Sorry for the long wait everyone. I don't have a huge amount of spare time, and writing seems to be getting lower and lower down the list of things I want to do in my free time, which is a shame, but I do really and sincerely apologise for the long wait for an update. I've nearly finished the next chapter though, if that's any consolation? :-) I hope you think it was worth the wait.

Also, a LOT has happened in the Marvel Universe since I started this fic - obviously, ignore it all, and cast your mind back to less ashy times...

Chapter 4

-o-

It was worse than he had imagined. So much worse.

They were The Avengers. Earth's Mightiest Heroes, according to the world's assorted media, and who was Tony to disagree? They fought Monsters and Aliens, and things that could only really be best described as goddamn Eldritch Abominations, and despite their supreme awesome badassness, sometimes things didn't pan out quite the way they planned.

Sometime someone got hurt.

Usually that someone was Barton, because having no real armour or super-powers, and only a bow and arrow for a weapon made him kind of a soft target. Tony had never really figured out how a Barton came to be an Avenger, but no-one else seemed to question it, so Tony just kind of went with it. Which was exactly what Clint seemed to do as well, being the fingers-crossed and hope for the best kind of guy that he was.

So yeah, he's seen Clint hurt a few times, and Romanoff, but the last time Tony had seen Rogers get banged up bad enough to end up in hospital had been after a run in with a guy wearing a freaky mechanical Rhino suit in Central Park. Tony had been in Malibu when it had happened, and when he finally got around to visiting later that night, Rogers, despite his badly gored leg, had been resting easy, eating his way through the hospital's pudding supplies whilst the nurses clucked and cooed around him like mother hens.

There had been other times too. Captain America had been created to take the hits so his men wouldn't have to, and take them, he did. A dislocated shoulder here, a fractured rib there. Lacerations, concussions... No big deal to a soldier whose body was full of magic serum, right? Rogers had taken it all stoically, healed quickly, and had gone back to his day job with Clint and Natasha with minimal delay. But Tony and Bruce had feared that one day something bad would happen, something that Rogers might not just be able to just walk off without help, and while they hadn't outwardly discussed it, too much like tempting fate, their dendrotoxin research had been as much for Rogers' benefit as Bruce's.

So yeah, Tony had seen Rogers hurt before. At least he had thought he had.

He was wrong.

They follow a trail of blood spatters from one set of doors, down towards the Trauma rooms, with Rogers' agonised screams getting louder with every step until Tony literally can't go any further. It's the worst sound he had ever heard and he thinks he might just pass out or puke his guts up right there on the green linoleum, but he feels Natasha wrap her small hand around his arm, tethering him to consciousness, and somehow, he forces his legs to move again.

They aren't allowed in the trauma room at first, but seeing as they are the closest thing Steve Rogers has to family, they ignore the nurses who try to stop them coming in, only acquiescing to their insistence that they stay in the corner out of the way, which once inside, Tony and Natasha are more than happy to do. There's so much blood, it looks like the floor of a butcher's shop, and the sight of it makes Tony's icy ball of dread settles somewhere underneath his arc-reactor, crushing his lungs, making it hard to breath. But this isn't about him, not right now. This is not the time to spaz out, and he shoves his shaking hands deep into his pockets and tries his hardest to just suck it up.

Rogers has been stripped to his shorts, his suit laying in pieces on the floor beside the gurney. It's not his ninja-cool black-ops number, Tony notes, it looks like it might have been one of his War-Time originals and he wonders vaguely where he would have got hold of one those old uniforms.

There's a dozen or so medics working on Rogers, but half of them seem to be there just to hold him still as the others continuously push fluids, drugs and blood into his veins and stuff wads of gauze into the bleeding hole in his belly. The gurney he's laid out on is shaking, wheels rattling against the blood smeared floor and Tony spots one of Rogers' hands wrapped around the edge of it, knuckles white as bone, and sees the metal begin to give under his grip.

Tony doesn't usually have a problem with being right all the time. That smug satisfaction he usually felt at being proved the cleverest person in the room had never really lost any of its magic but now, now he would give anything not to be right about Rogers needing Bruce's dendrotoxin one day.

"Give them the vial, Nat."

Natasha looks up at him, cringing as Rogers lets out another pitiful cry, but she doesn't move from the corner she's pressed herself into and it dawns on Tony that right now, he's the leader of The Avengers. Rifling through the pockets of her skin-tight combat suit, manhandling her in a way that would normal end in a broken bone or two but now receiving zero resistance from her, he finds the vial of toxin, and taking a deep breath, he musters every shred of the Millionaire Playboy Philanthropist armour that he has left inside him and he grabs the nearest medic by the back of his scrubs.

"Who's in charge here?"

"I told you, you can't be in here!" a small dark-haired nurse tells them, trying to block his way but Tony ignores her completely. "I said who is in charge of this man's care?"

A couple of the medics look round, momentarily surprised at seeing Tony Stark standing behind them. It would have been more of surprise if not for the fact that they had Captain America bleeding to death on a table in from of them.

One of the doctors turns to face Tony. There's blood all over his scrubs and his face is grim set under his surgical mask. "I'm Doctor Lacey. I'm in charge, and you can't be in here, Mr Stark."

From where he's standing, Tony can now see Rogers' battered face underneath the oxygen mask they've strapped on him, sees the tears that are cutting a line through all the dirt and blood on his cheeks, and he tries his hardest to focus on the doctor, because the more he looks at Rogers, the more he sees just a scared, hurt kid, and if Steve Rogers is just a scared kid, that makes him nothing more than a screwed-up old drunk in a silly toy suit, and the world needs so much more than that.

If he lets himself think about the enormity of what's happened over the past two days, he's sure he might just lay down on the floor and stay there, but he can't because Rogers needs him, and so does Natasha, who has slipped down onto her haunches, her arms wrapped around her head in an attempt to block out Rogers' agonised screams, and he's got jack squat left to hide behind.

From now on, this one is well and truly on him and he holds out the vial.

"This is a dendrotoxin compound from my lab. 200cc of this intravenously should knock him out for a few hours. Long enough for you to fix him."

The doctor looks down at the vial and shakes his head. "We can't administer experimental drugs here, Mr Stark. There are laws..."

"Screw laws." Tony snaps. "What are you gonna do, open him up while he's still conscious, or do nothing and let him bleed to death? Look at him! You can't…" Suddenly he has no breath for words and he frantically gulps down air like a fish on a hook as the room tilts slightly and goes dark at the edges.

Rogers lets out another heart-wrenching cry, bringing Tony back to reality like a slap to the face and they all watch in horror as the edge of the gurney Rogers has hold of completely buckles beneath his grip. The medics on that side jump back in alarm, all realising simultaneously that their super-powered patient could easily do the same to them. Only Tony and Natasha know different. Even half out of his mind with pain, they know that Rogers has enough control over himself not to lash out and accidently hurt someone. But then they've never seen him like this, in such a bad way, and Tony is in half a mind whether to call War Machine and try to hold him still himself.

"Doc, c'mon," he begs, desperately. "You can't let people suffer like this."

"BP is 70-80 and he's had more than twenty units. We're losing him." Someone yells, and the doctor looks grim faced at Tony and reluctantly holds his hand out. It's as shaky as his own, Tony notes, and he places the vial in the doctor's hand and claps him on the shoulder, flashing him what he hopes is an encouraging smile. "If you get fired, Dr Lacey, you can come work for me."

The doctor reaches over and picks up a syringe from the tray beside Rogers' gurney. "This will anesthetise him?"

Tony nods. "You seen those Icer guns that S.H.I.E.L.D use on the news? Same stuff, but better, because I designed it."

Dr Lacey hesitates. All the medics are now watching him and the room has fallen silent other than Rogers' gasps of agony and the erratic beeping of his heartbeat over the monitor, and with a heavy sigh, he carefully draws out 200cc of the purple liquid and inserts the needle into the I.V attached to Rogers' right arm.

"How quickly will this work?", the doctor asks and Tony shrugs, both of them turning back to look at the patient. "Instantaneously, I hope, but honestly, I have no idea. This was designed for the Hulk."

The doctor hesitates at the mention of Banner's big, green alter-ego and begins to pull the syringe back out of the I.V port but suddenly Natasha is there, and shaking her head, she places her hands gently over the doctor's.

"You know, just a little while ago I asked Captain Rogers if it ever came down to me saving his life, would he trust me to do it, and he said he would. I'm not going to break that trust, Doc." And slipping her thumb between the doctors gloved fingers, she pushes the plunger down on the syringe and they all watch the purple liquid disappear into the line. Then she lets go of the doctor's hand and catches hold of Steve's as it slips limply from the gurney.

"I've got you, Steve," she whispers, and tenderly, she presses her lips to his grazed knuckles.

Suddenly, the monitor beside them lets out a shrill alarm and the medical team jolts back into action.

"He's crashing," someone yells. "Heart rate is down to 20 BPM. BP has bottomed out." And with those words, Doctor Lacey turns back to his team. "Okay, lets wrap him up and get him into the O.R now. We don't know how long we have."

Tony steps forward and wrapping an arm round her, he pulls Natasha out of the way as the medics crowd around their patient once more, unhooking Rogers from the bank of monitors as they readied him for surgery, and she moves without resistance, not even shrugging Tony off when she realises he has pulled her into some kind of awkward hug.

"Please tell me we didn't just put him out of his misery."

Tony swallows dryly, and squeezes her tighter, not wanting to tell her that the same thought had just crossed his mind. "Come on, Nat. This is Steve Rogers we're talking about. The guy survived being frozen in Ice for seventy years. A few bullets aren't going to take him out. Now let's get out of here and get you cleaned up, huh? When was the last time you ate anything?"

Natasha nods and lets Tony guide her towards the doors, before she stops and looks up at him.

"Sam. We need to get Sam too."

Tony frowns. "Who the hell is Sam?"

Natasha gives him a thin smile in reply. "Let's just say you and Thor are not our only flying guys anymore."