SAVED BY THE AVENGERS

DIFFERENT

Gwen was awake, but she wasn't opening her eyes. She knew exactly where she was and she knew that the moment that she opened her eyes and let her vital signs show she was awake, JARVIS would have Bruce and Dr. Jim in the room faster than a snowball could melt in the desert.

She wasn't doing very well. She wasn't on death's door anymore, but she was far from well. Her bones felt as if they weighed several tons, making it hard for her to even draw a breath. A sharp lance of pain shot through her head every time she had to move it and the pain in her chest hadn't subsided. It was like someone was groping around inside her chest, grabbing anything they could and twisting.

They should have left me there, Gwen thought as another wave of pain tore through her torso. All they've done is prolong the inevitable. She gasped as the pain intensified. She could feel something building in her chest, straining, trying to let itself out.

Breathe in, breathe out, she coached herself, repeating the same words her mother used to say to her. Breathe through the pain. In and out. You need to stay calm.

She could almost swear she heard her mother's voice in her ear, whispering to her that everything would be alright. That she needed to focus on calming herself down or the pain in her chest would get worse. It had been that way for as long as she could remember. If she ever got hurt, or sick, or on the very rare occasion that she had a panic attack, she would get this pain in her chest.

But never before had it been this intense or stayed this long after she started trying to calm herself down. It's not working. Gwen was starting to panic. She faintly registered a beeping noise sounding somewhere beside her. Why isn't it going away?!

Footsteps sounded in the hall and the door to her room was thrown open. "Gwen?" The sound of Bruce's voice calmed her slightly.

"Her heartrate's rising." And the sound of the second voice in the room completely wiped out any calm Bruce's voice gave her.

"Gwen, can you hear me?" Bruce asked.

Gwen was gasping for air. Her ribcage felt as if an entire herd of elephants had decided to sit on it. The fact that breathing was already a struggle coupled with the fact that the pain wasn't going away was keeping her mind in full blown panic mode.

"Her breathing is labored, Jim do you have-"

"Right here," Dr. Jim replied before Bruce could finish his statement.

"Gwen, I don't know if you can hear me but you're having an attack of some kind," Bruce said. "We're going to give you something that is going to calm you down and probably put you to sleep."

No, she wanted to shout at them, I need to get calmed down! I need to get this under control... Whatever they were giving her worked very quickly. Need to... bad things... happen.

She never got to finish her thought as the world started fade away around her and she slipped into unconsciousness once again.

Once he was positive that Gwen had fallen unconscious, Bruce turned to Jim. "What were the circumstances when she was younger that would trigger a panic attack?"

"There were some that happened right out of the blue," Dr. Jim began, "Though later her mother would explain that there had been triggers, but they were taken care of. Most of the time it happened when she was stressed, when her mother had been gone for a relatively long amount of time, and when she was sick or hurt she was more likely that usual to have them."

"What are the chances of this happening again?" Bruce asked as he reviewed Gwen's vitals from during her episode.

"More likely now than if she hadn't had one at all," Dr. Jim replied. "Its like having the first one opens the door for more to come."