Whumptober Day 11 - Stitches

Whumptober day 11 - Stitches

My eleventh fill for @whumptober2019​, with some lovely Science Bros content, also available on Ao3.

A bit of a warning - I’ll be pretty busy up until Wednesday, so it’s possible fills might be shorter during those days. No certainty ever, but just to make sure expectations aren’t too high :P

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"Brucie-bear?"

It was weird seeing Tony this hesitant, lingering at the door to the lab he'd provided for Bruce instead of waltzing in and owning the room.

That weirdness, as well as the fact that none of the Avengers had quite gotten over their protectiveness of Tony after the latest kidnapping attempt, was why Bruce instantly put down his tablet to give Tony all of his attention.

"What's up, Tony?"

He was glad he had when he noticed the way Tony was holding his side, where one of his largest wounds was.

Now concerned, Bruce slowly walked towards him. He had enough experience with Tony to know that too quick an approach could scare him off, however much he coated it in 'never mind, nothing's wrong', but the fact that Tony had approached him like this in the first place did mean something was wrong.

"I ehm... It's my stitches." Then, he lifted his hand slightly, and Bruce could see there was some blood on his hand. "Some of them tore."

Back when they hadn't known one another as well, he might've reacted with annoyance, might've asked Tony if he'd tried to do too much again even though he'd been told to rest and recover.

Now, he remained as calm as possible, heading for his suture kit instead of directly for Tony. "The Hulk room would probably be best for this?” It had been set up to be comfortable and peaceful, though the comfort was Bruce’s first concern. His friend was hardly at ease with receiving medical treatment, after all, and the fact that he’d voluntarily approached Bruce could already be counted as a miracle.

Tony remained silent as he sat down, seeming more downtrodden than Bruce had seen him before.

As Bruce set out his supplies, he tried to assess if anything was severely wrong. The dark circles under Tony’s eyes weren’t much darker than usual, though he did look a little pale and his eyes seemed a little dull.

“May I ask what happened?” he asked calmly, lifting up Tony’s shirt gently and exposing the wound. It looked like only a few of the stitches had been ripped, but the cut was big enough that it was still bleeding quite a bit. Bruce grabbed a few bandages and some disinfectant.

“It… I slept a bit restlessly,” Tony admitted, which Bruce took to mean he’d had a nightmare. He carefully kept his eyes averted to keep Tony talking. It took some time, but he had patience aplenty, and work to keep him busy. If he was willing to tell, he would continue eventually.

Finally, just as Bruce had nearly resigned himself to the thought that Tony seemed to prefer to keep it to himself, he spoke up. His voice was quiet, and Bruce had to strain a little to hear it, but he didn’t mind. “Not much, just… Kinda got reminded of… previous experiences. With people trying to abduct me.” He trailed off after that, but it was enough.

“Makes sense,” Bruce admitted. If he was honest, he didn’t have much experience himself, and it made it difficult to know what to say in order to help. So, instead of trying to lie his way through it, he simply offered up a supportive smile. “If there’s anything I can do to help, I hope you know you can let me know and I’ll do my best.”

It seemed like it was the right thing to say, because Tony returned his smile gratefully. “This… This is actually already helping. Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Bruce promised, meaning it. For Tony, he’d try his utmost best.

Whumptober day 12 - "Don’t Move”

My twelfth fill for @whumptober2019, also available on Ao3.

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When awareness returned, Bucky's face was the first thing he saw.

"Hey doll." He was smiling, but Tony knew him well enough to know that something was wrong. "Good to have you back with us."

How had he gotten here?

Vaguely, Tony remembered an alien ship. It'd had weapons, hadn't it?

"Did we win?" he asked, trying to see past Bucky.

"Don't move, doll. Don't worry - we won." And while he was telling the truth, Tony knew there was more to it. He could see the strain on Bucky's face, and the way he was paler than usual.

"What happened?"

"You know there was an alien attack, right?" Tony managed a tiny nod, but it was enough. "They had some kind of advanced weaponry we couldn't get past at first, but you took it out. Unfortunately, they decided that made you the primary threat, so they... shot at you. Fortunately, with the weaponry disabled, we managed to finish things up."

As he was awake longer, Tony was starting to become more and more aware. And while he knew there was more that Bucky wasn't telling him, he was starting to think that might be for the better.

He wasn't sure he wanted to know why he couldn't feel most of his body, or why he had the faintest inkling that that might be for the better.

Just as he was trying to scour his mind for a lighthearted subject, Clint's face appeared beside Bucky's. "Good morning, sleeping beauty." His grin appeared only slightly more believable than Bucky's. Tony appreciated the attempt. "Lemme tell you, no amount of sleep will make that face any prettier."

"Can't improve perfection," he volleyed back, noticing the way his quick reply lightened both of their expressions ever-so-slightly.

It was hard to miss that something was wrong though. Despite not feeling pain, he didn't feel quite right. It was a disconcerting, uncomfortable cold that went bone-deep and that made him want to try and move, to get away from it somehow. But he trusted Bucky, trusted that not moving was probably the best idea at the moment.

"Everyone else okay?" he asked instead. Aside from tired, worried, and a little bruised, both Bucky and Clint seemed fine, but he hadn't seen the others.

"Just fine," Bucky assured him immediately. He didn't appear to be lying.

Beside him, Clint nodded. "Nat is working with Pepper on easing everyone's minds, and Steve got Sam and JARVIS to help deal with clean-up efforts. Thor is doing double duty wrangling Hulk and supplying whatever he knows about those aliens. They have collectively whined about how much work this all is and how they never realized how much you usually do, so feel free to gloat about that later."

Tony managed a grin. "Does that mean you're stuck doing SHIELD debrief?"

A small huff of laughter escaped him at seeing the hilariously horrified look on Clint's face. "Awww, debrief, no," he whined. Then, he smiled hopefully. "Maybe I can still switch with Thor!"

"Good luck on that," Bucky went along with the joke, though it was clear his heart wasn't in it. "I'll admit, having Thor debrief Fury could be funny, though I'm not sure I want to know what kind of backstory you'd come up with for the aliens."

"I'd make up something appropriately epic, of course," he tried to claim. Tony felt his own eyebrow raise critically at the same time he saw Bucky's skeptical look. "I would!"

"A race trying to take over the world because they want to steal our coffee isn't epic." It wasn't his best quip, but Tony thought he could be forgiven, considering it seemed rather more difficult to think clearly than it should be.

Fortunately, Clint seemed to agree, chuckling. "Chocolate, then?" he tried.

"I mean, if I were an alien race..." Bucky trailed off with a faint grin.

"Just because you are a chocolate addict, doesn't mean everyone is," Tony joked affectionately. Whenever Bucky was having a bad day, all he had to do was bring the soldier some chocolate to make him smile again.

The reminder of it made him smile, though it felt oddly exhausting. Everything did, if he was being honest. Which, to be fair, didn't really surprise him.

Not when he'd just recalled the size of the approaching spears that had been the last thing he'd seen.

Whumptober day 2 - Explosion

My second fill for @whumptober2019​, also available on Ao3.

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Twelve seconds.

It only took him one second to think it all through. More time, and he probably would have been able to defuse the bomb. One minute would have been enough.

But he didn't have one minute, and it looked like it'd wipe out half of Brooklyn, if not all of it, when it went off.

They'd evacuated the immediate area, but that wouldn't be enough. Not even close.

Three more seconds and he'd stabilized the power source enough that he could move it without it instantly exploding in his arms.

Two more seconds to exit the building safely, without destabilizing the foundation.

That left him with six seconds to get as far away from civilization as possible.

"Iron Man, what's going on?" he heard Steve demanding over the comms as he bolted off as quickly as the armor could go, out over the Atlantic where hopefully no one would get hurt.

Except him.

"Emergency detour," he informed them. "Mind the 'bang'."

"What -" he could hear Bucky starting to ask, but there simply wasn't enough time.

With one second left, he threw it as far away as possible, arms coming up in front of his face and chest to protect himself as much as possible. He knew it wouldn't be enough.

It went off with a flash that just about blinded him. After that, there was nothing.

(He didn't feel himself hitting the water, where he started to sink quickly. He didn't feel the water entering the armor through the damage caused by the bomb. He didn’t feel the way Thor grabbed him, dragging him up and out of the water and back to the Coney Island beach, where the other Avengers were waiting for them.)

(He didn’t feel the way they carefully took off the pieces of the armor, keeping him as stable as possible, to get him ready for the ambulance. He didn’t hear Bucky begging him to hold on, to please live. He didn’t notice the way Steve had to hold Bucky back when Tony was taken away, assuring him they’d join him in the hospital as soon as they could.)

(He didn’t see the tears on Bucky’s face as the doctors told the Avengers about his injuries. He didn’t feel the way Natasha stroked his hair as he lay in the hospital bed or the way Bucky held his hand ever-so-gently. He didn’t hear the way Clint rambled at him to have something to fill the silence or the way Steve told him he’d done well even though no one was happy with this result either. He didn’t smell the food Bruce had made in hopes of waking him up. He didn’t taste the potion Thor had brought in hopes of saving his life.)

The first thing he felt was pain. It was like there was no part of his body that hadn’t been injured. Then, his brain desperate for something else, anything else, he could feel the way a hand was holding his.

When he opened his eyes, infinitely grateful that the lights were down, the first thing he saw was Bucky, head resting beside his leg as he slept restlessly.

As much as he was hurting, he put in all the effort he could in order to squeeze his hand around Bucky’s. He was not surprised when his boyfriend shot up immediately, eyes red and hair a mess. “Tony…” His voice was rough, either from sleep or from worry, but the relief was obvious.

Aware of the fact that he would not be able to talk, not with how much his throat was hurting, Tony shot him a crooked smile.

It was enough.

Just look at how cute they are!!! :D

Day 2 of Buckytober: Jack-O-Lantern!

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I totally didn't draw pumpkins an' come up with cute puns an' shit an' forget that the prompt wasn't, in fact, "Pumpkins," but rather jack-o-lanterns; then hadta add that pumpkin face last minute? Nope, not I. Rip to whomstever the fuck that was, but I'm better. 🤔🙃

Whumptober day 15 - Scars

My fifteenth fill for @whumptober2019​, involving the Avengers acting as a (dysfunctional) family and having a game night like no other. Also available on Ao3.

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It happened because of Bucky, to be honest. Bucky, his laundry list of issues, and his insecurities about his arm and (possibly even more so) the scarring around his shoulder.

His knock-off serum had taken care of all of his other scars, but this one was so bad, as well as constantly agitated by the metal arm, that it simply didn't heal. And it had become more than obvious that it was a source of discomfort for him, in a team that seemed relatively flawless.

Of course, Steve's serum meant that he had no scars to show. Natasha's knock-off of a knock-off meant that only the bad ones remained, which was why she had about three scars overall, and by now they all knew about them. Thor, as an Asgardian with a golden apple in him to keep him fit and flawless, had no true scars either. Bruce had lost all of his scars when he got the Hulk and, since he pretty much transformed the moment he got injured (or right before), gained no new ones either.

That still left three human members on the team, though. And together, they'd come up with a 'game' of sorts.

JARVIS had scanned all of their bodies for scars. They were allowed to take ones out of the equation that they didn't want to discuss, and Tony's Arc Reactor and its scarring were obvious and well-known enough that it was immediately disqualified. But other than that, there was a complete registry of their scars.

All of the others then got to see the registry and images of the particular scars, upon which they placed their bets. They guessed whether it was an accidental or violent cause for one point. Then there was a more specific cause that, if they got it right, counted for two points. Finally, they could guess a more complete backstory for it that could earn them three points if they got it correct, though everyone estimated that would be fairly rare, considering all of their lives.

Because he had the least scars, they'd started with Sam. Out of them all, he'd lived the most regular life so far, meaning it wasn't the most interesting round. Natasha, who was extremely good at guessing logical causes of injuries, beat all of them. It wasn't the most exciting round, but it was a good way of getting into the game, and it was obvious to see that Bucky was starting to relax a bit.

Then there was Clint, who had some interesting scars. Hilariously enough, Tony actually got the most points during this round because he'd guessed the most ridiculous backstories. And because this was Clint, they often turned out to be correct, to the amused horror of the others.

Finally, it was Tony's turn, and the others quickly found out that his scars were a bit of a minefield. The one that looked distinctly like a bullet wound had been caused by an engineering accident. The weirdly shaped one that everyone had guessed had been an engineering accident because what else could it be? had turned out to be from when he was kidnapped as a teenager and they'd tried to get information about SI from him.

He was telling them about one of his bigger scars, one that honestly looked like he'd been stabbed somehow, but which was apparently the result of one of his and Rhodey's adventures at MIT. Honestly, after this entire game, all of the other Avengers were more than convinced that, however well Rhodes pretended to be the one in possession of the single brain cell the two shared, there was no way either of them had more than half a brain cell during their entire time at MIT, and that half brain cell was used to pass their classes and nothing more.

Suddenly, just as Tony was detailing how they'd thought blowing up their experiment would somehow prove their theory, the unexpected happened. Hoped for, of course, but the sudden sound of Bucky's laughter still managed to surprise them all in the best way.

Tony grinned, though he didn't stop retelling the story. And if he added a few embellishments, well, who would blame him? If it made Bucky laugh like that, he'd make up a comedy routine if he had to. There'd been more than enough sadness in the guy's life - he deserved to be smiling.

Whumptober day 13 - Adrenaline

My thirteenth fill for @whumptober2019​. A short one this time, but hopefully still enjoyable. It’s also available on Ao3.

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Living with the Avengers was honestly going to kill him one day. His heart was not gonna be able to take the constant adrenaline rush from various causes and just beat straight out of his chest.

Both Natasha and Clint were assassins, and often moved too quietly for Tony to hear them coming, meaning they’d just about given him heart attacks by sneaking up on him. He wanted to think it was accidental, but he wasn’t sure there was a lot about that that they did accidentally, and he hadn’t missed their playful smirks.

Then there was Thor, who had no concept of an indoor voice (or, alternately, pretended not to). Which meant that Tony could be going about his life peacefully, only to be startled into a heart attack by the so-called God of Thunder suddenly and very loudly threatening the toaster with dismemberment for somehow toasting his beloved pop-tarts wrong.

Bruce was peaceful overall, and not much given to excitement. Hulk was more so, but Tony had to admit he didn’t share the others’ hesitance when it came to Big Green. No, Bruce was more likely to kill him with exciting science, the thrill of a new breakthrough enough to make Tony’s heart beat faster every time.

In theory, Steve shouldn’t have been a problem. Now that they’d stopped arguing, conversations were far easier, more amicable and less stressful. It was Howard’s fault, really, the way Tony kept wanting to prove himself, to be good enough in front of Steve somehow, even though he knew the man himself was probably unaware of Tony’s issues.

So yeah, they were likely to end up killing him one day, and he’d already made note with JARVIS that he wanted it on his gravestone that it was all their fault, preferably in a witty matter. ‘I told you I had heart problems’ was currently his first choice.

But as he looked around at where they were all gathered in front of the television, trying to get the most correct answers on the quiz, he had to admit it was more than worth it.