He's an outcast for a while, until it's clear that the swarm isn't coming back. He spends the time thinking, putting his brain back together in a way he can't do when he's busy.
He knows ten thousand medical procedures. Most of them are simple, stitches and sanitation and methods of diagnosis. But there's something buried in them that's closer to memory than simple procedure.
Screens. Thin, jagged lines of text. Parenthesis everywhere. If, then. Variables. Pressure. Measured absorbance, converted to oxygenation. Tiny burns on his fingertips as he types.
Hands, huge hands, white as clouds.
Days pass. The swarm isn't coming back. Injuries never went away.
People start seeking him out again.
He thinks about it when he has time.
Fall passes into winter. There's nowhere to go, but trains run south, and those not bound here by bad jobs or old wounds trickle out of the city in empty box cars, headed for warmer places. He sees Buddy and Roger again, by the tracks. Waves goodbye.
He considers leaving. But he's never been out of San Fransokyo, and he'd be on his own. Here, at least, he knows the streets.
The ocean moderates the temperature, but there are still bitterly cold days. He treats burns when people get too close to the fires, and frostbite when they stay too far away. His own clothes are too thin, too ragged. He picks up a secondhand coat from a drive at one of the shelters.
The shelter people know him now. He can get a bed at the shelter easier than most, and when he's there they provide tape and bandages and hand sanitizer, everything they can.
Doc is always welcome.
But he can't always get a bed, and he spends nights in the lobby and nights in the tunnels, then spends quite some time in a boarded-up warehouse close to the bay.
He treats burns and frostbite, and listens.
The red robot is back; someone saw it and the kid doing loops around the gateway bridge. Someone else saw the three-eyed monster jump over a building. The girl in yellow kept up with a high speed chase, and ended it. Laser-arms guy cut through some rubble in that last earthquake, got a family out. The pink girl saved someone from falling to their death.
Superheroes, people say. Someone jokes that Doc should join them.
He shakes his head, and listens.
Where there are superheroes, there are super villains.
A man in some kind of exoskeleton is terrorizing executives of a manufacturing company. He hears the rumors before anything substantial comes together; someone saw a rocket launched in an alleyway, an evil robot scattered broken glass all along an alleyway, a hulking devil with glowing hands scared some people in the tunnels.
He doesn't piece it together until a monster crashes through the warehouse wall.
It rolls head over heels, barely misses hitting someone, knocks over one of the burning trash cans, and finally flops bonelessly against a metal staircase. He rushes forwards even as the others are scrambling back and out.
"Duuude," says the monster, slurred and disjointed. "That was wicked."
Are you alright. Does anything hurt. Can you feel your feet. How do I get you out of this thing.
The monster loses consciousness halfway through a sentence. He finds the latch himself, opens up the monster's head, checks the spine as well as he can before pulling him out.
He's young, pale and unfashionable, dressed more like a stoner than a superhero, but more importantly familiar. The deeper part of his mind is rising, and he doesn't have time to pay attention. Pulse, eye movement, are you alright, can you hear me, how many fingers am I holding up. The monster-guy opens his eyes – unfocused – and manages to slur out an answer, so concussed he might as well be drunk. Definite concussion. He checks the rest of him over.
The monster-guy, meanwhile, talks.
"Do... D'not be alarmed," he slurs, with no volume control whatsoever. "This is not my real face and body. It is ju... just a suit."
"Can you feel this?"
"Yeah. Yeah dude, that's my foot." Monster-guy wiggles it, then the other. "Got two of 'em. But I come... in peace. Come in peace. I am Fredzilla."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Doc."
"...Y'look familiar," says Fredzilla, his eyes briefly focusing. He falls quiet for a moment, like he's thinking. "You... ever been to the twelve step place?"
"Don't think so. Anything hurt?"
"Dang. Dang, man, you should go, they have some wicked cookies there."
"What happened?"
"We were... me and my buds, we were... Fred's Angels, dun dun dun..."
"Is he drunk?" someone asks behind him.
"No. Just concussed."
And from the looks of it, that's the only thing he is. His limbs are straight, he doesn't respond as if he is in pain; none of the prodding produces any kind of distress. No damage to his spine, nothing worse than bruises and a couple of long scratches that are simple enough to patch up. That suit is very well protected.
"Were writing. Fracking. Fighting!" Fredzilla says. "Fighting. And there's this dude, see, in this suit, made of metal? Exoskeleton. Like... like Captain Warfight. Issue six. You read that, man?" He didn't wait for an answer. "So... Exo-guy comes at me and I'm like, no way dude, and I totally spit fire at him, Fredzilla, dun dun dun, and he dodged and went after Gogo. And that's stupid, man, if you ever become a supervillian don't ever go after Gogo because she will kick your... your... And she dodged. She dodged. And cut his arm off!"
What.
"Not like his actual arm though. His exo arm. So... so he's still got two arms! But only one of them is a super arm now!" Fredzilla tries to sit up. Doc pushes him back down. "Aaaand then he punched me. Heee punched me. And here I am!" His eyes focus again, briefly. "Dude, you look really familiar."
Concussions had to stay awake, had to keep talking. Had to stay out of shock. With Fredzilla the talking isn't a problem, but the awake is. Doc nudges him every time he trails off.
"And then we were all, he works there, and I was like duh dude, it's a grudge! And... How'd you get here?"
He answers, briefly.
"You're homeless? Man, you should come live with me. I got room!"
The offer is tempting. But Doc is needed.
"Dang, man, hardcore. Can I like... get you a clinic or something? I'm... I'm gonna be all mysterious. Philanthropist with a dark secret. Fredzilla, dun dun dun."
He talks about comic books for ten minutes more before a red shape appears outside the hole in the wall. It has jets and wings and fists the size of a man's chest, and anyone who didn't scatter before scatters now.
"Fred?" it calls, in an even, familiar voice. "My scans indicate..."
"Fredzilla in the house!" says Fredzilla. "Over here dude!"
"You are badly concussed," says the red robot.
"I'm fine, dude," says Fredzilla. "Doc here's fixing me up!"
The robot turns to him. He stares up at it. The deeper part of his mind is going crazy. This is important, this is important, but it won't tell him why.
"Hello," it says pleasantly. "I am a health care professional."
He shrugs, and steps back. "All yours."
The robot, instead of picking up Fredzilla, tilts it's head at him. "Your readings are... familiar."
"That's what I said!" crows Fredzilla.
"You should probably get him to a real doctor."
"Yes," says the robot. It scoops up Fredzilla's suit, hooks it onto it's back, then scoops up Fredzilla. Totters out, flies away.
There's still a hole in the wall.
Everyone has to move.
They're settled in the tunnels again. The rumors center around Frederick Lee, a wealthy college student who had suddenly donated huge sums to build three more shelters and a free clinic. Why, no one knows; public relations is the bitter theory, and others wonder what the kid did that he's trying to buy his way out of. But none of it will be finished this year; they'll have to survive the winter on their own.
He knows the truth as soon as he sees a clip of the interview in a bus station. It's Fredzilla, minus his suit and significantly cleaner. The interviewer asks the reason for the sudden generosity.
"I hit my head bad, a while back. Didn't have my phone, couldn't even see straight. Doc found me."
Instantly, every homeless eye turns to him.
"And hey, Doc, if you see this, way to be awesome! We should hang out. Anyway. He like, fixed me up, and I told him I'd get him a clinic."
The interview cuts away. He ducks out of the bus station, makes his way down to the tunnels. Everyone knows, everyone wants to talk about it.
Doc fixed someone famous.
Everyone knows; Doc fixed Frederick Lee.
And a mob group has been looking to get hooks in the Lee family for a while now.
He's warned the first time, minutes before they arrive. A man that who'd had his fingers broken by the mob and set by Doc sprints into the tunnels, yelling for Doc to run. He doesn't like the idea of running, but everyone else does. Even the sick that he's been tending to drag their blankets to the shadows, and he's forced out by the messenger with barely time to scoop up his pack.
He hides on the fire escape of a run-down apartment building, and watches them run along beneath him. They have guns, and don't even bother to hide them. He waits until they're gone, then waits a few moments more before climbing down.
When he makes his way back to the tunnels, people avoid him again.
The mob is after Doc, the rumor says. And only the truly sick will come near him.
He buys a sick mask, only half to avoid the desperate cough that's going around the camps. People trust him more when they can't see his face.
He helps them anyway.