Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, even the prompt.

Prompt taken from Writing Prompt's (https writing-prompt-s tumblr com/) tumblr page: Finger guns are actual guns for a day, but nobody knows until it's too late.


It was a normal day in the tower for everyone. After the invasion, most had been invited to live in the Tower with Tony while he got it cleaned up-changing it from Stark tower to the Avengers tower (with that A being left, it was just meant to be, right?).

Currently only four people were in the tower: Tony, Clint, Natasha, and Steve. Clint and Natasha were currently sitting in the living room of one of the few floors on the tower that had been fixed. They were discussing what they would do that day for training, after having been on a week long mission for SHIELD. Tony had just extracted himself from his lab and pouring himself some coffee.

Steve had just finished his morning work out, coming out onto the floor from the elevator with a towel around his neck.

"Hey everyone," He said amicably, giving them all that winning grin of his.

"Ugh, too cheerful…" Tony muttered before taking a sip of his coffee and throwing one of his snarky grins at the Captain, "Hey Cap'n." He raised a hand and shot a finger gun at Steve while saying, "How's it going?"

But he never finished that question because as he did the finger gun, a light of some sort shot out of his finger and hit Steve in the chest. A sizeable hole was left in its wake.

For a moment everyone just stared. Then Steve staggered back a few steps and fell-that jolted everyone into action. Natasha vaulted over the back of the couch and Clint followed suit, going to the fallen Captain's side. Tony was staring at his finger in consternation, having no idea how the fuck that happened.

"TONY! What did you do!?" Clint yelled, bringing Tony out of his stupor.

"I didn't do anything!" Tony immediately retorted. "I just …" And then Tony, being the genius that he is, pointed his hand at the wall and did another finger gun. "Did a finger gun." He finished lamely, looking at the new hole in his wall. He'd just fixed that….

"Really." Natasha said, voice dripping with derision, eyebrow raised and gaze flicking between the wall and Tony.

"I have no idea how that is happening." He said while he thoughts followed with, 'But I want to find out.'

"Now is not the time." Natasha said. Had Tony said that aloud? "JARVIS, Get Bruce and contact SHIELD Medical to send out a team."

"Right away." JARVIS replied.

"Steve. Steve, stay with me. It's gonna be okay." Clint said, hand putting pressure on the wound that was bleeding very sluggishly. It looked like it had been cauterized, but still painful.

Steve just gave a smile, nodding his head. It hurt, truly, but it wasn't the worst thing that had happened to him.

Tony finally moved his way over to the group on the floor, grabbing a First Aid kit from the wall that JARVIS provided with a simple command. He busted it open and started to hand things to Natasha as she asked for them when a voice behind them startled them all.

"Tony?" It was the dulcet tones of the inglorious Doctor Stephen Strange. "Tony, are you there? We might have a bit of a problem."

"You can say that again." Tony popped his head up from behind his couch, panic clear on his face as he looked to the giant monitor the was displaying the good doctor's face.

A look of confusion briefly passed over Stephen's face, because he couldn't see what was going on behind the couch, but the Sorcerer Supreme brushed it off and forged on again.

"One of the initiates in the Chinese Sanctum decided to play around with a spell that they were not ready for," Stephen started to explain, only to be interrupted by Tony.

"We don't have time for that, something happened and my finger gun just shot the Captain!"

"That's what I'm trying to say, Tony!" Stephen yelled back in reply. "The initiate used a spell and it went completely wrong. Finger guns are REAL Tony, they are REAL! Don't shoot them at anyone-this is going to be a mess to clean up, honestly…" The doctor continued to mumble to himself incoherently.

Around the same time, Bruce had finally got to the floor, dragging his mediocre kit with him. Bruce ignored to the two geniuses and assassins and went right to Steve, asking him questions and trying to patch the wound with Natasha's help.

"A mess to clean up!?" Tony continued, "I SHOT CAPTAIN AMERICA!" The Billionaire had finally lost his cool, the stress lines showing on his face.

That got Dr. Strange's attention.

"What?" His head whipped around from where he was looking.

"Do I really have to say it again? I shot Steve! I-" Tony paused for half of a second, eyes unfocused. "I haven't slept in nearly 48 hours, I'm working off of protein shakes and caffeine, okay? I made a finger gun at the good captain and it shot him. F-.. Bruce, is he gonna be okay?" Tony turned to look at his fellow genius. On the screen Dr. Strange tried to look over the couch to see what was going on. JARVIS was nice enough to open up a second monitor to show the doctor, whose eyes went wide at the damage he could see.

"Well… The wound has been cauterized. Whatever the … finger guns…" The derision could be heard in his voice, "are shooting acts more like a laser than a bullet. That helped-plus, Tony, when you're tired you have terrible aim." Bruce finally looked up at the distraught Iron Man, "It's just a flesh wound."

Tony caught the joke and cracked a small smile at his science bro.

"I agree with you Dr. Banner," Stephen said from his monitor, "Mr. Rogers will be fine. There may be some muscle damage, but if what JARVIS is showing me is correct, the Serum that is inside you, Mr. Rogers, is working to heal you up good as new."

"Yeah," Steve agreed, "I can feel it," he winced before continuing, "It feels really weird."

When Tony heard that, his mood improved greatly. In fact, he visibly perked up-and just in time for the SHIELD Medical Quinjet to arrive on his Heli-pad.

Steve was quickly bundled up and taken away to Headquarters where more qualified, actual medical doctors (and not one looking through a monitor) could take care of him.

While that was happening, Wong had come and spoken to Stephen off camera. By the look on his face, the news wasn't good. Natasha was the first to notice and she approached the monitor.

"What is it, Dr. Strange?" She stood at attention, arms folded across her chest.

"It's-..." A sigh escaped the magic user before he answered, "It's what I feared. The spell started these morning. This has been happening for hours." There was a tense pause as everyone waited for the news from Wong, "There have been a few deaths." The wince that the doctor had when he said those words, clearly for all to hear, made it clear how painful-and responsible-the Sorcerer Supreme felt about what had happened.

Everyone who was at the Avengers Tower was stunned-shocked to silence at this proclamation. This was not how they expected events to go, the afternoon to go… Civilians dead, and Captain America in the medical bay.

"What… What do we do?" Bruce said quietly, looking around at his fellow Avengers.

No one had an answer.


AN: Sorry not sorry. Used as an example to my Creative Writing class's Superhero story prompt.