Archive of Our Own ^beta

Despite what people may think, being a doctor was not always glamorous.

In fact, Bruce would argue that being an ER physician specifically was never glamorous. The amount of bodily fluids he dealt with on a daily basis made sure of that.

Then, of course, there was the violence.

In his near twenty years of emergency medicine, Bruce had been assaulted by patients plenty of times. It was just par for the course when dealing with people (many of whom were mentally ill) in high stress situations. Nurses, unfortunately, tended to get the worst of it, but he’d come home from the hospital with his fair share of black eyes. Thankfully, he’d been fortunate enough to avoid any injuries more serious than that.

Until today.

Eduardo Dorrance, nicknamed “Bane” by some of the nurses due to his vicious nature, was a frequent flyer. He was more often than not brought in by the police while hopped up on stimulants. The dude was big, strong, and very, very violent.

“All right, let’s do 1,200mg of ketamine IM to start with,” Bruce ordered as they surrounded the stretcher in the ambulance bay. Two police officers and two hospital security guards were doing their best to hold down the thrashing man handcuffed to the stretcher. “Then go ahead and have a B52 cocktail ready to give once he’s down.”

“I’m gonna fucking kill you all!” Eduardo roared, straining against the cuffs. His skin was slick with sweat, and his pupils were blown wide from the drugs. Whatever this guy had taken, he’d taken too much.

“Ketamine’s ready,” Vic reported, holding the syringes.

There was no way he wanted any of his staff near the man. Vic was a big guy, but Bane was huge. And Bruce had worked in the ER long enough to know a handcuffed patient could still be very dangerous. So he insisted on coming along.

“I’ll hold the thigh steady for you. We’ll let the police and security handle the rest.”

“Any time now, Doc,” Roy Harper, one of Dick’s friends on the police force, ground out. He was holding down Eduardo’s right arm.

“We’re ready,” Bruce assured him.

All four men tightened their grips on their assigned limbs as the doctor and nurse approached. Bruce positioned one hand right above the man’s knee and the other right below his hip, keeping the left thigh as still as possible for Vic.

The nurse uncapped the first syringe and drove it into the muscle. Eduardo screamed and started thrashing even harder. Once the first one was empty, Vic engaged the safety on the needle and uncapped the second syringe.

Just as he finished giving the second injection, the officer holding down the left leg lost his grip. The limb was cuffed at the ankle, but Bane had enough slack to still move. He jerked his knee upward in a violent motion, catching Bruce’s left hand and slamming it into the metal side of the stretcher. It happened so fast, there was nothing he could do. Bruce felt a sickening crunch as white-hot pain erupted from his arm. Biting back a yell, he yanked his hand back and stumbled away from the gurney.

“Dr. Wayne, are you okay?” Vic asked. Now that the sedatives had been given, they’d let the police and security continue to hold Bane down until the drugs fully kicked in.

“I’m fine, Vic,” Bruce ground out. His wrist throbbed with every beat of his racing heart as he cradled the injured limb against his chest.

The nurse narrowed his eyes, obviously not convinced. “C’mon, Doc. Let’s see it.”

With a huff, Bruce shakily reached out his hand.

Fuck.

The hand and wrist were ballooning with bruises already starting to form. There was a visible bump on his wrist, and two of his knuckles were sunken in. If he had to guess, he’d say he had a likely-displaced distal radius fracture and at least two metacarpals. Lucky him.

Vic winced. “Damn, that’s definitely broken. Let’s get you to X-ray.”

Bruce frowned. “But I really need to-”

“Bruce Wayne, what the fuck just happened?”

Crystal looked pissed. She marched up to him and carefully inspected his wrist.

“It’s nothing,” Bruce tried, but then a muscle spasm sent sparks up and down his arm and made him gasp.

“Bane caught his hand against the railing,” Vic explained. "One of the officers lost his grip on the leg.”

“Damn rookies,” Crystal cursed under her breath. “You. X-ray. Now. Vic, stay with him and make sure he cooperates. I’ll page ortho.”

“I don’t need an ortho consult!” Bruce complained. “I’ll just have a resident splint it.”

The charge nurse cocked an eyebrow. “What about your little saying? ‘If it’s displaced, it’s ortho’s case’?”

“We don’t know it’s displaced.”

“Bruce, I know you’re a better doctor than that. Look at it!”

It did look bad. But he wasn’t ready to admit total defeat just yet.

“Fine. I’ll get an X-ray.”

After a humiliating journey to and from radiology, Bruce was forced to sit down in a room by Crystal.

“Ortho’s on the way,” she explained as she took his vitals. “How’d your scans look?”

Bruce definitely wasn’t pouting. He wasn’t. “Fractured the distal radius, two metacarpals, and the scaphoid. Moderate displacement throughout.”

“So you’ll need an IV for pain meds, then,” Crystal decided. She turned to the cart in the room and started digging out supplies.

“That’s overkill. I’ll just get some Vicodin and have ortho use a hematoma block.”

“Bruce Wayne, don’t be ridiculous. You are not going to attempt to sit through a reduction and immobilization of four fractures without IV pain medication. You’d never let one of your patients do that.”

The nurse’s tone left no room for discussion. So, Bruce sighed in defeat and stuck out his arm.

“Good man. Now, while we’re waiting on ortho, who would you like me to call?”

Right. There was no way they’d let him continue to practice medicine once he was injected with opioids. Driving would be out of the question, too, which meant he had to endure the humiliation of having one of his children come pick him up. Of course, this would happen the one week of the year Alfred was in England for his annual leave.

He went through the lineup. Dick was at work, considering it was 10:30am on a Thursday. So he was out. Jason, if he remembered correctly, had classes at 9:00 and 12:00, so he wasn’t available, either. Damian wasn’t old enough to drive, and Cass was in school. That left Tim. The seventeen-year-old had graduated high school a year early and was currently taking a gap year before starting college. That meant he was pretty much free 24/7.

“Tim,” he decided, wincing as Crystal slid the IV catheter into the crook of his arm. “I’ll call a towing company to come get my car.”

“Sounds good. I also already called Dr. Ducard to come cover the ER until the backup attending gets called in.”

Great. Dr. Henri Ducard was the medical director of the WMH ER. Now, Bruce was gonna have all of admin on his ass. They always got twitchy when the billionaire got hurt at work (as if he’d suddenly decide to pull Wayne Foundation funding over an occupational hazard). Ugh, and they were gonna make him do a bunch of paperwork, too. He hated filling out incident reports.

But none of that was Crystal’s fault, so he forced out a “Thank you.”

Tim arrived about half an hour later.

The ortho resident had just finished splinting Bruce’s wrist. It had hurt like hell, even with the morphine and the lidocaine injections. The most painful part, however, was the fact that he was going to have to come back in a few day for surgery, after the swelling went down. The fractures were simply too displaced to completely reduce in the ER. For now, his arm was wrapped in a sugar tong splint and placed in a sling.

“Hey, B.”

He looked up and saw his son standing in the doorway. Tim was looking at him with a deep, concerned frown.

He tried for a calm, reassuring smile. “Hey, bud. Thanks for coming to get me. I hope it wasn’t too inconvenient.”

The teen came in and sat down on the stretcher next to him. “Don’t worry about it. Are you okay?“

“I’m fine, Tim. Just a little fuzzy from the pain medicine.”

“Crystal said a patient attacked you.”

Bruce sighed. “It wasn’t his fault, bud. He wasn’t in his right mind.”

His son didn’t look convinced. “But he broke your arm.”

“I know, sweetheart, but I’m okay now. The orthopedic doctor splinted it, and I’ll just need to come back in a few days to have surgery. Then, I’ll be good as new.”

“Needing surgery does not equal being ‘okay,’ Dad!” Tim pointed out.

Bruce reached out with his right hand and squeezed his son’s arm. “Don’t get me wrong, Tim. I’m very upset that this happened. But unfortunately, it’s the nature of my job. We do our best to avoid it, and most of the time, we do. Today was just a fluke. Let’s just be thankful no permanent damage was done.”

Tim swallowed thickly. “Okay, if you say so.”

“I do. Now, how about we get out of here?”

“We are. Crystal’s grabbing a wheelchair now.”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “I don’t need a wheelchair.”

“Consider it payback for all the times you dragged me to the ER,” his son returned with a vindictive grin. “You deserve to feel the humiliation of being the patient for once.”

Okay. Maybe calling Tim hadn’t been the best idea after all.

Despite his many protests, Crystal did, in fact, bring Bruce a wheelchair and make him sit in it before she would discharge him.

“Remember to keep your arm elevated,” Crystal began.

Bruce groaned. “Are you seriously going to explain RICE to me?”

“Don’t interrupt,” the charge nurse chastised. She looked back down at her discharge papers, a ghost of a smile pulling at her lips. “Let’s see, where was I? Right. Ice your arm at least a few times a day and check the circulation frequently. Any changes, call ortho. They sent in a prescription for oxycodone to keep you comfortable until your surgery. The outpatient OR will call you with more details about your procedure in the next day or so. Any questions?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Good. Tim, make sure he behaves, okay?”

His son nodded. “I will. I gotta say, it’s nice being on this side of the stretcher for once.”

Crystal laughed and put her hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Don’t jinx yourself, now.”

Bruce felt his face heat up as he was wheeled through his own ER in a wheelchair. Dozens of onlookers sent him sympathetic winces and well wishes. It was humiliating, really.

“Feel better soon, Doc,” Vic offered, coming up to meet them. “For what it’s worth, Roy said that officer feels horrible about what happened.”

“There’s no need. It wasn’t his fault,” Bruce assured. “Is Mr. Dorrence at least calmer now?”

Vic snorted. “Dude’s out like a light and in proper restraints. GCPD is sticking around until he sobers up so they can take him in.”

At least that meant no one else would get hurt. Hopefully. “Thank you, Vic.”

“No worries. Be safe going home, Doc.”

With that, they wheeled out of the ER.

After picking up Bruce’s prescription from the pharmacy, Tim stopped at a drive-thru and ordered them both milkshakes.

“You deserve it for being so brave,” he declared, handing his father the styrofoam cup. It was chocolate and peanut butter, his favorite.

It was a tradition dating back to Dick’s early days as a Wayne. Whenever one of his kid’s had a doctors’ appointment or was discharged from the hospital, Bruce would always stop for milkshakes on the way home. And he’d always say the same exact thing Tim had just told him. He’d just never been on the receiving end of the reward system.

Bruce smiled. At least milkshakes were easy to enjoy one-handed. “Thanks, bud.”

“I do wish you didn’t have to deal with things like this, though,” his son huffed. “It sucks.”

“It does,” the doctor confirmed, “but you know what? I wouldn’t trade my job for the world. Not only because I get to help a lot of people everyday, though I do love that, but also because it brought me you and your siblings. I’d gladly take all of the black eyes and broken bones if it meant getting to be your dad.”

He meant every word. Being an ER doctor may not have been the most glamorous career choice, but it was the only one Bruce wanted.