Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
Summary: The fastest way to warm a person up is to NEVER SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN, RED.
Or: Frank drags Matt out of the Hudson and saves him from hypothermia.
Author's Notes: One of the last pieces I'm going to be posting from Whumptober! Enjoy!
Heat Seeking
There's nothing, and then, suddenly, there is. Burning in his limbs, stinging in his fingers and toes. The murk in his skull doesn't drown out the pain; it amplifies it. Matt can't think, can't focus, can't move. He is in pain. Pain is his whole world.
Sounds emerge through the haze. Ragged grunting, a desperate keening, shushing. "It's fine. It's fine! You're fine! You hang in there." Pressure mounts in his shoulders. Tugging at his midback. The zipper on the suit comes unstuck to the sound of that wretched gasping. Wet moans against a hardwood floor that speak of confusion and disorientation, and it's only then that Matt realizes he's the one making the noises. He's the one who's confused. He's the one who's desperate. He doesn't know where he is or what's happening or why it hurts, why it hurts so much.
The suit comes off. Air gnaws at him, hungry and carnivorous. Matt wraps his arms around his chest and curls up on the floor, struggling against the pull on his legs. His skin feels to unpeel from his bones. A cry wrenches itself out of his throat and spills across the floor with tears and sweat and all his unasked questions.
"Stop squirming. Jesus." He's manhandled and fighting back only earns him more swearing. He lands, stinging, on a bed and is immediately wrapped up in silk and goose down.
He hears the swish of clothing. The splash of cotton and denim and metal hitting the ground. The mattress dips, the blankets lift, and then there is heat, perfect heat. Sidling up to him, pressing against him, enveloping him. The blanket comes up to his brow, wrapping around his feet, and the heat draws him in, crushing him in its grip.
"Come on, come on…" Hands scrub at him, calluses scraping, chafing his raw, frostbitten chest. Matt squirms and struggles. He can't seem to move his arms properly. Can't seem to control his legs or their strength. He ends up pushing hard in the wrong direction, kicking weakly in the other. The heat envelopes him in its crushing grip, chest to chest, and Matt flails uselessly, powerless to escape. "Stop, stop." A voice crashes through his soaked hair. "You're fine. You're safe. Just breathe. Breathe."
Matt gasps against the weight of the heat on him. He is trying. He is trying, and it hurts, and it's terrifying, and he can't breathe. He can't. "Yeah, you can." The grip around him loosens, and Matt's chest opens up, and he breathes. "Again." He does it again. He's started to shiver, the heat having reached below his skin, started to eat away at the cold near his core. "Again." Matt breathes. "Again."
Breathing start to take the edge off his shivering, but then the fires start in his fingers, his toes, his ears. "You stay with me. Come on. Keep breathing." But Matt is damn near losing it; he's right there on the brink, torn between the thrill of the freefall and crushing weight of this menace radiating fire through his torso.
"You stay with me." More rubbing; Matt groans, pushing back, his extremities on fire. His whole body struck up like a match. "You're not quitting on me now. You stay with me. Stay with me."
He's finally released, but Matt hasn't recoiled more than a few inches before he's wrangled onto his opposite side. He's captured mid-attack and one arm gets tugged across his upper chest, the other across his waist. He's become his own straight-jacket; his legs are locked against the mattress. "Stop. Stop, just stop. You stop, I'll let you go. Just stop."
Matt buries his face in the pillow, hiding the tears, the sweat from exertion. He lets out the yell he's been holding in, and he finally, finally forces himself to stop.
His wrists are released. His legs are unpinned. An arms tucks under his side and bars his chest as the other goes for his back, fingers spreading wide over Matt's spine. "That's it. That's it. Just breathe. You're gonna make it. You're fine, Red. You're fine." The hand on his back roves up and down, up and down, and Matt finds he's doing the same. Up and down, up and down, down, down…
He feels thicker when he wakes, like the blood has clotted in his veins. Like his organs have solidified into one giant mass. Like that heat source, which is still pounding away against his back, has dried him out. He's gone from winter to spring to summer in a matter of hours, and now his body is sore with sunburn, his mouth dry from drought.
A hand scoops under his face, turning him. Matt bucks a little, nearly choking on a stream of water that's magically appeared near his lips. "Jesus Christ, would you just stop?" The lip of a canteen appears near his mouth. Matt earns a small mouthful of water, swallowing hard against the dryness of his mouth.
He's given a few sips before he's lain back down. His arms are folded into an odd position; his legs curled up towards his abdomen. Two more arms that aren't his are fused to his chest, and his back has merged with a body, larger than his, broader than his, warmer than his. Warm enough for both of them.
Breath washes against the back of his neck. Matt licks his lips, exhaustion clamping down on him from the mere thought of moving. Thank God the name on his tongue is one syllable. "Frank?"
"Mm."
Matt can hardly get his eyes open. One hum, straight to the back of his skull, and he's sinking again, this time paddling for the abyss. He can't seem to lose consciousness again though. He's drawn back to the surface by the unmoving, unchanging, unyielding touch of Frank's hands on his torso, Frank's chest to his back.
"What are you doing?" Matt asks softly, lest the question be heard by anyone except him, Frank, and the blanket they're wrapped in.
"Saving your life," Frank replies. "Fastest way to warm someone up. I dragged your ass out of the Hudson."
"I don't remember…" but Matt's heart picks up at the thought, recalling the feeling of the water, the cold. The terror at being nabbed by the current. The Hudson is an abyss, and he was nearly lost to it. No way of telling up from down, surface from the depths. "How did you find me?"
"I was in the neighbourhood."
"You were following me."
Frank's heartbeat spikes. "Oh, what, you wish I wasn't? You wish I just left your ass to drown?"
Matt pats Frank's hands on his chest; he can't take Frank pushing at him in anger. His chest is sore from all the shivering, skin chafed from the frost. He wants to go back to the brainless before, when their proximity was purely physical, when he didn't have to think about it. Things get tangled with Frank. The practicality of combatting hypothermia gets mixed up with who they are, what they stand for, why they fight.
Matt listens to the heartbeat nudging against his spine, hoping for clarity. Suspicion, concern, but the longer Matt lies still, the more Frank settles back into his base rhythm. Briefly, Matt considers throwing Frank off him, but he decides against it. He will eventually. There's time for that. For now, he's tired. He so tired, and breathing like this, clamped in a grip, it's anchoring.
Matt lets his eyes fall shut. "Thanks," he says, bracing himself against Frank's inevitable departure. The cold won't be so bad here in his room. The covers will hold enough of Frank's body heat for him to fall back asleep.
The hands on his chest adjust their grip but eventually ease back down. "Don't mention it," Frank says. And then, when he still hasn't left, "I mean it, Red. Don't you ever speak of this. Ever."
Matt gives a light laugh on his way back to sleep. "Who would believe me?"
Frank nods against his spine, his voice running through Matt's hair as he says, "Yeah, I guess that's true."
Happy Reading!