Profession

A new garden is started

Jon reached the pair first and efficiently relieved Nick of his burden. Nick wheezed a thank you and we followed them back to the house. Jon took the Batman downstairs where I still had the setup for the vigi-friends, which I had never had to use. I pulled the treatment table out and unfolded it, and Jon gently laid Batman on it. It was Grandpa Bruce, I could tell immediately from the chin. Nick explained as we tried to work the zipper down that there was a new kingpin, bringing back old-fashioned drugs of abuse to Gotham, and Grandpa had had a skirmish. Nick had been monitoring from his apartment and shot out when things started to go south. The zipper had been crushed, and Jon solved the problem by grasping the jacket on both sides and simply ripping it apartment. I didn't give Jon enough credit for his physical strength beyond the very attractive visual, preferring his emotional, moral, mental strength, but the man was built like a brick shithouse, whatever that was and why ever the building material mattered.

Without the interference of the reinforced body armor, it took about two seconds for me to realize he was in really bad shape. "Call for medics," I instructed the men tersely, getting a better idea of what was going horribly wrong. "Nick. Do it now. Jon. I need you to get the rest of his costume off." Nick started speaking into his communicator and Jon ripped the rest of the body armor off, taking it away for a discreet disposal. I had saved sweats and t shirts of several different sizes during the vigi-friend days that my friends had worn while training; there were rips and dirt and blood, and would make the standard "set up on by ne'er-do-wells" story easier to believe. I pulled out a pair that had belonged to Ari, the biggest of the boys, and dampened them. It was raining outside, the clothes had to be wet too. When Jon got back, he helped Nick pull the bottoms on before going upstairs to wait for the EMTs. Fortunately, Grandpa had added boxer briefs to the bat suit; Nick said that the last upgrade caused chafing. I was running concussion meds, medications to support damaged organs and control bleeding, and had a good idea of what the damage internally was by the time Nick brought down the EMTs.

They questioned me succinctly, taking my license number and treatment notes as they efficiently and carefully transferred Grandpa to their equipment, and Jon showed them the elevator. Nick and I raced up the stairs, making plans. He would go to the hospital with Grandpa and I would rally the family. Jon and I took the big pod and followed the ambulance. Jon and I split the list of primary contacts and went to work. Night owls must run in the blood, because everybody was still up. I spoke to Grandpa Damian and Grandma Alex, Tabby (I didn't know if Grandma Selina was in town or not, she was really hard to keep track of, but Tabs would know), and Deri and, reluctantly, Daniel. Jon called Uncle Richard, Grandpa Xander, Jason and Tim (whom he knew better than I did, thanks to their crime-fighting days,) and his dad. Nick was going to call his brother.

We joined Nick in the waiting room of the ER, and family started to arrive fast. Before long, Nick was huddled muttering with the other family members who were Batman-adjacent and the rest of us were a tense knot in a corner, waiting for a medical professional. I'd checked in at the desk; nobody I knew was working then and there, so I introduced myself, gave my license number again, and identified myself as the point person for the family. If I could speak one on one with the doctor, I would probably get more information since medical people all spoke the same language and there would be less emotional upset.

About half an hour later, we got our first update; Grandpa was in worse shape than expected but had been stabilized enough for surgery. They'd try to save damaged organs but it was really borderline and they were going to harvest stem cells during the surgery just in case things went downhill. It was a lot more technical than that, but medical shorthand let information come faster and more fully. "Did you work on him?" the ER doc asked me, and I nodded. "Nice work, particularly the factors to support the organs and slow internal bleeding. Are you on the crisis team?"