Chapter Text
AN: This takes place after Civil War, the dust had settled, the Accords were amended and The Avengers are a family again.
All mistakes are my own, I don't own any of the Marvel characters only Megan.
Chris Evan - Steve Rogers
Sebastian Stan - Bucky Barnes (with short hair)
Alex Parsons/The Loch Ness Monster - Michael Fessender
His Obsession
1.
Megan
Waking up to the annoying sound of my alarm I realise that I am never going to get used to getting up. It could be three in the afternoon, but I will not want to get up. I sleep so little and so sporadically that waking up and getting up is just the worst. But hey, new day and all that..ha who am I kidding, today will most likely be a complete waste of time.
I'm a free-lance technical physiotherapist and analyst to give me my real title. Though most days I feel like my real title should just be lonely bitch, it seems to fit better. What it means is that I'm a physio therapist who specialises in tech enhanced therapy treatment for injured war vets as well as counselling. A patch up their bodies and try to fix their minds as well kind of thing. I got my qualifications, through less than proper channels, but so far no one has noticed and now I skip from company to company taking on a few cases. I work them through physio and rehabilitation, sometimes using technological advance treatments to help physically while giving counselling as we go along. I like it, I can give back and be of use to someone. And it means I can hide.
I would love to join a big company and push myself, but staying small and independent keeps me off the radar. Keeps me safe. It's mainly my fairy godbitch's idea. Hence the reason I'm in New York and not London which is where I belong, hence the reason I have the smallest apartment in the world, hence the fact that I have a Kilmer Rimfire semi automatic 22 caliber hand gun secured under the draw of my night stand and 3 passports and 5 grand in cash in the bottom of my small handbag/backpack with a burner phone. You know, just in case my horrible life choices catch up with me.
Today however, I have a new client given to me through the agency I use. Claudette the agency nurse was full of praise for the guy I'm going to see today. Recently injured during a firefight, ended up dead dropping i.e. no parachute from high altitude causing him paralysis in his legs. The accident was almost six months ago and he has apparently shown little progress, guess that's the reason they have called in a specialist to work with advanced tech.
I put on my favourite comfy black jeans, a flowy green top that shows off one shoulder, but only the right shoulder, no one sees the left one and the scars there. Or the right side of my stomach, my left thigh and my lower back. My clothes always covers my scars, some days I can almost fool myself they are not there.
Finally boots, I love these boots, that are a little like cowboy boots, it more feminine and plain black leather with a little wedge heel. I'm not your supermodel type, or any type really, I'm a size 14 to 16ish in old money, 5.3 and seventeen thousand tons of long chestnut hair that on most days has a mind of it's own. I don't wear make up, don't like it and I try not to draw attention to myself as much as possible. Slinging my leather jacket on over the top I grab my bike helmet and secure my bag on my back. I scan the apartment quickly, everything is turned off and looks like no one of interest lives here. Just how I like it.
The bike is my baby, I don't have a cat or a child and I don't do relationships or boyfriends, so this is my love. A Ducati, matt black with a top speed that would make your eyes water. Again, the Fairy Godbitch had something to do with it, or more like it was a condition of living in New York, no bike no New York, no bike no cooperation from me! And anyways, cars took too long and if I needed to get away, this was going to get me away in a blind hurry.
Feeling it rumble to life I smiled sitting astride it, beautiful baby, just beautiful. I weave through the streets with ease and find my way to the weirdest destination that I have every had to go for work. I pull up at some gates that look like they have seen better days, however, my eyes notice the security cameras and the gate mechanism that is so clean its unreal. In other words, this is made to look like its guarding nothing important all all, when in reality it top grade security. Lifting my helmet visor I push the intercom on the box I pulled up next to. An Irish sounded girl comes over the intercom startling me.
"Good Morning, identification please?"
I lean towards it. "Megan King, I've got an appointment with Commander James Rhodes for a physiotherapist assessment."
"Welcome Ms King, please enter the gate and follow the access road round to the right, there will be a representative to meet you and show you in. Have a good day."
She clicks off and I nod, dropping my helmet visor I coast in through the gates and follow the instruction I was given. This place is ridiculous. The 'Avengers' facility compound is enormous, set over how many aches I've no idea, one large building and a few smaller ones dotted about. I'd read about them, who hasn't, but being here is something else. I park up my bike outside what looks like the main building, the canopy provides shade for the main doors leading inside. There's a bench and a landing pad to the side.
As I get off a man comes out of the doors and looks around, sees me and cocks an eyebrow as I remove my helmet and smooth out my stupid hair. He's middle aged, fit and is unmistakably Tony Bloody Stark. "Okay you can't possibly be a nurse?"
I put my helmet on the bike, remove my gloves and stuff them inside the helmet for later. I smirk at him. "Nope, I'm definitely not a nurse. I am however a physio." He smirks back at me and I extend a hand. "Megan King, I'm here to see Commander Rhodes."
"Tony Stark." He shakes my hand and I instantly think, weak hands, dad would never approve of that. 'Weak handshake Megs, means a man's got nothing underneath.' I inwardly curse myself for think about dad, god I miss him. "Oh I know who you are, but your just not what I expected." His eyes rake over me sexually and I am instantly pissed off.
My English accent gets a little it posher when I pissed off and ends up making me sound like a bitch, right now though I don't care. "What did you expect exactly Mr Stark?" I follow him in and I'm a little awe struck for a moment, looking around the place is huge and fantastic. Lots of glass, high ceiling, you can see high floors form here, everything's is pristine and it's breathtaking. "Wow!" I look at the big 'A' suspended in the middle fo the huge foyer and want to chuckle, but instead I go for coy turning back to Stark I school my features. "What's the 'A' for?"
He smirks and crosses his arms over his chest, then takes his glasses off and points them at me. "You mean you don't know?"
It's my turn to smirk and I look him over the same blatantly sexist way he did me and incline my head a little. "Oh, I've got an idea."
He scoffs, still smirking and is about to say something when a woman emerges from an office close by. She is wearing a beautifully tailored blue trouser suit and matching heels, her strawberry blonde hair is neatly tucked into a bun at the nape of her neck and she smiles brightly at me. "Hi, you must be Ms King from PhysioTech?"
I smile back and reach out to shake the hand she has offered me. "Yes, please to meet you Miss?"
Our hands break apart and she continues to smile. "Potts. But please call me Pepper. I see you've met Tony, whatever he's said already it's usually best to disregard it and start again."
I chuckle instantly liking her. "It's all good. So where am I needed?"
The three of us walk through the facility and go in an open glass lift to an upper floor. Tony talking all the time about the Avengers initiative and how the place works. We pass a couple of offices and a large lavatory that looks full of robots and then we get to a room that is set up for standard physiotherapist. Over the far side of the room I see who I presume is my new client being guided between parallel walking bars, he is weak and I notice the enhanced exoskeleton attached to him. It's a nice enhancement, it is obviously is doing nothing and I shake my head realising what the problem is instantly. Interference. Rhodes is about 5.9' dark skin and big honest eyes, he's got two day old stubble and he's sweating like he's been at this for hours, but I'll put money on the fact that he's only been doing it for about half an hour.
The man in front of his is giving lots of reassurance, he tall, blonde and well built, I find myself checking out the muscles in his arms and wishing I could get a closer look at his face, because if it matches his arse I'm done for. As he turns to look at us, noticing our arrival, I do. He's gorgeous and I feel my pulse thump a couple of extra times as I notice just how handsome he is, his eyes are truly something else, deep pools of ocean blue.
Rhodes misses is hands on the bar and falls forward onto the floor with an 'oof' sound. Shit. Pepper squeaks and everyone in the rooms moves to help him. I push past Tony and Pepper and as the Blond God tries to life him I gently touch his arm. "Don't, let me." He backs up and gives me some room. I kneel on the floor in front of the Commander and smile. "Hi. Commander Rhodes I presume."
He looks up from the floor and nods. "Everyone calls me Rhodey." He breaths heavy and looks at me expectantly, when I don't move he raises his eyebrows. "Little help?"
I smile and shake my head. "I'm Megan and, no." I hear Stark behind me huff and someone takes a step in my direction, but I put my arm out behind me, finger raised, stopping them. "That's not how it works Rhodey. Your just going to take a moment for me first, then, I'll help. Ok?" He nods and shoot a glance at those behind me. He takes a few shaky breathes, obviously there is some pride issues going on and then he looks at me. "Better?" He nods again. "First I want you to concentrate of you right leg and slowly and only in your own time bring it forward so that your knee is under you." He grunts as he follows my instructions, bracing himself on his arms as he does so. "Couple of breaths." He nods again, I'm still in my kneeling position, I haven't moved or touched him and nor will I. "Now, with the other leg, the same movement, same muscle memory and still, in your own time." He complies and this time it takes a couple of attempt to get his leg under him, which clearly indicates to me that his left side is much weaker and the tech that is apparently helping is not compensating for it. I look to the side and gesture for the blonde to get the wheel chair, he does and I stand putting it in front of Rhodes and putting the brakes on it. Crouching next to him I give him the next instructions. "Now you can use the chair to raise your body. Your going instinctively want to use your arms mostly to lift yourself, but I want you to try and concentrate on your thighs, nothing more, you sometimes get most of the help you need from parts of your body that you least expect. Thighs are one of those places."
With some grunting and a little help from me, he gets up and drags himself into the chair. Once he's there he lets out a big breath and chuckles at me. "Thanks."
"Don't thank me. You did that yourself."
He nodded and look around. "Felt good."
"That's the point. I'm happy to help, but the help will come in the form of me helping you to help yourself."
"I can live with that." His smile is genuine and tired.
I nod and stand up facing the group. The blonde god smiles brightly at me and I feel like his eyes are going to bore into my soul somehow and discover all my darkest secrets. He shoots a hand out to me. "Hi I'm Steve Rogers." I shake his hand, so many handshakes today, it this one I like the best. Nice and strong dad, you'd like this one. Also, shit, Steve Rogers as in Captain America?
"Nice to meet your Steve." I tear my eyes away reluctantly becuase god he's stunning and settle on Tony. "The tech, its yours?"
He walks forward and slaps Rhodey on the shoulder. " Yes, all mine, the basic exoskeleton mechanics came from my Iron Man suit that I modified into leg braces. In fact, I striped out all the armor and stick just to the bones, the braces weigh a little under 5 pounds."
I smile as I suspected, interference. I meet Rhodey's eyes. "Can I be blunt with everyone and maybe talk about you like for not in the room for 30 seconds?"
He chuckles. "Be my guest."
With his permission I level my eyes on Tony. "Look, these are great and they will help, but not right now. He needs to build up slowly and then introduce the tech."
"That's the whole point of it though so that he doesn't have to struggle. I, we don't want him to struggle."
"But he needs to struggle. I'm sorry, it ...it's true, he needs to build muscle and his body needs to be able to replace the lost memory of how things works. After what I've seen and having ready Rhodey's medical notes I've no doubt that there is a possibility of regaining at least some mobility and the majority of movement, rotation through the joints etc, but not with the tech doing most of the hard work."
"So you want me to let him struggle?"
I could see the change in Stark's expression and it showed regret and pain for his friend. "Let me guess, this was your fault? Or at least you blame yourself right?"
He looked down at his feet and then to Rhodey, their eyes met and as he looked back to me I could see that I was spot on. Rhodey chuckled. "Oh I like her!"
"I can see you are trying really hard to make this better, but all your doing is delaying his recovery. Reduce the tech capacity by 80% and we start by going back to basic rehabilitation techniques aimed at building movement. Then and only then, will the exoskeleton give the support it was designed for and it is a good design. Better actually than the leading one that I usually recommend to high end client's, but don't tell anyone important that I told you that."
He smiled and looked at Rhodey. "Your choice, is she in? Her background check was clear and ...boring." I wanted to comment, but didn't not realising that he had checked me. Though it wouldn't be a problem, the current background I had in place was flawless.
Rhodey met my eyes and smirked. "Only if you promise to call his ass out every five seconds?"
"Oh I promise. Listen if your up for it how about a more thorough assessment? Reflexes, Mobility, joints etc?" I turn to Tony. "Do you have muscle density scans?"
He raised his eyebrows and nodded as the others cleared the room. Score for me, guess I have a new client. Claudette will be very happy.
An hour later, Steve appeared in the doorway and asked if we were done as their was fresh coffee in the kitchen for everyone. "We're done man, I'll bring her up, think she should meet everyone." Steve smiled at me again and again I thought that my heart might stop.
As I pushed Rhodey into the elevator I schooled my thoughts about Steve Rogers. I forced myself to remember that there was a reason, good reasons, I don't do men, boyfriends or even the odd one night stand. Because the last person I really cared about died in my arms as I desperately tried to stop the blood pour out of his slit throat.
***
End of chapter.