Moral of the Story

Chapter 5

 "TONY?!" I yelled in confusion. I ran to him, some of his bodyguards running past me to go after the shooter. Once I reached him, I knelt at his side. I nodded to the guard at his other side, signaling to join the sweep.

I loosened his tie and pulled it off, opened his button-down only to reveal another layer but moved the mostly removed layers out of the way to see the wound. The bullet hit the outer-left of his chest, probably between the fifth and sixth ribs, it would be difficult to pull out.

"What are you doing?"

"Great, you're conscious. That's a good sign. I will roll you on your side, and then I will pull the slug out, okay?"

"What, no!? You said you were a teacher, not a doctor!" He glared up at me, his expression tinted with fear, most likely from his previous accident.

"Well, you're losing a bit of blood, not a whole ton, but more than what is good for a person. If I don't take care of this now you might not make it to the hospital."

A mumbled "shit" fell from his mouth. Perhaps he was beginning to grasp the situation. I moved to roll him and he didn't push against me. There was no exit wound meaning that the bullet had either lodged against one of his ribs, or it was in his lung or another muscle. I shifted him back onto his back again.

"I know this is going to sound weird-"

"No."

"Seriously? You won't let me finish my sentences now? You could be drowning in your own blood right now."

"What?! Why didn't you lead with that?"

"You didn't give me time to. Now, I'm going to grab the bullet and pull it out."

"Okay, I may not know much about medicine, but that doesn't sound right."

"Well, let's just say I have a bit of a trick up my sleeve." I said as I stuck my fingers into the wound. Tony began to groan out in pain again. I felt my finger go past his ribs, through his lung, and hit the bullet, eliciting another groan from the man beneath me. I pushed my finger past the top of the bullet and began pulling it out.

After a minute or two of re-positioning, I pulled out the bullet and turned Tony onto his front. Most of the blood that had been pooling in his lung flowed out of the bullet wound. I then turned him back on his back. I laid my hand over his chest and began to use my mutation. Within a few minutes, his wound had closed and healed in its entirety. Or so it seemed. The truth is that it had just moved from his body to mine, the downside to my mutation.

I began to feel the familiar feeling of blood soaking my clothes, followed by a warm, hazy feeling. It was starting to become hard to keep my eyes open. I saw Tony get up, entirely recovered, aside from the minor blood loss. I felt my vision start to blur. I think he looked at me in shock and confusion, probably wondering how I did what I did.

"What the heck? Kid! Oh shit. The fuck did you do?"

"Don't worry. I'll heal faster than you."

"Look, now is not the time to be joking about how much younger you are than me!"

I let out a soft laugh, "Wasn't trying to, boss."

"Okay, how do you treat bullet wounds again?"

I was starting to feel lightheaded and said, "I typically just pull them out and move the injury to my body. It works like a charm. Although, that probably won't work for you."

By this time, my vision was foggy in what I could see, which was fading faster than I thought. At this point, my peripherals were entirely gone.

"Please, stay conscious. I don't want to deal with that paperwork."

"Sorry, I'm clocking out here."

I could feel myself fall unconscious, slipping further and further from a somewhat familiar voice.

I woke up in a hospital bed about 13 hours later. I sat up, feeling a slight pang in my chest; my heart's reaction was sent over to the electrocardiogram, alerting the nurses over to my room. When prompted, they gave me a general gist of what had happened since I'd passed out; apparently, Tony had been forced to keep schedule and left in a separate vehicle, much to his displeasure. The nurse continued, "You have healed very quickly. Far faster than almost everyone I've treated all my years as a nurse. It seems almost supernatural."

She looked at me with an expression I couldn't place, "Sorry, I must have made that awkward. It is quite interesting though."

She walked over to the medicine cabinet and unlocked the first few drawers. She pulled out a large vial and a syringe, and my stomach dropped.

I let out an anxious laugh and asked, "What's that?"

"I apologize, usually I don't do this kind of thing to my patients, but someone made me an offer I couldn't refuse. So now, here we are."

She picked up the bottle, inserted the syringe's needle into the bottle and turned it upside down, and pulled the plunger down until the syringe was full, then turned it upside down again and switched out the needle while walking towards me, "Please, don't scream." she placed her gloved hand over my mouth, I felt like I couldn't breathe, my throat felt as if it were closing up and like a weight was on my chest, crushing my ribs under the pressure, I knew this feeling. It was a panic attack. I'd had them almost all my life but the feeling that accompanied it was one of such extreme dread, a feeling that hadn't plagued me since the death of Trask. Someone was testing on mutants again. "It's not like it will matter anyway but, I would greatly appreciate it if we could wrap this up quickly. But, since you've been good thus far, I'll answer your question. It's morphine. I've made sure that this will be a lethal dose, regardless of your... differences. I can't say if it will be painful though, but there's enough here to make it very quick."

As she finished her sentence and moved to stick the needle into my arm a bright blue light accompanied by a whirring noise filled the room. Standing in the entranceway was Tony in his Ironman suit with his arm outstretched in our direction, "Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily do that if I were you."