Fic: A New Divide. Thor/Steve, Tony+Steve
Title: A New Divide (2/?)
Author: winteraconite
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Injured!Steve, Thor/Steve, Tony+Steve "With everyone showing concern in their own way because who DOESN'T love, Steve? I say Tony+Steve because Tony obviously likes Steve, but its Thor who ultimately wins."
A/N: Movie-verse. Takes place after they capture Loki in Stark Towers. Haven't written in ages (like...2 years?) and this is my first time writing in the Marvel Universe so bear with me.
Spoilers: Mention of character death.
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or the Avengers or any of its sexy characters. I just borrow them and make them do my nasty bidding. They like it. A lot. >:)
Part One
The sound of gunfire echoed through his head, and Steve felt his temples start to pound as he ran through the forests of Germany. Fire was everywhere and smoke got into his nose and mouth, making it hard to breath-much less speak. And he had to speak because someone was calling him, had been calling him for some time, but he didn’t know who it was and he couldn’t respond.
“Captain?”
The forest was gone and he was freezing cold. There was bright light and people-lots of people-around him. He tried to move but found that his body was as heavy as lead and wouldn’t cooperate. Where was he? What was going on? Someone was still calling him.
“Captain Rogers...”
Darkness closed in from all sides of his vision. He was floating, in and out of himself, suspended; everything passed in slow motion. Vivid images started to flash before his closed eyelids, silent at first then suddenly accompanied by sound. Bucky...Peggy... Schmidt...the war... the Avengers...Loki...another war... Touch and voice returned and he felt the coldness of metal beneath him, heard his name being called out, felt ice, glass, and metal crush him before he could give Peggy a proper good-bye. Fire erupted throughout his body and he felt the energy of the Tesseract burn through him the way it incinerated Schmidt. He woke up with a scream.
His eyes snapped open and he heard shouting, voices yelling at one another in the darkness. His head was splitting and his mind whirled to make sense of it all even as pain engulfed him, making him cry out. He arched his back from the agony and felt the restrains around his wrists and ankles start to break.
“-he’s awake, hold him-”
“-he’s fighting-”
“Captain Rogers!”
Shadows moved all around him, creeping into his vision; hovering one moment, flitting away the next. Hands tried to hold him down. The voices grew stronger, filling the darkness with echoes of madness. He felt pain once more and heard himself scream.
“CAPTAIN!”
Someone’s face swam into view and Steve’s eyes locked on it, desperately seeking the owner of that familiar voice.
Thor! His mind cried, cried out for his friend. A scream welled up inside him but came out as a shaky whisper of the Norse god’s name on his lips, lost in the turmoil. He saw Thor reach down then felt a hand on his shoulder-stronger than all the others-firm yet instantly comforting, reassuring him and at the same time holding him down. The Asgardian leaned in close to Steve, his voice a whisper that somehow managed to rise above the chaos.
“Be calm, my friend,” Thor ordered. “Breathe. I have you.”
Steve tried to do as he was told, but the pain was too great and he strained against the Asgardian. “Can you do nothing to ease the pain?” He heard Thor shout and then the darkness suddenly gave way to bright light and the pain ebbed until he felt like he was floating again. Thor’s face continued to hover over him, drawn tight with worry. A callused hand moved from his shoulder to his brow and the chaos dissolved, the pain all but gone. Warmth from an unknown source gently caressed his cheek and he unconsciously sought it out even as he slowly slid back into darkness. Steve felt his eyelids droop then finally slip shut.
*
A tired Nick Fury looked over the gathered Avengers with new found respect and heaviness in his gut. It had taken them hours to get them back to the Helicarrier and congratulations and profuse thanks to these extraordinary people should have been in order. But it was clear that while it was as fresh as the blood still drying on their skin, their hard-earned victory was the last thing on their minds.
“We don’t know what’s wrong with him,” he admitted. There was no point sugar-coating it. Trying to would only leave a bad taste in his mouth.
“And you won’t let us see him?” Tony asked incredulously, but Fury chose to ignore him.
“Is he still in pain?” Natasha asked and Fury shook his head no.
“We’ve given him something for that. Took one hell of a dose, but it looks like it’s working. We’ve made him as comfortable as we can and I’ve got the best of my medical staff working on him as we speak.” Tony opened his mouth to say something, but Fury pointedly ignored him a second time and went on. “We’re doing our best, but we don’t have a lot to work with. You were all in the same battle field as he was. Does anyone have any idea what could have brought this on?”
The silence was almost sickening.
The S.H.I.E.L.D Director shook his head and sighed. “It’s been a long day. You all look like you could use a break. Stark, you should have been in the medical bay hours ago-”
Tony scoffed.
“And you are all overdue for a debriefing. Look, I can’t thank you enough-the world can’t thank you enough-for all that you’ve done the past couple of weeks, but-”
“Sir!” Agent Hill called sharply from behind him and Fury resisted the urge to roll his eye.
“What now, Agent Hill?” He asked, turning to look at her. Instead his eye met a very determined and angry-looking Norse god.
“He was shot with this,” Thor said, slamming a massive alien contraption on the table hard enough to shake it and make everyone jump.
So that’s where he went off to, Fury thought. The Asgardian must have flown back to New York and done some investigations of his own as soon as the medics had Cap stabilized.
Everyone stood and took a closer look at the weapon while Thor ran a hand through his blond hair agitatedly. “I saw it myself, but thought nothing of it. It was stupid of me! I did not know it would affect him so.”
“That thing doesn’t fire ordinary bullets,” Natasha said gravely.
“What does it fire?” Bruce asked, leaning in for a closer look.
“Stark, this is your department,” Fury said, but Tony was way ahead of him.
“You, me, candyland. Now.” He said, speaking to Bruce as he picked up the alien weapon. Bruce nodded and moved to catch up with Tony who was already on his way to their laboratory.
“Give it all you’ve got, Stark,” Fury called after them, and Tony turned on his heel and regarded the S.H.I.E.L.D Director coolly.
“One hour,” he said. “If we haven’t figured it out by then you can shoot us with this thing.”
Fury nodded, and Tony turned to leave before stopping and looking back again. “And if you don’t let us see Cap by then I will personally tear this piece of junk apart piece by piece from the inside out,” he threatened darkly, referring to the Helicarrier.
“I’ll help,” Bruce added and then the two were out the door.
Fury watched the doors close behind their backs. “I don’t suppose you two have anything to say,” he said to Clint and Natasha, but the two had somehow slipped away during his little exchange with Tony, leaving him alone with Thor who didn’t waste his time in giving him another headache.
“I would see him now,” the god demanded, and Fury somehow knew he wasn’t talking about the other Asgardian god they had on board. He barely opened his mouth before Agent Hill materialized beside him looking for orders, and he nodded tiredly.
“This way,” Maria told Thor and they were both out of the sight before Fury’s backside hit the chair he gratefully let himself fall into. Between the Council who couldn’t care less if they and the entire population of Manhattan were blown to bits, and the Avengers who seemed to be trying to make him want to kill himself when they weren’t at each other’s throats, Nick Fury had half the mind to shoot himself with that alien weapon and join Steve Rogers where he lay unconscious and strapped to a bed deep in the bowels of the Helicarrier.
“Picked a hell of a time to do this, huh, Cap?” He muttered to himself and ran a hand over his shaved head. He really wished Coulson was still alive.
*
When Steve awoke it was to find that the darkness and cold had followed him. He knew he had slept, but not for how long, and knew from the aches and pains in his body that he didn’t have it in him to get up. His mind reeled for a moment and he closed his eyes, trying to clear it. When he opened them it was as if everything had snapped back into place.
He knew at once that he was in the Helicarrier, but this wasn’t the Medical Bay. He didn’t know much about the world anymore, but he was pretty sure no medical equipment looked like the machines that surrounded him right now. The equipment around him filled the room with a soft, droning hum and everywhere he looked there were flashing lights and fluctuating meters. It reminded him of the day he was given the super soldier serum all those years ago.
He was in a science facility.
Steve stirred gingerly-even that small movement made him groan-and felt the softness of sheets and a bed beneath him. Well, at least he wasn’t in a metal coffin. When he tried to get up, he found that his wrists were tied to the bed in thick restraints.
“What...?” Alarmed, he gathered his strength and tried to break free, but found that he could barely lift his arms.
“You are awake.”
The voice came so suddenly, he gasped and started, jostling his body and hissing when pain stabbed through him from the movement. Slowly the sharp pain ebbed into a dull ache and he turned his head to face the speaker, breathing a sigh of relief when he recognized him.
“Thor,” he rasped then coughed once, the dryness in his throat making speech difficult. He cleared his throat and swallowed a few times.
“He needs water,” he heard Thor say and soon enough he felt a large hand cup the back of his head to lift it gently, and felt the touch of cool glass on his lips.
“Drink slowly,” Thor ordered and Steve obeyed. He turned his head when he’d had his fill and gratefully sank back into the pillows. Now that his head was clear, he pushed the pain to the back of his mind as best as he could and tried to orient himself with the situation.
He was in a science facility, restrained to a bed, and behind Thor more people were entering the room. They looked like they were scientists or healthcare workers. He wasn’t very comfortable with the idea of either.
“Are you in pain, Captain Rogers?” One of them, a young woman he didn’t recognize, asked and he said yes without thinking. She nodded and her hand went up to a contraption over his head. He couldn’t see what it was, but he suddenly felt himself start to get light-headed. Realizing what was happening, he started to struggle against his restraints to fight it. “Wait...” he said weakly.
“Stay that hand, woman,” Thor’s voice boomed and the Asgardian moved closer to his side. “Do you wish to stay awake, Captain? Or is the pain too great? You must tell me.”
“Awake...” Steve fought against the fog forming in his mind. “Keep me awake.”
The bed he was on jerked once and he felt the upper half of it being raised until he was sitting up. Light was shone into his eyes, his head was turned this way and that, and the rest of his body manipulated perfunctorily. He was suddenly reminded of all those times he had been subjected to this before he was given the serum. Endless visits to the clinic, being poked and prodded to within an inch of his life. He never wanted to feel that way again, and now the feeling of being frail and fragile and never good enough was growing like a cancer in his mind and the years he spent as a super soldier, once the strongest man in the world, withered into little more than a dream.
“Stop,” he pleaded and tried to evade the hands touching him, but they wouldn’t listen and he couldn’t escape. He couldn’t see or hear Thor anywhere anymore and he squeezed his eyes shut against the burn of the tears that started to form in the corners of his eyes.
Oh, God, what is happening to me?
When he opened his eyes again, everyone was gone-everyone but Thor who was standing beside his bed with a worried look on his face.
“What’s happening to me?” Steve asked. His body still ached sorely, and he was dizzy. He felt so weak.
Thor moved slowly and carefully around him, as if any sudden action would make him sick again. “They do not know,” he said. “Or if they do, they do not say.”
“Great,” Steve groused and slumped back into the pillows. He shifted restlessly on the bed, wanting to get up, but he stopped when he felt his arms snag on the restraints. “And these?” he gestured to the restraints around his wrists. He had forgotten about them.
Thor seemed to hesitate. “When you were brought here, you were...not yourself. You were in immense pain and you did not know us. We did not want you to hurt anyone, including yourself.”
Steve nodded and then thought about what he should do next. He needed to see Fury and make the man tell him what he knew, but Steve was no stranger to the protocol of the injured soldier. No, the S.H.I.E.L.D Director probably wouldn’t come down here anytime soon. He still had to sort out things topside and would have to debrief the others first. He’d know to give Steve enough time to get his head together and...
Steve suddenly straightened up in his head. “The others? Is everybody all right?” He asked, and then gasped. “Stark!”
Tony was the one who had been injured the worst among them. The man had nearly died saving the entire population of Manhattan today. And Bruce! Was he himself again or was he still the Hulk? “Is Tony...where...Bruce...?”
“The Ironman is well,” Thor said immediately to placate him. He gently pushed Steve back on the bed and put a hand on his chest to keep him there. “As is the Hulk. They are investigating the weapon that shot you as we speak. We are all well, Captain. But they are not allowed to enter just as I am now not allowed to leave here.”
Steve visibly relaxed at the news of their comrades, but couldn’t help but raise a brow at Thor’s last statement. “I’m pretty sure they couldn’t actually stop you from leaving if you wanted to.” He chuckled, but Thor’s gaze was too intense to allow him to lighten the mood.
“I do not want to,” Thor said simply and his honesty floored Steve. The hand on his chest moved to clasp his shoulder. “When I am injured after a battle, the face I want to see when I wake is that of a friend, not a stranger.” He moved back and regarded Steve intently. “I would be this friend for you if you allow it.”
Steve met his gaze and swallowed a lump that seemed to have formed in his throat before he gave the Asgardian a bright, genuine smile that no one had seen in decades. “Thank you, Thor,” he said sincerely. “I just...” He seemed to want to say something more, but changed his mind. “Thank you.” He smiled again and his eyes were over-bright.
Thor nodded. “Think nothing of it, my friend. And rest. I will watch over you.”
*
Somewhere on a much higher level in the Helicarrier, in what was left of the laboratory he had worked in before he transformed and destroyed it, Bruce Banner stared at one of the few holoscreens that was still working. He and Tony didn’t make the one hour mark, but damn if they hadn’t tried.
Tony took to the task like raging storm, but Bruce eventually had to send him off to rest in his quarters when the day’s ordeal had finally caught up with the man and he could barely see straight from fatigue and exhaustion. Bruce had no such problems; the Hulk’s insurmountable stamina remained in him even if the super strength and physical transformation did not.
The alien weapon Thor brought back from Manhattan was on the table, hooked up to a spectrometer that relayed the data he needed to his computer so he could analyze it. On other holoscreens were Steve’s file, Dr. Erskine’s notes on the super soldier serum, and every one of S.H.I.E.L.D’s attempts to duplicate it. Now that he didn’t have to tiptoe around a wound-up Tony Stark, his mind was sharper and the pieces of the puzzle that was Steve Rogers’s condition started to fall into place.
It would take the average nuclear physicist a while to make sense of the figures and factor in all the variables, but his mind made quick work of the data, and he didn’t like what he saw.
Not for the first time, he was glad Tony wasn’t here.
“Director Fury,” he said into his communicator and there was an instant response. “Gather everybody within the hour if you can,” he told him and then more quietly added: “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
The other end of the line was so silent Bruce thought he had been disconnected, but when he opened his mouth to check, Fury gave him an affirmative and Bruce nodded to himself, having nothing more to say.
Then he turned back to the holoscreens. He knew it would take a while to get everyone assembled. Fury would call Natasha and Clint first and brief them on whatever possible scenarios he could come up with as well as a plan of action to go with it. Thor would take a lot of convincing to get him to leave Steve’s side, and Bruce knew Fury and Tony well enough to be sure that Fury would call for Tony last. Bruce made a mental note to save the S.H.I.E.L.D Director the headache and wake Tony himself.
All in all that gave Bruce a bit more time to re-check the data, re-run the analysis, and hope the computers gave him a different result. For Steve’s sake, he resolved to spend every second of that time trying to prove himself wrong.
TBC.
Continue reading... Part Three.
Author: winteraconite
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Injured!Steve, Thor/Steve, Tony+Steve "With everyone showing concern in their own way because who DOESN'T love, Steve? I say Tony+Steve because Tony obviously likes Steve, but its Thor who ultimately wins."
A/N: Movie-verse. Takes place after they capture Loki in Stark Towers. Haven't written in ages (like...2 years?) and this is my first time writing in the Marvel Universe so bear with me.
Spoilers: Mention of character death.
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or the Avengers or any of its sexy characters. I just borrow them and make them do my nasty bidding. They like it. A lot. >:)
Part One
The sound of gunfire echoed through his head, and Steve felt his temples start to pound as he ran through the forests of Germany. Fire was everywhere and smoke got into his nose and mouth, making it hard to breath-much less speak. And he had to speak because someone was calling him, had been calling him for some time, but he didn’t know who it was and he couldn’t respond.
“Captain?”
The forest was gone and he was freezing cold. There was bright light and people-lots of people-around him. He tried to move but found that his body was as heavy as lead and wouldn’t cooperate. Where was he? What was going on? Someone was still calling him.
“Captain Rogers...”
Darkness closed in from all sides of his vision. He was floating, in and out of himself, suspended; everything passed in slow motion. Vivid images started to flash before his closed eyelids, silent at first then suddenly accompanied by sound. Bucky...Peggy... Schmidt...the war... the Avengers...Loki...another war... Touch and voice returned and he felt the coldness of metal beneath him, heard his name being called out, felt ice, glass, and metal crush him before he could give Peggy a proper good-bye. Fire erupted throughout his body and he felt the energy of the Tesseract burn through him the way it incinerated Schmidt. He woke up with a scream.
His eyes snapped open and he heard shouting, voices yelling at one another in the darkness. His head was splitting and his mind whirled to make sense of it all even as pain engulfed him, making him cry out. He arched his back from the agony and felt the restrains around his wrists and ankles start to break.
“-he’s awake, hold him-”
“-he’s fighting-”
“Captain Rogers!”
Shadows moved all around him, creeping into his vision; hovering one moment, flitting away the next. Hands tried to hold him down. The voices grew stronger, filling the darkness with echoes of madness. He felt pain once more and heard himself scream.
“CAPTAIN!”
Someone’s face swam into view and Steve’s eyes locked on it, desperately seeking the owner of that familiar voice.
Thor! His mind cried, cried out for his friend. A scream welled up inside him but came out as a shaky whisper of the Norse god’s name on his lips, lost in the turmoil. He saw Thor reach down then felt a hand on his shoulder-stronger than all the others-firm yet instantly comforting, reassuring him and at the same time holding him down. The Asgardian leaned in close to Steve, his voice a whisper that somehow managed to rise above the chaos.
“Be calm, my friend,” Thor ordered. “Breathe. I have you.”
Steve tried to do as he was told, but the pain was too great and he strained against the Asgardian. “Can you do nothing to ease the pain?” He heard Thor shout and then the darkness suddenly gave way to bright light and the pain ebbed until he felt like he was floating again. Thor’s face continued to hover over him, drawn tight with worry. A callused hand moved from his shoulder to his brow and the chaos dissolved, the pain all but gone. Warmth from an unknown source gently caressed his cheek and he unconsciously sought it out even as he slowly slid back into darkness. Steve felt his eyelids droop then finally slip shut.
*
A tired Nick Fury looked over the gathered Avengers with new found respect and heaviness in his gut. It had taken them hours to get them back to the Helicarrier and congratulations and profuse thanks to these extraordinary people should have been in order. But it was clear that while it was as fresh as the blood still drying on their skin, their hard-earned victory was the last thing on their minds.
“We don’t know what’s wrong with him,” he admitted. There was no point sugar-coating it. Trying to would only leave a bad taste in his mouth.
“And you won’t let us see him?” Tony asked incredulously, but Fury chose to ignore him.
“Is he still in pain?” Natasha asked and Fury shook his head no.
“We’ve given him something for that. Took one hell of a dose, but it looks like it’s working. We’ve made him as comfortable as we can and I’ve got the best of my medical staff working on him as we speak.” Tony opened his mouth to say something, but Fury pointedly ignored him a second time and went on. “We’re doing our best, but we don’t have a lot to work with. You were all in the same battle field as he was. Does anyone have any idea what could have brought this on?”
The silence was almost sickening.
The S.H.I.E.L.D Director shook his head and sighed. “It’s been a long day. You all look like you could use a break. Stark, you should have been in the medical bay hours ago-”
Tony scoffed.
“And you are all overdue for a debriefing. Look, I can’t thank you enough-the world can’t thank you enough-for all that you’ve done the past couple of weeks, but-”
“Sir!” Agent Hill called sharply from behind him and Fury resisted the urge to roll his eye.
“What now, Agent Hill?” He asked, turning to look at her. Instead his eye met a very determined and angry-looking Norse god.
“He was shot with this,” Thor said, slamming a massive alien contraption on the table hard enough to shake it and make everyone jump.
So that’s where he went off to, Fury thought. The Asgardian must have flown back to New York and done some investigations of his own as soon as the medics had Cap stabilized.
Everyone stood and took a closer look at the weapon while Thor ran a hand through his blond hair agitatedly. “I saw it myself, but thought nothing of it. It was stupid of me! I did not know it would affect him so.”
“That thing doesn’t fire ordinary bullets,” Natasha said gravely.
“What does it fire?” Bruce asked, leaning in for a closer look.
“Stark, this is your department,” Fury said, but Tony was way ahead of him.
“You, me, candyland. Now.” He said, speaking to Bruce as he picked up the alien weapon. Bruce nodded and moved to catch up with Tony who was already on his way to their laboratory.
“Give it all you’ve got, Stark,” Fury called after them, and Tony turned on his heel and regarded the S.H.I.E.L.D Director coolly.
“One hour,” he said. “If we haven’t figured it out by then you can shoot us with this thing.”
Fury nodded, and Tony turned to leave before stopping and looking back again. “And if you don’t let us see Cap by then I will personally tear this piece of junk apart piece by piece from the inside out,” he threatened darkly, referring to the Helicarrier.
“I’ll help,” Bruce added and then the two were out the door.
Fury watched the doors close behind their backs. “I don’t suppose you two have anything to say,” he said to Clint and Natasha, but the two had somehow slipped away during his little exchange with Tony, leaving him alone with Thor who didn’t waste his time in giving him another headache.
“I would see him now,” the god demanded, and Fury somehow knew he wasn’t talking about the other Asgardian god they had on board. He barely opened his mouth before Agent Hill materialized beside him looking for orders, and he nodded tiredly.
“This way,” Maria told Thor and they were both out of the sight before Fury’s backside hit the chair he gratefully let himself fall into. Between the Council who couldn’t care less if they and the entire population of Manhattan were blown to bits, and the Avengers who seemed to be trying to make him want to kill himself when they weren’t at each other’s throats, Nick Fury had half the mind to shoot himself with that alien weapon and join Steve Rogers where he lay unconscious and strapped to a bed deep in the bowels of the Helicarrier.
“Picked a hell of a time to do this, huh, Cap?” He muttered to himself and ran a hand over his shaved head. He really wished Coulson was still alive.
*
When Steve awoke it was to find that the darkness and cold had followed him. He knew he had slept, but not for how long, and knew from the aches and pains in his body that he didn’t have it in him to get up. His mind reeled for a moment and he closed his eyes, trying to clear it. When he opened them it was as if everything had snapped back into place.
He knew at once that he was in the Helicarrier, but this wasn’t the Medical Bay. He didn’t know much about the world anymore, but he was pretty sure no medical equipment looked like the machines that surrounded him right now. The equipment around him filled the room with a soft, droning hum and everywhere he looked there were flashing lights and fluctuating meters. It reminded him of the day he was given the super soldier serum all those years ago.
He was in a science facility.
Steve stirred gingerly-even that small movement made him groan-and felt the softness of sheets and a bed beneath him. Well, at least he wasn’t in a metal coffin. When he tried to get up, he found that his wrists were tied to the bed in thick restraints.
“What...?” Alarmed, he gathered his strength and tried to break free, but found that he could barely lift his arms.
“You are awake.”
The voice came so suddenly, he gasped and started, jostling his body and hissing when pain stabbed through him from the movement. Slowly the sharp pain ebbed into a dull ache and he turned his head to face the speaker, breathing a sigh of relief when he recognized him.
“Thor,” he rasped then coughed once, the dryness in his throat making speech difficult. He cleared his throat and swallowed a few times.
“He needs water,” he heard Thor say and soon enough he felt a large hand cup the back of his head to lift it gently, and felt the touch of cool glass on his lips.
“Drink slowly,” Thor ordered and Steve obeyed. He turned his head when he’d had his fill and gratefully sank back into the pillows. Now that his head was clear, he pushed the pain to the back of his mind as best as he could and tried to orient himself with the situation.
He was in a science facility, restrained to a bed, and behind Thor more people were entering the room. They looked like they were scientists or healthcare workers. He wasn’t very comfortable with the idea of either.
“Are you in pain, Captain Rogers?” One of them, a young woman he didn’t recognize, asked and he said yes without thinking. She nodded and her hand went up to a contraption over his head. He couldn’t see what it was, but he suddenly felt himself start to get light-headed. Realizing what was happening, he started to struggle against his restraints to fight it. “Wait...” he said weakly.
“Stay that hand, woman,” Thor’s voice boomed and the Asgardian moved closer to his side. “Do you wish to stay awake, Captain? Or is the pain too great? You must tell me.”
“Awake...” Steve fought against the fog forming in his mind. “Keep me awake.”
The bed he was on jerked once and he felt the upper half of it being raised until he was sitting up. Light was shone into his eyes, his head was turned this way and that, and the rest of his body manipulated perfunctorily. He was suddenly reminded of all those times he had been subjected to this before he was given the serum. Endless visits to the clinic, being poked and prodded to within an inch of his life. He never wanted to feel that way again, and now the feeling of being frail and fragile and never good enough was growing like a cancer in his mind and the years he spent as a super soldier, once the strongest man in the world, withered into little more than a dream.
“Stop,” he pleaded and tried to evade the hands touching him, but they wouldn’t listen and he couldn’t escape. He couldn’t see or hear Thor anywhere anymore and he squeezed his eyes shut against the burn of the tears that started to form in the corners of his eyes.
Oh, God, what is happening to me?
When he opened his eyes again, everyone was gone-everyone but Thor who was standing beside his bed with a worried look on his face.
“What’s happening to me?” Steve asked. His body still ached sorely, and he was dizzy. He felt so weak.
Thor moved slowly and carefully around him, as if any sudden action would make him sick again. “They do not know,” he said. “Or if they do, they do not say.”
“Great,” Steve groused and slumped back into the pillows. He shifted restlessly on the bed, wanting to get up, but he stopped when he felt his arms snag on the restraints. “And these?” he gestured to the restraints around his wrists. He had forgotten about them.
Thor seemed to hesitate. “When you were brought here, you were...not yourself. You were in immense pain and you did not know us. We did not want you to hurt anyone, including yourself.”
Steve nodded and then thought about what he should do next. He needed to see Fury and make the man tell him what he knew, but Steve was no stranger to the protocol of the injured soldier. No, the S.H.I.E.L.D Director probably wouldn’t come down here anytime soon. He still had to sort out things topside and would have to debrief the others first. He’d know to give Steve enough time to get his head together and...
Steve suddenly straightened up in his head. “The others? Is everybody all right?” He asked, and then gasped. “Stark!”
Tony was the one who had been injured the worst among them. The man had nearly died saving the entire population of Manhattan today. And Bruce! Was he himself again or was he still the Hulk? “Is Tony...where...Bruce...?”
“The Ironman is well,” Thor said immediately to placate him. He gently pushed Steve back on the bed and put a hand on his chest to keep him there. “As is the Hulk. They are investigating the weapon that shot you as we speak. We are all well, Captain. But they are not allowed to enter just as I am now not allowed to leave here.”
Steve visibly relaxed at the news of their comrades, but couldn’t help but raise a brow at Thor’s last statement. “I’m pretty sure they couldn’t actually stop you from leaving if you wanted to.” He chuckled, but Thor’s gaze was too intense to allow him to lighten the mood.
“I do not want to,” Thor said simply and his honesty floored Steve. The hand on his chest moved to clasp his shoulder. “When I am injured after a battle, the face I want to see when I wake is that of a friend, not a stranger.” He moved back and regarded Steve intently. “I would be this friend for you if you allow it.”
Steve met his gaze and swallowed a lump that seemed to have formed in his throat before he gave the Asgardian a bright, genuine smile that no one had seen in decades. “Thank you, Thor,” he said sincerely. “I just...” He seemed to want to say something more, but changed his mind. “Thank you.” He smiled again and his eyes were over-bright.
Thor nodded. “Think nothing of it, my friend. And rest. I will watch over you.”
*
Somewhere on a much higher level in the Helicarrier, in what was left of the laboratory he had worked in before he transformed and destroyed it, Bruce Banner stared at one of the few holoscreens that was still working. He and Tony didn’t make the one hour mark, but damn if they hadn’t tried.
Tony took to the task like raging storm, but Bruce eventually had to send him off to rest in his quarters when the day’s ordeal had finally caught up with the man and he could barely see straight from fatigue and exhaustion. Bruce had no such problems; the Hulk’s insurmountable stamina remained in him even if the super strength and physical transformation did not.
The alien weapon Thor brought back from Manhattan was on the table, hooked up to a spectrometer that relayed the data he needed to his computer so he could analyze it. On other holoscreens were Steve’s file, Dr. Erskine’s notes on the super soldier serum, and every one of S.H.I.E.L.D’s attempts to duplicate it. Now that he didn’t have to tiptoe around a wound-up Tony Stark, his mind was sharper and the pieces of the puzzle that was Steve Rogers’s condition started to fall into place.
It would take the average nuclear physicist a while to make sense of the figures and factor in all the variables, but his mind made quick work of the data, and he didn’t like what he saw.
Not for the first time, he was glad Tony wasn’t here.
“Director Fury,” he said into his communicator and there was an instant response. “Gather everybody within the hour if you can,” he told him and then more quietly added: “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
The other end of the line was so silent Bruce thought he had been disconnected, but when he opened his mouth to check, Fury gave him an affirmative and Bruce nodded to himself, having nothing more to say.
Then he turned back to the holoscreens. He knew it would take a while to get everyone assembled. Fury would call Natasha and Clint first and brief them on whatever possible scenarios he could come up with as well as a plan of action to go with it. Thor would take a lot of convincing to get him to leave Steve’s side, and Bruce knew Fury and Tony well enough to be sure that Fury would call for Tony last. Bruce made a mental note to save the S.H.I.E.L.D Director the headache and wake Tony himself.
All in all that gave Bruce a bit more time to re-check the data, re-run the analysis, and hope the computers gave him a different result. For Steve’s sake, he resolved to spend every second of that time trying to prove himself wrong.
TBC.
Continue reading... Part Three.