Chapter Text
Tony hasn’t slept. He’s been unconscious a few times in the last week, but he hasn’t slept. He’s been plagued by waking nightmares and flashes of blood and fire, and who the hell could sleep through that?
He hasn’t mourned, either. He can’t, not yet. It’s too much. Too much death and destruction and
(he’ll come out of this he has to come out of this)
wrenching loss.
The steady stream of doctors and nurses and candy stripers has petered off by now. The first few days, they’d been in every hour to check on the monitors, check vitals, check X-rays. But now they’ve moved on to patients they can help – surgeries and procedures on the survivors that have been newly unearthed from the rubble.
He scrubs a hand through his hair, rubbing over his face. His stubble is sharp and rough, and he knows he looks unkempt. Natasha had forced him to shower a couple of days ago, but he hadn’t been gone long. An hour or two at most, and then he’d dropped back into the padded leather chair and stared down at pale, bruised skin, wild hair, and a soft beard.
(you should have told him you loved him, you fucking coward)
Whiplash. That’s what the doctors had said. It’s not, of course, the only thing they’d said. Severe damage to the thoracic spine, swelling of the brain, a punctured lung, internal hemorrhaging.
The chart doesn’t describe how Thanos had nearly gutted him. He’d cracked Steve over his knee like he was nothing more than dry kindling, and Tony had thought that was it. No one could survive
(70 years in the ice didn’t kill him but this will)
that kind of injury, that many wounds and contusions and broken bones.
But when Thanos had dropped him, let him fall to the ground like yesterday’s
(every bit o’ litter hurts, oh yeah, oh yeah)
garbage, bleeding and limp, Steve had twitched. He’d moved, arm coming up and reaching for the shield beside him
(my father made that shield you don’t deserve it)
and Tony had shot off like a rocket. His armour was dented and scratched and he was pretty sure his ankle was broken
(he would confirm later that it was)
but it didn’t matter because Steve was still alive. Steve was alive and reaching for his shield – the new shield Tony had designed for him – because he would fight until the bitter end, he would fight until he died
(I can do this all day)
and Tony could see Thanos notice, see Thanos scowl and stare down at Steve, and the next blow would be death, there was no way Thanos wouldn’t kill him now, so Tony had put all his power into his repulsors and shot past Thanos, scooping Steve up as he went, getting him the fuck out of there.
And, it would appear, given him whiplash.
(your fault this is your fault)
Traumatic brain injury in conjunction with acute whiplash of the cervical spine. Tony had caused it, when he’d grabbed Steve and rocketed off with him.
Steve had already saved him, after all. He’d come flying out of nowhere and knocked Tony out of the way before Thanos could grab his fragile human throat and crush his windpipe, and the thanks he’d gotten had been being nearly bent in two, so hard and loud that Tony had heard the cracking noise like a gunshot. So Tony had tried to save Steve back.
(save him save him save him)
He’d gotten Steve away, but he’d been unconscious, unresponsive, and almost unrecognizable.
Tony had thought he’d been dead after all.
But there was a pulse, weak and thready but there, so Tony had handed Steve off
(it had killed him to do it, he’s sure he’ll have nightmares about it for the rest of his life)
to the nearest medic and gone back to the fight, back to saving the world.
Steve hadn’t died.
Others had. Friends had.
Heroes had.
But Steve lived, and Tony has spent the last week by his bedside, waiting for him to wake up.
And then Steve’s eyes finally flutter open.