„Dr. Strange, you have a patient in the private room PO654, it’s urgent.” Steven stopped in his track, turning slow-motion at the owner of the voice which wavered slightly in return. The poor soul probably quickly realized what the unfortunate mental state he was currently in - nervous, exhausted and irritated all at once. His idea of at least ten minutes of undisturbed peace with any source of caffeine while actually sitting down vanished as quickly as his politeness. He wiped the weariness out of his face, cursing in his mind before he looked at the nurse.
“Who?”
In a single second time the woman seemed to realize the reason why she had been chosen to pass the message. She completely lost her color. Stephen could already imagine her running to other nurses and yelling at her colleagues demanding some kind of compensation for dealing with doctor Stephen Vincent Strange.
“I don’t know. Someone called and I didn’t ask. I’m sorry.” She looked frightened, but also lost and tired. It was a long day for all of them, so Stephen took a pity on her and nodded absently while turning to walk in the direction of private rooms.
Hopefully, it would be only some spoiled son with of someone rich who thought that Stephen was the right kind of specialist to check his very important and “life threatening” bruise. Today he could count numerous cases of people who were healthier than he was, but still burst through the hospital doors screaming for help. Well, the end of the world wasn’t happening that much often, right? And New York after alien invasion was scared enough to lose its shit and make Stephen’s life even more miserable.
“Stephen,” Christine caught his hand and took him further from the family members waiting in front of the rooms. Everything was full tonight, private rooms included. People were everywhere and Stephen was generally trying to be somewhere else than everywhere.
“Who is it?” he asked her because it was clear she knew and was here to tell him.
Christine looked him in the eyes with all seriousness, frowning.
“It’s Tony Stark. Captain America brought him 10 minutes ago. You need to go and see him. He asked for you directly.”
“Me?” While it was true that he knew the man from some social events, he didn’t get a feeling that he’d managed to impress Stark, mostly because Stephen had never attempted to.
“What’s wrong with him? Isn’t he supposed to be invincible?”
Christine frowned some more. “Don’t be an ass. He saved New York today.”
“Not alone, right?” Stephen continued to push. Not everything was just about the superhero boy band… A lot of people had died today. Officers, agents, firemen, doctors who’d decided to go and save others in the destroyed streets. Stephen treated a lot of people who saved New York today. It wasn’t just the work of one man.
Christine kept shaking her head like he was a total idiot, and then her gaze fell onto something behind his back. She grabbed him again and made him turn on his heels.
“Look,” she said and pointed to the TV hanging from the ceiling few meters away from them. Stephen focused his weary eyes on the news. It was hard to concentrate, but he at least tried. A reporter was talking in the corner, but he couldn’t quite catch the words. There was a camera pointed at the sky on some kind of… portal?
“Wha…”
“Just watch…”
Stephen’s eyes spotted a well familiar red and gold suit, and he pursed his lips together. People around him were watching as well. They all - including Stephen - formed some kind of a face reaction when they noticed that Iron Man was holding something what dangerously reminded Stephen of a nuke. The expressions diverted from disbelief to utter shock.
“What the hell?”
They watched silently as the man flew through the portal and the camera stayed still. Stephen held his breath. He could see the portal being closed, and he wanted to turn at Christine with an obvious question but froze when at the last possible moment a body appeared on the sky while the gaping hole disappeared. A rapidly falling body. The camera could move only to a certain angle. It followed Iron Man as he was closer and closer to collide with whatever was waiting for him on the ground. A reporter reappeared in the center of the screen.
“What?” Stephen shoved the hand through his hair. “Is he alive? How? Why is he waiting for me? Shouldn’t he be on the operation table?”
Christine gave him a small reassuring smile.
“He’s mostly alright. Concussed probably. And quite in shock. The problem is his right ankle.”
“Only the ankle?” Stephen made a face, his professionalism taking over immediately as he left Christine where she was, walking in quick pace towards PO654.
He kinda expected her to follow, but when she didn’t, he still continued in his route. The PO654 was usually kept empty even during emergencies just for the cases as was this one. It was situated on a different floor as the rest of the private rooms. Stephen should have not been perhaps surprised to see Avengers occupying the corridor, all of them except of the green one - Bruce Banner - and for a second he imagined the disturbance their presence would cause on any other floor than this one. Stephen quickly scanned them over. They were still in their battle gear, probably didn’t have time to change yet.
“Doctor,” the big guy, Thor, shot out from his chair, “our shield-brother is in a need of your assistance.”
It wouldn’t be probably alright to facepalm in front of the god.
“Yes, I am aware of it. If you don’t mind.” He had to slide against the wall to avoid the god’s big form. Thankfully, the blondie seemed happy enough that the doctor was rushing to aid his shield-brother and didn’t take Stephen’s crankiness much to his heart.
Since Stephen hadn’t found Captain America sitting outside with others, he quite expected him to be inside and he wasn’t wrong. The man and his shield were both right and there hovering near the bed where Stark sat slumped against the wall with closed eyes, his right leg stretched before him and hands folded in his lap. It seemed like he concentrated all of his strength into not to moving his leg even a tiny bit, and Stephen could perfectly understand why.
Both men noticed his presence immediately as he walked in – he didn’t try to be subtle about it - and Stark straightened up a little, greeting Stephen with a big grin, too painful around the edges not to be fake. Still a nice try.
“Hey, doc, been waiting for some time.”
Stephen couldn’t hold a smirk. Even if the man was a total pain in the ass, he was at least always entertaining to be around.
“Unfortunately, I have a lot of patients, Dr. Stark.” His smirk only got bigger. “Everyone has to wait.”
“Sure,” Stark waved his comment of, “Steve, honey, you can go now. I promised not to puke, or pass out, or turn to a frog, and I kept that promise as best as I could.”
Stephen didn’t wait for Captain to do as he was told or to shake his hand - he wasn’t a fan after all. His eyes instead already scanned Stark as he was speaking.
“Did any of that actually happened? Vomiting? Passing out?”
“We went to have a dinner after the fight,” Captain started to explain before Stark could even open his mouth, “everything was fine, we thought he was alright.” Okay, Stephen could hear a lot of disapproval right there. “But then we returned to the tower and few hours later Jarvis let us know that he lost his consciousness in his workshop while he was trying to get out of his suit.”
Stephen eyed Stark questionably.
“That’s true,” he admitted, “but it was like 3 seconds so…”
“More like 15 minutes, Tony.”
However helpful Captain was in this situation, Stephen’s patient started to look slightly irritated. Obviously, he didn’t like anyone speaking for him. Time to go then.
“Thank you, Captain. I will take it from here. You can wait for Dr. Stark outside with others.”
Rogers nodded. Not happy.
“What a mother hen,” Stark rolled his eyes dramatically as they remained alone in the room. The man looked like shit. Stephen ran his eyes over him. He was pale and visibly exhausted, possibly with a headache, and there was still a piece of his armor attached to his lower leg and ankle. When Stephen took a closer look, he found himself uttering a curse or two. Stark’s eyes were closely following his.
“I tried to take it off, but I…”
“… passed out,” Stephen finished for him. The metal was bent down forming a precise imprint of a hand. Someone who obviously didn’t like Stark flying around and wanted to bring him down to Earth. Literally.
“It’s probably broken. Can you say if you are bleeding as well?”
“I was, but it stopped.”
“Damn it, Stark, and you didn’t think it’s for the best if you stop playing a doctor and actually go and find one?”
“Wohooo…” Stark shaped a surrender gesture with his hands, “what happened to this nice and polite one I’m just with?”
“I mean before you tried to do something by yourself and make it more difficult for me.”
Stephen set to work. First of all, he forced the man to let Stephen drug him. Stephen tested the drug effectiveness while he continued to talk to the injured superhero.
“I thought you had your own doctors,” he said curious, approaching the side of the bed.
“I have, but I wanted to see you. This was as good reason as any…”
Okay, this was definitely drugs talking, so it was working.
“If you wanted to see me, you could have called. You have my business card.”
“I do?”
Yes, a possible concussion.
“You do.”
Stephen set on the edge of the bed, fishing for his flash-pen inside his pocket.
“I will check your pupils now. Are your experiencing any headache?”
Stark watched him curiously. “Yes.”
“So this will be a bit uncomfortable.”
Stephen let his hand rest on Stark’s shoulder, taking the pen in the other one. Whether it was the speed of his movements, or those movements itself, or the light blinding the man when he was not yet ready, Stark suddenly flinched hard away from him, and wasn’t it for the obvious pain in his leg, he would probably end on the other side of the room for how scared he momentarily looked.
Stephen overcame the urge to slap himself remembering what Stark has just gone through.
“You are okay. Hey, listen to me, Stark. You are in the hospital. You are fine. I’m doctor Stephen Strange,” he kept on repeating the words until he was sure they got through. He let the man grab his shirt, steading himself, anchoring to the reality. This wasn’t the first time Stephen has seen PTSD in action, but a reaction this strong and so soon after the incident was new even for him. He usually didn’t have a patience to go through this with anyone. He rather let the nurses deal with the person.
Now watching Stark’s eyes as they slowly cleared, he felt a stab of guilt for not expecting that something like this could happen also to Iron Man.
“I know who you are, doc. I asked for you, remember?”
Stephen smirked, letting his hands slip from the man’s shoulders. Finally.
“When we are already discussing this, I am totally surprised you remember anything from that evening.”
The change of topic seemed to work. Stark’s eyes were no longer widely running around the room in the search of the nearest exit, and Stephen could move to the man’s ankle - slowly not to startle him again. He could already see that the biggest trouble here will be to cure Stark’s mind rather than his body, but that wasn’t his field of expertise.
“I have a high alcohol tolerance.”
It was funny to watch how Stark tried to restore his usual camera smile and façade of bullshit and mostly failed when Stephen began the closer inspection of his ankle.
“I actually must reconsider my previous resentment over you interrupting my schedule when I can finally after so long use this.”
He grabbed a small chirurgic saw from the table perfectly realizing that after more than 24 hours shift and with a wide grin spreading on his lips, he had to look like a murderer on the run.
Stark’s eyes widened a bit.
“Don’t worry. I won’t cut your leg off, but the rest must go. I hope you have some spare suits somewhere in your closet.”
Stark chuckled rolling his eyes to the ceiling like he remembered something funny.
“Actually, I do. Instead of the shirts.”
Stephen started to work, every now and then throwing a glance at the man, checking how he was doing. The last thing he needed was for him to jump from the bed when he is cutting metal somewhere around his artery. Lets say that even with the armor being weakened and battered, it was not an easy task to get inside, what was in the end kind of impressive. That fact alone gave Stephen a better idea of how strong this creature had to be when it had managed to squeeze the metal to the shape it had now.
Stephen hissed inwardly when he saw the damage beneath. There was a lot of blood, but thankfully the wound was minor and superficial. It didn’t look so terrible once Stephen cleaned it a bit. The swelling and bruising were the real problem here. The x-ray revealed that the bone was broken. Stephen couldn’t resist to give the man his professional scolding look.
“Do you really want to tell me that you walked around a fancy restaurant with a fracture?”
“It wasn’t fancy, doc. We had shawarma.”
“I’m very happy to hear that you had a good dinner, but next time I and your health would both prefer if you first dropped into the hospital.”
Stark looked at him all innocent, but it was obvious what he would do the next time. The same stupid stuff as usual.
“I will bandage it and you will take it easy, no pressure on that leg for at least a week, do you understand?”
He nodded, his eyelids heavy and eyes a bit unfocused sliding from Stephen’s eyes to his working hands.
“And don’t sleep yet. You have a concussion.”
The sudden lack of babbling on Stark’s side was a bad sign. Stephen gave him a concerned look and sighed.
“If you really remembered our last meeting, you would know that you asked me out,” he said, aware of the reaction his statement would cause, but asshole he was, he wanted to keep Stark’s attention on himself preventing him to fall asleep at least until he was done.
It seemed to work.
Suddenly the man was perfectly awake, blinking with his brown, chocolate eyes wide like a frightened deer in front of the car. Very amusing.
“And what did you answer?”
Stephen had to stop his work again, curious what he would see on Stark’s face. It doesn’t have to be said that a genuine interest wasn’t one of the things he’d expected.
“I didn’t.”
Stark had been too drunk and too arrogant when he’d asked him. Christine had laughed at him for a month saying that he’d missed the opportunity of his life.
“And if I asked now again?”
Stephen stiffened, finding those eyes watching him intensively. He could tell that Stark was ready to give him one of his big, shiny smiles and turn his offer into a joke immediately if Stephen would politely decline.
“You were drunk before, now you are high.” Stephen started shaking his head dramatically. “How can I take you seriously?”
Stark laughed. “You are the one who gave me the drugs, doc.”
“And you should be thankful, otherwise you would be already crying on Captain’s shoulder.” The light smirk quickly disappeared from the man’s face. Yeah, that was probably a bad thing to say.
“Okay,” Stephen was finished with the bandage and reaching to the pocket of his jeans. They were still there.
He grabbed one of his business cards, which looked like he’d sat on it for weeks - what he indeed had done - and offered it to Stark as a peace gesture.
“Second chance with the card. Call me if you will remember this time. Any other injuries on you?” he asked just to be sure. Stephen didn’t want to cause the man any more discomfort by going anywhere near the glowing light in his chest if there was no reason.
Stark looked at him puzzled, like he hadn’t heard anything after Stephen had stuffed the card in his hand. But then he nodded, his smile slowly returning to his lips. It looked good on him.
“I will call and no, no other injuries.”
“Good, you must stay here for tonight.”
“Someone can check on me at home through the night,” Stark protested.
“Only if that someone has a medical degree.”
The man laughed warmly, and Stephen caught himself following those lips with his eyes. What are you doing, Stephen?!
“Bruce-bear surely has one.”
“Hopefully, you don’t have in mind his green big alter ego.”
“Doesn’t matter. They both like me.”
Everyone who caught a look of news from time to time knew that the big raging monster had a soft spot for only two people in the whole world, and Iron Man was luckily one of them.
“Your choice, Stark. Just wait for someone who will come and prescribe you more drugs. You will need them.” Although he highly doubted the man didn’t have a storage of those at home.
“Why not you?”
Was he really trying to make him stay longer? Because it certainly looked so.
“My qualification is too high for writing mere prescriptions. I will send a minion.”
The quick laugh that followed really made Stephen want to say something more, but he had a job to do. A snack to eat. Maybe a five minutes long undisturbed sleep in something slightly more comfortable than a chair.
“I wouldn’t want to cause you delay, doctor. Thank you for taking care of me.”
“It’s Stephen.”
Stark offered his hand and Stephen accepted it. Noticing how battered it was, he didn’t even squeeze.
“Tony.”
Stephen nodded, grabbing his stuff and some he hadn’t even brought and vanished from the room before the silence could become awkward. Outside Avengers didn’t let him go so easily, and he had to assure them first that Stark was not about to die anytime soon. Then Stephen took a straight path to the cafeteria, ignoring pretty much anyone who tried to speak to him.
He sat in the corner while waiting on his soup, contemplating about his day and about what has just happened. It was then when he heard a bity remark somewhere near him, and the word avengers being thrown in what seemed like a quarrel between two young men.
“No Mike, you don’t understand! They don’t care. What do you think they are doing right now? Chilling in that Stark’s tower while we are sitting here in the hospitals. Maybe it’s not their fault, but you can’t possibly be so blind and call them heroes!”
The man was angry, and Stephen could imagine a lot of reasons why, but his anger was aimed the wrong way. Stephen almost wished that Stark would have marched into the hospital bloody as he was, with a crushed suit and broken bones leaning on Steve Rogers, who didn’t look much better himself right through the front door for everyone to see. Because people clearly though they were invincible.
Like Stephen had.
“Isn’t he supposed to be invincible?”
The truth was that Stark had no obligation to fight today. He could have “chilled out” in his tower or any safe place far from New York, but no. He was there, and because he was protecting the world, someone had crushed his ankle.
Stephen bit his tongue. Stark wouldn’t like them to know he was here or that he was hurt in the first place. And Stephen was also bound not to reveal information about his patients.
With a shrieking sound someone moved the chair next to him. He smelled a familiar perfume.
“Don’t even start, Christine.”
He met curious eyes of his friend.
“Start talking.”