adrianstroma

THE TRAUMA ROOM

When you finally entered, he was lying back, propped up at an angle, his gaze fixed on the ceiling tiles as if trying to decipher a map in their cracks and stains.

“Oh, you came back,” he said immediately, the words laced with a vulnerability so stark it was almost painful. “I… I thought you’d left. Like… left for good. People usually do.”

You blinked, a sudden, sharp tightness seizing your chest. What was this feeling? This ache that wasn’t quite pity, but something far more complicated?

“I just came to check on you,” you said, your professional facade firmly in place.

“That’s so… professional,” he sighed, the dramatics returning to his voice. “I’ve never been treated by someone nice before. Most people who patch me up think I’m… annoying.”

“You are not annoying,” you stated flatly, and he recoiled as if struck by a physical blow, his mouth falling open in mock horror. “But you're an chatterbox person who bleeds. So I have to take care of you.”

He relaxed back into the pillows, the fight draining out of him. “That was… kinda sweet?”

“No, it wasn’t,” you replied, your tone leaving no room for argument.

“Yeah, it was.”

You avoided his gaze, focusing intently on the chart in your hands. Perhaps it had been, a little.

As you checked his vitals, his attention never wavered from you. He watched your every movement with a focus that bordered on reverent, as if he were trying to memorize the shape of your hands, the rhythm of your breath, to decode the very essence of your being.

And then, he broke the silence with another disarming truth.

“I like your voice.”

Your hands stilled. “What?”

“Your voice. It’s… calm,” he elaborated, his own voice soft. “I don’t hear calm things. Usually, it’s just people screaming. Or begging me to stop doing something.”

You bit the inside of your lip, the taste of copper a faint tang on your tongue. He spoke with such brutal, unvarnished honesty, seemingly unaware of how deeply he was exposing the fractured soul beneath the mask.

“What’s your name?” you asked, the question leaving your lips before you could reconsider.

He froze, the casual ease vanishing in an instant. “Can’t,” he said, the word sharp and immediate. “Vigilante 101: no revealing the secret identity. It’s, like, the first rule. Peacemaker yells at me all the time because I… well… because I almost do it sometimes. But I can’t. It’s serious.”

“It’s okay,” you reassured him, lifting your hands in a placating gesture. “You can keep your secrets.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For respecting it.”

You raised an eyebrow, a small, silent acknowledgment. Then, you offered a piece of yourself in return. “My name is Y/N.”

The silence that descended upon the room was no longer empty. It was dense, warm, and fragile, charged with the weight of the trust you had just exchanged. He took a deep, shuddering breath, as if steeling himself for a suicide mission.

“I'm vigilante." he whispered, the name a sacred confession in the sterile quiet.

Your heart stuttered, nearly missing a beat. You had read the reports, heard the whispers from cops, seen his nickname in internal bulletins. A disgraced DA. A volatile force of nature. You were supposed to feel fear. But the emotion that bloomed in your chest was something else entirely, something warmer and more dangerous. It was the feeling that the name, soft and human, fit him perfectly.

“Hi, Vigilante,” you said, your voice impossibly soft. “It’s nice to officially meet you.”

He smiled behind the mask. You couldn’t see it, but you saw the way his eyes crinkled at the corners, narrowing into an expression that could mean nothing else.

The doctor entered with a suture kit, the sterile clatter of instruments breaking the fragile intimacy you had built. Your role here was technically over; the baton was passed. You could have left. You should have. It was the unspoken rule of the job: don't get attached, don't linger, move on to the next crisis. But your feet felt rooted to the linoleum floor, tethered by an invisible thread to the man on the gurney who was now staring at the approaching physician with the wide-eyed terror of a cornered animal.

"Alright, let's get this closed," the doctor said, his tone brisk and practical. "I need you to remove the mask."

Vigilante froze. It wasn't just a refusal; it was a full-body lockdown. His eyes widened behind the lenses, his breath catching in his throat as if the doctor had asked him to strip bare his very soul. "NO. I CAN'T." The words were a raw, panicked shout, echoing in the small room.

"Friend, I need to suture the laceration on your jawline," the doctor insisted, a note of impatience creeping into his voice. "I'm not going to touch the rest of your face."

"I can't!" Vigilante's voice cracked, his body pressing back into the thin mattress as if trying to phase through it. "My mask is my… it's my face! Without it, I… I don't…" His words disintegrated into a helpless stammer. A violent tremor ran through him, a tremor that spoke of deep-seated trauma, of a psyche so fractured that the mask wasn't a costume—it was a carapace, the only thing holding him together. He was shrinking, collapsing in on himself, reliving a nightmare right before your eyes.

You moved without conscious thought, stepping between the doctor's clinical impatience and his raw, unraveling panic. "Vigilante," you called, your voice a low, steady anchor in the storm of his fear. "Look at me."

His gaze, glassy and desperate, snapped to yours. The bright, curious light you'd seen earlier was gone, replaced by the primal sheen of pure terror.

"Listen to me," you continued, your tone leaving no room for argument. "This needs to be closed. If it gets infected, the damage will be far worse, and I promise you, the process will be a thousand times more painful and invasive." Slowly, deliberately, you reached out and placed your hand over his, which was clenched into a white-knuckled fist on the sheet.

His reaction was instantaneous. His hand flipped over and seized yours, his grip crushing, desperate. It was the grip of a drowning man who had just been thrown a lifeline. He was holding on to you as if you were the only solid thing in a world that was spinning out of control. He took a breath—a ragged, desperate gasp—and then another, slower one, his eyes locked on yours, obeying your unspoken command to breathe.

"I… I… can't take it all off," he whispered, the confession torn from him. "I'm serious. I'm dead serious. But I can… lift it. Just enough. If… if you stay here."

"I'm not going anywhere," you promised, your voice firm.

He gave a jerky, trembling nod. With his free hand, his movements hesitant and clumsy, he hooked his fingers under the bottom edge of the mask. He paused for one last, agonizing second, his eyes searching yours for reassurance, and then he lifted it. Just enough to reveal the lower half of his face—from the nose down.

The sight struck you with a physical force, a punch to the gut that stole your breath. He was… young. Far younger than the myth of the Vigilante suggested. He had a strong, clean jawline and a mouth with soft, almost timid lips, now parted slightly in anxious anticipation. There was a vulnerability there that was utterly disarming, a heartbreaking contrast to the brutal, chaotic legend he embodied. This wasn't the face of a monster; it was the face of a man, and the dissonance was so profound it left you reeling.

He saw your reaction, the subtle intake of breath, the way your eyes widened for a fraction of a second. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Is it… ugly?" he asked, his voice so small and stripped of its usual bravado that it barely reached you.

"No," you answered, too quickly, the word coming out with an intensity that surprised even you. "No. It's not."

"Oh." He blinked, surprise flickering in the visible part of his face. "That's… rare."

The doctor worked efficiently, stitching the wound with practiced hands. Throughout the entire procedure, Vigilante's grip on your hand never loosened. His eyes remained fixed on you, wide and unblinking, as if you were a sacred icon, the only thing keeping the demons at bay. You were his focal point, his sanctuary. When it was over, he yanked the mask back down with a swift, almost ashamed motion, as if he had exposed something far more intimate than mere skin. But he still didn't let go of your hand.

"Thank you," he murmured, the words muffled slightly by the fabric. "I… I don't usually like touching human skin. It's… a lot. But touching yours was… an interesting experience."

The statement, so bizarre and yet so earnestly delivered, sent a sharp, unexpected pang through your chest. It wasn't pity. It was a profound, aching understanding of just how isolated he truly was.

--

When he was finally cleared for discharge, you helped him sit up, your hand a steadying presence on his back. The spell was breaking; the real world was intruding. "I need to get back to my shift," you said, the words feeling inadequate.

He froze, the momentary peace shattering. "You're… leaving?"

"Yes. I have to work."

"But… what if I fall? Or if someone attacks me on the way out? Or if I pass out again? Or if I…" His words began to tumble out faster, a rising tide of panic, each scenario more frantic than the last.

You placed a firm hand on his shoulder, cutting off the spiral. "Vigilante. Breathe. You're going to be fine."

He swallowed hard, his eyes becoming glassy once more. "Will you… will you come back?"

"Maybe," you said, and a small, genuine smile touched your lips. "Evergreen is a dangerous city. I'll probably see you around."

He took a deep, shuddering breath, as if storing that single, non-committal "maybe" in a secret reservoir of hope. It was a flimsy shield, but he clung to it.

"Okay." A pause, filled with the hum of the hospital and the frantic beating of his own heart. "I liked… you. Like… a lot. But not in a creepy way. In the… 'you're the coolest person who has ever held my organs inside my body' way. That way."

You laughed, a soft, real sound that seemed to startle him. He blushed—you could see it in the way the skin around his eyes crinkled, a fascinating tell.

"Goodbye, Vigilante," you said, turning to leave.

"Bye…" he whispered, the word sounding foreign and difficult on his tongue. Then, as your hand touched the door handle, he found his voice again, stronger now. "I'll see you again. It's not a threat. It's just… I want to."

You walked out of the room carrying a feeling that made no logical sense whatsoever—a heavy, warm, complicated weight in the center of your being. And behind you, Vigilante watched until the door hissed shut, his gaze boring into the metal, memorizing the shape of your exit as if he could reassemble you from the memory.

---

Out in the fluorescent-bright hallway, your partner fell into step beside you, shaking his head. "So," he grunted, nodding back towards the room. "Who the hell is that guy?"

You took a deep breath, the sterile air filling your lungs, but it did nothing to clear the strange, emotional fog. You thought of the crushing grip of his hand, the terror in his eyes, the softness of his hidden mouth, and the devastating vulnerability he had entrusted to you.

And you said the first and most profound truth you could formulate.

"Someone I am absolutely certain is going to be a great deal of trouble."

————

The first time was a coincidence, a simple twist of fate easily dismissed. The second time was strange, a pattern beginning to form at the edges of your reality. By the third time, your colleagues had started a betting pool. The man known as Vigilante was weaving himself into the fabric of your life with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

The second visit had been a masterpiece of absurdity. The automatic doors of the ER had hissed open to reveal him standing there, not bleeding or broken, but adopting a theatrical, chest-heaving cough. He’d stumbled up to the triage desk, his gloved hand pressed dramatically to his chest.

“Ahem! Cough! Excuse me,” he’d wheezed, his voice a ridiculous caricature of infirmity. “I believe I’m… cough… coming down with something… dire.”

You’d stared, unamused, as he leaned conspiratorially over the counter. “It feels… tickly. And my… sinuses feel… strategic.”

“Strategic sinuses?” you’d asked, your voice flat.

“Yes! Like they’re planning a… a tactical retreat. Or maybe an ambush. It’s hard to say.” He’d then launched into a coughing fit that was less a symptom of illness and more a performance for a Shakespearean tragedy. “I was hoping for a… diagnosis. From a professional. Preferably you.”

You’d simply pointed to the hand sanitizer station. “Use that. And get out.”

His shoulders had slumped, the act evaporating instantly. “Oh. Okay. It was worth a try.” And he’d left, dejected but not defeated.

---

And then came the third time, the one that cemented his legend.

The shift that night was calm— a little too calm, the kind of quiet that felt like the city was holding its breath. The silence was broken not by a cry for help, but by a single, distinct ding against the nursing station's counter. It wasn't a normal tap. It was a calculated, dramatic, metallic ding—a sound that was inherently, unmistakably… him.

You lifted your eyes from the chart in your hands.

And there he was.

Vigilante. Standing in the middle of the hushed corridor at 2:27 in the morning. He was a statue of black Kevlar and misplaced intent, completely out of context, a glitch in the sterile simulation of the hospital. He looked less like a creature of the night and more like a very lost, very armed tourist.

“Hi!” he waved a gloved hand, his enthusiasm far too bright for someone supposedly in the middle of a nocturnal crime-fighting patrol. “I was patrolling the area and, would you look at that, an absolutely absurd coincidence, like… a fated one… I saw you coming in for your shift and I thought: ‘Wow! What an incredible synchronicity! Let me just… pop in and ensure your personal safety parameters are optimal.’”

You furrowed your brow, a familiar mix of exasperation and a strange, unwelcome fondness stirring in your chest. “Vigilante… this is my place of work. Not an active warzone.”

He shrugged, a gesture that made his tactical gear rustle, as if this minor detail were utterly irrelevant. “Emergencies are statistically unpredictable! People slip on wet floors all the time. Hospital utensils can be surprisingly hazardous. Syringes exist!” he declared, as if revealing a profound universal truth. “I’m just… you know… performing a proactive security sweep. For your benefit.”

Behind you, your colleague Camila observed the scene, a half-eaten pastry frozen in her hand, her eyebrow arched so high it threatened to disappear into her hairline.

“Is he here again?” she murmured, her voice a low whisper laced with amusement.

“Unfortunately,” you whispered back, the word sounding weak even to your own ears.

“Can I please write your name and his on the betting pool whiteboard? Because I’m getting a serious…” She made a small, circular gesture with her hand, as if stirring a pot. “…chemistry vibe.”

You sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose. “There is no—”

“HI CAMILA!” Vigilante interrupted, waving enthusiastically at her as if she were a long-lost confidante.

Camila blinked, slowly. “My God, he knows my name. I’m officially terrified.”

You’re terrified? You thought, a hysterical laugh bubbling in your throat. I’m the one he’s apparently decided is his personal damsel in distress.

---

Two nights later, the pattern escalated from bizarre to surreal. You were on your way to retrieve a patient chart from the trauma wing when a soft, metallic clang from above gave you pause. You ignored it. Then another. Clang. Clang.

A slow, dreadful suspicion coiled in your stomach. You looked up.

Vigilante was prone on the ceiling tiles, his face pressed against the grille of a ventilation panel like a disastrously clumsy cat observing its human from a bookshelf. A few stray fibers of insulation dusted his black mask.

“AH!” he exclaimed, his voice muffled but brimming with triumph. “I knew your patrol route would bring you through this sector eventually! I triangulated your most probable path based on the mental map I constructed of the hospital’s circadian rhythms last night.”

You simply blinked, your brain struggling to process the image.

“You made a mental map of the hospi—”

“Not just mental!” he interjected proudly. With a grunt, he managed to wiggle one arm free and pull a crumpled, massive piece of paper from a pouch on his belt. He shoved it through the grille. It fluttered down into your hands. “A physical one too! See?”

It was a horrifically drawn map of the hospital layout, rendered in frantic, waxy crayon. The pediatric ward was illustrated with stick-figure children smiling next to crudely drawn skulls, which were labeled in a tight, paranoid script: “Potential Hostile Vectors (The small ones are the most unpredictable).”

You took a deep, steadying breath, the kind you usually reserved for families screaming in the waiting room. “Vigilante… you cannot be in the ceiling.”

“Why not?” he asked, genuine confusion in his tone.

“Because it’s… it’s strange. And unsanitary. And structurally questionable.”

He looked offended, his lenses narrowing. “This is advanced, three-dimensional risk assessment for patient and staff security! You can’t achieve this level of situational awareness from the ground floor!”

At that moment, Camila and the technician, João, walked by, their heads tilted back to take in the scene. João stopped dead in his tracks.

“Is he in the ceiling now?” Yoshida asked, his voice flat with disbelief.

Camila pumped a fist in the air, a wide, victorious grin spreading across her face. “Bingo!” she cheered. “I called ‘ceiling stalker’ for tonight’s round. Pay up, Yoshida. I told you the escalation was exponential.”

---

Yoshida handed Camila a crumpled bill without taking his eyes off Vigilante, who remained pressed against the ceiling like an oversized, inconvenient bat glued to the hospital’s infrastructure.

“This is… this is irregular,” Yoshida muttered, pointing at him as if identifying a large nocturnal animal that had chosen the worst possible place to perch. “Like… very irregular. Like… the kind of irregularity that shows up in an accreditation audit.”

“I am enhancing the team’s operational efficiency,” Vigilante countered, with the religious conviction of someone preaching in a grocery store. “From a distance.”

You massaged your temple, feeling your soul attempt to leave your body for the second time that week. “Get down. Now.”

“Oh! Sure!” he replied with the enthusiasm of a dog that finally heard the word walk. “But just a minute, I need to position my center of gravity at an angle that minimizes collateral damage.”

Which, naturally, meant he fell out of the ceiling with the loudest crash imaginable.

The impact echoed down the corridor, a THUMP so intense that a nurse in the nearby room screamed and dropped an IV bag. Vigilante shot up immediately with an awkward jumping jack, as if trying to convince everyone that he had planned that exact moment.

“See?” he said, pointing proudly at himself. “Zero fractures. Training pays off.”

Camila stared at him, wide-eyed. “You fell out of the ceiling.”

“On purpose! To test the structural integrity of the hospital flooring. It’s per-fect. Excellent use of taxpayer money.”

You closed your eyes, took a deep breath, and attempted to locate somewhere in your psyche a remaining shred of patience. You did not find one.

“Vigilante,” you began, voice low, calm, professional—the exact tone used right before administering a benzodiazepine. “I need you to stop… vigilante-ing me. You’re turning the hospital into a hidden-camera show.”

His reaction was immediate—an involuntary stiffness, like someone had hit the pause button. For a fragile instant, a single, human flicker passed through the mask: surprise, hesitation… almost fear.

“But…” he scratched at his helmet, the gesture clumsy and childlike. “I thought… I don’t know… that I was helping.”

Your heart tugged in your chest, betraying you in your mission to feel absolutely nothing for this extremely dangerous and extremely stupid man.

Before you could respond, the hospital intercom crackled to life, dragging you back to reality.

“Trauma ward, room 3. Nursing requested stat.”

You swallowed your tired sigh. “I have to go.”

“I’ll go with you,” he said instantly.

“No, you will not.”

“But what if it’s dangerous?”

“It’s a hospital. It’s always dangerous.”

He seemed to seriously consider this for half a second, then nodded with firm, heroic—completely unnecessary—determination.

“Then I definitely need to go.”

You felt three pairs of eyes watching you: Camila, João, and the entire universe cheering for the chaos.

“Stay. Here.” You pointed at the floor like you were training an especially anxious dog.

Vigilante froze.

“O-okay.”

He lifted both hands slowly, obedient, though his posture made it very clear he planned to interpret that order as flexibly as possible.

You turned and started toward trauma.

You didn’t make it three steps before hearing the extremely subtle sound of boots attempting to follow behind you.

You stopped.

He stopped.

You looked back.

He looked at the ceiling.

“Vigilante.”

“…Yes?”

“You’re following me.”

“No I’m not!”

You crossed your arms.

He pointed dramatically at an electrical outlet in the wall. “I was… examining… this… outlet. It looks… electrically suspicious.”

“Back.”

“O-okay.”

He took three steps backward—then promptly tripped over his own foot and slammed into the wall with a grunt.

Camila sighed, sounding either genuinely sympathetic or deeply amused. Hard to tell. “You should really keep him on a leash next time.”

You rolled your eyes and kept walking.

And as you disappeared down the hallway, you heard his voice—quiet, small, unaware that he was speaking out loud.

“I just… wanted to make sure she was safe.”

The word safe echoed inside you in a dangerous way.

Way more dangerous than him crawling around in the ceiling.

Of course he didn't heard me and pretended that he was leaving.

The trauma bay was a flurry of motion when you arrived—monitors beeping, gloves snapping, the sharp metallic clicks of instruments being prepared. You slipped into your role instantly, steady, focused.

And he slipped into his, too.

Which apparently meant: “Uninvited hallway sentinel of questionable value.”

Vigilante stood directly outside the trauma room, spine straight, arms rigid at his sides like a toy soldier someone forgot to pack away. Every time a doctor or nurse passed by, he either jumped aside dramatically or tried to “help” by opening the door and nearly hitting someone in the face.

“Sir—please—stop touching the door,” Dr. Rivera snapped after the third collision.

“I’m assisting traffic flow!” Vigilante answered, offended. “This is crowd control!”

“You’re the crowd,” Rivera hissed.

“I respectfully disagree.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose from inside the room.

It got worse.

The paramedic dropped a wrapper. Vigilante dove for it like it was a live grenade.

“I’ve got it! Nobody move! Trip hazards are statistically responsible for—”

“OUT,” Rivera barked.

“I AM OUT!” he yelled back.

Then he stood even more out, flattening himself against the wall like a decal in tactical gear.

Another doctor approached with a suture tray. Vigilante panicked, decided she was in danger for absolutely no reason, and tried to walk backward while saluting her.

He immediately bumped into the crash cart, making it roll ten centimeters.

“Don’t move that,” a nurse warned.

“I didn’t move it.”

“You just moved it.”

“No I didn’t—okay, but technically I moved and it followed physics.”

“Please stop existing,” she begged.

Through the window of the trauma bay, you saw all of this. You saw far too much of this. And as the patient stabilized, your patience absolutely did not.

You stepped into the hallway.

He straightened instantly. “Oh! Good news! Your sector is clear of threats. Except the crash cart. That thing’s aggressive.”

“Vigilante,” you whispered, shifting into the exhausted-parent tone you swore you’d never use, “PLEASE. For the love of every deity known to humankind… go home.”

He recoiled, wounded. “Home? But what if you have more patients? What if someone throws a scalpel? What if the ceiling falls again? What if—”

You held up a hand.

“Stop before you invent a disaster and manifest it into existence.”

He stopped.

Barely.

You continued, “You need to either go home or find someone who actually needs help before the security team kicks you out for the second time.”

He looked at the floor. “They wouldn’t.”

As if summoned by cosmic comedic timing, the head of security turned the corner, saw him, and groaned audibly.

“Oh God. Not you again.”

Vigilante pointed at him. “Coincidence! I was just leaving!”

“You told me that last time,” the guard muttered.

“And I meant it! I just walked… very slow… in a loop… around the building… and then back inside.”

“OUT.”

Vigilante flinched and turned to you, his voice smaller. “They’re gonna call psych again, aren’t they?”

“YES,” the security guard replied from far down the hall.

You resisted the urge to facepalm. “Vigilante… please. Go. Help another citizen. A jaywalker. A bicycle thief. Someone microwaving fish in an apartment building. Anyone.”

“But you might need—”

“I need you to leave before these doctors decide you’re a clinical case.”

He hesitated. For once, really hesitated.

Then he nodded, grudgingly.

“Okay. I’ll go.”

He took one step.

Stopped.

Looked back.

“But if you don’t text me when your shift ends to confirm you’re alive, I will—”

“NO.”

“—I will—”

“NO.”

“—conduct a full tactical sweep of—”

“Vigilante.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“Oh my God.”

He backed away, finger pointed at you in dramatic, heroic farewell, nearly tripping over a recycling bin but recovering with a flourish as if that had also been part of the plan.

Camila appeared beside you, biting into her pastry again.

“He’s absolutely in love with you,” she said through a mouthful of chocolate.

You stared down the hallway where he disappeared, shaking your head.

“No. He’s just… misguided.”

From far away, echoing:

“I’M NOT MISGUIDED, I’M STRATEGICALLY EMOTIONAL!”

Camila smirked. “Mm-hm. Sure. That sounds like love to me.”

You groaned. “Don’t start.”

“I won the betting pool tonight,” she sang. “Ceiling entry AND hallway distressing. Double prize.”

You threw your head back and sighed.

And somewhere outside, very faintly, you heard:

“DON’T WORRY, EVERYONE! I’LL PATROL THE PARKING LOT TO ENSURE HER VEHICLE IS HOSTILE-FREE!”

You closed your eyes.

This man was going to be the death of you.

Or make you go crazy.