Search for the Soul Gem

Chapter Thirty-Six

      We didn't stay in Greenland much longer after that. The next day was spent entirely in preparation for the late night departure. Tony buzzed around the room, packing and repacking everything and working on papers that were scattered across the desk. As much as I wanted to, I was completely useless to everyone. I'd woken up with the worst headache and stomach ache I'd ever had. Every minuscule movement made a rush of nausea shoot through me. Every sound and inflection of the light set my head pounding. All I could do was lay curled in bed, trying not to move so I didn't throw up. Every once and a while, Tony would stop packing or pacing to kneel next to the bed and check on me. 

     "Hey Luc," Tony's voice was a soft whisper but it still caused a dull ache behind my eyes. I hummed a light response, keeping my eyes closed against the light. His fingers ran through my hair lightly. "Are you feeling any better sweetheart?" Tony breathed. I knit my eyebrows together from the pain. 

     "No," I managed to choke out. His fingers knotted in my hair but his thumb pressed into the space between my eyes. He pressed down lightly and the pressure actually felt amazing. I let out a slight sigh of content and burrowed deeper into the pillow. 

     "You don't have a fever...," he said mostly to himself. He continued massaging between my eye and was quiet for a long time. I was on the edge of falling asleep when he finally pulled his hand away from me. He leaned over me and pressed his mouth to my forehead lightly. "Sleep good sweetheart," he whispered and his footsteps receded back across the floor toward the desk. 

     "Tony?" Banner's voice drifted up the stairs. 

     "Keep your voice down, she just fell asleep," Tony hushed. Banner's footsteps reached the landing and stopped there. "Did you find anything out from the blood?" Tony asked. Banner had taken blood from me this morning when I woke up feeling awful. My arm was still sore from the needle. 

    "Well, it looked relatively normal actually. There wasn't any sign of parasite in it that I could find. But there was something unusual," Banner said. 

     "Unusual?" Tony questioned. There was a pause where no one said anything.

     "There was this green crystalline substance in her blood that seems to be attaching themselves to her cells," Banner said. I forced myself to continue breathing like normal so that I could listen to what they had to say. 

     "Excuse me, what?" Tony said. 

     "I don't know what it means either. But they were turning her blood cells green. And they looked like a miniature scale of the stone you all found," Banner said. 

     "Green, like Hulk green?" Tony asked after a moment.

     "I don't know. I can't test that here but it doesn't look like it's to that level yet," Banner said. 

     "Yet?" 

     "I can't confirm anything for you. I have nothing here to check the radiation or gamma levels of her blood. All I can tell you is that there is no indication of what would be affecting her except those crystalline things," Banner said. 

     "Look at this," Tony trailed off. 

     "It freaks out then you put it near the stone," Banner said. I knew that the stone was on the desk in a glass box. The glass top to the box flipped open and suddenly a rush of nausea shot through my body, "What's it doing?" Banner asked. 

     "It's spiking up and turning green," Tony was cut off by a low moan of pain. I curled myself into a deeper ball and whimpered. Every muscle in my body was on fire, my head felt like it was going to explode, and my stomach churned like a stormy ocean. Footsteps cascaded across the floor and suddenly the bed dipped down next to me. The pressure of someone's hand appeared on my lower back.