The Batcave's medical facilities are the best money can buy. Literally. Vying for superiority with the greatest hospitals and laboratories in the world.
Between them, Bruce and Alfred have enough medical expertise to perform anything from filling a tooth to brain surgery.
It's only the combination of these two factors that just manages to save his life.
The impact of the blow to the boy's head has caused the rapid onset of cerebral edema, his brain swelling and inter-cranial pressures escalating within minutes of having him in the cave to the point at which their removing the back of his skull for fear of risking even further brain damage; his thick coarse blaze of hair shaved off with a soft tsk from the butler.
Some sort of mild meta-human healing factor seems to be at work, but it's weak and unreliable, barely managing to help at all.
Glass is indeed present in his eye and has to be gently removed by Alfred as Bruce examines the IV for leaks: none are present. Anything fed into the boy's body intravenously lasts only a fraction of the time it would take a normal human body to metabolize.
They work throughout the night healing as best they can, bandaging what they cant, collecting samples and eventually stabilizing the strange case. Bruce insists Alfred take periodic breaks and Alfred in return supplies periodic cups of coffee.
In the early hours of the morning the swelling of the boy's brain has receded enough to begin piecing his skull back together around it, frighteningly like a jigsaw puzzle. As they've worked Bruce has noticed the boy's physical condition deteriorating at a rate their eyes can perceive. Boney limbs become skeletal, only further aided in their grim visage by the man's newly shaven head.
They swamp him in bandages from his crown to his eyes and come dawn there's nothing more they can do but wait. Alfred retires for a few hours of rest before waking Dick for school. Bruce sits before the Bat computer and complies the results of his tests.
They are not pleasing.
The DNA sourced from his hair matches no known person living or dead, nor does that of the female DNA extracted from the vaginal secretions swabbed from his genitalia. His fingerprints yield no known matches in any database across the globe and the final hairs extracted from the under soles of what were once his socks prove to be canine. Just some random mongrel with no pedigree or breeders to be traced back to.
12 hours since he impaled himself on the Batwing, 3 since he's been out of surgery and yet no information of any kind can be drudged from him or what remains of his unusual effects.
The exact nature of his meta-human mutation proves easier to decode. Genetically speaking Bruce has never seen anything like it, but every physical trait has been altered for one thing and one thing only.
An enlarged heart. Extra lubrication and elasticity in his joints, ligaments and tendons. Micro fractures in his heels and ankles. Abnormally narrow hips coupled with almost disproportionately long legs and toes. What remains of a classic runners musculature, though much of the muscle mass has been lost. Without a doubt, like a Greyhound in comparison to a Labrador, the man is a human re-built for pure speed.
He'll need to see him awake to confirm his theories and procure an ID. That seems a long way off though, and the need to rest grows ever more pressing even for the Batman.
Dick's home hours later after an arduous day at school; throwing away his civilian identity along with his uniform onto the bed and donning Robin. Soundlessly he descends into the cave, finding himself it's only occupant. Bruce has apparently ventured upstairs to rest now Alfred has recovered enough to take over watching their patient. The butler is busy in the kitchen making dinner.
There are quite a few things Robin would like to do finding himself temporarily unsupervised within the cave, mainly use it's many distractions to avoid doing his homework until Alfred deems it appropriate to find him and set him to task. Then there's always that killer new ring routine he's been perfecting that even Bruce worries is possibly edging towards being too dangerous for an adult legally responsible for a child to allow.
But both these things are old news, and currently the newest occupant to be added to the cave's collection of oddities is a far more tantalizing curiosity. Bruce's profile of him remains without an identity; something that doesn't often happen with the Bat computer's extensive reach across the information networks of the world at Bruce's fingertips.
Flicking through the clipboard of medical notes hung on the wall of the enclosure Robin confirms his suspicions that Bruce has doused the guy in enough sedatives to keep a moose out for a night or two and has no hesitation slipping into the enclosure for a first hand look. As they said at the various sideshows of Haly's Circus, 'seeing is believing' and Dick's young eyes have been trained since birth to seek out spectacle. A trait only emphasized by his time as Robin, partner to the world's greatest detective.
The room is airtight, hermetically sealed. All four walls are made of darkened one-way glass for observation purposes and a cot stationed central to the room sits surrounded by banks of medical and monitoring equipment.
Bruce will know he's been in here of course from the security footage; Alfred probably knows he's in here right now knowing the butler's odd form of domestic clairvoyance. Bruce will also be able to see him checking the room's sensors for extraneous radiation, pathogens or contaminants before entering on the surveillance tapes so the scolding he'll receive will be mild and thusly an acceptable sacrifice for a chance of a better look at the weird meta.
His head's almost totally covered in wrappings, as if he's been half mummified from the top down. Wires feed down to the electrodes scattered across his bare rid-lined chest while an IV sits uncomfortably buried into his arm. He's apparently cold; his skin peppered with goose flesh despite several of the monitors suggesting his temperature is several degrees above the norm. Both eyes are sunken rings of red and charcoal set against his paper-thin face. One eye has a thick cottony medical patch over it. The other blinks blearily.
Blinks?
Crud. Wouldn't you know the guy chooses right then to wake up. Now Bruce really will scold him, entering the room with a conscious meta before a full threat assessment has been profiled.
Robin ducks down quickly to crouch beside the cot. Having been stood at the right side of the bed and thusly obscured from the meta's vision by the bandage over his eye Dick is pretty sure he hasn't been spotted and intends to keep it that way. So much for the lasting power of moose tranquilizers.
The guy does little but groan and breath deeply for the first minutes, trying to acclimatize to the waking pain of his injures Dick supposes. From his vantage point sat below the bedside Robin fugitively observes the patient via his reflection in the dark glass of the windows. The man is too groggy to do the same and so Dick is confident he will remain undetected and has the Kevlar of his uniform to protect him incase things turn hostile.
Slowly, the guy seems to become more alert to his surroundings, systematically twitching his fingers and toes; the next sounds recognizable and distinct. The light snapping of leather against skin echoes around the infirmary-in-a-box as he weakly tests his strength against the restraints on his wrists and ankles. He blinks stupidly, seemingly unable to equate the sensation of the material against his skin with anything beyond a strange feeling before the realization of restraints seems to kick in and he begins to struggle against them more concertedly.
Robin watches animal panic set in as he thrashes – or more appropriately: flounders – against the bindings with strangely jolting movements. What once resembled a heartbeat on the appropriate monitor quickly goes ballistic in the midst of his freak-out, soon better resembling a dubstep baseline beyond anything else.
The patient is wide-eyed, trembling and frightful. The cotton sheets below him quietly shift and crunch as he wriggles his body hopelessly and whimpers a soft smothered sound. His eyes search the room frantically, flickering across it as the machines watching his vitals all begin to squeal in alarm as if matching his distress.
Despite the wild symphony of noises and his own obvious confusion it seems he can no longer stand his own isolation as he swallows thickly, attempting (and failing) to school his gaunt features into something that doesn't resemble abject horror.
"H-hello?" He stutters with a slur before going deathly still waiting for a reply as if trying to listen for a far off echo. His lip quivers when he gets none. "Hello!?" he tries a little louder, his voice rasping from the effort of making his hoarse throat co-operate.
"Were am I?"
"I'no you're there…. P-Please?"
Robin inwardly curses, he must have gotten a glance at him after all.
The silence only upsets the meta more so and he makes an effort to curl up on himself that's promptly thwarted by the restraints.
"So'like, I totally need to pee n'I get the impressun' sheets'are esspensive'?"
It's a poor bid for freedom, so much Robin stifles a snort. He knows what Bruce would say, 'never give away your position to a hostile force', but if that's the best shot the guy's got he doubts their dealing with someone of super-villain inclinations… or intelligence. Even the meta himself didn't seem to think it would work.
He doesn't seem surprised by the lack of an answer, staring brokenly downwards.
Robin prepares to unveil himself; this guy's got a good run at the 'most pathetic looking person in the world' award and he can't take it anymore. He moves to stand, and as he does so the familiar werring sound of the infirmary door's hydraulics sound with a hiss of pressurized air, startling the meta to jump as much as he can while still bound bodily to the bed and utterly missing as Robin reveals himself to stare dumb-founded as the black cape of the Batman sweeps in to fill the small enclosure.
The meta stares at Bruce with a cocktail of curious awe and blank confusion before a wide grin instinctively curled across his face, unpleasantly accentuating all of it's deep hollows and sharp angles.
This is not the usual response the Batman receives and Bruce stares him down. Smiles that wide make him suspicious and put him on edge – and in this city they have every right to. Despite this he notes there's no maliciousness… or recognition in his bright green eye.
"Hey" The boy slurs out, apparently less phased by the Batman's appearance than he is desperate for some sort of human connection. "Where m'I?"
Bruce watches, assessing before deciding he wants Dick out of this room… just in case. The meta seems harmless now, but the nature of meta human mutations makes this rarely if ever the case.
"Robin?" He calls, rich voice seeming to shake the air.
"Er. Yeah?" answers a voice unsurely. It's not Dicks voice.
"He's talking to me" Chirp's Dick from the meta's beside, causing him to flinch in surprise at the presence of the boy he's only just noticed.
"Your name's Robin?" the boy wonder questions, vaguely amused. The guy looks shocked, then sheepish.
"Ah. No sorry. Thought he was talkn' t'me."
Dick stares at him blankly, and the expression is returned in full before the meta's eyes slip right and his brow furrows.
"Could be Robin... I guess…. Wait snt' Robin a girls name?"
Dick face-palms as Bruce observes with clinical intensity how the crease between the patient's eyebrows seems to deepen; the genuine confusion on his face creeping into fear. Water pricks his eyes.
"What do you last remember?" Batman prompts, already knowing the answer.
A set of tear's escape with a disbelieving blink, terror overtaking his features as he stares at Batman in blank horror, as if its only just occurred to him to be afraid of a man dressed as a large black bat. But Bruce knows it isn't him he fears.
"…N-nothing. Can't remember anything"
AN:
Cliche, I know. The main reasoning being that I wanted to join the continuity of the YJ and JLU Wally's but on rewatching the first episodes of JL couldn't help but notice Flash gets the tar beaten out of him... like a lot. He seems to spend more time running into things and knocking himself out than he does on his feet.
Don't get me wrong, I've read and loved the fics that do the whole 'He's pretending to be stupid but he's really secretly smart Wally from YJ' thing, but you just can't fake how badly he runs himself into things in the start of the series. In 'Only a Dream' he gets cornered by a guy whos only power is to duplicate himself and beaten around like a wet sock. If he'd grown up fighting Mirror Master's doubles I just dont think... well, anyway. Whatever makes a good story.
On that note I have no medical knowledge so please don't roast me alive if it's wrong.
Anyhow, please review. More to come soon.