The Avengers Whump & Bromance Anthology

Fight Back, Tony

Whumptober 2020

PenPatronus

Like a furnace.

Tony felt like he was burning alive in a furnace. He woke up clawing for the ceiling and walls, and scooting backwards fast as he could, convinced that he'd been put in feet first and the only way out was behind him. His hands collided with something solid and he pushed off it. His head butted against something behind him and the impact hurt so much that his entire body briefly froze before seizing. The heat increased. "I'm burning – I'm burning!" he gasped. Tony felt sweat pool on his eyelids. He realized, then, that his eyes were closed, and he opened them, expecting to see furious flames surrounding him. Sweat splashed down into his eyes and he had to blink to see through them, through the burning, through the haze, through the confusion.

"Hey. Whoa, hey," a voice whispered. "Tony. Tony, look at me."

Tony's eyes darted everywhere. He saw prison bars and blank concrete walls. He saw the moon outside a small window. He saw empty cups and plates and used forks and spoons. Then, a face blocked everything out, forcing him to see it and it only. He looked into the person's eyes and recognized them. They were safe eyes.

"Steve," Tony grunted softly. "Steve, I'm burning."

"Shhh, Tony, you have a fever. It's just a fever." Steve pressed a dirty piece of cloth to Tony's forehead, to his cheek, to his chin. "You got hurt, remember? The wound's infected." Tony tried to sit up, but Steve pushed him back down. His head was lying on the inside of Steve's knee. Embarrassed, Tony tried to roll away, but Steve righted him again. "Easy."

Tony relaxed. "My head. My… My stomach."

"I know." Steve stopped Tony from touching his wounds. "Tony. Tony, I need you to listen to me for a minute."

Tony squirmed. "God, my head…"

"Tony. Tony, please." Steve patted his cheek. Tony looked at him. "We're in trouble here," he said. "Big trouble."

"I don't – I don't even remember…"

"And I need you to swear to me that you're going to fight. Fight the pain, fight the fever, fight the delirium. Fight back."

"How did we even – where are we?"

"Doesn't matter. You just focus on staying alive, all right? Leave me to handle everything else. It'll be ok."

"Ok. I trust you, Cap."

"That's my man."

"Should I… I should probably stay awake…"

"You probably should," Steve agreed. "Tony?"

Tony was already unconscious.


Like boiling water.

Tony felt like he was burning alive in boiling water – under the water. He woke up stretching and circling his arms like he was swimming. He had to get to the side of the pot before his skin burnt off. He kicked his legs, arched his head up so that he'd get air as soon as possible when he breached the surface. He must have found the side, because something solid connected with his body and his stomach suddenly erupted in pain. Tony screamed, but heard barely anything more than breath. Hands grabbed his wrist and he fought back, convinced that they were pushing him deeper into the water. But, he had no strength. The hands were strong, and he was drowning and burning at the same time…

"TONY!" a voice cried. Tony's eyes flew open. Natasha. Nat was there. Why was she there? Why was she… Was she crying?

"What's wrong?" Tony rasped.

"Oh my god, you're awake," Natasha gasped. She placed his hands on his chest and intertwined their fingers. "Hey, Stark."

"Nat, what's wrong?"

She snorted and shook her head. "I'm, um, just having a rough day, Tony."

Stark looked around. He was still in the prison cell. "Where's Steve?"

Nat's facial expression briefly flickered. "He'll be back soon. He's fine."

"You were the best liar I knew until now," Tony whispered.

Nat looked down at their hands, and when she looked up the tears were thicker. "They took him. It's been a day. I – I don't know what they're doing to him."

"Is he awake?" came a voice further away. "Holy shit—" Clint appeared. His face was dusty and dirty, and blood had dried beside his eye. "Stark, man, thought you'd never wake up."

"Hey, Barton. You look like shit."

"Look in a mirror, brother." Clint's nose crinkled. "Then again, maybe not."

"That bad?"

"You look like Gollum if he was drowned and left to die in a pile of dog shit."

Tony chuckled, and the pain multiplied in his head and stomach. "Oh, wow, oh…"

"Don't make him laugh," Nat snarled at Clint. "Do we have any water left?"

"Yeah. Steve put his aside for Tony." Clint disappeared from Tony's vision, and then reappeared with a tin cup. Natasha took it and held it to Tony's lips, depositing just a few drops. Tony suddenly realized he was dying of thirst. He reached his hand up, tipped the cup and took several gulps. "No, wait—!" Natasha ripped the cup out of his hands, but it was already too late. Tony suddenly rolled to his left and vomited liquid and bile up.

"Oh, God," Tony coughed.

Something metallic rattled nearby. The three Avengers looked up to see a guard unlocking the cell door. Clint tried to get there in time, but he missed catching Steve, who was tossed inside. "I'm ok, I'm all right," Steve insisted in a broken voice, waving Barton aside. He got to his feet and limped over to Tony. Like Clint, his face was dirty and there was caked blood all over it. He knelt beside Tony and offered a smile. "Told them you'd wake up."

Tony's eyelids felt heavy. "Not for long, I think," he admitted.

Steve nodded. "It's ok."

"Is it…?" Tony coughed. "I'm fighting, Steve, I promise."

Steve took Tony's hand. "I know. Keep it up. I'm proud of you."

On Tony's right, outside of his imagination, beyond his hallucinations, the real Steve Rogers watched, distraught, as Tony carried on conversations with his teammates who weren't there. He didn't know what to do – interrupt the delusion? Would that distress Tony too much? Make him doubt anything was real? Steve sighed. He leaned his cheek against the cell wall. If the hallucinations brought Tony any sort of comfort, maybe the responsible thing was to leave him inside them.

Steve put his face in his hands.


Like he was buried in snow.

Tony felt like he was six feet under, and that six feet was full of snow. He was shivering so fast, so fast. He woke up in Steve's lap again and could barely get a word out between the clicking of his teeth. His head felt a swollen, throbbing entity separate from his body. His stomach rumbled with emptiness, yet felt heavy and bloated and so very, very painful. Like there was a bear trap around his abdomen.

Steve was speaking to him. His frown was deep. Tony couldn't hear, but he recognized the shape of his name on Steve's lips. "Tony, hang on," Steve seemed to be saying. "Hang on, hang on."

Tony's entire body shuddered. It felt like the fluid in his very eyes was frozen. The sweat that covered every inch of his skin felt like little icicles. "I'm trying," he tried to say. "Steve, I'm trying."

Tony summoned all the "him" that he had in himself, and told his body to persevere. He gave it no option. Hang on, hang on, hang on.


Steve stared at the small rise and fall of Tony's chest. It was mesmerizing, like watching ocean waves. His heartbeat was a little hypnotizing, too. Steve had barely stopped feeling at least one of Tony's pulse points at a time. It seemed too slow, but it was steady as a clock. Until…

His heart skipped a beat. Steve shot up into a sitting position from lying on the floor beside his friend. He rearranged his middle and forefinger to make sure he was getting an accurate reading. The pulse continued for another minute, and then it suddenly did a double skip. "Behave," Steve growled at Tony's heart. Stark's face was so, so very pale. He needed a long shower to wash the dried blood out of his hair. And the makeshift dressing Cap had made from his own uniform had turned dark maroon around the wound in Tony's stomach. The fever kept rising. His breaths seemed to be more and more difficult to breathe.

Flashing lights from outside the cell—

Steve looked up. The lightbulb above flickered. A second later, he heard thunder.

Cap grinned down at the wheezing Tony. "Almost home," he promised him. "They're coming for us."


The thermometer beeped. Steve took it out of Tony's mouth and announced, "99.8. Almost there."

Tony rolled his eyes. "You're not going to let me out of this bed until I'm 98.6, are you?"

"Maybe not even then," Steve threatened. He put the thermometer on Tony's bedside table and sighed. "Maybe I'd let you out if I wasn't so sure you'd spend a solid 24 hours in the lab."

Tony sat up higher in his bed and rearranged his sheets. "How about we compromise. I'll only spent 20 hours."

Steve rolled his eyes. He put his fingers against his temples. "98.6, Tony. For me?"

The request caught Stark off guard. He slinked backward into his pillows. "Fine. For you. Because you kept me alive in that hellhole."

"Oh, no." Steve took some gauze off the bedside table and gestured for Tony to turn onto his side so that he could replace the bandages. "I didn't do a damn thing. You did that all on your own."

"Oh, you did more than you know," Tony guaranteed. "You even sang that lullaby to me."

"Tony, I didn't sing you a lullaby. You were hallucinating half the time."

"I did wonder why it was in tune. You have an awful voice."

"Super soldier serum can only enhance so much," Steve chuckled.

"So, was I hallucinating when that goose was tapdancing?"

"You made that up just now." Steve finished up with the bandages and sat down on the side of Tony's bed.

A beat passed. "Did I hallucinate you lecturing me and holding my hand half the time."

Steve blushed. "I may have done that."

"See? You did help keep me alive."

The End