Chapter 22
A team of doctors spread professionally quickly inside Dean’s hospital room, turning it into a beehive in under two seconds. Some of them checked his vitals, and others checked the machines connected to him, making sure they were working fine.
“Oh God, his vitals are deteriorating in a very alarming and dangerous way!” Alex exclaimed nervously, watching the screaming machines and dropping vitals.
“What’s happening to him?” Tony clutched at the doorframe, where he was standing to not get in the doctors’ way, his heart hammering in his chest, as he watched his best friend relapsing in front of him. Charlie and Bruce were standing next to him, the three of them pressed together in a very worried heap of people.
“Check the blood pressure!” Dr. Johnson was shouting his orders around, determined to figure out the problem and fast. “We need to-“
“The heart had stopped!” one of the doctors exclaimed, as the single monotone voice of the heart monitor sounded in the room, alarming all of them.
“We need to restart the heart!”
The doctors rushed to get the defibrillator as Charlie clutched to both Bruce and Tony in her panic, the three of them watching the doctors pressing the defibrillator to Dean’s chest, sending a pulse of electric shock into him.
Nothing happened.
“Again! Another pulse! Come on!” Dr, Johnson insisted. Making his doctors move again fast.
“Wait, why is he glowing?!” Alex interrupted him suddenly, eyes widening as she pointed at Dean’s chest.
Everyone turned to look at what she was pointing at. For sure, there was a soft white light glowing inside Dean’s chest from under his hospital gown. The glow was increasing slowly with each passing second, spreading through Dean’s body.
The scene was so entrancing that everyone just stopped and stared until Dean’s entire body was softly glowing, making him look ethereal and otherworldly.
“What’s happening, Tony?” Bruce murmured with wide eyes, as the glow lighted the entire room with its soft light.
“I-I don’t know,” Tony answered with wide eyes, trying to understand what was happening. “But doesn’t this glow remind you of Castiel’s grace?”
Just as he said that, right in front of everyone’s eyes, Dean’s heart started beating again, and his deteriorating vitals became stable once more until he was fully back to how he was before. Sleeping with his heart beating steadily, the machines working calmly, his vitals returned to normal.
The soft glow disappeared back inside of Dean. Like it was never there.
Everyone in the room just stayed frozen, trying to comprehend what the hell just happened. No one dared to move or even breathe like they were afraid to break the spell and Dean would relapse again.
When nothing happened and he remained stable, all the doctors turned to stare at the Avengers standing in the doorway, unmoving. Asking them silently about what the fuck just happened.
“It was Cas.” Tony murmured in awe, his eyes wide and unbelieving, his heart banging in his chest, “There is a part of Castiel’s grace inside of Dean, thanks to their bond! Castiel used that to save Dean’s life! He didn’t let the state of paralysis he was in stop him from saving him! That guy is unstoppable even when he is down!”
“Oh God, that was close.” Charlie clutched at her chest, trying to calm down her still hammering heart. As Bruce struggled through his panic next to her, convincing himself that everything was good now, no need to Hulk out in his panic and scare the shit out of everyone.
The doctors were all still staring at them in confusion, still not understanding what happened or what their words meant, not even how Castiel had to do with anything that happened now.
Just as Alex was about to ask, they all jumped at the sound of an explosion.
A very hard explosion that caused the walls of the room to shake around them, coming from two rooms down the corridor.
Erik’s room.
***
Erik was in what people would call a very bad situation.
He was having a very rough couple of days so far, but what was happening now made things go from rough to downright frustrating.
He lay there helplessly, very aware of the presence of a crazy, vicious man, pointing something at him, ready to turn him into history.
It only needed a slight press for that to happen, and Erik could do nothing about it.
Despite how still and unmoving he was from the outside; on the inside, he was raging.
He was aware of everything happening around him from the moment he was hit by that stupid fireball. Since then, he had been unable to even lift a finger. Unable to move even a nail with his powers. He couldn’t even scream out his frustration.
His tongue was heavy and unmoving in his mouth. His eyelids refused to move. A huge lump stuck in his throat, making him unable to speak or let out a sound.
For the first time in his life, he felt completely and utterly helpless and desperate.
He felt helpless many times before in his life. When Charles got hit by the bullet in his back. When Charles stayed in a wheelchair for years. For that entire time, he felt helpless and desperate to do anything.
But right now? That feeling was worse. Much worse. He couldn’t even protect himself.
He was at the very top of helplessness and desperation now. He felt very fucking lucky.
He was paralyzed, with a bastard standing a few inches away from him, pointing a weapon at him, ready to end his life, and Erik was completely powerless to do anything about it, he could only lay there and-
“Where are you going, professor?!” the firm voice of one of the agents outside sounded inside the room suddenly, startling both the attacker and the victim. “How did you get in? It’s restricted to be here!”
Then the door of the room opened, along with the very familiar footsteps of his husband’s preferred leather shoes, with the sound of his voice echoing loudly in the room, as he exclaimed in frustration. “Don’t try to stop me! My husband is inside! There is nothing you will say that will make me leave without seeing him!”
Then the sound of him stopping, along with a sharp gasp. “Wait, who are you?! What are you doing here?! What are you doing to Erik?!”
At this moment, no one knows who was more unsettled then. Erik or the attacker.
Erik’s heart almost burst out of his chest from the amount of panic that hit him.
As much as he was dying to hear his husband’s voice all this time, this was the worst possible moment for him to come here.
Utter fear and panic overwhelmed Erik as he screamed in his brain for Charles to leave, while his husband faced his attacker right now, with Erik unable to lift a finger to even protect him.
Meanwhile, the attacker’s reaction to Charles’ entrance was disastrous.
“You! You are not supposed to be here!” The man shouted sharply, a tinge of panic in his voice at the sight of Charles. “This is wrong! This is all wrong! You can’t be here!”
With that, he turned his weapon towards Charles and fired.
A small fireball shot out of the crystal ball.
Instinctively, due to years of training his self-defense abilities, Charles moved to the side the moment he saw the man pointing something at him, making the fireball pass by him two inches away from his body to hit one of the agents instead, who followed Charles inside when they heard him talking to someone.
The fireball hit the agent right in the chest, throwing him harshly out of the room, to hit the wall of the corridor, then dropping to the floor, dead.
Erik’s panic increased more and more, with him not knowing what was happening, and hearing Charles’ alarmed yells along with the sound of someone hitting the floor.
“Stop!” Charles shouted at the man’s face, using his powers to stop his movements, but the man reacted fast the moment he saw what Charles was trying to do, pressing something by the side of his head, making a soft blue glow surround his head, blocking Charles’ attempts, just as the second agent raised his gun towards the man, right after his colleague fell to the floor.
The agent shot the man, but his bullet reflected off the man’s jacket, only to hit the wall instead, making a hole in it, just as the man shot another fireball.
The agent swiftly jumped to the side, avoiding the fireball, making it hit the door instead, exploding it. Then shot the man again.
That exchange managed to make the man distracted from his focus on Charles, who realized his powers weren’t going to help now, so he made another move. He took advantage of the man’s distraction to jump towards the fallen agent’s gun.
He took the fallen gun, raised it towards the man, and shot.
Charles’ bullet managed to hit the man in the side of his neck.
Blood was splattered.
Red hot blood splattered across Erik’s face, making Erik’s fear and panic go sky-roof since he didn’t know whose blood was on his face.
Meanwhile, the man went crazy from his neck injury, he let out a vicious angry growl, as he turned his ball towards Charles and shot.
Yet again, Charles jumped aside, avoiding the fireball, while the agent stepped between Charles and the man and shot at the attacker again and again.
By that time, the sound of the approaching security, led by Tony was getting closer to the room.
Rage exploded inside the man, directed towards Charles, who was now calling over Tony the moment he saw him coming, urging him and security to rush over.
The man let out an enraged scream, as he took a step back towards the window.
Security stormed inside the room.
“Catch him!” Tony screamed the moment he stepped inside the room, a look of pure rage on his face, as he stood between the man and Charles, hiding him from view. “He tried to kill Erik! Catch him!”
The man let out another enraged scream when weapons raised towards his face and started shooting.
With the shower of bullets raining towards him, he jumped towards the window, crashed through it, and fell towards the hospital’s garden.
Everyone rushed towards the broken window, and Tony shouted after them “Don’t kill him! We need him alive! Don’t kill him!”
But when they looked through the broken window, they realized his shout was meaningless now.
Because the man who jumped through the window right in front of their eyes was no longer there.
He disappeared into thin air.
As if he was never there.