Chapter Text
The office watches the TV with everything from bated breath (Jones) to mild interest (Peter) as the Justice League fights... a magician. Or maybe it's a demon of some kind? Jones doesn't think humans are meant to have quite that many arms.
He ooos and ahhs with the rest of the office as the heroes on screen save civilians and fight off twisted constructs, dodging multicolored beams of light. Jones has always loved superheroes and watching them is just. It's really cool.
On screen, Batman is enveloped in some kind of beam of blue light, and everyone leans forward a bit. Even Peter, despite earlier claims that he was "just out here to get coffee" and "watching this is a waste of time that should be spent working." (That was 20 minutes ago.)
The light hides Batman from view for a moment before fading, leaving a... a little boy in a suit and tie standing in the road where the Dark Knight was just moments before.
Seconds later a red blur streaks by and the boy disappears, presumably grabbed by one of the heroes before he can get hurt. And so that they can figure out what happened to Batman.
At the same time, Jones notices Neal stagger, grabbing at his chest as he bumps into Peter.
He cries out in pain and falls, Peter catching him just before he can hit the floor, and suddenly everyone is far more interested in Neal than whatever happened to Batman.
"Neal! Are you-" is all Peter gets out before Neal starts glowing, a blue light emanating from him as he begins to shake.
Peter flinches in surprise, and Neal nearly falls again before Peter lays him gently on the floor, the blue light getting brighter all the time until Jones has to close his eyes against it. It suddenly disappears, and when Jones opens his eyes again, he's greeted with the sight of a boy in some kind of red and yellow outfit, struggling slightly on the floor with his hands cuffed behind his back.
There's a beat of silence as everyone processes that what they just saw happen to a superhero on TV just happened to their coworker, right in front of them.
Huh. Okay.
After he gets past the moment of "what just happened where did Neal go," he's running forwards, brain now noticing things like, "hey that's blood" and "arms don't have a joint there. That shouldn't be bending why is it bending."
He drops to his knees, hands fluttering uselessly over the kid's torso. Where does he even start? What can he do? Why did he come over here when he has no medical training of any kind?
"Somebody call 911!" He shouts, trying to roll the kid so he's flat on his back. When Jones finally manages to wrangle him so he's facing up, he nearly stops breathing because wow that is a lot of blood on his face and shirt.
He nearly starts crying when he spots the cracked black domino mask and a bright yellow circle with a red R on it. Fuck. This isn't just a random kid. This is a hero kid. Not only a hero kid, this is a Robin. From Gotham. Who’s now staring up at Jones with a dull blue gaze through the cracked lens of the mask. Fuck.
Okay Jones. Think about all that later, time to compartmentalize. What is the worst injury, and what is within his skills to help with?
There's a lot of blood, which is bad. But it looks like it's from only one cut, which is... less bad? There's a lot of broken bones, which is probably also bad, but he doesn't know how to fix those so. Putting pressure on the big cut it is.
"Does anyone have a first aid kit?" he calls out. Probably should have done that before now. There's some rummaging around behind him, and then someone sits down next to him with an industrial-sized kit. Why do they even have one this big in the office?
"Thanks," he says, pulling out some bandages and gauze. Just pull them out. Don't think about how the cut on Robin's face looks like a J and was definitely intentional. Don't think about how young and small he looks. Just pull out the bandages.
"Where did this even come from?" he asks in an overly casual tone, needing something to distract him from what he's doing. He layers a few pieces of gauze on top of each other. That will help with the bleeding, right? "I don't remember ever seeing a first aid kit this big before."
The other agent, Trent, maybe? Or Ben? seems to sense his need for normalcy, because he responds in the same tone, "Yeah, neither have I. But everyone was looking for stuff like this and someone found it in Caffrey's desk. Weird, right? It's like-"
Unfortunately, Jones will never get to find out what Ben/Trent thought was weird, because as soon as he starts pressing the gauze in his hand to Robin's face the kid snaps out of whatever trance he was in and starts freaking out, thrashing wildly.
"Robin!" He shouts, "Kid! you have to calm down!" He tries to hold him in place and sees Ben/Trent doing the same next to him, but the kid just gets even more frantic. Before Jones even knows what's happening, the kid gets to his feet (Jones swears he can hear the broken bones grinding together as he moves) and runs over to Peter with a heart-wrenching wail.
"B! B, I-I knew," He sobs, almost incomprehensible. And why is he talking about bees? "knew y'd g't here 'n t'me, yer here, 'm s'rry, pl's..."
Robin crashes into Peter, barely straying upright even with Peter's tentative grip on the less-obviously shattered parts of his arms. He's still sobbing, throwing out indecipherable words that slowly morph into coughs.
Peter just stares at him for a moment before stuttering out, "Yeah, I'm here, it's alright, you'll be alright," and lowering him gently to the floor. At the same time, he throws out a look that clearly says "what do I do? Help!" to everyone else. Clearly lost on how to provide comfort but needing to do something, he runs a hand through Robin's hair. The coughing continues, wracking his small frame and causing spots of blood to fly into the air until Robin is gasping for breath.
He grabs at Peter’s shirt weakly and rasps out a surprisingly clear, “L’ve ya Dad,” then sighs and goes limp, hand falling with a dull thump.
Jones doesn’t see Peter’s reaction to the (death of?) the boy who wanted to make sure his dad knew he loved him before the blue light comes back and Jones has to cover his eyes against it. He can only hope Neal will be returned when it leaves.