Warnings: mention of m/m slash, don't like, don't read.

Disclaimer: I do not own this. Part of it is canon and reboot canon, and therefore owned by those respective people. Part of it is fanon that is borrowed from countless other fanfics.

The wound had collapsed his right lung, torn through his diaphragm, and splintered three ribs. Any other man would have passed out, and, minutes later, died from the blood loss and lack of oxygen, and no one would have thought the worse of his strength for it.

But James Tiberius Kirk was not any other man.

James Tiberius Kirk from the time of his birth was overshadowed by his father, who had the nerve to die heroically and save eight hundred people, leaving his son simultaneously needing and hating to need to prove himself better.

James Tiberius Kirk suffered more abuse from his stepfather than he ever let his mother see.

James Tiberius Kirk took his stepfather's antique car for a joyride once, and drove it off a cliff rather than stop meekly for the cop who caught him.

James Tiberius Kirk was on Kodos' death list on Tarsus IV and lived to tell the tale, at the cost of learning to suffer yet more abuse—this time quietly—, sell his body, bribe, steal, cheat, kill, and risk his life on a daily basis to protect the kids who trusted him.

James Tiberius Kirk entered Starfleet Academy to become the fastest-made Captain in history on a dare.

James Tiberius Kirk hacked the Kobayashi Maru for two reasons: because it was hero-worship of his father and because it spit in the face of everything he'd done on Tarsus.

James Tiberius Kirk jumped off a drill to save a man he barely knew, because the Romulans had already killed his father, and they was not going to kill another person while Jim had half a chance of preventing it, and because James Tiberius Kirk doesn't believe in no-win situations.

James Tiberius Kirk managed to get marooned on an ice planet and then get back on the ship in mid-warp.

James Tiberius Kirk kept his head and hacked the Enterprise computers in time to save Scotty from being killed.

James Tiberius Kirk deliberately hurt and insulted another man with the lowest, vilest, most painful insult he knew, because it was the only way to save Earth.

James Tiberius Kirk saved the planet Earth in the Narada incident, almost singlehandedly, as a stowaway Cadet on the Enterprise.

James Tiberius Kirk succeeded in becoming the fastest-made Captain in Starfleet history.

James Tiberius Kirk finds a way to save as many people as possible, every time.

James Tiberius Kirk marooned an old friend on the same planet he was once marooned on, in order to save everyone else.

James Tiberius Kirk once bluffed his way out of certain death and ended up making an important political connection instead.

James Tiberius Kirk occasionally beats a Vulcan at three-dimensional chess.

James Tiberius Kirk fell in love with that Vulcan and ended up being only the fourth human in history to get the Vulcan's love in return.

James Tiberius Kirk's best friend is a doctor, and even though he knows Bones is going to kill him when he comes back in this state, it'll still be better than Bones following him to the afterlife to kill him for dying.

James Tiberius Kirk is not any other man. So James Tiberius Kirk blinks away the fuzziness, staggers to his feet, chokes the guard, steals his phaser, and destroys the machine keeping the Enterprise from beaming him up. Not only until he finds himself back on the platform, with Scotty sighing in relief, Spock trying not to look emotional, and Bones cursing up a storm while readying a stretcher and his medkit, does James Tiberius Kirk allow himself to pass out.