It was the only house for miles, tucked away in a little valley with an ice cold stream flowing through. Mountains rose around them, white-capped peaks scraping the sky. They were somewhere along the Russian-Georgian border, in the Caucasus mountains, or so Kate calculated based on the original trajectory they'd been traveling. Around back a small garden grew semi-wild and overgrown, and the house was equally neglected, so none of them expected anyone to be home when they knocked on the door, hurting, exhausted. The tiny, wizened old woman who answered was a complete surprise.
She didn't speak English and they didn't speak Georgian, but their bruised and battered appearances were explanation enough, and when Kate pointed at the trail of thick black smoke rising into the sunset at the other end of the valley (and Tommy made hand motions like a plane crashing), Kate saw comprehension dawn on the old woman's face. She waved them inside and shut the door against the encroaching night.
If she thought their ripped and torn spandex was strange, she showed no sign.
To their surprise, the house was bigger on the inside than it had appeared. There was a kitchen with a wood-burning stove, and a living room with a rocking chair, and two bedrooms, even. It's spare, but clean. Someone had once lived with her here- a husband, maybe children?- but now she was alone.
As isolated as the woman was, she hadn't forgotten the common courtesies. There was soup, and water to wash up with, and then in complicated hand gestures she tried to offer them the use of both bedrooms. They hastily demurred, none of them wanting to say they'd been the ones to deprive an eighty year-old woman of her bed.
She ran her eyes over the three of them to make sure they were certain, and then shrugged, waving them into the other room. With its one and only bed.
It was barely more than a double, and there were three of them.
After a second's contemplation of the setup- little more than a bare mattress with with some blankets thrown on top- Eli offered dubiosly, "I'll take the floor."
"Don't be stupid; your ribs are broken." Kate stopped, surprised at her sudden flash of anger. Stupid, self-sacrificing idiot, she snarled internally, knowing even as she did so that it came from guilt. Eli had taken the brunt of the crash, trying to protect her, and yeah, he might have super healing, but he wasn't invulnerable. There'd been a hell of a lot of blood when she'd woken up, and only some of it had been hers.
She took a breath and packed away the anger, saying more calmly, "If it ends up being necessary, I can take the floor."
Momentarily ignored by the two of them, Tommy wandered over to the side of the bed. He flung himself down onto the mattress with his arms spread. A cloud of dust flew into the air. "Hey, I'll take the bed if nobody else wants it," he offered, grinning, and then immediately ruined the moment by sneezing. He ducked his head and rubbed his nose, sniffling theatrically, but Kate could tell he was trying to hide a wince. Tommy'd come out mostly intact in the crash- he was designed to hit things at high speeds, he'd said- but the fight preceding it was another story. Bruises and cuts peppered his arms and upper body and his eyes were starting to look distinctly raccoon-like. If Kate closed her eyes, she could still hear the horrifying crunch as the piece of rebar had impacted with the back of his head. He'd woken up almost immediately and claimed to be fine, but Kate was pretty sure he still had a headache he wasn't admitting to.
Relaxing back onto the bed, Tommy threw his arm across his eyes to block out the dim lantern light. Exhaustion had dulled his normal twitchiness down to something almost resembling normal human; it was a little disconcerting.
"Not a chance, Speed," Kate said. It came out less sharply than she had intended.
But just because she could take the floor didn't mean she wanted to. She'd come out of the fight and crash with no major injuries, but every one of her bumps and bruises ached, and her muscles were starting to stiffen up in the cooling night air. All she wanted in the world was to lie down. A little obstacle like a too-small bed wasn't going to get in her way. Stripping off her bow and quiver, she propped them against the wall and began to unlace her boots.
"You know, Tommy, out of all of us, you're the only one who could go home right now," Eli said, crossing his arms across his chest. "Would leave us a little more room here."
Tommy peeked lazily from behind his arm. "What, and leave you two alone? Whatever would your parents say?" He faked a gasp.
Kate could just sense the cutting remark on the tip of Eli's tongue, and in the interests of them all actually getting some sleep, broke in before Eli could say anything. "Look, why don't we just all share? The bed's plenty big enough for three." Well, three very skinny people. She and Tommy counted, but Eli... didn't.
Eli gave the bed- and the two of them- a dubious look. "Are you sure-"
"Yes! Just come on. It'll be fine." Demonstrating, Kate sat down on the bed. The worn out springs sent Tommy rolling towards her, fetching up bonelessly against her side. She could feel his body heat radiating against her hip, soothing.
Eli was still hovering by the door, and Kate couldn't bear to watch him any longer. She reached out a hand to him. "C'mon, Eli," she said, and she sounded tired even to her own ears. "It's gonna get cold. Please?"
It was the please that did it. Eli wavered, and gave in. Grabbing her hand, he allowed her to pull him down to the bed next to her.
Tommy was still taking up a ridiculous amount of the bed's tiny real estate, and he seemed disinclined to move, so Kate pushed and pulled at him until he finally rolled over. Space made, she kicked off her boots and slid in next to him. Maybe she should take the outer edge, to prevent wandering hands during the night- but it was a fleeting thought. Eli wasn't the type, and Tommy had always been very careful about only going where he was wanted.
Anyways, who said she didn't want that.
Eli perched on the side of the bed and took his sweet time removing his boots. It was an obvious delaying tactic and Kate was just about to do something about it- she didn't have time for misplaced modesty, she wanted sleep- when Tommy sat up and draped himself over Kate, stomach pressing into her thighs, to place a hand on Eli's knee.
"Honey, come to bed. I promise we won't bite," he wheedled, fluttering his pale eyelashes outrageously. He leaned in closer, grin Cheshire-wide. "Unless you want us to."
The bitchface Eli made was epic. Kate rolled her eyes and pushed Tommy back onto his side of the bed; he bounced as he hit, laughing.
It was the impetus Eli needed, though, because he finished kicking off his boots and swung his legs into the bed.
"Shirt," Kate ordered just as he was about to lie down, pointing imperiously. "You're going to get blood on everything." It was soaked all into his side, past any chance of removal with the limited resources they had there.
Eli's shoulders sagged, but he removed the shirt with only a grumbled, "My grandma would not approve of this..."
"Your grandma would not approve of you freezing to death in the night, either; we're in the middle of the freaking mountains." Kate dragged him down next to her. He tried to lie on his side, to take up less room, but the hiss of pain indicated that was not going to work and he ended up on his back. On her other side, Tommy wiggled around until he was inches away from falling off the bed. Kate leaned down and dragged the blankets up and over them. There was just barely room for her in the middle, if she turned on her side. It was awkward, and there was a distinct lack of pillows, but, well, she'd slept in worse conditions. Tommy blew out the lantern, and the room plunged into darkness. Kate was asleep between one breath and the next.
She woke gradually some time later and blinked into the pre-dawn darkness, mind still heavy with sleep. She'd shifted in the night, ended up on her back; her legs were tangled up with someone else's and something heavy was draped across her middle. The room was filled with the sounds of sleep: Eli's occasional deep snore contrasting with Tommy's higher, whistling exhale.
As her eyes grew adjusted to the darkness, she realized the weight she felt was Tommy, who sometime during the night had managed to move from his position at the edge of the bed and starfish out over the top of both of them. His feet were tucked under her calf and his arm was thrown across her waist, and his face was pressed into Eli's collarbone. When Eli snored, he sent a strand of Tommy's hair floating upwards until it gently settled back down, only to repeat the entire process over again a few seconds later. It was intensely adorable; Kate's hands itched for a camera and she really wished her phone hadn't been destroyed in the crash, she was desperate to document the peaceful scene. Cassie'd never believe it.
Tommy made a face and smacked his lips, and Kate couldn't help it; a giggle escaped. She slapped a hand over her mouth to catch the noise.
Too late. Tommy wiggled, flipping over so he was facing her. She was about to apologize for waking him when she realized his eyes were still closed; he was still asleep. That was the only reason she didn't stop him as he snuggled down and wrapped his arms around her waist, throwing a leg over her own. His face ended up uncomfortably close to her breasts.
She ought to push him off... but in sleep, he was soft and pliant in a way he rarely was while awake, and as far as she could tell Tommy rarely slept. It'd be a shame to wake him.
Besides, it really was cold out.
Kate shivered despite the added body heat, finding the edge of a blanket and tugging it up so it covered her bare shoulders as she stared blindly out into the darkness. There were only a few hours left until sunrise. In the morning, they'd need to check the site where the A.I.M. vessel had crashed, about ten miles back from where their own plane had ceased being airworthy, and make sure none of the scientists had crawled out of the crater to harass the populace. Then they'd have to figure out a way to contact the rest of the Young Avengers, maybe see if Billy could teleport them back. Once they'd made it back to New York, they'd have to explain to SHIELD exactly what had happened to the plane they'd 'borrowed'. None of it was going to be fun, and Kate swallowed a groan, thinking of all the things that needed to be done.
Her brain was still running a million miles an hour when she felt Tommy shift against her. He raised his head to look at her, then dropped his head to rest back against her collarbone. "I can hear you thinking," he murmured into her neck, still limp and boneless where he draped across her like a human blanket. "You should stop that."
"Go back to sleep," Eli agreed, voice rumbling in the dark. He slid an arm under her and pulled her closer, so she could rest her head on his shoulder. It left Tommy mashed in between them, but he just squirmed around until half his weight was draped across Eli as well. The two of them together radiated heat like a blast furnace, and Kate felt her body relaxing involuntarily as warmth seeped into her, replacing the night's chill. She yawned widely, curling a little into Eli.
"Sorry," she said, muffled by the top of Tommy's head. She let her arm come up and rest on the small of his back, feeling his muscles shift as he tucked his head more securely below her chin. White hair tickled her nose. On her other side, she found Eli's hand where it wrapped around her shoulders and twined her fingers with his. Her head moved with the soft rise and fall of his breathing.
Tomorrow's worries could wait for the morning. Here, now, she was with her team; battered and bruised, maybe, but safe.
Letting out a soft long sigh, Kate drifted off.