𝐀𝐈𝐑 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐃𝐄 » avengers x reader

45. Decent Incentive

The three of us entered our hotel room, Maya and Pepper each taking a spot on the bed while I slipped my shoes off and stood above them.

"I think I'm gonna hit the showers first," I told them, looking at all the dust and dry blood that caked my clothes and face. They both nodded permitting me to leave them alone together.

We didn't have time to pack and spare clothes so even though I planned to clean my body I'd be putting the same dirty clothes on again. It's better than nothing, I thought and proceeded to enter the bathroom.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My hair, which was a matted mess and my nose which still had traces of dried blood under it stood out to me. My face was covered in bruises and dust, not a hot look if you ask me. Not that it mattered anyway.

I sighed and proceeded to turn the shower on. I held my hand underneath the water to test the temperature, waiting for it to become piping hot before I thought about getting in. However, on second thought, a cold shower would be needed to soothe all the aches and bruises over my body. Reluctantly, I turned the temperature right down.

I stepped in and shivered once the cold water hit my skin. The temperature was just perfect, the water dripping over the scars on my body and providing instant relief.

I quietly started humming Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You) by Kelly Clarkson and swayed underneath the freezing cold water. Cringey, I know, but that song had been playing on the radio for months now and it was stuck in my head.

My shower was only supposed to be a few minutes but I ended up being in there was for felt like hours. It was calming and stress-free and helped me just rinse all the drama from the past few days away. Soon I found myself singing Alicia Keys and Nicki Minaj too.

All this singing just reminded me of Sam and the nights out we'd had recently. I honestly really missed him and I made a mental note to ask him to hang out at some point-once this Mandarin stuff blows over.

I finally managed to pry myself away from the shower, before I turned into a giant raisin, and put my dusty clothes back on. The point was I now felt refreshed and smelt good which was all that mattered at the end of the day.

I grabbed the necklace that I removed before getting into the shower and clipped it back on before whispering:
"J, do you mind alerting me when Mark XVII goes live?"

"I will, Sarge," JARVIS replied before I opened the bathroom door and join the other two women who were deep in conversation:

"What happened? Fun fact. Before he built rockets for the Nazis, the idealistic Wernher von Braun dreamed of space travel. He stargazed..." Maya explained as she leaned back against the headboard of the king-sized bed.

When finding a hotel room to stay in it was really spur-of-the-moment, so a one-bedroom was all we could settle for. We hadn't devised sleeping arrangements yet, but I definitely wasn't sleeping on the floor. However, I wouldn't really want to share a bed with someone who works for the Mandarin, but at the same time, I wouldn't feel comfortable sleeping with my ex-fling's new girlfriend...that also happens to hate me.

"...Do you know what he said when the first V-2 hit London? 'The rocket performed perfectly. It just landed on the wrong planet.' See, we all begin wide-eyed. Pure science. And then the ego steps in the obsession. And you look up, you're a long way from shore," Hansen finished, with a frown.

I looked over at Pepper who heavily sympathized with her situation. Maya felt guilty, that she'd taken it too far just like Tony once felt with Stark Industries.

"You can't be too hard on yourself, Maya. I mean, you gave your research to a think tank," Pepper said, softly.

"Yeah, but Killian built that think tank on military contracts," Maya revealed.