That romantic caretaking list is giving me feels!! Can you please do a romantic caretaking/comfort drabble, post-whump? I don’t care if it’s after getting shot or tortured, or just being weakened by illness. I just need a whumpee who is in pain, being gently cared for and soothed by their S.O.
Ask and you shall receive! I hope this is what you were after!
The caretaker leans forward, slips her arms underneath the whumpee’s knees and back, and pulls him to her chest. He leans into her, maybe because of the warmth -- he’s been freezing cold since they got him back, even bundled in blankets as he is.
“Love,” the caretaker says, voice gentle, “I need you to put your arms around my neck.”
The whumpee buries his face in the caretaker’s neck, groans, but doesn’t otherwise move an inch. Humming under her breath, the caretaker lifts the arm she’s got around the whumpee’s back and uses her now-free hand to guide his arms around her neck. When she’s sure he won’t fall, she winds her arm back around the mostly-asleep whumpee’s back.
He whimpers, shakes his head, as the caretaker lifts him from the table that the team had used to clean up the whumpee when they’d finally gotten him home. She shoves the image of him shaking, crying out, still covered in blood, out of her mind. “It’s okay now,” she whispers in his ear, holding him tighter to her. “You’re okay now. I’ve got you.”
It’s a quick walk from the kitchen to the caretaker’s bedroom. Once they get there, having been unimpeded by the other members of their team, she nudges the door closed with her foot to give herself and the whumpee some privacy. Getting over to the bed isn’t as difficult as she’d imagined it would be, thankfully, but she still watches where she steps. The caretaker doesn’t want to jostle the whumpee—he’s already been through so much—and she’s even more careful as she lays him down on the bed.
Someone else has already come through and pulled the blankets on the beds back—one of her worried teammates must’ve taken care of that in an effort to help; the ones who weren’t working on the whumpee’s bandages were running around and wringing their hands in a way that had made the caretaker even more nauseous – and the caretaker grabs the edge of them before sitting down next to the whumpee.
Once she’s gotten the blankets pulled around the both of them, she pulls him to her. He finds the energy to squirm around and curl up beside her, resting his head on her shoulder and, again, burying his face in her neck. Satisfied with his position, the whumpee’s body goes completely limp against the caretaker’s.
The corners of the caretaker’s mouth tilt up a bit. She wraps her arms around him. One goes around his waist and the other finds it’s way around his back so that she can run her fingers through his hair.
“Thank you for saving me.” The whumpee’s teeth are nearly chattering he’s so cold. He’s having trouble getting the words out, but that might be more the exhaustion than the cold. His voice is thick with sleep. “I missed you.”
The caretaker runs her hand up and down the whumpee’s back in an attempt to warm him and provide some measure of comfort. Her chest tightens as his words really sink in. She shoves the feeling down, turning to brush her lips over his temple instead. “You never have to thank me for that, you know. I’ll always come for you.”
The whumpee smiles into her neck. His only response is a rather impressive yawn, but the sentiment is clear.
“I missed you, too,” she murmurs into his ear. “A lot.”
Working some of the remaining tension from his back and shoulders with one hand, and running the other through his hair, the caretaker feels the whumpee slowly drift to sleep. She whispers to him every few minutes – all of the “I’ve got you”s and “I love you”s and “I’ll never let anyone hurt you again”s that she’s wanted to say since they took him, since they found him – and sings when she runs out of things to say.
When the whumpee does wake up later, after the caretaker has managed to get a bit of shut-eye for herself, she’s still there, rubbing his back and murmuring into his ear.
The whumpee manages to get out a soft “I love you” of his own, and then he’s back to sleep. The caretaker smiles and kisses his cheek. “I love you, too.”
