Defenders

Defenders (14)

Dex practically carried me from the RV and into the DAU infirmary. I told him I didn’t need to be carried, that I just needed someone to help me walk, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He insisted on carrying me, so I just let him.

Aiden was placed on one bed while I was placed on another, my swollen ankle now on top of a pillow down at the edge of the bed. It felt really good to finally be off it and relax.

“I hope this won’t upset you,” Nay began, and I didn’t know if I wanted to hear what she was going to say, “but I think we should treat Aiden before you. Because he’s, you know, unconscious.”

That was perfectly fine, and when I told her that, she looked relieved that I wasn’t angry. My ankle didn’t hurt that much when I didn’t move it, so I’d be able to wait while they tended to Aiden.

My ankle looked horrible. It was black and blue, and I knew it was going to take a long time before it was better. How many missions was I going to have to miss because of it? We had only been on one and I already had to sit out for the next few months.

“Are you okay?” Dex questioned me as he took a seat next to my bed. “Do you need anything?”

“No,” I told him with a shook of my head. “I’m fine.”

“Does this hurt?” he asked, moving my foot slightly to the right.

I let out a scream. “Ow! Don’t do that!”

He immediately retracted his hand from my hurt ankle. “Sorry,” he apologized.

It was strange, having him apologize to me. I was so used to the usual rude and brash Dex, so now that he was apologizing and actually being nice to me, it just didn’t seem real. It almost seemed like he was only doing this so that when he started being mean again, it would hurt even more.

I seemed to be the only one to notice that someone else was making their way into the infirmary. Before I could get my teammates and our mentors’ attention, she was already inside, watching us lazily.

“What the heck is going on in here?” Lena asked, looking at unconscious Aiden and then to me. “You have a bad training day or something?”

“For your information, girly, we had our first mission today,” Dex informed the blonde girl, his eyes narrowing at her. “And these injuries came from fighting to members of Redrum.”

Lena pretended that she was impressed. “Wow, Redrum, huh? You guys sure are big kids now.”

Dex got up from his seat next to my bed so he was no face-to-face, toe-to-toe with Lena. I didn’t like this. “At least we were good enough to get on a team so we could fight Redrum,” he glared back at her.

Lena’s eyebrows furrowed as she took a step closer to him. “You really want to bring that up again, pretty boy?”

“It’s something that upsets you,” Dex shrugged. “So yeah, I’m going to bring it up as much as I can because maybe then it’ll finally shut you up.”

Lena now smirked, letting out a small laugh. “You want to kiss me, don’t you?”

Dex looked surprised that she’d ask him a question like this. He took a step back, and even glanced over at me. I ignored his gaze and looked over at Aiden’s bed, where everyone else was. I locked eyes with Anthony who quickly looked away from me.

Nay now seemed to realize that her niece was in the room with us, so she let Hank handle Aiden and made her way over to us. “What do you need?” she asked her niece, her eyebrows furrowing ever so slightly.

“It’s boring at home,” Lena complained as she sprawled out in her chair lazily. “Dad’s always at work and Mom never has any time with me because she’s dealing with her own problems. So I decided to come here.”