#ftm!r

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The mission had gone bad. So, so bad.

For one, it was a solo mission. You were alone. And the base was supposed to be abandoned. 

It’d started out like any other mission, infiltrating an old HYDRA base deep in the Siberian wilderness. It was freezing, as always, because it was Siberia. Your joints had been stiff with cold and tense with anxiety - you’d had a bad feeling about this the whole time. 

Someone had been fed faulty intel - by a shitty recruit? A mole? You weren’t sure. You didn’t care - not now. The base should’ve been abandoned. But it wasn’t.Now, you lay half-buried in rubble. It takes you a few minutes, and you only barely manage to pull yourself out from under the huge chunks of ceiling. The base hadn’t had a very strong structure, considering it was probably close to a century old. 

And you’d been forced to throw a grenade to get rid of some agents that’d been chasing you. You’d gotten the required data - plans to link the remaining HYDRA bases and create a weapon of mass destruction. Y’know, typical HYDRA, and then they’d come after you. So you’d thrown the grenade, and it’d gone off a bit too close to a support pillar. You pause to catch your breath, chest heaving. Was breathing harder? No, it was probably how thin the air was out here. Or your binder. You shivered, and slowly started to make your way out of the destroyed base. You reached up and drew your palm across your forehead, wincing when it came away smeared with blood. That.. couldn’t be good. But… in all honesty, you cared very little. All you wanted to do was get home, and pass out in your bed next to Natasha. You were exhausted. 

The Quinjet came into view after what felt like hours - but was only a few minutes - of walking. The door hissed open like a beast opening its maw, and you stumbled in. You reached for the nearest First-Aid kit, and slowly, painstakingly, started to patch yourself up as best you could.

FRIDAY spoke abruptly. “Destination: Avengers Compound - Medbay landing.” You immediately spoke up after, a spark of panic flitting into your voice. “No, no. Just.. take me to the compound. No medbay.” You murmured, your eyes slipping shut for just a second. You had to fight to keep them open. 

After a few seconds, as if the AI was contemplating arguing, FRIDAY replied in agreement, and changed course for the usual landing. 

You fell asleep soon after.

When you woke up again, the jet was just landing.

You peeled yourself out of the seat, not noticing how your right arm looked awkwardly bent at the elbow, and how blood had leaked onto your seat. You didn’t even notice how hard breathing was getting.

You were focused on getting home to Natasha.

You’d been away for only a day or two, and you were still desperate to see her again. To have her hold you and you hold her back, to fall asleep in the same bed again, curled up against one another.

You rushed down the corridor - ignoring how your leg twinged with something hot and prickly with every step - and almost slammed into the door of your shared bedroom.

You reached for the key, only for it to open before you could even get the damn thing out of your pocket.

Standing in front of you was a breathtaking redhead. Your breathtaking redhead. 

A grin split your face, and you half-fell into her, wrapping your arms around her torso and burying your face into her shoulder. She stiffened, just for a second, and then relaxed into your hold, quickly returning the hug. You barely noticed the twinge at your right elbow. “Hi, Natty,” you breathed, pressing a kiss at the point where shoulder met neck, still grinning into her skin. “Hey,” she replied gently, and pulled away just enough to get a good look at you. She’d already noticed the bandage that covered part of your head, and raised a suspicious eyebrow at you. “You did that yourself,” she said, and you sighed, nodding. There was no point in denying it - you’d never fool Natasha. Not with all her training. Plus, she knew what your handiwork looked like. “You look like shit,” Natasha said, and you gave her a weak smile. “What can I say? The intel was also shit.” You mumbled, avoiding her gaze for just a second. The adrenaline was starting to wear off, and your injuries were beginning to hit like a freight train full of steel. She stared at you for a solid few seconds, and your mind started to drift a little. Your vision blurred and darkened at the edges, just slightly, and then Natasha was snapping her fingers in front of you, the rhythmic click jolting you out of your daze. You flinched marginally, and blinked at her. “Are you concussed? Jesus..” she muttered, and you winced when she went to prod at the bandage over your forehead. You tightened your grip on her, and leaned back into her shoulder. “I missed you,” you murmured, sighing softly. You were content with just being held, but Natasha had other ideas. And so did your body.

She’d noticed what you hadn’t. The shallow nature of your breathing, how your right arm was bent awkwardly at the elbow, and how you were unconsciously favoring one leg over the other. “Nat,” You mumbled abruptly, struggling to keep your eyes open, “I think I’m gonna.. fall over..” You were right. Shit. Shit shit shit.Your grip on her body loosened, and your good leg started to give out beneath you. You felt her grip tighten on you as your body gave out on you, finally giving into the pain and exhaustion that’d hit you. “Hey, hey, no. We’re not falling asleep right now, okay?” You heard Natasha say, distantly. Your head felt like it was filled with cotton, and the world sounded incredibly far away. You felt yourself being lifted - even if you’d started to bulk up recently, you were still light enough for her to carry. The world spun and the hallway lights blurred above you. You heard distant shouting, the sound of clattering. You were being laid on something soft - like a cloud. Soon, you felt a pinch in the crook of your left elbow, and then a blinding pain from your right. You didn’t remember much after that. — You came to slowly - with previously distant sounds slowly getting louder. You could hear an incessant beeping, and you grimaced at the bright light above you as you opened your eyes. You shifted your left arm, hand grasping at nothing, and felt something land in it and grip tightly. You squeezed it, and it squeezed back. 

That made you open your eyes. “Hey, dumbass,” someone said from above you, and it took you a second to realize who it was. “Hi, Nat,” you mumbled again, recognizing the burn in your throat and squinting so your eyes would better adjust to the light. You smiled up at her, squeezing her hand again. Your eyes started to drift around the room as you slowly took in your surroundings - white sheets, white bed, metal trays here and there, and monitors. So many monitors, it was nearing the edge of overwhelming. “What happened?” you asked, throat stinging, eyes drifting back to Natasha. She looked happy, but you could just pick out the worried crease between her brows, the way her eyes crinkled at the edges and the slightest hint of worry that flared in the emerald-green depths of them. “You are a certified idiot,” Natasha replied. “You.. got hurt. Pretty badly,” she added after a few seconds of contemplation. You didn’t need to know the details. Not now, anyway. Your eyes drifted to the parts of you that you could see - your right arm was swathed in bandages, and your left leg was elevated slightly and confined to the all-too-familiar cage of a cast. You felt an itchy discomfort as you realized that something was missing. Your binder. You grimaced and looked away from your chest, even though it was covered by the stark-white bedsheets. Natasha’s free hand came out and gently grasped your chin. She sighed softly, and leaned in to plant a kiss to your still-bandaged forehead. “Sorry, handsome, they couldn’t exactly let you sleep in that.”

—

You couldn’t breathe. Smoke choked your lungs, stinging your eyes and haunting your mouth with its peculiar taste.

Not smoke. Not smoke. Gas. Your planet was being gassed.

Your vision blurred as your feet pounded the rough cobblestone beneath them. You tripped on a few loose ones, but it didn’t matter.

You just kept running until you made it to the edge of your village.

Abruptly, you tripped on a rock, landing face-first in front of some… creature standing above you. It reached for you with outstretched claws..

—

You awoke with a scream, and started to fight and struggle and claw against the restraints that were far too similar to those claws. You fought against air, fueled by pure adrenaline, until hands gently pressed your shoulders back into the warmth beneath you. “Hey, hey, you’re okay,” Someone said, and you forced your eyes to open. In front of you, her hands pressing you into the sheets, stood a woman with fierce green eyes and fiery red hair. You didn’t recognize her, nor did she have any form of identification clearly visible. You whimpered, and flailed limply again, trying to get away from her hands. She pulled her hand away, catching the distress in your posture and the flash of terror in your eyes. “Sorry,” she apologized gently, and you could tell that she didn’t usually do any apologizing by the way her shoulders hunched slightly. Her jaw was sharp, and clenched slightly. Her posture was loose - but it looked forced, like she was playing some sort of character. You couldn’t help but be struck by how intense her gaze was - it felt like she was seeing through your soul. After a second, you became aware of the pain you were in all over again, and you had to force your eyes shut to keep tears from sliding down your cheeks. When the wave of agony eventually, thankfully, passed, you turned your gaze back onto the woman with fiery hair.

“Who.. are you..?” You rasped, wincing at the effort, your throat still feeling like sandpaper.

“Natasha Romanoff. Former agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.” She replied, eyes drifting over your bedbound form.

“What’s.. S.H.I.E.L.D?” You asked, and all you got in reply was an annoyed huff. Of course you wouldn’t know what S.H.I.E.L.D was. You’d crash-landed on this planet a week ago, and had been awake for maybe six hours since then.

You shifted again, and you looked.. more uncomfortable. Natasha noticed, almost immediately, and sank into the chair next to your bed. “It’s the straps, isn’t it?” She said, gesturing towards the restraints around your wrists. You nodded, and flinched when Natasha suddenly reached for the velcro.

“It’s okay. I’m just going to take them off,” she murmured, green eyes meeting yours. The eye contact, while intense, soothed you ever so slightly. You heard the telltale rrrrrip! of velcro separating, and some of the pressure on your wrists was released. The beeping of your heart monitor slowed marginally.

The redhead looked at the equipment surrounding you, and reached for where a few x-rays had been left nearby. They were from when you’d initially crashed, and they didn’t look too amazing.

But there was something out of place on them - something that no human had.

“You have.. two hearts.” Natasha said, and you watched her eyes widen slightly. You just gave a weak nod in reply. “Mmm-hm. It’s.. a-a Telothian th-thing,” You stammered, voice having grown ever-so-slightly stronger.

“What’s a Telothian?” Natasha asked, language blunt and pointed.

Memories flashed behind your eyes.

Your mother, screaming your name.

Your father, begging you to run.

Your sibling, crying out in agony.

You snapped back to the present at the sensation of Natasha waving her hand over your eyes. “Earth to mysterious alien,” she said, and you grimaced.

“It’s.. was a planet. Where I-I… was fr-from.” You mumbled, voice cracking on the first word. The woman seemed to realize that the subject was a touchy one - sensitive for numerous reasons. She went quiet, and you shifted slightly, the sheets rustling underneath you.

You blinked slowly, struggling against the sudden heaviness of your eyelids. You glanced towards one of the monitors as it beeped, and you could tell that more pain medication had been administered. You grunted softly.

“It’s set up like that,” Natasha says abruptly, realizing your confusion. “It gets administered every few hours until the doctors start weaning you off of it,” she finished, glancing at the monitors.

“Oh,” you said, voice quiet. You felt fuzzy again, like you were floating off a cloud, and you could tell you’d drift off in a few minutes.

“Get some rest,” Natasha sighed. “We’ll have more questions when you’re healed.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your world was ending.

Everything was on fire. Your friends and family and strangers you barely knew screamed around you as bombs rained down like hail. You watched as your planet, Teloth, burned. 

You still didn’t know who was attacking your planet. Maybe you never would.You were the only Telothian to make it onto the ship. It took you centuries to accept that.

–

Your ship drifted endlessly through the cosmos. In the thousand-or-so years you’d been drifting in the void of space, you’d observed countless civilizations, star systems, and planets. You’d watched many of them be destroyed. Early in your wandering, you observed a planet you’d learned was called Earth, or Terra, by different civilizations. You’d drifted around it for a century or so, watching at least three different empires and groups fall. You’d soon grown tired of watching all those people fight each other, kill each other, for some end goal that would ultimately be useless and forgotten in a hundred years. So you’d powered up your ship, and light-jumped to the next few solar systems. After 900 years, you found your ship drifting back to it. You were almost out of fuel - something you were certain couldn’t be possible with your ship, but apparently it was. The gravitational pull of earth was calling you back. There was nothing you could do to stop it. The fuel had gone out after you’d made one last light-jump, to see Terra again. You’d made it within a light-year of Terra, and then you’d run out of it. Now, you were hurtling towards a random field in the middle of a place you’d soon learn was called New York. You were panicking, trying to guide the ship into something of a stable landing, but your landing gear wouldn’t deploy, and you couldn’t get the ship to steer properly. You were in a complete tailspin. And the only thing you could do was brace for impact. The ship hit the ground with the force of a freight train, and your head slammed into the seat. Glass shattered around you, metal groaned, and you felt agony scream through your body.

You heard screaming, and it took you a second to recognize it as your own. The world faded into blackness. –

“What the fuck is he?”“I dunno, some kind of alien from a ship that just… crashed here. Outside of our compound.”“We’ll get Stark on that ship. He can figure it out.”

“Banner’s coming over - get out of the way!”– 

When your eyes opened again, you were greeted by unreasonably harsh lights and absolute agony. You tried to move, to shift your arm, but you were greeted by tight restraints keeping you in place. That, and the flash of extra pain from the movement. You whimpered, and gave a weak attempt to sit up.

You felt a hand press in the center of your chest, gently pressing you back into what you were laying on. It was.. soft. Softer than anything you’d felt in centuries. You couldn’t help but let your head loll back into the comfort beneath you. You felt like you were floating on a cloud. “Hey. Hey. Can you hear me?” Someone said, and your eyes flickered in response. You couldn’t make yourself reopen them - not with the cruelty of the light above you. You whimpered again instead. “Shh, shh, you’re okay. You’re going to be fine.” The voice said, and you felt a hand press into your shoulder, fingers feeling over bone. It made you flinch, and then cry out from the utter agony. You were barely able to pick out the sound of footsteps around you, barely able to pick up the voice of whoever was talking to you. “Up his morphine dose. He.. shouldn’t even be awake right now.”

You felt a cool sensation spread through your veins, and you felt the agony dissipate slightly, but not enough. You whimpered again. The sensation returned, and this time it was enough to put you back to sleep. —

It took another week for you to open your eyes again. This time, you were in considerably less pain, and the lights were dimmed. You could actually twitch your fingers without crying. You tilted your head slightly, eyes drifting around the room that surrounded you. Your world still spun here and there, but it wasn’t too frequent. You looked at the white, sterile surroundings. You could see something that you recognized as a one-way mirror, and you couldn’t help but wonder who was on the other side of it. The door to your left opened unexpectedly - usually you would’ve been able to sense that before it happened. To prepare accordingly. You stared as a man walked inside, quietly shutting the door behind him. He looked surprised to see you awake. Instead of speaking, the man - who had black hair, some noticeable stubble, and gentle but tired brown eyes - sat down in a chair near the edge of your.. cot? You were pretty sure it was a cot, but you hadn’t really been able to move much.

The man reached out to touch you, to press his fingers into your wrist, when you pulled back with a shudder. He stopped, and let his hand fall back to his side. Finally, the man spoke. “You’re awake,” he said, and you gave a weak nod in reply. You were still disoriented as all hell, and had no idea where you were, but you didn’t have the energy to care.

“Can you speak?” he asked, and, honestly, you weren’t sure you could, but you figured it couldn’t hurt to try. “Y-ye..” Your voice stuttered and cracked and broke, the strangled half-syllable barely making it past your lips. You winced at the feeling of your throat - cracked, dry, and broken.

The man winced at the sound of it, and you caught sight of his nametag as he turned to reach for something. His nametag read “Dr. Bruce Banner”. The name was unfamiliar to you, so you tucked it into the back of your mind for future reference.

The man - Bruce - turned back to you, holding what looked like a paper cup with a blue straw in it. He held the straw to your lips and gently told you to drink. You did.

It felt like heaven against your throat, and you drank greedily. Bruce had to pull the cup away from you, and you made a sound of complaint when he did. “Sorry,” he said gently, setting the cup on a side table. “You.. drank all of it.”

You just grunted in response, and turned back towards the softness of the sheets underneath you. The comfort these sheets brought, even if they were impersonal, was immeasurable.

“Can you remember anything?” Bruce asked, his eyes drifting to the monitors beside you. You hadn’t yet paid any attention to the monitors, and you followed his gaze. The technology was mildly familiar - like something you’d have seen on Teloth. 

You didn’t answer his question right away, and it took a second for your memories to really return.

Screaming. Your voice. The impact..You nodded once, and Bruce gave a relieved sigh. “Good. that’s.. That’s really good. Can you tell me your name?” You turned your eyes towards his tired, but kind brown ones. “I-I..” you paused, attempting and failing to clear your throat. “I’m.. y/n.”

“Nice to meet you,” Bruce said, and you caught his brows furrowing just slightly, a flicker of something like concern or confusion crossing his face. You wondered if he’d heard your name before, but you knew it wasn’t likely.

“Where are you from?” He asked next, and you responded with the name of your home planet - Teloth. “Where’s that?” He questioned.

You didn’t have the energy to explain. Exhaustion was beginning to creep up on you, and Bruce seemed to be noticing. You fought to keep your eyes open - a useless fight, really - but it was like fighting a meteor with a stick.