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English
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Part 13 of CEC Shorts
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Published:
2023-08-06
Completed:
2023-11-24
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1,607
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2/2
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On-Call

Summary:

Kiran Devabhaktuni, medical doctor and close family friend of the Waynes, agreed to join them for one more Thanksgiving at the Kent Farm.

It's a good thing he did, too.

Notes:

If anyone reading this fic has not yet had the pleasure of meeting bowditch's delightful OC, Kiran "Dev" Devabhaktuni, here's a super quick crash course:

- He's a British-Indian neurosurgeon who once cut a tumor out of Bruce Wayne's brain (see "Foreign Object" for details)
- He's in his early forties
- His BFFs are Tim and Alfred (the man's got range)
- He’s equal parts profanity and compassion
- He’s in on the whole secret identity thing
- He very much enjoys shouting at people (but this will be tempered for the sake of my story, as it is three a.m. in this fic)

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: The Discovery

Chapter Text

The guest room is pitch dark save for the sliver of moonlight coming through the window as Kiran Devabhaktuni opens his eyes. At first, he isn’t sure why he’s awake, but then he sees a familiar figure bent over the open medical bag on the floor beside his suitcase, rifling through its contents.

“Oi,” Dev whispers, being mindful of Timothy, who’s snoring lightly on an air mattress on the floor. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I’ve got it handled. Go back to sleep,” Bruce Wayne replies, matching his low volume. He grabs an IV kit and a bag of saline, then disappears back out of the room without another word.

“Handled my arse…” Dev mutters under his breath, already shifting off the covers. They both know Wayne is more than capable of slipping in and out of a room noiselessly, so the fact that Dev woke at all means that there’s at least a small part of him that wanted the doctor awake.

And Dev is nothing if not nosy.

He slides out of bed, padding across the room and out into the hall of the Kents’ farmhouse. It’s the second Thanksgiving he’s spent with them in Kansas, and this time, he’s actually taken enough days off work to make a proper weekend of it. They’d gotten in that evening and had just enough time for a late-dinner and a bit of socializing before trooping off to their makeshift sleeping quarters. He’s fairly sure Cass is in the attic.

He follows Wayne down the hall and towards the bathroom, where light is filtering out from under the gap in the door. Wayne ducks inside, pausing to hold the door open behind him, which Dev takes as his cue to enter.

Inside he finds Dick Grayson sitting slumped on the floor by the toilet, face pale and hair hanging from his head in limp strands. He glances up when Dev enters and rolls his eyes tiredly. 

“I said you didn’t need to get him,” he says, his voice croaking and bone-weary in that particular way only long bouts of vomiting are capable of producing.

Wayne shrugs innocently. “I didn’t get him. In fact, I specifically told him not to come.”

Dick doesn’t look as though he buys this explanation any more than Dev does, but neither of them call him out.

Wayne deposits the pilfered medical supplies on the sink counter before lowering himself down onto the floor next to his eldest child. The back of his fingers brush first against Dick’s cheek, then the back of his neck.

“Feverish?” Dev asks.

Wayne shakes his head. “I don’t think so, but he’s been throwing up for over an hour,” he murmurs as Dick, giving into the touch, lets his eyes drift back closed. “Can’t even keep water down.”

“Bloody hell,” Dev mutters, slipping on a pair of gloves. “You ought to have woke me sooner.”

“I had it handled,” Wayne defends. “This is supposed to be your vacation.”

“It’s your holiday more than mine, mate,” Dev points out, squatting down beside Dick and starting to take his pulse.

“I’m a parent,” Wayne says simply. “We don’t get vacations.”

Eyes snapping back open, Dick jerks his arm back and lurches forward over the bowl to cough up more bile — though it’s a concerningly small amount. He moans a little and Wayne rubs his back absently.

“Right then. Fluids,” Dev decides. “Shall I run the line, or are we still bloody pretending you didn’t want an actual medical professional in here?”

“You do it,” Wayne replies. He reaches over to flush the toilet as Dick slumps tiredly back against the tub. “I hate sticking the kids.”

“Softie,” Dick mutters. He extends his left arm out to Dev without so much as opening his eyes.

(Dev doesn’t miss the way Wayne has to take a steadying breath when Dick’s face scrunches up a little as the needle slides in.)

Once the IV is hooked up, Dev stands and zip-ties the bag to the shower curtain rod. Wayne snorts a little, amused.

“Oh sod off,” Dev mutters. “I didn’t bring a bloody pole.”

“There’s always the coat rack,” Wayne suggests, straight-faced.

“The one in the entry?” Dev lifts an eyebrow. “That thing’s wrought iron. He’d hardly be any more mobile attached to that.”

“Jus’ put it on Martha’s roomba,” Dick croaks tiredly, which earns another light snort from Wayne as he strokes his son’s hair back away from his eyes.

Dev ends up going back to the guest room for the rest of his supplies, then spends the next few minutes taking Dick’s vitals and listening to his breathing.

“Any abdominal pain?” he asks as he releases the blood pressure cuff from Dick’s arm.

Dick gives a short, breathy huff — the ghost of a laugh. “Dev. I just threw up for an hour straight.”

“Specific pain, you plonker,” Dev amends.

“Not really,” Dick sighs. “It’s just sore.”

“Number?” Wayne asks.

“Oi, which one of us is the doctor here,” Dev demands, causing Wayne to lift his hands in front of his chest in a gesture of surrender. “But go on then,” he addresses Dick, gentler now. “Zero to ten, and don’t bother lying.”

Dick winces. “Uh… two? Maybe a three?”

Dev nods, satisfied. “Right. Well I can’t say for certain without labs, but it’s likely food borne or a virus if there’s no localized pain. We’ll keep your fluids up for now and hope it’s one of the twenty-four hour ones.”

Dick groans, pushing himself up a little straighter. “I should just leave now before I get everyone else sick.”

Dev scoffs lightly. “You’re in no state to travel anywhere, mate,” he points out, though he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t also concerned about the amount of damage a bit of gastro could do to a dozen people who are packed into a four-bedroom farmhouse like sardines.

“I could sleep in the barn,” Dick suggests, looking more serious than he has any right to be.

“You’re not sleeping in the barn,” Wayne says firmly. 

“The Kents and Alfie have gotta be high risk,” Dick reminds him. “Tim, too.”

“You’re not sleeping in the barn,” Wayne repeats. He pauses for a moment, then sighs. “We could look into motels, though...”

Ultimately, they decide not to make any decisions before daybreak. It’s partly for fear of offending Martha, and partly because by the time they get a full bag of saline and antiemetics into Dick, he’s so exhausted that he’s barely keeping his eyes open. They manage to get him back to the couch that he’d been sleeping on earlier, a bin positioned by his head, and he’s out in seconds.

It's alright, Dev thinks with a sigh.

They'll figure it out.

Chapter 2: The Verdict

Summary:

The people have spoken. Dick's fate is sealed.

Notes:

Originally when I posted this fic, it was going to remain a slightly ambiguous oneshot, but I included a few possible options for the ending in an author's note:

- It was a bug, and Dick got better.
- It was a bug, and Dick got better (but not before taking out half his family first).
- It was not a bug, it was the egg salad sandwich Dick got from the gas station on the drive down. Dick got better after many "I fucking told you so's" from Jason, who'd carpooled with him.
- It was not a bug, and Dick got worse and worse until he ended up being gallantly rushed to the hospital on horseback (every single vehicle at the farm simultaneously would not start, for comic book reasons) by Dev, who performed an emergency surgery on him, and then Dick ultimately got better.

This option somehow got 12 out of 18 votes, and as anyone who follows me knows, I suck at leaving oneshots as oneshots, so...

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Snagging a sweatshirt from the open duffle bag on the floor, Jason quietly makes his way out of the guest room and into the hall. It’s not quite six a.m. yet, but he doesn’t think he can sleep any longer, so he might as well go help Jonathan with the morning chores.

His plan is to slip out the backdoor and head to the barn, but no sooner has he entered the dimly lit kitchen than he stops, blinking.

“Well this is fricken’ somber,” he declares, glancing from Bruce, who’s standing at the counter, haggardly pouring black coffee into a mug, to Dev, who’s slumped tiredly at the kitchen table with his elbows propped up on the surface, stifling a yawn. “Who died?”

Bruce looks unamused. “Your brother’s sick,” he answers flatly.

Jason frowns. “Tim?” He’d seemed well enough when Jason hopped over his sleeping form while leaving the walk-in closet he’d commandeered the night before (after realizing that the other option was bunking in Clark’s old bedroom with Bruce and Damian). Maybe the kid was a little sniffly, sure, but that’s just a general state of being for Tim between the months of September and May.

Bruce nods his head sideways in the direction of the living room and Jason lets his gaze follow the movement. Dick is sprawled out on the sofa under one of Martha’s quilts, one arm wrapped loosely around his stomach and a trash can on the floor by his head.

Jason can’t help it; he barks out sharp laugh. “Seriously? What did I fucking tell you, dude?”

“Oh shut up,” Dick groans into the sofa pillow without opening his eyes. “It was a reputable establishment.”

“It was literally called Kum & Go!”

“Hullo, hang on.” Dev looks up at Jason curiously. “You know why he’s ill?”

Jason snorts. “I mean, I’m no doctor, but I’m guessing it’s got something to do with the gas station egg salad sandwich he bought in St. Louis.” 

(While most of the family had opted to fly out to Kansas, Jason and Dick had carpooled, giving Jason front row seats to several of his brother’s more questionable life choices.)

“For the last time, Jay,” Dick whines miserably from the couch, “it tasted fine.”

“It was gray!”

“Dick.” Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “We asked you twice if it might have been something you ate.”

“Yeah,” the doctor pipes up, looking mildly offended, “you told me all you’d had on the road was a package of bloody Twizzlers.”

“I said I’d mainly had Twizzlers,” Dick corrects.

“But you thought you’d not mention the sodding bacteria minefield on rye?”

“To be fair,” Jason allows, “he did also eat a frickton of Twizzlers.”

“I did,” Dick agrees with a tiny groan.

“Un-bloody-believable,” Dev mutters, getting to his feet. “You’re on your own, mate. I’m going back to bed.”

Notes:

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hope yours was better than Dick's 😌

Notes:

Thanks again to bowditch for letting me play in her sandbox!

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