Tony was only supposed to have been in Afghanistan for a few hours, a day max. He'd gone halfway around the world to show off his company's latest toys to the US Military who'd been operating there. Much faster than even the trained soldiers could have been expected to react their convoy, which had been on its way back to the base from the weapons demonstration, was attacked. Tony couldn't do anything but freeze as he watched the men and women around him fighting for their lives and his. It would all be in vain as Tony was captured, despite the military's best efforts.

White searing hot pain was the first thing he remembered after that. He woke to find he was laying on something hard and flat. His chest burned, it felt as if it might explode. There was a team of people, maybe doctors, standing over him. At least they looked like doctors. They were wearing latex gloves and wielding surgical instruments. Were they putting something in his chest? He needed to stay awake. He needed to know more, but the pain was just unbearable. He'd never been so terrified in his entire life. This only made his heart pound faster and the fuzziness around his vision grow thicker and blacker. Finally, when Tony could bare it no longer he allowed himself to close is eyes and fall victim to the darkness.

When Tony next awoke, he realized that he was at least laying on some form of a bed this time. From what he could feel it was a cheap lumpy mattress pad laid over a camp cot. The uncomfortable presence of a breathing tube was a familiar feeling. It needed to go. So with the almost practiced hand of a surgeon's step-son, Tony snaked the tube of off his own nostril.

He looked to his immediate left and saw a glass of water sitting on a bench. This forced him to realize just how dehydrated he was. Tony flung his arm out and tried to grasp the glass. It slipped further and further from the reach of his fingertips. He scooted his body over ever so slightly so that he could try again, but he still couldn't reach.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." A voice said in heavily accented English.

Unable to see the source of the voice from his left side, Tony rolled over in the poorly fashioned bed to face his right side. There was nothing but a car battery resting on a fifty-five-gallon drum. The car battery had a set of cables running from it. One cable connected to the positive post and the other to the negative. Tony followed the trail of cables to see what the battery was powering. To his absolute horror, they ran across his body to a circular device that someone had indeed embedded in his chest.


At Seattle Grace Hospital, things went on as they always had. Missing billionaire brothers or not, people were still dying. People needed surgeons, and Meredith still very much wanted to be a surgeon. Remember how to swim. It was probably the most brotherly advice she'd ever gotten, or would ever get, from her brother. Especially with him having been kidnapped.

So that's what Meredith decided to do. She kept swimming. She kept treading the water that was her life. Things would continue to go just as they had before she'd nearly drown to death. She would continue to practice medicine. She would study for her first-year medical exams with her friends. She would help Christina plan her wedding to Dr. Burke. For the first time in her life she was going to live the way a Stark would, nothing was going to hold her back.

"You know Meredith," Derek was saying to Meredith's Step-Mother, Susan, one morning; "She'll accept a certain amount of help and then she starts feeling suffocated." He warned before sipping from his morning cup of coffee.

"Oh?" Susan looked over at him worriedly. "Is this..am I suffocating?" She asked, her arms weighted down with fresh groceries. She supposed she could understand what Derek was saying, but she had only wanted to help. Meredith had lost her mother and her brother within a few weeks of each other. That was enough to put mental strain on anyone, not even accounting for the fact that Meredith herself had almost drowned at the same time.

"Oh no." Derek replied. "The groceries are just right. It's me. I sometimes overdo it."

"Well, who could blame you, with everything?" Susan sighed as she heaved the groceries onto the counter. "I gave her some time after Ellis died." She promised. "But I want to be here. I want to help make things easier."

"Good. Yeah." Derek nodded. He sipped from his cup again not able to shake the feeling that some of the stress Meredith had been under lately had been partially his fault. He'd thought contacting Tony when she almost died was important at the time. She was going through so much, now he wondered if he'd brought unnecessary strain back in her life knowing that he was missing. He'd tried to reason that had he gone missing and they not had the chance to speak, she'd been worse off than how she was now.

"Good morning." Meredith greeted Derek and Susan as she stepped into her kitchen. She was surprised by the abundant amount of food that was currently littering her counter tops. "This all you?" She asked Susan as Derek handed her a fresh cup of coffee.

"Yes." Susan said as she began putting the groceries away. "Just a few things to keep the cupboards full."

"But you brought groceries last week..." Meredith looked to Derek, not sure if she'd imagined this exact same situation seven days ago.

"Yeah." Derek smirked you have to get them every week if you want more."

"Well, thank you." Meredith said awkwardly as she reached for her coffee cup. "It's unexpected. You didn't need to do all of this." She spent the rest of breakfast watching Susan put away groceries. Eventually Alex came downstairs and helped himself to some of whatever it was that Susan had brought along. As soon as Meredith felt wouldn't be considered rude, she made her way to the hospital and hailed Christina for advice.

"I mean it's weird right?" She asked opening her locker in the intern's locker room. "That Susan keeps dropping by and bringing me groceries? I mean we've only just become friends or related or whatever you call your estranged father's wife."

"You may be confused, since you were basically raised by wolves." Alex piped up a few lockers over. "But this is what mother's do. They stop by, they stock the fridge. Dude, do you think she might do our laundry?"

"Hey! Get your own fake mom!" Meredith told him with a disapproving face. Christina seized this brake in their barely a conversation to shrug on her lab coat and leave the locker room. Mer would have followed right behind her if her cellphone hadn't rung. It was Pepper.

"Meredith, I'm sorry to have to call you like this." Pepper apologized immediately. "Normally I wouldn't call you unless I had news, but I'm afraid I have to ask a favor of you..."


"She wants you to have your brother legally pronounced dead?" Christina gasped over her lunch. "I mean...can you even do that?"

"Apparently, I can and they want me to." Meredith sighed. She pushed her lunch around with her fork. "I mean I have no reason not to, right? What if he comes home? I mean is that something that happens?"

"I don't know any more than you do." Christina shrugged. Meredith was about to say something else when she spotted Susan wondering through the cafeteria.

"Susan?" She called out to the woman in confusion.

"Oh, Meredith!" Susan was relived. "I'm so glad I found you."

"You're here. Twice in one day." Meredith pointed out, her voice rampant with annoyance. First her home and now this.

"Is this a bad time?" Susan frowned noting the two women's lunches. "I mean, I know you're always busy..."

"Yeah, no, I'm busy. I'm at work." Meredith nodded.

"It's just that, I was..." Susan fumbled for the rights words as she remembered what Derek has said that morning about smothering. "You know, I'd really just love to talk with you. I would love to find the time for you and me to sit down..."

"I'm sorry." Meredith shook her head. She couldn't do this right now. No more family crap today. Not with Pepper already waiting for her to call back and give her permission to have her brother pronounced legally dead. "This is too much. Way too much. You keep showing up. I can not be your daughter. Or your charity case or the thing that you need to fix."

"I'm not trying too..."

"No." Meredith insisted. "No. Stop talking. Okay? Stop mothering. Just stop." She got up from the table and left her half eaten meal where it was.

"You can be my mom if you want." Christina offered before continuing to eat her lunch.


A/N: First I need to warn you guys that I did add a couple extra paragraphs to Chapter 8 yesterday so you might want to go back and re-read that if you're interested in how the rest of Tony and Meredith's first meeting went. I am sorry that It takes me so long to update in between chapters but since I'm sort of stitching together two completely different universes it takes me awhile to figure out how I want things to work together. What elements from each story I think are worth mentioning and all that. I dont know when the next time I'll get around to a new chapter is, I'm hoping I can get another one out tonight because that would just be amazing!

But I just want to take time to thank everyone who supports this story. Mashing Grey's Anatomy and the Avengers universe is not something that makes sense at first glace. So thank you for being so patient with me and thank you so much for reviewing. It helps me know that there is interest in the story and it helps spark my inspiration!