Disclaimer: Not mine but I can still dream.
Author Notes: The seemingly standard Raph 'trial-by-fire' medical fic. I've seen numerous versions of this over the years and the other week was finally inspired enough to do my own.
It was probably the only good thing about visiting my doctor again :/
Clinical Simulation
He knew why he had taken the offer. Shell, when he had found out what was happening, the huge gap in their defenses so it was, he practically demanded to go through the training. There was a reason for training, for practicing, so when it actually ended up happening you would know exactly what, how and when to do what you were trained to do.
When it happened for the first time he froze.
It wasn't like he didn't know what to do. In the back of his mind memorized terms and procedures began clamoring for attention. It wasn't very big but he did carry a small collection of implements as a just in case. He could do this. He was trained to do this and even if he was only a backup or on the reserve list he knew what the shell to do in this situation but that didn't mean he was ready for it all to fall on him. Frag Don hadn't even officially sanctioned him yet as his backup or however that was going to work.
Honestly it had all happened so fast. True he had been looking for a fight like usual but his brothers weren't. Mikey and Leo were in some kind gymnastics competition, jumping and flipping end over end across the rooftop while Don judged. He had opted out with an irritable grunt and stood off in the background glaring at the city at large from the comfort of the raised ledge that acted as a rail that went around the rooftop. Mikey had started to pick on him but some ribbing from Leo had his attention focused elsewhere and for that Raphael was glad. Every now and then he just needed some time to be himself and stare off into the horizon, wondering and dreaming and just in general enjoying as much solitude as he could in such a large city living in such close quarters with his family.
Their turtle luck was working as true to form as it usually did. One moment it was calm and peaceful. Well as calm and peaceful as it could be with Mikey kicking up a fuss because he finally realized that Leo had bribed Don earlier with some shiny new electronic doohickey and Don was intentionally scoring Leo high as a result. Shell he was going to be handing out favors to Leo for a week. The box of electronic components that Leo had found and turned over to him had been pretty big. He had called Raph to help him haul it into the lab it was so big. It was a wonder that fearless had even made it halfway across town and down into the sewers with his offering really.
Then utter chaos.
He had been zoning out, looking out over the city when in hindsight he should have been standing a watch or at least been more aware of his surroundings. As a result he had been caught completely flat footed when the Foot ninja suddenly swung up from below the ledge he was crouched down and hit him square in the chest. The air had been forced out of his lungs and his head had slammed hard into the pavement covering the rooftop. He laid there stunned, gasping for breath and unable to think straight past the ringing in his ears. This was why he hated ambushes. He always failed the surprise round.
It took him a moment of blinking up into the sky above him that he hadn't thought as much as heard Mikey say that. He blinked and managed to draw in a semi steady breath as his sense started to come back to him. He heard the sound of combat from nearby, most likely his brothers judging by the whoops, cheers, and general commentary that Mikey was coming up with. He also could hear Leo yelling at him and it took him a moment to realize why. That ambiguous black mass above him was actually something and not just a dazed hallucination on his part. It was a Foot ninja, probably the same one that blindsided him, holding a sword up high, ready to plunge it down into some part of his anatomy.
He simply arched an eye ridge in disbelief and then kicked the ninja square in the junk.
Hey, Leo was the honorable fighter in the group, he had no problems fighting dirty when it was to his advantage.
The ninja seized up for a moment as he slowly let go of his sword. Or he would have if Raph hadn't grabbed and tore the sword from his hand. He grabbed it by the back of the blade so as not to cut his hand and used it as an improvised club, smacking the unfortunate ninja in the forehead with the butt of the sword. The ninja fell over backwards and Raph quickly flipped over the sword so that he was holding it in both hands and caught the sweep of the blade from the the ninja that had come up alongside the one he had just dealt with. He quickly swept the sword to the side throwing the ninja off balanced and slammed the hilt hard into the ninja's knee. There was a crunch of bone and cartilage and the ninja fell away with a scream of pain that was mirrored by a cry behind him.
Donnie.
He quickly snapped his legs, popping himself up to his his feet and quickly taking a proper grip on the sword hilt to catch another katana. This ninja actually tried to stand his ground against him, shoving his sword against his own in an effort to shove him backwards. It may have worked if Raph had been off balanced or had given him a chance to try and shove him back but as soon as the swords ended up dipping down to get more upward thrust, Raph reared his head back and headbutted the ninja right on the bridge of his nose. A simple snap kick was all it took to send him over the edge. The fire escape rattled and Raph turned away, still brandishing his stolen sword and ignoring the moan of pain on the escape's first landing. He had more important things to worry about now.
Don was laying on his side almost exactly where he had been standing before the fight had broke out. His bo lay nearby but was ignored as he clutched at his right thigh. Even from this angle he could see it was a through and through. The arrow head protruding from the far side of his leg while the fletching nearly vanished inside the entry wound.
Mikey yelling Don's name finally drove him from his stupor. He hadn't even realized he had been standing there staring at their injured brother like he had grown an new head and announced he was marrying the utrom prime minister. He shook himself slightly as he charged forward, starting to go through the procedures that Don had drilled into his brain after hours of lectures and hands on practices.
And nearly missed the sword swinging in from his right.
He only managed to deflect the blade at the lost of his own. The katana he had been using skittered off to the far side of the roof. Not that he really cared. He did have two hands and while one had been busy holding the sword the other wasn't. The punch caught the ninja in the jaw and he twisted away, leaving his back wide open which Raphael exploited. One quick chop to the base on the back of his neck was all it took to knock the ninja into dreamland.
He always had a problem with that step.
-Break-
He had never been good at books work but give him some hands on experience and let Raph prove he knew what he was doing and he was golden. It had taken weeks of book work and lectures but Don was finally satisfied that he had enough groundwork to move onto actual practice. He was actually going to get a chance to do something besides try not to fall asleep as Don talked about some medical thing or another. Shell, it was boring… But it was going to be worth it if- when he needed to use it eventually.
With the way their lives had been going lately it wouldn't surprise him in the least.
"Alright," Don looked tired and a little more than exhausted from patrol than usual and Raph felt bad about badgering him into training so late at night but he had nearly had his head caved in and was then thrown off a building. He could have been injured in so many ways instead of some bruising and scrapes from where he had gotten tangled in some clothes lines that slowed down his fall enough for him to grab a fire escape railing. It scared Raph because he only knew the 'advance basics' as Don called them. If Don had been hurt, he wouldn't have known enough to be able to help him. "Let's begin.
"This is going to be the first of a series of clinical simulations to give you some hands on experience in various situations and start working on applying what you have already learned. We'll start with the most basic and move on. Treat this as real as you can Raph, if you need to ask questions then ask, if you forget something say something. Don't be ashamed or worried about failing. Talk to me and give me a step by step run down about what is going through your mind as you work. We'll keep doing these until you feel comfortable."
Don then turned and walked to the middle of his lab, sitting down on the floor and then sort of just spilling himself over so he lay on the ground more as if he had fallen uncontrollable rather than lay himself down like that. He put one arm down on his hip and then looked over at him. "Begin."
Raph walked over knelt down and just as he was about to say, check to see if he was awake, Don slapped him lightly in the forehead. "Ow," he said more from the shock and less from any actual pain. "Shell, what was that for?!"
Don was giving him and equally annoyed looked but for a completely different reason. "The first thing you always do, before you even get near a victim, is make sure the scene is safe enough for you to approach. The last thing anyone needs is for there to be two victims because you rushed in without paying attention."
-Break-
Just like a moment ago.
He took a moment then to look about the area, looking for anything out of place that might indicate a trap or another Foot ninja. While he didn't see anything in the immediate vicinity to his brother there was a small glint from the rooftop about two stories above him. Raph was blocked mostly from view by the water tower but as the faint gleam flickered again he realized that the ninja was trying to draw a bead on Leonardo.
As if he was going to let that happen.
He really didn't want to throw a sai if he didn't have to so he cast about quickly and saw a kama with its tipped buried in the rooftop about fifteen feet away. It would put him further away from Donnie but a kama could fly really good and that would have the more force than a shuriken. It would only take one hit with the kama to take that ninja out and he would still have all his shurikens in case something else came up.
He ran out from cover, hitting the ground in a roll after five steps, and snatching up the kama as he went by. The roll carried him right back up to his feet and pulled the kama back, barely taking time to aim at the ninja before chucking the kama at him. His aim was true and the kama nailed the ninja in the arm, causing him to drop his crossbow into the alley below as he fell back on the roof clutching at the wound. Right that was done, time to see to Donnie.
He ran over and slid to a stop on his knees next to his don brother. Don barely reacted except for a small twitch away from him. Well, that wasn't a good sign. "Don? Talk to me? How do you feel?" His leg was probably on fire but the arrow had gone through his thigh pretty far away from the bone in the front of his leg. That meant it was pretty far away from his artery so Don wasn't in any danger of bleeding out on him right away.
But he still didn't respond to him.
Raph frowned, that wasn't a good sign. He had been kneeling behind Don's shell but quickly he rolled him back onto it, moving him slowly and looking over him for any other injuries. He didn't see any but there definitely something wrong. Don's eyes were half lidded, sweat had built up on his brow and even though his lips were moving faintly there was no noise. Shell, this really wasn't a good sign. His breathing was depressed and coming in shallow gasps while his heart was beating so hard and fast Raph wondered if it was going to pop right out of his carotid artery when he took his pulse.
Poison.
Double shell, Don hadn't really covered poisoning.
Still he knew what to do. Vaguely. First thing was first, he had to slow down the bleeding, secure the arrow and then haul shell back to the lair. Neither he with his small first aid kit or Don with his slightly larger one had any kind of anti venom on them which was actually kind of stupid considering how often the Foot used poison. He was going to have to talk to Don about that in the future. After he made sure there was going to be a future.
He was going to have to move quickly. Don's system was more than likely already flooded with the poison coursing through his veins so his vitals were all over the board. Raph really couldn't do much against the poison except get him back to the lair and to do that, he had to do something about the arrow in Don's leg.
He knew better than to try and pull it out. Even though it was gross to look at, the arrow was actually helping to seal the wound. He left it be, instead using gauze pads and wrapping from his and Don's kits to help immobilize it. He could remove it later, when he was better equipped to deal with it.
Even though he went as quickly as he could he was still a sitting duck in the middle of a rooftop brawl against ninjas that wanted nothing more than to cave his head in or stab him or just in general beat the shell off him. Luckily he had brothers and shortly after he started treating Don Leo and Mikey had closed ranks covering him from any other Foot ninjas interested in getting a little too close. It gave him the two minutes he needed to get Don patched up and judging by the looks on their faces, Raph knew they were going to chase these sorry excuses of ninjas to the other end of town.
Carefully he lifted Don, settling him across his shoulders so that the arm on the same side as his wounded leg were held tight against his chest so that he could keep his leg from banging around and hurting him even further. It was time to get Don back to the lair and do something about the poison. "Leo!" he called to his older brother. Leo didn't answer right away as he punched one ninja in the face and blocked a sword with the katana in his other hand.
"Go! We got this!" Leo yelled as he slipped under the ninja's arm, swept his leg up and caught the ninja mostly in the lower back knocking him viciously to the ground. "Go!"
Raph did not like running from a fight nor did he like leaving with his brothers in a fight but he really didn't have much choice. He needed to get Don home and even with his limited medical experience he was the best shot Don had at survive this. Still didn't mean he had to like it.
He took off in a dead sprint for the other end of the rooftop, Mikey following and easily outpacing him. Mikey would have beaten him in a flat foot race anyway but especially now that he was weighed down with Don. Mike had made running away into an art form.
Mikey practically dove off the edge of the building and he was maybe four steps behind him. Instead of imitating Mikey's swan dive, Raph choose to leap off at where the fire escape came up to the top of the roof. He jumped and swung off the railings of the fire escape all the way down to the street level where Mikey had met him. The joker having grabbed a drain pipe and sliding all the way down to the base of the building. There were three unconscious ninjas in the ally all laying in various poses on the ground that he had dealt with before Raph's arrival.
Mikey caught his nunchakus and trotted over to the manhole cover, lifting it up for him. "Take care of him," he said in all seriousness looking worriedly at Don.
"I got it Mikey, it's what he has been training me for," he said easily hoping that his confident sounding words would help reassure him as much as Mikey. The small smile that his youngest brother gave him was all he needed to know that Mikey believed him. Now if only he could believe himself…
A ninja landing in an open dumpster further down the alley had them both looking at him and then up at the rooftop. "You take care of Leo," Raoph said turning back around.
"A big job but I'm pretty sure I'm up for it," Mikey said cockily as Raph jumped down into the manhole. "Good luck!" He shouted after them.
"You too!" he yelled back up before he was gone, the manhole clanging noisily behind him as Mikey dropped it. He landed easily even with Don throwing off his center of balance and paused for a moment to listen to his surroundings in case there was someone down there with him. After a moment's pause, Raph was up and moving, heading in a fairly direct path back to the lair. Still, just as a precaution he doubled back a few times, paused to listen at a handful of junctions and even waded through a partially flooded tunnel trying to tell if anyone was following him.
Nothing and though he wanted to loop back up and through the tunnels on a different level he didn't dare. Don's breathing was becoming more and more depressed with every passing minute. He was just going to hope that no one had followed him this far and head for the lair.
The fairly section of pipes on the wall were both familiar and relieving to see. He barely waited for the door to open enough for him to slip through with his cargo. Raph ran straight for the lab and the medical bay within. "SENSEI!" he bellowed as he went. "I'm going to need your help!"
He lay his brother on the first bed he came to and reached for machine at the head of the bed. He remembered fondly the closet trekkie jokes Don had gotten during his unveiling of the room because it did look like the medical bed display in the old Star Treks. Except with the different graph and charts on it and the little monitor that you had to place on whoever was on the bed.
-Break-
Mikey looked way too comfortable as he lay on the medical bed, prop up with a couple pillows and flipping through a comic as he listened to what sounded like techno on his headphones. Both his head and the foot resting on the raised knee were bouncing along with the beat of whatever he was listening too. The sensor cuff for the display was wrapped around Mikey's arm and the display was showing healthy and stability tracks on all readouts.
"Don," he said as he continued to stare at the spectacle that was his little brother. "I know Mikey took a hard hit to the side last night but isn't this going a little over board? You cleared him."
"He's not in here because he's hurt Raph. I asked Mikey to be our guinea pig today for our training instead of me playing the patient. It's going to be easier for me to watch your every move rather than laying there and having you dictate things to me. Besides he was just going to be hanging out on the couch and reading comics so why not do that in here instead and be useful?"
Raph shrugged. Fair enough.
"Now, I know you know how to put the cuff on so we're going to move right onto how to read the display." He gestured to the display, pointing out each area as he said what they read, "Blood pressure, pulse rate, oxygen levels, and body temperature. Different sounding alarms go off when any of those rates go outside normal parameters."
He began clicking through them, using a panel on a side of the display to activate them as he went through them. "Blood pressure." It reminded Raph of a dial tone. "Pulse rate." The was the familiar sound he heard on heart monitors when they popped up on the television. "Oxygen levels." That sounded like the annoying alarm clock he use to have when he was seven. Shell, was he glad when that one finally broke. "And temperature." That was just a series of dull beeps. Kind of anticlimactic in his opinion.
"What happens if they are all going off at once?" he had to ask.
"Your patient is crashing and you need to work fast to get them stabilized again. That and save yourself from one shell of a headache."
-Break-
As soon as the cuff was situated and the display was active, all four alarms went off.
"Fraggin' shellhead," he grumbled as he jumped away from the bed and opened the medical cabinet. He needed to get Donnie hooked up to an IV.
"My son wha- Donatello!" Raph spared his Sensei a single glance before he was grabbing one of the sterilized hypodermic needles that was sealed in plastic and tore it open. "There's an electric blanket in the cabinet to your left. Get it out and over as much of him as possible, leave the injured leg uncovered, and turn it to three."
Don's temperature was really low, a sure indicator that he was in shock. The blanket would help with that and once he started pumping fluids into him he would be able to work on stabilizing everything else. The cuff was designed to keep the arm from moving and to protect an IV needle after it was situated in someone's arm. Carefully he inserted the needle to get fluids started as Master Splinter worked on spreading a blanket over him.
-Break-
Raph looked at the small needle packet in his hand and then back at his older brothers arm before looking at Donnie. "Seriously?"
Donatello sighed in frustration. "For the eighth time Raph," he sounded more than a little annoyed. "Yes, Leo said it was fine to shove him full of needles."
"But he's meditating."
"He was planning on doing that anyways. Besides he offered to help. It's fine, you need the hands on practice."
Raph gave his more intelligent brother a look which spoke volumes for what he currently thought of his intelligence before looking back at his older brother. Leo as calmly sitting on one of the medical beds in the lotus position in a deep meditation. Not his normal choice for a meditation session but Raph had seen him in weirder places getting his zen on. That time he found him zenning in the shower with the shower running over him still took first place.
Leo had been surprised that Raph had taken an interest in medicine and had offered his assistance several times to him if he needed help with anything. Raph had finally told him to go talk to Donnie because he didn't know what the brainiac had in store for him. Obviously he had and now Raph was going to try placing an IV for the first time in something other than a dummy.
Well, that was debatable, Leo did have his moments. Still, if he messed up, he could hit the artery. Miss the vein completely and have to try and stick him again. He did not want to make his brother look like a recovering coke addict or-
"Raphael," he looked back at Donatello. He was now giving him a more concerned look. "If you don't feel comfortable we don't have to do this today."
"No," he could do this. He knew he could. "I just don't want to mess up and hurt him."
"That's why I'm here. If something goes wrong, I can fix it, don't worry."
Right don't worry. As if it was as simple as that. One of the first things that Don had explained to him was disassociation. He couldn't think that he was potentially holding his brothers lives in his hands. Typically medical professionals weren't even allowed to treat family members or even friends because it was so hard not to be worried about them and do your job at the same time. Not that they really had much of a choice. He just had to stop thinking that it was Leo.
Right…
He took a breath to center himself and then went through the paces just like he was taught. Step by step. He focused on the procedure and not on the situation. He could do this. First the tourniquet and then finding and selecting the vein, pushing at it a few times to make sure it was plump. Then disinfect smeared over the site and he finally removed the needle from its sterilized wrapping and checked it over. He removed the cap and held Leo's arm still with his opposite hand before carefully inserted the needle, reducing the angle it was moving at as he went. A brief splash of blood appearing inside the needle had him pause a moment before he move it just a fraction deeper. He backed the needle out after that and left the tubing behind, quickly taping over it to hold it in place before stepping back and breathing a small sigh of relief. Shell that had been more nerve wracking than he thought it was going to be.
Don leaned over and inspected the site, smiling after a moment and Raph felt the tension in his shoulders release. "For someone so nervous about actually doing that you did a good job."
"Yeah I just…" he waved his hand at Leo helplessly not really sure of what it was he wanted to say.
"Dissociation is going to be the hardest thing to learn Raph," Don said quietly. "We don't have the luxury of not knowing our patient, we live with them. Spend most of our waking moments with them but when they are in here, on one of these tables and needing care, they are no more than a patient. You can freak out, worry and fret later, in here you have to keep moving. Focus not on who they are but the process you need to go through to stabilize them. Until they are out of danger, that's all they can be to you because hesitating at a critical moment could cost one of us our lives."
-Break-
The alarms were still blaring at him as he started the bag of fluids from where it hung on the IV stand built into the headboard. Don's core temperature was beginning to improve but his oxygen levels were starting to fall even more. He hurried over to the corner, wheeling over an oxygen tank from where it was stored. Pausing only long enough to grab an oxygen mask and the required tube from the drawer they were stored in nearby.
He hooked up the mask to the tank and carefully slip the mask over Don's head and made sure the mask fit properly over his mouth. There was barely any condensation forming on the mask as he reached for the knob on the tank. He opened it to a medium high flow. The pressurized oxygen would be forced into Don's lungs and would buy him more time.
He headed for the wall of drugs, as Mikey had affectionately called it. It was a large modified spice cabinet that sat over the workbench on the opposite side of the rooms from the beds. He undid the latch and opened it, revealing rows and rows of carefully placed drugs on the small shelves on both the back wall and on the inside of the doors themselves. All of the neatly placed bottles had already been modified for mutant use and were ready for administering at a moment's notice.
-Break-
"You're joking."
"No, I am most certainly am not."
Raphael looked at the cabinet in front of him. Almost every time he was in the medical room Don had set up he had seen him open it and just snatch what he needed out without pausing but he hadn't thought of how he had ever done that. "You really want me to be able to grab the right stuff out of here blindfolded?" He asked again still not believing what he was hearing.
"Yes, you have to be able to grab and go, Raph. Taking time to search through all of these just to find the right medicine would take to long in an emergency situation."
Raph looked over all the various medicines in front of him. There were four sets of shelves in front of him and four more sets on the back part of the doors that were now swung open wide turning almost the entire space over the workbench into a veritable wall of drugs. Mikey's nickname for the cabinet was very literal. "And these have all already been modified?"
"Yup, any and all unmodified drugs are kept kept in the toolbox next the to door," Don said pointing to an old beat up tool box sitting on the floor next to the door and partially tucked underneath the workbench. Written in faded white paint marker across the top was 'Do not use', 'Mikey don't touch', and a 'Seriously Mikey!' that was underlined several times.
Raphael looked back at the daunting display in front of him before asking, "What if we take unaltered meds?"
"It depends on the medication and what's in it really," Don said as he leaned to the side and rested his hip against the workbench while he crossed his arms. "Most of the time we just have awkward side effects like narcolepsy, fever, or diarrhea."
"What about narcotics," Raph asked curiously as he picked up and read the labeling of one of the bottle on the back shelf at about eye level.
Don gave him a look with a disbelieving smile, "What? Don't tell me you're planning on getting jacked up on street drugs, Raph."
Raph gave he an unamused look as he put the bottle back. "No but Casey and I have been thumping dealers a lot lately and if I get exposed to some of that crud I want to know if I'm going to stop breathing or something."
Don hummed in agreement before going silent, thinking about what Raph had said. Raph amused himself by looking over a few more bottles trying to figure out the correct way to pronounce them as he waited. Don shifting to stand more upright against the workbench was the subtle cue he had been waiting for and he did not like the look on Don's face.
"While there is a chance that the chemical composition of most street drugs would be rendered inert by our mutant physiology let's err on the side of caution and don't get exposed." Raph raised an eye ridge at him, that sounded like a cop out.
Donatello sighed and pinched at the bridge of his nose, "Raph, I'm honestly not sure. By themselves most of those chemicals wouldn't really affect us but once you start combining them, modifying them with heat, changing their phase of matter... I won't know if it being exposed to it will just make you constipated or stop your heart within thirty seconds of consuming it or make you absolutely Looney toons. Shell, injecting meth and inhaling it could result in two completely different side effects. I'd have to do more testing and research to even begin to get a grasp of how it would affect us. And before you saying anything, yes, that'll probably be getting one of us shot up with something and then sitting around and see what happens.
And no, we're not testing anything on Leo."
-Break-
Donatello had made several various forms of antitoxin over the past few months as a just in case. Honestly his brother's over prepared mentality could be annoying but when push came to shove Don was always one step ahead of everything. Even laying unconscious on a bed, with a poisoned arrow in his thigh, Don had five different types of antitoxin and antivenoms for him to choose from. More importantly, none of them reacted negatively with the others.
Still, with his system as stressed out as it was with the poison already, it probably wasn't the best idea to inject all five into Don and hope for the best. He had to think logically. This was the Foot and though they were pretty up to date with tech, they also still employed some old methods. Hey, if it wasn't broke don't fix it he guessed. There was a good chance that this was a plant based poison and not something that was cooked up in a lab.
He picked out the organic antipoison and quickly filled the syringe he had been prepping while he went over his options. He gently tapped the needle and then sprayed out a little of the medicine to help get rid of the air bubbles before walking over and injecting it into the drip already in Don's arm. He tossed the used needle in the bin and looked over Don's vitals.
This was what he hated most. The waiting. At least Don's blood pressure and oxygen level had rose up. His core temperature was still a little low and though his pulse rate was still rapid it wasn't half as bad as it had been before. He wasn't out of the woods yet but the marginal improvement was a step in the right direction.
"My son," Whoops, he had forgotten that Master Splinter was still in the room. His Sensei had remained after placing the blanket over his brother and turning on the heat. He stayed on the far side of the bed, patiently waiting out of the way as his other son hurried around the room, getting this and that as he rushed to stabilize his brother. "What happened?"
Raph sighed and rubbed at the back of his head and neck. "It was an ambush. We were just minding our own business and goofing off on the roof when the Foot decided it was a good idea to jump us. One of them had a crossbow and he nailed Don with that," he gestured to the arrow still in Don's leg. "It's coated in poison. Leo and Mikey stayed behind to cover our escape while I got Don down here for treatment."
Speaking of treatment, Raph was starting to notice improvements across the board. It looked like his assumption on a plant based poison was correct. Now he just had to give him that antipoison a few more times and he should be good to go.
There was a slight crash out in the main part of the lair and Raph reflexively grabbed his sais only to relax when Leonardo and Michelangelo came into the lab looking worried. "Is he alright Raph?" Leo asked looking right at Raph instead of at the display that Mikey was currently looking at.
Raph glanced at the display, noticing that there had been another marginally increase in Donatello's vitals, he was starting to stabilize. "His vitals are looking better but he's not out of the woods yet. If he keeps responding so well to the antipoison he should be fine."
"What about the arrow in his leg?"
Mikey suddenly cut Raph off, "It's too bad. Don used to be a great ninja until he took an arrow to the knee." Everyone gave him a look that spoke volumes of what he just said. "What? It's a joke from a video game. Skyrim?! Doesn't that ring any bells!?" After a moment of silence he finished with an annoyed sigh, "Not surprising, you all live under a rock."
"Right," Raph looked down at the arrow in Don's thigh. He hadn't been trained yet for surgery and anything even as remotely serious as this. "I'm... I'm not sure," he said suddenly feeling bad. Shell his younger brother had an arrow in his leg and Raph wasn't sure what to do anymore.
"I do believe now is would be the time to call Leatherhead and request his assistance," Master Splinter said. Like their brother, Leatherhead was a gifted engineer but his time with the utroms made him more interested in bioengineering than Don and he had picked up more medical knowledge working in that field. Though Don was still the go to not-quite-doctor in the lair, Leatherhead's experiences with the utroms were probably going to be their best bet to remove the arrow.
Because, honestly, he was pretty sure that LH was going to have to cut into Don's leg to remove it and he knew he couldn't handle doing that himself right now.
"Bet LH will get my arrow to the knee joke," Mikey said sulkily.
"Dream on dweeb."
-Break-
Surprisingly enough, Leatherhead did get the reference and laughed at Michelangelo's joke. Apparently he had even played through the game several times himself. Mikey made sure to give both Leo and him a superior look when the mutant crocodile admitted that he had played Skyrim. Raphael was also right about the next step in the course to treatment and -though he assisted with the surgery- he tried not to look at what LH was doing.
Still, despite the fact he had been poisoned and just underwent a minor -at least according to him and LH it was minor surgery- Don was sitting propped up in bed and fully alert less than six hours after Raph had come careening into the lair with him unconscious, over his shoulders. His vitals were still a bit low but stable and he was going to sleep in the medical room for a few nights while still on an antipoison and antibiotic regime but those were more as a precautionary measure than a required treatment.
Leatherhead had stepped out to let the rest of their family know Dons surgery had gone well leaving Raph alone with his brother. Don seemed more interested in looking at the bandage on his leg than talking so Raph worked on finishing the clean up that he and LH had been working on before. He was just finishing putting away the rest of the tools and unused supplies when Donatello spoke up. "You did good Raph."
Raph flinched at that, suddenly feeling defensive. "What do you mean I did good?" He demanded to know as he looked back at his purple banded brother. "I barely did anything," he pointed at the neatly bandaged leg and the stitches he knew lay underneath. "Leatherhead was the one to fix you. Shell I was all but puking in my mouth when he was doing that."
Don looked at his bandaged leg for a moment with a frown before looking back at Raph. "No I meant for before. When we were up on the roof and for the first fifteen minutes you had me in here. You did everything right. This," he gestured to his leg. "This is the easy stuff comparatively. You had the hard part. Treating on the scene, transporting, and then stabilizing a patient is where it gets tricky but you did it. You did what I have been training you to do. You did good, you accomplished the job successfully. Me being here is testament enough of that."
Raph felt his world plummet for a moment. It had been a very real thing. Don could have died from that. If that arrow had been just a half inch closer to the bone it would have hit an artery…
"Raph," he hadn't realized that he was starting at the ground and looked up at his brother. His thankfully very alive brother. "Stop it, you did everything right."
He snorted a laugh trying to rebalance himself and not admit to the fear of the what if that still clung to the side of his stomach as he leaned back against the workbench. "Nearly got my head taken off when I first tried to get to you."
Don shrugged with a knowing smirk on his face, "That was your most common mistake in simulations." Don then went quiet, studying him for a long moment. "Raph, I think we should stop with the clinical simulations."
Raph stood up, "Wait a sec-"
"Because it's time to move you on to more paramedic training."
That stopped him. He looked at his brother in confusion waiting for barely a second for him to continue.
"I'm promoting you to emergency medical technician. Congratulations."
He gaped.
His silence and the fact that his jaw was on the floor had Don talking again. "I was going to run you through another one or two simulations before giving you a test with Casey randomly showing up and trying to keep you from your 'patient' but this, " he gestured to his leg. "This was way better than anything I could have cobbled together. This was real and you did everything right."
"But there's… I couldn't get the arrow out. I mean I'm not-"
"You are ready. The arrow is way more advance than what I have been training you for to begin with. If you choose to progress in the medical field you'll eventually get to the point you can do that but for now you're an EMT. I'm sanctioning you for emergency care and transport of the injured off the battlefield."
"Yay!". Raph nearly jumped out of his shell as Mikey yelled. He turned in time to get tackle hugged by his youngest brother into the workbench. "Congratulations, Raphie! You're a medic!"
He wanted to correct him. He wanted to shove him away and brag about how easy it was. He wanted to say thank you or something even more sappy to Don. He wanted to tell Leo, who walked over and gave his shoulder a squeeze with a broad smile on his face, to wipe that smile off his face or he would do it for him. He wanted to give his Father a hug where he stood in the doorway next to Leatherhead. And LH he wanted to thanks for getting the arrow out of Don's leg when he didn't know how.
But he didn't do any over those.
Instead, in a practiced move, he slipped out of Mikey hug and put him in a headlock. Ignoring his squawking at the abuse he smiled. "Yeah. Yeah I guess I am." He still had a lot to learn but this only made up his mind as he watched Don sitting there, alive and on the mend.
This was what his training had been all about, when push came to shove, now he could shove back.