So it's mid-October and there's no new Supernatural episodes to look forward to...It's hitting me a bit harder than I expected. So I took all that emotion and put it into some hurt/comfort and Dean taking care of Sam that we didn't get to see in canon because that's my happy place. I also wrote this for whumptober day 31: Hurt/comfort, disaster zone, trauma, prisoner. Not sure if I'll get any more stories done before the month is out since I'm incapable of writing short things, but hey one is better than none, right? That and I've wanted to write a tag like this to 12x02 literally for years and I finally got around to it.

Did I really use an Avengers quote as the title in a SPN story? Yes, yes I did, because it's got triple meaning for this story and it just works and I'm a nerd that doesn't own anything. Enjoy!


Dean wanted nothing more than to keep driving, to put as much distance between them and the psychotic Brits and get as close to the bunker as they could. It was only a six hour drive. On a normal day, they'd be able to do it without breaking a sweat. But as they started down the highway, two things made Dean rethink that immediate reaction.

The first and most important was the fact that Sam, exhausted and bloodied in the passenger seat of the Impala, kept looking at him once every five minutes to make sure that he was really there. They'd done a quick bandage job on the side of the road with the promise of fixing him up properly once they stopped. Cas, having been banished and blocked by warding, would be able to heal him the next morning or afternoon once his grace recharged enough.

Point being, Sam wasn't up for a six-hour car ride, no matter how much he'd insist he was fine. Dean could see the physical wounds they'd inflicted on his brother, but there was something in his eyes suggesting more than just physical battery. That and the fact that as far as Sam had known, Dean was dead, on a cosmic scale, for good this time. They'd had the goodbye hug and chick-flick moment, the whole nine.

So yeah, all Dean wanted to do was bundle Sam back into the bunker, but that wouldn't do any good if Sam completely fell apart first. And Dean was a master of piecing him back together, the sooner the better.

The second thing was Dean didn't trust Mick, not at all, and didn't know how many other Brits were out there. They probably expected them to head right for the bunker. If they were lying in wait to ambush them when they arrived, Dean wanted to make sure this family was back to full strength to fight back. A half-conscious little brother and a severely de-powered angel wouldn't make the all star team, that was for sure.

So instead, he drove south for half an hour down some backroads he knew had no street cameras to throw the Brits off if they were being watched and then headed west, though not as far as he wanted to. The whole time, Cas's truck was present in his rearview mirror, the angel and his mother seated in front.

Mary had wanted to ride in the Impala, but Dean had taken one look at Sam and known that sitting with two newly resurrected family members was just asking for disaster. He had told her that as gently as possible and while she was hesitant, she had finally agreed. Maybe she needed the time too. Seeing her infant son suddenly standing almost six and a half feet tall had to be a shock for her.

It was the two of them, some soft rock, and the flat backroads all around them as they detoured towards home. It wasn't all that different from a normal trip. Except that it was, in quite a few ways Dean very pointedly was trying not to think of.

He made the call to stop after two hours when Sam's blinks started lasting longer and he supported more of his weight against the car door. Dean pulled off at the first motel that didn't look like it would be absolutely crawling with bacteria and parked in front of the office.

Cas met him outside the car. "What's the plan?" the angel asked.

"Figure we'll stop here for the night, get the rest of the way home in the morning. You should be good to fix up Sam by then, right?"

Cas nodded, and something in Dean's chest loosened. "With the extent of his injuries, yes, it shouldn't put too much of a strain on my abilities by morning."

Dean looked between Sam and Mary in the passenger seats of their respective vehicles. "Hey, uh, one more thing," Dean paused and ran a hand over his mouth. "Would you mind rooming with mom? Just, I've gotta, you know, patch Sam up, and he's—maybe it's best she not see him like that, not yet," he said, stumbling through it.

Seeing Sam as a full grown man was one thing. Seeing him injured and exhausted, both emotionally and physically, may be too much to handle, for both her and Sam.

Thankfully, Cas got exactly what he meant. "Of course, Dean, it's no trouble."

"Thanks, man," Dean smiled at him. After Cas nodded again, Dean headed inside the office and got two adjoining rooms. When he came out and passed Cas his key, Mary was standing outside the truck, apparently having been filled in by Cas.

"I can help," she started.

"I know you can," Dean said with a sigh. "It just may be a little overwhelming for him, you know? Once we get back to the bunker, he'll be itching to talk to you about everything, I promise."

Mary looked like the wanted to protest, but eventually settled on a small frown before she nodded minutely. She walked over to the Impala, where Sam's window was open, exchanged a few words with him, and got back into the truck. From there, Cas followed Dean to where the manager had said their rooms were and they pulled in.

Dean busied itself getting items out of the trunk while Cas and Mary headed into their room. Duffels and med kit in hand, Dean dropped the items inside their room before he headed back outside to give Sam a hand out of the car.

"Shoulda brought you some flip-flops," Dean said lightly, wincing in sympathy as Sam straightened next to the car and tried to put weight on his bandaged foot. No way in hell he'd be putting it in a boot until Cas healed it.

"Do we even own flip-flops?" Sam asked, a little pale and breathless by the time Dean closed the door and maneuvered himself under Sam's arm to support him. The fact that he was conversing with Dean's stupid comment in itself was a good sign.

Dean got used to his brother's weight and slowly they made their way inside the motel room. "Something to invest in, hm?"

"Big investment," Sam said and groaned as Dean perched him on the corner of one of the beds.

"Maybe that'll finally be what gets the fake credit cards flagged," Dean smirked at him and turned around to rifle through one of the duffels on the table, looking for the med kit. "I'm guessing you want first shower?"

He expected Sam to pause before answering, but not for going on ten seconds. Dean found the med kit and set it on the table. When he turned back around, Sam was staring blankly at the wall, muscles in his jaw working just underneath the skin.

"Sammy?"

Sam honestly flinched at that, a single full-body shake, and tried to cover the fact that it happened. "What?"

Dean watched him, one eyebrow crooked towards the ceiling. "Shower? And then I can do up your bandages until Cas can fix you up in the morning?"

Sam very slowly shook his head.

"You sure, man? I mean, I know it'll sting, but it should be good—"

"I'll wait until we're back at the bunker," Sam said decisively. He finally tore his eyes away from the wall to look at Dean just once. But the was all it took. There was a lot going on under the surface that Sam wasn't voicing, and while Dean knew it would come out with time, the longer it sat and festered, the worse it would get. Maybe this they could leave until he was at least fixed up.

"Alright then," Dean shrugged, trying for nonchalance. "More hot water for me," he added with a smile, which Sam didn't return. Dean slid a chair over from the kitchenette and laid out the med kit on the floor by Sam's feet. "Your shirt's definitely a lost cause. Lucky for you, I'm an awesome big brother."

He pulled out one of Sam's softest flannels (and Dean only knew that because Sam wore it and washed it so often the thing was practically a big fuzz ball) and a pair of sweatpants and tossed both onto the bed.

"You came prepared," Sam said, voice a little quieter than before. He watched, muscles tense, as Dean grabbed a pair of scissors and started cutting Sam's tattered shirt off him so it wouldn't further aggravate his injuries trying to pull it over his head.

Dean wanted to say that he had to come prepared, that all he'd found at the bunker was a puddle of blood and a missing little brother. That he didn't know how badly Sam was hurt so he'd packed their kit full of anything he could think of. That he picked out soft and easy to put on clothes that Sam could manage even in the worst of situations.

He didn't say any of it. "You know it. Only fit one change of clothes in the bag though, since everything you wear is made for freaking gigantors."

Sam let out just a tiny huff of a laugh at that. Dean got to work slowly peeling the shirt off Sam's wounds, being careful not to pull too hard. When the garment was in a bloody pile on the floor next to the bed, Sam's eyes were shining.

"You want some pain meds?" Dean asked, suddenly worried that Sam's injuries were much more serious than just surface-level.

Sam shook his head, hair falling in front of his face. He took a moment to respond, and when he did, he didn't answer Dean's question. "Didn't think I'd hear anyone call me that again is all." His voice cracked as he said it, and he made no move to get the hair out of his face, hiding behind the matted shield.

"I've got three days of name-calling to make up for, noted," Dean said after he'd taken a long breath in and let it out slowly. He then cleared his throat and sat down in the chair in front of Sam. When his brother didn't make any moves, Dean took initiative and tucked Sam's hair behind his ear on one side so Dean could at least see part of his face. "And some hair cutting, by the looks of it. Scissors are still right here, wouldn't even take a minute."

He was rewarded for his efforts with a watery smirk.

"I'm thinkin' bandages, not stitches. So long as you don't go running any marathons at two in the morning, they should hold until morning. Sound okay?"

Sam just nodded and let Dean get to work. He really had brought most of the infirmary. Actual antiseptic and antibiotic cream, anything to stave off possible infection to make sure Cas could really heal everything wrong. He worked with gentle fingers, hyper-aware of every wince Sam made.

He put butterfly bandages over the cuts on Sam's face, pulling him together slowly but surely. If only he could draw together the wounds in Sam's soul and psyche as easily as he could pull together two pieces of torn flesh. The chest wounds took a little more cleaning, but he worked with expert efficiency earned by years of patching people up in motel rooms. He was just pressing down the bandage on the second of Sam's chest wounds when his brother spoke.

"Dean, what…happened? You're here and mom's here and it's just…" he trailed off. "Doesn't…how is this happening?"

How is this real?

They'd been down that slippery slope one too many times by the looks of it, given how Sam was absent-mindedly rubbing his right thumb into his left palm. Dean had noticed the nervous tick over the years, especially in recent days with Lucifer in the bunker and the end of the world once again being nigh.

"Turns out all God and his sister needed was a heart-to-heart," Dean said, completely serious. Sam looked at him, a mixture of surprise and confusion on his face. "Honestly. She didn't want him dead, she wanted him to understand, that was it. She took out the souls and brought mom back as a thank you before she and Chuck turned into this…yin yang glowing fog thing and disappeared."

"Glowing fog thing," Sam whispered under his breath.

"That's the technical term," Dean added with just a bit of a smile. "But hey, nothing to bite us in the ass later, the world didn't end, I'll take the win."

Sam nodded and looked down as Dean finished the last of his chest wounds. Dean then held up the scissors and gestured to Sam's jeans. "Cut or shuffle 'em off?"

Sam paused for a moment, genuinely thinking about it, before he opted to shuffle them off with Dean's help and swap them with the sweatpants Dean had brought. The vet hadn't done a horrible job with Sam's gunshot wound, thankfully, so Dean re-bandaged it and got him into the cozy sweatpants.

"How you feeling?" Dean leveled his eyes at him as Sam got himself resituated on the end of the bed. His complexion definitely wasn't as good as before, and his eyes had started to glaze over, probably from both pain and exhaustion. That and whatever else the Brits had done to him.

Sam shrugged with his less injured arm. "Saved the best for last," he muttered and glanced down at his foot. That bandage had to be removed, that was for certain. It was filthy and looked like it had been soaking wet at one point in time. On instinct, Dean reached forward to feel Sam's forehead and was rewarded with a slightly warmer than normal temperature. Dean doubted it would be bad enough to spike overnight, but he made a mental note to give Sam both some painkillers and antibiotics to help before he passed out.

"I'll make it quick, alright? Promise."

Sam looked back at him, trust and something deeper in his slightly unfocused eyes, and nodded.

Dean both gently and quickly unwound the old, half-hazardly applied bandage from around Sam's foot, having to bite down a wince of his own when he saw the injury. It was a deep burn wound, that much was obvious. Definitely third degree, almost cauterized in some areas. Some of the nerve endings were probably shot. Dean's gut churned when he realized that was only something along the lines of a blowtorch could do.

Someone had taken a blowtorch to his little brother's foot.

They'd burn for that.

Dean didn't try to make any jokes, not for this. He grabbed the antiseptic, wet some gauze, and dabbed it over the wound. Sam physically recoiled as soon as it made contact with the surrounding, less damaged skin. His hands wound into the blanket on the bed and he looked mere moments from passing out. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. But then Dean remembered medication and food and fluids, and he worked faster.

"Almost done, Sammy, almost there," he said what he hoped was a quiet, comforting voice. Once he was convinced the antiseptic had done its job, he rewrapped the burn in more padded gauze, careful not to make it too tight, and secured it. "All done. You're like half a mummy."

The corner of Sam's mouth quirked up, and he started listing to the side.

"Woah, woah, easy." Dean jumped up from the chair and helped maneuver Sam so he was leaning back against the headboard instead with his legs stretched out in front of him. "How's about a protein bar, some meds, and then bed, alright? You'll be good as new in the morning, hm?"

Sam just blinked at him. Maybe he didn't believe he'd be fixed up by morning, Dean couldn't really tell. Then again, the trauma of having your believed dead brother return from the dead wasn't something that magically fixed itself overnight. Oh, so Dean wished. Would've saved them a lot of heartache over the years.

Dean grabbed the protein bars, water, and meds from the duffel he brought, and watched Sam eat and drink mechanically while he prattled on about random things. Comments about the farmhouse the Brits had Sam stashed at, who would win the Nobel Prize for why the sun dimmed and came back full power. Sam took the water and pills when offered and after Dean helped him into the soft flannel he'd brought, Dean fully expected him to pass out right where he was sitting in the bed. But he didn't.

Instead, Sam opened his eyes more fully and looked out the window, where the sunlight was coming in almost orange as the sun began to set. He kept staring at it, in a way that was nearing unsettling.

"Sam?" Dean prompted after a moment and sat on the bed next to his brother's outstretched legs.

Sam was silent for a few moments. "There were windows in the cellar," he said, voice almost a whisper.

Dean nodded, remembering the slats the sunlight had fallen through as he stood there strung up six ways from Sunday.

"They asked me questions all day and night. And they kept asking where you were. And I said—said that you were dead. And they didn't believe me." Sam kept looking at the sunlight marching its way across the floor, a stretching beam of rectangular light. Sam's jaw worked and tears glistened in his eyes. "The sun came up. It only came up because you were dead, and they still didn't believe me."

Dean's eyes burned at that, thinking of Sam, alone and tortured in that cellar and trying to convince his captors that his brother was indeed dead for good this time because the sun had risen. What should've been seen as a sign of hope and reprieve from a torturous night brought nothing but more painful reminders.

And this was precisely why Dean hadn't wanted their mom in the room. Because Sam would no doubt be less open—not that he was saying everything now, not by a long shot—and much more self conscious with a practical stranger in the room, even if she was their mom. Probably especially since she was their mom. That, and she didn't need to see this, not yet, not how cruel the world had been to them and that they knew how to build each other back up after events like this like a practiced house of cards.

"I'm here now," Dean said and rested his hand gently on Sam's sweatpants-clad knee, "and I'm not goin' anywhere."

Sam sniffled and when he tore his eyes away from the window, a tear dripped down onto his flannel. "You say that like you usually have a choice in the matter, Dean. You don't. We don't. And now, with mom back, if something happens to her—" his throat closed up and choked off the rest of that sentence.

"Hey, hey, I know." And Dean did know. That had been one of the first things he thought after he got over the initial surprise of his mom being back. The first was that their family was larger, and the second was that their family was larger. More people to watch his and Sam's backs, more people to get hurt in the process. "But she's tough. And she's got us and Cas looking out for her. We'll make it work, okay? Protect each other."

Sam just kept looking at him, searching for something unknowable in Dean's eyes. His hands were still working over the scar on his palm that had long since faded to jagged white lines. When he didn't say anything else to confirm he understood or repeat a similar thought, Dean reached out and took Sam's left hand in his own.

The scar was mostly smooth, but as Dean ran his fingers against it, there were still some imperfections. A healed reminder of what his little brother had been through. What he'd overcome. And just a fraction of it at that.

"I know it's a lot, Sam, I do, trust me I'm trying to wrap my head around it just as much as you are. But we're all here now, and I plan on fighting like hell to keep it that way, you hear?"

It took a few moments, but eventually Sam nodded. "Really thought this time would be it," he said and let out a breath.

Dean didn't need any clarification. He simply squeezed Sam's palm. "Yeah, well it wasn't. Instead we're here, and have a record two-for-two chick flick moments in under a week." He jostled their hands just a little and smiled.

Sam shifted against the pillows and leaned his head a little more against them. "You don't mind," he said knowingly.

"You tell the media, and I'll take Baby and bail so fast…"

"You wouldn't." And there it was. The soft little smile that eased some of the tension in Dean's chest. Even through the glassiness in Sam's gaze, there was coherence and emotion and understanding. Dean wouldn't trade it for anything.

Dean cleared his throat and scooted the chair closer to the head of the bed so he wouldn't have to reach as far. "Get some sleep, Sammy. I'll be here in the morning, promise." Dean didn't bother moving their hands, there was no point to do so, chick flicks be damned. They'd both thought the other was dead, or nearly so, for days. The least they could ask for was a physical tether to assure the other that they were, in fact, alright.

Sam kept that soft smile on his face as he slowly gave in to the painkillers and his breaths evened out. Dean watched as he fell asleep and the room slowly descended into darkness, the evening light fading from the window.

He didn't know how long he kept watch before falling asleep, but he woke up at some point to the feeling of pins and needles in his arm. Dean raised his head and groaned at the uncomfortable sensation, only to find that Sam was already awake and watching him through much clearer eyes.

He was smiling.

Behind Dean, morning sunlight streamed in through the window and bathed the motel room in warm gold.


So this will be marked as complete for now, but I wouldn't be opposed to following it up with a part two. If anyone liked this and would want to read a continuation to fully bridge the scene gap in 12x02, I'd love for you to let me know!