Chapter Text

Dennis has had a lot of unfortunate first days. On his first day of elementary school, his older brother walked him to the wrong school as a prank. First day of middle school? He puked in the hallway on the way to Homeroom, all over his new Converse sneakers. Day one of high school, he walked into the goal post during gym because his crush decided to wipe his face off with the bottom of his t-shirt and well…BAM. And his first day of undergrad included a tour of a lab where he got bit by a radioactive spider and became a superhero. So he wasn’t exactly surprised when his first day at The Pitt ended with an MCI. 

But perhaps that’s getting ahead of things a bit.

7-8am: Dennis

Dennis weaved through the chaos of the ED waiting room at THE Pitt. His stomach flipped with nerves and excitement as he quickly catalogued the injuries and complaints yet to be addressed – a woman with a wet rag over a presumable burn, a middle aged man with a grimace on his face as he readjusted his posture again and again, an elderly man holding gauze on a bloody nose. A panoply of the miserable caught in Medical Purgatory. 

Still, he couldn’t help the smile that slowly spread across his face as Dr. McKay walked them through Chairs and Triage. This was it. This was the exact place that he’d been working towards for years. His dream job with a mentor he already deeply admired. Not that he knows who I am, he reminded himself. Sure, this was just a medical school rotation, a few weeks, but if he worked hard and proved himself useful as just Dennis, maybe it could become his new home. 

McKay ushered the newbies toward the Central Hub where rounds were set to begin. Dennis’ heart caught in his throat - there he is. More gray than before. A few more wrinkles. But undeniably the same Robby. And still gorgeous. He shook away the unbidden thought. He won’t know it’s you, he reminded himself for the 100th time that morning, but a small piece of him still hoped that maybe he would. 

Meanwhile, Robby scanned his ED as everyone gathered by the hub. “As you can see, we have some new faces this morning…” 

7 years ago: Robby

Robby had needed this vacation. All right, technically Monty and Jack were right - a “ 3 day leadership conference” was not the same thing as a vacation, but he did promise to go sight seeing. He hadn’t visited New York since…well, since the years started with 19. His phone buzzed in his pocket. 

Dana: How’s the big apple? 

Robby: Still big and still smells like piss. 

Robby: How’s the Pitt? 

Dana: Still full and still smells like piss. 

Robby smirked at his phone and turned his attention back to the rows upon rows of tchotchkes and souvenirs. He settled on a small spoon with a miniature rendition of the Empire State building cast at the top of the handle and the ubiquitous I <3 NYC emblazoned in the bowl. Why the fuck Dana collects these is beyond me, he thought as handed a $20 over to the store clerk. But who was he to deny his charge nurse anything? 

He had planned a relaxing day for himself. The conference was over, his gifts had been acquired, and all that was left was the drive back to Pittsburgh. Maybe he’d grab a fat deli sandwich and some tuxedo cookies before he hit the road. 

Ah well. Best laid plans of mice and men and all that. 

🕸️🕷️🕸️ 

“Okay,” the masked man next to him groaned, sitting back up from where he’d reclined earlier to catch his breath. “You…” He pointed at Robby. “You are a stupid, stupid man.” 

“Me? You were literally trying to hold up a building with a metal stick through your torso.” 

“Yeah, well. I have super powers, what’s your excuse?” He sounded like a petulant child. Maybe he was a petulant child. He definitely sounded younger now that he wasn’t trying to perform the authority and strength of a superhero. He sounded…normal. 

“Yeah, well,” Robby parroted back. “I’m an emergency medicine doctor. So, let me help you.” 

Spider-Man – no, this masked lunatic – chuckled in response. “Of course you are. It looks worse than it is. Trust me.” He took a few deep, stabilizing breaths and then unceremoniously yanked the bar from his body with little more than a grunt. 

“Whoa whoa whoa! That is the absolute LAST thing you should do,” Robby exclaimed as he rushed over to assess the new damage this fool just inflicted upon himself.

“Karen said it didn’t hit anything vital. Just need to…” He grunted as he repositioned himself “...stop the bleeding. Which I can do with…” He awkwardly angled his wrist toward the wound and shot several webs from a device at his wrist. 

“Who the hell is Karen!? Are you hallucinating right now?” Am I hallucinating right now?

He rested his head back against the wall, seemingly satisfied with his work. “Karen…is the AI in my suit. Stark Tech.” He grunted again as he tried to angle his body to reach the exit wound on his back. “Monitors my vitals, helps during missions, all that. Fuck,” he hissed in pain. “I don’t know how she knows the intricacies of my body so well, but...I don’t ask Tony a lot of questions, to be honest.”

“Tony. Right. First name basis with Iron Man. Stop. Stop it. Let me help.” Robby placed his hand in the middle of this whacko’s chest and another on his shoulder. He leaned him forward slowly and examined the wound on his back. “Ok.” He gestured at the webshooter on his wrist. “Can that come off?” 

The kook groaned at the movement and leaned into Robby’s side, letting him bear some of his weight. “Yeah…hold on.” He slid the device off his wrist and handed it to Robby. “Just push that button. One time, for about two seconds, will get you a…squirt, for lack of a better word.” 

Robby snorted. “Fantastic. Can you hold yourself up for a minute?”

“Yeah. I’m Spider-Man.”

“Right…fuckin’ A…” Robby muttered. He turned the device over in his hand. It was lightweight, but awkwardly shaped. “Ok…one time, two seconds…” He pressed the button quickly and carefully to avoid hurting him more than he needed to. 

As soon as he was done, Robby helped him lean back against the wall. He stared at the now fully webbed former hole in the maniac’s gut. “Are you sure that’s sanitary? Infection will still kill you, even if you’re not bleeding out.” 

“Yeah, yeah” the loon waved a dismissive hand at him. “I use it for wound care all the time. It’s a synthetic spider silk. Strong but lightweight. It mimics clotting proteins amazingly well. I can leave it on for a couple days and then I’ll be right as rain. Well…maybe a bit longer for this.” He shifted to find a comfortable position again. “Used it one time to stabilize a compound ulna fracture. That was cool.” 

“Huh.” Robby rotated the device in his hands once again and studied it a little more closely. “Is this more Stark Tech then?” 

“What? No.” He sounded almost offended. “I mean, Mr. Stark and I are working on some prototype nanobots…” The eyes on the mask narrowed as he looked at Robby, suddenly suspicious. “No. I made this one. And the silk.” He snatched the device from Robby and clasped it back on his wrist. “I’ve been doing this longer on my own than with a team, okay?”

Robby held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. I didn’t mean to offend. Just…this kind of tech?” He let out a low whistle. “Would be incredible to have in the ED.” 

The kid hummed a little and his head thumped back against the wall again. “Regretting not leaving yet?” Robby could hear the smirk in his voice. 

7-8am: Dennis

Everyone looked expectantly at Dennis. Oh God, how long have I just been standing here? “Uh…Dennis Whitaker. MS four,” he stuttered out. He nervously tapped his knuckles against his palm and squeaked out a small, awkward smile. Idiot. 

“Welcome to the Pitt. I’m –” Robby was interrupted by Dana calling out from the Central Hub. 

“We got two traumas from the T. Five minutes out.” 

And we’re off, Dennis mused. He stuck to the back of the group during rounds, fastidiously taking notes and trying to keep his head down. The bright lights, the overlapping conversations along with the loud beeping of machinery and the occasional wail from a distressed patient inundated his senses. AKA the “Dennis Tingle,” as it had been affectionately dubbed (despite his many protestations) by his two best friends, Amy and Teddy. He paused and inhaled deeply to calm his nerves. You got this, he reassured himself as he jogged to catch up to rounds outside Central 6.

Turns out, he did not “got this.” He was so absorbed in the disgusting and incredible moment when Collins and Langdon reduced an open fibula fracture on the de-gloved patient that he didn't even notice Javadi crash to the floor. He could have - he should have - caught her before she crashed to the floor. You promised yourself that you would blend in, he reminded himself. That meant No miraculous reflexes. No quick saves. Definitely no heroics. But Christ, he still felt like an asshole as she staggered to her feet with the help of two nurses.

It felt a bit like karmic justice when not 10 minutes later, he smashed his finger during a patient transfer because his eyes lingered a little too long on Dr. Robby. 

“Man, med students are dropping like flies,” Langdon quipped with disbelief. 

Robby shook his head in annoyed agreement. “Take a break. Ice the finger.” 

Dennis swallowed back the lump forming in his throat. Today wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was supposed to…do what, exactly? Come in swinging like he could fix an MI with a well placed web? Use his fist to punch a chest tube into a patient? He hadn't felt this amateurish and inept in a long time. Not since Teddy, when everything went sideways. He nodded at Robby, a silent acknowledgement that he would take care of his hand, but he didn’t move. He stayed with the patient as they pushed another round of epi and waited. 

In the end, it didn’t matter that he stayed. She had arrived in refractory cardiac arrest and resuscitation had been unlikely. Dennis withdrew from the bedside when Mohan turned off the LUCAS and Robby called time of death. The prolonged beep of asystole rang in his ears when he realized he never even learned her name. 

Robby cleared his throat. “One of the things we like to do around here is to take a moment of silence when we lose a patient…” he began.

Dennis closed his eyes and let Robby's words wash over him like a cleansing rain. He bowed his head like he used to in church, offering a prayer for this anonymous soul to whoever or whatever was listening. It shouldn't surprise him that Robby insisted on honoring those lost under his watch, not after New York. Still…Dennis couldn't help the warmth bubbling up in his chest as Robby continued to speak of her not as a bed to be cleared, but as someone’s sibling, someone’s child, someone’s friend. 

I LIKE THE SOUND OF FUNKY MUSIC

Fuuuuck me. Dennis fumbled apologetically with his phone and turned it off. “I am so sorry.” He could feel the heat radiating off his cheeks and spreading down his chest as his eyes met Robby’s. 

“Maybe leave it on vibrate while you're working,” Robby sighed. He stepped out of the room without looking back.

Fan-fucking-tastic. Dennis offered a tight lipped smile and a curt nod to Mohan and Dana before slipping out of the room to drown in embarrassment find another case. 

🩺💉🩺

Dennis was convinced he was actually the cosmic plaything of the Powers That Be because his one saving grace this morning came from the least expected place: Trinity Freaking Santos. Even though he couldn’t get a read on her yet, she seemed to take pity on him when she saw him icing his finger at the Hub. 

“Man, it’s really throbbing,” Dennis mumbled to himself. It didn’t actually hurt all that much; after all his threshold for pain had been…adjusted the last several years. But it was still noticeable. 

“Let me see,” Santos ordered as she yanked his hand over for inspection. “Yeah, blood’s under pressure. Gotta drain it,” she explained with more patience than she offered her actual patients. She sat him down at the nurses’ station and told him to wait while she grabbed a few supplies off a nearby cart. She returned with alcohol swabs, a needle, gauze, and a bandaid. 

Dennis looked down as she held the needle above his now sanitized yet bloody nail. “No anaesthesia or…?" 

She barely contained the eye roll.  “I’ll stop before I hit the nail bed. I hope,” she replied with a smirk. Her sarcastic swagger was likely a defense mechanism, but Dennis wasn’t sure what it was guarding yet. “Hey. Eyes down here. Watch and learn.” 

His eyes snapped from the patient board back to Santos. “I was just looking who to see next.”

“You’re supposed to take them in the order they arrive,” she admonished with a tsk. 

“Yeah, I know how it works–” He stopped mid-sentence, surprised when the dull ache ceased. He looked down at Santos, who was applying pressure to his finger with one hand and reaching for a bandaid with the other. Huh. Slick distraction. 

She wrapped a bandaid around his finger, yanked her gloves off, and looked up at the board. “Want me to pick for you? How about the 20-year-old cough in eight?” 

He glanced at the bandaid she chose. Of course, he groaned internally. Spider-Man. 

She noticed his reaction. “Sorry, Huckleberry. Looks like we were out of Colonel America. Anyway, I’m heading for the splitting headache. Fingers crossed it’s a subarachnoid hemorrhage or something cool.” She winked and sauntered off to the exam rooms. 

“It’s Captain America,” he muttered under his breath. He wiggled his finger experimentally. No pain. “They could at least give me royalties…”

🩺💉🩺

By 7:45, Dennis had settled into the chaotic rhythm of the department when he wheeled in an ultrasound machine into a new exam room. 

“Mr. Milton, my name is Dennis Whitaker.”