Mia Dearden (fightbyyourside) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2018-04-01 01:15:00 |
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Since she'd found out that was never going to have use of her legs again, Mia didn't want to be alone. If she was alone, she knew that she'd be stuck with her thoughts, and she didn't want to that. For the most part, Mia didn't have to worry about being alone. Her friends had been checking in on her a lot, and making sure that she wasn't by herself for too long. But they couldn't stay forever. Eventually, the doctors would tell them that she needed her rest, and they had to leave, leaving Mia all by herself. And alone with every single negative thought that she had. They seeped into her mind, and much as she tried to push them out, she couldn't. There were too many things in the room that were painful reminders.
For one thing, there was the wheelchair that had been placed by her bedside, in case she needed to leave. With time and practice, they told her, she would get used to the chair. She would be able to get around, and be able to go about her life as usual. It would become a part of her everyday routine. A part of her. It almost seemed like the doctors were trying to put a positive spin on things. A positive outlook to the fact that she would be confined to a chair, trapped for the rest of her life, however much time she had left. And that itself was a sinking feeling. Mia already had a virus inside of her that was one day going to kill her, and now, there was nothing she could do but sit in a chair and wait for death to come for her. It was a dark, depressing outlook to have, and one that her friends would tell her to stay away from, but Mia couldn't help but think that way. At least, back when she still had her legs, she had full control over her body. She could move freely, and escape that she had a disease inside of her.
And really, hadn't life already beat her down enough? She survived life with her shitty abusive father. She had endured all of the crap that she'd gone through with Richard and living on the streets. She found out that she had a virus inside of her, and she'd bounced back. One thing Mia knew about herself, she always managed to bounce back, stronger than ever. So why was this time any different? Why couldn't she bring herself to bounce back? Mia wanted to bounce back. She did. It was just, every time that she tried, the thought of just being stuck in that damn chair came back to her. That fucking stupid damn chair. She was never going to be able to walk again, and that's what made it so hard to bounce back. She was stuck forever.
"They're have been heroes in wheelchairs before!" She'd been told. Her friends all told her the story of Oracle, who had been confined to a wheelchair after getting shot, and made a whole new heroic identity for herself. And, yeah, good for Barbara Gordon. She was able to take a shitty situation and make something good out of it. And that's what Mia had done, too. Her whole finding out that she had HIV was what made her pick up the mantle of Speedy, so that she could do something good with the time that she had left. But what could she do from a wheelchair? She wasn't a badass computer hacker, like Oracle. She was smart, but she wasn't that smart. And she couldn't go into the field anymore. Even if Roy did make her a cool rocket chair, she was useless now. She would just get in the way.
If Mia could cry anymore, she would. She wanted to cry, but she had done so much of that already. She wanted to scream, but the doctors would come in. And she wanted to throw things. Good god, did she want to throw things. But most importantly, she wanted to get out of the med bay. Soon, they kept telling her. She just needed to practice with the wheelchair a bit more, then they'd let her out.
Mia laid back in bed, staring at the ceiling. There had to be some good from this. She had to find a way to move forward and make it work. She just had to.