Linked | Ironstrange

Life

Ten.

The OR walls suddenly started to feel like they were closing on him.

Nine.

He looked towards the corner of the room, where Levi was back in his otter form and had descended to the floor to sit beside the last traces of the Red Fox's existence, the little animal faded away at the exact rate as Anthony's asystole line appeared on the ECG monitor.

Eight.

Christine stopped her every attempt at bringing Anthony back and Stephen's breathing faltered all of a sudden as if someone had kicked all the air out of his lungs.

Seven.

His hands started feeling numb probably from the lack of oxygen reaching his brain at that moment and he felt the abrupt urge to punch a hole in the operating table.

Six.

Pain, spread like wildfire through his numbed nervous system as he landed his punch on the cold surface of the operating table, but it wasn't quite enough.

Five.

Christine talked, clearly addressing him but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't discern what she was saying, her voice was just an unintelligible mumble in the background.

Four.

His heart pumped loudly in his ears, so loud he was certain his eardrums would explode at any second.

Three.

He felt lightheaded almost as if he was about to faint.

Two.

He looked down at his hands, surgical gloves still on, soaking wet in Anthony's blood and trembling uncontrollably.

One.

"Listen up you egotistical son of a bitch, I just found you and I'm not about to fucking lose you, wake up!" He hastily screamed startling everyone in the room and his punch descended hard over Anthony's still open chest this time.

"Stephen!" Christine yelled running towards him to try to stop him.

"You are not dying on me now, Stark" he hit Anthony's chest again so hard the limp body jumped under the strength of his blow.

"He's gone Stephen, " Christine was now behind him trying to hold him still and he had to shrug off her embrace forcefully.

"No, he's not, he can't be," his voice faltered and he felt the unmistakable warmth of tears streaming down his cheeks, right before Christine made him turn around and rolled up the right sleeve of his surgical gown to look at his tattoo.

"He's not dying on you! You hear me, Stephen?" She said making him move out of the way when she understood the sudden strange behavior of her friend.

Everything started moving in slow motion for Stephen while he was being forced to walk out of the operating room by an intern he couldn't remember the name of at the moment and Christine and the rest of the team moved in the background trying to do what he started to think was a lost cause.

But then when he and the intern reached the door something extraordinary happened and the most incredibly beautiful sound rang in Stephen's ears, and he knew that Christine had achieved the impossible and would do everything to keep it just the way it was for the rest of the surgery.

Anthony Stark was going to walk alive and kicking out of this hospital and out of his life, as it should be.

...

A week after Stark's accident, Christine had fulfilled her promise of not letting him die on that table and he was grateful for that, despite what everyone thought since he had spent the entire week ignoring the man he had been so desperately trying to save that day.