Title: Unbreakable
Part: 3/?
Author: angelita26
Rating: PG-13
Characters and/or Pairing: Gen – Neal, Diana
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: Unbetaed. Minor medical squick. Mention of offscreen physical abuse.
Word Count: ~1300
Summary: Diana hates feeling vulnerable, but right now it's unavoidable.

Notes: Written for a prompt at collarkink that can be found at the end of this chapter. There are five parts to this fic so far, but there will be between eight and ten parts total.

Part 1: Day 0/ Month 3
Part 2: Month 7



Timestamp #3: Week 1

...And I Told You to be Balanced... ~ ”Skinny Love”, Bon Iver

Neal woke, groggy from the drugs and the lingering effects of his injuries. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, listening for whatever it was that pulled him from sleep. All was quiet. Too quiet.

He rolled his head to the right at the same time that he reached for Diana's hand and came up empty on both counts. She wasn't among the rumpled sheets, and his heart rate increased uncomfortably.

Struggling to sit up, he squinted into the darkness. A little light was coming from the monitors to his left and right, but otherwise the room was in shadows. “Di? Diana?”

A whimper on the other side of her bed caught his attention, and he carefully slid across her mattress and stood beside it. As his feet hit the floor, a gasp gave away her position almost before he realized that she wasn't in the corner like he'd expected her to be.

He knelt on the icy tile, dragging a couple of blankets off her bed with him. His stitches, from the surgery to repair his kidney laceration, pulled and he winced when his tender knee twinged at all the movement. “Hey.” He spoke softly but didn't touch her. Not yet. “What are you doing down here? It's cold.” He waited to see if she would respond before continuing in soothing tones. “It's okay. We're safe now. Come on back, Di. Everything's okay.”

----------

Diana mewled and retreated from the sound. Someone was talking to her, but she couldn't quite make out the words or the voice.

It was dark, but it always was in this hellhole of a prison cell. She shivered, pulling at what was left of her clothes and trying to curl into a ball. Pain stabbed her left side, and she cradled it gently with one shaking hand. She felt a bandage and wetness that could only be blood. It wasn't often that Lurch or his buddies drew blood; they seemed more adept at causing maximum damage with minimal scarring, but sometimes the beatings were too much.

“Diana.”

She heard her name, and the voice sounded familiar. It was male and quiet, so not one of the captors or guards. Not deep enough for Jones or the right timbre for Peter.

“Neal,” she breathed. He was with her here, in this terrible place.

----------

He exhaled the full breath that he'd been holding, waiting for her to recognize him. “Yeah. It's me. Can you come out from under there?”

She stared at the hand he extended. He was careful to let her make contact first because he understood the disorientation and terror of the nightmares and flashbacks. He'd been on her side of this conversation more than once, and he'd talked her out of the corner a few times before too.

He was grateful that the others were giving them time and space right now. Peter had insisted on spending the first night at the hospital with them, but there had been too many people, too many sounds, too many lights. Too much of everything.

In the end, their hospital beds had been moved side by side and locked into place. The monitors had been silenced, and the lights had been dimmed. Neal and Diana had clung to each other, begging to be left alone.

----------

Diana's hand was trembling when she took Neal's and crawled out from under the bed. He put his free hand on top of her head to keep her from bumping it on the rail that was in its down position. Once she was free, he threw a blanket around her shoulders.

She stood under her own power, refusing to lean on Neal despite his arm slipping around her waist to help. Now that she was back in the current time and place, she remembered his injuries as well as her own.

They each gingerly climbed back onto the beds, and she watched as Neal pulled the sheets and blankets back over both of them. He nestled into her side and smiled gently at her.

She appreciated that he didn't ask if she was okay. They both knew the answer to that question. She'd been through a lot as a diplomat's daughter and as an FBI agent, but she'd never been so helpless in a situation as she had been in their prison and sometimes here in the hospital room. In fact, she'd always tried her damnedest to be prepared and not to be viewed as merely a vulnerable, weak woman.

----------

Neal put his arm around her, hoping to still her shivering. He frowned when his hand touched the wet bandage on her side. “You're bleeding.”

“What?” She'd started to drift off again, drugs and Neal's body heat rapidly making her drowsy. “Yeah. It's okay.”

He pulled back the sheets and her blood-stained hospital gown. She was only wearing panties underneath, but they'd grown so accustomed to seeing each other's bodies while administering what little first aid and comfort they could that he didn't even notice her state of undress. He was focused on the bandage, and when he peeled back a corner, he hissed at the torn stitches. “I have to call the nurse.”

“No, please, no.” She moaned and shook her head, clearly not ready to have strangers' hands on her. It was a sentiment Neal sympathized with, but they couldn't ignore this.

“Shhhh,” he said, pressing his lips to her temple and rocking her for a brief moment. “I'll be right here.”

She burrowed her face into his shoulder for a moment before nodding against him. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he repeated, reaching over to press the call button.

He had to move away when the nurse arrived because Diana's wound was on the side that he had been lying against, but he kept a tight grip on her hand, and they never broke eye contact even through the nurse's questions, a doctor's arrival and their ministrations.

----------

Diana was exhausted and sore when the medical personnel finally left them alone. She tugged Neal closer to her anyway and rested her head against his shoulder. “Thanks,” she said softly.

He placed an index finger over her lips. “None of that. You do it for me too.”

“Guess we're stuck with each other then.”

“Yeah,” he whispered. “We are.”

(End Scene – TBC)

Part 4: Week 2 or so

Thank you for reading!

Original prompt at collarkink here: For some reason, Diana and Neal are kidnapped. For many weeks or months, they remain in captivity, isolated from the rest of the world. They go through a very deep trauma – brutal physical or mental torture, possibly both. The captivity creates a very strong bond between them. After they escape or are rescued, they still need each other. They often hug and touch; sometimes they hold hands, sometimes they lean together on a bench outside, maybe one strokes each other’s hair. They’re also very protective of each other; however, there is absolutely nothing sexual about their relationship.
I would really love to see even a small piece of this.


Also posted at AO3