Leslie closed the last drawer with satisfaction of a job well done. She just finished cleaning and was ready to close the clinic for the night. Even vigilantes tended to be in beds at this hour, and those who weren't, well she had on a good authority that they were benched for the time being. So when she turned around and found a tall, burly man with a bundle in his arms standing at the door, she couldn't help but cry out in surprise. The man shifted, pulling whatever he was carrying closer protectively at the whimper that came out of the bundle. The initial shock over, Leslie took a closer look at her visitors, whom were dripping water on her freshly cleaned floor. The man was built similar to Batman, but was slightly smaller. The light reflected on his wet, red helmet and the gun he had in his hand under the covered knees of whoever he was holding.
"Red Hood," Leslie acknowledged, slowly edging for the emergency beacon Bruce gave her in case she ever had any trouble. "What brings you here?"
"Don't even think about it," the man growled, meaningfully tilting the pistol just a bit and she froze. Red Hood took advantage of that and moved forward, gently, oh so carefully laying the bundle on the table and unwrapping the blankets.
Leslie instantly forgot about everything and focused on the injured boy before her.
"What happened?" she asked, snapping into the doctor mode and she started to examine the injured man.
Red Hood listed the injures in a monotonous voice. Or at least he sounded like that through the voice modulator built in his helmet. His body language told her another story. He was worried and furious, and if half the things she heard about him from her patients were true, the culprits were already dead. Not that she especially minded, she thought as she took care of Dick's injures. The story of what happened to him was written all over his body and coupled with Hood's verbal report it created a clear picture in her mind. Her heart broke at what Dick went through before Red Hood rescued him.
After a few hours, when Dick was cleaned and patched up - she didn't hesitate to rope Red Hood into helping her and he came through perfectly, as if he was trained to do that - Leslie snapped latex gloves off her hands and threw them in the bin.
"Well, thank you for help," she said before the man could disappear on her. "I'll take things from here."
"No," Red Hood denied instantly.
"Excuse me?" Leslie blinked, stunned at the fact that he didn't take the way out immediately as others before him did. Now she started to remember with whom exactly she was dealing with. The murderer and enemy of Batman. But it was hard to reconcile the rumors about the masked villain with the man before her. A man who offered gentle touches and soft words each time Dick stirred in pain or panic whenever he was conscious to do so. Or when he reached out secretly to check his pulse or breathing to reassure himself that Dick was still with them.
"I said no," Red Hood repeated.
"Look," Leslie said. "I really appreciate what you did, but I'm going to call..." she hesitated. Red Hood had brought Dick here, unmasked and naked save the blankets and leather jacket that had to belong to him. But she didn't know who Red Hood thought he was rescuing, Dick Grayson or Nightwing. "His family," she settled on.
Red Hood snorted.
"Bruce is the worst thing for him right now," he stated. "You know how he is. He will go full Batman and be all: "Report!", "Why did you let them do this?", "You're better than that" and all the shit. Do you really think Dick needs that? No. I'm taking him."
Leslie swallowed down a retort. Bruce wouldn't do that, but Batman could and probably would, like Red Hood said and no amount of interference from Tim or Alfred would stop him from interrogating Dick the second he was aware enough for a conversation.
"That doesn't change the fact that I can't let a stranger and a criminal with a grudge against Batman at that take him," she said firmly.
Red Hood sighed, shoulders dropping with resignation and reached to pull his helmet off. She gasped, knees going week in shock.
"Then what about a brother?"
