Needs to be edited.
When Warren and Maria got together, trouble seemed to follow them. Tony was never sure how; but he was pretty sure most of the things they did were Maria's ideas and Warren simply either followed, or made these ideas better.
Tony couldn't believe the amount of trouble to two could get into in the matter of minutes. He had turned around once to pull dinner from the stove and somehow the two of them had slapped tar all up the side of one of the walls. He had been furious, coloring on the walls with marker was one thing, but tar was impossibly hard to get off children and walls.
"Look!" Maria said pointing to a bottle on the edge of the counter. Warren studied the bottle not understanding what it was, or why it had been as exciting as Maria thought it was. Warren shrugged his shoulders in an uncaring manner.
"It makes bubbles." Maria said tilting her head back to get a better view of the dish soap. The bottle seemed almost heavenly sitting on the counter, just out of their reach. There were so many things they could do with the bottle, and their heads were spinning with ideas.
Warren gasped up at the bottle before running over to the table where he pulled out a chair. With difficulty he pushed the chair across the floor and over to the counter where he pressed the chair harshly into the counter.
Maria grew more and more excited as she watched Warren climb up onto the chair and stand on the tips of his toes to grab for the soap that otherwise would have been impossible to reach. The bottle was heavy in his hands as he crawled back down onto the seat of the chair and then back onto the ground to Maria who was jumping around in joy.
In seconds the two had started to play with their new prize, their little fingers attempting to pull open the lid of the bottle. Their hearts almost stopped when they heard someone enter the kitchen.
Pepper stepped in talking on the phone and sloppy placing the bags on the counter top before turning to leave to grab the remaining bags from the car. When Pepper was out of sight they quickly snuck out of the kitchen and into the living room.
"Mine!" Maria said reaching for the bottle when they had entered the safety of the living room. Warren jerked back moving the bottle out of her reach, Maria squealed pushing Warren harshly when he refused to give her the bottle.
The bottle to flew out of Warren's hands and slid across the floor before splitting open and leaking out onto the polished floor. Both children stood in shock as they watched the thick liquid spill onto the floor.
Suddenly they both laughed quickly skipping over to the bottle and pulling the broken plastic out of the large puddle of blue soap. Maria quickly discarded the broken pieces of bottle a large glass table centered in the middle of the room.
"Maria look!" Warren said as he slid his feet through the large mass, without warning he slipped falling onto his bottom. For a moment he sat in shocked silence before laughing loudly, Maria quickly joined in the fun.
The puddle of soap suddenly became a slip-and-slide in which both children were running and sliding into, every time one of the children slid through it the slide became bigger and bigger. Their fear of being caught was quickly forgotten as they both inched closer and closer towards the glass windows leading outside.
Maria laughed as she stood up, and ran for their slide quickly sliding across the floor and towards the window at an alarming speed. She hid the glass window with a thud laughing as she tried to stand up.
Warren was laughing hard as he watched Maria try to stand up by the window trying to use her hands on the slippery glass to push herself up. At that moment Warren had gotten an new better idea to add to their game. He took three large steps back before running and throwing himself on the slipper floor.
His body quickly sped across the floor and crashed into Maria who yelped when his body hit hers then screamed when the window she was leaning up against shattered.
At first Warren didn't register what had happened and quickly apologized to Maria not fully understanding the full damage of his body slam into Maria. The sudden fear of being in trouble clutched his heart and he quickly pushed himself out of the glass hissing in pain as a few shards cut his hands.
It was the matter of seconds before Pepper and Tony both came running into the room, Tony quickly registered the scene even before Pepper did, but when tried to run over to Maria who was laying limply in a pool of glass he slipped on an unknown substance on the floor and slammed back first into the ground knocking the wind out of him. Tony was instantly stunned.
Pepper slipped through the soap careful making her way to Maria. Pepper's heart was thumping widely in her chest and for a moment the worst thought came to her mind when she saw Maria lying on her side in a pool of her own blood unmoving.
Her hands quickly gripped Maria's shoulder turning her small fragile body a little to see if she was breathing. A cry of relief parted from Pepper when she saw Maria was in fact still breathing but her eyes were wide open and staring off into nothing.
Pepper choked as she panicked no longer knowing what to do. Maria was in shock her skin seemed to get paler as she lay in the pool of blood and glass. Pepper's eyes quickly scanned Maria's body and when she saw Maria's leg a new wave of panic set in.
"Oh got Tony her leg! I can see bone!" Pepper cried out, she suddenly felt sick and her body swayed a little at the sight. If there ever was a moment Pepper would pass out this would be it.
Two firm hands grabbed Maria pulling her out of the glass. Pepper looked at Tony shocked who quickly took command of the situation pulling his daughter tightly to his chest and moving her out of the glass and over to the couch where he ripped off his shirt and quickly wrapped it around her leg.
"Pepper call 9-1-1!" Tony hollered over the uncomfortably silent room. Pepper remained stunned for a moment before pulling the phone out of her pocket and dialing the number with shaking hands.
"Is Maria dead?" Warren asked tearful as they waited in a large private room. Warren was on the verge of tears and after warping his hands up, and calling his father he and Pepper waited for his father to show up, as they waited for Tony to return with news of Maria.
"No she's not!" Pepper assured him, the paramedics were quick to respond, and they easily prepared Maria before they even reached the hospital. Pepper couldn't help but feel completely useless. She had frozen up when she ran over to Maria.
When Warren's father finally picked him up, he sat with Pepper for a while before deciding that Warren should go home to sleep. He requested that Pepper called him and let him know tomorrow how Maria was doing, and until then he wished her good luck.
Now alone in the waiting room, Pepper started to wonder what would have happened if Tony wasn't home, would she have sat there in the pool of glass and watched as Maria bleed to death? Or would instincts have kicked in?
She tried not to think about the first option, she tried to reassure herself that she was a good enough parent to finally click into instinct mode, and get Maria the help she needed.
If Maria died, how would she explain that to Tony, how could she live with herself? Pepper could feel the buildup of tears in her eyes, she was useless.
There was a soft knock at the door. Pepper quickly wiped the oncoming tears from her eyes and looked up to see Tony standing in the door way.
"Hey." Tony whispered softly holding Maria in his arms. Her leg was heavily bandaged, and her arms hung limply at her side. Maria's head was resting on Tony's shoulder.
"How is she?" Pepper whispered standing; she almost tripped over her own feet in excitement. She didn't think that Maria would be out so quickly but then again she wouldn't be surprised if Tony paid someone to let them out a little bit early.
Tony awkwardly pulled his head back so he could see Maria's face, her eyes were almost closed as she tried to keep her self-awake, her eye's almost rolling into her eye lids.
"High as a kite." Tony replied resting the bottom of his jaw along his daughter forehead. The sensation was comforting to him after another long night in the hospital. He could feel the dull ache of his back as he held Maria, and the lack of sleep was making him very tired. He wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep.
"We should get going; Maria is going to be out for a few hours." He said softly slowly making his way towards the entrance of the hospital.
"That kid has been in the hospital more times than I can count." Tony sighed sitting down on the couch beside Pepper. Pepper didn't respond her mind still deep in thought with the events that had happened only hours ago.
Tony groaned stretching his back and hissing in pain when a sharp pain shot up his spine. If there was ever a moment that he felt old this would be it. Tony relaxed into the couch his tired eyes rolling over to Pepper.
"Pep you okay?" He asked sitting up wincing in pain from his back. Pepper's watery eyes looked over to Tony, she thought about lying to him, but when she saw the look of determination on his face she decided that she might as well tell the truth, because Tony wouldn't leave her alone until he figured it out.
"Today when I saw Maria just lying there…." Pepper choked thinking about the thousands of thoughts that ran through her head at that moment. The twisting in her chest she felt earlier returning.
"You thought she was dead?" Tony mumbled rubbing his eyes with one hand. Pepper nodded her head in agreement, her eye brow raised in confusion. How did Tony know what she was thinking?
"Yeah, it's a scary thought." He whispered leaning back into the couch and resting his head on the back with his eyes closed. For a second Tony was silent before opening his eyes and tiredly looking back to Pepper.
"You know that night in the hospital where I asked you to go buy some things for Maria?" Pepper nodded her head, her attention fully focused on what Tony was saying. She would always remember the first night they met Maria, because there could never be another night like it. There was too many emotion's running through the room, and for the first time in her life she had seen a look across Tony's face that truly disturbed her, almost like he was morning.
"I asked you to leave because they told me that Maria had an infection in her lungs and that she might not make it through the night." Pepper almost choked when she heard Tony's confession. She opened her mouth to say something but her words poured out in a messy jumble. Tony gave her a tried smile.
"I know I should have told you, but I just couldn't." Tony chucked rolling his eyes to the ceiling, a silence hung over the room as they both processed what Tony had admitted.
"It was the most horrifying experience in my life, because sometimes I honestly thought she had stopped breathing and this feeling I had never felt before started to swell in my chest. I felt completely useless. The next day, when they told me she was going to be okay; I knew I never wanted to feel that way again." Tony said, Pepper knew the pain he was talking about, she too had experienced it only hours ago, and yet talking to Tony about it made her feel like maybe she was beating herself up a bit too much.
"And yet somehow she manages to get that feeling to creep back." He said pointing towards the missing window in the living room. It had since been cleaned up, and a plastic covering hung over it until someone came to install a new one in the morning.
Pepper softly laughed feeling much better about this afternoon, Maria was okay after all and now that she knew she wasn't the only one who had feelings about uselessness that nagging voice at the back of her mind telling her she was a bad parent dissipated.
"Stop beating yourself up about being a bad parent, Maria is totally in love with you." Tony said, grunting as he stood up from the couch. Pepper's eyes started to water, Tony was right. Maria was completely in love with her. She was always following her around, and sometimes would mimic the things Pepper did.
"Go sleep with Maria, I would but my back might commit suicide!" Tony chuckled leaning over and kissing Pepper's temple. "Goodnight." He said quickly making his way up the stairs.
Pepper remained on the couch shocked.
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