Chapter Text
Mission Command didn’t have proper medical facilities when the Elite Force first occupied Davenport Tower, apparently because Mr. Davenport was used to fixing medical problems with bionics and seat-of-the-pants science. Kaz and Oliver pretty much immediately took over one of the less-used rooms in the basement, requisitioned a ton of medical equipment on the Davenport dime, and set up a serviceable medical center that, while it was no Mighty Med, would hopefully at least help keep them alive in an emergency.
During the brief period of time they have after receiving Bree’s message, Oliver has Chase steal Mr. Davenport’s fancy electric blanket and gather up every heating pack he can find while Oliver sets up a warmed saline solution and an oxygen mask in case Kaz’s condition is too advanced for passive warming methods. He’s just finished when Bree blurs into view, carrying Kaz wrapped up in a thick yellow paisley comforter, and his eyes are open, but he’s so terrifyingly pale.
“Kaz, I’m so sorry,” Chase chokes out as he reaches out to take Oliver’s best friend into his arms before changing his mind and helping Bree set him on the bed instead.
Oliver rests his palm against Kaz’s cheek, wincing at the unnatural coolness. “Hey, buddy. You with us?”
Kaz doesn’t say anything, and his eyes don’t move to meet Oliver’s or Chase’s.
“Has he been unresponsive the whole time?” he asks Bree as he starts to unroll Kaz from his blanket burrito so he can get access to anything below his head.
“I think he knew what was happening before we left.” She wraps her arms around her torso. “What if – what if the superspeed was too much for him in his condition?”
“Well, you couldn’t have treated him where he was.” There is a reason doctors are not supposed to be treating their best friends, because when Oliver unwraps Kaz and sees all that pale skin, only darkened by long, painful-looking abrasions where he must’ve been struggling against restraints, he wants to call a time-out to have a little crying fit. But he’s the only doctor Kaz has right now, so instead he asks Chase, “What’s his core temperature?”
They have an actual thermometer, but Chase accesses his bionics instead. “Eighty-five degrees.”
That’s bad. Oliver swallows and ignores the panicked little voice in his head reminding him that Kaz’s body won’t be able to warm itself at this point. They run through the rest of Kaz’s vitals (so much weaker than they should be) as Oliver starts the saline IV and settles a mask over Kaz’s face feeding him warm, humid oxygen to start warming him from the inside out. He wishes he could bounce ideas off Kaz about whether or not his own pyrokinesis will make bringing him back up to a safe temperature easier or trickier, but for now, he’s just going to proceed like normal and cross his fingers that nothing goes wrong.
“He’s going to be okay,” he tells Chase, who’s just finished hooking up the last of the monitors they have and is staring at Kaz with an increasingly sick look on his face. He can relate, honestly; his best friend doesn’t look any safer or less on the edge of dying all stuck over with needles and sensors and an oxygen mask obscuring part of his face than he did when Bree brought him in, even if Oliver intellectually knows that he’s just put Kaz on the road to healing.
He and Chase aren’t really the most touchy-feely people usually, but he reaches out anyway, puts his arm over Chase’s shoulder and pulls him in for a side hug. Chase stiffens for a moment before relaxing and letting it happen, his eyes still trained on Kaz’s still form. “He’s going to be okay,” Oliver repeats.
Even though best practice says they should probably be monitoring Kaz in shifts, Chase has been by his side ever since Bree brought him through the hyperlift to Mission Command. Hypocritically, he’d convinced Oliver to take a break for at least a quick shower and something to eat once they managed to bring Kaz up to a reasonable core temperature, but he’s flat-out terrified to let Kaz out of his sight himself. Despite the host of equipment hooked up to his boyfriend, he’s been straining his bionic senses to monitor Kaz personally pretty much this entire time. The only thing keeping him relatively calm is being able to personally pick out the gentle, steady thump of Kaz’s heartbeat, reassuring him that the boy who has his heart is still alive.
He's sitting in a chair by Kaz’s side, idly considering using his molecular kinesis to dispose of the half cup of soup left over from when Bree tried to get him to eat so he doesn’t have to move when he hears a shift in the rhythm of Kaz’s breathing. He braces himself for the worst, but instead, the most beautiful pair of eyes slip open, blinking at him in confusion. “Oh my god,” he says, nearly knocking his chair over in his clumsy rush to stand. “Baby?”
“Sp’rk?” Kaz says with difficulty, his voice painfully weak. “Was….”
“She’s locked away.” He rests a hand against Kaz’s face, thumb brushing his cheek. His skin still doesn’t feel quite as warm as it should, but it no longer feels like he’s caressing a corpse, thank goodness. “She’ll never hurt you again. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there, Kaz, I promise you, you’re safe now.”
“Kay.” Kaz hums deep in his throat, his brows furrowing as he looks at Chase. “Pretty. Don’ cry.”
Chase hadn’t even realized he was crying, but for Kaz’s sake, he wipes the tears away from his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “I was so scared we’d lost you. Fuck, Kaz, I love you so much.”
“Love you. Too.” Kaz’s eyes slide shut again. “Tired.”
He grasps hold of Kaz’s hand with his free one and squeezes it reassuringly. “That’s okay. You can sleep more. I’ll be here for you.”
It doesn’t take Kaz long at all for his breathing to deepen again and his vitals to indicate that he has fallen asleep again. A part of Chase is anxious that Kaz was only able to stay awake for a couple minutes, but most of him is just so, so grateful that his boyfriend was able to wake up at all. He’ll call Oliver to update him on Kaz’s condition, he just needs a moment to soak this in. Just a moment.
Kaz is toasty warm when he wakes up, and he loves that feeling even though his brain’s still a bit sleep-stupid and slow to tell him why being warm is so important. There’s weight against one of his hands, someone’s fingers threaded loosely through his, and he reflexively squeezes it even before following the sight of that hand to where his boyfriend is sprawled out on a cot set up next to Kaz’s bed. There’s a blanket haphazardly thrown over Chase that’s fallen down his shoulders just enough for Kaz to spot some worryingly dark smudgy bruises around Chase’s neck where his flannel can’t hide them.
He wants to ask so bad what happened, but he also doesn’t want to wake up Chase. Luckily, Oliver enters the room right on time, eyes widening and features splitting into just the biggest smile when he realizes Kaz is awake.
“Hey. How’re you feeling?” he whispers, and Kaz glances nervously over at Chase, who shifts a little in his sleep but doesn’t wake up. They’ve gotten much better at whispering since their Mighty Med days, he’s very proud of both of them.
“Tired, I guess,” he says because even though he doesn’t want to go back to sleep any time soon, there’s still an exhaustion set deep in his body that he can’t help feeling. He shifts in bed a little and winces because man, that hurts. “Sore.”
Oliver takes a moment to look at the tablet nestled into a pocket at the end of the bed. It’s a self-updating chart of sorts that they’d designed with Chase’s help to interface with the medical equipment and even Chase and Bree’s bionics if necessary. Oliver had insisted on the importance of keeping records, and Kaz loved the cool tech aspect of it, so it’s both their baby in a way. Kaz reaches out for it with the hand that is not spoken for by his boyfriend, but Oliver’s lips thin and he shakes his head, putting it back out of reach.
“So it was bad, huh,” Kaz says. He knew that already, he guesses, but it’s kind of confirmation that Oliver won’t even let him look at his own chart.
Oliver makes that face that he’s made ever since he was a little kid whenever he’s trying really, really hard not to look like he wants to cry but he desperately wants to. “We could’ve lost you, Kaz,” he says. “You could’ve died.”
“But I didn’t.” Just saying it wouldn’t be enough for him if it was Oliver in this bed, he knows, which is why he lifts his arm up and gives his best friend a pointed look. After about two whole seconds of holding back, Oliver crawls onto the bed with him and gingerly tucks himself under Kaz’s arm.
“We should’ve protected you sooner,” Oliver murmurs.
Kaz swallows. “I mean, you got me home in what? Under a day? That’s not too shabby.”
“No. The first time. I should’ve seen what Spark was doing to you before you had to ask Horace for help. I’m your best friend, I should’ve known she was hurting you.”
Kaz stares up at the ceiling and feels himself breathing. His breaths are steady. He’s lying on a bed in Davenport Tower, and he’s half-cuddling his best friend and they’re talking quietly because his boyfriend is sleeping on his other side. He has had a really, really bad couple of days, and he can feel his mind starting to drift somewhere because for all that he knows Oliver is trying to be kind, he absolutely cannot think about how this all started right now. “I don’t want to talk about shoulda woulda couldas right now, buddy,” he says, his voice sounding distant even to himself.
“Okay. I’m sorry,” Oliver says. “It’s just – “
“Please,” Kaz begs, his voice breaking, finally forgetting to keep his voice down. He feels Chase’s hand move in his before his boyfriend’s eyes actually open and he rolls out of the cot.
“Kaz? What’s wrong?” In a moment, Chase is standing over him, glancing between him and Oliver before his eyes narrow. “Oliver, get away from him.”
“We were just talking,” Oliver says.
“I don’t care what you were doing, you upset him!” Chase snaps back.
Kaz just starts shaking his head because he’s feeling the drifting-away feeling again, and he wants them both to shut up and give him some space if they’re going to fight with each other. At least Oliver disentangles himself from Kaz and gets off the bed.
“I didn’t mean to,” he says. “Kaz? I’m sorry.”
“Both of you. Just be quiet. I need a minute,” Kaz grits out, and there is merciful silence. There’s also two pairs of worried eyes following his every move like he might fall to pieces at any moment, but if he shuts his eyes, he can pretend that isn’t happening. Chase still has ahold of his hand, and he’s gently running his thumb along Kaz’s knuckles, so Kaz focuses on that sensation and a bunch of other little things like how soft the sheets feel on his skin and the way the mattress supports his back until he feels less like his brain’s going to come floating away from his head.
He opens his eyes, and Chase and Oliver still have the same scared eyes. He sighs. “I’m okay. I’m just not ready to talk about what happened. Okay?”
“Of course,” Chase says. “Whenever you’re ready.” There’s a little edge to the way he looks at Oliver, and Kaz almost rolls his eyes because Oliver looks on the verge of tears already for upsetting him and he clearly does not need Chase playing bad cop to cooperate.
“I’m sorry, Kaz,” he says again.
“It’s cool.” Kaz shrugs, then grimaces. “Man, trauma is exhausting. I need another nap. Which is crazy cause I’m pretty sure I’ve been sleeping for what, a day? Two days?”
Chase leans over to brush his lips against Kaz’s cheek. “Get some more sleep.”
“You, too,” Kaz says, and he’s about to tug Chase onto the bed with him when he thinks about how quickly Oliver’s presence next to him started to feel like too much, and he casts a guilty glance back towards the cot. “If you can fall back asleep on that thing.”
“I’ve slept on worse.”
“Good, cause you need your beauty sleep. Gotta maintain those handsome looks so I have something pretty to look at.”
“So, I’m gonna go,” Oliver says, with an awkward little side step towards the door. “Let you two flirt in peace. I won’t be far if you need me.”
“Love you, Ollie-pop,” Kaz sing-songs.
And then he’s alone in the room with his boyfriend, and it feels a lot more serious again.
“I meant what I said, I won’t push you to talk about anything before you’re ready,” Chase says quietly. “But Kaz, I was so scared. When Bree brought you in, looking like death, I thought I’d lost one of the best things to happen to me.” He glances down at their hands, still interlinked, and then back up at Kaz’s face, his eyes shiny with tears. “I just – I really love you. I’m so glad you’re alive. That’s all.”
Kaz clears his throat, pushing back the urge to sympathy cry because he has the suspicion that if he lets himself start crying now, he’s going to feel a lot of things he’s not ready to feel. “I love you, too, you freaky little genius.”
Despite the fact that he does still half-look like he might cry, Chase manages to smile. “Go back to sleep, you freaky fire witch. I’ll be waiting for you when you wake up.”