If Souls Return (Then Tell Them I Say Hi) - Tony Stark's Daughter in Gotham

Chapter 14: A Homecoming

Amberly continued her argument with a dayshift nurse about drawing her blood. "Do we have to? I don't see why it's necessary." She wasn't sure what the test results would be. With Peter, part of his DNA had been altered by the radioactive spider bite. If she really had identical powers, shouldn't she also be cursed with unreliable blood tests.

"It's alright, it'll just be a small prick and over with before you know it." The nurse smiled kindly at her like she was child scared of needles.

Bruce Wayne chose that moment to walk in with someone Amberly didn't recognize. The man insisted that he wanted to meet her dad when he arrived, which meant that there had hardly been a moment when she wasn't alone since waking up.

"Could we have a moment with Miss Lee?" Bruce asked the nurse, saving Amberly from a blood test for the time being.

The nurse reluctantly agreed with the promise they would be back later. Bruce waited till the door was fully shut before speaking.

"Your father still has yet to arrive."

"He'll be here," Amberly assured, though it might as well have been pointless.

Bruce hummed. "I hope you don't mind, but I had a talk with your doctor, and he was concerned about your living situation."

The sensor picked up on Amberly's heart beating faster. Bruce glanced at the beeping monitor, and a look of pity came over his face.

"My oldest son Dick here is a cop. Anything you tell us will stay in this room. We just want to know are you safe at home?"

Home was an unsettling word these days. Amberly wasn't sure if she considered the gym to be home, but if nothing else she had been safe hidden away in its walls, so she nodded her head.

"Let me rephrase this," Bruce corrected himself. "They noticed some scars on your back and scans of your shoulder show that it had been broken at least 2 years ago and healed wrong. Is anyone hurting you at home?"

A vision of something hitting her flashed through Amberly's mind. She shook the unsettling memory away. "No, no one." Tony would never hurt her or let anyone else. Anything that happened prior to her living with him didn't matter.

"Okay," Bruce sighed.

The pair offered or more like insisted that they stay with Amberly for the rest of the day. Bruce argued that she should have an adult with her until her father could come get her. None of the hospital staff objected to his line of reasoning either.

When she ran out of ideas for how to escape, there wasn't much to do in the hospital other than reflect on her failings. Spider-Woman didn't have a plan to get her and Harley back home. She'd failed to connect with any of the bats other than Red Robin and from what he'd implied she wasn't sure if she could trust anyone.

Maybe worst of all, Amberly may have helped take down the Joker, but she failed to save the men who went down in the helicopter crash with her. They were shooting at her, but Amberly should have gone back and tried to pull out the bodies. How could she call herself a hero being so careless?

A creak at the door sounded, and Amberly thought it was going to be that pesky nurse again asking to take her blood or Bruce who had to step out on a phone call a few hours before, claiming something came up with work.

Instead, it was Dick walking in with Harley. "Looks like you have a visitor."

"Harley!" Amberly struggled not to jump out of the bed and hug him.

"You gave me a heart attack," he scolded coming up to hug her gently so as not to disturb anything she was hooked up to. "Never do that again," he whispered into her hair.