Hero's Hero
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. They belong to DC/AOL Time Warner, and whomever else I've missed out citing in these corporate conglomerate days. I am not associated with any of these bodies, but as I'm making no profit from this work of fanfiction, that probably doesn't really matter.
Note: This fic took a very long time to finish, and even longer to get posted. I'd apologise if I thought the quality of the fic made that a bad thing. It is un-beta'd and at just under 2,000 words, doesn't make any particular effort to fulfil the criteria of the challenge that engendered its creation.
Note II: As I imagine is abundantly apparent, the steps in which first aid was applied in this situation have been altered to suit storytelling. But then, I sincerely hope nobody is planning on trying this at home, so that's most likely a non-issue.
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Rainy day.
Rain always takes me back.
Blood and water, mingling with the waste and detritus of a city street. One a steady downpour, the other an oozing, widening puddle.
Sense of utter hopelessness. Of failure, of incompetence.
Of hope.
************
If you asked a Robin - any of the three of us - who their hero was, you might reasonably expect the response to be 'Batman'.
You'd be wrong, though. On at least one count, anyway.
To be fair, I can hardly claim to speak for my predecessor, Jason Todd. He was dead before my time. For all I know, Batman probably was his hero. It would make sense, seeing as how he took Batman up on the offer of a cape and mask and a chance to pummel evildoers. Or maybe he just liked the thrill of it.
I can understand that.
Dick's hero was Superman, growing up. Don't tell Bruce, but I think in a way it still is. The black and white, good and evil simplicity of the Man of Steel's life appeals to a number of us who dwell in the shades of grey and Dick is no different. But it's a distant sort of hero-worship now, and the ideal that Dick wants to live up to, though he'll deny it to the last breath, is that set by Bruce. Relentless determination, analytical ability, and the sheer pig-headedness to turn one's own humanity into not just heroism, but superheroism. It's easy to see why emulation appeals.
Fortunately, that hasn't extended into mimicking the antisocial menace part. At least, not around his friends, and I am proud and honoured to count myself among them.
It's still raining. The sky is bleak and grey. But there's no blood spilling onto the sidewalk, and that's a plus. No blood that I can see, anyway. This is Gotham, after all, and crimson ichor often stains these streets and alleys.
But I'm getting sidetracked.
I respect Batman. Initially, before I became the third Robin myself, I was fascinated with him and with the then Boy Wonder. Then when I became Robin, the fascination turned into hero-worship, and from there into admiration. It became trust, too, though Batman nearly destroyed that when he gave away my ID.
In a way, that was part of what made me realise he's still human. He still makes mistakes. But then he tries to fix them, to fix - as best he knows how - his relationships. Even when it's hard, even when it's rocky. And I respect that even more. Heck, if I didn't already have a solid-gold, honest-to-god personal hero, it'd be a tough competition between him and Dick to see who'd end up on that pedestal.
As it is, though, I'm afraid the position is taken.
My hero doesn't wear a costume.
She doesn't pound the roofs and streets searching for evildoers and meting out justice.
She doesn't even have a secret identity or a code name.
She's beyond all that.
Her name is Leslie Tompkins. She's a doctor. I think she's the best in the whole world. She's my hero.
Shall I tell you why?
It was cold and wet then, raining like it is today. The sort of downpour that seeps into bones and joints, bringing aching and misery with it.
Leslie had finished at the clinic, the last patient been and gone by seven at night. An early evening for her, and still peak travelling time. The gridlock of Gotham never really lets up, but it's particularly bad in the hours following five. Perhaps that's why she opted to get off the bus a few stops early, to walk those last few blocks to the slum she was making a housecall to, despite the inclement weather. Certainly, she knew better than to drive and park a car in that area. Maybe the reek of wet humanity packed into the close bus was more than she could stand after a day of it in the clinic, maybe she wanted to stretch her legs, maybe she just made a mistake counting the bus stops. Who knows?
She's my hero. I never said she wasn't human, and occasionally as prone to error as the rest of us.
Stepping into the alley certainly was a mistake.
It was nearly a fatal one, at that.
What saved it from being lethal was not, I have to stress, the fact that she had a 'guardian bat' watching over her (How Bruce knew about her planned visit to that area of town I did not, at the time, speculate on. It was early in my career as Robin and I was too busy being proud that he'd asked me to keep an eye on things from the shadows, to make sure all went well.)
Needless to say, it didn't go well. And in the end, it was she who played the role of saviour, not I.
She was met in the alley by a bear of a man, one she seemed to know, as she greeted him by name. Gruff, toughened by all his years of living in the seediest districts of Gotham, it was not immediately apparent why Leslie would answer a callout from this 'Jack'. Why for him she would come out, whereas others would have to make the trip into the clinic. The children sheltering in the semi-dilapidated house at the end of the alley, however, explained all.
Harsh though he appeared, it seemed Jack was this place's custodian, a guardian of children who had successfully slipped through the cracks of Juvie hall, who lived on the fringes of society and hence where often it's prey. It was a role Poison Ivy was to fill some time later with her Robinson Park refuge, and looking back now I wonder if his past, while less florid than hers, was any less terrible.
This time, however, he was not a perpetrator.
This time, he was a victim.
The mugger appeared from behind a dumpster, his approach disguised by the rain. Filthy, and with eyes glazed to match the string of track marks that marred his arms, his agitated growl for money came across more as a plea than a command. Leslie's escort moved to shove him aside with a minimum of fuss - the move a well-practiced one in this part of town - his mind firmly on what I presumed was an unwell child in the shack.
The stubby knife the junkie stabbed into Jack's ribcage gained the man's attention, however. He looked down, stared disbelievingly at the knife in his chest, the hyperventilating addict still clinging doggedly to the other end. The addict, and the knife he clutched, were detached by my judiciously applied boot. Too little, too late.
Way too late.
The junkie out cold in the gutter, I turned to Leslie and Jack. My apology tasted ashen, died unspoken on my tongue as Jack collapsed to the squalid concrete, blood bubbling from the long, deep gash in his thorax, the wound shifting grotesquely with every breath he gasped in.
His heart was still beating, this much I could tell from the pulsation of red. The junkie had sliced into lung while missing that vital organ, a part of me noted distantly. A much larger part of me was at a loss; thanks to Batman's training, my CPR was superb.
It was also useless: His airway was clear. He was breathing on his own. His heart was still beating.
And he was in the process of dying. The sucking chest wound was eating away at his life even as it collapsed down his lung.
It was at that moment that Leslie succeeded in prying my un-flung batarang from my suddenly numb fingers.
"Tension pneumothorax," she announced the result of her quick examination in calm, business-like tones. Her very lack of panic soothed me, enabled me to act when she shoved her mobile phone into my now empty hands. "Please call an ambulance. I trust you know the number?"
Nodding mutely, I complied, too shaken to object when she turned the razor edge of the batarang on my cape. She had managed to cut a longish strip loose by the time I finished the call.
"Ambulance is on its way," I informed her, surprised at the lack of tremor in my voice; reacting to her calm, my own composure had kicked in. "What can I do?"
"Press here, dear. Keep the wound completely covered. Thanks, that's a great help." The strip of hastily liberated cape covered the deep gash. Thank God for fire-proof, water-proof fabric. With it I could create a seal. Leslie, hands now freed, turned to rummage in the doctor's bag beside her.
A pleased "a-ha!" and Leslie had found that which she sought. It was a needle. A whopping big one, it seemed to my untutored eyes. With deft dexterity, she negotiated Jack's upper ribs, inserting it between two of them, above the wound. I winced at Jack's moan. I wasn't a big fan of needles either.
The hiss of escaping air was the most wonderful sound I'd ever heard. Across from me, Leslie grinned in a decidedly unladylike fashion. That was when I fully realised just how serious the situation had been. She barely paused, however, before diving back into her bag. This time she produced a roll of tape, with which she tacked down three of the four sides of the makeshift bandage, leaving behind a crude one-way valve.
By this time the comforting hiss was being replaced by the even more comforting wail of approaching sirens. Startled, I glanced up. The entire episode had taken mere minutes. At Leslie's nod, I melted into the shadows, watching as ambulance and police roared up and set about discharging their duties, the ambos roaring off as the police arranged to take Leslie to the precinct for a statement. In the excitement, I nearly missed spotting the slip of paper she casually dropped.
I managed to retrieve her doctor's bag undetected, though. And the note, overlooked by police, was easily removed from under their noses. It read simply 'oral vaccinations - Jackpot'. The doctor's bag contained, along with the usual paraphernalia, a small Styrofoam cold-box. Within it, a bottle of oral polio vaccine nestled.
The children in the shack were nonplussed to see a masked kid enter. Assurances that Jack was being cared for and that Leslie had sent me fell on deaf ears. The code-word 'Jackpot', however, worked wonders. Obediently, the urchins lined up, swallowing the bitter vaccine with scarcely a complaint (I think the jellybeans were a big help in this regard.)
It was close to four a.m. and the rain had finally petered out when I dragged my tired carcass back to the Cave. Leslie's bag was stashed safely on the back seat of the Redbird. I had just resolved to return it to her the next day, when Batman returned from his own patrol.
"Good job," he said. I gaped. Not in surprise that he knew what had happened – he's the **Bat**, after all, but because praise comes rarely from him. "The man will live, and the children are now protected." I nodded soberly.
It was with a broad grin and a feeling of warmth that I read the note Batman handed me, the one Leslie had asked Gordon to give to Batman. She'd taken the time to write. Despite being tired, despite being nearly mugged, and despite seeing a friend stabbed, she'd remembered me. In her elegant copperplate script, she stated what she saw as mere truth, but what was elevated by her acknowledgement of it to the highest praise one could get; "You gave your best. Well done."
Outside, the rain is clearing. Gotham is cleaner for it, and in the early dawn it's almost a different place. Fancifully, it seems a city of hope and chances, of goodwill to the vigilantes who dwell in the shadows created by rain and buildings. The vigilantes who are it's heroes.
Shall I tell you a secret? I still have that second note. It's tucked behind the photo of the Flying Graysons and me.
I keep it because she wrote it.
Her name is Leslie. And she's my hero.
End.