Alive

Chapter 30 - Goddaughter

Andrea POV

I am forced out of my sleep by the cry of my goddaughter who is being held by Happy who looks tired and miserable.

"Hey, Ella! Thanks for getting her, Happy." He grumbles in response while placing the baby in my arms and leaving.

I'm curious as to how he hasn't been driven to insanity yet, working with Stark for so long must have an effect on your mental health.

I mean I already have PTSD: post traumatic Stark drama, and I've only known the man a few weeks.

I rub my eyes to remove the sleep and sit back down in the chair that I'm sure was sent from hell to torture me.

"I missed you, little one." My lips touch her forehead as I gently rock her back and forth in my arms in an attempt to soothe her, but the crying won't stop.

She never cries, but then again I've never met her at 2 in the morning. Just to be sure I call Greta and hope she isn't in the middle of saving a patient.

"Hello?" An unfamiliar male voice answers.

"Who is this?" I ask.

"I'm Jerry, one of the new nurses Mr Stark hired. Nurse Greta asked me to hold onto her phone since she was expecting you to call and ask about her baby, hold on." He sounds like he's searching for something, in the background I can hear the painful screams of victims and crying from family members.

I miss the hospital.

"Ah got it- crap it's covered in blood." I hear him mutter then the sound of crumpled-up paper.

"Ok let me try remember. She said something about how the baby is teething and hasn't stopped crying in days and that she'll buy you jewellery as a thank you for dealing with her." Son of a bitch.

I am going to kill her.

"Thanks." My hand is gripping the phone so tight I'm afraid it might break, so I hang up and throw it onto the table.

I take a couple of deep breaths to calm myself down since being pissed while holding a baby will never end well.

Looking back at said baby, I see she has quieted down and is looking very sleepy so I try to coax her eyes closed by humming a nice tune I learned a few centuries ago.

And just as she drifts off to sleep Stark decides to be a dick and have a seizure, which causes Luella to shoot awake and demonstrate to me how her lungs are working perfectly.

"Are you fucking kidding me!" I think I'm just going to let him die this time.

It would be so much fun.

Plus how am I supposed to save his life while holding a baby? There are no safe places to put her without the fear of her falling onto the floor and breaking bones, or if I just put her on the floor I might step on her.

"Jarvis can you call anyone who is awake to come help me please." I do the best I can to hold Stark down with only one arm while rocking a baby with the other.

"I hope you don't have many feelings about your mummy because I will make her disappear forever the next time I see her." I inform the wailing infant with my baby voice, trying to do anything to make her stop so my headache won't progress any further.

You can imagine my relief when I finally hear the lift ding, but my horror when I see who is the one to open the door.

"Hey, Jarvis said you needed a hand?" His voice brings me back to reality and I instantly hand him the baby while he looks extremely confused about the situation.

Stark has stopped seizing so I run a few tests while Luella continues to scream bloody murder as James attempts to calm her down.

It takes a while longer to do the tests than normal since it is extremely hard to concentrate with that man standing there looking all attractive like he just rolled out of bed. Plus he keeps glancing at me out of the corner of his eye then returns his gaze to the baby whenever I stare back.

"Did you steal this baby?" He suddenly asks.

"No, I'm watching her for a soon-to-be-dead friend." I will never let Greta forget this.

"Alright thanks for the help, go get some sleep." I finished fixing Stark as fast as possible so he would leave, I lose the ability to concentrate whenever he was around and productivity instantly goes down.

"Oh, okay. Here's your baby." He gently hands me the child and awkwardly scratches the back of his head for a moment before practically running away.

"Look at that Ella, he got you to shut up." By shut up I mean screaming slightly less.

I rock her to try to shut the screaming off all together, but she is determined to deafen me.

"Shh, if you stop screaming then I will give you all the candy you could want when you're older and when your a teenager I'll give you beer, but you have to go to sleep." A part of me wants to call Greta's ex-wife and Luella's other mother, Marie, but she is a firefighter and has even fewer hours to sleep than me and Greta, so I decided to leave her alone and tame the baby myself.

Greta said not to feed her this late, but I will do anything to make her go quiet and let us both sleep.

As I'm walking back and forth to give my legs a stretch, someone announces their arrival by coughing to get my attention.

I turn to see James with a blue crib in his hands, "Clint used to bring his kids over a lot so we got a crib, I thought it might help calm her down."

He makes me want to swoon.

"Thank you." He smiles at me before setting the crib down next to the unconscious Stark.

"There's also a few cushions in there for you, the chair you have to sit in looks very uncomfortable." Considering it is a metal chair I would be surprised if it was nice to sit on.

I let a smile take over my whole face so he can see how grateful I am for this.

"Goodnight." He walks away again and I place Ella into the crib and she seems a lot happier, I think my arms are too boney for her.

I move the cushions around on the chair and make myself comfortable while using my foot to rock the crib.

We were both starting to fall asleep when my phone rang and it was the woman who stuck me with this teething baby.

Now I'm really going to kill Greta.

"Hey Drea, how is it going?"

"No amount of jewellery with save you from me, Greta Sterling!"