Woo, a new one! Thanks for the kind reviews, hope you'll like this chapter and that things y'know... makes more sense? Anyways, enjoy your reading!
A thousand, yes it must've been a thousand, of repulsors lit up in the three avengers way. Bruce quickly deduced that Natasha was right, they had more need for the big guy than his knowledge right now, but it was a long time ago since he had appeared and Bruce was scared. All the 'what if's' in the whole world was having a battle inside of his head, but some of them said 'what if not'. The lights were taking on a blending strength and a sound much like when a F16 takes off filled the whole area. Bruce didn't hulk out, he just froze. Clint shot Natasha a half confused, half terrified look and he got just the same look back. There was one second with this beaming, blending light when all the repulsor rays met into one big explosion, and all of them thought the end had come. Suddenly something big, hard, made of something unknown flew past the three of them, making the death ray hit it and backfire. The same second as it was an enormous explosion on top of the SI building a big, red cape appeared into Bruce, Natasha and Clint's sight.
"You were not planning on giving up, were you my friends?" A big grin spread across Thor's face as he saw the shocked looks on his colleagues faces.
"Of course not, there's more to go" Natasha was the first to open her mouth and also the first to notice that there were still a battle left to be fought, together with about a hundred new Hammeroids.
Pepper found herself sitting by Tony's side once again, waiting restlessly for him to wake up again. She couldn't anything to it not being happy for him sleeping, because it wasn't a good sleep which he was in a deep need of. His hand kept drifting up to his bandaged side, then to the arc reactor and then he started making these choked screams. There was no way Pepper would ever dare to touch him, he was bruises all over and she felt as if a feather landed on him another something would fracture. She wanted to touch him anyhow, just to reassure him that he was okay, to wake him up, but she had no idea whether he would be in more pain now or when he woke up. Probably the physical pain would be better than the pain his imaginary mind made, he had a problem with escaping those. It seemed that Pepper was just about to find out what was better as Tony's eyes slowly cracked open. She quickly grabbed his hand, making sure that he noticed her presence. It was just the same as last time, just that moment when he found out where he was and what was going on he panicked, shear fear filling his eyes. He wanted to drag out the creepy tube going down his throat, but this time he was restrained as a precaution of just that, dragging out tubes and cables. Of course this made him panic even more and then the whole ordeal was on again. Pepper hushed him and tried to calm him down, stroking his sticky, wet hair away from his face and stroking him lightly up and down his cheeks. After a while, and after Pepper telling a good deal of doctors to just fuck off, he got so exhausted of having panic he just slumped down on the huge pillows and Pepper finally let out her breath. His whole body was trembling and it was clear that he didn't understand much of what was going on after all. His whole body language expressed nothing but confusion and terror over the whole situation he had absolutely no control over. He couldn't talk, couldn't move and neither did he want to move because this was a whole new level of pain, and that meant a lot coming from him. He could remember small glimpses of being awake earlier, but not any pain, not any pain near what he felt now. Painkillers, he must've gotten painkillers and now they'd started to wear off. Oh how he wanted to scream, there was no possible way to suppress the pain now, restrained and filled with cables as he was. There was one way though, the only natural way for his body to do it, and silvery drops started to roll down his cheeks.
"Oh, Tony, it's going to be okay, you just need some help in the beginning, would you accept that, for me?" Pepper pleaded with a frown on her face.
Tony wanted to nod and make her sure of the fact that he would do anything for her, but even his neck hurt, so he just sat there staring at her through the fog of tears. Tears… how stupid wasn't that? His body was betraying him. He found himself almost paralyzed, but he knew he had the ability to move, if it only didn't hurt so much.
"Are you in pain, Tony? I'm sure we can get you something for it." Pepper brought her free hand to her eyes and rubbed them.
A little shake of his head was all he could manage, and once again tears rolled down his cheek. Painkillers, morphine, sedatives, it all sounded terribly good at this point, but he knew that it was way too easy for him getting addicted to something like that, and he still had some of his dignity left, he could manage this.
"Do you remember what happened?" Pepper asked as if she couldn't believe he actually shook his head.
Tony searched his mind, trying really hard to figure out all the latest events. Only glimpses of things that had happened were all he could find up in his unfocused head, but it was enough to put together a whole story. As he reminded almost everything he shut his eyes tightly and tried to focus on something else than the pain. He was hit by a car, he remembered, and that had definitely taken its toll on his body, he could see purple bruising covering almost everything on both of his arms from shoulder to fingers. Several ribs had to be cracked, only the slightest step of another person in the room made his chest scream in agony even though nothing actually made him move. Surely he had been injured before, hurt even by the ones he loved, but this was a total new level. He had almost been out of the place for, what he could deduce out of the placement of the sun, not so long ago. Now he had that tube shoved down his throat again, and an IV and all of these patches on his chest. Home felt terribly far away, and he didn't like it in the hospital, he didn't like the whole setting of being sick and injured and… Tony jolted when a hand was suddenly placed at his shoulder and if it hadn't been for the tube, he would've probably choked on his own oxygen and passed out again. Then he saw Pepper's worried look and that it was her hand resting on his shoulder, and he pulled himself together, tried to seem untouched by it.
"Is there anything you need? Anything at all?" Pepper's voice was pleading, hopeless, she wanted to help.
Tony had problems keeping his bloodshot, teary eyes up however and had no desire to keep them up either. He closed his eyes slowly and quickly fell asleep as an answer to her question.
The sunlight hit Tony's face and just the same second he cracked his eyes open. The first thing he noticed was Pepper lying with her head on the edge of his bed, still holding his hand just as she had when he last fell asleep. Then he saw the frosty trees outside and the sunlight making them sparkle almost as if they were playing with each other making beautiful colors. For a second everything felt fine, but then he had to try and bend down to kiss Pepper's soft, red hair and the nausea, pain and panic ripped through him for a hundredth time. His hands were still restrained and he tried to tug at them, he didn't want this, he wanted to get out, away, this place made him freak out. He quickly gave up anyways, finding that he was no match against the leather straps. Shortly after he had given up, the door slid open and a tall, muscular man in white clothes came inside. Pepper was still asleep, somehow, had anyone given her something? Maybe the man? Oh God, what was he planning to do?
"Steady , we're only here to detach the tube, alright?" The male doctor had his hand comfortingly placed on Tony's shoulder, but he couldn't anything to it but feeling slightly threatened at his touch, these "capture and torture" events did that to him.
The doctor must've seen the confusion on Tony's face, because suddenly he started to explain everything to him.
"You've been out for a bit more than a day and we've followed your breathing and consciousness very closely and believe you can manage to do it yourself now, therefore we have decided to take out the tube. Now, if it isn't too much of a problem for you… I, and actually my whole staff, would be pleased if you could stay in bed until we say you don't have to anymore." His voice was stern, but a little smile hid in the corners of his mouth.
The doctor walked slowly over to Pepper and Tony felt the panic raise up inside of him, he tried his very best on raising his upper body from the pillows, but it wasn't possible. A drop of sweat ran down from his hair to his ear, exhaustion from panicking and the little effort at the attempt showing.
"Just going to wake her up." A brief smile passed the calm man's lips and then he shook Pepper slightly so that she woke up.
She looked around herself, slightly confused but then she quickly realized where she was and what was happening. She looked slightly embarrassed of the unprofessional behavior. Tony found it amusing though, her hair was totally messed up and she had no makeup on, anyways she managed to look as beautiful as an angel.
"Just going to insert this spirometer and then I need you to cough, just checking that it's okay for us to actually take the thing away. Just like last time, remember?" The doctor started fiddling with the ventilator circuit and the spirometer, ready to do the test. "Okay, now cough."
Tony coughed all he could, hoping it would be enough for the doctor to take away the tube. He wanted it out, it was unpleasant and foreign to have it pressing oxygen down his lungs, he was sure he could manage to breathe on his own. Also getting it out meant being able to talk, which would be the only thing he would manage to do until he could at least move his little finger.
"Great, your GCS looks fine too, so I guess there's no reason to wait." Now the doctor looked seriously happy, probably because he had heard how Tony could be and wanted him out before he got like that. Everyone knew he wouldn't be out that soon though…
Tony didn't feel the needle go into his arm, he was probably so bruised and numb and… broken, that he couldn't feel anything at all. What he did feel though was the weird sensation of some liquid flowing through his veins and making it feel like his whole body was about to shrink. The pain and confusion may knocked Tony out of place and time, but he understood as much as the fact that he didn't like this, and then he passed out.
Shit…Shitshitshit. Clint crawled across the tarmac and hid behind a tree, hoping intently for none of the hammeroids to have seen him. The fight had been going on for several days and he wondered if the robots would ever get enough, or if there would stop coming new ones to fight off. They had started to take shifts on sleeping, knowing they would never be able of staying awake and fight with the droids several days in a row. That was the point with them, they were better, stronger and had no flaws. The Avengers were indeed something more than normal humans, but they were not superhuman. Bruce had cracked long time ago and calming him down had been somewhat more than difficult without Tony, he was one of those not fighting now together with Natasha, but he wasn't asleep, he was unconscious. This would never work out well, it was too many of the hammeroids and they desperately needed the last two of the Avengers. The Stark Industries building had almost gone by untouched this far, except from a few shattered windows and a big hole somewhere in the roof. The metal demons had quickly decided that the little creatures on the ground had to be fought off before destroying the building. Thor was the most useful of them all, being the God Of Thunder wasn't the worst thing when you tried to kill something made out of metal, still it wasn't good enough. When Clint had just sent an arrow with a bomb detonating when it hit its target, he found out that he was tired of chasing these never ending robots and called for Steve.
Pepper walked restlessly back and forth in front of Tony's bed, as she had done so many times the last hours, days even. Tony was deeply asleep in his sedation affected sleep at least, and Pepper was more than happy to see him doing nothing else than just sleep quietly, but she wanted him to wake up so badly. She knew that anytime now his beautiful, brown, warm eyes would crack open and he would be all fine. No tube, only a little oxygen mask and he would probably smile at her and come with a punch line now that all the drama was over. He looked much better now, not all sweaty, flushed and trembling. He was pale, but he looked peaceful anyhow. Pepper stopped abruptly when his fingers started to move and his whole right hand stirred. Checking if the restrains are still there, are we? Pepper smiled a little and went over to the hand that had stirred to take it in her own hands. Suddenly she was swimming in his deep eyes, only for a brief moment because he stiffened totally and his eyes did too. First of all his hands went trembling up to his face and he slowly dragged away the mask, lowering it so it lay around his neck, then he just sat still. Tony's head was spinning around and he knew he couldn't suppress the feeling boiling up inside of him. Now that the tube was not there anymore he could finally deal with the pain in another way. His face went from all stiff and expressionless to a grimace of pain and then Pepper swore one of her eardrums popped as an extremely harsh yell escaped Tony's throat. There was another one, and another one, and then one more before Pepper sat down in the bed together with Tony and propped him up to her chest. He screamed all of the screams he had been holding down since he woke up after surgery. The doctors were quickly at the place, hands filled with syringes and medication of all kinds, but Pepper knew Tony didn't want any of it and shooed them away. Left stood only a brave ten year old boy with twinkling, confused eyes. Tony clutched at Pepper's shirt as he buried his face into her stomach and started sobbing ,and screaming some more and then sobbing again. His whole body shook and Pepper knew it'd had to hurt lying like that, but if this caused Tony comfort it was okay with her. Harley walked over to Pepper, and only now did she notice him. She shook her head slightly, cursing Steve for not watching him so that he didn't come in to Tony's room. The kid shot Pepper a hopeful glance, and she gave him the same look back, they both wanted for Tony to get well. Eventually Tony stopped the screaming and the sobbing and crying, he still held onto Pepper's shirt and his whole body was trembling now too, but he managed to turn his head to face Harley. His eyes were slightly fogged of the tears and they were glassy and red, but there was something in his eyes. Relief?
"H-har-ly?"
You know what? I just searched through my family's bookshelf and found something reeeeal interesting! I had a vague memory of seeing it before, but i wasn't enterly sure, but I just had a feeling I'd seen it as a little girl once, and there it was... THE HOBBIT! Seriously I just jumped up and down and ERMAGEHRRD, I had considered buying but then it just was there, riiiight in our bookshelf. Why do I tell you this? Don't be too mad if the next chapter takes some time before it's published :3