Life in Brooklyn

Chapter 24

Rhodes jumped in when he noticed steve struggling. "We can talk about that later. You need anything?" He shot glances in between steve and tony, who seemed surprised to see him. But soon enough, happy.
"Nice to see you man." He smiled.
Everyone inched forwards a bit, Bucky and Natasha closer to steve though.
Tony focused on steve again. His breathing picked up and his eyes were still closed. "Steve, are you sure you're ok?" He examined the cut on his forehead more. "What happened to your head?" He scanned his body even more and saw his hands. "And your hands?" He was only getting more and more worried.
Steve definitely heard him, only it sounded as if he were shouting over the screaming.
He put his hands on his ears again, mumbling, "Shut up", "be quiet", "stop it", "go away" over and over.
"Steve, steve, it's ok. We just have to get you back-"
"NO! No, no, no, no, no, no." He rocked in his chair.
He saw the little girl, even with his eyes closed. He saw blood, and more blood, and more blood. He felt pain, and felt someone pull him away. He felt even more pain and struggled to breathe as someone pretty much gagged him to keep him from screaming. So much blood everywhere. Flashes of tony in the rubble. Flashes of the girl in his mind. And more blood, everywhere until it was dripping down every wall and down every piece of broken cement and drenched the fabric of his clothes and.... darkness.
He had to be sedated again. He started pounding his fists against his ears and shouting things without realizing it. And cried.
Tony had been trying to comfort him as much as possible in his own condition and asking what was going on and what happened to him the entire time.
It pained him to see the restraints tied tightly against his arms and ankles and the tears that still dampened his face. "What the fuck happened?!" Tony demanded. He only asked so many times and received no answer in return as everyone mostly focused on steve.
It was like when a million different things were happening and they all tried to deal with them at once. They'd watch steve, talk to the others, tried to follow and answer tonys questions at the same time. 3 simple words. It didn't work.
So he tried to get out of bed and follow him himself, but the pain in his chest and two hands held him down. "You should stay in bed." It was bruce. "You just got a transplant, you need rest."
"I need to see steve." Tony said firmly, but also wincing. "What the hell happened?" He demanded, once more.
Bruce sighed and looked around to see Bucky and Natasha left to follow steve while Bruce and Rhodes stayed with tony. Rhodes had sat back down next to his bed as Bruce explained. "Steves been having really severe panic attacks." Tonys eyes widened and he knew that it was the war that probably caused them and he suspected he might've been the trigger to the attack. "While you were in surgery, bucky, found him in the washroom, almost burning his hands off with almost boiling water and banging his head in the door and yelling," tonys imagined what he was doing, and definitely regretted it. Steve was in pain, almost causing the pain upon himself, though he had no control over it. "He seemed ok after, but right before you woke up it happened again." Bruce sounded glum and had the tone that people would normally use when delivering bad news. Tony had tears forming in his eyes and burning in his chest. "I need to see him. He-"
"Tony, you need rest. You almost died."
"But I need to make sure he's ok." His eyebrows raised as he tried to fight the tears from falling.
"We'll check on him and make sure he's ok." Rhodes said. Tony still didn't agree with them at all. He had to be at steves bedside right now. Sure he had surgery, and sure he almost died. But steve needed him and tony needed steve. They couldn't be separated at a time like this, they are supposed to be at each other's bed side the entire time.
Rhodes and Bruce did as they promised. One of them would go and check on steve, or Natasha would stop by. It was only three hours since what happened, and according to them, he was still asleep.
Tony wanted to sleep, he was so damn tired, and Bruce told him to, but he refused.
His surgeon came in to check on him again. She asked how he felt, if it hurt, any chest pain, if he felt feverish. He blurted out answers then asked if he could see steve. She was the one who was able to say if he could get out of bed or not. "I'm sorry, but-"
"Please. I need to see him."
"You need to rest. You just underwent a major surgery."
"I'll sleep after I see him." He tried holding back a yawn that he'd been fighting off for a while, but he couldn't.
The surgeon sighed. "I'd have to talk with his doctor, but ok," tony smiled. "After you sleep." Tony plopped his head back on the pillow and sighed.
He knew it was probably the closest he could get to what he wanted at the moment, so he gave in and closed his eyes.
Steve woke up as he did before. Restrained to the bed, only, nobody was in the room. Not even Bucky.
He tried lifting his head a bit to look around, but it felt heavy and he realized his whole body felt heavy. He lolled his head to the side to look around a bit, and saw an IV dripping into a tube that attached to a needle which stuck into his arm.
He couldn't frown. His muscles were weak and he almost felt like jello. Heavy, lightheaded, jello.
The door opened and saw a man dressed in a long white lab coat. Behind him, was a tall, brown haired man. Bucky.
He noticed he had bags under his eyes and his eyebrows furrowed, a very sympathetic look.
He lolled his head to the other side to see what the doctor was doing. Wait, he wasn't the one moving his head, the doctor had moved it and shone a light in his eyes.
He barely knew what was going on, maybe it was the drugs they had flowing into him and maybe it was his pounding head fading everything out.
His IV was taken out. He still felt the same, and tired. More tired than he was a second ago. He just fell asleep.