Chapter Text
It was supposed to be a normal day. He was supposed to wake up, late as usual, take the bus to uni, grab a coffee in the student lounge and go to his classes. What he didn't consider was the fact that Oscar's life wasn't the most predictable thing. So, it shouldn't have been a surprise when he heard a loud noise and his bus suddenly stopped.
He had just started to curse whatever caused the delay in his head when he saw a tall man wearing a black and teal suit that covered every inch of his body, including his face. His eyes were also covered by two silver lenses that didn't allow Oscar to see the man's eyes, only to have an idea of where they were.
Of course Oscar had heard about him, the Silver Arrow. Everyone who lived in London had heard of the new hero (or vigilante, depending who were asking) who had made the news several times last year when he and his partner Mad Max had stopped the evil scientist Helmut Marko from blowing up King’s College campus in an attempt to become imortal. Oscar still remembered that day, how could he not, seeing he was there, in the middle of all of it?
Before Oscar could continue to think about that day, Silver Arrow shouted:
“Everyone, get out of this bus! Now!”
Everyone looked confused, but when a hero tells you to do something, you tend to obey it. The bus became chaotic, with everyone rushing to get down as quickly as possible, not caring if they were pushing the others out of the way. Oscar got up from his seat and started to try to reach the door, when he looked at the back of the bus and saw a child with a cast on his leg looking scared and sitting still on his seat.
“Move faster everyone! We don’t have enough time!” Shouted Silver Arrow
Oscar quickly moved to where the boy was sitting.
“Hey, do you want some help?” Oscar asked
“My mom told me to take this bus and only leave when I reach our house” Said the boy, looking unsure
“I see… But right now, we need to get out of here, you can take another bus home or call your mom and ask her to pick you up”.
“She will get mad at me if I leave. And I don’t know how to get home, I don’t want to be lost forever!”
“I’m sure she will understand, and you won't be lost. I promise”
“What are you two still doing here? Get out!” Screamed Silver Arrow from where he was standing in the front of the bus.
“Come on, I will help you, okay?” Oscar said to the child
“Okay…”
Oscar picked the kid up, hurrying back to the door that was now cleared after everyone had left the bus. The second he jumped out of the bus he heard a loud noise. Using his body to cover the child in his arms, he ran to the spot where the other passengers were waiting alongside some other people. When he reached the others, he turned around and saw that the bus had exploded and flames were now coming out of the windows.
“Everyone, stay here!” Said a man, also covered, but this time wearing a dark red and blue suit. Mad Max, Oscar recognized, he must have been helping clear the road while Silver Arrow was helping people out of the bus.
Mad Max then ran in the direction of where Silver Arrow was standing just outside the bus. With the child still in his arms, Oscar saw another man approach the two heroes, an ugly guy wearing an orange jumpsuit and cape. He looked ridiculous. He went in the direction of Silver Arrow and in his hand a flame was starting to form. “He must have some sort of fire bending power” Oscar thought. When the orange was just about to hit the hero with his fire, Mad Max appeared behind him in a flash and pulled his arm backwards, protecting his partner.
The orange man caused some type of explosion, making Mad Max be thrown backwards in the direction of a car with an enormous amount of power. From where Oscar was, he could see that part of his suit was now burned and blood was starting to stain it and he seemed to be having difficulties standing up.
Near the bus, Silver Arrow had managed to hit the orange man with a flash of silver energy, hitting him in the middle of his chest, and knocking him to the ground.
“Give up Zak, you won't be able to escape this time!” Oscar heard Silver Arrow scream while sending another bolt to the man's leg, making it difficult for him to stand up.
“Even if you beat me this time, I will come back, you can be sure of that” The orange man (or Zak, apparently) said.
Then, a flash appeared and suddenly Zak wasn’t there anymore. Oscar looked to his side and saw a special police van, one of those that were designed to detain supervillains. In front of the door, stood Mad Max.
“Sorry honey, I just couldn't hear another word that came out of his mouth” He said to Silver Arrow
“Don’t call me that! Wait, did you just pick him up and throw him in that van? Do you know how irresponsible that is? You could have gotten hurt!” Silver Arrow replied
“Relax, I’m fine” But just as he said that, he stumbled forwards, seemingly having lost his balance.
“Shit, let’s go, now” Silver Arrow said “The cops can handle this from now”
Both men quickly disappeared in a flash. Only then Oscar remembered the child in his arms. Who was now crying desperately on his shoulder.
“It’s okay, you are safe now” Oscar said to him
After a couple minutes of crying, the child seemed to calm down a bit, realizing the fighting and the noises had stopped and he wasn't in danger anymore.
“I want my mom”
“I know, let's go call her, okay? Do you know her cellphone number?”
“Yes”
Oscar put the kid on the ground and waited while he typed the number in his callpad. Around him, people had started to leave the place, as the van carrying Zak had left as well. After the kid was done, he gave Oscar the phone, already ringing.
“What is your name?” Oscar asked waiting for the mother to pick up
“Rafael”
“Hello, who is this?” Said a voice on the phone
“Hi. My name is Oscar, I’m with your kid. We were on a bus, but it had to be evacuated and I helped him get out.”
“Oh my god! Is he okay? Where are you now? I’m coming!”
“Yeah, he’s okay, just scared. We are near the italian shop on Xs street”
“Oh, I know that place. I’ll be there in five minutes, I’m not far away.”
The woman hung up the phone and, true to her word, a couple of minutes later, Oscar saw a woman running in their direction. She approached them and quickly hugged her son. After seeing he was okay, she thanked Oscar for having taken care of her child and the pair started the walk away with the child in her arms.
Oscar looked at his phone and realised the whole thing had made him too late to go to his morning class, so he decided to go to a cafe nearby to shake the whole ordeal off and hopefully do at least a bit of studying before his afternoon class. Right as he turned the corner in the direction of the coffee shop, he heard a noise coming from an alley.
“Shit, can you keep quiet? You are going to draw someone's attention!" He heard a male voice saying
“I’m sorry, okay! It’s hard to keep quiet when I’m fucking bleeding out!” He heard another voice saying
“Shut up, you are not bleeding out. We just need to apply some pressure"
That sparked Oscar's curiosity. He wasn’t a doctor yet, being in the middle of his second year of med school, but he already knew enough to be able to help someone who was, apparently, bleeding out. He started to slowly walk into the alley, where he saw two dark figures hiding behind a dumpster.
“Hi, can I help you guys?” He said slowly
“Shit!” He heard the guy bleeding say “No, we are fine, just go away”
“I heard you talking about bleeding, I can help with that, if you allow me” Oscar said
He heard the two men whispering, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.
“Okay, you can come here”
Oscar slowly approached the two men. As he got closer, he recognized who the two men were. Silver Arrow, crouching next to a bleeding Mad Max, the two of them still wearing their suits and masks. Oscar looked at the man laying in the ground, and realised he had a really deep cut in his abdomen, bleeding into his suit.
“Okay, shit, okay. This cut looks pretty deep, you will need to go to a hospital.” He said
“No hospitals” The man in the ground replied
“He’s right, going to a hospital is out of the question. They would end up taking our masks off and we can’t have people knowing our identities” Silver Arrow continued
“That makes sense, I guess, but you will need stitches” He said while opening his backpack “You are lucky I had a surgical practical this afternoon”
He took out a suturing kit, along with some gloves, water and sanitizer
The two heroes looked at him, and even though he couldn’t see their expressions because of their masks, he could still sense they were skeptical
“Look, you can either go to the hospital or let me do this, it’s your choice, but I won’t let him bleed out in the middle of an alley”
“Okay, go ahead” Mad Max said, moving a bit to give Oscar better access to his wound
“Just be careful, okay?” Silver Arrow said, sounding worried
“I will be. Consider this my payment to you guys for saving my life twice”
“What do you mean?” Mad Max said while Oscar started to clean the cut
“I was at the bus today” Oscar replied
“Oh… I thought you looked familiar.” Silver Arrow chimed in “You were the cute guy helping out a kid, right?”
Oscar nodded, feeling his cheeks heating up with his comment. He looked with more focus to the wound, trying to hide the effect the men had on his face.
“Okay, I think the cut is clean enough. I will start the suture, but it will hurt, okay?”
“Just do it, I’ll be fine” Mad Max said
Oscar started his work, getting nervous every time Mad Max flinched from the pain.
“So, where did you learn to do this?” Mad Max said, probably looking from a distraction
“I’m in med school. Tough I think I would be expelled if they saw me stitching someone in the middle of an alley without any anesthesia”
“What? Is that not how you med students usually practice?” The hero said jokingly
“No… I was also surprised when I got to my first suturing class and they gave me a practice mold instead of taking me to an alley”
That made Mad Max laugh. Strangely, Oscar felt proud of this. Probably it was because Mad Max was a superhero known by everyone in London, while Oscar was just a med school nobody.
He continued his work in silence, trying his best to not make it too painful, even though he knew there was no way this wasn’t going to be painful as hell. When he was done, the stitches looked good considering the situation. He quickly covered them with some gauze he had in his backpack.
“All done.”
“Are you okay?” Silver Arrow asked Mad Max
“Yeah, it’s okay now that it’s done. Just going to wait till tomorrow to take the stitches off and it will be as if today never even happened.” He replied
“Calm down, the stitches will need to stay for at least 5 days” Oscar said
“I heal faster than others. It’s one of my perks”
“Oh… in that case take the stitches when you see that the tissue has healed, but be careful and make sure to keep the area clean”
“I’ll make sure he takes care of it. Thank you” Silver Arrow said looking at him
“Okay. Let 's go, honey. I need to pass out in our couch while eating junk food” Mad Max said while getting up
“I already told you to not call me that! And for fucks sake be careful, you idiot!” Silver Arrow warned while getting closer to help him
“I’m fine” He said and turned to Oscar “Thanks cutie, we’ll see ya again, okay?”
“Wait, are you even okay to run? ” Silver Arrow asked
“I told you I’m fine.” The other hero replied
And with that, the two men disappeared in a flash, leaving a confused Oscar behind