Simon Lewis and The Avengers

Devil with a Shotgun

The conversation was delightfully common: restricted to video games, school, and Captain America's past. That was until he, thankfully, fell asleep. The Avengers were also grateful since they were running out of conversation topics.

"Let's hope vampires don't sleep-feed." Tony half-whispered to Steve.

"Don't be ridiculous." Steve looked over to Simon. Simon hung limp in his chains, his fringe covered his face which was perpendicular to the floor. Both of them internally panicked seeing him there. He didn't snore or even breathe so it was as if he'd died in his sleep. They had to keep reminding themselves of Simon's vampireness and the symptoms that followed.

"Poor kid." Tony was leaning on his desk, keyboard pushed aside and eyes closed under his sunglasses.

"Your telling me." Steve replied. Looking at his watch, it was close to the end of Tony's shift but there wasn't going to be any moving him once he fell asleep.

After a few minutes, Steve assumed Tony had nodded off, then, Tony hit his computer keyboard blindly.

"If he's nocturnal, we should probably turn the lights down." Tony decided that looking at the computer screen would require his eyes to be open. "What the hell..."

Tony sat up and Steve followed his gaze to Simon. They would have realised sooner if he were alive because he would have been breathing heavily. He was obviously having a nightmare. He squeezed his eyes shut and shake his head, whilst clenching and unclenching his fists.

Bruce burst in to take Tony's shift just in time. He poured his things on the desk and rushed to Simon, hopelessly trying to wake him up.

"Simon." He said clearly.

"Izzy, Izzy no." Simon mumbled.

"Simon!" Bruce repeated.

"Clary, Izzy, come back." Simon muttered, his voice dripping with sorrow.

"Listen to my voice. Simon, listen to me."

"Jordan, sorry."

"Wake up. You are dreaming. Listen to me, Simon." Bruce persisted. Simon blinked awake and relaxed from his bad dream with a final "Izzy."

Bruce stood by and shooed Tony from the room. Simon would've been physically recovering from his dream by steadying his breathing, but he couldn't since... well, you know. He looked at his surroundings in surprise and then squinted away from the sudden change in light, his fangs snapping out innately and a hiss pulled from his throat.

"Simon, its fine...ish. I'm here and you're not where you think you were." Bruce tried to assure Simon of his safety, (even though he still found it eerie that Simon didn't breathe). Simon internally felt really uplifted that Bruce consoled him even in his fanged-vampire state.

"Sorry." Simon tried to say through his teeth, though it sounded like 'thorry'. He still couldn't open his eyes very far but he pursed his lips to hide his fangs.

Bruce rushed to the computer and clicked around until the lights went dimmer.

"Thank you." Simon looked around and Bruce got up again. Simon's fangs still hadn't retracted, and he used his tongue to attempt to push them back in, though this looked a bit strange to the others. "Sorry, my teeth won't go back in." Simon tried to divert the conversation from his nightmares.

"Are you alright?" Bruce edged towards Simon.

"Aha!" Simon's teeth shrank back. "There we go, my human canines are back." Simon smiled, not convincingly enough.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Nah." Simon looked at the floor.

"'You sure?" Bruce sat again and started arranging his things.