*Bruce Banner*
I followed Steve down to one of the more secure medical rooms, the ones meant for injured enemies. We seemed to be going slow on purpose, so I let Steve keep me behind while the others surpassed us and kept on following Fury. I was nervous about what I would find during this physical. The way Percy's eyes seemed to get more fogged and dull each time his full name was said was a clear sign of PTSD and very painful experiences having to deal with his full name being said. The way he flinched back, the way he seemed to go off in la-la land when he said that he was pretending to be dead so no one would get hurt because someone found out he was alive, this and more pointed to severe PTSD.
Once everyone was out of earshot-and out of sight-Steve cleared his throat. "Um... Bruce he has, um, flashbacks, like I do, but they seem a lot worse."
I looked at Steve with concern, it had taken a lot of courage for him to talk about his flashbacks. I was honored he trusted me enough to tell me about it, and I had kept my promise about not telling anyone about it, because he asked me to. I did, however, often hint at him that he could tell the others, that they wouldn't treat him any different.
Being the stubborn man he is, Steve insisted that letting one person know was enough, and that if the whole team knew he had flashbacks, then they wouldn't perform as well because they would see that their leader was weak, and that that would make them think they were even weaker than he was. It was stupid, cliché leader thinking. They would pull all the stress onto themselves and convince themselves that they had to be strong for everyone, so that everyone in turn could be strong. It was a stupid logic to me, because I knew from experience that sharing your troubles and your weaknesses and faults with others made you-and them-stronger, not weaker. No matter how many times I told Steve this, he just shook it off, and kept the weight of the world on his shoulders, and kept his pain to himself.
Well, he did, until he told me about his flashbacks. His insecurities. He pretty much spilled to me everything bad that he had ever done and everything bad that had happened to him, every blame he had pinned on himself. He basically gave me his soul. I still have no idea why he told me all of that. Why he chose to bear his soul to me of all people, it didn't make sense, but I was glad that he had finally laid his burdens on someone else.
When we reached the exam room the others were standing outside of, they left to go back to a meeting room nearby to wait for the results of Percy's exam. Steve laid Percy down carefully on the exam table, then strapped him down. I went over to the control panel and turned on the thing that sapped his magical abilities, hopefully making it to where he couldn't use his powers. There was still no official name for the device, since it was recently made by Tony with help from the very unwilling lab rat known as Loki. Tony had a bunch of stupid names for the device, such as The Sappinator, or The No-Magic Machine, and other names like that. I was a scientist, I was not going to call a machine that held that kind of power something as very unprofessional as that, it seemed to demean the machine and capabilities.
I went to Percy's shoulder, remembering how he had hissed in pain when he had pulled the bag onto his shoulder, I was surprised he wasn't bleeding out the entire time we were talking to him. The doctor in me wanted to instantly sweep in with gauze and disinfectant to treat the wound, but the newly formed agent in me knew that Percy could be a threat and could use the fact that I wanted to help him against me, so I stayed put while I silently tortured and berated myself.
I looked at the place where Clint shot him, and was surprised to find that there wasn't blood on his 'shirt'. Because really, his shirt had so many holes and tears and rips, it was basically hanging together by threads, literally, the only thing that seemed unaffected about his shirt was the middle front of it, and even that didn't look too good. It clearly had had words on it once, but was so faded and old, you couldn't make out anything, there were still a few rips and burn marks, but not as many. The entire bottom of his shirt and the bottom of both of his sleeves were singed and so mangled, that it looked like the fabric had pulled apart, to where the threads hung by themselves.
