Past Friends

Part 4: 3 Fractured Ribs (Updated)

The remaining Avengers Steve, Tony, Pietro, and Bruce stay with you after getting the full story to try and comfort you. "It's going to be okay kid, you're a tough cookie you'll be fine" says Tony, followed shortly by Steve "I'm here for you Y/N if you need anything". "Hey if you want I can rush over to our diner and pick up some pumpkin pie? How does that sound?" Pietro asked. There was a sweet little Mom & Pop diner where you, Wanda, and Pietro had lunch a couple of times, their pumpkin pie was out of this world. "Don't worry about your tech Y/N, I put your stuff away so no one could touch it" Bruce informed you, not really knowing what else to say.

Your face had turned a lovely shade of crimson as you find yourself overwhelmed with their sudden affection. "You guys! I'm fine! A little sore, okay a lot sore, but I'm really okay. It's not like my ribs are broken they're just bruised" you eked out, the embarrassment you felt clearly showing on your face. Loki interrupts, an increasingly pissed-off look appears on his face "Darling you have three. Fractured. Ribs." "So? You're acting like I'm dying or something, I told you I'm fine" You say turning away, pouting a little. "Oh really?" Loki said getting back up from his chair while moving closer to make you look at him. He sits on the edge of your bed, leans in and grabs your face with one hand squeezing your cheeks gently. The other Avengers were surprised by Loki's actions, they had never seen him act like this, not even going this far while on an undercover mission when he had to seduce the enemy.

You try not to make eye contact while being forced to look at Loki, your face begins to turn even redder if it were possible as you heat up at the contact. You managed to break free, pushing Loki's hand away, as you find yourself embarrassed for an entirely different reason now. "So it's a little hard to breathe right now it's fine, I'm fine please stop worrying about me, I'm not important" You didn't mean to say that last part but it came out and you look around to see their faces; They looked sad with a mixture of disappointed, worried about how little you thought of yourself. You look back down at your lap as Loki let go and turned away as well. He thinks back to his Y/N saying similar things about herself when she was young while spending time with him and Thor.

"How could you say that?!?! Of course, you're important!!!" Pietro says as he turned away angrily. "Kid nothing that dumb should ever come out of that smart mouth of yours" Tony says while shaking his head in disbelief by your dumb statement. "You've been there to help us, the least you can do is let us be here to help you" Bruce adds, completely understanding how it feels to doubt yourself and feel like you don't matter. Steve doesn't say anything he just has his arms folded across his chest looking at you, making you feel really guilty.

You begin to tear up, "I'm sorry...I um I'm not used to this..." you whisper while still staring down at your lap, but they all heard you. "What about your family?" Steve asks, as his expression changes back to one of concern. You look up at him and quickly back down "I don't... I don't have any family" your voice disappears as a few tears fall down your face. You never really talked about your family with them, or anyone actually. Not that you wouldn't share details about yourself, you just avoid talking about your family, it was a very sore subject after all.

You think back to your childhood; you weren't hit, or yelled at constantly but seeing as you lived with your very old grandparents you had to do a lot of things by yourself. You started taking care of them, you also did all your schooling at home so you didn't make any friends. They passed away when you were a teenager, and you had no one else besides Shield. You were alone a lot but anytime you did interact with others you did your best to always be super helpful and kind. Despite them not being able to interact with you as they wanted, or as much as they wished they could, how much they knew they could if they were younger, they did their best to make sure you grew up to be a good person.

They can see how upset you are, and they all think back to the moments when the topic of family came up and realized they knew nothing about your family. While Loki thinks back to his Y/N, how they met; on one of his first trips to Midgard with Thor, they found a little girl all alone. She was hiding in an old house surrounded by a destroyed village and countless dead humans. She was the only survivor in a massacre and would have no doubt starved to death if they didn't take her with them.

Over the next several days, all the Avengers you knew were stopping by or popping in to check up on you. Even Peter and his Aunt May stopped by to see you as well as bring you flowers. Actually, most of them brought you flowers, Pietro brought you pumpkin pie as promised and Tony brought you chocolate from Belgium like he literally had confectionaries sent in from another country just for you. It was all too much, but you did enjoy their company more than anything. Several of them were even caught trying to sneak in after-hours to see you, but the only one who got away with it was Loki. It made sense considering he could just teleport in and cast illusions to fool the Medical Staff. You got to know each other very quickly and became rather close even after only meeting a few days prior.

They all decided after the suggestion from Steve, with much protest from you that you would stay at the Avengers Compound during your six-week recovery. You didn't want them to go to all this trouble just for you, it was too much you kept insisting. You would be more than fine to recover at your place but after Tony saw how small and in his opinion how sad it was he decided you would be staying at the Compound. He had a room all prepared for you and even threatened to kidnap you if you kept refusing, which they ended up doing.

"Come on Steve!!!" No! I'm fine! Stop!!! Steve!!" You plead for Steve to stop but to no avail as he continues to push your wheelchair out of the Medical Bay. You met up shortly with Natasha and Bucky who had already loaded your stuff into the vehicle waiting to take you to the Avengers Compound. You let out an angry huff finally relenting, "At least let me walk to the car!!". "No!" they cheerfully shout knowing that they had won.