I hate Friday's. They're long and exhausting and they can never come fast enough.
On Fridays my shift at Gotham general ends early, but it's also one of the busiest days of the week. I work the emergency room floor so I already see the worst of the worst, but for some reason Fridays are always the worst. Maybe it's because people start their partying early in the morning, and by noon they've been wheeled in with alcohol poisoning, and I get the wonderful job of pumping their stomach.
Every Friday night, after all our shifts end all the nurses and orderlies go out drinking, then spend the following Saturday sleeping off their hangovers and enjoying the time they have to themselves. To be honest, there's not much else to do in Gotham. I've been invited along a few times, but it's not really my cup of tea. I'm not legal anyways, so it wasn't much fun. Besides, Gotham's subway system is not where I want to be at God knows when in the morning. Hell, I don't like the subway at 2 in the afternoon. I'd much rather spend my Friday evening in my pajamas, curled up with a good book.
Someone bumps me from behind and I realize my train is here. It actually has been for a couple of seconds, but the person behind me has just now nudged me to get me out of their way. Nodding an apology, I step forward into the tube and flatten my back to the opposite door, swinging my purse in front of me as I do so. I've been pick pocketed before, so now I'm always sure to be extra careful. I don't keep anything in my coat pockets and I fold both my arms over my closed purse while I'm in transit. Sometimes people look at me strangely, but I don't mind. Better safe than sorry right?
Four or five other people board, all in varying degrees of undress from their winter coats and jackets. Two men in business suits and trench Coats settle down in the seats to my left, a woman in patterned leggings and a thick suede coat bustles off to the end of the train, and a young man with black hair and sleek headphones moves down by the other door and doesn't sit, even though there's plenty of open seats.
He piques my interest, but I'm not quite sure why. He's enjoying his music, I can tell by the way he's bobbing his head and bouncing his toe. While I'm looking at him he suddenly hammers out an air-drum solo and I can't help but smile. He seems happy. It's pretty rare to see his kind of people on the trains here. Usually everyone is silent and taught and grim looking and determined not to let their lives intersect with anyone else's.
Just as the train doors are closing one more person slides in. Immediately, everyone stiffens a little. We can all see it, he looks like trouble.
His spine is curved into a permanent C shape from years of slouching, and he's uncomfortably thin looking. His clothes are worn and dirty and hang off of him like old rags. As the train lurches into motion he sidles to the bench opposite from me and plops down. His arms flop out at his sides and he almost seems to melt a little, so that he's taking up two seats at least. His head rocks back as he suddenly becomes fascinated by the overhead light. The uneasiness in the air doesn't lessen. It probably won't until he gets off, or everyone else does. I catch myself hugging my purse a little closer, and it makes me feel a little guilty.
He's probably just a junkie, and as it stands he's not hurting anyone. I don't know his story. I don't know where he came from, or how he got here. He could just as easily be in my position, as I could be in his.
I suddenly have the urge to give him some money, but I feel like doing so would be patronizing.
Suddenly he makes a loud rasping sound, and his head jerks forward. Everyone in the car stiffens again, probably thinking "Oh god, what's he doing now?"
At first I think he's choking on something, as he's pounding his chest with a closed fist. I'm about to go help him when he hauls up and spits a giant black loogie onto the already disgusting floor.
Oh. Well, maybe I won't give him any money.
The rest of the ride is twice as uncomfortable as before, something I didn't even know was possible. The businessmen hurry off three stops before mine, and I haven't seen the woman in the suede coat since she got on. For all I know, she moved to a different car and got off from there. The young man with the headphones is still here, still standing against one of the vertical poles, still bopping his head to his music. The junkie is still here too.
As my stop approaches, I start reorganizing my belongings. It's much warmer in the station than it is on the streets, so I had draped my thick wool coat over my arm, comfortable enough in just my scrubs. But the platform for my neighborhood spits you right out onto the sidewalk where the temperature is much lower. I'd rather not endure the chill so I usually rebundle before I get off the train.
As I swing my bag back around I catch the junkies eye for a second. A shudder shoots down my neck like a crescent of ice down my shirt.
He's staring at me. Like, directly at me. I don't know how long he has been, but when I look away he doesn't.
Ok, maybe he's just zoned out? And he's not actually looking at me? To test the theory I take a few shuffling steps to my left. His recessed eyes follow me, and as I glance nervously back at him a reptilian grin sweeps across his face.
Oh shit. This could be bad.
My station arrives, announced over the unintelligible as ever loudspeakers, and by the dot matrix banner running just above the double doors. My blood is rushing around in my head so loud I barely hear the screeching brakes as the train shudders into the station. I'm hoping, praying that he's just a weird guy, that he won't actually follow me off the train.
The doors slide open with a hissing release of air. I dash forward and as I cross the cabin the junkie pops up out of his seat and swings around the column. Christ. He's trying to block me from getting off. I side step him, trying to sidle out of the way before the doors close. He shuffles closer, still flashing a sick smile in my direction, and raises an arm with fingers outstretched.
Before I even have time to duck away, something slams into me from behind and a dark flash streaks past my side. I find myself being hurried forward and out onto the platform by a pressure in the small of my back that feels strangely like a hand. Startled and confused, I stumble to a halt against a tiled support column, and as I glance back over my shoulder the train screeches away, the junkie pressed against the closed doors with a puzzled expression.
What just happened?
I sweep my gaze away from the now empty tracks and just catch a familiar dark shape vaulting over a station bench. It's headphone boy, sprinting off perhaps to catch his own train. As I watch him go, I come to a realization that makes me blush a little.
I definitely felt a hand on my back, and someone definitely pushed me off the train. Whoever that guy is, he may have just saved me from a very unsavory evening.
From the station, it's a ten minute walk to my apartment complex. It sits just on the outer rim of Gotham's gentrified area, an essential asteroid belt of tall, thick buildings, speckled with street level convenience and grocery stores. It's not a bad area, but it's not the best either. There's a few robberies every couple of weeks, but there hasn't been a murder since many years before I was born. It's a quaint area for the price I pay, a nice balance of cheap and safe. The sidewalks are lined with twiggy ornamental trees and short, square bushes. Most of the actual apartments stand above street level, sitting atop a foundation of grocers, florists, and more than a few consignment stores. There's a trash can on every corner, and a miniscule park another three blocks in the opposite direction.
A frigid blast of air whips past my legs just as I reach the corner my building stands on. I don't shiver, I'm used to the cold. The weather's pretty much always like this in Gotham, icy currents blowing off the nearby ocean.
Maybe I should take a vacation to metropolis this summer, I bet it's not this cold there.
I pass the façade of the laundromat that is the bottom floor and turn down the alleyway between my building and the neighboring one. It's well lit, bathed in a thick yellow light from the row of six or seven lamps on either side of the building entrance and as I approach the door my body casts a dark circle beneath me. The outer door is unassuming, something you'd walk right past if you didn't know it was there. It's a large steel rectangle set back among the bricks, with heavy rivets and industrial hinges. I fish my keys out of the pocket of my scrubs and shake the ring until the right key fell into my palm.
The tumblers fall into place with an echoing clunk and I pull it open just a little, enough that I can slip inside. Just beyond the outer door is a tiny foyer, also brightly lit by an overhead lamp, the walls papered in a gaudy yellow and orange stripe. I move across the entryway to a second glass paneled door and unlock that as well, passing quickly through it.
Now entering the main entryway, I pass the grimy wall of mailboxes and the locked as always door labeled "building manager". The walls in this room are painted in the same ugly stripe, the ceiling a cracking, water-stained cream. It always smell's a little strange in the hall, and I've got a sneaking suspicion that there's mold somewhere. My white nursing shoes squeak on the concrete floor when I walk, but the elevator is carpeted and they make no sound when I step inside.
My apartment is on the 21st floor, way at the end of the hallway. Tracing the ugly squiggle patterns in the carpet with my toes as I walk, I swing my leg out to my sides, trying to only step on one color.
My keys hit the lock, and I'm flopped face down on my couch before the door has even swung shut.
"Awwww man…" I whisper to myself and my empty apartment. It's been a long day and I'm tired as hell. Still lying face down, I kick off first one shoe, then the other by hooking my toes in and then flicking them away. One smacks into the fridge, and the other bounces off around a corner. My couch is small, like the rest of the apartment, but right now it feels like a queen size bed.
Just a ten-minute nap, I tell myself, and before the words have faded away I'm fast asleep.
I'm awoken by the clanging of my landline. It's a weird phone, came with the apartment, and for some reason it always starts off quiet, then jumps to ridiculously loud seconds later. I'm tempted to ignore it, to just smash my face deeper into the cushion and go back to sleep, but it's too loud and I can't block it out. I rock up off the couch and answer it.
It's a recorded message, propaganda for the local mayoral race. Irritated, I hang up the phone with a loud groan. Scratching my scalp, I pad over to my fridge. The electric clock on the microwave reads 9:30.
Crap. I slept way longer than I meant to. Well, I guess it can't be helped. I pop open the fridge with one hand and pull my hair out of its low ponytail with the other and twist it around my fingers. My fridge is sparse at the moment. There's only a jug of milk, a few packages of deli meat all in varying degrees of emptiness, various condiments, and a few other things. Stepping back, I flick the door shut again and lean against the counter. I'm almost out of bread, and I've got no eggs. I let my head fall back and my hair slips over my shoulders. I really don't want to go out again, but I'm also really not in the mood for cereal for the fifth time this week. I'd meant to pick up groceries on the way home, but honestly I forgot with all the commotion on the train.
As if to persuade me, my stomach growls loudly. "Fine!" I tell my ceiling, "I'll go!"
I track down my sneakers and stick my feet back in them without untying the laces, then grab my coat once again, deciding at the last moment to snag a scarf and beanie before slipping back out into the cold.
I walk briskly down the street, swinging the flimsy plastic bag of groceries in my right hand. The tiny grocer had been deserted, only my squeaking footsteps and the twangy pop tune playing over the radio. I picked up a can of tea, some bread and a couple cans of soup, and oddly enough, a box of gauze bandages and a few other first aid must haves. My own supply had been recently raided by my cat, and I'd come home last Wednesday to find my fat maine coon mummified on the bathroom floor.
As a nurse, I like to be medically prepared for something to go wrong. I know firsthand just how expensive hospitals can be, so I always try to do what I can at home. Cuts, scrapes, probably even a sprain are things I can handle on my own. I've never needed to go to the ER before, and I don't plan on it anytime soon.
I cross a small cross street and hop up on the curve, taking a few more steps before turning down a thin alley that shortcuts straight to my street.
I've walked this way for months, ever since the city cleared out a big pile of rubble left by construction. It's safe, though it might not look like it. Now it's lined with dumpsters, each firmly closed with thick plastic lids and chained shut. It's dark, the only light provided by a few flickering lamps, most of which went dead many years ago. The air funnels between the buildings and blasts the stink into my face. Oh my god.
The stink is ten times worse than usual. Maybe the butcher's shop up the street threw out some particularly rank meat. I pull my hand back into my sleeve and push the cloth up over my nostrils. It makes my face feel sweaty, but it's better than the alternative. I hurry through the narrow passage way, eager to get away from the stink as fast as possible.
Suddenly, a booming crash explodes in my ears. It's louder than anything I've ever heard, the sheer impact reverberating through the air in my chest cavity. I scream before I realize it, and duck sideways flinging my arms up in protection. It has to be an explosion. It's got to be a bomb, or another one of those crazy disasters that seem to happen so often in this city. My shoulder hits the brick wall of the alley, and I slide down to a crouch, hands over my head, trembling in fear. Something wet splatters across my cheek.
Oh my god, Oh my god.
The clanging sound echoes its way up the buildings and fades away. There's a few more scratching pops, and creaking sounds but then everything is silent again. I want to look. I want to peek so bad but I'm terrified to move. Every bad news report I've ever seen is flashing through my head. Just stay down, stay hidden. So I stay folded into a ball, huddled in the gutter.
After what feels like a million years I finally build up the guts to lift my arms enough to look under them, my heart beating so loud it feels like it's shaking the very ground I'm standing on. I half expect to see a giant crater, but reality is pretty underwhelming.
One of the dumpster lids is broken and buckled, the edges curled up from some unseen weight pressing down at its center. There's something sticking out over the edge, long, dark, and thin. It looks like a pipe or something.
I glance upwards, one hand flattened on my chest, my heart still aflutter beneath my fingertips. Did an ac unit fall?
But then the ac unit moves. And swears.
A young man pulls himself up and over the edge of the dumpster, swinging up first his leg, then the rest of his body slithering after. He hits the ground with an audible splat, and another swear. In the warped yellow light, he looks strange, like some subterranean creature crawling out of its den. Something shimmers on his back, it looks wet and sticky. He's wearing a dark hooded sweater, but his pants are tight to his skin like a catsuit.
I take a step forward, my gut roiling with a volatile combination of concern, curiosity, horror and confusion. Questions are blasting across my mind like the banner that runs across the bottom of the news, faster than I can process them.
Who is this guy? Where did he come from? Did he seriously fall? And what am I supposed to do?
In a city like gotham, with the Batman, and a smorgasbord of costumed villains, it's not unusual for strange things to happen on occasion. But not in this part of town. Not to me. Hell, I've never even seen the Batman.
"Fuck me-" The strange man says. His voice is somehow different than I expected, boyish and clear, yet at the same time murky and muddled with pain and exhaustion. He curls up, pushes up onto his palms and knees, his back cowed between his raised shoulders.
I'm staring too much. I know I am.
The shadow beneath him is wrong. It's directly below him, even though the nearest overhead light is off to our side. As I'm looking at it, slowly, it changes shape, poking out in odd, amoeboid ways.
A car drives by and the alley is flooded with a flash of white light. The spotlight pans across him for only a split second, but it's long enough for my thick skull.
The realization hits me like a truck.
He's bleeding. Like a lot. What I thought was just nasty water from the alley floor is actually blood, streaming down between his shoulder blades and smeared across the back of his neck. The dark fabric of his sweater is torn in a few places, pale skin and crimson blood peeking through from underneath. The jacket itself is twisted and hiked up around his waist.
In medical school, one of my professors spoke about a particular moment. A moment when you have to make a choice that can affect whether someone lives or dies. Sometimes it's obvious, glaring, the kind that stares you right in the face. Sometimes you have to go looking for it. I remember being inspired, going up to the professor after class and shaking his hand. I thought I knew what he meant.
But now here I am. Cowering in a dark, dirty back ally, staring at a completely different kind of moment.
Whether this guy lives or not might hinge on what I do in the next few minutes. It's all going to hinge on me.
Christ. Here we go.
My grocery bag hits the ground and spills over onto its side, cans rolling in a few different directions. I'm by his side in five seconds.
"Hey, are you alright?" No matter how hard I try to sound professional, I can't keep the nervous crack out of my voice.
He shakes his head, swats at me with his left hand like he's shooing away a bug. The motion puts him off balance and he teeters off to his right, one knee popping up off the ground. Startled, I reach out and grab him, pull him back towards me. I'm expecting him to simply right himself, but instead he collapses into my lap in a heap. His head hits my shoulder and rolls down into the crook of my elbow. He's heavy. Warm. I can feel his blood soaking into my shirt, feel it running down the arm holding his head.
Feeling his blood switches something on inside me. It's the same feeling I get when someone is wheeled into the ER. It's go time.
"Hey, hey, hey!" I shout in his ear as I cup his head as gently as I can, shaking his shoulder with my other hand. There is no response, but a faint moan. My fingers find his neck and press into the vein, counting each beat. Its slow, but it's there.
Slowly, I roll him down so that he's lying on his back with his head resting on my knees and pull my scarf out from under my collar and wad it up. I scan his body, looking for the source of the blood but it's hard to tell in the dim light and with his dark clothes. I take a guess and press my scarf against his upper left stomach.
Immediately he stiffens under the pressure, drawing a sharp breath in over his teeth. I think I guessed right.
"Everything is going to be alright, I'm here to help you." I smile down at him with my best bedside face. At the same time, I reach back into my pocket without breaking eye contact and feel for my cell phone. "Can you tell me what happened to you?"
He groans loudly and raises a hand to his forehead, making a sound like he's getting up off a couch. "Christ…He's going to be pissed…" He whispers in a hoarse voice.
I ignore him and hold my phone out in front of me in an attempt to get service. "You're going to be alright, I'm calling an ambulance-"
"No!" Suddenly my phone isn't in my hand, and I'm sprawled on my back on the dirty alley floor and he's lying on top of me. His heart is pounding heavily against my chest, his labored breath hot on my neck.
I'm stunned. Hot blush flares across my cheeks and my heart flutters with embarrassment and surprise. I don't think it was an attack, but my brain is immediately leaping to the worst case scenario.
His head pops up, his chin digging into my solar plexus, and much to my surprise, he smiles. It's the first time I've seen his face clearly. It's kind, genuine, and more than a little handsome. It's not the kind of face I'd attach to this kind of situation. His eyes are a striking blue, piercing in the dim light. They seem familiar somehow, but I can't quite place—
Oh my god.
My brain takes his face and superimposes it over the blurry corresponding memory I have of him, standing on the train with his headphones, tapping his foot and drumming in the air. The last time I saw him, he was sprinting away into the substation, waving over his shoulder. And now he's lying in my lap, possibly bleeding to death.
"S-Sorry…" He says, flashing straight, white teeth. His voice has a breathy undertone and the words sound like they're taking a considerable effort to get out. "A hospital visit just doesn't fit into my schedule right now."
A thought I hadn't had before suddenly pops into my head. A reason why someone would wind up bleeding in a dumpster next to a high rise, and a reason why that person would not want to be taken to a hospital afterwards. The suspicion creeps up my spine, but I'm not quite sure how to ask him.
"You didn't, you know… from up there-"
"I didn't jump, if that's what you're asking." He smiles again, rolls his head onto his cheek and laughs softly into my shirt.
Seconds later he's coughing. It's a horrible, shuddering, wet sound, sending tremors down his whole body. His knee's draw inwards, his head sliding across my chest as he curls into himself in pain.
I push up onto my elbows, desperate to do something for him, anything. "You need a doctor! Why don't you want to go to the hospital?!" I'm shouting now, irritated and confused.
His hand bursts forward and clamps down on my shoulder, and I can't help but flinch. His grip is surprisingly strong, but more pleading than threatening.
"Please- cough- No hospital…" He's begging now, his face buried in my coat, one arm clamped across his lower abdomen. I can feel a warm wetness growing around where his head is. I know what that is, but I don't want to think about it.
"But-"
"Please… Gotta… trust me-"
Then suddenly his voice cuts out, the pressure is gone, and his hand is sliding down to rest on my collarbone. It's silent, except for the distant rumble of a passing car, and the hummingbird thumping of my own heart.
Crazy. This is crazy. This can't really be happening.
I don't know what he wants me to do, but there's no way I'm just going to let him bleed out here. Carefully, I slide him off of me and roll him over onto his back once again, pulling up his hoodie and replacing my scarf over his bloodstained stomach. His head rolls limply, and one arm slides down, falling just beside my hip. I plant one hand on the dirty asphalt and reach across him, stretching for my phone to call 911. As my eyes pass over his chest, I suddenly decide to unzip his sweater and adjust my positioning of my scarf. I whip the zipper down and flick apart the two halves of fabric so that I can see what condition his chest is in. As I scan upwards, my eyes snag on something that they hadn't before. Something that sends my brain into a tailspin.
Holy shit.
No wonder he doesn't want me to take him to the hospital.
In a slightly lighter grey than the rest of his clothes, sweeping down over the tops of his shoulders to meet in the center of his chest, is an all too familiar symbol. It's a symbol I haven't seen in at least three years.
The symbol of the Nightwing.