Everyone fears something. For some it's heights, for others it's clowns, for a few very special people it's buttons.
Superheroes are not exempt from fear, but unlike most people they the troubling tendency to run straight at their fears, tackle them to the ground, and become far more intimate with them than anyone ever ought to be.
Steve feared losing people under his command. It was his duty to lead them to victory, and, when he could manage it, safety, but he always feared that he wasn't up to the task. If you asked any soldier that's ever been under his command they would swear that they would follow him to Hell if necessary, but that was kind of the problem, because he constantly feared that's exactly where he'd lead them.
Thor feared for his brother, Loki, who he suspected would one day get into trouble his tricks could not get him out of.
Clint feared having his mind taken over again. He delighted in his skill with his eyes and hands and another part of his body that it would be rude to mention. The idea that someone else could control those things, his things, sent shivers down his spine, and not the good kind like he got when Bruce...
Ahem. Moving on.
Bruce feared hesitation. Wait, that doesn't make sense, does it? No. It's more accurate to say that he knew that someday, maybe someday soon, maybe much later, he'd lose control of the other guy. He did not fear this, so much as accept it; that wasn't really the problem in his opinion. He was afraid that when the time came his friends would try to help him, to turn him back, and they would hesitate and it would result in blood.
Natasha feared... something. Maybe. Loss of control? Death? Going crazy? I'm not sure, she's good at keeping those kinds of things secret.
Tony feared a lot of things. If he listed his fears (intimacy, centipedes, commitment, Pepper's wrath, dying alone, etc.) the list would go on for quite a while. But his biggest fear was one he would never acknowledge, especially not to himself.
The torso of crashed his suit dug into his bruised stomach, holding his thoracic diaphragm still, forcing him to take shallow breaths that were never enough, but still enough to make his broken ribs scream in protest. His fingers skittered against the sides of his armor, searching desperately for the emergency release latches. They found only melted metal. From the outside his suit was simply a charred, twisted lump in the vague shape of a human, awaiting burial at the bottom of a crater in the middle of the street.
He blamed the coffee.
When they arrived at the scene, with Natasha clinging determinedly to Thor's back and Clint pretending Tony was the prize bull at the rodeo, they found the Hulk punching something furry and purple and twice as big as him while Steve evacuated nearby civilians, shield in one hand, bag of groceries in the other. He didn't even realize he was still holding it, or why. But Tony saw the artfully decorated bag of his favorite designer coffee resting at the very top, where it's delicate beans could not be crushed, and his heart did a little leap in his chest.
"Natasha, clear the buildings! Everyone else, help Bruce, but don't kill it!" Steve shouted, already in Captain America mode despite his lack of costume.
Natasha went to help Steve corral the jaded New Yorkers who seemed determined to stick around long enough to record some shaky footage for their youtube channels. The rest of them went to help subdue the really rather confused and frightened looking alien.
Swooping past the low roof of a nearby building, he'd let Clint jump off so that he could shoot tranquilizers at it from a safe distance. Then the building trembled suddenly as Thor and the Hulk were thrown like a ball off muscles and flailing limbs through the wall.
The rest seemed to happen in slow motion. Tony whipped around to see it charging at Steve, who didn't notice because some fucking kid with a camera phone wouldn't leave, and Natasha wasn't anywhere close enough to do anything.
Tony didn't even think about it. One moment he was next to Clint, who was lining up an exploding arrow, and the next he was there, hovering directly in it's warpath. The thing grabbed him by his arm and tugged. Somehow that put him right in the archer's way.
That's actually how he found out Clint had switched arrows. He had to say he was proud of his upgrades, despite how things turned out. It took something special to take out the Iron Man like that.
The fight continued without him. He could hear the muffled shouts and more exploding rounds and even what he was pretty sure was thunder at one point.
He abandoned his attempts at escape as his vision began to grow dark and his pain slowly distanced itself. Instead he brought his hand up to his visor and pulled, surprised but relieved when it came off. Cold rain splashed on his face, confirming his suspicion that Thor was pissed. He only brought out the lightning for big stuff.
He blacked out for a couple of minutes after that.
"Tony? Come on, wake up!"
Blinking blearily against the pain, he tried to wake up enough to figure out who that was. For a moment he thought he had a hangover, but there was something wrong with that. "Can't... breathe," he gasped, low enough that anyone without supersonic hearing wouldn't have been able to hear it. "Ar.. mor."
He considered just going back to sleep after that, but then he couldn't because the metal around him began to shift. It groaned as the newly welded seams were slowly pulled apart. The whole time he could hear the voice from before, pleading with him at first, then to God when he didn't answer.
Steve pulled as hard as he could without hurting Tony. It was slower work than he would have preferred. Panic, usually drowned out by duty and experience, now fluttered wildly in his chest. He didn't have time to consider why this injury was so much worse than all the others he'd seen his team take, or why he hadn't dropped that bag until he saw Tony go down, or why it didn't matter that they'd killed that alien.
His team watched restlessly from the street above, waiting for the ambulance. They collectively winced to see the torn pajamas only partially hiding a battered chest, splashed with burn marks in some areas.
Eventually an ambulance arrived and the paramedics came to survey the damage. Thor had to drag Steve away; he was the only one strong enough to do so.
On a high rooftop, a mouthy mercenary in red and black watched the scene. He had somehow gone unnoticed, despite the brightness of his costume and the way he was kind of posing while he stood there, like he wanted to look good if any of them looked up to see him there. He tilted his head as the ambulance doors slammed shut. "Well, shit."
Author's notes: Well, that was dramatic. Some genres have bodice rippers, we have armor rippers. I think I prefer the latter.
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