Wither Wings (An Avengers Crossover)

Phase 2: The Hospital

She felt sore all over, like someone had taken a gigantic hammer that had “Fuck You” carved on the handle and smashed her with it. Max’s eyes adjusted and she could see straps dangling from the ceiling. Her leg was encased in a hard plaster cast, the white gleaming underneath the fluorescents. She tried to move her foot and found she couldn’t, the cast immobilizing her leg. Her left arm was in a cloth sling and her right wrist was attached to a machine near her bedside through an IV. Max grimaced and glanced at the remainder of the room. It was stark white with beige furniture, curtains covering the window next to the steel door that she doubted let in any sunlight. Suddenly, it dawned on her. This looked very familiar. 

Max panicked, tearing out the IV frantically. Her body surged upwards and she floundered in the cloth sling. The heart monitor’s beeps became a string of urgent pulses as the needle was yanked from her hand and she threw it across the room. She grunted, sounds of pain and panic flying from her lips as she struggled with the sheets, the cast, and the sling on her arm. 

Thunderous footsteps approached her room and the steel door flew open. In streamed orderlies and nurses and they rushed to hold down Max’s flailing limbs.

She retaliated in confusion, hitting, scratching, and even biting one of the nurses that tried to hold her down. They overpowered her in her injured state; a nurse slipped the IV back into her arm and added a dose of something bitter.

As Max began to calm, no doubt from the aid of the drugs, a man in a white lab coat walked into the room. He was neither tall nor short, his hair a dark, undefinable colour, and features that could just as easily have been found on someone else. He was, on a whole, unremarkable; an easy face to lose in a crowd. His name tag was illegible as Max’s vision began to swim, but there was the emblem of a dark bird above it.

“I’m sorry to have to do this,” he said with an apologetic expression. “We were hoping you would cooperate. Unfortunately, you might injure yourself if you’re allowed to stay awake. "

The doctor’s figure began to twist and distort as Max forced her eyes to stay open. She managed to gather up enough energy to twist her hand in the sling and give him the middle finger.

He laughed. Laughed. The nerve. 

“Goodnight,” he told her. “I’ll return in the morning.”

The doctor left the room and Max’s vision went black.

---

Max didn’t wake until a full day later. She couldn’t tell what time it was, there weren’t any windows, but the clock on the wall said 2:30. Whether it was AM or PM, she would never know. Time seemed to stand still in the featureless room as if the air was holding its breath.

There was no one in Max’s hospital room this time, the door shut firmly and most likely locked. She struggled into a sitting position and let herself lean back on the multiple pillows they had piled behind her. As far as incarceration in in a medical facility went, this was pretty fancy by Max’s standards. 

She tried to brush a strand of hair out of her face and found her wrists to be strapped to the bed. The cloth sling was gone.

Just dandy. Max rolled her eyes and let her arms go slack. These idiots have no idea who they’re dealing with.

This was definitely not the School, that enough was clear. For one, she wouldn’t have three pillows in a School facility, let alone one. The bed had to be at least 300 thread count and it had a blanket on it. The restraints were a joke and would do little more than a funnel dog collar would on a wolverine. Max would like to say that she could break out in a few hours, but the cast on her leg was heavy and the room was actually pretty comfortable.