[1] Lions Inside | Tony Stark

twenty four

[Jade]

She suddenly realized that she was awake. She didn't know for how long and she didn't even remember falling asleep. She tried to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt so heavy that she almost wanted to fall asleep again.

She tried to remember the last thing that happened. What had she been doing? And that's when it all came back to her, New York, the aliens, Loki, Tony flying up the wormhole.

Tony.

That thought made her force her eyelids open and she was greeted to a white ceiling and she was laying in an unfamiliar bed. She started to feel panicked. Where was Tony? Was he alive? Where was she? How did she get here?

Everything around her was white and she wondered for a second if she was even alive, but the machine next to her seemed to prove her wrong as it let out a beep every time her heartbeat.

She lifted her self up so that she was leaning on her elbows, but when she tried to move her legs things didn't go so well. Pain shot up from her feet and when she threw off the blanket she saw that they were wrapped in bandages, only it didn't seem to help all that much since they were stained with blood.

But instead of laying down again she decided to bite down on the inside of her lip and move her legs with her hands so that she was sitting on the side of the bed. She carefully put her feet on the ground and slowly stands on them as she supported herself with the wall. It hurt like hell, but she knew that she could work through it to get out of there.

But she only got to the foot of the bed when the door opened and a woman walked inside, looking down on a paper in her hands. Jade took a defensive stance and bared her teeth, forgetting that it wasn't a normal thing for humans to do. The woman finally looked up when Jade started growling at her and her widened in shock, apparently not prepared for Jade to be awake yet.

Jade decided to act first as she jumped forward and grabbed the woman's neck. She dropped the paper and let her hands fly up to the hand that was holding her neck.

"Who are you!? Where am I!?" She probably could've handled the situation better, but her body had become stuck in defensive mode. The woman tried to answer, but nothing came out and Jade decided to make her grip a little looser so that she would actually get some answers from her.

"I'm doctor Amanda Hector, Mr. Stark asked me to help you! You are in Stark Tower!"

Jade let go of her throat in surprise. She assumed that Tony was probably dead, but if he asked her for help then he had to be alive.

She heard someone running towards the room and went into a defensive stance again, but this time it was quickly lowered when it was Tony that came around the corner.

"Jade, take it easy! You're safe, New York is safe."

She took a few shaky steps towards him and threw her arms around his shoulders to hug him. She felt tears run down her cheeks from the relief of everything being over. Tony gently stroked her back to calm her down as she gripped his shirt tighter.

"I thought you died," she said, though it was mostly mumbling into his shoulder.

Tony stopped stroking her and decided to just hug her instead. "You should know me by now, Jade. Nothing can kill me, not even myself apparently."

She started laughing, but it only turned into more sobbing. Tony let go of her to look down at her feet and she guessed they didn't look so good from the wince that he gave.

"You shouldn't even be up. Having the ceiling falling on your legs isn't generally the best thing to do if you want to walk again," he had started leading her back to the bed but realized his bad choice of words when her eyes widened, "Not that I'm saying you won't walk again. Your healing actually saved you from that, anyone else would've had their legs crushed beyond reason."

He sat down beside her on the bed and dried away a tear that had started to make it's way down her cheek.

"How did you survive?" That was the only question that had gone through her mind since she saw him.

The question seemed to trouble him since he tensed up and his breath became a little uneven, even though he didn't seem to be aware of it.

"I flew up the portal with the nuke and thankfully it blew up the Chitauri ship. I started falling down after my suit stopped working and barely made it out since Romanoff closed the portal. And after our goodbye party to Loki, me and Cap went searching the city for you."

"How long was I out for?" She knew that even if she did heal fast she had probably been out for a while by now.

"Two days, though Doctor Hector thought you would be out longer, anyone else would've been out for a few more days at least."

Jade let out a sigh in relief, thankful that she hadn't been out for longer than necessary. She wondered how many people they saved, how many they had accidentally killed whenever they killed one of the bigger monsters.

"Oh no. I know that look. You can't think like that, think about all the people we saved and all the people we will save in the future instead."

She gave him a sad smile, but after a few moments, she decided she would listen to him and gave him a nod. He put his arm over her shoulders and gave her a sideways hug, which she also returned.

"So. How long will it be until I can use these again?" She gestured to her legs that looked a little worse than before.

"You'll have to ask Doctor Hector about that. Jarvis, mind helping a guy out?"

"Already on it, sir."

"Who is she anyways? I didn't think doctors would want to treat me in secret."

"Don't worry about her. She's an old acquaintance, super discreet if you ask her to."

"And by old acquaintance you mean?" Since meeting Tony she had gotten to know a lot about his past, including the time when he had a lot of... close female friends.

"Don't give me that look, I didn't sleep with her. I met her at a gala before she became a doctor, I felt nice enough to pay for her education."

"Wow, that is nice for you." Thankfully he didn't take it as an insult, instead, he gave her a playful glare and gave her a light push.

"Oh, ha ha."

That's when Doctor Hector walked around the corner and into the room, sending Tony a glare and giving Jade a smile. Jade opened her mouth to give her an apology, but the woman was already a step ahead of her.

"So nice to finally meet you, Jade. Don't worry about earlier, I can understand why you were so self-defensive when you didn't know where you were."

"Thank you for everything," Jade said quietly, still slightly ashamed of herself.

"Don't worry about. Now, Jarvis said that you wanted to know about your legs."

"Yeah. You know, unless you want her to believe she'll have to walk with her hands from now on, or just stay as an animal forever."

Doctor Hector sent a burning glare to Tony and pointed towards the door. "You. Out. Now."

Tony's mouth fell open in fake shock as he stood up from the bed. "And to think this is what I get from hiring you. Giving you money when nobody else would."

"First, you haven't hired me, I came here voluntarily. Second, I already have a well-paying job. And third I can't have you in here when you're just disturbing my patient."

Even Jade could see how defeated Tony looked after that, making him back out of the room with his hands raised with only a wink towards Jade before he was finally out.

Doctor Hector let out an irritated sigh before she regained her posture and turned towards Jade with a smile.

"Let's talk about your legs, shall we?"

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Hello everyone! A new chapter and as I said these few chapters will all be after the Avengers (obviously if you read this one) and I'm excited about what will happen later on.

Have a nice week and continue to be your AWESOME selves!

And also, THANK YOU all so much for getting this story to over 7 thousand reads! And for raising about 1 thousand reads since the last update! I love you all so much!