Oh, let me count the ways in which I loved Avengers Assemble. Joss has been my God since the days of Buffy, and to have him writing The Avengers - well, I couldn't be any more of a geek over it. But since seeing The Winter Soldier, I've been utterly in love with Steve Rogers too.

This little fic basically sprung forth from two little picture I saw on Pinterest - one of the gang eating their Shawarma - and someone pointing out the fact that Cap appears to be almost passed out at the table (this was filmed this way because Chris Evans was hiding the beard that he'd grown after filming had wrapped) but it totally hit my H/C button. Also, there was a little cartoon of Thor, Banner and Stark all getting off on their Shawarma, and poor Cap just asking if they could go soon, cuz he was beat, and he still had some open wounds after the battle.

So then I got to thinking, well yeah - Cap did really put his all into the Battle of New York. He's only just a bit above regular guy powered, yet he ran around the city almost non-stop, fought hand to hand with the aliens, got hit by a grenade and blown out of a window onto a car, got shot by an alien weapon that knocked him off his feet and drew blood... He would definitely be feeling a little worse for wear after all that.

So this is my first Avengers fic - I'm a little late to the party, but better late than never, right?

Hope you enjoy, and remember, feedback is writing fuel to us writers x

Okay, this is now a slightly edited version. I realised some of my timing were a bit out after seeing Avengers Assemble a few more times, so I've now corrected, updated and generally tidied this fic up a bit since it was originally posted.

I realise that the subsequent MCU movies have portrayed Cap as being damn near invulnerable (apart from the end of TWS - which I am eternally grateful for), and the battle of New York probably wouldn't even faze him now, but in Avengers, he's still kind of feeling his feet, he's much less "Super", seems a lot more vulnerable, so I have left him suffering in this fic. Hope you still like it!

(23rd May 2016)

After Shawarma

By Supernoodle

-o-

"Captain!" Thor cries, thumping his fist down beside Steve's almost untouched basket of food and they all jump, not least Steve who almost falls off his chair. "You must eat something."

Steve looks bewilderedly up at Thor, heart pounding as the Asgardian grabs his arm to steady him, and he struggles for a moment to remember just where the heck he is. Then everything comes back in a flash flood of blood, smoke and destruction. Helicopter airships. Giant flying metal shark things that he might never ever get out of his dreams tearing apart New York city.

Shawarma.

Thor is right, he should eat. He can't even remember the last proper meal he had, but his stomach roles with nausea at the thought of it and he nudges the basket of flatbread and spicy smelling meat away.

"You alright there, Cap?" Natasha asks, looking back over her shoulder and he can hear that she's trying to keep her question light, keep things casual, but now all their eyes are on him and he musters the most reassuring smile he can.

But he's not really alright. Not alright at all. He's exhausted and hurting, the couple of bites of food he forced down his throat earlier are now sitting like a lump somewhere in his chest, and he would give all the money he had in the world if someone would right now magically produce a bedroll and lay it out on the ground for him.

He picks up what's left of his Coca-Cola and downs it, trying to dislodge the lump. It taste good, it tastes of his childhood. Something familiar in a world that barely makes sense to him anymore. It almost disguises the taste of ash in his mouth, and he crushes the empty paper cup tightly in his hands and closes his eyes again the pounding in his head. "I'm beat... Could we go?"

Tony peers at Steve for a moment then gets to his feet and waves at the waitress who is busy sweeping debris from the floor around them. She only let them in after Tony used all the charm he could muster on her, and when that failed, he thrust a hundred dollar bill into her hand. The restaurant, much like the rest of the city, had been badly damaged in the attack, but their faces were already all over the news reports on the TV that was playing quietly in the corner and the waitress and the cook seemed happy enough to keep them in food and drinks while they ate in exhausted silence, none of them even having the words to talk about what had just happened.

They'd saved the world. Literally saved the world. And then, like Tony had said they should, they'd had Shawarma after. And now?... Now there was a question. Now nothing was going to be the same ever again.

Tony pulls out his wallet again and begins dropping bills onto the table, then taking a proper look round at the disaster zone that the waitress had been futilely trying sweep up around them; he carries on dropping bills until his wallet is empty. "Can we get the rest of this to go?"

-o-

The four identical black cars drive slowly through the streets of Manhattan, past damaged buildings, smashed up wrecks, unrecognisable lumps of smoking debris and Steve looks out the nearside back window of the lead car as horror after horror slip numbly past his gaze and Tony rants down the phone at someone.

Stark's voice is very loud in the enclosed space and Steve tries his hardest not to wince at the volume. It's making his pounding headache pound harder and he looks for the window winder, longing for some fresh air, but there's nothing, not a handle or button that he can see on the door of the car that would open it, and he just can't bring himself to ask.

"No you listen to me. We aren't coming in." Tony continues. He seems to be both pretending Steve is not there and putting on a show for his benefit, and Steve is momentarily struck by just how much like his father Tony is. Howard Stark loved an audience too, and Steve had always thought that if hadn't been a millionaire science genius, Howard would have made a great showman. Barnum would have had nothing on him.

"We're going back to my place." Tony continues. "I've got this awesome sleepover planned. We're going to braid each other's hair and watch Top Gun. And if you so much as step one foot on my property tonight, I will have you arrested for trespassing… Actually, scratch that. I will shoot you. I have a bazooka. I have many bazookas."

Steve assumes that Tony is talking to someone at S.H.I.E.L.D, probably not Fury though, Steve's not sure that even Stark would speak to S.H.I.E.L.D's director that way. No doubt they want them to come in for debriefing, or to oversee Loki's incarceration - although Thor left them as soon as they left the Shawarma joint to guard over his murderous brother. Steve doesn't really care where the cars take him as long as he can sleep there. He could quite happily bunk down for the night on the back seat.

Tony puts his phone away and twists around to face Steve, his dark eyes searching the soldier's face, skimming the gouge across his shoulder and the scorched and bloody hole in his combat suit that is probably covering a scorched and bloody hole in his chest, and Steve feels himself wanting to sink right into the leather under the sudden and unflinching scrutiny. "You doing alright there, Spangles?"

Steve nods in reply, not really knowing the answer to that one, and he gestures towards the dim glow of the Arc Reactor coming through Tony's shirt. He's read Stark's file, he's read all their files, although he didn't really understand much of the technical lingo about the device embedded in the man's chest. What he does know is that it wasn't lit up when Tony fell lifelessly from the hole in space, so he's going with light on = good, light off = really, really bad. "Are you okay?" He asks. "Everything still… powered up?"

"I've been better, Cap. Not gonna lie." Tony replies, flashing him the phoniest grin he's seen since he last looked in the mirror. "But it's nothing that can't be cured by a visit with Jack, Jim or José. And I intend to pay them many, many visits tonight."

Steve doesn't really know what that means but it doesn't sound like a bad thing so he closes his eyes once more and slumps back into the seat.

"You know, I didn't mean that crack about you being a lab rat, Rogers. Back on the Helicarrier... I don't play well with others, generally. Pepper says it's only child syndrome. Pepper says it's a lot more than that, actually, but what does she know?... Anyway, this team thing… it's gonna to take some getting used to."

Steve cracks open his eyes and looks round again at Stark who is practically squirming in his seat.

"What I'm really trying to say is… I'm trying to tell you that I totally get why my old man never shut up about you when I was a kid."

Steve can't help but smile. Of all of them, he thought it would be Stark that he was going to have the hardest time working with, and now he realises just how wrong he's been about him. Stark is like a great big tantrum throwing child, but he's also a man that has devoted the last few years of his life righting the wrongs of his father, selflessly saving innocent people – all off his own back and on his own dime, and for all his flashy bravado, it turns out that Stark is the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over him if there was no other way, and Steve knows now that they are going to be able to work together just fine. "I think Howard would have been real proud of you, Tony."

Tony shuts his mouth and falls silent for once and Steve, thankful for the momentary peace and quiet closes his eyes again and just lets himself drift.

Stark seems to be in control of the situation, and if he is honest, it feels pretty good to just let someone else have it for a while.

-o-

Steve lowers himself slowly onto the end of the biggest couch he has ever seen in his life, and can barely stifle the groan that comes with the jarring of whatever injuries lie hidden beneath his combat suit. He's been beaten, blown out of a third floor window by a grenade and shot in the chest. Everything is hurting.

"How you doing, Captain?" Barton asks, peering down at him as the rest of the Avengers settle themselves gingerly around the penthouse. The smashed windows have already been boarded up, broken glass cleared away, and boarding placed across the Loki shaped holes in the floor, but despite the damage, this is about the most opulent place Steve's ever been in.

"You gonna need some help with your boots there?"

Steve blinks up at the archer, who seems to be speaking to him from a million miles away. Barton looks about as bad as he feels but he's too tired and sore to keep up any pretence of being okay now. Lying back onto the soft cushions of the couch, Steve covers his head with his arms and sticks his leg in the air.

-o-

It's dark when he wakes, and he scrambles upright, struggling to draw breath into lungs that feel like they're being crushed. Since he was recovered from the ice, whenever he wakes somewhere unfamiliar - which is now pretty much everywhere - there's a moment of sheer, overwhelming panic that grips him and doesn't let go until he's certain that it hasn't happened again, that he's still in the 21st century, that his whole world hasn't been pulled from under him again.

His fingers dig into the soft, warm leather beneath him and he tries to steady his breathing, tries to focus on the view of New York that he can see out of the penthouse windows. The city is still there, looking more or less the way it looked last time he saw it, only a little more battered. Parts of the city are still burning, he can see fires in the distance, still hear the faint wailing of sirens and all he can smell is smoke, smoke and blood and death, it's all over him and his stomach rolls violently.

Sure he's going to throw up, he forces himself to his feet, almost tripping over the heavy woollen blanket that someone had lain over him while he slept, and hobbles stiffly to the bar area of Stark's penthouse. He leans over the sink, grasping the cool marble counter with one hand to keep himself upright and clutches his ribs with the other. The blast from the creature's gun had hurt more than he wanted to think about at the time, and he wasn't sure he would have made it back to his feet without Thor's help, not sure if he would still be alive without The Asgardian fighting by his side, but it had been put to one side in the mayhem of battle and the near loss of Stark. There was even a word for it these days; compartmentalisation. You put things away in boxes to be dealt with later. The trouble was that his boxes seemed to be getting piled pretty high.

Now, hours later, the adrenalin has all but worn off and he feels like he's been hit in the chest by cannon fire. His stomach rolls again and he swallows compulsively and screws shut his eyes. He's not going to throw up in Tony Stark's sink. He's just damn well not going to.

It's times like these that the Bucky shaped hole inside him aches the most.

During the war, he'd pushed himself to the very limits of his strength and endurance, through indescribably awful fire-fights on beaches, rescue missions in nameless French towns ravaged by Nazi bombs, and weeks spent chasing H.Y.D.R.A convoys through German countryside in the dead of winter. Not to mention the fight with the tank that had the Howling Commandos drinking for free after telling the story in bars for months after. He'd been shot more times than he could remember, been blown up, had a whole building collapse on him trying to rescue a family in Ypres, and despite his protestations that he was fine, that he was good, that he could do this all day, even though all he'd wanted to do was crawl into his bunk and sleep for a week. Bucky had always known when Steve was down and hurting, and had always been there to pick him back up

Despite the fact that he now had about 50lbs and 6 inches on him, Bucky had never really stopped seeing Steve as the scrawny, wheezy little kid he grew up with. He was the only person who really knew who Steve Rogers was and wanted that guy around more than Captain America. But Bucky was dead - his only real friend in the world had been dead for a whole month now, except it wasn't a month, it was seventy years - a whole lifetime, and at that unbelievable thought, a thought that he knows he'll never be able to come to terms with, Steve vomits the meagre contents of his stomach into the sink.

-o-

Bruce has been trying his hardest to pretend he's still asleep, to give Rogers some time to compose himself, but he can't listen to the guy suffering any longer, and he gets up from the pile of cushions on the floor where he'd been sleeping and follows him to the bar.

"Close your eyes, Captain," he says quietly, and switches on the low lighters, bathing everything in a gentle golden glow.

Steve just groans into the sink as a reply, fumbling for the tap, and Bruce reaches over and turns it on for him.

"You want a glass or something?"

Steve sighs. "No... Thanks. I'm good." And after the water has run for a bit, he scoops some up in his hands to drink, then washes his face before forcing himself upright, biting back a gasp of pain.

Bruce grabs a hand towel off the counter top and slides it over to Steve, who dries his hands and his face. "Rough day, huh?"

Steve turns to look at Bruce who's standing a little way away, giving him some space. The scientist looks as beat as he feels, hair sticking up crazily, dressed in a pair of sweatpants that are clearly about a foot too short for him and T-Shirt that's a size too small and he looks down at himself realising that he is still wearing his filthy, blood-stained combat suit.

"Sorry…" Bruce offers. "But you were out for the count. We thought about trying to get you out of your uniform, but we weren't sure how you'd feel about being manhandled like that. We thought it would be better just to let you sleep."

"We?..."

"Ah, yeah. The gang's all here… Stark's asleep in his bedroom. His girlfriend Pepper came home a few hours ago, you would have thought she would have been surprised to find a bunch of Avengers sprawled out in her apartment, but not so much. I guess she must be used to crazy, living with Iron Man. Clint and Natasha are in Stark's guest bedroom. You were already pretty much passed out on the sofa so Clint took off your boots and put a blanket over you, and I made a den on the floor."

Steve nods, and looks around. He can see his boots under the table in the middle of the room, his shield propped up beside the couch, the remains of their Shawarma take out is sitting at the end of the counter and he can hear someone snoring from down the hall. Banner seems to be telling him the truth.

"So everyone's okay?" Steve asks, trying not to wince at the stab of pain in his chest that comes with every deep breath. "Stark's okay?" His Coulson designed super-light, super-tight suit is suddenly making him feel very claustrophobic.

"Everyone's pretty much fine… Apart from you, by the looks of it." Bruce replies, frowning at the sudden look of anxiety that flashes across Steve's solemn features as he fumbles unsuccessfully with the fastenings at his neck. "You want a hand with that?"

Steve nods, it's getting kind of hard to breathe again, and he lets Bruce pull open the jacket of his burnt and blooded suit, but by the time Bruce manages to wrestle him completely out of it, he's broken out in a cold sweat and Bruce whistles at the sight he's greeted with.

"I think someone should take a proper look at that," he tells him, gesturing to the bloody mess that used to be Steve's undershirt. "No offence, Captain, but you're not looking your best."

"Well I'm ninety and we just saved the world. What do you want from me?" Steve replies with a wan smile, then looks down at himself and swallows dryly. "You're a doctor, right?"

Bruce shakes his head doubtfully. "I'm not really that kind of doctor, Cap..."

He knows Bruce is right, it does need looking at, but he'd had his fill of medics poking and prodding him, even before becoming Captain America. Not to mention all the tests and everything since the ice. But he just can't face the thought of being pulled around by strangers anymore and he shrugs and gives Bruce an encouraging smile. "It doesn't take much to patch me up. Promise."

-o-

"I think you've got a couple of fractured there." Bruce tells him, gently poking the huge mass of bruising across Steve's ribs as he sits shirtless on the edge of Tony Stark's huge white bathtub. They've ruined a couple of Stark's very expensive feeling hand towels wiping away the crust of drying blood, ash and dust from Steve's chest, but the guy's a billionaire, they decide he can afford some new ones. "Not much you can do about busted ribs I'm afraid, apart from ice and painkillers and rest."

Steve nods, he knows the drill. He's broken his ribs before, broken nearly all his ribs before. They'll probably be completely healed in a week, but he knows he has a couple of uncomfortable days ahead of him.

"This, I don't know..." Bruce tells him, frowning as he gently probes the burnt and bloody laceration under Steve's sternum, eliciting a hiss of pain from the younger man. "What happened here?"

"I was with Thor downtown and we got surrounded. I took a hit from one of the Chitauri weapons."

"The alien ray guns that killed regular people instantly with one shot?"

Steve nods and Bruce looks at him, perplexed. "And you didn't mention this to anyone because?..."

Steve sighs heavily and shrugs. "There was the missile, and Stark nearly died, and I honestly couldn't believe that we'd actually beaten Loki, that we'd won... I guess I just kind of forgot."

Bruce looks closely at Steve to see if he's being serious. He hasn't known the guy very long but he's already noticed how dry his sense of humour is. "You forgot about a hole shot into your chest by an alien ray gun?… Did you hit your head too?"

Steve runs a hand up the back of his head and winces when he finds a tender lump just behind his ear. "Yeah, I think I did."

Bruce takes Steve's head gently between his hand and angles his face so the light is shining into his eyes so he can have a look to make sure there's nothing obviously weird going on in his head, something concussiony or subdural haemotomary. All his sees though is an exhausted young man in dire need of some R&R. He lets go of Steve's face and claps him gently on the shoulder.

"We'll my prognosis is, Captain Rogers, you'll live."

Steve sighs heavily. "Those things… What were those sky shark things?"

"Aliens, I think... Chitauri Space Ships. God knows."

"Chitauri" Steve repeats, trying out the unfamiliar word on his tongue. "And I'm guessing they aren't something that comes through a hole in the sky on a regular basis these days?"

Bruce shakes his head. "No. Not so much."

"Okay, that's good to know. I'm never too sure. I see things all the time that just amaze me, and then I realise that it's barely more than a toy and everyone has one. Sometime I don't think I'm ever going to catch up with everything…"

Bruce gives him a sympathetic smile. "It must be hard for you. Not knowing what the hell everyone is talking about, not knowing what's going on most of the time?"

Steve shrugs and suddenly becomes very interested in a spot of dirt on the tiled floor of the bathroom beside the sink and Bruce realises that he's just rubbing salt in the guy's wounds and he turns the conversation back to the most pressing issue.

"In future, Captain, if you get hurt, you need to get checked out by someone before letting Tony Stark bully you into going out to eat."

Steve chuckles. "I got beat up by bullies a lot when I was a kid… And when I was fully grown… It's easy to pick on the little guy, and believe me, I was a little guy. But I know a bully when I see one, and Tony Stark isn't a bully, I think his heart is in the right place. He's just a bit…" and he trails off, trying to thing of the right word.

"A bit ADHD?"

Steve looks up at Bruce, completely stumped once again, and the Doctor immediately feels bad. "You know, like, "Quick, watch out for the invading aliens, ooh look, Shawarma!"

"He's actually a lot like his Father, more than I think he knows. He's a genius."

"He's a smart guy alright, Captain. And a smart ass to go with it."

Steve grins and Bruce thinks how good it is seeing some other expression on the guy's face other than serious all-business or just hopelessly lost.

"It's Steve. Doctor Banner... Please call me Steve. Captain America's really just a code name."

Bruce nods. "Sure thing, Steve. And I'm Bruce from now on too. And the other guy, well, he doesn't really care what you call him. Now let's see if we can find Stark's first aid kit so we can get you patched up."

-o-

A quick rummage through the cupboards of Tony's Stark's bathroom reveals a haul of first aid supplies to rival the ER of a small hospital and Bruce is pretty sure that they have Pepper to thanks for that. From what he knows of Stark Industries' CEO, she's super organised, capable of managing the complexities of both a billion dollar business and Tony Stark himself, and he spreads out everything he thinks he'll need on the counter top between the double basins. What he really needs is an X-Ray machine, or even a CT scanner - he's sure Steve must have some sort of internal damage, the injury is right above his spleen and the blast tore through the Kevlar and the flexible plating of his combat suit. Bruce is just hoping that Steve's not slowly bleeding to death internally.

Steve, for his part remains passive, letting Bruce patch him up without complaint, and Bruce keeps checking to make sure he's not spacing out, but Steve's with him the whole time, only really flinching when Bruce gets to the worst of the damage. He cleans the wound as best he can, applies a thick layer of Neosporin and a dressing which he secures with a bandage around Steve's torso, keeping some pressure on it to stop the sluggish bleeding. There seems little point in attempting to stitch anything up, everything's too dirty. From all the research he's done on the Super-Soldier Serum that transformed Steve's body so dramatically all those years ago, he knows that he's unlikely to ever get sick, and the damage will most likely be fully healed up on its own in a few days, but right now the guy's hurting, and it makes him feel better to be able to do something to help, even if it's only the equivalent of kissing better a scraped knee.

When he's done, he can't see that Steve looks in much better shape physically, but he seems less shocky, more together, more like the stoic Super Soldier that he's read all about, and Bruce knows full well that it's not always the bandages and stitches that help people heal, sometimes it's just the chance to talk.

"I know you're a super-tough guy, Steve, but you need to tell someone if start to feel dizzy, or cold, or have any weird pains. I'm pretty sure a splenic rupture would kill you almost as quick as the next guy, okay?"

"I will, I promise." Steve tells him as Bruce helps him to his feet and he peers down at the Doctor's handiwork. "Thank you for this. You didn't have to do anything but I appreciate it."

Bruce waves off Steve's thanks. "No problem, it's actually kinda nice to be able to help out in more than just a smashing stuff up capacity. Now how about we raid Stark's refrigerator and get you some ice and me a beer?"

-o-

Steve shifts in the dark, trying to find a comfortable position to lie in. The towel full of ice is slowly melting across his ribs and Bruce is snoring loudly on the floor beside him. Between that, and the urge to put his suit back on and go out again to help the people in the city below, because there are still fires raging, maybe people still trapped in the rubble of half-demolished buildings, he's pretty sure he's not going to get much more sleep.

Deep down, he knows he can't help any more than he has already. These past few days, he's literally given all he has - plus the fact that he can barely stand upright and would just be a liability hobbling around in a faintly ridiculous outfit - but the driving need to go above and beyond is always there, it was a part of him long before Captain America was created, and Steve's come to realise that nothing on the outside every really changes who you are, deep down.

He's also pretty sure that Bruce would not let him suit back up and leave. And somehow, that's oddly comforting.

Despite all that had happened over the past few days, all he's been through, bunking down in Tony Stark's penthouse surrounded by a group of the most unpredictable, unstable, downright dangerous people he's ever met actually feels pretty okay. It feels like maybe he's with friends.

Feels a little bit like being home again.