Atlaô is the Greek word for endurance. It is where Atlas, the Titan who held up the heavens, derived his name.
Tony wakes up to ticking. It is a sound that he recognizes and applies meaning to immediately. He lurches forward, eyes opening and and head pounding in a painful chorus. The first thing he sees is the burnt out husk of an attic. He doesn't remember getting here. He has no idea where he is. An empty space sits where a window should be. Black wooden walls stretch across the house, holes letting in pockets of light and cold wind that sting Tony's bare skin.
The second thing Tony sees is the timer. The red digits sit nestled in a web of wires, mounted within a large black box. Tony's stomach drops. Seven minutes. Seven minutes and twenty three seconds. Seven minutes and twenty three seconds in a house that he doesn't recognize. Tony starts to his hands and knees, but the action is aborted when his vision swims dangerously, black stars exploding in and out of his eyes. He can get away in that time. He can run.
He has to puke first.
The bile burns. He wipes his mouth, swallowing down the sour taste without success. He can do this. He has to run.
The third thing he sees is Steve.
"Shit, shit, Steve," he mutters, clumsily crawling towards where the other man is sprawled on his back. Steve is in civilian clothes. That doesn't make sense. Nothing makes sense. He grips Steve's button down shirt and shakes him. Everything blurs together. "Wake up!"
He blinks furiously, desperate to clear his vision. His hands are covered in blood. He spends half of a second desperately hoping that Steve will jump up and start throwing commands around, but he doesn't even move. He stays limp and motionless beneath him. Tony groans and rips Steve's shirt, the buttons clinking as they hit the flooring. He pulls Steve's undershirt up and swears when he finds a pulsing bullet hole just under Steve's rib cage and mottled bruises all over his chest. It looks like the Hulk wrapped his hand around Steve and squeezed.
Six minutes and thirty-five seconds.
Tony can't run. He can't carry Steve out of here, either. He looks over at the bomb and stumbles over to it. His vision doubles over itself. Colors blur together. His head throbs. He falls to his knees and reaches his hand out, but he has twelve fingers and misses where he intended to set his grasp. He can barely see, much less make any calculations or come up with a viable solution to save their lives. Tony can't reset the timer like this, can't stop the bomb from exploding.
Terror and dread flood Tony's veins and well in his eyes. This can't happen. He hasn't been given any warning. He needs time to process the fact that the universe wants to kill him.
He doesn't remember moving, but suddenly he's pulling open Steve's eyelids and screaming at him. Fear pushes him forward. Tony ignores the puddle of blood soaking into his jeans. He shakes Steve hard and he regrets it fiercely. Tony ignores the fact that his head is about to split apart, that his vision is vibrating out of control, that his stomach spins violently. He has hurt worse, much worse. But his situation has never been this immediate. Maybe in the portal during New York, but that was different. Now, Steve is with him. Steve, who is just a fucking kid. A twenty seven year old fireball of patriotism and strength, but for god's sake, the guy walked around with paint in his hair and plotted how to prank Natasha on Halloween.
Fuck this. Tony knots his hands in the front of Steve's shirt and heaves Steve up to a sitting position.
He hears a groan in response. Tony ducks down, grabbing Steve's neck and pushing the lolling head up with his grubby fingers. Steve's eyes flutter open, vividly blue against the backdrop of black ash and completely glazed over. His breath is unusually loud in the quiet room, save for the ominous ticking. Hope curls up tight in Tony's stomach.
"Hey, hey, Steve! Look at me! Look at me," he commands, distantly apologetic as he jerks Steve's head in order to keep him awake. Steve moans, smacking his lips together. He doesn't seem to register Tony's presence. "Steve, there's a bomb. We have to go. You have to get up."
Steve's eyes screw closed. His hands bump against Tony's legs and for a moment, Tony thinks that Steve is gathering his strength to stand up, but then Steve's shoulders hunch over, and with a shattered, choked inhaled, he coughs and blood spills over his chin.
They're down to five minutes.
"Okay, okay," Tony says. Steve coughed up a lot of blood. More of the red liquid that's supposed to stay in Steve's body is still dripping from the gunshot wound in his chest. Steve is Captain America. He can do anything. He can do this. He can get up. Even like this. "We have to go, Cap. We gotta go. We've got five minutes. I can't disable it. I don't know how. I have no clue how to fix any of this. I can't do this!"
Steve raises his head and looks at Tony for the first time. He seems to register Tony's presence. Steve has a very distinct way that he meets people's gazes. He looks at their souls, the entirety of their being. He doesn't miss anything that he can see. Steve looks at Tony. He tips forward the spare few inches that it takes before his temple rests against Tony's collarbone.
"You go."
Tony grabs Steve's arms and pushes him back. "No, Steve! Get up! You have to get up! Get up!"
As if in a silent proclamation, Steve's body visibly tenses, and he sputters up more blood. His teeth are disturbingly stained, and when Tony can focus enough, he thinks that Steve's lips are blue. "You jus' go. You go." Tony thinks of that wire and seethes. The body in his grasp shudders strangely. The breaths huffing out of Steve's chest are strained and reedy. It sounds like he's sucking through a straw. Collapsed lung. Even Captain America can't fight with that.
"Fuck you, Steve. Get up. Get up right now."
Tony swings his leg over to straddle Steve, readjusts his grip so he's holding him in a sad farce of a hug, and pulls him up.
Steve barely moves. Tony screams in frustration, dropping back down to his knees. When he glances at the man still in his arms, Steve is staring listlessly at the center of Tony's chest, where there used to be an arc reactor. A drop of red pearls on his bottom lip. When Tony blinks, he knows for a fact that he's looking at blood pooling in Steve's mouth, in front of his teeth.
There are four minutes left.
Burning hot tears spill down Tony's cheeks. Fucking Steve. His limbs shudder with weakness, and he collapses against the wall. "Steve. Steve, I can't carry you."
He thinks about that. Tony Stark cannot carry Steve Rogers. He's physically incapable. Steve's going to die because Tony can't help him. Even though Steve has carried him plenty of times, with his big, sheepish smile, rugged determination, and steel spine. Steve has picked Tony up when he was drunk, sober, bent over and broken. Steve's picked Tony up when he was wheezing from a panic attack and deliriously fretting about the Ten Rings. Steve and his stupid fucking hair that constantly has acrylic paint streaked through it. He looks like a hipster frat boy that Natasha brought home for the weekend.
Tony thinks only about that one little fact as he crawls towards Steve and grips the Captain's head in his hands. Tony's fingers tangle in Steve's blood-matted hair. If he squints, Tony can spot blue paint speckling the strands behind the other man's left ear. Steve's eyes are tightly closed, bruises cling to his lids and under his lashes. Every wound feels like Tony's fault.
"No. No, no, no," Tony mutters. Adrenaline and desperation swirl in his stomach. He ducks his shoulder under Steve's left arm, wraps his other around Steve's back, and digs his heels in. His head pounds. Utterly limp bodies are heavy and unwieldy, but Tony gets Steve balanced once he's standing, and staggers toward the staircase. The weight he's carrying is absolutely staggering. His spine cries out in pain. Tony rounds his shoulders and continues forward, grips Steve's arms and legs in a death-clutch.
He doesn't call Steve's weight a burden because a burden is something that a person is unwilling to carry, and there is no part of Tony that is not completely dedicated to getting Steve downstairs and somewhere safe.
Forward momentum is on his side, and he stumbles down the steps.
Unfortunately, he lands hard. Hard enough that he can feel his ankle touch the floor, even though his foot is still flat. Something breaks. Pain explodes up his leg. He doesn't care. He limps through the aborted motion. He doesn't have time to get outside, but he does have time to get to a bathroom. It's the safest possible place for Steve to survive. Tony lurches into the room and swings Steve around so he can slam the door. He lets his knees crack on the tile and throws Steve's legs into the bathtub. With some of the weight relieved, it's easier to latch onto Steve's torso and cradle his head as he lowers him down.
Tony crawls on top of him and props his elbows by Steve's temples, so he can protect Steve's stupid skull with his chest.
Then he waits. Beads of sweat roll down his face. His breath is harsh in the silence. Tony curses his brain because he knows.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
At one, a loud roar rumbles through the house. The world explodes around Tony, shrouded in a strange, sudden darkness. His ears are so overwhelmed by the influx of sound that it feels like they're bleeding. Wind and boards rattle. The windows shatter. The air snaps loudly in response, rushing to fill in the vacuous space. Warmth tumbles down Tony's neck. It feels like breath. He breathes and breathes and breathes and discovers that nothing has happened to him. Nothing has touched him. An all-consuming ringing noise overpowers his ability to think, and he barely registers a large hand worming under his ribs and lifting him out of the tub. He's gently laid on the floor, face up.
Tony blinks. The lights blur overhead. The Hulk is repeating, "Cap, Cap, Cap, Cap, Cap," in the background.
Red hair swooshes in front of him. Natasha bends over him. Her hand is cold and gentle on his cheek. Thor's cape flutters behind her back.
"Steve," Tony moans, and he's sitting up and reaching forward. His head spins, and his brain slams into his forehead. Before he's even aware of the nausea, Tony throws up bile and blood from his bitten tongue. His vision crumbles into fractals of red and black. A soft red curl brushes his cheek as Natasha tucks his head into her stomach in an unusually intimate embrace. The bend of her elbow is soft under his neck. She's shouting something frantically.
Tony's field of sight opens and closes like he's descending into a tunnel of darkness. He looks over, and Hulk is whimpering in the childlike, animal way that only he can. He's clutching Steve against his chest like a sad, broken doll. Hulk carefully starts weaving through the rubble, towards the light. Tony swears that he can see blood dripping from Steve's fingertips where they swing limply in the open air.
Panic and impending unconsciousness wage a war behind Tony's eyes. He stares at Natasha's pale chin. She peers down at him, and she's clearly struggling to layer comfort over her own terror.
Tony swallows. His heart trips and clenches. "Steve," he rasps. He doesn't realize until days later that he cried in Natasha's arms. He wonders if she'll hold it against him. Considering that Natasha reaches out and wipes his tears away and smooths his disgusting hair back, he thinks that she won't.
"He's Steve," she tries. Her voice shakes. "He'll be fine. He's always fine. He's Steve."
Tony throws his arm out and clutches her bicep. "I'm gonna—. It's. I can't—think."
"You don't have to," Natasha shushes. "Pass out, Tony. We have to use Thor's muscles for something, right?"
Her voice is the same uniquely sardonic and amused tone that he's come to appreciate over the years. He clings to it.
Thor's boots clunk loudly as he approaches Tony and Natasha. Today must be the day that the Avengers carry each other everywhere, Tony hums in the back of his mind. Thor crouches over them, and the sunlight pours behind his head in a way that makes him look less like a man, and more like an unearthly angel of some sort. Maybe the humans of old fashioned their angelic mythology after Asgardians by accident. Smilingly comfortingly, but with a tell-tale weight on his brow, Thor brushes his hand down Tony's eyes, forcing him to close them.
Thor would be a great dad. He says, "Sleep," and Tony obeys. The last thing he remembers is being jostled up and carried towards the light. It occurs to him then that it isn't strange at all that the Avengers carry each other. Not at all.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
"You are ridiculously heavy. I'm going to be sore for the next month because of you. Do you realize how long it'll take before I'm back up to form? How do you do this at your advanced age?"
Tony rambles incessantly. He pokes Steve's thigh with the cane.
Steve huffs, pulling the sheets up closer to his chin. There are four blankets piled over his body. Steve loves blankets and hates being cold. Tony bribed Pepper with compliant attendance of all board meetings within the next month. He doubts that it was entirely necessary; Pepper openly declares that Steve is the sweetest person she's ever met.
"Where did you even get that?" Steve asks.
Tony swings the cane back onto his bed. "None of your business."
He is completely aware of the fact that he's being ridiculous. He doesn't care. Steve's okay, and Tony wants to talk and talk and talk just so he can hear Steve respond with his beautifully warm and alive vocal chords.
Tony's knowledge is spotty—moderate concussion, and all—but he knows that Steve's condition had been critical. The guy had a bullet puncture his lung and perforate his stomach, four broken ribs, and deep bruising covering his chest with markings that resembled boot treads. Tony pities the man who gave Steve those wounds, because an hour ago Natasha had performed her own cursory expectation of Steve, and her expression could have shattered glass when she saw the shoe prints. She hadn't left, though. Half of him had expected her to disappear in a red haze of anger and vengeance, but the other half had known that the moment Steve twitched his finger for the first time that day, she had taken a deep breath and settled beside him. It is also thanks to Natasha that the hospital staff had conceded to letting Tony's bed be moved into Steve's room the moment the Captain had left surgery. He owes her a lot.
A soft jerking of the bed jolts Tony out of his revery. He absently pats Clint's shoulder and whispers, "Shhh." Clint had stumbled through the door an hour previously, looking haggard and gray. The archer had been on a mission for the new SHIELD. After he'd stared at Steve's medical report and lightly pressed his hand against the warm skin over the Captain's heart, Clint dropped heavily onto Tony's bed and curled up next to him. He fell asleep in seconds.
"We are an entirely too cuddly bunch," Tony quips. He secretly smooths the blanket over Clint's arm. The guy is very warm, after all.
Steve rolls his eyes, shifting his body as if to gesture towards where Thor is bent over by his feet. The god is snoring lightly, his arms crossed and pushed up against Steve's legs, one hand surreptitiously clutching Steve's calf over the blankets. Thor has absolutely no boundaries, and the team, with their broken childhoods, refuses to admit that they cling to his physical displays of affection like Velcro.
"Quit moving," Tony snipes. He threatens to poke Steve with the cane again.
"It means we're close," Steve says, a hint of pride in his words. Bruce is an exhausted lump of flesh slumped over in an armchair. Next to him, Natasha stretched out in her seat with her legs over Bruce's legs. She looks like she's asleep, but it's hard to tell with her.
Right on time, Natasha growls, "Go to sleep," in the most threatening way possible that a person can mumble.
"I'm not tired," Steve says as his eyelids flutter closed.
Tony glares and settles back down in his bed. "Contrarian."
Steve hums amiably, unconcerned at this point, and almost-but-not-quite nuzzles the pillow. Tony pretends like he's not studying Steve's chest as it rises and falls, or his clean and ruffled hair that's not longer covered in blood. He's not looking at lips that aren't dripping red anymore. All of that would be weird.
"Don't do that again, by the way," Tony whispers. "You're heavy."
"You carried me anyway. Knew you would."
"I almost didn't, you know. I mean, I almost—."
One blue eye peeks out at Tony. "It doesn't matter what you almost did or didn't do. It's what you did. Now go to sleep."
Tony's shoulders ache, and the muscles lining his spine and around his neck are impossibly sore. An angry nerve twinges near his left scapula. He's reminded of the burden he bore every time he moves. Beside him, Clint snuffles in his sleep and subconsciously presses his back against Tony's side. Natasha looks deeply relaxed, huddled in one of Steve's sweatshirts. Her hand is slipping out of the front pocket, and that's how Tony knows that she's actually asleep. Bruce must be half-awake, because he sloppily throws a blanket over Thor, smiles at Tony, and cuddles back into the chair. The beeping of Steve's heart rate monitor, slow and even, is like a lullaby.
Sometime later, Pepper slips into the room, and even though Tony is mostly asleep, he tugs her onto the bed and wraps his arm around her back. She smells sweet and warm. Everything is okay.
Thus concludes my first work of 2015! I'm trying to get into the swing of things again. This is definitely clunky and patchy, but I had a very persistent image of Tony panicking over his 41 one year old self carrying a super soldier. I'm very much contemplating writing a series about various Avengers carrying each other, because I'm 4,000 words into another one about Steve carrying Thor.
Thank you for reading!