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[ Her once over is very brief, just a scan and a quick pass of her hands over his head and shoulders, practically not touching them at all because she doesn't want to hurt him. Nothing seems very serious, if it still looks pretty unpleasant. They hadn't broken any bones, at least. ]

Okay. Okay, let's go. Thank you.

[ He can still feel it though, because he's starting to feel everything, and a mild surge of panic drops that back down to a dealable level once more. He gives her a half-grin, really just a quirk in the corner of his mouth, and nods once, then starts to get out of the car. It's difficult, but to anyone who isn't a guide or a sentinel, it looks at least mostly natural.

Right now he doesn't really want thanks, so he's not sure what to do with them. ] Sure. C'mon. [ He thinks that they're for letting her look him over at all, not making her wait to do so, but it might be for something else. Who knows. Either way, he's turning his legs a bit, getting ready to follow her to the roof. ]

[ It doesn't look natural to her at all, but she's spent a while learning intimately how he moves, forced to use her memory and her own powers of observation to replace having a Sentinel's senses, and her eyes go shuttered a little before she closes and locks the door behind them. She's sure to not make it obvious that she's offering him herself as support, but it's there in the tilt of her body towards him.

Not that she's walking with any more ease than him, really, but she can at least tell herself she's used to it. It doesn't work great but it helps some. ] I'm glad SHIELD's competent.

[ Yeah, well, she's cheating. She doesn't have Sentinel senses and she's still cheating, realizing how unnatural his movements are. ] When they feel like it.

[ They continue to pretend to be natural until they actually make it to the roof, at which point he sort of stumbles once, and then suddenly decides that hey, this is a nice place to sit/collapse. They were both beaten up, but there was a reason he'd antagonized them enough to take him into another room. And there were repercussions from that. ]

[ The ladder is a massive goddamn pain in the ass, and if SHIELD doesn't bring helicopters and aerial support she doesn't care, she's not going back down that ladder. Somebody is picking her up from this roof or she's staying here.

She catches him on the way down a little, more or less winds up falling with him because she's not really steady on her feet herself, and winds up cross legged next from him, taking a deep breath to steady her spinning head. ] Tell me what hurts. [ Step one: determine where any injuries are. ] Don't say everywhere. I'm looking for specific centers of pain.

[ He feels momentarily selfish as hell when he sees her collapse next to him - he hadn't been quite as diversionary as he'd hoped - but he doesn't have the energy to argue with her right now, so he just gives her the main things all in one breath even while he shuts his eyes tight to rest for a moment. ] Knee, face, back, chest, balls. I'm gonna need that from you in a minute, too, so, get to listing.

[ She would have been fine if he hadn't collapsed she'd insist. And that she's fine, because she's not terribly off, this isn't all that bad at all. Bad, but, well. There's been a lot worse. Her hands are back on his face, just lightly resting on almost the air on either side as she starts a thorough once over. ] Fuckers. I happen to like your balls. [ Her own list takes a moment of consideration, because she hasn't really been paying thorough attention to that. ] Uh. Nose, ribs, ankle, back. It's not that bad. Does anything feel broken?

[ Small huff of amusement. He didn't say ribs, but. ] Yeah I usually like them too. Right now not so much. [ But again, he doesn't have the strength to lie to her. Or even put her off for long, so he cuts his own crap and just answers her questions. ] Something's wrong with my knee. And the reactor's not sitting well. Everything else is superficial. Now you, gradient of severity.

[ If his ribs are hurt he better tell her so because she'll find out regardless, she always does. And then she'll be - well, not mad. But irritated he tried to hide it from her. But she does appreciate the lack of needing to drag it out of him, because if he doesn't have the strength to lie to her she hasn't got a lot of strength left for dragging the truth out of him forcibly.

Don't they make a sorry pair, she thinks, and she reaches out instinctively, hand not quite on the arc reactor but on his chest, just next to it over his shirt. ] How bad is the reactor? [ Flat out ignoring his question until she gets that answered, because that is pretty fucking important and she doesn't consider anything of hers as important as that. ]

[ They're fine they're just bruised he totally gave her an honest run down of the things that are the most serious.

He narrows his eyes at her because he doesn't feel like that's particularly fair, of her to just ignore his question and harp on the thing he told her. ] It's not - it's okay, something's just bent. Weird connection every now and then when it's jostled too much. [ Which means he's happy they're not moving because when they do it occasionally shocks him a little bit, but it's not too bad. That's the reason his ribs hurt, because occasionally they missed. ] Seriously, answer the question.

[ Okay good. That's good.

She's going to answer it in a moment, she promises, as soon as she knows what's up with the reactor. She's incapable of considering herself more important than him, she doesn't really feel like her injuries are worth listing here much at all, but he's asking so she's answering. ] But it'll be easy to fix? [ Fine, okay, she'll go. ] My shoulder was dislocated but not for too long, it's good now. The ribs aren't good but they're not going to kill me either. Everything else just hurts but not enough to worry about. [ Beat, and then sudden and almost angry. ] Why'd you antagonize them, that's my job.

[ They can both have inferiority complexes later, after he makes sure she's okay. That's how this works, that's the deal. He waves off her question though, metaphorically, because he doesn't feel like waving right now. ] I'll fix it, it'll be fine. Just gotta take it smoothly. Hope SHIELD's sending a helicopter and not a squad of fleet vehicles. I'll fix it at home, bend the casing back right, fix the short.

[ He's not expecting the almost-anger though. His response is initially surprise, and then he narrows his eyes. ] That is not your job.

[ No, no, that is not the deal or how things work, she just wants to take care of him right now, she doesn't want to be checked up on because she doesn't know how to be, it's not what she's used to. But she does relax for a moment at that reassurance, that he's going to be able to fix that quickly. ] Okay, good.

[ But the tension and the anger hum back into her body a moment later, hands fisting. ] It is. This ever happens again, do the smart thing and let me take the hit. I can handle it.

[ Well how does she think he feels about being checked up on.

Also seriously now he's irritated and bristling at the insinuations he's hearing and he can't tell if they're both just relieving stress from all of that or if it's more of an actual issue brewing here. ] What, are you saying I can't?

[ Nobody ever said she wasn't incredibly hypocritical about this particular type of situation. Mostly because she really, really is. This is the place that her innate sense of justice and fairness flies out the window.

She snaps a little, snatches her hands back to herself, lips pressed firmly together. ] I'm saying I can better. I've done this ten years, come on. I could take anything they could throw at me. [ Glancing away as she realizes what she's about to say because even she can realize in the moment that this isn't fair of her, but. Her voice goes very quiet. ] Anything but you.

[ He already misses the contact, even if they are getting angry with each other now.

There's a comment about how taking it for ten years means she shouldn't have to anymore, that she's probably taken more than her share as it is and that he doesn't mind stepping in. He's had a pretty decent crash course, he feels like, and it goes against survival instincts, natural instincts, sentinel instincts, and just plainly what he wants to let her just get up and blindly protect him regardless of the situation. The headache and sensitivity he's been keeping at bay are blossoming over, but it doesn't stop him catching the quiet words.

And they're not fair. He understands them, because he could have just as easily said them to her, but that doesn't mean that he likes them at all. The comment he was preparing falls apart before he even draws the breath to say it, and he looks at her for a few more seconds before looking away instead, because he doesn't know what to say to that. The longer he doesn't know what to say to that, the more the fight ebbs back out of him, the more he thinks there probably isn't an answer for it, the more tired he feels all of a sudden. So it's a little while later that he replies, and it's not combative, nor resigned - he's just giving her information she might want. ] SHIELD's four minutes out. I can hear them coming.

[ She misses it almost immediately too, wants to touch him again for her own reassurance as well as his but can't because she doesn't know how to go back on her movement.

It's a comment that would have only brought out the same reaction from her as the one she just had, and that's that she can't. She cannot watch him be hurt without it tearing apart every preparation she has for pain, every ability to look at it clinically and remove herself from the situation. She's been through enough of it to know precisely the effect each blow has, knows intimately what pain comes from what, and the thought of him in that pain rattles the barriers of her mind the way the pain when it actually comes to her never manages to.

She stays looking away, no idea what to say next or how to follow up on that, how to explain what she means because there isn't any way to explain it without either sounding selfish or like she thinks he cares about her far less than she does about him. Only the first is true. She knows exactly how selfish it is in some respects to throw herself in front of someone else, knows that it's not remotely okay to do that to someone you care about, but she just - can't. ] Okay. [ And suddenly glancing back at him in concern. ] Your senses? How are they?

[ And he knows it didn't help that much, but it was why he antagonized them enough to be taken to another room entirely, so she wouldn't have to see it happen. Bit down on his shirt and lip and anything to muffle his own sounds when it was necessary or possible. He just wanted them away from her for a little bit. If he's not allowed to do things for her out of obligation, she's going to have a fucking hard time explaining to him how he's not immediately obligated to protect her or take a turn for her if she's going to try and get up every single time so that he doesn't get hurt. He doesn't see how that's even remotely fair, and too much of that and he'll start to chafe and bristle until he rebels altogether.

When she looks back over, he's tense. He's trying not to look like it, but he's more or less vibrating, just a little, it's hard to notice it. He's completely silent - you'd only know he's breathing because his ribs are moving like he is. But he's zoning out and pulling in and trying to respond to her to keep her from worrying, because that's what started this, isn't it? He comes out of it a little bit, blinks a few times and looks a little less glazed, because she's making him interact with her again. ] They're fine. They'll be fine until we get home. Two minutes twelve.

[ The worst part is easily that she knows what he was thinking, knows that she would have done the exact same thing if he hadn't been better at it, if she hadn't been dizzy and disconnected too much to realize what he was doing in time to head him off and make them not care about him.

She would have done exactly the same thing. Wanted to do the same thing. She knows exactly how hypocritical she's being right now and that his frustration with her is reasonable, it's just that every time she tries to be reasonable in turn about it she thinks about him in pain and every part of her balks and refuses to cooperate with anything that allows that. She's accustomed to the idea of being hurt herself, desensitized to it being something worth much consideration, but he's an entirely different matter.

And he doesn't look really good right now, and definitely not like he's actually fine. Very much not like he's actually fine, and she pauses and watches him more closely, brushes against his mind in search of permission to help. ] Tony.

[ He shakes his head a little, against the din and the lights and the smells and the taste of the city in his mouth and in his lungs and under his eyelids. It does nothing for the headache, but it pushes things back a little more. He'd been distracted by their conversation, hadn't had much reserve to keep everything at bay anyway. It's a little late to be helping, a little inevitable in the first place, really, for anything like that, but when he looks at her again this time there's no trace of the irritation or actual anger that was present in the conversation they just had. His eyes are a little unfocused but that might just be because everything is so crystal sharp right now, it hurts to look at it all. ] Sorry.

[ She just looks tired when she meets his gaze again, weary and a little sad rather than anything angry. She's mad at herself for fighting with him rather than helping, doesn't know what to do with him apologizing and she's not even sure what he's apologizing for, just doesn't want him to. She's just - tired. ] Don't. Please. [ Don't try to say he's sorry for anything, because he shouldn't be. Shouldn't feel like he needs to be. She's too worn out to do a great deal, but she can provide some small help to his senses. Hopefully at least keep the worst out. ]

Nothing's your fault.

[ He can mostly see that expression but he's getting distant again. ] Thirty-four seconds. [ Although by this point, he thinks she should probably be able to hear them too, maybe. He has no idea. He won't apologize again - even for apologizing in the first place when she apparently didn't want it. And who knows what it was for. Maybe for arguing so closely to an experience that clearly rattled them both. Maybe for having taunted their kidnappers and worrying her to begin with. Maybe for the way he's pretty sure he's about to retreat into himself and away from the rest of the painful, overstimulating world.

That pulls him back a little bit though. Enough to snort a small amount of amusement. Lots of things are his fault. Maybe not this time, in this specific instance, but still. Lots of things. ]

[ And that's her fault, in a lot of ways, and maybe in a little bit she'll know what to do with that and how to try to fix it but right now she doesn't. She can accept she's fucked up until it hurts people she cares about, and then she doesn't know how to stop. ] Just tell me if you - [ Who's she kidding? He's not going to ask for help, most likely, he doesn't tend to. And right now it's even less likely, she's pretty sure. ]

Please tell me if I can help. [ She doesn't like that laugh, she doesn't like the distance in his eyes, and she wants to start this all over again and, you know, actually, if she could go back to before people started hitting him and her too, that would be good. She's actually really tired of people hitting her, which might sound like something she should have realized a long time ago but it's been a while since being tired of it occurred to her as a possibility. Right now, what she wants is for him to be okay, to sleep for about ten hours, and to not feel like someone tried to turn her into soup, in that order. ] Need a hand up?

[ It is less likely but not because he's mad at her or anything, just because there's honestly not a whole lot he thinks she can do. But he nods a little bit, more acknowledgement than anything else. He's running on lots of instincts now, giving over to them more than to conscious thought, which is probably why his shield over her suddenly starts to grow. Forethought for the care and worry from the SHIELD personnel, for the chaos that will be whatever treatment center they wind up in, and to a degree from the numbness that's going to come from his side of whatever connections they do have. It's a good shield, doesn't take much from him to make, and even while it's going up, he reaches to grab her hand and stand up to move. ]

[ Every time he thinks that she still manages to be able to do at least something. One of these days she's going to convince him that he should just tell her regardless and see.

She can feel his shield going up, blinks and then nods slowly at him in thanks, presses the thought of it against his mind because she's more and more tired of talking as the moments go by, and then throws up her own as well, double blocking as the helicopters touch down and people move out, a few coming to meet them and usher them onboard, Max not letting go of at least one hand on Tony at all moments, putting herself between him and anyone else's touch even if she's too tired to talk or do much of anything else. ]

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