Unexpected

Still Alive

My first thought as I regained consciousness was "Ow." My head felt fuzzy like it was full of cotton balls yet there was a constant dull throbbing inside my skull. Was I drugged up? Probably. I wouldn't be surprised considering. I remembered what happened, the experiment, the energy, the pain as it overtook me. I didn't want to open my eyes. I didn't want to breathe. It hurt too much. My lungs felt charred which meant every breath felt like I was sucking in smoking ash. My body ached like it had when I'd been struck by the fake lightening, like a million flaming bees had stung me inside and out, only a hundred times worse. My skin felt like it had been deep fried. On top of that I was worn out, like I had been working out under Agent Romanoff's hardcore training for twenty-four hours only to go straight into another twenty four hours of combat training with no sleep or rest of any sort. I could hear the obnoxious beep of a heart monitor in the distance through the fuzziness of my senses. My heart rate sounded slow and weak. Should I be worried? Probably. I just wanted to sleep again. I didn't hurt when I was asleep. After a few deep breaths I gave up on sleeping though. Curse my inability to fall back asleep once I was awake! What did my body have against decent sleep anyways?

I fluttered my eyes open trying to figure out where I was. At first my vision was blurry, but after a few blinks it started clearing up. Obviously I wasn't in a hospital. Most likely I was in one of the emergency doctors' offices in the Triskelion I realized. My eyes roamed around the medical room for a second before landing on a glimmer of red hair. A smile cracked over my lips.

"How nice." I rasped, my voice weak and extremely dry as I pushed it through my throat, "A visitor." Wow, I was really thirsty. It felt like I'd suffered from an extreme coughing fit my throat was so raw, but the damage was probably from my soul ripping scream I'd released.

Romanoff's head jerked to face me and a genuine smile curled her lips, "Good. The heart monitors weren't lying. You really are alive."

My smile broadened at her joke. I wanted to chuckle but I figured that would only damage my poor throat all the more, "Water?"

She reached to my bedside table grabbing a tall glass of the clear liquid before gently putting it to my lips. After a few minutes of sipping the water had completely disappeared and my mouth and throat felt a world better. Clearing my throat I returned my gaze to her, an impish expression falling over my face, "Thanks Miss Romanoff, you have a lovely bedside manner."

She raised her eyebrow, an amused smile on her lips, "You woke up sassy didn't you?"

"I think it's the drugs. I am on pain killers aren't I?"

"I think so, though they were scared to treat you."

A giggle passed my lips, "You'd think they'd never seen an extremely electrocuted individual before."

"They probably haven't." Nat pointed out.

"Huh. Weird." I said thoughtfully, drifting away from our conversation for a second. I twitched my fingers, they felt kind of numb, like they'd been asleep for a while but were just starting to come back to life, "How long was I out this time? Please tell me it wasn't two days again. I was really looking forward to my weekend. I had plans with Steve to watch-" I cut off as I tried to remember through my mental fog. I didn't like how I couldn't concentrate too well. "Wait no; he's on his mission to... do something with a pan I think. Yeah he needs to hit some Mexican person with a pan. No that doesn't make sense." I furrowed my eyebrows in concentration but the pounding in my head hurt too much so I gave a weak shrug, "Whatever. How long was I out?"

As I glanced over at the agent again I could tell she was trying to hide a laugh behind her sympathetic expression, "I'd love to see you drunk, Penny."