And so the world had been saved. Yet it had nearly been lost for Tony Stark. Through the brilliant of his own engineering and a whole lot of luck, his suit had taken the brunt of the hit from the stones. It had taken its toll, however. Half his body was scorched. His arm was dead. It had to be amputated at the nearest hospital. He could barely move his right leg. He was a mess.
Tony was able to wake up every morning and find Morgan clinging to his side as if she could sense what had nearly happened. If she wasn’t clung to his body, then it was his wife. He didn’t have the heart to tell either of them that his body still hurt to touch. This was a pain he could endure. Would endure. Better to feel the pain of an embrace then not to feel it at all.
Currently, Tony was sitting on the dock overlooking the lake. The warm breeze passed across him, rifling through his hair and upsetting the blanket that was wrapped around his body. His movements were slow, sluggish, in correcting the blanket. Talking was difficult, too. All the words were there in his brain but physically, it took awhile for the words to form on his lips. If they formed at all.
The doctors said that would heal, too. All he needed was time. Tony wasn’t patient. It was a damn good thing he had the best nurse in the world. Morgan was swimming in the shallow part of the lake--floaties wrapped snugly around her arms. He watched her with a smile, but then realized he was thirsty.
Normally, Pepper would help him, but he was tired of troubling her. She already had to baby Morgan. His drink rested in the cup holder of his wheelchair. Biting his lip, he slowly lifted his one arm and gripped it. Fingers were able to wrap tightly around it, but his muscles failed him . . . he couldn’t lift the damn drink out of the cup holder.
He squeezed the cup harder, in both effort and frustration, until it suddenly exploded in his hand, the paper cup spilling water all over the wheelchair and his face and chest. Well. So much for being thirsty.
