#spiderman crossover

“Dana! I am so, so sorry. Didn’t hear my alarm which meant I missed the bus, so I had to walk—” 

The words tumbled out of you in a rush, tripping over each other in their urgency, but Dana didn’t hear a single on of them. Her eyes had already locked onto your face.

More specifically: your eye. 

The skin there bloomed in deep, mottled color. Shades of green and yellow bled into a violent blue that stretched too far across your cheekbone to be anything minor. Her brows drew together slowly, the beginnings of a frown pulling at her mouth.  

“And then, right as I was about to cross the street, that one hotdog cart came out of nowhere and—” 

She moved without thinking. 

Out from behind the desk, around the corner, closing the distance between you in quick, purposeful strides. Her hands were already lifting before she fully stopped, fingers gentle—too gentle—where they settled against your uninjured cheek, guiding your face upward. 

Your voice faltered, excuses dying on your tongue. 

“What happened?” she muttered, thumb brushing just beneath the bruise before pressing lightly, testing. 

“Um, see about that—” 

“L/n, what have I told you about running late—oh.” 

Your gaze flickered past her shoulder, catching on the figure of your attending approaching before she even finished speaking. The shift in your expression was immediate—sheepish, bright in a way that tried too hard to sell innocence. 

“Dr. Robby, I am so sorry. I swear I was going to be early this morning; had the clock set and everything—” 

He didn’t answer right away. 

Instead, he stepped closer, looming just behind Dana as he leaned slightly to the side, angling for a better look. His eyes narrowed almost instantly, the easy patience he usually carried slipping into something sharper. 

“Is it broken?” he asked, voice low. 

“Doesn’t feel like it,” Dana replied, though her finger pressed a little more firmly now, like she didn’t quite believe her own answer. 

Her hands fell away, but Robby’s replaced them just as quickly, larger, steadier, tilting your head with practiced ease. Your skin buzzed faintly beneath his grip, whether from the pressure or something else entirely. 

“What’d you fight, kid?” he murmured, studying the bruise like he could see straight through the skin and down to the bone. “Jeez.” 

A huff slipped from you before you could stop it.  

“Let’s just say that I now know not to use a bathmat that has no grip. The thing sent me flying right into my doorknob.” 

Silence followed. 

Not long, but long enough. 

Dana’s eyes lifted to Robby’s over your shoulder, something unspoken passing between them in a glance that lingered just a second too long. When she looked back at you, it was the same expression she used on patients who insisted they were fine when they very clearly weren’t. Robby’s hands dropped, fingers curling instead around the tubing of his stethoscope. He exhaled through his nose, the sound heavy with something that edged dangerously close to frustration. 

You couldn’t tell which part of it was for you—your chronic lateness, or the fact that you were standing right in front of him with an injury that didn’t make sense, offering an explanation that made even less sense. 

“Get your handoffs and then get to charting,” he said finally. “I don’t want to see your ass out of that chair for at least an hour.” 

He braced for the usual pushback, for the groan, the complaint, the half-joling protest you always threw his way. 

But they never came. 

Instead, you stilled for half a beat, something unreadable draping across your face before it smoothed over. He could have sworn it was relief, just barely subtle but plain as day. 

Your lips curled. 

“Aye, aye, captain.” 

Robby snorted despite himself as you slipped past him, already scanning the room for wherever you were supposed to be next. The moment you disappeared around the corner thought, the humor drained from his expression entirely. 

He turned back to Dana, hands dragging over his face, fingers catching briefly in his hair before dropping again, restless. 

“What are we going to do with her,” Dana asked, voice lower now and threaded with something heavier than irritation. “This is the third time this month she’s shown up with unexplainable injuries that she just brushes off.” Her gaze moved from him and toward the hallway you’d vanished down. “Her cheekbone should be fractured, Robby.” 

“I know,” he replied, sharper than he meant to. The words came out clipped and tight. He exhaled, slower this time, like he was trying to rein it back in. “She didn’t even wince. Doorknobs don’t do that kind of damage.” 

_______________________

The wheeled chair shifted beneath your weight with a low, protesting creak as you pushed yourself across the narrow space with one foot braced against the floor to guide the movement. You barely avoided clipping the edge of another resident’s chair, offering a quick, absentminded apology that didn’t quite reach your eyes. 

Your fingers hovered over the keyboard for only a second before beginning their familiar rhythm of quick, efficient, and automatic typing. 

At least, they tried to be those things. 

“Damn, Pokey! What happened to you?” 

The sharp hiss of Trinity’s voice cut through your focus, pulling your attention sideways. You turned just enough to look at her, brows lifting in mild acknowledgement rather than surprise. 

“Bathmat made me eat my doorknob last night,” you replied, tone dry like you’d already told the story one too many times. 

Trinity didn’t even hesitate. 

“There’s no way a doorknob did that.” Her hand came up immediately, finger pointing straight at your face like she was presenting evidence in a case she had already won. “Did you get that checked out?” 

Your head bobbed once, gaze drifting back to the screen as if the conversation required no more of your attention than that. 

“Yeah, Dana and Robby caught me earlier.” 

“Late again?” 

You didn’t have to look at her to hear the smirk. 

A small one tugged at your own mouth in response, almost automatic. 

“When am I never late?” you shot back, fingers continuing to move, though a fraction slower now. “My alarm clock hates me.” 

It was easier to make it sound like a joke. 

When the conversation ended there, you softly huffed at the screen. 

Charts weren’t the problem. 

You moved through them quickly—too quickly, sometimes—eyes scanning, hands typing, information slotting into place with a kind of ease that had less to do with practice and more to do with something you didn’t think too hard about. But Robby’s order lingered at the back of your mind, heavy and unavoidable. 

An hour. 

In the chair. 

So, you dragged it out. 

You scrolled when you didn’t need to. You re-read the notes you’d already processed. You hovered your fingers over the keys just a second longer than necessary before pressing down. You did anything to stay still. 

After a few minutes, Trinity pushed her chair back, wheels silently gliding against the tile, muttering something under her breath as she stood. You barely registered it, already clicking into the next chair when something cold hit your lap. 

You flinched. 

“What’s this for?” you asked, blinking down at the ice pack now resting against your thighs, condensation already beginning to bead against your scrubs. 

Trinity looked at you like you’d just asked the dumbest question she’d ever heard. 

“Your eye?” 

“Oh.” 

You picked it up, turning it once in your hand like you hadn’t quite processed its purpose before pressing it against the bruise. The cold bit sharply at first, enough to make you suck in a breath, but the feeling dulled quickly. 

With one hand occupied, your typing slowed to a clumsy tap of your index finger against individual keys, the rhythm now broken and uneven. The cursor blinked at you, patient and waiting. 

The ice pack wasn’t helping much. 

If anything, it was just getting in the way. 

“Did you watch the news last night?” 

Victoria’s voice spilled across the desk without warning, bright and intrusive in a way that made both you and Trinity glance up. Her phone was already in her hand, screen glowing, her grip tight like she was barely holding herself back from shoving it into someone’s face. 

You shook your head, shifting the ice pack slightly as it began to slip. 

“Nope. I pretty much . . . crash after my shifts.” 

It wasn’t a lie. 

Just not the whole truth. 

Trinity didn’t even look up from her computer this time. 

“If I say yes, are you still going to tell us what happened?” 

“Duh.” Victoria rolled her eyes like the answer should’ve been obvious, feet already shuffling forward. She turned the phone outward, arm extending across the space between you as she all but shoved the screen into your line of sight. 

“Look!” 

The video started loud with crashes and distant shouts spilling tinny and distorted from the speakers. The camera shook wildly, capturing flashes of movement more than anything. There was a figure—no—two. One of them went down hard, the impact echoing even through the poor audio. 

“Ouch,” you muttered, the word slipping out before you could stop it, bruise throbbing at the memory. 

Trinity leaned back slightly, finally glancing over. “Is this your update account?” 

Victoria scoffed, offended at the question. “Yes! It all happened just down the street from my house! Can’t believe I caught it all on video!” 

Your eyes stayed on the screen a second longer than necessary. 

There was something about the way the red and blue covered figure moved. They were too fast and too fluid to the point the camera couldn’t quite keep up with their speed. It was almost like the person behind it hadn’t even fully seen what they were recording. 

Your fingers stilled against the keyboard. 

“Just be glad Kingpin didn’t choose your street,” Trinity added, her thumb jerking lazily in your direction. “Or you might have been late like Pokey over here.” 

“Hey!” 

Victoria let out a soft groan, lowering her phone but not locking the screen like she wasn’t quite done with it yet. 

“My mom would kill me if I was late,” she said, then paused before glancing at you. “No offense, Pokey.” 

You waved her off easily, attention already dropping back to your screen as your fingers resumed their slow, one-handed typing. 

“None taken.” 

The last of your charts came together with a few final taps, the cursor blinking once, twice, before you clicked out of the system. The ice packs slid from your hand back onto the desk with a soft thud, forgotten just as quickly as it had been handed to you. The chair groaned again as you pushed yourself up, stretching lightly, your back arching until something cracked sharp, loud, and satisfying.

Your body felt fine. 

Too fine for what all happened the night before. 

Your hand reached automatically for a spare file case, fingers curling around the papers as you pulled them against your chest. For a moment, you just stood there, weight shifting subtly from one foot to the other, trying to stay still. 

Across the room, something clattered. 

Your head had turned before the sound had fully landed. 

Fast. 

Precise. 

Almost like you’d been waiting for the motion seconds before something even happened. 

Your grip tightened slightly on the file. 

Then, just as quickly, you forced your shoulders to loosen, your expression smoothing back into something easy and normal. 

“All right,” you murmured, more to yourself than anyone else. “Back to it.” 

_______________________

The shift had settled into that strange, in-between lull which never fully lasted but always seemed to pretend like it might. Monitors still chimed. Voices still continued to overlap. Gurneys still rolled in and out like a tide that refused to recede. But there was a thinning to it now, a subtle slowing at the edges as the day staff began to eye the clock and the night shift filtered in one by one. 

Handoffs were coming. 

Clock out was soon. 

Shift almost done. 

Almost—

“Dr. L/n.”

Your name cut cleaning through the noise, causing you to look up immediately. 

Jack Abbot, the night shift attending who always looked at you a little too closely like he personally knew each secret you hid in your bag, stood just a few feet away, a file tucked loosely beneath his arm, other hand resting against the edge of the desk like he’d been there longer than you’d pretended to notice. His expression was neutral—carefully so—but his eyes were already on you, unwavering and assessing in a way that made your chest tighten. 

“You’re still on?” he asked. 

Your fingers stilled over the keyboard before you forced them to move again, finishing out the last line of the chart like nothing had interrupted you. 

“Wrapping up thankfully,” you replied, tone light, easy, and practiced. “Robby benched me a bit earlier.” 

“Yeah,” Jack hummed, not quite sounding like he cared about the reason. His gaze briefly dropped ever so slightly from your eyes. “I can see that.” 

You resisted the urge to touch it, fingers twitching against the keys. 

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” you insisted, already reaching for the next file before he could respond with one of his fast quips. “I’ve got one more: room twelve. Chest pain. Stable vitals, I just need to—” 

The sentence died abruptly. 

Not because of Jack—never because of him. 

But because of that fuzzy feeling, that pull you felt earlier. 

Now it was shaper, sudden and insistent, demanding your attention like a thread had gone taut inside your chest. Your head turned slightly toward the hallway before you could stop it, eyes narrowing for just a fraction of a breath. 

Room twelve. 

Something—

Wrong. 

All wrong.

Jack noticed, something he’d always managed to do when you were present. 

“What?” he asked, the word quiet but immediate.

You blinked, the moment snapping apart as quickly as it had formed. 

“Nothing,” you managed to spit out way too quickly. You pushed up from the chair in the same motion, final file clutched a little tighter than necessary. “Just want to finish up before handoff.” 

When you stood in front of him, Jack didn’t move an inch, didn’t step aside to let you by. 

So, not wanting to stay any later than you needed to, you angled around him, shoulder brushing the edge of his navy scrub as you slipped into the hall. Your pace picked up without permission, legs extending in longer strides, hips tilting with quicker turns like your body had already decided something your brain hadn’t realized. 

Behind you, shoes squeaked with your steps, the tell tail sign that Jack had followed.

Room twelve’s curtain was half-drawn when you finally reached it, the monitor inside still echoing away with that same, steady, unbothered rhythm: normal and predictable. The metal rings ran over the bar with several clinks until the patient came into view.

“Hey, Mr. Miller,” you started, already moving toward the bed. “Just wanted to check back in before—” 

The man looked up, offering the same half-smile as before, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes this time. 

“Doc,” he said, voice tight like each word was going to hurt. “It’s—it’s happening again.” 

Your focus turned from casual to doctor-mode instantly. 

“Where?” you asked, hands already tugging your stethoscope from around your neck. 

He gestured haphazardly to the middle of his chest. “Same spot, just stronger.”

Of course it was. 

Your jaw tightened, but your hands stayed steady as you stepped closer, slipping the end of the stethoscope into place, metal cold against his hot skin. The room seemed to narrow around the sound of his heart, everything else fading into the near distance as you listened. 

Thu-Thump

Thu-Thump

Th-thu-thump.

There. 

There was that same not-quite-right pattern, threading itself beneath the normal beats like it wanted to join the choir. Your brows pulled together. Behind you, the curtain shifted. You felt him there without even looking. 

“Vitals are stable,” he said, eyes sticking to the monitor above. His tone was even, clinical, but below, it held an edge of uncertainty. “EKG didn’t show anything either.” 

“I know,” you muttered sharply. “But—” 

You adjusted the stethoscope, like changing the angle might make it all make sense, your ears desperate to hear that pattern again. Your other hand rose, fingers pressing lightly against the patient’s sternum, mapping something you couldn’t explain without sounding crazy. 

“Dr. L/n,” Jack’s voice sounded again, closer this time, breath fanning hotly against your nape. “What are you seeing?” 

Hesitation twisted heavy against your ribs. 

“I think there’s—” 

The high-pitched blip of the monitor cut you off perfectly, drawing Jack’s peering eyes off you and onto the screen. He was silent as he watched, chest rising and falling, until he looked back at you. His eyes swam with a need to press further, to wring every secret out of your throat. But all he could do was reach past and press the call button. 

“I need another EKG,” he said, tone shifting into something louder to fill the space. “Labs and full panel.” 

A nurse’s voice answered from outside. 

Taking that as a sign, you straightened, hands wrapping your stethoscope back around your neck, feet already taking you away from the bed. As nurses poured into the room for the second rounds of tests, you let yourself get swallowed by the wave, stepping out to return back to the desk. 

For a split second, you guessed that Jack wouldn’t follow. 

But the familiar sound of his dragging steps crept on yours the closer you got back to the sanctuary of the front desk. 

“How?” 

The question was simple. 

The answer complicated. 

“I don’t know,” you settled on. 

He shook his head like a disappointed parent, and somehow that was worse than straight anger.

 “No. You don’t get to say, ‘I don’t know.’ So let’s cut the bullshit.” 

“Dr. Abbot,” you sighed, exhaustion from the day deciding now was the time to sit on your shoulders. “It was a lucky guess.” 

The deep-chuckle-closed-eyes-head-shake combo did nothing to settle the panic inside. 

“Lucky,” he hissed. “You correctly caught an abnormality in our patient way before the monitor was able to.” His head tilted, silver curls falling gracefully against his forehead, biceps bulging as he crossed his arms. “You say it was lucky the same way you tell everyone that that—” His finger outstretched forward toward your face. “—was because you fell into a doorknob. You just expect us all to believe it?” 

“Yes,” you quickly responded like it had been sitting in your mouth for too long. “Because that’s what happened. I was lucky that I managed to check in on the patient right before the monitor picked it up, and I was lucky I missed my bathroom counter and landed on my door instead. You’re wrong about it all, Dr. Abbot.” 

Nothing about your statement was convincing. Jack’s mouth twitched in a silent battle to keep a sarcastic smile down. 

“Then prove it.” 

Behind, through the open door of room twelve, the monitor let out another high-pitched blip, another skip in the pattern. 

Your eyes had shifted from Jack’s to the room before it had even gone off. 

And like he always did, Jack saw it happen. 

_______________________

The ER had settled into its night rhythm hours ago. 

It wasn’t quieter, never was, but steadier. The day had worn down into something more controlled, the chaos no longer colliding but gentle rolling through the air into something ordered. Voices didn’t rise as often, footsteps didn’t rush quite as hard, and the constant churn of bodies through the doors had slowed just enough to let the space breathe. 

You had clocked out long ago. 

Jack had stayed put, mind still reeling on how you’d been able to catch something so small, so miniscule, that much faster than a multi-thousand-dollar machine whose sole purpose is to find anomalies like the patient had in room twelve. 

He leaned back against the counter at the nurses’ station, one hand loosely wrapped around a paper cup that had long since gone cold. He hadn’t taken a sip in a while, though the bitterness still lingered faintly at the back of his tongue, a small tang to ground him in the quiet lull between cases. 

Across the room, the TV flickered low in the corner, subtitles crawling beneath the shaky footage of the late-night news. 

“. . . another sighting reported late this evening—” 

“. . . unidentified individual intervening in what witnesses describe as—” 

The clip looped again: a blur of motion, a figure dripped in flashes of blue and red dropping into frame too fast for the camera to catch cleanly, the impact landing with a precision that felt at odds with the chaos surrounding it. The individual never hesitated, never wasted movement. 

They just controlled it all. 

Jack let his gaze linger a second longer than necessary before he looked away, jaw tightening slightly as he exhaled through his nose. 

A sound broke through the room. It was metal, close, and sharp enough to matter. 

His head turned immediately toward the ambulance bay, attention narrowing as the noise echoed once and then disappeared. No intercom followed. No call ahead. No sudden rush of movement and yelling that usually came with a new arrival. 

The silence hung strangely, lasting beats too long for Jack to ignore. 

He pushed himself off the counter, abandoning the cup where it sat as he crossed the floor in the quickest, most purposeful strides his prosthetic allowed him to. The automatic doors hadn’t opened—not flashing lights, no sirens, no incoming stretcher—nothing to explain the noise. 

Which meant—

He shoved the side door open instead. 

The night air met him all at once, cooler than he expected and settling heavy against his skin as he stepped out into the ambulance bay. The overhead lights casted long, creeping beams across the concrete, leaving the edges of the space to fall off into the late-night darkness. 

For a moment, the bay looked empty. 

And then, something moved. 

It didn’t emerge so much as appearing—a shift in the dark, that resolved too quickly into a solid form, a figure stepping cleanly into the light with a body held securely in their arms like it weight nothing. 

Jack stilled. 

The suit stretching across the figure was unmistakable in shape, fitted and seamless, the mask pulled fully into place with no break in it: no skin, no expression, nothing that could be used to anchor an identity into the movement. And yet, there was something familiar in the way they carried the weight, in the way their steps didn’t falter as they closed the distance between them and Jack, almost like they knew their way around. 

“Help,” sounded out of the space where their mouth would be, edged with urgency and tone altered slightly by the mask. 

But it was enough to send Jack into motion. 

He stepped forward instantly, hands coming up to take the woman from the . . . hero. 

“Here,” he replied, already preparing to shift the weight into his own arms. “What happened?” 

“Hit hard. Couldn’t grab her in time,” you said, adjusting your grip long enough to make the transfer seamless before letting go. Your hands hovered there for a fraction of a second more, making sure the unknowing attending had her. “Left side. Ribs are definitely cracked—maybe worse.” 

Jack’s attention dropped to the patient as he settled her, already assessing the shallow, uneven, and strained breathing that didn’t quite match her visible injuries. 

“Hey!” he called back toward the doors, voice louder now and filled with urgency. “I need a gurney—now!” 

Movement sparked inside, voices rising as footsteps approached. You didn’t step away, not yet ready to go back to what was happening just a few streets over. 

“Watch her heart,” you added, tone cutting cleaning through the panic. “It’s not consistent. She’s compensating, but it’s slipping fast.” 

Jack’s grip adjusted instinctively, his focus narrowing. 

“What?” he asked, eyes landing on the whites of the mask before returning to the woman in his arms. 

“It’s not just the trauma,” you continued, quick but precise, like you were trying to translate what you knew to what would make sense for the man. “There’s something that a quick exam won’t catch all the way. I tried to keep it steady but . . .” 

The words landed heavier than they should have. 

Because out in the ambulance bay, there were no monitors. 

No readout. 

Nothing to justify the level of clarity and certainty you spoke with. 

For a split second, Jack didn’t move. 

Then the doors burst open with nurses rushing out with a gurney, effectively breaking the moment cleanly in half. They stopped in front of Jack, pulling his attention away from you and back to the woman. 

“On three,” Jack said, voice slipping back into his usual, practiced demands. 

They transferred the patient quickly, hands moving in sync, voices overlapping as the rhythm of the ER surged back into place around them. Wheels rolled, equipment shifted, and the questions started. But his attention kept pulling, shifting against his will. 

It was hard to ignore the suited figure whose whited-out eyes continued to blankly stare. 

You weren’t watching the staff. 

You were watching the patient like taking your eyes off would send them into a downward spiral. 

You tracked her in a way that felt too focused, too ready for something to happened, something that no one would be able to catch just yet. 

“Let’s get her on a monitor,” Jack added, already guiding the gurney toward the doors. 

A nurse was quick to follow, hands steady as she placed pads under the already torn shirt the woman was wearing. They had barely gotten a few feet toward the door when the machine came alive. It was steady at first, outputting a clean rhythm to fill the space when— 

Blip. 

Small. 

But there.

Jack’s head turned sharply toward the sound, and then, just as quickly, back to you. 

A silent connection hit him all at once. 

Room twelve. The hesitation. The way you’d known before anything had changed, before there had been anything to see. 

The pattern. 

The certainty that you had matched what this masked figure possessed. 

He froze, hands slipping away from the gurney as the nurses pushed it fully into the ER. The door closed loudly behind, leaving just the two of you out there in silence. The background of the city had been drowned out by the ringing in his ears. 

He took a breath, good foot moving to take a step but stopping when you backed away, ready to retreat to the waiting darkness to swallow you once more. Behind, someone called his name, voice urgent and needy for an attending’s guidance. 

“You should get back to your ER, doctor,” you said softly, not wanting to break the ambiance of the ambulance bay. 

His gray brows pinched tightly in the middle of his forehead, eyes squinting like you’d just said something absurd. He knew, he guessed, he—

Paused. 

Swallowed the accusations back down to his stomach. 

You shifted once more, a subtle coil of motion that had started to gather in your body like it was about to reach uncontainable levels that breached the need for stillness. And again, he recognized it all. His gaze lifted, locking onto the whites of the mask. 

“You’re—” 

Your head tilted when he failed to say anything else. The motion was thoughtful, and even without seeing your face, Jack could feel the echo of your day-time presence with each shift you made here. 

“Your patient needs you.” 

And then you were gone. 

The movement was quick, clean—upward rather than away, following a soft thwip and melting into a blur of red and blue that vanished past the edge of a building before his eyes could fully track it. The air shifted fainty in the now empty space, drawing a shuddering breath from his lungs. 

“Jack!” 

His name snapped him back. 

Inside. 

The patient—his patient as you had said. 

He turned, forcing himself back through the doors, back into the light and the noise and the work that didn’t stop just because something didn’t make sense. His hands moved automatically, voice steady as he stepped back into his attending position, picking up where he’d left off like nothing had interrupted him. 

_______________________

By morning handoffs, the story had already made its rounds. 

You knew it had the second you stepped onto the floor: the subtle shift in energy, the way conversations dipped just slightly as you passed, only to pick back up again a beat too late. It wasn’t unusual. The ER thrived on retelling, on stitching together the chaos of the night into something almost coherent by daylight. 

Still, this story lingered. 

“—I’m telling you; they just appeared.” 

Shen’s voice carried easily across the nurses’ station, animated in a way that drew attention without even trying. He stood half-perched against the counter, one hand wrapped around an almost-empty Dunkin cup, the other moving as he spoke, like the story needed help existing outside of him. 

Dennis leaded against the opposite side, arms crossed, brows raised in mild skepticism. Trinity and Victoria hovered nearby, both pretending to work just enough to justify staying exactly where they were. 

And you . . . were on time for once, sitting in a chair with fingers moving to take over the charts passed on from last night. 

“They didn’t come in with an ambulance,” Shen continued, glancing between them like he needed witnesses to confirm it. “No sirens, no call ahead—nothing. Just—bam! Out of nowhere.” 

“People don’t just bam into ambulance bays,” Dennis muttered. 

“They do if they’re the guy from the videos,” Victoria cut in, already pulling her phone out like she’d been waiting for the opening. “You know, the one everyone’s been posting out it?” 

“How do you know it’s a guy?” Trinity asked, following the question with a snort. “Is he your boyfriend?” 

Victoria shot her a look. “Shut up.” 

Shen ignored them, pushing forward with the story. 

“I didn’t see them drop in,” he admitted, “but Jack was already out there, and next thing I know, he’s coming back in with this girl—back shape, like bad—and he’s calling it before we even get her hooked up.” 

Your fingers paused before you forced them to move again. 

“Calling what?” Dennis asked. 

Shen pointed, emphatic. “Cardiac. Said something was off before the monitor even confirmed it. And he was right.” 

“That’s not weird,” Trinity said, though there was less certainty in it than usual. “Attendings catch stuff all the time.” 

“Yeah,” Shen agreed easily, “but this wasn’t like that. He didn’t assess it—he just knew. Like he’d already seen it happen.” 

Your stomach tightened, body shifting in your chair, back adjusting your posture like it would settling the feeling that had already rooted too deep. 

“Okay, but what does that have to do with our mystery hero?” Victoria pressed. 

Shen’s expression shifted, like this was the part he’d been building toward. 

“Because Jack didn’t say it first,” he said. “The person who brought in the patient did.” 

Silence settled over the group. 

Dennis straightened slightly. “What?” 

“They told him,” Shen continued, lowering his voice just enough to pull them back in like a camp counselor around a fire and campers. “Said to watch the patient’s heart, that it wasn’t consistent . . . before we even had her on a monitor.” 

The room felt smaller as your pulse ticked loudly in your ears, uneven in a way you were suddenly and painfully aware of. 

“That’s—” Trinity started but then stopped. “Lucky guess?” 

Shen shook his head. “Didn’t sound like a guess.” 

Victoria’s eyes widened, her phone momentarily forgotten in her hand. “Wait—so you’re saying that they—whoever they are—can just . . . tell?” 

“No,” Dennis cut in, slower now, more measured. “He’s saying Jack thinks they can.” 

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” 

The voice came from behind you. 

Your spine straightened before you could stop it, fingers freezing against the keys as something colder than the ice pack from yesterday settled along the back of your neck. 

Jack. 

You didn’t turn because you could feel it without even having to look. 

His gaze tingled steadily and unmoving along your back. 

“Wasn’t a guess,” he continued, voice even as he stepped fully into the space beside the group. “And it wasn’t luck.” 

He paused, very deliberate and something that felt tight in your chest. 

“You don’t call something like that unless you’ve seen it before,” he added. 

Jack’s eyes had tracked as he rounded, never leaving your face for a minute, body desperate for a reaction from you, something that could confirm what he’d been thinking about through his entire shift. 

You managed to barely school your features, choosing to keep your eyes off him and your mouth shut. 

The silence stretched thing and taut before Trinity shifted, breaking it with a forced scoff. 

“Okay, well, unless they plan on clocking in for rounds, I really don’t care how he does it,” she said, pushing off the counter. “Patients still need actual doctors.” 

Victoria nodded quickly, latching onto the exit. “Yeah, and I’m starving, so if they want to save lives, they can start with my lunch break.” 

The group dispersed just enough to dissolve the tense moment, conversation splintering into something easier and safer. 

But you didn’t move right away. 

Because even as the noise picked back up, even as the rhythm of the ER swallowed the conversation whole, you could still feel it: Jack’s attention, lingering and unshaken. 

And no matter how steady you kept your hands as you returned to typing, it didn’t go away.  

And by the time he left, all clocked out and ready to sleep until his shift in 12 hours, you found yourself missing the way he watched you, missing the way he knew, saying nothing, keeping it to himself. 

A smile curled on your lips at the thought. 

AN: Please let me know if you'd like to be added to the taglist!

Peter, confused: uh? yes I am?? am I the only one who remembers the whole multiverse thing, because I have a lot of issues around the topics of losing memory and the multiverse in the same sentence

Peter: Why is Tim filming

Dick, setting down his smoothie and placing a hand on Peter's shoulder: Peter, I'm your dad.

Peter, totally blue-screening: ...oh shit I totally forgot that

Dick, patting his shoulder: it's okay, sometimes we forget Damian's biologically related, too

Tim, from behind his camera: and one time Dick asked Bruce for his medical history to figure out if he's predisposed to anything.

Dick: It's true. didn't realize till we were two hours in

Peter, nodding: yeah, that checks out.

Peter: wait, so am I predisposed to anything?

Dick, blue-screening: Uh...

Tim, still holding a camera: addiction and a hero complex

Dick, side eyeing TIm and plotting payback: I see how it is

Tim: glad bad eyesight isn't getting passed on, too

Peter, literally holding a finger up: actually, I was super near sighted before I got my powers

Dick, furrowing his brows: wait, really? But you still wear your glasses?

Peter, shrugging: well, they're not prescription or anything. they were my uncle's glasses. I like wearing them because they remind me of him

Dick, feeling bad: oh, Peter—

Peter, purposely ruining the moment: Oh, and I used to have asthma too

Tim, ruining the moment further: wait a minute. so you wore glasses

Peter: yes? literally just said that

Tim: had asthma

Peter: dude, I just— oh no.

A realization dawns.

Tim, grinning: and still are a massive nerd?

Peter: I don't like you anymore

Dick, suddenly sullen: i wanna see tiny, blind, asthmatic Peter...

Tim: Yeah, then he wouldn't be able to run away

Dick: that sounds so bad when you say it like that

Tim: okay, but it's true??? We chased him for MONTHS

Peter: Oh yeah, forgot about that

Tim: maybe we need to check you for memory problems...

Steph: Hey, just letting you guys know Mr. Benched left the comms on

Tim, rolling his eyes and moving to mute:

Steph, sensing a disturbance in the force: hey wait, don't mute I wanna hear more about tiny nerdy Pete—

Tim, spinning around in the batchair: so how many swirlies did you get in school?

Peter, unimpressed: so how many pregnancy scares did you have?

Tim: ...touche

Dick, sniffling: I've never been more proud as a father

LATER

Peter, suddenly: hey, no one every answered how much spider I am

Tim: oh right

Tim: less than 1%, honestly. anymore than that and you'd have some extra unwanted limbs and some serious deformities and mutations

Peter: ...DNA is so finicky