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When Adam stumbles into view of Task Force 29, after the train crash, he's still dazed. Perhaps that's why he forgets about his eyeshields - or eyeshield, rather, since only one of them remains after the other one was cracked and broken. He must look a sight, one eye covered and the other visible (and probably rapidly swelling into a black eye - the Sentinel will heal it, but not instantly, not with the beating he's taken today).
They give him a lift back to Detroit, and he disappears into the city - and hesitates.
The eyeshield needs repairing. Adam hasn't tried to retract it yet, and he doesn't want to. He's not sure exactly what they're made of, or how they fit into the sheaths, but he doesn't want to risk that the lingering jagged edges will do more damage - or worse damage.
In the past, it would have been simple. A LIMB clinic, or Sarif Industries. It wouldn't have been pleasant, there would have been the usual argument about sedation and whether or not they should strap him down. But they would have been able to fix it, and Adam could have skulked off to lick his wounds in peace after that.
But Sarif Industries is gone. And so are the LIMB clinics. There's nothing left - nowhere for Adam to go.
Except, maybe...
He makes his slow, painful way towards Pritchard's place - the Rialto. If anyone in Detroit can help, it will be Pritchard.
The pain's catching up with him now, and it drags at his limbs. If a gang member tries to start something... well. Adam hopes they don't.
His ribs are definitely broken, and Adam can only hope they don't shift and puncture a lung before the Sentinel repairs them. As it is, breathing hurts, to the point where the rebreather has kicked in, fluttering in his chest with every breath. He must not be getting enough oxygen. Adam makes a conscious effort to take deeper breaths, despite the pain. If he passes out here, now... he won't be waking up again, that's for sure. Unless he's exceptionally unlucky and wakes up on a Harvester table.
Adam shudders at the thought and forces himself to pick up the pace, stumbling along, leaning on walls more often than not. He has to pause to cough once or twice; it comes out bloody. Shit. With any luck, that's not his lungs. His systems are screaming warnings at him, but Adam's not in any state to fully process them at the moment. Everything is injured; everything hurts. That's all there is to it.
Pritchard's there when Adam finally gets to the Rialto, hunched over his keyboard, the only lighting the glow of the screens surrounding him. Adam's not quiet coming in, and Pritchard looks up, wary - then he sees it's Adam and his eyes widen.
"Jensen, what are you -" He falters, cuts himself off and stands up, looking Adam up and down. "What happened to you? Shouldn't you be in, I don't know, a hospital or something, rather than here?"
"No hospitals," Adam says, the response automatic. He's not expecting it to be listened to; it never is.
Pritchard nods briefly.
"Of course, they wouldn't..." He sighs. "Look, just - sit down or something, all right? You're making me hurt just looking at you. How bad is it?"
Adam hesitates. How much does he actually want to tell Pritchard? Finding a space on the couch is a good excuse to not answer just yet, fortunately.
Then Adam lowers himself carefully down - but not carefully enough, and the movement rips a gasp of pain from him. The warning messages on his system redouble, and breathing is suddenly difficult again. He grits his teeth against the pain, listens to the ragged panting of his breath, and forces himself to calm.
"Shit." Pritchard's voice is closer now. Adam doesn't look at him; he wouldn't be able to see him past the black spots in his vision, anyway. He's... uncomfortably close to actually passing out, he realises. "Jensen?"
Ah. Closer than he thought to passing out, in fact. Because that's the last thing Adam hears before slipping into painful darkness.
Frank stares at Jensen, slumped on the ratty couch he'd found on the street when he first moved into the Rialto.
The sound he'd made when he sat down...
Frank's not even sure if Jensen realised how bad he looked, how bad he sounded. From the start, his breathing had been shaky - enough that Frank hadn't actually realised it was Jensen at first. Then he'd sat down, and, well.
"I'm not a fucking doctor, Jensen," Frank mutters. Then he sighs, gathers the assorted first-aid kits he's stashed around the place, and gets to work.
First step, take stock. Jensen's ghostly pale - shock, pain, blood loss, Frank's not sure which. Even unconscious, his expression is tight, face pulled in taut lines of pain. Frank has medication for that - meds that will work despite the Sentinel, even - but he can't administer them until he knows what else is wrong. There's the beginnings of a black eye on one side - the side without the eyeshield - and assorted cuts and nicks scattered across his face. The eyeshield itself... Frank grimaces and shakes his head. That's a write-off, for sure. It's going to be hell to replace, too, unless Jensen has spares, which he doubts. Maybe in the things from his office...
For now, the eyeshield will have to stay as it is. Frank will need to remove it carefully before retracting them (he can't just leave Jensen unconscious with them extended, and typically they'd automatically retract when he's unconscious anyway), but it's less urgent than probably anything else.
Everything else is hidden under Jensen's tactical vest. It's going to be difficult to get that off without moving him too much - Frank can tell already he doesn't have anything that can cut it. It's designed to be impervious to almost anything.
Fortunately there's a strap that turns out to be the key to removing it - it's even helpfully labelled. Frank supposes that the kind of people who wear vests like this are the same kind of people who are likely to end up in situations where it needs removing quickly. Getting it off over Jensen's arms is another problem - Frank has to shift him a little for that, it's inevitable. This time, Jensen outright cries out when Frank moves him, and Frank winces, unable to suppress the flash of guilt.
Finally, though, he's lying there on Frank's couch again, shirtless this time. He doesn't wear anything under the tactical vest, apparently, which Frank has to be grateful for at the moment. It's that, or panic at the sheer extent of the injuries. How does a man whose only organic parts are his head and torso end up with this much damage?
There's bruising spread dark and nasty across his ribs, and Frank can tell at a glance that more than half of them are broken. He doesn't have the equipment here to tell if they've punctured a lung, but - wait. He does.
It arrived in a shipment Frank had hijacked, an accidental benefit from what he'd intended to just be a shipment of computer parts, and he'd kept it around just in case. He's glad he did now, even as he digs around for it, casting the occasional glance at Jensen. Frank doesn't know the name for the device, hasn't cared enough to find out, but the instructions are clear enough. Point at patient, press button, check readout.
He does as much, and lets out a sigh of relief that turns into a hiss.
Jensen's lungs aren't punctured. But every bit of him is bruised. There's internal bleeding - that must be where the blood flecking his lips came from. The bruising to his lungs explains the laboured breathing, too, if the pain hadn't been enough.
And absolutely none of it is within Frank's capacity to fix.
Panic claws its way up his throat. Frank shoves it back down again. Panicking now won't help anyone, least of all Jensen. He can't fix everything; fine. He'll just have to fix what he can, and hope the Sentinel can take care of the rest.
He can also give the Sentinel a little helping hand. Normally he wouldn't use such aggressive measures, but... Jensen's not conscious to complain about them. And if there's a twinge of shame in his gut that he hasn't asked Jensen, when usually Frank's so careful to get his permission for anything involving the augs... Well. Given the situation, Frank can't let himself linger on that for too long.
Pulling a laptop over, Frank connects a cord he rarely uses. He hesitates, just for a moment - then he digs a careful fingernail into the edge of the port on Jensen's head to open the cover, and plugs the other end of the cable in.
Then he sets about systematically disabling almost all of Jensen's augs. And he means almost all of them - not just the extras Sarif included, like the Typhoon or the Smart Vision, but everything, right down to basics. He disables Jensen's arms, his legs - he hesitates for a moment over the eyes, the cranial augs, but then he grits his teeth and hits the button. They draw plenty of power, and the Sentinel needs all it can get.
He leaves some things - life-support, essentially. The Sentinel, of course. The rebreather - it sounds like Jensen's half-relying on it just to breathe right now, even if that does mean it's drawing power Jensen can't spare. But almost everything else... Frank disables it.
Technically, he shouldn't be able to do this. Jensen's augs are Sarif tech - the protections built into them are beyond ridiculous. But Frank knows Sarif tech, knows Jensen's augs specifically. And there's a lot Frank can do with Jensen right there in front of him, even if he didn't know the tech back to front.
Augs disabled, he hooks Jensen up to a couple of biocells, sets them up carefully. Too much power and it'll shock his system. Too little, and he may as well not bother. There's a tense couple of moments, and then Jensen sighes, relaxes just a little. Frank glances at the readings - the Sentinel has picked up on the power, and it's managing its own power draw, working furiously to heal the damage Jensen's done to himself.
Any other man would be dead right now.
Frank ignores that, and moves on. The biological damage isn't the only issue. When Jensen walked in, he was limping in a way the augs shouldn't allow, and when Frank had connected him up, countless alarms had appeared on Frank's screen.
The legs first, then. Frank hesitates for just a moment, then shakes his head. He may as well go the whole way, he supposes, and he carefully strips Jensen's pants off as well, ignoring the faint blush that rises to his face. There's nothing... inappropriate about it, not with Jensen unconscious and injured. It's necessary, that's all - and to Frank's utter relief, Jensen is wearing boxers. Apparently it's only the tactical vest he goes commando under.
Frank's quickly distracted from any embarrassment, anyway, by the state Jensen's augs are in. He looks like he's been thrown around a room or something - actually, knowing Jensen, that's probably exactly what happened, or something close to it. Idiot. Even his augs aren't all-powerful.
The damage isn't irrepairable, fortunately. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, whilst it's not good it's still far better than the injuries to Jensen's organic parts. Frank loses himself for a while in the careful movements, the replacement of servos, oiling of joints, examination of the augs to ensure there's nothing he's missed. It's not til he slides a hand up and meets skin that he realises he's done - both of Jensen's augmented legs, checked over and repaired.
Frank sits up again, grimacing at the way his back cracks, and glances at the laptop still plugged into Jensen's forehead. Jensen hasn't stirred, so far as Frank can tell - then again, he wouldn't be able to, with almost all his augs disabled. Frank makes a mental note to be absolutely certain to enable them - his limbs and eyes, at least - before Jensen wakes up.
The diagnostics show no sign of any new issues, and when Frank listens, Jensen's breathing seems to be coming easier. The bruising isn't fading yet, but when Frank rescans Jensen, the internal damage has lessened significantly. They're not out of the woods yet, but they're getting there. It's a relief.
The biocells are running low, and Frank replaces them, tossing the used ones aside. He'll either get them recharged at one of the shadier dealers or dispose of them, whatever. People seem to be keen on paying him with them, at the moment; he's got no shortage of them. The Sentinel probably doesn't need the extra power any more, but better safe than sorry.
Looking at Jensen and the diagnostics once more, Frank makes the decision to take a quick comfort break. He needs to look at Jensen's arms next, and that's probably going to take as long as the legs did.
Jensen hasn't moved when Frank returns, except that the tension has left his face, just a little. Less pain, Frank hopes. In fact - he digs around in a first aid kit for the injectable painkiller, the one he knows will work with the Sentinel instead of being cleared away by it. Now that the Sentinel's doing its job and the internal damage is slowly being fixed, it feels safer to dose Jensen up.
He administers it to Jensen's neck, and it kicks in within moments - Jensen's heartrate drops to an almost alarming level, and his whole body relaxes. Frank has to double-check his vitals, given that heartrate - but there's no sign of any issues. Maybe Jensen just has a naturally - or artificially, perhaps - slow heartbeat.
Frank settles in to work on Jensen's arms, next. It feels different being up here, this close to Jensen's face. When he'd been working on the legs, it had been easy for Frank to slip into a focused half-trance, like he does when he's coding - disconnect from the idea that this is Jensen he's working on, think of it like any other machinery. Not that he considers Jensen to be a machine, but that's not the point.
Now, though, he can see every minute twitch of Jensen's expression, the slow, steady rise and fall of his bare chest. Frank almost fancies that he can see the bruising beginning to fade as the Sentinel does its work; he can't really, of course, it still has plenty of more serious damage to fix. It's distracting, though, despite Frank's attempts to focus.
Jensen's arms are in a similar state to his legs - damaged, mostly concussive damage, easy enough for Frank to fix. He takes particular care on Jensen's hands. Frank doesn't poke his nose into his coworkers' personal lives, but he overheard Jensen telling Faridah once about how, after the augmentations, he'd begun to repair broken watches and other timepieces. Jensen values the dexterity of his hands, Frank knows that, and so he pays special attention to the joints and servos there.
By the time he's done, it's... late. Frank has no idea how late. He can barely keep his eyes open, though, and at this point he's probably been up for... fuck, at least thirty-six hours, maybe more.
His head is drooping despite his best efforts. He's so tired he can barely think, and it takes every bit of effort he can muster to shift away from Jensen, pull over a pillow and blanket, and curl up on the floor leaning against the couch Jensen's occupying. Frank isn't planning to sleep yet, just rest his eyes for a moment. He tips his head back, and realises he's resting against Jensen's side. It's surprisingly warm, and he can feel Jensen's breathing, his steady heartbeat...
Between one moment and the other, Frank is asleep.
When Adam wakes up, he can't see anything.
He presses down the panic for a second, and blinks.
Still nothing.
His internal systems don't respond when he tries to reboot them. There's nothing there, nothing but the Sentinel and the rebreather and one or two others. Fuck.
Where is he? What happened before he blacked out?
Pritchard, he remembers. He went to the Rialto. But he doesn't remember much beyond that. Was Pritchard even there? Adam can't remember.
He tries to move his hand, reach out to see if he can feel anything since he can't see. He's not panicking yet - his optic augs have gone offline like this once or twice before.
He can't move.
The panic is beginning to rise now, especially when Adam realises he can't move anything else either. None of his augs, anyway - he can still move his head just fine. But that's it, nothing else, no response from anything, as though his limbs are just gone, and he's thinking suddenly of the Harvesters in Hengsha, the thought that maybe his arms and legs are gone, taken, that he's being cut up for fucking parts -
Adam doesn't realise he's slipping into a fullblown panic attack until a drowsy voice mumbles something, something he can't process right now, and he latches onto it with the desperation of a drowning man.
"Who the fuck are you?" he demands, and it's an unbearable relief that he can still talk, still hear, that at least whoever this is hasn't taken that from him too. "What do you want?"
Frank's woken from a heavy sleep by the strange sensation of his warm, oddly solid pillow moving. Faster and faster, in an uneven rhythm, and a strange, frantic thudding alongside the movement.
He stirs, frowning, and it takes him a moment to realise where he is, what's going on. And a moment longer to realise what that feeling was.
Jensen. Frank fell asleep against Jensen's side, and now he's...
Oh. Oh, fuck. Frank bolts to his feet.
Jensen's panicking. His heartrate's spiking, his breathing is so rapid Frank can see it, and if the Sentinel hasn't healed his ribs yet that must be agony, and Frank doesn't know why.
"Jensen?" he tries, his voice still bleary with sleep. That gets a response - Jensen's head snaps towards him, though his eyes are oddly unfocused, oddly... dull.
"Who the fuck are you? What do you want?" Jensen snaps - except his voice is shaking, he sounds terrified in a way Frank's never heard before, and - fuck. Fuck, fuck, Frank is such a fucking moron, he's fucked up -
Self-recrimination won't get him anywhere. Frank hesitates for a moment, then puts his hand carefully on Jensen's shoulder.
"It's me," he says, hoping against hope Jensen can hear him, isn't too wrapped up in panic. "Pritchard. I - fuck, Jensen, I'm sorry, I -"
"What did you do?" Jensen sounds like he's about to start fucking sobbing, and Frank cannot deal with this, why didn't he check, how could he be so stupid -
Frank takes a breath and gets himself under control. If they're both panicking, they're going to get nowhere.
"The Sentinel needed more power," he says, aware even as he speaks of how much like a weak excuse it sounds. "I rerouted as much power as I could to it, but that meant... I had to disable your other augs. I thought - I was going to enable them before you woke up."
But Frank had fallen asleep. He'd been careless. And now Jensen was paying the price for it.
"Do it." Jensen's voice is trembling, and despite that he tries to make it sound like an order, like he's in control here. "Now."
Frank nods, realises Jensen won't see it - fuck, he can't even see right now - and says, "I'm doing it. It'll take a moment. Eyes first."
He does as he says, forces himself to be slow and careful despite the desire to activate every last aug at once, to get Jensen out of this situation. Overloading his system isn't going to help.
It seems to take forever for Jensen's eyes to boot up. But finally, they light up - Frank sees every moment of it, staring at Jensen as he is. Jensen blinks, looks around. His vitals settle a little, though they're still off the charts. Frank can't blame him.
"The rest," he says after a moment, sounding far steadier now.
Frank bites his lip, glances at the readouts.
"I can do your arms and legs," he says. "But you're still healing, the Sentinel still needs -"
"Just those then," Jensen cuts him off. "I thought... it's not done yet? Feels like it is."
"Painkillers," Frank says. "The damage was... bad."
Jensen nods slowly.
"Must have been, if the Sentinel didn't clear the painkillers," he mutters.
Frank, halfway through reactivating one of Jensen's arms, pauses.
"They're specialist ones," he says slowly. Does Jensen not... "Designed to work with the Sentinel."
"...Oh," Jensen says. "I didn't... never mind. My augs?"
Frank nods and gets back to work. But internally he's reeling, yet again.
Did Jensen not know that Sentinel-compatible pain medication was available? If not, then how has he been handling the inevitable pain from augmentations like his? He healed faster than most people, Frank knows that much - he wouldn't have been able to return to work early if he hadn't, no matter what Sarif wanted. But that's still six months, six months that would have been agonising without painkillers, and if Jensen's been trying to treat that with fucking paracetamol or something...
Jensen's arms and legs come back online without issue, and he moves them carefully, testing.
"You repaired them?" He sounds surprised. Frank shrugs.
"And the rest," he says. "Really, Jensen, what was I supposed to do with you passed out on my couch? I like this couch, I'd rather not have you bleeding all over it."
Jensen looks deliberately down at the couch.
"I'd make a comment about your taste," he says dryly, "but I think the couch speaks for itself."
It's familiar, reassuring, the shift back to snark and jabs at each other. Jensen's vitals are calming, the Sentinel is working away, and Jensen's not in pain, so far as Frank can tell. This is easier by far than the last... however many hours it's been.
"I," Frank announces, "need to sleep." He glances at the laptop once more, reaches out and - waiting for a nod from Jensen - plucks the cord neatly from Jensen's forehead. "Since you don't seem to be on the verge of expiring at any moment, can I assume that you're going to be sensible and take the time to recover before walking into trouble again?"
"I'll stay here like a good boy, Francis," Jensen says, rolling his eyes. Frank shakes his head, and walks away.
Maybe this time he'll actually get to sleep for longer than a few hours.