~Broken Family~

First Second Steps

Harley decided that sleep was overrated.

As the days went by, it became harder and harder to keep his eyes closed at night. Visions of a defeated Tony sitting down in a gloom or wandering around doing nothing, a blank expression on his face, played behind his eyelids. If it wasn't that, it was a vision of Peter laying, defeated and bloody, on that hospital bed he'd spent two weeks on or Morgan disappearing behind a pane of brightness.

He barely got a wink anyway, so instead of sleeping he sat at his desk, doing nothing. Like Tony.

Well, usually. Sometimes he'd doodle designs of Tony saving the day, sometimes himself in Tony's armor doing what the man refused to do anymore, but usually memories of his siblings. He found that he was a pretty decent artist. He remembered that he got it from his dad and his weird Uncle Austin.

Most of the time he spent was spent staring out the window, his mind blank. He'd gotten good at doing that.

***

On the 'big' morning, Harley sat down hard at the kitchen table, letting his crutches fall to the floor. Pepper rushed to catch up and elevate his leg, which he did, grudgingly.

It was getting a lot better. He'd lost all of the pins, wires, the stitches, most of the bandages, and he was allowed to touch his leg to the ground so as long as he didn't put much pressure on it. And he remembered to take the two thousand medications for it.

Today, though, things would be different.

He was going to try to walk.

Just a few steps, so as not to "tire himself out." He had been purposefully trying not to think about the action of walking since the accident--he had no idea how his leg was going to hold up now. Would it not respond to him at all? Would he stumble? Would everything be just fine, and he could go back to playing baseball?

Today the boot and bandages were being taken away so he would have nothing but the brace Tony and Rhodes had put together.

Ever since he got most of the gross metal stuff out (some would be staying, of course), all he'd been doing day after day were little exercises. Moving stuff this way and that, bending and flexing his leg and ankle. It was exhausting--Harley never knew such small movements could sap so much energy out of someone.

He was sitting in a room with Rhodes, who surveyed everything with a tight expression. Harley knew that almost the same thing had happened to him, but his spine had been a lot more injured and it had cost him both of his legs.

Harley didn't want to think that his left leg had become like Rhodey's. He wanted them to go back to normal. Rhodey was awesome and everything, and Harley had never thought twice about his paralyzed legs, but now he just didn't want to share the same fate.

He was sitting on the ground in the physical therapy room in the compound, waiting on Tony to grab the stuff and help him over to the bars. Rhodey was leaning against a counter, pouring himself a cup of coffee. Harley was trying his best not to look at his braces or at the double bars across the room. They were both intimidating.

Harley had spent a lot of time in this room with Rhodey during his daily exercises, encouraging him when he fell over and cheering when he was too tired to continue. Now it was him who would need the encouraging.

"Man, I'm so sorry this happened to you, Harley," Rhodey sighed, sipping the coffee. He shuffled over to him and Harley watched the man warily out of the corner of his eye. Rhodey took another sip, then snorted as he looked out the window.

"Heh. Happy's flyin' across the property on the golf cart. Looks angry."

Harley couldn't help the little puff of laughter out of his nostrils at the thought. Probably wanted to catch a donut from the cafeteria before it shut down.