Disclaimer: I do not own anything as usual, I'm too poor to own anything sadly.

A/N: Here's the next chapter! I was having all sort of problems trying to figure out how to get this going and whatnot but after a bit of outline writing for this I managed to get it out here for you beautiful, beautiful people and I hope you enjoy it. It's a bit shorter than I intended but I wanted to save some stuff for the next chapter!

Chapter fifteen

Pain. That's all that Norah could feel at the moment, incredibly and immense pain that was soaring through the majority of her upper body. Norah was confused, she didn't know what was going on, where she was, what was happening to her but all she did know was that she was in pain in very specific parts of her body and she couldn't seem to comprehend or make sense of what was going on or what had happened to her. She had an incredible about of pain in her sides, her upper chest hurt like nothing she's ever experienced before and her lungs, god, her lings felt as if they had been lit on fire, and she could feel something wet and sticky near her neck and shoulder and could feel it slowly making its way down her neck and upper chest.

There were voices surrounding her on all sides and even above her, she could hear them and she knew they were saying something but it sounded as if they were muddled, as if she had ear muffs around her ears softening or muting whatever everyone was saying around her. But even if it was hard to hear what they were saying Norah managed to make out a few words. Gunshot wound. Blood. They said something about 50…CC's of something possibly; she wasn't so sure on that one. Pierced lung.

"She's….blood…..hurry!"

"Heart rate…..she's…."

"Hellen Cho….no time…."

All of these voices were surrounding her and talking around her; she could feel their hands on her and feel them peeling away her clothing as quickly as possible. She could feel them turning her over to pull the clothes out from under her and she could feel them prodding at her wounds.

No matter how much Norah tried, no matter how desperately she tried to open her dark brown colored eyes even if it was just a sliver, just to see what was going on around her and no matter how hard she tried to open her mouth to say something. To beg for her father – Tony. To beg them to tell her what was going on and what had happened, she wasn't able to do so. She was surrounded in darkness, and soon, the barely there consciousness that she was grasping so desperately escaped her and once again she passed out from the toll that the last week has taken out of her, from the fighting she has been doing, from the wounds she received from Ultron and from the blood loss she was suffering from at this very moment. All of that combined did not make things very easy or hopeful for the medical team that was now working on her in the medbay of the Hellicarrier, but by god they were going to try or Tony Stark himself and the Avengers would have their heads.

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_.~_~_~_~_~_~_~.~_~_~_~_~._~_~_~_~_~_~_~

The moment he heard them yell Norah's name over the ear comms and heard Clint and Pietro talking about her and the injuries she had Tony felt true, heart stopping panic settle deep into his bones. He heard the gunshots over the ear comms but Tony didn't think anything of it, he didn't think to worry about his teammates and he definitely didn't think he needed to worry about Norah who could easily Blink herself out of there and to safety before the bullets even had a chance to hit her and injure her all that badly. But that wasn't so, he was hoping that maybe Clint and the Sokovian boy were just overreacting or saying her name for some other reason but he was wrong in that aspect. When Clint had radioed him and told him what was going on, told him that Norah was rushed off to surgery…Tony knew it was serious and that it was bad if they rushed her off without even a second thought. Without a moment's hesitation Tony flew off towards the Hellicarrier and let Rhodey finish a sweep of the city to make sure there weren't any more of Ultron's metal army left to deal with.

"Where is she?!" Tony yelled frantically as he entered the control room of the Hellicarrier where all of the ex-SHIELD agents and where Fury was at the moment, looking at the destruction of Ultron. "Where's Norah!" he demanded of everyone and anyone as he stalked further and further in the room, the anger rolling off of him in waves.

When Fury saw Stark land on the deck of the Hellicarrier he knew that within moments the arrogant genius would be inside and that he would be acting like the irrational person he was, he would be panicking, he would be beyond angry and he would put the blame on someone, anyone that he thought was deserving of the blame for what happened to Norah.

"Stark." Fury said as calmly as he could as he turned away from the screens that he was standing in front of and slowly made his way over to where Stark was standing who was still in his Iron Man suit, apparently not caring or not wanting to waste the time to take the suit off once he had heard about what happened to Norah.

When Fury had said his name Tony whipped his head towards him and glared, "Where's Norah?" he demanded as he stalked towards him. "Where is she?" he asked as he grabbed the collar of the leather duster he was wearing and backed him up a few feet.

Fury did all he could to stay calm when Tony did that, he knew that Tony was angry at what happened, angry at himself, guilt that this happened to Norah and was just in pain at the moment and wasn't reacting like he would in most circumstances. Tony was angry and Fury was the first one he saw, but that doesn't mean he's happy about Tony trying to manhandle him.

"You need to calm down Stark." Fury said to him in an even but deadly tone of voice as he looked into the mask of the Iron Man suit, a brow raised at him. "You're not going to do anyone any good if you're acting like this, least of all your daughter." He pointed out and tugged his coat out of Tony's hands.

Tony scoffed at that comment but stepped away from Fury, "Calm down, you want me to fucking calm down after finding out that my daughter was shot up by one of our own quinjets that Ultron decided to take control of? You want me to calm down, really?" he asked incredulously, an intense glare directed towards Fury.

"Stark, listen the-" Fury began to say, to try and explain what was going on with Norah but as usual, Tony interrupted before he was able to.

"No!" Tony yelled, he knew without a doubt that everyone that was in the control room was watching this exchange between himself and Fury at the moment but he didn't really have enough energy to care, he didn't care if he was acting unbelievably out of character, he didn't care about anything except Norah. "You don't tell me to listen. Not now, not in this situation you don't." he hissed at him, eyes narrowed.

It was then that Steve had approached Tony and looked over at Fury and mouthed to him that he would handle Tony, so striding forwards towards the emotional father Steve put a calming hand on the shoulder of Tony's suit and forced him to turn towards him a bit. "Tony, come on." He said to him as he gestured towards one of the hallways, the exact one that would lead them to where the medbay was and the room where Norah was being operated on at that exact moment in time. "You don't want to be arguing with Fury right now. You need to be there for Norah." He said to him gently but forcefully.

With erratic breaths escaping from him, Tony gave a stiff nod of agreement to what Steve had just said to him and then turned abruptly and stalked towards the medbay, towards Norah. He didn't know what he was feeling at the moment, what he should be feeling or even what he should be thinking at this moment in time. This….this is a new sort of experience for him and he didn't like it and didn't want to go through something like this ever again. Norah….Norah wasn't supposed to get hurt or possibly killed; they managed to kill Ultron and from the sounds of it they had all survived, that's what Tony thought but that revelation had been short lived with news of Norah. It's not fair that out of all of them, out of all of the Avengers who could have been injured or killed it was Norah who only decided to help them as a favor, because Tony asked her to help him and the others with this small mission in Sokovia that turned out to be much larger than they had imagined.

Taking a deep breath, Tony rounded the corner to where he could hear quiet whispers and saw that Pietro and Clint were standing against the wall of the room where he assumed Norah was having surgery at the moment. Seeing the blood on a third of Pietro's shirt made Tony's blood go cold, there was much more blood on there than he liked and it made him want to burst into the room Norah was in and demand of the doctors to tell him what was going on, how bad it was but mostly, mostly Tony wanted to see with his own eyes the damage that Norah suffered from the bullet wounds. He wanted to see how bad it was but from the looks of Pietro's shirt Tony wasn't all that sure if that would be the greatest idea, it may just make his panic and worry that much more worse.

"Tony-" Clint began to say but Tony shook his head at him.

Tony looked away from both Clint and Pietro and walked a bit away before exiting his Iron Man suit and then leant against the wall near Clint and ran his shaky hands through his hair while he did his best to control his breathing, this felt a lot like those panic attacks he used to get after the battle of New York happened. Taking a deep breath Tony looked over at Clint and Pietro, he needed answers otherwise he may just have a breakdown right then and there and those two were the only ones who knew what had happened to Norah. Tony was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Norah had gotten injured; Norah had powers and her power of Blinking should have allowed her to get out of the gunfire before it reached her and there was no way that she didn't hear or see that coming so he really wanted to know why she didn't, what happened to make her not move out of the way of the gunfire from Ultron.

"What happened?" Tony questioned through clenched teeth doing his best to not look at the blood that was on Pietro's shirt, Norah's blood. "How…how did this happen?"

It was Pietro who answered, "Ultron he was in one of those quinjets, he was heading towards him," Pietro said with an unreadable face and gestured towards Clint. "And a child he was protecting, I was running to save them. Norah appeared right as I did; she grabbed us by shoulder and…..Blinked, as you say, us away. We did not know she was injured until we saw blood and when she collapsed." He ended quietly, trying to not look at the blood that was on his shirt.

For a moment there was nothing but silence between Tony, Clint and Pietro as Tony tried to comprehend what he was just told and as he tried to understand and envision what exactly had happened to Norah that resulted in her being shot and having to go through surgery.

"You," Tony said as he looked up and at Pietro with narrowed eyes "She was saving you. She's like this because of you! You did this you stupid, stupid Sokovian. You made this happen! She's dying because of you!" Tony accused irrationally, he was way beyond angry at this point in time and was heading straight for downright furious.

"No. No I did not." Pietro said firmly to Tony Stark who was reacting like this because he thought of Norah as a daughter. "I did not cause this to happen. Ultron did this, not me." He said as he gestured towards the room that Norah was in at the moment.

At that Tony glared heatedly at Pietro, the young man who had been on Ultron's side not but days ago and now seems to have a thing for his daughter, his daughter who at this very moment could be dying. "No, she's in there because she was trying to save you of all people who didn't deserve to be saved. I don't care if you two had a thing going on or whatever, I don't care if she likes you for some stupid, idiotic reason you did not deserve to be saved. You should be the one who's in there," Tony yelled at him as he stalked closer and closer to Pietro and gestured angrily to the door where Norah and the doctors were. "Not her. Never her." He whispered and did his best to keep the tears that were welling up in his eye from falling, he hasn't cried for another person since his mother and father had died and then it had mostly been for his mother but now here he was crying because Norah could possibly be dying.

"Stark I-" Pietro began to say but Tony didn't allow him to talk all that much.

Tony stepped closer and pushed Pietro with all his might against the wall closest to the two of them which surprised Pietro, his mind wasn't all there with what was going on and more so thinking about Norah who was in surgery rather than Tony Stark who seemed to blame him for what happened to his daughter. Tony moved to push Pietro once again but before he had the chance to do so Wanda's signature red energy pushed him forcefully against the wall and held him there.

Wanda came down the hallway with a purpose and looked at Tony with a blazing fire in her eyes, "Do not touch him!" she growled at him as she released him from her hold and then looked to her brother and was about to go towards him but stopped when she saw the blood that his shirt was covered in and wondered how he was still standing. "You are injured, you ne-" she started to say but was stopped by Pietro.

"It is not mine." Pietro said to her gently as he laid a hand against her cheek and smoothed back her hair in a brotherly fashion. "I am fine, no harm."

Hearing that Wanda pulled away from her brother with a look of confusion on her face and then turned to look at everyone that was gathered in the hallway at the moment; Tony Stark, Clint, Steve and with her came Vision, Thor and Natasha and the only one who was missing other than Banner was Norah.

"Whose blood is it Pietro?" Wanda asked evenly as she looked at her brother searching, looking for any sign in his eyes that he was not about to say the name that she thought he was going to.

He gave a tight smile when she said that, "It is Norah's. She…it is not good; she took many bullets into body. They're working, fixing her." He said to her and tried to give her a confident smile that showed he wasn't worried but it was a half assed attempt at best that did nothing to ease the worry that Wanda now felt.

"Cho." Tony said suddenly, as if he just remembered what it was that the woman could do. "We need to call Cho, get her here as fast as possible and have her help Norah."

At that Steve shook his head, "We called her already but it'll be hours before she can even think about getting here Tony, Norah needs to be worked on now or else she won't survive her injuries." He explained to the irrational man. "Cho said she'd meet us at Stark Tower and do whatever it is that she can after they're done stabilizing her," he said and gestured towards the door. "And fixing her the best of their ability. But Tony, you need to realize how bad her injuries are, how –" Steve began to say to Tony.

At that Tony shook his head and interrupted Steve before he had a chance to finish that sentence, "No. No, we're not going there capsicle, we're not talking about that or even hinting about that being a possibility. Norah will make it. There's no other choice in the matter." He said stubbornly as he crossed his arms over his chest and looked up at Steve defiantly.

Thor came up to Tony and gently as a Norse God such as himself could do – which wasn't all that much – he grasped Tony by the shoulder and squeezed to show him that he was there for him, supporting him and Norah. "Lady Norah is fierce and stubborn, she is a great fighter on the battlefield and she will be a great fighting while healing as well. She will make it, I have no doubt."

Tony gave a quick nod before he succumbed to his anger and frustration and hit the wall with one of his clenched fists, he hit the wall hard enough that he could feel the pain that he just forced on himself but not enough that he injured the bones in his hand. This could not be happening right now, not to Norah who did not deserve to have this happen. This was his fault, if he hadn't of tried to make Ultron happen then they never would have had to go through this shit, they never would have had to fight and Norah wouldn't have ended up so severely injured like she was at the moment.

"I…I have phone calls that I need to make." Tony forced out before he stalked away from the room Norah was being operated on and down the hallway to somewhere that he would be able to be alone for a bit.

When Tony had left everyone just stood there in silence and thinking about Norah who was on the opposite side of that door being worked on diligently by the doctors that Fury had scrounged up that used to work for SHIELD; each one of the Avengers, as well as Pietro and Wanda were hoping against all they had that Norah lived, that she survived what happened to her.

"That went better than expected." Clint finally said to break the tense silence that had settled once Tony had left the group.

At that Steve turned to look at him with discouraging eyes for the comment he just made, "And how did you expect it to go?" he questioned the archer/assassin.

It was Natasha who answered, who was trying to ignore the fact that she felt heartbreak over the fact that Bruce had left in the quinjet to who knows where. "I thought he would have lashed out more, been violent." She admitted as she looked over at Steve and gave a shrug of the shoulders. "This is Tony and you know how he is when it comes to Norah. He will kill everything and anything that gets in his way if it means protecting her." She explained.

"She is a fighter; I could see that from the moment I met her." Vision said as he walked forward and pressed a hand against the door where Norah was. "She will survive but it will take time and strong will."

After that everyone sort of kept quiet and kept to themselves thinking about everything that had happened that day and that week; first they found Strucker's lab and managed to recapture Loki's scepter, they found out about Pietro and Wanda, Tony and Bruce decided to make Ultron happen which in retrospect ended up being a completely horrible idea, they went to South Africa which kind of knocked the team down for a bit, the headed to Seoul and ended up having both Pietro and Wanda join the Avengers side and then Vision was created, and lastly they headed back to Sokovia and finished Ultron and his metal army off once and for all. It's been a long week or so, however long it's been and they were all tired, exhausted and ready to have a decent night's sleep.

"Pietro." Wanda said quietly from where she was sitting beside her twin brother on the ground of the medbay. "All will be fine." She told him, unsure if the statement she just said was true or not.

When she said that Pietro bent his knees a bit and laid his arms over them so his hands dangled in front of him and laid his head back against the wall, he knew he hasn't known Norah for all that long and has been on the same team as her for even less time but he cared for Norah a lot more than he should have in such a short period. She is like no girl…woman, that he has ever met or even been with. He has been with women before, some he dated and some others he only had for one night but Norah was the light that illuminated everything, that set fire to him and made him mad for her.

"Will she?" Pietro asked in a moment of doubt and pessimism. "There was blood, so much blood Wanda. She had so much blood all over, I….I panic and couldn't think what to do, how supposed to help her." He told her and grasped at his silver/blonde colored hair helplessly, wishing that there was something he could do to help Norah rather than having to sit out here and wait for her doctors to come out.

Hearing that Wanda leant her head on Pietro's shoulder as a way to comfort him, "You must trust, Pietro. Trust doctors will do what they can. They are only ones that can save Norah, will bring her through and make sure she survives." She said to him comfortingly, worrying about the girl that seemed to have grown on her in only a couple days and hoped to god that she lived. "You and I saw her, saw the fire in her eyes, saw how determined, saw how much fight she had in her. She is like bull Pietro. She will not give in easily. Trust that." She told him as she moved a bit and kissed his cheek before laying her head back against his shoulder once again.

And now they wait.

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~ Tony ~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

There was not one single doubt in Tony's mind that Pepper was going to go on a rampage when she saw him, that she was going to go straight to him and beat the ever living shit out of him for what he did and for what he let happen to Norah and for dragging Norah into this without a second thought. Pepper loved Norah just as much as he did, she was protective of her and hated it, absolutely hated it when they asked her to go with them on missions when Pepper thought that they shouldn't even bother. She wanted Norah to have a normal life since she hadn't really had much of once since she was fifteen years old and was trying everything in her power to make sure Norah experienced as normal things as she possibly could.

"Tony, hey." Pepper's voice came over the phone. "Look, I don't have much time to talk I have a meeting in-"

Tony cut her off, "Pep, something happened." He said to her solemnly, more than willing to take the ire that would soon be focused on him.

Hearing Tony say that, Pepper's end of the phone quieted for a moment. "Are you okay?" she questioned. "Is Norah okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine, I did…Pepper I did something stupid when we were able to get Loki's scepter." Tony admitted to her as he finally let some tears form in his eyes and his voice started to break. "I was a fucking idiot, I just had to do something stupid, I had to since I finally had my hands on the scepter and had a small chance of making the program work and it…bad things happened because of it." He said and Pepper tried to break into his rant but he didn't let her. "I tried to create Ultron." He finally admitted.

For a few moments there was nothing but breathing on the other line of the phone before Pepper spoke in a firm tone of voice. "Tony, you said you wouldn't mess with that. You told me that it wasn't possible to happen, that technology wasn't developed far enough to try and do what you wanted with that." She told him, already dreading what else he might have to say to her about this.

Tony ran his one free hand through his hair as he kept the phone to his ear, "I know, I know Pepper and I was an idiot and didn't think of any of the consequences and, things didn't go as planned Pep. Ultron…..he wanted to kill the Avengers and the human race. He didn't want to protect the humans like I programmed him but to kill each and every single one of us."

"Tony." Pepper said in a hard tone of voice.

"It went bad real fast Pepper," Tony said to her as he leaned his forehead against the cool wall of the Hellicarrier. "Norah, I asked Norah to help. And she was fine, she did fine until we had the final battle with Ultron." He said and could barely hear Pepper breathing on the other side of the phone. "She was shot Pepper, I….I don't know how many times but she was shot and it was bad. I haven't heard anything but she's in surgery right now."

Hearing that Pepper inhaled sharply, "Anthony." Pepper said in a deadly tone of voice at what Tony had just told her.

"I know Pepper, I…jesus I fucked up so bad and now Norah is in surgery and I don't know if she is going to live or not and there's this kid, this Sokovian kid who was with Ultron at first but him and his twin sister are now with us and now him and Norah had some sort of thing going on. I don't fucking understand it or even know how that even started in the week or so that they've known each other but it did. And," Tony started choking up a bit and he was more than certain that Pepper could hear how hard he was taking this. "I don't know what to do Pepper. I hate myself right now; I want to trade my life for Norah's. Just, please, meet us at the tower." He begged pathetically to her.

For a few tense seconds Pepper didn't say anything, but there was finally a heavy sigh. "Tony, just. I'll be back at the tower as soon as I can, I'll leave now. Just, don't do anything else that will get people killed." She hissed at him, yep he was in some deep shit with her. "I can't believe you. I'll see you soon Tony." And with that said she hung up.

For a moment, a small moment Tony thought about getting the information he needed to call Norah's birth family to tell them that she was injured seriously and that they weren't sure if she would live or not but had decided against it. He wanted to wait a bit and see if Norah survived this, to see if she lived past this surgery and would be able to make it to Stark Tower. Then, then if she lived through that he would call her family and let them know that she was injured and that they needed to come to New York, on his dime of course.

But for now he would leave things alone and go back to where Norah was being operated on and hope for the best. Hope that she lived to open her eyes once more, that she lived to sing and dance again, that she lived to yell at him in foreign languages when he pissed her off and he hoped that she lived so that he could see her smile again.

_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~ Author's Note ~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

Did you like it? Did you? Did you? I hope you did. It took a while to get this write and figure out how I wanted Tony to react but I eventually got it~

quotes:

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.

We shall heal our wounds, collect our dead and continue fighting