Narrative Who: Jonathan Crane, Unconscious!Riddler, NPC!Medical Staff Where: Arkham Asylum Medical Center When: April 16, 2012, evening What: Patching the Riddler back together. Rating: PG-R
“Doctor Crane, you’re wanted in the Medical Center,” a teenager said, tilting her head around his office door.
Jonathan looked up at the volunteer, trying to place her before shrugging and sighing, closing the folders he had been working from. “Any idea why? There are other doctors downstairs,”
“It’s The Riddler, sir, he was brought in earlier,”
Jonathan cursed, standing and grabbing his lab coat. “Thank you, Abigail,” Jonathan said as the girl’s name suddenly came to him. She had been part of the local high schools’ community service group, one of the many idiots trying to get in a few hours for graduation while they ‘learned’ about their community. Abigail was the only one who lasted longer than a day and didn’t spend most of their time at the asylum zoned out, watching the clock, begging to leave.
The girl nodded, heading back to the front desk where she spent her time, poking at the computer and greeting guests. Jonathan shook his head as he watched her go, heading for the elevator. One of these days he needed to hire an actual receptionist who was trained to work in such a place, but students were free.
He stared at the numbers on the ancient elevator as they clicked past, pushing up his glasses as the gate opened and striding down the hall, just wondering what he was going to find this time. It varied between patients, but an encounter with the GPD or the Batman usually guaranteed one thing...it would be bloody.
“What do we have?” he asked the trauma team, accepting the file offered to him by Dr. Young, flipping through it.
“Probable broken nose, Possible broken jaw, broken hand, broken arm, possible internal trauma, possible head trauma...”
Jonathan cursed, pulling a pen light from his pocket, lifting Edward’s eyelids to check his pupils, watching their dilation, skipping over most of the mental and conscious tests considering he rather knew Edward was unconscious right now. “Nigma...Edward, can you heard me?” he tried before he could actually stop himself, examining Edward’s exposed skin, using a marker to write something lightly on Edward’s broken wrist before leaning close, stethoscope out to listen to Edward’s breathing, followed by stomach sounds, making sure there wasn’t a rupture.
“He needs a full body CT scan,” Jonathan muttered, grabbing a pair of surgical scissors and cutting apart Edward’s clothing, tossing the scraps into a medical waste bag that one of his nurses held.
“We don’t have a CT machine,” Young countered, grabbing her own pair of scissors, starting at Edward’s pants to pull them free, trying to carefully un-stick the bloody fabric.
“I am aware of that,” Jonathan muttered, cursing Bruce Wayne, the board of directors and the foundation in his head. He paused in thought, flat edge of the scissors resting against Edward’s neck from where he had been working on the shirt. “Finish stripping him,” Jonathan ordered a nurse, handing her the scissors and leaving the Medical Facility.
It was two hours later that he returned, wheeling in a portable CT scanner with ‘Gotham Hospital’ stenciled on the side.
“You borrowed one?” Young asked, looking up from where she had been monitoring Edward, standing.
“No, they refused my request,”
“You stole it?!”
Jonathan raised an eyebrow at her, shifting around a few beds to set up the machine, plugging it in. “They won't give us one and the board keeps ignoring us, what would you have me do, Penelope?”
Dr. Young bit her lip before sighing and packaging Edward up to be scanned. “You had better remove the stencil before Cash sees it,” she said, helping Jonathan to get Edward on the bed for the scanner, tucking the criminal’s arms in, careful of his broken wrist.
Jonathan smiled at her words, activating the machine, keeping his eyes on the unconscious man as the scanner moved over him.
--
“Moderate head trauma, broken wrist, no internal bleeding and nothing more serious,” Young confirmed, looking at the scans. She made a face. “Past history of abuse though,”
“Yeah, but that was expected,” Jonathan said, not looking up from where he was suturing a cut across Edward’s nose. He tied off the not and snipped the thread before moving up, working on the next. “You’ve seen his x-rays,”
She nodded, joining him in the treatment room, snapping on a pair of latex gloves and grabbing her own suture kit, closing a gash over his temple. “What do you propose for treatment?”
“Sedation for now, keep the diagnosis periods brief, no more than half an hour,”
“He’ll need ICP monitoring,” Young said, looking up at Jonathan over the body between them.
“I know,” Jonathan said, hand stilling as he thought. “I just don’t enjoy the idea of having to explain when he’s awake, why we had to stick probes into his skull.”
Young smiled, returning to her stitches. “It’ll be a small hole,” she said, tying off a knot. “Not even noticeable,”
“He won’t see it that way,” Jonathan muttered as he finished off a stitch and tossed the needle into the sharps bin waiting for it. He pulled off his gloves, standing and promptly sitting back down, muscles cramping. “Owe,”
Dr. Young laughed covering her mouth with a gloved hand. “Easy there, Jonathan, you’re not as young as you used to be,”
Jonathan made a face at her before standing again, limping his way to the casting plaster as blood flow tried to return to his legs.
--
“Well Edward, looks like you got yourself into a bit of a spot,” Jonathan said, sitting next to his finally bandaged, probed and sedated patient, yawning heavily. He pushed up his glasses, rubbing his eyes before looking down at Edward again, shaking his head.
“If you keep doing this, you’re going to end up killed,” he muttered, gently covering Edward’s chest with a blanket before standing and heading for a spare bed, happily collapsing into it, asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.
A few minutes later Dr. Young slipped Jonathan’s glasses from his face, covering him with his own blanket. “You’re not doing too better there, doc,” she said, hitting the light switch to dim the lights, glancing at her patient and boss before leaving them to head to her office, keeping an eye on them with the webcam that fed to her tablet.