First Cause • Spider-Man: Homecoming [Unedited]

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In whatever sickness it is that ails her, her gold skin has lost its brilliant luster normally attributed to those of her kind. Instead in its wake is a dispiriting appearance that glistens terribly under the harsh medical lights mounted onto the ceiling of the room. An oily gloss clings to the soft, sagging planes of her face and looks very much like an immotile membrane, betraying her ancient age far more easily than she may want it to.

The lower half of her frail form, starting from her waist so thin it may just be an illusion, is hidden under a white blanket Gadea can tell even from her distance away is made of a higher quality of nano-fiber than those of her membership status have ever been allowed to interact with. The edges are thicker, promising an interior filled with more layers of the dense fabric that will no doubt retain a greater degree of warmth.

Yet another morsel of substantiation that suggests the total cost of everything in this room could purchase Gadea a dozen times over, with change to spare.

The machines that have substituted the wall are sleek and high-end, LED lights and the slimness of their build tell of a craftsmanship not just anyone can afford.

During her time in servitude, Gadea has never seen a rising day where Umbra's Grip have had even an inkling of financial problems, especially considering Arms and those of higher statuses are the only ones that ever see a salary, even if it is once in a blue moon. And it is in part due to their biggest trade product; Provonium. But even with all the Provonium the tireless Fingers have unearthed on Fel, selling the entire haul from say, the last two years wouldn't leave Umbra with this much spending money.

This is purely unproven, but if she didn't buy all this tech, then it would make sense that someone with her scope of social and covert political power could request for some sort of loan from one of the many bigname moneylenders. Though if that were true, how would she think to pay them back?

With the funds she would procure after mining the Craad outpost to death, that's how. Great Suns, this war, all this death and decay and blood and trauma. So she could possibly pay for her medical expenses?
Gadea has to stop and remind herself all of this is pure speculation at its very best. But is it really?

Or better yet, why does she need the medical technology in the first place?

Gadea reasons there are, give or take, three different people who could answer that particular question for her. One of them is balanced precariously on the string of life or death on an abandoned pilot's deck, if she hasn't already slipped and fallen on the wrong side. The second person looks sick as sick can look, and she is immersed in some kind of a medically-induced coma. The third is the culprit, the person most likely to have initiated that coma in the first place.

For the first time since Gadea entered the captain's quarters, the one other conscious being in the room, an attending medic off to the side of Umbra's bed, makes a move to show they have noticed her presence in the room. Their gloved hands, previously twiddling with the hanging bag holding something or the other being intravenously pumped into their Lady, the medic withdraws from the IV drip, clutching their hands to their chest. They don't take their eyes off Gadea.