anyastark:

Anya had lost track of the time and what day it was, though it had to be Monday because Pepper called and when Anya didn't answer Pepper had sent a text asking where she was. Anya was supposed to be back to work at the company this morning. She replied to Pepper and said she would be in tomorrow. Leaving the lab in the Avengers' mansion was the last thing she wanted do it. She had even done a session or two with Doc Samson via video conferencing.

In fact in the days since her run in with Temujin she had only left the lab a few times. A few times just long enough to shower and on Father's Day to spend it with James and her father. Jarvis had taken pity on her and had brought her meals down to her and as long as she ate a little of what he brought, he didn't hassle her about it. She didn't even leave the lab to sleep, instead she slept on the couch in the lab for the few hours a day she managed to sleep. Nightmares kept her from sleeping more than a few hours at a time.

Schrodinger, the LMD black cat, was curled up on the couch and Darwin, the LMD beagle, was currently standing on the lab table. Anya did what she always did when she was unsettled, she worked. Right now she was checking for a faulty circuit in the LMD dog and as soon as she was done with that, she had a new version of code to upload into him. She was tired and distracted enough that the frequent licks by the dog didn't even phase her.

Seeing Temujin again was like having a worst nightmare come to life. Between school ending and the nightmares from her last encounter with him starting to fade, Anya had been getting more than four hours of sleep a night. Now she couldn't sleep more than two or three at a time without waking from a nightmare.

She could see the faces of the people she killed. They weren't innocents, but she had still taken lives. It wasn't an easy thing to get past.

A long yawn escaped her and she immediately turned up the music.