A New Ultron Rising
Nanites streamed into Nick's body, absorbing into the blood stream, binding to cells and rewriting the DNA. Streams of it revamped itself into a steely adamantium core bonded with the vertebrae, reinforcing the discs that had been severed separating the skull from the spine. Threads of it shot into the brain, absorbing cellular memories and what lingering knowledge of the man's life remained in the dimmed recesses of what was left of his mind. It rushed along neural pathways, tripping synapses and causing the nerves to twitch and his reflexes to jolt his limbs into movement. It remade him.
As the MRI machine drew him out of the tunnel-like opening, Nick's body took a gasping breath and opened his eyes. The intern who had been watching these developments hit a nurse call button before she came running in to check on him, utterly astounded at his rapid and very visible recovery. He sat up, stripping off the IV and pulling out the trach tube for the ventilator.
"Wait, wait, wait! Stop!" she urged, quickly taking his hands in her own. "You'll hurt yourself!"
"Hospital…" he said hoarsely, his throat dry and cracking, "this is a hospital."
"Yes, Mr Vanzant," she said as he settled back, still trying to tug at the feeding tube and colostomy bag. "We were trying to get imaging of your brain but—" she trailed off, not knowing how to explain what she just saw.
"I have…a body," he said, touching his chest and then gazing at his hands. Then he began to laugh, and a chill of fear went down the girl's spine.
Ashley Barton had zoned out a mile or so back, the steady crunch under her feet and familiar sights of the trail left her lost in thought, lost in the song, and blissfully removed from the situation she had been dealing with of late. It was almost mid-year, students settled into the classroom routine—assignments, tests, projects, all the minutiae of high school—and here, in the midst of her humdrum happiness, dropped a meteor. Or one nearly had, she reasoned, on the other side of the world. About a week or so after she had lost him. Her man. Her one and only. Nick. Her chest tightened at the thought of seeing him in a hospital bed, broken and unresponsive, not even knowing she was there and not even knowing she was alive. Because he wasn't. Before she could feel the dark grief rising in her, she turned and began her route back, choking back a sob.
When she first heard the news of the fight in South Africa, every television in every classroom that day had been switched on. They all watched aghast as downtown Johannesburg was engulfed in the battle between those strange bots and the Avengers, when the Hulk and Iron Man grappled like street thugs in creating panic and chaos in their wake. By this point it felt nearly like business as usual, she had even contemplated turning off the TV and getting back to the task at hand, and yet as the riot police moved in she saw him. Suited up with the tactical peacekeeping team on assignment there and ready for action, Nick stood at the front line between the inhuman mutated people fighting against robots gone haywire; they headed out in front of the local police giving them cover. One of the bots, which had clearly gone out of control, aimed a blast at the line of soldiers as they moved forward. And time stopped. She saw Nick and his friend, Sgt Cary Downs absorb the blast and fall, as if in slow motion, into a ravine that had opened in the middle of the street from the blasts and mutants' destruction. Her vision blurred. Later one of the kids would say that she screamed, but she did not recall. Everything focused sharply to a pinpoint, and she barely registered the tinny voice of the news anchor on the screen. "Those are US soldiers down…" "Police casualties also on the scene, some civilians, but no count as to the injured or dead as the scene unfolds…"
She stopped her run, slowed to a walk, took a breath, and tried to regroup. In her mind she flashed to the scene in the hospital. Nick lying there broken, gone. And no leverage to use in the argument with her once future in-laws as they regaled her with all the reasons they should hang on, not say goodbye, give him the chance to live. Ashley gave up trying to salvage her dignity there in the park as she remembered the arguments thereafter. The sob erupted and she sunk to a bench and let the tears flow. "That is not him!" she remembered yelling at one point. "That is not my Nick. He's not even there anymore. There's no way he would want this!" It was as much as she could say before one of the orderlies escorted her out.
She heard birds set up twittering in the trees above her and returned her thoughts to the present. Ashley sat for a while, trying to get her composure back, then returned to the home they had shared, bereft, alone, to a deep quiet that threatened to engulf her. Not three steps in the door her phone buzzed, and she finally stopped to check her missed calls. One from her fiancé's parents. And one, amazingly, from the hospital. Checking her voicemail to see what they could possibly want now, she listened and sank to the floor, one hand pressed to her lips as she sat numbly, not knowing what to think or feel at the news on the recording.
"Ash," said the man on the other end shakily, "you won't believe it hon, but we were right. He's awake!"
Ashley rushed through the hospital corridor with an armload of clean clothes, her fingers clasping Nick's shoes. As she approached the door to his room, his parents both turned—Sylvia scarcely making eye contact—and Bill, as always the talker wanting to bridge the gap and smooth things over.
"Sweetheart," he said, touching a placating hand to her shoulder. "He's in there, and he says he's ready to go home," Bill told her before she could even ask how he was. At her questioning furrow he carried on, "he's fine. He says he feels great, and he wanted his clothes."
He had already said this on the phone with her, but now, in the stark light of the sterile white hallway it really began to set in.
"He was brain dead," she ventured, shaking her head. "They're going to let him come home?"
"Says he wants privacy," Bill said chagrined, a bit of a tremble in his voice giving away the hurt that caused. "Says privacy and quiet, and he'll be good as new… but hon, he's a bit—well—off still. I think that hit he took jostled some things around. Just doesn't seem himself, but I'm sure it'll sort out."
Ya think? She wanted to say. All she could really do was nod at this and step to the door as the elder Vanzants stepped aside. With her free hand, Ashley pushed the door handle down and eased the door open. She walked slowly, quietly into the sanctity of the room and nearly gasped. He stood facing the window, nude, stretching almost languidly as tendons and bones creaked and popped. He sighed, scratched and hummed appreciatively, flexing his arms and gazing at his hands as he wiggled the digits. Then he turned, stiffly, slowly, and his head rotation towards her almost too far. The creepy reminder of what his body had endured left her clearing her throat when it constricted painfully with the tears that threatened again. He met her gaze and it seemed to take a moment before recognition lit his features.
"You must be—I mean, obviously you are—Ashley," he ground out stiltedly. His voice was coarse, as if not used to being used. He seemed, almost robotic, she thought. She shoved the thought aside just as quickly as it had come and all but thrust the clothes into his arms. Eyes tearing up, she nodded and turned, rushing into the bathroom to try and calm herself down.
"Humans," he said with a soft grunt.