Chapter Text
“Good job today Eddie,” Dr. Drew said, the attending doctor’s hand clamping down on his shoulder, “today was a hard one, yeah?” Ed gave a slight dip of his head, hard was an understatement but sure, whatever you say . “Don’t let it get you down kid, try and get some good night’s rest.” Ed forced a tired smile onto his face, “Thanks, Dr. Drew, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Ed sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face as he stepped out of the cold, white sterile hospital and onto the warm inviting streets of the city. His feet ached, his heart hurt and his mind growing restless with guilt. He’s beginning to regret his choice of walking to the hospital. How do these people do this everyday? He’s beginning to doubt his choice of profession.
Today was bad. A little girl had ended up passing away, too much damage on internal organs they said. There was nothing they could do as the mother wailed out into the quietness of the hospital floor, begging for her little girl to come back.
Ed had actually gotten the chance to work on the case, trying his best to keep up but he had so little actual medical practice. For being a super, Ed felt pretty lousy. His mediocre powers only worked with superficial injuries. Even then, sometimes it didn’t always work as planned. God, if only you could actually do stuff with your powers. You could have saved her .
There was no time to mourn before he had to continue with his chore work around the hospital.
Once Ed gets past his internship, he can try and get into a residency program. Going into more specialized work and not getting heavily traumatized every shift would be nice. It shouldn’t be too long before he needs to start planning, internships only last around a year or so and Ed’s time is almost up.
Okay , Ed needed to stop thinking about this. He just needed to follow Dr. Drew’s orders of relaxing and unwinding. A cigarette or two before a shower would probably do the trick. Thank god he’s almost back at his apartment, he feels dead on his feet.
Ed eyes the upcoming corner store, maybe a Coke? Ehhhh the caffeine would probably keep him awake… decisions, decisions.
Making up his mind, Ed enters the little mom and pop shop with a ding of a bell, reflexively making his way down the well worn aisles toward the snack section. “Oh Eddie! It’s always a wonderful surprise seeing you come in!” Ed glanced over the aisle shelves toward the counter, “Hi Mrs. Chen, how are you?” Mrs. Chen lets out a long drawn out sigh, “I’ve been okay. It’s just been a long and boring day. A lot of the good stuff is gone…”
Ed hums in thought as he picks up two Slim Jims, deciding on whether or not to play her games tonight. “Sounds like there’s a but in there, Mrs. Chen” he settles on as he makes his way up to the counter. A cheeky smirk forms across the elderly Chinese woman’s face, “I saved this just in case you came by.” She stage-whispers, reaching underneath the counter before producing two packs of candy cigarettes.
“We won’t get more until next month, unfortunately, so you’ll have to make due.”
Ed huffs out a soft laugh as he takes the two boxes, “I think I can last another two weeks, could you get me a pack of Camels?” Mrs. Chen clicked her tongue, “Awww, the baby is all grown up, smoking the real thing instead of the candy.” She grinned, eyes showing a playful mirth that didn’t diminish with age. He would probably feel worse at her mocking words if he didn’t know this was how she showed her affections. He’s seen what actually happens when people get on her bad side.
She places the box on the counter before tapping everything into the register, “That’ll be 55 cents” Ed fishes out his wallet, placing a dollar bill before scooping everything up and placing them into his jacket pockets. They bid each other a quick goodnight as Mrs. Chen hands Ed his change.
Stepping back into the outside world, Ed fishes out the Camel cigarettes and lights one. Taking a long needed drag, he unceremoniously resumes his short walk home.
—
As Ed approaches his apartment building, he peers into the darkness of the alleyway right next to his building. It had become a habit after nearly getting run over when a car came barreling down the dark alleyway with no lights on. After that, he always slowed down in order to make sure he wouldn’t get hit again.
He was itchy for days due to some of the skin not reattaching itself properly when he had tried to heal his wounds.
His habit built on the mistrust of the dark pays off as he immediately notices what seems to be a red shoe peeking out from between dumpsters. Ed, despite everything in his body screaming at him to move, to just leave it and go into the safety of his home, stays frozen. On one hand, it could just be a really, really badly placed shoe… on the other? That could be someone’s body.
He’s a little surprised that nobody has taken out their trash and seen it yet. Maybe it is just a weirdly placed shoe and he should ignore it and go home . He feels a little hysterical trying to reason with himself, it’s not his problem to solve or even investigate.
And yet, here he is, still staring at it like he’s waiting for it to twitch and come to life.
Ed takes a final drag of his cigarette before tossing it on the ground and smooshing it out. He looks at the foot again, takes a deep breath, steels his resolve and plants one shaking foot in front of the other as he slowly enters the alleyway. Please just be a shoe, don’t be a dead person, why is it continuing-
Ed blinks in shock and horror while his heart drops. It’s a person. A red and white costumed person-
It’s Elastigirl .
He feels himself stagger back a little as he takes in her situation. She’s bloody and bruised in a way he’s never seen before. None of the Supers have ever been seen looking like this on any TV program. Ed especially hasn’t even thought of Supers, especially someone as big as fucking Elastigirl , getting as beat up as she does here. Supers aren’t even known for getting a little roughed up, let alone knocked out .
She’s normal-shaped, wedged between two dumpsters almost as if she had either hidden herself and her injuries or had been hidden by someone else. Ed hadn’t heard about any big Villain attack or anything that could account for this. Ed looks around the alleyway, and- shit, where’s the NSA? You’d think for an agency as big as them, they’d have some sort of contingency plan for their Supers getting beat up and knocked out. Especially since he doesn’t know how long she’s been here.
Ed drags his hands down his face, this isn’t for him to deal with. He should just call the NSA tipline and be done with this… but he doesn’t want to deal with the mess that comes with contacting the government agency. He’s heard the stories. He also can’t bring himself to leave while she’s laying there, so still, so quiet, so- unalive. Something clicks in his brain as he suddenly realizes that she could be actually dead and he is just standing there. Looking at her.
He could be looking at another corpse.
Ed glances at the alleyway entrances, making sure nobody is actually there as he approaches Elastigirl once again. His steps are more confident this time, he’s been at his medical internship for almost a year now, he could do this. He could help her. He could save her .
Crouching in front of her, Ed gags as the smell of the dumpster increases tenfold with the proximity. He quickly murmurs a quiet apology as he reaches over her chest and harshly rubs his knuckles over her sternum. “Ms. Elastigirl?” he tentatively asks, leaning in to better hear her breathing. Elastigirl groans in response to the sternum rub but ultimately doesn’t wake up.
It’s not great but better than no response at all he guesses.
He can’t risk trying to heal her right now, there’s too much garbage around them and it could subsequently get pulled into her body while he’s trying to repair her wounds. But Ed can’t even try and fix her the normal way right now because he doesn’t have any of his medical supplies, it’s all in his apartment or back at the hospital.
Ed closes his eyes and tips his head back, a sigh escaping him as he realises that this night isn’t going to be over anytime soon. Now to get her inside his apartment without anybody seeing…
—
Ed’s shocked nobody saw him half drag half carry an unconscious Super out of the ally and into his apartment building. He had wrapped her in his jacket after shoving his miscellaneous snack items into his pant pockets. The journey from the ally, around the corner and into the building and up the elevator took an embarrassing amount of time. Ed isn’t the strongest guy around but he sure didn’t consider himself weak before this.
He had, as best as he could, laid Elastigirl on the couch before rushing off to grab his at home med kit. It was basically brand new since he could just regenerate his own skin and muscle tissue if ever needed to. Aha , Ed grinned as he snagged it from under the bathroom sink, almost slamming the cabinet door closed as he took off back into the living room.
Now that he had actual light on her, Ed could see that most of her wounds were probably superficial and just abrasional. Scanning over her costume, it’s really well made and probably what saved her from the wounds being deeper.
The biggest source of dried blood was definitely coming from her head, which would mean that it’s really bad or just bleeding. Ed hated dealing with head wounds, there was always too much blood . But, it seemed like the most pressing issue so he combed through strands of hair and dried blood, trying to map out her head wound.
In the end, the wound turned out to be a not so deep laceration cut that wouldn’t stop bleeding. He’s thankful he couldn’t see bone or anything so it could've been a lot worse. If the wound had been a lot deeper, he probably wouldn’t have been able to help her as much as he thought.
However, this probably meant that she was concussed in some way. Yeah cause that’s going to go over well, tell the Super that she got hit so hard she got punch-drunk…
Ed put his palm over the area, letting his mind focus down to the edges of the skin where it had split apart. It wasn’t deep enough to expose bone or anything so this would be relatively easy. He felt as the dried blood clots and dirt pulled back while the new skin slowly started to emerge and reattach itself together.
The process of healing didn’t take long. Elastigirl’s wounds weren’t all that serious, plus Ed could only really heal the bigger wounds. He hasn’t needed to heal anybody in quite some time so he’s a little out of practice. Thank god for the adrenaline coursing through his bones because otherwise Ed would probably be on the verge of passing out.
He had tried to cut the Elastigirl suit in a few places to try and see some of the other spots where she had gotten hit. Though it turned out to be a futile fight since the cuts he could make had been rather small cuts. The suit was too well made and didn’t want to give Ed anything. It gave him a little peace of mind since he didn’t have to check under the suit for cuts or scraps. There may be bruising but Ed wasn’t trying to pry into the world of a woman he had no stakes in.
By the time Ed was done with all of the lacerations and bigger abrasion wounds, he knew he couldn’t help her heal anymore. He could already feel the adrenaline slowly being drained from his body. Ed was getting way too tired for it not to be a hazard while healing, so hopefully the regeneration worked enough so that her body could focus on naturally creating the rest of her skin.
Ed eyed his work once again, giving it another check before grabbing cleaning supplies, gauze and bandages. He methodically wiped down all the grossness and wounds he didn’t heal before applying gauze and keeping it in place with the bandages.
With everything cleaned up, aka the supplies put aside on the coffee table, Ed heads back to his room to change into his night clothes. Adequately dressed in a too big t-shirt and some sleep pants, he turns off all the lights and returns to the living room. On his way out, he snagged a throw blanket to put over the unconscious Super.
As he goes to sit in the old rocker chair adjacent to the couch where Elastigirl is still laid out, Ed lets out a tired groan. The ache in his bones finally hitting him as the adrenaline crash sets in.
With half-lidded eyes Ed watches over the sleeping woman. There’s barely enough light streaming in from between the curtains of the window, but it’s enough for him to see the slow rise and fall of Elastigirl's chest.
I can stay up for a little bit longer, make sure she doesn’t stop breathing then I can head off to bed…