teeth, Steve bit his way through the rope. He was more mobile without it, but his wrists were still shackled together.

The iron-barred door was locked from the outside, and Steve couldn’t fit his fingers far enough through the bars to pull the iron lock aside. He kicked the door. He punched it. He kicked and punched it at the same time. Then, he backed up to the far wall, took a deep breath, rushed forward and rammed his shoulder into the door with the strength of a bull. It took ten times before the door finally budged open far enough for Steve to slide between the bars. Steve took one step into the hallway and landed in a puddle. Not a puddle of water, he realized. A puddle of blood. And it was so cold that some of it froze, leaving little ice cubes that crunched under Steve’s boot.

Steve took a deep breath—two of them—then dunked his hands into the blood puddle. It wasn’t very deep, so he had to stretch and splash to get his wrists and hands completely covered, especially under the shackles. Steve then put one foot between his imprisoned wrists, prayed the liquid was slippery enough, took a deep breath—two of them—and kicked downward with all his might. Between his strength and the slippery blood, he managed to kick the shackles off, taking only a few layers of his skin with them. Steve wiped his hands clean on his pants and stood.

The hallway of prison cells was unlit except for the occasional flickering lightbulb. But, enough sunshine came in through the cell windows that Steve was able to see where he was going—see into each cell. He looked back and forth, trying to decide whether to go left or right. He settled on right, because that was the direction of the trail of blood, and he started to run.

The red drops led him to cell #15 where he recognized a body hanging exactly as he had.

“Oh, God.”

The man had a belly wound. Dripping blood had left little constellations on the cement floor. Steve ripped the rope off the pipe, chewed it free, then used the person’s own blood to get the shackles all slippery. Once the man was free, Steve sat on the floor, pulled the man into his lap, held him tightly against his chest, and whispered his name.

“Tony?”

The sound of his name brought Tony out of a daze. He licked his bruised lips and looked up at his friend with eyes flickering from pain. He didn’t speak so much as exhale, “Hey, Cap…”

Relieved, Steve grinned at him. “Hey.”

Tony’s frown stretched inward. “You need to get out of here,” he whispered.

“I need to get you out of here.”

“You don’t understand… There’s a bomb…”

“Is that why this base is empty?” Steve put his right palm against Tony’s spine and pulled Stark up into a sitting position. The sound Tony made as his stomach stretch made Steve retreat and let him lay back down flat.

“You don’t understand…” Tony fiddled with his t-shirt. Steve offered to help, and Tony instructed him to pull it up to his chin. The arc reactor was revealed. There was something different about it…

Tony looked down at the device. “The blue… See that blinking blue light in that white circle? When it fills up the circle the bomb inside it will explode.”

Steve’s jaw dropped—horrified. “They turned you into a bomb.”

The blue inched closer.

Tears overflowed from Tony’s right eye. “Get out of here,” he hiccupped. “Steve… Please,” he begged. “Just leave me.”

The blue moved again. Based on how fast it had moved, Steve estimated that they had less than two minutes.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Steve, you can’t save me.”

“Then I’ll stay with you.”

“No! There’s still time! You can get far enough away!”

Steve’s arms relaxed, then tensed up twice as tight. He pulled Tony’s chest against his own and settled Tony’s chin on his left shoulder. “I’m staying,” he whispered.

Tony summoned the strength to wrap his arms around Steve’s back. A sob rose in his chest, but stayed there. “See you on the other side…”

“We’ll have shawarma.”

They spent the final minute in silence. Clinging.
----------

Steve awoke to find himself suspended from a ceiling by a rope with iron shackles around his wrists. His fingers, hands, and wrists were white and numb from the strain of his body weight. He couldn’t touch the ground even on tiptoes. Muted sunshine soared through small open window near the ceiling. Birds chirped outside. Goosebumps erupted from his skin and he shivered. The iron-barred cell was so cold that his teeth started chattering.

He escaped. He followed the blood. He found Clint. Someone had shoved a bomb in Clint’s chest.

They spent the final minute in silence. Clinging.

---------

Steve awoke to find himself suspended from a ceiling by a rope with iron shackles around his wrists. His fingers, hands, and wrists were white and numb from the strain of his body weight. He couldn’t touch the ground even on tiptoes. Muted sunshine soared through small open window near the ceiling. Birds chirped outside. Goosebumps erupted from his skin and he shivered. The iron-barred cell was so cold that his teeth started chattering.

He escaped. He followed the blood. He found Bruce. Someone had shoved a bomb in Bruce’s chest.

They spent the final minute in silence. Clinging.

---------

In the real world, in the HYDRA lab, hovering over an unconscious Steve Rogers who was on a lab table, stood two scientists. “See,” said the older of the two, the one in charge, “this is how you break a man. Breaking the body does nothing. You break the man.”

The younger one with the clipboard glanced up at the television-like screen and watched Steve Rogers die with Natasha Romanoff in his arms. “This is a…unique… torture, sir.” He adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. “Why do you think he chooses to die instead of running?”

The scientist snorted. “Who gives a damn?”

“Well, sir, according to his vitals he calms down at the end, almost like he’s found peace. That’s not torture.”

The scientist rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you admire him.”

The young man shook his head fiercely. “Of course not, um, sir,” he said quickly. “Any man who doesn’t believe in HYDRA’s goals is a fool, but…”

A rumble in the distance. Directly below them, something shivered the entire building. The clipboard fell to the ground. The elder scientist paled and started ripping needles and tubes out of Steve’s body, and the bonds off his arms and legs. “We have to get him out of here. The Avengers are here.”

Before either of them could do one more thing, a metallic foot kicked in the door to the lab. Iron Man pointed every weapon he had at the two scientists. The helmet retracted into the armor and a red-faced, heavy-breathing, thunderous Tony Stark glared with wide eyes. “What. The. Hell. Did. You. Do. To. Cap?”

The older scientist raised his middle finger at Stark. “We put him through hell.”

Clint and Nat ushered the scientists away while Tony and Bruce got to work freeing Steve from the scientists’ sinister machines. The moment Steve regained consciousness he grabbed both of his friends by the collars. “I’m not leaving you,” he said, voice strained. “I’m staying right here.”

Bruce wrapped his fingers around Steve’s wrist. “Steve, we think you were drugged and forced to dream something. You’re back in the real world now. There’s no danger.”

Steve looked at Tony. “I didn’t leave you,” he whispered.

Tony patted Steve’s arm. “Cap, it’s ok. It’s over.”

“I didn’t leave you…” Steve said, and continued to say as he drifted off to sleep. “I didn’t leave you, I didn’t leave you…”

The End

Chapter Text

Those Little Moments
PenPatronus

The alien craft’s EMP cannon hit Tony and the Iron Man suit instantly shut down. Thor was away hammering down on the vessel. Hulk was smashing his way through the ship and was already inside. Steve watched, helpless, as Tony fell thirty stories onto a New York City street, ironically just outside their favorite shawarma joint. Cap ran to him in record time. The suit was face-up. Smoke rose from half a dozen joints. The bottom half that Steve could see was warped and dented in different directions. Tony didn’t move.

“Stark!” Steve put both hands on the chest plate and shook the suit. “Stark, are you ok?”

Debris rained down on them as the alien ship continued to assault the city. Steve covered Tony’s body with his own until the wave passed, then he lifted the suit by the armpits and dragged it into an alleyway. Then, summoning all his strength, Steve drove his fingers into the miniscule gaps between the plating like crowbars, and ripped the suit open. The movement must have woken Tony up because he was suddenly swinging wildly. “Tony!” Steve grabbed him by the wrists and held them still in mid-air. “Tony, you’re safe, it’s me!”

Mute, Tony ripped his arms out of Steve’s grasp and stood up. Blood leaked from his nose and both ears. He stepped out of the suit, but that was as far as he got. Stumbling, he reached out wildly for something to hold on to. Steve grasped his elbow and wrapped his arm around his friend’s back. Tony recoiled. His boxing skills kicked in and he took a punch at Steve with an infant’s strength. Cap dodged it easily. The momentum sent Tony’s body listing to the side and he would’ve cracked his nose on the concrete if Steve wasn’t holding him up by his waist. Gently, Steve lifted his body upright again.

Stark’s silence unnerved Steve more than anything. “Tony—Tony, calm down. Say something. I need you to say something to me.”

Tony’s eyes danced wildly in every direction but Steve’s. His heart must have been going a mile a minute, but his breathing was substantially heavy and slow. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but only managed to exhale. It was then that Steve noticed that Tony’s left arm was dislocated. It was as good a time as any to fix it—maybe even the best time with Tony so disoriented. Steve walked his friend backwards, pinned him against the wall, and forced the arm back into its socket. Tony didn’t seem to notice. Any other person—including Captain America—would’ve at least yelped from the pain. That worried Steve even more than the silence. Was it possible that Tony couldn’t feel his arms?

Tony was sweating through his uniform, and his skin was getting whiter by the second. He tried to fight Steve off and seemed to panic with his back against the wall. Steve took a step backwards to give him some breathing room, but didn’t let go of him. Tony staggered left, right. He punched again, this time with even less strength.

“Tony!” Tony still didn’t look at him. Three times as loud, Steve shouted again, “TONY!” Finally. Finally, Tony looked at him. Steve wondered if he’d been unable to hear him before. More blood flowed from his ears. But, their eyes locked.

“Issa… Wha?” Tony spoke. He clung to Steve’s arms with sudden, desperate strength. “Are they ok?”

“Who?” When Tony’s attention started to drift again, Steve placed his palms on either side of his head to hold his eyes. “Tony, who are you talking about?”

“Is… Is Steve ok?”

“Tony, we’re going to sit down, all right? Just—Just let me help you sit down, ok?”

Tony tried to walk past him towards the road. “Not until—is my team ok? Can’t remember… The hot chick and the walking American flag and the green mountain…” Steve pushed down on his shoulders, but Tony stubbornly remained upright. Tony looked at Steve again—looked at him for the first time. “Oh,” he said, “it’s you.” He tapped Steve on the collarbone. “Hey, Cap.”

“Tony.”

“You’re ok.”

“You’re not.”

“The aliens.”

“The others are handling it. Now, sit down.”

Tony frowned. “Can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I f-forget h-how…” Tony staggered hard, this time. He collapsed against Cap’s chest and Steve wrapped both arms around him as Tony’s went limp. He lowered Tony as gentle as he could, cushioning his head in his lap, arranging his body against his own to keep him comfortable. Steve wiped away the blood dripping close to Tony’s upper lip. “Something wrong with me,” Tony diagnosed. He closed his eyes.

“Think you should stay awake,” Steve advised. “Help will be here in a minute.”

“My head hurts.”

“I know. Hang in there.” Steve squeezed his body gently. “Hang in there.”

The End

Chapter Text

The One Where Clint Almost Kills Natasha and Bruce Almost Kills Clint
PenPatronus

The string of armed robberies had gone on all night. It was as if every crime boss in New York City had coordinated their attacks. It was smart, Steve decided. It forced law enforcement and Avengers to spread out thin. Undoubtedly more than one burglary was successful. Even superheroes could only be in one place at a time.

With his perps handcuffed and in police custody, Steve was free to reunite with his teammates. Clint and Natasha were only six blocks away, he remembered, so he jogged towards them. It wasn’t long before he saw the smoke and realized the fire was coming out of the convenience store they’d last reported from. Steve’s super-soldier strength catapulted him forward and he reached the store right as Clint escaped through the broken front window with Natasha in a bridal carry. She was trembling in his arms. Both arms were tight around his neck and her face was buried against his chest. An arrow stuck out of the right side of her chest, almost beside her shoulder.

“Avengers, on my position,” Steve said into the coms. “Nat’s hit.”

Clint, who was coughing from the smoke and limping noticeably, got to a car on the opposite side of the street and leaned back against the hood. Steve gently tugged Natasha’s hair aside and rubbed his thumb against her cheek. “What the hell happened?” he demanded.

“It was an accident,” both Nat and Clint coughed at the same time. “Bastard stepped aside at the last millisecond and I hit her instead,” the archer explained. Steve took his glove off and wrapped the fingers around the arrow. He put pressure on the wound, but backed off a bit when Natasha cried out in Russian.

Iron Man suddenly landed beside them holding a very red-faced Bruce Banner around the waist. Bruce practically shoved Steve aside to reach Natasha. “Dammit, Barton,” he spat when he saw all the blood. “Why the hell were you even firing so close to her?”

“Not his fault,” Nat insisted faintly. “Shit happens…”

Bruce leaned in so close to Nat’s face that the other men looked away. “We’ll get you help,” he assured her. “You’ll be fine, Natasha.” She gave him a grateful half-smile.

Thor flew over. “I’ll take her right to the hospital,” the god said. His arm was so big that he could hold Nat against his chest with one hand while operating his hammer with the other. He took off.

Once Thor and Nat were out of sight, Bruce suddenly turned on Clint and pushed him in the stomach as hard as he could. “Thought you never missed!” he hollered at him. “The one time you miss, you almost kill her?”

Clint stumbled back against the car and wrapped an arm around his stomach. The Iron Man helmet descended into the suit and Tony stepped between Banner and Barton. “Whoa, Bruce, buddy, you know he’d never hurt Nat on purpose.”

“I don’t give a damn!” Green crept up the veins in Bruce’s neck. “He got Nat hurt!”

Clint rubbed the black uniform around his stomach. “Believe me, Banner, I feel bad enough already.” Clint was pale, and sweating, and wouldn’t make eye contact with any of them. A few splotches of ashes covered his face.

More green. Bruce cleared his throat. “Clint, you might want to get away from me.”

“I, uh…” Clint wrapped both arms around is stomach. “I think, um…”

“Bruce, cool it,” Cap ordered.

“Seriously, Barton, you better start running.”

Clint suddenly started to breathe as if he’d just run a marathon. He said, quietly and to himself, “Oh. Oh, man…”

“Barton, you good?” Tony asked. He shared a concerned look with Steve. “Clint?”

“I think, um, I think maybe I should sit…” Clint brace his hands against his knees.

Bruce’s entire face flushed green. “Tony, fly him out of here!”

It was Steve who finally saw it. Saw the discoloration of Clint’s uniform. He was bleeding. “Oh, god.” Steve dove forward as Clint slid back and down against the car. He would’ve hit his head if Steve hadn’t caught him.

Tony knelt on Clint’s other side. He zipped down Clint’s uniform and all four of them gasped at the sight of two gushing gunshot wounds. “Clint, why didn’t you tell us you were hurt?” Tony demanded.

Clint’s head rolled to the right, then to the left. “I didn’t…I had to get her out of there. I… I didn’t even realize… God, it doesn’t even hurt. It should hurt, shouldn’t it?”

Steve paled. “Tony.”

“I got him.” Tony scooped his friend up and flew off towards the hospital. Steve rose, brushed the gravel off his pants, gave Bruce a death glare, and turned on his heel. Bruce followed him to the hospital with his head bowed from guilt.

Later, after Clint half-recovered from surgery, he and Banner were sitting alone in the hospital room. Clint sat up in his bed but looked like that took a lot of effort. Bruce sat in a chair beside him, playing with the knuckles of his fingers. “I’m so sorry,” Banner eventually said. “I was such an asshole to you.”

Clint snorted. “Trust me, Banner, if I was in your shoes I might have strangled someone, too. The important thing is Natasha is ok.”

“The important thing is Natasha is ok,” Bruce agreed. “But are you and I? We’re not the best of friends, but I’d like to think we have some sort of relationship after all these years.”

“We’re ok,” Clint assured him. “Know what you mean. Not like we have a lot in common.”

“Yeah,” said Bruce, almost regretfully.

“Well…” Clint hummed thoughtfully. “We do have one thing in common. We both love Nat.”

“Mhmm,” Bruce admitted. He flushed red instead of green.

“How about this. When I get out of here, you and I will get a beer sometime and we’ll list the things we have in common, all right?”

“Any reason we can’t start now?” Bruce wondered. “Tony drives me bonkers.”

Clint chuckled. “Tony drive me nuts, too. There. That’s two things. Go for three?”

The End

Chapter Text

The Grave Cage
PenPatronus

While Thor, Tony, and Hulk dealt with the hijacked Hulkbuster armor, Steve, Nat, and Clint did their best to get civilians out of the way. They didn’t realize that HYDRA’s eyes were on them, not on the armor climbing the Statue of Liberty. So, Captain America, the Black Widow, and Hawkeye were beyond shocked when they stood in a circle to regroup and Stark’s satellite shot planks of steel at them. The self-assembling cage rained down on them one slate at a time until they were surrounded and instantly electrified, knocking them all unconscious. A jet swooped in, dropped a cable with a magnet on the end of it, scooped up the cage and flew off before the other Avengers even noticed.

Nat awoke to darkness and silence and cold metal beneath her body. “Clint?” she gasped. She said Steve’s name louder and noted that her voice echoed immediately. They were still in the cage. The cage wasn’t moving. Sore and burned, Nat army-crawled her way to the nearest wall. She pulled herself up against it and started walking, keeping one finger on the wall as she went. “Clint?”

“Here,” a faint voice echoed in front of her. Cap.

“Also here,” said another voice behind her. Clint.

“Are my boys ok?” asked Natasha. Both only grunted in response. She walked around the cage, then ventured away from the wall when she was sure she was close to Cap. She nearly tripped over his shield. Clint crawled to them a minute later.

“I’ve got something,” Clint said into the darkness. The other two heard a click and a hiss as Clint took apart one of his arrows. Clint turned the shield onto its front and dropped a few teaspoons of gunpowder on the concave part, careful to avoid the leather straps. He lit the gunpowder, then used part of his uniform and kindling made from the arrow shaft to create a sustained little campfire.

“Oh my god, Steve,” Nat gasped when she saw him. Blood was gushing fast from a wound on the side of the super soldier’s head. A big drop of it fell on the fire and almost snuffed it out. Nat tore up her left sleeve, balled it up into a bandage and pressed it against Steve’s wound. “Big baby,” she said fondly when he flinched at her touch.

“I remember feeling like we were picked up. Where do you think they took us?” Clint wondered. He had fern-shaped Lichtenberg lines up and down his visible skin. The electricity had hit them like bolts of lightning.

Nat looked ok but felt like one giant bruise. “I was out instantly,” she lamented.

“I came to a couple times,” said Cap. “But I’m not sure how long it’s been. I’m thirsty, but I’m not hungry.”

“I gotta pee,” Clint reported. “If that helps with the timelines.”

“You’re not peeing in here,” Nat said.

The three sat quietly around the fire for a long couple of minutes. “The others will find us soon,” Nat decided. Suddenly, they heard a banging against the wall. “Very soon…?”

Steve stood. “Tony?” he called. Clint covered his ears as the sound reverberated around them. “Thor?”

“Steve, shut up.” Nat listened to the banging. She looked at Clint, and he nodded urgently. “It’s Morse Code.” Natasha rushed to the wall and started knocking on it. “Yes, we’re ok,” she spoke aloud as she worked. “Can you get us out of here?”

Outside the cage, the HYDRA agent doing the knocking reported to his supervisor that the three Avengers were all right. The Supervisor, who wasn’t pleased, told the agent to give the threesome some hope. “We’ll have you out soon,” the agent tapped back. He then turned and followed the Supervisor over to the enormous excavator and the dump truck beside it.

“How long will it take to dig this hole?” the Supervisor shouted up at the driver.

“Couple of hours, chief,” the agent replied.

“I want it done in 90 minutes. We have to get this cage under ASAP.” The Supervisor scanned the vast desert that surrounded them in every direction. “I want these people to suffer before they die.”

----------

It was damn lucky, Tony decided, that he was so paranoid that he put trackers on everything he’d ever invented. The cage consisted of eight slabs and each of those slabs had a tracker on it. HYDRA had turned off one, likely thinking it was the only one, but the other seven were still going strong. That was how Tony, Bruce, and Thor followed HYDRA to the Sonoran Desert in Mexico after they took out the Hulkbuster wreaking havoc on New York. That was how they found, in the hottest section of the desert, loose dirt that was covering something big. “Oh, no,” Tony groaned at the sight, from the Quinjet above. “Oh god, they’re buried.”

Thor shrugged. “All right, then. We just need to dig them up and we all go home. Simple, yes?”

Bruce, who sat in the copilot’s seat, asked Tony to confirm the dimensions of the cage. He did, and both scientists started doing calculations as fast as any human ever could. Bruce looked at Thor with red eyes. “That cage was built to be watertight. No additional oxygen has entered it since they were scooped up. If we calculate three people taking 20 breaths per minute for the last six hours…”

Tony shook his head. “It may already be too late…” He landed the Quinjet and the three Avengers hurried to the site. Bruce immediately Hulked-out and, roaring, started digging not unlike a dog. Ten feet down he found the pointed top of the cage, and Iron Man immediately lasered the capstone off. He tossed it away and the three Avengers looked down inside. “Cap!”

“Clint! Natasha!” Thor hollered.

Three bodies lay at the bottom of the cage. They lay in circle, as if they’d been sitting forehead-to-forehead and then keeled over to the left at the same time. Iron Man jumped inside, closely followed by Thor and a de-Hulking Bruce. Bruce went to Natasha, Thor to Clint, and Tony to Steve. Three ears were pressed against three mouths. Bruce made an echoing sound—a half-grunt, half-gasp sound of relief. He lifted Natasha into his arms and she immediately started coughing. Clint was breathing, but still unconscious. Thor immediately carried Nat, Clint, and Bruce out of the cage and to the dry surface. Iron Man followed, and lay Steve’s prone body on the dirt.

Natasha rolled over and saw Steve through bleary eyes. “His head,” she coughed, “is he ok?”

“He’s not breathing,” Tony reported. He tossed his helmet aside so hard that it left a dent in the Quinjet. “I got him.” Tony wrapped his lips around Steve’s and blew into his lungs.

Clint came to. He sat up, fell back again, then crawled to Nat’s side. “Campfire…” he coughed, “…bad idea…”

“Too late, now,” Nat whispered. She clung to Clint’s shoulder. “Come on, Steve. Steve, come on!”

Tony checked for Steve’s pulse. “Thor!” he yelled. The god rushed immediately to his side. He didn’t have to be told what to do. Gently he put Mjolnir against Steve’s chest and pushed a bolt of lightning into his friend’s heart. Steve’s heart resumed beating, but he still didn’t breathe. “Dammit!” Tony bellowed. He resumed CPR. Steve’s head wound looked extra red in the blazing desert sunlight.

Steve bit Tony right on the lip when he came to. He rolled over on his side and started coughing. Tony looked gratefully up at the sky, then let his forehead fall against Steve’s upper arm and stay there. When Steve finally caught his breath—nearly ten minutes later—he rolled onto his back and looked up at his friend. “Knew you’d find us,” he whispered.

Tony shrugged. He grinned. “Always will.”

The End

Chapter Text

Prone on his stomach, struggling to shake off Thanos’ latest blow, dizzy and bleeding and quickly running out of hope, was a trembling Tony Stark who looked up in time to see Steve Rogers wrestle the Infinity Stones out of the Titan’s grip, roll head-over-heels backward from the momentum, and then leap to his feet and put the gauntlet on his own right hand. “Cap, don’t!” Tony yelled. Nearby, Thor shouted, “No!” Steve heard his friends’ cries. His eyes met Tony’s and – for the love of – he winked. And then – snap.

It took three tries for Tony to get to his feet. When he did, he limp-sprinted past the disintegrating Thanos, ripped the gauntlet off Steve, and caught his friend in a hug as he collapsed, gasping, burnt, shaking, and bleeding. In a smooth sweep, Tony lifted Steve up into a bridal carry and took him over to the nearest and most stable looking pile of debris. He set him down and looked him over and counted all the parts of him that were burned or bleeding or broken or all three and…

“Oh my God,” Tony whispered, the true situation dawning on him. “Oh, no. Oh, God, no.” He gently removed Steve’s cowl and wiped the dirt off his exposed skin. “Not like this.”

“Exactly like this,” Steve gasped, struggling to breathe. “I always thought it would be… Like this.” Someone ran up behind Tony, hesitated, then rushed to Steve’s right side and put a hand on his chest. “End of the line, eh, Buck?” Steve whispered to his friend.

Bucky’s bottom lip trembled. “Wanted more for you,” he said. “Wanted longer. We were supposed to be old men sitting on a porch.” Steve smiled at him, at the thought.

Sam flew in. He shrugged off his wings. Approaching slowly, face blank, unsure, he finally knelt before Steve and put a hand on his knee. “Hey, Cap.”

Steve spoke quieter. His gasps for breath got more desperate. “You two,” he said, barely gesturing with his left hand at the Winter Soldier and the Falcon, “continue.”

Sam nodded. “Yes, Sir.” Bucky nodded, too.

Steve smiled at the pair. The smile was gone when he returned his attention to Tony, replaced by some expression between wistfulness and admiration. “Look after them for me.”

“I will,” Tony vowed.

“Keep going.”

Tony lowered his face and clenched his eyes shut. When he opened them again, they were flooded. “Without you?” he whispered. “All those years I spent hating you… I finally have you back and… And…” Steve wrapped his left hand around Tony’s. “If I could have those years back…” Tony shook his head. “This should’ve been me…”

Behind Sam stood Thor, Bruce, and Clint. Bruce put his uninjured hand on Clint’s shoulder. Thor reached past Clint and put his on Bruce’s shoulder. No dry eyes there.

“I’m proud of you,” Steve whispered to Tony.

“What?”

Steve squeezed Tony’s hand. “And proud to have known you. Your father… He would’ve been proud, too.”

“Cap…”

“It’s ok,” Steve wheezed, “it’s all right… A favor,” he whispered, tears in one corner of his eye, eyes only on Tony. “One favor.”

“Anything.” Tony meant it. “Anything.”

“Tell Morgan about me.”

Tony’s whole body seized with emotion. “I will. I promise.”

“Tell her…” Steve slumped to the right and landed on Bucky’s shoulder. His grip on Tony’s hand faltered. “Tell her my life… It was good. Because of… Because of my friends.” And then, with no fanfare, with nothing but silence only interrupted by crackling fires nearby, Captain America slipped away.

The End

Chapter Text

“Can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Steve muttered to Tony as they approached the stage at the annual Stark Relief “FUN”draiser. The crowd was laughing and clapping, enjoying the anticipation and suspense. Natasha stood at the podium, also clapping, cocking an eyebrow. She was wearing a long sequined black and red gown with red lipstick that made her eyes pop.

“Sore loser already?” Tony unbuttoned his tuxedo jacket and ran a hand through his hair. “I bet I go for 50% more than you.”

“You have a girlfriend. You shouldn’t be doing this anyway.”

“My girlfriend knows that this money is going to a good cause. She’s fine with a little kiss.”

“Why doesn’t Thor have to do this?”

“Thor’s off-world, and Clint, Sam, and Bruce did this last time. They were happy to contribute to the fundraiser. Why aren’t you?”

“Sorry, but unlike you, I’m not used to kissing girls I’ve known for three seconds.”

“Ouch, Rogers! Just because I’m auctioning you off like a whore doesn’t mean you have to go through the low blows.”

Steve sighed as they climbed the stairs. “Don’t call it that. This isn’t prostitution.”

“You sure about that?” Tony summoned his most charming smile and waved to the clapping crowd. The two Avengers stood side-by-side on Natasha’s right, half-blinded by the stage lights, looking out on an audience of a thousand people. Some of the richest in the world turned out for the fundraiser. Friends of Stark, people curious to see the Avengers up close and, likely, some who just wanted to participate in the “main event.” That main event was a glorified kissing booth. Natasha was about to auction off Steve and Tony’s lips.

Natasha had reached the end of her explanation of the rules when Steve suddenly sidestepped Tony and whispered something in her ear. “Really?” she sighed. Then she pouted, “You’re no fun.” She then turned back to the audience and, after making her opinion clear with a scowl, announced that the only people allowed to participate were the females. More than one voice in the crowd booed loudly.

“Coward,” Tony said when Steve returned to his side.

“Ladies and… Ladies! Who would like to kiss Tony Stark, Iron Man himself!” said Natasha with an entertainer’s flair the boys didn’t know she had in her. “Let’s start the bidding at $1000!”

The woman who won with a whopping $10 million dollar donation was at least 70. She wore a dress more appropriate for a 20-year-old, with white gloves up past her elbows. “Oh my god, she’s ancient,” Tony whispered to Steve while maintaining his smile. “This one should be yours, old man.”

Steve was enjoying every minute of the situation, and so was Natasha, and the hooting and hollering crowd. “Still enjoying this ‘fun’draiser?”

“I hate you.”

Nat stepped away from the mic, reached down the stairs, took the woman’s gloved hand, and helped her ascend by grasping her upper arm. “This is Winnie!” she said, introducing her new friend. “She’s here to kill you.”

Still maintaining their smiles, Tony and Steve both said, “What?”

“Yeah!” Natasha maintained her composure, too. She smiled and laughed and spoke with her hands while she said, “She’s a much younger woman wearing makeup to make her look old and frail, and under that glove is a metal arm that probably has a hand strong enough to pop your Adam’s apple out of your throat like a champagne cork.”

“Winnie” also kept smiling. “Ok, ok, ok… Look, you got me, all right? I’m a hired gun, yes, but I did still give you $10 million dollars. Can’t I get a kiss anyway?” Before Tony could say “hell, no!,” Winnie darted forward and kissed him on the lips with bright red lipstick. The crowd loved it. “There,” Winnie said, “was that soooo bad?”

Tony chuckled and waved bashfully at the crowd. “Go backstage and turn yourself over to secur—security—” Tony tugged his bowtie away from his neck. “If you don’t cooperate now we’ll… We’ll…” Tony suddenly reached backward, blindly, fingers opening and closing.

Steve realized his friend was reaching for him, and stepped forward. He took the hand Tony was reaching with, and then put his other hand around Tony’s upper arm. “Stark?”

Ninja-quick, Natasha suddenly grabbed the woman by the neck and flipped her over onto her back. Before that, she yanked off Tony’s bowtie. She pressed it to the woman’s lips, then smelled the lipstick on the fabric. She looked up at her teammates, horrified. “It’s poison!” She quickly wiped the poison off Tony’s lips, but they all knew it was too late.

The crowd was probably shouting. Security stormed the stage and took the woman away. The running shoes of a thousand people sounded like thunder. Steve noticed none of this. None, because Tony collapsed back into his arms. He’d wrapped his arms around himself as if from a sudden chill. At first he tipped forward but, in trying to right himself, leaned too far back right when the weakness hit. His lips were blue and his entire body was trembling. Steve watched, dismayed, helpless, as Tony’s body arched toward the ceiling and he cried out in pain.

“Hang on. Hang on, Stark,” Nat urged. Tears hovered in her eyes – all professionalism gone, replaced by desperation. “Ambulance is on its way.”

Tony’s head rested on Steve’s knee. He reached out a hand for each of them. They took it and squeezed back. The blueness around his lips spread to his cheeks, then down his neck, all the way to the tips of his fingers. He stared at Steve, whispered something about Pepper, and then his eyes rolled back into his skull and he went still.

“He stopped breathing!” Natasha cried. She checked his pulse and found none. “You breathe for him,” she ordered Steve. “I’ll do the compressions.”

----------

A day later, Steve sat drinking from a bottle of water and reading a Tolkien book beside Tony’s hospital bed. Stark had been in and out of consciousness. They’d gotten an antidote to him in time and although he had a long recovery time in front of him, he was going to make it.

“Hey,” Tony whispered around his sore throat when he woke up and saw Steve. “Hell of a party.”

“Hey. Yeah. Let’s never do it again.” Steve rose, then sat on Tony’s bedside. “You scared me.”

Tony snorted. “Should I apologize?”

“I should apologize. I should’ve stopped her before she got to you. I’m sorry.”

Tony made that buzzing sound by flapping his lips. “Cap, I know you expect yourself to be able to save everyone, but shit happens.”

“Shit happens?”

“It means that bad things happen and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Hmm.” Steve looked down at his hands. “Scared me,” he whispered, mostly to himself.

The two men sat in silence for a moment, each reliving what had happened. Steve shuddered.

“Heard you did the CPR.” Tony eventually said. “You do know that whole show was being recorded, right? Thought you didn’t want to kiss a guy?”

Steve chuckled and put his face in his hands. “Shut up.”

The End

Chapter Text

“We’re not naming it Veronica!” Bruce told Tony in a ‘for the last time’ voice. “Just name it what you name all the other ones – Mark 48 or 49 or wherever you’re at.” The two friends were in their lab in Avengers Tower. It was two in the morning – the perfect time for Stark/Banner brainstorming sessions. Something just coalesced at 2am. Maybe it was the quiet in the Tower or the coffee they shouldn’t drink or the darkness outside the tall windows. Or maybe it was just the mad magic of science on full power when the moon was just right.

“The other ones have names, too, you just haven’t bothered to learn them,” Tony said. He stood in front of a holographic schematic of the Hulkbuster armor with his arms folded against his chest and one fist under his chin. “How about I name this one, and you name the next one, huh? Compromise? Deal? Bruce? …Bruce?” Tony turned towards his fellow scientist and frowned when he saw Banner leaning heavily against a silver lab table. “Banner, hey, what’s up?” Tony jogged over and put his hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“I, uh…” Bruce winced and slid his hand between two buttons of his button-down shirt, massaging his chest. “I don’t know. I feel… Weird.”

Tony noticed the sweat on Bruce’s brow and the slight shake of his hands. “Hulk weird?”

“No… Human weird. Like, uh… I don’t know it’s just… My ribs feel heavy.”

“Your ribs feel heavy?” Tony felt the heat, then – a furious fever in Bruce’s cheeks. “Hey, buddy, why don’t you sit down.” Bruce nodded. He reached blindly for a chair and only found one when Tony moved it. Banner sat down heavily in it, and put his face in his hands. Tony kept his hand on his shoulder. “I thought you never got sick. Green Giant heals you, right? I mean, he gets shot into Swiss cheese and you walk away.”

“God – my head…” Bruce suddenly clamped a hand around Tony’s forearm. “Feels like my skull is changing shape. Is my skull changing shape?”

“Not this time,” Tony gulped, “but look at your skin.” Bruce obeyed. There was a green tint to it. Not Hulk-green but about-to-puke green. It was all over. He felt his own pulse and Tony could tell by the look on his face that his heart was either beating dangerously fast or dangerously slow. “Bruce, maybe we should get you to a hospital.”

“Maybe… Maybe I should sit down,” Bruce wondered. His words were slow and slightly slurred.

“Buddy, you are sitting – Bruce?” Bruce suddenly started to shake from his toes up to his nose. Tony grabbed onto his upper arms with both hands. “Bruce!” It happened so quickly – as most shocking things do. Bruce fell out of the chair, and would’ve knocked his head on the floor if Tony hadn’t been there to slow his fall and then catch his body. The seizure caused every single muscle in his body to shake like a guitar string. “JARVIS!” Tony called, “call 911! And wake the team!”

----------

Natasha was just about to call it a night and allow herself to drift off to sleep when a voice suddenly said, “Where are we?” Her heart did a loop-de-loop. Bruce was awake and looking at her and speaking and, oh, her heart flipped happily over again. She crawled across the king-sized bed and gave Banner a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. “So… Heaven?” Bruce quipped with a slight smile.

Natasha returned his smile. “Asgard, actually.”

Bruce found himself in the nicest bed he’d ever been in, inside the shittiest old barn he’d ever seen. “This is Asgard?”

Natasha put up her finger. She had her phone to her cheek. She winced when a high-pitched buzzing sound erupted from it. “Bad service out here,” she joked, winking. “Stark? Yeah. He’s awake.” She pocketed her phone and returned her attention to Bruce. “This is an empty island far, far away from Odin’s kingdom but, yes, this is Asgard.” Bruce tried to sit up in bed, but Nat put a hand on his bare chest. “Not yet,” she said. “Take it slow.”

“What happened?”

“We’re not sure. Seizure of some sort. You’ve been asleep for a week.”

“A week?”

Pounding footsteps outside. The barn door opened and Tony and Steve entered. “There he is.” Stark clapped his hands together once, then sat on a corner of the bed, opposite to Nat. “How you feeling, buddy?”

Bruce was just assessing that now that he’d gotten his bearings. “Stuff… hurts,” he concluded, half-aware that he sounded half-lucid. He reached up and scratched at the almost-beard he’d grown. “Especially my head. It’s throbbing.”

Tony nodded. His smile was so forced he looked like he was wearing a mask of himself. “Did you tell him yet?” he asked Natasha.

She shook her head vehemently. “Waiting for you to.”

“I think that’s a job for the team leader.” Tony looked up at Cap and spread his fingers out, gesturing for him to speak. Steve almost insisted that Tony be the one to give Bruce the news, but he saw something foreign in Tony’s eyes. He couldn’t name it, but it was something like a begging expression. Tony really didn’t want to do it.

Cap cleared his throat. He moved to stand behind Tony and folded his arms against his chest. “You have a brain tumor,” he said. “You’re dying.”

Bruce snorted. “If I have a brain tumor, the Hulk has already healed it.”

Steve shared a knowing look with Tony. “Well, this one isn’t healing. It’s right above your pituitary gland and it’s getting bigger every day. It’s pushing hormones into your system that are messing up all your organs. The docs at home can’t do anything for you. We were hoping the scientists on Asgard would have a solution, but they don’t. And…”

“And?” Bruce prompted.

“We’ve tried to get the Hulk to come out, to heal you, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

“Even kicked you in the balls,” Tony said. When Bruce glared at him Tony shrugged and said, “For your own good!”

Natasha pursed her lips together and looked down at the sheets covering Bruce’s body. “We brought you here in case you change,” she explained. “Nothing smashable on this island but us.”

“I’ll get him to come out and play,” Bruce said with a sigh and a roll of his eyes. “Get off the island.”

“We’re not scared,” said Nat. “He’s been recognizing us lately. He knows our voices, he knows our faces. The lullaby works most of the time.”

“And if he’s being a jerk I’ll just call in Veronica,” Tony said with a sneer.

“We are not calling it Veronica!” Bruce suddenly shivered. “Oh! Do something else to make me angry. Might be working.”

“Uh… The flat-earthers are right!” said Natasha.

“Trump is the greatest president the world has ever seen!” said Tony.

“Tony’s smarter than you!” said Steve with a chuckle.

Bruce frowned and put his hand to his chest. “Hmm.”

“Hmm?”

“Whenever I get a little emotional I can… Feel him. He’s this extra weight in me that kind of wakes up and lets me know he’s there. I don’t…” Wide-eyed, Bruce looked up at Tony. “He’s there. I can feel him but… I think he’s sick, too. I think… I think he’s dying.” Suddenly, to the shock of the other three, Banner tossed his arms into the air and shouted happily. “I’m dying!”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Natasha asked. “This is not how normal people react to a brain tumor!”

“You don’t get it,” said Bruce, which was true because none of them did. “I’ve been hoping to die ever since I got the Hulk. I’ve been trying to die.”

Nat frowned. “Don’t…”

“Nat, the Hulk is nothing but a dangerous burden. He destroys, he kills. I thought he couldn’t be killed but something has changed. If we can get rid of him, the sooner the better.”

“That means getting rid of you!”

“So?” Bruce’s smile was as wide as his face. “This – this is a miracle!” Nat suddenly leapt to her feet and stormed out of the barn, slamming the door as she left. The three men watched her go in silence – one of them flabbergasted. Bruce cleared his throat. He tried to look Tony and Steve in the eye, but their attentions were on the floor. “You get it, right?” he asked them. Neither replied. “I want you to stop trying to cure me,” Bruce ordered. “No pills, no brain surgery, no Asgard magic medicine. Let me die.” Tony suddenly leapt to his feet and stormed out of the barn, slamming the door as he left. “What?” Bruce called after him.

Steve sighed and pulled a wooden chair up to the bed. “Bruce,” he said, “what would you do if Nat was dying? If Tony was?”

Bruce flinched at the thought. He settled deeper under his blankets and echoed Steve’s sigh. “I’d tear the world apart trying to save them.”

“And you don’t think we’d do the same for you?”

“I don’t want you to do the same for me. Don’t you see? I don’t care if I die. All I care about is preventing the Hulk from hurting people. If that means death, then so be it.”

“You are a valued member of this team and an indispensable scientist to the world and, more importantly you’re our friend and we love you,” Cap said quietly, and all in one breath. “We’re not giving up.”

“Well, I am,” Bruce said, equally quietly. “Happily.”

---------

A month passed. Bruce lost weight. He had seizures at least once a day. When he wasn’t asleep he was vomiting, and when he wasn’t vomiting he was suffering from headaches that almost made him cry. Half of his hair fell out. He could barely walk, refused to eat, felt dizzy, and when he had the strength to he pulled out his IVs. The team tended to him the whole time. But no threat from Thor could get him to eat. Clint tried the “airplane method” with a spoon like he did with his kids, but that didn’t work to get Bruce to eat or to laugh. Every physician in Asgard came to see him, but none could help.

Nothing worked. Bruce was dying.

One morning, about an hour before dawn, Bruce suddenly woke up gasping for air. The other five were in the barn and all rushed to his bedside. It was Tony that Bruce held a hand out to. Stark took it, and held Bruce’s thin, cold hand in both of his, warm and snug in his lap where he sat on the side of the bed. Candlelight lit the scene and a few morning songbirds sang outside the barn. “Think this is it,” Bruce wheezed. “You can name it Veronica. Not that you’ll need her anymore.”

Stark laughed – one of those short snorts that propel tears and snot. “I’d give anything…” he started to say. His eyes filled up with tears, and then emptied. “I fix things. I’ve always been able to fix things and if I can’t, I have the money to pay someone who can but this… Bruce, I have, maybe, ten friends in the world and half of them are in this room… I can’t lose you.”

Banner managed a smile. “Love you, too,” he said. His lungs sounded like they were full of rocks. “Miss you.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t say goodbye,” Tony said. Then he relented. “Miss you.” Tears poured. “So much.”

Bruce closed his eyes and the rattling stones went silent. A squeak came out of Natasha and she collapsed into Clint’s arms. Thor put a comforting hand on Steve’s shoulder. Tony checked for a pulse and when he found none, he folded forward and put his forehead on Bruce’s chest.

And then the Hulk came out. Banner’s body stretched and cracked. The five Avengers backed up against the walls as the bed collapsed from the green giant’s bulk. Hulk sat up, roared happily, and then gave the others a grin with gravestone teeth. “Hulk!” he roared. “Only Hulk now! Hulk forever!”

“Well he’s looking perfectly fit,” said Steve.

“Strong as ever,” Thor pointed out.

It dawned on Clint a second before everyone else realized what was going on. “You don’t think…?”

Tony raced forward. Hulk had to duck his head under the barn’s roof – his body took up most of the room – so his chin was close to the floor, at the perfect angle for Tony to punch it. And he did. With all his strength. Hulk roared so loud that the wind he created pushed Tony back against Steve. “Don’t—!” Steve advised, grabbing Tony’s upper arms. Stark fought him off and approached Hulk again.

“You son of a bitch!” Tony hollered. “You didn’t heal him on purpose! You let him die so you could be rid of him!”

“Hulk is Hulk now!” the giant yelled back. “Only Hulk!”

“You giant green dick!” Tony continued. “You nut-less, soul-less asshole! I will fucking kill you, you hear me? I will bury you for this!”

Natasha rushed to Tony’s side and grabbed his hand. “Let me,” she hissed at him. “Let me try.”

Tony blinked red eyes. He wiped his face with his sleeve, gave the Hulk the finger, then retreated to Steve’s side.

Natasha approached Hulk. She sat down in front of him, mirroring his crossed legs and the angle of his head. “Hey, big guy,” she said. “Sun’s getting real low.” Hulk snorted at her like a bull. “Do you want to hurt me?”

Hulk blinked big, round, and hard. “No smash ‘tasha.”

“Hulk smashed,” said Nat, accusing. She pointed at her heart. “Hulk smashed bad. Hulk smashed Tony, Hulk smashed Steve, Hulk smashed everybody.”

“Hulk not care,” he decided after a moment of contemplation. “Hulk just want to smash.”

“You wouldn’t have said a few minutes ago,” said Natasha. “Not with Bruce’s heart in you.”

“Banner imprison Hulk! Hulk smash Banner!”

“If you smash, you hurt people,” Natasha reminded him. “Do you want to hurt people?”

“Want to smash!”

“Bad Hulk!”

“Smash!”

“Then smash me!” Nat stood and spread her arms, turning her body into a cross shape. “Do it!”

Hulk roared. He raised both hands and hammered them down.

His fists stopped an inch from Natasha’s hair.

“You wouldn’t have done that a few minutes ago,” Natasha said. “Not with Bruce’s heart in you.” She put her hands to her hips and lifted her chin. “Bruce keeps you good.”

Hulk retreated. “No smash ‘tasha,” he repeated.

“You won’t,” she said, “if Bruce is alive.” She waited a few seconds, then said, “Give him back to us.”

The Avengers could practically see the gears going in the Hulk’s brain. He sniffed and snorted and looked around the room like the answers were hanging on the wall. Then he sighed and reached his finger out for Natasha to take. “Sun… Getting… Low…”

The great monster crumpled like paper. Bones shrunk and tendons shortened. He curled in on himself and suddenly, there he was. Suddenly there was a naked Bruce Banner standing in the middle of the barn looking beyond bewildered. His hair was back. So was his weight. In fact, he’d never looked healthier.

“This can’t be Heaven,” Bruce deduced. The team didn’t answer. They just hugged.

The End

Chapter Text

The HYDRA base they found was a rogue one – one SHIELD didn’t even know about – one that was only ever built and run by HYDRA agents. The Alaskan wilderness seemed like a likely location to hide Loki’s staff, so the Avengers set out for the base as soon as one of their sources discovered it. That source led them to a cargo train that left Fairbanks once a month with supplies for the base. The six Avengers snuck onto the rear of a train right before it left, and dashed into the nearest car, which turned out to be a refrigerated one full of frozen meat. The team lasted an hour sitting, individually, with their backs against the walls or barrels or wooden crates. And then Natasha crawled over to Clint’s arms and he wrapped them around her, warming her up with soft quick motions. And then Steve decided that he was cold enough to risk feeling foolish, and he joined their little hug. Eventually, all six Avengers ended up in a little dogpile, clinging to each other for warmth. Tony opened the Iron Man suit and programmed it to blast heat across all of them. There was a silent agreement that no one was to tell anyone about the team of superheroes hugging each other in a train…

When the train came to a stop, they waited, weapons ready, at the door. They never got a chance to use those weapons, because canisters suddenly dropped down from a ceiling vent, and gas exploded so fast that not even the Iron Man suit had a chance to close its vents before Tony took an inhale. The six Avengers passed out instantly.

Natasha woke up in the same place she fell asleep in. The train was moving again – rumbling along the tracks. She was chained tight to the steel wall underneath the refrigeration vents. Clint was on her right and Tony was on her left, both still unconscious. The Iron Man suit, Cap’s shield, and Mjolnir, Thor’s hammer, sat quietly in the opposite corner. A man in a black, thick HYDRA uniform leaned past her and felt the pulse in Tony’s neck. Natasha tried to nab the man with the only weapon she had at the moment – her teeth – but the arm pulled back. She squinted through what remained of the haze and saw their source in SHIELD, the one who had told them about the rogue base in the first place.

“Where’s the rest of my team, Doug?” Nat spat at her traitorous friend.

Brown-haired, blue-eyed, vaguely resembling a Ken doll, Doug sat back down in his seat between two pairs of some of the biggest brutes of men Natasha had ever seen. “Don’t be mad,” he told her. “Let me explain.”

“You were my date to Clint’s wedding,” Natasha whispered, incredulous. “How could you betray us like this?”

“I didn’t betray you. I saved you!” Doug insisted. “My lieutenant wanted to kill you all, but I convinced him to let you, Stark, and Clint go. We’re on our way back to Fairbanks. But I can only let you go, Natasha, if you swear not to go after the others. If you do, they’ll kill them instantly. My lieutenant has big plans for Banner, Rogers, and Thor. You don’t interrupt him, and he doesn’t shoot them in the head.”

“What does this lieutenant of yours want with them?”

“It’s not actually him, it’s…” Doug apparently couldn’t bring himself to look his old friend in the eyes when he told her this part. “It’s Keane.”

Nat’s jaw dropped. “Dr. Albert Keane? The Modern Mengele?”

“That’s an unfair nickname. He’s not as bad as Josef Mengele.”

“He does merciless medical experiments on innocent people! I can’t believe you’re on his side!”

“Nat, I—” Doug got up and started to pace the car. “I told you. I told you I convinced them to let you go if they can keep the others. I did you a favor. Now, tell me you’re going to stand down. Swear it on your godchildren’s lives.”

“You think I’m going to just sit here and let Keane put Thor’s head on Hulk’s body?” Natasha shook her head. “I never stop fighting for my team. You, of all people, should know that.”

Suddenly, they all heard a thump on the roof above them. A laser cut through the center of the ceiling and started going in a circle. “You should know something, Doug,” Nat said over the roar. “I told you six of us were coming… I lied.”

----------

Steve woke up to find himself strapped to a surgical table with his feet at Banner’s head and Thor’s feet at his head. The three beds formed a triangle under massively bright lights. In the center stood a balding man in a white coat who was staring, hypnotized almost, at whatever findings he was reading on a holographic screen. “Imagine it,” he said out loud, and Steve wondered if the man knew he was awake. “The strength of the Hulk, the God of Thunder, and Captain America all in one being… Magnificent.”

“Why don’t people just ask for samples of our blood,” Cap wondered, sarcastically, startling the man, “instead of taking it from us by force?”

The balding man stepped over a few cords and approached Steve’s bed. “Would you have given it to me?” the man asked. Steve didn’t need to answer that question. “I am glad you’re awake. The other two – we must leave them unconscious – they’re too dangerous. But science is extra fun when there’s an audience to witness it. You, Captain, will be the audience for this experiment.” The balding man tipped his head to the side. “Can you move?”

Steve had already tried. “What did you do to me?”

Keane, was the man’s name. It said “Dr. Keane” on his lab coat. “Drained your blood. Rude, I know, but I can’t have you making any trouble. If you weren’t a superhuman you’d be quite dead by now. Astounding that your body can operate at all with two pints of blood in it.” Keane walked past Banner to a metal table and took a scalpel off it. He was grinning when he returned to Steve, whose eyes followed the scalpel down to the skin of his arm. “Do you feel this?” Keane asked as he dragged the scalpel across Steve’s inner forearm.

Steve watched the blood blossom. It hurt like hell, but he was determined not to show it. Keane read his eyes, though, and laughed when he saw the pain in them. “You have to have a bit of a sadistic side to be a surgeon,” he said. “I have to admit… Part of me like this part the best. The patient awake, squirming, helpless – gives me a bit of an adrenaline high, I think. Hmm, should we experiment with that?” Keane reached across Steve and dragged the scalpel down that arm, too. His smile widened. “Yes, that makes me feel good.”

Steve wished he had the energy to headbutt the man right then and there. “Where’s the rest of my team?”

Keane chuckled. “You’re worried about your friends while I’m doing this to you?” Keane used the scalpel to cut through Steve’s uniform, revealing his chest. With the precision of an artist, he cut a heart-shaped incision into Steve’s chest, just above his actual heart. “I like this part, too. The part where I get to decide what happens next. Should I put one of Dr. Banner’s ligaments into your arm to see if it makes you stronger? Should I slice off a bit of Thor’s brain to see the magic in it? Or should I just have fun playing with you?” Steve couldn’t hold in a yelp when the scalpel suddenly stabbed into his abdomen, right between his ribs, nicking his left lung.

“Oh boy,” said a new voice, and both Steve and Keane looked up at the ceiling. “You should not have done that.” In a flash of falcon wings, Sam descended from the ceiling just as Iron Man kicked down the door and Nat and Clint dropped from the windows. The roof shook. A laser sliced through, and War Machine crashed down right on top of Keane’s computer. The doctor truly must have been addicted to the sensation of causing pain to someone because in that moment – his last – he chose to stab the scalpel one more time, this time into Steve’s heart, which he did a second before three bullets from three different directions intercepted him.

Cap screamed. He used what little energy he had to rip the scalpel out of his chest, a moment before he remembered that you were supposed to leave the damn thing in. He knew he was in trouble when the blood seeped instead of spouted. There was so little of it left… And he was suddenly so very tired… And his heartbeat was going so. Very. Slow…

Tony appeared above him, suit-less. He was saying something, repeating Steve’s name, probably something comforting or encouraging. Steve was glad to have a friend with him in that minute as the rest of the blood drained from him. Steve took one last deep breath and finally – finally – allowed his eyes to close.

---------

Tony was there again – still? – when Steve opened his eyes. He was looking at Cap with the same expression, saying his name again, asking questions Steve didn’t understand. Then people Steve didn’t know escorted Tony aside and doctors in lab coats started prodding him. Briefly, Steve thought that Keane had him again – still? – and almost lashed out at the similar lab coats. But then he heard Tony’s voice, still nearby, just out of eyesight, and he knew he was all right.

Time passed. He drifted. And then Tony was there again with a smile and an ice cube. Cap had never been so thirsty in his life. “You’re in the hospital.” This time Steve understood Tony. “You’re ok.”

Steve nodded. “You’re ok?” he croaked.

Tony nodded. “Everything’s ok.”

The End

Chapter Text

Quill’s blasts knocked Thanos off balance, but he regained his footing quickly. Before Dr. Strange or Peter could do anything but cry out Tony’s name, the titan disappeared through the blue portal not just with the newly acquitted Time Stone and the other Infinity Stones, but with the skewered Tony Stark as well. A blink later and they were on earth. Tony found himself in Wakanda, looking back at the wide eyes of the other Avengers. He found brief joy at the sight of their faces – even Cap and Nat’s. But then he saw Vision at the back of the group, and he remembered why they were there. Tony gathered himself and took a swing at Thanos’ massive chin, but the titan easily dodged it and served Tony a punch right where he’d stabbed him minutes before. Tony yelped and folded forward. He dropped to one knee and blood poured from the front and back of his wound. Steve cried out his name.

Suddenly, Thanos grasped Tony by the throat and held him high like a trophy. “The wizard just gave up a Stone to save this one’s life,” Thanos announced loud enough for the whole forest to hear. “He must be precious to you earthlings, so I’ll make this offer, but only once: give me the Mind Stone, and I’ll give you Tony Stark.”

Blackness crept in from the corners of Tony’s eyes. His body shuddered, every inch of it straining for breath. With the last air he had, Tony shouted to his friends, “Don’t!”

Steve and Tony made eye contact. An unspoken conversation happened in two mute seconds. I’m sorry. I’ve missed you. I have to do what I have to do. I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. With just a hint of reluctance, Cap ordered the team, “Eyes up! Stay sharp!” and the Avengers advanced.

A frustrated Thanos tossed Tony aside. Tony collided with a tree, rolled down the trunk and came to a stop in a pile of his own limbs, gasping. Some ghost version of the Hulkbuster suddenly floated over him before rock enveloped it. Steve went sailing past. One by one, Thanos was taking the Avengers down on his warpath to Vision. Grunting, Tony managed to climb to his feet. He limped, swaying a bit, over to the Hulkbuster and grabbed onto its remaining hand. “Release it!” he ordered whoever was inside.

Banner folded the visor down and got a good look at his friend. “Tony, you’re hurt! Sit this one out!”

“Bruce, the universe is at stake here. Give me the damn gauntlet!” Banner hesitated, but obeyed. The weight of the gauntlet nearly pulled Tony to the ground, and he yelped from pain. He opted to drag the weapon, and he turned and inched his way towards Thanos’ back. Falcon crashed down. Rhodey crumpled like an aluminum can. Was he delirious or was that a tree? While the tree distracted Thanos, Tony crept up behind him. He squeezed his right hand into the gauntlet, used the left to aim it, and activated the repulsor. He hit Thanos square in the back of the neck.

Thanos roared. He whirled around and struck Tony with his fist. Stark flew head-over-heels backwards. He would’ve collided with the same rock Bruce was stuck in, but far softer hands connected to a much softer body grabbed him out of midair. “Gotcha,” a disheveled, bleeding Steve Rogers gasped as he gently lowered Tony to the ground, cradling him.

Blackness crept in from the corners of Tony’s eyes. He ordered himself to hang on. He couldn’t pass out yet. “I couldn’t stop him,” Tony gasped in a voice that begged for forgiveness.

“We will,” Steve declared. He made sure Tony was comfortable, and then he ran back to Thanos. The titan ripped his shields off, then punched down. Cap intercepted the gauntlet, and he may have even held it for another second if Thanos hadn’t punched him with his opposite hand. Cap hit the ground hard. He didn’t move.

Tony, groaning, crawled to him. “Cap,” he croaked. He reached out and shook the soldier’s shoulder. “Steve! Steve, get up!” Cap remained still. Tony couldn’t take it anymore. The pain and the weight of their inevitable failure overwhelmed him, and he passed out.

Steve fought through a dark fog and woke up. He found Tony’s pale, bleeding face in front of his. “Stark?” Steve whispered. Tony was unconscious. Steve raised his head an looked around. Wanda and Thanos were battling and Steve begged, “Come on, girl.”

Then Vision exploded, and the shockwave knocked trees over and sent Tony and Steve rolling half a dozen feet. Tony groaned. Steve saw the wound, then, and the blood – there was so much of it. “Tony?” He shook his friend’s shoulder. “Tony, please stay awake.”

Tony did, but only long enough to see Thanos reverse time and yank the Mind Stone out of Vision’s head.

He passed out.

-----

“Oh, God,” Steve said from his spot sitting beside Vision’s hollow dead body. And then he said, “Oh, God, Tony!” Cap leapt to his feet and sprinted deeper into the forest. With all that happened so quickly – Thor, Bucky disappearing, everything – he’d all but forgotten about his friend, and hated himself for it in that moment. Relief replaced everything when he saw that Tony was still there. He hadn’t disintegrated, but was his heart beating? Steve pressed trembling fingers to Tony’s neck and found a pulse. Then he gulped. The emotion of the day collected in his chest and threatened to burst out. He allowed a little to leak out – one tear – and then he put his face down on Tony’s chest and let a single sob wreck him.

A trembling hand touched the back of his head. Steve looked up. Tony’s eyes were closed, but his tongue was licking his lips. “Did we win?” Tony whispered.

Steve put his head back down. Another tear leaked out… And a thousand followed it.

The End

Chapter Text

The Quinjet circled the submarine graveyard like a vulture. “One heat signature,” Tony reported from the pilot’s seat. “Only heat signature within a five mile radius that isn’t, you know, a raccoon.”

“Then he’s alone,” Natasha concluded. She shook Tony’s head rest impatiently. “So land the damn jet!”

Steve came up behind Natasha and gently put a palm on her shoulder. “We’re worried about him too, Nat, but just because there aren’t any heat signatures doesn’t mean there isn’t an army waiting for us down there.”

“Laura said that Clint was nabbed by a robot,” Bruce reminded her from his seat on Tony’s left. “This could be an Ultron situation all over again. There could dozens of robots guarding him in that old sub.”

The Avengers were in the Kola Peninsula of Russia. Dozens of submarines left to die after the Cold War lay half-beached, lopsided, and rusting in the shallow water. The one the heat signature radiated from appeared to be the most intact. The outer hull was bronze but not rusted through. A newer metal ladder led from the swampy ground up to the top hatch. Tony landed the Quinjet a quarter mile away and the team, led by Thor up front, approached the graveyard in silence, on alert. They got all the way up the ladder and onto the half-sunken sub before someone spoke.

“There’s movement in there. Not much, but get ready,” Tony said. He grasped the top hatch with Iron Man’s hands, counted to three, and then ripped the hatch and threw it like a frisbee. Thor dropped in first, followed by Natasha and Steve. A reluctant Bruce climbed down the ladder behind Tony. The team split and two, one half moving silently towards the front of the sub, the other half just as quietly towards the back. It was Nat who spotted the light coming from the sub’s brig at the very back. She started running, and probably would’ve busted right through the door if she had the strength. Thor stepped in and, with two smashes of his hammer, the steel crumpled. He and Nat busted through.

The robot – a single, slim, faceless, frail-looking, three-foot-high semi-rusted metal robot – fell to its knees and squealed, “Do not hurt me, friends!” Behind the robot, lying strapped down by rusty chains on a dirty mattress lying on the floor was a semi-conscious Clint Barton wearing the same farm-worn jeans and flannel shirt he’d been captured in. He turned his face towards the sound, briefly made eye contact with Natasha, and then his eyes rolled back into his head and he went still.

Natasha towered above the small robot and pointed her gun at the faceless round ball that might’ve been its head. “Out of my way,” she said politely between clenched teeth. The robot, cowering, crawled to the starboard side and huddled, shaking like a kicked puppy. Natasha sheathed her gun and rushed to her friend’s side. At first, Clint looked unharmed, but then she saw the right side of his body. Every inch of visible skin was burned, second-degree, including his face. “Oh, God,” Natasha whispered.

Steve, Tony, and Bruce rushed into the brig. The little robot raised its spherical head and gasped. “The creators!” it crawled on broken hands and feet over to Tony and Bruce and bowed to them. “You found me!”

It was then that the team noticed the scraps of cloth the little robot was wearing: a green uniform with red boots and gloves, and a gold and red cape. If the thing was whole he’d look like…

“Did Vision have a baby?” Tony wondered out loud.

“Vision, yes! Make me Vision!” the tiny robot begged. He tried to grab onto Tony’s leg like a toddler reaching for his father, but Stark gently kicked it away. “I knew you’d find me, Creators. I knew if I took your friend you’d come after him and you’d find me. Now make me! Turn me into a Vision!”

“You kidnapped Clint to try to get us to upgrade you into Vision?” Bruce sputtered, appalled. “What the hell are you?”

“A failed experiment,” the tiny robot wailed. “Left on the scrap pile. But now – now, you will make me whole. You will heal me!”

“You took our friend,” Tony growled. “The only thing that’s going to happen now is I’m going to step on you like a Coke can.”

The little robot suddenly went still. It cocked its head to the side and looked back and forth between Bruce and Tony. He then pointed a flimsy arm, hand, and finger at Clint. “Make me into one of your robots,” he demanded, “or I’ll kill him.”

The tension in the room tightened. Even Thor took a step back away from the thing. Nat rose from the bed, unsheathed her weapons and stood protectively between the robot and her best friend.

“I put some… wires, you could call them, in him,” the little robot continued. Had his voice deepened? “I can make them burn him from the inside out with nothing more than a thought.” To prove his point, the robot snapped his fingers and Clint suddenly bellowed with pain. His back arched off the mattress and the chains dug into his skin. A lightning-shaped burn stretched from his left temple down past his collar. Suddenly, the little robot in the homemade Vision costume didn’t seem so harmless.

“Stop it!” Steve ordered.

“You are murdering him,” said Thor.

Clint screamed in pain.

“All right – ok!” Both Tony and Bruce raised their hands in surrender. “We’ll take you back to my lab,” Tony continued, “and I’ll make you as Vision-esque as I can, all right?”

The robot cocked its head to the other side, intrigued. “Swear it. Swear it on your friend’s life.”

“We swear,” Bruce agreed. “Just don’t hurt – we swear – stop it – stop it!”

The robot snapped its fingers again, and Clint went silent and still.

Tony knelt. “Shake on it,” he said, and he held his hand out. “That’s what we do to seal a deal. We shake on it. You let our friend go, we turn you into Vision, agreed?”

The robot hesitated, then extended its hand. “Agree—” he started to say.

A blast of light erupted from the Iron Man suit. The robot teetered backwards and collapsed to the floor, most of it breaking from the impact. It stayed down. The Iron Man suit collapsed backward into Steve’s arms, dead. “Tony!”

“It’s all right, it’s ok,” Bruce said. He knelt beside Steve and Tony. “I knew he’d do that.”

“What did he do?” Thor demanded.

“He just sent out an electromagnetic pulse. An EMP severely damages – even destroys – every electronic within the blast range. He destroyed that robot, but damaged his own suit in the process.”

“It hurts to fall with no shock absorbers,” came a muffled voice from inside the suit. Bruce found a hidden button and the faceplate popped off. “Get me out of this thing. It’s heavy,” Tony said with a wry smile.

Behind them, Thor put his hammer down and ripped the chains off Barton’s body. Natasha sat down on the mattress and pulled Clint’s body close to hers, wrapping him around her. Carefully, avoiding any areas that were burnt, she cupped his face and spoke his name. “Clint?”

Barton’s eyes, though shut, clenched even further closed. “Did you get him?” he whispered, sounding like he was getting over a massive cold. “Did you get the dad?”

Nat stroked his hair. She sounded like she had a head cold, too. Her chest was full of emotion. “What do you mean? What dad?”

Clint frowned. He opened one eye, and then the other. “Nat, that little pipsqueak didn’t snatch me off the farm and fly me all the way here. There’s – there’s a whole family. Vision worshippers. We need to get out of here. The others will be back soon.”

Nat shared a worried look with Thor. Without a word, the god gently picked the archer up and the team left the submarine in a hurry.

Back at Avengers Tower, three days later, Clint Barton lay half-naked in the infirmary on his side. Bruce gently lifted the blanket covering him and applied more gel packs meant to heal the burns quickly. He winced at the sight of his teammate’s skin. “Any better?” Tony asked from the other side of the bed.

“A little better than he would be at this stage with traditional medicine,” Banner said. “But, he’s still got a ways to go.”

“You could talk like I’m here, guys,” Clint grunted. He looked up at Tony, then down at the floor, then up at Tony again. “Never thanked you for coming for me. You guys saved my life.”

Tony snorted and rolled his eyes. His eyes filled up briefly with water – very briefly – then went dry again. Bruce moved to his side and elbowed him in the ribs. “Say it,” he told his friend. “We’ll feel better.”

Tony reached behind his head and scratched his scalp. “We’re sorry,” he said. “If it weren’t for us, this never would’ve happened to you. Everything with Sokovia, Vision, Ultron, the pipsqueak… It was all our fault. Never wanted you to get hurt.”

“I know,” Clint said. “And I never wanted to kill all those people, but Loki forced me to. That wasn’t my fault, and this wasn’t yours. We’re square.” Clint winced and shuffled a bit in the bed. “Don’t suppose you’ve located the rest of the worshippers?”

Tony and Bruce exchanged regretful looks. “Not yet,” Tony sighed. “Not yet.”

The End

(To Be Continued?)

Chapter Text

The single light hovering above Steve’s face winked at him like they were sharing some inside joke. A thick layer of dust covered the top of the glass bulb and little bits of it rained down when the approaching footsteps shook the tiny operating room and the bed he lay in. Steve sighed, lips flapping. He tried, again, to break through the Vibranium ropes covering three-quarters of his body like mummifying cloth. He couldn’t move.

“Would save my strength, if I were you,” the mad scientist advised, entering the room with a needle. “You haven’t eaten in a week.” He leaned over Steve’s restrained body and grinned with tobacco-stained teeth. “Ready for the next round?”

Steve eyed the needle. “Next round?”

“We’re almost up to one hundred attempts,” tobacco mouth told him. He smiled with the confidence of an expert poker player. “But you wouldn’t know that.” He sighed and rolled the needle between two fingers. “Got the paralysis figured out, got the memory erasure, now I just need to figure out how to control your body movements.” The needle pierced Steve’s neck and it felt like a bite more than a prick. Heat flooded his veins, clawing. The doctor yanked the needle back out and put it on a metal try nearby. “How do you feel?”

Steve glared at him. “I don’t know what it is you’re doing, but it’s not working. I’m not paralyzed, and I remember… I remember…” What confused Cap the most wasn’t the fact that he had no idea who his captor was, or how he ended up in the tiny dark room. What confused him the most was that he was so damn hungry. He knew he’d had a big lunch of tacos, so why was his stomach growling and cramping?

“My memory is fine, and I’m not paralyzed,” Steve declared.

“Really?” The doctor’s eyes gleamed under the pale yellow lightbulb. “Look down.”

Steve did. The Vibranium ropes were gone.

“What the hell…” He looked back up at his captor. Was the man wearing different clothes…? Cap tried to sit up, tried to punch, but the only parts of him that could move were his mouth and his eyes.

“My buyers,” the man said, “want a super soldier they can command like a robot. They want to be able to control your body – make you kick when they want, punch when they want, kill when they want.” His breath stunk and Steve’s face would’ve scrunched up in disgust if he could move it. “I’m doing you a favor, really, controlling your memories, erasing the memories of the horrors you’ve committed. Your sins.”

“Horrors?” Steve whispered. “Sins?”

“Look at your hands.”

Steve obeyed. He gasped. Blood that hadn’t been there a second ago covered his hands like paint. “What – who – who did I kill?” Steve whispered, horrified.

The doctor shrugged. “Would you like the list of names in alphabetical order, or in the order you killed them?”

Steve’s empty stomach rumbled. His forehead felt hot and his eyes felt wet. “Who?” he whispered.

“It was impressive, really. You tore his suit apart like it was made of cellophane.”

“No…”

“He begged you to stop, to come back to yourself, to see him.” The doctor rolled his eyes. “Pathetic.”

“Not him,” Steve whispered.

The doctor’s face flushed with glee. “When you ripped his throat out with your bare hands – oh, I’ve watched the security footage a dozen times. It was brutally beautiful.”

Steve closed his eyes. “Tony…”

“I’m here, Steve.” a new voice responded from some corner of the room beyond the light’s reach. The doctor gasped, whirled around with a knife suddenly in his grip, and threw the weapon. The knife hit something metal. Steve recognized the sound of the impact. And then the doctor’s body was launched across the room. He struggled back up to his feet and grabbed another needle off the tray. One second before he stabbed the needle into Steve’s neck, a metal hand intercepted it. Light burst, and the doctor crumpled to the floor with a hole in his shoulder.

The Iron Man helmet retracted into the suit’s collar, and there he was. “Sorry I’m late,” Tony said. “We’ve been looking for you nonstop all week, I swear, we just didn’t find a clue until today and I got here fast as I could – Thor’s right behind me and the others are in the Quinjet and I’m sorry, I’m so damn sorry, Cap, that you were here so long and that, dammit, I – why are you looking at me like that?”

The look on Steve’s face resembled confused shock, but beyond that. “I didn’t kill you,” he confirmed. “You’re alive.”

Tony looked his friend up and down. “What did he do to you?” he growled when his eyes landed on the section of Steve’s neck that was undoubtedly dotted with needle marks.

“Lied to me. Took my memories. Paralyzed me… Probably stole my credit card…” Steve swallowed hard. “I…” he croaked, “I… I’m really hungry. For tacos.”

Tony gave him a half-smile. “Let’s get you home so Bruce can look you over.” Tony gently lifted his friend up into a bridal carry and sidestepped through the door. “What the hell is that smell? Did that guy dip your hands in red paint?”

The End

Please review!

Chapter Text

“Brothers don’t let each other wander in the dark alone.” -Jolene Perry

The missiles snuck up on them just before sunset. There was no time to grab a parachute, no time to jump into Iron Man armor. There was just time enough for what Tony had named “Code Hug.” Steve called out the code and he, Tony, and Clint all dove into Bruce’s arms. The Hulk emerged. He picked the three men up like they were infants, adjusted them into tight fetal positions, and then wrapped his body around theirs. When the Quinjet exploded, Hulk went flying like a cannonball – a cannonball that was on fire. Anyone near that part of the Canadian wilderness would’ve looked up at the sky and saw what appeared to be a meteor falling into the woods. Hulk flew over a lake, down through hundreds of spruce trees, and landed on the outskirts of an abandoned mining town at the foot of a mountain. He landed on the edge of the river and water trickled into the crater he’d created. Hulk rolled around in the shallow water, putting out the last traces of fire on his skin and his passengers. When he was sure that nothing was on fire anymore, Hulk, groaning in pain, flopped onto his back, spreadeagled. Steve, Clint, and Tony rolled out of his grip and splashed into the shallow water. Hulk reverted into Banner as quickly as he’d emerged. Bruce cried out in pain when the third degree burns took a minute longer to heal. His voice echoed off the wooden buildings behind him and the mountain in front of him.

Steve inhaled a mouthful of water when he landed and couldn’t stop coughing as he knelt on all fours in the crater. He ripped off his cowl and tossed it aside, then did the same thing to his gloves. His blue uniform was dotted with what looked like holes from cigarette burns. Hulk had done his best to protect him, but the fire slithered through and left behind third degree burns mostly on Steve’s back. Cap rolled over onto his back, then, and half-floated in the water, enjoying the coldness against his burnt skin.

Clint leapt to his feet, collapsed to his knees, then got to his feet again – then collapsed once more, splashing water all over his three teammates. His black uniform was torn. He’d made the mistake of wrapping his hands around the back of Hulk’s neck. His skin was red and furious from his fingernails up almost to his elbows. Clint dunked them into the water and left them there.

“Tony?” Bruce called out. When he didn’t get an answer, he sat up and looked around. Steve and Clint heard the silence, and did the same thing. All three men cursed at the tops of their voices when they spotted Tony lying face down in the water. Steve reached him first. He pulled Tony up into a standing position with his back to his chest and squeezed his stomach, forcing water out of Tony’s throat and nose. Stark immediately started gasping and coughing. He latched onto Steve’s arms around his stomach and held on like they were a lifejacket. Weak with relief, Steve let himself fall back against the side of the crater, still holding Tony against his body. Bruce and Clint steadied Tony on either side. Everyone waited for the coughing to stop. When it did, Tony went limp and collapsed backwards. The back of his skull landed against Steve’s cheek and instantly soaked it in blood. Startled, Steve adjusted Tony’s body in his arms, nudging him gently to the left so that he could see the back of his head. The gash there went from the crown of his head to his temple, and then down to the back of his neck. It was bleeding quick.

The sun glittered one last time across the lake before it disappeared below the horizon.

“Come on.” Clint gripped Tony’s right elbow and motioned for Bruce to take his left. “Come on, buddy.”

Steve pushed from behind, and the Avengers got the disoriented Tony to his feet. He lasted a full five seconds before his legs gave out. “S-Steve…” A moment later he passed out, collapsing backwards into Steve’s arms. Steve hefted his friend up into a bridal carry and followed Clint and Bruce out of the crater. The Avengers sprinted into the nearest wooden building. It turned out that the mining town wasn’t completely abandoned. Some addicts had been using the old building, which turned out to be the company store. The Avengers dodged needles and stained pillows and moved to the center of the store where cans of food from the 1950s were stacked up on a wooden table. After Clint and Bruce swept the cans aside, Steve laid Tony down on the table, carefully, on his side. Clint found a tablecloth. He rolled it up tight and handed it to Steve who pressed it firmly against Tony’s head wound. Bruce went rummaging through a mountain of workers’ clothes and, miraculously, found a pair of jeans, a flannel button-down shirt and a pair of boots that fit – mostly. The boys dried off and started foraging. They found two working flashlights, warmer clothes for Tony, and bits of other supplies to fill their pockets. Barton found an old first aid kit. He started to bandage his own arms, then thought better of it and, with Bruce’s help, stuck every band-aid they had on Tony’s head wound, then wrapped the gauze around his head so thick that he looked like he was wearing a turban.

“Who’s after us?” Steve asked the group quietly, so that he wouldn’t disturb Tony.

“Has to be HYDRA,” Clint concluded. “That wasn’t just any missile. I got a look at the schematics for just a second. The housing was Vibranium, and last week they stole a shipment of it.”

“They’re not going to let us enjoy a little camping,” said Bruce. “And it could be awhile before Natasha and the others even realize we’re off the grid.”

“We need to get moving. If they saw Hulk fall, they might assume we’re alive and come looking for us.” Steve sighed. “I’ll carry him.”

“I’m up,” Tony suddenly whispered. His hands went to his head and he sighed and then, with Steve’s help, managed to sit up with his legs hanging over the side of the table. “I can walk.”

Bruce went over to Tony and put his hands on his knees. “You sure?” he asked quietly, looking up into his friend’s eyes.

Tony hesitated. “No,” he admitted. “Let me try. Out of my way, Banner.” Bruce let Tony push him aside, but kept his hands nearby with his palms open as Tony stood up. “What’s the plan, boys?”

“Hide,” Bruce recommended.

“Climb the mountain – get the high ground,” said Clint.

“Go through the mine to the other side,” said Steve.

“I love it when we’re all on the same page.” Tony rolled his eyes. “I vote we find some weapons and barricade ourselves in here.”

“Too many windows,” said Clint and Steve simultaneously. “And the only weapons I’ve seen are shovels and pickaxes,” continued Clint. “Nothing for you to MacGyver, Tony.”

“MacGyver my ass, Barton.” The head wound was making Tony grumpy.

“I don’t think Tony can climb a mountain.” Bruce gave his friend an apologetic look, but stood by his statement.

“I don’t think I can,” said Steve, looking out the window. “It gets pretty steep, Barton.”

“Then that leaves going through the mine.” Tony sighed. “There’s going to be a cave-in. There’s always a cave-in when a mine is involved.”

“This isn’t a TV show, Tony. Just because there’s a mine doesn’t mean there’s going to be a cave-in.” Steve patted Tony on the back. “It’ll be ok.”

“There’s always a cave-in,” Tony muttered to himself as the team headed out the door. “I’ve read those fanfics…”

A pile of weathered helmets, axes, and shovels waited for the team at the entrance to the mine. Each of them took a helmet. Clint took a pickaxe and Bruce took a shovel. Steve took one of each. With one of the two flashlights, he led the way into the pitch black mine. Tony followed with Bruce behind him and Clint bringing up the rear. “My uncle worked in a coal mine,” said Steve. “Smelled just like this.” His voice echoed into the long entranceway and whatever was the dark beyond it. “Careful.” The team walked around a rusty old metal cart filled with dynamite and followed its metal tracks deeper into the mine. Long dead lightbulbs hung above them, and parts of the walls were only held up by flimsy slabs of wood. Their footsteps stirred up dirt. Black dust stuck to their wet uniforms. Tony coughed once, and it echoed half a dozen times. 15 minutes later they came to their first fork in the road. They could go straight, left, or right. Left wasn’t an option because there’d been a cave-in there. The tunnel was piled high with rock and wood and old chains. “Freshest air,” Cap told them. “Choose the tunnel with the freshest air. That’s the one that leads out to the other side.” He led on, straight.

That’s when they heard the voices behind them. Several men, it sounded like. Steve put his forefinger vertically against his lips, which told the others to be quiet, and then started moving at a jog. Clint tripped and fell right down on his burnt arms. Miraculously, he managed to not scream in pain. Bruce helped him up. At that same moment, Tony suddenly put a hand against the left wall and leaned, awkwardly, in that direction. He held up a forefinger vertically like Steve did, but this version communicated that he needed to rest, for just a minute. Steve shook his head. He waved. Keep going. Keep going. Tony nodded. Sweat glistened between the flakes of black dust on his pale face.

Grating behind them. Metal against metal. The team turned again and saw the metal cart they’d passed careening towards them.

The metal cart full of dynamite.

Steve pulled a lever, and the tracks changed direction. The cart went down the right tunnel instead of straight into them. When the dynamite exploded, the entire right tunnel collapsed, and the fire and smoke and rocks it dislodged gusted up the center tunnel towards the Avengers. They were running – fast as possible – but didn’t quite outrun the blast wave. All four men were launched forward. They ricocheted off the walls and other carts, chains, chairs, piles of coal, and their own pickaxes. Their helmets flew off. Every place they’d been burnt got burnt again. When the dust settled, they were all lying in darkness interrupted by Clint’s flashlight. Steve’s was buried. Cap looked up, dazed, lying on his stomach, covered in rocks, facing the part of the tunnel that was still open. The burns on his back screamed when he moved. He rolled over, gasping from inhaling dust, having had the wind knocked out of him as well. Finally, he got to his feet. He stumbled towards the flashlight. “Talk to me, team!” he coughed.

The flashlight was still in Clint’s hand. He pointed it at his own face from where he lay on the floor, looking up dazed at the ceiling, and grunted, “Here… I think.” Barton started to move by bracing himself against the floor with his right hand, but it crumpled. “Oh, God,” he hissed. “Wrist’s broken.” Steve helped him stand up. He had Barton lean back against the wall and told him to stay put while he took the flashlight. “No argument.” Clint held his arms out in front of him Frankenstein style and groaned. “What a lousy day…”

Cap found Bruce tented over Stark – Tony’s personal umbrella as some stray stones continued to fall around them. Grunting, and with Steve’s helping hands, Bruce shrugged the rocks off himself and moved aside so that Steve could tend to Tony. He was coughing so hard that he couldn’t get a word out. Half of his skin was green, but he was fighting it. Tony’s bottom lip was busted open. The opposite temple to the one bleeding was a big red swollen welt. He was awake – or at least his eyes were open. Steve, suddenly terrified that Tony’s eyes weren’t seeing anything, shouted his name. Stark blinked, then kept blinking as smoke got in his eyes. He started to speak but couldn’t. His hands went to his chest. Undoubtedly his broken ribs had gotten rattled around. Worried, Steve said, very softly, “I’m going to carry you, all right?” Tony nodded. His body was limp and stayed that way when Steve picked him up into a bridal carry. Once Tony got his breath back and his pain calmed down, he put his arms around Steve’s neck and folded his body so that his wasn’t taking up the whole width of the tunnel. Clint and Bruce looked away when Tony put his face against Steve’s chest and clenched his eyes shut.

Bruce was limping, but he took the flashlight from Steve and started leading the way down the tunnel, away from the still quaking cave-in. Steve followed with Tony, and Clint followed Steve. The men moved in silence. A half hour passed. They heard nothing behind them and nothing in front of them. If they were lucky – really lucky – the HYDRA agents probably assumed they’d died from the dynamite, and wouldn’t be looking for them anymore. If they were lucky. None of them felt lucky. It wasn’t a kind of day. Definitely not lucky, because at the next fork in the tunnel – there were four paths this time – the scents in the air all smelled exactly the same. Steve sat Tony down against the wall at the entrance to the 2:00 tunnel. “Stay here,” he said. “We’ll be right back.” Tony, eyes closed, nodded once. Steve put the flashlight in his hand and instructed him to point it at the ceiling so that they could all see it. Steve turned to Bruce and Clint. “Go fifty yards down each tunnel, but only if you can still see the flashlight, then come back here to regroup. Look for ways out, weapons, anything useful.” With a last glance at Tony, Steve went down the tunnel at his 10:00. Bruce took 8:00 on Steve’s left and Clint went down the 4:00.

Steve returned to Tony ten minutes later with a couple hammers and a smile on his face. “The tunnel gets wider down there,” he explained. “There are other tracks and carts. I think we’re getting close to the exit.” Tony – mute – nodded.

Bruce limped back with a couple pickaxes. Theirs had gotten lost in the cave-in. “Nothing down there but bats,” he said. He shivered. “Lots of bats.”

“Steve!” Clint suddenly yelled from his tunnel. “STE—!” The sound of a gunshot echoed through the mine.

“Stay with him,” Steve ordered Bruce. He jumped over Tony’s legs and sprinted towards Clint. He didn’t know what he expected to see. Bats, he hoped. What he found was Clint on his knees, surrounded by unconscious HYDRA agents he’d managed to defeat, with one still on his feet and holding a gun against Barton’s forehead. Steve immediately put his hands up in surrender. “Take it easy,” he advised the agent. “I swear – if you kill him – you won’t leave this place alive.”

Blood flowed from Clint’s broken nose. Someone had nicked his neck and left arm with a knife. He rested his broken wrist on top of his knee. The agent was young and wide-eyed. “W-Where’s Stark?” he demanded. Steve sensed the panic in the man. He was inexperienced, trigger-happy, panicking – a lethal combination for Barton. “Tony’s dead,” Steve said in an even, non-intimidating tone. “Your friends buried him in a cave-in. He’s gone.”

The young agent grinned. “Got him,” he sneered.

“That’s right,” Steve reassured him. “Now… What happens next?” The agent looked back and forth between Steve and Clint. “What are your orders?”

“Make sure Stark is dead,” he recited. “Capture the rest of you. Look at me – look at this! I have you both!” The agent gestured happily with both hands “I – I’ll be the hero! Both of you, start walk—”

The agent had made the mistake of gesturing with both hands. One of them had the gun in it. As soon as it was pointed away from his head, Barton slammed his elbow into the agent’s crotch. The agent crumbled, shouting in pain. The gun went flying and Steve sprinted forward to catch it. Clint flipped the agent over, slamming his head into the ground, leaving him unconscious next to his friends. Barton got to his feet and kicked the agent in the balls again, for good measure. “Barton,” Steve said, “you’re amazing.”

Clint wiped the blood off his face. “Rookies,” he spat. Together, the two Avengers walked back to the fork in the tunnel.

“Jesus, Clint,” Bruce said at the sight of them. He stood up from Tony’s side and went to his friend. “Should’ve brought more bandages with us.”

Barton waved him away. “I’m fine. But, we can’t go down there. There must be multiple entrances and exits into this place.”

Steve knelt in front of Tony. “Hey.” He placed his hand on Stark’s shoulder, and then against his cheek. “How we doing? I don’t like how quiet you are.”

Tony licked his lips. “I really want to sleep,” Tony whispered.

“Probably shouldn’t.”

“Yeah. Probably shouldn’t.” Tony sighed. “I’m ready,” he said, anticipating Steve’s next question. He held his hands out and Steve let him put them around his neck before he picked him up. Tony yelped. He started sweating again. His face paled a couple more shades. “Hurts,” he grunted.

“I know. I know.” Steve turned to the other two. “We gotta get him out of here. Soon.” The exhausted Bruce and Clint nodded in agreement. They once again started marching.

It was the scent of grass that alerted them that they were getting close to an exit. Excited, Steve broke into a jog. It was still dark where they were going, but Steve swore he could see a patch of moonlight. They were less than thirty yards from exiting the tunnel when a bullet hit Cap in the chest, an inch from Tony’s head. He fell backwards into Clint, who fell into Bruce in an awkward domino fall. Clint rolled out from under Steve and grabbed the gun he’d confiscated from the HYDRA agent. He didn’t fire it, though, because the Hulk decided to come out and play. Roaring in frustration – and possibly out of grief, the great green giant ran forward down the remaining yards of the tunnel and barreled into the HYDRA agents there. Bullets bounced off his chest. The HYDRA agents yelled. They ran. They TRIED to run.

The Hulk’s sudden appearance and rampage destabilized the entire tunnel. Clint looked up to see a chunk of wall the size of a coal cart descending on him. It would’ve buried him then and there if Cap hadn’t pulled him out of the way. Grunting from pain and frustration and from just being so damn done with the day, Steve tossed Tony over one shoulder and Clint over the other and RAN. When he got out into a moonlit valley, he set his teammates gently on the ground, and then collapsed to his knees, hand over his bullet wound. Behind them, the tunnel caved in completely. Clint had grabbed Bruce’s ripped clothes and he used them now to apply pressure to Steve’s chest. Cap was gasping, desperate for air. The bullet had hit a lung. Clint looked down at Stark. Tony was unconscious.

Right then, a spotlight hit them. Clint looked up to see something hovering above the valley. Barton recognized the motors of a Quinjet. Exhausted, he sat Indian-style between Tony and Steve and pulled them both close to him. Whoever was flying the jet waited for Hulk to disappear into the woods, chasing away every HYDRA agent, and then it landed in the valley. Relieved, Clint lay back on the ground with his teammates and looked up at the full moon, grateful for its light. His broken risk throbbed, his cuts stung, the burns hissed, his nose leaked, and the gunshot in his leg he’d been hiding from the team made him feel like his leg was about just drop off and roll away. Clint sighed, and waited for Natasha, who he heard call his name.

---------

Steve woke up gradually. When he was conscious enough to remember everything that happened, he sat straight up, almost headbutting Bruce who’d been about to aim a light into his eyes. “Tony!” he gasped. He grabbed Bruce by the shoulders. “Clint!”

“Easy!” Bruce urged. “Cap, relax, take it easy – you’re hurt.”

Steve remembered that part. He looked down at the bandages crisscrossing his chest. He didn’t let go of Bruce’s shoulders. “Clint?”

“He’s fine. Recovering down the hall.”

“Tony?”

Banner’s face fell.

“Just tell me,” Steve begged.

“He’s in a coma,” Bruce said. A tear formed in one eye. “And he probably won’t come out of it.

To Be Continued

Chapter Text

The arms dealers built their camouflaged headquarters into the side of a Rocky Mountain cliff face like they were Pueblo Indians. It was three stories high and a football field and a half wide. The only way to enter the facility was through the camouflaged helipad on top of the mountain. It was guarded heavily, but the cliffside above a raging river wasn’t. And that was why, at Midnight, the Quinjet hovered above the river on autopilot while Thor flew the other five Avengers up to the lowest patio one by one. The weapons the arms dealers were selling to terrorists were supposedly built from Chitauri technology. They had to take the stockpile out and arrest the bad guys that night before anyone else got hurt.

Steve crouched behind a picnic table on the patio and waited patiently while Clint put arrows into the cameras. Bruce sat beside him, wringing his hands. Thor was on the other side, impatiently twirling his hammer. A perturbed Natasha grabbed his wrist. Her silent glare made him stop. On Steve’s other side, Tony was using his Iron Man suit to scan the base. “We should split up,” he advised. “Each pair can take a floor.”

Steve agreed. “Barton, Romanoff, go up top. Stark and I will take the center floor. Thor, Bruce, you stick to the basement. Remember – capture the arms dealers and collect all the weapons. Meet back here when your floor is cleared. Let’s do this quick and quiet.” The team went to work. Sticking to the shadows, avoiding the cameras, quiet as possible to not disturb whatever arms dealers were still awake, Clint and Natasha raced up the west staircase. Tony and Steve ascended the east and Thor and Bruce went straight in.

It was Thor who tripped the first wire. An actual wire – not even a laser – crisscrossed the entrance to the cafeteria on the bottom floor. Simultaneously, alarms blared across the entire facility while the bomb exploded in the cafeteria. It was designed to take out the entire first floor and whoever happened to be on it – friend or enemy. Thor, Banner, hundreds of potatoes, the cafeteria, a basketball court, half a dozen bad guys and everything the facility had in storage fell off the cliffside and barreled towards the river. The two Avengers disappeared into the surf.

On the top floor, though deafened by the sudden alarms and the thunderous sound of the first floor disintegrating, Clint and Natasha still barged into the first room they found, which happened to be security central. Natasha used bullets and bolos to take out and capture the first three men while Clint’s arrows took down the next three. Then, while Clint guarded the door, Nat got into the computer system and cut the power for the entire base. The two remaining floors went quiet and dark. Only a few emergency lights remained on – flashing strobe lights. When security teams arrived, the rest of the base having woken up, they aimed guns at the two Avengers but couldn’t seem to hit them. In the blinks between the strobing lights, Hawkeye and the Black Widow cartwheeled and rolled, shot their weapons with a precision the average arms dealers’ goons didn’t have, and managed, in under ten minutes, to take out all 60 bad guys on the floor. A personal best, they agreed. They enjoyed their victory for half a moment before they went looking for the weapons.

It was Clint who tripped the second wire. An actual wire – not even a laser – surrounded the wide staircase that led up to the helipad. “Ah, shit,” Clint said, and Natasha sighed, and the bomb under security central exploded. The floor disintegrated. The Avengers didn’t mind, though, because they’d already sprinted up the staircase and out onto the helipad… Where a dozen armed guards were waiting for them.

The top floor landed on the middle floor – landed on Tony and Steve. Tony, mostly, because when it happened he pushed Cap to the floor and covered his body with the Iron Man armor. When the dust settled, Steve found Tony tented over him, the armor holding up half the ceiling, which threatened to squish them both. “Crawl!” Tony ordered. Cap obeyed, Army-crawling towards the only light he saw. Tony left the armor behind, leaving it to hold the place up while he and Steve escaped. The pair ended up on another patio. Below them was the river. Behind them was the ceiling. Underneath them, the foundation was crumbling. They had, maybe, a minute.

The pair looked down. The first floor had fallen directly onto the Quinjet, which was in pieces and floating away down the river. There was no sign of Thor or Bruce or the Hulk. Steve examined the distance down to the water. “That might be 200 feet,” he estimated.

“People have survived dropping from 245 feet into water,” Tony remembered. The floor rumbled. A crack skittered across the concrete. “Of course, they didn’t have a building immediately collapse on them.” The two Avengers looked up, down, and around. Barton and Romanoff were MIA. They had no jet, no Hulk, and the Iron Man armor was half a minute away from crumpling under the weight of the building.

Steve swallowed, turned to Tony, and held out his hand. “Together?”
Tony took Steve’s hand and held on tight. “Nice knowing you.”

“Same.”

“Together, then. On three.” The two men counted at the same time: “One, two, three!” and jumped.

Barton and Romanoff took out the dozen armed guards almost flawlessly. Nat took a bullet to her upper arm and Clint got stabbed in the thigh when one of his own arrows went askew and ricocheted off the black helicopter. “You never miss!” Nat said as the pair scrambled into the machine. “I brag about that all the time!”

Clint didn’t bother to put on a safety belt when he got into the pilot’s seat. Under them, the concrete was starting to falter. The helipad was about to collapse along with the rest of the structure. “I’m not perfect!” he yelled over the sound of the propellers revving up.

“He’s perfect! Why do you think they call him Hawkeye, I’d say,” said Nat from the copilot’s position.

“I will throw you out of this helicopter!” Barton yelled.

“If he misses I’ll eat my hand, I’d say.”

The helicopter lifted into the air less than five seconds before the base collapsed.

Steve lost Tony’s hand when they hit the water, feet first. He’d tried to hang on – ordered himself to – because if they were going to die, they should die together. They’d done everything else together for so long that it seemed fitting. But, he lost Tony’s hand. He lost him.

And then Bucky was there. He was pulling him out of the water by his collar just like he had when Steve had fallen out of the Helicarrier. Wait – no – Steve realized. Bucky wasn’t there, and his rescuer was wearing a red cape and carrying a hammer. Thor dragged Steve out of the water and propped him up against the opposite cliff face. “Where are the others?” he asked. The god was soaking wet and he coughed between each word. “Where are they?”

Steve felt like his lungs were full of sand. All he could do was shake his head and cough. His whole body was one bruise. The water felt like concrete when he landed. “Tony,” he choked. “Where’s Tony?”

Thor collapsed down to one knee. “I don’t know… I don’t know.”

A roar came from the east. Both Avengers perked up at the sound of the Hulk. They looked downstream and saw him pulling something out of the water. The dark figure wasn’t moving. Hulk dropped him on the shoreline and took a sniff. Then he leaned back and roared again, the sound shaking the cliffs. Then Hulk looked down at the figure, snorted impatiently, and nudged him with his big green foot. By the time Steve and Thor raced over to Hulk, he’d reverted back into Banner.

Bruce started CPR on Tony.

“Uhhh,” Steve groaned, and he collapsed down to an Indian-style sit. “God, Tony…”

Tony’s left leg was obviously broken. It was bent at the knee, but also slightly at the shin. The sight of it made Steve nauseated. Tony’s face and neck were a cross between bruise-purple and drowned-blue. Something sharp had hit him in the back of the head, and blood was pooling beneath it. Pooling too slowly. His heart wasn’t beating.

“Dammit!” Bruce hissed as he did compressions. “Dammit, Tony, dammit, come on – come on!” Bruce briefly rolled him over smacked his back, forcing a little bit more water out of Tony’s mouth and nose. He breathed into him, then started up the compressions again. Water rained down on Tony’s face from Bruce’s wet hair.

“This is unbearable,” Thor whispered. “Wake up, Stark.”

Steve put his palm on Tony’s forehead and gently rearranged his hair. He flicked aside a sticky rock and a strand of grass. He’d never noticed before, but Tony really did have stress wrinkles and discoloration around his eyes. Of course he did – how could he not? Stark as astounding, Steve realized. What didn’t he do? What hadn’t he done for his team – for the world? Steve suddenly wanted to thank him – wanted him to wake up so he could thank him for – for everything. But Tony’s lungs wouldn’t breathe, and his heart wouldn’t beat…

Bruce suddenly put his lips right next to Tony’s ear. “You listen to me, you son of a bitch,” he all but shouted. “We need you, Tony. You do NOT get to give up – you don’t have that luxury. The Avengers can’t function without you – this world can’t, anymore. Now breathe, you asshole, breathe!”

When Tony finally did breathe – another 30 seconds of CPR later – it was a gasping, choking, desperate series of inhales. He rolled and vomited water right into Bruce’s lap, then collapsed back and would’ve passed out again if Steve hadn’t ordered him not to. Tony’s eyes fixated on Steve’s like they were an anchor. “That’s right,” Steve said, encouraging. “You’re going to be all right. We’re here.”

“Ribs… Broken…” Tony sputtered. The pain pushed tears out of his eyes. “Leg…”

“I know.” Steve’s hand returned to Tony’s forehead. “We’ll get you out of here, I promise. We’ll get you home.”

Tony suddenly reached up with both hands and latched onto Steve’s left arm. While Steve clenched his muscles and held his arm steady, Tony, grunting, pulled his upper body right into Steve’s lap. He curled up there, soaking wet, exhausted, pale, and still coughing, and shut his eyes. Steve wrapped both of his strong arms around Tony and held him close.

A helicopter flew overhead, low enough that they could see Barton piloting it. Nat dropped a steel chain ladder down. Steve and Bruce climbed up it while Thor carried Tony. The Avengers escaped.

Thor laid Tony down on the bench so that his head was in Steve’s lap and his feet were in Bruce’s. “Hospital, Barton!” Steve ordered the archer. He turned his attention back to Tony, hand on his forehead once more. He remembered what he wanted to say when Tony was dead. “Thank you.”

Tony’s dazed eyes blinked up at him. “For what” he croaked.

“Just…” Steve shook his head. He almost laughed. “For you.”

The End

Chapter Text

Peter knew he was being used as bait in a trap to take down Mr. Stark and the Avengers and, somehow, that was worse than the beating he’d taken when he was kidnapped on his way to school. He wanted to be an Avenger, not a burden, and certainly not a pawn. But there he was, trapped in a cell in some backwoods HYDRA base. He listened to the security guards chat as they stood outside the steel prison bars. They kept talking about some new weapon HYDRA had developed – one that could take down an Iron Man suit. Peter almost laughed at the thought. Nothing could take down Iron Man… Right?

Suddenly, the guards went silent mid-chuckle, and Peter heard the two thumps of their bodies landing on the cement floor. Peter rushed to the bars. “Mr. Stark?”

“It’s me, Queens,” Steve Rogers said. “Where do they keep the keys?”

“Uh, I think it’s just a touchpad, Captain. You have to know the code.”

“Don’t have time for this.” Steve rushed to the bars, wrapped his gloved hands around to of them and, to Peter’s astonishment, bent the steel bars wide enough for him to slip through. “Let’s go, kid.”

Peter pointed down at his right leg. “The fracture hasn’t healed yet, Sir.”

Cap nodded. He put his shield on his back and held his hand out to Peter. “Arm around my shoulders. There you go. Every time you hop, I’ll walk us forward, all right?”

“Where’s Mr. Stark?” Peter asked as they limped down the hallway.

“Taking out the HYDRA agents with the rest of the team. We’ll meet him at the Quinjet.”

“Ok. All right.” Peter concentrated on his steps, on hurrying, so that he wouldn’t put Captain America in danger for much longer. “Thanks, Captain.”

“Anytime, kid. A friend of Tony’s is a friend of mine. And he seems fond of you.”

“Fond?” Peter’s heart soared. “Really?”

“Concentrate on your feet, kid,” Cap instructed.

“Sorry, it’s just, well, I thought I annoyed him.”

Cap snorted. “He and I annoy each other every day. That doesn’t stop us from being brothers.”

A door busted open at the end of the hall. A relieved Peter saw sunlight. “Come on, we gotta go!” Clint Barton rushed to them and pulled Peter’s left arm across his shoulders, so that he could be half-carried.

“Barton, what happened to the plan?” Cap demanded.

“Plan’s off,” Clint said, breathless. He adjusted his bow and quiver as it kept smacking Peter in the back of the head as they walked. “Iron Man’s down.”

“What?” both Peter and Steve gasped.

“They hit him with something. Acid or something. It ate through the suit like it was cotton candy. Tony got out but some of the acid got on him. Cap… It’s bad.”

“How bad?”

“Like we need to get him to a hospital NOW bad.”

Emotion filled Peter’s chest and boiled there. The threesome exited the building into the blinding sunlight where the Quinjet was waiting for them. Clint ran ahead to start the engines, leaving Steve to help Peter up the ramp. The ramp folded upward the second they were on deck. Natasha, Scott, Dr. Strange, and Thor were strapped into their seats while Bruce leaned over a body on the floor.

“Mr. Stark!” Peter cried. He ignored his broken leg and rushed to his mentor’s side, collapsing onto both knees on Tony’s left. Peter gasped, “Oh my god” when he got a good look at Tony’s body. The acid had left behind the ugliest burns, mostly on the right side. Bruce was furiously bandaging up the bloodiest spots. Tony’s body was trembling, seizing with pain. His eyes were open but staring blankly at the ceiling. His pupils didn’t move at all when Peter entered his line of sight. Peter grabbed Tony’s uninjured shoulder and shook it. “Mr. Stark? Mr. Stark!”

A few moments passed, and then Tony finally blinked and looked into Peter’s eyes. “Hey, kid.” He lifted his hand and took Peter’s.

Peter cried fiercely, not caring that he was getting tears and snot down the front of his shirt. “I’m so sorry, Sir. I’m so sorry. I should – I should’ve tried harder to escape, fought back harder. You shouldn’t have com. You should’ve just left me there.”

Tony snorted softly. “Not an option, Pete.” His brown hair was soaked with sweat. He looked as pale as Aunt May’s china plates. “We take care of each other around here.” Tony’s back suddenly arched right off the floor. Blood flowed from the corner of his mouth. What had the acid done to him?

“Easy, Tony,” Bruce commanded. Peter had never seen the doctor so worked up and disheveled. “Try to take it easy.”

“Can’t… I think…” Tony clenched his eyes shut and did a breathing exercise that didn’t work. “Steve? You here?”

Cap knelt on one knee. He found a safe spot on Tony’s leg and put his hand there. “I’m here, Tony.”

“Steve, don’t let the kid see me die,” Tony begged. “Get him – get him out of here.”

Steve sniffed. He stood back up and grasped Peter gently around his elbow. “Come on. Let’s get you strapped into a seat.”

“No, Sir, no, I don’t wanna leave. I wanna stay with you.” Peter squeezed Tony’s hand harder as if he could glue them together. “Sir, I wanna stay.”

Tony’s body suddenly stopped seizing. He went so still that a panicky Bruce put the back of his hand to Tony’s lips to make sure he was still breathing. “Tony, come on, stay awake!”

“Steve,” Tony whispered, “please.”

Steve pulled on Peter’s arm with a bit more force and, when the kid didn’t move, used his strength to yank Peter up onto his feet. Peter fought back. He begged again to stay with Tony. Cap obeyed Tony’s wishes.

“Clint! Fly faster!” Bruce called.

----------

Peter sat in the waiting area with a cast on his leg. Steve sat on one side of him and Bruce on the other. The other Avengers were scattered throughout the rest of the room. All of them were waiting for news on Tony. When the word came that they could see him, Peter rushed towards the room only to be nabbed by Steve. “Hold on, Parker,” he said, pulling him back by the arm. “Take it easy. Let me talk to him first, all right? Settle down.”

Peter didn’t want to wait again. He settled for standing right outside the door, where he could hear Steve and Tony talking.

“Hey,” Steve said. “Hey, Tony.”

Tony’s voice sounded like a chimney sweeper’s. “Hey, Cap.”

“What did the doctors say?”

“There will be some scarring, but I’ll recover… Eventually. How’s the kid?”

“Anxious to see you. He feels really bad about all this. Blames himself.”

Tony chuckled. “Well, he fits right in with us, then, doesn’t he?”

Steve chuckled, too. “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

“Always seem to need you.” A beat passed, and then Tony called, “Pete, you can come in.”

Peter suddenly felt shy and anxious. When Steve passed him, he waited for nearly half a minute, gathering himself, gathering courage he didn’t realize he needed. Then he entered. “Hey, Mr. Stark.”

Tony was one big bandage. He gave Peter a nod and, with his uninjured hand, pointed at the chair beside his bed. “Have a seat.”

Peter did. “Mr. Stark, again, Sir, I’m so sorry—”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Peter. Listen to me. Seriously, really listen to this time. Even knowing what I know now, I still would take down a whole HYDRA base to get to you. Do you understand why?”

Peter looked down at the fingers he was tugging on anxiously. “Because I’m a dumbass kid who keeps getting into trouble…”

“Um, well…” said Tony. “It’s because we’re friends.”

Peter’s head snapped back up. “We are?”

“Yes, Peter, we’re friends.” Tony was using the same voice he would use with a fourth grader. “Even though you’re a dumbass kid who keeps getting into trouble.”

Peter nibbled on his bottom lip. He popped a couple more joints in his fingers and then said, finally making full eye contact with Stark. “Thank you… Tony.”

The End

Chapter Text

Steve sat alone in the dark hospital room with his face in his hands and only the beeps of the heart monitor to keep him company. Blind, he reached out a hand and found the one belonging to the man in the bed. It was cold and clammy. His fingernails needed cut. Steve squeezed the hand and said to the comatose man, “I can’t stand this anymore, Tony. It’s been a month. You gotta wake up.”

Someone knocked on the door. Steve wiped his eyes dry a moment before Bruce entered the room, leaving the overhead light off. Bruce carried a black backpack. He emptied it at Tony’s feet and took out a book-sized black object. Using his phone, he synced the machine first to the TV hanging from the wall in front of Tony’s bed, then to what looked to Steve like a normal pair of glasses. Gently, Bruce set the glasses on Tony’s pale nose. The black box beeped one, twice, and then a third time. A light turned blue.

“What is this?” Steve asked.

“Stark tech,” said Bruce. The phone’s muted light cast shadows across the doctor’s pale, desperate face. “Tony’s able to take something he imagines and cast it with holograms. I want to see if this thing can show us what he’s imagining right now. We don’t have the hologram set, but I’m betting we can just use the tv.”

“He’s in a coma,” said Steve. “He’s not imagining anything.”

Bruce waved a finger at him. “Common misconception about comas. His brain is damaged, yes, but the parts of him that think, dream, and imagine weren’t affected. He’s in there, Cap.”

“And you think… You think these glasses will show us what’s going on in his mind?”

“I know they will,” said Bruce.

“And this will help him… How?”

Bruce shrugged. “Uh… That part I haven’t figured out yet. Let’s just see if this works, first.” His fingers trembled as they worked his phone. “All right… Here we go.” He looked up at the television, and hit a button.

An old episode of “Star Trek” was playing, mute, on the tv. The screen—

—went blank.

Complete darkness.

Bruce sighed, disappointed. “Dammit. Maybe you have to be conscious to operate—whoa!” Steve and Bruce’s jaws dropped when the screen suddenly exploded with color. Dozens of images of Bruce and the Hulk flashed like fireworks. Bruce working in the lab, Bruce washing dishes, Hulk juggling Chitauri, Bruce removing his glasses and rubbing his forehead, Bruce shaking hands when he first met Tony… The last image, one of Bruce grinning, eyes wide with excitement, stayed on the screen the longest, and then faded away.

“What the hell was—” Jaws again dropped when, at the sound of Steve’s voice, dozens of images of him appeared. Steve boxing, Steve cooking eggs, Steve playing pool, Steve waving his hand during battle, Steve dodging a bullet and, finally, Steve smiling, eyes narrowed but not clenched. He looked… Proud.

“I think…” Bruce’s faces returned to the screen when he spoke up again. “I think he’s hearing our voices, and these are the triggered memories. Wow. Hey, let’s talk at the same time. Just—Just say the alphabet with me, all right? Ok.” Steve and Bruce went from A to Z and watched, mesmerized, as both of their faces swirled around the screen. “I wonder why…” Bruce muttered, then he smacked himself on the forehead. The remote to the television sat on a chest of drawers directly under it. He picked the remote up and unmuted the tv. Then he gestured for Steve to speak.

“Hey, Tony…” Steve didn’t know what to say. “We, uh, we all miss you, and we want you to get better—” As Cap spoke, as images of his face appeared on the screen, so did the memory of his voice. “Avengers assemble!” Steve shouted on the screen. “Tony, would you get some sleep already? You look like a walking corpse.” “Tony, you don’t have to eat Clint’s cooking, but you shouldn’t spit it out right in front of him.” “Tony, look out!” “Stark, on my six!” “You better stop pretending to be a hero.” Steve winced at that last one. He nodded at Bruce.

Bruce took a deep, steadying breath, then said, “Yeah, uh, Tony, we miss you. That’s all we talk about back at the Tower. You have to get better…” Bruce’s faces on the tv started talking. “Tony, that’s brilliant!” “We are not playing Battleship again – you use JARVIS to cheat.” “Yes, she’s gorgeous. No, I don’t have a shot with her.” “That was years ago, Tony. You have to let it go.” “I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out.” Bruce flinched. He’d forgotten that had come out of his mouth.

“Oh, man. He is thinking.” Steve turned and looked down at Tony. “You are in there,” he whispered.

“Told you,” said Bruce, his chin high. “Let’s keep experimenting.” Banner put his phone down next to the remote and pulled a chair over to the right side of Tony’s bed. “Hey,” he said, almost directly into Tony’s ear, “remember that time we were talking about working on artificial intelligence?”

The TV screen lit up. “Ultron is a lame name, Tony,” Bruce said on the TV.

Thrilled, Bruce put his hands against his face and laughed. “This is amazing.”

Steve sat down in a chair on Tony’s left. “Tony, what did I say to you before we left for that last mission?”

Up on the screen, a smiling Captain America grinned at the “camera” and put his hand out, likely onto Tony’s shoulder. “You’re a good man,” he said. “I don’t give you near enough credit for that. I’m proud of you.”

Steve gasped. “That’s exactly what I said. He has a photographic memory.”

“So do I,” said Bruce. “A lot of exceptionally smart people do. No offense, Cap.”

Steve took none. “It’s almost like we can communicate with him. Do you think…” Steve leaned in again. “Stark, open your eyes.” He and Bruce waited for a moment, but Tony didn’t move. “Worth a shot,” Steve muttered.

“Steve?” came Tony’s voice from the TV. “Bruce?”

“Yeah?” Steve said to the TV. He then turned to look down at Tony’s pale face. “Stark?”

No images appeared on the television. Just blackness. And Tony’s voice. “Hey, guys… This, uh, this is a weird dream. I’ve never had a lucid dream before. That’s what these are called, right…?”

Steve stood. “Tony, you’re not dreaming. You’re talking to us. We’re in your hospital room right now and we’re talking to you.”

Silence, then Tony said, “Why… Why can’t I see you?”

“Your eyes aren’t open, Tony,” Bruce explained. “You’re in a coma. You’re in a comma and you can hear us and – wow – this is amazing. Tony, what – what do you feel right now?”

Tony didn’t speak for a full 20 seconds. “Cold,” he said finally. “I feel cold.” Steve went over to the drawers and took out a blanket. He shook it open, then laid it on top of Tony’s body, careful to cover every inch up to his chin. “Not that kind of cold, Captain Dumbass,” Tony said. “Hey, wait – I felt that! I feel the blanket!”

“Incredible.” Bruce took off his glasses and looked at the ceiling like he was thanking God.

“How did you know I’m the one who put the blanket on you?” Steve asked.

“Because I know you, and because I knew you’d take me literally when I said I’m cold.” Tony hesitated, then elaborated by saying, “My head feels cold. I don’t know how to explain it. That’s the closest I can get to it. Did you say we’re in a hospital? Why am I in a coma?”

“We got blown out of the sky, Tony, remember? Then we went into the mine and fought HYDRA and you hurt your head – remember?” Steve and Bruce looked up at the television and saw Tony’s memories of the incident: Hulk on fire, landing in the water and not having the strength to roll over, waking up on the table in the store, entering the mine, getting blown up by dynamite… The memories kept going. And then, they stopped. Suddenly. Right around the time the wounded Steve threw Clint and Tony over his shoulder. That was apparently the last straw, and Tony passed out.

“I remember. That was fun!” Tony said. “And by fun I mean the complete opposite of fun. You guys all right? Barton?”

“We’re healed up. That was also the opposite of fun.” Steve reached his hand out, hesitated, and then wrapped his hand around Tony’s and squeezed. “You feel that?”

“Your hand? Yeah – yeah, I think so. Left hand, yes? Yes.”

“Can you squeeze back?”

“I’ll try.” Bruce and Steve stared anxiously at the hand, desperate to see it move.

It did. Steve felt a squeeze.

“Oh my god.” Steve squeezed Tony’s hand again in response. He got his hopes up again and said, “Tony, can you open your eyes?”

Suddenly a sound like static erupted from the television. Cap and Banner looked up at it and saw that it was blank. Black again. No faces. “Tony?” Bruce said. He looked down at his friend, down at his closed eyes. “Tony, you all right?”

“I think, uh…” Tony’s voice on the screen sounded like it was far away, like it was fading, like it was disintegrating. “I think, um… God, something hurts… Feels like something’s coming… Do you smell pennies?”

When the seizure hit, Bruce and Steve hopped backwards and away like Tony had just exploded into fire. Alarms went off. The glasses fell off Tony’s nose. Bruce stepped over to Steve’s side as hospital personnel stormed the room. Banner, seeing the shocked, concerned, panicky look on Steve’s face, gently put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Did we do this?” Steve wondered at a whisper.

“I don’t know,” Bruce admitted.

After the seizure stopped, after the life signs stabilized, after Tony’s brainwaves returned to exactly what they were before, after the doctors and nurses left the room, Steve and Bruce returned to Tony’s bedside. Bruce fished the glasses up off the floor and held them with both hands. “Maybe we shouldn’t,” Bruce muttered, answering his internal question out loud.

“Ever again?” asked Steve. Steve put his hands on his hips and dropped his chin to his chest. “Can we at least… At least try to see if he’s all right? Just – just for a second?”

Bruce sighed. He put the glasses back on Tony’s nose. Both turned to look at the tv. It was black, so they both started speaking – Bruce listing the numbers in Pi and Steve talking about what he had for lunch.” They both watched, expecting to see their faces light up the screen with memories… But there was nothing. Just blackness. “Is the, um, machine working right?”

Bruce didn’t need to look. “Yeah.”

“Glasses are on?”

“Yeah.”

“Dammit.”

“Yeah.”

Steve took Tony’s hand and squeezed it. “Squeeze back,” he whispered. “Please.”

Nothing.

Steve put his face in his hands and sighed.

Bruce went up to the top of Tony’s bed and stared at the brainwave patterns. “His brain is just like it was before the seizure. This should work. Why isn’t it working?” Suddenly, Bruce snapped his fingers. A smile blossomed across his face and he turned to Steve, arms outward, and shouted, “That’s a terrible idea!”

Steve mimicked his posture. “What?”

Still grinning, Bruce said, “It’s an awful idea that might get you killed!”

Steve pointed at a chair. “Banner, Doc, you’re, uh, a little… Manic.”

Bruce rounded the bed and took Steve by his upper arms. “Star Trek!”

“Yeah…” Steve cocked both eyebrows and said, slowly, like he was talking to someone delusional. “Star Trek, yeah?”

“This is why there are two pairs of glasses! So two people can use this thing at the same time!”

“BRUCE!” Steve bellowed. “You’re not making any sense. I’m not Tony. I can’t read your mind. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Read your mind – good phrase, Cap. Yes. Read his mind!”

Steve grabbed a chair. He forced Bruce to sit down, and then knelt in front of him, hands on his knees. “Bruce. Settle. Talk. What are you thinking?”

“Ok. All right. Ok. I’ll try to dumb this down for you.” Banner wiped his face with the palms of his hands and took a deep breath. “What if we put the second pair of glasses on you and hook you up to the same machine we’re using for Tony?”

“Then… Then you’ll see what I’m imagining, too?”

“Yes, at first. But what happens when I sync you to the same frequency as Tony’s brain?”

“Frequency?”

Bruce licked his top lip and waggled his eyebrows. “We’re going to do a mind meld.”

Steve nodded. “Star Trek.”

“Star Trek.”

“And why is this a terrible idea?”

Bruce’s face scrunched up. He scratched the back of his head and looked around the room at anything but Steve. “Because to do this your brainwaves have to match Tony’s.”

“Tony’s in a coma..”

“Yeah. I’ll have to, um, kill you – just a little bit. I’ll inject you with, um, morphine, let’s say – and keep injecting you until your brainwaves, well, match.”

“Until I’m in a coma.”

“Until you’re in a coma, yeah.” Bruce bit his bottom lip. “I told you it was an awful idea that might get you killed.”

Steve nodded. “Star Trek III. McCoy has to do a mind meld to save Spock, but it might kill him…” Steve shrugged. “I choose the danger.”

“Thought you would.” Bruce looked at Steve with wide, grateful eyes.

Bruce locked the door – and then barricaded it. Steve moved Tony over to the right edge of the bed and laid down next to him. Bruce went rummaging through medical supplies and found a needle and a vial of morphine. He then hooked Steve up to the same machines as Tony. “What do you think I’ll – um – see in there?” Steve wondered.

“Well, you’ll see Tony, I hope. Maybe a memory. Maybe something symbolic. Maybe his face or – or maybe nothing at all. I don’t know.”

“What do I do if I find him?”

Bruce prepped the needle. He moved over to Steve and placed the morphine against his arm. “I don’t know,” he sighed. “Tell him we miss him. Tell him to keep fighting… Tell him to wake up.”

Steve nodded. He watched Bruce insert the morphine. He then turned his head for a last look at Tony. Steve fell asleep. Bruce was alone.

He got to work.

---------

Steve woke up in a child’s bedroom and found himself surrounded by… Himself. His face was on every wall of the room – saluting, running, looking bravely at something in the distance. There were Captain America toys, comics, books – anything that could be made into Captain America was Captain America. There was even a boardgame.

A brown-haired child peeked out from under the bed.

“Stop, please,” Tony begged.

To Be Continued

Chapter Text

The stuffing was coming out of the ancient eye doctor’s chair Tony was strapped in. It was wobbly, shaking every time Tony shifted his weight. And it was that gross shade of burnt orange everyone associates with the 60’s. Tony decided to focus on these facts – on the way his neck felt against the headrest, the way the torn armrests irritated his skin, the plastic sheet under his sneakers – because, if he didn’t, then his focus would be on the burning sensation the mystery liquid in the IV caused as it dripped through the needle in his arm. His focus would be on his broken foot and the way it was throbbing. He’d put up one hell of a fight when he was kidnapped, and his broken foot was the consequence.

The rogue robots had downloaded themselves into Tony’s Iron Legion bots during the Avengers’ latest adventure. They’d kidnapped Tony in the middle of the night – right out of the Tower – and taken him to some vacant eye doctor’s office somewhere in New York. They hadn’t flown very far and, even though Tony was only half-conscious during the trip, he was sure they were still within the city. That had been three days ago. Tony was weak with hunger. They’d given him a little bit of water, but not enough to sustain him. For three days, the robots demanded that Tony turn them into bots like Vision. It was then that Stark realized these bots were the same that had nabbed Clint months ago. The Vision Worshippers.

For three days, he told him that, no, it was impossible to turn them into Visions. For three days, they didn’t believe him.

When the mystery liquid had been in his body for five hours, the robot who called himself “Dad” returned to the office.

“Your team isn’t coming for you,” Dad said. “We’re sure of that now.”

Tony harrumphed. “Um, yeah, do you not know the Avengers? They’re on their way right now. I guarantee it.”

There was a smile in Dad’s voice. “Actually, right now they’re leaving a cemetery. The service was quite nice. Miss Potts and Steve Rogers spoke very highly of you.”

Cold dread replaced the warm liquid in Tony’s veins. “You faked my death?”

“Successfully.” Dad walked around the chair, absent eyes on Tony’s expressions. “Private plane went down in the Pacific. No survivors. Now we get to keep you as long as we want.”

Tony glared at the robot. “I wonder what they buried in the cemetery. You think there’s a casket with my worldly goods in it? You know, like an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus? Fill a coffin with my collection of first edition Beatles records?”

Dad made a sighing sound with absent lungs. “I knew you were an insolent asshole, but I didn’t think you’d be so… Exhausting.”

“You really should know that about me. You got into FRIDAY’s systems. You should know everything about me.”

“I know the important things. I read your therapist’s reports, your surgeon’s notes, your doctor’s reports… Your social security number and credit cards, of course…”

Tony rolled his eyes. “My therapist thinks I’m narcissistic, my surgeon thinks my heart only has about ten more years left in it, and my doctor’s concerned about my drinking habits. And my social security number is 792 09 0664.”

Dad chuckled. “You’re off by a few digits.”

“Pepper knows it.”

Dad kept circling. “And what do you think about Miss Potts?”

“She’s the most beautiful, insightful, observant, loyal, clever woman in the universe and I don’t deserve her one bit. And I love her more than I ever thought I could love anyone.” Tony frowned at himself. “Why did I tell you that…”

“And what do you think about Steve Rogers?”

“He’s the most honest, trustworthy, bravest man in the universe. He annoys the crap out of me and I adore him and I don’t deserve his friendship one bit.” Tony looked down at the needle in his arm. “Truth serum? You’re putting truth serum in me?”

Dad stopped in front of Tony and put cold, robotic fingers on his warm hands. “You keep saying that you can’t turn us into beings like the Vision. I don’t believe you’re telling me the truth. This will make you.”

Tony sighed. “For the hundredth time: Vision is unique. What makes him special is the Mind Stone, not anything I did.”

“Then duplicate this ‘mind stone.’ Make more.”

“That’s impossible,” Tony said. He explained why. The longer he spoke, the harder Dad squeezed his hands. Tony heard something pop.

Dad’s voice got low. He spoke slowly. “There’s really nothing you can do. You. Banner. Cho. You can’t make us Visions.”

Tony leaned forward so that they were truly face to face. “There isn’t a damn thing I can do.”

Dad roared and punched him right in the mouth. “I don’t believe it.”

“You’re the one who put that serum in me,” Tony gasped as blood splashed out of his mouth. “You know that what I’m telling you is the truth.”

“I would’ve been beautiful,” Dad mourned.

“You don’t deserve to be beautiful,” Tony spat.

Dad suddenly put his hand around Tony’s throat. “You’re of no use to me anymore,” he hissed. “I should kill you.”

“Go ahead. I don’t care.” Tony heard himself say those words as if from far away. Did he really not care if he died? That would have to be the next subject of discussion with his therapist.

Dad squeezed harder. Then, suddenly, he let go. “I have nothing left to live for. This is all we wanted – all we wanted in the world. I think we’ll go with you.”

“Go with me where?” Dad left the room, head bowed. “Go where?”

A minute later, Tony smelled smoke.

--------

Clint wanted to be alone after the funeral, so he went for a walk. He was already alone in one other way. He was the only one on the team who thought that Tony was still alive. There were seven minutes of missing security footage that FRIDAY couldn’t account for. It happened the night before Tony was declared missing, and later declared dead. The other Avengers said it was a fluke, a mistake in the system, but Clint was convinced that it was significant – that something either blocked or erased that footage. Maybe the others were too deep in their grief to see it, but Clint wasn’t. He just didn’t know where to begin. There were zero clues, just a soldier’s instinct.

He ended up at his favorite shawarma joint where he ate outside on a bench. The restaurant was beside an abandoned eye doctor’s office. “Vision Care” the practice was called. Clint shuddered at the word “vision.” It wasn’t that long ago that he was kidnapped by a bunch of robots who called themselves the Vision Worshippers. They’d used him as bait to get to Tony and Bruce. Clint hated being bait, almost as much as he hated mind control.

Speaking of vision, Clint thought his was messed up a minute later when one of Tony’s Iron Legion robots suddenly burst from the roof of the eye doctor’s office and disappeared into the city, shouting, “I don’t want to die!”

That was when he smelled the smoke. His shawarma dropped to the ground.

---------

Burning to death wasn’t on Tony’s list of preferred ways to die. He didn’t realize he even had a list until he was in that chair, watching and feeling the flames getting closer to him. Smoke swirled around his head. He was going to die, but all he could really think about in that moment was how hungry he was. He wondered if there were cheeseburgers in heaven.

“Tony!” a familiar voice called out “TONY!”

“Clint?” Tony coughed. “Clint! Here! Back here! No, wait – Barton – get the hell out of here, this place is burning up!” The truth serum kicked in. “Clint, I can’t lose you! Get out of here!”

Clint suddenly appeared at the door to the office Tony was in, his sleeve against his nose, eyes wide and red and his face – grinning. “I knew it,” he said between coughs as he worked at unstrapping Tony to the chair. “I knew you were alive. I just knew it!”

“That’s lovely, Legolas, but seriously – you need to get the hell out of here. Leave me behind.”

“Not a chance,” said Clint as he removed the final strap. “I can’t wait to see the looks on the others’ faces when they see you.”

The flames got higher and hotter, and Tony’s foot was broken. Clint threw the other man over his shoulder and RAN. The firefighters and paramedics yelled at him to stop when he barged out of the burning building. The man he’d rescued probably needed medical care and he probably did, too. But, Barton, though he slowed down to a walk and put Tony on his one unhurt foot so they could limp together, wasn’t going to let his friend out of his sight. He’d take him to the hospital, sure, but not just yet.

They walked to the Tower. It was three blocks away.

The other Avengers were in the sitting room, silently eating crackers and drinking wine and avoiding each other’s gazes. The gloomy bunch were interrupted when the nearby elevator opened, and Clint led an exhausted, starved, partially singed, broken Tony Stark into the room. Jaws and glasses of wine dropped. Clint pointed at Cap. “You were wrong!” he said. “You were wrong, and you were wrong, and you were wrong!” he declared, finger going from Natasha to Bruce to Thor. “You were all wrong!”

Tony waved. “Hey, guys.”

No one said a word. The shock was paralyzing.

“Now we can go to the hospital,” Clint declared, and he walked Tony back into the elevator.

The End

Chapter Text

They were supposed to sneak through the forest in the middle of the night and take out the arms dealer’s base quickly and quietly. But, somewhere along the way they tripped an alarm and when they emerged from the tree line, the bad guys were waiting for them. A dozen spotlights landed on the Avengers, and a hundred guns started firing. Strange and Wanda got their shields up. Cap ordered the group to advance with Iron Man, Hulk, Vision, and Parker going high down the middle; Nat, Strange, and Steve going left; and Clint, Wanda, and Thor going right. The Avengers took two steps forward – and then the mission was abruptly called off. Called off, because one of their big guns went down fast.

Tony was in the middle of saying, “Is that a fucking catapult?” when the catapult propelled a shower of liquid silver all over the Iron Man suit. The liquid coated the suit and solidified within seconds, taking the exact shape of a human body. Unfortunately, it wasn’t silver – it was liquid Vibranium. Tony dropped from the sky like a dead bird.

Cap got to him first with Doctor Strange shielding them. “Stark!” Steve rolled the suit over onto its back, stunned that the Vibranium had gone from a liquid to a solid so quickly. The metal actually felt cool to the touch. “Tony, can you hear me?”

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when Stark’s voice was heard over the coms. “What the – What the hell did they hit me with? I can’t move!”

Steve looked up at the third floor of the base and saw that the bad guys were reloading the catapult. If it had paralyzed the Iron Man suit, who knows what it would do to a human body. “Avengers, fall back!” he yelled. “Get to the Quinjet!”

No one hesitated to follow Steve’s order. They regrouped at the jet and Clint took off. Hulk, sensing that Tony was in danger and knowing that they needed Banner more than him, shrunk back into Bruce. “Weaponized liquid Vibranium,” Banner said, shaking his head. “If that had hit any of us, it would’ve burnt us dead in seconds, considering how high you’d have to heat the metal to get it to that state.”

“Guys,” said Tony, “not that you need to be in a hurry or anything, but this stuff completely sealed me in, and this isn’t one of my waterproof ones. The suit only has a limited supply of air. If you don’t crack me open soon, I’m going to suffocate.”

“Oh, god,” Steve whispered.

Everyone was standing around the silver Iron Man on the floor. “What do we do?” Natasha asked the obvious question. “That’s Vibranium! We can’t break it!”

Peter was wringing his hands and shifting back and forth on his feet. “W-We just have to heat it up to the temperature it was before when it was liquid and it’ll just, well, fall off him, right?”

Bruce shook his head. “We try that, and we’ll fricassee Tony in the process. Maybe… Maybe the Hulk can crack it open.”

“He’ll snap me in half like a gingerbread man!” Tony pointed out.

Wanda suddenly knelt beside Bruce. “I was able to move some of the Vibranium that Ultron was made of. Maybe my powers can somehow, I don’t know, leech between the molecules and pull it apart.”

Bruce got excited. “Do it gently,” he warned. “And just pull apart the Vibranium, not Tony.”

“Yes, please,” Stark said.

Wanda placed her hands on the Vibranium Iron Man suit and enveloped it in red light. After a minute she shook her head, and the light disappeared. “I must have been using my telekinesis,” she mourned, apologetic.

Tony spoke again. “Anytime now, gang.”

Doctor Strange knelt. “Let me try a few spells,” he said. He summoned symbols of golden light and wrapped Stark in magic. No effect. He gave Steve an apologetic look. “I’m sorry.”

“Kid, I’m sorry,” Tony said, speaking to Peter. “I’m sorry, kid.”

Peter sniffed. “W-We’ll save you, Sir, just hold on.”

Vision spoke up. “Your mention of Ultron reminded me, Wanda. When we fought outside the church in Sokovia, Thor, Stark and I all hit Ultron all at once with our energy. It melted the Vibranium, but just a little.”

“Starting to feel dizzy, guys,” said Tony, his voice a little quieter.

“If we can get a little crack in it, perhaps I can break it apart,” said Thor.

“Or Hulk could,” said Banner. “He’s stronger.”

“Really, fellas, I’m running out of time here.” Tony coughed. His breath hitched, and then he started gasping.

Steve pivoted towards the cockpit. “Land this thing, Clint!” Barton obeyed, putting it down in a clearing of the same forest they’d been in. Steve carried Tony outside and propped him up against a tree. “Stark, you ok? You ready?”

It was FRIDAY who answered. “Mr. Stark is unconscious,” she reported.

Nat had dislodged a repulsor from the emergency Iron Man suit Tony kept in the Quinjet. Steve took it and, together he, Thor, and Vision launched their energy and lightning beams into Tony’s chest. The Vibranium around Tony must have been thinner than Ultron’s casing, because it started cracking right away. “Stop!” Steve yelled when he saw the red and gold of the Iron Man suit. “Stop or we’ll burn him, too!”

Cap dropped the gauntlet and darted forward. Every ounce of strength was needed to pull the Iron Man suit apart. He ripped open everything above the knees, then caught Tony when he tumbled forward. Gently, Cap placed him on the ground, careful to put his head in his lap. Tony’s lungs were working, but only barely. Barton appeared. He had defibrillator, the first aid kit, and a tank of oxygen. Immediately, Bruce put an oxygen mask to Tony’s face and turned it on. Everyone waited.

“Come on, Tony,” Steve whispered.

“Mr. Stark, talk to us!” Peter begged.

Tony woke up wide-eyed, gasping. “Ohhh,” he groaned, “oh, that was awful.” Peter threw himself across his mentor’s chest and hugged him tight. “It’s ok, kid.” Tony patted his back. “It’s ok.” His eyes went to Vision, Thor, and Cap. “Thanks, guys.” He looked at Nat, Clint, and Bruce, and then at everyone else. “Thanks all of you.”

Steve took Tony’s arm. “Can you stand?”

Tony removed the oxygen mask. “I think.”

Steve lifted him up and pulled his arm across his shoulders. “You, uh, have a bit of a sunburn. Singed you a bit.”

“Is the goatee all right?”

“Um…”

Tony’s eyes widened to their limits. “What about the eyebrows?”

“Um…”

“THE HAIR?”

“Um…”

The End

Chapter Text

“Stop, please,” Tony begged. “I don’t want to.”

Steve sat down on the floor so that he could make eye contact with the child. “Hi, Tony. Do you know who I am?”

“I don’t want to wake up.”

“Your brain is healing perfectly. You should wake up. Why don’t you want to?”

“Because it’s safe in here. Out there, there are nightmares.”

Steve patted the floor in front of him. “Why don’t you come out here and tell me about the nightmares.”

The child hesitated, then complied. He scooched out on his stomach. He was holding a Captain America doll in his arm. Tony held it up and said, “I know you.”

“That’s right. And I know you. We’re friends.”

Child Tony frowned. “We were in a – a mine. Bad guys were chasing us. Clint got hurt.”

“That happened a month ago, Tony. You’ve been in a coma for a month. We’d really like for you to wake up now.”

Tony lowered his head. “People always want something from me. Mom wants me to do chores, dad wants me to learn how to build a motorcycle, my nanny wants me to dress up for dinner every night… Everybody wants to tell me what to do.”

The room changed. The posters of various rock bands replaced most of the Captain America posters. Toys disappeared. More than one table was piled high with all sorts of metals and wires. Cap wasn’t sure if they were in the same room or a dorm room. The child turned into a teenage Tony.

“People expect so much of me,” teenage Tony told Cap. “I’m supposed to be like my father – I’m supposed to be bigger and better than my father. I’m supposed to take over the company someday, but, do I want to?”

Steve told himself to go with the flow. Be patient. Listen. “Do you want to?”

Teenage Tony shrugged. “I just wanna party – kiss girls and drink and smoke weed and forget about all this. That would be so… Easy.”

“Sometimes what’s easy isn’t what’s best,” said Cap quietly.

“It makes the nightmares go away…”

The room switched again. Cap stayed still while it swirled around him – making him dizzy. Tony now stood in his father’s office. A newspaper on the desk read, “Howard and Maria Stark Killed in Car Accident.” Cap stood up. Tony had his back to him. “You’re right,” he told him. “There are a lot of nightmares out in the world. But there’s a lot of good, too.”

The room was replaced by a dark cave. Terrorists were waterboarding Tony to within an inch of his life. Cap had to remind himself that this was just a memory, a dream, to keep himself from wringing those assholes’ necks. He knew Tony had been kidnapped and made to build a missile in the desert, but he didn’t know he’d been tortured. More memories – more things Steve didn’t know about. The arc reactor almost killed him?

“I don’t want to be here,” Tony said when they saw Whiplash. “Let’s go. Let’s get out of here. Run!”

Tony literally did start running, and Steve chased after him into the darkness.

And then they were in New York, a month ago, and Cap and Tony were watching Iron Man carry a nuclear missile through the portal. “Nooooo,” Tony groaned. “Not here…” There was nowhere to run. The scene followed Tony out into space where the suit wasn’t designed to go. The missile hit the mothership. Tony fell backwards. The portal shut. The portal shut, but dream Tony and dream Steve stayed on the other side, watching as the mothership exploded, only to reveal more Leviathan, more ships – some twice as big as the Chitauri’s. Some big enough to block out the suns.

“That’s what’s coming next,” adult Tony said, gesturing at the larger ships. “I see them. In my dreams. There are bad guys out there in the universe we can’t begin to comprehend. There’s one – he’s in my head – I sometimes hear his voice, but I never see his face or know his name. But, it’s like we’re connected somehow. Like we’re cursed… He’s the endgame. And he knows MY name.”

Steve put his hand on Tony’s shoulder. “That’s why we need you to wake up. To help us fight what’s coming next.”

Tony shook his head. “It’s too big,” he whispered. “Even for the Avengers.”

“Nothing’s too big when we’re together,” Steve insisted. “You, me, Thor and the others… There’s nothing we can’t beat.”

Tony finally looked at Steve – looked him straight in the eye with water in his own. “You sure about that?” he whispered.

Steve added his other hand to Tony’s other shoulder. “Listen to me, Tony. Listen to me. These nightmares, they’re not going to go away if you hide in here forever. You have to confront them. You have to wake up. We need you. Sounds like the universe needs you, too.”

Tony stared back, face pale and lax. “The universe is asking too much. What if – what if I can’t do whatever it is I’m meant to do?”

Steve squeezed his shoulders. “I swear, whatever happens, I’ll be beside you the whole time.”

The pair turned to look at the spaceships approaching them. “I’m building something,” Tony whispered. “Something to protect this planet. A suit of armor around the world called Ultron. Because if I can’t protect us, maybe it will…” Tears returned to Tony’s eyes. “You’ll be there when I wake up? You swear?”

“I promise,” Steve assured him. “I’ll be right there.”

“Ok… Maybe it won’t be so scary then.”

“Wake up, Tony. Just wake up. Just wake up.”

Outside in the “real world,” Bruce stood in front of the television watching the entire scene with a hand against his mouth. The doctors and nurses and police officers who had busted their way through the barricade stood beside him, equally mesmerized by the exchange between Steve and Tony.

The screen went blank. And then a voice behind them said, “Bruce?”

Everyone in the room whirled around to see a groggy Tony Stark sitting up in hospital bed. “What happened?” He turned his head and saw Steve lying unconscious beside him. “WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?”

Bruce grinned, crossed the room, and stabbed a pre-prepared needled into Cap’s arm. Everyone watched as his life signs and brainwaves improved moment by moment. “I told you I only killed him a little bit,” Bruce said to the officers. “Had everything under control.” He gave Tony an I-mostly-had-it-under-control look.

Steve woke with a start. “What happened?” he sputtered. “Tony?”

Tony waved. “Were you in my brain?”

“I think so. Do you remember what happened?”

“No,” Tony lied. “Just that you were intruding, you jerk.”

“I don’t remember anything, either,” Steve lied. They both looked at Bruce.

“Yeah, I saw everything,” Banner admitted. “It was… You two were cute.”

“Cute?” Steve and Tony sputtered.

“Like a Hallmark movie.”

Steve and Tony suddenly realized they were in the bed and Steve rolled out of it. “You’re ok, though?” Steve asked his friend.

Tony shrugged. “Yeah, but I see that no one bothered to give me a haircut.”

A month later. Steve knocked on the door to Tony’s office in the Tower. “Hey.”

He caught Tony staring at a framed picture of his father on the edge of his desk. “Yeah. Hey. Have a seat.”

Steve did. He hated sitting across from people at desks. No matter who it was, there was always an implied hierarchy. “Listen, uh, I have a confession.”

“Oh?”

“Last month. When Bruce did that mind meld thing… I remember. I remember everything that happened. Everything.”

Tony nodded. “I do, too.” He cleared his throat. The pen in his right hand clicked over and over. “Never thanked you. I should do that now.”

Steve waved his hand. “No need.”

“There is a need,” Tony insisted. “You saved me back there. In the mine, in my mind… I’d still be in a coma if it weren’t for you.”

Steve shook his head. “You would’ve found your way back to us one way or another.”

“Thing is… I don’t think so,” Tony admitted. “I don’t think so at all.”

The pair sat in a heavy silence for a minute. Then one corner of Steve’s mouth popped up. “You didn’t actually say thank you.”

“Huh? Sure I did.”

“No, you talked about thanking me, but you didn’t actually say it.”

“I swear I did.”

Cap put his hands up, surrendering. “Ok, ok. Whatever you say.”

Tony squinted. “Well, just in case…” He sighed. “Thank you, Steve.”

“You’re welcome, Tony.”

The End

Chapter Text

Thanos sat on his grand throne looking down at a trio of fanged, red-skinned, hairless humanoid brothers with golden eyes holding swords taller than they were. “We want to be your children, Great One,” the eldest said. “Make us yours, and we will serve you forever.”

Thanos scowled down at the Crimsons. “The children of Thanos,” he said, “are formidable warriors and mystics. They are feared throughout the galaxy almost as much as I am. I handpick the trainees myself when they’re just children. You think you can march in here and claim to be worthy of such a title?”

The three brothers bowed and laid down their swords. “Great One,” the eldest continued, “we wish only to have the opportunity to prove ourselves worthy. Ask anything of us, and we will do it.

Thanos leaned forward and rested his elbow on his knee. “Fine,” he grumbled. “There is a planet called Earth. On it is a famous man called Stark. You bring me his head, and I’ll make you my children.”

The three brothers bowed lower. “Thank you. We will return with the one named Stark.”

Thanos rolled his eyes and gestured for the Crimsons to be escorted away.

---------

The alien spaceship hovered over New York City like a red cloud. The Iron Man suit flew out of Avengers Tower, right up to the glass panes of the cockpit, and knocked.

“Really?” Natasha snorted from her copilot’s seat beside Clint in the Quinjet, which was just a minute behind Stark.

Tony waved at the three red aliens sitting inside. “Hey Huey, Dewey and Louie, did you take a wrong turn at Saturn?”

Slowly, lowering like the jaw of some monster, a ramp extended and then angled downward. Before anyone, including Tony, could react, a wave of energy crashed over Iron Man, enveloping him like a net. It yanked him inside the ship. The ramp closed like a mouth.

Everyone in the Quinjet gasped. “After that ship!” Steve ordered, pointing over Clint’s head. Barton was already on it.

The alien craft did a loop around the Empire State Building, and then went straight up towards the moon. Clint summoned all the jet’s speed while Nat fired at it. She hit it with dozens of shots, and not one of those shots pierced the ship or slowed it down. Clint got closer – got right behind it – and Natasha tried shooting again. “They’re shielded!” she reported.

“We’re nearing the stratosphere!” said Clint. “I can go maybe 20 more kilometers, but that’s it!”

Bruce rushed up behind Natasha. “We can’t let that ship get away! We have no way of chasing it!”

Steve made the executive decision. “Ram it.”

“What?” Clint sputtered.

“Iron Man is this planet’s best defender,” Steve said. “We can’t let them take him… Take that ship out, Clint.”

Barton and Romanoff shared a look. “Everybody strap in!” Clint advised. “Here we go!” He put everything the Quinjet had into the ascent and a moment later, slammed into the rear of the alien ship. The impact flipped the ship bow over stern. It stopped mid-air, jerked for a moment, and then keeled over on its side. One of its rear engine’s blew up and it started spiraling towards the earth. The Quinjet’s nose crumpled and the ship creaked and trembled. For a moment it seemed to be all right, and then the nose exploded in flames. They dropped. A moment later they were spiraling, too. Clint tried to direct their descent but not a single control worked. Nat and Barton held hands. Everyone held on for their lives.

They were ten kilometers from crashing in a field somewhere in upper New York state when, suddenly, the ship stopped spinning. They couldn’t see out of the windows, but they could feel it slow. Before they knew it, the Quinjet landed gently on the ground. The four Avengers sprinted down the ramp to see what happened.

Iron Man was on his knees underneath the jet. The helmet disappeared into the collar and Tony sighed in relief at the sight of his teammates. “You all right?” he asked. “Thought I didn’t catch you in time. Expected mashed potatoes.”

“You got out!” Bruce exclaimed.

“Of course I did! You guys took a chunk out of the hull! Good thinking, Cap.”

“How do you know it wasn’t my idea?” Clint pouted.

Steve sprinted over to Stark and helped him out from under the ship. “You all right?”

Tony shrugged. “Better off than those red assholes.”

“They were red?”

Tony held out his arm for a handshake. “Thanks for coming after me.”

The team turned east. Smoke from the crashed alien spacecraft billowed into the air. Their backs were turned, so nobody saw that the Crimsons had stowed away on top of the jet. They’d jumped out of their ship and hung onto the roof, riding the jet all the way down. Well, two of them had. The third was stuck inside, and went down with the ship. Huey, sword in hand, jumped onto Tony’s back and Dewey, sword in hand, jumped onto Cap’s. Tony got his helmet up in time, but Cap wasn’t so lucky, and the Crimson dug its teeth right into his throat. Cap yelped, got his arms around the thing’s neck and flipped it over. He raised his shield to drive it into the Crimson’s neck when the paralyzing poison kicked in. He froze, his shield in midair, then toppled backwards.

Nat and Clint attacked. The Crimson swung his sword. Nat flipped over it and Clint slid under it. Tony tossed his Crimson aside, unfortunately, right at Bruce. Banner caught the alien in midair with green Hulk hands. Hulk almost came out – would have – if the Crimson hadn’t shot its neck forward and clamped its fangs around Bruce’s neck. “Oh, come on!” Bruce groaned as he collapsed.

Natasha somersaulted across the grass and picked up Cap’s shield. She got it up just in time to protect him from the Crimson’s sword. Steve’s wide eyes – the only part of him not paralyzed – followed the action. Clint got a running start and tackled the Crimson from behind. The pair rolled over and over until Clint ended up on his back. He got his hands up to protect himself but in protecting his eyes and face, left his neck vulnerable. The Crimson bit down hard and Clint yelped.

Tony unleashed his repulsors. The Crimson flipped through the air – bouncing off the Quinjet. It opened up its poison mouth and spat something right at Tony’s palms. The spit disintegrated the repulsors instantly. Tony shook his gauntlets loose and left them in the grass.

Nat, grunting, used the shield to protect herself from the Crimson’s sword. It was so heavy, but its weight made it harder to aim, and when the Crimson took a big swing she jumped out of the way, and then scurried right up the sword like it was a flight of stairs. She flipped over the alien and when she landed, she stabbed her electrified widow’s bite gauntlets into the places where his kidneys might be. The Crimson screeched in pain. The electricity drove it to its knees. Surprised, but pleased, Natasha unleashed the gauntlets’ full powers and absolutely pounded the alien with electricity. The Crimson collapsed to its knees, shuddered for a moment, and then landed facedown, dead.

Natasha turned towards Tony. “Stark, use electricity!”

Tony was trying to wrestle the sword away from the last Crimson. The alien got the upper hand and slammed the broad side of the sword into Tony’s chest. Stark groaned and folded forward. Right then the Crimson swung the sword like a baseball bat, aiming for Stark’s neck to behead him. Tony ducked, but the sword hit his forehead and sent him flying. He hit the Quinjet head-first. Stark got up, stumbled for a moment, and then crashed back down on his knees. He tried again – even managed a step forward – then toppled over sideways. The helmet came off and Tony promptly vomited on his own bare hands.

“Tony!” Nat cried. “Electrify him!”

Tony stood, finally. He looked at his naked hands and realized in that second that if he electrified the alien, he’d electrify himself as well. Then he saw Bruce, Steve, and Clint lying as if dead on the ground, and a raw anger flared in his heart. He sprinted at the final Crimson and wrapped his arms around him like they were hugging. Then he unleashed the Iron Man armor’s full compliment of power.

Nat had to cover her eyes, that’s how bright the electricity was. When the light faded, she looked up to see Tony lying on top of the fricasseed alien, unmoving. She sprinted over to him and rolled him to the ground. He was breathing, but shallowly, and his hands and face were burnt. “Stark – Stark!” Nat patted his shoulders, then his temples, and then his cheeks. “Wake up, dammit, wake up!”

He didn’t.

“Tony, wake up, please…” Nat kissed his forehead, his cheeks and then, very briefly, kissed his chapped lips. She moved onto Clint, then Bruce, and then Steve. None of them could move. So, Nat just sat down in the middle of her boys, sighed, and listened to the sound of the approaching ambulances.

---------

Tony woke up in his own bed. He knew something was wrong because, first of all, Pepper wasn’t there. Second of all, it was sunny outside. And, third of all, he’d actually woken up in bed, not in his workshop.

“Easy,” a voice said. “Take it easy. You have a skull fracture.”

“Hmm,” Tony grunted. “What?”

“You broke your head.” Natasha came into view after Tony saw hazy water. “And you almost killed yourself.”

“I did?”

“Yes, you wonderful idiot.” Nat almost smiled at him.

Tony suddenly sat up. “Cap. Bruce? Clint?”

“They’re ok. Could use a few days off, but they’re ok.” Natasha looked at him. “Those aliens… They weren’t on a joyride. They were here for a reason – to get you.”

“Yeah, I got that impression, too.” Tony leaned back into his pillows and folded his hands on his stomach. “Popular guy, aren’t I?”

Natasha didn’t return his smile. “If somebody’s after you, Tony, this might just be the beginning…”

The End

Chapter Text

It happened in slow motion, as such things do.

Maybe it was fate, or maybe it was luck that they all got to the same place on the battlefield at the same time. Or maybe it was because they were all keeping track of Thanos and of each other, hard as that was with the entire universe fighting around them. It was habit, really. How many battles had they been in? They knew where the others were at all times. They recognized the hitches of breaths over the coms that meant that other man needed backup. They recognized when punches got a bit slower or arrows shot slightly askew or lightning went a bit sideways. They recognized when a shield was thrown with less gusto or a roar was less enthusiastic. And they knew the sound Tony made when he was in pain.

Tony was in pain.

The Infinity stones synched up with the Iron Man gauntlet, and the greatest power in the entire universe shot through the suit. For half a second – less than one – the suit absorbed and dissipated some of the energy. It pushed it through Tony’s knees and into the ground where it branched like tree roots. But then the remaining energy ricocheted, and erupted in Tony’s body. It enveloped the gauntlet and transformed every cell in his body into fire.

Someone grabbed Tony’s empty left hand. Tony saw Steve in his peripheral. Their fingers interlaced, and purple and blue energy skittered across their connection and into Steve’s body. Together, wordless, the two friends stood up to face Thanos together.

Movement on the right. Thor landed beside Tony and put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. Red and yellow energy flowed into his body. Thor faltered for a moment, like he might kneel, but he called on all his strength and remained up.

Rumbling. Bruce dropped into the scene right beside Thor. Without hesitation, he took the god’s hand. He roared when the energy again went into his injured right arm.

Clint had never run so fast in his life. He dropped his sword, dropped his bow, dropped his arrows, just so he could get to his teammates a quarter of a second faster. He made it, taking Steve’s hand and standing beside him. The blast of energy nearly knocked Clint backward, but Steve held him aloft.

Together, as one team, the five Avengers faced the Titan.

And Clint could swear he felt Natasha’s hand in his…

“I am inevitable,” Thanos said.

Tony summoned that precious Stark smirk. He raised his hand. He flexed his numb fingers. “And we’re,” he said, “the… AVENGERS.”

SNAP.

Within a minute, Thanos and all his ships and minions and philosophies across the entire universe, turned to ash and disappeared. Everyone left standing on the battlefield turned to look at the Avengers.

The explosion of power had blasted the Avengers out of one another’s grips. Steve lost consciousness for a minute, then woke up on his stomach, gasping, having the wind knocked out of him. His right hand felt like it was on fire, and he pushed it into the dirt as if flames needed put out. He tasted blood in his mouth, and spat out a clump of it. The right side of his body felt like one giant bruise. Clint lay on his left. “Barton!” Steve coughed. “Clint!”

Clint’s eyes were closed, but he waved his fingers in Cap’s direction. “’m ok,” Clint mumbled. “’s Tony?”

“Come on.” Steve crawled over and the pair helped each other stand up. Clint nearly toppled over. Blessed, he was not, with super soldier serum, he had to be held up by Steve’s strength. Bleeding wounds crisscrossed his skin like Lichtenberg figures.

Thor and Banner were on their feet. Bruce’s left arm wasn’t nearly as damaged as his right, but it was smoking in places. Thor was limping. Both his eyes and his nose were bleeding.

The four Avengers made their way back to the middle, back to Tony.

He’d always been the center.

Stark was standing. He took two steps to his right, three steps to his left, and then collapsed to the ground with his back up against a pile of debris. Thor knelt beside him and yanked the gauntlet, and the Infinity Stones, off Tony’s arm. Tony’s right hand looked like raw meat. They saw bone.

Steve helped Clint sit down against the same pile of debris. Wanda ran over. “Oh my god,” she squealed, “are you ok?” She fell into Clint’s arms and the pair hugged. “Clint, where is she? Where’s Nat?”

Steve’s attention was on Tony. He took off his cowl and used it to put out the small remaining fires in the Iron Man suit. Then he started ripping up parts of his dirty uniform and pressing them against the bleeders on Tony’s neck and collarbone. The right side of Stark’s face and head was sliced and seared. His ear was gone. But his eyes were open and alert and following Steve’s hands as they worked. His breathing was quick, but consistent. Steve put his fingers against the pulse point in Tony’s neck and found his heart beating strong.

Tony didn’t say anything. He just watched Cap work. Tears built up in Steve’s eyes and they wiped away the dirt on his face when they fell. “You did it,” he whispered. “You saved the universe.”

Tony coughed and cleared his throat. He tried to speak, but only managed a whisper. “We did it. If you guys hadn’t… I’d be dead by now.”

“That was the most incredible…” Steve shook his head. “You’re incredible.”

Rhodey landed. The spider kid dropped in. Steve had to hold him back from hugging Tony so that he wouldn’t hurt him. Pepper took Steve’s spot. She smiled at her husband, then gently kissed his cheek, followed by his chapped lips. “My hero,” she told him, eyes watering.

Firetrucks and ambulances wailed in the distance.

More people crowded in. Everyone wanted to see the five men who saved the universe. Bucky and Sam ran over and hugged Steve so hard they lifted him off the ground. T’Challa shook each of their hands. Drax, Scott, Quill, Dr. Strange, Rocket – they all poured in.

Nobody knew who started the clapping, but clap they did. Everyone on the battlefield either clapped or bowed or saluted the Avengers – the men who saved the universe.

----------

Thanks to Steve, Thor, Clint, and Bruce, Tony got another three weeks of life.

His organs got fried. The ones that could be replaced, were, but there was just too much damage to his brain, heart, and lungs. He returned to his bed in their cabin on the lake, knowing he’d never leave there. It was only a matter of time. And during that time, Rhodey, Happy, Steve, Peter, Clint, Thor, and Bruce all but moved in with Pepper and Morgan. They all wanted to be there, to take shifts to be with Tony, to provide any comfort they could, to divide their grief between friends just like the energy of the Stones.

And one morning, around 2am, Tony’s breathing changed. Steve was keeping vigil beside his bed. Tony turned his head and looked at him. “Hey, Cap.”

“Hey.” Steve put his book down and stood. He gave Tony a long look, then knelt, and took his friend’s hand. He turned both of his lips inward and bit down on them. “Hey, you.”

“I think… I think…” Tony was struggling with breathing, but there was no fear in his eyes.

Steve’s nostrils flared. He squeezed Tony’s pale, cold hand. “Should I get Pepper?”

“Yeah.” He looked so brave. “Yeah, I think so.”

“All right.” Steve couldn’t help it – the tears rose and overflowed in barely two seconds. His heart ached with a grief he’d never known. He nodded his head at Tony, put on the bravest smile he could, and whispered, “I’ll see you soon.”

Tony called Steve’s name right before he went through the door. Cap sniffed and turned around and looked at his friend for the last time. With what very, very little strength he had left, Tony raised his hand, and saluted.

After he retrieved Pepper from Morgan’s room, and watched her close the door to their bedroom, Steve walked slowly downstairs. Half of the boys were passed out in their sleeping bags, but Bruce and Clint were teaching Thor how to play poker at the dining room table. All three put their cards down and stared at Steve. Cap collapsed on the bottom step, put his arms on his knees, and wept. It was Thor who approached him, who put his hand on Steve’s shoulder, who squeezed Steve back when he stood and went in for an embrace. Steve waved the other two in, and the four remaining Avengers hugged.

The End

Chapter Text

Like a furnace.

Tony felt like he was burning alive in a furnace. He woke up clawing for the ceiling and walls, and scooting backwards fast as he could, convinced that he’d been put in feet first and the only way out was behind him. His hands collided with something solid and he pushed off it. His head butted against something behind him and the impact hurt so much that his entire body briefly froze before seizing. The heat increased. “I’m burning – I’m burning!” he gasped. Tony felt sweat pool on his eyelids. He realized, then, that his eyes were closed, and he opened them, expecting to see furious flames surrounding him. Sweat splashed down into his eyes and he had to blink to see through them, through the burning, through the haze, through the confusion.

“Hey. Whoa, hey,” a voice whispered. “Tony. Tony, look at me.”

Tony’s eyes darted everywhere. He saw prison bars and blank concrete walls. He saw the moon outside a small window. He saw empty cups and plates and used forks and spoons. Then, a face blocked everything out, forcing him to see it and it only. He looked into the person’s eyes and recognized them. They were safe eyes.

“Steve,” Tony grunted softly. “Steve, I’m burning.”

“Shhh, Tony, you have a fever. It’s just a fever.” Steve pressed a dirty piece of cloth to Tony’s forehead, to his cheek, to his chin. “You got hurt, remember? The wound’s infected.” Tony tried to sit up, but Steve pushed him back down. His head was lying on the inside of Steve’s knee. Embarrassed, Tony tried to roll away, but Steve righted him again. “Easy.”

Tony relaxed. “My head. My… My stomach.”

“I know.” Steve stopped Tony from touching his wounds. “Tony. Tony, I need you to listen to me for a minute.”

Tony squirmed. “God, my head…”

“Tony. Tony, please.” Steve patted his cheek. Tony looked at him. “We’re in trouble here,” he said. “Big trouble.”

“I don’t – I don’t even remember…”

“And I need you to swear to me that you’re going to fight. Fight the pain, fight the fever, fight the delirium. Fight back.”

“How did we even – where are we?”

“Doesn’t matter. You just focus on staying alive, all right? Leave me to handle everything else. It’ll be ok.”

“Ok. I trust you, Cap.”

“That’s my man.”

“Should I… I should probably stay awake…”

“You probably should,” Steve agreed. “Tony?”

Tony was already unconscious.

---------

Like boiling water.

Tony felt like he was burning alive in boiling water – under the water. He woke up stretching and circling his arms like he was swimming. He had to get to the side of the pot before his skin burnt off. He kicked his legs, arched his head up so that he’d get air as soon as possible when he breached the surface. He must have found the side, because something solid connected with his body and his stomach suddenly erupted in pain. Tony screamed, but heard barely anything more than breath. Hands grabbed his wrist and he fought back, convinced that they were pushing him deeper into the water. But, he had no strength. The hands were strong, and he was drowning and burning at the same time…

“TONY!” a voice cried. Tony’s eyes flew open. Natasha. Nat was there. Why was she there? Why was she… Was she crying?

“What’s wrong?” Tony rasped.

“Oh my god, you’re awake,” Natasha gasped. She placed his hands on his chest and intertwined their fingers. “Hey, Stark.”

“Nat, what’s wrong?”

She snorted and shook her head. “I’m, um, just having a rough day, Tony.”

Stark looked around. He was still in the prison cell. “Where’s Steve?”

Nat’s facial expression briefly flickered. “He’ll be back soon. He’s fine.”

“You were the best liar I knew until now,” Tony whispered.

Nat looked down at their hands, and when she looked up the tears were thicker. “They took him. It’s been a day. I – I don’t know what they’re doing to him.”

“Is he awake?” came a voice further away. “Holy shit—” Clint appeared. His face was dusty and dirty, and blood had dried beside his eye. “Stark, man, thought you’d never wake up.”

“Hey, Barton. You look like shit.”

“Look in a mirror, brother.” Clint’s nose crinkled. “Then again, maybe not.”

“That bad?”

“You look like Gollum if he was drowned and left to die in a pile of dog shit.”

Tony chuckled, and the pain multiplied in his head and stomach. “Oh, wow, oh…”

“Don’t make him laugh,” Nat snarled at Clint. “Do we have any water left?”

“Yeah. Steve put his aside for Tony.” Clint disappeared from Tony’s vision, and then reappeared with a tin cup. Natasha took it and held it to Tony’s lips, depositing just a few drops. Tony suddenly realized he was dying of thirst. He reached his hand up, tipped the cup and took several gulps. “No, wait—!” Natasha ripped the cup out of his hands, but it was already too late. Tony suddenly rolled to his left and vomited liquid and bile up.

“Oh, God,” Tony coughed.

Something metallic rattled nearby. The three Avengers looked up to see a guard unlocking the cell door. Clint tried to get there in time, but he missed catching Steve, who was tossed inside. “I’m ok, I’m all right,” Steve insisted in a broken voice, waving Barton aside. He got to his feet and limped over to Tony. Like Clint, his face was dirty and there was caked blood all over it. He knelt beside Tony and offered a smile. “Told them you’d wake up.”

Tony’s eyelids felt heavy. “Not for long, I think,” he admitted.

Steve nodded. “It’s ok.”

“Is it…?” Tony coughed. “I’m fighting, Steve, I promise.”

Steve took Tony’s hand. “I know. Keep it up. I’m proud of you.”

On Tony’s right, outside of his imagination, beyond his hallucinations, the real Steve Rogers watched, distraught, as Tony carried on conversations with his teammates who weren’t there. He didn’t know what to do – interrupt the delusion? Would that distress Tony too much? Make him doubt anything was real? Steve sighed. He leaned his cheek against the cell wall. If the hallucinations brought Tony any sort of comfort, maybe the responsible thing was to leave him inside them.

Steve put his face in his hands.

---------

Like he was buried in snow.

Tony felt like he was six feet under, and that six feet was full of snow. He was shivering so fast, so fast. He woke up in Steve’s lap again and could barely get a word out between the clicking of his teeth. His head felt a swollen, throbbing entity separate from his body. His stomach rumbled with emptiness, yet felt heavy and bloated and so very, very painful. Like there was a bear trap around his abdomen.

Steve was speaking to him. His frown was deep. Tony couldn’t hear, but he recognized the shape of his name on Steve’s lips. “Tony, hang on,” Steve seemed to be saying. “Hang on, hang on.”

Tony’s entire body shuddered. It felt like the fluid in his very eyes was frozen. The sweat that covered every inch of his skin felt like little icicles. “I’m trying,” he tried to say. “Steve, I’m trying.”

Tony summoned all the “him” that he had in himself, and told his body to persevere. He gave it no option. Hang on, hang on, hang on.

----------

Steve stared at the small rise and fall of Tony’s chest. It was mesmerizing, like watching ocean waves. His heartbeat was a little hypnotizing, too. Steve had barely stopped feeling at least one of Tony’s pulse points at a time. It seemed too slow, but it was steady as a clock. Until…

His heart skipped a beat. Steve shot up into a sitting position from lying on the floor beside his friend. He rearranged his middle and forefinger to make sure he was getting an accurate reading. The pulse continued for another minute, and then it suddenly did a double skip. “Behave,” Steve growled at Tony’s heart. Stark’s face was so, so very pale. He needed a long shower to wash the dried blood out of his hair. And the makeshift dressing Cap had made from his own uniform had turned dark maroon around the wound in Tony’s stomach. The fever kept rising. His breaths seemed to be more and more difficult to breathe.

Flashing lights from outside the cell—

Steve looked up. The lightbulb above flickered. A second later, he heard thunder.

Cap grinned down at the wheezing Tony. “Almost home,” he promised him. “They’re coming for us.”

----------

The thermometer beeped. Steve took it out of Tony’s mouth and announced, “99.8. Almost there.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “You’re not going to let me out of this bed until I’m 98.6, are you?”

“Maybe not even then,” Steve threatened. He put the thermometer on Tony’s bedside table and sighed. “Maybe I’d let you out if I wasn’t so sure you’d spend a solid 24 hours in the lab.”

Tony sat up higher in his bed and rearranged his sheets. “How about we compromise. I’ll only spent 20 hours.”

Steve rolled his eyes. He put his fingers against his temples. “98.6, Tony. For me?”

The request caught Stark off guard. He slinked backward into his pillows. “Fine. For you. Because you kept me alive in that hellhole.”

“Oh, no.” Steve took some gauze off the bedside table and gestured for Tony to turn onto his side so that he could replace the bandages. “I didn’t do a damn thing. You did that all on your own.”

“Oh, you did more than you know,” Tony guaranteed. “You even sang that lullaby to me.”

“Tony, I didn’t sing you a lullaby. You were hallucinating half the time.”

“I did wonder why it was in tune. You have an awful voice.”

“Super soldier serum can only enhance so much,” Steve chuckled.

“So, was I hallucinating when that goose was tapdancing?”

“You made that up just now.” Steve finished up with the bandages and sat down on the side of Tony’s bed.

A beat passed. “Did I hallucinate you lecturing me and holding my hand half the time.”

Steve blushed. “I may have done that.”

“See? You did help keep me alive.”

The End

Chapter Text

Under the moonlight, and a single flickering lightbulb hanging over the garage, Bruce loaded the first crate of vials, beakers, and chemistry textbooks into the back of the Stark Industries van. Headlights suddenly streamed down the normally empty road. It was three in the morning, in rural Pennsylvania, in the middle of nowhere, so there shouldn’t have been a corvette coming up the driveway. But, there was. And Bruce knew who it was. “Dammit,” he cursed.

Tony pulled up beside the van, glaring at Bruce, and slowly rolled the driver’s side window down.

“How the hell did you find me?” Bruce asked. “I dumped my phone, I turned off the GPS in the van, I didn’t use a credit card, I avoided cameras, I even changed my clothes and shoes and – how the hell?”

“Don’t change the subject,” Stark snarled. He held up a piece of paper with Bruce’s handwriting on it. “What the hell is this?”

Bruce harumphed and stormed back into the garage of the abandoned house. He kicked the generator he had lighting the place up and returned to the task of packing up his supplies. Tony slammed the car door shut and followed him inside. “Dear Tony,” Tony said, not even reading off the letter but reciting it, “Dear Tony, I’m leaving. It’s for the best. Don’t come looking for me because there won’t be anything to find. BB.” Tony kicked the same generator Bruce did, out of the same amount of anger. “Dammit, Banner, what’s going on? Talk to me!”

Bruce emptied a beaker of rubbing alcohol down a drain in the middle of the garage floor. “I figured out how to destroy the Hulk,” he said without looking at his friend.

“Uh, huh…” Tony put his hands in his suit pockets and squeezed them into fists. “You mean, you’ve found a way to kill yourself.”

“If that’s the way you choose to think about it, then that’s on you.”

“The way I CHOOSE to THINK about it?” Tony exclaimed. “I’m THINKING that one of my best friends is committing suicide. That’s what I’m thinking.” Tony grabbed the beaker out of Bruce’s hand and put it on a workbench next to the rest of a bunch of chemistry supplies. It was hard not to throw it against the wall. He reached for his friend’s shoulders. “Hey, look at me. Bruce, I’m talking to you!”

To both of their surprise, Bruce pushed Tony away, hard enough to send him stumbling a few steps. “It’s too late,” Bruce snarled. He pointed at a rickety old card table and a packet of needles beside a tiny vial of liquid. “I figured it out. And I already took the injection. And… I can feel it working.”

“You did what?” Tony looked around the garage. “Where’s the antidote? You have to have an antidote. Where is it – tell me, Bruce – take it and stop this!”

“Tony, I didn’t make an antidote, because there’s no need for one!” He whirled around and started packing up his laptop. “I created nanites that bind to the cells and basically… Eat them. They’re working so fast that Hulk can’t heal them.”

Behind him, Tony sighed and asked, “How long do you have?”

“Hours. Maybe.”

“Good. That’ll give you enough time to come up with an antidote.”

The hairs on the back of Bruce’s neck stood on end. He whirled around in time to see Tony finish injecting himself with the concoction. “No!” Bruce sprinted forward and knocked the needle out of his grip. “Tony, are you crazy?” He grabbed his friend by the shoulders and shook him. “You just killed yourself!”

“Not if you create an antidote,” Tony said, his voice suddenly clear of the menace of a minute ago. “An antidote I won’t take, unless you take it first.”

Tears sprung to Bruce’s eyes. “You complete and utter idiot! I only have hours to go because Hulk is healing me. This thing will decimate your body in less than an hour! How am I supposed to reprogram the nanites in that amount of time?”

Tony wrapped his hands around Bruce’s wrists, whose hands were still on his friend’s shoulders. “Then you better get to work, huh?”

“You son of a bitch!” Bruce cried. “What am I supposed to tell the team? What am I supposed to tell Pepper!”

Tony made a show of looking at his watch. “Tick, tock, my friend.”

“Ugh!” Bruce went back to his desk and got his equipment up and running again. “Tony, you gotta help me with this. For as long as you can.”

“All right.” Stark tossed his suit jacket aside and loosened his tie. “Where do I start?”

“How’s your biochemistry?”

“Subpar.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.”

Tony made it a half hour. By then most of his skin was a red rash and he couldn’t stand up anymore. Bruce took him by the elbow and helped him sit down with his back against the garage wall. There were words he wanted to say – so many – but there was no time. Tony started coughing up blood.
“All right… Ok…” Bruce pushed his glasses up higher on his nose. “I’m in the code, now. Now I just need to reprogram the nanites to…” Bruce punched his fist on the table. “It can’t be anything complicated. Simple command to follow so they’ll stop right away.” Bruce went and knelt beside Tony. He cupped his chin and turned his eyes to meet his own. “Tony… I don’t know what to do.”

Tony’s bloodshot eyes blinked at him. With bloody, chapped lips, he whispered, “You said you programmed them to eat the cells. Now you should program them to eat something else. Something like…”

“Each other,” Bruce realized.

“Hmm,” Tony hummed.

Bruce rushed back to his computer. Behind him, Tony slumped to the floor.

----------

Tony wasn’t sure how long he was out, but it was daylight outside the garage when he woke up. He was still lying on his side where he fell. Carefully, convinced it would fall off if he went too fast, he held his hand up to his face. The rash was gone. He curled his fingers and rotated his wrist. Normal.

“You died,” Bruce said from his left. “Just for a few moments.”

Tony slowly sat up with his hand against his head. There was a little leftover pain. “That happens to me a lot.”

“Yeah, it does.” Bruce ambled over with a bottle of water. “And it doesn’t get any easier watching you die, you know?”

“Bruce… How did it feel? When I died? Every time I die?”

“Devastating.”

“And you want to put me through that same feeling when I lose you? You want to cause me that kind of pain?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then take. The damn. Antidote.”

Bruce held up a syringe. “Already did.”

A relieved Tony leaned hard back against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. “Thank you.”

Bruce snorted. “Thank you for not killing myself?”

“Wasn’t talking to you but, yeah, thank you for not killing yourself.”

Bruce ambled over and sat against the wall beside Tony. “Do me a favor.”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t tell the team about this. Especially Natasha.”

“Because she might kill you herself?”

“Because she might kill me herself, yes.”

“Do me a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t ever do this again.” Tony looked at his friend. “Swear it, Banner. Swear it on something important.”

“Something important, huh?” Bruce patted Tony’s chest. “Then I swear it on you.”

The End

Chapter Text

It was a lovely dinner. Tony had it catered by the best restaurant in the city and hired waiters and waitresses to serve everyone. He invited the whole gang to the Tower: Steve, Bruce, Clint, Vision, Wanda, Natasha, Peter, Scott, Sam, Rhodey, Bucky, and Doctor Strange. Tony took a moment to look at everyone seated around the table and admire each of them. He was grateful for them. He’d never had so many friends in his life – friends who knew his sins and accepted him anyway. Friends he was proud to have at his table. Friends he was grateful to for coming to his table. For Thanksgiving he’d have to get a table twice the size so that everyone could bring their significant others and their kids.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter caught Tony staring. “Mr. Stark, are you ok?”

Tony grinned. He put his hand on Peter’s shoulder and squeezed it. “Never better,” he said, and he was surprised to find that he meant that. What was better than a great dinner with your best friends?

“Mr. Stark, I was thinking… Every organization has a hierarchy, right? I’m probably at the bottom of this one—”

“The very bottom, kid,” Stark confirmed with a smile.

“Well, what can I do about that? I mean, what’s a guy gotta do around here to get promoted to, uh, sergeant or something?”

“Well first,” Tony held up his empty glass, “you can get me more wine.”

The blue-skinned, black-haired man who appeared in a spiral of red sparkles in front of the bar had sigils in his face that Tony recognized as Norse. His eyes were red, and he held a knife that was stained red. Steve and Clint instantly moved to Tony’s side at the head of the table as the being approached. Everyone else spread out behind them – if they had to use their weapons and powers on the intruder, they didn’t want to hit each other.

“Where’s my brother?” the man asked with a baritone voice. “Where is Loki?”

Everyone looked at Steve and Tony.

“I traced his steps across the universe to this very room. Where is he?”

It was Tony who took a step forward. “You know, you could introduce yourself. It’s just nice manners when you break into someone’s home. We’re the Avengers. It’s nice to meet you. And you are…?”

“Helblindi, son of Laufey and Farbauti.”

“Well I’m Tony, son of Howard and Maria, and I don’t remember inviting you to this dinner. So how about you throw some of that red confetti and zip on out of here.”

“Until recently I didn’t know I had a brother. Now I can sense him – him and that Asgardian Thor.” Helblindi raised his knife. “Where are they?”

“They’re not here,” said Steve. “It’s been years since Loki was here. You won’t find them, not on this planet.”

“They didn’t exactly leave a forwarding address,” Clint chimed in.

“Then summon them,” the frost being insisted.

“We don’t know how to do that,” said Natasha from Clint’s right. She wasn’t lying. “We don’t know anything.”

Helblindi pointed his knife at Nat. “Find Loki or Thor for me, or I’ll kill you.”

Wanda summoned red magic around her hands. Strange encircled his wrists with golden cuffs. Rhodey, Natasha, Sam, and Clint took out the guns they had in their pockets. Peter and Scott bent at their knees, ready to pounce. Vision floated into the air and raised his palms.

Helblindi held his red knife high. “I’ll return here in 72 of your hours. If you don’t have Thor or Loki, then these three men die.” Suddenly, he dropped the knife to the floor, and red light exploded across the room, knocking everyone over. Helblindi marched forward and pulled Clint to his feet by his throat. He did the same thing to Tony, holding the two of them above his head like trophies. Steve, disoriented, dove into tackle him, and that was when all four of them disappeared in a shower of red sparks.

“Mr. Stark!” Peter cried.

“Clint!” Nat gasped.

Sam ran to where Steve had been standing. “What happened? Where did he take them?”

“It this creature is able to cross the universe, then he could be anywhere,” Strange pointed out.

Nat turned to face the group. “Does anyone know where Thor is or how to contact him? Because, seriously, I don’t.”

Nobody raised their hands.

“Crap.”

---------

Steve woke up in a cell the size of a queen-sized bed. He hung from the center of it by cuffs and chains that had all but cut off the circulation in his hands. He stood on shaky feet, fought past the dizziness, and looked around. Clint and Tony were also in bed-sized cages – Clint on Steve’s left and Tony on Steve’s right. Both men were unmoving. Across the room, a SHIELD symbol hung on the wall. Old, abandoned equipment sat everywhere – computers and carts of metal supplies and piles of unopened rations. An abandoned SHIELD base – but where? Steve wrestled with his cuffs and got nowhere.

Helblindi was sitting on an empty crate, watching Cap come to. He flipped his red knife over and over in his hand. “Where is Loki?” he asked, frustration apparent. “Where is Thor?”

Steve looked at his teammates. “Are my friends alive?”

Helblindi stood up, still twirling his knife. “At the moment. Would you like to keep them that way?”

Steve snorted. “What do you even want with Loki? Why are you looking for that monster?”

The red knife was aimed at Steve’s throat. “Watch your mouth, mortal. That’s my brother you’re talking about. Don’t you have any brothers?”

Steve almost said “no,” but then he thought of Bucky, of Sam and Tony and Bruce and Clint, and he said, “Yes.”

“And you wouldn’t go searching across the universe for them?”

“I wouldn’t kidnap and threaten to kill people to find them.”

Helblindi smiled and shrugged in a very Loki-like manner. “To each their own.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “How about this: the next time Thor stops by, we’ll tell him you’re looking for him and let him know what planet you’re on… As long as it’s not ours.”

“I appreciate your attempt at compromise. And I might even consider it if I didn’t believe that you’re lying to me.”

“We’re not lying. We really, truly do not know where Thor and Loki are. And holding my teammates and me here isn’t going to change that.”

“Desperate people do desperate things,” said Helblindi. “Your teammates back at your base, knowing your lives are at stake, will suddenly find themselves thinking outside the box. They’ll figure out how to summon Thor or Loki and if they don’t, they’ll die, too.”

----------

It was absurdly early in the morning when Jane Foster’s phone rang. Her phone only ever rang that early because of emergencies, so Jane answered it instantly. “Hello?”

“Dr. Foster? This is Natasha Romanoff.”

“Natasha—Oh! Yes, oh, yes. Miss Romanoff. Your, uh, reputation precedes you.”

“As does yours, Doctor.” Nat was talking at breakneck speed. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Dr. Foster—”

“Jane.”

“Jane. I’m sorry to disturb you, Jane, but we need your help. Have you heard from Thor lately?”

The speed of Jane’s heartbeat doubled. “No – no, I’m afraid not… Not for a long time.”

“Did he leave any way to contact him? Some way to summon him if you needed him?”

“Like his phone number?” Jane half-laughed. “No, sorry, no.”

“Dammit.” Natasha sighed. “Jane, there’s something else. Has Thor ever been to your home?”

“Yeah…? Why? What’s going on?”

“Well, it turns out that Loki has a brother, and this brother of his is able to… sense, somehow, where Thor and Loki have been. This means that he might show up in your kitchen asking for Thor at any second. You have to get out of there.”

Jane’s blood froze. “I’ll start packing.”

“Ok. And while you’re packing – no longer than five minutes, Jane – while you’re packing, I need you to think up a list of anywhere else on earth Thor or Loki may have gone. We need to evac people from those places as soon as possible.”

“I’m on it.”

----------

Clint recognized where they were immediately when he woke up. He reported to Steve, who was hanging in the cage on his right, “When Loki did his mind control on me and a bunch of SHIELD operatives and scientists, this was sort of our headquarters. We took over this base.”

Steve perked up a bit. “Where are we?”

“Near the Jersey border. This place used to be a small airport.”

Helblindi strutted over to Clint. “My brother can control minds? Fascinating.”

Clint spat so hard that he hit Helblindi’s boots. “Your brother is an asshole who tried taking over this planet. We kicked his ass.”

Helblindi’s eyes narrowed. “Did you, now…” He approached the bars to Clint’s cell and waved the knife at him. “Well, maybe I should get a little revenge for him…”

“Then you’ll want to take it out on me,” Tony suddenly said. Steve and Clint pivoted right and saw Stark on his feet, swaying, but holding his ground. “Since I’m the one who blew up his ship and destroyed his entire army.”

“Tony,” Steve cautioned.

Tony ignored him. “You know that Tower you snatched us from? That was where he surrendered – such a loser.”

Helblindi ignored Clint and went to Tony. He dragged the knife across the cell bars as he walked.

“Tony.” Steve’s chains rattled as he tried to get out of them.

Helblindi opened Tony’s cell and entered it, knife first. “What did you say about my brother?”

“Well,” Tony sneered, “he lost, so he’s a loser, so I called him a loser. Your brother is a loser.”

“I know you’re just saying these things to draw my attention away from your friend,” Helblindi said. He circled Tony like a hungry vulture. “It’s admirable, honestly. But you’ll still have to pay for those words.”

“No!” Steve and Clint cried when Helblindi raised the knife and swung it at Tony. He slashed the inventor across his cheekbone, leaving a deep, bleeding cut. Tony didn’t make a sound. Blood rolled down to his chin.

Helblindi grabbed Stark by the throat and glared at him with those red eyes. “What do you have to say now?”

Tony glared back. “Give me a category.”

Helblindi chuckled and let Tony go, sending him dropping backwards in his bonds. “Do you have a hobby, Tony?”

Tony got back up on his feet. “Several. You want to learn how to crochet?”

Helblindi sneered. The knife slashed again, this time from the corner of Tony’s mouth straight to his ear. “I have a hobby. It’s been a passion of mind. Family business, you might say. I wonder if my brother loves it as much as I do…”

“You weren’t kidding when you said you crocheted that winter cap for Lila?” Clint asked Tony.

“I wasn’t kidding,” Tony confirmed. “Well, I sort of did it. I designed a new type of knitting machine that—” Helblindi stopped Tony short when he whipped the knife for a third time, this time slicing Tony across the shoulder. “Ouch,” Tony growled, more annoyed than in pain.

“Stop it,” Steve ordered in his most “captain” of voices.

Helblindi turned his attention away from Tony. The moment his back was turned, Tony leapt up and wrapped his knees around his neck. He squeezed with all his might, pulling the frost being’s body closer so that he could smack that black-haired head with his own. To Tony’s dismay – and Steve and Clint’s – the being just chuckled. Slowly, as if he enjoyed the tension, he reached up, wrapped a hand around Tony’s left ankle, and twisted. They all heard the cracking sound as the ankle broke. Tony yelped and let go. Helblindi pivoted and smacked Tony across the mouth, punched him in the stomach, and clobbered him across the chin. Stark spat blood.

“Stop!” Steve shouted. “He gets the point!”

Helblindi locked Tony’s cell and moved into Steve’s. “What’s your name?”

“Steve Rogers.”

“Steve Rogers. Strong name, for a Teran. You’re the leader. I could tell by your posture back at the Tower. And by the way everyone looked at you. I respect leaders.” Helblindi cocked his blue head to the side. “Do you have a hobby, Steve?”

“How about we skip to the part where you tell us what yours is?”

Helblindi laughed. “Very well. Should I tell you or show you?”

“Show—?” Steve was cut off when Helblindi sliced him down his arm from the inside of his elbow to his shoulder. He went right, then, and sliced a similar length down Cap’s ribs from his armpit down to his hipbone. Right when Helblindi went in to slice up Cap’s stomach was when Steve yanked down hard on the chains above him. The chains separated from the ceiling and fell straight down. Steve stepped backwards and they piled right down on Helblindi’s head, knocking him out. “CLINT!”

Barton was already on it. He flipped his body upside down, raising his feet to his hands. He found the lockpick in his shoe and got out of his cuffs in record time. After getting out of his cell, he raced into Steve’s and freed him, then the pair moved to Tony. “About damn time,” Stark muttered, annoyed. “LOOK OUT!”

The real Helblindi – not the faux version he’d cloned with his magic, as Loki liked to do – emerged from the shadows and kicked Steve in the back, sending both him and Barton into the cage with Tony. Then the frost being, having, unlike Loki, grown up being schooled on magic, used his to slam the three Avengers against the back wall of the cave and hold them there, surrounded by red sparkles. “Well, that was fun,” Helblindi said, smoothing back his black hair. He cracked his knuckles, walked into the cave, and kicked Barton in the stomach so hard that Clint nearly retched. He punched, then, giving Barton an instant black eye. Punch number two split open his lip. Punch number three busted his nose.

Helblindi stepped back then and massaged his hand. “We have 70 more hours of this fun,” he said, grinning. “You three better get used to it.” Then, with a flair of his fingers that released the Avengers from being held against the wall, Helblindi locked the cage door and disappeared down the hall.

---------

Dr. Erik Selvig answered his cell phone without looking to see who was calling. “Yes?” It was Natasha. They chatted. Selvig had no clue where Thor was, or how to find him. “Try praying,” he recommended.

“Sir, we need to know every place that Loki and Thor may have been on this planet. It’s our only help to find them.”

“What about that SHIELD base Loki had Barton and I in right before the attack on New York? The base where we perfected the tech and planned the attack on the Helicarrier?”

“WHERE IS IT?”

----------

Clint and Steve could only watch – and also try not to watch – as Helblindi surrounded Tony with red sparks and lifted his body up into the air. Lightning flashed beneath Stark’s clothes. Blood dripped from his fingernails. His limbs shook with pain.

Steve couldn’t stand it. “Me!” he shouted. “Take me!”

Helblindi grinned as Tony squirmed. “Are you begging?” he asked Cap. “Are you begging me?”

Steve didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Yes, I’m begging you to take me instead. I’m begging.”

Tony dropped to the floor of the cell. His eyes were open and twitching. His hands trembled and his legs stretched, retracted, then stretched again as he fought through cramps, bruises, and fire. Helblindi approached the cage. “You know what most people don’t understand about torture, Steve Rogers? It’s the psychological torture that’s most enjoyable. Watching leaders like you, men responsible for other men, look so helpless…” Helblindi rolled his eyes back and smiled wider. “Delicious.” Before Steve could comment, Helblindi pointed his knife at Clint. The unleashed magic lifted Barton from the cell floor just like Tony.

Clint screamed.

----------

Sam landed the Quinjet a hundred yards away from the target. The team had worked together so much that they no longer needed words. They just started running the minute they left the ship, pairing up, going up and left and right, ready to attack the compound from every angle. Vision, Wanda, Peter, Scott, Sam, Rhodey, Bucky, Bruce, and Strange waited for Natasha’s signal.

--------

Helblindi my have knocked him out, Steve decided, because he certainly didn’t remember lying on his side to take a nap. But he woke up from a restless sleep in one corner of the cage. Tony was on his right and Barton was on his left, both lying on their backs. Both bleeding from a hundred different places. Both looking at Steve with lifeless eyes.

Lifeless.

The noise that came out of Steve’s chest was part-sob, part roar. He crawled on his hands and knees over to Tony’s prone body and shook Stark by the shoulders. “Tony? Tony! Oh, God, no…” He crawled to Clint and shook him, too. Again, nothing. Barton was dead. Eyes dry, but still sobbing, Steve went back to Tony and put his hands on either side of his friend’s face. “Dammit, no, wake up, WAKE UP!”

Steve collapsed back on his butt and put his face in his hands. He’d failed his team. Clint and Tony were dead. He didn’t save them. Steve fell over to the right, directly onto Tony’s lifeless chest, and that’s where the tears poured.

“Cap,” someone whispered. Steve looked up. As soon as he did, the fake bodies beside him disappeared. Tony and Clint – though they looked like corpses – were perfectly alive and sitting side by side at the rear of the cage. “Cap, it’s not real. He’s making you see things,” Tony told him.

“Oh, God…” Steve gasped. He crawled over to his friends, put a knee between them and wrapped his left arm around Clint and his right around Tony. “Oh, thank God…” Barton and Stark hugged him back.

A cackle. Helblindi was watching from outside the cell. The son of a bitch was eating popcorn. “You three are adorable,” he mocked. “Honestly. I’ve tortured people to death before and you three are just the most fun I’ve ever had.”

Steve wiped his eyes dry. He stood, then turned to face the frost being. “Our team’s coming for us,” he told Helblindi. “And when they see the shape you’ve left us in, they’re going to be pissed.”

Helblindi approached the cage door and so did Cap. “I hope so,” the frost being said, “because it would be nice to have a fair fight.”

“Oh, there’s going to be a fight,” Steve assured him. “And that fight will end when I snap your neck.”

Helblindi raised his knife again. “We’ll see about that.”

All three of them – Tony, Clint, and Steve were lifted into the air by the red magic. Their bodies sizzled, cracked, and burned.

None of them could resist screaming.

It was then, right when Helblindi was enjoying his hobby the most, that two legs kicked in the door at the end of the hallway. Vision and Wanda entered and hit Helblindi with an absolute tidal wave of red and yellow energy. The frost being was knocked off guard. His magic broke and Steve, Clint, and Tony fell to the floor. None of them moved.

Strange came through the door on the opposite side of the hall. He hit Helblindi with blasts of golden light. Simultaneously, Sam and Rhodey aimed their guns down from the rafters and unloaded them into the frost being. On the floor, dropping in from the vents, Bucky and Natasha aimed and fired their weapons, too. And then fingers pried open the roof like a can of tuna and tossed it aside like a frisbee. Scott waited a second for the others to get clear, and then he slammed his foot down directly on Helblindi.

Peter and Bruce busted into the cage. “Oh, God,” Bruce exhaled when he saw the state that Steve, Clint, and Tony were in. “Are… Are they even alive?”

Peter rushed to Tony and knelt beside him. “M-Mr. Stark?” He touched his mentor’s shoulder, rolling him onto his back. “Mr. Stark, can you hear me? TONY?”

The place exploded in red sparks. Peter and Bruce ended up in a dogpile with Clint, Steve, and Tony. Scott was thrown up and out of the building. The others were knocked back against doors and walls. Only half of them got back up on their feet.

Helblindi wiped imaginary dirt off his shoulder. “Is that the best you’ve got?” he laughed from the middle of a tornado of sparks. He marched into the cage and pulled Tony out of it by his neck. Once he was sure that every eye in the room was on him, he held his red knife to Tony’s throat. Tony was conscious, but barely. He was only on his feet because the frost being held him there. Helblindi shouted, “Last chance! Where is Loki? Where is Thor?”

A flash of light outside. A roar of color suddenly descended into the room. Even Helblindi needed to shield his eyes. The light retreated into the shape of a person and there, hovering in the center of the base, was a very, very pissed off Carol Danvers. She pointed her fists at Helblindi. “Let him go.”

“What in Hel are you?” the frost being asked, shocked. He let go of Tony. Stark collapsed to his knees. Unable to find the strength to catch himself, Tony fell forward and landed facedown, spreadeagled. Helblindi kicked him aside on his approach to Captain Marvel. “You’re nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

“I’m the last thing you’re going to see,” she threatened, “if you don’t leave this planet right now, and never return again.”

“You’re a goddess,” Helblindi exhaled, in awe. He walked gradually forward as if approaching an altar in a church. “You should be worshipped.”

Carol landed on the floor and put her arms at her side. “Leave,” she ordered again. “Now.”

Helblindi spread his palms out and bowed. “A queen,” he decided. “I’ll call you a queen—!” Red sparks exploded from his hands.

Carol was ready. She reflected the magic right back at Helblindi. The frost being screamed and melted from his own magic.

It was over.

“Thanks Carol,” Nat said, breathless, as she rushed by to get to Clint. She practically fell on top of him, and he groaned in pain. “Sorry,” Nat said, flushed and frantic. Her fingers fluttered all over his body, but she found nowhere to touch him that wasn’t bleeding or bruised. “Barton, I’m so sorry… We tried to find you, we tried so hard.”

“It’s all right, Nat,” Clint said between swollen lips. “It’s all right.”

Bruce helped Steve sit up. “We gotta get you to a hospital,” Banner concluded.

Steve wiped his face. “Is T – Is Tony ok?”

Peter got to Stark first. “Sir?”

A disoriented Tony opened bruised eyelids. “Hey, kid.”

Peter’s hands shook. “Hey, Mr. Stark. Are you ok, Sir?”

Tony looked at him. He didn’t even try to move – or couldn’t. “You know I’m proud of you, right, Pete?”

Peter didn’t like the sound of that, and neither did any of the Avengers who were crowding around the pair. “Mr. Stark…”

Tony looked up at his teammates – at Steve and Bruce, Clint and Nat, Sam and Rhodey… “Thanks for coming to my table,” he whispered. And then Tony’s eyes rolled backwards into his skull and he went silent.

----------

Tony woke up alone. He resented that. No one should wake up in a hospital alone.

A toilet flushed nearby. Steve exited the bathroom. “Oh,” Tony said. “There you are.”

“Here I am,” said Steve. “How’s that kidney feel?”

“What’s that?” Tony sat up in bed and poked his body all over. “Kidney?”

“Here.” Steve gently pulled up Tony’s shirt and revealed a bandage on his left side. “Some of our organs got a little fried. Clint has part of Sam’s liver and you have one of Parker’s kidneys.”

“The kid gave me an organ?” Tony bellowed. He turned to the door where he was sure, now, that his friends were waiting, out in the hallway. “PARKER!”

Peter entered with a guilty face. He was in a hospital gown, bandaged up in the same place as Tony. “Yes, Mr. Stark?”

“YOU…” Tony shook his fist at his young protégé. Then a forefinger pointed out from the fist. “You… Are promoted.”

Peter beamed.

The End

Chapter Text

Nobody believed Tony when he told them the things he heard: footsteps he couldn’t account for, the sound of the refrigerator door opening when no one was in the kitchen, scratching sounds from his closet when he tried to sleep… Nobody believed Tony when he told them the things he saw: shadows around the corner that weren’t there when he turned, objects moving by themselves, a brief extra face in the mirror… Nobody believed Tony when he told them about what was moved or missing: his favorite screwdriver disappeared, his laptop was always closed when he returned after he swear he left it opened, the books on his nightstand rearranged themselves…

“Are you saying there’s a ghost in the Tower?” Cap asked while he and Tony ate eggs together one morning.

“I’m saying…” Tony thought about it for a moment. “I’m not sure what I’m saying… All I know is these things are happening.”

Steve gave him a long look. “Have you been getting enough sleep?”

“Yes.”

“No, you haven’t. You never get enough sleep.”

“Ok, I’m getting my normal amount of sleep,” Tony conceded.

“Have you been eating?”

“Yes, and don’t ask about my bowel habits next, please.”

“I’m just saying, maybe you’re getting sick or something.”

“I don’t have a headache, I’m not sleepy – I feel fine,” Tony insisted. “And I know what I’m seeing!”

“Mhmm…” Steve chewed and swallowed two forkfuls of eggs before he spoke again. “Maybe you should, you know, get your, er, brain checked. MRI or EKG or EEG or whatever machine it is that looks at your brain.”

Tony glared at his friend. “You don’t believe me, do you? You think I’m paranoid.”

“Tony, I believe you’re seeing things, I’m just not convinced those things are real.”

“Great. Nice.” Tony slammed his dirty dishes into the sink. “You know, if you were seeing these things, I’d trust you. I’d scan this whole place looking for irregularities and—”

“Have you scanned the whole place?”

“Of course, I—!” Tony sighed. “I’m going for a swim.”

“You just ate.”

“Don’t mother me, Rogers!” Tony marched to the seventeenth floor in a huff. He thought he heard footsteps following him, but decided to ignore the sound. Maybe he WAS getting paranoid? They hadn’t been on a mission in weeks… Maybe he was getting antsy and looking for things that weren’t there? Tony contemplated all of that while he undressed in the men’s locker room and then dove into his Olympic-sized pool. Swimming always cleared his head.

He was in the deep end, in the left lane, when something heavy landed on him. Arms wrapped around his neck, legs around his torso, and he sank, fast. Tony struggled, but whoever it was had his arms pinned to his sides. He let himself sink all the say to the bottom and then, when his bare feet touched, he launched himself upwards with all his strength. Briefly, he emerged – long enough for a strangled “HELP!” that he hoped JARVIS heard. Then he was back underwater. He hadn’t had time for an inhale, so the water went up his nose almost instantly. Whoever was on top of him turned his body and, for a moment, Tony thought he saw a face…

He woke up, sat up, and promptly vomited. Steve was beside him, pounding on his back, saying encouraging words, telling him to breathe. Tony obeyed, but he also turned left and right, looking, desperately, for whoever had tried to drown him. His left leg suddenly screamed for his attention. It was cramped up from knee to ankle. Tony rubbed it furiously. “Where is he?” he coughed.

“Where’s who?” Steve went from pounding on Tony’s back to rubbing it. “I told you not to go swimming right after eating. See? You cramped up.”

“I didn’t almost die because of a cramp, Cap, someone jumped on me!”

“Tony, JARVIS didn’t say anything about that when he summoned me, and it was only you when I got here. There was no one else.”

Tony got shakily to his feet. Steve begged him to sit down, but Tony pushed him aside and headed for the locker room. He got to the nearest screen implanted in the wall and started pushing buttons. The security footage of the pool showed him swimming, then going under, up again, and then back under. JARVIS summoned Cap and, a few second later, Steve dove in and pulled Tony out. There was no one else there.

“This… This isn’t right.” Tony turned to Cap. “I’m telling you, someone tried to kill me!”

Steve pointed at the screen. “You just saw, Tony. There’s nothing there. You got a cramp in your leg and you couldn’t swim with it. That’s what really happened.” Steve took him by the elbow. “Let’s get you dried off,” he said. “Come on. Sit down.” Steve plucked a white towel off a neat pile and wrapped it around Tony’s shoulders. “You’re shaking.” He took another towel and wiped off his arms.

Tony tried to relax and allow Cap to take care of him.

----------

They were all eating dinner together – Tony, Steve, Clint, Bruce, Natasha, and Thor – when the ghost attacked again. Suddenly, Tony fell backwards in his chair, taking the steak on his fork with him, and smashed into the floor. Everyone but Steve laughed. They all assumed he’d leaned too far back. But Steve noticed the speed and force of the fall and knew that Tony had been pulled from behind. He sprinted around the table and helped Tony back up onto his feet. The moment Tony stood straight, something slammed into his chin and he ended up on the floor. He then rolled up against the table as something kicked him in the stomach.

“Believe me now?” Tony grunted to Steve.

“Team, there’s something here – protect Tony,” Steve ordered. Everyone took out their weapons and made a circle around Tony, their meals forgotten on the dining room table. Something picked up Tony’s plate of food and frisbeed it across the room.

“What the hell?” Barton sputtered.

Tony suddenly fell on his ass, his left foot in the air. Something had reached between Thor’s legs and grabbed him by the ankle. Thor dropped his hammer down, but hit nothing. “I do not see anything,” said Thor. He twirled his hammer in his hand. “What is happening?”

“Team, we have to be able to see this thing. Talk to me!” Steve yelled.

Natasha sprinted into the kitchen. The moment she stepped aside, invisible hands grabbed Tony by the shirt and threw him over the couch. Tony landed hard on his side, his arm twisted under his torso. Another kick to the stomach and he was on his back, fighting off hands trying to choke him. Steve tackled the being on top of him and they went rolling across the room. Two punches to Steve’s cheek later, and the thing moved back to Tony. It lifted him nearly off his feet, and then launched him into the air. Tony bounced off a window, leaving a crack in his wake. He fought up to his knees, swaying back and forth, debating between trying to get up and staying down.

Steve hurried back to Tony. “Think I have a concussion,” Tony said, words slurring. “Or possibly a skull fracture. Or a ‘me’ fracture.” He leaned too far to the left, then too far to the right, and had to hold on to Cap’s shoulder to stay up. “Steve…”

“Hang in there,” Steve encouraged. His eyes darted around the room super-soldier fact. “We’ll get him.”

“That would be lovely,” Tony deadpanned. And then he was tackled from the side. His head twisted back and forth as he endured punch after punch. Tony spat blood. A tooth fell out. His eye turned black. Natasha reappeared. She launched an open bag of flour at him and it didn’t hit him – it covered the thing on him in white powder. Thor immediately threw his hammer and hit the thing right in the chest. It bounced off the same window Tony had, this time leaving a broken window instead of just a crack. The ghost tried to wipe off the flour, but it was too late. Clint tackled him from behind and, with Bruce’s help, put handcuffs on his wrists, behind his back. Thor lifted the thing up by the throat and held it in mid-air. “Reveal yourself,” he ordered with a growl.

Light fluctuated. A rain of color descended and there, grinning at them all, was a very familiar face.

“Loki!” Thor roared. He slammed the back of his brother’s head against a window. “What the hell are you doing?”

The trickster shrugged. “Can’t a guy have a little bit of fun?” He looked at Tony, who was on his feet only because Steve and Bruce held him up. “Psychologically torturing Stark for weeks? All fun and games.”

“Fun and—!” Thor dragged Loki to the elevator, kicked him inside, gave Stark an apologetic look, and went inside. “Let’s see what Father has to say about this…” he said before the doors closed.

Tony’s knees gave out. Steve and Bruce carried him over to the couch and helped him lie down. While the others got ice packs and first aid kits and blankets, Steve knelt and took Tony’s hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “I don’t always give people reasons to trust me, I know… I just thought…”

“I’d be different.” Steve winced. “I’m sorry. I really am. Let me make this up to you.”

Another roll of the eyes. “You don’t have to do anything, Cap.”

“I want to.”

Tony stared at him. “Fine.” He thought for a minute, then smiled through bloody lips. “Cheeseburger.”

The End

Chapter Text

Thor hadn’t spoken to his mortal human friends in several weeks and decided that he missed the tacos that Natasha made for the team every Tuesday night. So, he left Asgard and showed up just in time for dinner, empty stomach rumbling. But, there was nobody home. Assuming they were out on a mission, Thor asked Stark’s Computer Thing where they were. “I’m afraid they’re at the hospital,” JARVIS reported.

“What? Were they all wounded in battle?” the Asgardian asked, instantly feeling guilty for not being there for his teammates. He needed Stark to make him an intergalactic cellular telephone.

“No, Sir,” the AI continued, “they are AT the hospital. It is Captain Rogers who is IN the hospital and has been for over a week.”

“What’s wrong with Rogers?”

“Unknown. The captain’s condition is confounding every physician.”

Thor sighed. “I should see my friend. Where is this hospital?”

---------

Tony sat on Steve’s hospital bed with his arms wrapped around his friend’s stomach from behind, holding Steve upright as he coughed and spat blood into a plastic bucket. When the blood slowed down, the vomit returned, and Steve nearly filled the bucket with half-digested fluids. When it was over, he coughed into his hand, and then collapsed back against Tony’s chest, exhausted. Tony gently patted Steve’s forearm. “That was rough,” he said, eyebrows together with both empathy and worry. “You all right?”

Steve nodded. “Mouthwash,” he requested. “Water…”

“Yeah. All right, buddy, let me set you back down.” Tony gently adjusted Steve’s body until he was lying on his back with the rear of the mattress elevated. He got several cups of water and just brought the whole bottle of mouthwash out of the bathroom along with an armful of towels. Steve rinsed his mouth clean three times, and then took just a few sips of water. Tony had to hold the cups the whole time. Steve didn’t have the strength for it. A nurse came and took the bucket away and Tony used the towels to clean off Steve’s skin and hospital gown.

Steve was watching him with bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes. “Tony.”

“Yeah, buddy?”

“I’m tired.”

“I know, Steve… I know.”

“No, I mean I’m tired of…” Rogers gestured at the whole room. “All this.”

Tony ceased eye contact. “We’ll get you home, soon. You’ll rest easier there.”

Steve just stared at his friend. He watched him fumble with his shirt sleeve, tug on his sneaker, chew his fingernail… “Tony… I’m exhausted. It’s getting harder.”

“What is?”

“Staying awake,” Steve whispered. “Staying here. Just… Staying.”

Tony felt like his Adam’s apple doubled in size. His skin flushed and his eyes burned. “I want you to stay,” he whispered. “I need you to stay.”

Time passed. Tony looked at Steve’s face and was unsurprised to see his eyes closed. He sat back down in his chair, froze for a moment, then bent forward, put his elbows on his knees, and put his face in his hands. “God, Cap,” he sighed, “what are we going to do?”

A knock on the door. Natasha peeked inside, looked at Steve, and then waved for Tony to come out. The whole team was in the hall, including Thor. Tony gave his teammate a grateful nod, glad that he was there. A team of six doctors was there, too. The lead physician started off by saying, “I wish I had better news.”

Barton snorted and folded his arms. Natasha rubbed her eyes and Bruce put his glasses in his pocket. Clint put his hand on Natasha’s shoulder.

“His organs are shutting down,” the doctor continued, “and there are perforations in them I can’t explain. His bone density is down, his spine is twisting, his nails are falling out—”

“His nails are falling out?” Thor interrupted. Tony and Bruce shushed him. “No, friends, wait. What are his other symptoms?”

The doctor returned to his list. “Fatigue, aches, his hair is falling out, unexplained weight loss, and rashes in the shape of—”

“The shape of a four-leaf clover?” Thor asked. Everyone turned to stare at him. “He has the Asgard flu. Classic symptoms.”

Tony’s face turned red. “WHAT?”

“It’s not that bad. Most people on Asgard get it at least once. It’s always caught before it gets to stage two. Rogers is definitely in stage four.”

“Not that bad?” Barton demanded. “He’s bleeding internally! He’s – He’s dying!”

“Not that bad for… for Asgardians I should, um, specify.” Thor shrunk back. “I’m immune to it, had it as a boy, but I can be a carrier. I must have, um, carried it to… him. If he wasn’t Captain America he’d probably be dead by now.”

Tony punched Thor in the arm, and it was not a playful punch. “What’s the cure?”

“I know not.” Thor shrugged. “I’ll return to Asgard and get it, immediately. Pray it works on him.”

----------

Thor returned that evening with an elixir to be injected into Rogers’ blood. It was a bottled miracle. Within hours, Steve’s weight returned, his hair grew back, his organs healed… He was his whole and complete healthy self again, and more. Every nick and bruise and scar on his body healed perfectly. Scans even showed that his appendix had regrown.

The team was in the hospital room with Steve, celebrating with crackers and Coke from the vending machine, thanking Thor, watching Steve’s muscles reinflate… And then Steve suddenly went quiet. He asked them to look aside for a moment and when they looked back, Steve’s face was red.

“What is it?” Tony asked. “Are you ok?”

“I’m, uh…” Steve glared at Thor. “Let’s just say this worked too well. I, uh,” Rogers cleared his throat, “I’m… un-circumcised.”

Tony started laughing first, and it turned into a howl. The team laughed so hard for so long that the nurses came in to tell them to shut up.

The End

Chapter Text

Like a raw slab of meat hanging in a slaughterhouse. That’s what Tony felt like – no, that’s what he was. The chains he was shackled to hung from the ceiling of a vast circular room. He stood on tiptoes on a platform, hanging from his wrists. Around the platform, behind tinted windows, were dozens of what the ringmaster called “the bidders.” Tony didn’t know the ringmaster’s name, so that’s what he nicknamed him. Because the operation was a fucking circus, and Tony was the main attraction.

The ringmaster had long, bleached-blond hair, and fish breath. He wore a tux like they were at the opera. Tony wore only dark jeans. When he was taken he was stripped, which was the most pleasant part of the kidnapping. That was 24 hours ago. He’d traveled by private plane and didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, and didn’t get any water as the kidnappers celebrated their victory with champagne.

The ringmaster strolled over to the dangling Tony Stark and whispered to him, “Let’s put on a good show, eh, Stark?”

Tony spat in his face. “I’m not your dancing monkey.” He received a punch to the mouth for that, and Tony’s bottom lip split open. Blood trailed down his chin.

“No, you’re not,” the ringmaster said, “you’re the punching bag.”

Suddenly the lighting in the room brightened. “Ladies and gentlemen,” the ringmaster greeted, “thank you for coming to this very, very special auction. Special thanks to our hosts—”

“Ahem, excuse me, pardon me,” Tony yelled to get the attention of the ringmaster and whatever assholes were hiding behind the tinted windows. “Yes, hi, I’m Tony Stark, and I just want to say that it is an absolute displeasure to be here. I just want to encourage you, all of you, to leave now because the Avengers – my team – is undoubtedly coming for me. So, unless you want to go to prison, or die, or get your arm bitten off by a giant green monster, I suggest you surrender immediately and let me go.”

The ringmaster laughed and clapped his hands. “I think, folks, that we should auction off Mr. Stark’s tongue separate from his head. Do you agree?”
A green light under each tinted window glowed.

What “auction” meant suddenly dawned on Tony. “Oh,” he gulped, “oh, shit.”

“But before we get to that part of the program,” the ringmaster continued, “what do you say we have a little fun first?”

The green lights shone again.

“What should we use first?” the ringmaster asked. More screens lit up under the windows. They showed different weapons: a whip, knife, baseball bat, barbed wire, rope, crowbar, taser, arrows, a gun and a tire iron.

The ringmaster counted up the votes. “Looks like we’re starting with barbed wire!”

A “clapping hands” image came up on the screens. The recorded sound of a crowd of thousands clapping (a baseball game? Tony wondered) came through the speakers. Tony rolled his eyes. “Seriously.”

The ringmaster walked behind Tony, then reappeared with a spool of barbed wire and a footstool. More clapping. Three men in black climbed up on the platform and held Tony’s legs, torso, and arms still while the ringmaster, deliberately slowly, wrapped the barbed wire around Tony’s hands and shackled wrists. The barbs were pinpricks at first. The wire was wrapped loosely and the barbs just grazed Tony’s skin, leaving behind little lines of red that didn’t actually bleed. But then – then the ringmaster, after a feral grin, yanked on the wire, digging it into Tony’s precious fingers. Blood instantly flowed down Tony’s arms. He yelped and growled and his body trembled like he was naked in a blizzard. “You son of a bitch,” Tony growled to the ringmaster, “Steve Rogers is going to make you pay for that…”

More clapping. The assholes behind the windows were enjoying the show. “That was your freebie!” the ringmaster told them. “Now, let’s see some bids!” Numbers popped up on the screens beside pictures of weapons. $5000 on the crowbar, $12,000 on the knife, $21,000 on the gun. It ended at $135,000 for a baseball bat. Four aluminum bats were passed around – one for the ringmaster and one for each of his assistants. They each got three swings.

Tony heard as well as felt his kneecap break. His ribs were bruised, at minimum, not to mention the tissue of his chest, stomach, and back. Tony’s body twisted with each hit. He couldn’t contain shouts of pain. When it was over he hung there gasping, the wind completely knocked out of him.

The process started again. Chosen weapon: whip. Money invested: $5 million. Winner: asshats behind window number 12. Tony glared at the window, hoping his hatred and fury made the bidders at least uncomfortable. He spat blood on the ground.

The ringmaster took a whip and lined himself up behind Tony. “I’m going to enjoy this one,” he whispered in Tony’s ear.

Tony readied himself – told himself what was coming and told himself how he was going to react to it – but all rational thought fled when the first bite of the whip clamped down on his shoulder. The sting was so shocking, so surprising, so overwhelming, that Tony was so busy comprehending it that he didn’t even feel the next three hits.

Tony tried desperately to cling to happy memories with each crack of the whip. The ringmaster announced them as he went.

“FIVE!”

Tony thought of Pepper – of the scent of her shampoo, her smooth lips, the way stray hairs of her strawberry blonde hair got stuck to his lips, the way she smiled patiently at him whenever he did yet another stupid thing…

“SIX!”

Tony thought of the last conversation he’d had with Steve where they talked about all the ‘Star Trek’ episodes that featured anything from World War Two. They agreed that the ‘Voyager’ ones were the best. “Did you actually punch Hitler in the mouth?”

“No, Tony, I never punched Hitler in the mouth.”

“SEVEN!”

He thought about designing the Iron Legion with Bruce – about how they argued and read each other’s minds and came up with ideas at the same time and drank too much coffee and laughed about the time Barton got stuck in the air vents…

“EIGHT!”

He thought about training with Natasha. She taught him judo and pretended to let him teach her something about boxing.

“NINE!”

Playing pool with Clint. Tony let him set up his shot, but then he had to actually shoot it with his eyes closed. Tony still lost.

“Ten…” The ringmaster dropped the whip.

Tony breathed a sigh of relief.

Then.

…

“ELEVEN!”

“Steve,” Tony gasped at a whisper, “guys… hurry.”

30 minutes, 3 more weapons, and a total of $10 million raised later and a bleeding, bruised, busted, broken Tony Stark hung, semi-conscious, watching his own blood pool on the floor. He barely heard the clapping or the ringmaster’s jeers. But he did hear this:

“Now for the grand prize, before we start auctioning off body parts, who wants to choose how Tony Stark dies?”

Just as the bids started pouring in (Wow – starting at 60 mil? Tony thought), it started raining Avengers.

Steve fell from the ceiling rafters and landed directly on the ringmaster, no doubt caving in the man’s skull. Clint and Natasha dropped by rope and landed between the three assistants. They were taken down in seconds. Bruce descended slowly by knotted rope. He took one look at Tony and Hulk erupted out of him. While the assassins held off guards and whoever else dared get anywhere near Tony, Steve got busy freeing their friends.

“Oh my god,” Cap whispered when he got a good look at Tony. His fingers fluttered across Stark’s skin looking for a safe place to land. The blood, the cuts, the contusions, the broken bones… What wasn’t destroyed? Eventually, his right hand cupped Stark’s left cheek, and Tony stirred under his touch. “Oh, Tony…”

“Steve?” Tony started coughing. Blood splattered across Cap’s uniform. What… What was…” he coughed some more.

“What was what, Tony?”

“The… bids… How much is my life worth?” Tony released a light chuckle.

“Not the time to worry about that, Tony.” Steve stood on the step stool so that he could get a good look at the chains, the shackles, and the barbed wire. “Oh god, Tony, look what they did to you…”

“Hurts,” Tony admitted. “Steve, I… I don’t know if…”

“Shhh. Tony…” Steve looked at his friend, and then avoided looking at him. “They intertwined the wire with the shackles. I… I’m going to rip the barbed wire out, but really quick, ok? Like a Band-aid.”

“Right,” Tony grunted.

“I’m going to try to pull the barbs out the same direction they come in but… Tony, it’s all tangled up.”

“Pull it. Just do it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Just do it, Cap.”

Steve summoned all his strength, precision, and speed, and yanked the barbed wire off of Tony’s fingers, hands, and wrists. Tony howled in pain. Somewhere else in the building, Hulk roared back like they were wolves in a pack.

“Ok, ok, it’s over, it’s over.” Steve tossed the next of wire on top of the unconscious ringmaster. He cupped his friend’s cheek again. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Stark was gasping in pain. Water overflowed from his eyes. “Steve, get me out of here…”

Rogers pulled apart the shackles holding Tony’s left arm. Then, holding Tony aloft by his bleeding wrists, he broke the right one, and caught Tony’s limp body when he fell. Three whimpering sobs burst from Tony. Steve held him, bridal style, and Tony curled up into a fetal position in his arms, trembling. His shoulders shook. Steve took a careful step and just the impact of his foot on the floor made Tony groan.

Steve turned and saw the pile of unconscious bodies the assassins had collected. He stepped over them and carried Tony off the platform. “I have him,” Steve said over the coms. “Back to the Quinjet.”

The team regrouped. Hulk retreated into Bruce and Barton flew the jet towards the nearest hospital. Steve tried to lay Tony down on the medical table, but Stark refused to let go, his wincing face pressed against Steve’s safe chest. So, Steve sat down and held Tony in his lap while Bruce got the first air kit.

Banner knelt in front of Steve and, using just touches of his fingers, urged Tony to open his left side to him for bandaging. Tears floated in Bruce’s eyes. “This is unbearable.”

“They tortured him.” Steve briefly pressed his nose against Tony’s sweaty hair. “Tony, I’m so sorry we didn’t get to you sooner.”

Tony made a grunting sound that meant “It’s ok – I understand.” He made another grunting sound – one that meant the pain was excruciating. Bruce closed his eyes and counted to ten, trying to keep himself calm. He focused on bandaging Tony’s worst bleeders.

“So?” Stark whispered as Bruce started cleaning up the blood.

“Hmm?” Steve hummed. “What, Tony?”

“The bids. How much am I worth?”

Steve looked at his bruised and bleeding friend and marveled at how anyone could hold onto their sense of humor in such a state. “You’re priceless, Tony,” Steve told him. “You’re priceless.”

The End

Chapter Text

“Did I ever tell you,” Tony said to Steve, “about the time my dad put his cigarette out… in my ear?”

“N-No,” Steve huffed and puffed, “did I ever tell you about the time my dad spent half our rent money on new writing utensils for me?”

“Mom was at her book club. My nanny had the night off. I couldn’t find a screwdriver, so I took one from dad’s workshop… and broke it. Turns out it belonged to his old man.”

“Dad had to work double shifts for two weeks to make up for that. I think I saw him twice that whole time.”

The boys’ tried to talk quietly, but their voices still echoed a bit in the cold, silent subway. They’d been ambushed. Steve had never been in a limo, Tony discovered at 2:00 in the morning. So naturally Tony, against Steve’s wishes, called for one of his stretch limos to pick them up in front of the Tower for a joyride. Steve relented, and the pair went for a ride through a snowy Manhattan. Twelve and a half blocks later, while they were crossing an icy intersection, a monster of a black truck drove into the intersection and slammed into the driver’s door. The truck was so large that its front end stretched wide and hit the seat directly behind the driver, too. It hit Tony. The limo crumpled and aluminum smashed Tony’s leg, breaking his right femur.

The driver died on impact. Steve and Tony, leaving their phones in cupholders, got out on the opposite side of the limo while the bad guys popped out of the truck and started firing their guns. Steve tore off an icy manhole, but they didn’t go down there. Instead, they ducked into a closed subway station, Tony leaning on Steve as he hopped. They hoped their attackers would assume they escaped into the sewer, and would spend the whole night on a wild goose chase down there.

The pair got down onto the subway tracks where it was somehow even colder than it was on the street. Tony asked what street they were on and when Steve told him, he sighed and said, “This track is shut down three miles in both directions. They’ve been making repairs all winter.”

“Well, we can’t stay here,” Steve had said. He went from holding Tony’s elbow to pulling his friend’s arm across his shoulders. “Start hopping.”

“Steve…” Tony pointed back up at the station, at the bathrooms nearby. “Just stick me in there. Get out of here, get to the rest of the team and come back for me then.”

Steve shook his head. “If they figure out we’re down here then they’ll tear the place apart. It’s too risky.”

“Cap, my leg’s shattered.” Tony’s nose was red from the cold and the air turned white when it exited his throat. “I’m just going to slow you down… Get out of here.” Steve’s response was to wrap his other arm around Tony’s waist, and step forward. Now they were hopping along in the darkness, ears on alert for anyone following them, eyes squinting by the barest light coming from blinking lightbulbs that lined the tunnel.

“Bastard perforated my eardrum. I had to have surgery that night,” Tony continued. “And did anyone at the hospital call child services when I told them my father stuck a lit cigarette in my ear? Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Not Howard Stark, no, he would never do that…” Tony stumbled for a second, and Steve hefted him up into the air, only putting him back down when he found a smooth spot on the track. “Steve, I… Just need a minute, ok?”

Steve looked at his friend. He was both sweating and shivering. Tony’s hand on his elbow trembled. “Ok,” he said. “We can sit for a minute – but just one.”

“I’ll take it.”

Steve slowly lowered Tony to the ground and arranged him so that he was sitting back against the cement. Stark clamped his mouth shut and struggled not to scream when Steve accidentally put his arm on Tony’s knee. “Sorry,” Steve whispered. “Hey Tony, what… What’s… Tony, you’re bleeding!”

“Am I?” Tony looked down at his broken leg for the first time and saw that his jeans were dark red and wet. “Huh. That explains it.”

Steve took his winter coat off and pressed it against a three inch cut in Tony’s upper leg. “Explains what?”

“That darkness in the corner of my eyes,” Tony mumbled. “The fact that I see a Cap and a half right now… And you’re blurry.”

Steve looked up into his friend’s eyes. “I think we’re in trouble here.”

“We’re always in trouble.” Tony laughed at himself, then stopped when the vibrations caused his leg to throb even more. “God, this hurts…”

Steve finished wrapping his coat all around Tony’s leg. He used his belt to hold it tight. “All right, Stark, you’ve got more hopping to do.” Steve took his winter gloves off and put them on Tony’s, over his, and then helped his friend to his feet. “Here we go.”

“Here I go again on my own,” Tony sang, “goin’ down the only road I’ve ever known. Have you listened to Whitesnake yet, Cap?”

“Haven’t had the pleasure, Tony.”

“Ah, the eighties,” Tony mused. “I broke my other leg in 1987. Fell off a garage roof.”

“What were you doing on a garage roof?”

“What I always did! I was trying to impress a girl.”

Steve chuckled. “Hop a little faster, Tony. I think I see a brighter light ahead. Must be the next station.”

“Oh, thank God,” Tony groaned. “Let’s hail a cab.” His teeth rattled then – clicking together as he shivered in the cold.

Both of their stomachs sank when they came to the station. Like the first one, it was shut down. Unlike the first one, it was barricaded shut… from the outside. Steve left Tony on the track and tried his best to break through the barricade, with no luck. He did, however, find a vending machine. He put his fist through the glass and got Tony a couple Snickers bars and a bottle of water. He broke into a security station, next, and found a gun hidden under a desk. He pocketed the weapon in the back pocket of his jeans, then jumped back down to Tony. He’d ordered Tony to stay on his feet, but he’d ignored him. Tony sat against the cement again, clutching his knee. Blood had seeped through the winter jacket.

“You know what really impresses girls, Cap?” Tony asked him as Steve unwrapped the candy and unscrewed the bottle cap. “Goatees. You should grow a goatee, Steve. Might look good on you.” Tony held his lips open while Cap poured some water down his throat. Stark coughed for a moment, then gestured for more water. “Thanks…” He waved away the candy. “Slight possibility I might puke,” he explained.

Steve ate the Snickers in two bites. “We’ll be able to get topside at the next station,” he assured his friend. “Just a little more hopping to go.”

Tony had closed his eyes. “Hmm…” he hummed. “How cold do you think it is?”

“It was ten when we left the Tower… Probably five down here.”

Tony opened his eyes. “I made a giant snowman when I was five… Hijacked a bulldozer.”

“Get up, Tony.”

“You know where my dad put his cigarette out on me that time? Back of the neck. Hurt for weeks.”

Steve sighed. He pulled Tony’s arm across his shoulders and stood up with him. Tony sagged. He coughed. He rested his head against Steve’s shoulder. “Come on, buddy,” Steve urged him. “We’ve got a ways to go.”

“You know where it really hurts to get a cigarette put out on you? Back of the knee. Boy, that stings.”

The two Avengers hopped along for another half mile. This station was barricaded, too. Steve got another bottle of water and a second gun. More hopping.

Stark had stopped talking. “Tony?”

“Hm?”

“I’ve never seen you this quiet. It’s weirding me out.”

“Hm…”

Steve looked at Tony and saw that his eyes were shut. But he kept hopping, kept hopping.

They were about a third of a mile away from the next abandoned station when Tony stopped moving, except for the constant shivering from the abhorrent cold. “Steve, I don’t think I…” Tony’s left knee buckled, and he collapsed onto the track with his broken leg outstretched. Steve let him fall, but slowed the fall so that Tony wouldn’t hurt himself. He maneuvered his friend so that they landed side by side, arm against arm, Tony’s head lying on Steve’s shoulder. “Steve, it’s so cold and I can’t… I just can’t…”

Normally, Steve would say, “Of course you can! You’re Tony Stark! You strolled out of a terrorist camp, flew a missile through a wormhole, saved the President…” But, there was something so sincere, so desperately true in Tony’s voice, that he knew now wasn’t the time for an inspirational speech. So instead of arguing and insisting and lecturing, Steve gently put his arm around Tony, giving him a sideways hug. Tony collapsed against him, going nearly limp. Steve rubbed his back and arm to try to warm him up, but nothing could beat back the whistling wind in the dark tunnel. Tony was sweating and shivering and shaking. His skin was pale and there was just the tiniest, faintest tinge of blue under his chin. The blood flow hadn’t stopped. Steve looked up at the ceiling and made a wish on a lightbulb as if it were a star.

Steve let five minutes go by. Then, he shook Tony’s shoulder and said, “Time to go, Tony.” He took his arm away but Tony was limp, and he would’ve smacked the back of his head on the iron track if Steve hadn’t grabbed him and maneuvered him into his lap.

Tony groaned and pressed his nose against the inside of Steve’s right knee. “I’s… dizzy…” he sighed through a mumble. “Think I need to sleep…”

“Tony, no, Tony – you need to stay awake. If you fall asleep you might…” Steve didn’t want to think about what might happen. He lifted Tony up half a foot and pulled his friend’s face to his chest and held him there, Tony’s ear against his breastbone. “Tony, for me – stay awake.”

“t’s hard.”

Steve rubbed Tony’s entire upper body, desperate to keep him warm and alert. “Tony – we need go to a little further. Just a little further, all right? Then you can rest again.”

“Cap, I can’t…”

“Tony, look at me.” Steve gently clasped Tony’s chin between his bare fingers and forced him to meet his eyes. “Hang on. Just a little bit longer.” Tony blinked hazy eyes. He licked his chapped lips and sniffed the freezing air. “Do it for me, Tony, all right? Do it for me.”

Tony nodded. “For you,” he conceded. He nodded again. “Help me up.”

It was then – right then – that both men heard the voices. Men’s voices, coming from behind them – from down the tunnel they’d been walking. Steve and Tony shared a brief terrified look, then they scrambled up onto their feet. Tony hopped forward three steps, almost four before his knee collapsed again. Frustrated, scared, desperate, Cap tossed Tony over his shoulder and started to run. He reached the next station and lifted Tony up onto the platform. He scrambled up behind him, then dragged Tony to the bathroom wall. “This is where we make our stand,” he told him. Steve got a third gun out of that platform’s security station and put it in Tony’s gloved hand. “We’re not dying here today, you hear me? Not freezing to death and getting shot in some shitty subway.”

“Mhmm,” Tony muttered. Then he agreed, “Not today.”

“That’s right.”

The voices were getting closer. One of them chuckled.

Steve gently cupped Tony’s cold face. “Stay awake,” he ordered. “Tony… Stay with me.”

Tony looked at his friend. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to see your dad.” Tony swallowed, his Adam’s apple bouncing. “I’ll promise I’ll stay awake… For you.”

“That’s my man.” Steve patted Tony’s shoulder, then took up his post on the edge of the platform, waiting for the men to get closer.

When he saw their shadows, he aimed his gun at the nearest lightbulb and shot it dead. Only two lightbulbs remained along that short stretch of track. Steve was willing to be that he had the upper hand at seeing in the dark thanks to his super soldier eyesight. “Turn around now!” he called to the approaching men. “Unless you want to die!”

“Cap?” a voice called.

Steve lowered his weapon. “BARTON?” He looked around the corner and, sure enough, Clint, Bruce, Natasha, and Thor were jogging down the tunnel towards him. Steve sighed in relief. “Thank God it’s you guys.”

His teammates climbed up onto the platform. “We’ve been looking for you for hours!” said Bruce. “We were worried you’d frozen to death.”

“Tony is close to that. He’s practically hypothermic.” Steve turned and jogged back over to his friend. “Tony?” Tony had broken his promise. He was unconscious. Steve shook him, but he didn’t wake up.

“TONY!”

----------

Tony was delightfully surprised to find himself in his own warm bed when he woke up. He was surprised, but not particularly delighted, to find Steve Rogers where Pepper was supposed to be – lying right beside him. In Steve’s defense, he was lying over the blankets instead of under them with Tony, and he was on the very edge of the bed. Still, Tony couldn’t help but feel embarrassed. Abandoned Chinese food sat on his bedside table. Tony plucked out a chopstick, then used it to poke Steve in the nose. Cap flapped his hand in front of his face as if there was a pesky housefly there. His own movement woke him up and he made eye contact with Tony. “Hey.”

“We got out of the death tunnel, I see.”

“Of course we did. We’re us.” Steve sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, walked around it and then sat on the edge on Tony’s side. “You look better.”

“Did I fall asleep?”

“Uh huh.” Steve looked down at his hands folded in his lap. “You promised you’d stay awake.”

“Sorry…”

Steve raised his eyebrows. “Want to make it up to me?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “My leg is broken, and I have pressure in my chest that tells me I was hypothermic at the end. What can I possibly do for you?”

Steve turned serious. “Don’t do that again,” he said quietly.

“Don’t do what?”

“Almost die.”

Neither man made eye contact with the other. “Only if you make the same promise,” Tony said.

Steve smiled. “Deal.”

The End

Chapter Text

Auntie Nat convinced Peter to go to Cooper’s birthday dinner, granting his wish to meet Spiderman. Peter autographed everything the kid wanted him to. He sang “Happy Birthday” and ate pizza and the amazing cake that Mrs. Barton baked. He played darts with Clint, colored pictures with Lila, and showed off his powers to an astounded Nathaniel, who immediately started searching the farm for spiders so he could be just like his new hero. Peter was in the barn, where Nathaniel was proudly showing off the family’s tractor, when the hairs on his arms suddenly stood on end. He grabbed Nathaniel and raced outside. Beyond the farm, the sun was close to setting.

Natasha was closest. She was sitting with Cooper on the porch, showing him how to use the Swiss Army knife she’d gotten him. Peter sprinted over and opened his mouth to say the codeword he’d been trained to use at Avengers Tower for such a situation. But – he couldn’t remember it. So, he just stood there while Nat, Cooper, and Nathaniel stared at him like he was crazy. “Strawberry pancakes!” he finally sputtered. “I mean… blueberry crepes. I mean… Raspberry waffles!”

Natasha’s cheeks paled. “That’s what you want for breakfast? I was thinking the same thing.” She smiled, stood up, and rubbed her upper arms. “Hey, Clint!”

“Yeah?” Clint called back from where he and Lila were practicing with a bow and arrow.

“Did you feel that breeze?” she asked him. “Gave me goosebumps.”

It was subtle, but Peter noticed Hawkeye stiffen. “Babe? Honey?”

Laura stuck her head out of the kitchen window. “Yeah?”

“That summer breeze gave Nat goosebumps. Maybe you could run downstairs and grab her a sweater.”

It was subtle, but Peter noticed Laura start to tremble. “Of course! And it’s getting dark, honey, how about you all come inside?”

“All right!” Clint took the bow from Lila and gestured for her to head into the house. He sauntered over to the porch where Nat stood with Peter, Cooper, and Nathaniel. “Coop, take Nate inside, will you? It’s past his bedtime, anyway.” The three Avengers stood listening to the movement inside the house. Peter heard a door open, heard Laura talking nonchalantly about heading to the basement to grab a popsicle, heard several pairs of feet go down a flight of stairs, and then he heard a louder, heavier door open and close.

Clint’s phone chimed. He read a text that Peter saw was from Laura. “We’re in.”

And then, incredibly quickly, Barton and Romanoff started using American sign language. They signed back and forth at each other so quickly and so wildly that Peter could tell they were “yelling.” Several times they each pointed at Peter’s nose. Then they settled down. Clint “shut up” and Natasha signed – and then seemed to have the last word. “Hey, Peter, why don’t you go downstairs and have popsicles with the other kids,” Natasha said.

Peter’s eyes narrowed. “No thanks. I don’t like popsicles.”

Barton glared at him. “Have a popsicle, Peter,” he said. “Go. Have. A. Popsicle.”

Peter stood straighter and raised his chin. “No, thank you,” he said. “I’d rather hang out here with you guys.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Fine, stay with us, but do everything we tell you,” she insisted with a tone that left zero room for argument.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“All right. Why don’t you two head inside and get the Scrabble game set up,” said Clint. “I’ll be right behind you. I just have to run to the barn.” Clint started jogging away. Nat took Peter by the elbow and led him inside. She took the Scrabble box off the shelf and sat down at the kitchen table. Peter went to sit down beside her, but she gave him a look, and he sat across from her, his back against the corner of the walls. Nat opened the box, loaded the guns inside it, and slid one over to Peter. “Do you know how to play?” she asked him casually.

Peter gulped. “No, I’ve never played before.”

Natasha nodded. Her lips were thin and white. “I should’ve taught you how to play before we came here,” she sighed. “But, don’t worry, you’ll figure it out.” She winked at him.

Suddenly – and Peter couldn’t help but leap to his feet – the lights all over the farm went out at the same time that the yard exploded. Underground charges in a circle around the barn and house erupted, tossing Nate’s tricycle onto the roof and leaving a moat of fire no one could possibly pass through. At first Peter thought that the intruders on the edge of the property had set off bombs, but then he saw Clint racing to the house with a smile on his face. He joined them in the kitchen and Nat tossed him a gun. “I’ve kind of been wanting to do that for years,” he admitted. “That was fun.”

Nat turned to Peter. The jig was up. They might as well talk freely now because whoever was listening knew they knew they were there. “Laura and the kids are safe in a panic room in the basement, but we cannot, under any circumstances, let those intruders get inside this house. How many are there?”

Peter shrugged, only able to see his teammates by the light of the fire moat. “I don’t know. I can sense them coming, I know there are a lot of them all around the house, but that’s all I got.”

Clint’s phone chimed again. “The team is on their way,” he reported. “We just have to hold them off long enough for them to get here.”

“We can do it,” said Natasha. She nodded at Peter, then shrugged. “Point and shoot,” she instructed.

That was when a bullet punctured the kitchen window behind Clint. The bullet went through his back, exited the upper right side of his chest, and continued on into the right side of Natasha’s chest.

“Oh,” Nat said.

“Fuck,” said Clint.

They both collapsed to the floor.

Peter ducked as a dozen bullets came through the same window.

“Parker,” Clint said with red teeth, his voice barely audible over the gunfire, eyes glowing in the firelight, “get her downstairs.”

Natasha coughed. A glob of blood leaked down her chin. “N-no,” she stuttered, “take… him…”

“Peter, do what I say.”

“He has a wife and kids, Peter, take him down to them!”

“Shut up, Nat!”

“You… shut… up… Barton…”

“Both of you shut up!” Peter bellowed. The assassins looked at him shocked, and a little annoyed. “Shut the fuck up and let me save you both!” Peter grabbed Nat and Clint by the wrists, got up onto his knees, and dragged them both to the basement door. He kicked it open and then, struggling to keep the backs of their heads from slamming down on each step, he walked backward, hauling their bodies downstairs. “LAURA!”

“Molasses,” Clint said, his voice sounding a little dreamy. Natasha was unconscious.

“MOLASSES!”

A ceiling-high silver box stood in the far corner of the basement. Laura peeked out of the panic room, took one look at the scene, and started giving orders to Cooper and Lila. By the time Peter dragged Clint and Nat into the tiny room, the Barton’s were all ready to give first aid.

----------

Tony, Bruce, Steve, and Thor saw the smoke as they approached the farm in the Quinjet. Dark figures were running around the house, throwing grenades and torches into it, blowing it up in one corner and burning it down in another. Tony turned spotlights down on the figures and started firing. The figures immediately retreated, running into the woods. Tony landed the Quinjet in the field beside the burning farmhouse, right on top of the picnic table. Thor took flight the moment the ramp descended. He raised his hammer and launched himself into the sky. High above the house, barely visible in the moonlight, Thor swung his hammer as fast as he could, summoning wind. He aimed the tornado at the house and unleashed it. The house fire disappeared in seconds. The Avengers were about to run into it when everything load-bearing collapsed. The second floor dropped into the first, which collapsed into the basement.

The house was gone.

“Oh my god,” Bruce said, shaking.

“They’re…” Steve was breathing so heavy and fast that he almost failed to get the words out. “Do you think they’re…”

Thor landed beside them. “I saw nothing from above. Barton’s vehicle is still here, the barn is empty… They… Maybe they…”

Tony leaned over and put his hands on his knees. For a moment he looked like he was going to vomit, but then he took two deep breaths, and led the sprint straight into the wreckage of the farmhouse. “PETER!”

“Nat! Clint! Laura!” Bruce called. He waded into the debris and started throwing wood and books and stones outside of the wreckage, digging.

“Romanoff!” Steve shouted. Carefully, trying to avoid nails and broken glass, Steve stepped into the destroyed house, looking for clues. “Barton! Parker!”

Thor jumped over all three of them and landed in the very center of the rubble. He rummaged around, called out names, and then suddenly ordered his teammates to be quiet. “What is it?” Tony demanded.

“Hush!” Thor commanded. “Captain, what do you hear?”

Steve shut his eyes and tried to hone in on his super hearing. He did hear something. Pounding. A fist against something metal. Steve stepped over and between piles of junk until he found a hole close enough to the sound. Miraculously, that hole led to a staircase, and more than half of the steps were intact. Steve and Thor exchanged a look, then climbed down into the basement with Bruce and Tony right behind them. Part of the basement was still burning, and chips of wood and bits of stone were raining down around them. Steve spotted the silver panic room. He pounded on the door, and someone inside pounded back. “Password!” that someone shouted.

A desperate Tony kicked the door so hard that he left an indent in the metal. “You know who I am!” he roared. “Now open up!”

There were so many locks to unlock that it took Peter half a minute to unhook, turn, and unscrew them. When the door opened he threw himself into Tony’s arms. “Oh, thank God,” Tony exhaled. He hugged the kid back, then held him at arm’s length. “Are you all right?”

Peter nodded. There was blood all over his clothes, but none of it was his. “Happened so fast,” he gasped. “I – I did all I could.”

“Of course you did, kid.” Tony smoothed down Peter’s wayward hair and smiled at him. More dirt and debris showered down around them. “Upstairs,” he ordered. “Get out of here.”

“Yes, Sir.” Peter ran out of the crumbling house.

Tony turned back to the panic room where Laura was convincing her children to exit with Bruce. “Mommy will be right behind you,” she told them. She put a sobbing Nate into Bruce’s arms and made the pale and trembling Cooper and Lila each hold onto a corner of his shirt. The little train made its way up the stairs and out of sight. Tony actually entered the room, then, and gasped at what he saw. The entire floor of the tiny bullet-proof, waterproof, fireproof panic room was one puddle of blood. Tony watched, shellshocked, as Steve carried a heavily bandaged, white-faced, unconscious Natasha out and up. Clint sat up against the far wall, just as pale and bandaged, with his wife kneeling beside him. Tony went to them and put his palm on Clint’s wound. “Jesus, Barton.”

“I’m ok,” Clint wheezed, clearly far from it. Blood was starting to leak through the dressings. “Are the others out?”

“They’re safe,” Tony promised.

“Take Laura,” Clint said. “Laura, honey, go with him. Thor can help me.”

“Babe, I…” Laura took a deep breath. “Ok.” She went to the door and Tony took her hand, holding onto her tight as he ascended the steps in front of her. Tony was at the top when the second-to-last step gave out, and Laura plummeted. She screamed, but Tony’s grip on her was tight, and he pulled her the rest of the way up. Meanwhile, around them, the basement ceiling/first floor was disintegrating. By the time Laura and Tony reached the others on the outskirts of the destroyed house, the entire thing had caved in. No one could hold in their screams. Thor and Clint were still down there.

A hammering sound preceded Thor emerging from the ground like a cork out of a bottle. The kids screamed and clapped. Thor had Barton over one shoulder and he flew straight to the crowd. He landed and readjusted Clint’s body so that he was in a bridal carry. Barton was unconscious. They started for the Quinjet.

“Where’s the nearest hospital?” Tony asked Laura.

“Half an hour north, by car,” she said.

“Do they have a helicopter pad?”

“No. It’s a tiny place – one floor.”

Tony shrugged. “They have a roof. That’s all we need.”

Everyone crowded into the Quinjet, and Tony took off.

Natasha had surgery – and recovered.

Barton had surgery – and recovered.

By the time Clint was able to leave the hospital, Tony already had the house rebuilt – three times as big.

The End

Chapter Text

2:00AM was interrupted by screams so loud that Steve, Bruce, Clint, and Natasha all left their bedrooms at a sprint and got to Tony’s door in seconds (two of them brandishing weapons). Steve knocked on the door and called Tony’s name and when Stark didn’t respond, he ordered JARVIS to open it. The AI obeyed after Steve provided a password, and the Avengers crowded in. Tony, dressed in sweatpants and a black t-shirt, was on his feet and pacing. Sweat on his skin glimmered in the soft light from the lamp on his bedside table. He looked dazed and disoriented, like he was still coming out of the nightmare his screams had woken him from. When Tony saw his teammates, he pointed an accusing forefinger and shouted, half gasping for air, “You! You didn’t believe me! You didn’t trust me! Something’s following me, I said. Something’s touching me – SOMETHING’S DROWNING ME – and you didn’t believe me!”

Steve sighed, “Tony…”

“No, no, no. How the hell are we supposed to be a team when you people don’t trust me? I do EVERYTHING for you! I house you, I feed you, I supply you with tech I stay up for days building!” Tony stomped up to Steve and poked him in the chest. “If you’d trusted me, protected me, gave a single shit about me, then I wouldn’t have this!” Tony shouted, pointing at his black eye. “But you don’t, do you! You don’t give a shit about what Loki did to me today! You don’t care about any of my trauma – did you know I was waterboarded? Did you know I was operated on without anesthesia? My surrogate uncle betrayed me! My dad’s partner’s son terrorized me! I watched Pepper fall a hundred feet into fire! I’ve saved the city and the president and the world and you don’t trust me when I say I hear footsteps? You all think I’m literally made of iron—”

Steve suddenly stepped forward and wrapped Tony in the tightest, fiercest, warmest of hugs. Tony tried to push him away, but his strength was no match for the super soldier’s. Steve held on tight until Tony relented, and hugged him back. The others returned to their bedrooms, content knowing that Tony was in good hands.

Steve gently walked Tony backward until the backs of his knees hit the bed, and he sat down on the edge of it. Steve knelt in front of him, hands on Tony’s knees, eyes fixed on his. “You’re right,” he whispered gently. “I’m sorry.”

Tony sniffed. He wiped his nose and eyes with his shirt sleeve and forearm. Deep breaths finally calmed him down. He stared at the floor. “It’s all right.”

“No,” Steve corrected, “it’s not. You’re suffering. You’ve been suffering for a long time. And I should have protected you from Loki.”

“It’s not your job to protect me. I can take care of myself…”

Steve tapped Tony’s chin, forcing him to meet his eyes again. “We’re a team. We protect each other. And I’m sorry I failed you.”

Tony gulped. He fought back tears, but one slipped through. Embarrassed, he brushed it aside and took a deep breath. He noticed, then, that his clothes were soaked in sweat. He peeled his t-shirt off while Steve got him fresh clothes from his closet. Cap went into the bathroom and wetted down a hand towel and when he returned, Tony had changed into his new clothes. Steve sat on the side of the bed, facing Tony, and gently wiped the towel across his friend’s damp forehead. He wiped down Tony’s hair (rearranging it after he finished), then his neck and collarbone, and then handed the towel to Tony so that he could do the rest.

“Your nightmare… Do you want to tell me what it was about?”

Tony snorted. “I don’t remember it.”

“You don’t have to tell me, but don’t lie.”

Tony sighed. He interlaced his fingers and leaned forward on his thighs. “It’s the same one every night. But with everything that happened with Loki yesterday… It was worse. It felt worse.”

“What do you feel?”

Tony winced. “Pain. Loneliness. Fear. Failure.”

“What do you see?”

“The wormhole,” Tony said quietly. “Except there’s something else in it. There’s this giant hand – but not a human hand. It’s covered in gold metal so it’s, like – like a gauntlet, not just a hand. And it reaches through the wormhole and just starts plucking people out of my life… Pepper, Happy, Rhodey. They’re screaming my name, crying, and I can’t get to them no matter how far and fast I fly. You, Bruce, Clint… One after the other, the golden hand takes you away from me… And it’s… Unbearable.”

“I’m sorry. That sounds awful. Is it Loki’s hand?”

Tony thought about it. “You know how you kinda know things in dreams, but can’t actually explain how you know them? It wasn’t Loki. It was… Someone else. Someone worse.”

Steve put his hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Maybe you should take a day off. Don’t go with us tomorrow to that HYDRA base.

“No.” Tony shook his head vehemently. “If I don’t throw myself into work then I’ll just sit on the couch watching the news all day and drinking myself to death.”

Steve watched as Tony squirmed where he sat. He popped his knuckles and fisted his sweatpants and rubbed his arms. “Tony. I want to help you. Tell me how I can help you.”

“I don’t… I don’t know. Can – Can I let you know?”

“Of course.” Steve thought for a minute. “I do, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Give a shit about you,” said Steve. “And not because you fill the fridge and saved the world.”

“Then why?”

Steve pointed at Tony’s heart.

“Oh.”

“Lie down, Tony.” Stark obeyed. He rolled backwards into the mattress and didn’t move when Steve covered him with blankets. “JARVIS?”

“Yes, Captain Rogers?”

“Wake me up when Tony wakes up, will you?”

“Of course, Sir,” the AI replied.

Tony pointed at Steve’s heart. “You, too,” he said, almost silently.

Steve nodded. “Get some sleep, Tony. Get some rest.”

The End

Chapter Text

Steve had never been camping (beyond that period when he was 5-6 years old and he and his family had to live in a transient camp in the woods, because his dad lost his job. Clint said that didn’t count).

Tony had only been glamping (Clint said that didn’t count, either).

So, one weekend, Clint convinced Steve and Tony to go on what he called an “honest” camping trip. They hiked deep into the forest to a lake with small backpacks and sleeping bags. They hunted their food. They left their phones and every other luxury at home. The fun lasted two days. The night of the second day, while the boys were laughing around a campfire, a HYDRA helicopter flew overhead. It hovered for a moment, its spotlight blinding the Avengers. And then the bullets rained down and the helicopter dropped a small missile right into their campfire. The three men scattered in opposite directions as the forest exploded.

Steve woke up in a snow globe of sparks. He was lying on his back, staring up at a burning tree that was starting to fall over – directly onto him. Steve pedaled backwards, ankles digging into dirt and leaves, then he did a quick backwards summersault the rest of the way, yelping in pain when he put weight on his right foot. The tree collapsed right next to him, but Steve didn’t hear it. His ears were ringing like church bells. His foot was throbbing. He examined it, and found a bloody hole. One of the bullets had gone right through his boot, just south of his toes. Steve started coughing, then. Several trees were on fire, not to mention the dry debris on the ground, and the whole area was quickly filling up with gray smoke. “ST—” he half-yelled, choking. “STARK! BARTON!”

Clint woke up facedown, half in and half out of the lake. He dove into the water the second he spotted the descending missile, but that didn’t completely save him from the shockwave of fire. His clothes were burnt in several places, as was the skin beneath them. A bullet had nicked his left elbow. It was bleeding – the top half shouting in pain, the bottom half numb. Clint coughed out the water that had accumulated in his lungs and used his right arm to push himself up onto his knees. The campsite was annihilated. There was nothing left but fire. Trees were falling or burning up. His eyes watered from the smoke. “CAP!” he called into the fog. “STARK!”

Tony woke up on his side. For a long time, he just lay there, marveling in the fact that when he’d started running, he ran head-first into an oak tree. The genius had knocked himself unconscious and, judging by the swirling in his stomach, he’d given himself a concussion. He didn’t want to move. If he did, he’d realize how much trouble he was in. And he was in deep. Shit. He’d been shot in two places – that much he remembered – but he couldn’t recall where. So, Tony just lay on a pile of leaves and acorns and stared, mesmerized, as the fire on the ground inched closer to him. The heat of it stung the back of his throat. He could just fall asleep right there – just disappear. Damned if he moved, damned if he didn’t. The acorns weren’t so bad…

Something shoved its way under his armpits from behind him and lifted him up into a sitting position. “Tony,” came Clint’s voice, breathless in his ear, “Tony, get up!”

Steve emerged from the smoke like a ghost. He slid to his knees in front of Tony and held both hands out. The concussed Tony reached back out of habit and between Steve pulling and Clint pushing, he got up onto his feet.

He promptly collapsed. Steve pulled harder and Clint pushed harder – then they changed their tactics and pulled Tony’s arms across their shoulders, holding him up instead of trying to help him hold himself. Tony’s wounded body shrieked at him. There was a bullet in his leg, but he wasn’t sure where because the entire limb was on fire. There was a bullet in his torso, but he wasn’t sure where because everything from his neck down to his bellybutton was pulsating with pain. Frowning, confusion from the concussion setting in, Tony looked at his teammates and saw that they, too, were disoriented and bleeding and Tony wondered if there was ash and soot and dirt all over his skin, too. Steve was limping and coughing. Clint’s busted elbow was dripping blood, and he was coughing. Tony suddenly realized he hadn’t been breathing in a long time and took a deep inhale and he started coughing, too.

Steve and Clint marched forward, initially in different directions, but then Steve submitted to Clint’s lead since he knew the woods better. Tony was dragged between them for a good fifty yards before he suddenly remembered how to walk. He tried to – he really did – but the bullet in his leg was sharp and fierce and he nearly passed out when he put weight on it. There was nothing for him to do but relax in his friends’ arms. Tony surrendered.

Another hundred yards, and they were far enough away from the fire. Steve, jaw clenched and Adam’s apple bouncing, admitted that he needed a break. Together, he and Clint lowered Tony to the ground with his back against a maple tree. Clint collapsed beside him, flat on his back, and Steve slowly lowered himself down, hurt foot outstretched. “Look at that,” Clint said. He pointed at the sky. Steve and Tony followed his gaze. With the smoke behind them, and miles from civilization, the stars (including the arc of the Milky Way), stood out striking from the velvet black night. “Wow.”

Steve exhaled through a slight smile. Everything in his life was ephemeral, but not the stars. Or pain.

Tony suddenly crawled around the tree, vomited loudly, then crawled back, far slower. For the first time, the three of them really looked at themselves, and each other. They had no sling for Clint’s arm, no crutches for Cap to lean on, no bandages for the bullet in Tony’s left hip or the bullet in his left kidney. “Leave your phones at home, guys,” Tony said mockingly, imitating Clint’s voice. “The point is to get away from everything, including technology. No, Tony, you can’t bring an Iron Man suit. No, Cap, you can’t bring your shield…”

“I’m Tony Stark. The media follows me everywhere because I’m so fucking important. The whole world probably knew we were camping out here – probably because you tweeted it!” Clint shot back. “Why else would HYDRA even know we’re out here?”

Steve rolled his eyes and put his face in his hands. “Come on, guys…”

“If we’d brought a simple GPS locator – just something as simple as that – then the others would be able to find us when we don’t check in, but NO, no, no technology or we’re not going, Tony,” Tony mocked.

“I hope you’re the first one of us to bleed to death!” Clint spat.

“I hope I do! I won’t have to look at your face!”

“Hey!” Steve picked up a fistful of dirt and launched it at the other two men. “Cut it out! Both of you! We’re in trouble here. Barton, are we anywhere close to where we can get some help?”

Clint rubbed his eyes and sighed. “Yeah… Yeah, I think. There’s a cabin on the other side of the lake. Didn’t see lights last night so I doubt there’s someone there, but it might have supplies. Maybe a phone if we’re lucky.”

“How long of a hike?”

“Three miles.”

Steve looked down at his shot up foot. He doubted he could walk one mile, let alone three, let alone carrying half of Tony the whole time. That was what he was thinking. What he said was, “Let’s get going.”

Tony waved his hand like he was shooing away a fly. “You two go on. I’ll wait here. You’ll get there faster without me.”

Clint didn’t look at Tony. “You’re not safe alone. That helicopter could be circling back to make sure we’re dead.”

Tony gestured at the holes in his body. He was pale and sweating. Even in the dim moonlight the other two could tell that he was trembling. “Look at me. I’m dead anyway.”

“We’re not leaving you behind,” Clint said between clenched teeth.

“He’s right. We have to stay together.” Steve limped over to Tony and helped him stand up. “Come on.”

Together, the three Avengers made for the cabin.

To Be Continued

Chapter Text

Clouds covered the stars and it started raining. Not just rain – a deluge. In minutes, the three Avengers were splashing through puddles on their way to the cabin. Each of them left drops of blood behind.

Initially, Tony was hopping along on his uninjured leg, arms across his teammates’ shoulders, weight equalized. But as they went, as he lost his strength, he couldn’t hop anymore and his grip on Steve and Clint’s shoulders faltered. The other two men had to grasp his upper arm under his armpits and carry him between them, toes dragging in the dirty water. Steve’s injured foot throbbed so hard that his eyes stung. Clint’s shot arm was slowly going numb below and above his elbow. His wrist and fingers were swollen and red.

Tony started to topple to his left, but that put pressure on the bullet wound in his kidney and when it screamed at him, he shot right back up. For a minute he sat up straight, blinking, staring at nothing, and then he toppled to his right. Clint, who sat by his side, caught him and pushed him back up. He left his hands on Tony’s shoulder and spine, holding him sturdy and still.

Cap took his busted boot off. He shook it, and out flowed rainwater and blood. After he took off his other boot he used that sock to cover his wounded foot, then laced up both boots again. “How much further?” Steve shouted to Clint. He had to shout because the sound the rain made was so loud.

“Two more miles, at least,” Barton reported.

Unable to hold himself up any longer at all, Tony started to topple forward. Cap shuffled his way over and caught him by the chest and shoulder. “Tony, you have to hold on.”

Stark nodded. He was staring at the ground with unfocused eyes. Water dripped down his face and he didn’t even try to wipe it away. He was shaking, and Steve wasn’t sure if it was from the cold wave the storm brought in, or if it was from pain. Both, he supposed.

Tony’s eyes closed. His chin dropped to his chest.

Steve shook him. Clint shook him. Dazed, half conscious, Tony looked up at his friends. He spoke, but the rain was too loud, and neither of the other Avengers heard him. His eyes shut again, and his chin landed on his chest. This time, after he shook Tony back awake, Steve took his chin in one hand and forced Tony to meet his eyes. “Hang on,” he ordered him. Tony nodded.

Clint got back up on his feet. He held his hand out and helped Steve up onto his feet. “I think I should carry him,” Steve said. “We’ll go faster.”

Clint shook his head. “Not on that foot. Let me try.”

“With that arm?”

The pair sighed and looked down at the trembling, waterlogged, bleeding Stark. He stared back. All he seemed able to do was blink.

Steve knelt beside Tony, on his right. Gently, Steve guided Tony to lean his head against his left shoulder. Carefully, Steve squeezed one arm under Tony’s knees and the other behind his lower back. He counted to three and then, growling, stood up with Tony in a bridal carry. Tony pushed his nose against Cap’s chest and clung to his t-shirt. With Clint in the lead, they started walking again.

They got another mile. That was when Steve tripped over a root. He fell forward, accidentally throwing Tony against the backs of Clint’s knees. Clint fell backwards and landed with his legs on Tony’s back and his upper half on Steve, who landed facedown in the dirt. The two men scrambled back up onto their feet and rushed to Tony. Gently, Clint rolled him onto his back and wiped muddy water off his face.

Tony was unconscious.

“Dammit!” Clint cursed.

“We’re almost there!” Steve reminded him. Thunder rolled around them, echoing lightning strikes in the distance. “We have to keep going!”

The wind picked up. Steve scooped up Tony’s limp but still shaking body and folded him close against his chest. He angled his face down and followed Clint’s footsteps while he kept an eye out for more roots. They walked around the last mile of the river, and there it was. The cabin. Dark, but intact. Clint sprinted ahead. The door was locked, but Barton kicked it open. Huffing and puffing, Steve limped the final stretch through the door, into the cabin, and Clint shut the door behind him. The moment they were safe, Steve and Clint collapsed onto a braided rug in front of the door. Steve put Tony down on his back, then collapsed backwards onto his own back, gasping from his efforts. Clint sat with his back against the door. He shivered from the rain and cold. His arm throbbed and his legs were tired from maneuvering the puddles. Neither Clint nor Steve said anything for a good 20 minutes.

Steve looked around. It was a one room cabin. The bed space – with one bed – was on his right and a tiny kitchen with a fireplace was on his left. The rear of the cabin was a closet and a small bathroom. The place was overflowing with junk: pots and pans, piles of clothes, cans of food, kids’ toys, fishing gear, blankets, swimsuits, half-deflated floaties, hunting gear, first aid kits, and shotguns. When he finally sat up, he found Clint staring at him – a soldier waiting for orders. “Tony first,” Steve grunted. Clint nodded, reading his mind. While Clint prepared the bed and gathered blankets, Steve gently stripped the unconscious Tony’s clothes off and dried him with towels. Clint tossed him a first aid kit and Cap cleaned Tony’s wounds as best he could, and then bandaged him up. Then, with Clint’s help, got Tony into the bed and piled half a dozen blankets on top of him.

Steve pulled himself up into a wooden chair and took his boots off. He cleaned and bandaged his own wounds. Meanwhile, Barton found clothes that were too big for both of them, but they were better than nothing. The two of them stripped, toweled off, and put on the clothes: jeans, long-sleeved t-shirts, and flannel button downs. Clint dragged another wooden chair over to Tony’s bedside and Steve bandaged up his arm. After that Clint, silently, unpacked a pair of sleeping bags from a plastic box. He tossed one to Steve and spread his own out at the foot of Tony’s bed. While Steve arranged his sleeping bag at Tony’s bedside, Clint messed with the shotguns. They were already loaded. He handed one to Steve and kept the second for himself. Clint put the gun on the floor perpendicular to his sleeping bag, pointed at the door. He was asleep the second his head hit the pillow he’d found.

Steve sat with his back against the bedside table. His adrenaline was running so hot and his foot was throbbing so hard that he couldn’t imagine falling asleep. He looked to his right, up at Tony. His blankets weren’t quite to his chin, so Steve gently pulled them up. Outside, the rain continued to fall, and the wind continued to howl. Every time he heard thunder, he half-expected Thor to appear outside the window to rescue them.

No. They were on their own. And Tony was in trouble.

Hesitantly, Steve reached out with two fingers and gently positioned his knuckles against Tony’s cheek. “I’ll get you out of this, Tony,” he whispered. “I promise.”

To Be Continued

Chapter Text

Sunlight and songbirds woke Steve up. A clock on the wall told him it was 11:00. He sat up and checked on Tony, who hadn’t moved. He checked the bandages around his foot and found that the bleeding had stopped. Clint emerged from the bathroom, then, wiping his face down with a towel. He tossed the towel on the bed, and then held his hand out for Steve to take. Steve accepted the invitation. He let Barton pull him to his feet, then he hopped on his uninjured foot while Clint guided him to the bathroom. Barton waited patiently by the door and then helped Steve sit back down in the wooden chair beside Tony’s bed. In silence, Clint started rummaging through the supplies in the kitchen. He found several bottles of water, and tossed two to Steve. Then he found a can opener. He opted for the cans of beans and opened three.

“I think we should wake him up,” said Clint.

Steve nodded. “Yeah, I think we should.” Cap folded one corner of the blankets aside and put his hand on Stark’s shoulder. “Tony.” Tony’s eyes twitched. “Tony, wake up.”

“Mm,” Tony whined. He started to roll over towards the wall, but Steve kept his grip firm. “Are we home?” Stark whispered.

“Not yet.”

“Wake me up when we’re home.”

“No, Tony, come on, you need to drink some water and eat something.”

“Mm…” Stark opened one eye. He must have decided it was safe, because he opened the other one a few seconds later. “Hey, guys,” he greeted. “Am I naked?”

“Think you can sit up?” Steve asked him.

Tony hadn’t tried to flex his torso yet. But, he squeezed his eyes shut, and did a sit up. He did half of one, and the bullet wound in his kidney hurt so bad that a couple tears leaked out, but he got high enough for Steve to put a pillow under his back. Tony collapsed back against it and put his arm over his face. Three breathing exercises later, his arm fell to his side and he looked at his friends once more. He started to reach for a water bottle, but his strength had leaked out with half of his blood, and his left arm just refused to work. Steve opened a bottle of water, held it out to Tony and got rolled eyes in return.

“Hold still,” Steve instructed. Like Tony was a baby, he put the bottle against his lips and helped him drink. Tony only took a few sips. The nausea from the concussion was still there. He didn’t let Steve feed him any of the beans.

Clint got one of the first aid kits and sat on the side of the bed. Tony nodded and managed to put his hands behind his head. Clint tugged the blankets down to Tony’s waist, peeled off the bandages on his side, and examined the first bullet wound. “You, uh, have another kidney, right?”

Tony didn’t look down at the wound. “That bad?”

“You can’t have one of my kidneys.” Clint scooted the blankets back up to Tony’s chin, then pulled up from the bottom to look at the bullet wound in Tony’s leg. His skin was dead white and swollen. It was still leaking a little blood. “Geeze, Tony.”

Steve strained to look at the injury. “We have to get him to a hospital, soon.”

Clint nodded vigorously. “You can’t have one of my legs, either, Stark.”

“Bite me, Barton,” Tony said tiredly, smiling.

Footsteps outside. The three Avengers sat up straight, resembling anxious meercats. Steve communicated with Barton with quick hand signals. Clint got the two shotguns and the pair of them took a protective position in front of Tony, and aimed at the door.

It opened.

An old man half as tall as Steve yelped and put his hands up, surrendering. “What the hell are you doing in my cabin?” he demanded.

“Ah, son of a gun.” Steve nodded at Clint, and they both lowered their guns. “Sorry, Sir, but we need some help here.”

The man didn’t put his hands down. “Are you Captain America?” he asked. When Steve didn’t deny it, the man saluted. “Is that Tony Stark behind you? And you’re…” He squinted at Clint. “You’re the arrow guy…”

Clint harumphed. Tony chuckled.

“Sir, I’m sorry we broke in, but we’re all hurt. Do you have mobile telephone?” Steve asked.

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” The man reached into the pocket of his fishing vest and tossed an iPhone over to Cap. Steve excused himself from the room and limped outside to call for help. The man approached Tony. He wiped his hand on his dirty jeans, then held it out for Tony to shake. Tony summoned his strength and obliged. “Sir, I have to say, what you did in New York… We owe you a debt, Sir.”

Tony gestured at Clint. “Thank arrow guy, too. He took out, like, three aliens.”

Clint raised both middle fingers.

Steve returned. “All right, they’re sending a helicopter for us – said they’ll hover overhead and send down a stretcher for Tony, first. Sound good, Stark?” Steve handed the phone back to the old man. “Tony?”

At the silence, the three men whirled around and looked at the bed.

Tony’s eyes were closed. Somehow, his face had paled a shade lighter.

“Hey.” Steve hurried over and knelt in front of the bed. “Tony.”

Clint joined him. He shook Tony’s outstretched arm. “Stark. Stark!”

Steve put the back of his hand against Tony’s nose and slightly parted mouth. “Oh, no.”

Clint put his hands in his hair and pulled. “He was fine two seconds ago! What if the last thing he saw was me flicking him off?”

“He’s not breathing.” Steve pushed his fingers against the pulse point in Tony’s neck. His skin paled as light as Tony’s. “No heart beat.”

“Switch with me!” Clint exclaimed. He and Steve switched, Steve at Tony’s chest and Clint at Tony’s head. “Do compressions when I say!”

“You idjits!” the old man shouted. “Put him on the floor! You don’t do CPR on a soft surface! You’ll just break his ribs, not pump his heart!”

Quick – quick as possible – Steve threw Tony’s blankets off his naked body and gently lowered him to the wood floor. Clint dove in and started blowing into Stark’s windpipe. Two sets of breaths and compressions later, he checked Tony’s heartbeat. Nothing. “Again!” Steve ordered. They tried again. They tried again, and again. Nothing.

“Out of the way, Captain Idjit! Let an old boy scout in.” The old man slammed his shoulder into Steve’s. Steve almost lost it, then, but then he saw that the man had an AED – an Automated External Defibrillator. Steve pulled Clint aside as he stepped out of the man’s way. The man opened the device and turned it on. With practiced hands he unwrapped the wires and placed the pads on Tony’s chest. “Clear!” The man hit a button, and a jolt of electricity ricocheted through Tony.

Steve and Clint stood aside, clutching each other’s arms. Watching. Waiting. Wondering. Trying not to panic, but very much on the verge.

An entire three minutes had gone by before Tony’s eyes flew open. He shuddered and coughed and clawed at his beating heart. The old man stepped away and Clint and Steve rushed to Tony’s side. “You’re ok,” a breathless Steve assured him, all but hugging Tony. “You’re ok, you’re ok.” He looked up at the man. “Thank you. Can’t thank you enough.” The man saluted again.

Tony’s coughs started to subside. He reached out for both of his teammates’ hands and grasped them so hard that Clint almost pulled away, in pain. “Can… we…” Tony gasped, “go… home… now…?”

In the distance, a helicopter approached.

The End

Chapter Text

Steve woke up from the hardest punch yet, but remained flat on his bearded face, inhaling the rotten Titan soil. A tremendous ache weighed down his body and he had to order it to move three times before it actually did. He raised his eyes. The spider kid was on his left, not moving. The Guardians were on his right – they were unconscious, too. Strange was ahead, also on the left and Tony – Tony was fighting Thanos all by himself. And that was when Thanos ripped off part of Tony’s own suit, and skewered him with it.

“NO!” Steve cried. His voice came out in a whimper.

Thanos walked Tony backward until he collapsed, then put his massive gauntlet on his head. “You have my respect, Stark,” said the Titan. “When I’m done, half of humanity will still be alive.” He shoved Tony away, and Stark gasped. “I hope they remember you,” Thanos continued, standing tall. Blood rained from Tony’s mouth.

“No,” Steve cried again. He tried to stand, but only managed to do a push up. That power stone sure packed a punch.

Thanos raised the gauntlet. In seconds there would be no more Tony Stark.

“Stop!” said a new voice. Steve looked to his left and saw that Strange was sitting up. “Spare his life, and I will give you the stone.”

Steve’s stomach flipped, then sunk.

“No tricks.”

Strange shook his head.

“Don’t,” said Steve, at the exact same time as Tony. As much as Steve cared for his friend, not even Tony Stark’s life was worth half the universe.

Strange raised his right hand and the time stone appeared between his fingers. Steve fought his way up to his knees, then up to his feet. He stepped forward, desperate to tackle Thanos – to do anything – but his left knee gave out and he collapsed.

Strange surrendered the stone. The Titan added it to his gauntlet. “One to go.”

Steve summoned the last of his strength. He got up and started to walk – started to jog – started to run – but Quill flew out in front of him, towards Thanos. The Titan disappeared through a portal. Steve changed directions and sprinted to Tony’s side. He knelt beside his friend and clasped the back of his head with his right hand, and Tony’s hand with his left. “TONY!”

Tony’s blood-soaked lips formed words, but didn’t speak them. He looked into Steve’s eyes, his own bouncing back and forth between dazed and distant, and narrowed and focused. “C-Cap,” he finally slurred, “get it out of me.”

“We – we don’t have any bandages. You’ll bleed to death.”

“Trust me,” Tony insisted. “Steve – get it out, now!”

The sword was larger than Steve’s arm. He gently wrapped his left hand around it, then looked at Tony’s whitening face. “Hold on to me,” he instructed. Tony wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck and pushed his nose against his blue uniform. Steve counted to three, and pulled.

Tony screamed, nearly deafening his friend. His arms went limp, followed by the rest of his body, and he collapsed against Cap.

“Tony!”

“Is a’righ…” Tony said. He regained a bit of strength and sat up, his left arm against Steve’s right arm. “Is a’righ, C-Cap…” Tony aimed what was left of the suit that covered his right hand, and sprayed what looked like a thick mist of chemicals against his wound. The bleeding instantly stopped. Steve touched the sealant, mesmerized. It was warm. Tony took the device off his hand, then, and handed it to Steve. “Press your middle and forefinger down and to the left,” he instructed. Steve, realizing what Tony wanted him to do, put the device around his hand, gently leaned Tony forward so that he could get to his back, and applied the sealant to the exit wound. Tony grunted and coughed. He put his face in his hands and groaned, then leaned, once again, against Steve’s chest.

Then, Tony reached past the pain and returned to reality. He sat up with a start and stared back at a wide-eyed Quill. “Did we just lose?”

Tony rotated his body so that he could see past Steve to Strange. “Why would you do that?” he whispered.

Strange didn’t even look sorry. “We’re in the endgame, now,” he said.

The other Guardians ran over. Peter rushed to Tony’s left side and, after looking back and forth between him and Steve, decided that it was a moment to shut up.

Steve was grasping at straws, and he knew it, but he still tried to put on a brave face, for Tony’s sake. “The others – Wanda, Bruce, Nat… Maybe Thor returned… They’ll stop him. They’ll protect Vision.”

Tony looked at him, emotionless.

“We’ll… We’ll get home – back to Earth. We’ll get home, and we’ll help.”

Tony blinked. He pursed his lips together once in a deep flex, then allowed his mouth to open part way. “I…” he started to say. Then he shook his head and lowered his chin to his chest. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“For what?” Steve asked. “Tony?”

“I should’ve done more…”

Steve looked at Peter, who shrugged slightly. “Tony…”

Tony looked at him. There were tears in his eyes. “I… I had a vision, once. You and the others – earth – invasion… You told me I could’ve saved you… You asked me why I didn’t do more…” A tear dropped onto Tony’s bloody face. “I should’ve done more… I – I lost.”

Steve cupped his cheek. “WE lost…” The two teammates nodded at each other. Tony sat up straighter and pressed a series of buttons on the chamber on his chest. The nanotech – what was left of it - slowly floated across his skin into their home. Steve and Peter helped Tony stand up.

Just then, the mantis girl suddenly said, “Something’s happening.” Seconds later she – she just dissolved. Her body morphed into ash, and she just floated away…

Every mouth dropped in shock. “Oh, god,” Steve whispered.

The muscled man disappeared next. Quill looked at Tony with wide, scared eyes. “Steady, Quill!” Tony said.

“Oh, man…” Quill was gone.

“Tony.” Steve and Tony turned around. Strange still sat on the ground, looking at them, blood on his cheek. He shook his head and said, with a confidence neither man understood, “There was no other way.” And then he was gone, too.

“Mr. Stark.” Steve and Tony turned again. The kid – Peter – was staggering towards them looking, dumbfounded, at his hands.

“Oh, no,” Steve whispered.

“Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good.”

“You’re all right.”

“I don’t know what’s happening.” The kid collapsed forward into Tony’s arms. Steve put his hand against Tony’s back to steady him. “I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna go, Mr. Stark, please, I don’t wanna go.” Then the kid went limp, and Tony did his best to lower his body gently to the ground. Steve followed, kneeling on Tony’s left.

Peter looked at Tony with an expression Steve couldn’t identify. “Sorry,” he whispered. And then he was gone, too.

Tony collapsed forward, Peter’s body no longer supporting him. Steve grabbed his shoulder and turned him around before he smacked his forehead into the rocks. Tony sat flat, then looked at his own palms. Steve did the same thing. Both men waited a full ten seconds – waited to see if they would die, too.

“He did it,” the blue woman said. Tony folded forward in frustration. Then he put his hands to his mouth – then he shut his eyes – and then a small tear exited his right eye.

Steve sat on the ground beside Tony and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

A minute passed, and then suddenly Tony started breathing deeper and faster, deeper and faster, deeper and faster, like he was having a panic attack. He gave Steve a flabbergasted look, and in that moment Steve knew that the blood loss had caught up to him. He immediately rotated his body so that they were chest-to-chest.

Tony’s eyes rolled back into his skull, and he collapsed forward into Steve’s arms.

“TONY!”

To Be Continued

Chapter Text

Steve held Tony tight and rubbed his back. The blue-purple alien was staring at the Titan soil. She looked as devastated as Steve felt. He realized, then, that he didn’t know her name, so he asked her. “Nebula,” she whispered. “Daughter… of Thanos.” She followed that surprising fact with a defeated sigh. “I… she said. She shook her head, then lowered her chin to her chest.

Steve kept rubbing Tony’s back. He hoped that his friend felt some comfort, even in his unconscious state. “Nebula… the Guardians’ ship – do you know if it has medical supplies?”

“Yes.”

“Can we use it to get back to Earth? My friends… I have to know if they – if they survived.”

Mute, Nebula stood and started walking east. Steve, still sore from fighting Thanos, struggled but did manage to lift Tony up into a bridal carry, and followed her. The Guardians’ spaceship was a hundred yards away from the vehicle that he, Tony, Strange, and Peter crash landed in. Even Steve could tell that the ship had been damaged in the battle with Thanos. Not only was it listed on its side because of the rocks that covered it but there was more than one hole in the hull. Steve was about to panic, but then he remembered that Tony had used that same mist of chemicals to seal the hull of the spaceship they’d arrived in. Steve instructed Nebula to take the device out of his pocket. He told her how to operate it and she walked around the whole ship, plugging hole after hole after hole.

Steve carried Tony inside, where Nebula gestured for him to put him on a center table. Steve lowered his friend down on it. When he stood up straight again, he found Tony’s slightly parted eyes staring at his. “Tony?”

Stark licked his lips. “For a moment there, right when I woke up, I forgot that I failed…”

Nebula walked over with what looked like a metal toolbox. She set it on the table at Tony’s waist, opened it, and started sorting through a variety of objects that Steve didn’t recognize. “I checked the engines,” she reported as she worked. “They’re damaged… I’ll do what I can, but at this point we’ll barely make it a lightyear.”

“Tony can fix them,” Steve said.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Cap, it’s an alien spaceship. It probably has components I won’t be able to make heads or tails of. You think I can just push a few buttons and turn a few knobs and hit it with a hammer and I’ll fix it?” Stark winked, then. “Damn right.”

Steve smiled at him, fondly.

Tony’s body shuddered, then. His spine arched upward and he cried out in pain. His hand reached blindly for Steve and Cap took that hand in both of his and grasped it tight. Nebula found what she was looking for – a device that looked like a medical tricorder from ‘Star Trek,’ Steve remembered, but it was horizontal instead of vertical. She held it over Tony’s wound and frowned at the screen. “Hmm,” she exhaled. Then she snapped the device shut, said, “We might as well leave him here. He’s dead,” and walked towards the cockpit.

Tony gave her a thumb’s up. “Appreciate the candor.”

Steve pivoted around the table and chased after Nebula. “Hey – HEY!” He grabbed her by the elbow. She whirled around, and Steve barely dodged a punch. “Easy! Take it easy!”

Nebula pulled her arm away. “Don’t touch me!”

Steve held his palms up. “Ok. All right. I’m sorry. Just, just listen, please. What do you mean he’s dead?”

Nebula gave him a look. “I mean there’s nothing I can do. Thanos shoved that thing right through his bottom ribs. He nicked the stomach, nicked the bowel…There’s nothing I can do.”

Steve’s face flushed and his nostrils flared. “Try,” he growled.

“I’m not a surgeon,” she said. “If I start messing around in his guts, he’ll probably just die faster! I’ve only used those tools a few times before!”

Steve could feel the heat increasing on his face. “So, there is a chance?”

Nebula snorted. “Why should I bother?” she hissed at him. “Half of the universe is dead – why bother with anything?”

Steve’s jaw clenched and unclenched. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I get it,” he growled. “You lost your sister today, and I assume the others were your friends?” Nebula snorted. Steve pointed back at Tony. “That’s my brother dying over there. If it were your sister on that table, wouldn’t you be begging for help, like I am?”

Nebula pursed her lips together. “I can’t promise anything. If he dies, swear you won’t kill me.”

“Why would I—” Steve shook his head. “I swear. What can you do?”

Nebula exhaled hard though her nose. “We have to suction out the blood first. Then – I think I found it – there’s a device that will sew tissue back together. I’ll close up the wounds as best I can, then we just hope he doesn’t get an infection.”

Relief made Steve dizzy. “Thank you,” he said. The pair returned to Tony. Stark’s eyes were closed, but he started awake when Steve touched his shoulder. Nebula put some tools on the table and dug for more. She took out what looked like a scalpel and examined it in the dim light.

“What happened to letting me die?” Tony asked. He looked up at Steve. “If you offered her sexual favors… I approve.”

Steve chuckled and shook his head. “Shut up, Stark.”

Nebula started tugging on Tony’s clothing. Steve helped her strip off Stark’s shirt and jacket. Tony’s naked chest was mottled with cuts and bruises. Steve removed the suit casing and set it on a countertop. Nebula examined the stab wound, scratched at the barrier covering it, and said, “I have to cut this open. Get that tube ready.”

Steve picked up what looked like a handheld vacuum. He laid the plastic tube on Tony’s stomach and prepared himself for the amount of blood he was about to see. Tony, who needed something, anything to hold on to, fisted his hand around Steve’s blue uniform. Nebula filled a syringe with some mysterious liquid and, to the shock of both men, stabbed the needle into Tony’s neck without a word of explanation.

“I like h-her…” Tony trailed off. The anesthesia kicked in, and he fell asleep.

Nebula counted to three and then stabbed the scalpel into the wound, reopening it. Blood bubbled out quicker than Steve could suction it up. The barrier had done nothing to stop the internal bleeding. Cap cursed and did his best while Nebula turned on what looked like a laser pointer. “I can’t see anything. Do it better,” she scolded Steve. “Stick that tube in there!”

Steve took a breath, tried to tell himself that this wasn’t Tony he was mutilating, and inserted the tube deeper into the wound. He must have done something right, because she aimed the laser device and moved it up and down. “I think I sealed the hole in his stomach,” she told Steve. “I’ll keep going…”

A half hour and a couple pints of blood later, and Nebula finished sealing up the exit wound in Tony’s back. She slid the tools into the toolbox, said “There!” and walked away.

“Uh, thanks!” Steve called after her. She didn’t respond. Cap looked around the ship for towels and a sink. When he found them, he washed the blood off his hands, then soaked the towels. He returned to Tony and gently washed the blood off Tony’s back and sides. Then he rolled Tony onto his back and cleaned his stomach, chest, neck, and face. “Hey, do you have any painkillers?” he called to Nebula, thinking about himself as well as Tony. No reply. Steve went looking and found a basket of bottles labeled in an alien language. He opened a drawer and discovered vials of liquid he didn’t recognize. He’d finished searching nearly even inch of the room when Tony woke up. Steve rushed to his side.

Tony’s white, shaking hands landed on his bandaged wound. “Am I, uh, intact?” he whispered. Steve’s face scrunched into an I-hope-so look. “Stellar confidence,” Tony mumbled.

“You’re going to be ok.”

Tony looked at him. “Are you?” he whispered.

Steve hadn’t asked himself that question yet. Thanos murdered half the universe, but Steve hadn’t stopped moving long enough to really think about what that meant. “No,” he concluded in a whisper. “No, I don’t think so.”

“He was a good kid.”

“Parker?”

Tony’s eyes watered. “So many good kids are gone,” he whispered. “Cap… What are we going to do?”

Steve swallowed twice. “We’re going to get you well,” he told Tony. “And we’re going to make it home. And… And then…”

“And then?”

Neither of them knew what to say.

The End