Chapter Text
“So, whaddya in for?” Tony oozed, putting on his best Tribbiani accent. He’d turned onto his side, one arm propping up his head as he curled the other around his abdomen, with his legs out straight towards the end of the bed.
The blond woman next to him had all the right curves in all the right places and he had just enough hydrocodone in his system to make it worthwhile. Her sharp gaze turned towards him, assessing, before she smirked, replying, “ACL and meniscus. You?”
Tony gestured to his right leg resting atop his left, covered in a white compression sock that left grimy toes peaking out at the tip and extended up his thigh beyond the hem of his shorts. Another larger compression wrap covered the area from calf to just above his knee, restricting movement. “ACL. Meniscus. Small LCL too, but not complete, so they left it alone.”
“Ouch. Rough break,” She seemed genuinely sympathetic. “Fun story?”
“Hardly. Skiing. Last run of the day, fresh powder, moguls, and liquid lunch. The usual.” Tony gave a sigh, lighthearted. “What’s your story, saving the world? Jumping out of a plane?”
“Oh yeah, of course,” the woman extended her hand. “Bobbi. Bobbi Morse.”
“Tony,” he replied, wincing at her firm grip.
“I know who you are, Stark.”
“Ah,” he muttered. Here it came, either the tirade about how could he abandon their soldiers without his tech in the field or the lecture about what that news reporter had found after he’d cleaned house at Stark Industries.
“Oh come on, you had to expect that.” She grinned, disarmingly, taking the bite out of her words. She gestured at the lead therapist, a bald ex-military type, who went by the name ‘Orlando’ but Tony couldn’t tell if that was his actual name or just an honorific. “Why’d you pick this guy for PT anyway?”
Tony shrugged, wary that she hadn’t launched into a lecture already. “I wanted the best.”
“Well I’ll give you that.” Bobbie grimaced, shoving herself to the edge of the bench before she eased herself over to stand gingerly beside him. “But if I were you, I’d get back to your leg raises before he notices you’ve stopped to chat. See you around, Stark.”
“Yeah,” Tony grimaced, lifting his compression-wrapped leg a few inches vertically, before lowering it again. Huh. Maybe the news about SI’s change of manufacturing focus and the spectacular death of its former CEO had finally blown over, after half a year. Not that he was complaining; the last few years of his life weren’t exactly something to be proud of.
He watched as Morse hobbled over to the stationary cycles, swinging her injured leg around to adjust the straps and resistance. Her long hair swung across her shoulders as she peddled, slowly but surely against the machine. She was clearly weeks ahead of him in the recovery schedule, if she could do all that.
He turned onto his stomach; concentrated on ten more leg lifts, mentally calculating whether he could create some sort of machine, a suit maybe, that could do this for him. Could he lay down and let his mind work while his bots lifted and prodded and strengthened his muscles? What if he replaced his injured knee with a mechanical leg entirely; but then the muscles would atrophy even further, and with—no, better not.
He grimaced, muttering under his breath as he turned again.
Ten, turned again, this time to the left, start from the beginning.
Tony huffed. The way the surgeon had explained it, he probably couldn’t create a device that would reconstruct his muscles post-op, at least not quickly enough to avoid being here for the next six months in the meantime. It had to be done now. Not six months from now, not six weeks, now, if he ever wanted to fully bend his knee again.
He flipped onto his back, careful not to aggravate his already-aching muscles. Who’d have thought his leg would feel this heavy? He could barely lift his heel more than a few inches from the bed before feeling the strain against his quads.
Ten, turn. Ten, turn. Ten. Turn. Yawn.
He completed four more sets, before Orlando returned.
“Tony!” the tall man shouted, his voice echoing against the strange cacophony of the weight equipment and various athletes drilling in quick movements across the floor. “You’re done for today, man. Let’s get you some ice.”
Tony smiled, surprised to find a sheen of sweat across his brow. He scooted his way up to sit against the wall, leaning forward as Orlando shoved a wedge behind his back. An assistant returned with two bags of ice, carefully positioning them under and on top of Tony’s knee before propping his foot up with a roller.
“Tomorrow you do twenty each set,” Orlando pointed at him. “And don’t forget to use the CPM tonight. No weight still on that leg, alright?”
Stark nodded, biting back his frustration. The CPM was this obsolete piece of tech that had no right to still be used in modern medicine; basically he had to shove his injured leg into this hammock-brace and let the arm of the rickety crapshoot device cycle through a limited range of motion movement designed to slowly but surely return his knee to something that, you know, acted like a knee. Aka bending it in the right places.
The shitty part, at least in Tony’s mind, was that to use the CPM he had to be seated in one place for upwards of six hours a day, for the first two weeks post op.
To hell with this. He was never going skiing again; it wasn’t worth it.
Tony sighed again, letting his head rest against the wall, as the assistant set a timer for his ice packs. He wondered if he could bring his Stark Pad in next time, and catch up in between sets on his emails and projects. On that plan to miniaturize the arc reactor that he’d been procrastinating on. On, well, everything. Not that he hadn’t been trying to figure it out, while strapped into the CPM, but it just wasn’t—he couldn’t get the power source to align, there was something he was missing—
A sharp curse caught his attention, and he turned in time to see a tall, lanky guy with greasy black hair fall from a balancing board. There was a shout and then Orlando was sprinting across the gym, faster than Tony had thought a man that tall could move in a crowded room. For a moment, it seemed like the action on the floor stopped as everyone turned to stare, before another physical therapist whistled loudly and clapped her hands, ordering them back to work.
Tony turned, pretending to check his watch and fiddling with the controls (latest Stark model, miniaturizing the functions of StarkTech into a smaller package, ever since SI stopped making weapons six months ago), flipping through his messages. The screen was too small to do much else (even if he’d had the computing power for more advanced mechanics), but it gave him just enough shade in his glance that he could surreptitiously watch what was going on across the gym.
Orlando had managed to help the dark-haired man to sit up, and seemed to be arguing with him. Which, in of itself, Tony thought was unusual.
See, It was like this. Everyone just did what their physical therapists told them to do. Without questioning. Just like that. There were football players and soccer moms and college athletes and people like Bobbi who looked a little bit scary and like they’d walked straight out of Fallujah and into rehab.
Everyone, that is, except that guy.
The argument looked like it was escalating now; Tony could see the way the thin man’s shoulders had tensed, as though he was preparing for a fight, and Orlando’s patient, exasperated look…
Odd, that.
Tony had been coming to physical therapy for weeks, ever since he’d first injured his knee, as he prepared for surgery. He’d given out autographs to countless soccer moms and even a few soccer dads, met absolutely the biggest man he’d ever seen (football player, full reconstruction with six weeks no weight bearing, ouch.), but he had never noticed the dark haired man until today.
And now that Tony thought about it, he did remember him being around, like someone remembers the lady walking down the street when the news shared a photo of a murder victim, like this back of the mind presence that he’d never focused on.
Tony watched as Orlando’s helpful hands were brushed aside, as the injured guy shoved himself up using the brick wall despite his shaking limbs. Orlando hadn’t seemed like the touchy-feely type, but Tony could make out the barest hints of concern on his face, even from this distance, as he hovered beside his patient, arms extended as though to catch the man if his grip should falter again.
“Don’t bother,” Bobbi piped up beside him.
“Hmm?” Tony turned, surprised to find her on the bed beside his again, a strap tucked around her foot as she stretched out her injured leg.
“Guy’s a Brit, you can tell from his cursing. He’s been here for six months at least. Won’t talk to anyone.” Blondie shrugged.
“So?” Tony cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe he’s just shy.”
“No,” Bobbi shook her head, a haunted look entering her eyes as she studied the figure across the room. “Something happened.”
Tony followed her gaze, watching how the dark haired man sank into a plastic chair, his limbs giving way as he oozed into the seat. It was like watching a puppet as someone cut the strings, falling to the floor in a graceless, barely controlled flurry of movement. Nerve damage, Tony thought. Nothing else made sense.
And then there was the way the guy curled in on himself, protecting his core, before pulling his left arm up and over his sternum, as though it was dead weight against his chest.
Tony was about to ask Bobbie what she thought had happened, but Orlando returned, blocking his view.
“Don’t stare, Stark,” Orlando scolded, removing the ice packs and reaching for Tony’s knee brace from under the bed. “Everyone here has a story; doesn’t mean this is story time.”
Tony looked down, chastised, drumming his fingers impatiently against his good leg as the therapist fixed the brace straps. He looked up just as the job was finished, just in time to catch his crutches as Orlando shoved them towards Tony.
“So when do I get to the fun stuff?”
“Tomorrow, Tony!” Orlando exclaimed. “Everything starts tomorrow!”