Red, White and Black

Bring Me to Life

I jerked awake, my skin slick with sweat. For a moment, still in the grips of the nightmare, I panicked. Straightening from the awkward position I'd fallen asleep in, my body protesting the movement, my eyes flicked towards the monitor tracking Tony's vitals. Fine. It was all fine.

Every time I closed my eyes it was the same, my mind seemingly stuck on repeating the battle against Thanos and his minions. We'd won, but it had been a hard win and the aftermath of the battle was something else entirely. And that wasn't counting the chaos that bringing back billions of people had done to the planet.

The only time I'd left Tony's room in the last three days was when I was working on healing people my powers could actually work on. They'd brought Tony back from the brink but hadn't repaired the damage done by the stones. But the prognosis of that was good, it was just going to take a while.

When the door opened, I looked over to see Pepper walking in with take out cups in her hand. She held one out to me. "Here, I figured you'd need this."

"Thanks," I said, taking it gratefully.

"How's he doing?" she asked, taking the chair on the other side of him.

"He's in and out. Where's Morgan?"

"Getting burgers with Happy," Pepper said. I nodded but before I could say anything, Tony's leg shifted under my hand and he let out a small groan.

"And you didn't bring me any?" he grumbled weakly.

Both of our eyes flew to his face, Pepper standing quickly to lean over him. "Tony, hey. How are you feeling?"

"Well, since you didn't bring me a burger? Terrible," Tony said, his hand moving around like he was looking for something. "One of you wanna put this thing up? I'm sick of laying down."

I reached over for the button and the bed made a soft whirring sound as it lifted. The room door slid open a second time and one of the doctors walked in. "Looks like someone is awake, that's good news."

Pepper and I both backed away from the bed to give the doctor room to check him over. When I swayed on my feet, my wings flaring out a little to keep my balance, Pepper turned her concerned eyes on me. "When was the last time you got some sleep?"

"I got a little bit earlier," I said with a dismissive shrug.

"I'm talking about real sleep, Angel," she persisted.

"Pepper, I'm fine." I wasn't fine, but I also wasn't going to let her know that. She had enough to deal with right now.

"Angel." The stern tone had my shoulders hunching defensively. "You are not fine. You need to rest and you need to consume something other than caffeine and power bars. You've been running on fumes for days and if you keep pushing you're going to do serious damage–"

"Hey, Pep," Tony interrupted as the doctor left. Pepper walked back over to the bed to take his hand and hold it against her cheek. "Do you think you could bring Morgan?"

"Are you sure you want her to see you like this?" Pepper asked, her brow wrinkling.

Tony lifted a shoulder, wincing a little. "She's a strong kid, she'll handle it okay. Who really knows how long I'm going to be looking like this."

"Okay, yeah, I'll go get her." She was almost to the door when Tony called out to bring him a burger too and I knew she was rolling her eyes as her head shook.

The moment the door closed once more, Tony's gaze locked on me. "Come here kid. Sit down."

I moved back over to the bed and took my seat. His brown eyes searched my face for a long moment before he spoke. "You look like shit."