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Jason tried to prop Roy up one-handed whilst he struggled to open his safehouse door and disarm the traps, his friend no longer supporting any of his own weight. The mission had gone very far off track. Eventually he managed to get the door open and dragged Roy over to the sofa. He ran to grab his first aid kit from the kitchen before dashing back. He tried to rouse his teammate, but he was unresponsive, lying unmoving on the sofa, blood still seeping through the dressing they'd hastily applied to the slash wound in his side. Dammit.
He needed to get more blood into Roy, and quickly. Luckily they were the same blood type, so Jason could use some of his blood he had stashed in a fridge for emergencies; he didn't know what he would have done if they weren't compatible. He grabbed a cannulation kit out of the first aid kit, tying a tourniquet round Roy's arm and looking for a vein. He couldn't find anything. He wasn't the most practiced at putting cannulas in (Bruce had insisted he learn, back when he was Robin, even if Alfred would insert basically every cannula in the cave, a place Jason hadn't stepped foot in in years), but he'd managed to get a few into himself one-handed (which was no easy feat). He knew how to recognise a suitable vein. But he was drawing a blank on Roy's arm. Nothing on the other arm either. He recalled Roy mentioning it had been difficult last time he'd had to have blood tests taken, but with his body peripherally shut down from the blood loss, now there was nothing, nowhere he could even think of trying to get a cannula in. His friend had been embarrassed when he told him the story (that he'd damaged his veins through his previous drug use), and at the time, Jason had been more focused on supporting his friend, than thinking about the possible consequences. Now he was regretting they hadn't anticipated this problem, come up with a strategy ahead of time.
The longer he spent trying and failing to find a vein, the more panic set in. Roy wasn't responding, and was looking paler and paler. His pulse was starting to feel threadier, and Jason was well aware that if he didn't do something soon, his friend could die.
He was just about to give up on veins for the minute, focus on reducing the bleeding instead (internally berating himself for not doing that earlier, instead of wasting time), when he heard his door unlocking. He grabbed his gun and pointed it in the direction of the door.
"Oh, hey, good, you're here," Tim greeted, with that manic look on his face suggesting he hadn't slept for a few days, hyper-focused on some particular case, "I need your help with...". The boy paused, clearly finally taking the situation in front of him in, and recognising the look of panic on Jason's face. "What's the matter?"
"I can't find a vein! He needs blood, but I can't get it in him, because I can't get a cannula in, because I can't find a vein!"
"Right, okay." Tim came over, snapping on a pair of gloves from the first-aid kit. Something about the look of 'in-control' on his face relaxed a tiny bit of the panic inside Jason. Tim quickly set about examining Roy's arms. The worry in Jason's heart began to grow again when his brother didn't grab a cannula and stab it in.
"Do you have an IO kit?" Tim asked, once he'd looked over both arms.
"What?"
"Interosseous access." When Jason didn't move, Tim went to the first-aid kit himself, pulling out a case from the bottom that Jason had never used. He opened it and retrieved a little gun thing, starting to attach something to the nozzle of it.
"I kind of thought that thing was a tattoo gun or something?" Jason commented.
"Why would Alfred include a tattoo gun in a first-aid kit?"
"I don't know..." Jason mumbled, feeling a bit stupid now.
"Help me get to his leg," Tim instructed. Jason helped him get Roy out of his armoured trousers. Tim tested the trigger on the gun-thing, causing it to make a noise like a drill. Satisified, Tim positioned the needle he'd attached to the end near the top of Roy's tibia.
"Wait, what?" Jason asked, not expecting a drill, and now suddenly unsure what his brother was about to do his best friend.
"Go get the blood ready." After Jason hesitated, Tim added "Now, Jason." He obeyed. In the background, he could hear what he suspected was Tim drilling a needle into Roy's leg. He was kind of glad he wasn't watching. By the time he returned with the blood, Tim had a line attached to the connecter sticking out of Roy's leg, ready for the blood to start flowing through. Tim set about hanging the blood whilst Jason went back to the wound in Roy's side, ready to deal with it properly now they were finally getting blood into Roy (through whatever weird-ass technique Tim had used).
It was about eight hours later that Jason found himself suddenly awakened from his awkwardly positioned nap in the armchair by the sound of Roy stirring. He immediately jumped up to look over his friend. His colour had significantly improved from earlier (though he was still pale), and the bandage wrapped around his side was clean. The remains of a bag of saline was still dripping into the line connected to his leg (Jason had drawn more of his own blood to give to his friend, once the bag he already had on stand-by had been used up, and after that, Roy had stabilised enough that he'd be alright with just fluids).
"Hey, Jaybird," he slurred.
"Hey. How you feeling?"
"Like somebody stabbed me in the side with a sword? And my leg hurts. Did I hurt my leg too?"
"That was Tim."
"Tim hurt my leg? Tim your brother slash "not my brother" Tim?"
"Yeah. He saved your life. I was panicking because I couldn't get a cannula into you, when the little shit turned up wanting a favour from me, and boom, drilled some kind of screw thing into your leg bone to run the blood through."
"What?"
"Interosseous access, or something, apparently. He tried to explain it. Apparently if you can't find a vein to put blood in through, you can like stab it into a bone instead. Something that would have been useful for me to know before, rather than flapping around getting nowhere whilst you were bleeding out in front of me."
"My previous poor life choice to fuck up all my veins doing drugs fucked me over again? I'm sorry, Jay."
"It's not your fault." At Roy's face, he reworded. "Not current you's fault anyway, and not really past you's fault either. It's a shitty situation. But it's one we really need to think about. Come up with strategies to deal with. Because if Tim hadn't turned up, if Alfred hadn't left an IO kit in the first-aid kit he'd made me, I don't know what would have happened."
"I've heard of people using ultrasound to help get cannulas in before," Roy added.
"You see. That's another idea I need to know more about. You rest up, I'm going to do some research, and when you're feeling better, we're coming up with a whole masterplan to ensure you never risk bleeding out again when I, or anyone else, can't find a vein to get a cannula in."