Fic: Always, Young Avengers, R
Dec. 31st, 2011 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lady_ganeshDid I say I had one last fic of 2011? I MAY HAVE LIED. I, um, sort of forgot about this one. Thanks to mendax for the quick SPAG beta, but she doesn't know canon well, so any mistakes there are wholly mine & feel free to point them out. Billy-centric.
Warnings are triggery AND spoilery so they're in ROT13: Ovyyl unf orra uryq ol na nagv-tnl "erpbirel" pnzc sbe zhgnagf. The prompt is "Deprogramming," so there's some of that there too.
Your nurse is named Max, and he’s very nice. African-American, short hair greying at his temples, heavyset, easy to smile. “We’ll get you fixed up in no time,” he says genially, even though you’re not sure why you’re in the hospital to begin with. You have bandages. You must be hurt.
“Did something go wrong at camp?”
Max’s face tightens for a second. “Yeah,” he said. “You could say that. We’re gonna patch you up, though. You’ll be okay.”
You’ve been sleeping a lot, and your ribs hurt. Dr. B’s treatments hurt sometimes, but this is different. It feels a little familiar, but you can’t quite figure out when or where this happened to you before.
“Just get some rest,” Max says gently, so you do.
The woman is tall and blond and very beautiful, and you think you’re supposed to be attracted to her. Things have gotten confusing since you left camp. You smile at her, anyway. A smile never hurt anything.
“I’m Emma,” she says. “I’m supposed to take a look at you.” She’s wearing a white suit and a corset. She’s got big breasts. Dr. B said breasts were important, but you shouldn’t stare at them too much, because that was disrespectful. Dr. B could be confusing, sometimes.
“Oh, kid,” she says, and sighs. She’s sitting in the chair by your bed; the one Nurse Max likes to sit in. She takes your hand and closes her eyes.
“I was getting better,” you say. “Healthy.”
“I know,” she says, and it feels like a cool breeze blowing over the top of your head. She purses her lips. “Patriot,” she says, and you feel something gripping your chest. “Hawkeye. Stature. Speed.”
“Tommy,” you say. You can feel something at the edge of your mind, a memory, something worth reaching for. The names feel like family, that last one most of all.
She smiles a little. “Hulkling.”
It burns. It’s deep and painful (there was a machine, you remember metal, steel, something in your spine, no, no--) and the woman flinches. She mutters something you can’t hear. “Sorry about that,” she says, and gets up out of the chair. You feel the cool air in your mind again, and it’s better, calm again. “Thanks.”
“It’s okay.” Things hurt a lot worse back at camp. They’d said it was to make you healthy and happy.
You’re just starting to remember that you didn’t always believe them.
At camp, it was easy to lose track of time; you just went from one task to another. Therapy, treatment, meal times, chapel. Here, every minute ticks by, even though sometimes you can’t tell the days apart. They let you walk around when you want to, and there’s another room with a kitchen, and food. They let you cook your own sometimes. It feels strange, but it feels good, too.
One night you hear people arguing outside your door. “Not if it hurts him,” a male voice says, and something about it burns the same way Emma’s words had when she visited. You close your eyes and try to sleep.
When Max comes in for his shift the next morning, he’s got a bag under his shoulder. “One of your friends dropped off some books for you. Said they were some of your favorites.”
You look them over once he leaves. There are some novels, a couple of books about meditation, some comics. On a whim (or is it memory?), you flip open The Miracle of Mindfulness: A Manual on Meditation and see your own handwriting in the margins. Increased focus for better results, one of the notes says.
That’s when you remember: you could do magic.
Why didn’t they want you to do magic?
Once you remember the magic, things come faster, you feel stronger. You spend most of your time reading; you don’t even talk to Max as much as you did. There’s something in you, something waiting....
Something you hid.
You hid from them. You took everything they didn’t want and hid it--
It’s inside you.
You want to laugh.
It takes two hours, and you look at your books so many times you lose count. But you do it, and when you’re finished, you’re too exhilarated to feel tired. It’s an iridescent sphere, a little larger than your fist.
You have to share this with someone, so you push the button and hope that this is Max’s shift.
It isn’t, but Sophia says it’s practically shift change anyway, so he’ll come see you before he’s officially on. She’s as excited as you are, and Max comes quickly, still tying up his scrubs. “Hey,” he says. “What’s the big news?”
“I found it,” you say, levitating the sphere in your hands. “I hid, Max. I tried to wait them out, and then I hid everything I could from them when it didn’t work. That’s why it took me so long to remember things, why I still can’t remember everything. It’s here.” You give it a spin for emphasis.
“Do you want to wait until--”
“I can’t wait any longer,” you say. “I hope I don’t hurt anyone’s feelings--”
And it opens at your command, a beat of your heart, and a wash of magic fills the room, white and silver and good, and you remember it all now, your team, your family, Teddy--
There’s a hand on your arm, and you know who it is. Who it’s been all along. “Teddy.”
“Hey,” he says, and he’s changing as he hugs you, and you missed him so much, missed everything but oh, Teddy, and you kiss him and he’s laughing and kissing you back, and it’s going to be all right, it’s over, you’re home.
“Is everyone else--”
“Yeah. We’ve all been waiting for you. Ms. Frost said we had to be careful, so....” He sighs. “It was hard.”
Another memory strikes you, hard and cold. “My parents, and--”
“They’re fine. They just put them to sleep so they could take you. They’ve been worried, but when we saw how you reacted to the memories of people close to you--”
“How long was I gone for?”
“Almost a month,” Teddy says. “And when we found you....” He stiffens in your arms. “I’m sorry. I never stopped looking. None of us. Cap finally got a line on this preacher out in Minnesota, and Wanda realized he was pretty strong. We came in, but he was controlling you guys … you got hurt.”
“Is everyone--”
“Everybody’s okay. Couple of broken bones, nothing too serious. Wanda’s got most of them but we were worried you’d--” Teddy sighs and moves back so he can see your face. “You were really fragile. You wouldn’t even look at me.”
“They hurt me,” you say. “When I thought about you--”
“I know,” Teddy says. “Some of the other kids were in better shape, they told us a lot of stuff. We were worried because you were so out of it, and then when Ms. Frost came in, she said we had to be super careful because you’d done something. She said you’d saved yourself. I guess she must’ve sensed that you’d--” Teddy gestured at the sphere that was no longer there. He smiled, and it felt so good to see his smile again. “I think you’re the smartest guy I know.”
“You saved me.” You pull Teddy back into your arms.
“I just broke stuff,” he says.
You kiss the side of his head. “Shut up.”
“Okay,” he says. “I’m glad you’re back.”
“I am too.” He squeezes you again, and you squeeze back. Everyone will probably be in soon; your team, your parents, maybe even Captain America -- but for now, it’s just the two of you, and that’s okay.
mendax for the quick SPAG beta, but she doesn't know canon well, so any mistakes there are wholly mine & feel free to point them out. Billy-centric.Warnings are triggery AND spoilery so they're in ROT13: Ovyyl unf orra uryq ol na nagv-tnl "erpbirel" pnzc sbe zhgnagf. The prompt is "Deprogramming," so there's some of that there too.
Your nurse is named Max, and he’s very nice. African-American, short hair greying at his temples, heavyset, easy to smile. “We’ll get you fixed up in no time,” he says genially, even though you’re not sure why you’re in the hospital to begin with. You have bandages. You must be hurt.
“Did something go wrong at camp?”
Max’s face tightens for a second. “Yeah,” he said. “You could say that. We’re gonna patch you up, though. You’ll be okay.”
You’ve been sleeping a lot, and your ribs hurt. Dr. B’s treatments hurt sometimes, but this is different. It feels a little familiar, but you can’t quite figure out when or where this happened to you before.
“Just get some rest,” Max says gently, so you do.
The woman is tall and blond and very beautiful, and you think you’re supposed to be attracted to her. Things have gotten confusing since you left camp. You smile at her, anyway. A smile never hurt anything.
“I’m Emma,” she says. “I’m supposed to take a look at you.” She’s wearing a white suit and a corset. She’s got big breasts. Dr. B said breasts were important, but you shouldn’t stare at them too much, because that was disrespectful. Dr. B could be confusing, sometimes.
“Oh, kid,” she says, and sighs. She’s sitting in the chair by your bed; the one Nurse Max likes to sit in. She takes your hand and closes her eyes.
“I was getting better,” you say. “Healthy.”
“I know,” she says, and it feels like a cool breeze blowing over the top of your head. She purses her lips. “Patriot,” she says, and you feel something gripping your chest. “Hawkeye. Stature. Speed.”
“Tommy,” you say. You can feel something at the edge of your mind, a memory, something worth reaching for. The names feel like family, that last one most of all.
She smiles a little. “Hulkling.”
It burns. It’s deep and painful (there was a machine, you remember metal, steel, something in your spine, no, no--) and the woman flinches. She mutters something you can’t hear. “Sorry about that,” she says, and gets up out of the chair. You feel the cool air in your mind again, and it’s better, calm again. “Thanks.”
“It’s okay.” Things hurt a lot worse back at camp. They’d said it was to make you healthy and happy.
You’re just starting to remember that you didn’t always believe them.
At camp, it was easy to lose track of time; you just went from one task to another. Therapy, treatment, meal times, chapel. Here, every minute ticks by, even though sometimes you can’t tell the days apart. They let you walk around when you want to, and there’s another room with a kitchen, and food. They let you cook your own sometimes. It feels strange, but it feels good, too.
One night you hear people arguing outside your door. “Not if it hurts him,” a male voice says, and something about it burns the same way Emma’s words had when she visited. You close your eyes and try to sleep.
When Max comes in for his shift the next morning, he’s got a bag under his shoulder. “One of your friends dropped off some books for you. Said they were some of your favorites.”
You look them over once he leaves. There are some novels, a couple of books about meditation, some comics. On a whim (or is it memory?), you flip open The Miracle of Mindfulness: A Manual on Meditation and see your own handwriting in the margins. Increased focus for better results, one of the notes says.
That’s when you remember: you could do magic.
Why didn’t they want you to do magic?
Once you remember the magic, things come faster, you feel stronger. You spend most of your time reading; you don’t even talk to Max as much as you did. There’s something in you, something waiting....
Something you hid.
You hid from them. You took everything they didn’t want and hid it--
It’s inside you.
You want to laugh.
It takes two hours, and you look at your books so many times you lose count. But you do it, and when you’re finished, you’re too exhilarated to feel tired. It’s an iridescent sphere, a little larger than your fist.
You have to share this with someone, so you push the button and hope that this is Max’s shift.
It isn’t, but Sophia says it’s practically shift change anyway, so he’ll come see you before he’s officially on. She’s as excited as you are, and Max comes quickly, still tying up his scrubs. “Hey,” he says. “What’s the big news?”
“I found it,” you say, levitating the sphere in your hands. “I hid, Max. I tried to wait them out, and then I hid everything I could from them when it didn’t work. That’s why it took me so long to remember things, why I still can’t remember everything. It’s here.” You give it a spin for emphasis.
“Do you want to wait until--”
“I can’t wait any longer,” you say. “I hope I don’t hurt anyone’s feelings--”
And it opens at your command, a beat of your heart, and a wash of magic fills the room, white and silver and good, and you remember it all now, your team, your family, Teddy--
There’s a hand on your arm, and you know who it is. Who it’s been all along. “Teddy.”
“Hey,” he says, and he’s changing as he hugs you, and you missed him so much, missed everything but oh, Teddy, and you kiss him and he’s laughing and kissing you back, and it’s going to be all right, it’s over, you’re home.
“Is everyone else--”
“Yeah. We’ve all been waiting for you. Ms. Frost said we had to be careful, so....” He sighs. “It was hard.”
Another memory strikes you, hard and cold. “My parents, and--”
“They’re fine. They just put them to sleep so they could take you. They’ve been worried, but when we saw how you reacted to the memories of people close to you--”
“How long was I gone for?”
“Almost a month,” Teddy says. “And when we found you....” He stiffens in your arms. “I’m sorry. I never stopped looking. None of us. Cap finally got a line on this preacher out in Minnesota, and Wanda realized he was pretty strong. We came in, but he was controlling you guys … you got hurt.”
“Is everyone--”
“Everybody’s okay. Couple of broken bones, nothing too serious. Wanda’s got most of them but we were worried you’d--” Teddy sighs and moves back so he can see your face. “You were really fragile. You wouldn’t even look at me.”
“They hurt me,” you say. “When I thought about you--”
“I know,” Teddy says. “Some of the other kids were in better shape, they told us a lot of stuff. We were worried because you were so out of it, and then when Ms. Frost came in, she said we had to be super careful because you’d done something. She said you’d saved yourself. I guess she must’ve sensed that you’d--” Teddy gestured at the sphere that was no longer there. He smiled, and it felt so good to see his smile again. “I think you’re the smartest guy I know.”
“You saved me.” You pull Teddy back into your arms.
“I just broke stuff,” he says.
You kiss the side of his head. “Shut up.”
“Okay,” he says. “I’m glad you’re back.”
“I am too.” He squeezes you again, and you squeeze back. Everyone will probably be in soon; your team, your parents, maybe even Captain America -- but for now, it’s just the two of you, and that’s okay.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-01 03:38 pm (UTC)