Stephen
One second.
One stupid second, he turned. Then, he saw red. And pain shot through him. He heard sirens in the distance, growing closer. He knew he should stay awake. But, the blood oozing from his head was making that task rather difficult.
He thought of Christine. She was a good friend to him, always helping him after hours and hours of surgery.
The pain was getting worse.
He thought of the dinner he was supposed to be attending. Would they notice he’s late? He was never late to anything.
The pain was almost unbearable at this point, but he needed to stay conscious.
He thought of Tony. Would Tony be worried once he heard? Would he visit? Or was the blood loss getting to him and was he becoming delusional?
The pain was numbing. He couldn’t feel much anymore, but the sirens were coming closer.
“Sir, we need you to stay awake.” He heard a female voice as he fought for consciousness.
“Sir, can you tell me your name?” The Same paramedic asked him again. This time, he lost the fight. Everything went black.
•••
Stephen woke up in a hospital room. The first person he saw was Christine, her brown hair tied into a messy ponytail. He tried to sit up, but pain shot through his spine and his hands. He blinked a few times to clear his vision, and saw that they were being held in the air.
“Chris-Christine?” His voice sounded awful, even to himself.
“Steph!” Christine looked at him with bloodshot eyes, and walked over to him. “Should I get a nurse?” She stood awkwardly off to the side, like she didn’t know how to approach him.
“Nah, I want to wake up some first. Help me sit up?” Christine nodded and helped him adjust before he noticed Tony also in the room.
It may be a bad time, but Stephen couldn’t help be embarrassed that Tony saw him like this. He looked so good in his sweats and Stephen..well he lets just say he didn’t want to see his reflection.
“To-Tony?” Stephen was surprised to see him. He looked up from his lap wearing some sort of gray- tinted sunglasses.
“Hey Doc.” Tony sounded tired, even to him. But he gave him a weak smile.
“W-What happened?” He couldn’t remember much about the accident, and hoped he would be able to get out of the hospital sometime soon.
That hope died when he watched Christine and Tony exchange worried glances. Even though it was their first time meeting, they looked to have established some sort of baseline friendship between them.
After about a minute of some sort of telepathic argument they seemed to be having, Christine appeared to have lost and sighed heavily.
“Well..” She fidgeted with her hands and sat on a chair next to his bed. Tony shot her a sympathetic glance, but didn’t say anything.
Another bad sign. Christine was a straightforward person and never beat around the bush.
“Just give it to me straight.” He said. Tony delicately raised an eyebrow at Christine, but still remained silent.
“In the accident..your hands got jammed into the dashboard..and that..” She muttered something under her breath and trailed off.
“And that?” Stephen tried to prompt her.
“And..oh Stephen I’m so sorry..” She started to cry, wiping her tears away with shaky hands. Tony stood up and walked over, leaned against the wall, and put his hand on her shoulder.
“They got jammed in the dashboard.” He continued for her, not meeting his eyes. “Which shattered the bones..and that, in turn, damaged the nerves that control your fine motor skills.” Christine stayed quiet, and Stephen couldn’t tell if she was still crying because her head was hanging.
“So..what does that mean for..for my career?” He asked, not wanting the answer.
“It..it means..” Christine started, without looking up. She was stopped short- much to her relief- by a nurse knocking at the door.
“Hello, is this a bad time?” A short nurse with a lot of freckles poked her head in.
“No, it’s fine.” Tony said, pulling Christine away from the bedside. The nurse looked from Tony to Christine to Stephen, and then back at Tony. Stephen realized how weird they probably looked, with Tony in his tracksuit and glasses and whatever was glowing in his chest, (The fact that Stephen didn’t notice it at the gala just shows that he was either really nervous or Tony just did that good of a job hiding it.), Christine in her messy ponytail
and running makeup, with sweatshirt over her scrubs. Stephen probably looked the most normal, and he had his hands suspended in the air.
“Alright. I’m Savannah, your nurse for the time being.” Savannah walked over to his bedside and started checking the stitching. It hurt like hell, but he was more focused on Tony and Christine. They were both talking in hushed voices and Stephen could only make out bits and pieces of their conversation.
“Alright, so the stitching looks fine, no sign of infection. So, I’ll leave you three to talk.” She grabbed her clipboard and walked away. But before she closed the door she turned and looked back at Stephen. “Also, I’m sorry. Truly.” She shut the door and Stephen went back to looking at Christine for answers.
Tony stood up and grabbed his phone. “I’m gonna leave you two to talk. I need to call Pepper and get a report of damage control anyway.” He saw Stephen’s confused look and laughed slightly. “It’s a long story.” He gave Chris a mix between a good luck and an I’m sorry and walked out.
“So..we ran tests on your hands. There were multiple surgeries done to try and save them..but..” She broke off.
“But?” It came out more sharply than intended, but he needed to know.
“As Tony explained earlier, you completely shattered the bones, which severely damaged your nerves. You will have minimal use of your hands, like eating and such, but they will shake badly.” She sounded more like she was talking to a patient than her coworker, but he could tell it was taking a lot of energy. “According to the doctors, you will never perform surgery again.” She said it bluntly, more like her old self.
“What? No. They didn’t. Why would you tell me this? They can fix it! They have to!” He shouted. He saw her flinch momentarily, but he didn’t care. This news hurt more than his hands.
“I told you because you’re my friend!” She snapped. “I thought I would give you the courtesy of telling you myself, but obviously that was a mistake. I should’ve left that pleasure to the doctors that spent over a full day working on your hands. Oh wait, I was one of them! If you want me to treat you like one of my patients, I will! There is nothing you can do!” She stood up, with tears streaming down her face.
“Oh wow that’s rich coming from the person whose career isn’t ruined!” He shouted back.
“There’s nothing I can do about it! I’ve tried! We all have!” She turned on her heel and started towards the door. “I’ll come back later.”
“Don’t bother.” Stephen mummered, And she left. He heard sobbing and Tony comforting her from the other side of the wall. He didn’t care. He didn’t care about her, or Tony, or anyone. He just focused on how he could fix this.
He had to fix this.