I take back my original statement: this will be a four-chapter story instead of the three-shot.
This may seem a little bit confusing so far, but I promise there will be more background information in later chapters.
Leo
vis - cer - al
adjective
instinctive, gut, instinctual
"Bree Davenport?"
Leo stands immediately, straightening from his slouch against the wall. The rest of his family follows suit, snapping to attention. He has a sudden tug in his stomach for his mom and her warm hugs in times like these.
The boys in front of him couldn't be younger than his edge, but the one who spoke - the smallest of the pair - held the clipboard with a grim face, dressed in a doctor's coat identical to his friend's.
"I've been told to rely some information to you about her surgery," he announces, and Leo feels himself softening around alert edges at the empathy in the guy's voice. His eyes sweeps across all of them, friendly and kind. "The estimated time is roughly three to four hours, and she will be located to room 213 in the east wing."
"You seem a little...young to be a doctor?" Chase speaks up, eyeing them both critically.
Neither even bother to flinch at his blunt fashion. "Yes, but we are also considered experts because of our vast knowledge on our patients and their powers," the darker haired one says, the first one nodding in agreement. "Trust me, your sister's in good hands."
"May I speak with however can give us the best background knowledge on Ms. Davenport?" the light-haired one politely asks, taking them all in.
Leo's opening his mouth, about to Davenport forward, when the man himself takes out his phone. "Actually, Adam and I have some debriefing to do with Tasha on the accident, so why don't I let Chase and Leo assist you with that?"
Then Davenport's dragging Adam away, down the hall and around a corner.
"I'm Oliver," the shorter one supplies, then juts his thumb over to his friend. "This is Kaz. I know this may seem a bit weird to you, but we're only looking for the rest of the story."
"How she sustained her injury, what her symptoms were in the moments before she reached here, and any of the required medical history you think would best benefit her stay here."
Leo and Chase share a look; medical history would obviously include telling them about the bionics, which seems dangerous, even in this dire situation.
Then again, they were at a hospital for actual, living, breathing superheroes.
"You wanna take this?" Leo looks at Chase intensely; this seemed more like mission leader territory.
Chase straightens, hands curling at his sides. "My sister had a bionic chip implanted in her neck at birth, and because of that, her body and immune system have grown around it, blending in the abilities of the chip into her blood cells."
"Cool," Kaz breathes, and Oliver nods encouragingly, jotting down the occasional note.
"All three of them have it," Leo adds, because what could it hurt? "They were going to a warehouse on the outskirts of California when it was unexpectedly ambushed. It was a gang of five, possibly seven. At least three of them armed."
"It was a gun shot to the left rib cage, but not a regular bullet," Chase adds, face grim. "We suspect a chemically-experimented one, used especially for attacks or shootouts."
"A chemical bullet would make most of the injuries internal, which means less of a mess at the scene of the crime," Oliver mutters, scribbling it down. "The surgery was reported to have been mainly focused on the internal bleeding and getting rid of a toxin that was flooding dangerously close to the lung. A few ribs were fractured, but that's hardly impossible to fix." Oliver smiles. "I promise, she'll be fine and ready to go in a week, two tops."
"Plus, which the bionic chip installed, her body is probably heightened to withstand more than a normal human's," Kaz chimes in, looking at his buddy's note. "She might be already trying to heal herself, if I'm not mistaken. Which, is a good thing, because that makes less of a risk for infection within the blood stream."
"But, the toxin could also try to fight back, and spread more rapid fire and makes it way through her lung," Oliver states, but he's still smiling, still sympathetic. "Which is exactly what are finest surgeons are going to stop."
He doesn't say trying or will probably. It relaxes Leo's whirlwind thoughts, slightly undoes the knot resting in his stomach.
(But it isn't enough to entirely diminish the planted dread there; the immense weight of wrongness at just being here crushes him like an anchor pinning him down.)
"Have you done this before?" Chase asks. Leo looks at his brother's tired profile; the darkness already under his eyes, the yellow ill look of exhaustion that made his eyelids drop, the negative fix of his mouth, looking permanently stuck in a scowl.
Chase is desperate - desperate for answers; for Bree to be okay; for the mission to have never happened at all. Just like Leo, he wants something to cling to, even as something as stupid and misleading as a false hope.
"No," Oliver answers. He knows what Chase is looking for to. "But I promise you, every superhero that has entered the same surgery room your sister's in has come out, and are out in the world, saving lives now. Everything will be fine."
Not even the thick sincerity of his voice can not make fine sound like a lie.
:
A girl finds him in the hall that leads to the double doors of the surgery unit, where he sits in another row of uncomfortably plastic chairs, counting down the hours that his sister is due out of surgery.
She's pretty, and reminds him of Bree is a warrior princess way - a fit build, long, dark hair, naturally fierce eyes, and dangerous looking in her tight suit, even if it was pink. She wore it with a confident ease, as if it was another layer of skin she'd been born with.
Leo instantly recognizes her as Skylar Storm.
He hasn't read many of her comics, but he knows a few people around school who have, and have tiny pin-ups of her in their lockers. She's, in the best way possible, every nerd's dream girl.
"I haven't seen you here before," is her opening line. Her tone is accusatory, her expression distrusting. "Normos aren't allowed in here unless Kaz or Oliver."
Leo jumps to his feet. The last thing he needed was his butt being thrown out. "Listen, I have no idea what a normo is or why I'm it, but my sister's in there -" he points frantically in the direction of the surgery unit double doors " - and it'd be really nice if you didn't get me thrown outta here."
Skylar's lips fold into her mouth, thinking, before she finally sighs. "Whatever, you're more Kaz and Oliver's responsibility than mine, anyway."
"Uhm, thanks?" Leo says, unsure, because he's pretty certain there's no right way to answer something like that.
"So, your sister is the bionic they're operating on?" Skylar questions, eyebrows raised and her arms crossed.
Leo nods, sitting back down.
"Science was never a huge thing on our planet," Skylar confesses, leaning against the wall opposite of him. "But we weren't dumb or anything; everything was already being invented, so we decided not to mess with the cycle. So I guess what I'm saying is, the flash of bionics is lost on me."
She looks over at him, taking him in with her dark, intense eyes.
Leo has never thought of explaining what his siblings were capable of before. Everyone that could know without causing them danger either already knew and understood it, or knew about it but didn't try to understand. He's spent the last two years of his life living by the idea of a person outside family knowing would mean that Adam, Bree, and Chase would be taken away forever.
But now nearly an entire hospital full of superheroes and their doctors knew. What's another one going to hurt when she has to keep her own identity a secret.
"Bionics are basically like superhero powers, except not naturally there." Leo fumbles over his words. They fall out, feeling heavy with awkward as they fall from his lips.
"So, like they're from a nuclear volcano or something?" Skylar asks, her eyes wide with alarm.
"No, no, no! Nothing like that!" Leo is quick to deny with a vigorous head shake. "It's like what you were saying before - it has to do with science. A lot of science and tech stuff. But, explained to its minimum, it's a whole bunch of different super powers loaded into into computer chips and put in their necks as babies."
"But couldn't that, like kill them?" Skylar protests with a puzzled head tilt. Her confusion on the subject only seems to deepen.
"It could've, but Davenport used the write formulas so that the power of the chip worked with there immune systems. Now it's the opposite, kind of - if the chips were to be disabled or taken out in any way, they might die."
"Because they've lived their entire lives with them," Skylar concludes slowly.
Leo nods, lips pressed together tightly.
"That sounds like a lot to risk on one stupid chip," she decides, a small bitter note to her voice. "Especially when powers aren't all they're cracked up to be."
He frowns at her words, but Skylar either doesn't notice or doesn't care as she slumps against the wall, glaring at the aluminum tiles.
Maybe there's a bigger weight to having special abilities that Leo hadn't been able to see all this time in his siblings. But how could he? They were always so fierce and determined to save lives, as if it wasn't something they could live without doing.
He's been selfish to not realize that it must be tiring to face death all the time, especially when it can lead to tragedy.
Leo thinks about this more as he sinks further into the creaking plastic chair.
He's never had to face the price of returning from a mission a legacy instead of a teenager.
Suddenly he feels like a huge asshole, because that's the price of saving lives that lingers over his siblings heads each time they're sent out.
That must be the thing that's truly killing them.
:
Skylar drifts away from Leo when his mother arrives, breathless from an uneccessarily big hassle with security.
Soon enough she finds Oliver and Kaz huddled together in the rec room, bent over a spread of papers on the table. They couldn't have been any closer if they were in the same body.
"What's all that?" she asks, squinting at the documents.
Oliver briefly looks up. "Oh, hey, Skylar. We're just looking over some stuff for the Davenport case."
His voices sounds off - tired and worn, like he's been using it too much.
Kaz senses this, taking over. "We're just reviewing all her past medical history to make sure anything that is done in surgery won't affect her bionics."
"Will you have to mess with the chip?" Skylars asks, taking a seat acoss from them. As soon as she does, her leg goes off, beginning to bounce up and down at almost abnormal speeds. She can't help her nerves; the thought of some innocent girl being in her exact, powerless position makes her want to puke up her insides.
"No, actually," Kaz says, running a hand ove the paper closest to him. "Whatever the toxin the shooter had wasn't even one assembled for the purpose of hurting her chip, so I doubt the gang members knew she - or, they, I guess - had the abilities in the first place."
"It's basically a posion meant to harm the arteries," Oliver adds. He rubs a hand over his tired face. "Which is exactly what we're trying to stop."
Skylar leans back. It's true, what she told Leo - her planet has never been one of the most scientific ones. It wasn't a planet scientists tried to investigate, and they weren't known for making a discovery that could rock Earth to its core. No, it's just a planet that gives birth to heroes and villians, and no one's ever tried to disturb that peace.
But this girl, Bree - science experiments are all she knows. She's grown surrounded by them, living as one; the possibility of a life lived with little to no science involved is probably impossible to her. Which is a sad way to live. Once a superhero, Skylar was permitted places on Earth that were maginficent - ancient ruins, exotic cities, beautiful and dangerous lands.
To think of someone that possesses the same abilities that permit her the same oppertunites, but she was never able to take them, almost makes Skylar want to cry.
And now that she may possibly be dying - a poison spreading through her like wild fire, infecting her lungs and setting he organs aflame with disease - makes it even worse.
:
At twelve thirty two am, the surgery is finally complete.
Leo watches, against a wall, as his mother squeezes her husband as tight as she can, and Chase balls his fists, pinching his face up so he can't cry.
Adam doesn't hide, especially when Bree's wheeled into her room in the east wing; big tears roll down his cheeks, but he turns away and buries his face in his hands, trying not to show it.
Leo pretends that he doesn't see Skylar Storm lingering down the hall, appearing anxious.
Briefly, he wonders what happened to her - why no comics have been released in months, why she's at a hospital, why, why, why.
But he doesn't have the heart or attention span to ask, because all his energy, every fiber in his being, is focused on the moment he'll finally be able to see Bree, looking at her inhaling and exhaling like every person does when they breath, see her heart beat as she lives, and knows that she's okay.