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Tommy is doing the dishes when there’s a knock on his door. He glances at the clock to check - yep, it’s 3am. Who the hell is knocking on his door at this time of night?
He debates not answering for all of a nano second, but there’s only a small handful of people who know where he lives and none of them are prone to unexpected drop ins, so he’s curious. He strides to the door and throws it open to see Noh-Varr leaning against his doorjamb and looking like seven different types of hell. His face is a blotchy mass of purple and blue bruising, with one eye completely swollen shut. His lip is split open and there’s blood on shirt that looks like it’s coming from a wound on his shoulder. He’s also clutching his sides in a way that indicates he might have a broken rib or two.
“Hey”, Noh says and attempts to grin at Tommy, although it ends up more of a grimace. “I was just passing by and thought I’d pop in, say hi.”
Tommy doesn’t even blink. “Sure thing man. Come on in. You’re looking good, how have you been?”
Noh laughs at that, and maybe Tommy shouldn’t have been so flippant because the laughter seems to hurt Noh more and he doubles up as he hobbles slowly into the apartment. Tommy quickly locks the door behind him and helps Noh into his shoebox of a bathroom, ignoring Noh’s statements that he can manage on his own, and unceremoniously shoving his wounded teammate onto the toilet before rummaging in his bathroom cabinet for a first aid kit.
Noh’s shirt is done for. It’s already so ripped and bloody that even Billy would be hard pushed to put it together again. So Tommy doesn’t bother trying to get it over Noh’s head, he just cuts it off with a pair of scissors. Noh doesn’t really care anyway. Civilian clothes are just camouflage that allow him to walk around Earth undetected.
Tommy picks up one of the tubes of sterile water in the kit, takes one look at the sheer amount of blood covering Noh and sighs. He puts the tube down and switches on his shower. “Too much blood. I’ll save the sterile water to clean out your cuts. You’ll just have to shower off the rest of it.”
Noh just nods his agreement and stands up to strip off his jeans. He can’t bend much and so Tommy has to help him off with his remaining clothes, while trying desperately not to think about the fact that he was currently helping his crush out of his boxer shorts. Not exactly the way you imagined this doing, hey Shepherd?
He gently shoves Noh under the spray and watches as the water sluices the blood off of him. There’s a lot of it, but very little of it appears to be Noh’s. Just the small cut on his lip and a gash on his arm. As the blood is washed away Noh’s bruises appear and they just about cover him, looking stark against Noh’s pale white skin. In addition to the horror of Noh’s face there’s bruises dotting his chest and his side is practically black. Definitely broken, Tommy thinks to himself as he makes sure his eyes stay north of Noh’s waist. Now is not the time to be checking him out, Tommy’s not a total creeper.
Noh stays under just enough to clean the blood off and then climbs out before heavily sitting down on top of the toilet seating again. Tommy hands him a towel for appearances sake - Noh is completely unbothered by nudity, whether his or another persons. Tommy could strip off right now and Noh wouldn’t bat an eye. He shuts down that train of thought immediately and tries to bring up a new topic for his brain to concentrate on. “So, what happened? Did you try to hit on America and end up getting a tank thrown at you?”
Noh smiles at Tommy’s quip, but answers the question seriously. “I was on my way home from a club and I was jumped.” Tommy raises an eyebrow as he starts to clean out Noh’s wounds. Noh is strong. Like really strong, a random mugger wouldn’t stand a chance against him. “There was four of them. All Kree.” Ah, thought Tommy. That explained how they managed to land a punch then.
“It wasn’t random, they were looking for me. I don’t know why - I have no idea who they even were - but they were. They surprised me and managed to get the better of me. At least at first.”
“Tell me they’re worse off than you” Tommy said, pulling out the bandages and starting on Noh’s ribs.
“Well I left them all unconscious. They’ll live, I just put them down long enough to get out of there. But I had to assume that since they knew where to find me they’d know where I lived. I couldn’t go back there in this state.”
“So you need a place to lay low, until you heal?” Tommy said, and wondered when his life turned into film noir.
“Exactly. And you were the closest location.”
“Awww, so you didn’t choose me for my sparkling personality?”
Noh didn’t even bother to dignify that with a response. Tommy finished off bandaging Noh’s ribs as he thought to himself. Noh healed super quickly. Not as fast as Teddy obviously, but much faster than Tommy. If he got a good nights rest then he’d probably be mostly done by morning.
He helped Noh to his feet and Noh slowly walked back into the living room, clutching the towel around his waist in lieu of putting his battered clothes back on. Tommy helped him into his bedroom and skillfully manhandled Noh into a pair of sweatpants before getting him settled into Tommy’s bed. Noh was being awfully quiet, just watching Tommy with this assessing gaze, like he was wondering what Tommy would do next.
What Tommy did next was to grab the spare pillow and head through to the living room where he chucked it on the sofa. He grabbed two bottles of vitamin water from his fridge - giving his half finished bowl of dishes languishing in the sink a cursory glace - before heading back to the bedroom, snagging a radio on the way. He flipped the radio on and switched it to a Golden Oldies station, that played all the awful music that Noh just loved. For some reason music helped Noh to heal.
“Right, here’s the plan” he said and watched the amused expression on Noh’s face. You’re going to drink that water and get a good nights sleep. Then tomorrow, once you’re healed, we’re going to check out your hideout and see what’s what.”
Noh grinned and grabbed a bottle of water from the side. “You’re the boss” he said and mock saluted Tommy. Tommy just rolled his eyes and headed back towards the living room and his sofa. Thank god he’d made sure he had a comfortable one when he bought it.
“Tommy”, came Noh’s voice before he reached the door. He stopped and turned back to his teammate. “Thank you.”
Tommy mock saluted him without words, and closed the door as he left the room.