Five Minutes
Five minutes. That’s all the more break Quinn Augustin was allowed the night everything changed for her.
The hospital was always busy, but that night must have been a full moon because it was insanity piled on top of busy.
Quinn looked at her chart; Severe abdominal pain. Male of unknown age. Well that can’t be right, how did the nurse not get any more information? She walked into the room and one of the stranger sights of her career. There was a man in a red and blue jumpsuit writhing in pain on the the bed.
“Nurse Alvedo, what the hell is going on?” Quinn addressed the normally extremely competent nurse holding a syringe over the patient.
“We can’t get a needle through his skin and he refuses to take off the mask.” Alvedo’s heavily accented voice dripped with fury at the patient. Quinn was honestly a little impressed, normally nothing could shake the nurse who had worked at City Hospital for decades.
“Sir, what’s your name?” Quinn addressed the patient.
“Spider-man.” The patient choked out. Quinn rolled her eyes, she had seen a YouTube video of this guying swinging around Queens.
“Well Mr. Spider we can’t help you if you don’t help us and judging by the amount of pain you appear to be in you really need us. Get that mask off your head and roll up those sleeves or you might literally die.” Quinn knew she sounded harsh, but sometimes the best bedside manner was to be blunt.
“You can’t tell anyone.” The patient sounded conflicted, but the threat of death seemed to be getting through to him. He used his left arm to gingerly pull off the mask.
“Aren’t you Tony Stark’s kid? I’ve seen your picture in the lifestyle pages.” Alvedo addressed the young brown-haired kid.
“Please don’t say anything, I’m - I’m in a lot of pain here, doc.”
Quinn melted slightly at his voice and pained expression. The vigilante she had seen online was just a young teenager with two superheroes for dads. He was probably just trying to be like them.
“Give me that I.V. needle.” She held her hand out and tried to find a vein. When she tried to insert the I.V. that contained some much needed pain medication, the needle bent without penetrating skin. “What the...” Quinn let herself trail off, she had never seen anything like this, although she had read about it.
“It’s Peter, right?” She asked the kid and he nodded yes. “Well, Peter, I’m going to ask you a question and I need you to be honest. Remember, doctor patient confidentiality means it doesn’t leave this room.”
Quinn saw the muscles in the kid’s jaw clench, but couldn’t tell if it was from nerves or pain. She leaned in close, “Are you Enhanced?”
A look of pure terror spread across the teenager’s face. He didn’t need to answer, his face gave it away, but he responded all the same. “I - yes. I don’t know how, I was on a field trip and-”
Quinn held her hand up to silence him. “It’s ok, it doesn’t matter. It looks like your body is being pretty defensive to my needle though.”
“Am I - am I going to die?” Peter was on the brink of tears.
“No, I’m not going to let that happen.” Quinn tried to think of a solution. “Maybe because you’re stressed out your body is just in extreme defense mode. Try to relax.”
“How am I supposed to relax?” Peter started to panic again and Quinn instinctively placed her hand gently on his forehead.
“Hey, are you a good judge of character?” Alvedo suddenly interjected.
“I, uh, guess so?” Peter looked at the nurse in confusion.
Alvedo smiled and pulled out her cell phone. “Here, go through my Tinder matches and tell me if there’s actually a good guy in Queens.”
Peter still looked confused but took the phone all the same. He started swiping and the nurse silently handed Quinn a new needle with a wink. When Quinn saw that Peter was totally engrossed in finding Maria Alvedo a date she poked the needle into his arm.
“Ouch!” Peter almost dropped the phone but Maria took it from him.
“Anyone good?” Maria asked.
“No, don’t date any of those guys.” Peter said incredulously as slowly realized what happened.
“Alright, Peter. Those pain meds are going to calm you down, we’re going to get to the bottom of what’s going on.” Quinn was almost certain it was appendicitis, but would need to some imaging to be sure. She ordered contrast for him to drink. “Here’s the deal, Peter.” She explained, “You’re a minor, which means we need to call your parents. You can do it, or I can.”
“Out of the country.” Peter mumbled through a Norco induced haze.
Maria searched through the light jacket he had discarded and tossed a cell phone to Quinn. The phone was locked, but had a feature for ICE contacts, thankfully. Quinn went to the nurse’s station to call the number labeled ‘Pops - Dad #1’ from the hospital phone. She wasn’t sure if ‘Pops’ meant Captain America or Iron Man, but the prospect of telling either one of them their kid was in the hospital was not one she looked forward to. The number went straight to voicemail, she knew from personal experience leaving a voicemail on a parent’s phone was a bad idea. The next In Case of Emergency contact was ‘Dad - Dad #2’. After three rings the famous voice of Tony Stark answered with a clipped greeting.
“Mr. Stark,” Quinn took a deep breath, this was a hard call to make no matter how famous the parent was. “This is Doctor Quinn Augustin from City Hospital. I need to inform you that your son, Peter, was admitted an hour ago.”
There was incomprehensible yelling on the other end of the line before a new voice took over. “This is Steve Rogers, did you just say Peter’s in the hospital?”