Work Text:
“What the fuck was that? Are you trying to get yourself killed!?” Cas bit out angrily as soon as she touched down (crashed) next to Lan. Lan didn’t even try to correct her use of language, because loath as he was to admit, her anger wasn’t misplaced. It had been a stupid move.
It had gone like this: they’d been fighting the alien of the week— predictable. What was less predictable was the alien suddenly barfing up a few dozen mini versions of itself halfway through the battle.
Those things were fast, and they were headed straight into a civilian area that had yet to be evacuated.
Lan, running on pure instinct, threw his shield to try and kill as many of them as he could, somehow forgetting about the original alien and he, at the exact moment he threw his shield, was grabbed by one of its tentacles. The tentacles, unluckily for him, had barbs or perhaps teeth that dug into his side as he was waved around in the air for a while, before the alien threw him, ripping off a giant chunk of his side in the process. He was thrown very far away, it seemed, into some wooded area that had to have been miles away from the original battle.
He hadn’t even noticed Cas had immediately taken off after him until she was crashing next to him.
He looked over at her then, her face now visible with the helmet temporarily retracted.
She took a few steps toward him, her face contorting from anger into something Lan decided was horror.
“Jesus, Lan, that is a lot of blood.” She kneeled down by his side to get a better look, a hand hovering over his ruined side for a second, before her eyes flickered up to meet his own. “Can I…” She paused, grimacing, but Lan figured she was asking to look at it, and nodded his agreement.
She began to peel back the bits of suit that were covering the wound, before using some steam thing from her suit to, Lan assumed, try and get a closer look at the real issue. It didn’t seem to work very well, sputtering out quickly, and she frowned, chewing on her lower lip as she began to mumble to herself. He caught the word cauterize and lasers before Cas sighed and shook her head, put her helmet back on, and barked a few commands to JARVIS. She kept silent for a second, groaning.
“Comms are busted,” She explained, before saying something else to JARVIS and getting in position to fly.
Only… nothing happened. The thrusters sputtered out in a similar fashion to the steam mechanism, and Lan watched with amusement as she knocked on her own head a few times, then lightly on her reactor, before a wave of nausea hit him. Worrying, because he hadn’t felt nauseated in years.
Cas seemed to have given up on her suit as she turned back to look at the wound again, her helmet yet again retracting.
“I guess I’m just gonna have to do this the old fashioned way,” She said to no one in particular. Lan watched her face as she spoke, taking in the curve of her cheeks and the line of her nose. It was absurd, really, just how much she resembled her father.
How similar she looked to Molly.
He shook that thought out of his head as she triumphantly pulled gauze out of nowhere, staring down at him with a look of concentration.
“Do you mind?” She asked, waving vaguely at the wound. He looked down at it, then back up at her.
“Do your worst,” He shrugged, attempting a small smile. She grinned at that.
“Don’t tempt me, Captain.”
In spite of her words, she took her time carefully wrapping the wound, looking over it to make sure nothing was left exposed.
After much inspection, Cas stepped back, and though her frown deepened, she seemed to be proud of her work. Or maybe that was just Cas, ever the prideful.
“You’ll recover, but it’ll take a while.” She looked up at him, making eye contact, lips now pursed into a contemplative look. “Which you… probably aren’t used to. I’ll just have to teach you how to relax for once in your life.”
Lan mumbled a noise of protest, but said nothing more. He really, really, really was not used to the serum not helping to heal him near instantly, and it actually hurt. He guessed having a huge chunk of one’s side almost entirely ripped out would do that, though. After a few more seconds of inspecting her own suit, Cas groaned with annoyance, standing all the way up.
“Shit. My jets are busted, too. I definitely can’t fly you back with it like this.”
Lan looked up at her, frowning as well as he considered the implications of that.
“You don’t mean…” He trailed off as she shook her head gravely.
“We’ll have to walk.”
It took a lot of maneuvering for Cas to help him into a standing position that was comfortable for them both, given her height and his stature. He had the arm on the uninjured side wrapped around her shoulder, leaning his weight onto her so he could match her pace. He’d been through worse, but that had been a long time ago. Cas said something to JARVIS, too quiet for Lan to hear, but she repositioned them to go a different direction.
“Y’know,” Cas started after they began to walk. “One time, when I was a kid, I fell off my bike. It was…” She shrugged. “Silly. You know how dumb kids are. I wanted to try some trick I’d seen on TV. Clearly it didn’t work. Busted both my lips and damn near broke my nose. If I’m being real, I think I was just desperate for attention.”
Lan had no idea what point this story could possibly have, but he listened intently anyhow, unused to Cas willingly sharing anything about her childhood.
“My dad had been working on some big project at the time, so he wasn’t amused when I ran into his office crying. Though… he probably would’ve reacted the same way if it was a small project, too. As a… World War II vet, he obviously knew how to patch me up, but the lecture I got lasted nearly an hour.” She paused then, looking up at the sky, her pace slowing down to a stroll. “The only thing he could think to get mad at me for was interrupting him. He didn’t say a word about being more careful.”
Lan’s mouth twisted into a frown. Was she just trying to make Roy look bad? Cas shook her head, speeding back up as she continued,
“It would’ve been nice, y’know, to have someone there with me. To,” She scrunched her nose. “Have a shoulder to lean on.”
Oh, Lan realized suddenly, and with startling clarity. This was Cas’s attempt at comforting him. He almost laughed out loud at the realization, at how bad her attempt had been, but it was also strangely touching.
“Thanks,” He said quietly. Cas pursed her lips, the tips of her ears turning pink.
“Yeah, yeah. Nothing to thank me for, Cap.”
It took a while to get back to Avengers Tower, and the rest of the walk was spent in silence. Lan contemplated her words, trying to connect the Roy he knew to the Roy of her story. It wasn’t that hard, the more Lan thought about it. It was just hard to accept that his friend turned out like that. He was so deep in thought, he hardly noticed them entering the Tower until they were greeted by Styles.
“Cassandra!” He boomed, far too loud for indoors. “You are back!” Styles grinned, going in for a hug, but Cas shook her head and held a hand up to him.
“Told you not to call me that. Got an injured elder with me, too.” She pointed at Lan with her thumb. Styles only seemed to notice him then, eyebrows raising. Lan waved at him, and Styles nodded once.
“I see. I will let you continue, then.” He moved out of the way, and Cas continued them on to the infirmary. She handed him off to a doctor, and that was the end of that.
“Hey, Cas,” Lan called out before she walked away. She turned back to look at him, raising an eyebrow. “Thanks again.”
She just waved him off, but if Lan knew anything about the Sloans, that meant you’re welcome.