Ficlet: We All Fall Down (Steve)
Something light and fluffy for katekintail, who likes sick!Steve. Only Steve is THE hardest Avenger for me to write because I didn't really connect with Captain America and I really need to see it and/or The Avengers again to get a handle on Cap.
Still.... here's a bit of fluff and nonsense!
"Is that even possible?" Tony demands, quite unhelpfully and much too loudly. "Can you even get sick?"
A pair of red, puffy eyes glare at him from beneath a mountain of blankets. "Rumours of your intellect appear to have been greatly exaggerated," mutters Steve, who sounds congested and breathless and yep, definitely sick.
"But you're like Superman! You don't get sick!" Tony accuses.
"I'd appreciate it if you could tell the virus that," says Steve dryly. His nose is red and his lips are cracked. "What are you doing here, anyway?"
Tony looks at him sheepishly. "Pancakes?"
"What pancakes?" Steve starts to say, but he's interrupted by three violent sneezes, one after another. Tony shies away a bit but then sighs and takes pity on a miserable, sniffling Captain America (in flannel pyjamas) and tosses him a handful of tissues.
"Bless you. And it's Sunday. You always make us pancakes on Sunday." Tony waits patiently for Steve to finish blowing his nose so he can reply.
Steve just blinks at him and sneezes again.
Tony cringes and edges towards the door. "Ah... gotcha. No pancakes today. I'll take a aincheck. Feel better!" he calls as he escapes Steve's room and the germs contained inside. Stveve is thankful that he's gone so he can bury his nose in tissues and his head under the pillow and be miserable in relative peace.
Natasha slips through his door so silently that he doesn't even notice she's there until he looks up and she's standing two feet from the edge of his bed. Steve gives a startled cry. "What are you doing?" he croaks. "Are you trying to cure this thing by giving me heart attack?"
She gives him a disdainful look. "Stark said you were sick so I brought you something." She sets down a bunch of horseradishes, a big jar of raspberry jelly and a neatly wound roll of gauze.
"Uh.... Thanks?" He hopes that she will blame the lack of enthusiasm on being sick, because he was finding it hard to think with a fuzzy brain just what he should do with her offering.
"It's a traditional Russian cold remedy," Natasha says. "Just like my babushka used to make."
(It's a lie. She googled it because she really doesn't know any cold remedies. There are memories involving bitter herbal teas and a loving, scolding woman but they are not her memories and she will not give in to them.)
'That's very kind,' says Steve. His head is woolly and stopped up and he's really not sure how raspberry jelly will help at all, but he's touched by the gesture. He coughs a bit and has to stop to blow his nose which won't stop running. 'You should really keep away though,' he says when he's done. 'I'd hate for you to get sick, too.'
Natasha doesn't protest but she does give him a small smile and wishes him health.
He tries to sleep for a bit, he really does, but first he can't stop sneezing and then he's too warm and then he's tired of lying down. It's almost a relief when his door swings open and Clint walks in.
'Heard you were sick,' Clint says. 'I didn't think you could get sick with your super immune system.'
'This probably started as smallpox,' Steve agrees. 'I guess I shouldn't complain.' His voice sounds strange to himself, the M's and N's flat and muffled. Blowing his nose doesn't help.
'Good timing, at least. Nice quiet Sunday, no S.H.I.E.L.D briefings, no-one trying to take over the world.'
'Always be prepared is my motto.' Speaking of which, he grabs another handful of tissues and muffles another sneeze. 'I'm so sick of this, though,' he says tiredly.
'You don't say,' says Clint with a faint grin. 'I brought something to make you feel better though.' He holds up a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. The whiskey looks old. And expensive.
'Did you swipe that from Tony's liquor shelf?' Steve croaks.
Clint's grin becomes very big. 'He wouldn't object to helping a friend in need.'
'And that's why there are two glasses, of course,' Steve points out sarcastically.
'Moral support,' Clint claims. He pours two generous glassfuls. 'Drink up!'
Steve does, somewhat dubiously, but the first sip has him coughing and spluttering and trying to catch his breath. Clint takes the glass off him before he can spill any, which would appear to be sacrilegious if Clint's expression was anything to go by.
'What kind of cold remedy is this, anyway?' demands Steve. Or would have demanded, except all he could manage was a wheeze.
'The only,' Clint answers seriously, and ignores Steve's sigh and helps him finish his glass before he goes.
(It's the truth. He can't remember anyone ever offering him soup or anything like that, but he remembers that time he was fourteen and sick as a dog and his brother had snuck him some of the Ringmaster's brandy. He had coughed and choked just like Steve but Barney had encouraged him to drink it all, and the liquid fire warmed him a little and the heady spirits had taken his mind off the misery. Now it's the only remedy he knows - when he's sick, he doses himself with brandy or whiskey and hides away until the illness passes.)
Bruce pops in not long after, almost shyly. He brings Steve a small stack of S.H.I.E.L.D briefings and a clipboard and a pen.
Steve groans when he sees the folders. 'Seriously?'
Bruce looks bemused. 'What?'
'Briefs? Are they urgent?'
Bruce looks at him blankly. 'No.'
'Then why...?' Steve breaks off to sneeze twice, but he figures that makes about as much sense as Bruce bringing him work - non urgent work - in an attempt to make him feel better.
'Bless you,' says Bruce. 'I thought you might like something else to think about. It gets pretty boring, being stuck in bed.'
(It does, not that it ever happens to Bruce. He doesn't do sick-in-bed. For one thing, there's always someone worse off than him, someone who could use a doctor's skill. He'll never forget the wards of people dying from typhoid, with only him a batch of antibiotics two years past their best before date to ease their suffering. He'll never be able to justify staying in bed as long as he's able to stand.)
'Not as boring as that,' Steve says emphatically, waving at the files now sitting on his beside table. 'I can think of a hundred things I'd rather be doing.' He sneezes again. 'Including that.'
'Sorry,' says Bruce, looking abashed. 'I'll drop by with something else later then. There's a new physics journal out.'
Steve opens his mouth to protest but his throat is dry and scratchy and Bruce's face is incredibly earnest, so he just sighs and blows his nose (again) and says thank you and burrows back under the blankets and tries to get sleepy and warm and comfortable, or any one of those, really. He's touched at the gestures from Natasha and Clint and Bruce, honestly he is, but the raspberry jelly and hard liquor and reports titled 'Political discourses in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and their effect on the 2012/2013 economic models for development' don't help much with a head that feels like it's stuffed with cotton wool or nose that's red and sore.
He's drowsy and almost asleep when Tony comes back, arms laden with a tray full of crockery.
'I brought soup!' Tony announces, as though he's announcing another arc-reactor type scientific breakthrough. 'Chicken soup with cayenne pepper.'
To Steve, it's even better. 'That's wonderful,' he breathes. 'That's so... nice of you.'
'I will admit that I am a genius,' Tony says without any hint of modesty. 'And a philanthropist.'
Steve won't disagree. The soup is hot and delicious and it soothes his raw throat and clears his sinuses. Even though it makes him sniffle and cough, it feels fantastic.
'I'll have you know,' Tony says, eyeing Steve balefully, 'Natasha forbade me from wearing a surgical mask to come to visit. Otherwise I'd be wearing one. And gloves, too, the ones the hot nurses wear when they're about to give you an exam.'
Steve starts to reply, but instead he coughs and coughs and Tony very deliberately does not react, even though it's clear his instinct is to flinch away. He does take the bowl of soup from Steve's hands, though, because even if Steve doesn't know it, those are two thousand count sheets that cost more than the bed.
'Sorry,' Steve gasps once he catches his breath. 'How did you get to be such a germaphobe, anyway?'
Tony pulls a face. 'Common sense.'
(It's Howard's common sense, anyway. When Tony was sick as a kid, his nannies and au pairs would bring him chicken soup and hot water bottles and comic books, but Howard would stay away until he stopped being contagious. On the rare occasions that he did visit the nursery, he be so well covered with a mask and a net for his hair and disposable gloves and disinfectant that Tony could barely tell it was him at all. This had made perfect sense to little Tony and it still makes sense to him today. Germs bad. Avoidance good. It would be utter foolishness to do otherwise.)
But Steve looks ridiculous with his hair sticking up in odd directions and a red nose and flannel pyjamas and those miserable eyes. Tony sighs and sits on the edge of the bed and hands the bowl of soup back to Steve.
'Eat up, Cap,' he says. 'I'm going to make it my mission to have you better by the weekend, even if I have to drown you in chicken soup and smother you with tissues.'
'Uh...' Steve really doesn't know what to say.
'You owe me pancakes,' Tony says, seriously. 'That's all. Please don't mistake it as concern for your health.'
Steve laughs and finishes the soup and they both pretend to believe what Tony said.
(Steve will never forget what it's like to be scrawny and weak and small. No matter how strong he is now, no matter how often he gets called a hero, he's still that Steve - the one who was too frail to keep up with the other boys his age, the one whose dreams were crippled by his body. That Steve was always sick and often ignored. Now he has people who care, and who will care for him even if their methods are questionable. Part of him thinks it's because he's a superhero, but part of him knows that doesn't make any difference at all to his friends.)
Still.... here's a bit of fluff and nonsense!
"Is that even possible?" Tony demands, quite unhelpfully and much too loudly. "Can you even get sick?"
A pair of red, puffy eyes glare at him from beneath a mountain of blankets. "Rumours of your intellect appear to have been greatly exaggerated," mutters Steve, who sounds congested and breathless and yep, definitely sick.
"But you're like Superman! You don't get sick!" Tony accuses.
"I'd appreciate it if you could tell the virus that," says Steve dryly. His nose is red and his lips are cracked. "What are you doing here, anyway?"
Tony looks at him sheepishly. "Pancakes?"
"What pancakes?" Steve starts to say, but he's interrupted by three violent sneezes, one after another. Tony shies away a bit but then sighs and takes pity on a miserable, sniffling Captain America (in flannel pyjamas) and tosses him a handful of tissues.
"Bless you. And it's Sunday. You always make us pancakes on Sunday." Tony waits patiently for Steve to finish blowing his nose so he can reply.
Steve just blinks at him and sneezes again.
Tony cringes and edges towards the door. "Ah... gotcha. No pancakes today. I'll take a aincheck. Feel better!" he calls as he escapes Steve's room and the germs contained inside. Stveve is thankful that he's gone so he can bury his nose in tissues and his head under the pillow and be miserable in relative peace.
Natasha slips through his door so silently that he doesn't even notice she's there until he looks up and she's standing two feet from the edge of his bed. Steve gives a startled cry. "What are you doing?" he croaks. "Are you trying to cure this thing by giving me heart attack?"
She gives him a disdainful look. "Stark said you were sick so I brought you something." She sets down a bunch of horseradishes, a big jar of raspberry jelly and a neatly wound roll of gauze.
"Uh.... Thanks?" He hopes that she will blame the lack of enthusiasm on being sick, because he was finding it hard to think with a fuzzy brain just what he should do with her offering.
"It's a traditional Russian cold remedy," Natasha says. "Just like my babushka used to make."
(It's a lie. She googled it because she really doesn't know any cold remedies. There are memories involving bitter herbal teas and a loving, scolding woman but they are not her memories and she will not give in to them.)
'That's very kind,' says Steve. His head is woolly and stopped up and he's really not sure how raspberry jelly will help at all, but he's touched by the gesture. He coughs a bit and has to stop to blow his nose which won't stop running. 'You should really keep away though,' he says when he's done. 'I'd hate for you to get sick, too.'
Natasha doesn't protest but she does give him a small smile and wishes him health.
He tries to sleep for a bit, he really does, but first he can't stop sneezing and then he's too warm and then he's tired of lying down. It's almost a relief when his door swings open and Clint walks in.
'Heard you were sick,' Clint says. 'I didn't think you could get sick with your super immune system.'
'This probably started as smallpox,' Steve agrees. 'I guess I shouldn't complain.' His voice sounds strange to himself, the M's and N's flat and muffled. Blowing his nose doesn't help.
'Good timing, at least. Nice quiet Sunday, no S.H.I.E.L.D briefings, no-one trying to take over the world.'
'Always be prepared is my motto.' Speaking of which, he grabs another handful of tissues and muffles another sneeze. 'I'm so sick of this, though,' he says tiredly.
'You don't say,' says Clint with a faint grin. 'I brought something to make you feel better though.' He holds up a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. The whiskey looks old. And expensive.
'Did you swipe that from Tony's liquor shelf?' Steve croaks.
Clint's grin becomes very big. 'He wouldn't object to helping a friend in need.'
'And that's why there are two glasses, of course,' Steve points out sarcastically.
'Moral support,' Clint claims. He pours two generous glassfuls. 'Drink up!'
Steve does, somewhat dubiously, but the first sip has him coughing and spluttering and trying to catch his breath. Clint takes the glass off him before he can spill any, which would appear to be sacrilegious if Clint's expression was anything to go by.
'What kind of cold remedy is this, anyway?' demands Steve. Or would have demanded, except all he could manage was a wheeze.
'The only,' Clint answers seriously, and ignores Steve's sigh and helps him finish his glass before he goes.
(It's the truth. He can't remember anyone ever offering him soup or anything like that, but he remembers that time he was fourteen and sick as a dog and his brother had snuck him some of the Ringmaster's brandy. He had coughed and choked just like Steve but Barney had encouraged him to drink it all, and the liquid fire warmed him a little and the heady spirits had taken his mind off the misery. Now it's the only remedy he knows - when he's sick, he doses himself with brandy or whiskey and hides away until the illness passes.)
Bruce pops in not long after, almost shyly. He brings Steve a small stack of S.H.I.E.L.D briefings and a clipboard and a pen.
Steve groans when he sees the folders. 'Seriously?'
Bruce looks bemused. 'What?'
'Briefs? Are they urgent?'
Bruce looks at him blankly. 'No.'
'Then why...?' Steve breaks off to sneeze twice, but he figures that makes about as much sense as Bruce bringing him work - non urgent work - in an attempt to make him feel better.
'Bless you,' says Bruce. 'I thought you might like something else to think about. It gets pretty boring, being stuck in bed.'
(It does, not that it ever happens to Bruce. He doesn't do sick-in-bed. For one thing, there's always someone worse off than him, someone who could use a doctor's skill. He'll never forget the wards of people dying from typhoid, with only him a batch of antibiotics two years past their best before date to ease their suffering. He'll never be able to justify staying in bed as long as he's able to stand.)
'Not as boring as that,' Steve says emphatically, waving at the files now sitting on his beside table. 'I can think of a hundred things I'd rather be doing.' He sneezes again. 'Including that.'
'Sorry,' says Bruce, looking abashed. 'I'll drop by with something else later then. There's a new physics journal out.'
Steve opens his mouth to protest but his throat is dry and scratchy and Bruce's face is incredibly earnest, so he just sighs and blows his nose (again) and says thank you and burrows back under the blankets and tries to get sleepy and warm and comfortable, or any one of those, really. He's touched at the gestures from Natasha and Clint and Bruce, honestly he is, but the raspberry jelly and hard liquor and reports titled 'Political discourses in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and their effect on the 2012/2013 economic models for development' don't help much with a head that feels like it's stuffed with cotton wool or nose that's red and sore.
He's drowsy and almost asleep when Tony comes back, arms laden with a tray full of crockery.
'I brought soup!' Tony announces, as though he's announcing another arc-reactor type scientific breakthrough. 'Chicken soup with cayenne pepper.'
To Steve, it's even better. 'That's wonderful,' he breathes. 'That's so... nice of you.'
'I will admit that I am a genius,' Tony says without any hint of modesty. 'And a philanthropist.'
Steve won't disagree. The soup is hot and delicious and it soothes his raw throat and clears his sinuses. Even though it makes him sniffle and cough, it feels fantastic.
'I'll have you know,' Tony says, eyeing Steve balefully, 'Natasha forbade me from wearing a surgical mask to come to visit. Otherwise I'd be wearing one. And gloves, too, the ones the hot nurses wear when they're about to give you an exam.'
Steve starts to reply, but instead he coughs and coughs and Tony very deliberately does not react, even though it's clear his instinct is to flinch away. He does take the bowl of soup from Steve's hands, though, because even if Steve doesn't know it, those are two thousand count sheets that cost more than the bed.
'Sorry,' Steve gasps once he catches his breath. 'How did you get to be such a germaphobe, anyway?'
Tony pulls a face. 'Common sense.'
(It's Howard's common sense, anyway. When Tony was sick as a kid, his nannies and au pairs would bring him chicken soup and hot water bottles and comic books, but Howard would stay away until he stopped being contagious. On the rare occasions that he did visit the nursery, he be so well covered with a mask and a net for his hair and disposable gloves and disinfectant that Tony could barely tell it was him at all. This had made perfect sense to little Tony and it still makes sense to him today. Germs bad. Avoidance good. It would be utter foolishness to do otherwise.)
But Steve looks ridiculous with his hair sticking up in odd directions and a red nose and flannel pyjamas and those miserable eyes. Tony sighs and sits on the edge of the bed and hands the bowl of soup back to Steve.
'Eat up, Cap,' he says. 'I'm going to make it my mission to have you better by the weekend, even if I have to drown you in chicken soup and smother you with tissues.'
'Uh...' Steve really doesn't know what to say.
'You owe me pancakes,' Tony says, seriously. 'That's all. Please don't mistake it as concern for your health.'
Steve laughs and finishes the soup and they both pretend to believe what Tony said.
(Steve will never forget what it's like to be scrawny and weak and small. No matter how strong he is now, no matter how often he gets called a hero, he's still that Steve - the one who was too frail to keep up with the other boys his age, the one whose dreams were crippled by his body. That Steve was always sick and often ignored. Now he has people who care, and who will care for him even if their methods are questionable. Part of him thinks it's because he's a superhero, but part of him knows that doesn't make any difference at all to his friends.)