Chapter 4
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Salem was brought into a private room as soon as she got into the hospital, Natasha not far behind the gurney as they moved her to the proper room.
She was assessed again at the hospital by doctors.
The nurses cut away at Salem's shirt, slicing it right underneath where the QUEEN words were. It was an inch or two below the bottoms of her breast, keeping her covered enough if she lifted her arms. The teen was in nothing but jeans and the now cropped QUEEN shirt, her boots and jacket by the chair.
The doctor came, sitting at the bedside chair so he could place down the tray of instruments. He introduced himself as Doctor Lovier, wearing black scrubs that meant he was a surgeon. Natasha stood by the closed door, acting as a guard and carefully watching the doctor.
Doctor Lovier hardly got to start before he almost jumped away from the bed as Salem gasped in pain again, curling into the side with the pieces of metal shrapnel.
She clutched her hands to the area, burning pain coming from her side as she just groaned. After a couple seconds of pain, Salem removed her hands from the area.
"What the fuck?" Salem picked a jagged piece of metal from the bed, looking at it as the bloodied piece should have been in her side.
She moved away from the side of the bed, sitting up as she no longer had any pain in her abdomen area.
"That's… not normal," Doctor Lovier said, standing up.
He watched as Salem touched the once injured area, finding that it was healing right behind their eyes as the skin turned from the bloodied mess of shrapnel and shredded skin to scabbing over to scarring before even the scarring healed.
All that was left was a little bit of blood that Doctor Lovier wiped away with an alcohol wipe.
"Nah," Salem fully sat up. "Natasha. It's healed."
"I can see that," She came over to the bed. Grabbing Salem's arm with one hand and a scalpel with the other, she sliced a deep, long line across the girl's forearm.
Salem yelped, clutching her arm to her chest. "What's that fucking for?!"
"Look at it, Salem," Natasha ordered.
"What?"
She did as asked.
The edges of the deep line started to shrink, coming, coming closer and closer to the centre of the wound as it closed up. All that was left was a tiny line of a scar that quickly faded.
Salem's fear dropped to disbelief.
"What the fuck…"
It was less of a question and much more of a statement as Natasha quickly got out her phone. She spent less than a minute on it, ordering this and that.
Natasha ended the call, grabbing Salem's jacket and tossing it over to the girl. "Pepper will have this covered with non-disclosure agreements. I'm getting you to compound now, Tony's orders."
"How's the situation?" Salem asked, putting on the jacket before slipping the weird drap thing away. She put her shoes on.
Natasha shrugged. "He didn't say much. Helicarriers got most of them civilians off the island. There were a couple small explosions but I don't think they were the missiles. SHIELD will inform us. Come on, let's get you discharged."
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The Avenger Compound was huge but it wasn't the biggest place Salem had been in. She wasn't that impressed by it, mostly because she had lived in Stark Tower for a while, and at the Miami house when she wasn't at school and before it got destroyed.
Salem laid on the couch in the living room, the table before her lit up with a holographic picture of her school and everything that was happening on it.
LILITH had access to FRIDAY's visuals, including the suit and Tony's glasses, so Salem was watching the same holograph that her dad had in the command centre on the island, and another holograph screen had what her father saw from his glasses.
His voice and everyone else's was being projected into the room.
"Should I be surprised you're able to do this?" Natasha said, handing Salem a requested Redbull before sitting on a loveseat nearby. She took a sip of her tea.
Salem smiled into the can of Redbull, taking a big gulp of the more or less battery acid drink. "LILITH, anything in the news about this event."
"There have been attempts to get onto the island, but agents and government personnel have stopped all news reporters and journalists going onto the island," LILITH said. "Around ninety-seven percent of civilians have been evacuated."
"How much is ninety-seven percent of the number of people?" Natsaha asked.
"About thirty or so people left on the island," Salem leaned back into the couch. "Have the Helicarriers been sent off yet?"
"No."
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The missiles were destroyed by Wanda being able to change their course so they exploded in the nearby ocean. Though it did damage to the nearby shore of Sweden, it saved the island and a lot of lives. Everyone was escorted back onto the island, letting them get their things or resume education as the government decided it was once again safe.
Tony donned his suit as soon as the whole thing was over, wanting to get back to America as soon as possible.
A couple hours later, he landed at the compound.
"Where is she?" He demanded as he got in, looking around the living area of the compound. He sighed as he took one look at the sofa, disengaging the suit and leaving him in his civilian clothing. "FRIDAY, stop the holograms."
Salem had a small pillow beneath her head, laying mostly on her stomach and side as she laid on the couch. She was completely asleep. A blanket had been put on her, and to the side, Duke's form could be seen from under the blanket where Salem's leg seemed to jut out from under it. He was curled around her left leg as it was close to dangling off the side of the bed.
"How long has she been asleep?" He asked softly, turning to Natasha who sat at the table in the kitchen.
"She dropped an hour or two ago," Natasha said. "As soon as she saw that you left the island, she dropped like a sack of potatoes. Duke didn't let me move her into one of the bedrooms."
"No, he doesn't like it when either of them are disturbed or touched when vulnerable," Tony nodded, grabbing the empty Redbull and putting it in the bin.
"I remember last time Happy Hogan tried," Natasha smirked in memory, drinking a bottle of beer.
Tony laughed, sitting down at the table but facing the direction so he could watch Salem. "I was surprised he didn't quit there and then."
"Snake bites aren't the worst." She took another sip, offering Tony some but he declined. He got himself a glass of something a lot stronger and sat down to drink that.
"So," Natasha began. "What's going to happen to her? I know what I saw today. She's not human, or atleast, she's not normal. That electric storm wasn't there before and she shouldn't be able to heal this face. Even Steve doesn't heal this quickly."
"FRIDAY, bring up the video from when Natasha and Salem were on the jet," Tony asked, letting the holographic screen appear from his phone.
The scene from the jet appeared up there as FRIDAY began to describe what happened.
"After Salem is tied, and Black Widow has a gun to her head, Salem takes her ring off and starts to melt through the ties," FRIDAY said as she showed the scenes she described. "Boss, you need to watch this scene."
This scene was right after the beeping started from Anna's bag, seconds before the explosion.
Tony scowled and flinched as he watched his daughter be thrown onto the floor by the shrapnel and explosion.
FRIDAY slowed it down after the explosion happened, zooming in on Salem's face as she grimaced as held her side.
"Her eyes are glowing purple," Natasha said. "This partly explains the healing. Can you skip to right before we somehow ended up at the airport even though we were another three hours out."
"Of course," FRIDAY said and did as asked. "Gathering data, there wasn't any storm near the Quinjet at the time when the transportation occurred. But there are signs of an energy suddenly appearing at the time. Aerial visuals from satellites confirm that there was a tiny storm around the Quinjet, and the energy expended was dangerously high."
Tony rubbed at his chin. "Tell Doctor Helen Cho I need her at the compound first thing in the morning. I want a full workup on Salem and need it compared to everything in our databases along with SHIELD's."
"Why?" Natasha asked. "Do you think it could be something from her mother's side of the family?"
"That's the problem," He said. "Her mother gave birth and named me father, then she disappeared from the hospital. No trace, no visuals, no cameras on her. She didn't even leave a name. It was like she never existed but she left Salem. I had a DNA test done on Salem and she is my daughter, but her mother's DNA didn't match anything we had data on. All I know is that her mother was human."
"How can a woman disappear from a hospital straight after giving birth?"
"No clue," Tony said, both of them turning their heads to the sleeping girl and snake duo. "All she left was a name for her daughter, Sabrina Andris."
"Why does she go by Salem then?"
Tony smiled. "There was this comic series, Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Sabrina's a Witch who has a human mother and warlock father. You do know what they are right? Witches and Warlocks?"
"Tony…"
"Fine, fine. Just making sure," He snickered. "Well, she became obsessed with the comics and when the sitcom came out, she loved it. There was this cat that was once a Warlock but he tried to take over the world and so he got turned into a cat as punishment. Sabrina has this cat as a familiar or as a pet or something, and he was such an asshole in the show. He was named Salem and suddenly my daughter wanted to be like the cat."
"The cat reminds me of you then," Natasha said before she nodded towards Salem. "Do you want me to put her to bed?"
"Nah, she doesn't like changes of scenery if she's asleep," He shook his head, waving a hand dismissively. "She needs the sleep anyway."
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"Up and atta, cupcakes!"
Salem almost screamed in shock as cold water was poured over her. "Jesus fucking christ! What's that for?!"
"Language," Tony scolded, watching as she bared her teeth in anger at him. "You're seeing Doc Cho today. I wanna know what's up with the glowy purple thing."
She sat up, stretching as Duke hissed disgustedly and curled back up under the blanket again. "What glowy purple thing?"
"The healing thing along with your eyes," He gestured to his own eyes, glasses perched on his nose already.
"What time is it?"
LILITH knew to stay silent when Tony was around, so FRIDAY responded instead. "It's almost eight in the morning."
Salem slumped back into the couch again, covering her head with the blanket as she tried to curl back up. "Too early."
"Nope, not happening, kid," Tony tore the blanket off of her, hauling her up by her arm before almost marching her to the kitchen table. "Sit, don't sleep, and we can get through this quicker than you can say Iron Man is the best and then you can go back to sleep."
She laid her head on the table, groaning. "It's too early for this. FRIDAY, please put the coffee machine on."
"Make it two coffees," Tony said.
"Are the rest back?"
"You mean the Avengers? They came back a couple hours ago. Cap's awake, Vision doesn't actually sleep so I'd think he's always awake," Tony said, making the coffees. His was black sludge while hers was milky with plenty of sugar. "Here's your diabete juice. I don't know how you drink that."
Salem drank the coffee like it was a lifeline, savouring the sugary bitterness of the coffee like it was heaven. "I don't know how you drink that bitter sludge you call coffee. It has the consistency of tar."
"Better tar than half of it being milk." He gave her a look.
She rolled her eyes, finishing the coffee. "What's on today's agenda?"
"We need you to be checked out by Cho, see what's going on with your body and these new powers,"
"Powers?"
"Salem, didn't you realise you teleported the Quinjet to the airport when it began to fail?"
She sat up like a bolt of lightning went up her back, making her sit pin straight. "I did what now?"
"You really didn't realise…" Tony trailed off as he rubbed a hand aggressively down his face.
"Dad, I have no clue what even happened or how we got to the airport so quickly," Salem sighed, holding her cup so tight her hands turned white. "I've been at school all year. I didn't even come home for christmas."
"Pepper beat me silly for that."
Salem reframed from frowning at that.
She knew Tony never really cared if she came home during the holidays. He usually sent her off to a destination holiday with a huge wad of money and allowed her free rein during whatever period of time she was away from school.
Tony put several thousand dollars into her bank account each holiday or birthday, along with the huge fifteen thousand she got each month already. She didn't spend much of it, mostly paying for whatever she needed or wanted. She saved up most of it, letting the interest rate of saving increase the amount of money she had.
"Do you need a new phone?" Tony asked.
Salem shrugged. "Mine's been working fine. You need to add in a dimming screen for privacy. I don't like it when others can see what I'm on."
"Is it a problem?"
"Yes."
"I'll add it to the next batch and you can test them out." He stood up. "Come on, Cho should be here by now."
She got up like a prisoner did when they were woken up, swaying a little as she walked as she was still tired. She grabbed Duke before following her dad to the health and rehabilitation area of the compound.
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