I realize that the "oxygen machine" should probably be a ventilator… that's a my bad. :) Haha. I promise he'll wake up soon. I wanted the story to make some sense and wanted you to be familiar with the main character. No edits. Just writing. - D
Ten minutes before Venus and Bruce arrived, I was close to forming a search party to find them. It had been a little over an hour since he had left to have the chemical analyzed. Venus busted through the door, her hair a crazy frizzy ball on her head, the gown loosely tied around her neck. Her cheeks were a vibrant red color. Bruce… In her hands she was clutching a packet of paper, stapled together neatly. "I'm here," she breathed, shaking the packet in the air. "I don't quite understand all of these, but-" she took a deep breath and hunched over. No theatrics right now, please.
"Just tell me," I ordered, making my eyes as steely as possible. Bruce stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him. He pulled the packet from her hands and looked at me.
"It's got peptides, proteins, penotothal sodium, scopolamine, testosterone, erythropoietin, calcium, aldosterone, zinc, magnesium, anabolic steroids, and hydromorphone," he rambled. Hydromorphone?! That's stronger than morphine! I nodded as Venus caught her breath and peered up at me.
"We need all of those things and we need them now." I tried to keep my anxiety under control. No one likes an anxious surgeon. Just chill.
"I'll go to the drug room," Bruce muttered, quickly disappearing before I could say anything. I listed through the ingredients in my head… Penotothal sodium as in the truth serum? And scopolamine? The mind control serum? Oh, no, what have we gotten ourselves into? I breathed in and out, steadying myself against the operating table. We all listened as Bruce yelled for people to move, wheeling the drug cart into the OR. He pushed his hair back and gawked at me.
"I need you to tell me what you want me to do."
"About what?"
"Look at the x-rays," I told him, gesturing to the monitor. He turned to look and gaped, just as I had, his mouth dropping open.
"What is that?" he asked, lowly, walking over to get closer. I shrugged.
"I have no idea."
"What can we do?" I let out a long gust of air. "Can we remove it?"
"I believe so," I answered.
"Do it," he ordered as he turned back around to look at me. Seems like we're about to get dirty after all.
"Venus, mix up a cocktail of the drugs and put it on a drip. I need you to make as many as you can after the first one, but please leave out the scopolamine, it's not necessary." She nodded and set to work, pulling open the drug cart, sifting through the medicines. "Bruce, you need to get people gowned up outside. We're going to have to flip him over and he's about 300 pounds." Bruce gave me a curt nod and set back outside.
"Anything I can help with?" Lucius asked, stepping out from behind me. I had totally forgot that he was standing back there.
"Oh, no… I think I have this." He smiled and lightly patted my shoulder.
"Mind if I stay?"
"Feel free," I replied, giving him a smile. I returned back to guarding the oxygen mask, standing stone cold over Bane. I was used to it. Venus worked fast out of the corner of my eye, I could see her hands flicking and moving as she dumped each medicine into a bag. The door opened and Bruce stepped in with 7 people.
"I'm done," Venus chirped, rising up from the stool she was sitting on. I knew I had called on her for a reason. I smiled at her from behind my ask, not attempting to say a thank you.
"Connect that to his line, please," I asked in an authoritative tone. She rushed to Bane's side and did just that. His heartbeat steadied into a rhythm for the first time since we had taken his mask off. Thank you, thank you, thank you. "Everyone grab a side and we'll flip him towards Bruce." The assistants stepped forward with the volunteers, every pair of hands grabbing some part of Bane. "We'll flip on three." I stared each person in the eyes, trying to find the weak link- I couldn't find one, thankfully. "Ready?" There was a unanimous 'yeah.' "One- two- three." With a grunt I helped lift and turn him onto his stomach, exposing the huge scar down his back. The tubing that led to the mask from inside of his body stuck out just at the base of his neck. Oh, gross. If I hadn't been used to seeing fucked up shit like that, I might have fainted. "Nice job," I whispered, trying not to be too friendly. I'm still the boss. "Everyone that was brought in by Bruce can leave now." I got a few scowls as the people left. Whatever.
I rolled my neck from side to side, stretching my arms and shoulders. It was time for the fun part- the part that I always got a kick out of. I could feel the problems and stress of the day slipping from my mind, pushing everything, including my past out of focus. I was in complete control of my body. "Betadine," I started, holding out my hand for the brush. I took it and spattered the orange disinfectant along his back and neck, making sure to cover any visible part of his backside. I was cautious like that. I handed the brush back and left my hand out. "Scalpel." The metal was cold, but welcoming in my hand. I took a quick glance at the x-ray again and measured over from his spine to the middle of where the cylinder should be. I gently pressed the blade into Bane's skin, a pool of blood pooling in its wake. "Retractor." The device was placed into Bane's incision, cranking him wide open. "Suction and gauze." Two pairs of hands worked feverously to pack his incision. We were met with one tube and a large metal cylinder.
I reached in and felt my hands around the cylinder, praying that the cylinder wasn't connected to anything major. There were only bits of connective tissue that had grown around it, but nothing major. I wrapped my hands around the cylinder and pulled it out, the tube still poking out of the top of it. "Bruce, can you use the diamond blade, please?" He turned it on and sliced through it, freeing Bane of one device. One down. One to go. Mist dispersed throughout the room again, a few people coughed as they breathed it in. The same nurse from earlier held a biohazard container open beside me. I happily dropped it inside and pulled the strand of tubing from out of Bane's back, slowly. A hole was left in his head from the tube. "Pack that," I ordered. I walked to the other side and prepared to take out the second device. "Someone close him up on that side." A nurse stepped up in my place and began preparations for sealing his wound as I cut above the second cylinder.
"I have a new serum that I would like to test that I tried on Bruce," Lucius interjected as I minded my hands. I rolled my eyes. I might have respected Lucius, but he was driving me crazy. "It's a serum that heals scarring. It helps new skin breakdown and heal scar tissue without leaving any scar tissue behind." I raised my head, my eyebrow raised along with it. He pulled it out of his lab coat and held it up for me to see. It was a beige colored liquid, the consistency resembling glue.
"I don't mind." It wasn't my fucking body. Or my idea to do this in the first place. Lucius smiled widely at me as I dipped my head back down to my work. I hadn't had to say a word, someone had already packed in gauze and put the retractor in the second incision. Strong work. The second device came out easily. "We have plates and screws and all that kind of shit in here, right?" I asked, holding my bloodied hands on my hips.
"Yeah," answered a voice from the corner of the room.
"Bring it over here." The woman rushed over holding different sized plates with a small pan of screws in her hands. I held each one up, scrutinizing it, trying to find an appropriate size for the hole. I found one that was a two inch wide square. I handed her back the other plates and walked back over to Bane. I placed the plate and the dish down on a covered table and sighed. This was turning out to be much worse than anticipated. We're preventing another city wide hostage situation. We're almost done. I pulled and cut a flap of skin back off of his head from around where the tubing was. An assistant suctioned out the area before I sat the plate down over the hole in his skull, using the steadiest of motions, I readied a screw in my hand. I stared at the drill I was about to use and winced internally. "Push another load of morphine in, too. This isn't like being tickled." I heard someone laugh. Heat rose over my body. I bit my tongue as hard as I could.
"Knock it off," Bruce barked. Thank you. I shut my eyes. You can't fuck this up. His brain is there. His brain. Don't drill too far. It's his brain. I calmly and carefully held the screw down over the plate.
"Drill. Now." I held out my left hand as I held the screw steady with my right. I gripped it tightly as it was placed in my hand, noticing a few people looked away as I aimed the drill for the screw. I held my breath and listened to the shrill sound of metal gnawing through bone. One down. Three to go. The next three screws were less painful than the first, I wanted to sing a praise and clap my hands that I was finally done. "Close him up and push another round of meds." I wiped the sweat off of my forehead with the sleeve of my gown, taking in the success of the scar serum that Lucius had created. I could barely see the scar going down Bane's spine. I couldn't even tell where I had cut into his back.
"Anything else?" asked a voice.
"Clean off the betadine, flip him over, strap him up, and put him in the recovery room. We'll take shifts watching over him. I'll make up some schedule here in a few." I looked up at the group of them and felt my inner leader rip out of its usual coma. "Nice work today," I mumbled after a beat. A few people clapped as I left the room. That was a surprise. See? I'm not that heartless.
The hype in the Infirmary had certainly died down from earlier. I was grateful. I couldn't deal with that crowd again. I pulled my gown, and gloves off, shoving them into a biohazard bag someone was smart enough to set up by the door. My booties and face mask were the last to come off. I scanned the room, taking note of the few people huddled up talking and Selina standing alone, slumped against the wall, mindlessly watching television. I found Venus at the nurse's station, mixing more bags together for Bane. She had made five already. The liquid in the bag was the same purple color as the mist. I hadn't noticed that before.
"Hey," I greeted, walking over to her.
"Hello," she mumbled, not taking her eyes off of the syringe she was using.
"Thanks for helping." It felt so awkward coming out of my mouth, but I knew she needed to hear it.
"No problem." A large smile formed on her face. Oh, please, like I don't ever say thank you. I heard footsteps approach us and turned to greet the person.
"Thank you both," related Bruce with a smile.
"Any time," Venus sang, her face flushing. It's just Bruce. Get control of your ovaries, woman.
"Anything to save a city," I clipped.
"So, I have an idea, but Venus may know more about it-" she giggled, then coughed when she saw that I was scowling. "-do you think we could give him a formula like this and slowly work him off of it?" he asked, picking up a purple bag.
"Why?" I asked, defensively. He's normal looking now. You got what you wanted. He may need medicine to stay alive for the rest of his life… poor Bane.
"I want him to be normal."
"He is normal."
"Not with this," he argued, slightly shaking the bag.
"Millions of Americans take medicine every day to stay alive. Some of them even have to take medicines two to three times a day," I quipped, folding my arms across my chest. Bruce's face became icy. He glowered at me, mirroring me by setting the bag down and crossing his arms.
"That's not normal. I want him to function on his own." Oh, you are infuriating. And women think you're so perfect. They're all fucking blind.
"Why?" I cried out, almost yelling. I felt every eye in the room land on me. Great.
"That scopolamine wasn't in that serum just because someone liked the way the name sounded, Holly." His voice had dropped into a low tone that was dangerous and throaty. You've never met a normal woman, then Bruce. Women do weird shit all of the time. We stared at each other intensely, neither one of us backing down.
"Bruce does have a point," Venus chimed. You would take his side. I flicked my eyes down to her then back to Bruce.
"Who in their right mind would control another human like that?" Aside from my own father?
"Talia," Bruce answered quietly. Talia al Ghul? My brain replayed Blake's explanation of The League of Shadows.
"That woman from Bane's file?" I questioned, cocking my head to the side.
"Wait!" Venus screeched. "That's Bane in there?!" See? He's not that perfect now is he?
"Yes," Bruce returned in a calm and collected voice. It was daylight compared to the tone he had used with me moments before.
"You mean we just-" Hi, Venus, welcome back to life. We've missed you and we'd like to show you what you've been a part of for the last two hours while you were too busy thinking about fucking Bruce. She stared at my blankly. Yep.
"I would hope that this information remained confidential," he warned. Venus swallowed and nodded, looking up at her 'dream boy.'
"Yes, it will, sir," she assured him. She'd do anything for you, trust me.
"So, Venus- can you make a serum for Bane? I need one that he will eventually be able to stop taking. Can you do that?"
"Yes."
"Great!" A shit-eating grin spread across his face. "I'll go grab Lucius and you two can get started immediately."