Flashback
@liseylou asked: @whumptober 2025 Prompt No. 6: Medical Restraints | Pinned to the Wall. With Scott and post-Bereznik
With thanks to @mariashades for the read-through.
~
Scott held his breath and counted the footsteps as the rapidly disappeared away from him before letting it out as silently as he could. He took a moment to let the wall take his weight while he gathered his scattered thoughts.
This building was new. This torture was new.
He’d escaped his captors twice before only to be caught again and dragged back to his cell, only the compound hadn’t looked like this place.
For a start this place was well lit, making his escape all the more difficult. And there were far more people around for another thing. He dismissed the medical uniforms - even if they had suddenly decided his life was actually worth something — please, please don’t let them have sent Dad any of the footage they’d recorded of him being tortured — he was still behind enemy lines and he still needed to get out of there.
Another wave of wooziness swept over him, almost making him sink to the floor, and Scott rode it out with teeth gritted and a hand clasped against his side.
It was no good…he needed to hole up for a few hours and sleep off whatever drugs they’d used to sedate him. He risked a peek around the corner and grinned as he saw the door ahead and the empty corridor.
He couldn’t read the language but he understood the image. It was an exit.
Finally his luck had turned.
Gathering his dwindling strength, Scott limped over to the door, opened it and slipped out into the night.
~
‘What do you mean, you’ve lost him?’
Colonel Jeff Tracy’s roar could be heard across the entire floor, and many of the doctors and nurses not currently dealing with this particular emergency said a prayer of thanks and hurried past.
The doctor and three nurses currently in said room were saying prayers of a different kind.
‘Colonel Tracy, there’s no way Scott should have woken up from the anaesthetic, let along been able to walk after the operation. We had no way of…’ ‘Don’t you dare finish that sentence.’
Quiet Jeff Tracy was - unbelievably - more scary than shouting Jeff Tracy, and the ease at which he switched was frankly alarming.
‘I warned you that his fast metabolism means he burns through sedation. Hell, Scott’s medical notes hold such warnings!’ ‘And we read them…’ ‘So why wasn’t there someone there for him?! Why wasn’t I informed he was in the recovery so I could have been there when he woke up?’ ‘Hospital policy clearly states no non-medical staff are allowed on the recovery room!’ ‘But letting disoriented just-been-rescued-POWs escape is permitted?’
Placing both hands on the desk and leaning over it, Jeff dropped his voice even lower.
‘If Scott comes to further harm due to your negligence I shall be suing this hospital and you personally.’
He paused for a moment to make sure he’d got his point home before storming off, leaving the hospital to go kick his car tires and cuss in private.
And he cursed himself.
Jeff had hated seeing Scott tied to the bed, hated the superior attitude of the doctors treating Scott and their condescending attitude. The ‘we know how to treat POWs, you’re just a civilian’ looks they’d given him as Scott howled in anguish as orderlies had held him down until the medical restraints were in place.
He picked up the comm and called the only two people available to him.
‘I need you. Scott’s escaped.’ ‘On my way.’ ‘On my way, Dad.’
Taking a deep breath, Jeff drove to the accommodation he’d been given in the barracks, had a quick shower and changed into his uniform.
He may be retired, but he still had some sway, and once Val and John arrived he’d have the two necessary people to both enforce his words and find Scott.
And then he was taking his boy home - regardless of whatever else was said.
~
Scott found himself on the roof of a wing of the hospital. Even at night the complex he was currently in was well lit, but up here he was safe for a while. No one would think to check up here for him and he could rest for a bit.
He moved away from doorway and hid himself around the back so that he couldn’t be easily seen should someone think to check, sliding down the wall and using it to keep himself upright on the floor. Just in case he needed to move in a hurry.
The thin blanket he’d woken up covered in and had unthinkingly brought with him Scott now covered himself with - it may have been summer here but the nights were cooler than home and he was bizarrely dressed in a hospital gown that barely covered his dignity let alone gave him any warmth - and he settled down to nap.
When he awoke it was full daylight and the camp was full of people rushing around and Scott groaned.
He’d slept too long and missed any opportunity to get away! Well, there was nothing to be done about that. Surveying his hiding place Scott was pleased to see that no one could see him from the main building or the surrounding ones.
There was nothing he could do but wait for night to fall again, so he settled back down to sleep some more. He’d need as much energy as possible to pick his way out of the camp.
Four floors down Colonel Valerie Casey had just dismissed the doctor in charge of Scott’s care. She collapsed into the chair and sighed deeply.
Why the man had felt the need to pigheadedly stand his ground when he was so obviously at fault was beyond her…but dwelling on him wouldn’t find Scott, so she shoved him out of her mind and looked over to John. Her Godson was pouring over the footage from the few cameras the hospital had.
‘Anything?’ ‘No. I can’t see Scott leaving from any entrance.’ ‘So he could still be here? After the extensive search that was made?’
John scoffed and sounded so much like his father that Val couldn’t help but smile, looking to Jeff as she did.
‘Suggestions?’ ‘Did anyone check the roof?’
Looking quickly through the reports from the search groups she found her answer.
‘Yes. Twice. No sign of Scott.’ ‘What about the other roof.’ ‘Other roof?’ ‘There’s two roofs. The main one is obvious but the additional wing as a small roof. No cameras there and it’s the perfect place Scott would hide - where he could see the sky.’
Val looked through the reports again but she didn’t need to. Not one group had mentioned the wing. She looked at Jeff and nodded, and the three of them moved as one.
They paused at the door to the roof, Val with a restraining hand of Jeff’s arm.
‘I totally agree with you getting Scott out of here, but if he’s deep in a flashback he might need sedating …’ ‘Only as a last resort. Not that idiot doctor and no medical restraints! I’m convinced the restraints are what triggered all this in the first place.’ ‘Agreed. Give me a couple minutes to get someone ready just in case. John - you better stay here.’ ‘No way!’ ‘Val’s right, John. Too many people will freak Scott out more, and if he is in the throes of a trauma response he’ll never forgive himself if he hurts you.’
John didn’t like it but he knew his Dad was right, so he nodded and stayed put as Val called for a specific doctor to meet them and Jeff opened the door.
The click of the door opening roused Scott, and he went from asleep to fully awake in seconds, shrinking down as much as possible and holding his breath.
He almost lost that breath when his Father’s voice called out his name, but all it did was enrage him further.
How dare they! How dare they!
Rage flooded Scott’s body with adrenaline, and as the man pretending to be his father rounded the corner he leapt forward, pinning the man to the wall with one arm across the man’s throat.
Scott pressed hard, not wanting to allow the soldier to speak. He was so enraged that he’d managed to pin the man up on tiptoe, and he hissed in his ear as he lent in harder.
‘You cannot trick me into giving up my squadron so easily! How dare you!’
Jeff had stepped out onto the small rooftop, convinced that Scott would be there waiting for him. He called his son’s name softly, frowning at the lack of Scott.
There was only one place Scott could be - behind the door. So Jeff rounded the corner and…he had no time to react as he found himself pinned to the wall, a skinny but surprisingly strong arm across his throat and preventing Jeff from speaking at all.
A detached part of Jeff’s mind told him that wearing his uniform at this precise moment had been a spectacularly bad idea, while another part that sounded remarkably like his Ma noted that the surgery on his arm would probably have to be operated on again if the blood running down his arm was any indication.
But mostly Jeff was scrabbling to get a firm footing and struggling to breathe.
He needed to reach Scott! If he failed now…it would destroy his son more thoroughly than anything else. He tried to wiggle his fingers between his throat and Scott’s arm but his son just pressed harder, whispering something in his ear that Jeff couldn’t hear over the roaring of blood in his ears.
His vision began to fade into black spots and Jeff couldn’t stop the tears falling. Not for himself but for Scott…
John fidgeted.
Something wasn’t right. He’d heard his Dad call out Scott’s name but then…nothing. He desperately wanted to see what was going on on the roof, but he’d promised his Dad he’d stay put.
His Aunt Val rushed up to him and briefly placed a hand on his shoulder.
‘Anything?’ she whispered, frowning when John shook his head. ‘Something’s not right, Aunt Val.’ ‘I agree.’
She passed him a pen syringe and nodded to the door. John flashed her a tight grin and stepped through the doorway.
The sight as he turned the corner almost made him falter, but as his Dad’s hand dropped John lunged forward, throwing one arm around Scott’s neck and chest to pull him off their Dad while his other hand stabbed the pen into Scott’s arm.
John held on tight as his brother tried to lunge back at their father while trying to simultaneously dislodge him, but the fast-acting sedative soon allowed John to pull Scott backwards and they collapsed onto the floor.
Jeff’s gasp as he also fell to the floor was music to John’s ears, but even more welcome was Scott’s whispered and confused ‘John?’ Before he lost consciousness.
Coughing as he crawled over and collapsed against his boys, Jeff patted John’s hand as he pulled himself together.
‘Thank you, John.’ ‘You’re welcome. Dad?’ ‘Yeah?’ ‘Can we go home now?’ ‘Val?’
Val was already standing over them, with two orderlies waiting behind her with a stretcher.
‘Wheels up in twenty minutes gentlemen.’
She helped Jeff to his feet.
‘Arrangements have been made with Irwin Army Community Hospital in Kansas. Get our boy well, Jeff.’ ‘You can count on that, Val. You can count on that.’
