Danny wasn't sure how she made it to the emergency entrance to the hospital. There were people everywhere, doctors and nurses and patients alike. Bodies were occupying beds, some worse off than others.
Her limbs were heavy, and her head was spinning, and the blood felt crusty on her skin. She was drained of all her energy. You wouldn't believe she ran miles to the city without breaking a sweat if you saw her now. Danny kept herself balanced against the door and walls, almost running on auto-pilot. One foot in front of the other. God, did her head hurt.
"Ma'am?" One of the ER nurses slowly approached her, concern etched into her features. Her brown hair was tied up in a messy bun, and her brown eyes searched Danny's green ones hastily. "Ma'am, are you okay? Are you hurt?"
Danny met the nurse's gaze blankly. She wasn't hurt. She was fine. She was healed. But her mind was splitting, and her knees buckled from under her, and the next thing she knew the nurse was catching her before she hit the ground.
The nurse slowly eased Danny to the floor. "Heather, get a bed ready!" she called out to a co-worker. Even in her dazed state, Danny's eyes caught on the nurse's ID clipped onto her scrubs: Claire Temple. Metro-General.
Danny didn't realize she was being asked questions until she heard a soft, "Is there anyone I can call?"
"Stark—" Danny croaked. She swallowed, feeling the dryness of her throat for the first time. Wincing, Danny groaned as a sharp pain began stabbing at the back of her head and the backs of her hands where the metal claws had come out started to itch. "Stark Industries. Pepper Potts, she's… my…"
A wave of vertigo washed over her, and Danny felt like she could throw up. Except that she hadn't eaten anything since yesterday because of Reddik's dumb fucking fasting requirements.
"Ma'am, what's your name? Do you know where you are?"
The world continued spinning and Danny welcomed the darkness like an old friend.
"How is she doing?"
"Frankly, we don't…" A heavy pause was all she could hear. "We're shocked, really. She's in perfect condition this morning."
"What—what do you mean?" That voice… That voice was so familiar. "Wasn't she just admitted last night? Your nurse made her condition sound serious—"
Danny couldn't quite remember what had happened to her. She recalled escaping the lab, the dead bodies she left behind. She recalled the innocent life she had taken away, in the alley. There were parts of the night that were a blur, mostly the instances when… something else had taken the reins.
At the hospital, she had accidentally injured one of the nurses. Being so disoriented and scared, Danny's first instincts were to defend herself when she woke up in a strange place, with smells and sounds that made her think that she was back in that godforsaken place. The nurse, Claire, had thrown back the curtains and startled her, and that resulted in some screaming after Danny's sharp claws had cut up her forearms.
Her doctor was dumbfounded when she received a follow-up. All injuries Danny had sustained were healed in the morning, and whatever they found was science fiction to them. Of course, Danny had an idea of what they saw: increased levels of gamma radiation, some blue shit running through her veins, and an endoskeleton coated in some sort of metal.
She had seen the vials and the stacks of files in Reddik's office; she had lived through the hell that he had put her through. Danny sussed out pretty early on in her treatments that some of the files may have been stolen. Not one folder had the same label—they ran from S.H.I.E.L.D., S.S.R., C.I.A., F.B.I., Cybertek. She'd never heard of half of them.
Something fairly secretive was going on, even at the hospital. While the doctor assumed she was asleep, Danny listened in on a phone conversation he had with a "Director Fury" about wanting to keep an eye on her and also bury all the tests they had administered.
Danny felt like kicking herself now. She was so stupid—
"Is she awake?"
Danny sat up in bed, eyes landing on the two human-shaped shadows dancing on the curtain that separated her from the rest of the world. Blood started pumping faster through her veins, and Danny tried to calm her nerves before something bad happened.
Her doctor said in a quiet voice, "She was responsive when we checked on her this morning. I'm not sure if…"
The curtains were pulled back, revealing the form of Pepper Potts. She was dressed clean in a skirt and blazer, red hair tied back in a neat ponytail. Pepper's expression immediately switched from worry to relief. Danny found herself pulled into a tight hug, and for the first time in a long time, she let herself break down. She wrapped her arms around her old foster mom and began sobbing.
"Honey, were you hurt? What happened?" Pepper began wiping away the tears that kept staining Danny's cheeks. "I am so, so sorry, Danny."
The girl tried getting out words, but they were unintelligible over her heavy sobs. Pepper merely engulfed her in another hug, brushing back her brown hair.
After managing to work through the wracking sobs, Danny let the walls fall. With words flowing like a broken dam that had just burst, she told Pepper everything. From falling out of touch with her brothers, Clint and Barney. Never staying in one place for more than a few months. To the struggle of chemotherapy. Then being approached by some agent to join this organization called The Workshop for a supposed cure.
For almost three years, she was stuck in that facility in the outskirts of New York and isolated from the outside world. Danny spared Pepper the details about the monstrous treatments, the numerous near-death experiments, and the pile of bodies she left behind. She wanted to tell her everything, so badly, but the second voice in her head convinced her that it wouldn't be wise.
But it wasn't until then that Danny realized Pepper had problems of her own. Things were a shit show at Stark Industries. Their CEO had been kidnapped in Afghanistan after a weapons demonstration was ambushed, and he was being held captive by some terrorist organization. His business partner, someone by the name of Stane or other, was keeping the company afloat in his absence. However, Danny could tell that Pepper was worried out of her mind.
Danny sniffed, wiping her eyes and looking at Pepper. In attempt to make light of things, she asked in jest, "It's been so long since we last saw each other. Why the hell did you fly across the country for me? I probably would've been fine. I've been fine, for a while."
Pepper exhaled a laugh, trying to cover the tears that were brimming at her eyes. "Danny, you're a nineteen-year-old that has been to hell and back. And, to be honest, I needed this as much as you do."
Danny's warm hands covered Pepper's cold ones, and the former managed a small smile. "Thank you, Pep. For everything."
She closed her eyes as Pepper leaned forward to place a kiss to her forehead, momentarily feeling a sense of peace that she hadn't been witness to in a long time.
