#august comeback

Damon wasn’t known for his grand gestures of love. They were a rarity in the sea of death, manipulation, and careless acts that were on display constantly. His way of showing someone he cared was in the way he kept them alive or even helped them in their moments of crisis. But Damon never did the over the top 'This is how much I love you' displays of affection. 

In reality, he didn’t know how to do them. It took a lot just to get Damon to express how he truly felt and planning something out to express those feelings was something he never thought he would ever do. He never cared about doing them. At least that was until he met Y/N. 

If he believed his world changed the day he was forced to become a vampire, meeting Y/N felt like a bigger piece in the grand scheme of things. She was everything his human self would have wanted and needed in his life. And the more time he spent with her and began to love her, he allowed more of his humanity to show. 

“Where are you taking me?” There was a bit of hesitancy in her voice before a genuine chuckle passed her lips. 

Damon had blindfolded Y/N the moment he put the car in park. It had been dark out and Y/N couldn’t see where they currently were. But with his enhanced vision, Damon had been able to see the trail he had been leading her down clear as day. Adding the blindfold ensured she wouldn’t be able to see the one thing he needed to keep hidden.

“I promise we’re almost there.” There was a  smirk playing at the corner of his lips as he gave her hands a gentle squeeze as he continued to guide her. 

“Can you just get us there faster?” She was excited and nervous about what Damon had planned. 

Damon kept his lips shut every time she tried asking him about it. He wouldn’t budge but he promised every time that she would love it. 

“Says the woman that called it cheating when I was attempting to get the house work done.” He chuckled and shook his head. He watched as a grin pulled at her lips causing one to form on his. 

“We had a bet going! It wouldn’t be fair if one of us could get things done in a blink of an eye.” 

“Sorry, Y/N/N. We’re walking.” A humph passed her lips causing him to chuckle. It really wasn’t much further. 

A few moments later, Damon had Y/N positioned right where he needed her. The perfect view of what she had been talking about for weeks for her to enjoy the moment her blindfold off. 

"Can I take it off now?" There was a slight tap in her foot in anticipation of knowing what he had planned. 

"Almost." He said as he came behind her. He wrapped one arm around her waist while the other lifted her chin, making her look up a bit. "Now you-" 

Before he even finished saying she could remove it, she had the blindfold off her face allowing her eyes to adjust. Once they had, a gasp left her lips as she took in the night sky. 

The meteors could easily be seen shooting across the sky. The light pollution was almost non existent making it the perfect place for anyone to watch the meteor shower for the first time. Y/N had been talking about it for weeks. How she'd never been able to fully enjoy seeing a meteor shower with all the city lights. But Damon had taken the time to find a spot for her to enjoy it. 

“Damon this is-” She shook her head slightly as she looked over at him for a moment before she looked back up at the sky, a grin forming on her lips. 

Damon tightened his arms around her for a moment before easing the pressure. “I wanted you to see it the way you’ve been talking about it.”

If anything, Y/N’s grin grew more than it already had. Damon watched her as she watched the night sky. And for the first time in the century that had been on this Earth, he felt as though he truly now knew what love was and couldn’t see his life without her in it.

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"Y/N?" Marcel called out as he walked further into his loft.

He had been filled to the brim with worry when you haven't answered his phone calls. Each call cut shorter and shorter before each one went to voicemail. You weren't taking his calls for one reason or another. 

What solidified his worry was while he had been speaking with Josh and Davina at Rousseau's. It's was more like what Josh had said that caused Marcel to jump out of his seat and go searching for you. 

Y/N's leaving today. 

I swore Y/N told you about it. 

About the plans you had to leave New Orleans. You told your friends, but somehow didn’t tell him that you had plans to leave or where you were going. Marcel knew this wasn’t like you to do something like this. 

And as he found every last square inch empty of your presence, he knew that you had actually left. His hand ran along his mouth and chin as he came to a stop in the middle of the living room area. He was taking a moment to think if he had missed anything at all. 

That was when his eyes landed on the mirror hanging across the room. There was a piece of paper taped to the glass. Walking over to it, he quickly yanked it away from the adhesive and found your writing along the page.

Telling you in person meant there was the possibility of you convincing me to stay or us trying to change things for the better. But there are only so many times we can have the same conversation before it becomes a broken record. It was never my intention to hurt you in any way by doing this. I think we both know deep down that this is for the better. 

Marcel, 

By the time you read this, I’ll be on a plane to a destination I don’t even know yet. I know this is wrong of me to do, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t sit by and play second everything to the family and to the woman you clearly love more than the human you’ve brought into your life. I tried and even thinking about it all hurts me in ways I may never be able to fully express to you or even to myself. 

The paper instantly crumpled up the moment Marcel began to close his fist. The words had felt like a sharp knife digging into his heart, even though he had been the one to hold the knife. Y/N wasn’t wrong. They would have argued about fixing things only to come back to the very same spot. Marcel knew what Y/N wanted and he knew he had no right to hold them back from it. But damn it didn’t mean that it hurt any less to let them go without trying.

I hope you can find a way to forgive me.

Y/N

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“Why don’t you really say what you’re thinking?” She said as her eyes narrowed on him. “That there are people dead because of something I built.”

“You could have said no.” He noted as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Though I’m sure someone else would have found the means to create it.”

“And then they would be here with you doing this exact same thing. You’d be having this argument with them. Or is it just because it’s me that you’re willing to argue with every step of the way and take your anger out on?”

He shook his head. “There you go bringing that up again, believing that it’s always about you. And they say I’m the self centered one.”

“I didn’t even bring it up.” She was in disbelief. Every time Y/N had found herself in Tony’s lab they’d be having this same conversation. “But it’s like deja vu again, right?”

"Maybe next time you'll push harder for someone else to take the assignment." Much like the last several times, they weren't holding back. "That way there's no rehashing of the past." 

"You're the one that keeps bringing it up!" Her hands went up in defeat. "If it's your goal to stick it so deeply into my head, you did that years ago when you walked away! Damn it Tony, I'm trying to do my job."

"Which is no better than what Hy-"

I'm detecting a surge in energy coming from the component. 

Those words were enough to snap them out of their argument. Both of them barely had enough time to turn their attention towards the almost disassembled gun on the table. And once they had, the energy that had been building up had been released. 

The pulse of energy shot quickly out of the exposed openings of the housing unit before hitting both Y/N and Tony. With how close they had been to the component, their bodies were tossed towards opposite ends of the Lab. 

Y/N hit several pieces of equipment before coming in contact with the glass wall, causing it to splinter in several places. She had been knocked unconscious from the force of hitting the equipment moments before that the impact to the glass had been unfelt. 

Tony had been shot in the opposite direction with the only thing behind him being the wall. He had felt several of his bones crack, ensuring there would be multiple breaks and he was sure there was some brain damage with how the back of his head hit the wall. 

His vision was blurry. No matter which way he looked, there was a haze to everything. His ears had even been muffled as if something loud had gone off in his ears, yet there hadn’t been. His body was screaming from the pain it was currently feeling. How he wasn't unconscious from the impact was a mystery to him. 

Medical help is on the way.

The AI’s words were muffled enough that Tony couldn’t make them out. No matter how many times his brain tried to process the words that were said, none of it made any sense. 

“Y/N?” He tried. His own voice sounded weird to him. But he needed to hear her respond in some way. In some way that would tell him she was alright. 

His blurred vision couldn’t pinpoint where she was. The lab was a mess and nothing he attempted to focus on would clear up. The moment he attempted to move, a sharp pain shot through him, causing him to stop altogether. 

He wasn’t sure how long had passed before he caught the blurred movements making it’s way into the lab. Medical help. Tony thought before he succumbed to darkness, passing out from the pain his body was in. 

_____

She can't stay here. She's declining quickly and we don't have the equipment to help her. 

What about Tony? 

Whatever they got hit with is actually helping him heal. It's just not with her. 

In between the sea of darkness there was bits and pieces that Tony's ears had been able to pick up on. While he had been able to hear it, his mind hadn't exactly processed it as it was happening in real time. 

It's been almost a week. What are the chances of her improving or even waking up? 

Given her stats, it will be a miracle if she does. 

Has anyone told her family? 

Fury is handling that.

For a brief moment, Tony's mind understood what he was hearing. His brain instantly goes  to a vague memory of meeting Y/N's parents when they were younger. Their faces were almost blurred in his memory from the fact his attention had mostly been on Y/N as her smile grew on her face as she introduced them to him. 

How happy she had been at the introduction while Tony hadn't cared much for it. But if there was at least one thing Tony actually knew about Y/N was how much she hated the trips her parents went on. And on this particular night at a school's science fair, they had been able to make it for the very first time. 

The memory caused a slight ache in Tony's chest. For that had been the last time he had seen Y/N smile so brightly with excitement. 

He's stable and practically healed. It's up to him on when he's ready to wake up. We don't exactly know what it did to him. 

How far did they get in their research?

They were just getting started. 

The steady pace of a heart Monitor played in Tony’s ears, mixed with several other machines going. Between each beep of the monitor he could hear the patterned sounds of a ventilator going. With each woosh and pause, Tony’s hearing focused on that sound. It seemed to ground him in place in comparison to the other sounds. If anything, the sound helped to pull him out of his slumber. 

As Tony slowly opened his eyes, he first noticed the lights had been dimmed in comparison to any hospital he ever been in. It made it easier for his eyes to adjust instead of being blinded upon waking up. With each blink of his eyes, he tried to piece where exactly he was. 

“It’s a good thing you woke up on your own.” Hearing the voice cause Tony to turn his head in the direction it came from. Once he did, he found Natasha leaning against the wall by the bed across the room. “I was about to ask for some shock pads.”

A small huff of a chuckle passed Tony’s lips. The sound quickly ended the moment Tony’s eyes landed on Y/N for the first time. His eyes widened as he took her in. The majority of the sound he heard while waking up had come from her bedside. Y/N had been hooked up to more machinery than he had ever seen someone have. Tubes and wires were surrounding her in one way or another. 

Seeing Tony’s reaction, Natasha walked over towards Tony’s bed and sat beside him. “It’s not good Tony.”

“How bad?” He asked as he began to pull himself up to sit in a comfortable position.

“You’ve both been out a week so far.” That had caused Tony’s eyebrow to raise. “Your stats have been stable over the last several days. However, hers have fluctuated constantly.”

“We thought we lost her.” Bruce said as he began walking into the room, followed by Dr. Cho. 

Over the last week, the two of them had been trying to figure out how to stabilize Y/N so they could transport her. But every attempt they made had only brought them right back to square one. While Cho went to check on Y/N’s vitals, Bruce walked further into the room by Tony’s bed. 

“Care to clarify?” Tony asked with a raised brow. 

“After. J.A.R.V.I.S. alerted us to what happened and isolated the component, how we found you both was shocking.” Bruce shook his head at the memory. “I thought Y/N was gone with how injured she looked.” He sighed a moment before tapping on the tablet he had walked in with before holding it up for Tony. 

Tony watched as the footage from a week ago began to play on the screen. He watched as he and Y/N had argued with each other. He watched as the damn component began to glow right under their noses and they hadn’t paid any attention to it. But the part that made him cringe was the way Y/N had been thrown against machinery before hitting the glass window. 

"We can't transport her to a hospital." Natasha added as she watched Tony. "Any attempt to move her, she starts declining rather quickly." 

"How quickly?" Tony asked, bringing his attention to Natasha. At his question he could see the way her eyes saddened at the information she knew. Tony knew there was no positive answer. 

“She went into cardiac arrest on the way up to the helipad.” Natasha looked over at Y/N. “By the time we got her back down here, her heart started beating on its own again.”

“Fury had brought in every medical expert on and off his payroll.” Bruce looked over at Y/N as he pulled the tablet back to his side. “Without them coming here, she wouldn’t have gotten some of the help she needed. But even then there was only so much they could do.”

“How she didn’t end up with a severed spinal cord is beyond anything I could imagine.” Dr. Cho added as she wrote down information on the clipboard she had in her hand. “Whatever that was, it saved both of you from death. However I can’t even begin to explain why she hasn’t been healing at the rate you have.”

Tony let what they told him sink in for a moment. The blast had really did a number on them. He and Y/N had been closer in proximity than the two used in the experiments. They had gotten up minutes after being exposed, but for him and Y/N, they had been out for a whole week. 

A week where he recovered while Y/N was fighting to stay alive. Where one minute she'd be stable and if moved she'd rapidly decline in a way no one had seen before. 

No noticeable changes had been noted about the man. His heath had been the same as before he had been hit by the weapon source. Reports indicate that the woman also survived this test trial, making it successful. However, her health declined significantly in the days to follow. 

“How significantly?” Tony asked. 

"Her organs began to shut down. As much as they tried to keep her alive, she died two weeks later.” 

The conversation played through his mind instantly as he sat there taking in what they told him. The words on a loop that he couldn’t pull himself out of. And if what they knew was true, the probability of her making out of this were very slim. 

Tony shook his head before before running his hand down his face. “Before it went off, we had been going through the files J.A.R.V.I.S. had downloaded. The test trials Hydra had done, the woman didn’t survive past two weeks.”

Saying the words felt hard. While it had been a part of their research, they were now looking at a situation where Y/N was now in that very position. If they had been unconscious for a whole week, that meant if everything based on that research was correct, Y/N only had a week left.

“We’ve been trying to find ways to slow the process.” Natasha shook her head. “Thor has even gone off world to try and find something out there. But there’s only so much that modern medicine can get her. Fury’s best can keep her alive, but she’s not getting any better.”

Tony sighed. “Has anyone told her parents?”

Bruce nodded. “Fury informed them. They come when they can to see her. They believe she’ll come out of this. But if what you’re saying is true-”

“We don’t know that for sure.” Tony added in before Bruce could finish his thoughts. “This is different from what Hydra was doing. For all we know it could go based on from when she woke up. We were at closer proximity. There’s a chance she could make it pass the two weeks.”

“Where do we even begin on starting to figure that out?” Natasha asked as her eyes moved to each of them before setting on Y/N. 

“Start with blood analysis.” Tony offered. “Hydra’s notes mentioned their blood being altered. We can start there and work our way up.” 

“I’ll go grab what we need.” Dr. Cho said before stepping out of the room.

The moment Dr. Cho was out of the room, Tony sighed. “Where is it now?”

“Encased under protective glass. It was the first thing we did after getting you two set up in here.” Natasha gave him a small smile. 

“Can you run a few scans on it?” Tony asked looking towards Bruce. “Anything to help give us a base on where to go. There was nothing a week ago and I’m hoping that J.A.R.V.I.S picked something up by now.”

"I'll head near the lab and see what I can go off of." Bruce turned to leave before looking over his shoulder. "I'm assuming I'm being granted the clearance she had?" 

"Yeah. As long as you aren't adding your own protocols into J.A.R.V.I.S. I won't complain."

_____

It had been hours after the others had gotten started on testing out theories. Even Natasha was attempting to get a hold of old contacts to see if they possibly heard of what Hydra was making into a weapon. But while Tony was able to get himself up and out of bed, he couldn't bring himself to leave the med bay. 

At some point he found himself sitting in the chair beside Y/N's bed. He didn't say anything or do anything but take in everything she was connected to. The sounds around him continue to play in his ear just as it had before he had awakened. 

Tony noticed that Y/N was bruised in several places. The ones he could see along her face had yellowed in comparison to some of the darker bruises that covered her arms and hands. It was as if they refused to heal while others healed as her body normally would. It was those darker bruises that reminded him that between the two of them, she had the hardest impact with the blast. 

It was hard to wrap his own head around his injuries after seeing the footage. That kind of impact against the wall should have killed him or at least left him with some kind of damage. But the only proof he had from being in that blast was a few scratches that were scabbed over and almost healed. 

There were many things that Tony knew and understood. But the one thing he couldn’t figure out was why Y/N was still in that bed, fighting for her life when he was sitting there practically healed. He couldn’t figure out why the component had easily selected the males to thrive while the women fought for their lives. 

Or maybe it was just a fluke chance. Maybe the other trials that failed were the ones where the women thrived and the men fought to stay alive. But without actual data, there was no way to tell. 

And God he hated the fact that there was no way to figure out just how much the component had altered them yet. He hated how helpless he felt at that moment. All he could do was watch Y/N as her body fought to stay alive. 

As much as Y/N could push all the right buttons to set him off, there was a time where they weren't at each other's throats. Where the possibility of a future together was more possible than the life they currently were living. That kid who wouldn't hesitate to help give her the world was now looking at Y/N through the eyes of the man that failed her in many ways. 

That life felt several lifetimes ago in comparison to the lives they were currently living. Tony knew that he no longer knew anything about Y/N. He knew that her world was now vastly different from his. And as his eyes lingered on her face, he knew deep down that he was the very reason, like many times in the past, that she was hurt. 

A sigh passed his lips as he lifted his right hand to reach for hers. If holding her hand helped ease the immense guilt he felt, he'd hold it for as long as possible. But it stopped in mid air once his eyes landed on his own wrist. 

Smaller than the tip of his finger was a design he hadn't seen before. At first glance it looked as if a small spring had been drawn on his wrist. But as he brought it closer to his face to examine it, he realized it was a small double helix segment. 

His eyebrow raised as he tried to rub the image off of his skin. But it hadn't changed. It stayed in place as he even licked his thumb before bringing it to the image and rubbed at it once more. 

Tony knew he hadn't seen that once he woke up. It sure as hell wasn't there before he had been hit. Even as he went through a quick work up with the residing medical staff, he didn't remember seeing it or anyone bringing it up. 

Looking over at Y/N, he paused for a second before reaching out for her hand once more. Gently, he turned her right wrist over. There, directly in the same place, had been the very same mark on her.

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