Cyan

The pain was by now a numb pump through her veins. She stirred, not really wanting to wake up but willing herself to. She could smell iron and different alloys she couldn’t recognize, letting herself relax. She hadn’t had any nightmares, just a dreamless sleep. It was probably that concoction Yinsen prepared that was miraculous.

The sound of tools clashing against metal and the humming of a too-well-known song made its way to her ears, making her smile.

“I can’t believe you’re singing Another One Bites the Dust when I could be lying on my deathbed,” she croaked, her lips and throat dry as sandpaper.

“Fawn,” Yinsen’s voice came before his face, but she was relieved to see the happiness in his face. She knew it was irrational but she’d expected annoyance.

“Well, you did say you liked 80’s songs, and don’t expect me to sing Total Eclipse of the Heart,” Stark was on the other side of the bed, lifting his protective gear over his head and taking off his thick gloves, throwing them aside. His face was masked with amusement and boyish charm but she could see the worry.

Then she noticed his chest.

“Oh,” words escaped her, blue eyes widening.

“Hey, careful, careful,” they told her softly as she tried to sit up. It was painful, yes, but not nearly as much as… as—

“How long have I been out?” she frowned, eyes still set on the glowing device inside Stark’s chest.

“Two days,” Yinsen sighed. “Your back recovered pretty well, but it’ll take a long time for it to fully heal.”

“Okay,” she replied distractedly, lifting a hand without even thinking.

Her long fingers skimmed over the black wife beater Stark wore, scrapping against the metal underneath. She scooted closer to the man and he lowered his arms to give her the space she needed, seemingly fine with her intimate exploring.

Fawn lifted his shirt.

“Oh,” she breathed out, feeling warm excitement swell inside her chest.

It was a beautiful piece of machinery. A circle of cyan light, surrounded by others. It was hard to believe that something so small could be keeping a man alive, and yet there it was, fully functioning. Oh, how she’d wished to see how it worked, how he made every piece instead of making small things to entertain herself around the workshop when she wasn’t needed.

Her right hand, the one that had been resting on the bedding, lifted to touch his abdomen first, almost asking for permission before they began to trace the muscles until they stopped at the ring of iron.

Fawn traced the scarred flesh around the reactor and T—Stark shivered, but she wasn’t deterred. She grasped his sides and leaned in.

“Hey, what a—” he stopped as she pressed her ear to his new metal heart, humming with life and energy.

It seemed to skip a beat.

“It’s… it’s—” she closed her eyes and sighed before pulling away, eyes still on it. “It’s beautiful. That’s an incredible piece of work.”

“Thank you,” he managed to say, avoiding Yinsen’s little smirk. “Now, we’ve got a lot of work and I’ve managed to scrap something up with everything we’ve got to get us out of here.”

She frowned as Yinsen handed her various pieces of paper, each one with small parts of what seemed intricate pieces of—

“Wait a minute,” she let the papers come closer to the light and her breath was once stolen again as the full armor came to view. “Holy shit.”

“Holy shit indeed,” Yinsen chuckled.

“You realize that if they catch us we’re fucked, right?” her eyes found his golden irises and he swallowed, nodding slowly. “Well, then—fuck, Stark, you may be a piece of shit but you’re a very smart piece of shit.”

“Thank you,” this time the smile was genuine, and his fingers snatched away the papers with a firm grip. “Now, I need to make sure you can actually do something without getting an infection. Can you?”

“Probably,” she rolled her shoulders and hissed. “Yeah, it’s not that bad, I can handle it.”

“You sure, Quill?”

Despite the usage of her last name, she couldn’t help but look at Tony Stark and feel a great sense of camaderie. He was worried. He really was. Yinsen worried about everyone but Tony Stark only cared about himself.

Either she’d been wrong for most of her life or she was the first person he’d begun to care about in probably a long time. It made her feel uneasy and warm.

“I’m fine, Stark,” she shoved a little on his shoulder and resist the urge to run her fingers through the arc reactor again. Instead she let herself rest them on his shoulder for support, standing with sleepy legs. “Well, I might actually need a chair.”

“It killed you to say it, didn’t it?” he was laughing, the bastard.

“Just shut up,” she shoved him slightly and both men laughed a little.

Since she couldn’t be seen helping them, she began to set to work on small parts of the suit, following Stark’s directions. To be honest, most of it she could’ve done by herself just fine but it was better if she didn’t take any chances.

“Hey, Quill,” Stark called from the other side of the workshop and she looked up from the leg piece she’d been working on.

“Yeah?” she pushed a stray lock of hair away from her face. It was beginning to reach her collarbones and she was dying for a haircut.

“What do they want from you?”

She paused, chewing her lower lip in thought. Looking down at her hands, she put the blowtorch away and ran a dirty towel through her sweaty face. The sweat on her back made the wounds sting but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle. A sigh left her lips and she shook her head, pushing away the thoughts that fought to stay inside.

She couldn’t tell him.

She couldn’t tell any of them.

She couldn’t tell anyone at all.

“I’m sorry, Stark,” she grasped the blowtorch again and set to work. “But it’s none of your business.”

“None of my business?” he looked taken aback, almost offended.

“Stark—” Yinsen began but the billionaire pushed away from his work, making Fawn sigh.

“No, Yinsen, I think we deserve to know,” he looked at her—really looked at her, taking in her appearance, the way she moved and the look in her eyes. “You’re barely an adult.”

“I’m twenty-five, thank you very much,” she rolled her eyes.

“You didn’t steal plutonium,” he deadpanned and she just sighed again. And once more when he just kept talking. “You know something—or of someone. You know how to build something but if that was the only thing, they wouldn’t have tortured you. You—you know something.”

She tried to ignore him, keeping her hands moving and her mind away from his words but he slapped the tools away from her and grabbed her wrist. It wasn’t painful but it wasn’t gentle, either. Her eyes darkened.

“Let go,” she told him coldly.

“Why are they keeping you here?” he returned.

She snapped her eyes to his and his determination, his untrusting stare and his stubborn gaze finally did it.

“Okay, Stark, want to know why I’m here?” she shot him her fakest smile, showing him her pearly whites tinged with blood. He suppressed a wince. “I am the first human in the history of Earth to come in contact with alien technology and still be alive.”

And with a twist of her wrist, she was free from his grasp and she was back to working again.

He didn’t speak for the rest of the day.