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cap_ironman2008-10-10 07:13 pm
[FIC] Due Vigilance [Avengers, Steve/Tony PG]
Pairings/Characters: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Pepper (briefly)
Rating: PG
Fandom: original Avengers
Word Count: 1003 words
Disclaimer: So very far from being mine.
Beta:
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telyanofcelore , as always, is made of win and awesome.Summary: Any second now Tony will wake up, and then it's back to denial.
A/N: I'm still not entirely satisfied with this, but I want it to go away, so posting now. Just a quick ficlet that started in my NaNoWRiMo class. Because I enjoy being mean to Tony.
It’s been two days, and Tony hasn’t woken up.
Steve’s spoken to the doctors a few times – all of the Avengers are down as each other’s next of kin, have been for years, in case of emergencies – and they’re being cautiously optimistic. He’s heard the phrase “full recovery” several times. But he’s also heard “subdural swelling” and “internal bleeding” and a host of other words to describe the damage done when flesh and bone slams into metal at 90 mph.
Steve doesn’t need a doctor to tell him the damage that does to a body is catastrophic.
And he’d told Tony to stay back, ordered him to concentrate on subduing the henchmen as soon as they realized that the bizarrely-shaped energy weapon the villain wielded disrupted the signals controlling Iron Man’s armor. They weren’t lacking in people who could hold him back and attack from a distance; it was a sounder tactic for Cap and Thor to hammer away at him than for Iron Man to rush in, guns blazing.
But then one of the henchmen had gotten around Ant-Man and taken a swing at Thor, a lucky hit had brought Cap to his knees, and when the bastard swung the gun down for another shot…there had been Iron Man.
The blast slammed Iron Man into a wall, where he lay still as death, and Steve barely remembers a thing between the clash of steel on brick and Hank dragging him off the villain’s unconscious body with a sharply hissed, “I’ll deal with him, go make sure he’s okay”.
He does remember prying off the helmet to expose Tony’s pale face, streaked with blood from a cut on his forehead, a bruise already blossoming across his cheek.
He’d stayed with Tony until the ambulance showed up, and ridden along with him to the hospital; one of the paramedics had looked at him a little oddly when he’d refused to let go of Tony’s hand, but he hasn’t been Captain America for this long without learning an intimidating look or two. And he’s spent the last two days in Tony’s hospital room, listening to Tony’s doctors talk and waiting for him to wake up.
The rest of the Avengers had been clustered in the waiting room, pestering the doctors for news, until they found out Tony was probably going to be all right, and he’s sure they’re all sitting around the phone now, waiting for him to call and report so they can pile back in and fill Tony’s room with flowers and chatter. And Pepper’s in and out a dozen times an hour to stroke Tony’s hair and talk to him before she has to bustle off again to fill out paperwork, make phone calls and ward off over-zealous reporters.
But it’s Steve dragged the room’s only chair to the bed as soon as they brought Tony out of the OR, and he’s been there ever since. The nursing staff hint, and then out-right demand, that he leave when visiting hours end, but somewhere around the fifth silent refusal they just give up and bring him an extra pillow so he can sleep, uneasily, the plastic edge of the chair-back digging into his neck. Pepper knows better than to even try to argue, and just makes sure he has plenty of coffee.
He’d like to believe that he’ll never forget the sound of Tony hitting that wall, or that brief, heart-clenching moment between realizing the inertial dampeners that kept Tony from being turned to a bloody pulp had failed and realizing that he was still shakily, shallowly breathing. But the truth is that this will be just a dim memory this time next month, when Tony does this again – just like all the times he’s done this before that Steve can barely remember now.
It’s a truth he’s been trying to avoid, because thinking about it makes him achingly, furiously angry at Tony, and this isn’t the time or the place for that, not when Tony needs him.
But somewhere around the 40th hour, when the doctors have left again and he has only the hiss of the respirator and the low hum of the heart monitor to distract him from his thoughts, it hits him so strongly that he has to push his chair back and storm into the hall before he does something incredibly stupid, like maybe strangle his idiotic, self-sacrificing friend.
Pepper comes across him there a few minutes later, forehead pressing against the wall, hands clenched into fists to keep him from punching a hole through the plaster; a faint dent shows where he was not entirely successful.
“Is something wrong? Is Tony –”
“He’s fine,” Steve reassures her. “Or he’s not worse, anyway. The doctors think he’ll wake up tomorrow.”
Steve runs a hand through his hair, limp and matted with sweat from the last two wretched days. “I don’t know how you do this,” he says with a hollow laugh. “I swear, sometimes I just want to grab him and shake him until I can make him see that he’s just as important as everyone else on the team. I see him out there, and it’s like he’s waiting for the opportunity to throw himself in front of the bullet. Like it doesn’t even matter if he dies and I don’t – I don’t get why it’s so hard for him to see how much it would hurt people if he were gone…how much it would hurt me.”
Pepper looks about as exhausted as he does, her hair washed out and her face pale and lined after too many hours on the phone and not enough sleep, but she manages a weak smile nonetheless, and squeezes his hand hard.
“It’s not easy, loving someone who doesn’t think they’re worth it. Tony’s lucky he has us,” she says.
Behind him, the door opens onto the room where Tony Stark has been lying for two days without waking up, and Steve thinks that she’s right about one thing at least.
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Great work by the way! :)
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Sorry, friend wanted me up early, and shock, I'm up before her and still sleep deprived! But oooh~ *wriggle* I say sequel. >D
Nice fic
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Poor Steve. It's not easy dealing with someone as self-destructive as Tony.
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Beautiful. <3
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I love this detail -- so few words, but it's all I need for my brain to fill in Steve pounding on the guy in a "nobody hurts my team" rage.
He’d like to believe that he’ll never forget the sound of Tony hitting that wall, or that brief, heart-clenching moment between realizing the inertial dampeners that kept Tony from being turned to a bloody pulp had failed and realizing that he was still shakily, shallowly breathing. But the truth is that this will be just a dim memory this time next month, when Tony does this again – just like all the times he’s done this before that Steve can barely remember now
Oh, ow. The description of Steve's taking on the impact is gorgeous, and I love the "when Tony doe sit again."
“It’s not easy, loving someone who doesn’t think they’re worth it. Tony’s lucky he has us,” she says
*nods* This side of Tony's self-destructiveness -- it's effect on other people -- isn't something that gets explored very often, and you really nail the angry/helpless misery of Steve, trying to deal with it and knowing he can't stop it.
I love the summary, too. Also, consider me officialy jealous of your school for having a NaNoWriMo class.