Chapter Text
Consciousness choked her. Cassie couldn’t breathe, her lungs felt as though they were stuffed with cotton, bones cracking at the mere thought of moving. She did not feel alive, if it weren’t for the pain, she wouldn’t have noticed the difference. She forced her heavy lids open, blinking away tears rapidly as bright lights burned her eyes.
Her mind groaned as it worked to catch up with her body, adrenaline allowing her to rush into a sitting position. She immediately regretted the motion, the IVs attached to her arm and the back of her hand tugging painfully, but not enough to rip them out. She didn’t have time to fully gain her bearings before a violent dry cough ripped through her throat, her whole body shaking as her sleeping lungs woke up.
They did a number to her throat lining, but at least she could inhale without hearing a concerning wheeze.
It did not take her long to put two and two together after she took a good hard look at herself. Bandages mummifying her body, machines surrounding her like a lab experiment, she had lost. The thought was like a bitter bile that spread and lingered on her tongue, or perhaps that was medication, either way her nose wrinkled. America’s #1 hero wasn’t supposed to be cooped up in a hospital after showing up to aid, she was not supposed to become a number in another casualty statistic.
Cassie let out a heavy sigh, no doubt her supervisors would rub it in her face how dumb her actions had been before firing her; but she could not find it within herself to be mad about it. She knew what would happen if she failed, but she did not yet know the extent in which she failed.
In the moment, she had been ready to die, to lay down her life for her mentor and pay him back for saving her family all those years ago, but she did not know how well her tactic worked in the end, blacking out before she got to see the results.
It was frustrating, more than she thought was possible. There was a constant pressure in her skull that felt like it was waiting to collapse. Cassie was never the type to rest for long, able to ignore her injuries and bear through the pain with a gritted smile. She was needed and there was no chance she wouldn’t sprint back into the field at the first sign that she could move.
But this pain was different, her whole body screaming at her to stay still as it worked to fix her. It penetrated places she did not even know could feel that sort of pain, as if she would crumble if someone breathed on her too hard.
Worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, she pressed the button alerting the medical staff that she was awake. It did not take long for a voice to call from the other side of her room door, Cassie giving her permission to enter and noticing for the first time how dry her throat was.
The nurse gave her a courteous nod as she entered before flipping through the pages of her clipboard. Cassie was not comforted by her expression; it was protocol for medical professionals to school their emotions; but as the nurse read through her file she could see a subtle furrow in her brow. Cassie hoped her own panic did not show on her face as much as it showed on the heart monitor. She could handle the practiced kindness. She could not handle confusion.
“Star and Stripe, you have woken up too early, you were to be in an induced coma for at least 2 more weeks.” Her words came off incredulous and Cassie swallowed hard.
“How long was I out then?” She asked slowly, dreading the amount of time that had potentially passed.
“Only a couple of days.” Cassie’s productive mind cheered, but judging by the nurse’s tone, it wasn’t something to be relieved about and her victorious smile faded.
“Can’t you just put me to sleep again?” She felt stupid saying it, but the nurse just shook her head.
“I’ll need to ask the doctor, but most likely not anytime soon, we have not even taken the initial drugs out of your system. Please, lie back down, do you feel any numbness anywhere?” She sat in the visitor chair, clicking a pen to life as she reviewed her notes once more.
Cassie did as she was told.
“No…”
“Are you in pain? Where does it hurt?”
“Everything hurts but my head is killing me.” Cassie hated how that question flared her senses.
“Noted, do you remember where you were hit or how hard you exerted yourself?”
Cassie was left fairly unscathed for the first part of the encounter, it wasn’t until he touched her face that everything became a blur. She told her that much.
Satisfied with her answers, the nurse stood up and made her way to the door. “Press that button beside your bed if you need anything else, the doctor will be here shortly to run some more tests and properly diagnose you.”
Once the nurse was out of the room Cassie’s mind ran wild. Rationally, the fact that she was even awake would indicate that she had some semblance of health, but the look on the nurse’s face was burned into her memory. The utter confusion hidden under a concerned gaze.
“God, what’s wrong with me.” Cassie muttered aloud, more as a statement than a question. She needed outside noise, anything to keep her mind distracted from her rising panic.
Suddenly she heard the door slide open and jolted up in attention, there was no warning as a woman backed into the room. She wasn’t a doctor, wearing the same patient clothing as her, the only difference being a quirk suppression cuff on her right arm. As much as Cassie was uneased by the stranger’s presence, it was what she had asked for. A distraction.
The other woman did not immediately take notice of her, scanning the hall before finally turning around and freezing under Cassie’s intense gaze. Their eyes met, she had vibrant purple irises hidden under dark lashes; her face littered with harsh wounds that were in the process of turning into scars. Her unruly hair framed an unreadable expression, calculated and closed off as she eased from one leg to the other.
After a beat of silence of them staring at each other like two idiots, she could sense a growing tension. Cassie had to say something, anything, but she did not know how to even begin assessing the situation. Just as she was about to open her mouth and deal with the consequences of whatever nonsensical thing that would escape her lips, the other woman made the first move.
“Wrong room…” The stranger muttered before making a move to leave, her heels turning the same time Cassie found her voice.
“Hey, wait!” She shouted, but she was already gone, nothing but retreating footsteps down the hall. Cassie groaned and threw her head back into the hospital pillow, pinching the bridge of her nose and wanting to kick herself for wasting the opportunity.
She was usually good about talking to people, she had to be if she wanted others to feel safe around her. Interviews and fan interactions were the easiest part of her job, she had just been caught off guard.
Left alone yet again in the sterile and unfamiliar environment, she was reminded of her predicament. The pain that had been ebbing away at her rational thoughts was momentarily forgotten during the encounter, her surprise taking the reins before it came back with a vengeance.
Cassie would do anything to feel that again, even considering asking the doctors just to replace her blood with pain killers.
--
She did not have to wait long before the doctor finally arrived, smiling kindly and taking the seat beside her bed.
“Hello Miss Bates, it is an honor to meet you.” Cassie nodded and the doctor continued. “With your permission, I would like to take a blood sample, it will be able to tell us a lot more about the condition of your body before we begin with a treatment.”
“Yeah, go ahead.” Cassie stuck out her arm and stared at the ceiling, a nurse that had already been waiting by the door, walking in with the equipment and setting up the needle.
“Are you prone to fainting while getting your blood drawn?” She asked procedurally, wrapping a constraint on her upper right arm before looking for her vein. Cassie shook her head and felt a pinch, sucking in a breath through her nose.
Cassie had thought it might as well have been water flowing in her IV with how horrible she felt, but the fact that it could’ve been worse left her mouth dry. What happened? A question that repeated in her thoughts as she stared at the exposed tips of her fingers, uncomfortably pale in comparison to the bandages.
“You did well, we should be back with the results within 15-30 minutes, in the meantime we will refill your IV with more medication.”
Cassie could have confessed her love for that nurse right then and there, but settled for a small, “Thanks,” and a smile.
With new drugs coursing through her veins and results promised, Cassie convinced herself that she felt better. The ache had hardly dulled, but she thanked her lucky stars that she could at least move her body. She tested her limits, curling and uncurling her hand into a fist, bending her knees and arms. All she learned from her little experiment was that everything was still unbearable.
What truly would make her feel better would be to call her family; she had left so abruptly that she hadn’t properly explained what she was even going to do here.
What would her parents think of her going missing? How would her sister find out that her hero lost? Would they be at home, watching the news together, or would Cassie be a notification on their phones. The thought left her feeling heavy, her hands shaking as she brought them up to rub at her face, barely registering the bandages that were almost a mask on her features.
They would not stay mad for long, they never did, always crumbling into worried messes the moment she apologized. But he hated how out of her depth she was. It had only been a couple of days but she was itching to go back home, to tell everyone that she was ok. Everything felt so strange in the hospital, the bright lights that she could not evade even after closing her eyes, the sterile smell and frigid filtered air that had her pulling her blanket higher on her shoulders. There weren’t even windows to see what was going on outside, everything claustrophobic and bright.
Cassie wanted something familiar; she had nothing to her name there; her hero suit probably reduced to rags in a basin somewhere.
“Your results have come in, but I want to put you through one more examination before we proceed. I ask you if we could possibly perform a CT scan? There is radiation involved and it isn’t mandatory, but it would help let us know what is going on with you.”
Cassie had barely noticed the doctor’s returned presence, turning from the small turned off television mounted on a desk to her face.
“If you think that will help me, I’m ready for it. Whatever gets me back out there the fastest.” Cassie offered a smile and a thumbs-up, the doctor’s face softened at her eagerness.
“Ok, let’s get you in a wheelchair.”
---
“Your cells are deteriorating at a concerning rate.”
Cassie almost laughed, instead sucking in a breath and running a hand through her tangled blonde hair. “That's not good.” She humored herself, the heart rate monitor at her side spiking no matter how hard she tried to force it down.
The doctor, clearly appreciating her joking during her prognosis, furrowed her brow. “Your quirk has delayed it, and we have someone who can revert you to a time before the injury, but you’ll have to wait for it to be safe to transport them.” That was… good? Cassie wasn’t exactly excited to find out the one person who could help her was somewhere else, but at least there was a person at all.
"How fast is it happening?" How long do I have? If it was fast enough to dull the medication, what was it doing to her body? Cassie needed a mirror, she needed to know what the bandages wrapped around her face were hiding, her fingers twitching as the impulse to rip them off grew.
"Your body and quirk are fighting hard, so you still have a good chance of living." The doctor hadn't answered her and Cassie took the hint that she didn't want to know.
--
Cassie lost track of time, staring blankly at the TV as it played a nature documentary. She had watched too much of the news and didn’t like what she saw, settling for something less stressful.
She was close to having access to a phone, one of the nurses promising they’d let her borrow theirs next time they met, but she was otherwise restless. All she knew for certain was that help would be coming once the commotion outside died down, and Cassie felt like that helpless little girl in the backseat hugging her sister again. Only this time, she didn’t think she’d have too many regrets if she died.
“Oh, it’s you.”
Cassie slowly turned to greet the voice, seeing that strange woman from before at the doorway. “Hello?” Her own voice sounded strange in her ears, higher and a bit raspy from the lack of use. She cleared her throat. “Can I help you?” She asked, mostly out of habit.
Something in the woman’s eyes flickered at the question, her resting frown deepening. “I just came back for something I dropped.” Cassie followed her eyes, catching onto a glint that the stranger quickly covered with her foot. “I’ll be on my way now.”
“Stay.”
“Stay?” The stranger repeated, more confused than anything else.
“Yeah, just for a couple of minutes at most.”
The woman paused in thought, hand still resting against the door frame unconsciously threatening her departure. “We’ll get in trouble.”
Cassie was glad that was her first concern, “Worse things are happening, I’m sure they can forgive us.” She offered a small smile and the other woman returned it, relenting with her own amused grin.
She wasn’t part of the medical staff and had no obligation to stay with her or even to have heard her out in the first place. Maybe it was how pathetic she looked in that hospital bed; but she took several strides and sat in the visitor’s chair and leaned back.
“So how did you end up here, is it because of what happened to your face?” It was more like a punch in the gut than an ice breaker.
“There’s something wrong with my face?” The question opened a whole new can of worms as Cassie’s hands shot up to prod at her features. Her aforementioned IVs reminding her not to make such sudden movements as she sucked a pained breath through her teeth.
“No,” The woman clarified quickly, “nothing permanent. It was just the first thing I noticed.” but there was still that cursed smile on her face. Cassie decided she liked her.
“Don’t scare me like that, I haven’t looked in a mirror since before I landed here.” Cassie chuckled for the first in a while, offering the remote to her new companion only to get it lightly pushed back but a small shake of her head.
“A tourist? At a time like this?” The stranger raised a brow at her and Cassie realized how odd her backstory would sound to a regular person.
Cassie weighed her response. There was no recognition in her eyes, no hint of an ulterior motive, just a curious glint. To her, Cassie was just some poor lonely sap in the hospital.
“I took advantage of a cheap flight.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, she took what information her supervisors had and took a fleet to the location, but the stranger’s brows pinched together. She was skeptical, and who wouldn’t be at Cassie’s vagueness, but she did not expect to be cornered so fast, the other’s sharp eyes breaking her down piece by piece. “Bad luck. Now, it’s my turn to ask questions.” She deflected, the stranger politely holding her tongue despite obviously knowing something was awry.
“We don’t know each other well enough.” It was a tease and Cassie perked up at the opening.
“My friends call me Cassie.”
“Well I guess I have no other choice,” The other chuckled, her closed-off alertness somewhat melting as she took hold of the hand she was offered and gave it a shake. “Kaina is fine.”