The stapling was done and the bandages were on. Matt could feel them crinkle with his skin as he moved against the metal table. It really wasn’t comfortable at all, but he was fairly certain that he could sleep just about anywhere and in anything at that point. His body wanted to sleep off the injuries and pain and possibility of infection, and he just wouldn’t let it. Not yet.

He sat up, using his free hand to prop himself up. The other one was still holding Svetlana’s for the time being, and it just didn’t feel right to let go of it yet. Maybe he just wasn’t ready.

Juliette was busy peeling off her latex gloves and making sure that she didn’t have blood anywhere, but it looked like they were finished. After all that, it was just done. His mind screamed at the idea of a break.

If course, though, he couldn’t go home. It was, well, shot up and probably sectioned off as a crime scene by now. Walking back there would be walking right back into the lion’s den. He had no doubt in his mind that there would be something nasty if they tried, even if it was just some sort of penalty for leaving the scene too soon.

The sanctuary was safe for now. That much was clear. Not perfect, but safe. Matt nodded at Svetlana’s comment, though he wasn’t entirely sold. ”Are they going to take an adapted if this place is full of mutants?” It seemed like that might cause a problem or two.

Juliette had looked up at that with a frown. ”I can probably work out a room down the end of the hall. Or you could even sleep in here. Either way, you’re going to need to keep that I.V. in for a while and you’re not in any shape to travel. I’ll go speak with Lisa.” The brunette then turned and walked back up the stairs.

Matt nodded slowly. The bags under his eyes felt heavy. ”Fine, but you don’t play a hero,” he told Svetlana. ”We both need to be somewhere safe tonight.”

The work was done, for now. Matt was stapled and bandaged. He still needed the IV, and he needed a place to rest. Sveta wanted to make sure that he would get all the care he needed. He was beginning to get up, but he still held her hand.

>>”Are they going to take an adapted if this place is full of mutants?”

>>”I can probably work out a room down the end of the hall. Or you could even sleep in here. Either way, you’re going to need to keep that I.V. in for a while and you’re not in any shape to travel. I’ll go speak with Lisa.”

Juliette left to figure out the room situation. Matt looked like he was about to pass out, but he stubbornly refused to do so. Sveta moved over to steady him as he sat up.

>>”Fine, but you don’t play a hero. We both need to be somewhere safe tonight.”

"Hero is not really my gig" Sveta smirked, shaking her head. Right now, she felt pretty damn far from a hero. She paused for a bit. They needed Juliette to come back and let them know where Matt could sleep. So, there was not much to do. "I'm sorry about all this. SUPER tends to f*** things up a lot." And she did too.

“They certainly seem handsier than they need to be,” Matt agreed with a hard sigh, unable to keep his hand from travelling down to the new hole in his body. His fingers wanted to tug at the corners of the bandage, but he stopped them as soon as it started. He didn’t need to prolong the healing process if he didn’t need to. Already, he wasn’t sure when he would be able to jump back into work.

He was mostly worried about whether or not Svetlana would be staying there for the night or not. She had sounded like she had plans to get moving as soon as he was out of the way, which was very much not alright. In Matt’s opinion, she needed just as much protection as he did, even if she could hold her own against a bunch of newbie agents. She needed to make sure that she wasn’t going to walk right into the arms of a better trained squad of them.

Juliette returned a second later, pushing a wheelchair with a t-shirt on the seat. That was probably to replace the one that she had cut off of him to begin with. It was just a plain black one, probably used for people who walked in there without proper clothes.

“You can’t be serious,” Matt said once he saw the wheelchair, sliding over to the edge of the bed to take a look at it. “I walked in here, didn’t I? I’ll be fine.”

“I’m not stitching you up again tonight, so you’re going to sit in this wheelchair and not complain about it.” Juliette did not look like she was there to take s***. Matt nodded with a sigh, and allowed her to remove the I.V. for a second so he could slide the t-shirt on. Once the needle was back in place, he stood up, rolled the I.V. around the bed, and sat down in the wheelchair. It felt like he was about to be rolled to his deathbed or something.

“There’s a room on the third floor that’s on the edge and doesn’t have neighbours at the moment,” Juliette explained, turning to them both. “You can sleep there tonight. Do you…” she trailed off, looking at Svetlana specifically. “I’m sorry, I don’t really know how you want to do this. Do you want a separate room?”

The conversation halted again. There was really not much Sveta could do to make the whole thing go away, and apologizing profusely was not really something she wanted to do. So they waited, still holding hands (now she was aware of it) until Juliette returned with a wheelchair.

>>"You can’t be serious. I walked in here, didn’t I? I’ll be fine.”

>>“I’m not stitching you up again tonight, so you’re going to sit in this wheelchair and not complain about it.”

For once, Juliette and Sveta were on the same page. Sveta let go of Matt's hand, letting him put on the shirt that was provided. His pants were covered in blood too, but they could worry about that later. For now, he sat in the chair, with the IV in his arm. She doubted he would stay put for long, but as long as they could take him to a room, she knew he would pass out fast enough.

>>“There’s a room on the third floor that’s on the edge and doesn’t have neighbours at the moment. You can sleep there tonight. Do you… I’m sorry, I don’t really know how you want to do this. Do you want a separate room?”

Good question. Sveta blinked, since she had not really considered the rest of the night; she just wanted Matt to be stitched up first. But now that he was not in immediate mortal danger anymore, she needed to figure out what came next. He needed rest, and she needed

"I'll keep an eye on him" she decided, taking the chair over from Juliette. She paused and nodded to the other woman. "Thank you. I really appreciate the help."

It was lucky there was a room that had no mutant neighbors. At least for the night, they would be safe, and everyone else would be safe from both of them too. Sveta turned the wheelchair around and pushed Matt out into the hallway. She doubted she would get any sleep all night, but at least she could keep an eye on him.

Matt wasn’t exactly happy about having to sit in a wheelchair and be pushed along with the I.V., but he understood that it likely needed to happen. Getting shot had not been fun, and he didn’t really want to go through the stitching process a second time. As demeaning as it might be, he was set on keeping the injured part of himself in tact. He did exactly as Juliette said and sat quietly in the wheelchair, holding the I.V. next to him.

The question of where Svetlana would be sleeping was something that he wondered about as well. He wasn’t at all bothered by the idea of having her near him for the evening, and in fact he preferred it, but he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable if she wasn’t okay with that. However, she claimed that she would be keeping an eye on him tonight. Matt rolled his eyes slightly, but he knew the point was probably a valid one. He wasn’t exactly in great shape.

“Thank you. Really,” Matt said to the woman, despite his unwillingness to completely submit to her requests. She nodded and then left the room, likely to do some paperwork or something. It was finished. No more of… whatever that had been.

They were still both covered in blood, but there was not much to do about that. At least he had gotten a new shirt, but they probably still looked as though they had stepped out of Carrie. Not exactly a great look to have when walking through the halls of… wherever they were.

“You don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to,” he said to Svetlana once they were in the hallway, headed in the direction of the room that they had been given. “I mean, I wanna know you’re safe, but you don’t have to stay for my sake. I’m sure I’ll be alright.”

Sveta wheeled Matt down the hallway, making sure to look around so that they did not accidentally run into anyone. There were not many people at the Sanctuary, as far as she could tell, but it was better safe than sorry, with Matt's aura. Also, being seen covered in blood probably would have invited too many questions and rumors, and she did not want to deal with any of that right now.

>>"You don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to. I mean, I wanna know you’re safe, but you don’t have to stay for my sake. I’m sure I’ll be alright.”

"I'm sure you will be too" Sveta smirked "But I also want to know you are safe. You have staples and everything, and dis is not exactly a hospital. So, I'll stay."

She finally found the room, away from everything. She opened the door and pushed the wheelchair inside. It was a small room; only a bed, a closet, a table and a chair, and an armchair in the corner. In another corner, there was a sink and a mirror. Sveta surveyed the place with her hands on her hips.

"Good enough for tonight." she decided with a sigh "I'll go see if I can find some spare clothes and an extra blanket. A place like this should have those, right?... Do you need help getting in the bed?"

As much as Matt may have wanted to keep saying that he would be fine and that she didn’t need to make sure that he was alright, he knew that she was probably right. It wasn’t often that one got shot, and he didn’t know what it would be like to actually deal with the aftermath. Besides, the wheelchair didn’t have wheels that could be pushed by the dependent. He actually had to have someone push him down the hallway. It was a wonderful way to make him feel even less.

He was glad to know that Svetlana would be sticking around, though. They made it to the room, and Matt took the opportunity to stand up out of the wheelchair. The nurse was long gone and he could do as he wanted, meaning that the wheelchair was gone. He stood up and used the I.V. trolley to help him move across the room. It was hard not to feel like a decrepit old man.

“Spare clothes are good,” Matt said with a nod. He still had his jacket, which hadn’t been involved in the fight, and he had the new shirt, but his pants and the rest of his body had a bit of a coating. It had dried and caked on the skin of his hands. Svetlana was even worse, too; there was hardly a part of her that wasn’t bloodied in some way or another. He knew that part of it was from him, but most of it was likely from the fight. As far as he knew, none of it was actually hers.

He glanced at the bed and took a seat on it. With a smirk, he turned back to her. “I’ll be fine,” he impressed for what felt like the upteenth time. He was injured, not an invalid, and he would be damned if he let her fight his battles and carry his injured a** over the finish line. It was nice to have her there for support, but he didn’t plan on letting her do much more.

Matt leaned down a little to pull of his shoes, wincing at the strain. It was easier in the end just to kick them off, which was what he ended up doing. Once they were off, he was able to lie back in the bed a little. It was a lumpy, rockhard mess, but it felt incredible.

Matt got out of the chair the moment they were in the room, and managed to make it all the way to the bed. He definitely needed the rest.

>>“I’ll be fine,”

Sveta sighed, and left the room to find some spare clothes. She checked a few of the empty rooms and closets, making sure that she did not run into anyone with her gloves off. Luckily, the Sanctuary was at least prepared for visitors like them; she made a mental note to talk to Hadden about it, and keep it that way. Probably make it better. Of course they could not run a full hospital, but at least they would have clean clothes and a blanket tonight.

Sveta returned to the room with a pile of things in her arms.

"No pants, but I found scrubs." she announced, dropping the extra blanket into the armchair "And shirts, and stuff. And some towels." It would help getting most of the blood off, she hoped. She turned the tap on, getting some warm water to clean off her face. "I'd offer to help get your pants off, but I feel like you'd like to keep a bit of your dignity..."

Svetlana left the room for what felt like a very short second. It was probably longer than he was thinking, considering how much she was carrying when she came back, but it felt like he had blinked and she was back. Maybe that wasn’t the worst thing in the world, though. It wasn’t the worst thing to feel so relaxed that time moved faster.

Maybe he was just out of it, though. His head swam a little as he sat back up to take a peek at the various items that she’d brought back with her. There were no real pants, just scrubs. That was probably for the best, anyway - they didn’t need to worry about them fitting improperly. He picked up a pair and held them up for size, deeming that they would probably be alright. It wasn’t as if he could just keep up with the pants he had on, anyway, even if he was getting used to the constant smell of blood that they both carried on them.

"I'd offer to help get your pants off, but I feel like you'd like to keep a bit of your dignity..."

Matt glanced up, a little horrified at the notion. Did he honestly look that awful? He’d made it to the bed, hadn’t he? “I appreciate that…” he said, shaking his head at the idea. He was busy making mental notes to never let himself get shot again. There was no way that he was going to go through this a second time. “Thanks for this, though.”

There was a very high chance that he would’ve died without her, he realized. If it hadn’t just been the agents killing him, then he would’ve bled out on the floor alone. For a man who had gotten very used to going through the twists and turns of life alone, that was a hard realization. He needed another person, and he was leaning on the one person that he actually cared about the opinion of. It was entirely likely that whatever credit he’d gotten back from the first night they’d met, he had just lost again. She’d very nearly offered to help him take off his pants.

And, yes, it did hurt to undo his belt and attempt to change into the scrubs, but he made it work. Svetlana was cleaning off her face, and he didn’t have the energy to care about the fact that he would be strippping down to his boxers in the same room as her, so he simply went for it. Sitting on the bed for most of it helped a lot, since his limbs had almost given up on cooperating with him. It felt like he’d been awake for days, which was likely due to the blood loss and the taser. He hadn’t exactly been kind to his body in the past few hours. Once he was changed, he sat back down with a sigh. Now it was just a matter of getting the dried blood off of his skin. He had half a mind to just leave it until the morning.

Sveta scrubbed the blood off her arms and face before she peeled off her shirt. Her bra was mostly intact, which was good, but she did need to continue cleaning blood off everywhere. In the meantime, Matt did his darned best to struggle out of his pants, and into other pants. She left him to his privacy. The poor guy's dignity had been through a lot in the past few hours. She did keep an eye out, though, just in case he got wobbly.

He got pants on, and she was mostly blood-free from the waist up. Picking up a fresh towel, she soaked it in warm water, squeezed it, and then walked over to hand it to Matt. It was not the same thing as a shower, but at least he could clean his hands and arms. She was beyond caring whether he saw her in her bra or not. Not like any of this was going anywhere anymore anyway. "There you go. I think this is as much as we can do tonight. And you deserve some rest..."

There was some sort of understanding that the day had been so strange that all bets were off. He tried his best to avert his eyes as she peeled off her blood-soaked shirt. He was half-expecting her to simply get changed into something else, but instead she walked over and handed him a wet rag.

Matt took it from her with a simple thanks, making sure his eyes didn’t land anywhere for too long. They were past that point, anyway, and he would have to be an idiot to think that anything was going to happen between them after everything. It was incredibly unlikely that she would see him as anything other than what he was in that moment ever again, which was really too bad. She had been with him at all his worst points in the past year.

The rag did its job of wiping off the blood for the most part. It wasn’t perfect, but it got the worst of it off. There was dried stuff in the cracks and crevices of his skin that likely wouldn’t come off without a shower, but it was better than it had been before. He no longer looked like he’d stepped off the set of a horror film. He didn’t really feel like searching the rest of himself for more blood spots, so he gave up after just getting his arms and face. With that, he handed the rag back to her, since he couldn’t walk it back himself.

“It’s better than nothing,” he said in agreement, looking at his hands. That was as good as they were going to get for the time being, which was just fine. Every part of him was just begging for sleep. He laid back on the bed, careful not to nudge the I.V. or lie funny on his bandages. Once he was sort of comfortable, he glanced back at Svetlana, making sure that she was still alright. There was definitely room on the bed for both of them, but he wasn’t going to press the matter.

Matt cleaned himself as much as he could, and finally lay down. Sveta, once she was done cleaning herself, put on an overly large t-shirt and some scrubs, twisting around until she managed to whip her bra out from under the shirt (even at this point she had her limits). Taking the spare blanket, she curled into the armchair, and got as comfortable as she could. She knew that she was not really going to get any sleep tonight.

Matt, on his part, passed out eventually. He'd been through a lot, and Juliette had given him stuff for the pain too. Sveta watched him breathe as he slept; he looked worn out, but also somehow peaceful. She briefly considered taking the free side of the bed that he had thoughtfully left open as an unspoken invitation, but decided against it.

During the night, she had plenty of time to think. Mostly about unpleasant things. Of course. How could she f*** up so completely with all of this? Meet a guy at a bar, start up a conversation, and then immediately proceed to wreck his world by telling him he's an adapted. Strike one. Go and drink with the guy and tell him way too much and find out all his dark secrets, breaking down all possibilities of flirting and going straight to some strange form of comradeship. Strike two. Become friends, hang out, learn to love his music... and then proceed to tell him about the power boosting, and how adapteds are very attractive for their powers. Fatal blow, right there. And if that had not been enough to kill any chance she had with Matt, she had to go on hanging out with him, until they both got hit by SUPER. And he got tased, and shot, and spirited away to a mutant Sanctuary.

Sveta left the Sanctuary before dawn, stopping to leave a message to Juliette, updating her. Matt was still asleep, and he looked okay. She left another note, for him, in the room, in a place where he would find it.

Matt,
Went back to work. We'll get your apt. cleared. It was selfish to drag you into all this, I should have known better. I'm sorry.
Get yourself checked out at a real hospital. I don't think SUPER will go after you again.
Take care,
Sveta