“I’m fine Bucky. You don’t need to carry me five feet!” She tried squirming to get out of his arms.
“Nope. I don’t care what you say, you’re gonna let me take care of you,” he adjusted her so that she’d be in a more comfortable position.
“All I did was land wrong, I’m sure my ankle is fine now. I can walk myself,” she was exasperated with him.
“Fine I’ll set you down,” Bucky told her and then put her on the couch on the common floor.
Toni just sighed and started giving into his desire to take care of her. Then she heard the laughing.
Steve, Clint and Nat were chuckling in the corner at her misfortune.
“I blame you for this Rogers,” she scolded. And then tried stopping Bucky from wrapping her up in a burrito blanket.
“What’d I do?” Steve asked.
“He is like this because he had to take care of you his whole life, so now whenever I get so much as a paper cut he acts like I’m dying,” Toni said, glaring at her boyfriend.
“We have to act like any injury you have can kill you, you won’t tell anyone when you actually are dying,” Nat responded.
“But a paper cut, really? And name one-“
“Palladium poisoning,” Nat said cutting Toni off.
“Since then,” Toni asked.
“Wait what do you mean palladium poisoning?” Bucky asked.
“It was few years ago so it’s not relevant,” Toni answered. He didn’t look convinced.
“The first few designs of the arc reactor had a core made of palladium. But the palladium started poisoning her, and she couldn’t take out the reactor or she’d die. Also anytime you’ve even had a cold is enough to kill you and you never tell us when you’re sick,” Nat explained.
“And you never told anyone you were dying?” Bucky questioned.
“I figured if I died it wouldn’t matter and if somehow I lived it would be irrelevant,” Toni reasoned.
“That’s a horrible reason. And a cold is enough to kill you?”
“You’re being over dramatic,” she muttered. “For the reactor to perform at its best I need to be as healthy as I was when it was first installed.”
“You should be healthier than when you had it installed,” Bruce told her.
“Quiet,” she told him. “But most of the time I’m fine. Like right now where I can get up and get my own food.”
“You’re staying there, you want blueberries?” Bucky asked.
She nodded. The other avengers were smiling at her.
“What?!” She asked them.
“Nothing I’ve just never seen you let anyone take care of you,” Nat commented.
The men in the room nodded in agreement.
“Yeah Toni I’ve heard stories from Rhodes you never let anyone who wasn’t your aunt or family butler even try to take care of you. And even then it was rarely,” Clint told her.
Bucky came back in to give Toni the fruit. He also rewrapped her into the blankets that she had gotten herself out of.
“Okay if you’re gonna fricking baby me like this at least do it where the others can’t see. Clint and Steve don’t need anything to use as blackmail,” she told Bucky.
“Fine, only if you’ll stop putting up a fight and let me actually help you,” Bucky said picking her up bridal style again.
All Toni did was roll her eyes at him. And bury herself deeper in his chest, but because no one else saw it it didn’t happen. At least that what Toni will argue.