Random fic attack (Avengers movieverse)
So, I finally saw Avengers yesterday, and this kinda happened.
(EDITED INTRO) I had this friendslocked before because I thought it was terrible, but apparently that was the sleep-deprivation talking or something so here it is all public now. Warnings: No plot to speak of, almost entirely gratuitous h/c and friendship-fluff in case that's not your thing, and Tony being a potty-mouth.
Aftermath
an Avengers movieverse fic
by Hoshikage
***
"Agh," Tony groaned, briefly too occupied with the fireworks of pain going off behind his tightly-squeezed lids to make an attempt to move. When he did eventually get around to that and realized that an incredible weight was pinning his limbs, the next step was to get his eyes open - and that was no good either, because instead of even faint fritzing light lines of the HUD all he saw was black.
Shit. His sudden inability to move made perfect sense now - the suit was fried, and without power this version was simply too heavy for him to move in unaided. "Jarvis?" Tony tried hoarsely, but he wasn't really surprised when nothing happened. Ooookay, this is a problem. Tony squirmed against the weight of the armor that clung to his limbs like far more useless lead than the alloys with ridiculously long names that he'd actually come up with, but to no avail. He breathed as best he could with the weight of the armor pressing down on his chest, and listened.
Muffled, though the helmet, he could hear noises, but they sounded more like distant crashing and banging than voices, so that still didn't seem like very good news. He still couldn't quite believe that those crazy Wreckers or Crashers or whatever they'd called themselves had managed to get things to the point where nothing short of an unusually powerful EMP-plus-ludicrous-force (and he was so totally trademarking that) bomb had seemed like the only idea left to throw at them, but Tony was depressingly certain of the reason why he was lying here in a useless heap right now - even with his jets on full, clearly he hadn't managed to get out of the blast radius.
Mmmkay, and that means no comm either. Guess I get to lie here and hope no buildings fall on me. What fun!
Actually to be honest it really sounded like one of the least fun things ever, because Tony Stark did not deal well with inactivity, especially unproductive inactivity... but really, he'd always known that there was only so much electromagnetic shielding he could put on this thing. So it wasn't like he hadn't had any idea this might come, someday. And on the bright side, he didn't feel shrapnel in his heart, so that probably meant his chest-reactor was still working - actually, the suit most likely technically had power, because the arc reactor wouldn't really have been affected by the EMP. It just didn't have a way to actually do anything with any of that power from the reactor at the moment.
Left with nothing else to do, Tony started humming Metallica to himself while he sent his mind into Design Mode. See, what he really needed was a way to switch suits from a lightweight version built more for speed to a heavy-duty one on the fly - maybe literally - and ideally without leaving himself vulnerable during the transfer. Maybe he could rig up a force field. Firstly, force fields were cool, anybody who'd seen any sci-fi knew that - and secondly, as everyone also knew, force fields never failed. Well, except when the plot required them to. Or at the worst possible time. Maybe he should rethink the force field idea.
The lyrics of the Metallica song that he was singing mostly under his breath were turning into something suspiciously close to "Somebody get me a can opener, I'm gonna go insane..." Not that he'd ever admit it, later. The one good thing about not having a working comm, nobody could prove anything.
Oh boy, the crashing was suddenly getting a lot louder. Tony was really hoping that this was a good sign, and didn't mean that the Bad Guys (what were their names anyway? Did it really even matter except to weirdos who fixated on villains for some reason?) were still around and just even more pissed off now. "Hello?" he tried, despite feeling that it was more than a little useless. "Any rescue workers earning their pay today by any chance?"
The crashing came nearer. Tony felt his heart speeding up, his eyes flickering uselessly toward the source of the sound as his muscles strained to move the immobile metal of the suit. "Come on guys, gimme a sign here, Good or Evil? Or maybe just Chaotic Neutral? I could go for that, in a pinch." Note to self, make emergency release more sensible, I am never ever getting into this situation again--
Something nudged his shoulder, hard.
Tony would make it very clear later, to anyone who would listen, that he absolutely did not scream like a girl at that moment. Not even a little bit.
Luckily, it became clear very quickly that his audience wasn't likely to care. "To..ny." It was a very loud rumbling he knew very well.
"Hulk! You galloping brute, warn a guy next time!" Tony yelled, then had to stop and pant when the yell had taken all the breath in his constricted lungs. Hulk, of course, just rumbled unintelligibly in response, and Tony sighed. "All right, this is turning into way too much of a habit, but... can you give me a lift, big guy?"
He couldn't help flinching when the Hulk's ungentle hands lifted him up, new pain throbbing through his skull and reminding him to add "probable concussion" to his current list of woes. "Ow - ow! Fragile human in the tin can here!"
Hulk didn't really sound contrite at all when he growled in response, but eventually he'd settled Tony into what had to be the crook of his arm before setting off bounding to... well, wherever. Tony's dangling arm felt like it was about to be dragged out of its socket from the sheer weight of the armor, but he set his teeth and ignored it as much as he could. He kind of wished he'd been found by Thor - aside from the rough handling, the bigger problem with the Hulk Chauffeur Service was that it was pretty much impossible to ask him what had happened to everyone else. Of course, they weren't encased in (somewhat) electromagnetic-vulnerable armor, so they should theoretically be fine... but on the other hand, they'd probably been a lot closer to the source of the explosion, too.
"Tony Stark!" Thor's voice boomed suddenly as they landed with a bone-jarring thump, and Tony stifled a yelp as the impact sent new waves of pain through his head and shoulder. Oooh, he almost saw colors in those waves. No wait, bad sign, everything was still black inside the helmet, right.
"My friend, are you all right?"
Ah. But Thor had hands, nice small hands! Well, relatively. At any rate, they wouldn't crush him while hitting the emergency release switches. At last, a plan with a chance of success. Assuming he could explain what he needed to a guy whose idea of 'hitting a switch' still usually meant leaving it in non-operable condition afterwards.
"Oh, peachy!" Tony almost sang.
Thor was definitely puzzled. "What do peaches--"
"Never mind, that's the knock on the head talking. Don't listen to it. Bad idea."
He could hear the profound dubiousness in Thor's silence.
"Anyway! Suit's fried. The bomb took out everything. I need you to get the exterior emergency release switches - otherwise I can't get out of this thing and I'm getting really sick of not being able to move, here--" Tony abruptly clenched his teeth and forced himself to stop talking. He hated showing weakness at the best of times, and it most definitely wasn't something he wanted to let onto around his two super-strongest teammates. They wouldn't be too weak to move their own damned armor.
Then again, they wouldn't exactly need it in the first place. But anyway. Tangent.
Thor's hand landed on his shoulder in a companionable slap, much more gently than Hulk's had. "Just tell me what I must do, my friend."
***
For some unknowable reason, the release switches of the armor were hidden under plates to either side of Tony's neck. But when Thor asked what he thought was the obvious question of why they were so awkwardly placed, Tony in a most irritated fashion grumbled something about not wanting to put them anywhere that an enemy could just stumble upon them most easily - something about big red buttons and the obvious targets they made - which Thor had to admit did make some sense.
"Hit 'em both at once," Tony wheezed, his voice sounding taut and breathless. "Wait, not hit. Press. Don't need any hitting." Indeed he did not, with the armor's golden surfaces marred by dents and scorches everywhere. Thor had already mastered that particular phrase, but he did not argue the assumption. Tony's pained voice and his disturbing limpness in the Hulk's surprisingly careful grasp, like a small broken doll, were enough even before Thor realized that to do as Tony asked, he would have to close his hands around his friend's throat.
He did not want to test this armor's strength in that way. Nor any other, in truth. But now he had no choice but to do as he was bid, and rest his hands as lightly as he could upon the offered neck. As his fingers squeezed under the plates, he felt what he thought were the armor catches that Tony needed and pushed--
The armor seemed to shatter under his hands, falling apart into a rain of plates and pieces like a rain of mail frozen and splintered with a blow. Freed, Tony jerked and gasped, eyes wide as he blinked rapidly in the light. Thor grabbed his shoulders to guide him down as he flailed his way out of the Hulk's hands, helping him to balance on the uneven ground and frowning at the bloody, bruised side of his head. "My friend, you are hurt. You should--"
Tony was not listening to him. "What the hell," he breathed, taking in the wreckage around them. "Did we - did we atomize the place? What the hell - please tell me we got them. This had better have been worth it--"
"Aye, that we did," Thor said grimly, and Tony finally looked up at him, his eyes darting to Thor's own bleeding wounds. None worth notice, though he could well see that Tony might have been impressed by their mere presence. But Asgardian or not, he was not truly invincible. "But at a cost."
Tony's gaze sharpened. "What cost. How bad is it." They were not questions, they were demands. Once in his rash youth Thor would have bristled at the sound of an order, but now he had learned more wisdom than to take offense.
"We three are all that stand." Seeing Tony's face go white, Thor hastened to explain. Though he oft wished to pretend otherwise, Tony's care for his friends was no less than Thor's own. "The others live, but their wounds are grievous. Now that we have found each other, we should go to them."
"Yeah." Tony rubbed at his face briefly, then looked in surprise at his hand when it came away bloody. "Yeah, um, good idea." He looked up at the Hulk, who was still looking around the ruins with an expression most close to suspicion of their surroundings. "Come on, big guy, it's over. You won't fit in the hospital like that, and we don't wanna miss visiting hours."
Hulk looked down at them, frowning, and Tony patted his arm fearlessly. "No more smash. All done."
Hulk glanced at Thor, who nodded. "Truly, the fight is over, my friend. Come with us now, our other friends have need of us."
The Hulk seemed to take a deep, sighing breath, and then began to shrink. Tony averted his eyes, and Thor reached up to remove his cape. These Midgardians seemed to be very foolish about their modesty at times, but he would respect Bruce's wishes on the matter. And since the entire arena they had been fighting in - a "Stadium," the others had called it - lay in smoldering ruins about them and surely had nothing in the way of garments to be found, this would have to do. Thor suspected this would not be the last time for him either, given that none of his comrades-in-arms seemed to prefer capes on their suits.
But if his cape was to be sacrificed, that was a small loss. Especially in the face of what losses they all might still have to face, today.
Thor wished most devoutly that the losses he feared would not truly come to pass.
***
Bruce reappeared with clothes (for him) and information (for all of them) before Tony had time to do much pacing, especially since he was starting to discover how many bruises he had forming. He kept pacing anyway as Bruce talked. Good for the muscles or something, right? Keep from stiffening up. Or so he'd heard somewhere. It had nothing to do with what he was hearing, really.
"Natasha's in the best shape - she got hit with a chunk of concrete that still had rebar in it. Two ribs cracked, but the bigger problem was that the rebar went pretty deep into the bicep. She's out of surgery now though and they said it missed the bone and ligaments, and they've made sure there's no fragments left. It was a pretty clean wound all things considered. She'll probably be back on her feet tomorrow, though getting out of the sling will take a while."
Tony glanced at him, then turned around and paced in the other direction again. "Clint?"
He'd gone down even before the bomb went off. Tony really hoped he'd been out of its range--
Bruce grimaced. "Shrapnel, they said. From the bomb. Most of it wasn't bad, but one piece hit a major artery and he almost bled out. Cap shielded him from the worst of it and kept the bleeding under control until the EMTs could get to him."
Tony breathed a sigh of relief. That sounded like Cap wasn't too badly off, then. Hopefully their Hawkeye was the worst case. "So, blood transfusion. S'all good, right?"
"More or less. He's expected to make a full recovery, eventually." But now Bruce hesitated.
Thor stood up. "What is wrong?"
"Cap was - well, being Cap. It's what he does, right?" The feeble attempt at levity didn't last long as Bruce went on, "He got hit by most of that shrapnel he was protecting Clint from. His shield only covers so much. And I don't know if you've heard this part before, but that serum means that drugs don't work on him so well--"
Tony stalked toward the door. "I'm going in there."
"You can't just walk into an operating theater, Tony!" Bruce grabbed at his arm. "You know they won't let you--"
"Do I look like I care?" Tony rounded on him with a snarl, and decided to blame the swirl of his vision that accompanied the too-rapid movement when more words spilled out, again, than he'd been planning on. "Look, if there's anyone who has an idea of what it's like to get shrapnel pulled out of you with completely inadequate anaesthesia, it's me, and--" He broke off. "Stay here if you want, but I'm going."
"I think I'd better," Bruce said in a low voice. "I don't... know how well the other guy would react to watching that."
Tony winced and rubbed his aching head. "Yeah." He sighed. "Yeah. Listen, then can you do me a favor and get Pepper on the line, tell her to hit the remote switch for the MarkV armor?"
"What are you going to need that for in here?"
"Not all of it," Tony said, waggling his fingers. "Just want to be able to offer a hand and not get it crushed."
***
Well, that had gone just about how Tony had expected it to. First came the protests and attempts to force him out - which really didn't work so well once he had his armor and Thor glowering as his backup - and then, once the doctors realized that his teammates' presence actually did seem to be helping Steve stay calmer, came the extremely reluctant permission to stay. Formality though that was, Tony thanked them in his most gracious tones anyway (though how gracious that actually was was something of a matter of contention between him and Pepper) and sat next to Steve to offer that supporting hand he'd planned on. Steve grabbed it in a grip that would, in fact, have been sufficient to break some bones without the glove. Tony amused one corner of his mind scrutinizing the external pressure sensor readout to monitor the grip strength and make sure he wasn't in danger of losing more suit parts today - he had intended it more for impacts, after all, not necessarily sustained pressure - since it was a welcome distraction from his leader's pale, sweat-damp face.
"All right Steve, have we learned our lesson about gettting in the way of sharp pointy objects?" he said with forced cheer.
Steve gasped at a tug on one of the shrapnel fragments, but managed to play along anyway. "You really do sound like one of my teachers from school." His eyes blinked rapidly at Tony's unsuited face as though he was having a hard time keeping it in focus. "Why're you here?"
"Thought you might need a hand." Tony wiggled his armored fingers in Steve's tight grip. "S'what teammates are for, I guess. Is it? I'm kind of new at this. But if you tell anybody I was here, I'll deny it."
Steve laughed weakly. "You're not so stealthy in that armor, you know. Hard to hide."
"Figment of your imagination. How did you manage to sneak in anywhere in that gaudy suit, anyway? I saw photos of the original, you know."
Even with the faceplate of the suit off, the audio pickups were still good enough to filter Thor's whispering with one of the nurses to his ears, distracting him from Steve's reply--
"Can you do nothing to ease his pain?"
"We've tried. His body just burns everything off too fast. We're already dosing him as high as we dare without risking organ damage, but it doesn't do much more than take the edge off--"
Tony tuned it out. Whose goddamned stupid idea was it to create a super-soldier basically immune to any and all drugs? Didn't they think any of them might need patching up at some point? Or were they so far in the freaking Dark Ages that they planned to just hit them over the head? Tony tried to stuff his ire into its own little box and sit on it - it really wouldn't help things now, especially when he knew everyone remotely involved with the project was long since dead anyway.
The pressure on his hand increased suddenly as Steve gasped again. "Tony--" Out of the corner of his eye Tony saw them pulling at a particularly wicked-looking piece of metal, long and jagged, and quickly started talking again.
Job: Distraction. Keep your mind on it, Stark. "Hey, still here. No wait, still figment of your imagination. Anyway, doesn't matter. You can do this, right? Isn't that what you're always saying?"
"I can - ah - I can do this," Steve repeated, drawing rough breaths. "I can do this."
"That's it." Tony glanced at the readouts again, then grimaced. It wasn't so much the suit he was worried about - the glove was still well within tolerances - but Steve's skin, and it looked like he was right; the sharper edges of the metal plates around his fingers were drawing blood. Damn. He suspected Steve was too preoccupied with all the other pain to notice, but he quickly looked at Thor and jerked his head in a silent Get over here gesture anyway.
Thor obeyed with alacrity and glanced a silent question at Tony as Steve squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and Tony muttered to him, "Gonna need to switch out here, you up for a turn?"
Thor looked down at the blood and nodded, jaw set. Tony turned back to Steve, determinedly smiling.
"Hey Cap, gotta hit the little boys' room," Tony lied. "Thor's here, though. Can I have this hand back for a bit?"
The doctors actually paused in their work long enough to make the switch, and as Tony vacated the chair he tossed them a little salute by way of thanks. He found himself a position against the wall, out of the way, then grimaced as Thor seemed wordless in the face of Steve's pain when the doctors went back to it. Come on, Distraction, do your job--
Thor paused for a moment longer, then as Steve seemed to be ever more desperately stifling cries, rigidly trembling, he seemed to come to a decision and leaned down to murmur quietly into his teammate's ear. Curious, Tony touched the pickup on his closer ear to listen--
"Thou dost not know of this, I am sure, but in Asgard this is the tongue for the best of brothers-in-arms, the comrades from cradle to grave. Those who'rt the most honorable and cherished of friends. I am Odinson; once, forsooth, I was but a fool and would have looked without favor upon those of Midgard claiming such ties, but thy bravery and nobility have taught me the finest of lessons; I will ne'er allow them to fade from my memory. Hold fast, my Captain, warrior and friend. Thy strength will see thee through this ordeal, and my hand is thine in battle--"
It should have sounded ridiculous, now that Thor was lapsing even more into Renaissance Faire than usual, but instead the words seemed to be filled with such power and an unfamiliar sort of intimacy that Tony found himself switching the sound back down with a surge of embarrassment. These words weren't meant for him, at least not yet. It wasn't a romantic sort of intimate speech, or even anything else he could describe really, but it was there just the same. And he couldn't deny that even if Steve wasn't understanding all of it, he certainly seemed to be even calmer than when Tony had been talking to him, almost as if the words were lulling him into a sort of trance or something. Hell, maybe they were, maybe this was some sort of Asgardian science-indistinguishable-from-magic thing.
Steve's breathing eased; his grip on Thor's hand loosened. Thor continued his inaudible murmuring, and Tony relaxed just a little as the doctors quietly started making what looked like positive gestures to each other, clearly also trying to keep from breaking the spell of Thor's voice on their patient. But from what he could tell, it looked like they were almost done, finally.
I think it's gonna be okay.
***
"So - I gotta ask." Once the spell of the moment had worn off (and Steve was all settled and sleeping in a recovery room, and the doctors had had their way with Tony himself and Thor for that matter, who had looked rather bewildered to have what he considered to be mere scrapes fussed over and slapped with disinfectant, and etc etc), Tony's natural instincts to poke anthills were kicking back in. "All that thee and thou stuff - is that the Asgard equivalent of the social level tu vs. vous thing in French, or is there something more going on there?"
Thor gave him what was (for the Asgardian) a relatively mild glare; apparently he wasn't too surprised that Tony had listened in, but then everybody seemed to have pretty much decided by now that Tony didn't exactly tend to respect anybody's boundaries but his own. He gave a sigh, apparently resigned to a language lesson, and explained. "We of Asgard do not speak your languages, among ourselves," he said, "but this served the moment. In the England of your ancestors, 'you' was reserved for your betters, not your equals; 'thou' was for those of your station, but did not always contain respect. We of Asgard have a third form, but as your old English 'thou' was closest, it was that which I chose. This third form is for those who are well and truly the closest of friends, comrades, kin, perhaps lovers. It is a very... private thing, often." Now Thor shifted uncomfortably. "I should like to ask--"
"No no, I'm done! Curiosity satisfied. On that point, anyway. No promises about any others. But I won't say anything about the Ye Olde Speak to the rest of the team, though I can't promise Steve won't want an explanation when he wakes up."
"It is well." Thor nodded, satisfied. "If I had not meant for him to hear, I would not have said it."
"So, um... don't suppose any of the rest of us are anything close to falling into that range, right? I mean, definitely not me. Not like I care! Just so we're clear. But what, fifty miles or a thousand?"
Thor had gotten up, and was regarding him with an odd smile. Tony blinked at him, and then found Thor right next to him and really kind of in his personal space. "If you wished to know," Thor said, smirked, and switched. "Thou hadst merely to ask." His huge hand closed gently on the back of Tony's head, amused and intense gaze regarding him from mere inches away before he bumped their foreheads together gently, like some bizarre combination of comradely support and - and Tony really didn't know what the hell to call it, except that it wasn't any kind of flirting he could recognize. But it was weird. And it made a swell of that same embarrassment rise up along with - what was it? Pride? Something - something gratified, bewildered, amazed. A thrilled realization of This man - this demigod - considers me worth more than just his respect.
"Art thou satisfied now, oh curious one?" Thor chuckled, voice still low, and released his grip. Tony blinked again and the universe seemed to speed back up to full, leaving Tony feeling like he'd just made a landing after a wild flight and his senses hadn't quite gotten the memo yet that everything was actually still again.
"Uh," he said, intelligently. "Yeah, I - whoa. How do you - how did you do that?" Then his brain caught up enough to go into full-blown deflection mode, because he didn't really want to admit what had just happened inside his head even to himself until he'd had a good while to poke at it gingerly. With a robot arm, from a safe distance. Maybe with a few drinks in him beforehand. He'd figure out the mechanics of how that was supposed to actually work later. "Uh, I should probably mention, I'm kind of taken. You did know that, right? I sure hope that wasn't part of some weird extradimensional courting ritual, because I'd have way too much explaining to do--"
Thor was evidently willing to take the hint, and grinned as he gave Tony the more familiar clap to the shoulder. "Your fine lady did call while we were aiding the Captain. She suggested food. Apparently the fare of this - hospital - is not considered fit for warriors. Shall we find something that will suffice?"
Suddenly, Tony was absolutely dying for a pepperoni pizza. "Oh, hell yes. Let's grab Brucey and go. And then we'll sneak some pizza in to Cap. The doctors will hate us but what's one more rule broken today? Besides, the man who helped save the city deserves more than some Jello."
"What is this Jello?"
For once, Tony found himself faced with a simple concept that was amazingly hard to explain. "Uh, it's... How do you not have Jello in Asgard? Look, it's not like it's bad or anything but it's not... uh, warrior's fare, exactly... though I'm not sure pizza should count either."
"But pizza is delicious," Thor protested. "And it is hearty, as befits a warrior. I see no problem."
"No, I suppose you wouldn't - Bruce," he snagged the other man's arm as he conveniently opened the door from the waiting room he'd been hiding in, and pulled him unceremoniously along with them down the hallway. "You explain Jello. You're the biology guy."
"I'm not the - Jello? What are you doing to Thor's brain now? First cartoons, now Jello?"
"Nothing! I'm not doing anything. Totally innocent, here. We're just getting pizza. Come on. And while we're going, explain Jello."
"He says it is not warrior's fare," Thor supplied helpfully.
"Um," Bruce seemed baffled too, and the how-do-I-get-involved-in-these-things expression made Tony grin freely, ducking a perhaps quarter-hearted swat from Bruce. "Well, it's... sort of jelly-like. Do you have jelly? Or jam?"
"Ah! Jam, yes. I have had that."
"Well, it's kind of like that, except with less fruit," Tony supplied. "All artificial flavors and other junk. And it wobbles when you touch it."
Thor looked very displeased with the description. "If they intend to feed our Captain such a mockery of food, indeed we must act," he proclaimed.
"Tony," Bruce groaned. "This will make what, three hospitals they'd rather not have us in?"
"Hey, only two, and at least one of those was completely not my fault, for the record." Tony grinned again and pushed through the last door into the sunlight, wincing briefly at the brightness before he found his sunglasses in a pocket. Well, since he shouldn't sleep for a while anyway with a head injury, why not spend some time driving his friends crazy?
But as he glanced back and saw Thor laughing at something Bruce had said - and Bruce was smiling, too, really smiling - Tony couldn't even mind that their fun was undoubtedly at that moment at his expense. "C'mon guys, Michaelangelo's is two blocks over. Pizza's on me, if you hurry it up - I'm starving."
"Oh no, I'm not paying Thor's tab." Bruce picked up the pace, with good reason considering the demigod's prodigious appetite.
"We won the day, my friends," Thor reminded them. "Let us not quarrel, but celebrate."
Friends. Plural. He was still getting used to that.
Tony smiled, and slowed enough to make sure Bruce caught up.
***
Author's Note on the language thing: So I seem to recall that comic-Thor speaks all in (incorrect, no doubt) "thee"s and "thou"s all over the place, and movie-Thor does not. (Though I don't actually own Thor to be able to double-check this.) As such, the "intimate" level of speech is really kind of my own invention, but given how... well, passionately the Asgardians seem to like to do things, it made sense in my head that they'd have a level of linguistic formality reserved mostly for quieter moments. Also, it's not exactly like Shakespearean English in there for a few reasons, the main one being that while I'm pretty sure I remember the correct usage of thee/thou/thy/thine, it's been an age since my RenFaire "training" and I'm a lot fuzzier on the rest of it.
So, TL;DR version: All mistakes are mine, and stuff.
(EDITED INTRO) I had this friendslocked before because I thought it was terrible, but apparently that was the sleep-deprivation talking or something so here it is all public now. Warnings: No plot to speak of, almost entirely gratuitous h/c and friendship-fluff in case that's not your thing, and Tony being a potty-mouth.
Aftermath
an Avengers movieverse fic
by Hoshikage
***
"Agh," Tony groaned, briefly too occupied with the fireworks of pain going off behind his tightly-squeezed lids to make an attempt to move. When he did eventually get around to that and realized that an incredible weight was pinning his limbs, the next step was to get his eyes open - and that was no good either, because instead of even faint fritzing light lines of the HUD all he saw was black.
Shit. His sudden inability to move made perfect sense now - the suit was fried, and without power this version was simply too heavy for him to move in unaided. "Jarvis?" Tony tried hoarsely, but he wasn't really surprised when nothing happened. Ooookay, this is a problem. Tony squirmed against the weight of the armor that clung to his limbs like far more useless lead than the alloys with ridiculously long names that he'd actually come up with, but to no avail. He breathed as best he could with the weight of the armor pressing down on his chest, and listened.
Muffled, though the helmet, he could hear noises, but they sounded more like distant crashing and banging than voices, so that still didn't seem like very good news. He still couldn't quite believe that those crazy Wreckers or Crashers or whatever they'd called themselves had managed to get things to the point where nothing short of an unusually powerful EMP-plus-ludicrous-force (and he was so totally trademarking that) bomb had seemed like the only idea left to throw at them, but Tony was depressingly certain of the reason why he was lying here in a useless heap right now - even with his jets on full, clearly he hadn't managed to get out of the blast radius.
Mmmkay, and that means no comm either. Guess I get to lie here and hope no buildings fall on me. What fun!
Actually to be honest it really sounded like one of the least fun things ever, because Tony Stark did not deal well with inactivity, especially unproductive inactivity... but really, he'd always known that there was only so much electromagnetic shielding he could put on this thing. So it wasn't like he hadn't had any idea this might come, someday. And on the bright side, he didn't feel shrapnel in his heart, so that probably meant his chest-reactor was still working - actually, the suit most likely technically had power, because the arc reactor wouldn't really have been affected by the EMP. It just didn't have a way to actually do anything with any of that power from the reactor at the moment.
Left with nothing else to do, Tony started humming Metallica to himself while he sent his mind into Design Mode. See, what he really needed was a way to switch suits from a lightweight version built more for speed to a heavy-duty one on the fly - maybe literally - and ideally without leaving himself vulnerable during the transfer. Maybe he could rig up a force field. Firstly, force fields were cool, anybody who'd seen any sci-fi knew that - and secondly, as everyone also knew, force fields never failed. Well, except when the plot required them to. Or at the worst possible time. Maybe he should rethink the force field idea.
The lyrics of the Metallica song that he was singing mostly under his breath were turning into something suspiciously close to "Somebody get me a can opener, I'm gonna go insane..." Not that he'd ever admit it, later. The one good thing about not having a working comm, nobody could prove anything.
Oh boy, the crashing was suddenly getting a lot louder. Tony was really hoping that this was a good sign, and didn't mean that the Bad Guys (what were their names anyway? Did it really even matter except to weirdos who fixated on villains for some reason?) were still around and just even more pissed off now. "Hello?" he tried, despite feeling that it was more than a little useless. "Any rescue workers earning their pay today by any chance?"
The crashing came nearer. Tony felt his heart speeding up, his eyes flickering uselessly toward the source of the sound as his muscles strained to move the immobile metal of the suit. "Come on guys, gimme a sign here, Good or Evil? Or maybe just Chaotic Neutral? I could go for that, in a pinch." Note to self, make emergency release more sensible, I am never ever getting into this situation again--
Something nudged his shoulder, hard.
Tony would make it very clear later, to anyone who would listen, that he absolutely did not scream like a girl at that moment. Not even a little bit.
Luckily, it became clear very quickly that his audience wasn't likely to care. "To..ny." It was a very loud rumbling he knew very well.
"Hulk! You galloping brute, warn a guy next time!" Tony yelled, then had to stop and pant when the yell had taken all the breath in his constricted lungs. Hulk, of course, just rumbled unintelligibly in response, and Tony sighed. "All right, this is turning into way too much of a habit, but... can you give me a lift, big guy?"
He couldn't help flinching when the Hulk's ungentle hands lifted him up, new pain throbbing through his skull and reminding him to add "probable concussion" to his current list of woes. "Ow - ow! Fragile human in the tin can here!"
Hulk didn't really sound contrite at all when he growled in response, but eventually he'd settled Tony into what had to be the crook of his arm before setting off bounding to... well, wherever. Tony's dangling arm felt like it was about to be dragged out of its socket from the sheer weight of the armor, but he set his teeth and ignored it as much as he could. He kind of wished he'd been found by Thor - aside from the rough handling, the bigger problem with the Hulk Chauffeur Service was that it was pretty much impossible to ask him what had happened to everyone else. Of course, they weren't encased in (somewhat) electromagnetic-vulnerable armor, so they should theoretically be fine... but on the other hand, they'd probably been a lot closer to the source of the explosion, too.
"Tony Stark!" Thor's voice boomed suddenly as they landed with a bone-jarring thump, and Tony stifled a yelp as the impact sent new waves of pain through his head and shoulder. Oooh, he almost saw colors in those waves. No wait, bad sign, everything was still black inside the helmet, right.
"My friend, are you all right?"
Ah. But Thor had hands, nice small hands! Well, relatively. At any rate, they wouldn't crush him while hitting the emergency release switches. At last, a plan with a chance of success. Assuming he could explain what he needed to a guy whose idea of 'hitting a switch' still usually meant leaving it in non-operable condition afterwards.
"Oh, peachy!" Tony almost sang.
Thor was definitely puzzled. "What do peaches--"
"Never mind, that's the knock on the head talking. Don't listen to it. Bad idea."
He could hear the profound dubiousness in Thor's silence.
"Anyway! Suit's fried. The bomb took out everything. I need you to get the exterior emergency release switches - otherwise I can't get out of this thing and I'm getting really sick of not being able to move, here--" Tony abruptly clenched his teeth and forced himself to stop talking. He hated showing weakness at the best of times, and it most definitely wasn't something he wanted to let onto around his two super-strongest teammates. They wouldn't be too weak to move their own damned armor.
Then again, they wouldn't exactly need it in the first place. But anyway. Tangent.
Thor's hand landed on his shoulder in a companionable slap, much more gently than Hulk's had. "Just tell me what I must do, my friend."
***
For some unknowable reason, the release switches of the armor were hidden under plates to either side of Tony's neck. But when Thor asked what he thought was the obvious question of why they were so awkwardly placed, Tony in a most irritated fashion grumbled something about not wanting to put them anywhere that an enemy could just stumble upon them most easily - something about big red buttons and the obvious targets they made - which Thor had to admit did make some sense.
"Hit 'em both at once," Tony wheezed, his voice sounding taut and breathless. "Wait, not hit. Press. Don't need any hitting." Indeed he did not, with the armor's golden surfaces marred by dents and scorches everywhere. Thor had already mastered that particular phrase, but he did not argue the assumption. Tony's pained voice and his disturbing limpness in the Hulk's surprisingly careful grasp, like a small broken doll, were enough even before Thor realized that to do as Tony asked, he would have to close his hands around his friend's throat.
He did not want to test this armor's strength in that way. Nor any other, in truth. But now he had no choice but to do as he was bid, and rest his hands as lightly as he could upon the offered neck. As his fingers squeezed under the plates, he felt what he thought were the armor catches that Tony needed and pushed--
The armor seemed to shatter under his hands, falling apart into a rain of plates and pieces like a rain of mail frozen and splintered with a blow. Freed, Tony jerked and gasped, eyes wide as he blinked rapidly in the light. Thor grabbed his shoulders to guide him down as he flailed his way out of the Hulk's hands, helping him to balance on the uneven ground and frowning at the bloody, bruised side of his head. "My friend, you are hurt. You should--"
Tony was not listening to him. "What the hell," he breathed, taking in the wreckage around them. "Did we - did we atomize the place? What the hell - please tell me we got them. This had better have been worth it--"
"Aye, that we did," Thor said grimly, and Tony finally looked up at him, his eyes darting to Thor's own bleeding wounds. None worth notice, though he could well see that Tony might have been impressed by their mere presence. But Asgardian or not, he was not truly invincible. "But at a cost."
Tony's gaze sharpened. "What cost. How bad is it." They were not questions, they were demands. Once in his rash youth Thor would have bristled at the sound of an order, but now he had learned more wisdom than to take offense.
"We three are all that stand." Seeing Tony's face go white, Thor hastened to explain. Though he oft wished to pretend otherwise, Tony's care for his friends was no less than Thor's own. "The others live, but their wounds are grievous. Now that we have found each other, we should go to them."
"Yeah." Tony rubbed at his face briefly, then looked in surprise at his hand when it came away bloody. "Yeah, um, good idea." He looked up at the Hulk, who was still looking around the ruins with an expression most close to suspicion of their surroundings. "Come on, big guy, it's over. You won't fit in the hospital like that, and we don't wanna miss visiting hours."
Hulk looked down at them, frowning, and Tony patted his arm fearlessly. "No more smash. All done."
Hulk glanced at Thor, who nodded. "Truly, the fight is over, my friend. Come with us now, our other friends have need of us."
The Hulk seemed to take a deep, sighing breath, and then began to shrink. Tony averted his eyes, and Thor reached up to remove his cape. These Midgardians seemed to be very foolish about their modesty at times, but he would respect Bruce's wishes on the matter. And since the entire arena they had been fighting in - a "Stadium," the others had called it - lay in smoldering ruins about them and surely had nothing in the way of garments to be found, this would have to do. Thor suspected this would not be the last time for him either, given that none of his comrades-in-arms seemed to prefer capes on their suits.
But if his cape was to be sacrificed, that was a small loss. Especially in the face of what losses they all might still have to face, today.
Thor wished most devoutly that the losses he feared would not truly come to pass.
***
Bruce reappeared with clothes (for him) and information (for all of them) before Tony had time to do much pacing, especially since he was starting to discover how many bruises he had forming. He kept pacing anyway as Bruce talked. Good for the muscles or something, right? Keep from stiffening up. Or so he'd heard somewhere. It had nothing to do with what he was hearing, really.
"Natasha's in the best shape - she got hit with a chunk of concrete that still had rebar in it. Two ribs cracked, but the bigger problem was that the rebar went pretty deep into the bicep. She's out of surgery now though and they said it missed the bone and ligaments, and they've made sure there's no fragments left. It was a pretty clean wound all things considered. She'll probably be back on her feet tomorrow, though getting out of the sling will take a while."
Tony glanced at him, then turned around and paced in the other direction again. "Clint?"
He'd gone down even before the bomb went off. Tony really hoped he'd been out of its range--
Bruce grimaced. "Shrapnel, they said. From the bomb. Most of it wasn't bad, but one piece hit a major artery and he almost bled out. Cap shielded him from the worst of it and kept the bleeding under control until the EMTs could get to him."
Tony breathed a sigh of relief. That sounded like Cap wasn't too badly off, then. Hopefully their Hawkeye was the worst case. "So, blood transfusion. S'all good, right?"
"More or less. He's expected to make a full recovery, eventually." But now Bruce hesitated.
Thor stood up. "What is wrong?"
"Cap was - well, being Cap. It's what he does, right?" The feeble attempt at levity didn't last long as Bruce went on, "He got hit by most of that shrapnel he was protecting Clint from. His shield only covers so much. And I don't know if you've heard this part before, but that serum means that drugs don't work on him so well--"
Tony stalked toward the door. "I'm going in there."
"You can't just walk into an operating theater, Tony!" Bruce grabbed at his arm. "You know they won't let you--"
"Do I look like I care?" Tony rounded on him with a snarl, and decided to blame the swirl of his vision that accompanied the too-rapid movement when more words spilled out, again, than he'd been planning on. "Look, if there's anyone who has an idea of what it's like to get shrapnel pulled out of you with completely inadequate anaesthesia, it's me, and--" He broke off. "Stay here if you want, but I'm going."
"I think I'd better," Bruce said in a low voice. "I don't... know how well the other guy would react to watching that."
Tony winced and rubbed his aching head. "Yeah." He sighed. "Yeah. Listen, then can you do me a favor and get Pepper on the line, tell her to hit the remote switch for the MarkV armor?"
"What are you going to need that for in here?"
"Not all of it," Tony said, waggling his fingers. "Just want to be able to offer a hand and not get it crushed."
***
Well, that had gone just about how Tony had expected it to. First came the protests and attempts to force him out - which really didn't work so well once he had his armor and Thor glowering as his backup - and then, once the doctors realized that his teammates' presence actually did seem to be helping Steve stay calmer, came the extremely reluctant permission to stay. Formality though that was, Tony thanked them in his most gracious tones anyway (though how gracious that actually was was something of a matter of contention between him and Pepper) and sat next to Steve to offer that supporting hand he'd planned on. Steve grabbed it in a grip that would, in fact, have been sufficient to break some bones without the glove. Tony amused one corner of his mind scrutinizing the external pressure sensor readout to monitor the grip strength and make sure he wasn't in danger of losing more suit parts today - he had intended it more for impacts, after all, not necessarily sustained pressure - since it was a welcome distraction from his leader's pale, sweat-damp face.
"All right Steve, have we learned our lesson about gettting in the way of sharp pointy objects?" he said with forced cheer.
Steve gasped at a tug on one of the shrapnel fragments, but managed to play along anyway. "You really do sound like one of my teachers from school." His eyes blinked rapidly at Tony's unsuited face as though he was having a hard time keeping it in focus. "Why're you here?"
"Thought you might need a hand." Tony wiggled his armored fingers in Steve's tight grip. "S'what teammates are for, I guess. Is it? I'm kind of new at this. But if you tell anybody I was here, I'll deny it."
Steve laughed weakly. "You're not so stealthy in that armor, you know. Hard to hide."
"Figment of your imagination. How did you manage to sneak in anywhere in that gaudy suit, anyway? I saw photos of the original, you know."
Even with the faceplate of the suit off, the audio pickups were still good enough to filter Thor's whispering with one of the nurses to his ears, distracting him from Steve's reply--
"Can you do nothing to ease his pain?"
"We've tried. His body just burns everything off too fast. We're already dosing him as high as we dare without risking organ damage, but it doesn't do much more than take the edge off--"
Tony tuned it out. Whose goddamned stupid idea was it to create a super-soldier basically immune to any and all drugs? Didn't they think any of them might need patching up at some point? Or were they so far in the freaking Dark Ages that they planned to just hit them over the head? Tony tried to stuff his ire into its own little box and sit on it - it really wouldn't help things now, especially when he knew everyone remotely involved with the project was long since dead anyway.
The pressure on his hand increased suddenly as Steve gasped again. "Tony--" Out of the corner of his eye Tony saw them pulling at a particularly wicked-looking piece of metal, long and jagged, and quickly started talking again.
Job: Distraction. Keep your mind on it, Stark. "Hey, still here. No wait, still figment of your imagination. Anyway, doesn't matter. You can do this, right? Isn't that what you're always saying?"
"I can - ah - I can do this," Steve repeated, drawing rough breaths. "I can do this."
"That's it." Tony glanced at the readouts again, then grimaced. It wasn't so much the suit he was worried about - the glove was still well within tolerances - but Steve's skin, and it looked like he was right; the sharper edges of the metal plates around his fingers were drawing blood. Damn. He suspected Steve was too preoccupied with all the other pain to notice, but he quickly looked at Thor and jerked his head in a silent Get over here gesture anyway.
Thor obeyed with alacrity and glanced a silent question at Tony as Steve squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and Tony muttered to him, "Gonna need to switch out here, you up for a turn?"
Thor looked down at the blood and nodded, jaw set. Tony turned back to Steve, determinedly smiling.
"Hey Cap, gotta hit the little boys' room," Tony lied. "Thor's here, though. Can I have this hand back for a bit?"
The doctors actually paused in their work long enough to make the switch, and as Tony vacated the chair he tossed them a little salute by way of thanks. He found himself a position against the wall, out of the way, then grimaced as Thor seemed wordless in the face of Steve's pain when the doctors went back to it. Come on, Distraction, do your job--
Thor paused for a moment longer, then as Steve seemed to be ever more desperately stifling cries, rigidly trembling, he seemed to come to a decision and leaned down to murmur quietly into his teammate's ear. Curious, Tony touched the pickup on his closer ear to listen--
"Thou dost not know of this, I am sure, but in Asgard this is the tongue for the best of brothers-in-arms, the comrades from cradle to grave. Those who'rt the most honorable and cherished of friends. I am Odinson; once, forsooth, I was but a fool and would have looked without favor upon those of Midgard claiming such ties, but thy bravery and nobility have taught me the finest of lessons; I will ne'er allow them to fade from my memory. Hold fast, my Captain, warrior and friend. Thy strength will see thee through this ordeal, and my hand is thine in battle--"
It should have sounded ridiculous, now that Thor was lapsing even more into Renaissance Faire than usual, but instead the words seemed to be filled with such power and an unfamiliar sort of intimacy that Tony found himself switching the sound back down with a surge of embarrassment. These words weren't meant for him, at least not yet. It wasn't a romantic sort of intimate speech, or even anything else he could describe really, but it was there just the same. And he couldn't deny that even if Steve wasn't understanding all of it, he certainly seemed to be even calmer than when Tony had been talking to him, almost as if the words were lulling him into a sort of trance or something. Hell, maybe they were, maybe this was some sort of Asgardian science-indistinguishable-from-magic thing.
Steve's breathing eased; his grip on Thor's hand loosened. Thor continued his inaudible murmuring, and Tony relaxed just a little as the doctors quietly started making what looked like positive gestures to each other, clearly also trying to keep from breaking the spell of Thor's voice on their patient. But from what he could tell, it looked like they were almost done, finally.
I think it's gonna be okay.
***
"So - I gotta ask." Once the spell of the moment had worn off (and Steve was all settled and sleeping in a recovery room, and the doctors had had their way with Tony himself and Thor for that matter, who had looked rather bewildered to have what he considered to be mere scrapes fussed over and slapped with disinfectant, and etc etc), Tony's natural instincts to poke anthills were kicking back in. "All that thee and thou stuff - is that the Asgard equivalent of the social level tu vs. vous thing in French, or is there something more going on there?"
Thor gave him what was (for the Asgardian) a relatively mild glare; apparently he wasn't too surprised that Tony had listened in, but then everybody seemed to have pretty much decided by now that Tony didn't exactly tend to respect anybody's boundaries but his own. He gave a sigh, apparently resigned to a language lesson, and explained. "We of Asgard do not speak your languages, among ourselves," he said, "but this served the moment. In the England of your ancestors, 'you' was reserved for your betters, not your equals; 'thou' was for those of your station, but did not always contain respect. We of Asgard have a third form, but as your old English 'thou' was closest, it was that which I chose. This third form is for those who are well and truly the closest of friends, comrades, kin, perhaps lovers. It is a very... private thing, often." Now Thor shifted uncomfortably. "I should like to ask--"
"No no, I'm done! Curiosity satisfied. On that point, anyway. No promises about any others. But I won't say anything about the Ye Olde Speak to the rest of the team, though I can't promise Steve won't want an explanation when he wakes up."
"It is well." Thor nodded, satisfied. "If I had not meant for him to hear, I would not have said it."
"So, um... don't suppose any of the rest of us are anything close to falling into that range, right? I mean, definitely not me. Not like I care! Just so we're clear. But what, fifty miles or a thousand?"
Thor had gotten up, and was regarding him with an odd smile. Tony blinked at him, and then found Thor right next to him and really kind of in his personal space. "If you wished to know," Thor said, smirked, and switched. "Thou hadst merely to ask." His huge hand closed gently on the back of Tony's head, amused and intense gaze regarding him from mere inches away before he bumped their foreheads together gently, like some bizarre combination of comradely support and - and Tony really didn't know what the hell to call it, except that it wasn't any kind of flirting he could recognize. But it was weird. And it made a swell of that same embarrassment rise up along with - what was it? Pride? Something - something gratified, bewildered, amazed. A thrilled realization of This man - this demigod - considers me worth more than just his respect.
"Art thou satisfied now, oh curious one?" Thor chuckled, voice still low, and released his grip. Tony blinked again and the universe seemed to speed back up to full, leaving Tony feeling like he'd just made a landing after a wild flight and his senses hadn't quite gotten the memo yet that everything was actually still again.
"Uh," he said, intelligently. "Yeah, I - whoa. How do you - how did you do that?" Then his brain caught up enough to go into full-blown deflection mode, because he didn't really want to admit what had just happened inside his head even to himself until he'd had a good while to poke at it gingerly. With a robot arm, from a safe distance. Maybe with a few drinks in him beforehand. He'd figure out the mechanics of how that was supposed to actually work later. "Uh, I should probably mention, I'm kind of taken. You did know that, right? I sure hope that wasn't part of some weird extradimensional courting ritual, because I'd have way too much explaining to do--"
Thor was evidently willing to take the hint, and grinned as he gave Tony the more familiar clap to the shoulder. "Your fine lady did call while we were aiding the Captain. She suggested food. Apparently the fare of this - hospital - is not considered fit for warriors. Shall we find something that will suffice?"
Suddenly, Tony was absolutely dying for a pepperoni pizza. "Oh, hell yes. Let's grab Brucey and go. And then we'll sneak some pizza in to Cap. The doctors will hate us but what's one more rule broken today? Besides, the man who helped save the city deserves more than some Jello."
"What is this Jello?"
For once, Tony found himself faced with a simple concept that was amazingly hard to explain. "Uh, it's... How do you not have Jello in Asgard? Look, it's not like it's bad or anything but it's not... uh, warrior's fare, exactly... though I'm not sure pizza should count either."
"But pizza is delicious," Thor protested. "And it is hearty, as befits a warrior. I see no problem."
"No, I suppose you wouldn't - Bruce," he snagged the other man's arm as he conveniently opened the door from the waiting room he'd been hiding in, and pulled him unceremoniously along with them down the hallway. "You explain Jello. You're the biology guy."
"I'm not the - Jello? What are you doing to Thor's brain now? First cartoons, now Jello?"
"Nothing! I'm not doing anything. Totally innocent, here. We're just getting pizza. Come on. And while we're going, explain Jello."
"He says it is not warrior's fare," Thor supplied helpfully.
"Um," Bruce seemed baffled too, and the how-do-I-get-involved-in-these-things expression made Tony grin freely, ducking a perhaps quarter-hearted swat from Bruce. "Well, it's... sort of jelly-like. Do you have jelly? Or jam?"
"Ah! Jam, yes. I have had that."
"Well, it's kind of like that, except with less fruit," Tony supplied. "All artificial flavors and other junk. And it wobbles when you touch it."
Thor looked very displeased with the description. "If they intend to feed our Captain such a mockery of food, indeed we must act," he proclaimed.
"Tony," Bruce groaned. "This will make what, three hospitals they'd rather not have us in?"
"Hey, only two, and at least one of those was completely not my fault, for the record." Tony grinned again and pushed through the last door into the sunlight, wincing briefly at the brightness before he found his sunglasses in a pocket. Well, since he shouldn't sleep for a while anyway with a head injury, why not spend some time driving his friends crazy?
But as he glanced back and saw Thor laughing at something Bruce had said - and Bruce was smiling, too, really smiling - Tony couldn't even mind that their fun was undoubtedly at that moment at his expense. "C'mon guys, Michaelangelo's is two blocks over. Pizza's on me, if you hurry it up - I'm starving."
"Oh no, I'm not paying Thor's tab." Bruce picked up the pace, with good reason considering the demigod's prodigious appetite.
"We won the day, my friends," Thor reminded them. "Let us not quarrel, but celebrate."
Friends. Plural. He was still getting used to that.
Tony smiled, and slowed enough to make sure Bruce caught up.
***
Author's Note on the language thing: So I seem to recall that comic-Thor speaks all in (incorrect, no doubt) "thee"s and "thou"s all over the place, and movie-Thor does not. (Though I don't actually own Thor to be able to double-check this.) As such, the "intimate" level of speech is really kind of my own invention, but given how... well, passionately the Asgardians seem to like to do things, it made sense in my head that they'd have a level of linguistic formality reserved mostly for quieter moments. Also, it's not exactly like Shakespearean English in there for a few reasons, the main one being that while I'm pretty sure I remember the correct usage of thee/thou/thy/thine, it's been an age since my RenFaire "training" and I'm a lot fuzzier on the rest of it.
So, TL;DR version: All mistakes are mine, and stuff.