Chapter Text
Closing the freezer door, Imogen bobbed her head along to Hozier’s ‘Too Sweet’ playing from the Bluetooth. She loved all his music, but this song was a real earworm. Her fuzzy bright red and yellow Flash socks kept her feet from freezing on the hardwood floor as she went to go grab the one remaining clean spoon from the silverware drawer. The rest were in the sink along with the dishes from the last two days.
They’d get washed. Eventually. Probably tomorrow since now she was out of spoons and her sweet tooth was in hyperdrive these days.
With a pint of Sea Salt Caramel secured, she danced back toward her bed on the far side of the attic. It was a one room open space except for the built-in bathroom, but she made the best of it. The walls were covered in her photography projects. Some were framed, others were printed and grouped, some were polaroids. She currently had some prints for sale online and in coffee shops around town. A massive bean bag sat in the corner of the room by a tall IKEA shelf filled with books, all on a not-too-terribly-used rug. That was her living room. The collapsible table in the corner by the fridge was the kitchen and dining room. The table had a thrifted tablecloth thrown over it. A glass vase of dried flowers stolen from a friend’s wedding table centerpiece sat in the middle of the table. Her bed had been a pain to get up the stairs, but some friends had helped her drag the mattress in and given her a hand setting it up.
Soon, she would have to decide where she was going to move next. Eh. That was a problem for a different day. She still had seven months to figure that out. Well, she guessed she would need to figure it out earlier than that, but she had some time. She had to confirm her suspicions first.
Mo dropped down onto the comfy duvet, one of the most expensive things she owned besides her laptop, which was open and showing the Netflix homepage. Opening a 90s romcom, she settled back against her pillow mountain. 10 Things I Hate About You was an old favorite. Pairing a romcom with ice cream after a long day in the clinic was one of her favorite ways to wind down. Today had been especially hectic.
Dr. Yau had been out sick, and Dr. Carter had come in to cover for her but he wasn’t as familiar with the clinic or the hectic nature of being this close to the Bowery. He was from a fancy Wayne Enterprise hospital up in one of the nicer parts of town. The back-to-back gunshots wounds from warring crime families in the afternoon had almost sent him over the edge. At least he had called over to the fancy hospital and gotten them to help replenish the dwindling blood bank for them. Imogen had spent most of that time with her fingers holding a ripped artery together and yelling at the guy’s best friend to put his knife away so he didn’t go try to kill the other moron. Yeah, she needed the ice cream. And maybe less stress.
She was to the point in the movie where the lead guy was running through the bleachers when she heard something downstairs. The alarm system hadn’t gone off. She double checked her phone. The Ring camera and the other little security cams were down according to the apps she used to check them.
Great.
Well, if it was someone going for the drug cabinet, they were in for a sad surprise. It was the most locked down room in the building. But maybe it was someone who needed help. People usually weren’t looking for a fight even when they were trying to steal from the clinic that Mo lived over. People in Crime Alley knew that this clinic was one of their only options, seeing how it was free and everything. It used to be a proper little hospital back in the day, but they used the old surgical suite for life-sustaining trauma care instead of surgeries. Everything major was sent to one of Gotham’s hospitals; onsite they dealt with minor injuries and illnesses and they also had some program in mental health services and dental. She didn’t want to call the cops either, at least not just yet. Half the time, the police in the area took forever to show up and sometimes when they did, they were automatically aggressive due to the clinic’s location.
She grabbed her taser from the bedside table and headed for the door.
The rummaging noise turned into a crash when she was halfway down the stairs to the second floor, where there were mostly storage rooms and small offices and the rooms for counselors and trainings. The crash came from the bottom floor where the majority of the clinic was.
Imogen took a deep breath. She had to be smart. She was probably responsible for two people right now, so she had to be careful and not take stupid risks. But if someone needed a nurse—
She hurried down the rest of the stairs with the taser ready in one hand.
The lights were off, creating dark shadows and a red glow around the old exit sign over the back door.
“Hello?” she called into the darkness. Silence met her. She flicked on a light. The fluorescents buzzed to life.
“I heard you come in, creeper,” she said, “I have a taser. And a cutting wit. I can use either. I could also help if you’re hurt, as long as you don’t try something stupid.” She waited. “Stupid gets the taser.”
No answer. Imogen frowned. Slowly she started down the hall to the front of the clinic. She passed a few rooms, took a turn, passed under a brick arch. This building was so old that the ghosts found it boring to haunt.
She was heading past the surgical suite when she saw a light under the door. Imogen stopped. That had to be a flashlight. Smudges of blood covered the two doors into the suite. The hair on the back of her neck stood up even as she affected an unbothered tone. “So, I can see you. Want to come out so we can talk?”
No one said anything. The light didn’t move. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her free hand going for the cell phone in her hoodie pocket. Just in case she did need to call someone.
“I’m coming in.”
With her hip, she pushed the swinging door open, turned on the lights, stared at the body on the floor, and froze.
Red Hood was laying in a spreading pool of blood on the floor of the clinic’s makeshift emergency trauma room.
“Oh shit,” she said, dropping the phone and the taser on the nearest counter. In Crime Alley, people weren’t so quick to call Red Hood a criminal. Yeah, he did some shady stuff, but most of the people around here did, plus there was a theory that he was more vigilante than villain. Still—it was a shock to see him laying sprawled on the tile, a bundle of bandages in his hand. His signature jacket, torn and bloody, laid on the gurney in the center of the room.
Her brain bumped up into nurse mode, her ice cream and movie fading into the background as she went to work. Villain or vigilante, it didn’t matter to her, he couldn’t just freaking die here. It went against her nature to not help him. Hopefully it turned out that he was actually one of the good ones.
If not, hey, it wouldn’t be her first time having a crime lord owe her a favor.
Kneeling down next to him, she peeled the neck of his shirt down to get a better feel of his pulse. It was quick and thready. It looked like there was a GSW exit on his back, up near his right shoulder.
Flipping him over proved to be a problem. Damn, he was huge. Mo was admittedly short and spindly, and he was built like a toned fridge. Did that make sense? In any case, he was a giant in comparison and apparently made entirely of muscle. He was dense.
Finally she managed to get him onto his back. Now it was easier to see where the damage was. Two bullet wounds, one up near the right clavicle which matched the exit wound, the other in the abdomen. She hadn’t seen an exit wound for that one.
Getting up, Imogen crossed over to the supply cabinets. She didn’t want to treat him on the floor but there was no way she could get him onto the bed by herself. It’d be like trying to move a tank by pushing it. She snapped on gloves and grabbed a stethoscope.
Movement out of the corner of her eye made her whirl around. Red Hood stumbled past her, hand on his stomach. He grabbed her phone off the counter, threw it on the floor, and stomped on it with one combat boot.
“No ambulance.” His stern voice was muffled by the scarlet helmet.
Imogen gaped. “Dude. Uncalled for. You could’ve said that before Hulk smashing my phone.”
He turned toward her, lurching into the countertop. “S-sorry?”
“You should be.” She stayed where she was, acting like she might if trapped in a room with an injured grizzly. “You might not have noticed, but you’re slowly dying. Is there someone you can contact since the hospital is a no-go?”
“I did…” His head drooped forward. He slumped.
Imogen rushed toward him, fear broken by the need to help. “Wait, wait, pass out on the gurney! Not standing, you giant ass—” She slipped under one of his arms (which were also huge) and took a determined step toward the gurney. He moved with her, yanked along. He partially fell against the gurney, his hip landing on its side. “Get on, I can’t pick you up if you fall.”
“Are you always…this bossy?”
“Are you sassing me with your last breath?” she mumbled, helping him onto the gurney.
“Gotta make this one count."
“Stay awake, you oversized goober,” she said as she left, going for the scissors so she could cut through his shirt or try to. That looked like strong material but she had some tough scissors. “Got it?” Better that he was awake than unconscious.
He wasn’t obedient. He relaxed too much, his curled fingers going limp. Imogen cursed. She needed a whole team here. His chest was barely rising and falling—
Abandoning the hunt for scissors, she went for his helmet instead. This was a risky move. If she saw his face and he decided she needed to die for uncovering his identity… But if she didn’t make it easier for him to breathe, he’d die. Stopping the bleeding was the first thing she needed to do, but if he stopped breathing--she needed more hands to do everything that needed to be done.
In a split decision, she found the latch hidden at the bottom of his helmet that kept it on tight. “Don’t you dare kill me,” she said and slid the helmet off.
She had been hoping it would be a face she didn’t recognize.
Instead, she found herself staring. She knew that face. It had been plastered on social media, the adopted rich kid who didn’t make it, and then back on social media a few years ago when he re-emerged. Something about how his wealthy family had faked his death due to him seeing a crime and then he had been sent to a military boarding school but then he was able to come back, still the black sheep of the family. Beloved by the Internet though, like most of the Waynes.
Not only was Red Hood bleeding out on the gurney, Jason Todd was Red Hood and now she was in trouble with the crime world and the richy-rich world.
Maybe she should’ve stayed upstairs with the ice cream and Netflix.
Mo shook her head. Nah. She needed to stop the bleeding, get him on oxygen, and go from there. Baby steps toward survival.
“Let’s make sure you don’t die for real this time, okay…”