ʟᴏꜱᴛ ᴄʜɪʟᴅʀᴇɴ || 𝟙

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 18

Her body felt as if it had been dipped in acid, thrown under a building, slammed on repeatedly by said building and then used as a scratching post for a humongous genetically mutated cat. She had no idea how many different parts of her body could ache, her body feeling like one giant bruise. Was it possible for the roots of her hair to hurt? Well, it was doing it now.

"Get Bruce." An urgent voice commanded as a chair scraped back and the sound of footsteps rose and faded.

"Demetria?" another disembodied voice floated into her consciousness as she struggled to lift her eyelids. Seriously, even doing that hurt.

Her swollen and burning throat managed to croak out : "Fuck." Slight laughter erupted around her. 

"Well if she can say that, I'm sure she's fine."

A gentle hand opened her mouth, sticking an ice-cold thermometer under her tongue. A penlight flashed before her eyes as Bruce checked her for any neurological deficits. Scribbling something on the clipboard, he pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing in relief.

"Her temperature is through the damn roof, but other than that she seems to check out. Give her a few more hours of rest and I think she'll be fine."

"As fine as she can be after being in front of that blast," a voice she recognized as Bucky commented, grudgingly impressed.

"You, Parker on the other hand need to come and get those burns checked out."

"I'm fine Mr Banner - HEY! That hurt, man! - okay okay, I'm coming jeez,"

With that wonderful closing statement, she fell back into unconsciousness, her body burning with every breath she took.

--

"I'll can take over, Bruce." Happy offered, the Hulk's large stubby hands unable to separate the cooling gel pads, his fingers slipping and sliding with each delicate piece.

Bruce admitted defeat exasperatedly. "Thanks, Happy." He blushed a dark green, laying down the pads as gently as he could but eventually piling them up in a heap of cold wet mush anyway.

"Deja vu huh, kid?" Happy asked Peter who was hunched forward, shoulder blades and neck exposed. Whistling low and long, he surveyed the damage.

"How bad is it?"

"Probably second degree, bordering on third if not for your suit and your powers. It managed to take in most of the heat from her hands but as soon as it came into contact with your skin-," Happy shook his head, opening up a new package of gel pads, throwing Bruce's mess into the recycling chute.

"Peter, how did you not feel this? And don't tell me super-strength, you flinched when I stitched you up the other time," he quickly warned, slipping on some gloves, gently placing the pads on Peter's shoulder blades and sticking a smaller strip to the side of his neck.

Flinching at the sudden change in temperature when it came into contact with the raw flesh, he sucked in a deep breath, sighing in relief as the nano-bots began their work of chewing through the burnt skin and laying down a layer of new healthy skin cells, harvested specifically from his own DNA. That, combined with the special Tony Stark formula of various ointments and a touch of aloe-vera made quick work of his burns.

"Why have I never heard of these?" Peter asked, picking one of the gel pads up, which was quickly dashed away from him as Happy got to work wrapping the burns on his hands.

"Tony got a lot of burns working on the old Iron-Man suits, once nanobots were invented he came up with these to help with burns. Guess he was sick and tired of having me or someone else smear burn cream on him. Although he never really minded when Pepper did it."