Holy crap, I just wrote this all in one night. Well, I guess that's what I get for waiting so long to update.
For anyone just getting to this page, I HIGHLY urge you to reread the ending to the last chapter, otherwise this one is going to make absolutely no sense to you at all. Unless you just enjoy being a masochist and care absolutely nothing about plot or continuity.
This is also super long because I happen to really like writing in Bruce's POV and I did a little bit too much research on medical care for a fanfic. It's not completely accurate, so don't take notes or anything, but I wanted it to make sense since he's a doctor and would know what to do. And then chalked the other stuff I didn't know to account for to superpower stuff. Idk. It's late and I want to go to bed.
Anyways, read and review!
Chapter Twelve
Primum Non Nocere
ZZZT!
It was about 1:32 in the morning when his doorbell rang.
Bruce should have known better. His instincts were telling him to go back to sleep, to pretend no one was home. Maybe the ringer would move on, realize that this wasn't the house that ordered the pizza.
There was a long pause while Bruce waited. He relaxed after about ten seconds of silence, allowing the lull of darkness to take him back to unconsciousness.
ZZZT! ZZZT! ZZZT! ZZZT! ZZZT! ZZZT!
He jolted, surprised, then groaned. Whoever this person was, they were persistent. And annoying. A deadly combination.
"All right, all right," he grumbled, getting off the couch. "I'm coming."
Bruce couldn't get any sleep anyways. His bones creaked and cracked as he got to his feet, stretching his back that had seen better days. Bruce didn't consider himself old - hardly considered himself capable of dying - but he knew eating too much junk food was going to make the Other Guy less muscle and more fat. And probably still pretty angry, too.
He shuffled to the door, managing to find his slippers in the dark. Well, at least there was one good thing about getting exposed to dangerous amounts of gamma radiation: night sight. It didn't necessarily help the fact that he still needed glasses, or the fact that the Other Guy was as short-tempered as ever...no, just night sight. And an inability to commit suicide.
Of course, Bruce reconsidered the option when he opened the door and saw Smoke on his stoop, a girl literally in his arms.
He only had to say four words. "I need your help."
Bruce was a little busy focusing on the girl, who was unconscious and if he wasn't mistaken – bleeding? The dim moonlight shone down on Smoke, and revealed that his left arm was almost entirely covered in blood.
Suddenly Bruce was on high alert. That sight alone had him stepping aside, allowing the boy to rush inside. Bruce slammed the door shut. It was harder than he meant to, but somehow the occasion warranted it. Already he could feel his heart beat starting to pick up.
Immediately, he took stock of the situation, trying to estimate how much longer the girl had left to live from the pallor of her skin. "How much blood did she lose?"
"I don't know, man," Smoke said, looking around the room for a place to put the girl. He was antsy, hardly able to stand still. "A lot? I wasn't exactly going to measure it trying to get here. What do I do? Where do I put her?"
Bruce turned on the lights and moved swiftly into the living room. With one grand sweep of his arms, he cleared off the coffee table of all its magazines, books, and a few plates of Tupperware, knocking them all to the floor. While creating a mess seemed unhelpful, it was a problem Bruce could deal with later. "Set her here. Try to wake her up, I'm going to get my kit."
As Smoke laid her down and tried to shake her awake, Bruce got up and headed for the kitchen. Movement felt good right now; anxiety was starting to build up, and he really needed to keep it together. A thousand questions were running through his head; who was this girl? How did Smoke know her? What happened? Why did he bring her here? Was a hospital not good enough? Why would Smoke risk causing more stress? He knew what would happen if Bruce got too worked up. The girl might not be the only one suffering from blood loss by the end of this.
Unfortunately, now was not the time to ask such questions. But Bruce was nothing if not a man of priorities and tact, and he filed away these thoughts for a later time when he returned with a box full of his old medical supplies. Before he opened it, though, he checked the girl's pulse – weak, but considering the blood loss, not surprising.
He couldn't remember the last time he used these. While Bruce had a medical degree, it had taken a backseat when he went into his study of Gamma radiation. Years of neglect might be a problem, something he didn't even consider until now, yet when he pulled out the scalpel and felt its familiar sleek surface in his fingers, Bruce felt the old expertise slide back into place. Muscle memory had done him a service.
The girl was wearing a strange material he had never seen before, but it was as susceptible to the blade like anything else was. Thick and soft like a wet suit, the blade carved through the fabric across the girl's back.
Her head was turned to the side, Smoke speaking close to her face, still attempting to wake her. "Mia? Mia! Can you hear me?" the boy – because in that moment, filled with fear and uncertainty and vulnerable to emotion, that's what Smoke really was – looked towards Bruce, his face pinched with worry. "She's not responding. Is that bad? How do I wake her up?"
He was talking so fast that Bruce almost didn't understand him. But he refused to be overwhelmed like Smoke was, and said in a carefully measured voice. "I'm going to say she's lost about a couple pints of blood. Unconsciousness it not unusual. It's going to take a stronger stimulus to bring her out of it."
Smoke inhaled through his nose, nodding at the information. "So she's going to be all right?"
"I didn't say that." Bruce knew better than to get the boy's hopes up. He still had no idea what had happened here, information he desperately needed if he was to ameliorate the situation. "Do you know her blood type?"
"Uh, no,"
Bruce sighed, getting on his knees to pull at the fabric and remove the cut away pieces. They were heavy with the blood it absorbed. As soon as he touched it, his fingers were coated, and he had to wipe them on his shirt so he could hold onto the scalpel without his grip slipping.
Trying not to think about how he just ruined his favorite shirt with grotesque bloody hand prints, Bruce, brought the scalpel down on the girl's skin.
Smoke jumped, alarmed. "Whoa, what are you doing –"
The girl jolted when the blade pierced her skin. It was only a tiny poke, barely a spot of blood (not that you could tell in the midst of the carnage...). Her whole body shuddered as she sucked in air and started to shift, only for Bruce to place a hand on her uninjured shoulder. He checked her pulse again – it was a little stronger now, but that wasn't saying much. "Easy there. It's best not to move."
It was hard to say if the girl heard or even understood him in her current state. She tried to turn her head to see what was going on, but unable to she tried to get up, moving her arms. Only one of them didn't work, and attempting to work her right arm caused her to seize up and gasped for breath. Bruce could actually see the ripped muscle beneath her skin stretch and shudder from the effort. "Smoke, you need to keep her from moving, or she'll only make it worse."
The boy acted immediately, moving so he was within the girl's line of sight. Although her face was turned away from Bruce, he could see from the angle the wild look in her eyes, the shock she was going through. "Mia? Mia, look at me, it's going to be okay. Just breathe, okay? Just breathe."
The girl managed a weak nod before slumping back down on the table, allowing Bruce to continue his work. Bruce saw this as a perfect opportunity to gather more information. "Do you know what happened?"
He intended for the girl to answer, but it was Smoke who explained: "I don't know, there was a knife and she pulled it out."
Bruce shook his head, almost disbelieving. "Wait, and you let her? You realize that just makes the bleeding worse, right? She should've kept the knife in."
"I wasn't there!" Smoke protested, holding up his hands in defense. "And even I was, she wouldn't listen to me."
"Okay, fine," Bruce had to restrain the urge to roll his eyes. God, give him strength. This was the last thing he expected to be dealing with in the early hours of the morning. Instead of trying to dissect this odd relationship between the girl and boy, Bruce asked her, "What is your blood type?"
She didn't seem to hear him and Smoke had to repeat the question to her face for the girl to respond. Her voice was barely a whisper, hoarse and failing. "O neg..."
That was all he needed to know. When Smoke looked up to Bruce for further instruction, the man said, "There are blood packs in the kitchen freezer. I need you to get one labeled 'O-negative'."
"Who keep blood packs in their freezer?" Smoke stared at him. "...You're not joking, are you?"
"You brought her here for a reason, didn't you?" Bruce shot back. This was no time for dawdling – as much as he would love to press pause so everything could be set straight and he could assure Smoke that, for a man like him in a situation like the one he was in, having your own personal blood bank wasn't all that unusual – but reality didn't allow for such luxuries, so he added it to the already-long list of things he needed to do after saving this girl's life. "Hurry up. You're going to help me give her a transfusion."
"Oh, great, I love needles," he heard Smoke mutter to himself as the boy got up and went into the kitchen. While he waited, Bruce put on a pair of latex gloves; a coffee table was hardly sterile and he was sure there was more dust particles than oxygen in his house, but there wasn't much he could do about that. At the very least he could try to keep contact areas as clean as possible.
Smoke returned a few seconds later, carrying the plastic bag gingerly between his hands, looking as if he were holding a live bomb. "What am I supposed to do with this?"
"Nothing, yet," Bruce was already peering into the wound, pushing his glasses up his face so he could get a clear image. The wound was clean – it matched the story of the weapon being a knife, one edge smooth, the other serrated. That would make fixing things a little more difficult, but nothing Bruce couldn't handle.
What made him worry was the deepness of the injury – whoever had used the weapon had packed some muscle behind the blow – they had sliced clean through the scapula and through the ribcage on the other side. It was hard to tell through the mess of muscle, blood and bone that for some reason didn't stop moving. "You need to keep her still."
"I am, she's not moving!"
Bruce blinked, backed up a bit to confirm Smoke's statement; the girl was indeed entirely still, aside from the shallow breathing and head twitching. Well if she wasn't moving, then what...?
Frowning, he squinted and peered closer at the wound. What Bruce saw had him made him freeze to the spot.
"The bone," he finally managed to saw, after blinking a couple more times and rubbing his eyes. "It's- it's healing."
"Uh, yeah," Smoke said, not sounding as surprised as Bruce expected him to be. The man threw him a look, and the boy failed to look innocent. "What? I never said she was normal."
"Well, then," Bruce clenched his fists, a muscle in jaw tensing. Smoke's attitude was not helping the rising tension. Each second that passed the girl lost more blood, came a little closer to death. "How abnormal is she?"
"Enough," the boy replied, and Bruce didn't deny the look he saw in Smoke's eyes, the guarded look that spoke of more secrets he was hiding. Well, the kid's a thief, what did he expect? "Usually she doesn't need medical care, or so she says. But I'm pretty sure it's never been this bad before. I don't know why her body isn't just...taking care of it?"
"The shock combined with the blood loss," it was an educated guess, but still a guess. Even with his various and wide-ranging knowledge, Bruce had little idea how her biology worked, how different it was to a regular human's (or his own), and took solace in the fact that this little tidbit might buy them a little bit more time. "Her body requires calories to heal, but the severity of the injury is probably hindering the process. Instead of helping her, it's slowing everything down. Diet and exercise are also factors, but I can't say to what measure."
"But you'll still be able to help her, right?"
"She has a better chance," Bruce once more refused to give the boy a straight answer. A 'yes' or a 'no' were absolutes and Bruce knew better than to deal with them. "But that's not going to happen if we don't act now. I also need to get the wound cleaned – get me paper towels, clothes, anything, and bottles of water – they're in the fridge. Then we're going to disinfect it with this," Bruce pulled out a bottle of iodine. "I'll have to stitch the muscles and the skin back together, so this is going to be a fun ride."
"You need to work on your humor."
"Just go!"
With a pair of tweezers, Bruce carefully started plucking whatever foreign particles he could see from the wound. The girl twitched whenever the cold metal came into contact with her skin, but didn't say anything. He could tell she was shifting in and out of consciousness – moments of fear and panic interspersed with a coma-like sleep.
When Smoke had brought back the rest of the materials, they got to work. With little care for the table beneath, he poured water over the wound, using the towels to help clean away the blood and grime that had gathered. Some of it had dried and become tacky, getting a little difficult to remove, but soon enough the area was clean and Bruce could finally have an accurate gauge of the wound. Almost three inches in length, who knows how deep, the skin pulled back and revealed the muscle and bone every time the girl breathed, her ribcage expanding and revealing itself in intervals. It didn't appear infected, but Bruce wouldn't know for sure until later.
"Now comes the hard part," Bruce said, mostly to himself, but also as a warning to Smoke. Not knowing how strong the girl was, with her abnormality, he had Smoke hold down the girl while he opened the bottle of iodine and, using a cloth, applied it to her wound.
The effect was instantaneous – the girl nearly launched off the table, and nearly punched Smoke in the face for his efforts to keep her from falling off. One hand wrestling with her arm, the other keeping her from lifting her head too high, the boy tried to keep the girl's attention by talking to her, but it was only partially successful – when the man tried to use the iodine again, she flinched away again. She didn't flail around as much, but she did manage to kick Bruce in the leg. His pulse practically skyrocketed and Bruce nearly dropped the bottle of iodine in alarm.
He had to pause, take a little breather. The Other Guy did not take kindly to being physically assaulted, even if it was only an accident. Bruce had to remind Him that the girl was of no threat, and a little bruise was worth it if her life was saved in the end. That would not happen if the Other Guy decided to take control.
The green rage momentarily abated, Bruce returned to his work.
"Are...are you okay?" Smoke asked as the tense moment passed. He eyed Bruce warily, as if wondering if now was a good time to duck for cover. "I mean, you're not gonna...you know...change, are you?"
"No, I'm fine," it was the truth, although to be honest Bruce wasn't sure how long it would stay that way. That was the first time in months he came even close to transforming. The very idea terrified him and he couldn't stop his hands from trembling. From the edge of his vision, his skin always seemed to be turning a green tinge, yet when he checked for sure, Bruce would only see his own, normal tone. Being constantly on edge like this was a fact of life he had hoped to leave behind, but now had returned to become a new reality for him. Great. Just great.
Smoke didn't look entirely convinced. Bruce didn't blame him. For all their sakes, the kid needed to stay vigilant. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," this time he couldn't help but grit his teeth. The questioning was not relaxing, that's for sure.
Smoke still seemed doubtful. "Look, I'm sorry for bringing her here, if I'd known what would happen, I would've never –"
"It's fine, Smoke," Bruce had to look him in the eye to get the thief to believe him. "The Other Guy doesn't invalidate my Ph.D. I've done plenty of surgeries before – this is hardly the worst I've experienced. Besides, I would've said yes anyways. I took the oath."
While not a practicing doctor anymore, Bruce still took the Hippocratic as seriously as his professional counterparts. This wasn't a matter of convenience or temperament; he felt honor bound to make sure this girl didn't die, to help someone who couldn't seek the aid from a hospital, to attract the unwanted attention of scientists who would only want to treat her as another test subject, like they tried with him.
It was not a fate Bruce would wish on anyone – not even the Other Guy. In fact, it was the Other Guy he had to thank for getting out of that kind of existence. If there was one thing the two of them could agree on, freedom was much more desirable than being trapped in lab, covering in wires and needles and treated as less-than-human.
Besides, helping her, Bruce felt like he was somehow making up for all the damage he's done in his life. Not all of it, that's for sure, but just a tiny bit. If he could help someone, anyone, then that was good enough for him. At least he knew he wasn't a complete monster.
The bone, thankfully, had properly set itself during the healing process, so Bruce didn't have to worry about splints or braces or any of that nonsense. Still, the mending wasn't complete and he knew that, with enough force, the girl could break the bone again, and possibly make it worse than before. She would be in a sling for a while after this, enhanced healing or not.
Of his many tools and supplies, one of the things Bruce didn't have was an anesthesia. Aside from easing pain, it also relaxed muscles, which would be really useful at this moment, but because Bruce never actually needed it himself, it had never occurred to him to stock up on it until now.
Not that he planned on making events like this a regular thing. No way. Too much distraction. Too much stress. This was a one-time thing. But it was certainly a thought to consider.
Bruce was afraid that Smoke would start making sarcastic remarks, perhaps to alleviate the situation or his own nervousness, but thankfully the boy remained silent and allowed Bruce to concentrate on his work. This was a boon, because the girl proved to be particularly troublesome when the stitching started. First the muscle, which he had difficulty lining up in order to put back together. Bunched up and stretching, the girl was clearly capable of superhuman feats, because she kept tearing through the threads every time he loops them through the tissue.
He didn't have stronger thread, so the only option he had was to double, triple, and quadruple the loops so the muscle couldn't break through.
It was through this experience that Bruce noted another problem that was preventing the girl from healing successfully on her own. Because of her muscular strength and torque, the actual muscles themselves did not remain in contact with each other long enough to start healing – and when they did, the muscle would rip itself apart through the sheer act of stretching, destroying itself in its own act of repair.
It was a trying exercise to get everything to work. Bruce had to admit, while muscle stretching was often a problem during the healing process, this kind of circumstance was quite a new experience. That alone was frustrating, but the girl's constant struggles, while not necessarily very strong, were obstructive and nearly led to several mistakes. Bruce was skilled enough to avoid them.
"Wow, and I thought Gray's Anatomy was hard to watch," Smoke said when Bruce finally managed to finish with the muscle. The blood vessels were small enough to heal on their own, which was a relief, because Bruce did not have the tools to properly deal with all those broken arteries and veins.
Bruce allowed himself a short chuckle. "I hope you're not considering going into the medical field. The book has considerably less sex than TV will have you think."
"Duly noted."
The girl was exhausted by the time Bruce finally started pulling her skin together. With occasional washes to clear away whatever blood had accumulated, he finally started to feel himself relax a little. From what he could tell, the girl was going to be fine. It wasn't over yet, though – once he was done, the transfusion had to start immediately. The surgery alone had spent much of her blood, which was partially the reason why the girl had gotten less responsive. Bruce tried not to let that distract him, but he couldn't deny that he was bothered by it.
As he was pulling the needle through her skin, Bruce told Smoke, "I need you to get the blood pressure monitor from the bag. Once I'm done, we're going to sit her up and test her blood pressure before starting. We're going to have to keep a record of her vital signs, and keep an eye on her reaction to the blood transfusion."
Thankfully, the rest of the stitches (thirty-two in total) went along swimmingly. He tried his best to keep the work neat so it wouldn't scar so badly, but to be honest he was more concerned with just making sure everything stayed together. Scars were going to be inevitable. He wasn't even sure how well she was going to be able to use her arm after this.
No longer reacting to physical stimuli, the girl was entirely dead weight as the two of them lifted her up. It was easier just to bring her to the couch, and Bruce grabbed a pen and a book from the floor and, writing on blank pages in the front of the novel, he started jotting down her vitals. Thankfully, he didn't have to worry about warping her respiration rate – the girl was unconscious and therefore not aware of his counting her breaths to his watch, so there was no concern about her trying to control her own breathing. At the same time, Smoke took her temperature with the thermometer, getting an 87 degree Fahrenheit – low, but again, not shocking considering the blood loss. Then came the blood pressure, which, to his credit, Smoke managed to figure out without too much instruction.
After one final check of her pulse – even lower than before – they set about the actual transfusion.
Not trusting anyone but himself to insert the needle, Bruce had to remove the girl's gloves (which were unusually heavy), and used the scalpel once more to cut through her sleeve to gain access to her arm. He had noted earlier that the girl's suit, seemingly hand-crafted, had a zipper, but it was too cumbersome to remove the girl's clothes the manual way. This was both easier and faster, and right now the integrity of her suit, no matter how well-made or expensive to craft, was none of his concern.
The girl gave a slight flinch when the needle entered her vein, but otherwise she did not move. Her eyes were half-lidded, and with her face turned towards Bruce, he had the distinct feeling that she was watching him – but her eyes were a dull gray, unfocused and unmoving, and far too much like death than Bruce were comfortable to admit.
Hanging the blood pack from a shelf above the couch (Bruce would engineer a proper stand later, if needed), he first tested a small amount of the O-negative blood in the girl's system. He had Smoke stay with the girl for the next fifteen minutes, checking for any warning signs of her immune system rejecting the aid, while Bruce himself started clean-up.
It was then he checked the time. Oh, sure, Bruce had been using his watch fairly regularly during the impromptu surgery, but it wasn't until up to this point did he actually look at what the time was.
Jiminy Cricket, he's been at this for almost two hours!
...Well, it wasn't like he was going to get that sleep anyways.
He kept the bag at hand just in case he needed anything else, but the books and magazines he put away. At least they could walk around with hazard again, and his living room looked relatively sane again, and not the worst operating room ever conceived.
Bruce thought about it for a second, then decided, no, it wasn't the worst place he ever performed surgery before. The incident with the lumberjack in the Yukon Territory during January had been far more dangerous and much less cozy than what he had right now. At least he didn't have to worry about the scent of blood attracting every big hungry bear in a twenty mile radius.
"Anything yet?" he eventually asked, Smoke, who was keeping a watchful eye of the girl on the other end of the couch.
The boy shook his head. "I'm not seeing anything, no rashes or stuff like that. Is that good?"
"Good enough," the process of blood transfusion was much more complicated and detail-oriented than this barbaric mess, but Bruce neither had the resources or the time to really care. "Increase the rate. I'm estimating she's lost about three pints, so she'll need at least the same number of transfusions until she's fully recovered."
He had no access to this girl's medical background, or any national or state or local database, no way to verify everything he needed to know about the donors of his various blood packs (although everything had cleared when he first checked after, erm, acquiring them). All he knew was that none of bags were contaminated, and as long as the girl wasn't confused when she told them her blood type and she didn't have any mysterious disease of her own (jury was still out on that one), then everything should be fine.
But was anything ever that easy?
The table was a mess and Bruce only made a half-hearted attempt to clean it. He was mildly confused by the amount of blood on the table, considering that most of it during the surgery had been absorbed by either her clothes or paper towels. Where had this come from?
He continued to clean, occasionally glancing at the two teens currently residing in his home. Smoke seemed to know this girl on a personal level, yet Bruce had no idea how either of them would get involved in a situation that involved knives and near-death experiences.
Oh, Bruce was very aware of Smoke's occupation, what the kid did for a living. While he didn't necessarily approve of it, Bruce knew that if it weren't for Smoke, he wouldn't be here right now, in this nice little house, living a peaceful existence right under General Ross' nose. Who would think that the genius-physicist-turned-Gamma-radiated-beast was living in one of the most densely-populated cities in the world?
General Ross was probably still scoping out Canada, in its entire vast wilderness, or going back to Brazil to see if he had left behind any traces. Ross would find none, Bruce had made sure of that – but every day he lived in fear that it would not be the general who'd find him, but the Other Guy who would ruin everything, as he had each and every time before.
Just in case that happened (because he was only fooling himself if he thought the Other Guy could be silenced or destroyed), Bruce decided to keep contact with the outside world limited. The less people he knew, the fewer he would hurt should he change in their presence, because the Other Guy had a tendency to come out when the people Bruce cared about were nearby. After what happened with Betty, Bruce had promised himself never to let anything like that happen again. So far, it was working.
Smoke was one of the few exceptions to the rule (him and the mailman, who didn't even know his real name), and not entirely by Bruce's choice. Smoke had approached him first, and really, Bruce was pretty sure the entire thing only happened because Smoke couldn't buy his own alcohol. Although how a kid can afford to buy off a whole house for some random stranger, and yet not manage to have his own fake ID...
Well, Smoke wasn't known for his common sense or rationality.
Either way, the kid hooked him up with a hideout that Bruce had managed to remain anonymous in for that past half year or so. That was in far greater value than a couple beers – although Bruce was pretty sure they were even now.
He wasn't sure about becoming the kid's go-to doctor for medical emergencies, or psychological ones (like for that Falcon girl – Bruce was in no way a psychologist, and to be honest he wasn't entirely sure if any of his words actually helped). If anyone started to notice strange people on his doorstep, the odd hours he kept, any odd activity, the gig would be up as simple as that. And Bruce couldn't risk exposure to any more people than he already had.
"Uh," Smoke's tone had the man turning his head, frowning as the boy peered at the girl, apparently alerted to something.
"What is it?" Bruce feared that the girl was showing a bad reaction to the transfusion – maybe she wasn't O-negative after all and her body was rejecting the blood. He didn't want to play Hot Potato with blood types until they found the right one, so he was glad to learn that it wasn't the transfusion that was the problem.
Of course, the real issue was much worse.
"She's still bleeding." The boy's finger was at her collar, and Bruce saw what he was talking about instantly – her right shoulder was still bleeding, but instead of the back, it was now coming from the front. The anxiety in Smoke's voice was the all the confirmation he needed."The knife must've gone all the way through!"
Bruce cursed underneath his breath, reaching for his bag again. Well, guess he needed it again after all. Retrieving the scalpel, thread, and needle, he quickly came over, kneeling on the ground as he attended to the unconscious girl. It took only a few quick slices to get through the suit, now thoroughly ruined, to reach the other wound beneath.
Smoke seemed to be concerned for her decency, but they soon discovered that the girl wore a tank top beneath the strange suit she wore. It wasn't in the way, so Bruce felt no need for further tampering. He had a clear enough view of the wound now, which had unclotted thanks to the removal of the suit that had provided meager blockage.
Well, that explained the extra blood on the table. Bruce only wished he noticed it sooner.
Indeed, there was a puncture where the end of the blade had pierced through the girl's shoulder. Had this been a full grown man, this probably wouldn't have happened – but because of the girl's slight physique, the knife (which must have been at least six inches long, if not more) cut right through her. The wound was just under her collarbone, not even an inch wide. Although bleeding profusely, no thanks to her upright position, the injury was relatively minor all things considered.
Smoke didn't even need an order before he was already rinsing the wound. Well, at least he was a quick-learner. Bruce was already stitching the wound closed within five minutes of being alerted to the problem. He didn't worry about the bone beneath, and his knowledge of human anatomy gave him the skill to analyze and understand that her lung hadn't been punctured – if it had, the symptoms would have been made apparent a long time ago, even without knowing the blade had gone so far through.
"Shouldn't we be worried about internal bleeding?" Smoke asked. It was a valid question, but he didn't have to worry.
"Well, if you're right and she has an accelerated healing system, then I imagine that sliced veins are one of the easiest things her body can mend," Bruce himself had seen no signs of internal bleeding, and the girl seemed to be taking to the transfusion well enough. It was still too early to say for sure, but further monitoring would provide the answers he needed to give a correct diagnosis. "Her system just needed a little outside assistance. We'll wait and see, but as of right now, she should make it."
The boy heaved a sigh he had probably been holding in the entire time. Those were the words he had been waiting the hear this entire time, and Bruce couldn't help but smile a little at the kid's reaction. "Dude, you're a life saver."
"I'm aware of that," Bruce said, if only to keep the kid's ego in check. He didn't feel that the statement was true, but for now it would have to do. He cast a side glance at the boy, remarking, "So, is she your girlfriend?"
Smoke did a double take, not expecting the question. The rising flush in his cheeks seemed to answer the question even if his words did told a different story. "What? No, she doesn't even like me. But she saved my life and I thought I might as well repay the favor, you know?"
"Well, isn't that kind of you?"
Smoke scowled at him, not liking the tone of Bruce's voice. "Do you really think I'm that heartless?"
"No," Bruce said lightly, peering at the girl's shoulder as he made the final knot to the thirty-seventh and last stitch of the night. "I just find it odd that you seemed so concerned with her. I remember you telling me that you're a no-commitment kind of guy. And you haven't been seeing any other girls lately, have you?"
The girl stirred on the couch, her eyes flicking about in a restless sleep. Smoke edged away from her, perhaps leery that she might've heard what Bruce had said. He retorted, "Like I ever talk to you about that stuff. You don't know anything about me, okay?"
"Sounds like denial to me."
"We are so not talking about this right now."
Bruce just laughed to himself. He had no real concern for Smoke's love life, he just enjoyed having something to tease him with. The little joys in life.
Standing up, the man put his tools away for the last time and went into the kitchen to wash his hands. And the rest of him, really. Looking down at himself, Bruce was startled to discover how much of himself had gotten dirty. Most of it was the girl's blood.
Her abnormal blood...
Bruce paused, letting that thought ferment in his head. When was the last time he ever dealt with such a subject? Surely not before his days in the Gamma ray lab. After that, he had been on the rub, living from one spot to the next. Sure, he had his own little lab here in the house, but it was child's play compared to what was available in a government-sponsored science facility.
Still. He had the right tools necessary for the job. Sure, it could take some time, but he could test her blood, reveal its components, discover what made her so different from everyone else...
What would he learn? What if General Ross found out? Dangerous or not, the girl would surely be of interest to the man who was so determined in exterminating every existence of inhuman activity on the planet. It could put her –and everyone she knew – in danger.
Hell, Bruce had considered trying something similar with Smoke when he learned of the thief's own unique abilities. But the boy's own vigilance would have prevented such a thing from happening, had Bruce ever been overcome with the scientific urge to dissect all he could from the living organism.
Sometimes it was hard to stop thinking like a scientist. Bruce had to remind himself that these kids were still human, or at least maintained a humanity, that deserved to be protected. He had seen where scientific rationality taken to its fullest extent could lead, and he was determined not to be like that.
If anything, the Other Guy was the antithesis to all that was impassive and logical in the scientific world. It was just a little thing that Bruce could take solace in.
A few minutes later, Smoke walked in. It took Bruce a second glance to realize that he, too, was covered up to his arms in the girl's blood. There was a haunted look in Smoke's eye, as if he was just realizing it as well, and was unable to compute the sheer horror of it all. Bruce left the kid alone to his thoughts and cleaning, while he found a clean shirt to wear.
Coming back downstairs, Bruce checked the girl's vitals once more. It hadn't been a whole hour yet since the transfusion, but he wanted to be careful.
Already he was noting a rise in her vitals, a sure sign of recovery, and that of her supernatural healing factor. Bruce knew, without even thinking too hard about it, that with further documentation he would be able to determine at exactly what rate her body healed in comparison to the average human.
No. Stop that. Think human. Human. She is human.
Smoke appeared at the doorway, donning a clean shirt that Bruce had no idea where he had gotten from. "How long is it going to take until she gets better?"
"I don't know," Bruce didn't like it, but he was compelled to tell the truth, and stick to his duty as a medical doctor – only one of many occupations he laid claim to, but the most humane one. "A few days, at least. She'll have to stay here. Moving her anywhere is too risky, and at this point a hospital is redundant and dangerous. Does she have any family or friends that need to be contacted? A cover story may be needed, since she obviously doesn't know me, and I doubt she talks about you in her everyday life."
"No," was all Smoke said.
"No, what?"
"No, she doesn't have any family."
Bruce gave the boy a curious look. That was such a strange thing to hear. He glanced at the girl again, wondering if it was really true, or perhaps Smoke was mistaken. He must be. "Are...are you sure?"
"Yeah, man, I've been to her place," Smoke said, crossing his arms and looking a little displeased at Bruce's disbelief. "She's the only one who lives there. She doesn't have any family, and she doesn't bring friends over, if she has them. She lives a pretty private life. Kind of like you, actually."
Bruce did not appreciate the comparison, accurate as it was. Oh, sure, it was fine for him, because he was an adult, he was independent and could take care of himself (aftereffects of Gamma radiation notwithstanding), and had no family to worry over. But a girl – who looked even younger than Smoke – had no business living on her own, in a city like this, with the unique biology that she had.
Where were her parents? Aunts? Uncles? Hell, even grandparents or foster families were better than nothing. Who was responsible for her life, her well-being? Did anyone know about this? How does a kid just become forgotten? Did she just fall through the cracks of society?
Bruce should have known there was something suspicious when Smoke brought her here instead of letting her actual guardians handle the problem. "Well, double-check, just to be sure. There has to be someone out there who can keep an eye on her."
"But you'll take care of her, right?" Smoke asked, approaching with an earnest look on his face. The boy knew Bruce's principles – he was probably afraid that the man would be too strict on himself.
"For the time being," Bruce said with a slow nod, but shot a warning look at the younger male. "But it's a temporary solution, you understand? She can't stay here. The less she knows about me, the better."
"Right, right. I'll go take care of the family thing while you, um, sort all this out." Smoke nodded, surprisingly quick to be accommodating, and before Bruce could ask what that was about, the thief was already grabbing his jacket and heading out the door. Or rather, through it. "See you later, doc!"
He gave the man-turned-monster one last salute and grin before disappearing.
