"Is he... your father?"
Peter's question might have sounded stupid and obvious from an outside point of view, but it sadly wasn't for three of the four teenagers standing in the hospital room, staring at the unconscious man in front of them.
Considering Simon's age, his father couldn't have been more than sixty, but that man looked more than ninety. His hair were of the purest white, even if only a few of them were still attached to his head. His face was full of deep wrinkles and light brown spots, while his whole body was attached to complicate machineries.
June thought that if she got closer to him, she would actually realize he was indeed alive, even if only thanks to the machineries but, from her spot next to the door, she felt as if she was staring at a dead body.
"He is," Simon replied after an apparently infinite time. He was looking at the old figure in front of him with a mixture of nostalgia and fear that made June's heart clutch in pain.
"How is that possible?" Gwen asked, visibly confused. She knew nothing about their powers, and it only made sense that she was freaking out.
"That's why you weren't supposed to come, Gwen," Peter tried to reach to her, but she barely gave him a stare, her eyes fixed on Simon's father.
"Well, I'm here now-"
"Gwen," June tried not to yell, even if blood was boiling in her veins. "Not now."
It seemed to calm down the blonde, who reached the other end of the room and rested her back on the wall, spending the rest of the time in silence, trying to make sense of the situation.
"What happened?" June asked, carefully placing a hand on Simon's arm. He seemed to relax, but his eyes were still lost somewhere else.
"He had –has, my same powers. I think it's a genetic thing, but I honestly don't care. We've only ever been me and him, my mother died when I was little. When my powers showed up, he did the best he could to help me control them and then, a few months ago, something changed in him. He was always terrified, as if someone was following him everywhere. He was on edge, would react to every single sound with a jump and his eyes would never stop frantically looking around. Then, one day, I found him in his room, unconscious. At first I thought he was dead, but I had a strange feeling he wasn't. Then I remembered an address he gave me in case something happened to him and called. It was this clinic, and they came to take him away. I obviously followed, and came in our school."
June looked back towards Peter, trying to understand what he was thinking, but his face was completely unreadable.
"Why this clinic?" she asked.
"It's for people like us. It only has those who succumbed to their powers and ended up in an endless coma. It was set up to find a cure, since it seems that all of us will fall to it one day or another."
The blood in June's veins turned cold as she moved away from Simon, trying her best to keep a relaxed composure. She thought she could handle it, she thought she was never going to succumb to her powers again. Was it destined to happen from the day she was born? How long was left for her to live?
"It happened to you already," Peter mumbled from behind her. She turned towards him with her eyes watery and he exchanged her an equally distressed look.
"What? Really?" Simon reached her, but June nodded still looking at Peter.
"And... you survived?"
"Seems like it," June chuckled, meeting Simon's stare.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Same reason you didn't tell me about your father."
Simon nodded, attempting a smile as he returned to the bed. He sat down next to his father and grabbed his hand, slightly squeezing it.
"None of the people in this clinic ever woke up from it. There's at least a death a month, and people keep coming. I thought only me and my father held this power at first, but now... we could reach the number of an entire village!"
No one said anything after that. A gentle knock on the door startled the four from their thoughts, followed by the door opening. A woman with light blue eyes and dark hair peered from behind the glass, a small smile on her pale face.
"May I?" she asked, her voice sounding reassuring, but strangely unemotional.
"Doctor Lopez! Of course." Simon jolted up and smiled at the woman. She smiled back and turned to look at June, Gwen and Peter, staring back at her.
"Are they your friends?" she asked, observing each one of them with a judging look.
"Yeah, they came to visit dad. They are June Sullivan, Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy. Guys, this is Cecilia Lopez, the owner of this clinic."
"Pleasure to meet you," Cecilia said, shaking their hands before looking at Simon's father.
"You brought him something to read?"
Simon shook his head. "No, not this time."
Cecilia looked at him with a reassuring smile and grabbed his hands in hers. "He'll be okay. We're doing our best, you know it. Your father will be awake and smiling before you know it."
Simon nodded and smiled, even if he didn't seem too sure about it. Considering the amount of failures this clinic amassed, she wouldn't believe her either.
When she left, Simon let out a sigh of relief and sat down on the chair, his back relaxing almost immediately.
"Does she know about your powers?" Peter asked, walking next to the door and resting his back on it.
"Yeah, I didn't even need to tell her. She had guessed it, since my father had them too."
June nodded, the amount of information making her feel sick. She had never considered herself a particularly strong person, and she was definitely not being strong in that moment. She only wanted to go home and forget all about her powers, that clinic and Simon.
"Can someone explain me what is going on now?" Gwen exclaimed. She had definitely remained calm for too long and, since she was there and had heard everything, she needed to know what was going on.
While Peter nodded and started talking to her, June reached the door and opened it, walking out of the room. She searched for the bathroom to refresh her face and, once she was done, she decided to wander around the clinic, to see what the deal was about that building.
She walked the stairs that brought to the second floor, exactly the same as the one she was on. It only made sense, since hospitals were made as comfortable as possible to let patients feel relaxed but, since none of the patients were conscious there, there was no need to make it pleasing to the eye.
She walked across the doors, trying to peer inside. Most of the patients seemed as old, or even more, as Simon's father, and no one other than a few familiars were visiting. That was the visiting hour, and June guessed they had been in coma for so long that all their parents had died or had simply given up on them.
The only thought of it made June sick to her stomach, and it took her a lot to keep everything inside. She had to sit down for a moment, tears threatening to fall.
Her thoughts were distracted only when she noticed a familiar figure walking hurriedly in the hallway. She stood up and followed her, her mind desperately trying to focus on the possibility of that person being there.
"Mom?!" she yelled, trying to catch the person's attention. She turned, and Heather's crying face met June's distraught one. The girl didn't even have time to process the realization when her mother turned back on her heels and hurried away, leaving her daughter in the middle of the hallway, her head spinning around like a spinning top.
-
When June reached Simon's father's room, she noticed Peter was sitting outside of it, his eyes lost somewhere while he was picking at his nails.
"Why are you here?" she asked him, furrowing her eyebrows.
"Gwen," Peter simply said, a sad smile on his face. As soon as he turned to look at his best friend, though, his expression changed when he noticed her hopeless expression. He reached her in a heartbeat and grabbed her face, wiping the stains of hard tears against her cheeks.
"What happened?" Peter whispered, even if no one was in the hallway beside them.
"I saw my mother, and I think I had a few panic attacks in the mean time," she said almost too calmly.
"Your mother? What would she be doing here?" he asked, furrowing his eyebrows.
"I don't know." June's words came out as a series of nervous sobs, and Peter wasted no time in wrapping his arms around her shoulders and hold her as tight as possible. June reacted to the hug while hiding her face in Peter's sweater only for a moment, before restraining herself from showing her emotions by pushing herself off of him.
"I just don't want to end up like them," she said, attempting a smile as she sniffed.
"You won't, you're too strong to succumb to them," Peter said almost immediately, his arms still lingering to where they were placed around June's waist.
June smiled tenderly at him, before they both decided to head inside to see how Simon and Gwen were doing.
Here's a fact about me: I never know how to finish chapters. I just write a final sentence and just leave everything there without giving any type of closure to them. Like 'they walked outside, byebye'.
By the way, here's the twentieth chapter! I had firstly decided for this story to have thirty chapters, but I reached thirtytwo because I got caught up in the ending (eheheh ;) ) but yeah, there are approximately eleven chapters left besides the epilogue, and I honestly can't believe I've reached this point. I wasn't really positive about the idea behind this story, but I'm falling more and more in love with it as I write. Hope you guys are liking it too ;)