Chapter Text
Doc must have fucked the wrong man in the ass in his last life since he has been forced to go back to the hospital outside of work hours…which is kind of sick to think about because he is on the clock. It’s just for a different job that has been forced upon him. Honestly, why can’t he just be a solo hero? He doesn’t want to work for the government. Fuck the government. Hell, Tiger works for herself! She just has to fill out paperwork at the end of the day saying ‘hey, i dropkicked this guy, i threw this guy over a car, and i nearly killed a ceo that may sue me’.
He just doesn’t get it. Why does the psychopathic ginger get that right, but not the exhausted doctor who is just trying to survive?
Anyway, the car ride back to the hospital has been quiet. Not even Iris is talking this time, and that woman can talk when she chooses to. She is choosing not to. The man isn’t sure if he should be concerned or not. It gets even more complicated with Apricot because who the fuck knows what is going through her head.
It doesn’t take them long to arrive at the hospital. While Iris is pulling in front of the hospital, the detective gives her commands.
“Take Doc wherever he wants to go. I got it from here, thank you,” Apricot explains, her voice firm as if she expects something to fuck up.
Iris looks in the mirror back at her, “Of course, good luck, sugar, ” As soon as the car is parked, Apricot is out and enters the hospital with a clear goal in mind. By herself. In a place that is probably hell on her with her quirk.
“Does she always fly solo into stupid situations?” Doc can’t help but ask Iris. The maid rolls her eyes, her voice softening as she watches where her best friend went in.
“She does go solo usually, but she is also capable. It would take luck and skill to take her down.” Doc sighs loudly and opens the door.
“I don’t like it. I’m going after her.” Doc literally has an out, yet he is choosing to go in. Maybe he is the stupid one.
“Be careful, Doc,” Iris hesitates before adding softly, “And keep an eye on her please. She can handle herself, but I don’t want her to be alone.”
That pushes Doc to move faster. He gets out of the car and makes his way into the hospital where he scans for the detective. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Apricot disappear into a hallway, and he chases after her until he is right behind her. She doesn’t acknowledge him, but she doesn’t shove him away either. Good.
Doc follows Apricot through the building, navigating through hallways and entering elevators as if she owns the place. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought that she was a nurse for how easily she made her way around. They arrive outside of room 46: Joseph Doe. Even if he didn’t know where they were going, Doc probably could have guessed which room he was in since this is the only one with a guard outside of it. Kind of obvious, but it makes for a good threat.
Apricot doesn’t bother to knock as she enters. Doc follows right behind her to enter a traditional hospital room if you ignore another guard beside the bed. That doesn’t seem to matter at the moment because the detective would be staring down the man in the bed.
“Terracotta,” Apricot states sharply. The man laughs breathily.
“Ah, detective. The case must be throwing you through a loop if you don’t trust me now after everything,” The man muses aloud with a voice mature but smooth as silk, “I’m Raymon Patrick, remember?”
“Do you really think you can fool me?”
The guard steps in, “Detective Apricot, we have been by Mr. Patrick’s side the entire time since he has been here. There is no way he can be someone else.”
Doc steps around Apricot and approaches the bed to grab the clipboard from the end. He quickly scans the profile, flipping through the pages with precision only a doctor would have until he looks up and activates his quirk on the man to inspect his tags. Doc figures it out relatively easily given Raymon’s file is…intense to say the least.
“That’s not him. Sir, you need to-”
“Stay,” Apricot interrupts, “He’s part of it.” Okay then.
Raymon changes. Not in a literal sense, but in more of how it feels to be around him. Terrible way of explaining it, he knows, but it’s like watching an actor step out from their role and become themselves. It’s all in the minor details: his eyes looking sharper, the slight quirk of his lips, and the loosening of his form.
The voice is the same if dipped with amusement, “Color me impressed. I knew it would happen eventually, but so soon? Kind of takes the fun out of things.”
Terracotta - Terracotta is one of Typhoon’s followers. Given how the man can change his appearance, I am unsure if it is of much use for me to describe him here if this description could be nullified later. For the sake of what is currently going on, he is a relatively tall man at 5 '10" (178 centimeters roughly). He has short curly black hair that has a white stripe in it, grey eyes, and is currently wearing a hospital uniform for obvious reasons.
Quirk: Clay - The user’s skin is made out of clay. He can reconstruct it to make it look however he wants.
Apricot isn’t having it as her hand sweeps to the side and raises in front of her with a gun at hand, “Get out of bed with your hands up.” A grin appears on Terracotta’s face.
“That’s more like it!”
In the blink of an eye, the imposter pulls a gun from under the sheets and shoots it right at Apricot. At the same time, as if sensing it, Apricot begins to turn on her heel to dodge it while pulling the trigger only to be interrupted by Doc. His body moves before he can think. He reaches forward to wrap an arm around the detective’s stomach to pull her against him to get her out of the way.
Two gunshots ring in the air. Both miss. Terracotta’s runs through Apricot’s shadow while her own is swayed to the left, hitting the bedframe beside him rather than the shoulder she was aiming for. Doc can feel her body tense under the noise, but nothing else indicates the misery that it’s probably putting her through.
Doc takes advantage of the recovery period to raise his free hand and shoots a dart, a softer sound escaping his weapon as the dart casually implants itself into the imposter's neck…but the liquid doesn’t seem to go in him. Rather, it seems his skin just absorbs it.
Terracotta chuckles as he plucks the syringe out with no sign of the drug affecting him, “You’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that,” He sets the syringe on the table, “Time to run, buddy!” He quickly gets up and runs out without showing signs of being in a hospital bed for who knows how long.
Apricot begins to rip herself out of Doc’s arms only for her to twist her entire body weight into Doc, slamming him into the wall and using the opening to escape and jump back.
“What the fuck-?!”
Doc begins to curse only for a metal leg to fly between them and smash the floor beneath it. He looks over his shoulder at the guard more thoroughly this time to find a man a little taller than him. With his quirk still activated, he realizes that the rest of him is normal. It’s just his legs, and those don’t have any tags.
Using the wall as leverage, Doc spins around towards the guy with a leg raised and kicks the guy directly in the stomach, causing him to stumble back. With that opening, he raises his hand and shoots one of the darts at the guy’s shoulder successfully. It only takes a moment for the guy to collapse. Thank fuck.
Doc turns to where Apricot should be only to find her gone. From the hallway, he can hear orders being spilled out quickly from various voices alongside panicked movement. Most of the voices he recognizes, so it sounds like the nurses are doing their job. He just needs to worry about Apricot.
However, stepping out into the hallway, he immediately pauses when the strong scene of blood hits him. Isaac notices no tags from his right where the other guard should be. He bites down the hesitation and looks to find the guard from before covered in multiple stab wounds and spilling blood. Based on similar shape, likely from a quirk. Already dead. Bringing him back would torture him.
Doc refocuses on the drama at hand and looks at just the right moment to find Apricot taking a left at the deadend. There is not the way to the normal exit, but that is where the fire exit is. He supposes it would be kind of hard to stash away a getaway vehicle in a hospital parking lot, especially in New York City where there are hardly any places to park in the first place.
Doc gives chase after the detective quickly and turns only to jump back when spikes suddenly appear from the floor. A few feet (meters) in front of him, Apricot somehow managed to jump above the spikes. She shoots slightly to the left of the guy producing said spikes with his hand on the ground, and it forces him to move right and give up his weapon temporarily. In the blink of an eye, the detective lands on her feet, switches to the gun on her other hip, and takes another shot at the guy in his new position successfully. In a few seconds, the guy is down. One of the oldest tricks in the book.
This gun did not produce a bang. It produced a dart similar to his. Doc was aware that Apricot had a dart gun as that is what she used at the first hospital raid. He just sort of forgot about that fact given she has been using a real gun up to this point. The doctor can only imagine what that is doing to her hearing with a quirk like that.
Detective Apricot runs past the guy she just took down and switches her guns again, and Doc follows after her. She weaves through the halls with ease to a point even though he is struggling to keep up despite working here.
With Apricot in the lead, Doc reaches up to his hero com and activates it while running, “We have a piece of shit that works with Typhoon in the hospital! There were at least two other men, and there could be more!”
Doc hardly hears the confirmation as when Apricot turns the corner, she stops running, raises the gun, and shoots with a loud bang reverberating down the hallways. A loud ‘fuck!’ can be heard between their footsteps, and Doc turns the corner to find Terracotta holding his shoulder and still trying to run. However, he isn’t able to outrun the ravenhead as she tackles him down. She specifically puts pressure on Terracotta’s shoulder. Whether it’s to stop the bleeding or to make the guy suffer, Doc has no idea.
Apricot’s voice slices through the air with a sharpness Doc thinks surpasses even someone like Gordon Ramsey, “Stay down or I will make your life a living hell.”
The whackjob laughs in spite of his predicament, “I don’t doubt it.” It is an amusing situation to see, but Doc has bigger concerns: Apricot. Specifically, her quirk. Given what his quirk is telling him (and his mind telling him to please shut it the fuck off but irrelevant), she isn’t okay. Too much action, even if the situation could have been much worse.
Doc approaches Apricot, and he doesn’t even get within range of her when she snaps again, “I got this.” For fucks sake-
“I see that. I’m simply offering to take him off your hands since you did the dirty work,” Doc clarifies with an annoyed tone, “And we can’t have him dying.” How much he wants to call out her state. However, it would be stupid of him to do it in front of someone who just tried to shoot her with connections to someone she is chasing after.
The detective doesn’t respond. She just remains there. She looks like she wants to, but she must have some slither of self-control left since she isn’t saying it. After a moment, Apricot gets off the man, and Doc was going to help her, but a glare stops him. He didn’t realize that helping your colleague is so atrocious. He’ll avoid that at work next time: he can hear the loud long beeps already.
Once Apricot is up, she steps back, and Doc immediately over her previous position on top of Terracotta, “Are you going to glare at me if I try to help you too, or will you let me do my job?”
“I think you are obligated, doctor.”
“Eh, nah. I’m only obligated to keep you alive. I'm obligated to do the whole shebang if the police tell me to, but I try to do that ahead of time for those who are nice to me. Given your attitude, you can continue to make the janitors’ jobs difficult until you are picked up.”
“I’ll shut up.”
“Perfect.”
In the background, Doc can hear Apricot scoff before she storms off. Guess she only has so much control. That’s a her problem. His problem is keeping Terracotta alive so that she can question him later. She can use that attitude to scope out the rest of the building and watch over metal legs and spikey spike.
Doc signals to one of the nearby nurses, “If you can bring me the supplies, I can take care of it while we wait here.”
The nurse rolls her eyes, “Appreciate you making our lives easier for once, Doc.”
“Part of my charm.”