Wither Wings (An Avengers Crossover)

Phase 3: The Meeting

It took five days for Lena to be given the all clear to let Max out of the room. It wasn't any sort of mystery as to why nearly all of the hospital superiors were hesitant to condone it, especially after she nearly strangled Bahar. They were probably worried she'd take off through one of their missile-proof glass windows never to be seen again. The rarest of things are always best kept in cages.

It started with walks. Well, walk probably isn't the best term to describe it. Max was put into a wheelchair and moved about by Lena or another nurse when it wasn't her shift. They hadn't x-rayed her leg again, but it still felt broken to her. Max could almost feel the bones shifting, but even in a mutant bird kid things that major don't disappear overnight. She had trouble bending over from the bed to the wheelchair itself and popped a few stitches in her stomach the first time. Max didn't know why, but the sight of blood felt like she had passed some sort of milestone. She was still alive.

--

Max held out a hand to push Lena back as she adjusted her legs on the wheelchair's supports. To be honest, she didn't mind actually being in the thing, it was just getting in and out that was humiliating. Max wasn't supposed to be taken care of, that isn't how things work. It forced her to confront the paradigm shift taking place in her life in a roundabout sort of way. Max was never one for beating around the bush.

"Where do you want to go today, mija?" Lena ashed her as she gripped the handles of the wheelchair.

Max wrote in the notebook and held it up for Lena to see. The cafeteria?

Lena snorted. "Yeah, because you're going to eat a four-course meal or something?"

Max cast her eyes downwards. There were talks of putting her on a liquid diet since she was refusing food so much; she'd even heard her condition being labeled as anorexia when they thought she was asleep.

They don't understand, Max said to herself. They'll never understand.

She wrote on the notebook once more, but scribbled it out.

Lena sighed. "Fine, alright. I'll park you across the hallway and you can stare all you like at the people who walk by, but you've got to eat sometime, yeah? Just take a bite of an apple."

Her words were soft and soothing, they made Max feel like a little kid in a way that Jeb never did. She nodded and Lena opened the door of the hospital room, pushing Max across the hallway and into the open cafeteria.

It was nothing lavish; if the interior-decorating skills of the hospital rooms told Max anything, these guys weren't big on creativity. The same bland tile covered the floors and ceiling and the logo, the bird logo, was discretely placed on almost every item from the glass partitions covering the food to the labels on the bottom of the muffins. Whatever this place is, they like their branding.

Lena put her at the end of an empty table and locked the wheels on the wheelchair. It had a nice view of both the hallway and the seating area of the room, something Max appreciated. For all of her stubbornness, she liked watching everyone else go about her daily lives. The hospital doesn't even have cable, after all.

"Alright, so gin rummy again?" Lena sat across from Max and pulled out a deck of cards. As she was shuffling them her pager began to beep wildly. Lena pulled it from her waistband and cursed. "Sorry, mija, I'll have to put this game on hold. You'll be alright here, yeah? Duty calls."

Lena stood hurriedly and put the pack of cards on top of Max's notebook. She patted Max's head before disappearing down the hallway in the direction of another room.

Max grimaced and brushed out her hair where Lena had touched it with her fingers. She began to absentmindedly wonder what her hair looked like after not being washed for a few weeks and thought maybe she should ask someone for a brush.