Orbits of Glass
Chapter Two
The rain continued to fall after Spectra was pulled into the Fenton Thermos. He settled the stranger back to the soaked grass while Valerie stared down at him, rain running down her glasses and plastering dark curls to her head.
“Aren’t you going to rush him to the hospital? We have no idea how long Spectra had her claws in him.” Standing behind him, tapping her hand against the sealed Thermos, she waited for his answer.
“I know,” he replied, not looking at his partner. “But he said no hospitals.”
“Are you crazy?” she yelled right back. “Why would you listen to him?”
“Take a look at him. His clothes are too big and his shoes…” He trailed off at the ghost hunter’s surprised and concerned expression.
“Danny,” she asked carefully. “Did Skulker hit you harder than we thought?” She crouched next to him as she referred to the fight earlier that day. Her hand hesitantly touched the bruise barely visible behind his glasses and the hair plastered to his skull by the rain.
“Valerie, just look at the damn shoes!” The dark skinned girl rolled her eyes before bending down to look at the controversial footwear. She lifted up one boot and examined it carefully with a professional eye.
“They’re a custom job,” her verdict came after a moment. “I’ve never seen steel molded this way.”
“So he blew his money on the shoes and had to steal the rest of his clothes from a banker or something? There has to be something else going on. It’s just not right. Do you think you can snoop around to see if there is anything else weird around here?”
“Sure. I think I saw something metallic off in the trees over in that direction.” She waved to their right before setting off into the woods.
Danny remained on the ground. After a couple of seconds he waved his hand in a circular motion. A green shield appeared, covering a six foot area, and protected him and his charge from the rain. He wasn’t sure why he was following the injured teen’s wishes, but he had a hunch. It wasn’t anything that he could act on until Val returned to confirm his suspicions. All he could do was rest his aching head on his knees and wait for Valerie or for the John Doe on the ground to wake up.
He sighed and winced at a particularly strong spike of pain jabbed at his head. Two years of ghost hunting and there were still things out there that surprised him. He reopened his eyes and just observed the boy. The kid had to be around his age, but there was no way to know until he woke up and told them. He looked like Spectra’s favorite type: short, scrawny, (and considering the setting) probably lost and alone by the time she had found her victim. What differentiated him from Spectra’s usual targets was the fact that he fought back. That was not normal prey behavior. Spectra struck so fast that the fight was literally sucked out of the victim. The only known exceptions to the rule were him and his sister, Jazz.
Finally Valerie made her way back to their spot in the woods. After she gently pushed thru the rain shield she threw her burden right at his head. He caught it, barely holding on to the slick, black fabric. Unwrapping the cloth, he revealed the blood-stained remains of some type of uniform. Digging through the strips of red and green he found one piece large enough to have a symbol on it. He held up the scrap to Valerie.
“I don’t recognize it,” she told him. He agreed. The ‘R’ inside a circle was new to him too.
“It’s just the kind of thing a superhero would wear.” His tone was grim and the feeling that something was off grew inside him.
“Is that bad?” she asked, confused. Danny didn’t answer as he rewrapped the scraps and threw the whole ball to the ghost hunter. Then he let his shield dissolve as he picked up the suspected hero.
“What are you doing now?” she said, exasperated at his weird behavior.
“It’s impossible for him to be here. No superheroes are allowed within miles of the city limits. He can’t go to a hospital but we can take him somewhere safe.”
Her eyes widened when she figured where the ghost boy was going to go. “Oh no! He is not staying at my place.”
“There is nowhere else we can take him!” he yelled back. He held the unresponsive body closer at her dark expression.
“Danny…”
“If he is a superhero and we take him to a hospital, what are they going to do for him? And we can’t leave him out here.” He left the rest of the sentence unsaid. Her hands curled into fists and she looked away.
“Fine,” she growled out. “But this ain’t over. Any funny business and he’s gone.”
Danny nodded before he transformed into Phantom and flew into the rain. There was a quiet roar behind him, signifying that Val was following him on her glider. Cutting across the sky he slowed when they reached Val’s apartment complex. He passed through the outer wall while Valerie went to street level to enter the building the traditional way.
By the time she walked through the door, Danny had their ‘guest’ on the lone couch in the living room. Nodding a greeting, she disappeared down the hall before returning with his first aid kit. Danny’s kit had a lot of things you wouldn’t normally find in a traditional first aid kit that Valerie’s dad left under the kitchen sink. They had no idea how injured the John Doe on the couch was...or ‘Robin’ if that was his real name, so the heavy duty kit was broken out.
On the surface, ‘Robin’ didn’t look too bad. A bruise marred his left cheek and a shallow cut oozed on his forehead. If there was any damage, it was hidden by the rain-soaked clothing. Danny grimly pulled on a pair of gloves and handed an identical set to Val. She removed a pair of scissors out of the kit and the two of them worked on cutting and removing the shirt first. The facial damage could not prepare either ghost or hunter for what they found. The wet shirt, a navy blue, concealed seeping lacerations, multicolored bruises, and stained bandages.
“What the hell happened to him?” Valerie whispered in horror.
“It isn’t fresh,” her ghost counterpart said. “Spectra couldn’t have done all of this. Shit!” Danny had just pulled off the largest bandage and exposed the gaping wound underneath. “We’re gonna have to stitch that.” Valerie winced but she continued to clean up their charge turned patient. While she took care of the small cuts, Danny started to stitch up the large gash on Robin’s side. It wasn’t something he liked to do. If fact he had only done it on a real, living person twice before but this was one of those times he couldn’t think about his lack of experience. The longer they worked the more certain he was that they couldn’t take this guy to the hospital. Something bad was going on and if this guy ended up in the hospital there would be a lot of questions that neither he nor Val had the answers to.
Finally they cleaned up the shirtless hero as best as they can. Valerie left the room while Danny continued lower. By the time she came back into the living room Danny had finished bandaging his legs and covered up Robin with a worn blanket. There was nothing left to do but wait for the unconscious teen to wake up.
“I got a hold of my dad, gave him the heads up,” she said.
“What did he say?” Danny asked as he packed up the kit and stuffed in a closet, easier to access than Val’s bedroom.
“We’ve got a lot of explaining to do in the morning,” she said as she walked over to the kitchen and dug through the freezer.
Danny nodded in agreement before sitting down in the recliner. He looked up when Valerie returned from her foraging and stood in front of him. She held out an ice pack and a bottle of aspirin, a glass of water tucked in her elbow. He smiled and thanked her before taking her gifts.
“You know the drill.” Valerie started up her familiar post-concussion speech. “Stay up until my dad gets home, take the aspirin again in six hours and let me know if the headache gets worse or any changes in vision. I’m going to bed. ”
“Yes Mom.” He smiled at her with mock-innocence and a wink. She stuck out her tongue and disappeared into one of the small bedrooms at the far end of the apartment. Danny grabbed a blanket off the floor, curling up and preparing himself for a long night.
oOo
He hated when he woke up after being knocked out. It wasn’t the same as waking up in his own bed (or at least some place familiar). It was never good in his book when he woke someplace new, this time no exception. The sounds around him made no sense and there were no familiar voices welcoming him back to the land of the living. His body ached all over and his mouth had that unbrushed, cottony feeling. He didn’t move or open his eyes, trying to rely on his other senses to tell him what was going on.
After a few minutes he could tell he was wrapped in a blanket on a semi-firm surface. Soft sounds came from the direction of his feet and he was cold, despite the blanket. After deciding that he could learn no more laying like he was, he opened his eyes. All he saw above him was a cracked plaster ceiling colored by flickering light. He turned his head to the side. He saw a small TV turned on in the corner, creating the light and the noises he heard. The room itself was pretty bare and the only other chair in the room was filled with a blanket-wrapped figure. All he could see of the stranger was black hair above the red blanket.
Robin tried to speak but all that came out was a weak cough. The sound was enough to alert the other occupant in the room. ‘Blanket’ stood up and turned on a hidden lamp. Light spread across the room and it sung his eyes. Blinking away the spots he looked up at the guy who had turned on the lamp.
Messy black hair and blue eyes matched the purple bruise on the left side of his head. His body was still wrapped in the blanket and sock-covered feet stuck out the bottom. He crouched down to Robin’s level with a small smile on his face.
“I’m glad to see you’re awake. I was afraid you would be out for a couple of more hours. How do you feel?” a scratchy voice asked.
“I’m fine,” the Titan replied. He sat up to prove it. Well… he tried to sit up but a burning pain tore at his abdomen. A cold hand pushed him back down on the lumpy couch.
“You don’t want to move. I don’t want to re-stitch that cut, especially since you’re awake.” The words didn’t make sense until he pushed his own blanket off his stomach. Gauze and tape covered patches of skin. He dropped his hand to the knife wound, the gauze covering it made a thick padding. The bandages they had placed were not this neat or clean. The boy’s words finally caught up with him, jerking his head towards the other boy.
“Re-stitched?” he asked, not remembering anyone stitching him up or even how he got here, laying on a cough in someone’s home. In fact, he couldn’t remember anything after he grabbed an unattended bike outside a gas station in Gotham City.
“It was a little too deep to leave it to heal by itself,” blanket explained. “I’ll be able to take out the stitches in a couple of days.”
“You stitched my side?” Disbelief colored his voice. The other guy looked down and nodded shyly. Robin just stared at the embarrassed teen. The Titan hazard a guess that they boy had to be in high school and Robin didn’t know many kids his age that knew how to treat major wounds. Not many kids would even want to know how at that point.
“What’s your name?” he asked to break the silence.
“Danny,” was all the boy told him.
“Where am I?” Robin asked as he looked around the almost bare room, searching for some clue on how he got there.
“My friend’s apartment…”
“No,” he interrupted. “I mean what city are we in?”
“You don’t know?” Danny asked. Robin shook his head, waiting for an answer.
“You’re in Amity Park. The Spirit Capital of the planet.” Sarcasm dripped from his voice for the first time. The name rang a bell but he couldn’t remember from where. Names, Dates and Information were jumbled up in his head. Sensing that the injured teen needed time, Danny left his side and sat down in the recliner. He tried to process everything he heard, but Robin couldn’t keep his eyes open and he slipped back into the land of nightmares.
Chapter Three