Every time Barry fluttered into consciousness, he was thrown into vertigo.

His joints mildly ached from being stuck perfectly supine on his back. Arms, legs, and torso sandwiched tightly between thick straps and a neoprene mat. Unable to reposition his neck as it was secured in place by the hugging of neoprene and polyisoprene. His left bicep slowly being strangled for what felt like hours. Face too tired to cringe when his whole arm became agonizingly numb.

An IV in his elbow, of which he wouldn't have known about if it wasn't being set up in the corner of his eye. The numbness in his arm was so splitting that he wouldn't focus on something he couldn't fully see.

A small halogen light, beyond the back of his head, just barely lit the 5x7 space enough to show the shaking of the white ceiling. He traced the line between two doors in front of him, how even it was. And how evenly the two windows lined up, despite being able to see nothing in them besides for bouncing light.

There was a person in the room with him. Behind him somewhere. Their fingers smashing into a keyboard. Constantly changing the lights on the walls around him. All off, then all dim, then a couple beaming by his head. Whenever he tried to count the rest of the lights around him, he'd lull back into blackness.

One of the times, Barry awoke to another thermometer probing into his mouth. The soft tip being forced into the frenulum of his tongue by an oblivious hand. The coils of the thermometer's cord grazing through his hair.

A beep came from behind his head somewhere. Then a sequence of aggressive beeping. Accompanied by a tiny flashing red light behind his head that illuminated the room from white to pink. The hand was shaking, forcing itself to keep the thermometer in his mouth.

The faint smell of leather and rubber hit Barry whenever the hand came closer to his nose. Finally the stubble of Bruce's chin appeared in the corner of his eye. Bruce was kneeled down next to Barry's neoprene bed. He failed to keep his eye contact from becoming too intense. But Barry was okay with it, considering the fact that Bruce isn't really capable of being soft. Barry choked saliva down to mutter Bruce's name.

The typing continued behind him. Diana was typing in between her incoherent questions to Bruce.

The young man's lips pursed, being the only controllable body part. Bruce watched his doe eyes to make sure the life wouldn't slip from them again. He argued with himself on whether he should try to speak to Barry, after Barry's reaction earlier. He whispered to Diana, "107 degrees Fahrenheit." One degree away from sending Barry into a convulsive death, and roughly nine extra degrees that made Bruce's windpipe tighten up.

Diana shot Bruce a look. If 107 wasn't a solid number, she would've been able to accuse Bruce of his usual overreacting - in attempt to make everything feel more alright than it actually was. Her face absorbed heat from the body that was restrained in the center of the bumpy ambulance. Having his poor mouth molested with a coated metal stick. His doe eyes desperate for a Tuesday evening that didn't require straps digging into his pale bony skin.

It gave Bruce a weird clenching feeling near his collarbone to have to confirm what he just told Diana. It was a sensation Bruce hadn't felt in a long time, but he knew it meant that everything was going wrongly. As Barry's cheekbones grew more sullen, Bruce's free hand whipped a gel pack onto his forehead.

The pack hitting Barry's face had knocked the air from his lungs. It stole most of his mental energy, leaving him to release his pain in moans. His lips pursed again.

In unison, Diana and Bruce were at their knees, externally operating on him. From the side, Bruce plucked the thermometer from Barry's mouth, prior to shimmying the silicone tip of a tympanic thermometer into his ear. Barry took Bruce's aggression, because a tiny part of him was still able to recognize the burning concern in Bruce's eyes. From the other side, Diana was leaned in front of Barry to present a rolled up tube. An oxygen cannula. He closed his eyes, thinking of it as a way to tell Diana to give him oxygen.

She complied. Even quicker than she would have, if Barry hadn't shown himself to be so desperate.

Diana realized they still had over 20 minutes until entering Gotham, and the post-work traffic would easily add an extra 20 to the 35 it'd take to reach Wayne Manor. She wanted to release his head from confinement, but his inability to support his neck gave the bumpy highway too many chances to knock him into whiplash. She loosened the blood pressure cuff on his left arm. She released his right arm from its straps and rubbed the tension from his shoulder. Watching him be able to slowly fidget his arm was secondhand comfort to her. Before the perfectionist Bruce could remind her that they were in a moving vehicle at 65 mph, she turned away. He was the one who'd panicked and insisted Alfred take them by ambulance instead of air.

Bruce sighed. He left Barry's sight and pressed a button for an intercom. "Alfred. How's it going?"

"Oh," an old saint's voice breathed through the speaker, "a marvelous view; mild breeze to top a spring's evening. Rather fine, at least for a man who isn't beset with a dire emergency in the rear of a van."

Bruce answered Alfred's passive question. "We got him on oxygen. Diana's keeping him calm." He added, "Alfred, we need to go faster."

Alfred quipped as his eyes scrolled around. "I did not see the sign that says to start speeding."

Bruce glanced out the windows before dipping his face into his hand. This was going too slow to be the speed limit.

He turned to Diana. "While you're babying him, you might as well be holding that ice pack into place." As if holding it harder would help harder.

Diana was focused on other ways of making Barry not feel like he was dying. Keeping his free arm situated safely. Preventing his body from overwhelming and getting pressure sores. Wicking caked sweat from his neck and hands, dodging his eyes from the burning of sweat, and suctioning excess saliva out of his mouth to keep him from choking. Talking him out of going into a panic attack. Tracking his pulse and ability to breathe. Reading blood pressure so the tight cuff wouldn't nearly kill his arm. "My third hand would love to, Bruce."

Bruce sucked air through his teeth. He kneeled back down, behind Barry's head. Partly to hold the pack, but mostly to let Barry look up and see that he was there for him too.

Barry's cheeks tightened with his mouth, his lips curled into his teeth awkwardly. Torn on who he should be looking at. The woman babying him because she was worried about him, or the man turning into a baby because he was worried about him.