Statistically, anesthesia awareness is believed to affect 0.2 to 0.4 percent of patients undergoing surgery. It occurs when the patient has been given too little general anesthesia to keep them fully unconscious during the procedure. For the majority of patients in this condition, there is no pain. Approximately one third, however, do report feeling some level of distress ranging from mild discomfort to agony. If no muscle relaxant has been used, the patient is able to move, which alerts the operating staff, who can then administer more anesthetic.
The muscle relaxant was the only reason that Matt wasn't screaming right now. He couldn't make a sound or move a fraction of an inch. All he had were his thoughts and he needed to marshal them, channel them away from his current situation or he was seriously going to lose it and nobody would even realize it. That much, at least, was familiar. Very much like...
...Another time, another hospital, a different pain...
Hard to think of anything except the agony, the terror... It's dark. Too dark and loud and smelly. Why is everyone shouting? How are they even breathing through the stomach-wrenching odors of medications and sweat and he doesn't even want to know what else. He has to think of something different before he loses it and so, he tries to remember how he got here.
(Why is it so dark, anyway? The sun was shining just a little while ago and it can't be night yet...)
He was past the schoolyard, walking down the street as quickly as he could, trying to put some distance between himself and the usual crowd of bullies, Nate Hackett's taunts still ringing in his ears.
"Daredevil, scared-devil, wears girl's underwear-devil!"
He won't give them the satisfaction of seeing him run, but he has no desire to stick around and keeps to a brisk trot, feet hitting the pavement, because he can't hit Nate and his gang. Can't. Won't. Same difference. He promised Dad. He promised... Wait...
Wait, why isn't that truck slowing down? It's going to hit the old man!
He remembers the truck, the man, the running leap that almost feels like flying as he springs into action, shoving the pedestrian out of the way. He lands wrong, his ankle buckling under him as he falls to the road, only a few feet in front of the truck. Horns honk and brakes squeal as the other vehicles halt. The truck driver has finally stopped daydreaming but, like the helmsman on the Titanic trying desperately to avoid the iceberg, he turns too late. A single canister dislodges from the truck bed, falling toward Matt and there's no time to avoid it. The canister bounces once and its lid comes off. It bounces once more. And then, the yellow goop is upon him, splashing his face, his eyes, he's on fire. He's burning up. Instinctively, he tries to wipe away the stuff with his arm, but he can't understand why even though he gets a lot of it off, all he can see is a haze of yellow that slowly fades, leaving him in the dark. The traffic has stopped and he can hear voices, people who have run into the street to help. Where were they a minute ago?
"Bravest thing I ever saw! But his face...his eyes..."
"That thing that fell from the truck, is it... radioactive?"
(It is.)
"Look at his face!"
What's wrong with his face? What's wrong with his eyes? Why does it hurt so much? And why is everyone shouting?
He finds his voice, finally, and starts to scream. It feels like his blood is burning, his heart is trying to burst from his chest, everything hurts and he doesn't know where he is. But it smells like chemicals and whatever he's lying on feels like sandpaper and they're cutting into his face and it hurts, it hurts so bad and...
...And he wasn't fifteen anymore. He'd learned a lot since then: how to manage his heightened senses, how to control his pain. He'd had to. He couldn't move, but he could still think... and breathe... and focus. He pulled his awareness inward. Focus. Find the center. Find your core. Slowly push your consciousness out, let it expand. Take in your surroundings...
He was lying down on something more comfortable than asphalt as people surrounded him once more. They talked of medications, vital stats, instruments. They moved quickly and spoke in confident tones. They knew what they were about. Nobody was panicking, so whatever it was that they were doing to him seemed to be proceeding smoothly. And it didn't really hurt that badly now that he had a better idea of what was going on. Nothing like... before. Before... when he lost. When Kingpin beat him. Nothing like that explosion of pain, the wet snap in his chest and the fire of cracked ribs. His chest still hurt somewhat now, and not just because that seemed to be where the... doctors? Yes, he'd call them that for now. ...Where the doctors were concentrating their efforts. They'd cut him there earlier, he realized; he could feel the incision site.
As his calm deepened, he began to make more sense of the conversations. Now he heard terms he recognized: flail chest; punctured lung. He couldn't focus enough to be sure whether they were describing what was wrong with him or what could have happened or what might yet develop and he fought another swelling tide of apprehension. The doctors weren't panicking, he reminded himself. They might not even be talking about him, right now. It could be that they were discussing a similar case when the patient had been in worse shape. Maybe. Steady voices, steady hands... it sounded as though they had things under control. And while he still didn't know where he was, he recognized that it was probably some kind of medical facility. And these people were trying to help. He should probably let them. (Not that he was sure he could stop them in his condition, but it was easier to stay calm if he let himself believe he could.) He could deal with the discomfort while he tried to get his bearings, figure out where he might be from the sounds and smells outside this room... He just had to expand his awareness and allow his senses to sort the data...
"...Normally, just need a local for this. Why did we put him under?"
"Boss-lady put the order in herself. She says numbing the area might not be enough. You want to ask her what she meant?"
"No. I can figure it out. I wonder which one this is."
"Ten bucks says Cap."
"No, I patched Cap up last week. Totally different guy. Fifteen says it's Spider-Man."
"Only if he was brought in by his clone. My money's on Hawkeye."
...If he could have smiled, he would be grinning from ear to ear and not just because of that conversation. Beyond these doctors, maybe fifty yards away, he could hear two voices, two heartbeats, both familiar, both relatively calm. He heard his own name mentioned; Spidey was telling Foggy about the Sin-Eater murders. Matt wondered how much of the record he was going to need to set straight later; Spidey was prone to exaggeration at times. He tried to zone in on their conversation. It was a welcome distraction from whatever was going on with his chest right now.
"He's awake," a woman's voice said sharply.
There was an expletive, quickly swallowed and an order for more anesthetic and a whispered apology from a couple of feet above his left ear. Around the ten o'clock position, Matt thought tiredly.
He heard a flurry of movement as someone approached his head. Much as he would have liked to hear more of what they were saying, he didn't try to resist the sickly-sweet chemical smell when it enveloped him. Already, he seemed removed from the pain in his chest. Maybe when he woke again, it would have vanished entirely...