It's been ten minutes. Ten minutes of me sitting against a wall thinking about the interaction with Charlie. I know I need to talk about it with someone, otherwise I'm never going to get it out of my head. I can't talk to Peter, both because he's with May and because he barely knows anything about Charlie.

Dad would try to go after Charlie, and so would Aunt Nat. But Papa. Papa won't do that. He'll sit and listen to me. He always does. But where is he? Probably in the lab, it's where he spends most of his time. Content in my decision, I stand up and head towards his lab.

I have to take the elevator: there's no stairs down to the basement. The lab is only a few floors below ground, but it covers most of the floor. There's a small area before the opening to the lab, and it snakes around behind the wall that houses the elevator to fill the whole area.

I don't see Papa, but I'm sure he's somewhere around. Even if he's not, I can easily go and find him. I walk and go to reach for the handle to open the door. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and a shiver runs through my spine. For some reason, something feels off. I push the feeling down, knowing it's fine. That was the wrong thing to do.

Almost as soon as my hand touches the handle, I'm thrown backwards into the wall. The back of my head hits it hard along with the rest of my body, and I've already started to black out by the time I land on the ground. I register that an explosion went off as glass rains down on me. As I lose consciousness, I simply have to hope that someone heard it and will come find me.

--

~No P.O.V.~

'A wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. There is no word for a parent who loses a child. That's how awful the loss is.' - Jay Neugeboren.

"It's been days, Tony. Are we even sure if she's gonna wake up?" Steve asks his husband.

"She has to. Otherwise it's my fault she died."

Of course, Tony blames himself for Blythe being in a coma. It was his lab, and she was looking for him. Out of everyone in the tower, he'd lost the most sleep over it. He looks at her, lying peacefully on the lab bed. They'd taken her to hospital, but after a few hours he'd begged to take her home.

There was only so much the hospital staff could argue with Tony, what with him saying he had all the equipment he would need to look after her. Truthfully, he did. Over the last few days, there's always been someone watching over the girl. Every in the Tower had taken a shift, but Tony, Steve and Peter took the most.

Tony's gaze shifts from his daughter to the boy sleeping next to her. Before Steve and Tony had arrived to see her, Peter had been taking a shift. The teenager was tired and had fallen asleep on the chair he'd pulled beside Blythe's bed. His head is resting on his arm, which is beside her body on top of the sheets. His other hand is placed softly on top of Blythe's, their fingers interlocking slightly.

"You know that's not true."

"Of course it is, Steve! It was my lab! She was looking for me! And it was my dumb experiment going wrong and putting her like this!"

"Come on. The only thing we can do is wait and hope. That's all we can do."

"No! That's not all we can do. I...I've been working on something."

"Tony..."

"No. Hear me out. It's a serum that should help. Granted, it may have side effects, but nothing we can't handle."

"What kind of side effects?"

"Truthfully? I'm not really sure. The components in the serum will work straight away, but we'll have to run tests to see if any of the side effects stick."

"I don't know about this."

"Do you have any better ideas?" Tony rubs the bridge of his nose. "You have to let me do this, Steve. I need to try something."

Steve doesn't say anything, but his look says everything. Tony quickly walks over to the container where he has the serum stored. He goes next to Blythe and pulls a stool next to the bed, getting ready to put the serum into here. He sighs before he does it.

"Here goes nothing," Tony says to himself, then he does it. Although she doesn't react, he knows it's worked. Steve's phone buzzes and he looks at it, then at Tony.

"We're needed. Peter's here. It should be fine." The super soldier leaves the room, leaving the man of iron to stand next to his daughter.

He bends over and kisses Blythe's forehead softly. "Please pull through this, kiddo. I can't have your death on my conscience. I need you too much." With that, he leaves the room.

--

~Blythe's P.O.V.~

Ow...My head hurts. My hand goes up to clutch my head as my eyes open slowly. Full of sleep, they are blurry for a few moments. After about thirty seconds, they seem to clear and I look around. The first thing I notice is that I'm on one of Papa's lab beds. What happened? The second thing I notice is Peter sleeping beside me. I know he's a light sleeper, and he wakes up as soon as I ask his name.

"Blythe!" He wraps me in a hug. "You're OK!"

"Of course...why wouldn't I be?"

"You kinda just woke up from a mild coma."

"A coma? How long was I out?"

"A few days...maybe four."

"OK, backtrack. What actually happened?"

"I'm pretty sure Mr. Stark said that one of his experiments went wrong. It exploded and you were there at the wrong time."

I look at him, trying to take in the information. A four day coma. Wow. "Where are Dad and Papa?"

"I don't know, but I'm guessing they'll be here soon."

I sit up and swing my legs over the edge of the bed, standing myself up. I ignore Peter's protests and walk over to a mirror. I have many cuts and bruises, most likely from the glass I vaguely remember landing on me and my hits on the wall and ground.

At that time, Dad and Papa walk in. It's only been a few days, but they both look a little older. Especially Papa: he must have blamed himself. In an instant, I'm wrapped in their arms. It feels good, but it's short lived.

"I want you to rest, but I need to test something," Papa says to me.

"OK...?" I'm lifted off the ground as Dad picks me up. "You know I can walk, right?"

"Yeah, but I don't get to do this anymore." I let it slide, and the four of us go into a booth part of the lab. Dad plops me inside and then walks to where Tony and Peter are, closing the door behind him.

"Why am I in here and not you three?" I ask Papa.

"Well, I injected you with a serum while you were asleep. It worked, because you're awake way before doctors thought you would be. But..."

"Lemme guess. Side effects?"

"Yes. I need to test you."

"Fine. Let's do this thing."

Over the next 20 minutes, Papa tests me on four things: super speed, shapeshifting, matter manipulation and invisibility. None of them work, and I honestly wasn't expecting them to.

"Are we done yet?" I question, tired and over this.

"Not quite," Papa answers. "Just one more." He hands earmuffs to Dad and Peter, then puts some on himself.

"What are those for?"

"You'll see. I need you to scream towards the wall, loud as you can. Don't hold back."

I roll my eyes and then turn to face the wall. I let out a scream, as loud as I can like Papa said. I only scream for a few seconds, and I stop abruptly and turn when I hear glass shatter. The trio is taking their earmuffs off, and I stare at Papa.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!" I yell at him.

"That, my dear, was an ultrasonic scream. And it was much higher than I was expecting. 330 decibels, to be exact. Enough to make someone's ears bleed even when they aren't the target."

I walk out of the booth as he's explaining. "Then why the fuck would you give that to me?"

"It wasn't on purpose. But I knew that the serum would have side effects from the start. I knew you would only get one, but I didn't know which one it would be. And it was the ultrasonic scream. To put it simply: the combination of ingredients in the serum reacted to you in a way that only gave you the ultrasonic scream. Since it reached 330 decibels, which, like I said, is enough to make anyone's ears bleed even when they're not the target, you need to learn to control it."

"But now you need to rest," Dad interrupts.

Without saying a word, I begin to walk out of the booth and up stairs to my room five floors above.