Author's Notes: I always imagined a routine medical examination being quite strange for the girls to go through since they don't seem to go to the doctor often, or at all in the series. Not even for a typical check-up, like checking their height, or weight, or heartbeat.

Chapter 6

So That's What My Bones Look Like

Reading the sign "NOW LEAVING TOWNSVILLE CITY LIMITS" was surreal to Buttercup. She was really leaving the only city she'd ever known. It was still a beautiful place to look at, even from a distance. Those tall white buildings and that clear blue skyline.

There was only thing that made her worry, a troubling sense of deja vu that had her questioning, "We're not going to Citiesville, are we?"

She breathed a sigh of relief when he said no. Citiesville was easily the worst town she had ever been to. Everything was dirty and gross, the kids were all mean, the Mayor was always too busy for them, and the adults wouldn't let them fight crime. If she never went to that run-down town ever again, it would be way too soon.

In a way, this was what Buttercup had wanted. A chance at a clean slate. Maybe if she found some different city to protect, she could start over from scratch and prove how good of a hero and a kid she could be. Then her family would be proud of her.

She thought about all the people that she would be leaving behind in her old city with her departure. All the people she would miss.

"Can Buttercup sit over here?"

She'd miss Mitch Mitchelson for sure. He was one of her best friends. Sure, he had been a bit of a brat but he had also been a lot of fun to hang out with, at least when he wasn't being too much of a turd. He invited her to sit with him on her first day of school, and he taught the girls how to play tag in the first place, showing a surprising amount of patience towards Bubbles in particular.

She had to give him props for putting up with a kid like her; Buttercup wasn't for everyone. Sometimes she was too rough, too loud, too aggressive, but Mitch stuck by her side even through her worst moments, even when she accidentally hurt him sometimes.

"This is school! I'm your teacher, Ms. Keane, and this is where kids come to learn! See?"

Ms. Keane. Buttercup would miss her too. She still remembered her first day of school and how nice Ms. Keane had been to her and her sisters. How she had been warm, welcoming, and kind, and made sure they made lots of friends and were taught many things. She had even been nice to them after they destroyed the school building in their infamous game of tag. She never looked at them with hatred or called them awful names like everybody else. The kids did, but Ms. Keane didn't. She just tried to resume lessons as usual, even with all the construction men working outside. She sure was a strong lady at times...

She was going to miss putting a shiny red apple on top of her desk every day, or listening to Ms. Keane veer off into teaching more advanced concepts, like temporal physics and quantum mechanics. It was clear she was so much smarter than being a kindergarten teacher, and yet she chose to remain at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten instead of transferring to a high school or a college. Maybe it was because she truly loved children. A heartwarming thought for the young Puff.

She always had nice things to say about whatever Buttercup made for her, even when her projects weren't as good as her sisters or she made a mistake like using too much glue or coloring outside the lines. There was one time she even gave Ms. Keane a homemade sock puppet with a sock that smelled like old cheese, but even as she grimaced, Ms. Keane had thanked her and worn it on her hand anyway.

Then again, Buttercup got into a lot of trouble in her classroom too. She had been to timeout enough times to give it a name: Mr. Corner. Maybe it would be a relief for her teacher not to have such a disruptive student in her classroom anymore. Maybe she would be happier without Buttercup around.

Then there was City Hall, where the Mayor and Ms. Bellum were.

"Y'know, this town stinks. And I was wondering if maybe sometime we could like call you ... to save the day or ... whatever."

She was going to miss the warm professionalism of Ms. Bellum and the way she always carried herself with dignity. How she treated the girls nearly like daughters and how she always gave them good advice. She was smart, kind, assertive, witty, and when it came to running things around the city, she was the brains behind the whole operation. And yet, she never once asked for any thanks for it. She just did what she was supposed to do.

The Mayor was a lot less competent than Ms. Bellum but he was still someone that Buttercup was sure she would miss too. Even though they had gotten to a bad start with the man after they destroyed a beloved pickle cart he was about to buy a pickle from, he forgave them pretty easily after they saved the day for the first time. After that, he was almost like a jolly old uncle to the Girls, rarely ever yelling at them (unless it was something major like Buttercup stinking up the whole town with her refusal to take a bath) and forgiving them for their mistakes very easily. He forgave the Girls for yelling at him when he lost their jar of candy and he forgave Buttercup for throwing a snake monster at Blossom hard enough to wreck a building that he and Ms. Bellum were standing in, telling her 'That's okay." after Blossom apologized to him very easily.

When she really thought about it, the man nearly spoiled them. He could've banned the Girls from eating another piece of candy ever again after the deal they made with Mojo to let him commit crimes in exchange for having more candy when they stopped him, but as soon as he felt they learned their lesson, he immediately let them eat from the candy jar again. He could've punished the Girls for having their own father commit crimes by having him steal from the toy store, but instead he said that there was no physical harm done, and the toys were all paid for, so the Girls could keep them all.

They laughed at him being naked... but he didn't hold it against them. They made him have to take his heart medicine after demanding $2,000 for their services and again... he didn't hold it against them.

He practically adored the Girls and named many a holiday after them and had a many a monument built in their name. What she'd miss most of all were those cookies though. Fresh, and always accompanied by milk.

There were so many people she was only beginning to really appreciate now, and she wouldn't even get a chance to thank them in person for all that they had done for her. It was such a pity...

The trip to the county hospital was certainly... interesting. As soon as she was taken to the examination room and sat down on a cold metal examination table, she met her nurse who would be giving her her medical assessment for the day.

"Hello, you must be Buttercup Utonium."

Of course. A girl like her needed no introduction, even in another city it seemed. The name of a fellow "Powerpuff Girl" was probably known across the entire world due to her being born a super and practicing public heroics.

Buttercup merely shrugged in reply, not wanting to form too many words with her sore mouth right about now. She also just wanted to get this stupid "examination" phase over with, just like her torturous dental operation a day prior back at the Townsville Dentistry.

"You know, you practically do half of my job for me. Making sure so many people are healthy and safe. I wanted to thank you for all of your good work."

Buttercup had no visible reaction to the praise other than a little shrug and a half-hearted, "If you say so." from her. Thanks for the job that she did were fine, but she didn't really think she had any right to puff out her chest with any amount of pride right about now since her behavior had been anything but commendable just a day before. It was the whole reason why she was sitting in this county hospital in the first place.

"Why don't we start with those hands of yours, shall we?"

She grabbed both of them now, and Buttercup snorted with what she had to work with... not much, that is.

"Well, no fingers to check your capillaries, I'm afraid, but I can still see that your..."

"Oven mitts. Flippers. Nubs. Whatever you wanna call 'em." Buttercup shrugged nonchalantly.

"... those seem to have a lot of good color in them." The woman said without missing a beat.

She rubbed her hands up and down her arms in both a reassuring manner and to assess for any pain. "Those look like some mean bruises on you." The woman noted lightly. "Do they hurt?"

"Had worse." Buttercup shrugged, and she wasn't exactly lying.

During her entire superhero career, she'd had broken bones, broken teeth, black eyes, bruised organs, and internal bleeding several times over again and again. You'd never know it today because the regenerative healing properties of Chemical X were insane. Otherwise she'd probably be a vegetable by now.

The nurse nodded with a knowing air. "Mind telling me how you got these in particular?

"Superhero stuff." The girl muttered, too ashamed to really elaborate and try to tell her the truth. "Dealing with... bad guys." Or more accurately, having all of the bad guys deal with her, quite painfully at that.

"Well, why don't we take a look at them?" She offered, and that was when the examination began in full for her.

It wasn't anything complicated, but it was very, very thorough. A full head-to-toe examination.

She had her vitals taken first, her heart rate and respiratory rate. A stethoscope was used to auscultate her lungs, heart, and other major organs, listening in for any issues or problems. Other than Buttercup complaining of a mild backache during this whole process, as well as a general feeling of soreness all over her body, no overt problems were detected.

She did express greater pain during the part where the nurse started to palpate different areas of her skin, especially around her abdomen.

"Does that hurt?"

"A little..." Buttercup gritted out, wincing as her hands pressed down around her abdomen.

"Why do you think that is?"

A brief flashback played across her eyes of being kicked roughly in the side by a convict in an orange jumpsuit with a see-through pantyhose being worn over his head during her beating at the museum. He shut her eyes against the memory, almost feeling the phantom pains of that particular attack all over again.

"... because I was kicked in the stomach." The girl finally admitted, her voice filled with shame.

The nurse expressed sympathy for her. "Oh, I'm so sorry sweetheart. Do you know who kicked you?"

"Bad guy." She replied, once again keeping her answers brief and vague.

"Well, that doesn't sound fun. Why don't we get that stomach checked out a little bit later with some CT scans?"

She went on to ask a lot of questions about the origins of her bruises over different parts of her body, and at one point Buttercup looked at Mr. Wednesday for possible guidance who encouraged her to simply tell her what happened as truthfully as she could.

So she detailed being grabbed, pinched, hit, slapped, smacked, punched, kicked, and thrown to the ground over different areas of her body. She didn't tell her the reason behind such attacks beyond "superhero work" and "dealing with bad guys". She made sure not to tell her the reason for his beating was because of her deliberately trying to hurt others for profit.

The nurse went on to take her Temperature with a thermometer she placed into her mouth, coming out with a reading of 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It would've been an ear thermometer if not for, you know, no ears.

She explained to her that a low-grade intermittent fever below 101 degrees Fahrenheit could actually be normal at least two days after oral surgery and as long as she was still eating and drinking well and wasn't experiencing chills or other worrying symptoms, she should be fine.

Her blood pressure was taken with a cuff, something that Buttercup had never seen before. It looked like one of those tire air pump thingies.

"Looks like it, doesn't it? But this does something a little bit different. This pump right here is going to inflate air into this little cuff you're wearing around your arm, and that's going to help this machine right here take your blood pressure. It might feel a little uncomfortable, but it shouldn't hurt, okay?"

At least she hadn't lied. It didn't hurt, but it did feel like an anaconda was constricting her arm for a while before she heard the beeps of that machine taking her blood pressure.

Her blood pressure came out at a good rate too.

There were no signs of an infection in her teeth when the nurse took a look inside her mouth. There was no pus or discharge, no foul-smelling breath, no pain in her ear or jawline, or redness and swelling to her gums from the inside. Her lymph nodes weren't swollen. These were all good signs.

Buttercup was well-hydrated, had a good amount of consciousness and an alert mental state, and there were no signs of malnutrition or poor health outside of her minor injuries.

When measurements were taken of her height, she came out standing at about 3 ft. tall. She weighed roughly 30lbs. She was about the size and weight of a toddler instead of a five-year-old, but since it fit with her tiny structure, there was nothing actually wrong with her health-wise. Her head actually wasn't that much bigger than anybody else's... on its own. It was only about 53 cm in its circumference, but with the way it stood out in relation to the rest of her body and its proportions, it seemed a lot larger than it actually was. Chalk that up to old bobblehead syndrome, the thing that made all the girls look like creepy porcelain dolls.

She didn't have to worry about the small dose of radiation during the X-Rays and CT scans. It was a generally safe dose for most people, but Buttercup was the kind of child who wouldn't even be affected by the radiation of a nuclear fallout.

There were no fractures in the final results, no signs of internal bleeding or damage to her vital organs but her skeletal structure... now that was something to see.

"So that's what my bones look like." Buttercup noted with awe, finally getting to see them in their glory.

There was still a lot of extra stuff she had to go through beyond that as far as tests that she did find pretty annoying and frankly a bit bizarre at times. Then again, she had almost never been to a hospital before, not even for a regular-check up, so everything had the potential of being bizarre to her.

There was a little hammer the nurse took to her knee, supposedly to check her 'patellar reflex', whatever that meant. Whatever it was, it was apparently in her knee, and when she struck that spot with the rubber hammer, Buttercup's lower leg extended outward almost with a mind of its own.

That was creepy. Having parts of her body move on their own like that. Apparently she had nothing to worry about though. Apparently her tendon was supposed to do that.

The only thing that seemed to cause some general alarm was the state of her teeth in general, the nurse saying she'd never seen so many fillings and crowns in one single mouth before.

"They did a good job... but this is a lot of oral trauma."

"Which is why I took her here in the first place."

"I'm surprised these Girls aren't in here more often, considering the things that they do everyday." The nurse took a moment to place a hand on her head while she said this, even though she was looking at Mr. Wednesday during the entire conversation.

Buttercup's face darkened with a rosy sort of embarrassment while she received what she viewed as unnecessary concern. There were always 'those' people who acted like this when it came to the stuff that they did.

'Little girls shouldn't be doing things so violent'

'Little girls shouldn't be exposed to things like that.'

"She has a healing factor." Wednesday shrugged. "It supposedly works pretty well to take care of anything before it reaches the hospital. This happened to be a rather... extreme case."

He received a mute nod for this.

"So are we done here," Buttercup decided to interject a little rudely, "Or are you gonna do more weird stuff to me?" She had her arms crossed with a defensive air, but her rudeness was mostly to cover up her hidden discomfort.

Again, she received patience for this, that same hand on top of her head ruffling her hair as the nurse said, "No, I think that's enough poking and prodding for today. I know you're probably not feeling too good kiddo, so I'd recommend a lot of proper rest and taking it easy over these next couple of days. Otherwise you've got a clean bill of health."

45 minutes. That was how long this whole thing had taken. Buttercup was glad not to be patronized by a simpering moron who talked to her like a baby this time, and she was glad not to get a sucker that she was really in no shape to eat. This nurse seemed pleasant. She was very sensitive and attentive and never made her feel self-conscious or embarrassed. She handled everything with care while also being efficient in her job. It was quite admirable.

"Let's go, Buttercup."

The child was surprised by how easily she reached out to grab Wednesday's hand, something she had not done the first time he had picked her up. She didn't want him to carry her again, especially in front of someone else, and her healing factor was starting to make her a little stronger about remaining on her feet so the action was less necessary.

What got to her was how natural a fit it was to have her own hand in his. Not perfect, but uncomfortable either.