Protector

CHAPTER 7

Everyone thought I wouldn't wake up after I passed out. I woke up exactly seven hours after I passed out but the headache hadn't dulled and the nausea hadn't subsided in the slightest. Actually, as soon as I woke up, the first think I did was dry heave next to my bed as I couldn't make it to the toilet, but I couldn't get anything up.

Stark wasn't in the lab when I woke up but I expected FRIDAY had told him that my heartrate had increased or something had changed because five minutes later he burst through the doors and came straight to my bedside to check everything.

The look on his face when he saw I was awake was priceless and I wished I had a camera so I could've captured the moment and showed it to everyone, but it was gone in less than a second and replaced with an impassive mask as he checked the machines.

I stayed silent and watched him type things onto the see through screens but I didn't understand half of it. The pounding in my head prohibited me to even think about saying something, so when Tony started yelling out profanities about how he had deleted something accidently, it was hardly a shock that I had levitated his coffee mug and slammed it into the wall so it shattered into pieced so he would shut up. After that, Tony worked quietly and only occasionally mumbled things under his breath.

I found out on my own that using my abilities only increased the pounding in my head and after my little stunt with Tony's mug I didn't use them. I couldn't even try reaching into Tony's head to see what he was thinking without a searing pain irrupting in my head.

I would occasionally whimper as the pain increased and flared all over my body, causing me sink lower into the pillows. I must have been in there for at least two hours before I asked Tony what he was doing and he told me he was looking over  my body scans.

Apparently,  while I was passed out he had FRIDAY do some sort of scan that showed everything - and I do mean everything - about my body. He also got to measure my brain activity and a live 3D image of it was in front of me. It was both weird and cool to be able to see my own brain and how it looked when I thought about stuff, especially when I tried using my abilities.

Clint, Natasha and Pietro were the first to visit me as soon as they found out I was awake, but Tony ushered them out so he could continue doing tests on me. I was allowed a full five minutes with Clint alone before he was shooed out and in those five minutes I only found out that Tony's training machines would have to be replaced and that Laura has had her baby.

Nathaniel Pietro Barton. I couldn't wait until I was able to see him, but from the look of Tony's test results and the way my brain scan image was flaring up abnormally, I didn't think I would be able to see my new little brother for a while.

Finally, after hours of waiting, Tony actually told me what was wrong with me. And I was not pleased with the answer.

"You're body temperature is constantly changing from going excessively high, to normal to excessively low. The rate it is changing in is too fast to monitor and it isn't going at a steady pattern so we cant tell what it means."

I sat back and closed my eyes as I listen to Tony explaining everything to me. I didn't know what to think, much less come up with a reason for why I was like this. I didn't know what would cause this sudden change but the only reasoning I could come up with, was the poison that had been in my system, though Tony had assured me already that it couldn't have been that.

"There is also your bone structure which is also changing. I've never seen anything like this, a part from when Bruce would change into 'the other guy', but your muscle tissue and smaller bones are changing and rearranging themselves slowly, then returning to their normal position.

"Its hard to say what is  happening to you but by the looks of things, it seems like your body is trying to change form." he said

"Into what?" I asked, rubbing my temples as I tried to force the aching to go away.

"That is unclear Miss." FRIDAY's voice said from around the lab

I nodded my head and tried to understand what was happening to my body but the more I thought about it, the bigger the headache got so in the end I just slumped further into the  bed and brought the covers over my head as I let out a frustrated sigh.

I think Tony left sometime after that, so I was left alone to my thoughts while my body irrupted in pain once more. I couldn't have any pain killers apparently as Tony didn't know how it would react to me while I was in this state so the pain continued for three more days.

Tony was my only company through those three days and that alone would turn a person completely insane, added to the fact that every muscle in my body was on fire and burning, it was a wonder I hadn't killed him yet. During the seventy two hours of being tested over and over, the pain had only increased to the point that I could physically feel my bones changing, moving, then reverting to their original positions. It was complete agony.

Dr Cho was flown over to us the day after I had fallen ill, but even she couldn't find an explanation for my behaviour and the only person anybody could think of that would have a possibility of being able to help me was Banner, but he had dropped off the grid and nobody could locate him.

For the duration of the three days, I had been slipping in and out of consciousness as the pain worsened, and the short moments that I would pass out would be the only moments that I was pain free, but as soon as I would wake up the pain would shoot through me and I would  let out ear splitting screams. Everybody was concerned about me, and if it wasn't for the fact that I could barely move I would have been honoured to have so much attention on me.

It was late on the fourth evening of me being ill when it happened. Everyone was asleep in their rooms while I was in the lab. I don't know what happened to me, but all of a sudden I was levitating everything in the room towards the ceiling (excluding myself and the bed I was on) and letting them fall when they reached the top. I was surrounded by broken glass but I ignored it and got out of the bed.

I felt possessed as I walked out of the door, walking over the glass and slicing my feet as I did so. I walked at a steady pace through every corridor of the building until I was at the back of the training facility, hunched over on all fours with my head hanging by my shoulders. I was taking uneven breaths as I felt my bones twisting around me.

It all felt wrong and the pain wouldn't stop, and I couldn't control the screams that left my mouth as my body physically changed on its own.

I remember blacking out a couple of times, I remember someone shouting my name over and over, more people running outside to see what was wrong with me. A lot of that night was blurry, but I could still recall the way I snarled at Steve as he tried to carry me back inside, I don't know what came over me, but I actually snarled at him.  

I jumped from his arms and crawled away from everyone so they wouldn't see me, though I still felt everyone's eyes on me. The process was long, painful and exhausting but somehow, I didn't die. That was the only positive from the entire night. I survived.

Sweat covered my body and in the end, I did exactly what I had wanted to do since the illness started and stripped down my clothes into just my panties and bra, not caring who could see me anymore. The cold night air hit my back while everyone could hear the sounds of my bones breaking, one by one until it stopped.

The pain just disappeared like it was never there. I didn't know how to feel for about it for about two seconds before I realised that I  wasn't me.

I was an animal.

Literally, my body had transformed from a normal eighteen year old to an actual big cat.

This could be a problem