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Dick straightened his back and took in a sudden sharp breath.
Well, fuck. This was a bad one. He definitely had to get out of here before he started bleeding through his shirt.
During their most recent dramatic suspect chase, he’d—for the third time that month—gotten a little too into it and body slammed the man, accidentally getting slashed by the man’s knife on the way down.
He’d been letting out his vigilante skills more and more often recently, and he was pretty sure it was a sign that he had to—for the sake of his mental health, his therapist would be so proud—build more time into his schedule to slip his anklet and zeta to Gotham or Bludhaven for patrol.
Luckily he managed to hide the wound with his jacket before Peter caught up with him, and the agent was too distracted by his nonviolent criminal consultant casually pinning the suspect he’d just body slammed, to notice anything was amiss. The wound was also far enough up on his side it was easily coverable, so as long as he was able to get away from everyone before he bled out, then he shouldn’t have any problems.
“Neal.” Peter spoke from above him, sounding ever the disappointed dad.
Luckily, the agent was nothing compared to Bruce, so Dick grimaced before quickly pasting on a smile and turning to face the agent. “Peter!”
Peter rolled his eyes, “Neal. Please stop jumping on the people we’re trying to apprehend. You’re gonna get seriously hurt. It’s a miracle you haven't already. I don’t even know why it keeps working.”
“I’m plenty careful Peter. I won't get hurt.” Dick forced his grin wider, channeling the spirit of a man who wasn’t currently bleeding out.
Several other agents swarmed him and extracted the suspect from beneath him, quickly handcuffing him and moving a few feet away. Dick stood up slowly, blinking stars out of his eyes.
Ugh, blood loss.
“Well you still need to get checked out by the EMTs before I can take you home.” Peter said, gesturing over to an ambulance parked directly outside the crime scene tape.
Shit.
“I’m fine Peter. Can’t I just go home?” Dick asked, hoping his desperation wasn’t obvious.
The quicker he got back, the quicker he could patch himself up, or if he'd lost enough blood by then, he could just call one of his siblings to do it for him. As long as Peter didn’t notice anything was wrong, it would all be fine.
Peter scanned him appraisingly for a few seconds, “Are you sure you’re fine? Nothing hurts? Not even a little? You might be in shock.”
Still busy bleeding out, he shook his head and grinned. “Nope, I’m all good.”
Peter sighed and cast one last glance towards the ambulance, “Fine. But if anything feels even remotely off later, you call me and I’m taking you straight to a doctor. You’re my responsibility.”
Dick gave him a thumbs up and quickly made his way towards the agent’s car. He climbed in, unable to stop the small gasp that escaped him as he accidentally put pressure on the wound. He shot a quick glance at Peter, but the agent hadn’t seemed to notice anything was wrong.
Twenty minutes later, they pulled up outside Dick’s apartment and he quickly climbed out, heading inside with a wave. His vision was blurring to the point that he was only able to find his way inside thanks to muscle memory.
Yay, blood loss.
Peter stared down at the steering wheel in front of him. His gut was telling him something was off with Neal, and he’d learned to trust his gut in most matters concerning the conman. But what could it be?
That was when Peter caught sight of the blood.
It wasn’t a lot of blood, but it was fresh and smeared all over the seat that Neal was occupying not even a minute prior.
Peter’s eyes widened. “Shit!”
Jolting into action, he quickly turned off his car and ran up to the door, ringing the doorbell and anxiously waiting for a maid to answer. The door had barely opened when he pushed past the confused maid and bolted up the stairs.
What was Neal thinking?
Was he hiding the injury?
Was he in shock?
How bad could it be?
Peter quickly fumbled with his key and burst into Neal’s apartment. It was empty, but there was a sudden clatter and a string of inventive cursing from the bathroom. He ran over to the door and knocked.
“Neal?”
“Peter?” Neal sounded nervous.
“Neal, I know you’re injured.”
There was another light curse from Neal, “Umm… It’s really not that bad.”
“Then let me see.” Peter insisted.
“I’m fine, I swear.”
Like that meant anything coming from Neal.
Peter scoffed loudly. “Then let me in.”
There was quiet, then Neal spoke, “Fuck.”
The door unlocked and Peter slipped inside.
His attention immediately went to Neal’s side, where a large, half stitched, gash was soaking through the large piece of gauze Neal was holding to it. The conman’s other hand was holding the needle attached to the half done stitches.
Peter’s eyes quickly drifted to the side where he realized Neal also seemed to be giving himself a blood transfusion, IV pole and all; how he had the supplies and skills to do that, Peter had no idea.
The final thing to catch his eyes were the scars, which was ironic, because under most circumstances they would be the first thing he noticed. Neal didn’t appear to have an inch of skin that was unmarked.
Some of the scars looked fresh, as if they were given as recently as a month ago, and some were so old they were nothing but faded silvery lines, which was confusing in its own right, because that amount of scarring would have surely shown up in Neal’s medical records.
Peter cast aside his horror and confusion and slipped into field mode, turning to Neal, who definitely had a better understanding of the current situation than he did. “What can I do? Call 911?”
Neal grimaced and shook his head ‘no’. “My hand’s a little shaky right now. You know how to give stitches right?”
Peter nodded and fell to his knees reaching for the needle, which Neal moved out of his reach. “Geeze, Peter! Wash your hands and use gloves!”
Slightly embarrassed, Peter realized that Neal was wearing gloves and the box was on the ground right next to him. He quickly scrubbed his hands in the sink, slipped on the gloves, and got to work.
Neither of them said a word until the stitches were done.
Neal pulled off his gloves with his teeth and tossed them aside, reaching to the side and grabbing a clean roll of gauze, finally breaking the silence, “I’ll sit up and start, but can you help me get it around? It’ll be a lot easier.”
“Sure.” Peter removed his gloves and added them to the growing pile of bloodstained supplies they were both currently choosing to ignore in the corner of the bathroom.
Neal sat up, straightening his spine and Peter got a sudden view of the scars littering his back, it was just as bad, if not, worse than his front.
Together, the two of them got Neal fully bandaged. Mind blank, he started disposing of all the unsanitary materials, Neal’s only interruption being when he directed Peter to underneath the sink, where there was a toxic waste disposal package waiting.
Which was a totally normal thing to just have lying around.
It wasn’t until the two of them, Neal casually carting along the IV pole (the blood having been replaced by something else, Peter didn’t bother asking what) like it was no big deal, had settled on the couch that Peter came back down to Earth with an alarming flinch.
“You with me, Peter?” Neal said in a soft tone, eerily similar to one Peter was sure he’d used on a victim or two in his time.
“What the fuck, Neal?”