Chapter 19
The first time I wake up after the bank robbery is for only a few minutes. My ears were ringing a little and I could see Clint looking out a window. I only vaguely recognised my surroundings as the medical ward at Avengers Headquarters. The second time I woke up, Clint was sleeping in an arm chair. Natasha was also sitting in one, but unlike Clint, she was watching me.
“What time is it?” I asked. My throat was dry making it hard to speak. Noticing this, Natasha got up from the chair and walked towards me. I turned my head to watch her pour a cup of water.
“Drink this,” She said, handing me the plastic cup. I took it and took small sips.
“Do you know where you are?” Natasha asked.
“Infirmary?” I said. In the dim light, I saw Natasha nod before she started to say something. What worried me was that I couldn’t hear everything she said.
“Repeat?” I asked, knowing that I wasn’t well enough to speak full sentences just yet.
“You should sleep Abigail,” I heard Natasha say. Before I went back to sleep I saw Natasha say something.
Alyssa woke up from her induced coma a week after what everyone was dubbing an outburst. Since I had woken up the second time, I’d had a few doctors come to check on me. From these doctors I learnt that I had been in my own coma for two days before waking up. Alyssa’s outburst had thrown me against a brick wall giving me a concussion after rendering me unconscious. I still had some ringing in my ear but for the most part I had gotten over my small bout of bad hearing. I also learnt that I had fractured my right wrist. I was going to have a brace until homecoming. And even after homecoming, I’d probably have to use a brace occasionally for a few months. Compared to Alyssa, I had gotten off easy. I hadn’t been able to learn much of what had happened to her due to patient doctor confidentiality so when I learnt she was waking up, Clint took me to see her. Her infirmary room was only two doors down from mine. The room in the middle had been Stassia’s who’d been told to have two nights observation. As I opened the door, Alyssa started talking.
"¿Dónde estoy? ¿Dónde estoy?" Alyssa cried, pulling on her restraints. I recognised the language – Spanish. Clint moved quickly towards the emergency call button.
“Stop Clint, I got this,” I said. Clint stopped and stepped back.
"Alyssa. Soy yo, Abigail. Tuviste un accidente. Estás en la sede de Avengers. Estás en la enfermería " Alyssa stopped pulling on her restraints and looked at me, "Los doctores…"
Alyssa looked scared at the mention of doctors, so I changed what I was saying,
"Las personas que te cuidaban necesitaban restringir tus brazos para que te ocurriera algo mientras dormías".
"¿Qué pasó Abigail?"Alyssa asked, "¿Qué hice?"
"Para ser honesto, no estoy seguro de lo que pasó. ¿Quieres que busque a alguien que pueda verificar si hay heridos, para que podamos ayudarte? "Alyssa nodded.
“We’ll figure out what happened as soon as possible. But first we need you to get better. I’ll call Vision, so he can come see you,” I told her. Alyssa smiled at the mention of her mentor.
“I’m glad you’re alright Alyssa,” I said.
“I’m glad you’re not hurt,” Alyssa said, “I never wanted to hurt anyone,” I watched as Alyssa shed a single tear. Whatever had happened in South America must have been life shattering. I smiled at Alyssa weakly before turning around and going out the door. Clint followed me out.
“She’s going to freak if we tell her what happened at this point in time,” I tell Clint, “We have to tell her the truth, but it would destroy her stability,”
“I know,” Clint said.
“I’m going to talk to Vision about helping Alyssa recover from her outburst,” I said.
“That’s a good idea,” Clint agreed, “You did a good job calming her down,”
“Thanks,” I spotted one of the medical staff walking towards us, “Excuse me, you wouldn’t happen to be someone looking after Ligero would you?”
“Yes, I’m Doctor Fredrick,” She said, “What can I do for you?”
“Ligero has woken up. She woke up very frightened, but I managed to calm her down a little bit. We talked in Spanish for a bit before I left,” I explained.
“Okay, thanks for letting me know,” Doctor Fredrick said, “I do think you should be present when myself or any of my colleagues are talking to Alyssa in case she needs support or starts speaking Spanish,”
“Of course, Doctor Fredrick,” I said, “I’ll meet you at Ligero’s room in a few minutes, I just have to go talk to some people first. That’s if you want to check on her,”
“Okay,” Doctor Fredrick agreed, “I’ll go check on her in ten minutes,”
“Okay. I’ll meet you there,” I said. Doctor Fredrick nodded and continued on her way.
After meeting with Doctor Fredrick, Clint and I went to visit Vision in his room to let him know that Alyssa was awake. Vision was very happy with his protegee’s improvement. I told him about how Doctor Fredrick was going to be checking Alyssa very shortly and that I had been asked to be there. Vision nodded and said we should get going so we’d be on time. Vision and I left Clint at Vision’s room and made our way to the medical ward. As we walked, I asked Vision about Alyssa.
“She woke up yelling in Spanish. I know that she lived in South America for a while, but I don’t understand why she would immediately go to Spanish when she woke up scared,” I said, “Do you have any idea why she would do that?” Vision hesitated in answer.
“I do have an idea of why she would act like this, but it is not my secret to tell you,” Vision replied, “Even then, I do not know the whole story,”
“Okay. Is there anything I should know; even minimal detail is good enough? I should know something. It may help,” Vision takes a second to think about it.
“Alyssa was not in South America willingly and I truly do not know what scars it has left her,” Vision said sadly.
Both Alyssa and I were cleared by Monday, ten days after Alyssa’s outburst. I was cleared to go back to school while Alyssa was told to take at least another week off to completely recover. It felt odd missing so much school. It also felt weird telling people a lie when the truth was on my wrist. I told my friends that I’d left school during fourth period on a Friday to spend a full weekend with Clint and the rest of my adopted family at his farm. On Saturday evening, I’d misplaced my footing on the steps coming down to dinner. This had caused me to fall down the remaining three steps. I’d fractured my wrist in an attempt to break my fall. Not that my attempt worked – I had gotten concussed and slipped into a coma for a few days. When I was released from the hospital upstate, Clint and Laura were instructed to keep me home for a few days and yesterday I had been given the all clear to go back to school. And going back to school meant dealing with the homecoming committee whom I had deliberately ignored in my time off. I was waiting in the office to discuss my increased set of absences to the Principal when Grace and Clara cornered me. They started asking me why I had disappeared off the side of the earth, leaving them and the rest of the committee without their leader. I explained what had happened and made a weak excuse of no screen time because of my concussion.
“I’m glad you’re alright,” Grace said, “Although I do hope your brace will be coming off in time for homecoming. We can’t have our chairperson with an ugly brace on her wrist in the committee photos,” I knew that Grace meant well, but I still felt the emotional stab of not meeting society’s standards of beauty.
“I asked my doctors – I can take it off for homecoming, but I’ll probably need a brace occasionally for a few weeks afterwards,” I said, “That’s at the moment anyway. I have a check up on Thursday,”
“That’s good,” Clara said, “Have you picked out what you’re wearing yet?”
“You have got something to wear right?” Grace asked, noticing that I was taking my time to reply.
“No,” I admitted, “Laura and I were going to go looking for something before my accident,”
“You’re about my size Abigail, I have a dress that you can borrow. I wore it to last years homecoming,” Clara said, “That’s if you want it,”
“Thanks for the offer Clara,” I said, “But I think I’m going for a suit and tie this year,”
“What? You can’t wear a suit!” Grace exclaimed.
“It’s 2018 Grace, Abigail can wear what she wants,” Clara came to my rescue, “She knows how to rock a blazer to school and women can look great in suits. Sometimes women suit it better than men,” Grace huffed and walked off. She was obviously very annoyed about my decision to wear a suit and tie.
“I’m sorry about her,” Clara said, “Grace may claim to be pro LGBT, but she can be a bit homophobic at times. Anything that goes against the norm freaks her out,”
“Who says I’m LGBT?” I said.
“You cuff your jeans and I know you’ve dated boys and girls. I’m putting money on bisexual. Possibly some gender orientation that’s not binary,”
“You got me there Clara. Bi and proud. And non-binary,” I said, “You?”
“Lesbian. We dated the same girl a few years ago,”
“Which one?”
“Clancy. She cheated on me with you,”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t even know you two were a thing. I would have left her alone completely if I had known,”
“It’s okay. It was what? Two years ago, now,” Clara said, “Besides, I’m not very open with my identity. I don’t blame you for being the other girl,”
“You taking anyone to the dance?”
“My girlfriend,” Clara smiled, “She’s home-schooled, but as far as the school knows we’re just friends,”
“Abigail, the principal is ready to see you now,” The receptionist said.
“Wish me luck,” I said, getting up from my chair.
“Luck,”
I was exhausted when I got home from school. I sat down on the couch and remembered that I usually used Monday after school to patrol the city. Trying to get up form the couch, I felt a sharp pain in my right wrist.
“Crap,” I said, giving up on getting up for now.
“What?” Clint asked from the kitchen.
“I just realised something,”
“What did you realise?”
“I can’t be Slingshot with a broken wrist. I mean I could use a crossbow with one hand, but even then, it would be difficult. How am I supposed to stop Hamilton? The election is in three weeks and I’m not going to be fit for at least another month after that,”
“Well it’s a good thing you’ve got that doctor’s appointment on Thursday then,” Clint said, “Dr Cho fixed me after I was shot when we first met Wanda and Petrio. She’s going to be doing something similar by fixing your bone,”
“How long is it going to take?”
“You’ll probably have to miss two days of school,” I sighed.
“You do realise I’m walking the line when it comes to be being able to continue onto 12th grade right? I had to see the principal this morning because my attendance lately has not been good enough. Even with my good grades, if I don’t stop missing school I’ll be held back,”
“I’ll let the others know that you can’t take any jobs during school hours,” Clint said, “Remind me to never let my other kids become heroes until they’ve finished college,”
“I think Laura has that handled. Although, if any of them want to be heroes I don’t think we’d be able to stop them,”
“On we wouldn’t,” Clint agreed, “I was thinking Subway for dinner,”
“We should think about learning to cook,” I said, “Take away will get boring over time,”
“We do either of us have time to go to cooking classes?”
“I’m sure I can find some sort of simple recipe online. Maybe I could start with pizza,” I said, taking my phone out of my blazer pocket. I did a quick google search.
“Pizza sounds good. Want to do if for dinner tomorrow?”
“I’ll give it a try,” I said, pulling up a promising recipe, “Do we have yeast?”
“No. I think we only have bread, spread, popcorn, cookies and cereal,”
“I’ll go shopping tomorrow after school then,”
“Good idea,” I read the recipe I had found and decided that this would be the one I stuck with.
“Oh, Abigail,”
“Yeah?”
“Your grandparents called this morning. They’re coming up next week to discuss visitation,”
“But next week I have that interview with Hamilton,”
“I’m sure they’ll be done by then. You’ll be fine,”
“If you say so,”