“Just hold on, I’m here, it's gonna be ok,” Wes chanted, a desperate mantra aimed as much at himself as at Danny, who was a dead weight on his lap with his skin pale and clammy, and the sizzling green burn across his ribs casting a sickly, opaque light.

Victor drove the van, silent, eating up the distance to the apartment. No one spoke. Everyone was focused on the boy bleeding out in the back of the van. Wally was trying to assess how much damage there was, but his heart was pounding heavier and heavier with each new injury he could see with the tattered clothes still on.

They finally got to the building, running up the stairs and bursting into the apartment, leaving a trail of blood on the floor and a flurry of disorder in their wake. Tim ran in first, going directly to the kitchen and clearing the table, freeing the spaces for use. Roy carried Danny over to lay him onto the table gently, his large hands carefully supporting Danny's head before making space for Wally to pass through.

“I need light!” Wally’s voice was a whip-crack, all hesitation and uncertainty pushed away, this wasn't the time to fumble. The moment he’d heard Wes’s sobbing, broken plea on the phone, had sent his mind into a frenzy. All the hope he felt when he saw the caller ID vanished into an ice cold fear that he had to ignore for the sake of helping him. But now, seeing Wes—his jacket drenched in Danny’s blood, his face a mess of tears and soot—and Danny laid out on the table like a corpse, his attempt at a professional facade was already cracking under a wave of sorrow.

Tim was already moving with forced calm. He snatched the heavy-duty Fenton first-aid kit from where Gar had left at the entrance and laid it out on the counter, his movements efficient but rushed and jerky. He ripped open a packet of nitrile gloves and handed a pair to Wally, who was scrubbing his hands raw at the sink, water splashing everywhere.

“Clear the space” Wally commanded, snapping the gloves on, his voice tight. Everyone moved from the kitsch, just him and Tim remaining inside “What happened?” he directed towards Wes.

“There was an explosion. I was outside, but I heard it and heard him s-scream,” Wes barely managed to get out before sobbing. He was hovering helplessly by the doorframe, his arms wrapped around himself, painted in Danny’s blood and looking paler than Wally has ever seen him. “When I got there, he was c-crawling up the stairs. He called my name. He called me and I couldn’t… I couldn’t do anything.” His voice broke completely in a dry sob, and his gaze locked onto Danny's still form, slightly shaking and mostly out of it.

Wally’s heart clenched. His little brother was breaking in front of him, and he was powerless to stop that, too, but he needed to take care of Danny first. Asking more questions wouldn't help now. So he moved to the table and got to work. With a pair of shears from the kit, he began cutting away the tattered, blood-soaked shirt, the fabric peeling away from wounds with a wet, tearing sound. He reached for the saline, using it to wash away the grime and blood to reveal the full, brutal extent of the damage beneath.

And it was bad.

Tim became his perioperative nurse, anticipating his needs, handing him gauze, scissors, antiseptic that smelled unnervingly of citrus and ozone. Wally worked quickly, cleaning the smaller lacerations, his hands moving on autopilot as he began suturing a deep, clean gash on Danny’s arm. It was something he could fix. A normal injury. A anchor in the surreal horror.

But his eyes kept drifting back to the burn. The one that glowed.

The skin around it was necrotic, pulsing with a faint, sickly green light. Following the basic protocol for a severe burn, Wally reached for a sterile saline-soaked gauze pad Tim handed him. He gently laid it over the seeping wound to cool and clean it.

The reaction was instantaneous. A low hiss filled the quiet kitchen. Wisps of acrid, green-tinged smoke curled from under the gauze. Wally snatched it back. The sterile pad wasn't just stained; it was disintegrating, its fibers breaking down into a blackened, gelatinous mess. The ectoplasm was actively consuming the material. He quickly dropped the gauze before it could get to his hand, and observed helplessly as it completely disintegrated before his very eyes on the floor.

A cold dread, entirely separate from the heat of the emergency, settled in Wally's gut. He tried again, this time with a thick, proprietary burn gel from the Fenton kit, hoping its unusual composition might be more resilient. He spread the clear gel over the wound  and, for a moment, it seemed to work, smothering the glow. Then, the gel began to bubble and froth, turning a violent, acidic yellow before evaporating entirely, leaving the burn looking angrier than before.

"It's rejecting everything," Wally whispered, his voice cracking. The professional composure he'd been clinging to began to shatter. This wasn't a problem his forensic science training could solve. This was a biological crisis that defied any known physics he was aware of. He reached for a roll of sterile gauze, a last-ditch effort to at least contain the bleeding from the edges of the wound. The moment the white fabric touched the green-tinged flesh, it blackened and crumbled to ash, as if held to a flame. He had to drop that one too.

He was out of his depth. Completely. The tools of his trade were useless. He could debride necrotic tissue, he could manage shock, he could identify a hundred different toxins—but he had no answer for this. His hands, still encased in bloody nitrile gloves, hovered uselessly over Danny's torso. The wave of sorrow and helplessness he'd been holding back finally broke over him. He was failing. He was watching this boy—his brother's boyfriend—be eaten alive by something he couldn't even comprehend, and he was utterly, terrifyingly powerless to stop it.

A choked sound came from the doorway, making him turn around. Wes was staring, his eyes wide with a kind of primal horror. The sight of Danny’s body actively fighting the medical aid, the smell, the glistening, unnatural wound—it was too much. He clapped a hand over his mouth, his face turning a sickly green, and bolted from the room, stumbling towards his own bedroom’s bathroom.

Garfield was on his feet in an instant. “I got him,” he murmured, and followed Wes.

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He found Wes on his knees, vomiting violently into the toilet, his whole body shaking. Gar didn’t speak, just knelt beside him, a steadying hand on his back, his presence a quiet anchor in the storm.

After the heaving subsided, Wes slumped against the bathtub, spent and trembling. He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, his eyes wild. “The bag,” he rasped, pointing a shaky finger toward a duffel bag in the corner of his room—Danny’s bag. “Front pocket. Green cross. It’s his. His own kit. Get it.”

Gar gave a sharp, understanding nod. In one fluid motion, he scooped up the designated bag with its vivid green cross and turned, his voice cutting through the tense silence. 'Vic!' The large man was already a presence in the doorway, and Gar thrust the bag into his waiting hands. Without a word, Victor turned with purpose as he carried the kit back down the hall.

The desperate need to get back to Danny finally overpowered the nausea churning in Wes’s gut. Pushing himself upright, his body protesting with a deep, bone-weary tremble, he used the edge of the bathtub for support. Gar, who had been a silent, steady presence, met his eyes and gave a single, firm nod of encouragement. That was all the push Wes needed. He stepped out of the room and back toward the kitchen, his legs feeling like jello with every unsteady step, carrying him towards his goal.

The scene was worse. Wally was staring at the worsening burn, his gloved hands hovering uselessly, his breath coming in short pants. Tim stood rigidly beside him, his usual analytical mask completely gone, replaced by a pale, wide-eyed helplessness. He was a detective, a strategist; he wasn't equipped for a biological crisis that defied known science. Roy paced like a caged tiger at the foot of the bed, his fists clenched, radiating furious, useless energy. There was no enemy to punch, no clear target for his guilt and rage. But now, the specialized kit was open on one of the chairs beside the table. Wally, moving with renewed focus, was trying its contents. He selected a roll of silvery, mesh-like bandage. He applied it to the edges of the wound to test it out, trying to not make the wound even worse. It didn't dissolve. It held, the faint green glow seemed to dim slightly where it made contact. He realised a shaky breath. They had found something that worked.

A low, pained moan cut through the frantic energy in the room. On the table, Danny stirred, his body tensing in a violent tremor before going limp again. His eyelids fluttered open, revealing eyes clouded with pain, gaze drifting unseeingly until it somehow locked onto Wes’s.

“Wes…” he rasped, his voice shredded and visibly putting effort on the single syllable.

Wes stumbled forward moving to stand by his side in an instant, his own hand—still trembling—closing around Danny’s. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Danny’s eyes started to roll back, his consciousness flickering, but he fought it, a desperate will shining through the pain. “The kit…” he forced out, his breath hitching. “Syringe…Green. Use it.” He seemed to lose the little fight there was left, his eyes completely rolling back and his head dropping to the side.

Wes didn’t hesitate. He turned to the kit Victor had delivered, yanking it open. Among the bizarre vials and strange devices was a single, unmarked auto-injector that looked like a bulky, off-brand green EpiPen. He snatched it up, pulled off the safety cap, and, with a confidence that came from sheer necessity, jammed it against Danny’s thigh and pressed the plunger.

There was a sharp hiss. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the violent green glow of the burn began to dim, fading from a malevolent pulse to a dull, sullen ember. The corrosive sizzling stopped, leaving behind the stark reality of a severe, full-thickness burn, but one that was now medically manageable.

A collective, shuddering sigh of relief filled the room. The immediate, unnatural crisis was over.

Wally finally seemed to remember how to breathe. He looked from the now-stable wound to Wes, his expression a complex mix of profound gratitude and underlying shame. “Okay,” he said, his voice rough. “Okay. Now I can work.”

The frantic energy bled away, replaced by a grim, focused calm. With the ectoplasmic reaction contained, standard—if advanced—protocol could begin. Wally’s hands, now steady, worked with purpose.

“Tim, I need more saline for irrigation. Then the silver sulfadiazine cream, not the Fenton's kit, the other one,” he directed, his voice low and even. He gently flushed the wound again, washing away the residual blackened debris from the consumed gauze. The flesh beneath was angry red and blistered at the edges, transitioning to waxy, white, and necrotic at the center—a classic severe burn, but blessedly, only a burn now.

He carefully applied the antimicrobial cream to prevent infection in the compromised tissue. Finally, he reached for the specialized, silvery mesh bandage from Danny’s special kit, laying it over the area as a non-adherent dressing before securing it with a roll of gauze that, this time, stayed pristine white.

While Wally managed the burn, Tim efficiently finished tending to the other injuries—suturing the deep laceration near Danny’s chest and applying sterile dressings to the smaller cuts and embedded shrapnel wounds. The battle was far from won; Danny faced a high risk of infection, shock, and a long recovery. But the tide had decisively turned. They were no longer fighting an alien energy; they were healing a human body.

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The moment the last bandage was secured, a different kind of tension gripped Wes. The adrenaline that had been holding him up drained away, leaving him hollow and vibrating like a plucked wire. The room, once a focal point of crisis, now felt suffocating, the scent of blood and antiseptic clinging to the back of his throat. He needed air. He needed to not be surrounded by the evidence of his own helplessness and the pitying, guilty looks from the others.

"I... I need a minute," he mumbled, not meeting anyone's eyes. He stumbled past Roy, who moved aside without a word, and pushed open the sliding door to the balcony.

The night air was cool and sharp, a shocking contrast to the stifling heat of the kitchen. He braced his hands on the railing, his knuckles white, and dragged the clean air deep into his lungs. He was still trembling, his clothes stiff with Danny's dried blood, the phantom sensation of it sticky on his hands. Below, the city lights twinkled, indifferent to the personal cataclysm that had just unfolded in the apartment behind him. The normalcy of it was almost offensive.

His hands were shaking so badly he fumbled twice before he managed to pull his phone from his pocket. He hit the speed dial for Sam.

She answered on the first ring, her voice sharp with an energy that was pure Sam. "Wes? What's going on? It's late."

The sound of her voice, so familiar and so fiercely her, was the final crack in his composure. A choked sob escaped him before he could stop it.

"Wes?" Her tone shifted instantly from curt to razor-focused. "Talk to me. What happened?"

"It's Danny," he managed, the words raw. "There was... an explosion. At his parents' lab." He squeezed his eyes shut, the images flashing behind his lids. "He's... he's really bad, Sam."

"An explosion?" He could hear the rustle of fabric, the sound of her already moving. "Is he conscious? Is he breathing? Are you at the hospital?"

"That's the thing—we couldn't go to the hospital." Wes's voice dropped to a desperate whisper. "It was... it was one of their explosions. There was this... this green... it was eating the bandages, Sam. Nothing was working."

He heard her sharp intake of breath. She understood instantly. She knew what "green" meant. "Where is he now?" she asked, her voice low and deadly calm.

"My apartment. We got him back. Wally patched him up. But..." Wes's voice broke again. "He passed out. He's so pale, Sam."

"Okay. Listen to me." Sam's voice was an anchor, pulling him back from the edge of panic. "Is he breathing steadily? Is the bleeding under control?"

Wes glanced through the glass door, into the lit kitchen where Wally was checking Danny's pulse. "Yeah. Yeah, he's stable. For now."

"Good. That's the first thing." He could hear keys jangling, a door slamming on her end. "I'm on my way. I'm leaving right now. Do not leave him alone, you understand me? I don't care who else is there. You stay with him."

The direct order was a lifeline. It gave him a purpose. "I will. I'm not going anywhere."

"Tell me everything Wally did. What did he use? Was it just normal stuff?"

"He tried. It didn't work. We had to use Danny's kit. There was this... injector. An 'Ecto-Dejecto'." Saying the absurd name out loud in the midst of the horror made the whole situation feel even more surreal.

There was a beat of silence on the line. "He used the Dejecto? Okay. Okay, that's good. That means the core reaction is suppressed. The rest is just... damage." She said it with a grim finality, a veteran assessing a familiar battlefield. "I'll be there as fast as I can. You just keep him safe until I get there. You've done good, Wes. Just hold on a little longer."

The line went dead. Wes lowered the phone, his hand still shaking, but the frantic, directionless terror had receded. It was replaced by a cold, heavy dread, but also a resolve. Sam was coming. She knew what to do. He had his orders. He turned his back on the indifferent city, took one more steadying breath, and walked back into the apartment to resume his vigil. The battle wasn't over, but he was no longer fighting it alone

The life-saving work was done, but Danny couldn't stay on the hard kitchen table all night, he needed proper rest to be able to heal.

"Let's get him to a proper bed," Roy said, his voice a low rumble. He didn't wait for agreement, already moving with a careful certainty. He slid his arms under Danny's shoulders and knees, lifting him with a gentleness that seemed at odds with his frame. This time, Wes didn't flinch or resist; he just followed closely like a silent shadow.

Wally held the bedroom door open, his face grim and stained with the guilt hees been carrying since last night. He wanted to talk to his brother, to apologize, but he knew this was not the moment. Everyone was exhausted and Danny was still in the clear. He could wait, he could give his brother all the time he needed, he would support him however he could, even if that meant having to step away and give him room to breathe. Tim and Victor cleared a path, moving the few stray books and forgotten stuff on the floor, creating an unobstructed space. It was a somber procession into the room Wes and Danny had been awkwardly sharing—a room that now felt like a sickbay.

Roy laid Danny down on the side that had unmistakably become his, the one with the portrait from day one on the side table. The group hovered for a moment in the doorway. Now, they were just a collection of heroes with no more battles to fight. Their purpose had been served, and their presence was now an intrusion.

One by one, they retreated, offering silent nods or avoiding eye contact altogether, until only Wes remained. The door clicked shut, muffling the world outside.

The frantic energy of the last hour was gone, replaced by a heavy, exhausted silence. Wes stood for a long moment, just watching the slow, steady rise and fall of Danny's chest, reassuring himself it was real. Then, the strength seemed to leave his legs all at once. He didn't bother with the chair. Instead, he slowly sank to the floor, his side against the one of the bed, the carpet rough against his legs.

He reached up, his movements slow and deliberate, and found Danny's hand where it rested on the blanket. He laced their fingers together, the contact a grounding wire in the swirling static of his own mind. Finally, with a shuddering sigh that seemed to come from the very depths of his soul, Wes let his head fall forward, resting his forehead against the mattress beside their joined hands. He closed his eyes, not to sleep, but to have a moment to just feel. The vigil had begun.

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