Standard disclaimers apply.
It was the loud commotion that roused her from her turbulent grey eyes hazed with sleep flickered took not of her surroundings, the musty cave smell and the dark dimly light that a small make shift fire pit gives. She cautiously gets up, bare feet against the gold opens keeps her ears peeled, the incoherent voices behind the steel door becoming louder and louder, she narrows her eyes trying to decipher the confusing mixture of languages that she couldn't begin to fathom.
Only the words, 'Breathing' and 'Stark' was the only thing that she managed to get from the chaos behind those steel doors. She could have sworn she heard her name mentioned as well but then, she wasn't thrilled with that voices grew louder and she instinctively backs away just in time for the door to open and man was pushed immediately approaches the man, ignoring her gut that screamed that maybe the man is one of moves to hold the man positioning herself between him and the armed men that spilled into her room - cell (?).She turns her attention to the man, he was around his mid 50's, bald with prominent laugh must be the doctor in her that urged her to try and help and protect him despite the situation. She threw a nasty glare at the armed man, her eyes straining to the rest of them as they hauled something or someone into the her narrows her eyes as a wave of cold dread as she watched them dropped the bundle into the metal table that had been in the middle the dread doubled when she sees that it was a man-bloodied and unconscious that the armed men had hauled eyes darts away from the unconscious man and to the armed men, they were speaking once again in a language that she couldn't understand.
"They want you to keep this man alive." Her head snaps back to the older man, her brows furrowing."What?" She asks, she pursed her lips as she threw a man a questioning stare, demanding.
"They want you to keep this man alive, they need him." She bit her lip and stole a glance at her captors and spots the head honcho; Raza. She narrows her eyes as their eyes met, curbing the shiver that run behind her spine. She tore her eyes from the terrorist and glides towards the steel table, adept hand immediately settled on the man's carotid checking for a was there, but it was barely a flutter and rapidly declining.A muttered curse escaped her lips as she turn once again to the armed men then to the older man behind her."Please pass me my bag. Right there by the cot." She asks, her voice becoming clipped as she composes herself. She glares at the armed men, to Raza and clenched her jaw.
"I don't know what you monsters did this man, but if you want him to live I need supplies. Supplies I know you bastards have." She spits, grey eyes defiant. The stinging pain at the side of her face came not a second explodes her mouth and she glares in return."Just keep that man alive if you want to stay alive yourself." Raza hisses at her before storming out.
"How is this man alive?" She whispers as she pries the kevlar vest off the man's chest and exposing his mangled surveys the man's chest, her mind cataloging all the information that she could get by just this wasn't the first time that she had seen injuries such as these, being a combat medic at a place such as Afghanistan, she had been exposed to cases such as this is the first time that she had seen someone somewhat cling to life despite the extent of these injuries.
"You would be surprised how resilient a human body can be." She pursed her lips, before she hands the man a pair of sterile gloves."I would need a second set of hands if we were to save this man's life."
...
ONE MONTH BEFORE
Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan
"How are you holding up Trevelyan? Excited to go home?" A smile graced her lips as she looked up from the screen of her laptop, gently folding the gadget. "You said it, I'm sick of all these sand it literally everywhere." Her smile evolves into a full blown grin as she reclined back to her chair, her grey eyes watching Callahan as he too took a seat on a second chair lying around.
Lieutenant Eula Jean Trevelyan let out a sigh, she gazed at the open flap of her tent taking in the hustle and bustle of a military base, the same place that she been calling home for the last five thirty five, being a soldier had been a humbling was a doctor by profession, a cardio-thoracic serving in the military, it just felt right back would be her third and final tour before she hangs her uniform hopefully for good.
"So, two more weeks then?" Callahan mused, his dark eyes and stubbled cheeks crinkled into an easy smile."What do you plan on doing after you return to DC?" he looked pensive, she hadn't really thought about what she would be doing after her tour. She had been too caught up with the idea of going home and performing her duty as a combat medic that she hadn't reached the point after had begun receiving job offers already one being Metro General at New then there's her previous hospital back at Washington... But she still wasn't a vacation first at her mother's home country?
"Yeah, we just need to finish up the medical mission at Gulmira and then get the bosses off my back about preparing for Stark's weapon demonstration a month from now." Eula resisted the urge to roll her , preparing for a weapon demonstration was not in her job description, but then the higher ups wanted her to be , she'll follow orders but at that time and date, her main priority is the medical mission.
"Can't say the same thing as you Eula, I would have preferred being part of your troop but then..." Callahan shrugs, before chuckling.
"I just want to get home to the missus and the boys. Jordan is beside herself with I'm considering returning to San Antonio General myself."
Eula watched as her friend and co combat medic brighten after he told her about his little family. She had met the rest of the Callahans once in the past and they were lovely.A soft pang resonated in her heart, as her eyes , she just wants to go home.
"Trevelyan? Do you have a sec?" Eula's head suddenly snaps to the newcomer, her body straightening as she stood up and saluted. The newcomer nods and she drops her hand."I need to talk to you Trevelayan if you would." Eula eyes the older man curiously but follows him out of the tent but not before nodding at Callahan.
"I'll cut to the chase Trevelyan. I know you have been preparing for the deployment at Gulmira but we just received info of terror activity close the peninsula... The higher ups had two options, it's either we postponed it or addadditional troops for added security. You can guess that the the first option was never an option..."
Eula understood the concern, Gulmira had always been a hotpot for terrorist activity which is why the villagers living there always get caught up in skirmishes. It was a sad reality but at the moment they didn't have the resources yet to evacuated inwardly sighed, her mind running a thousand of thoughts as she walked across the base.
It was pure didn't see them watched helplessly as her fellow countrymen drop down like flies as they were bathed with hellish rain of bullets. She grips her rifle and return fire, ducking down just as she managed to hit a few of their radio had been going haywire, mayday calls and status reports ratting near her ear.'Five more minutes.' Five more minutes and the evac would be just needs to hold out until then. She crawls towards one of her comrades,a male who was slumped down behind one of their was a young man, fresh out of was shaking as he gripped his bloodied immediately fished out bandages from her pack and began to put pressure against the silence of their surrounding unnerved Eula but still she continued to apply first aid,she stops when she heard footstep crushing the hot hot sand."Stay down and don't move." She whispered harshly at the injured soldier who only slowly crawled back a few paces from where she was before and reloaded her she turned to her side only to come face to face with a barrel of a looked at the owner of the gun defiantly before a pain exploded on the side of her head and then nothing.
...
"I've removed all the shrapnel that I could but there's still more.I can't hack deeper without the proper remaining shrapnel would slice through his atrial septum at this rate." Frustration bubbled from Eula's hated the fact that she had to operate on this man with minimum anesthesia,she couldn't imagine what if they had someone else to operate on this man without any shivered,she wouldn't want anyone to experience that amount of was inhumane and just hope that she could have at least made the man not feel her hand prodding into his rib cage and digging around inside of him.
"How about using a magnet? Or rather an electromagnet." Eula raised an eyebrow at the man not expecting to hear something as obnoxious as a magnet."Hear me an electromagnet would make a makeshift magnetic field to hold the remaining shrapnel in place and stop them from slicing through his heart." The older man studied the man,she could see how serious he was with the idea as ridiculous as it is in her was so many things wrong with that idea to begin with; septic infection, allergic reaction and the list could go eyes strayed towards the small lump of metals on the other side of room, she immediately assumed that the man was thinking of making the magnet from scarp sighed,she looked at her unconscious patient feeling were out of options,she refuses to let this man die not when he had survived this a chunk of metal-magnet inside his chest would save his life... "Alright but you'll have to coach me with it alright?" Eula eventually they get out of here and her patient decides to sue would want the ground to just gobble her up.
"Steady... Steady..." Eula bit her lip as she slowly lowered the magnet that the older man ( she really needs to ask him his name ) had felt her hand shaking as she secured the magnet in the middle of the man's chest where his sternum used to be. Even after the operation Eula wasn't still 100% sure about the effectiveness of this procedure. But they were already too deep in and the magnet was in, the only thing missing is to see if it would do its gingerly wrapped the man's chest with cloth bandages, disinfecting the incision area around the battery as much as she that point, there was nothing that they could do but wait.
So when the third hour after the operation and the injured man remains alive and was actually stable, Eula and the older man had to sigh in turns to the older man and gave him an exhausted smile."I never gotten around in asking your name and we just finished operating the most stressful operation in my entire career."She let out a mixture of laughter and was just so exhausted,now that they were somewhat out of the wood,the stress and exhaustion seeped into her bones and all she wanted to do now was to sleep.
"You can call me Yinsen."Yinsen then reached for her hand and gave it a blinked,looked at the sudden physical contact and smiled."Nice to meet you Yinsen, name's Eula Trevelyan." she gave the older man's hand a tentative squeeze before she hauls herself back to her feet and approached the still unconscious male that the two of them had painstakingly moved to her cot.
"Say Yinsen? Do you have any idea who this guy is why are the Ten Rings so hell bent in keeping him alive while it was so obvious that they were the reason that he was in this state."Eula asked,her steel grey eyes slowly studied the man's unconscious looked banged up and still quite dirty from all the grime and everything stopped,she reached for a damp cloth and began wiping the man's face as gentle as she can.
"I'm surprised you didn't recognize him." Eula's brows furrowed. "What?"
"You my lovely girl, you just operated and saved Tony Stark's life."
She looked at the male once again, this time really it was the unmistakable face of the billionaire weapons inventor. She had seen enough of him on television and magazines.
"Huh... It must be the lights."
This story is originally posted on my AO3 account but decided to post it here for those who prefer this platform for fanfiction.
This story has no beta and all grammatical errors are mine alone.
Thank for reading.
