No Body, No Crime
So far, Loki had reduced a nursing student to tears, Tony had (very smoothly) tried to throw money at the receptionist to avoid waiting his turn but promptly thrown up (also very smoothly) on her shoes instead, Thor had wandered off with Loki in tow to “investigate this most whimsical contraption” after spotting a gumball machine in the gift shop, and Bruce had gone after them to prevent “irreparable damage to the public and society as a whole”. All and all, minus the whole “potential alcohol poisoning” snafu, this hospital trip was turning out far better than Tony anticipated.
Ushered into the waiting area by none other than Vomit Shoes herself, who was glaring daggers sharper than the actual dagger Loki had for some reason brought into a hospital, Tony found himself not even mildly shocked by the presences of Pepper, Natalie, Clint, and Cap. It was just one of those days. One of those days where you ran into your personal assistant, arch-rival/vague acquaintance, some guy who’s really bleeding quite a lot, and Natalie in a hospital waiting room.
Pepper wore her best “don’t even start with me” expression, marred only slightly by the blotchy hives decorating most every inch of her skin, but as always, Tony was about to start with her.
“Wow, Pep, lose a fight with a cactus?”
The emotional violence conveyed by Pepper’s disapproving stare could not be described with words. Perhaps summarized by numbers with 4000001/10, but even then Tony felt the description of its intensity would be understated.
“Strawberries.” Natalie summarized. “You?”
Tony shrugged. “Alcohol poisoning.”
“Tasteful.”
“I certainly thought so.”
“Besides, Clint just broke his leg trying to leap from the roof of one building to the next. He’s somewhere around here being lulled into unconsciousness with morphine and lectures on not jumping off buildings, but he’ll need someone to drive him home.” Natalie seemed unbothered by this turn of events.
“Why can’t you tell people I injured myself saving the world from a killer robot invasion as I asked? That’s way cooler.”
“I can.” Offered Steve, staring down at his feet. “Afterall, I was the one who-”
Natalie raises an eyebrow. “Encouraged him to leap off a three-story public museum.”
Steve floundered but was saved from the wrath of Tony’s amazing quipping by him vomiting into a nearby trash can. Which, eww, other people’s garbage.
Natalie clapped Cap on the back. “Relax, this is just another Clint shenanigan of the month. If it wasn’t the museum, it would be filling Rockefeller center with quails or starting a scam magic act in Central Park. ”
Clint scowled. “I’m deeply offended, but also I'm going to write those ideas down when I can move my arm again.”
“Somehow, I’m not reassured.”
Thor, Bruce, and Loki picked that moment to return, a giant corn dog in Thor’s hand. Tony hadn’t any clue where someone would acquire a corn dog in a public hospital, and frankly, except for in all the ways he did want to know, he didn’t want to know. While Bruce also didn’t question the menagerie of acquaintances, Loki turned his freaky little calculating gaze on them, before apparently deciding Natalie was the closest in terms of terrifyingness to him and sitting near her.
“Hey, Pepper, next time Tony does anything stupid, please just remind me to let him die quietly and move on with my life.”
Pepper smiled at Bruce, which was especially impressive considered she managed to continue glaring at Tony the entire time.
“Oh please, like your lives wouldn’t be so boring without my dazzling presence.”
Pepper pulled a pen and napkin out of her purse and scribbled “I could stop keeping Xanax on my person if you weren’t in my life”.
“See! Look at all the fun we have.”
Despite Tony’s chatter, he could feel the unease permeating the room. There was something deeply unsettling about the sterile white walls and their vacant endlessness, about the cloying stench of cleaning products desperately trying to cover up the smell of death. No one liked hospitals, but the tension lingered especially thickly. Bruce's knee was bouncing, while Thor toyed with the hem of his t-shirt. Tony even thought he could detect a hint of nervousness in Clint, but that also might just be the severe bodily injuries.
Luckily, Tony knew the perfect way to eliminate stress.
“Thor, why don’t you give your shirt to Clint. That will probably help with his multiple broken limbs.”
Once again, Bruce, the ingrate, kicked him again for his act of charity.
“Yes,” Clint said, accepting the shirt Thor handed him without blinking, gritting his teeth as he tied it into a make-shift sling of sorts. “Let's go back to me and my new excruciating pain.”
“You’re fine.” Natasha chided. “Don’t fall off buildings if you don’t want broken bones.”
“Stop mocking my broken bones!”
“Perfect, Thor is publicly shirtless and I am surrounded by fools. Can I leave now?”
“Is this Loki?” Clint asked.
“Swallow dirt, peasant.”
“Loki.” Thor hissed.
“So you're definitely Loki.”
“What? I cannot be held responsible for your awful taste in companions. The last friend you acquired tased you in that junkyard Hela dumped you in, and proceeded to sell you to an old man who called you “Sparkles” and himself “Grandmaster”. Whereupon you came together and concocted a scheme in which you escaped in his stolen orgy vehicle. Now she sleeps on our couch, drinks all of our booze, and occasionally has exceedingly loud hate sex with our sister.”
Thor waved a hand dismissively, “Brunnhilde is wonderful, and all of Hela’s sex is already exceedingly loud hate sex.”
“Truly? Even her last boyfriend, Skurge?”
“I cannot imagine anyone enjoys Skurge’s company.”
Clint tried to raise his hand but quickly realized his terrible error. “Can I not be lumped into the same category as the alcoholic who definitely temporality sold your brother into a weird fucking sex cult.”
“No.” Loki deadpanned.
“Right,” Tony said, “and while I’m both repressing and never going to let any of this information go, because really? Fucking Sparkles? Let's all focus on the most important topic: my imminent death.” He turned to Pepper. “I want a tasteful funeral, in the rain. If every guest isn’t sobbing over my open casket and trying to throw themselves into my grave, I’m coming back as a ghost and haunting you. As for the afterparty, I want a champagne fountain and exotic dancers in a cake. Don’t give me that look, Pep. My cake strippers can be men. I don’t discriminate.”
*
“Give it to me straight, doc, am I going to die.”
Tony’s doctor pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, Mr. Stark, for the last time, you aren’t going to die. You also aren’t going to need to “make a wish”, do cocaine for the “ghosts in your blood”, or get a second opinion from a witch doctor”
“But I’m poisoned, I tell you.” With glee, Tony adds a manic note to his voice. “Poisoned. And I was going to wish for Jeff Bezos to buy a wig for his distractingly shiny bald head.
The doctor (whose name Tony had already forgotten) looked as though he was considering violating his Hippocratic Oath. “You don’t even have alcohol poisoning. Best we can tell, you have mild food poisoning from consuming a hotdog of inferior quality from a street vendor.”
“Oh,” Tony said, “That is significantly worse. Can I be poisoned?”
*
Phil sighed. “Did any of you complete your assignment?”
“To be fair,” Tony replied, throwing his feet over the side of the couch Phil was beginning to greatly regret purchasing. “we were all in the hospital.”
Phil prided himself on not sighing. Creating a positive and open environment and all that. “All of you? For what reason.”
“Poison street meat,” said Tony at the same moment Clint chorused “fell off a building” and Natasha replied “escorting Tony’s personal assistant”.
“Well then. At least you spent time together without incident.”
Natasha's eyes gleamed. “Except for the part where Thor got kicked out of the waiting room for being shirtless and also stealing an orderly’s corn dog, Loki and Tony were banned from the hospital for life after Loki called a doctor “a pretentious quack with the talents of a common porcupine” and Tony escalated it by referring to him as “a dick and cheese sandwich”, Clint was put under anesthesia started sobbing and confessed to both being the iceberg which sunk the titanic and the murder of Princess Diana, and Bruce was chewed out by the receptionist for stealing twenty-seven pens, the trip was just peachy.”
“At least you all spent time together.”
Clint raised his non-in-a-cast hand. “Does this mean we fail “being emotionally healthy class”?”
“Unless you murder each other, it’s virtually impossible to fail.”
Tony raised a hand. “If I murder someone in the group, does the class dissolve? Because If so, I’ll volunteer to bear the burden.”
“I volunteer to be murdered.” Bruce offered.
Again, a complete miracle Phil did not dramatically sigh. “You know what? Let's do a new exercise. Clearly, art isn’t helping, and expressing your “inner soul” was too personal a question. Let's answer something much easier, what is everyone’s greatest fear?”
“Men,” said Natasha
“Women,” said Tony.
Clint stared into the middle distance, voice barely a whisper as his eyes glossed artfully over with unshed tears. “Long furbies.”
“My own crippling mediocrity. Everyone wants to feel special, but there will always be someone more talented than I am. If I’m not the best, am I worth anything at all? What can I accomplish anything, If I can’t even offer something uniquely new? “ Bruce paused. “Also magicians.”
“Those finger prisons from China.” Thor gazed down at his hands, voice quieting. “Loki once entrapped me for hours by placing each finger inside those accurately named “traps” I feared I would never be rescued.”
“Nazis,” Steve announced earnestly. “And robot vacuum cleaners.”
In all his years as an operative for SHIELD, no assignment had even remotely compared in difficulty to this one. Cult leaders and corrupt politicians had nothing on teenagers in terms of psychological warfare. This time, Phil allowed himself the luxury of a sigh.
“Nevermind. Just raid the art room for supplies and continue working on your art projects now. I-- I need a moment.”
*
Thor, son of Odin, God of Thunder, protector of the Nine Realms, Crowned Prince, and Future King of Asgard, was failing physics class.
Today was off to a very bad start. Thor had accidentally lightninged the microwave oven, causing the machine to, well, explode. An action which Hela took decidedly not well. There had been much shouting and wild gesturing and at some point, the ottoman had been lit on fire--whether by Hela or the raging microwave fire who is to say--and ultimately still there had been no resolution.
Then, at school, he’d been called into the guidance office. His counselor, Sharon Carter, was nice enough, but she always reacted so peculiarly when Thor told her tales of his siblings and childhood: with stress. Besides, she always referred to him as “Donald” rather than Thor just because Erik had technically enrolled him in school under the false identity of Donald Blake. Everyone else referred to him as Thor, assuming it a nickname, but no. However, on this occasion, Sharon had not wished to ask after Loki’s antics or call him the incorrect name, she’d instead informed him he was failing physics. Which Thor found entirely unfair. So many of these so-called “laws of the universe” were simply incorrect. Midgardian’s perception of how the universe worked was so narrow, so disbelieving in the possibility of more, especially regarding the existence of magic. Whenever Thor expressed this sentiment he was only met with a chorus of “what”s and “Midgardians?”s and “please go speak with the guidance counselor”s.
Thor briefly entertained the idea of asking Loki for help, but Loki would likely just laugh at him. Loki did not understand Thor’s desire to integrate into mortal society, he was not fond of Migardians and had no desire to interact with them “just because we’re trapped on this forsaken rock for the foreseeable future”. Which left only one person.
“Banner,” he asked, busing his hands with gluing green sequins to a popsicle stick, “you are good at science, right?.”
“Science? Anything specific field, or just… science in general? All of the science?”
In retrospect, perhaps Thor should have met more people.
“Yes. Well, physics specifically I suppose.”
“Nuclear physics? Or astrophysics? Or theoretical physics. Or-”
Thor glued faster. “The curriculum of physics which are taught at this school.”
“Oh, yeah. I guess I am. Why?”
“Because I am--what is the phrase?--oh yes, I’m “highkey flunking this shit”, and I require assistance.”
Banner blinked. “I don’t think anybody really uses that phrase, but sure. I can help you.”
Thor could not help himself but beam. “Thank you, Banner, your services will not soon be forgotten, I owe you a great debt.”
His face did an odd sort of twisting thing, which Thor could not readily describe, and for a moment Thor believed he had upset him. “Really, it’s not a problem, I’m not exactly busy. Does Thursday work?”
“Yes, we can study at my home after class tomorrow. Truly, thank you. You’ve spared me the horror of trying to bribe my brother into teaching me. ”
Banner laughed. “Really, I don’t mind, it is the least I can do after you’ve seen my “true inner self”.” Bruce glanced down at their creation, which was mostly defined by the characteristics of “green” and “wow, some many shapes at once”, and he barked out another laugh, but it was tinged with something else. “Which is apparently a big, green monster.”
Thor frowned. “It was supposed to be a snake. I love snakes.” Thor shrugged. “Oh well, I also love big, green monsters. They are very interesting as well.”
Banner’s face twisted in that odd way again, but this time, Thor did mistake the emotion for upset. “Really?”
“Aye, the larger and greener the better. Who would not appreciate such vibrant hues?”