Eira breathed heavily.

She hid behind the huge trunk of a tree as guns went off in the background. They were all firing towards her and they weren't regular guns; they were alien.

Many of the wrong sort of people had gotten their hands on alien tech from the Battle of New York. For the past few weeks, she'd been going out and stopping them.

Currently, she was in the state of Georgia. She was deep in the woods where this underground facility was located. The guards were all armed with alien guns.

         She had alerted them to her presence when a giant tree started moving. Its branches grew down before wrapping around the criminals. It lifted them up and held them in the air as they screamed. That was when the shooting started.

          She was now hidden behind a tree as she bid her time. She heard Nat over the comms, "You're gonna have to take out the bunker before our team can move."

           Nat came with her on these missions. They were pretty low key but with the alien tech, the team of human agents needed at least one Avenger. Eira volunteered when Nat had asked her.

           "Hold on," Eira said.

         Eira peeked around the tree towards the bunker on the hill. It was guarding the underground facility in the distance and was currently firing much bigger weapons that the team couldn't navigate around.

            Eira threw out a hand and made trees start moving away from her which drew the attention of the guards away from her location. Then she ran out from her position and quickly lifted her hand, making vines grow out quickly before crawling under the bunker.

         Then the vines shot upwards, making the bunker disrupt into pieces as it got thrown into the air. The guards that were in there went flying as well as they screamed.

         As the guards on the ground realized she moved out from the her position, they started to shoot at her. But she hid behind another tree just in time.

          "Thank you," Nat said in the earpiece; her position with the team was across from where Eira was so that way Eira could distract the rest of the guards. "We'll head in. Take care of the ones out here."

             "Will do."

             Suddenly, a blast from one of the alien guns took out a chunk of her tree and sent her flying. Now that she was out of her cover, they all started firing at her.

            She made vines rise up to block it but they were quickly being destroyed as they were blasted at. Many more had to rise up to take their place before she smacked her hand on the ground.

Suddenly, the ground started to split and crack towards the remaining guards. The ground started to shake before they all screamed as the ground opened up and swallowed them whole.

Eira breathed tiredly as her vines slowly crawled back into the ground. She laid her head on the ground for a moment before she stretched her limbs to get up.

Today was exhausting.

_____

The underground facility had been conquered. The people that had surrendered had been taken into custody and the alien weapons were taken as well.

Eira was now on a quinjet with Nat. The redhead was dropping her off at the Avengers Tower before heading back to SHIELD.

Eira sat in a seat in the back still struggling to breathe. She felt like something was wrong and she knew what it was but she figured it would pass.

Nat put the jet on autopilot before joining her in the back with a curious look, "You seemed to struggle out there and it wasn't even as bad as New York...."

"I'm fine," Eira lied before her secrets literally spilled out.

Blood started to gush out of her nose and there was a slight trickle out of her ears as well. Nat immediately grabbed some cloth and held it to her. She grabbed it and held it to her nose.

"Eira," Nat said with wide, worried eyes. "What is going on?"

"I'm fine. It'll pass," Eira tried to reassure.

"You mean this has happened before?" Nat crossed her arms.

"Maybe."

"Eira," Nat scolded.

"I've just been using my abilities a lot, especially, this week," Eira argued. "Sometimes, it's a lot."

"Have you told Tony?"

"No!" Eira shouted frantically. "Don't tell him. He'll only worry."

"As he should," Nat lectured before grabbing another small towel and wiping the blood dripping from her ears. "Eira, you are bleeding everywhere."

"It'll stop," Eira assured. "Just, please, don't tell Tony."

Nat sighed before she nodded, "Fine. But no more missions for awhile."

Eira went to protest as she didn't want to leave Nat alone on the missions. What if something happened to her? She had wide, worried eyes.

Nat quickly reassured her, "Eira, it will be fine. Steve can always help; he's started working with SHIELD anyways."

Eira pouted a bit as the bleeding started to stop, "Alright."

_____

Eira was now back at the tower and she found Tony in the workshop area. Tony was drawing up plans for another Iron Man suit.

He lifted his head to look at her with a small smile, "How did my girl do?"

"Well," she smiled a bit proudly. "It was nothing I couldn't handle."

As she got closer, he noticed all the dirt stains on her outfit. He noticed her flushed cheeks from exertion and her messed up hair.

"Wow," he commented. "You got all...hot and sweaty."

She giggled a bit at his dirty undertone. Then she pecked him on the lips quickly.

"I'm going to take a shower," she moved her foot back and forth as she bit her lip shyly. "If you want to get all hot and sweaty with me?"

"Do I?" Tony said as he stood up in front of her. Then he leaned down slowly to kiss her and they shared one deep, slow kiss before he pulled away slightly to whisper close to her lips. "That is always a yes, Snowflake."

His husky voice made her shiver slightly before she quickly looped her arms around his neck and collided her lips with his. Then he picked her up and carried her off where they took one very steamy shower.

_____

It was later that night and Tony was actually sleeping peacefully. He had his arms wrapped around her and his head snuggled against her stomach. It made her quite content in his arms until her body got the urge to cough.

Her eyes blinked awake as she started coughing lightly. It stopped for a moment and she ran her fingers through Tony's hair which made his arms tighten around her and caused her to smile.

But then she got the urge to cough again. She started coughing and it felt like something was stuck in her throat. She began coughing much more violently and she had to disrupt the peaceful sleep as she hurriedly moved out of his arms to run to the bathroom.

She leaned over the sink as she kept coughing. Then finally whatever was lodged in her throat came out. It was blood as it splattered into the sink and some of it dripped down her chin.

She stared down at it in horror and that was when Tony walked into the bathroom. He was concerned but still sleepy as he rubbed his eyes coming into the room, "Snowflake?"

That was when he froze as he saw the red coating the sink. He blinked to make sure he wasn't hallucinating and she quickly pleaded, "Please, don't freak out."

"Why would I not freak out?" Tony said as he quickly grabbed a towel and wiped the blood from her chin carefully.

Tony felt like his heart dropped. He quickly tried to think of things that would make her cough up blood and none of them sounded good.

"Are you sick? Are you dying?" Tony questioned worriedly. "You better not tell me you're dying."

"I'm not...dying. I don't think," she said as tears built up in her eyes. "But it's been happening lately..."

"Lately?"

"I've been using my powers a lot and...I start to feel weak like I can't breathe," she started to explain. "And then I get nosebleeds."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Tony asked in confusion.

"Because you'd worry," she said nervously. "And I didn't want you to worry."

"Eira, it's my job to worry," Tony said softly. "You're kind of my everything if you haven't noticed."

She quickly hugged him tightly with tears in her eyes. She was afraid he'd be mad that she kept something from him. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not mad, Snow," he said gently as he hugged her back tightly. "But you are not using your powers for at least a month."

She nodded her head against his chest before he spoke a bit more urgently, "And now we are taking you to a doctor because I won't be able to rest until we do."

And she didn't protest even though she was afraid of what they might find. It certainly wouldn't be any good news.

AN: okay, I'm doing some filler chapters before I start iron man 3 because it needs to seem like some time has passed once I start it. The movie itself will also only have like three chapters so I needed some filler