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Morning comes grey and slow over Pittsburgh.
The city looks washed out after a long night of rain. Puddles sit in the seams of cracked pavement, reflecting traffic lights and the dull glow of storefront signs that never bothered to shut off. Commuters move through it half-awake, coffee cups in hand, the city already pulling itself back into motion.
Inside the Pitt, the night shift is limping toward the finish line.
The emergency department feels different at this hour. Not quiet —don’t ever say quiet— but softer. The chaos of midnight traumas has faded into the slower churn of morning admissions and the early stirrings of the day shift arriving.
When they arrive at PTMC, shuffling off the bus with all the other hospital commuters, Trinity makes Dennis take the lead.
“Stay in front of me,” she mutters. “Nobody needs to see me hobble inside.”
“They’re going to see you inside, Trinity, still hobbling,” he reasons.
She flicks him on the back of his ear and he jerks to the side. “Okay, ow!” He glares over his shoulder, though she’s unrepentant. He doubles down. “I’m not wrong. And I have to get to the MICU anyways.”
Trinity puffs out her cheeks before blowing a raspberry. “Fuck it. Fine. Maybe nobody will notice.”
Of course, somebody notices.
“Santos!” Dana shouts her way as Trinity shoves her stuff into her locker. “What the hell did you do to your leg?”
“Just an old injury bothering me,” she answers, approaching the hub with a limp. It’s not technically a lie; two days ago can be old. And she heals fast anyways.
The charge nurse stares her down in that way that clearly says she isn’t buying the shit Santos is selling. Trinity just stares back, leaning against the station counter to ease some of the weight off her bad leg. Finally, Dana sighs. It’s heavy and exasperated and a little bit resigned because all of her doctors are idiots.
“Well don’t push yourself,” she relents. “Otherwise I’m sticking you on chairs and you can keep your ass on a stool all day instead of helpin’ with traumas.”
Trinity nods, offering a cheeky salute. “Heard, Dana.”
Dana just shakes her head, turning back towards whatever paperwork she’s already swamped in, muttering about dumbass stubborn doctors under her breath.
Robby strolls up to the hub, catching the tail end of Dana’s grumbles. His eyebrows lift to his forehead and he holds a little tighter to his thermos of coffee. “Oookay,” he starts, eyes honing in on Santos. “What’d you do to piss her off already?”
“Nothing,” she says innocently. “I haven’t done anything. I’m just over here… looking at the board.” Her eyes flick upwards to the patient board overhead, which seems oddly manageable for handoff.
“Rounds in ten, then,” he tells her, tapping the bottom of his thermos once on the counter like a magistrate with a gavel passing judgment.
Trinity paws at her face, already feeling a particular dread settling in the pit of her stomach. “Day’s just starting,” she whispers to herself. “Plenty of time to not be a shit show.”
It’s also plenty of time to devolve into one.
First, it’s the persistent chatter about Spider-Woman’s visit to the ED.
“I’m telling you! She just walked in!”
“No way!”
“Ask Abbott. He was there.”
“Abbott won’t confirm or deny.”
“There’s pics on Facebook.”
“—blurry but it’s definitely our ED.”
“… she saved that kid. Oliver-Something.”
“Heard she carried him—”
Her favorite, though?
“Can you imagine? Spider-Woman just strolling into our ED like she works here.”
She texts Huckleberry, ‘Why couldn’t that spider bite have just killed me instead?’
He writes back almost immediately, ‘It knew Pittsburgh needed a superhero.’
‘I’m a superpowered freak running around in a homemade costume.’
‘It’s a very nice costume.’
She sighs. ‘Yes it is. Thank you, Huckleberry. The repair job was good, too. Can’t even tell you had to cut it.’
He sends back the grinning emoji with big eyes.
Second, her leg is actually slowing her down.
She prides herself on having a high pain tolerance; she needs it to survive grappling with Pittsburgh’s finest on a near-nightly basis. But the stitches pull and the muscle aches and it isn’t the sharp pains that she can push through with focus and adrenaline. Instead, it’s that dull and persistent reminder that her body isn’t quite whole at the moment, the stiffness in her leg when she stands too long, or the twinge when she moves after sitting for any extended amount of time.
It’s fucking irritating is what it is.
She’s always a hair too slow to jump on the interesting traumas coming through the doors. Mohan or McKay hop on before she can get there, Javadi and whatever other medical student of the shift trailing behind them like lost ducklings. Even Mel beats her to the crush injury re-routed from Presby because the guy wanted to go where Spidey goes.
She can’t even take advantage of her own fucking cameo at her place of work.
Santos gives up trying to see any real exciting action today. All her attention goes to clearing as many patients on the board as she can, in spite of her stupid fucking injury and her pathetic hobbling around the Pitt. She reasons that she gets her fair share at night, on the streets, even if it isn’t the same as getting to perform an intubation or a fasciotomy or a chest tube under the gaze of Yolanda Garcia.
But third and most concerningly, Garcia has been watching her like a hawk all damn day long.
Watching her take the stairs like a normal person instead of two at a time.
(They were just going up one floor to grab marginally better coffee from the place near the main lobby. Trinity had started up the stairs first, and Garcia was right behind her. Expecting a different rhythm, a different speed, quick and efficient. She had to stop herself before she stepped right into the other woman.)
Clocking that she needs Garcia to walk a fraction slower today in order to keep pace.
(Returning from said coffee run, taking the long way to buy themselves a little time and reprieve; Trinity was always playing catch-up to Garcia’s long strides, but she never quickened her pace and Garcia had to will herself to walk slowly.)
Observes her not immediately stepping in when a student doctor fumbles an abscess incision and drainage.
(A case Trinity pulled from the board— abscess on the upper left thigh, angry and swollen with the skin stretched tight and shiny. A case that needed a decisive hand, not just Dr. Santos snark telling the student to commit, that it’s an abscess not a paper cut. A case where Santos would have stepped in instead of just... watched.)
She’s fucked.
“How you doing, kiddo?” Dana asks, interrupting her thought spiral before it can even begin. “You look like you could use a break and not just one of those trips to get coffee with Dr. Garcia.”
“I’m fine. Thanks, Dana,” she says, leaning heavily on the north nurses’ station.
Of course, she doesn’t just let it go. Doesn’t let Trinity hide like nothing’s wrong. “Come sit with me. Keep me company. You can do your charts over there.”
There’s no arguing, so Santos just rolls her eyes and pulls a face. “Fine,” she mutters.
Dana just grins at her and waits for her to start moving one foot after the other. She wraps an arm around Trinity’s shoulders, and maybe she encourages the intern to lean on her a little as they walk. It helps.
Dr. Garcia is walking out of Trauma Two as they approach the main desk, an eyebrow raised at how Trinity is tucked into Dana’s side. She’s seen this a hundred times; patients trying to pass as fine, compensating and overdoing it all at once. Some are more obvious than others.
Trinity isn’t obvious. Not unless you’re a person who knows her, who cares about her well-being, who knows her tendency to run herself into the ground and still keep going.
It’s no surprise that Dana spotted it, too. She looks after their own and has been infinitely more protective since her own assault at the beginning of September. It brings Garcia some semblance of comfort knowing that Trinity has somebody else looking out for her, especially since Whitaker is off his ED rotation.
Still, she sees the hitch in the way Trinity moves. Has seen it all day. Listened to it in the rhythm of her steps as they walked to get coffee and back.
She knows the kind of injury that sits where Trinity is guarding, where her hand drifts, just briefly, to her thigh. She knows where she’s seen it recently— who she treated.
Garcia thinks of all the other observations she’s collected in the short time she’s known Trinity Santos. The way she always positions herself with a line of sight to the exits. How she notices everything, every little detail and nuance. When she steps into situations to de-escalate like she’s already done it a dozen times before.
It’s a different kind of hypervigilance.
Before Dana can deposit her into a chair at the hub, she catches Santos’ gaze and lifts her chin. “Hey,” Garcia says, already moving. “Walk with me.”
She leads her towards Central 9, not offering support the way Dana had but adjusting anyway. Shortening her stride, slowing just enough that Trinity doesn’t have to chase her pace.
That, more than anything, confirms it.
Once inside, she ensures both doors are closed and draws the privacy curtain. Garcia closes her eyes for a moment, dragging in a slow, steady breath.
“Please tell me,” she starts, voice tight. “I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing.”
“The inside of your eyelids?” Trinity quips.
Garcia’s eyes snap open. “Don’t do that,” she snaps, sharper than a scalpel. “Don’t joke. Don’t deflect.”
Trinity stills, doesn’t say anything.
“You’ve been guarding your right side.” Garcia steps closer. “Your gait is off. You’re compensating through your hips. You let an MS3 run that I&D. You—”
Her voice falters. She cuts herself off, breath catching slightly.
“Trinity.”
Trinity’s face falls, just enough to be noticeable to her. “Yolanda…”
“Show me,” she asks, already reaching. Her fingers hook into the waistband of Trinity’s scrubs before she can think better of it.
Trinity reacts immediately. Her hands snap down, catching Garcia’s wrists mid-motion. Firm. Unyielding. Warm.
Garcia stills, and for a moment, they’re just there, breathing, hands on wrists.
Trinity’s mouth tilts, just slightly, something almost amused flickering through despite everything. “Thought we agreed,” she murmurs, low. “Not at work.”
It lands somewhere between a joke and something else entirely. Garcia doesn’t laugh, doesn’t pull away. Her pulse is loud in her ears, her grip tightening instinctively even as Trinity holds her in place.
“Trinity,” she says again, and this time it’s different— something softer, frightened, pleading. “Please.”
It’s quiet. Not a demand. Just a plea.
Trinity’s throat bobs as she swallows. She looks up, counts the ceiling tiles, closes her eyes. A beat passes and then another. Trinity loosens her grip, lets go, releasing her wrists.
Garcia doesn’t hesitate, but she moves slower now. Gives Trinity the chance to stop her again, but she doesn’t. Just opens her eyes and watches as Garcia tugs down just enough.
They’ve been in this position before.
They’ve never been in this position before.
Her eyes catch on Trinity’s left thigh first, the skin marred by pale horizontal lines, layered in a way that makes Garcia’s chest tighten without permission. They’re old scars, long since healed.
Still, she traces them with the pad of her thumb, careful and reverent, even as she fights back the flare of anger and grief fueled by something protective and sharp. She looks up into those beautiful green eyes, the ones that said they were ‘just casual’ the week before.
Neither of them say anything.
Garcia’s gaze moves to Trinity’s right thigh, and there it is. The six centimeter laceration, edges pulled together with neat, even stitches. Healing faster than it should but still fresh and angry.
She stares at her own work, and whispers, barely audible except for Trinity’s own super hearing. “Those are mine.”
The words hang there, heavy and undeniable.
Slowly, she tugs the waistband until the scrubs are slung low on Trinity’s hips. Garcia’s eyes raise to meet hers.
“You’re Spider-Woman,” she murmurs. When Trinity just shrugs, she says it again. “You’re Spider-Woman.”
“Apparently.”
Garcia steps back and drags a hand down her face. “You swung a trauma patient into our ED.”
“Seemed efficient,” she responds, words flippant but her tone flat.
“Do you have any idea how insane that is?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re just— what— doing this every night? Every day you don’t have a shift?”
Trinity shrugs again, taking her own step back and folding her arms around her torso. “Not everyday.”
Garcia’s voice is low, frustration beginning to affect her volume and her tone, when she smarts, “That’s not better!”
Trinity hugs herself tighter, looking anywhere but at Garcia, who just stares at her for a long moment. Something shifts in her expression. Her eyes narrow slightly.
“... oh."
Trinity freezes and her eyes flicker back to the surgeon.
Garcia points a finger at her. "That's why you leave."
Trinity's stomach sinks.
Garcia's voice sharpens. "That's why you never stay."
Trinity looks away.
Garcia's laugh this time is bitter. "Wow."
Quietly, Trinity murmurs, “It’s not like that.”
Garcia turns and paces the length of the room in four steps. “Really?” she says when she turns back around.
“Yes.”
“Because from my perspective it looks exactly like that.”
Trinity sighs, looking away again.
Garcia gestures vaguely. “All those nights. ‘Early shift’. ‘Huckleberry needs me at home’. ‘Busy tomorrow’.”
Trinity winces.
Garcia shakes her head slowly. “You were out fighting crime.”
“… yes.”
Garcia presses her lips together. For a moment the room goes very quiet. Then, softer, Garcia whispers, “You could get killed.”
Trinity shrugs and Garcia’s frustration flashes even hotter than before. Her voice rises. “That’s not a response!”
Trinity finally meets her eyes. “People are getting hurt.”
“So that means you have to be the one who stops it?”
“Somebody should.”
Garcia’s jaw tightens. “You’re an EM resident.”
“Exactly.”
Garcia stares at her like she’s speaking another language. “That’s already enough!”
Trinity doesn’t argue.
Garcia paces again. “I mean Jesus, Trinity, you’re swinging around Pittsburgh in a homemade superhero suit.”
“Huckleberry made the suit.”
Garcia stops. “… Whitaker made the suit?”
Trinity nods.
Garcia groans. “Of course Whitaker made the suit.” She rubs her temples. When she looks back up, her voice is quieter. “You saved all those people.”
Trinity shifts on her feet and says nothing again.
Garcia exhales slowly. “I’m not telling anyone.”
Trinity blinks. “You’re not?”
Garcia snorts. “What’s there to tell? That my casual hookup is secretly Spider-Woman?”
Trinity winces. Garcia notices but doesn’t comment, only says quietly, “Just… try not to die.”
Trinity nods.
Garcia opens the door. “You should go home,” she says. “You look like hell.”