#Don't think the entire internet is gonna go dark any time soon | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

enviedear · 4 years

Text

secrets that you keep → peter parker

DESCRIPTION ⌙ in a consolation trip back to europe, the kids of midtown high are eager to have a normal vacation, finally. but you on the other hand are on a mission. something weird is going on with peter parker, and you’re going to figure it out.

PAIRING ⌙ peter parker x fem!reader

WORD COUNT ⌙ 2.4k

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

“-smaller group than before, but we’ll still have fun guys. the tour company has made precautions for you kids. there will not be a repeat of last year.” mr. harrington babbles.

you sink lower into the bus seat. you did not want to be back in europe. truthfully you want to be anywhere but here. wherever, here, was. no one knew. cell service went out about five miles back and the bus driver didn’t speak english.

“yeah guys, don’t worry. this trip is going to be ten times worse than the last. it’s already started bad since we don't know where we ARE!” flash yells, running a hand down his face.

mr. harrington tries to calm him and the rest of the bus down, to no avail.

you block out the commotion and stare out of the bus window. grass, farm, cattle, shack, more grass, more farm. and not one single cell tower in sight. this is it, you think, this is how it ends, stranded in a foreign country with the most annoying people you’ve ever known.

“guys, GUYS! my service is back,” betty yelps. “it says we’re in wiveliscombe, and that it’s going to be three hours until we reach london.”

her words are met with groans.

“at least we have cell service now.” jokes peter parker, who’s sat in the seat across the aisle from you. he’s cute and nice, but weird. last year’s trip he had about a thousand excuses as to why he’d leave the group and if it happened this year, you were gonna figure out why. no matter what it took.

“mhm, and since we have access to the endless possibilities of the internet again, we don’t have to talk..” you huff.

“i.. sorry. i didn’t-” you cut him off by placing your earbuds back into your ears and turning the volume up.

something about peter irked your nerves in a way you couldn’t understand. maybe it was the way he knew fucking everything. maybe it was the way his body became incomprehensibly fit in such a short period of time. you really couldn’t understand that. even went as far as to do research on steroids, but found there was no way he could be using those. most probably it was the nonsense of his idiotic excuses. he might be able to fool everyone else, but not you. you knew there had to be something going on.

he and his stupid cute little brown curls, button nose, and six pack were under your firm watch.

by the time the bus reached the hotel the sun was beginning to set. jet lagged and in need of a long shower, you’re one of the first to fly into the hotel.

“It's me and you for the next week.” mj smiles, holding out a room key for you. truthfully, you really liked mj. she was cool and liked a lot of the same things as you. but she had one fatal flaw in your eyes, she used to date peter parker.

it was a short lived relationship, almost everyone saw it as a fling. peter and mj were just… too different. but they remain close friends.

it’s not like you were jealous... just, a tad bit jealous. besides, that ship had sailed and your goal wasn’t to end up like mj on the last trip to europe. no, you had other plans.

“cool. we can watch murder mysteries tonight and grab some snack from the convenience store down the street.” you grin.

the rooming situation for everyone else took entirely too long. it started with flash being upset that his room requirements weren’t being met. he wanted nothing to do with a roommate. this, caused his previous roommate, zander, to object to rooming with someone so, ‘coddled’.

took a full twenty minutes to resolve the issue.

“mj, you still wanna visit the national gallery tomorrow?” asks the one and only peter parker.

“uh, yeah. y/n, wanna join?” she questions.

you were ready to object, finding it far more intriguing to stay in and sleep but then you remembered your little mission. if you wanted to figure out what peter parker’s deal was, you’d have to be around him.

“sure. nothing better to do.” you shrug, peering straight into peter’s eyes.

“i, uh- i thought we’d get an early start to the day. ned wants to go on the jack the ripper tour, so that gives us until one to look through the museum.” peter rambles.

“alright, me and y/n will meet you two down here around ten thirty.” mj clarifies.

“see you then. night mj,” he looks to you. “goodnight y/n.”

you narrow your eyes at him, “sleep tight parker. busy day tomorrow.”

with that you and mj enter your room, ready to sleep off the jet lag. and soon enough, sleep carries you into her open arms, preparing you for the day ahead.

the next morning consists of peter and ned rushing in and out of their room. the duo forgetting nearly everything they needed for the day. it was extremely annoying. but you’d take watching the two ninnies scramble about over this tour you’re forcing yourself to get through right now.

the national gallery was proving to be a bore. maybe it was you. or maybe it was the dull ass tour guide. either way, you’re finding it hard to focus on any of these artworks around you.

“this is the arnolfini portrait. it’s the work of jan van eyck and it is believed to depict an italian merchant named giovanni di nicolao arnolfini. this painting has remained in the national gallery since 1843.” the tour guide drones.

you peer up at the art, searching for anything to interest you about it. you try to focus of the dark green of the woman’s dress, then the small dog, but nothing about this art is appealing to you. instead, you find the whispered conversation going on behind you to be much more intriguing.

“ned how am i going to make it all the way to japan and back here before the ripper tour?” peter grumbles.

japan?

“i don’t know, but i really don’t want to go on a tour of the most infamous and creepy serial killers of all time without my best friend.” ned whispers.

“but mj will be there, and.. y/n.” peter assures.

“great. they both creep me out. that’s like, two extra loads of creepy added onto the already creepy tour.” ned huffs.

“dude, i have to go… mr. stark is waiting on me.” peter pleads.

you hear ned give an annoyed, “fine.”

you wait a few seconds before turning around to face peter’s friend.

“where did peter run off to?” you ask, as innocently as you can.

“uhhhh- the bathroom. the uh, hotel bathroom. yeah, must have been those tomatoes he ate with his breakfast today.” ned gulps.

“mhm. well i think i’ll meet up with him. he shouldn’t walk all the way back alone.” you smirk, shoving past ned and running the direction peter went.

it took a good minute to find him outside, the boy running into a bakery. but once your eyes find him, you rush straight in, right behind him. eyes narrowed and full of questions.

the brown haired boy quickly enters a bathroom and you grin.

no escaping now, parker.

you wait outside the bathroom eagerly. only for minutes to pass. no sound escapes the room and you furrow your brows.

you knock on the door, no answer. annoyed you open the door, only to be met with an empty bathroom.

an empty bathroom with an opened window.

what the fuck?

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

“we’ve been upgraded!” mr. harrington gleams, looking down at our tired faces.

“last time we were upgraded we almost died.” betty sighs.

“ah- what did i say, we’re not going to repeat last year,” harrington retorts. “now...how do you guys feel about paris?”

well those words certainly livened up the breakfast table. train tickets are soon passed around, and you study yours, spoonful of yogurt still in your mouth.

“hey y/n, mj and i are gonna go to the louvre when we get there,” ned grins. “wanna come with?”

you chuckle, “another museum? nah, i’m good.”

mj quirks a brow at you, “this museum is home to the mona lisa. it’s not just any museum.”

“and the mona lisa is not just any painting… it’s an ugly one.” you huff.

ned guffaws at you.

“honestly, i might skip out too.” peter says.

you turn to face him, “great. you and i can explore paris while mj and ned explore another museum.”

he shifts in his seat, “i dunno i was thinking of-”

mj cuts him off, “i think that’s a great idea y/n. don’t you, peter? you remember what harrington said.. no repeat of last year.”

her eyes are cold as she awaits his answer and he fidgets more in his seat.

“i just think it might be best for me to stay here… ya know in case mr. stark needs anything.”

you roll your eyes, “dude, you’re just an intern. what could he possibly need that his other ten thousand interns can’t do.”

“technically he only has like six other… interns.” peter mumbles.

“but uh.. they can handle whatever mr. stark needs from you. i mean they’ve been av- uh, interns, for a while.” ned says, eyes pleading with his friend.

peter sighs before smiling at you, “alright, me and you versus paris.”

no peter parker, me and myself versus your dirty little secret.

somehow you got to sit next to peter in an empty train car for the ride to paris. and holy shit.. could he talk.

his eyes did have a way of lighting a fire inside you as he talked but, that, was not the point.

it was between an empty car with peter or full car sat between flash and harrington.

peter is always better than the latter.

“-anyways, how’d you convince your parents to let you go back to europe?” he asks.

“i didn’t. they made me.” you say simply.

peter slumps into his seat a little, “uh, why?”

“because when they were younger they traveled the world. i dunno, i guess they expect me to want to as well.”

“oh. well, are you enjoying it so far.” he asks.

i’d enjoy it more if i could figure out your damned secret, parker.

“sure.”

and then, finally, peter is quiet.

but not for long, as the train comes to a screeching halt.

over the train speakers comes a booming voice, “veuillez rester calme. le train s'est arrêté en raison d'un dysfonctionnement du moteur.”

your body tenses and you look at peter, “please tell me you understand french?”

“a little.. i dont think we need to worry. they said it’s just an engine malfunction.” he nods, looking around the train car.

you try to breathe.

everything is okay. there’s no evil robots coming to destroy a train car with two innocent teenagers. that’s so pre civil war. just breathe.

suddenly a loud bang is heard from the car behind you. not just any bang… a gunshot.

“holy shit.” you whisper, stiff as a board.

peter on the other hand is rummaging through his bag.

“parker! what the fuck are you doing?” you hiss.

“i.. just trust me okay? when i tell you to run… run.”

you look at him with a scowl, “i’m not going to be the sacrificial pig for slaughter, asswipe.”

he rolls his eyes, “i’m going to run with you. we’re going to find an empty car and then… wait for spiderman.”

you blink. the kid’s gone insane.

“peter. listen, i know coping with your own inevitable death can be hard but, spiderman.. really?” you groan.

another loud bang comes from the car behind you.

peter looks at you, taking your hand in his.

the door to your car bursts open.

“run!” peter yelps, rushing into the next car, the gunmen not far enough behind.

“holy shit i’m gonna die.” you scream.

peter throws something at the gunmen when the two of you enter the next car, separating the two of you from the monsters.

but the kid didn’t throw just anything at them. motherfucker threw a damn door. a metal train door.

by the time you process the information, peter is pulling you into a cramped bathroom.

“i don’t have much time but basically, hi, i’m spiderman. those guys back there are people tony stark pissed off really bad and i need you to hide in here until i fix this issue.”

with that he pulls his jacket off revealing the spiderman suit you’re so used to seeing on the news.

“that’s your secret? this entire time i’ve been hanging around you trying to figure it out, and it turns out you’re spiderman. i would have thought anything before fucking spiderman.” you dwell, eyes wide.

he slips his mask on, “wait, you only hung out with me because you thought i had a secret? i mean.. i did but-”

another loud bang interrupts him, “nevermind. we’ll talk about this later. stay here and don’t tell anyone what i just told you.”

you nod, and watch him exit the bathroom.

so much for “not a repeat of last time.”

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

“at least it wasn’t witches this time.” mr. dell sighs.

your entire fourth period groans.

“what! our world is infested with witches now. i don’t even know why i’m teaching science. i’m gonna turn around one day and suddenly i’ll be teaching witchcraft.”

your eyes return back to your desk, staring a hole into the old wood. your trance is broken by a crumpled piece of paper. you roll your eyes and turn your attention to peter, who after europe has been watching you like a hawk.

you open the paper to see, ‘listen, mr. stark said i need to get written evidence that you won’t spill the beans. please sign below.’

you grimace but sign at the bottom of the paper and hand it back to your new ninny friend.

that’s right. friend. despite being one of the most annoying people on the planet, with the weirdest secret ever.. peter was nice. he was really nice. he liked almost everything you did and listened intently to whatever you had to say.

“earth to y/n.” his voice calls from beside you.

“oh? is class over?” you ask.

he nods and holds his arm out to you. you take it and give him a half smile.

you may find peter parker to be the weirdest dude ever, but you can’t deny that the secret superhero is starting to flood your mind. you never thought you’d be the one to say it, but peter parker is the coolest weirdo you’ve ever met.

and besides, your mission was a success. you figured out his secret and obtained a friend along with it.

well, friend, until you could complete your newest mission.

telling him you like him. like, a lot.

#—myfics !#peter parker x reader #spiderman x reader #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x you #spiderman x y/n #spiderman x you #spiderman x enemy!reader #peter parker x enemy!reader #mcu #mcu fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #peter parker fanfiction #spiderman fanfiction #spiderman far from home #x reader #peter parker

166 notes · View notes

ishikawayukis · 3 years

Note

long ask ahead adklsfj i'm sorry lmaoo not me being like 'wait skz covered i'll be your man on kingdom? did i miss that bc i didnt watch the last episode' but apparently i forgot alsdkjfsl;fjaf i relistened and it's soo bad wtf i listened to the original to compare and i'm dying of embarrassment i can't believed skz won the entire competition when they sang like that in the second round. i personally would have dropped out voluntarily if someone heard me sing like that to be fair there are gems in 4th gen kpop who can sing really well, but they're usually like 1 person out of a whole group but even then why? idols go through so much training and you're telling me they still can't sing well? i think most of the reason lies in the companies and the industry bc i always hear idols singing in registers that are uncomfortable for them to sing in which probably messes up their voices (but fans don't give a shit and praise idols anyway). to bring this topic back to btob they were done so dirty in kingdom. i'm not a melody, but they deserved way more than what they were given most of the groups, esp the top 3 (which i was watching the show for, mind you), performed mostly the same bland concepts: dark, edgy, angsty, mixed with some weird lore tied to myth or supernatural to keep fans speculating and theorizing on the internet. and everyone ate that shit up because dark, edgy = strong, talented (i've noticed that with tons of popular media these days this is the case. being dark and edgy must mean your self-aware about the world and its relentless nature and it also means you're serious and realistic and take things seriously which is cool bc we're not kids we are serious adults but it's usually just surface level conflict and vapid ideas while shooting in a dimly lit setting (also super cool gfx!!). but i digress.) btob was able to utilize different concepts that weren't just "dark, edgy" which was a huge breath of fresh air. it shows that they really understand themselves and their songs, who they are as idols and what their songs mean to them, how they want to send these messages to their audience and fans. it also makes the stages actually memorable and distinct. it's no wonder i remembered several of btob's stages like back door, missing you, and beautiful pain (i kind of forgot blue moon, but the moment i saw the thumbnail i remembered how i really enjoyed it while watching) while i can barely recall any of the others' stages.

answering under the cut because it got kinda long oopsie

ok i fucking cackled after the second paragraph not gonna lie LMAOO you truly said so sorry for those men but- and i love it love the energy my dude gal or not binary pal. and yeah after i watched for the first time i had to immediately watch the original to cleanse my ears

there was a discourse about that a while ago! about kpop now mainly being about the visuals rather than the actual skills, and while there are plenty of groups that can and do sing, companies are more worried about debuting people as soon as possible instead of taking their time to hone their skills, and keep honing them after they debut as well. and yeah they usually make them sing in a way that is popular instead of a way that fit their voices. there are a bunch of great singers or idols that could be great singers if the companies would just, invest in their voices and not just their looks and the concepts

and dude i agree LMAO for me they should've won because they were the only ones with consistent and great perfomances that showcased their skills without getting repetitive and also showing great versatility (and sf9 should've been second the now or never perfomance was the only one that wasn't good but i will blame mnet on that but that's not the case right now i'm just always a fantasy on main LMAO)

after the first episode i remember i said a comment about that, that all 4th gen groups had a similar concept and that it was kind of funny to me, because the other 3 groups all had very different concepts that suit them really well, and you could see even if it was like by a year or 2 that the experience on the field does give you an upperhand when it comes to finding your style if that makes sense. and i'm personally not into the edgy dark concept at all i'm either a sappy bitch, a honry bitch or a bubbly bitch (i'll only accept dark and edgy if it's sexy because of the aforementioned reasons) and the lore things i couldn't agree more, what i liked the more about bitubi's and the sepgus perfomances was that what you see is what you get, even with move like yeah you could've found like deeper meaning to it but it was basically a beautiful performance, none of this having to invent reasons in a way for all of it to make sense

and that's what almost 10 years of experience does to you, they knew what they were doing and what their strenghts and weakness were and they knew how to play with them AND without a full team, imagine is all of them would've been there it would've been even more incredible. but yeah i agree with you so much, they truly understand who they are and what they wanna show

#also don't apologize for the long ask i have a blast when i get asks like this!#my answer got really long as well LMAO #cannot believe i'm finally voicing all the opinions that i didn't voice during k*ngdom LMAO #but yeah they should've won no one will change my mind about that #asks #anon

3 notes · View notes

tyranttortoise · 5 years

Note

Dude, what happened to you and your scooter?? Was it a car crash? How are you now? And you said you are not doing well mentally right now, is that a depression? Just.... talk to us. It's not all about UT after all, we're worried about YOU too, you know? If you feel like sharing with us, please do. If you don't feel like opening up - then sure, that's your decision, it's public internet after all. Just know that in whatever case people care for you (even anonymous lurkers like me). XXX

This ask really warmed my heart. (.... And I put a heart here, and it ate everything else I wrote in this paragraph, so lemme try again. ) It really means a lot to me that you’d reach out like this, anon. xx Seriously, thank you for asking about me. I’m happy to share the grisly details of that scooter wreck with you guys!

You guys ready for story time?

This ended up being stupid long, so I’m sticking it all under a cut.

Also, trigger warnings for blood and a picture of a cut at the end.

Okay, so the scooter was one of those Lyft scooters you guys may’ve seen around. It’s basically a taller razor scooter with a motor on it – the kind you stand on, not sit. It’s got a QR code that you scan with the app that activates the scooter, you pay by the minute, and you leave it anywhere on a sidewalk as long as you take a picture to deactivate it.

I’d never seen one before. This was in Atlanta, which is a rather big city, and I saw people riding these scooters everywhere. I even passed a couple that looked almost as old as my parents riding them together with shopping bags on the handles, so I thought, This is perfectly safe.

I was out killing time before a concert (Taking Back Sunday/Red City Radio) by hunting pokemon in pokemon go with Ant, and we saw the parked scooters on the way back to our hotel. We only had a few blocks to go, so we started checking them out, downloaded the app, and gave them a try.

We started off riding them uphill, which is where I went wrong. I didn’t think they had any power; everyone I’d seen had been barely going, after all. So, I turned the accelerator all the way and even had to kick off with my foot like a regular scooter to get it to make it to the top of the hill.

The moment the sidewalk leveled out, however, the scooters shot off. Holy shit, they started to fly! Ant was way ahead of me, and I started calling out about how it was going way too fast, and I squeezed the brake in a panic. The scooter instantly started to wobble, and I put my foot off to catch my balance, but… the scooter was still going, so as soon as my foot touched the sidewalk, I was propelled off my feet and forward toward the sidewalk in prime face-plant position.

I was still holding onto the scooter with both hands, and it happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to let go; I didn’t break my fall, but I did turn my body slightly. (Later, I’d text my boss that I “hit the streets of Atlanta last night… with my face!” He wasn’t amused.) I hit the ground and the scooter kept flying down the sidewalk sideways. Apparently, my side hit first and my ribs took the entire impact from how fast I was going. My knees hit, too, because all of the skin was pretty much gone from them (and I still have huge bruises on both of them right now), my elbow was bloody, and I guess the bottom of my palm got scraped across the sidewalk because it was cut open.

I remember pushing myself up and thinking that my head was throbbing. The first thing I noticed was that my glasses were broken; I could see them lying in front of me, smashed to bits and missing their lenses. “My glasses are broken, damn,” I remember announcing. “And I think I hit my head.”

My forehead was warm, and my vision was clouding in my left eye. “Oh. I’m bleeding. I cut my forehead open,” I narrated while Ant grabbed my shoulders tried to inspect the damage. However, he was too busy panicking to really look, and started crying and apologizing over and over, while I was the calm one.

My glasses had cut my forehead and eyebrow when they broke.

Blood was pouring from my head. I kept having to blink the blood out of my eye and hold my head forward to clear my vision. I put my hands over it, but it kept filling up my palms and spilling down my forearms. “Fuck, this is a lot of blood, but it is a head wound. It’s gonna bleed. Let’s move.”

So, we move toward the buildings, off to the side of the sidewalk, leaving our scooters there. Ant is still freaking out, but he has the peace of mind to deactivate the scooters (though forgets to take a picture of them, so we both end up with $40 bills later that Lyft thankfully refunded really quickly. By the time I realized he didn’t finish deactivating them, I went to the take a picture of the scooter screen and just took a selfie of me all bloody in the ER. We got the money back within half an hour.).

“I need to go to the hospital because this is going to need stitches.” I can’t even see the cut, but if it’s bleeding this much, I know it’s gotta be something I need sewn up. “Do we call an ambulance?”

“Maybe you won’t need stitches. Head wounds bleed, so it might not be that bad. It’s just… too bloody for me to see the cut. Let’s walk back to our hotel, and you can clean up there?”

I snort, gesturing to my arms. At this point, both of my arms are purple with blood. I literally look like I stepped out of a horror movie and got stabbed or something. It looks like I just dipped both arms into a barrel of blood to the elbow and then yanked them out. I’m wearing all black, so you can’t tell that it’s on my clothes as much, but the gray logo on the front of my shirt is dark red. “I’m not walking down the streets like this, much less our hotel. I’d scare people.”

“If we need to go to the hospital, I’ll just drive you there.”

I only said ambulance initially because I wasn’t sure how to walk to a hospital covered in blood, and there’s also no way I’m going to walk through our hotel like this and wait in the underground garage for the valet to get his car.

“No way. We could Uber, but I can’t go in there like this. I need to get cleaned up.”

There’s an Aloft hotel directly across the street, and we both glance over there. “You could use the bathroom in that hotel,” he suggests, and I scoff.

“There’s a lot of people around there… They’d start screaming or call 911 if I walked in. Why don’t you just go grab me some wet and dry paper towels?”

“You’re gonna stay out here by yourself?”

“I’ll hide. Just hurry.”

So, yeah, I’m still actively bleeding all over the place when he runs across the street, but I hide behind a pillar, crouch down so maybe people won’t notice me, and pull out a compact mirror/brush combination (the one that Viv gave me in Alaska, actually!) This is the first time I get a look at myself, and shit, my face is covered in blood, and it’s pretty much turned my blonde hair pink. I decide to try to brush the blood out, which just spreads it around and ends up yanking giant pink tangles out. I try to get a look at the cut, but I can’t see it well past the blood, and every time I let go of it, it just pours out in a rush. So, I start holding my sleeve against it, but that doesn’t help.

Ant comes running back with his pockets stuffed with paper towels just as a random woman peers around my pillar.

“Are you okay?!” she shouts, horrified.

Shit.

I haven’t cleaned myself off, and I let go of my forehead to turn and wave a dismissive hand with the biggest, most manic grin I’ve probably ever had plastered on my face. “I’m fine! I just had a little fall, that’s all!”

She recoils a little, looking even more concerned. “Do you need me to call 911?”

“Oh, no, no, no need for that! I’m going to clean off and then Uber to the hospital, but thank you!”

She looks dubious. “Okay. I just didn’t want to walk away when I saw you.”

“Thank you for your concern, but I’m all right!”

So when she leaves, I proceed to start scrubbing the blood off my arms first, and then the side of my face. There’s no helping my hair; my bangs are sticking straight up, matted into a ball. Ant helps, and then I ball the rest of the dry paper towels up and hold it to my head. I’ve still got some blood here and there on me, but it’s enough that walking down the streets of Atlanta won’t be too bad.

We walk to the end of the block and get an Uber. It shows up fairly quickly, and I slip into the backseat without trying to draw attention to myself. But after about a block, the driver asks if we’re visiting someone at the hospital; obviously, he hasn’t looked at me yet.

“Nah, we had an accident,” Ant nervously answers, and I meet the driver’s gaze through the rear-view mirror.

“Are you… Are you bleeding?!”

“Yeah, but don’t worry. I cleaned up; it won’t be on your backseat.”

At least he has leather seats, but honestly, I don’t think there’s any blood on the back of my pants, and I’m sitting forward so I’m not touching anything else. I’m trying to be considerate but damn, I need this Uber.

The driver is worried about just that, and he keeps glancing back at me. He’s driving faster now, eager to get me out of his car. He runs a red light, and I grip the side handle, muttering curses under my breath.

The hospital wasn’t far, but he still stops a full block from it and tells us to get out, and “Good luck!” before he speeds off. It takes a bit of walking to figure out which part of the massive hospital leads into the ER, and it’s with all of this walking that I realize I’m hurting, and it’s not just my head. My ribs feel like fire. Gingerly I press on them and wince. Shit. They’re either bruised or broken.

I’ll worry about that later; right now, I want my head sewn up so I can leave.

As soon as we entered the ER, there was a security guard sitting by the metal detector. I handed him my purse, but when he noticed there was blood all over it, he just asked me to open it so he can shine his flashlight inside. “What happened, sweetheart? Did you have a fall?” he asked, the picture of concern.

“I fell off one of those scooters,” I replied, and his face automatically changed.

“When will you learn?” he said sternly. “I hope this taught you something.”

… The… fuck?

“I’ve never seen one of those before,” I countered. “I didn’t know.”

He scoffs and waves me through, shaking his head and muttering about the damn scooters. I’m pissed off now, and Ant has to lead me to the counter. Since I don’t have my glasses, everything just looks like blobs until I get close, and the signs might as well not even have writing on them. It’s disorienting, and I hate it.

At the front desk, as soon as I say I fell off a scooter, the women react the same way. “You should’ve known better,�� one of them chides, and I keep repeating that I had no idea it went that fast. I feel like a child.

“You could’ve been hurt,” the other one insists, and I dumbly stare. Why do they think I’m here?

Ant fills out the basic patient information sheet for me and hands it back, while I go into the bathroom to clean up. The door doesn’t lock, so I have to get him to stand outside of it. I try to wash the blood out of my hair, but I’m only mildly successful. I do get to wash the rest of the blood from my arms and face, though, so that’s something. I roll my pants up to assess my knees, and they’re skint up and bloody, but I know from the way I can move them that there’s nothing wrong with them. The cut on my palm burns like hell, but it’s okay, and my elbow is just skint up, too.

After half an hour, a nurse comes and wordlessly tapes some gauze to my forehead without really looking at the cut. Then, I’m called back to the triage area where they take my vitals and ask what happened and what’s hurt. I’m sat’ing 100, so I know that my ribs didn’t puncture a lung or anything, so I decide they’re fine.

About an hour after that, I get called back, and it’s then that I realize I haven’t signed a consent for treatment. I ask the nurse about it, he tells me that I don’t need one signed beforehand for where I’m going.

We end up in the trauma section, and I’m surprised. “I’m a trauma?” He nods. “What, a level three?” Another absent nod as he tries to figure out where to put me. A level three means there’s nothing possibly life-threatening about my injuries, but that I’ve sustained an injury that needs to be seen before a standard patient, basically.

It’s then that I realize just how busy this ER is. There were over 60 normal rooms we passed, and this trauma bay alone has 20 rooms, with four rooms for dire cases. To put it in perspective, I work in an enormous hospital, and our trauma bay only has four rooms.

All 20 rooms must be full because there’s a man with an obviously broken leg on a stretcher just out in the hallway. I get lead around the corner, and then the nurse pulls a chair out and has me sit in the hall.

Over the course of the next two hours, several different people come to see me, and I can’t tell which of them is my nurse or doctor. Mostly, they just peel the gauze away from my face to look at the cut, and when I first asked if it was going to need stitches, I just got laughter as a response.

A nurse was making rounds with a student and stopped in front of me at one point. “This one didn’t have the sense to not get on a scooter,” she told the student, and I shouted back that they don’t have them where I’m from.

“You could’ve been hurt,” the student said, and I’m begin to wonder what their definition of hurt is if I’m sitting in a trauma bay.

“Mmhmm. Bet you won’t do that again,” the nurse chuckles, and then leads her away.

“What the fuck is wrong with this place?” Ant asks, standing beside me; they didn’t offer him a chair, so he’s been awkwardly shifting his weight from foot to foot this entire time.

A doctor comes to examine me in the hall, pressing on my neck and squeezing my arms. I have to roll my skinny jeans up to show him my knees, but he claims if I’ve been walking, they must be fine. He asks if I have any other injuries, and I think about the fact that my ribs hurt whenever I breathe – but I’m tired of this place, pissed off, and I wanna go home. So, I tell him no. Someone comes up and offers me a tetanus shot, but I turn that down, too.

Another hour later, a resident comes to tell me that he’s going to sew up my eyebrow if he can get a room. I don’t need a head CT, but he’s worried I may have ripped the membrane covering my skull, so he said he’s going to feel it before he sews it up, but “Don’t worry, we’ll numb you up so you won’t feel a thing.”

When he finally gets a room, he’s antsy, trying to move quick. We’re in one of the large, critical care bays, one of the rooms where they bring the most serious cases. He’s wearing a walkie-talkie that’s giving trauma reports, which is weird to me because I wear a pager for mine at work.

“I’ve gotta irrigate that wound, but I don’t know how to do it without pouring water all over you.”

“Honestly, if you could get some more of it in my hair, you’d be doing me a favor.”

“I don’t think that’s coming out that easily.”

He put chucks around my neck and has me lean back while he pours sterile water directly into the cut. This was honestly the worst part; I have a pretty solid tolerance for pain, but I found myself squeezing Ant’s arm and trying not to cry.

The resident’s walkie-talkie goes off, reporting a two-car collision, and both of the drivers are coming as level one traumas – which means they’re life-threatening. I’m definitely getting kicked out of this room, and he knows it, too.

“Shit. Okay. Okay, it’s still got a bit before it’ll be here. I can probably still sew you up, so let’s try. But first, we have to check that membrane I mentioned, and ah… I need an attending to double-check me.”

He steps out to grab another doctor, and this one takes one look at me and grins. “You’re going to have one hell of a black eye, girlie.”

“Black eye?” I’m starting to panic. “I can’t have a black eye at work. Are you sure?”

He scoffs. “Absolutely. It’s going to look gnarly. But hey, let’s see if you have a tear.” He holds up the blunt end of a Q-tip, and I recoil a little. I know he’s about to jam that directly into my cut.

“Wasn’t I told I’d be numbed up first?”

“No time with 2 level one’s coming. You knew the risk when you got on the scooter.”

“Why does everyone keep sayin–ahhhh!”

He sticks the blunt end directly into the cut, and then drags it across my freaking skull, up under the skin. It doesn’t hurt as much as the irrigation did, but I still suck in a hiss of air and wince.

“All right, so it didn’t snag, and that means you’re probably good.” He starts explaining it to the resident, while I just mouth fucking hell to Ant.

To make a long story short because this is starting to get out of hand, I get sewn up partway, the trauma comes, so we have to go back into the hall, and the resident breaks sterile procedure without changing gloves, so I ask for that tetanus shot after all. He finishes up my stitches in the hall, although keeps saying that he wants to see the trauma, while I keep insisting he needs to finish what he started. The attending is supposed to review his work, but an hour and a half pass without a sign of the doctor, so the resident comes back to tell me it’s probably fine and slaps some gauze over the stitches. I’m also told it’ll scar, but not to worry because “eyebrow scars are badass.”

“There’s always an eyebrow scar in any character creation mode, so now you can pick that,” Ant helpfully supplies.

Fast forward a bit. I didn’t get any pain killers, but I had some left from where I got a wisdom tooth out the month before. To put it in perspective, when I got that tooth out, I only took a half of one (it wasn’t anything hard because it was one tooth, so don’t worry; it was basically powerful tylenol that makes you drowsy). But the day after the wreck, I took three. My ribs were killing me, breathing hurt, my head was pounding, and bending my legs was agony. Everything hurt, so I called into work for the first time in eight years and just laid on the couch.

I could only get one day off, so I went in after, and desperately tried to cover up my black eye with makeup. I’ll have to post some pictures below or something because I think I actually did a good job. A few days later, I decided to x-ray my ribs because they were getting worse. I thought that at the most, I’d squint at them and wonder if they might be broken, but when the image popped up, my coworkers and I gasped. It was obvious breaks, and both of my floated ribs had the ends broken off completely, just hanging out below them.

You can’t do much for broken ribs. You can get them wrapped if they’re bad enough, and in some extreme cases, some hardware can get put on them, but that’s pretty rare. It’s just something that heals on its own if you take it easy. I knew that, but I still went to my primary doctor a couple of weeks later because they were only getting worse, and I wanted to see if I could get some time approved off work. Plus, I was kinda scared the broken pieces wouldn’t reattach.

Long story short, I got patronized a bit. She repeated the xrays of my ribs after I showed her they were broken, and also ordered an xray of my orbit (which the xray tech didn’t know how to do because that’s not something you typically get at a doctor’s office, so she had me xray myself). When I asked the doctor why she wanted to xray my face – “There’s nothing you can do about a fracture there, right? It just heals on it’s own?” – she replied with, “Yeah, but so do rib fractures, and yet you’re still here, aren’t you?”

Even the xray tech told me, “You know you can’t do anything for broken ribs.” when I was looking over my images. “You just have to take it easy.”

“I can’t,” I blurted, exasperated. My work is mostly physical; I lift patients and push machines around all day, and it hurt like hell.

The doctor asked me if I looked at the xrays, and if I thought I saw a fracture. “You tell me?” I asked, and she shrugged.

“Oh, I can’t read xrays. You see more of them than me, so I figured you’d be able to tell. But I mean, it looks like your sixth rib is really broken bad.”

“Sixth?” The middle one? It’d been hurting like hell, and I had a suspicion that it was broken. “You could see it, too?”

“Oh yeah, that piece was way off.”

“Piece? You mean the very bottom one?” She nods. “The… 12th rib?”

“Yeah, 6th, 12th, however many ribs you got in there.”

She was supposed to get the xrays read by a radiologist, but she never got back to me, so I just got one at work to check it out. Which is probably what I should’ve done in the first place. She couldn’t get me time off work, and she suggested I take ibuprofen for the pain, even though the last time I saw her, she told me not to take that anymore because I have a stomach ulcer. When I reminded her of that, she shrugged and said, “What would you rather have? Nausea or pain?”

…. I don’t think I’ll be seeing her again.

ANYWAY, I ended up tanking all of my vacation days to scrounge almost two weeks off work after a particularly busy day there made it get so bad that I physically couldn’t get out of bed, and that got me healed up for the most part. And by then, some friends flew in to stay with me for a while, so they just let me be lazy and heal, and it really helped. I had a black eye for a month straight, but it finally went away, and now the only lasting damage I have is a scar above my eyebrow, and still a good deal of pain in it. Like just brushing my fingertips over it still hurts, so I think it’s still a bit broken; it’s bigger than my other eyebrow, and it’s kinda got a knot if you feel over it. But all the other bones are healed now, so that’s pretty good.

I guess the people in the ER were right, though. I did learn my lesson, and I’m staying the hell away from scooters now.

For those of you outside of the US wondering about our healthcare system, this entire ordeal cost me about $600.

$200 for the new glasses because insurance wouldn’t cover a new pair until Feb, and I needed them right then.

$300 for the ER visit

& another $100 for the doctors group that saw me in the ER. I have the best insurance I can possibly get in my state, too, so this was just as cheap as it gets. It sucked, but lesson learned!

Here’s some pictures just to add to the story:

This was me right after I got the cut irrigated. You can still see some of the pink in my hair.

Here’s the next day, before the black eye had really set in. The cut’s been sewn up:

Here’s literally the day after that – and pretty much every day for two weeks, before it started to fade.

And here’s how I covered it up with makeup to go to work. I got good at it!

The glasses helped to hide the swelling, really.

Annnnd that’s the scooter tale. 8D

107 notes · View notes