Seeing Beyond

24

Tony walked into the compound and found Aurora laying face down on the living room carpet. The first thing he noticed near her was a large bowl with some vomit in it.

He muttered a few curse words before picking her up and noticing that her one hand had several poke marks on the back. They were right on a vein and he couldn't figure out why she'd need an IV while he was gone, but pushed I away and carried her to her bedroom. He carefully laid the frail-seeming girl down and called the medical team he'd had on standby. They'd be getting there in an hour.

When Aurora came to, Tony was sitting next to her bed on his phone.

"You wanna tell me what the fuck happened?"

"What?"

"I got home and you were passed out on the living room floor. You've been hooking yourself up to IVs. Why?"

"Oh!" She lit up and sat straight up. "Tony, I have amazing news. I found the serum, I really did. I duplicated it and–"

"You stole it from HYDRA."

"Well; yeah!"

"You have no idea what's in there!"

"I do! Come on," she grabbed his hand and pulled him to a lab. "I used this to figure out what's all in it, I analyzed it to make sure it was the same that I got whenever ago, and viola! I'm gonna be completed with my transfusions in no time. I'm just doing them slow and—"

"Are you a fucking idiot?"

Aurora took a couple defensive steps back. "What?"

"You tried the serum, which you shouldn't have in the first place, without me being home? You could've died!"

"I had Peter here, it wasn't a big deal."

"It's a huge deal, Rory. He's 15, I had to save his ass from drowning the other night–"

"What?"

"Yeah, he keeps going after this vulture guy. I've left a tip with the FBI, so it'll be taken care of soon. Just it's crazy–why are you side tracking me? What the hell's wrong with you? Why do you want to rest of the serum?"

"Because then I can use all of my strength. I can be the best version of me. Think about it, I could always defend myself and you know I'll be safe–"

"This could make you sick."

"Not sicker than I was as a kid."

"How sick were you then?"

"I remember being sick but not much else... I need to look through my files. Tony, I have to do this. Do you know how unstable I am with only part of it?"

Toying thought for a minute and sighed. "Fine. But you're doing it supervised. How long were you on the floor?"

"I don't know. What time is it?"

"It's 7 pm."

"Um," she thought for a moment before looking st her phone. "Well I have texts unread from Peter from two days ago...?"

"Jesus. Alright, when do you want the next dose?"

"How soon can we do it?"

"Give it a few days."

"Fine."

  Multiple treatments later, Aurora was stronger than ever. Tony had started letting her take over a little and he just required that he be home when she did it.

Aurora has Peter over and Tony was out of town for god-knows-what.

"You should do it."

"What?!" Peter cried.