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[daretodo]

By now I know the drill. I'm on a strict order of bed rest for the ten days proceeding my surgery, which seems about as long as an overnight trip compared to my last stay in the clinic, a fact I try to focus on as I shift once again on the cramped, uncomfortable mattress. It's not like the bed back in mine and Mary Jane's hut is all that much better, really, but its location is infinitely preferable, surrounded by warm, wooden walls, all of my personal belongings, and most importantly, natural daylight. That it easily accommodates two is another point in its favor, but that particular train of thought just threatens to depress me more -- I'm a newlywed and I can't even sleep in the same bed as my wife. While I undoubtedly have bigger concerns, that's the one I keep circling back around to in my few moments alone.

I nearly lost my life to a man who probably could care less about me, and I did it at the expense of Mary Jane's happiness -- and for what? Some sense of duty, of responsibility? We've only just started our lives together, and I swanned off to play the hero for someone who didn't even want saving, leaving my wife with the all too real possibility of becoming a widow at age twenty-two. God, I've been so selfish lately, caught up in my own personal drama with Johnny's and Sarah's disappearances and Council business and the O.R. that I haven't really been there for the one person who means everything to me. That'll have to change once I'm out of here.

For now, though, I'm left to my own devices, MJ off making lunch for us both. With nothing else to do, I've turned to a battered copy of The Time Machine for entertainment, but I pay attention only to every other sentence, my mind elsewhere entirely even as I turn another page.

Comments

[notawastedlife]

This was not the first time Tony had been in. It was just that the other times he had seen MJ, done an about-face and left before she had in turn seen him. Apparently he did want his skin intact, spider-webbed with black lines as it was, and wasn't that a surprise to everyone.

With the coast clear, he was free to walk in and then proceed to... do nothing. He just stared at Peter for a while from the end of the bed, squinting at him as if he was an equation to be solved and Tony wasn't someone who could solve every equation without squinting.

[wildlyconflicted]

For Pepper to be here took much more effort than she ever could have expected. In the aftermath of that disastrous party, she'd had what boiled down to a total emotional meltdown (While dripping rainwater all over Aaron's floor, no less). Even after, with time to calm down and feel more sane, she couldn't bring herself to see Peter, had instead asked around for updates on his condition. Everything that had happened and the accusations he'd leveled at her were still far too fresh.

Just now she's not doing all that much better, skulking in the doorway but unable to make herself step inside. She can't say for sure whether her being here is appropriate, and certainly doesn't assume Peter wants her around. But she needs to make the effort, at least, if only to prove to herself that she can.

[drownondryland]

It hasn't been all that long since Meredith was discharged herself when she comes back to work. She slips out of the house like it's a secret, mostly because she just doesn't want an argument about this, because it probably is inadvisable. There's not a hell of a lot to do in the clinic, though, she figures, that's anymore strenuous than what she's been doing at home, and she's going stir-crazy. She'll be careful, she promised Sean that much, but that's it.

But before any work she has to do, she makes her way over to Peter's bed, glancing briefly at his chart to see if she's missed much of anything. "How're you feeling?"

[badblood_rising]

It never got any easier. If it wasn't one thing, it was another. Today, it was cutting his finger as he made lunch for Cori. Stupid and not something he was ever stupid enough to do usually, but Cori had been wobbling on her own two feet. He was so wrapped up in rushing to her aid if she fell that he didn't notice hurting himself. And she still had fallen down.

He strode into the clinic, carrying Cori on his hip, and looked this way and that, checking for a doctor before he just raided the supplies for a band-aid. Cori's gaze narrowed in on Peter. "Boo boo," she said, pointing at Peter and looking up at Sam.

Sam blinked and focused on Peter with a slight frown. "...Dude, what happened to you?"