Chapter Text
"Skull flap is now in place," Stephen announced, and adjusted one of the small titanium plates that would join the replaced fragment to the stable bone that surrounded it.
"Are you about to use a power drill on Steve Rogers' head?" asked Nick Fury over the comms, with audible disbelief.
Stephen hoisted said drill. His finger pressed the trigger, revving the tool as it spun in anticipation of locking Steve's skull flap into position. "It's medical grade."
"Are you about to use a medical grade power drill on Steve Rogers' head?"
"If you know a better way to get these screws into place, I'm all ears." Hearing no suggestions, Stephen moved a tiny titanium screw into position over the plate, and got to work. Metal screeched as it drilled through bone. He'd always been able to use a simple screwdriver on skull flap procedures, but this was far denser than what he was used to. Every part of Steve was strong. Hopefully, that would pull him all the way through.
Stephen hummed to himself as his work proceeded. Usually, music would accompany surgical sessions, but nearly everyone had come back to watch this follow-up procedure. Knowing that Steve's brain was still exposed had already left them all awfully twitchy. With that mood filling the observation room, it was unlikely that they'd appreciate hearing Freddie's voice blasting over the comm system while Stephen waved around a power tool.
"More?" Phil asked as Stephen handed off the drill to a robot, then adjusted the position of the next titanium plate.
"You obviously need more than one. I imagine the good captain would like this flap to be locked firmly into place, instead of me leaving it like a door on a hinge." As he leaned back in, Stephen noticed Natasha watching through the window. One hand fidgeted with her shirt collar. Above it, her eyes were wide and skin pale. Stephen sobered behind his mask, stopped humming, and got to work on the second plate.
Steve needed three such tiny plates affixed around the flap's perimeter, and another small plate over the bullet hole in his forehead. These were standard procedures, even if the power drill was new, and Stephen worked through them at a steady clip. "Done," he eventually announced, after bone was fixed and skin was stitched.
Rhodey exhaled loudly enough to be heard over the comms. "I'm not sure how long I've been holding that breath."
"He'll sleep off the anesthesia tonight." Stephen glanced at a clock: twelve-sixteen in the morning. "I imagine he'll power through it quickly, so I'll check him at five and tell you all what the timeline looks like."
"Seems like a pretty early morning for you, after everything you did today," Melinda pointed out.
Stephen snorted and removed his mask, now that Steve was closed up. "Seems like a standard surgical shift. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go attend to my other patient." He saw Natasha still staring motionless through the glass, and softened. She'd had even more reason to worry than him, today. "Feel free to stay here as long as you like, so long as you don't go into the lab until I check him. And you all know where the fridge is upstairs."
Tony had just barely stayed awake in the next room, and he was in a dreamy, foggy mood when Stephen returned. "Hey. Seemed to go good?"
"It went great." Stephen ran a gentle hand over Tony's hair. A nursing robot had washed blood and dirt from it, leaving it soft and glossy, if unstyled. These new designs really were useful. "Go to sleep. I'll be on the cot."
Too tired to answer with more than a smile, Tony's good eye drifted closed. Stephen made sure to program in the fresh regimen of morphine before joining him.
Phil had wondered if the wake-up call would be too early for him, but Stephen was glad for it. An early morning like this kept him in surgical mode. When he'd been faced with surgeries interspersed over a thirty-six hour shift, he was able to fall asleep in moments to make best use of the precious down time in-between. Without that pressure knocking him out instantly into a deep, purposeful rest, he probably would have spent hours uselessly mired in a nightmare of seeing Tony's SUV in the river.
Five a.m. arrived, and Stephen woke without an alarm. Except for soft breathing, Tony was motionless as Stephen rose quietly from his cot and slipped into the other lab. The observation room through the window was dark and empty, and the world seemed very still. Dim lights slowly brightened to one-third strength as he approached Steve's bedside. "You seem to be working well," Stephen murmured toward a panel displaying sedation readouts. Stark engineers' medical advancements hadn't only come from the neurology department's suggestions. Those research grants had been in place for years, and by now every field had piped up with their bright ideas and expertise. Anesthesiologists had proposed a design for low-level, non-pharmaceutical sedation that was in its final stages of FDA approval. It wasn't deep enough for major surgery like this, but it let them wean patients off those drugs with fewer side effects.
And conveniently, it let patients be woken on a perfectly predictable schedule. Stephen leaned over and turned off the electrical impulses keeping Steve's brain asleep. A few moments later, Steve's eyelids fluttered. Slitting them open earned a faint groan, and they stayed half-lidded for a few more seconds as his vision adjusted. Steve risked opening his eyes a little more after that, and then all the way. His eyes rotated in their sockets as he took in the dim, sterile surroundings of complicated medical equipment mounted on glossy surfaces. It wasn't a place he'd needed to visit, often.
Stephen leaned closer, though not close enough to startle him, and studied each move that he made. There wasn't any real comprehension, yet, but Steve's eyes were slowly focusing. That was a decent indicator toward positive outcomes.
"Wh..." The word needed another try. It came out soft and uncertain, but identifiable. An even better sign. "What?"
"You were injured," Stephen said in low, quiet tones that wouldn't worsen the headache Steve was certainly feeling. "There was a crash. Do you remember?"
Steve looked around again, still uncertain. "No."
He knew 'no' and how it was used to answer a query. Good. "That's fine. That's normal. I want to ask you some questions to see how you're doing, all right?" Silence seemed to mean 'yes,' and eventually, Stephen continued, "Can you tell me your name?"
More silence was his answer. Now, Stephen's chest tightened with concern. Steve stared off at nothing like he didn't know the answer, or worse, that he didn't recognize that he was being asked a question at all. With a brain injury like this, the organ needed to figure out how to reroute its typical behaviors though undamaged tissue. That wasn't a sure thing, and it never happened instantly. Unfortunately, it meant that any negative indicators might only be temporary, or this could actually be where they were, now.
"Steve Rogers?" Steve said, and looked up to see if his suspicions were correct.
Relieved, Stephen smiled. "Yes. Your name is Steve Rogers. Where do you live?"
Another pause was needed, but it was shorter than the one before. "New York City."
"What part of New York City?" Best to confirm that he wasn't remembering pre-war Brooklyn.
'Manhattan' wouldn't come, no matter how Steve worked for it. "Uh. There's..." He tried again. "Concrete floors."
"That's right," Stephen said encouragingly. All right, Steve couldn't remember some proper place labels just yet, which suggested possible concerns with the parietal lobe, but it was still an encouraging sign that he could remember a precise visual from his home. With how his brain had swollen, any part of it could have been potentially damaged. Specific recollection of anything was good.
Reflected movement and dim light along the glossy walls drew his attention, and Stephen glanced over his shoulder. Other people, it seemed, had kept the five a.m. alarm in mind. Phil, Sam, Rhodey, and of course Natasha were watching again from the observation room, which had lightened just enough for them to find their way inside.
"Comms on, lights up to half. Come right up to the window," Stephen said. "Let him see you." Standing at Steve's shoulder, he gestured from right to left, one person at a time. "Do you remember their names?"
Steve needed a few seconds each time, and sounded like he was working hard enough to lift a truck, but the names came. "Rhodey. Phil. Sam." He found a smile before finishing, "Nat."
Natasha laughed wetly, and wiped at her eyes.
"Good. Very good. Do you remember my name?"
Steve looked slowly up, mindful of the pain lancing from his wounds. His smile fell away into uncertainty, that turned into concern, that edged toward rare fear.
All right, not all the signs were positive. As much as Stephen had loathed what happened to his body after his accident, at least his mind had stayed as sharp as ever. Losing any part of his intellect, and being aware that something couldn't be retrieved, would be an even worse hell. "It's all right, this is normal at first," Stephen assured him, and the people in the observation room. "Do you remember my face?"
This answer relieved Steve to give. "Yes."
"Good. That's good. I see that you're worried, but you don't need to be. If you were able to remember those other names, then that function is still there. Things are just confusing right now, very understandably. Your brain will figure out new ways to get to the information. Picture it like... some of your normal roads got closed off. You need to find detours. It'll take time, but it'll happen."
Steve nodded once, very slowly, but he didn't seem reassured. "What if I remember things... wrong?"
"Again, you got their names right. That's a very good sign. Why are you concerned?"
The lantern-jawed face from a million lunchboxes looked genuinely worried over a danger he had no idea how to fight. "Because I... I remembered my own name again for you, and I know that's not right."
Stephen couldn't help himself from laughing softly. He could almost feel the observation room's tension dissolve along with his own. "No, it's right. Steven with a V," he said, and gestured toward Steve, then to himself. "Stephen with a PH."
"Oh," Steve said with genuine relief, and the mental agility to look amused. "That seems like... cheating."
"Definitely a trick question," Stephen agreed. "I can say that the early indicators look very good, Steve. I'm going to run more tests later today, but I've seen what I needed to see to be encouraged. I'd like you to rest up for a while. That'll be very important for your recovery." Reflected movement caught his attention again, and Stephen paused. She probably wouldn't ask for this, and so he'd need to make the offer. "Natasha, if you'd like, you can come in for about five minutes before I chase you out. There'll be more chances later."
She was in motion when she heard 'come in.' Shaky and overwhelmed like she seldom displayed, Natasha entered the medical lab with a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes. "Hey."
Steve rolled his head toward her, and smiled blearily in return. "Hey."
"I thought you were supposed to be the tough one," Natasha said with feigned ease.
"Yeah. Pretty embarrassing," Steve admitted. "You get twenty points. I guess."
As Natasha choked out a wet, delighted laugh at whatever that private joke was between them, Stephen nodded to himself and stepped away. Steve's personality was intact, if understandably muddled at the moment, and he could remember specifics like whatever those 'points' were and what the floors of his condominium looked like. They'd... well, 'dodged a bullet' might not be the best label for how the situation had unfolded, but things could gone as well as anyone would have hoped.
"Comms off," Rhodey said when Stephen emerged into the observation room, and flicked his gaze to a monitor to confirm that they had audio privacy. Only when he saw that confirmation did he continue. "This is amazing to see. The day afterward, and he's already making her laugh."
"He heals fast," Stephen said, and was thankful for it.
"He does, but..." Rhodey trailed off, biting his lip.
This must have been a conversation that they'd started overnight, for Phil picked up the baton and ran with it. "If it'd been anyone else in that OR, would Steve be alive right now?"
"No."
Sam smiled lopsidedly. "You didn't need long to answer that."
"It's not a hard question."
The other three men shared an amused look.
"It's not," Stephen said, and couldn't hold back a yawn. By now, the five a.m. wake-up call felt a little early. "Magic and surgical excellence were both needed, and no one else could do it. Although, a resident of mine did leave to study at Kamar-Taj, and more doctors might follow. But I basically taught her everything she knows in the OR, so." The credit for any future advances that his old resident might discover still belonged to him, probably.
"And she's nowhere near as good as you," Rhodey dryly supplied.
Yawning again, Stephen nodded.
"I'm good at dealing with egos," Rhodey said to Sam and Phil, who both smirked. Stephen would have protested, if not for yet another yawn pushing through. He really was exhausted. "Go sleep, man. You seriously seem to need some more."
"And you deserve it," Sam added, and clapped him manfully on the shoulder.
Stephen smiled at the praise, only to recognize a question he should have asked when he first walked in. Turning to Phil, he wondered, "Did you tell Pepper where you are, tonight?"
"Team business. And that is technically true. I mean, almost everyone on the team is here, except for the guys who headed back over to the Sanctum for an hour." Three level stares looked back at him, and so Phil rolled his eyes and added, "I'll tell her later. And Nat has three minutes left. Don't worry, I'll chase her out."
Stephen needed another two hours of sleep until he felt mostly normal. Yesterday's emotional highs and lows had drained him far more than he'd expected, and he couldn't expect a physically exhausted body to carry much of a load in the meantime. "I'm getting old," he realized when he woke, and still felt grogginess around the edges. When he'd first started as a resident, he'd barely even bothered to nap during thirty-six hour shifts.
"Old? Huh. That's what you always called me," Tony said with a slow, careful laugh.
Rising, Stephen checked him over. "Well, you're still older."
"Jerk." Tony softened the word with a lopsided smile, like he often wore, but the injuries across his face made the expression rather gruesome. Bruises always looked even worse the day afterward, and between his bandages he was positively covered with them.
Taking his cues from Tony's warm, loving voice, instead, Stephen stroked a careful path down his hair. "Oatmeal or scrambled eggs?"
"Trying to get me to have your boring breakfasts, huh?" Tony exhaled. "Eggs."
"All right. I'll be back soon."
Two hours earlier, Phil had mentioned that the team was there. But Stephen had been exhausted, and so the words hadn't actually processed until he walked up one flight of stairs and found himself in the middle of what seemed very much like a slumber party. "We raided your pantry," Melinda announced, and held up a champagne flute filled with what was presumably a mimosa.
Bruce and Ava were sprawled across one couch, under a thick blanket, while Sam had another blanket around his shoulders as he walked out from one of the floor's guest rooms. Off near the kitchen, Karl inspected a pastry box that Rhodey presented. "Hey," Rhodey said as Stephen approached, and turned the box toward him. "I ran over to that place you guys like."
"I promised Tony some eggs," Stephen said as he saw familiar muffin options from Greenwich Gardens, including the autumn offerings that they'd been enjoying for years.
"So, take him a streusel muffin and eggs," Rhodey suggested, and inclined that side of the box toward Stephen.
"That sounds like a terrible combination," Stephen said, even as he reached for the sugary, cinnamon-doused muffin that was a regular in Tony's palette of unhealthy breakfast pastries. And then, he shoved nearly the entire thing into his own mouth. He ignored the amusement he earned, and continued into the kitchen with purpose. "I have to admit," Stephen said as he heard someone walk in to join him. "Those things might count more as dessert than breakfast, but they do taste good."
"I try to live by the standards I set for myself at Kamar-Taj," Karl began, with the calm, measured pace that Stephen always associated with him. "The restraint I learned there proved to be a sorely-needed habit, and eventually, a gift. But... I can't say no to a chocolate chip muffin."
"The ones with the chocolate batter, too?" After a nod, Stephen added, "That definitely counts as dessert."
Karl chuckled, and stayed silent as Stephen pulled out a pan and the few ingredients he'd need, and then added a slice of wheat bread to the toaster. Only then did he continue. "Colonel Fury asked if I could portal a retrieval crew to the site of the accident. They cleared things out overnight."
That was good, Stephen supposed, as he cracked two eggs into the pan. "He obviously knew that I was busy, but I'm surprised he reached out to you. Instead of Melinda, I mean. She did work for him."
"I think that's why he did, actually. He knows her well, and so he wants to get those spy tendrils of his into fertile new soil, now."
Stephen smirked at him sidelong. "And did you give him anything?"
"Inscrutable and mysterious."
Laughing, Stephen stirred the eggs.
Karl laughed, too, and gestured toward a hallway door. "I collected Steve's shield from the river. It's waiting for him, though those leather straps were soaked through."
"Don't worry. He won't be using it anytime soon."
"I imagine not." Karl studied Stephen silently as he worked on Tony's breakfast, and eventually asked, "How did this go—" His voice died, but Stephen heard the unasked final word: before.
"I'm not positive. This wasn't how it played out, before, and the little bits and pieces happened in Tony's life, not mine. I imagine he'll have a lot to tell us, once he feels better." Though he'd intended that as a reminder that Tony would need a long recovery period before he dredged up traumatic memories, knowing that he would recover was a constant relief.
Karl seemed to hear that in his voice, and matched Stephen's smile as it grew. "I'm very glad that he will."
Toast interrupted them, and Stephen paused to butter it while it was still hot, and then transfer it and the eggs to a plate. The pause let him realize how fortunate he was in every way, for the man next to him had also stormed away, just like Steve 1.0 had done to Tony. Karl Mordo was such a friendly, unassuming figure in Stephen's life, again. They seemed to have successfully avoided that split, too. "I'm glad about a lot of things," Stephen confirmed. "I should go take Tony his breakfast. Thanks, Karl." A brief pause, and he added, "For getting the shield."
"Of course."
Downstairs, Tony gestured Stephen closer before he would accept his plate. "Gotta start off my day right," he insisted, and leaned up to cue what he expected in return.
Tolerantly, Stephen leaned down a much greater distance, and gave him the good-morning kiss that he'd skipped over before breakfast. "Now—"
Tony's good eye narrowed at him. "Were there muffins?"
Stephen paused, then wiped at his beard, where a few bits of cinnamon and sugar apparently still clung. That'd been too big of a bite.
Expectantly, Tony waited.
"Eat your eggs," Stephen sighed, shoved the plate at him, and turned back for the stairs. Patients did need calories for recovery.
The rest of the day was spent bouncing between the two medical labs, and being encouraged every moment that he wasn't busy wincing. The damage to both men was severe, but while that SUV had been wrecked beyond repair, they had a path back. Tony's stitched cuts soon stayed dry under their fresh bandages, Steve's new scans revealed the positive indicators that Stephen had hoped for, and, thankfully, the rest of the team did exactly what Stephen told them in the meantime. Compliance didn't happen often among their cluster of strong personalities, but people shut up when Bruce had something to say about radiation, Natasha about spy networks, or Stephen about medicine.
But there was one person on that team who would never totally comply with anyone. Not even Stephen.
It would have been better if Tony slept in the medical lab again, but of course he didn't. With the safety of their own personal ER only two floors down, he couldn't be argued away from his own, comfortable bedroom after spending one unpleasant night as a medical specimen. "What are my painkiller options?" Tony wondered as he slowly removed his clothes at the end of that long day.
Stephen hurried over to help him. "An ibuprofen tablet big enough to choke a horse."
That earned a pout, worsened by the obvious pain that each movement prompted. Tony's revealed skin was a mosaic of injuries. The very worst bruises overlaid his broken ribs, while cuts covered him according to their own logic. He would heal, thankfully, but it'd be a long road. "You can't just turn off the 'pain' part of my brain?"
"I could. And you'd never notice if something went south, if I did. Careful, let me get the sleeve off."
Tony let himself be undressed, limb by limb. "Can you heal some of the worst stuff? There's gotta be something in that huge library." He must truly be hurting. It wasn't that he distrusted magic, but even after so long, he didn't gravitate to it. Other injuries over the years hadn't prompted such a request.
"There is," Stephen confirmed. "There are perfectly safe spells for removing poisons, and other imbalances." His voice pitched lower, to underscore the danger this presented. "Regrowth spells for wounds are also in the library, and they are a very different story. Each carries with it the risk that it won't just regrow the intended cells, but will spark uncontrolled, undifferentiated, eventually fatal growth of the surrounding flesh. Especially if you cast it on someone else."
Tony sighed, possibly softly enough to not hurt his ribs.
"Let me get you your ibuprofen. You can take one four times per day, six hours apart." He'd earlier pulled the prescription-strength pills, and so Stephen soon returned with the bottle in one hand and a water glass in the other.
"That really could choke a horse," Tony said with a dubious look. It took him a few tries to get one down, and each swallow was visible. They looked intense enough to hurt.
"You gave up morphine on an IV line when you left the medlab. I told you that."
"It's not like you were very generous with it, anyway," Tony grumbled, which Stephen ignored. Clint Barton had died instead of Phil Coulson after Loki's arrival, and so it seemed plausible that Tony Stark could end up handicapped from a crash instead of Stephen Strange. To avoid a surprise swerve in that direction, Stephen would scan Tony's nervous system at least once per day, and be conservative with painkillers to avoid masking any danger during the hours in-between.
At least, that was the plan.
It was harder to let logic guide him when Tony needed three attempts to get into bed, even with Stephen's help. His core muscles didn't want to support him as he bent down, and then his ribs screamed protest as he tried to rotate over the mattress. Stephen eventually had to summon the same magical strands he'd used to lift Steve out of the river, and let Tony collapse onto them. The medical beds downstairs were higher, designed for injured patients. Tony clearly hadn't considered how many muscles were needed to climb into their comfortable, luxurious, and low-slung bed each night.
"Ow," Tony groaned pitifully after they'd gotten him under the covers. There was nothing covering him but the bed linens. Once he'd started losing clothing, he increasingly appreciated the lack of pressure against his bruises.
Stephen knelt next to him. "Seriously, do you want the lab? I'll get a cot again and be down there."
A few seconds passed. "No. I'm already in bed." Sighing, Tony let his good eye flutter closed. The swollen one hadn't gone down, but at least it hadn't swelled further. Today and tomorrow would probably be the very worst of the pain. Healing would be slow, but at least every day would be a little better than the one before.
Except for tonight. The nadir. The absolute worst that Tony would feel while trapped inside his pained body, after a horrific car crash. Things would get better, yes, but they were godawful in the meantime. Stephen bit his lip and studied Tony. The temptation to administer impossibly powerful drugs nearly overwhelmed him. But he couldn't. Things still had the potential to go downhill, and if Tony wasn't aware of any warning signals while wrapped inside comfortable painkiller padding, the damage could worsen. Stephen had wanted to keep Tony away from permanent damage like he'd suffered, but that decision was so much harder to carry through with when all-encompassing pain lined Tony's face.
"Gonna sleep, or stare at me?" Tony murmured.
Uneasy, Stephen circled the bed and climbed in on its other side, gently enough not to disturb Tony. He wasn't used to being unsure of what to do, medically. He couldn't even toss and turn while he tried to work through the situation. Fortunately, that uncertainty only lasted another minute.
Tony sighed, moved his arms above and below the sheets, and did basically everything to signal that he wanted to fall asleep, now, if his body would only cooperate. Only when Stephen's hand lightly touched his cheek did he go still. "The pill'll kick in, I know. I'm fine."
"Go to sleep," Stephen murmured, then tensed, just before agony ripped through him.
A look of wonder dawned on Tony's face, and his good eye opened. "Hey," he said with amazement, raising his head an inch off the pillow. Not all of his pain was gone, but the abrupt reduction had to be as good as morphine. "What are you—"
Stephen's body was still healthy, but he could feel each sensation of a hundred cuts across his body. The pressure of breathing lanced fire through his ribs. His head ached deep inside, and even more across its surface. He'd cast the shared sensation spell that they'd used during sex, when it had echoed and heightened the pleasure between two bodies. Now, an injured body had its sensations mixed with a healthy one, diluting its pain with the relief of normality.
And vice versa.
"Don't do that," Tony whispered as he realized that Stephen had taken half of his pain onto himself.
It was only half the pain of the crash. Perfectly doable. "I've slept before feeling worse than this. And now, you'll be able to sleep at all."
"Don't do that," Tony insisted, and pulled Stephen's hand off his face. As soon as the fingers lost contact, a deep, pained whimper tore free of his throat. The lid to his good eye trembled, covering unshed tears.
"Tony." Stephen scooted closer. "Let me help. Please. The pain will be tolerable for you, and I'll know if things get worse. It's a safe kind of painkiller. Just for tonight. Please."
No answer came. Tony did open his eye again, but his gaze was shaky and uncertain when it met Stephen's. He knew what he wanted, but couldn't bring himself to actually ask for it. That wasn't what a hero did, nor was it what someone did to the person they loved.
It was in reverse, though. "You would do the same for me, if you could," Stephen murmured. "Let me help you, just like you'd help me."
Tony closed his eyes, unwilling to actually ask Stephen to suffer on his behalf, but he didn't resist his fingers making contact. Pain surged again through Stephen, but every spike was worth it. The first waves of sensation crested, then smoothed out into something predictable and manageable. "There," he said, and tried to ignore the ribs that felt even worse than when Ava had caught him by surprise. "Go to sleep.”
After only a few relieved breaths, Tony did. They could both sleep, Stephen thought, as he adjusted his position so that his hand would never leave Tony's face. And then they'd wake up, and tomorrow would be better.