colleen rand steals all your stuff. (widgety) wrote in superbabies, @ 2013-03-22 00:59:00 |
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“It’s okay, it’s okay, just keep the pressure on it, we’ll figure out what to do----”
Benjy held her jacket against Colleen’s side, doing her best to both staunch and hide the blood. No one had cared or noticed on the subway out of the city, and so far no one had noticed on the bus, either. If anything, they thought that Colleen had a cold, or was feeling particularly crabby, and that she and Benjy were on their way to a costume party.
It was just proof of what nobodies they were, the fact that Colleen couldn’t fully get out of costume right now and Benjy had her mask hanging out of her backpack. Benjy was regretting the fact that she’d wasted time, throwing on jeans and one of her shirts that she’d layered on, which was low cut enough to reveal the blue and white spider-suit underneath. She could have walked onto the bus in full spandex and nobody would have even cared, and she wouldn’t have wasted that precious minute while she threw clothes on and Colleen could die because of it----
Benjy really had no idea how severe Colleen’s injuries were. She was smart, but not medically trained, and for all she knew, Colleen would be dead in five minutes, all because they wanted to save the world. They’d been doing well for weeks now, sneaking in and out of the school, taking out small-time muggers and crooks----but this time, one of those crooks had had a chance to fire his gun. Benjy hadn’t been fast enough in webbing it out of his hand.
The nearest stop was some distance away from the school, and Benjy helped Colleen off the bus as if Colleen had had too much to drink. When the bus pulled away, Benjy lifted Colleen into her arms and opted to carry her. Super strength did come in handy. “Listen----listen, I’ll get Todd. He can patch this up, easy. This is like a piece of cake to him. He’ll heal you up, and you’ll live, and no one will ever know that this happened, and Spider-Girl and Widget could be back in action by tomorrow night if we wanted.”
Colleen... oh, Colleen was not doing so well. Everything was a blur. She and Benjy were in pursuit, then things got fuzzy, then she’d simultaneously heard a loud bang! and felt a burning hot pain in her side. After that, she wasn’t even aware that she’d gone down, or that she was bleeding, or that their villain had taken off.
She was aware of Benjy and the fact that Benjy was talking to her, though what the redhead was saying was questionable to Colleen. It almost sounded like gibberish, except Benjy wouldn't be speaking in tongues to her, would she? What would the point of that be. And when Benjy helped her up, Colleen felt relieved, because she needed to help her friend. She couldn't leave her alone on the streets all by herself. Not that Colleen was all that much help. If anything, she probably slowed Benjy down. All the same, they were like the two musketeers. She needed to be there for Benjy no matter what.
But then things got dark and hazy again and, while Colleen was vaguely aware that she was clumsily putting one foot in front of the other, she might as well have been sleepwalking for all the attention she paid to her surroundings.
Colleen didn't even know what was wrong, just that the epicenter of pain was in her side and that nothing made sense. Nothing was crisp or clear or even in color. Once on the train, she simply slumped next to Benjy, dropping her head on her friend's shoulder, moaning every now and then when the train stopped for people to get off and get on. That sudden jerk of movement made her side flare up again. And she was pretty sure she'd mumbled something about being cold more than a few times during the trip, but she couldn't be sure.
It was easier when Benjy lifted her up once they got off the bus. Colleen didn't have to put so much attention and effort into walking or sitting up. Easier enough that she could catch a little of what Benjy was saying. Something about Todd, and patching her up, and being back out like the badass superheroes they were in a day. "Mm. No, we have to sneak in the window. Benjy, we need to climb back up into our room."
“No, no, I know,” Benjy insisted. “I know that. We’ll sneak in through the window, just hold on to me, and then I’ll go get Todd, okay? I’ll wake him up, I don’t care. How’s that sound?” She grinned to reassure her and shivered against the cold; her jacket was against Colleen’s side and the temperature had really dropped tonight. She’d never get used to wearing the spider-suit in the cold, but the city seemed a heck of a lot warmer than out here.
“Todd can’t climb through the window.” If she was asked about that statement later Colleen would have no idea what it meant. It was more gibberish as her brain struggled to stay aware. Because, oh, all she wanted was to close her eyes and go to sleep. “They’ll tell if they know.”
That at least was somewhat understandable. They were screwed if anyone found out about what they’d been doing. “They’ll tell and you won’t be Spider-man anymore.” Girl. Whatever.
“Are you silly, Todd won’t...” Benjy frowned, holding Colleen a little bit closer. Crap. Crap. Todd was close to the medical staff. He was with them all the time. Even if Todd agreed to keep their secret, that was no guarantee that his secret-keeping would be effective. They’d get it out of him somehow. He’d let it slip.
If that was the case, then Plan A was shot, and Benjy didn’t have a Plan B. She didn’t even know where to start with Plan B, except for grabbing a box of Mickey Mouse bandaids and trying to patch it up herself. “If we don’t go to Todd, Colly, what do we do?” She didn’t know about any other healer who could take care of it, or someone with medical skills who could deal with a bullet wound and not tell the actual doctors.
"I'll be fine. I'm already fine. See? Look at how fast I'm going." Because Benjy was carrying her. More details. "Just need to sleep it off. I'll go to sleep and everything will be fine in the morning." Granted, her words were starting to slur, but Colleen wasn't aware of that. As far as she was concerned, she was gliding gracefully along the asphalt. She'd even stopped shivering. That was good, right?
"Benjy? Did I tell you? Mom and dad said I could go to Xavier's. We'll get to go to high school together." A complete 360 from their previous conversation and one they'd had almost a year ago, back when she'd convinced Danny and Misty that she might be a mutant and she needed to go to a mutant high school.
“Oh, God,” Benjy breathed. Her heart was racing; tears were stinging her eyes. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Being a superhero was supposed to be fun. Getting hurt was part of the job, Benjy had grown up with it and she knew that. She’d almost been killed a month ago, but that hadn’t been a secret. Now they were sneaking around. Was it really worth keeping this secret if Colleen was really hurt?
“Colly, we should’ve stayed in New York. I should have tried to find the Night Nurse, but no one knows where to find the Night Nurse without connections and it wasn’t like we could call our parents and ask, and... it’s gonna be okay, okay? It’s gonna be okay, I’m going to find a way to take care of you. That’s what the internet is for, I’ll look something up...” Leaning down, she gave Colleen a quick kiss on the forehead. “Come on, we’re almost there.”
"Sure, it's gonna be okay," Colleen mumbled. Then, "Be where? Where are we going? Don't forget your mask." Everything seemed to be blending together for her, even her thoughts and words, although she honestly thought she was being completely coherent. She wasn't out to scare the crap out of Benjy. If anything, she was going to feel horrible, assuming she remembered any of this, after the fact. But, right then, she thought she was having a completely rational conversation.
"I bet one of the adults has some thread. And a needle. They won't ask. Some of them are drunk all the time anyway. Alcohol is a disinfectant." Incoherent or not, she did have a point. Some of the adults were worse than the kids. If she struggled hard enough, she'd remember that there was some girl in the adult wing who'd been talking about having medical training and no where to use it. If she could just remember her name. That was the hard part. "There's someone on one of their floors." Was about as helpful as Colleen was.
“Okay. Okay. Well, we know some of the other students have alcohol, like Bex----no, not Bex, she’s pregnant, but Jason, he’ll have alcohol. And Sadie will have needle and thread. I’ll just borrow some stuff and look it up on the internet, how hard can it really be?” Benjy was failing half her classes but she was a quick study. Weirdly enough, she probably could do this in theory, but not under pressure. “Just hang on, hang on, hang on, okay?” Benjy had been practically running----a little while later and she was passing the gate and heading toward the dorms behind the main building.
Colleen didn't answer. At this point, she'd lost enough blood that it was amazing she was still conscious, especially considering she was pint-sized to begin with.
But, as luck would have it, Olivia was just on her way out to take a walk. Her sleep patterns had been erratic and she couldn't manage more than half an hour at a time. It wasn't doing a lot for the fact that she was already low on energy, but, hopefully, the walk and the fresh air would tire her out a little.
At least... that was what she was going to do when she saw a redhead practically racing up to the mansion. And there was... was she carrying something? Someone? As Benjy approached, took a few quick steps down the front staircase, approaching the pair with her eyebrows drawn together. "Whoa. What's... what the hell happened?" By then she'd seen the blood.
“We----” Benjy was going to lose it the moment she started talking about it. “She got shot. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know who to talk to, I’m----we’re going to get in trouble if anyone finds out and she might be dead I don’t know. I don’t even know who you are.”
"Do you mind?" Olivia asked, stepping forward to press two fingers against the pulse in Colleen's neck. She had her gloves on, no worries. And while it might have made things a little more difficult, it was workable.
"First, she's not dead. Second, she will be dead if she loses much more blood." From the looks of it anyway. "Third, I'm Olivia. I live here. And I can probably help her. No I don't have a degree. And, no, I don't think that matters."
She gave the unconscious girl another once over, then asked, "Do you have rubbing alcohol? A set of forceps. Or pliers. I can use pliers if I sanitize them first. Needle and thread?" She'd want to get proper sutures, but she'd made do with less in the past.
Benjy’s mind raced as she protectively held onto Colleen. “I have all kinds of stuff up in our room, I have a chemistry lab that I keep under my bed and there’s got to be isopropyl alcohol in there. I, uh.” She was shaking. Crap. “I’ve also got a first aid kit in my backpack here but that’s just bandaids and stuff; it has alcohol wipes? Gauze? And Colly’s got a stash of tools for when she builds stuff, so anything you need like pliers or forceps we’ve got them all up there. And I’ve got needles for detail work but not th----I have webbing. I have a reject batch of fluid up there. Super thin, super strong, but it doesn’t dissolve in an hour the way I need it to; I’d say it’ll dissolve in a few weeks if it dissolves at all, does that help?”
"That's perfect." Hopefully. Honestly, Olivia was used to working in better conditions, with all the tools she needed. But these girls were not going to a 'real' doctor and, from the looks of it, Colleen was bleeding out fast.
"Lead the way, I'll follow." At least Benjy didn't seem suspicious of her... and hadn't yet asked what her qualifications were, because Olivia didn't want to explain that.
Right now, Benjy didn’t care. If Olivia said she could do it, then she trusted that Olivia wasn’t lying. At least, that was what she hoped. Colleen was unconscious in her arms and helping her was all that mattered.
“Come on. Around the back.” They were lucky enough to have a room on the first floor, and Benjy had left the window slightly open and a nightlight on. They couldn’t have gone in through the front anyway, as Benjy had locked their bedroom door to keep people out.
“Open the window the rest of the way and climb in,” she hissed at Olivia. She didn’t know how many students were awake right now. “Then I’ll pass her to you and we can get her settled.”
Luckily, Olivia was decent at scrambling through windows. Or at least at climbing around. She hadn’t climbed through a lot of windows in her life.
Once in the room, she held her arms out, glad that Colleen was a little bit of a thing. Benjy might have had superhuman strength; Olivia did not and she was already worn down as it was. “Careful. No skin contact.” She was wearing gloves and long sleeves, but it still seemed like a good idea to warn the redhead of that, especially with the condition Colleen was in. It didn’t look like the girl’s body could take much more.
She backed up into the room with Colleen in her arms, putting her down on the first bed she came to, whether it was hers or Benjy’s. They might have to get rid of the sheets and blanket later, but she wasn’t going to dump the girl on the floor. “Do you have latex gloves? I could use those too. If not, I have some in my room.” She’d pilfered a few of those from the med lab during an earlier visit. Better safe than sorry.
“Yeah, I’ve got... some.” Benjy paled when she saw Olivia put Colleen down on her bed, on her sheets, and----no,okay, she wasn’t going to worry about that right now. Instead, she ducked around Olivia to dive under her bed and pull out her mini-laboratory. She opened up a case and pulled out the materials she had: latex gloves (check), needles (check), small canister of reject web fluid (check).
“How’s she looking? Is she dying? Oh, my God, is she dying? Maybe we do need to take her to Todd...” But Benjy had already put on a pair of glasses with magnifying lenses and was spritzing out a line of spider-thread to put through the eye of the needle.
“She’s not dying.” Yet. Actually, depending on what Olivia found when she probed the wound, it was very possible that it was something she’d need more advanced equipment for. But it all depended on what the bullet had hit. If they were lucky, all of the major organs were still in one piece.
Olivia reached behind her with her hand. "Gloves, rubbing alcohol and a clean rag. Please." She was actually glad that Colleen was unconscious, because this was going to hurt.
Benjy scrambled for a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a packet of lint-free surgical towels that she used for cleaning her equipment. “Okay, okay, okay,” she mumbled under her breath, trying not to shake. She passed Olivia the gloves and laid out the other things next to Colleen’s hip. “Hey, are you sure you know what you’re doing? You could be some hobo off the street-----”
“I am a hobo off the street. I’m also extensively trained in medical procedures. A clean bullet wound is easy.” Please be a clean bullet wound. But Olivia wasn’t going to say that outloud and alarm Benjy any more than she already was. As it was, Olivia was impressed that the redhead was keeping it together so well.
Peeling off her cotton gloves and pulling on the latex ones, she then moved to pour alcohol on one of the towels, peeling Colleen’s shirt back and dabbing gently to get a better look at what she was dealing with.
Colleen made a pained noise, but she didn’t wake up. So far so good.
The pliers were next. “You might want to go hold her down. Just in case.” Digging out a bullet without anesthesia wasn’t pleasant no matter how you went about it.
Benjy grimaced, but she crawled onto the bed and sat down on Colleen’s thighs. She braced her hand on Colleen’s shoulder. “What if she wakes up and starts screaming? Crap. Crap----someone’s going to hear her----”
“Cover her mouth. Let her squeeze your hand. She’s going to want to scream.” Great advice and probably extremely comforting. “I’m sorry, I don’t have anything to numb this properly. The med lab does, but you seem to want to avoid that.”
And, technically, Olivia had performed tons of procedures without numbing the patient. They just weren’t pleasant.
Starting to probe the wound, she was relieved to realize that the bullet hadn’t gone too far in. Whatever Colleen’s suit was made of must have prevented some of the damage. Still, the second the pliers went into skin, Colleen woke up, wild-eyed and looking like she was going to start screaming bloody murder.
“No----no, no, shh.” Benjy clamped her thighs around Colleen’s to help her stay down, and covered her mouth with her hand. “Colly, shh, it’s me. This is Olivia. I think she knows what she’s doing. Just let her help you, okay? Okay----it’s going to hurt, I know, so just look in my eyes and focus on me, okay? And grab my wrist, hold onto me. I’m here, I’m not going anywhere, Colly, I promise.”
Colleen made another sound that sort of sounded like she didn't give a crap what was happening. It hurt and that was the only thing she was focused on. Especially when Olivia dug a little deeper with the pliers.
Not that Colleen knew they were pliers. She felt like she was being stabbed repeatedly.
Then she reached up and grabbed Benjy's arm with more strength that she probably should have had at that point after losing all that blood.
It felt like forever - in reality only a good fifteen minutes - but eventually Olivia said, "Got it!" She actually sounded pretty pleased, mostly because there was no visible internal damage. "I'm going to clean it out again then stitch it up and bandage it." That would still hurt but hopefully not as much as digging around in the girl's side.
Colleen just looked to Benjy for confirmation that it was okay. She didn't trust herself to open her mouth without starting to scream.
Benjy was sweaty and shaky by the time it was over, but as the bullet came out, she breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Then, she made the mistake of looking down at Colleen’s wound. Benjy wasn’t overly squeamish, but seeing all that blood on her friend’s side was just horrifying. “Shh---” She turned back to Colleen and lifted her hand off of her mouth so she could just press a finger to her lips. “Shh. it’s okay. She’s just going to clean it up and then you’re all done. I’m so proud of you.”
Colleen nodded a little, then winced as Olivia put a rag covered with alcohol against the wound. Olivia knew it would hurt like a bitch, but an infection would be worse, especially if these two didn’t want to make a visit to the med lab.
“Just keep talking to her,” Olivia murmured, getting ready to put the first stitch in. “We’re almost done.” At least she had a quick, steady hand and the sutures were in fairly quickly. But, by then, Colleen had paled considerably, trying not to squirm away from the pain.
“You’re all done. I have someone I can ask to get antibiotics and pain medicine -- no one in the med lab. But you’re going to have to hold out until he can get it.” To Benjy, Olivia added, “Try aspirin, ibuprofin, anything that helps with pain for now. It won’t do a lot, but it’s better than nothing.”
Benjy nodded quickly, barely paying attention to Olivia. Instead, she was touching Colleen’s hair, smiling weakly. Crap, she was going to cry. She was close to heaving out sobs of relief, but she didn’t want to drop snot and tears all over Colleen’s face. “You’re gonna be okay, Colly. You’re all done. You did so well. So well, okay...? I’m going to get you some Tylenol for the pain, it’s not going to do much but it’ll help a little bit.”
Colleen didn’t answer at first because she was trying to process through all the pain. But it appeared that Olivia was packing up and getting ready to leave. “I’ll check back in on you two later,” Olivia said. She needed to change her clothes, wash her hair. Too much blood, while it didn’t make her queasy, wasn’t her first option.
“Benjy?” Colleen was reaching for the other girl’s hand, squeezing lightly. That was about all the strength she had right then. “Don’t leave me, ‘k?”
Benjy would thank Olivia later. Really. But right now, she slumped down beside Colleen, curling up next to her and burying her face against her friend’s shoulder. “I am never leaving you. And you better not ever leave me.