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afedrigo- Thanks! :) The next one is here!

Jokul Frosti The Winter Child - :) Protect the actual child Peter! x

Guest - I'm glad you think so :) Aww thank you. Ah ok I think in the movie and I'm judging this purely on looking at the actor he appears Indian. However I have heard rumours that in the comics Yinsen is Chinese which might be where the confusion is here.

No copyright infringement intended...
All Movie Scenes used here belong to Marvel Studios and their respective owners, I'm not out to profit from this work.
I made it purely for enjoyment purposes.


Steve could feel a cloud of frustration and grogginess weighing down on Tony as soon as the scene resurfaces, the phantom aches make Tony feel like he's a voodoo doll stabbed full of pins.

"Stark-" Yinsen's voice cut through the haze, like a knife through the mist.

'Nggghhh fuck off…' Tony thought as he raised a middle finger. Steve mentally frowned at the rude language and gesture Tony directed towards the doctor. Although he felt sympathy for Tony's plight and knew first hand how draining chronic pain was, there was no excuse for that sort of language.

"Stark," Yinsen'svoicesharpened, "we have to start physical therapy."

'Today!?' Tony moved his throat a little and Steve was immediately struck by the hoarseness of Tony's throat, since he knew that to Tony it felt like his entire throat was coated in sandpaper and he couldn't vocally express that thought because the breathing tubes annoyingly painful obstruction. He could feel how reluctant Tony was to begin physical therapy due to how bad the pain still was and he wasn't looking forward to worsening it.

Steve felt a surge of pity and understanding for the man he had recently begun to consider a friend and a kindred spirit.

"I'm sorry Stark, it'll have to be today. But to get started I'll need to prop you up." Yinsen begun doing so as he talked.

Tony's face contorted as Yinsen moved him upright and held him there for what felt like hours to him. They soon got into a rhythm of Yinsen shoving all the of the rolled up clothing and blankets behind him before tilting Tony down a little to see if it was enough.

Yinsen moved as quickly as he could. Despite the weight in Tony's chest lessening, the movement pulled on every healing stitch, aggravated his sore muscles and disturbed the breathing tube and set him coughing around it again.

To his great shame the violence of the coughing fit caused tears to spring to Tony's eyes and down his cheeks. Yinsen though knew better than to mention them as he wordlessly wiped them away with a corner of the stuffed felt he had stuck under Tony.

The therapy started with a massage which Steve was familiar with. 'This was the sort of thing Ma did after I had been bedridden for a long time.' Steve thought, the pity and understanding he had for Tony only increased at this thought. He could feel Yinsen's fingers digging into Tony's chest and shoulders and working down to his hands. Steve grimaced along with Tony as he felt all his nerves set on fire by the simple message and the painful tingling of muscles reawakening.

After the massage Yinsen had Tony go straight onto trying to raise and lower his arms. It wasn't an easy task and without the Doctor's help he was barely able to move anything above the elbow.

Every movement of his shoulders tugged at the healing muscles attached to the casing of the reactor and the metal ribs. He could feel the painful stretch of both pectoral muscles and groaned each time Yinsen moved or bent his arm and asked him to hold the position for as long as he can.

Tony's quite thankful that Yinsen only required him do some basic stretching of the limbs and hold his arms in each position for a few seconds before he was allowed a small rest. Half an hour later they resumed with Yinsen instead focusing on his hands and wrists.

"Stretch out your hand for me."

Tony shakily spread his fingers across the ratty cot, the muscles throughout his body, even the ones not affected by the surgery, felt sore and taxed and it's more of a strain than he expected to follow Yinsen's directions for basic hand exercises.

Steve frowned a little at feeling the extent of Tony's pain as his fingers ran through the exercises; curling his fingers around various objects, making a fist, moving his fingers like he's playing a piano or touching each finger to his thumb one after the other. He was instantly struck by how difficult Tony found these seemingly easy tasks. 'It's been so long since I had to struggle-'

The wrist movements came next. Tony's pain only increased when he flexed and twisted his wrists in all directions; these muscles hadn't been affected in the surgery but after a number of days of not moving them they were tense and sore.

"Good… good job," Yinsen coaxed him gently before Tony gasped and hissed in pain. "Alright, I believe we are done for now. Get some rest."

Although Steve was relieved that the therapy was over, it left him - Tony - even more sore, he felt like his nerves and muscles had been dipped in a vat of burning acid.

Tony felt seconds away from falling unconscious yet sleep remained elusive.

'I'm sorry Tony that's an unfortunate side effect of chronic pain.'

Steve felt a familiar frustration take over Tony's mind; he hated having to rely on Yinsen and the machines for everything from breathing to going to the toilet.

'I know how that feels, I hated having to rely on Ma and Bucky at times too.'

'These movements are so simple toddlers do them and here I am struggling. Pathetic.' Tony hissed and banged his head harshly against the pillow. 'I wonder what Howard would say if he saw me like this…'

Thinking about that only brought his mood lower as he stared distantly up at the cave ceiling.

Steve thought his old friend would be more sympathetic to his son if he saw his son in such a state. 'Despite the Stark men are made of Iron stuff Howard obviously loved Tony and if he saw him in such a state he'd probably be more nurturing than Tony would think… Although I never really saw Howard being nurturing in Tony's childhood, even after that kidnapping.'

It was to his great surprise that Steve found Tony praying. Tony's mother had been a devout catholic - like Steve's had been - though Tony had never really believed in her God.

Despite the situation, Steve felt a tinge of amusement hit him. 'That's probably Howard's scepticism rubbing off on you, Tony. You really are more alike than I had thought. Or at least in comparison to the Howard I knew.'

But now Tony prayed that he could get his independence back and that the reactor wouldn't leave him confined to a bed for the rest of his life.


"Stark, we've put this off for long enough. You need to be washed and the bandages changed-" Yinsen began as the team looked at each other in alarm.

"I really don't want to see that much of Mr Stark." Peter felt himself flush bright red and he averted his eyes.

"Hey!" Clint shouted blindly up at the ceiling, "Being! Illuminatey alien! I think I can speak for everyone here that we don't want to see Tony's crown jewels so if you'll get your sparkly ass down here-"

"You summoned me, Mr Barton?" The being's form wavered into existence right in front of Clint's face causing him to jump backwards into Natasha.

Meanwhile the Being clicked their fingers and the memory paused, a look of restrained amusement came over their face upon seeing Clint's reaction to them.

"We - we were concerned." Wanda began, "that we would be seeing too much here-"

"When has that happened any other time, Miss Maximoff?" The illuminate cut her off sharply.

"We witnessed Mr Stark be tortured and felt sensations similar to himself at that moment. Some could argue that was too much." Vision calmly spoke up.

"It needed to be felt, you know this Vision. That to truly understand at times another one must go through a similar experience. I believe you call it 'walking a mile in their shoes'. You have gone through nothing that you can't handle and only felt a fraction of the agony he went through in that surgery." The Illuminate's gaze turned distant for a moment, "I would not wish the full extent of that upon anyone of you." They blinked and the look was gone. "As for this particular instance, the implication of what happens will be enough to make you understand. I do not cause unnecessary pain and I am not graphic without a cause."

And with that the illuminate disappeared and the memory resumed.

Tony gave Yinsen a severe look, then glared at the soapy water and sponge Yinsen was carrying. He made a movement with his eyes and a little gesture with his hand.

"Stark you are in no condition to wash yourself let alone change the bandages or clean the tubes and you know it." Recognising the truth of that statement, Tony's hand slumped before he tries to make a very fake smile around the tube, only succeeding in causing himself to shudder and cough.

"You've only just started therapy Stark, you can barely move your arms." Yinsen's voice softened. "Don't worry Stark I've cared for patients before, I know what I'm doing and this isn't the first time I've done this for a patient."

Tony knows Yinsen had washed him while he was unconscious, but now that he's awake and aware it was another story.

'It's another piece of dignity and independence that the surgery and this cave has stolen from me.'

"There is no indignancy in being bathed, in fact many of the ancient Midgardian and Asgardian rulers used to have servants cloth and wash them." Thor appeared briefly confused. "I was unaware that friend Anthony was so self conscious."

However now Thor thought about it Tony had never even appeared shirtless in front of him or his teammates despite the rumours of Tony's arrogance and narcissistic views of himself. For all of Tony's promiscuous history that Thor had heard about Tony had never displayed any such behaviour in the team's presence or been anything other than respectful to women.

'I know my body won't take well to the movement.'

Steve makes a noise of understanding in his throat.

Tony barely contained himself from making a small movement that conveyed his frustration.

'For God's Sake! I've been in dozens of sex-tapes, everyone's seen me naked! I shouldn't be uncomfortable anymore.' Tony tried to cover how uncomfortable he was by wiggling his eyebrows suggestively at Yinsen but it clearly didn't work from the way Yinsen just looked at him a little too knowingly. Tony thought he saw a flash of pity in the Doctor's eyes, he couldn't stand it.

Natasha felt compassionate towards Tony in that moment. 'It is understandable that Tony feels uncomfortable being so naked and vulnerable to the Doctor.' Natasha, as the Black Widow, knew she would be too. 'Being naked and being reliant on someone are two very different things.'

'Not even being able to wash myself. Yinsen needs me to be strong so this experience can be over quickly.' He tried to project confidence as he rolled his eyes and gestures with his hand for Yinsen to get a move on.

"Let's get your shirt off-" Yinsen moved towards the bed, bending over to put the bucket down whilst the memory morphed and changed around them.

Gold flashed before their eyes as the scene morphed slightly and they saw Yinsen putting the bucket of water back and clean bandages peeking through Tony's shirt.

Tony lied on the bed his face screwed up in pain from the movement during the bath and bandaging. Yinsen had had to roll him completely over twice and the pain had made him wish to blackout several times.

'Why didn't I blackout? Without the tube I would have been screaming. My body must hate me that's it.'

Another wave of sadness and guilt hit Rhodey upon learning that his best friend had been in so much agony and he can't help but look away.

'At least the pain distracted me from the discomfort of being bathed.'

Steve can't help but let out a small sigh at that thought as he frowns. 'I remember thinking a similar thing when I was ill-' He found it slightly alarming to feel the amount of his pre serum pain memories being unearthed by Tony's plight. 'Did I really...forget what it was like to be the little guy?'

Yinsen increased his dose of morphine again and eventually the pain dulled slightly, enough so that his hands relaxed their death grip on the sheets.

"I'm sorry Stark, I know that wasn't pleasant in any way but it needed to be done."

Tony managed a slight incline of his head, his eyes appeared worryingly distant and glazed.

"The burns are healing well." Yinsen said softly to him, "The shrapnel wounds are closing, I'll look at taking the stitches out in another week. The incisions from the last surgery will take a lot longer to heal. Overall you'll have some nasty scars but you're healing. Fortunately there's been no sign of infection in your chest and the chest drains have only picked up a small amount of fluid, I think that tomorrow I'll start weaning you off the ventilator, yeah?"

Tony managed a weak thumbs up before he can't keep his eyes open any longer and let himself slip into that welcoming nothingness.


Explosions echoed in his ears as he stumbled out of the humvee, he tripped landing face first in the sand. He looked back and saw Jimmy lying in what appeared to sand stained a deep dark carmine colour, his body almost torn apart from the shrapnel wounds.

"Whoa! What the hell? Why are we back here?" Peter twists back to the others, he was alarmed at seeing the familiar scene.

The sand around him was stained entirely blood red.

"We're in a nightmare…"Sam murmurs in a hushed voice.

He looked up and could see the mangled bodies of the other two soldiers. 'What were their names? Why didn't you ask their names?'

Steve made a low hiss as Tony's past words to him on the helicarrier when they first met echoed through his head. 'We are NOT soldiers.'

The three corpses were decimated, torn apart because of the explosions, there were more bodies - or parts of what once were people - torn apart and scattered around the sandy plain. He looked away to see that their blood had stained his hands.

The poetic nature of that image is not lost on Wanda. 'For the majority of my life, Stark, I thought the blood of my family stained your hands too… but you didn't commit those murders. For Hydra, for Ultron, I killed with my powers - my hands. Before now I never even felt guilt, I believed that because of what you - no, your bomb - did whatever I did was justified.' She sucked in a harsh breath as her eyes filled with tears. For the first time since she had got her powers she'd worked out the real reason why they are red, it wasn't because she was loving and passionate like Pietro had always said. A dark part of her mind now knew that it was because she lusted for blood under Hydra and they gave her the tools to get it. 'Now my hands are forever red… and they deserve to be.'

"No, no no no," Tony frantically scrubbed at his hands and then dug them in the sand, rubbing them raw, trying to get the blood off.

'It won't come off! I need to get it off!'

Bucky's lip twitched, his own self loathing reawakened at that thought. 'Unfortunately it'll never come off. I'm sorry Stark you really don't deserve their blood on your hands.'

A distant scream tore through the smoke and explosions, "Tony!"

Rhodey jumped upon hearing his voice and several of the team turn to him but Rhodey's eyes were now stuck on his best friend and he doesn't acknowledge them.

Tony snapped his head up, "Rhodey!"

He scrambled to his feet and started yelling for Rhodey.

"He really loves you." Vision turned to Rhodes, who finally tore his eyes away from Tony to glance at Vision. "You're more important to Sir than you realise."

"So is he." Rhodey breathed.

Explosions still shook the ground and he couldn't see anyone moving in the smoke. There was only lone limbs, guts, blood and bodies.

"Jesus fuckkk…." Scott breathed as he sees the gore and he turned a sickening shade of green once more.

Beep beep beep…

Several of them jumped at the intruding sound but Dream Tony didn't seem to notice it.

He stumbled around explosions looking at the bodies with faces, all people he'd seen at the demo, people he'd talked to. Now they were all dead by his weapons. 'But Rhodey's alive, he has to be. I can't lose him'

"I can't lose you either…" Rhodey murmured in response, he was too shocked to manage to voice anything else.

Finally he saw a figure walking in the smoke and heard Rhodey calling him.

The relief as he ran toward his best friend was overwhelming. But then without deciding to he started slowing down as Rhodey came into sight.

Beep. Beep. Beep

"That sound… sounds like a heart monitor-" Scott's eyes widened as he realized it. 'It beeping is a part of the real world bleeding through…'

Tony only realised he was holding a gun in bloody hands when he saw himself raising it. The movement was unintentional and in the harsh sunlight he could see the glitter of strings holding him and his gun up.

"What?" Thor stares horrified as Ultron's motto repeats in his head. 'You have no strings on me…'

Tony tried to shout a warning to Rhodey, who doesn't realize the danger, but his mouth refused to move.

The emotion in Dream Tony's face slowly drains until it goes scarily cold and blank.

Bucky's eyes dart between dream Tony and dream Rhodes with a horrified expression, the way Tony was seemingly being controlled reminded him once again of Winter.

The string connected to his index finger around the trigger was yanked sharply back.

BANG!

They jump violently upon seeing a hole tear itself through dream Rhodey's chest, it was eerily similar to the wound the hole the shrapnel had left in Tony's chest but the bullet had exploded out of the other side.

Shellshocked, Rhodey's eyes appeared stuck on his - now dead - dream self whilst Sam swallowed heavily. Although he knew that this wasn't real this was now a second friend that he had watched die, Sam inched closer to the real Rhodes to try and comfort himself. 'It isn't true, Rhodes isn't murdered. He's right next to you.'

Tony was frozen, unable to move no matter how much he tried, completely powerless, he could do nothing but watch his best friend fall...

Beepbeepbeepbeep


Tony woke with a jolt, the top half of his body violently launched off of the bed a few centimetres, the tube smothered the blood curdling scream he tried to make.

It didn't stop him trying to scream a second time as he felt like his chest was ripped open again. Every reawakened injury tore new screams, from the movement and the impact with the bed jarring the implant.

Agony tore through his chest and his throat, so severe that it blacked out his senses. He scrabbled frantically, clawing at the bed sheets and the bandages at his chest.

Peter rushed to Tony's side, crouching by him and kept fruitlessly trying to stop Tony from struggling and doing further harm to himself. "Mr Stark! Calm down please! You're not there! You didn't kill anyone! You wouldn't! Calm down please, what happened with your weapons isn't your fault."

"Spider-Man," Steve was stunned at the amount of care the young man was showing for Tony. The masked head whipped up at his name.

"I've got to tell him, Cap! I've got to let him know that he's not-" Peter spoke up frantically.

The others saw Yinsen running over but they know Tony had no awareness of this, trapped in his memories and nightmares. Neither did Peter until Yinsen went through him and his hands work to hold Tony down instead. The young man startled backward with a yelp at the odd sensation and glanced at the others.

"You really care about him, don't you?" Steve spoke up softly, he tentatively placed a hand on the young man's shoulder.

"Of course I do. He's one of the closest things I've ever had to a father figure." Peter wiped his face under his mask and breathed out shakily.

It took several minutes for the morphine to kick in and Yinsen held him down on the bed trying to stop Tony's thrashing.

"... in the cave with me, you've recovering from surgery, you're alive, it's just us here, it's early morning I think," Yinsen keeps speaking calmly to try and ground Tony in the present. "They haven't turned the lights back on yet so we've only got the fire, it's flickering but it's not embers yet. There's no one else here, the door is shut, you're alive, you're safe."

Clint and Scott find themselves moved by the image, as father's themselves, and how Yinsen comforted Tony starkly reminded them of what they would do for their children when they had violent nightmares.

It took several more minutes for Tony to slowly calm down, his legs and arms slacken against Yinsen. His eyes briefly squeezed shut as he gasped and leant against Yinsen briefly, still fighting off the images of Rhodey and numerous dead soldiers.

Sam grimaced slightly. 'It's close to how my support group describes their nightmares. This could just be a one off… I'm a councillor. I wouldn't have missed fully fledged PTSD in a teammate. Although I wouldn't have blamed Stark if he were permanently scarred by this.'

When he opened his eyes, he saw their blood dripping from his hands. He blinked again and his hands were clean.

'My hands are clean. Rhodey isn't dead. HE ISN'T! I didn't shoot him... You might as well have if your weapon did.'

"That's not…" Wanda frowned to herself appearing deeply introspective. 'That's not right. You wouldn't have fired that weapon at your friend. You didn't fire it… you didn't know who Stane was dealing to… therefore it isn't your fault.' Wanda's eyes widen. 'It isn't your fault… for any of it… Maybe if I could…'

Wanda's eyes and hands go vermillion, she began to step towards the bed before she felt strong hands clamp down on her shoulders and forcefully turn her around.

Upon looking up, she sees Natasha's cold green eyes glaring at her with great suspicion. "What could you do here? We are in a memory."

"Exactly," spat Bruce, "we're in his head already, she could do even more damage." Standing at Natasha's other side, Bruce's dark eyes had a hint of green in them as he shot her a vicious glare.

"I was only going to try to-" Wanda protested.

"Don't." Natasha cut her off sharply, gone were the days when she would have been gentler with the Witch. She had once thought of Wanda as a protégé of sorts despite her initial discomfort and dislike of her. After a few months of working together that dislike had faded, she'd seen the Maximoff girl was alone like her and in a male dominated team. That empathy had convinced the Black Widow to try for the first time in a long time to forgive. Wanda had thrown that in her face at Liepzig, throwing her in a way that could've seen her paralysed like Rhodes.

Natasha rarely gives second chances but never third.

Yinsen's calming voice pierced through the nightmares and the beeping of the heart monitor started to stabilise.

"You with me Stark?" Tony gave a brief thumbs up, Yinsen squeezed Tony's still trembling shoulder gently and took a cloth to clean his sweaty, tear stained face without comment.

'Pathetic, crying now too? You are a massive sissy. It's not like Rhodey is actually dead… You don't know that though do you?'

Yinsen set to checking his stitches and fixing the one's he'd torn in his panic, describing everything he's about to do.

It's calming in a weird way. Despite this, Tony spent the next several minutes staring at the cave ceiling going over every detail of when he last saw Rhodey and racking his brain trying to remember the names of the three soldiers.

"That's the worst thing you can do." Wanda murmured, Bucky and Natasha scowls at her.

"I remember every single one of the people that I killed. Every name." Steve flinched at that admission from Bucky. "They are people, every one of them had families, had friends. Like those soldiers, like the people you must have hurt for Hydra to train those powers of yours-"

"I meant to dwell on it, the dream." She cut Bucky off lowly and he swore he could see her eyes flash red in a non verbal warning. 'Don't go there.'

Bucky gave her a half nod in apology for jumping to conclusions but doesn't lower his gaze. Winter growls in his head. 'Sure you did. Flash those eyes at me again. I'll tie you to a pyre and burn you like the witch you are.'

Tony had pulled the main surgical incision that ran along his sternum, above and below the reactor, requiring Yinsen to rebandage his torso. He was quite thankful for the large dose of morphine.

Their ghost pain had waned and they were thankful for the clean gauze that insured Tony had a higher chance of full recovery.

Tony thinks he might be getting used to the pain, or at least he was getting used to being in pain. He knew he'd have to get used to it sooner or later since the pain wouldn't be going away anytime soon.

Vision frowned, knowing how true that was from JARVIS' memories. It saddened him to realize just what Tony had been dealing with. Tony was like his grandfather in a strange way and the closest thing he had to family. He wished he could help him more and relieve this pain.

Steve flinched slightly, thinking of everything Tony had done since Afghanistan - every battle with the Avengers - and wondered how they'd never noticed.

Tony was thankful when Yinsen didn't ask about the nightmare though that might have been in consideration for the tube down his throat that prevented him from answering.

"Ah that's why then." Scott murmurs, he had been wondering why Yinsen wouldn't have asked what the nightmare was when it caused Stark to thrash around like he was possessed.

'Thank heaven for that.' The tube was painful, but Tony knew that he'd rather have a lobotomy than talk about that dream.

Bucky's face twitched at that thought. "Trust me Stark, you really wouldn't." Although he had never had a lobotomy, repeatedly having his brain fried in that chair had come close. Especially with how bad Hydra had messed him up to implant the trigger words in his brain which pushed him to make a dissociative personality - Winter.

Yinsen did however place a stethoscope on his chest and listen to his lungs. Tony remembered Yinsen said he wanted to start weaning him off the ventilator today but he didn't look too happy now.

'Oh great, another day with the tube.'

And Yinsen did decide to wait another day to test his breathing.

Tony couldn't help but be angry at himself that his guilt and residual trauma had to catch up with him that night.

Thor wished that he could reassure his friend that he would overcome this mental and physical hell in the end. 'It is not shameful to be haunted by what you have seen, my friend. You become a true warrior because of it. It is things like this that shapes Asgard's best; the Berserkers.'