Imagine If You Assembled the Avengers: Volume 1

That's Kinda Gross (Avengers x reader)

The last time you looked at Steve, there wasn't two of him standing there.

"Okay, so maybe I am sick," you groaned. "Which one of you wants to run out and get meds for me?" You reached down to pull your blankets up to your chin, your body visibly shaking now and still feeling as cold as you were before.

"Which one of us?" Steve asked and hurried to your side to put the back of his hand against your forehead. "Are you serious, (Y/N)? You're burning up. Why didn't you tell me it was this bad?"

"I'm sorry, but I didn't think it was until I woke up thinking I had two of you on my hands." You reached over to your bedside table and grabbed a box of Kleenex, using them all within just a few minutes and leaving the used pile on the floor next to you without a care about the mess. "Wow, this just won't quit."

"That's kinda gross," he laughed, looking at you in mock disgust. "Makes me glad that I'm leaving in an hour."

Even with the best pout that you could offer, all he could do was apologize and promise to make it up to you when he returned. It was an important mission that only he could do, and it couldn't be delayed. He was leaving you in the care of the team, and he wasn't exactly feeling confident about it.

"When do you think you'll be back? You know, just in case this actually is the end of the line."

Steve reached over and tucked a stray strand of hair behind your ear and smiled, but you could tell he felt bad about what he had to do. "Don't you dare. I'll have Bruce check in on you, okay?"

"He's not here, remember? Some big genetics conference at the CDC." The final words of your sentence brought on another fit of harsh coughing, leaving you more exhausted by the minute.

"Right," he sighed in frustration. He thought for a moment about who would be able to help take care of you, given that you looked barely well enough to even feed yourself. Any time a teammate was ill, Bruce would have to take the role of caregiver because no one else really knew what to do.

"Okay, I'll figure this out. Don't worry," he mumbled.

"Are you talking to me, or yourself?"

"Maybe a little of both."

~~~

As Steve prepared to board the jet for departure, he swore that he could hear you coughing from a few floors above, but maybe he had just heard it so much that it was replaying in his head. Either way, he couldn't help but feel that he was abandoning you.

"Cap, maybe we should call someone in to help?"

"It's just a bad cold, Barton, it's not the plague."

"Sounds like the plague," he mumbled, walking back towards the common room where the rest of the group had gathered to set up a game plan on how to keep you alive until Steve got back. None of them were very good at this stuff, and no one wanted to get too close for fear of catching it.

"Is it 'feed a cold, starve a fever' or 'feed a fever, starve a cold'?" Natasha asked.

Tony pulled out his phone and tapped at the screen for a moment, but his expression changed to confusion rather than finding any answers. "Okay, wait. WebMD says they're both wrong, and you should feed all of it."

Your harsh coughing started up again, and all the group could do was look at each other and hope one of them would make the first move. "I will go help her to sleep," Wanda offered, "that should give us more time to learn about what to do."

Wanda made her way to your room just as Pietro sped to a halt in the center of the room, overturning a bag to drop dozens of boxes and bottles filled with various cold and flu remedies on the table in front of everyone. "This is all I could find, but I wasn't sure what to get."

Tony laughed out loud and began to dig through the pile, reading each label carefully and setting them out in order of condition, how they work, and how long they would take for you to feel better. "Damn, Maximoff, are you trying to cure her or poison her?"

"Which option would make that sound stop?"

"Your brave sister went up there to knock her out, so if that doesn't work, I'm game for pretty much anything," Tony sighed, returning to his phone to continue his research. "Okay, so these home remedies sound absolutely terrible. I say we just line all these things up at her door and let her take her pick."

"So, we're going with poisoning, then?"

~~~

Later that evening, Steve had finally returned from his solo mission, anxious to see if you had survived whatever methods of recuperation that the team submitted you to. He approached the door to your room as quietly as possible in the event that you were sleeping, but stopped short at the line of pharmaceuticals lined up in front of it.

"What the hell?" he whispered as he knelt down and picked up one of the boxes to inspect it. He gathered them all up and threw them in his bag and slowly opened the door. When he entered, the room was filled with steam and the sounds of a running shower with you nowhere in sight.

"(Y/N)?"

He threw his bag in the corner and kicked off his shoes, suddenly realizing how hot it was in the room with the heat from your shower. He removed his shirt, but he was still uncomfortable so he undressed until he was only in his boxers; he paused and considered removing those too, but he didn't think that it was an appropriate way to greet you when you were sick.

You turned off the shower and stepped out to dry off, inhaling as much of the steam as you could, with the heat and moisture soothing your congested chest and scratchy throat. When you left the bathroom you stopped in the door at the sight of Steve standing next to the open window, allowing the cool breeze to wash over him.

"Taking up exhibitionism, babe?" you chuckled, "A gift for the ladies, perhaps?"

"That's hilarious."

"Sorry, I know it's hot in here, but the steam felt great." You walked up behind him and put your arms around his waist, resting your head against his back. "I missed you. Other than Wanda, bless that girl, I didn't see anyone else. You were right though, they really don't know what they're doing. I wasn't sure if the line up of meds outside was to help me or to barricade me in."

Steve pulled your arms away and turned around, kissing you on the forehead before moving to drop himself onto the bed. "I'm so tired." He crawled to the top and pulled the blankets up to his chin, "can you close the window and maybe turn the shower back on?"

"Oh, honey," you mumbled with a shake of your head. You sat on the bed next to him and rested the back of your hand on his forehead, just as he had done for you earlier in the day. "I didn't think you could even get sick?"

"I'm not sick!"

He began to cough and sniffle before you could reply. You grabbed the Kleenex and set it next to him, securing his blankets and adjusting his pillow to make him as comfortable as possible. "Okay, whatever you say. I'll be right back. I'm gonna get you some water and decide which of those you can actually take," you said, pointing to the pile of cold remedies.

You still didn't feel all that well, but well enough to make it to the kitchen and back; you only hoped that you wouldn't see anyone along the way, and you had nearly made it until you ran into Clint and spilled the water everywhere.

"Oh, dammit, (Y/N) I'm sorry! Hey, wait," he took a step back quickly and gave you a confused look. "Why are you up? I thought you were dying or something?"

"You're such a healing presence, you know that?" You turned to walk back to the kitchen for a refill and he hesitantly followed. You paused and grimaced when you heard the struggled coughs from Steve filing the floor above, sympathetic to how he was feeling right now. "Steve seems to have caught whatever I've got."

Clint quickly backed away now, his hands in the air in front of him as if to shield himself from you. "Oh god, if he can catch it, we're done for. It really is the plague." You laughed, intermingled with harsh coughing, as he ran down the hall yelling a warning to the rest of the team to get out as fast as they could.