Not a single one of this characters belongs to me (only the last one, really) but to Stan Lee and the minds who work day after day in MCU with this magnificent films that inspired me to keep writing.
It was the eight day after the snap. Bruce had fall asleep sit down on an office chair on the communications room when the scanner alarm started to whistle insanely until waking him with a jump. Five spaceships of mid size were running towards earth and it seemed they would land directly on some point of Africa. Friends or enemies? No, one of them was clearly the Rescue Star. Friends. Bruce must warn someone but where was his phone? Shit, the penthouse. It would take at most five hours for them to touch earth but still he went quickly for the closest elevator for the lowest floor. What Bruce hadn't expected was to find Rhodey in front of him when the elevator doors opened.
"You, come with me! They arrived, the both of them."
"Yeah I know. The scanner detected five spaceships running towards here. But they would take five hours for land. Why are you so hurry?" for him to move with the slow twirling of a exoskeleton Rhodey walked fast enough for be two steps beyond him.
"Five spaceships? I don't know what're you talking'out. Pepper and Tony arrived with Thor on that Bifrost thing. They are on the city gate where we are going now. I was on the penthouse and saw your phone also there so I came in case you wouldn't have notice. Rogers, Romanoff and the racoon are also running for there."
Bruce nodded and go behind Rhodey without more questions. Pushed and nudged almost every person they come across in the city until the magnificent gape could be seen in the distance. However when they finally arrived to the spot where all the people was gathering now, it been a signal of where the Bifrost leaved Thor, the imagine they saw in front of them did the world to stop for a minute under his foots and his heart to slow his pounding until he felt the blood on his veins had fallen literally down his legs.
Were them, as Rhodey had though, Thor and the Stormbreaker in his right arm and Pepper and Tony at his left. Pepper was physically well, still wearing on the white and purple armour but Tony was on a strange position, dropping with his knees almost touching the floor and Pepper holding him under his shoulders as best as she could, her face a grimace of pain while tried to hold back a distressing cry.
"Please, please Tony hold on please! Don't go please! I swear the ambulance is coming okey? But you had to try, just one last time, you had..." Pepper kneeled beside him, never shut off as an assurance she wasn't going anywhere, and hold his head in her lap while caressing his hear in a loving, calming gest. While I approached as fast as my heart pounding and the crowd on the streets allowed me, I could see it clearly. A large fresh blood stain covered Pepper armour and the right side of Tony's pit. The blood came from there. Tony was trying hard to keep his eyes open but his eyelids always ended whining this little battle. His breaths were hoarse and painfully deep, swallowed the air as if he had lack on it for days but also as if it hurt enough for don't want to breath anytime more.
Bruce bent down for check the main wound while Pepper gave him a short and begging greet without move away her gaze from Tony. Thor talked to him crouched at his back "Banner, he was lack of food, water and air when we founded him but the wound seemed closed. He began to bleed as soon as we landed here." Bruce nodded and cheked delicately the now half opened stub. All his right mid-section was teared up: the right external abdomen, a stomach section, the spleen, the low lung and the dorsal muscle. Some microchips with a white and sticky synthetic substance (he wasn't so sure but it recalled him of that kid's web) were attached on the organs cuts in what have been clearly an effort to close them up. It had healed the dorsal muscle and part the organ cuts pretty well but now the more of them, the most dangerous ones, had reopened or showed infected.
"Put your fingers on the wound and cover it up delicately Pepper. It will hurt but the wound is too much open and other way he'll loss more blood. Had you requested for an ambulance yet, Pepper?" Bruce glanced at her and the face she returned couldn't be more devastated. Her hear was tied in a tail and still it went to all directions, had lost all blood from her face, whiter than even Tony's, and two trails of tears fall down her cheeks to her neck. Bruce couldn't ignore the blow on his chest when he watched the panicked glare she gave him back when he ordered her to cover it, her bare fingers trembling above the bloody stab. She plucked up courage and finally put down the fingers causing a close-mouthed howl from Tony on a matter to not frighten her too much, as he would normally do.
"It's only until the ambulance leaves him in the hospital, I promise." when Pepper nods back and turns her attention to Tony again, Bruce gets up for being at Thor's height and talk to him. "I've seen five mid-size spaceships coming towards here. You know something?"
"Yes. One of them is the women Pepper came with piloting the Rescue Star, other is Nebula, the companion and only help Tony had out there, and the last three are the asgardian refugee ships commanded by Valkyrie and Korg. They are almost empty but there's still people who needed to be saved."
"I'm sorry for your loses and your people, buddy. Asgardians loosened too much so very quickly and still you had time for rescue Tony." Bruce glared at Thor in an effort to assure his support with it.
"It wasn't easy but it must be did. Tony is also my friend... At first, I went to find Valkyrie and the other ships but when I did, on our way back this galaxy, we intercepted a call from the Rescue Star saying they were searching Stark. We come across with them but as long as their ship wasn't prepared for do worm jumps, we offered our help to search the man of iron. The days passed and it seemed we wouldn't find him never but finally, two days ago and almost as a miracle from the ancient gods, the suit of Pepper received an unexpected emotional message who had been recorded for our friend itself. We keep searching on that area and, as you must have seen, the mere second we found him I teleported him with Pepper. He was fainting for lack of air... I never thought it could turn the wound worse, I'm sorry if..."
"Don't. I think it was badly healed since the beginning."
"Thor, you said that five spaceships were coming here right? Before they arrive I would suggest your ships to land on other country or at least warn the authorities on time, especially because of the refugee ones. After Thanos all what's coming from space seems a menace for the people." Bruce heard Rhodes talking with Thor from behind him but the wakandian ambulance arrived in that very moment, taking his attention from the conversation.
Between him, Pepper and some healers got Tony up in the ambulance. At first Bruce didn't want to go up with them for if he bothered the healers but Pepper insisted and they said he could be a help during this first minutes even if he wasn't a skilled surgery doctor so gave in and get on the van.
"I'm going with them Rhodey. Could you bring the team to the hospital and I see you there? Thanks." The ambulance doors were closed before he could hear Rhodey's answer and the car moved forward on the street, the siren sounding as a background.
"So sir, are you doctor?" asked him a young healer assistance at the same time he went to assure the immediate needs of his patient.
"I'm not a physician officially. My PhDh's are inclined on technical and research-study sides by I understand pretty well human biology and I have experience from some time as a volunteer doctor."
"Have you recognised the wound then. Are there any damaged organs?"
"The stomach has a little incision but the spleen is completely teared up. The low lung was healing thanks a substance he applied himself but now is swelled up and infected at one side of the wound."
"Fine, then I'll put him the air mask for help him breath. For now you shouldn't stop to covering up the stub, ma'am. We can't heal him here without the needed supplies. There'll be a surgery room prepared for him. The only thing we can do right now is to ensure the oxygen and blood keep reaching the brain. Fine?"
"Sure." Pepper was a mess on puffy reddish eyes, cheeks and mouth with no trail of colour but as much as her voice fainted slightly, she tried to show as much self-confidence as she could. Her fingers where still inside the wound, her position slightly turned to Tony out of necessity or instinct, as if by turn away her eyes from him someone or something will snatch him again from her.
The ambulance assistance went to put on the air mask on Tony, taking it off from time to time for not overload the injured lung. The healer, finally, managed to wake him up enough for him to turn open a sleepy and confused eyes.
"Pepper? Is that you? Where I...?" his voice was so hoarse you could even feel the pain in your own through but without hesitation she grabbed his nearer hand for if he needed a last assurance she was there and wasn't going anyway without him.
"Calm down love. You're fine, okey? We are getting you to the hospital and soon it wouldn't hurt more. Hm?" she spoke in sweet, calmed whispers while looking into his eyes with so much love and caring Bruce almost felt he was stealing a moment that was only for them both.
"Nebula? Thor? Thanos?" for what it seemed Tony couldn't talk too much.
"Thor said Nebula was on the spaceship and would come here soon. And have passed eight days since then. We haven't heard anything about that bastard but first we must heal your stub. After that we will begin to plan our response, sorry Tony" this time talked Bruce, as a try for Tony to not talk to much while the wound was fresh and open.
"Bruce? Who more is still...?" Tony turned his head towards the right sits, sign he didn't have noticed him before.
"As well as me and Thor, Natasha, Steve and Rhodey are still here. Clint wasn't with us the moment it all get ruined so we don't know yet." Bruce said only the alive or unknown one's on purpose, waiting he would guess the fate of the others by himself. Tony closed his eyes for a minute and take the mask in search for a bit of air, who would now if only dragged for the tiredness or as a way to soothe a new blow. He had seen people vanishing too, wasn't difficult to guess so.
"You shouldn't worry for that stub. I closed it with my tech and spi... synthetic web."
"It reopened on your way back here. And you couldn't sterilize the chips before using them, I suppose, so it caused a little infection on a cut." Bruce asked neutral and professional, wasn't time for scold him down.
Tony turned his head to look at his right mid-section. He was seeing now his fiancé fingers covering up the wound which hadn't realised but if it impressed or at least did him to remember his pain he didn't showed it. Instead went his eyes back to Pepper to focus his concern on the woman he loved.
"Well, now I'll can say my fiancé can literally hold my breath." Tony and his jokes. Others would reprimand him for not gave the necessary seriousness to the moment. He had a deep stub with several organs damaged besides the muscle, and despite Pepper's help it was inevitable he would continue losing blood. Checking a little bit over, Bruce would swear he had seen some broken bones too. He joked always but Bruce understands why. It was his way of protecting himself from a life that had begun being too serious since childhood and that was getting darker, depressing, shorter day to day. Tony searched a reason for survive all this hell, Pepper had turned one this last days, one stronger than friends, stronger than self-confidence and seeing her happy, especially when he was on the way to a surgery room, was the main one. Pepper smiled and it passed on Tony although he wouldn't recognise it later.
They finally reached the hospital and their short shelter in each other's eyes shattered with the overwhelming ease of a bubble ripping in your chest. The healer assistance asked Pepper to remove her hand delicately and as soon as she did, a stream of blood fell from one side of the wound. A main vein had broken too, shit. The assistant covered the wound again while his co-worker opened the ambulance doors. More healer assistants and nurses get off Tony's stretcher and run towards the surgery room, Bruce and Pepper following them as fast as they could. One door, another, another, a courtyard the elevator and finally in the fourth floor a nurse stopped them at the door to the operating room corridor, asking them to go to the nearest waiting room.
Their shattered, wrecked team was waiting there. Natasha, Steve and Rhodey raised their glance from the floor right when listened them arrive, all their questions, their fear, their last hope mixed in their faces. Bruce noticed his hands were sweating and shivering since the ambulance, lightly free for seconds of his usual controlled calmness. The surgery shouldn't be dangerous with the advanced technology they had in Wakanda but the right external abdomen, stomach and spleen teared up, the low lung infected and now a big vein ripped was to hard to remember and more to tell anyone. He just couldn't so, when Steve was about to ask him, Bruce summed up with the only information they needed now.
"Tony would be well. Always is." Said Bruce squeezing hands nervous and giving back a look he couldn't put directly on any eyes. Such an uncertainty he had used Bruce would bet no one believe it but they nodded in agreement, probably searching for some hope as much as they needed it and him too, resolved as an afterthought.
Bruce went to sit down for do the only thing he cold another time, wait and observe. The imagine was basically a resume of how broken, shattered, emotionally died they were after the day of the vanishing and above all after this week. He tried to focus his mind in other matters with conversation as all of them but it feeled just as what it was, a distraction.
"Where are Thor and Rocket?" Bruce turned to Rhodes, noticing silent and sporadic tears escaped his eyes while his hands rubbed ans shifted together on nervousness gests.
"Thor went to search Shuri while she's still princess for discuss if the asgardians could land here with garanteed security or either if the circumstances force them to ask another country. Rocket go with him when he knew they did found someone from space he knows, Nebula or something."
Natasha taked Pepper to the bathroom for take her the armour off and wash the stained blood from her right hand. Bruce noticed he had some blood also and cold sweat covered his face but would go later, using that moment for ask about the man most missed here.
"We have news from Clint?" with Bruce's question Steve turned to him, his eyes shrinked in his shockets maybe since some days until now from lack of rest, worry, guilt and his mouth just turned from down to seriously streight.
"No, still nothing. But don't ask Natasha please, even less you. It was too hard for her to finally decide to phone him and when she did and no one taked it, she breaked down. I wanted to say her a call doesn't means anything but she kicked me out of her room and turned on the shower, you know... for that her tears will confuse with the water."
"For that her tears will confuse with the water." they said that last sentence simultaneously. It wasn't anything special that they two knew that, after six years of the team working together and some of them even living together wasn't unusual for them to knew each others habits and if they were perceptive enough each others ways of thinking. Natasha was certainly so private, but precisly because of how complicated it was for her to show her feelings and trail of any weak one could understand pretty well that when she more closed herself to the others, was when she most suffered. At least, that was the way Bruce could see it.
Her alternative way out of feelings was focus her efforts in ease others sorrow, of her loved and trusted ones mostly. That's what she decided to do now sitted down next to Pepper, embracing her with one arm and letting her to curl up the head on her shoulder when she drifted off.
Wasn't until pretty hours later, eight on evening and the very moment Thor arrived to the waiting room, that a doctor introduced herself asking for Tony Stark relatives.
"Are you Stark's companny this night don't? Right, I'm Doctor Liza Amimbola and I'll be the first head in charge of him until we give the discharge. It has been a long difficult operation but Mr. Stark has the vital signs in order and didn't show problems with the medication. Now he's in induced coma and will take a few hours to wake up but I think it would be better if I meet him tomorrow to give you more details so that he and some of you can rest. Mr. Stark will be transferred to room 426 on this same floor but if anyone of you is a close relative you can go see him." Doctor Amimbola offered her guidance to Pepper once she presented herself as Tony's fiancé, getting her to the surgery corridor.
We remained there without knowing what to think or what to feel. There wasn't necessary to be there for know as it is that Tony's return was bitter, not because of his hurried and now secure arrival to home but more because of the circumstances wich surrounded that return. Little minutes of relief in the middle of a world in chaos, sorrow and insecurity after in which was proved how the ends not always justifies the means.
That moment must have been when Bruce and the others decided to fasten on live needy ones who had leave the End day, the name the media was usinf in reference, although the Avengers would rather call it the T day, less dramatic and less painful. They did what seemed the most logical and needed way of action what is carry on with job and cooperation at everything Wakanda ordered them for or where was required held this new world in chaos. As a matter of fact it helped get over the T day, at least it seemed like that.
And that's the third chapter I promised yesterday. I'm not going to do so much comments because here is so late and I'm exhausted but I though I should comment that this idea of "Tony return from space to the hospital" isn't completely mine, just this perpective, execution and portrayal. It get inspired by the brilliantly wroten story of Learlorde, A Painful Reunion. My story was never centered on that theme but I needed to do a chapter of Tony returning to earth, whit what the movie will do or not also, because I can't leave him stuck in space until die, I just can't.
Well, let me know in the comments what do you think about this chapter.