{Author's Note: As always, thanks for your patience! Hope you enjoy this chapter. The song I listened to on repeat while writing this was Hospital Shirt by Jason Myles Goss.}
Waking up was a weird sensation. It had been so long since he'd experienced it. It was like visiting a place he hadn't been for years and not quite recognizing it anymore.
He'd forgotten about that odd state between sleep and the waking world that was almost a reality in and of itself—a place where nothing and no one could reach him. Where his brain was too foggy for anxious thoughts—based in reality or fiction—to form. It was a place where you could exist for a time without expectations or failures, at least for the moment where you didn't quite know what side of the realm you would fall into.
But for Peter, there had long been only one outcome.
And so, it was inevitable that his body and mind slowly—or perhaps quickly depending on who, if anyone, was keeping time—fell through the veil at the edge of that dreamless purgatory to rejoin reality.
The first thing he was conscious of was the sound of voices. A man and a woman. Arguing. He recognized who they belonged to first, long before he could makes sense of what they were saying.
But eventually both pieces fell into place.
"—don't care. He wouldn't have been at that school in the first place if he hadn't gone there hoping your irresponsible friends could help him find you!"
"I should have prevented it. You're right, but—"
"Of course I'm right! He didn't end up nearly losing a leg and skewered like a shish kebab when he was living under my roof!"
"No. I know that, and I realize that I'm not necessarily good for him, but it is beneficial for him to be exposed to more people like himself, considering that he's grown up without—"
"He's in the hospital. He nearly died. Is that beneficial?"
"You're twisting my words! You know that's not what I meant. I—"
"You're—you're—you are a beacon for danger! A beacon of danger! And he doesn't need that. He doesn't need any more attention. He—"
"Mom?" Peter finally croaked out, opening his eyes and blinking a few times as he adjusted to the harsh overhead hospital lights.
"Baby! You're awake. You had me so worried!" Magda cried, anger bleeding away like a swift gust of wind, she rushed over to his side from where she had stood fuming at Erik on the other side of the room. "How are you feeling? Are you in pain? I didn't even know it was possible for you to pass out, and then they called and said you were unconscious! I don't even remember the drive here I was in such a panic. I probably ran every red light! I could have had a whole fleet of gavver chasing me, and I wouldn't—"
"They?" Peter asked, cutting off his mother, who—in all honesty—was not helping the pain in his head subside. "Who—" Peter's voice cracked from lack of use. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Who called you?"
"Do you remember what happened? You were at that school and got caught up in some sort of explosion. You remember, don't you? Anyway, the hospital called, sweetie. I know you're an adult, Peter, but I am still your emergency contact. Unfortunately, they didn't know to warn me that Max would be here." Said Magda, glaring daggers at where Erik had to be inevitably standing, back against the wall like a cornered animal. Peter lazily tried to tilt his head to look at him, even as he felt the flush of an embarrassment color his cheeks at once again being in such a vulnerable position around the man, but he must not have done a very good job at putting Erik into his line of sight because the man took a few steps forward until finally Peter could see him clearly.
"Max?" Peter questioned confused. He must've hit his head pretty hard because he thought remembered what happened, but last time he checked, his dad's name was Erik, not Max.
"She means me." Said Erik—or Max?—without much emotion, but he looked about how Peter felt—dead on his feet, or in Peter's case, dead in a bed. Ha. Rhymes.
Peter continued to stare at his father expectantly, waiting for an explanation. The guy liked giving speeches, right? A few sentences of explanation about why his mom was calling him Max shouldn't be too much to ask for. And Peter had just had a near death experience. He was entitled to behave with a bit of a lack of decorum, wasn't he?
Realizing Peter wasn't going to move on and probably growing more and more uncomfortable as his son stared at him from a hospital bed, the older man finally relented. "It used to be my name." Erik provided, as if that was explanation enough, which—for the record—it wasn't.
"It's still you're name." Peter's mother replied, before Peter could ask another question as she rolled her eyes and gently took Peter's wrist in her hand, as if to reassure herself that he wasn't going anywhere. "It's the one you were born with, wasn't it? You can't just change your name, and expect it to erase who you are."
"You changed our son's name. First and last." Erik said gruffly and more than a little bitterly, some of his stone-faced façade faltering, making Peter wonder just how much time his parents had had to hash it out before he'd come to.
"His last name honors the man who was actually around to raise him for as long as he could be, and even if I hadn't given him that name, I certainly wouldn't have given him your name. What do you care anyway? You've clearlydiscarded it—Mr. Mag-nee-tow. And I didn't change his first name. He did that on his own. Because he wanted to! Besides, it's still legally Pietro. And he's not our son. I don't remember you there during twelve hours of labor or for any scrapped knees, birthdays, or graduations." Magda shot back, her hand that had taken Peter's wrist in a gentle hold, squeezing a bit too tightly now.
"If I had known—" Erik—it was too weird to think of him as Max without more information—tried.
"You left! How was I supposed to tell you!?" Magda's voice was rising dangerously close to a yell again, and if in that moment someone had offered to put him back into unconsciousness, Peter would have whole heartedly accepted that offer, even if it meant taken another blow to the head or being a one man blood dispensary.
"You knew where I was going, at least at first. You could've tried to—"
"Oh so it's my fault, is it?! I'm not the one who went out hunting Nazis! You—"
"Ugh." Peter finally let out a groan, closing his eyes and wondering if this was what his childhood would've been like if Erik had been around.
If so, maybe he didn't miss out on much after all.
His moan must've been louder than he thought, however, because his mother cut herself off, and both his parents turned their attention to him once more.
"Sorry sweetheart. I'm sorry. We're done. Promise." Magda said, brushing his hair back from his face, and, as much as his parents' arguing was probably making his blood pressure rise, he couldn't help but feel comforted by the touch of her hands. They were the same hands that had taken care of him when he was sick for as long as he could remember, that picked him up and held him when he was scared, and that had calmed him when he was nervous. It didn't matter if he was seven or twenty-seven, it helped calm him some to know that she was near if he needed her.
Peter relished in the comfort her touch provided. It felt safe. Like home. He opened his eyes and found her looking down at him fondly, and he felt for a moment like everything would be okay. She would make sure of it. Maybe she hadn't before, but she'd always done her best.
She had always tried.
But then he looked past her and made eye contact with his father behind her and the feeling shattered like a fragile piece of glass, and instead, a rush of awkwardness washed over him.
Peter raised his hand to push his mom's away, but his effort was hindered by the IV line attached to it and more importantly, the motion pulled at his obviously injured abdomen. He hissed at the movement before he could stop himself.
"What is it? What can I do?" His mother asked anxiously, pulling her hand away.
He felt empty without her touch, not quite real, like he really might disappear.
"N-nothing." Peter said, gritting his teeth. "Just, you know me, I moved too fast. Well, I usually move too fast. Guess I don't in the important moments. Harharhar."
Apparently it was still too soon to make jokes at his own expense because his mother and father stared down at him with matching frowns.
Tough crowd.
"Please don't do that, darling, especially when you're hurt. You know I don't like it when you make self-deprecating jokes." Magda said, worrying her lip as she unnecessarily smoothed the side of the bed sheet covering him.
"It wasn't your fault." Erik said softly, but there was something off about his tone. It felt like he was holding back, like he wanted to ask Peter something, but perhaps not while his mom was there. Peter studied his father face, trying to figure out what he wasn't saying, but his expression was as inscrutable as ever.
"You're damn right it wasn't his fault." His mother said pointedly, turning to glare at Erik again, apparently that was her default state now.
"When can I get out of here?" Peter asked, hurriedly trying to draw some of his mom's ire away from his father out of some sort of sense of duty, even if he was obviously holding something back.
"As soon as it's safe to move you." Erik answered before his mom could reply.
"As soon as the doctor says it's safe to move you," His mother clarified. "And not the one that failed to tell me my baby nearly lost his leg, though, to be fair, you had plenty of opportunities to share that information darling."
"I didn't nearly lose my leg. It was just a small break—" Peter tried, downplaying the incident. It had certainly felt like his leg had been torn from his body when En Sabah Nur stepped on it like a toothpick, but she didn't need to know that.
"Please. I already spoke to your friend that brought you and Max here. I know you were in a cast up to your hip." Magda said dismissively.
Wait. His friend? Kurt?
Peter could have asked for clarification, jumping in before his mom continued, but that would have meant talking over her and faster than her, and there really was no point to that because if he was speaking faster than his mom then no one would be able to understand him.
"Now that he's awake, we shouldn't keep him here any longer." Erik replied instead, stepping closer again, but Peter noticed that he kept the door in his line of sight at all times.
"Charles' school is more than supplied with the necessary equipment to monitor him."
"Max doesn't trust the lovely team of doctors and nurses here that made sure you didn't die." Magda said, crossing her arms, and more clearly putting herself between the two men.
"That's not what I said." Erik said wearily, like they'd already had this conversation several times before.
"Not everyone is out to get him. At least they wouldn't be if you weren't here." Magda retorted, and feeling the tension building between his parents again, Peter wished desperately that he could just sink through the floor and disappear. Why couldn't have been born with that power? That ability could have solved several problems in his life.
"I'm not saying that they are, but, intentionally or not, one of them may mention that they have an interesting mutant in their care, and the wrong people could get wind of that. My presence may put him at risk, yes, but the damage has been done. People saw me bring him in, and no one has recognized me thus far. At this point, I think it better if I make sure no more harm comes to him by staying close by, or better yet, transferring him back to Charles'." Erik said, and it almost felt like he was drifting dangerously close to Erik-in-speech mode as he crossed his arms to match Magda's pose.
"Ohmygod." Peter said under his breath, not loud enough for either of his parents to hear this time, but audible all the same. It was too much. His parents worrying about him. Over him. Together. No matter that they were fighting, the novelty of his parents being in the same room together at the same time for the first time, or well, the first time since he'd been alive was overwhelming. The two people who when combined were responsible for his complete genome were by his side, nearly both close enough to touch. He doubted that anyone in recent history at least had ever had the pleasure of a similar experience nor could anyone else understand what it was like to have a matching set of helicopter parents meeting after nearly thirty years.
Well, that wasn't true.
There was one person that could've understood exactly what Peter was feeling . . . .
Nope.
He wasn't going there.
He felt like shit already. No need to add to that feeling.
But unfortunately, shit stunk no matter how much or how little you had of it.
He tuned out his parents as they, presumably, continued to argue back and forth, but the sound of the door to the cramped hospital room opening, grabbed his attention, and he wasn't the only one.
Erik visibly tensed, instinctively positioning himself in front of both his son and his—his—and Peter's mom.
But it was just a nurse, and Erik must've recognized her because he seemed to relax slightly—in that he didn't immediately throw her out—and he put some more space between himself and Magda again.
"Someone's up!" The new occupant of the room said, smiling brightly at him, oblivious to the heated argument lingering in the air. "How are you feeling?"
"Umm could be better I guess." Peter said, very conscious of the fact that he now had two mother hens—a mother hen and papa bear?—hanging on his every word. It was little too much attention to be honest. "Feel a bit worn out." Tired wasn't the right word given that one might say he couldn't technically get tired in the same way that other people could, but he definitely felt like he had been through the wringer.
"That's not unexpected." Said the nurse, nodding her head. "You lost quite a bit of blood, but fortunately dad here was able to bring your blood count up significantly. Luckily, your friend knew you were the same blood type."
"Oh. That's um—yea that's good." Peter said awkwardly, squirming a bit, as Erik similarly shifted uncomfortably in his peripheral vision.
"Yes it is, but let's not have you go running through anymore pieces of wood again any time soon, okay? We took about as much blood as we could from him, so you both need some time to recover." She said giving, Peter and Erik another smile. Unbeknownst to them, the two mutants shared identical faces of discomfort at the attention.
"So hon, are you alright with your parents here while I go over a few things?" The nurse asked, making eye contact with Peter again.
"Um . . ." Peter hesitated, throat going dry, glancing at the hard planes of his father's face and softer lines of worry on his mother's. How long had they spent fretting about him already? Did they really need to listen to more bad news or the intimate details of Peter's health, now that he was alert?
"It's alright, sweetie. We'll step out, and you can fill us in later." Magda said, sparing Peter from having to kick them out, understanding in her eyes.
Erik however did not seem ready to leave. Discontent clearly written on his face, conveying the unspoken words that if there was something wrong with his son—other than the obvious—he needed to be aware of it, possibly so he crush that wrongness between his fists (or two sheets of metal).
If only he knew what shit was going on in Peter's head, even he'd probably hold up his hands and back away, declaring that it was all just a bit too much.
"Wouldn't it be more prudent—" Erik began, but not for the first time, Magda cut him off, grasping his forearm to lead him from the room, whether he liked it or not.
"Come on, Max. He doesn't need us hovering right this moment. We'll be back soon Pietro." His mother said, giving Peter a reassuring smile.
" 'Kay." Said Peter, but as they turned to leave, he immediately began to regret not asking them to stay.
Their absence felt like another hole to his chest.
The door closed behind his parents, leaving Peter alone with the nurse. The fact that his mom was able to escort his dad—without bloodshed—from a room he clearly wasn't ready to leave had Peter, despite his increasing anxiousness, suppressing a nervous fit of laughter. Maybe all it would've taken for Magneto to not completely destroy RFK Stadium and, as a result, any 'dreams' Peter had of visiting said stadium with his absentee father, was his mom calmly scolding the man.
"Okay, then. My name is Anne, and I'll be asking a few questions before the doctor comes in. Can you confirm you name and date of birth for me?" Anne asked, looking up from her clip board.
"Um Peter Maximoff. May 23rd, 1956." Peter answered, feeling oddly like this was a test and he might give the wrong answer.
"Your full birth name please." Anne asked again.
"Oh. Pietro Django Maximoff. Wait. Koralov. Pietro Django Koralov. That—Koralov—was my birth name, but my mom changed my last name to my dad's—er my step-dad's last name, which was Maximoff, so Pietro Django Maximoff is my legal name now. " Peter replied, rambling, maybe he really could fail such a simple question. "Um, so yea, is that what you needed to know? And my middle name is D-J-A-N-G-O. The D is silent."
"That's fine. Pee-tro." She answered with another smile as she butchered his first name. "I just needed you to confirm your identity. Hospital protocol."
"Right. Got it. CanyoujustcallmePeter?" He asked, wincing as flashbacks of elementary school flew through his mind and the odd looks he would receive on the first day of school when the teacher took attendance and tried to pronounce the foreign name before he could correct them or ask them to use Peter instead.
"Sorry?" She asked, and Peter realized he must have spoken too quickly in his attempt to get out his request.
"Can you call me Peter instead? I don't really use Pietro anymore." He asked again, forcing himself to speak more slowly this time.
"Oh of course. Whatever you prefer. So Peter, can you tell me what brought you here?" She prodded.
Peter immediately tensed. "My dad . . ." He said carefully.
"Yes, I know that bit. He and your friend made quite the entrance." She said not unkindly. "But I was referring to your injury. What happened there."
"Oh. Well, I was impaled." Peter answered again, though he thought that was pretty obvious but maybe the hospital staff don't exchange notes when they change shifts.
"Indeed you were, and do you remember how that happened?" She clarified.
"Err, it was an accident. Some kids were just messing around with some—uh with some firecrackers. They didn't mean to hurt anyone. One got out of hand. I just got caught in the debris. It was nobody's fault but mine." Peter said, hoping she didn't notice the nervous way he was twisting the bedsheet in his unhindered hand. Even if it was mutant on mutant accidental violence, he didn't want to immediately say that it was a mutant incident that caused his injury and just perpetuate the idea that mutants were dangerous, which sure they definitely could be—see Exhibit A, i.e., Erik—but not always.
"I see." Anne said, making a note on her clipboard with a click of her pen.
Wishing he could flit over her shoulder quickly to see what she had written but knowing that would worsen his predicament for a number of reasons, he restrained himself and quickly added. "I don't want them to get in trouble. I mean, they'll probably have detention and that's punishment enough. It happened at a school. Not my school, but I was there at the school. Obviously. I work there. Sort of. Like part-time. So no one is gonna get in trouble, right?"
"I wouldn't worry about that, Peter." She said with a placating smile as she took some more notes. "These are just routine questions. You never know what information might be helpful when it comes to a patient's recovery. Sometimes knowing the chain of events that led to the injury is important."
"Gotcha. Yea, thatmakessense. I guess." Peter said, though he didn't really understand how it made a difference whether he'd been accidentally injured or someone had stabbed him. Either way—unpunctured skin = good. Pointy object in chest = bad. Simple math really.
"Since I have you here," Anne began, like Peter had any choice in where he was at the moment and had instead just dropped by for a chat, "Let's make sure your information is up to date while we're at it. Are you still at the D.C. address?"
"No. I moved." Finally. Sort of. If you could count moving out of your mom's basement and into a school/home/mansion with your dad and his sort of frenemy as moving out. "I'm at 1407 Graymalkin Lane, Salem Center, Westchester County, here in New York."
"And is Dr. Kimble still your primary physician?" The nurse went on.
"No. Not really." Peter replied after a beat. In fact, Peter hadn't seen Dr. Kimble—his pediatrician—since he'd been young enough to get a lollipop after a visit. Once he hit mutant puberty, his mom—in contrast to her recent dismissal of Erik's paranoia, which Peter suspected she'd brushed aside partly just to disagree with him—had been reluctant to put him in front of someone that would look too closely at all his abnormalities. He'd been able to get by with the mandatory school physicals for track, which basically consisted of a slightly bored doctor with a foot half way out the door to retirement asking him to read the bottom line of an eye chart and touch his toes or balance on one foot for a bit. And well, after high school he'd forgone the whole exercise of calling attention to his freakishness by avoiding yearly checkups altogether. If nothing was actively bleeding or broken he was fine. Probably. Right?
"Do you have a primary physician now?" Anne asked when Peter didn't offer more information.
"I guess you can put down Hank—Hank McCoy. Actually, I think his first name is Henry." Peter clarified, realizing he didn't actually know for sure.
"And what's Dr. McCoy's address?" Anne asked, not looking up from her clipboard.
"The same as mine." Peter answered without thinking.
At his reply, Anne looked up to meet his gaze. She raised an eyebrow for just a second but scribbled the address down without comment all the same.
"It's—" Feeling the unnecessary urge to explain, Peter opened his mouth to say 'the school I was talking about,' the same school where his injury had taken place, but he stopped himself, now worried that he shouldn't have shared the school's address at all. But it wasn't a secret, right? The parents of at least some of the students there must want to know where exactly their kids went for the majority of the year, even if most of them couldn't care less. If he had attended the school as a kid, his mom definitely would have demanded the address of the school. And Chuck had carried around a business card with the address printed on it at one point, which he presumably had more of that he gave out to parents of prospective students, if not now then at least ten or so years ago. Then again, Peter also wasn't keen to have military grade visitors kidnap anyone from the premises again any time soon, but wasn't the fact that that had happened just further proof that the location wasn't a secret?
"Alright. And do you have health insurance?" Anne asked, moving on and locking eyes with him again before Peter could spiral anymore. Combined with all the questions, the eye contact was getting to be a little too much for him, and he suddenly had another urge to sprint out of the room, regardless of the consequences.
"I think I have that. Yea. Probably. I'll just—I need to ask my . . . employer." Landlord? Self-appointed therapist? Potential drug-dealer?
"Okay. If you're able to get that information before you leave the hospital, that will make things much easier for you. We wouldn't want you, or your parents, to get settled with an unnecessary hefty bill." She said with a small shake of her head.
"Yea. I'll—I'll get that to you as soon as I can." Peter replied, understanding now why she'd asked for his name and address first before bringing up the matter of insurance—got to make sure The Man can find you if you can't pay up.
"How about medication?" Anne asked. "Are you taking anything currently?"
Did a late-night bender count as medication?
Probably not.
Should he be on something to eliminate hallucinations?
Probably.
"Nope." Peter replied, filling the silence before the nurse could notice that he'd hesitated.
Their little back and forth continued for a while as Anne asked him similarly invasive or menial questions, until finally she came to the end of her list.
"Last question, for now, promise. Are you good with keeping your mother as your emergency contact or did you want to add anyone? Since your father brought you in, did you want to add him maybe?" She asked, perfectly innocently, like that question wasn't a loaded gun staring him in the face.
"Oh." Peter squeaked out, licking his lips that suddenly felt extremely dry.
What name would—or could—he even put down for his father if he wanted to list him as an emergency contact? The man apparently had even more names than himself, and half of them would have the U.S. government swarming the vicinity within minutes of being notified that he was in the building. "No. I mean, let's just keep my mom down, if I don't have to have more than one. Is that okay?"
It was better that he didn't put Erik down as an emergency contact anyway. If he found himself once again bleeding out on the cusp of life and death, he didn't want his dad to see that. Not that he wanted his mom to see that either, but at least with her he knew that if she wasn't contacted when Peter was on death door, she'd bring him back to life just to kill him herself for letting him die alone. Besides, even if he could've used Chuck's address for Erik's own, he wasn't sure he could face the embarrassment of giving out the same address a third time.
"That's perfectly fine. One is enough." Anne said, rising from where she had taken a seat in the uncomfortable looking chair next to his bed. "Thanks for bearing with me, hon. The doctor should be in a few minutes, and he can talk to you more about your injury and recovery time."
"Okay." Peter said again, not sure what more they could possibly have to talk about given that the nurse could now probably write a biography on him with all the information she had collected, and the fact that his recovery probably consisted of 'don't do anything to become a human popsicle again' and 'avoid pointy objects'.
But apparently there was more to discuss because a few painful minutes later, Anne was replaced with a slightly haggard looking man—again with a clipboard—that looked younger than his high school mandated doctors but not by much.
"Mr. Maximoff." The man said with a nod of his head "How are you feeling? Any pain?"
Guess they weren't doing introductions then. Peter thought as he squinted at the man's name tag and made out the name 'Nichols' printed on it.
"Well doc," Peter said in his most serious voice. "My eyes have seen the years and a slow parade of fears. That's for sure."
The doctor stared back at him blankly, uncomprehending.
So safe to say he was not a Jackson Browne fan then.
Bummer.
"A little bit of pain, maybe. Not terrible." Peter lied when the doctor didn't offer comment.
"Very good." Dr. Nichols said, nodding his head. "I'm sure one of the nurses let you know that you lost a lot of blood and had quite the penetrating injury, so I would be surprised if you didn't have some pain, but you're improving remarkably swiftly even considering the blood transfusion. You're a mutant correct?"
Well, that was blunt.
Peter considered lying for a moment. There wasn't actually a record of him as such. He didn't think so anyway, and the nurse hadn't asked that question, but maybe that was only because she just assumed, it was already part of the record, or she was going to let the doctor have that conversation. But ultimately, with the perspective of his recent kidnapping experience under his belt and the glint of his silver hair staring the other man in the face, there was probably no point in trying to lie. It was obvious enough.
"Yea." He said finally.
The doctor nodded again, making a note. "Your medical records are spotty at best. There is little peer-reviewed research on mutant physiology and how it compares to that of human beings. If you had kept up with regular appointments, I would have a better understanding of your treatment needs and recovery time."
Yea, or some random dude could have tried to shove him in a cage somewhere.
Again.
"Sorry." Peter replied nonetheless, when he realized that Dr. Nichols was waiting for some sort of response. He wished, not for the first time, that he would've asked his parents to stay with him. Though Peter couldn't say he wanted to see the man in front of him dead, even if he had made an insensitive—or at least naïve—comment, so, on second thought, it was probably better that they hadn't stayed.
"It can't be helped now." The doctor said, waving away his apology. "I spoke briefly with a man claiming to be your primary physician before I came into speak with you, and he gave a little bit of insight to your metabolic rate. If what he said is true then you're probably experiencing some discomfort as the opioid dose you're on would not be keeping pace with your metabolism, but since you seem to be managing, I'd like to wait and see how you do on the current dose before I increase it. I already have you on the higher side of its dosage for your build. I'd also like to keep you overnight for observation." Dr. Nichols continued. "Taking a projectile to the abdomen is no small matter—mutant or not."
Peter didn't reply to that because—yea no shit.
The doctor, however, stared down at Peter from the end of his bed and added, "You're very lucky, you know? The projectile missed all your vital organs and only grazed your spleen, coupled with the fact that we were able to give you a blood transfusion right away, things could have been much worse for you."
Peter knew the doctor was right, and he should be overwhelmed with gratitude that he was alive and that his dad was willing to be his own personal blood bank, but at the doctor's words, he felt something in his gut—that had no relation to his physical injury—twist. All he could focus on was one word—Observation.
He knew it was a completely normal way to phrase the monitoring of a patient in an overnight stay at a hospital, but he couldn't help the paranoid fear that invaded his mind at the turn of phrase. His mind rewound to waking up on his back, not knowing where he was or what was happening and trying to hide his fear behind false bravado. He squeezed his eyes shut tight for a moment, and forced the image from his mind.
"O-kay. Then I can—" Peter was going to say 'go home,' but that wasn't exactly what the school was, so instead he said "leave tomorrow?"
"Ask me again tomorrow after we see how you're doing." Dr. Nichols replied, perhaps a little more kindly than he had said anything else. "Do you have any other questions?"
Yea, do you have any medications that will stop someone from having random visions of a glowing, possibly possessed, women? Peter thought silently, but out loud, he merely replied "No."
"If that changes, you can let a nurse know. They should be able to answer most of your questions, but if not, they'll consult with me or another doctor on duty and get back to you as soon as they can."
"Hmmkay." Peter replied, not sure if he was supposed to say more.
Dr. Nichols glanced back at the clipboard in his hand, very quickly, most people wouldn't have caught it, but Peter did. He was checking for his name, already forgotten in the span of a few minutes. He tried not to take it personally, but it made the other man's next words rather less sympathetic. "Take it easy, Pie-tro."
Peter winced at the pronunciation, but didn't bother to correct the man this time since he was leaving anyway. "Yea. I'll try." He replied nonetheless, maybe even half meaning it.
"Open or closed?" The doctor asked as he reached for the door.
Knowing that his parents or Hank—or all three—were probably standing just outside his door, he replied, "Closed, thanks."
Dr. Nichols shut the door behind him as he left, and then—Peter was alone.
He knew any one of his likely bed-side visitors could just shoulder their way through the door and into the room if they wanted, but one could hope that maybe the closed door would give them the hint that he wanted a moment alone.
And since it didn't seem to matter whether he was alone or with other people when the woman in red appeared, he might as well take a second to collect himself before he had to pretend that everything—minus healing wound to his chest—was fine, and he wasn't going crazy or an ancient Egyptian mutant maniac hadn't cursed him with some weird angel of death when he'd held his head in his hand.
Peter laid his head back on the pillow, taking a deep breath that came out more like a shudder. The sharp pain that shot through his torso as a result was almost a relief, if only because it at least was real.
{Author's Note: So I don't actually know what Peter's canon birthday is in the X-Men movie verse, MCU, or the comics. Thus, for fun I went with the month and day that X-Men DOFP was released per Google. Also, can you tell that I just re-watched The Fugitive? (10/10 would recommend if you've never seen it. You can't beat Indiana Jones or Han Solo, but it's still peak Harrison Ford.)}