Thanks for the reviews! You guys are great.
Enjoy and thank you for reading!
Words: 1,275
Lucinda, the speech therapist, turns out to be a breath of fresh air. Ada cracks a sincere smile at one point into her conversation with the woman. She doesn't look at Ada like the others do, doesn't treat her like she's made of glass. She feels like a normal person for the first time in what seems like forever.
They don't really have a session. It was more of an introduction to let Lucinda know where Ada is at. Get a guideline of sorts. Ada's almost sad to see her go.
With her gone and Physical therapy not starting for a few more days, Ada is once again bored out of her mind. Nothing on her phone is entertaining. She deleted Instagram the first day she got it back, muted all calls and texts from anyone other than her friends, Tony and Pepper. She doesn't want to see all the messages from people telling her they hope she gets better, that they're sorry. Like that actually changes anything.
And Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts, she appreciates them, she truly does. Everything they've done for her. Staying with her, looking after her. Taking her in because she has nowhere else to go. But she wishes they would let her be by herself for a while. One or both of them are always there with her. That shouldn't annoy her, shouldn't make her mad, but it does. Only she can't bring herself to say it.
The couple currently sits on the couch to her left, talking amongst themselves and her. Though she doesn't respond. She hasn't felt like trying today. It isn't until an odd feeling suddenly creeps up on the teenager that she gives a reaction. Her back straightens right before everything just blurs. More blurry than it has been. Dark outlines seem to circle every object she can see. The voices around her are still audible but a little distorted, but it doesn't matter, she can't answer anyway. Her body isn't listening to her.
The next think Ada knows, she's staring up at the ceiling, her head lying on the pillows. Her head hurts but her vision is less blurry. The hell just happened? That's all the teenager can think before someone is talking to her. Again.
"Ada, can you hear me?" She's not sure if it's her, or this dudes voice is just really annoying.
Lazily lifting her hand, Ada tries to wave him away. "B-be...Q-qui-quiet."
Anderson allows his lips to twitch up as he looks away from the girl and to the couple standing on the other side of the bed. "It seems Ada's had an absence seizure." He informs them. "It's not totally surprising since we've lowered her medication but I would still like to get a CT later today, just to check." He glances back down at the teenager to see her blinking her eyes. "It wasn't bad, she just needs to minute to recover. We'll come back to get her to her scan later."
Tony and Pepper nod as the doctor leaves the room. Ada isn't the only one recovering from the last few minutes. Despite her quiet behavior all day, both adults had noticed something was suddenly off and when they looked up, they saw Ada staring off at nothing, her eyes fluttering uncontrollably. She wouldn't respond to them, just continued to look into space as they called for someone.
"Ada?" Pepper whispers to the teenager, leaning down as the girl scrunches up her face.
"M'fine." She slurs, not doing much to ease their worries.
Ada's much more alert when a nurse comes to take her down for her scan. Pepper and Tony stay in the room and wait. And wait. Until finally they're bringing her back. Anderson is with them. Ada is nearly asleep and they leave the girl be as they speak.
"The scan did show something," Anderson tells them gently, forcing his deep breath to not be so noticeable. "It's called hydrocephalus. Fluid build up in the brain. It has to be fixed with surgery. We'll put in a shunt. A narrow piece of tubing that will help drain cerebrospinal fluid and redirect it to another location in the body where it can be reabsorbed."
"Okay," Pepper whispers when she can't bring her voice to raise any louder. She just feels tired all of a sudden. More tired than she has been in the past few days. It seems when they think things are getting better, something has to pop up and prove them wrong.
"I know this is a lot. It's scary. But this is a simple surgery for me, I've done many." He assures them. "And this can be the cause to many of Ada's other symptoms. Confusion, irritability, drowsiness. Even weakness in the legs."
"I'm going to schedule the surgery for tomorrow if you're okay with that." Anderson says after letting them take in the new information. "We need to do this as quickly as we can."
The couple thank the doctor before he leaves them once more. Ada's out cold, sleeping soundly. Pepper falls asleep his her head on Tony's shoulder but he can't take his eyes away from his kid.
His body feels like it's vibrating. His hands shake. He just wants to reach out and fix everything. That's what he does, he fixes things. But he can't fix this and it's killing him.
"And we'll go in through where we already have, so no new incisions up here necessary." Anderson gestures to Ada's head, smiling down at the teenager who gives him a thumbs up. She's been prepped for surgery, they're just going over a few last-minute things before taking her back. "You'll be awake and feeling better before you know it." He chuckles when the girl rolls her eyes before patting her shoulder and stepping out of the small room.
"You good, kid?" Tony asks, raising his brows and taking up the spot the doctor had just left. Ada raises a single brow at him but offers the smallest of smiles. She's given up on talking today, it seems. Normally he'd say something about it but not now. He knows she's scared even if she'd never admit it. "Don't worry, Peter's doing enough of that for all of us."
Ada snorts to cover the pangs shooting through her heart. The last two times she'd had surgery, she hadn't been awake before to know about it. This time she was. It shouldn't scare her, this is her third surgery and it's the simplest one yet. She'll be fine. Or that's what she keeps telling herself.
"We'll be here when you wake up." Pepper tells her with a soft smile from behind her fiancé.
"You're doing great, kiddo," Tony smiles, taking Ada's hand when she lifts it off the bed towards him. "We'll see you soon." He gives her hand one last squeeze before stepping away when a nurse enters.
"Before you know it." Pepper steps forward, resting her hand on Ada's forehead and bending down to whisper into the girl's ear.
Ada blinks up at her, opening her mouth only to close it when the woman steps back, allowing her to be wheeled from the room.
So, someone left a review and said they were an EMT and I may or may not have freaked out. That's awesome and yeah, like, cool bro. Hope my medical stuff isn't like, way off lol
I could not find a good teaser so...I apologize. The next chapter is mostly filler, I'd say. But there's Peter being the bestest friend. Cause Peter Parker is the best so. Yeah...
Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed this chapter and let me know what you think. The mystery person will be mentioned in the chapter after the next. Who do you guys think it is?
'-'
