(+1) lee, donghae

Thanks to some nastier than expected giant frogs, Hyukjae wakes up in a hospital bed. He hasn’t even opened his eyes yet but the painkillers are already wearing off, and everything hurts. Not even an inch of him seems to be spared off the pain.

His whole body hurts, first of all. Hyukjae’s pretty sure that he’s broken at least a dozen bones. It’s painful to even breathe, of all things, and his left arm feels like someone decided to pour liters of ing acid on it. Hyukjae’s temples are aching with an intense headache, too, and his throat is almost fully parched with dehydration. ing fantastic. He can’t say that this is the worst that he’s ever experienced, considering his affiliations, but he’s also seen much, much better days.

But more than just physical pain, Hyukjae’s damned pride is hurt.

Giant ing frogs, goddamn it. How in the world did this even happened?! This is—this is ridiculous, it’s what it is. All those slimy things did was spit out burning acid and jump all around the streets; it’s not like he couldn’t have handled it, right?! And yeah, okay, maybe they’d been thirty feet tall, but still. He’s good enough to knock out Bucky on his feet and bring down entire HYDRA bases all on his own, but giant frogs?! Oh, no, no, giant frogs are too much of a hassle for him, aren’t they? Just let him stick with crazy Nazi agents and brainwashed ex-KGB assassins instead.

So, yeah. Hyukjae is ing mad.

Hyukjae’s headache intensifies promptly. His heart starts to pound painfully within his chest. He supposes that getting so worked up right after such a beating up isn’t really health-friendly, after all.

Suddenly, an assault of noises collides with his ears. It feels a bit like he’d been underwater for too long and someone just pulled him up to the surface, except that his brain wasn’t ready to take it all in at once. And , the headache. Groaning under his breath, Hyukjae manages to open his eyes for a fraction of second.

He just has enough time to see a giant lion growling furiously at a bunch of frightened nurses, before he’s unconscious all over again.

.

The next time that Hyukjae wakes up, there’re pairs of dark brown and baby blues eyes staring down worriedly at him. The first are Bucky’s, he’s sure of it, and he thinks, he thinks that the second person is Rogers. Steve, maybe. He did save him with Donghae from the giant frogs, so. Perhaps it’s a good enough reason to call him by his first name, right? Right.

There’s also a really Big Cat at the feet of his bed. And it looks like it’s—keeping guard? Hyukjae’s not really sure. But Big Cat is glaring fiercely at both Bucky and Steve, as if they might try to kill him in his sleep. It’s kind of funny, really.

Hyukjae tries to open his mouth to tell Donghae, you’re adorable, do you know that? But the following second, he’s already out cold.

.

“When do you think he’ll wake up?” says someone, and Hyukjae thinks it’s Tony, except that they sound uncharacteristically concerned.

 “Soon enough,” Bucky—it kind of sounds like Bucky—says. “He’s a tough cookie. It’s just how his body works.”

“I don’t think it’ll ever be soon enough,” Steve sighs wearily. “Donghae hasn’t changed back ever since it happened. He just keeps whining at Hyukjae or growling at the nurses and doctors that try to approach him.”

“Never say that a cat can’t be monogamous, I suppose.”

They hear a loud, warning tiger’s growl, before it’s all black again.

.

Hyukjae feels like he should maybe explain himself.

It’s not so much that he has such a weak body that he needs several days to get back up on his feet, really. It’s more that he has a very protective, very strong, and very demanding recovery system. Whenever he’s in a critical state, his body shuts down on its own. It freezes up the damage so it won’t get worse, and then works on healing him from the inside. His overall temperature then starts to go up and down, until Hyukjae’s fully functional again. And when he says fully functional, he means that he won’t have even a trace of a scar left on his body.

Hyukjae supposes that’s what they call a secondary mutant ability.

Bucky knows about it because once, Hyukjae shut down after getting shot by a nasty HYDRA weapon. For eight entire days, Hyukjae stayed completely unconscious. When he finally woke up, Bucky nearly sent him into relapse when he punched Hyukjae with his shiny bling-bling for ‘scaring the in’ life outta me, you in’ idiot’.

Hyukjae’s never thought about mentioning it to the Av