Not An Avenger

Waking Up

I woke up with blurry eyes and a groggy mind. It smelled like a hospital room. There were people standing around the bed I was laying on, but I couldn't make out their faces. I struggled to keep my eyes open.

"You idiot." I recognized Tony's voice. "You fool. You…."

"That's enough." Steve said, firmly.

"Yeah, Tony. Go easy on her right now. Don't worry. She'll be appropriately punished for almost dying on my birthday." Said a familiar voice. Pepper. I grimaced internally at the number of shopping trips I'll have to go through for this.

I blinked my eyes several times to clear my vision. What I saw was the most crowded hospital room ever. Tony, Pepper, Steve, Nick Fury, Natasha, Barton, Dr. Banner, everyone had a relieved expression on their face on seeing me conscious. Tony was trying to put on his angry face.

"What happened?" I asked Fury.

"You saved New York, that's what happened." He said, hitting me on the back.

Everyone listened patiently as he told me about the alien army becoming completely disabled when the nuke hit their mothership, through the portal. SHIELD was in damage control mode now. Thousands of lives had been lost, building had been destroyed but it was nothing compared to what could have happened. It was manageable.

"But what happened to the Tesserect? And where is Thor?" I asked.

It was Steve who answered this time. "The Tesserect is as far from our reach as it should be. Thor took it to Asgard, along with Loki."

I looked at Fury. He obviously wasn't happy about it. However, I didn't know if he was moping about losing the Tesserect or Loki."

Finally, Dr. Banner spoke up. "We are all really glad you're all right, Amrita. But how? The amount of energy you absorbed should have been fatal, even if it wasn't Tesserect energy, which is quite toxic even in low doses. According to your research, Dr. Powell had died after being exposed to one-thousandth of the dose,"

He really was a man of science. Always curious and questioning.

Before I could answer and tell them about my super serum discovery, Tony shushed me up.

"I don't think this is a good time to discuss this, Bruce." That was extremely polite for Tony. Maybe he was afraid of the Hulk. Or he genuinely like Dr. Banner. He definitely shared his mad scientist streak.

I looked at Natasha and Barton standing at the corner. They weren't paying attention to what was going on. They were in their own small world. Though Natasha had constantly said that they were just friends, I wondered if they were more.

Finally, my gaze shifted to Steve. He was looking at me intently. When his eyes met mine, he gave me another one of his beautiful smiles. I could continue looking at him, his perfect face with that perfect smile, mesmerized and never get over it.

"You should rest, honey. You haven't recovered yet." Tony said, bringing me out of the trance, gesturing everyone to leave.

I put on a pouty face. I didn't want them to go. But he was right. Though the encounter hadn't left a single injury on my body (surprisingly), my mind or rather my soul was exhausted. I needed to rest.

Tony chuckled at seeing my hilarious pout, gave me a kiss on the forehead and left. Everyone followed him. Steve looked at me before passing through the door. I gave him a smile.

Finally, I was alone in the room. I tried to sleep, but couldn't. It was daytime, and the blinds were not drawn.

I groaned. I did not want to get up. I closed my eyes and wished the blinds would close themselves. Suddenly, the brightness decreased.

That was odd! I opened my eyes and turned around to see who had drawn the blinds.

I gasped as I saw the blue streaks of light vanishing from the sides of the blinds.