I Swear This Time I Mean It
The bed that Kitty woke up in was uncomfortable. It was hard and the bedding felt scratchy, which meant one thing: Hospital. She slowly opened her eyes, blinking at the harsh lighting that seemed to burn in her eyes. Her lungs still ached, and she felt a cannula feeding her oxygen through her nose. The ringing in her ears had quieted, but they felt numb and alien to her.
She saw Logan asleep in a chair in the corner and looked around to see if there was anyone awake. There were no clocks that Kitty could see, so she measured time by the amount of breaths she took. After ninety-three breaths, Kitty decided that waking up Logan would be her only chance to alleviate the boredom. She saw a pen laying innocently on a tray and had to stifle a laugh at the irony.
Kitty tried to lift her left arm, but it felt very heavy and unfamiliar. Cautiously, she wiggled her fingers one by one to make sure that she could. While she was at it, she checked her toes, too. One of her legs was wrapped up in something that looked like a cast, but there were metal bars surrounding both sides. Kitty decided to come back to that later.
Once she had completed that, she turned her attention back to the pen as she strained to stay quiet while lifting her arm. She grasped the pen in her left hand, pausing to rest before she threw it. Kitty knew it would take most of her strength to throw the pen across the room to accurately hit Logan, and felt if she was going to do it, she was going to do it right. After thirty-five breaths, she lifted her arm and threw the pen. It soared through the room and hit Logan square in the chest, successfully waking him up from his slumber.
She slumped back down a little, feeling her energy drain from that simple act.
"Nice throw." Tony Stark praised from the open door, two cups of coffee in his hands.
Kitty jumped a little, wondering how long Tony had been standing there and why she didn't notice. "I was aimin' for his head." She informed him sadly, making an effort to sit up. "Is that for me?" She nodded to the second cup in Tony's hands.
"I don't think coffee and morphine mix well." Logan commented as he ran his hand through his hair and stretched.
"Morphine?" She asked, looking back and forth at the two men. Logan nodded. Her eyes traveled to the clear IV bag hooked up to her arm and felt a wave of disgust. "Where's the doctor? I want off it." She tried her best to sound alert and insistent, but everything hurt and she just wanted to sleep; Without narcotic based medications.
"Kit," Tony pulled up the second chair to her bedside and sat in it. "You were in ICU for over a week before they could move you in here. That piece of shrapnel broke your bone into three pieces. They had to take it out and put in the rods to bring the pieces back together and stabilize it." He explained it all slowly, trying to gauge if she understood what he was saying.
Tony continued, "You've also had a couple blood transfusions. They tested me thinking I was your biological father, and it turns out we have the same blood type, so they took all you needed from me. LeRoux broke one of the bones in your wrist when he grabbed it, so that's been patched up." He nodded to the bandages on her arm. "Your lungs were almost black from the smoke and they had to drain a bunch of blood from them. There was the chunk missing from your arm straight to the bone and they think you sprained your other ankle while going through all the building damage. And judging by how you didn't notice when I came into the room until I spoke, I'm going to venture to say your hearing was affected. So you're going to be in here, wrapped up, for a bit."
"Don't forget the concussion." Logan added. He brought his chair closer to her bed and sat down, sipping his coffee. "They put sixteen stitches in that cut on your scalp once they got all the glass out. Your shoulder, side, and all down your back have second and third degree burns. And some of the ends of your hair got singed from the fire."
"Oh." Her left hand moved her to her hair and felt that it had been chopped off to her shoulder blades while the other side still flowed down past the middle of her back. Kitty blinked away a tear and tried to ignore the irrational upset from some of her hair being gone. "I still want off the hard meds." She said stubbornly.
Logan rolled his eyes as he got up from his chair. "Fine," He sighed. "I'll go get the doctor."
"I'll come with." Tony offered, getting up as well. He turned to Kitty. "At least try to sleep." She gave Tony a look that told him that she would try her best to stay awake. The two men left her room, only to stop at the front of her door.
"Who the hell wants off morphine?" Logan asked.
"I don't know," Tony admitted. "But she never wants anything narcotic based. Banner stopped giving her anything stronger because she'd just throw a fit. Steve thinks it's got something to do with her family. I think her father was a doctor, maybe a nurse."
"Would explain it. If her dad was addicted to narcotics and was abusive…" Logan trailed off, trying to stifle the anger rising in him. He walked up to the front desk and asked for the doctor.
Kitty had barely dozed off when Logan and Tony came back in with a beautiful woman in a white lab coat.
"Hello, Miss Kitty." The woman smiled, showing off all of her dazzling white teeth. "My name is Dr. Alice Cho, I'm your doctor." She stretched out her hand and, with some effort, Kitty shook it. "Motor function looks pretty good. Your father here told me that you've requested being taken off the morphine." The doctor flipped her extraordinarily long, dark hair over her shoulder and Kitty idly wondered how she could work with it down like that.
Kitty sighed, trying to think of how to argue her point without going into specifics. "Can't you just give me something that's not narcotic based? Please?"
"Could Kitty and I have a moment alone?" Dr. Cho requested, practically shoving Logan and Tony out of the room. "Is there something I need to know about you and morphine?" She asked softly, sitting down in Logan's chair.
"No." Kitty started picking out the dirt and ashes from under her fingernails. "I just don't want to be on it. I respond well on Toradol and Naproxen, though. I'd much rather be on one of those."
"Kitty," Dr. Cho tried to get her attention, but Kitty was stubbornly looking down. "You've got some pretty substantial injuries here. If I take you off the morphine and only give you something non-narcotic based, you're going to be in a great deal of pain." Kitty met the doctor's kind, brown eyes. "So, I ask again. Is there something you need to tell me about why you're refusing morphine?"
"There were...addiction problems in the family." Kitty admitted. "Not me. But one of my parents…" Her voice trailed off.
"That man out there?" The doctor asked, pointing a slender finger at the door.
"No," Kitty shook her head with a bit of a laugh. "No, Tony is…" Kitty sighed and decided to not go into the semantics on her pseudo family. "My adopted father. My biological father had an addiction..."
"Oh, okay," Dr. Cho nodded as she got up and opened the door to let Tony and Logan back in. "I'm going to keep you sedated for three days, then put you on IV Toradol," She picked up Kitty's chart and started writing a note in it. "BUT if you two notice her in any pain once she's awake, you need to tell the nurses and we'll put her back on something stronger." She turned to Kitty. "If you're in pain, please tell them. I have the feeling that you're difficult and will want to hide it, but I'm serious. It'll just make the healing harder on you."
Kitty nodded and watched the doctor leave. "I like her." A nurse came in to change the morphine out and Kitty noticed that both men were watching her carefully. "So, if I'm going to be in here a while, could you guys grab some of my stuff from the Tower?"
"What do you need?" Tony asked. "I've got to go take a shower and change anyway."
Kitty took a good look at Tony and realized how terrible he looked. He had dark circles around his eyes and his hair stood up in odd angles. His hands were shaking slightly while clutching his coffee cup and Kitty recognized the signs of someone who hasn't had a real meal in a while. "Tony, how much blood did you give?"
"I don't know," He shrugged. "However much they needed for the transfusions. They said they wanted all of it to be from one source so there's less chance of your body rejecting it, so they took it in a couple of phases."
"Okay, now when's the last time you ate anything that wasn't out of a vending machine?" She asked cautiously.
"You sound like Steve." He complained, rolling his eyes and ignoring the question.
"Go home, dad." Kitty said softly. "Shower, eat some real food, then sleep. I don't want to see you here for at least twelve hours."
"Technically, you won't see me anyways since they're going to knock you out." Tony rubbed his eyes, knowing that fighting with her was useless. Besides, a bed sounded glorious in comparison to the uncomfortable chair. "Fine." He turned to Logan. "Are you staying with her?"
Before he could answer, Kitty turned her momming powers to Logan. "When's the last time you ate and slept in a bed?" The tall man looked at Tony for help against the tiny blonde. "That's what I thought. Both of you need to go home. Send Steve or Tasha or Barton."
Tony pulled out his phone, scrolling through the data. "I'll send Steve. What stuff of yours do you want him to bring?"
Kitty bit her lip. "There's a black backpack in my closet. It's got a couple changes of clothes, some books and stuff. If he could just bring that without going through it, that'd be great."
"You've got a go-bag?" Logan asked, his eyebrows raised. "Planning on running away?"
"No." Kitty said firmly. "Just a precaution." She narrowed her dark blue eyes at Logan, who glared right back at her. Her heart beat faster at the stand-off and Kitty tried her best to ignore it.
There was a minute of tense silence before Tony spoke. "I'll send Steve here with it." Both turned and headed for the door.
"Wait!" Kitty said, her voice panicked. "What day is it?"
Logan gave her an odd look and asked, "Why? You got somewhere to be?"
"The day?" Kitty prompted as she flicked her eyes at Logan. "Please."
"The ninth." Tony answered.
"Shit. Can I see your phone?" Kitty asked Tony, nodding to the device in his hand. "I really need it." She added when he hesitated.
"Tell me why first."
Kitty sighed and rolled her eyes. "I need to transfer over some money to a friend."
"A friend?" Logan repeated, skeptical.
"Yes," Kitty sneered. "A friend. I do have those, ya know."
"Why are you transferring this 'friend' money?" Tony crossed his arms over his chest. If this was a mercenary thing, he wasn't about to take part in it.
"Because I transfer her money every month to make sure she's comfortable and has everything she needs." Kitty explained. "I've been doing it since she was sixteen, so it's like a ritual at this point."
Tony silently handed Kitty the phone, so she continued. "Both of her parents were murdered when she was a child and her adopted father was a pedophile. One of the other girls who had lived in the house contracted me to kill him. I did it free of charge, of course." She assured them. "Akiko was the youngest there, so I moved her from Japan to here and made a deal with her." Kitty scrolled on the phone and made the transfer to the girls account. "I give her over a couple thousand a month to cover everything she needs and pay her tuition, and in return, she sends me her grades and proof she's doing well in school." Kitty handed the phone back to Tony and smiled proudly. "She's going to Yale to be a lawyer."
"You're paying for a girl, that you're in no way related to, to go to Yale?" Logan asked.
"Akiko is very smart. She became fluent in English in about a year." Kitty said. "I try to visit her every couple of months, make sure she's doing alright. I stopped by before I came back here and she has a lot of friends and is top of her class." Tony just looked at Logan and shook his head. "Thank you for letting me borrow your phone. Now go, sleep." She ordered, trying to sound stern.
"You need to sleep, too, you know." Tony picked up his jacket that had been draped over a chair and put it on.
"I will." Kitty promised, her eyelids already becoming heavy. "Good night Logan, night dad." She whispered before succumbing to the darkness.
The lights were off when she woke up, except for lamp that Steve was using to read a magazine. He was sitting in Tony's chair on the left side of her bed, far enough for the light to not bother her, but close enough for him to see if something was wrong.
"Whatcha readin', 'Cap?" Kitty breathed dazedly, looking around the small hospital room.
"Hey, there," He smiled. "You gave us quite a scare there." Steve Rogers held up the periodical and answered, "Time magazine. Tony ordered them for me. I'm on 1968."
Kitty smiled. "60's had some good music. 'White Room' by Cream came out in '68." She sat up a little and felt a bolt of pain go through her leg. Kitty winced slightly, trying to contain her facial expressions as to not let him know that she felt as though her body was being split in two. "How long was I out?"
Steve put down the magazine and rest his arms on the edge of Kitty's hospital bed. "Thirteen hours. You know, if you're in pain, we can put you back on the higher pain med-"
"No." Kitty interrupted. She lifted her hand and pat Steve's arm reassuringly. "I'm okay, really." She added, before deciding to change the topic. "Did you bring my bag?"
Steve nodded and reached down to grab her black backpack. "Tony said you didn't want me to look in it, so I didn't." He gave it to her and watched as she extracted a pad of paper and some pencils before handing the bag back to him.
"Who brought those?" Kitty nodded to a small vase full of sunflowers and lilacs in the corner.
Steve glanced over at them before shrugging. "I don't know. Nurses said they were dropped off by a tall, dark haired man."
"I'm surrounded by tall men." Kitty pointed out with a smile.
"Well, it wasn't from any of us. I can pull up the surveillance footage for you, but whoever it is is wearing a bandana or mask around their face. We couldn't really see, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't LeRoux. The person was too tall and more muscular."
"Oh," Kitty said shortly, her eyes still focused on the arrangement. "And it wasn't Wilson, right?"
"No." Steve's eyebrows drew together and he looked at the flowers again. "Is there something wrong? Should I take them away-"
"No." She shook her head. "Just curious-" on who the fuck knows that those are my two favorite flowers- "So if you guys figure out who sent them, lettme know."
"Of course."
Kitty started sketching awkwardly on the paper, trying to find a way to draw while still lying mostly down. Steve went back to his magazine and they sat like that for a while, her drawing and him reading. It was nice, them sitting together quietly. After she finished her first sketch, she decided to approach the topic that had been occupying her mind. "So, how's Deadpool doing?"
"He's healed by now, but Peter's keeping him down for the next couple days. He was close to the bomb when it detonated, ended up being blown three blocks. Almost tore him into pieces." Steve explained.
Kitty's hand stopped moving and the screen monitoring her heart rate sped up as she remembered the explosion. She could almost feel the heat burning at her back and the metal embedded in her leg. Kitty couldn't hear Steve asking her if she was okay. Instead, she heard Ashley LeRoux laughing as he kicked her. She heard his Southern drawl as he called her "his dahlia" and her heart rate sped.
"Kitty?" Steve gently placed his hand on her shoulder. "Kitty, can you hear me?" Her breathing was heavy and the ringing in her ears became unbearable. Then, it all made sense.
"He had it with him," Kitty whispered. "That bastard had the bomb with him at the restaurant."
"Are you sure?"
She flicked her eyes to Steve's worried face and nodded. "He could have done it right then and there but he waited. He did this because I said no to joinin' him."
"Kitty, this isn't your fault." Steve told her, but it was too late. Kitty's heart rate monitor started beeping off the charts and she felt like she couldn't breathe. Her O2 level on the screen dropped dramatically. "I'm going to go get a nurse." Steve jabbed his thumb back at the nurses station.
"No!" Kitty shook her head. "I'm okay. Just...It just sometimes hurts when I breathe in..." She made an effort to sit up as she moved her sketchbook.
"The nurse said you might have problems for a few weeks because of all the cracked ribs." Steve was still looking at her with concern over her episode.
"Cracked ribs?" Kitty stopped what she was doing and looked up at Steve.
He nodded. "From the CPR."
"The nurse didn't tell me that they had to do CPR."
"That's because they didn't." He said simply, going back to reading his magazine. "Logan did."
"Logan?" Kitty asked in disbelief.
"Yeah, he got to you first. When I found you two, he had been doing CPR for over fifteen minutes non-stop. We finally found a pulse sometime after that, then you woke up."
"He did CPR on me for fifteen minutes?" Kitty's eyes widened and her heart raced again.
"No, he was at fifteen minutes when I got there. It was probably closer to twenty five by the time you woke up."
"Oh…" Kitty sat there, thinking back to those painful moments. "Are, uh, are Tony and Logan sleeping at the Tower?" Kitty asked as a nurse entered the room, smiling brightly at Steve.
"Uh, yeah. Tony texted me just before you woke up saying that they would be over soon." Steve said as the nurse checked over the chart hanging on the end of the bed and pulled out a vile to inject into the IV in Kitty's arm.
"Good, they needed the sleep." Kitty felt a wave of dizziness hit and she held her breath until it passed. "I think I'll nap until they get here, if you would be so kind as to wake me up when..." And just like that, she drifted off yet again.