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GLORY DAYS
CABIN FEVER
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synopsis. In which the flu sweeps the Avengers off their feet, and Riley O'Dair has to play nurse for the week.
timeline. Pre-Age of Ultron
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EARTH—TINY, VULNERABLE EARTH—had endured its fair share of unadulterated terror in recent years. It was not long ago now—though it certainly felt longer—when Earth became acutely aware of the foreign threats lurking in the cold corners of the greater universe. Bloodthirsty aliens. Gods once thought to be fictitious. Shapeshifting creatures that could slip into your mind and soul. From the day these threats became eminent, it became the Avengers the people looked to in times of great strife and lament. Even when lost in the darkness, there were the Avengers, shining bright.
The Avengers were thought to be resilient, indestructible. There was no evil they couldn't smite if they just shut the hell up and listened to each other from time to time. Nothing, not aliens, not even gods, could decimate them. Or so Riley O'Dair naïvely believed.
Then, this year's flu season came around.
"Sneeze again, Tony Stark, and you'll be reuniting with your parents real soon—!"
"Achoo!" Tony blew obnoxiously loudly—and to 14-year-old Riley's horror, snottily—into his tissue.
Riley's eye twitched. Her surgical mask inflated as she groaned. "Why are you even here?" Riley demanded.
She extended an arm toward the circle of Avengers, all cooped up in Avengers Tower, red-nosed, bleary-eyed, vomiting from every orifice they owned, whining like toddlers. She'd seen each of them battered, bleeding, thrown off skyscrapers, blasted by grenades—all to be knocked down by the flu. The goddamn flu.
It didn't help that they were in the midst of a very important mission before this—searching for Loki's scepter, which had been stolen by HYDRA during the infamous S.H.I.E.L.D. infiltration last year. Riley was already pissed at everyone for losing sight of the damn thing, even more irritated that HYDRA, of all bad guys, had it, and now, she had to pause her life to take care of her teammates. Not because she wanted to. But as much as she refused to admit it, they were her only friends, and she basically lived at Avengers Tower anyway.
"The others, I get," Riley continued, gesturing to each team member as she spoke. "Steve's broke, no one wants Bruce in their neighborhoods, Nat likes to watch me suffer, Clint goes where Nat goes, and Thor's basically a pet."
Thor was the only one who paid her no mind, distracted with the concept of tissue boxes. For whatever reason, he found it amusing how many tissues could fit in one box, which was funny until he wasted 12 boxes of tissues just yanking them out one after another in mere minutes. Riley (well, Tony, technically, because Riley stole Tony's credit card two days ago, and he never noticed) was going to go bankrupt over tissues at this rate.
"But you—" Riley pointed an accusatory finger at Tony, who raised his hands in defense at first, only to greet her with a set of middle fingers a second later. Riley grabbed the nearest pillow and whacked him with it as she said, "You're—a—billionaire! Go home! What do you pay Happy for anyway? Do you make him snuggle with you when Pepper's mad at you, huh?"
"So what if he does? He's toasty," Tony remarked nasally.
"I thought he was Happy," Clint chimed from his spot on the couch.
Beside him, Natasha snorted, "Not usually."
"Doesn't even sound like a real name," Bruce mumbled. "Sounds like a Snow White dwarf reject if you asked me."
"He got rejected because the dwarves heard his singing voice. Sounds just like Snow after the apple," Tony quipped, sniffling loudly. "And for the record, Pepper will kill me if I get her sick. She's the CEO of Stark Industries, the first female CEO of Stark Industries, might I add, have I mentioned that before—?"
Tony was interrupted by an exasperated chorus of, "No, never heard that before", "That's not really a flex!", and"Yes, shut up!"
"If I get sick, I'll kill you," Riley threatened. "Doesn't that scare you more? I have superpowers!"
"The only thing you're hitting is puberty," Tony scoffed.
"The only thing you're hitting is the grave, you senile bastard—"
"Happy," Steve suddenly said. He sluggishly sat up, blond hair sticking up on one side, waving his hand. "The dwarves, Happy. I didn't get that at first." He rubbed his tired face, pulling at his skin in exhaustion. "You all move too fast for me."
"You sound just like my buddy who got stuck in an ice cube and missed the invention of sliced bread," Tony said while blowing into another tissue.
"He's not that old," Riley defended. "But I bet you know all about that, Grandpa." She shoved Tony's legs from where they were propped on the coffee table, ignoring the look Natasha shot her. "Ни единого слова." Not one word.
"Это судебный процесс, ожидающий своего часа," Natasha cooed, crinkling her bright red nose with false glee. That's a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Riley mimicked her, rasp and all, before forcing two bright pink pills into Steve's palm. "Alright," said Riley. "Swallow, spangles."
Steve was, by far, the worst to care for. He didn't complain the way Clint and Bruce did, didn't abuse her the way Tony and Thor did, didn't cackle at her misery the way Natasha did. He was actually quite polite. At first, he insisted on taking care of himself, as he was somehow the first of the bunch to fall ill. But that resulted in just about everyone else getting sick, one after another, until Riley was the last man standing.
Even the Hulk got sick because of Bruce. He Hulked out for only five minutes, which was terrible and snotty and traumatizing, but it was by far the worst five minutes of Riley's life. And she'd been beaten up by a god at this point in her life.
Despite everything, Steve should have been her favorite member to take care of based on the standard of manners and kindness alone. However, because of his freakish superhero biology, his body didn't respond to ordinary pharmaceuticals. According to his files, technically, his genetic makeup made it harder for him to get sick, with his metabolism functioning far more optimally than any human being's possibly could. But what wasn't written in the fine print was that on the off chance that Steve got sick, he got sick. Extremely, debilitatingly sick.
And so, on top of caring for her teammates, and dealing with a sick Tony, and being on Hulk-watch, and buying Thor more tissues, and listening to Natasha make fun of her all day, Riley was also busy inventing a special medication that would effectively cure Steve.
Through half-lidded eyes, Steve peered down at the unsuspecting pill, mumbling, "I dunno how much I like bein' your guinea pig."
"Are you kidding me?" Bruce asked next to him, glasses crooked and halfway caught in his hair.
"Why would I be joking?" Steve replied. He gestured to Riley. "No offense, but she's 14. She's not a doctor. You're a doctor."
"Not that kinda doctor," Bruce replied while Riley scoffed. "I have 7—"
"PhDs, we know," Clint groaned.
"All those PhDs, and you still can't get a girlfriend," Natasha teased, causing Riley to shoot her a look. Natasha matched her arched brow with her own. The two girls knew each other a little too well, they were both realizing.
"My point being, you were already a guinea pig," Bruce continued matter-of-factly. "70 years ago."
"Achoo!" Tony sneezed again.
Riley clenched her hands into fists. "I swear, I'm going to shove that tissue so far up your nose you'll be shitting it out later—"
"It's fascinating how much wrath is bottled up in that tiny, mortal, child body of yours, Val," Thor happily said, snuggled up in a bundle of blankets with an almost alarmingly innocent wide grin.
"Gonna pretend you didn't say that," Riley grumbled. To Steve, she ordered, "Swallow, or I'm leaking your list of allergies to HYDRA." Then, she moved on to Natasha, adjusting the humidifier toward her. "For the record, if it was me that was sick, you'd be telling me to walk it off."
Natasha rolled her eyes. "You've walked off getting blown up. Spare me."
Next, Riley passed some Aspirin to Clint, who accepted it without complaint, thankfully. Once Riley made her way to Bruce, he held out his hands in defiance. "No, no, I'm fine, really," Bruce said, which he had said every time she went to take care of him because Bruce Banner was incapable of letting anyone help him in just about every conceivable way possible. Maybe that was why he had so many PhDs. You don't need help when you already know everything—everything except how to not be a ginormous, green asshole sometimes.
"You literally look greener than Hulk," Riley said. "And you smell worse than him. Hit the showers before I hit you." She pushed a forcefield underneath him, forcing him up and off the couch.
Adjusting his glasses, Bruce sniffed himself. "I don't— I don't smell," he defended, only to be met with half-pitied grimaces around the room. "What, really? Okay. Alright, fine. But for the record, I'm a doctor. I could've taken care of myself."
"Your definition of taking care of yourself is fleeing the country and living in a hut. You live your life like the Three Little Pigs," Riley dismissed, pushing another forcefield after him until he was gone. She glanced back at Steve, faltering. His skin was less pale and clammy already, a natural pink flush taking his cheeks. His eyes were less drowsy, and he even managed to spring onto his feet. "Wow, that worked fast. Only took 12 trials."
Steve stretched his arms over his head, revealing a flash of his abs. Riley pretended she wasn't looking. "Nice work, Manhattan."
Riley cleared her throat. "Uh-huh, no problem," she mumbled. "Just, um, stick around before you go anywhere. Should probably run some tests in case you go into organ failure or septic shock or somethin'." There came a pause. Riley lifted her chin, finding Steve's twisted expression of mortification. "You probably won't!"
"...Probably?" Steve echoed. He grabbed at his chest as if his heart was already shutting down. Natasha and Clint snickered.
"We'll know in a few minutes," Tony reassured him.
Cautiously, Steve asked, "How?"
"Either your spleen will goop out of your ears, or your kidneys will drop through your balls."
"Tony!" Riley scolded, despite the laugh that squeaked out of her unintentionally.
Meanwhile, Steve started, "Riley Juniper O'Dair—"
"No, you're fine! Really!" Riley promised. "Don't listen to Tony, he's wearing astronaut pajamas, and he has flu brain! Remember when Clint thought he was hearing colors? Look at him now, he's fine! His hearing's perfectly fine!"
"Mm, debatable," Natasha said, to which Clint elbowed her. She elbowed him back harder, causing Clint to groan, "You win."
Finally, Riley found herself standing before Thor. Sighing, she reached into her pocket and found her thermometer, and Thor opened his mouth obediently. They'd done this dance several times in the last week or so. Like Steve, taking care of Thor was no easy feat either. Every time she took his temperature, it read well into the thousands. She knew this because the first time she took his temperature using a human thermometer, his godly DNA broke it, and Tony had to instruct her on how to build a thermometer that could read his inhuman temperature. (That, by the way, took an hour longer than it should have because Tony was totally back-seat inventing).
"I don't get it. How are you still sick?" Riley asked. She had assumed he would feel some effects of the flu, maybe, but his DNA would cure him in record timing. Alas, it'd been days, and no progress had been made. "Shouldn't your god DNA make you immune to ordinary human illnesses?"
Thor smiled innocently at her.
A terrible feeling pitted in her gut. Riley blinked at him. "Thor..."
"...Riley..." Thor matched, as if they were playing a game, where no one knew the rules except Thor. That seemed to always be how their training sessions went.
Carefully, Riley said, "Don't tell me I've been waiting on you hand and foot for the past week for no reason."
"Well," Thor said after a thoughtful moment, "I wouldn't say... no reason." He rose to his feet, blankets falling in a pool of fleece, fluff, and colors around his ankles. "I would remark, rather, these grueling days we share, bonding as true men and brothers alike—oh, don't make that face, your spirit is that of one thousand of my best men, Val!—is more than enough of a reason. It is a reason to smile, to toast! We gather here today, alive and—"
"You wanted me to take care of you!" Riley gasped. "And I didn't even notice because I was busy running around taking care of everyone else— You-You tricked me! You took advantage of me! I'm 14, you freak! I'm not your maid!"
"Time out," Tony chimed, holding his hands in a T-shape. "I thought calling you 14 was against the rules."
"If Riley Etiquette was a class in school, we'd all fail," Clint agreed.
"It's really not that confusing," Natasha mumbled, getting comfortable to watch what would unfold next. A showdown between a god and a pubescent orphan with ego issues. It was practically her Superbowl.
Riley, with a humbling amount of effort, lit her body with a dim glow of UV rays. Thor raised his hands before himself, like a hunter taming an apex predator (or a teenage girl, which was more or less the same thing).
"Ah, but you see, I, um, I knew you would— What was that movie you had us watch? The car one, the one about cars, and life is a highway! Whatever that means, isn't it all about the-the journey it took to get there— Well, don't look at me like that!" Thor stammered. It wasn't that he was scared of Riley, really, not in the physical sense. But she could be mean when she was annoyed, and sometimes, she knew exactly where to hurt him because she knew her fists would do no damage. "I knew you would get angry, and see, look, you're glowing! I mean, really, I'm not just complimenting your complexion! You're really glowing! You're glowing, Val! I knew you could do it—!"
"Don't make this a training thing, you C-List God!" Riley yelled as he bolted out of the room. "Get back here! Thor Odinson, when I get my hands on you— Achoo!"
Riley froze in her tracks, hands immediately flying to her masked mouth. Her glow faded at once, and her blood chilled.
"Did she just—?" Clint gasped. He grabbed Natasha by her hoodie.
Slowly, Steve took a wide step backward. "Did you just...?"
"No!" Riley snapped, twirling to face the remaining Avengers. "No, I did not!" Her skin suddenly felt boiling hot, and her eyes felt bleary, and her throat was sore, and her nose was runny, and how long had she felt like this? Had she felt like this for some time, and it was all crashing down on her now? No, no, no, no! Riley stamped her foot. "No, I do not sneeze. I have never sneezed. I never will sneeze. I don't believe in sneezing! I did not— Achoo!"
Tony tilted his head back, running a hand through his dark hair. "Dammit."
Riley sighed in defeat, tearing off her mask. "I know. I can't believe you guys got me sick in the end—"
"I can't believe I owe Nat my best jet now," Tony went on. "And 20 bucks." He reached into his pocket, yanking out a wadded bill from his wallet.
Natasha accepted it with a beam. "Told you so."
Riley's jaw fell slack. She looked between them in horror. "You... You betted on me getting sick?—" Sniffle. "—After everything we've been through?"
"Uh-huh." Natasha patted the empty spot beside her and lifted an arm. "Join us, shortie."
"Don't make it sound like a cult," Clint said. "Tony's gonna turn it into a dictatorship." Tony opened his mouth, and Clint immediately threw his pillow at him. Perfect shot, as always.
Riley's shoulders fell in defeat. She'd been on her feet for days—and before that, months. She could accept a little break. Dragging her feet, she plopped onto the couch beside Natasha. She didn't even bother checking her temperature or rushing to take any meds. She knew the protocol.
She was going to be here, stuck with these guys, for a while.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I have no idea what this is or where it came from or how much of this is out of character or where the Disney references keep coming from, but I hope at least one of y'all giggled. My writing style has changed so much since the peak of my fic writing on here, but I had fun writing this and tapping back into that side of my writing!
I missed writing this era of the Avengers especially :') 13-15-year-old Riley is one of my fav eras of hers (CA:TWS through Civil War).
Don't ask me why the gang is all together instead of getting well somewhere else, separately. IDK either. Cut to Wanda and Pietro committing like, international warcrimes while this is all happening lol