Chapter 6

When Ali woke up the next morning, she still felt awful but not nearly as bad as yesterday.

She started to go through the last 24 hours in her head and when she came to the part where she asked Peter to stay, she opened her eyes.

Looking around her room she couldn't see him anywhere, but Ali would be lying if she said that she wasn't disappointed. She rolled over only to hear the crinkle of paper. The piece of paper had been placed next to her and she quickly located it and pulled it out from under the duvet.

It had been folded twice so Ali unfolded it to see a collection of numbers.

She sat up almost immediately as she realised what the numbers were and regretted it as soon as she had done it.

Her head was spinning, and she couldn't see straight so sank back into her pillows. A dull ache returned in her head but once the spinning subsided Ali carefully and slowly sat up.

Next to her was her bedside table and Ali immediately glanced at it expecting to find her phone next to her newest book, where it was always placed before she fell asleep.

It wasn't there. She looked down to find her school clothes from yesterday were still on and that her phone was in her blazer pocket.

She pulled it out before saving the phone number into her contacts and opening a chat where she could message him.

Ali knew she had to say something to him but what? Her crush had helped her when she was sick and stayed with her when she had asked even though he didn't need to. In the end she gave up and just texted him the first thing that popped into her head. She regretted it almost instantly, but it was already too late.

Hi, it's me, Ali. Just wanted to say thank you for looking after me yesterday and I hope I didn't ruin your evening.

Exiting that chat Ali noticed that she had 10 other messages which were all from Maya. 2 were sent yesterday and the rest were sent today. The two sent yesterday where just messages telling her to rest and get well soon. The eight that were sent today seemed to be Maya panicking.

Only after reading the last message did, she check the time. It was 10am. She had school today, yet she wasn't there. Groaning she decided to prolong the inevitable talk that she would have with her family about hiding her sickness, by texting Maya back.

Seems like they found out as I only just woke up. Also, I am feeling fine and am alive so don't panic.

Right now, Maya was supposed to be in Geography yet, not two seconds later, she responded.

I already know you are alive because I have been watching Peter for the last 40 minutes and two minutes ago, I saw him visibly relax and saw his phone under the desk.

You know that might not have been because I texted him.

Agree to disagree but I am glad you are feeling better, but you are still sick and need to rest.

Fine...

Ali sighed to herself. She would much rather be at school than at home at the moment.

Carefully, Ali pulled back the duvet and stood up before stumbling over to her chest of drawers.

Her headache was getting worse every time she moved but the room was only slightly spinning. She didn't feel sick but knew that if she ate anything then it would come right back up.

There was no way that her family were going to buy it if she pretended to be fine, so she changed into clean pyjamas before pulling on her dressing gown and stumbling out of the room with her phone in her hand.

She made it to the closest sofa in the sitting room before she collapsed onto it. Not eating for more than 24 hours had caused her to have no energy and so she could barely stand for more than 10 seconds let alone walk. She had practically fallen asleep again but woke up when she felt something cold brushing her hair out of her eyes.

"When Natasha said that you might be sick, I don't think anyone thought that it would be this bad."

Bucky's metal arm was cooling her burning face down and only when she felt that contact of something cold did, she realise how warm she was.

Immediately she tried to throw off the dressing gown, but it was an incredibly weak attempt. She felt Bucky lift his arm off of her face to help her with her dressing gown. Ali whined in protest when she felt Bucky's cold hand lift off of her face. It returned once she had been wrapped in a thin blanket.

All of the other Avengers had been forced to go down to one of the conference rooms to discuss their plans for their next mission. Bucky had been left to tell Ali what was going on when she finally woke up.

"When was the last time you ate or drank anything?"

Ali sighed again. All she wanted to do was sleep. The walk from her room to the sitting room had completely drained her.

"When we all ate dinner together and I had a tiny bit to drink last night."

"Ohh Ali... You need to eat."

He was terrified by how little Ali fought back when he stood up and left to go to the kitchen and find her some crackers. The only reason that he didn't call the other Avengers and tell them what was happening was because they would find out soon enough and they needed to have that meaning.

Once he had located the crackers, which for some reason were open and at the front of the cupboard, he put three on a plate and brought the rest of the packet with him as he made his way over to Ali.

At this point Ali had already fallen back asleep. She was extremely uncomfortable because she felt too hot but was just too exhausted not to give in to sleep.

Bucky really didn't want to wake Ali but knew that she needs to eat so went and got her a glass of water before returning back to her.

A glint of metal caught his eye as he pulled out the cup and on closer inspection, he found that all the metal straws that usually lived at the back of the cupboard had been moved to the front. Instead of questioning it he merely pulled one out and placed it in her drink.

He tried to wake her up as gently as possible, but it didn't work and he started to get frightened that she had slipped into a coma or something. As soon as he placed his metal arm on her cheek, he felt her stir and relief flooded through him.

Ali saw the cracker in his hand and knew what he was about to do but was too exhausted to put up any kind of a fight so let him carefully put it in her mouth.

She bit into it and chewed it before swallowing it down her dry throat. As soon as it hit her stomach, she felt it started to twist and turn and before she knew it, she was sick.

Luckily Bucky had realised what was going to happen before she threw up on him so had already grabbed a bin.

Once again exhausted Ali lay back down on the sofa. Bucky only forced her to take a few sips of water before placing the drink back on the table. That thankfully stayed in her stomach.

Bucky knew he was way out of his depth as soon as he had seen Ali walk into the room but right now, he was terrified for her. One of the basic principles for humans was that they had to drink, and they had to eat. Ali couldn't eat so what on Earth was he meant to do.

"FRIDAY update everyone on Ali's health and tell them to get up here now!"

His hand still rested on Ali's head as he waited for the others to arrive. It only took them 10 seconds.

As soon as the doors opened, Natasha ran out of the elevator and looked around them room in search of her little girl. Once she had located her, she ran over too her and called out to FRIDAY,

"FRIDAY what does Ali have and how can we treat it?"

"She seems to have a case of the flu that appears to have started yesterday morning. I have yet to determine the cause of the vomiting however it has not allowed her to consume any food for the last 36 hours. This seems to have depleted her energy much faster than an average human and I believe that her energy depletion is due to her powers."

Natasha was not happy with the amount of uncertainty that there still was so pulled out her phone and dialled Jemma's number.

"She is sick. Really sick and I don't know what to do."

The phone dropped out of her hand and for only the second time in 2 years all the Avengers saw Natasha cry.

She was kneeling in front of a still unconscious Ali and was stroking her face while silent tears streamed down her face. Clint went over to her and pulled her into a much-needed hug while also getting a look at Ali's feverish red face.

Both Tony and Bruce were standing in one of the corners of the room trying to discuss what could have caused this and what they could do to treat it while everybody else watched Ali.

Wanda sat next to Ali on the sofa and was stroking her leg while tears streamed down her face. Vision was sat next to her and had her in a one-armed embrace. Bucky had gone to stand next to Steve who were both leaning against a wall at the far end of the room and were surveying the scene in front of them.

Neither Clint nor Natasha had moved yet the tears were no longer evident on either of their faces and somebody had given Natasha a wet flannel that had been wrapped around some ice cubes, so she was now wiping Ali's face with it.

It seemed like they had been waiting forever Jemma arrived with both Fitz and Daisy behind her.

Fitz and Jemma immediately went all professional while Daisy broke down as soon as she saw her sister's lifeless body lying there.

Natasha and Clint were forced to move away from Ali as soon as the three arrived and to everyone's shock Natasha went over to Daisy and hugged her. Daisy couldn't process who was actually hugging her right now but was eternally grateful. Coulson and May had been roped into helping on the latest mission but should be landing back at the base soon.

Everybody heard Jemma sigh and from what they could tell she was sighing in relief.

"Ali appears to have a case of the flu. This flu caused her immune system to not be as effective as usual for a while. I still do not know why the flu is as bad as it is for her, but it is not the problem. The flu would have been at its worst yesterday though I can already tell that it has practically gone. What is the problem here is Ali's stomach? Her stomach is full of scar tissue from her stab wound. Luckily Ali was still developing and growing so it wasn't much of a problem when she was younger. Unfortunately, it seems that the flu allowed her to catch another smaller bug which would not usually have cause any harm but since her immune system was already weak it caused damage across her already damaged stomach. I can stop the vomiting but the bug that she caught has caused half of her working stomach to become ineffective and so therefore it can no longer digest food. The remaining percent of her stomach that does work is so small that she won't be able to digest enough food to live."

Nobody seemed comforted by Jemma's words, but she carried on anyways.

"For the time being I can connect a hole from her stomach to her skin and she can be fed through liquid food being inserted into her through the hole through a tube. Until I have a sample of the ineffective side of her stomach there isn't much more I can do. If all is as I believe it is then I already have the medicine needed to reactivate that side of her stomach. However, if she doesn't have what I believe she has, then giving her the medicine could have a lot of long term impacts."

The faces of those in the room didn't change. The baby of their family was going to hopefully be all right but there was still so much uncertainty.