Spider-Man and The Esper

26. Hospital visit

Reaching up carefully so as not to cause any unnecessary pain, Spider-man yanked the piece of cloth down to cover the exposed part of his face quickly and tore the oxygen tube from his nose and discarded it on the mattress. Squirming upright to address the newcomer, Spidey winced under his face covering as he was met with failure and slumped back down.

"Don't worry," the nurse soothed as she placed a hand on the wall crawler's bare shoulder to calm him before he hurt himself further, "The doctors here are honest people. No one took off your mask while you were sedated." Half her words ran together and made no sense to the arachnid as he fought with his own body to stay conscious. But the few words he caught and the soothing tone of the nurse, helped ease Spidey's momentary panic.

Striding up to the IV line the young nurse, dressed in brightly colored scrubs and holding an armful of charts and papers, began to check the fluid level in the bag suspended off the ground by a tall metal stand.

"Where am I?" Spidey asked in a raspy voice, his throat burning with thirst.

"One of the Hero's Hospital in City-W," replied the nurse in a pleasant voice, "I'm actually surprised you're awake already. Most people don't wake up from the anesthesia for a couple more hours. In fact, there's a group of doctors that are very curious about you. Your recovery rate so far has been astounding! Any normal person probably wouldn't be alive after what happened to you. A couple of ER doctors are especially interested in you after seeing your wrists when they were preparing you for surgery."

Leaning over the railing again, the nurse gently touched the raised area of skin on the underside of Spiderman's exposed wrists. "Sorry. But if you don't mind my asking, does it hurt when that web stuff comes out?" she asked curiously with a hint of embarrassment.

"No," came a tired reply as he pulled his arm closer to his body protectively. Not that he meant to be rude, but Spider-man didn't appreciate the feeling of being under a microscope to be poked and prodded as if he was some curious science experiment. Nodding her head in understanding, the nurse continued her check over her patient.

Unwinding the stethoscope from around her thin neck, she pressed the medical instrument against the wall crawler's bare chest to check his heartbeat. According to Spider-man's charts, the ER doctors had almost lost him twice when he had flat-lined and they had had to shock the arachnid to jumpstart his heart. But as she continued to listen to the steady beating on the other end of her stethoscope, she felt a wave of relief that the superhero now seemed stable. Ever since he had come out of surgery she had been regularly checking in on him every ten minutes or so.

"What time is it?" Spider-man asked groggily, still not completely awake, as she removed the cold circle of metal from his naked chest.

"About five o'clock," she answered simply while she turned to press miscellaneous buttons on one of the various machines hooked to the wounded superhero, causing some of the mechanical banter to die down.

"In the morning?" he slurred.

"Oh, no! It's five at night, honey. You've been out for almost a whole day," she exclaimed almost in shock at Spider-man's ignorance, "You were in surgery for a good six and a half hours."

"What!?" he squealed. He had no idea it was so late. He was supposed to be with Fubuki to see how she was holding up. She's probably going to be extremely pissed.

Breaking through his thoughts, the nurse stated cheerfully, oblivious to Spidey's inner turmoil, "I think there's something you'd like to see."

Walking across the room, the nurse reached above her head to the TV set mounted on the wall and flipped to the five o' clock news. There on the screen, crowded a multitude of two hundred people or more in front of what looked to be a hospital.