Marvel hospital: Gwen & Peter Who: Gwen & Peter What: Waiting Where: Bellevue Hospital When: At some point after this Warnings/Rating: Some blood mentions
Staying in the waiting room with Peter and Mary Jane just wasn't something Gwen could do; wandering the halls of the hospital had kind of become a thing. Someone had given her a hospital hoodie, STAFF printed across the grey, and she'd tossed her bloody things in a receptacle with a red liner and some warning language on it about bloodborne illnesses. She'd scrubbed her jeans down, her shoes, the ends of her blonde hair, and she'd counted square inches of Flash that washed red down the sink that was somewhere near the NICU waiting area.
Maybe it was the sweatshirt and its employment claim, but no one stopped the blonde girl as she wandered the echo-white halls of the medical institution. This wasn't NYU Langone; she had no university lab to hide out in here, and she'd given Flash's nurses her cell number, so she wasn't going to wander far; she was limited to the halls. She considered going up to the roof at one point, but that required swiping someone's access card (she'd checked), and she wasn't that desperate yet. Logically, she understood perfectly the irony of wanting to get up onto the hospital cornice as a way to feel better; she still hated heights when she wasn't suited up. But outside felt like it might be less stifling and, while she could easily attribute that to the sterilized air in the hospital, she knew it was more complicated than that.
She stood outside the double doors that led to Bellevue Hospital's famed psych ward, and she listened to the sounds that came from beyond the reinforced metal as it opened and closed at intervals; it sounded like Silent Hill, and she wondered what that door must've been like for Flash, who couldn't decipher reality from truth during his entire stay. She wondered that, because it was easier than concentrating on her own small and selfish problems, and it was easier than thinking about Flash's prophetic claims about unavoidable things and fate. Once, she'd been the only person in their group who believed the comics had to happen. Everyone had told her she was wrong, over and over and until they were blue in the face. Now, within the last month, Flash and Harry had both echoed the sentiment, and she found she liked it better when she was the only one who thought their path was set in stone.
With a sigh, she left the double-doors of insanity behind, and she checked the nursing station quietly, not wanting to see (or be seen) by the redhead and the boy waiting in the waiting room with her. The nurses were kind, but they didn't say much and, after peeking through the tiny window into Flash's temporary room, Gwen snuck her way back out of the waiting area. She'd spoken to the doctor earlier, after Flash got out of surgery, and she knew he wouldn't be going home anytime soon, but she wasn't leaving until he woke up. Maybe she could eat something, she thought, as the signs for the vendeteria came into view. But once there, she stood in the open doorway and watched the bustle within without any desire to go inside.
She wandered a few feet away, where she claimed one of the couches outside the gift shop and curled herself up in the corner to watch the stuffed bears and mylar balloons being carried out in nervous and twitching hands.