Spherica’s little heist that day had gone off without a hitch– that is, her parts had. A few pieces of the heroes’ equipment, just to give her engineer some more things to work with, and a file or two from their surveillance records, so she could ensure that the heroes didn’t actually have any leads as to where her base of operations was. Nothing too difficult to get in and get out with alone, especially when she knew the place, and when everyone present was too distracted by her associate to question the presence of someone who looked exactly like her hero sister. (Until they realized that “The Comet” was on patrol at that time, but by then she would be long gone.)

Heatwave’s little distractions were always done at the same intensity, whether he was covering for subtle reconnaissance or for a multi-stage bank robbery, and that was no different today. Luring the patrolling heroes into chasing him around, playing his games, keeping everyone at headquarters busy with updates on the fight and damage control reports. This was his specialty and nobody could deny that he was very good at it! But there was one little thing she had heard over their comms that had her worried.

Not that he was cooperating enough to tell her what it was.

“I’m fiiiiine, I’m telling you! It’s not the first time somebody’s landed a hit,” his voice came into her ear while she paced in the rendezvous point.

“But it is the first time that a hit has made your communicator go static for over twenty seconds. Just– tell me, is there blood?”

The length of his pause was not reassuring in the least.

“Nooo…” and that just about confirmed it.

“I’m getting the first aid kit.”

“Wh– hey, I said there wasn’t any!” It may just be her, but she could swear she was picking up on a pained undertone now, underneath his usual lighthearted overconfidence.

“Are you applying pressure? Keep your hand on it until you get here, how close are you? Who was it that–”

“Hey, heyyy, it’s fine, stop mother-henning, I’m almost there!”

“That is not a real word, and I will not stop demanding updates until I know you aren’t bleeding out over the city, Heatwave.” Fortunately, this mini-hideout wasn’t just stocked with one of those dollar store kits; she’d had the foresight to add actual bandages and gauze, though now she wished she’d raided some of the hero headquarters’ quick-treatment items while she was there. “Are you feeling lightheaded at all?”

“I mean, like, only a little biiit?”

Spherica took in a steadying breath, and switched the channel she was speaking through.

“Moth.” Ignored the startled squeak from the other end that told her she’d interrupted something. (Not anything too important, since there were no following sounds of clattering or explosions.) “Are the connections secure?”

“They should be?” A short pause let her hear the sound of things being shuffled around and some light typing. “Yeah, yes, mm-hm they’re completely secure right now. Why?”

“Thanks.” Valorie switched back to the first channel. “Damien–”

“ACK–”

“–Damien if you pass out from blood loss you’re off missions for a week–”

“I’m fine Val–!”

“You don’t know if the connection is secure!”

“You said mine! And everyone knows your real name anyway! Whoa-aah okay that was, hahaa–”

“Are you passing out right now? How close are you?”

“Gimme like ten seconds I’m on the fire escape!” To corroborate his story, she could indeed hear some footsteps echoing up from outside the window. Irregular and unusually heavy footsteps for how Damien normally moved.

“I’m letting you in, do not try to climb through the window yourself or blood loss will be the least of your problems.” Gauze, bandages, things to clean the wound with, and she was just hoping there wasn’t too much in his hairline, both to keep treatment simpler and to avoid his complaining about not being able to use all his various products on an injured area. She tuned back to their general comms channel and muted, just in case anyone else developed head wounds they wanted to downplay to her.

Hewas trying to climb through the window himself, which didn’t seem to be going well, but more importantly, Valorie could see that this was not just a flesh wound. Even taking into account the fact that cuts on the head always bled more than one expected, and even with Damien’s efforts to keep pressure on it, it looked like he had lost a lot. A significant amount more than he’d been trying to let on.

“Damien you idiot I said don’t try to– Give me your arm– Not that arm keep applying pressure, the other arm, I said not to climb in by yourself! Are you sure you weren’t followed? Damien?” There were no clear signs of pursuit outside, but she took one hand off of him to shut the window and pull the curtain shut, just in case. After guiding him two steps in, she had to stop and brace them both as his weight increased, no longer holding himself up. “Damien!”

“I actually kinda feel lightheaded now that you mention it actually?” Fortunately, he was still maintaining pressure on the source, though it seemed like it was taking all of the effort he could’ve been using to keep himself upright.

“It might get worse before it gets better, I’ll have to look at it in a– not right now, put it back, wait until you’re sitting down!” Seeing him wince, she took a breath, trying to even it out and focus as she lowered him onto the old couch. (Heedless of the blood that would get on it, because it wasn’t the first time this couch had gotten stained in this manner and it wouldn’t be the last.) “Volume, I apologize. Alright, let me see it?”

“Y’know that new guy?” Damien started, keeping his head turned so she could work but reaching up to pull his mask down around his neck. It didn’t look like anything was wrong with the rest of his face, though the contrast of everything under his mask being clean made the bleeding area stand out much worse.

“Tigerblaze?” Carefully pushing hair out of the way with one hand and holding a bit of gauze in the other, she had started dabbing at the area around the wound and resisted the urge to reprimand him for snorting at the name, as the immediate wince seemed enough to indicate his regret.

“S’that really his name? Like on the real records and everything?”

“Yes, and he’s not new, he’s in from Maryland until Sunday.” Fortunately, it didn’t look like there was anything stuck in the cut that she would need to get out the tweezers for.

“Ooohhh that makes more sense, I thought he was, like, a sidekick, but then we got a little 1v1 before ‘Thena showed up and it was like, dang bro– ow– it was like daaang bro that guy hits waaay harder than I thought, yknow?”

“Mm, I know it’s hard for you, but I’m going to have to ask you to stop talking while I work on this. Your head is moving too much.” He grumbled but complied as Valorie tried to gauge whether he would need stitches for this. It was an irregular shape, not deep or dirty enough to cause severe problems, but not shallow enough to trust it to heal well on its own. Her observation that it did, in fact, extend past his hairline was not encouraging.

“Okay, I think we’re going to put something over this to stop the bleeding, then get back to main base and put in stitches.”

“It needs stitches? But it’s not that bad–! Ow ow ow quiet okay yeah,,”

Surprisingly, he managed to keep quiet for the remainder of her bandaging process. She would have to keep him away from mirrors for a while, so he couldn’t discover how poorly his hair looked after all this…

“Stay here, try to get out of your suit, carefully, and I’ll get everything else ready.” Starting with washing her hands, wondering how bad it was going to be to get all the blood out of the Heatwave getup, gathering up their civilian disguises and definitely keeping blood from touching those…

whumpapalooza:

YAAAAAAY, I did it!! 28 Febuwhump prompts, complete! :)

Thank you so so SO much to @febuwhump for organizing such a phenomenal event, and thank you so incredibly much to anyone who read, liked, reblogged, or commented on any of my works from this past month!

Love youse!

MASSIVE CONGRATULATIONS!!!

i really hope you enjoyed the month and well done for completing all the prompts!!!

ex0rin:

@febuwhump - ohhhh I’m almost there, I can do this.

FINAL DAY FINAL DAY FINAL DAY

Umbran, Febuwhump: Head injury

Dizzy.

He was dizzy.

Sickeningly so, in a way that made him sway as the world around him spun.

Nox reached to touch his head, that bright flash of pain that was now fading into a dull ache within his skull. Stablizing himself against the wall did nothing to help, but the movement made everything worse.

He just- wished he could stop being so dizzy.

He didn’t see the second blow coming, or maybe it was the third. Either way the hit knocked his head against the wall in the same way, made his head spin and his skull crack with that loud overwhelming agony that stayed until a dull ache replaced it.

And just like that he was back to reeling, back to staring uncomprehending at the red on his hand. In the back of his mind he knew something was wrong, something with where he was being hit, but he didn’t have the faintest idea why.

He didn’t see the next blow coming.

✨Masterlist✨

Taglist:@haro-whumps@poisoned-by-royalty@wide-awake-but-comatose@whumpsy-daisies@misspelledwitch@string-of-broken-hearts@captainseconds@lave-whump@whumping-out-of-timee@littlespacecastle

Febuwhump Leftover - No Anesthesia

Context: Cadeverse, continuation of the morning after he tried to treat a panic attack with alcohol.

~~~

“So what have we learned from this little experiment?” Donnie said with a lifted eyebrow.

“Beer is not my friend,” Cade said. “Maybe I should have gone straight for the Jack Daniels.” At Donnie’s sharp look, he tiredly waved a hand. “Kidding.”

“Dude, don’t even joke about that. Just don’t.”

“Kidding,” Cade repeated. “You know me, I don’t get shitfaced on a regular basis.”

“I’ve seen people try to use alcohol to run away from their problems,” Donnie said. “It never ends well.”

“Is that what you think I was doing? Running away from my problems?”

“More like staggering away, last night. But yeah. You didn’t want to deal with your brain, so you tried to drug it into submission.”

“But it wouldn’t fucking cooperate, of course.” Cade winced and pressed a knuckle between his eyes. “And now it’s taking revenge.”

Donnie sat down on the chair next to the couch. “You can’t run away from what hurts if it’s inside you, dude. You have to deal with it.”

“That’s what I was trying to do. Like taking ibuprofen for a headache. Speaking of which, do you happen to have—”

“But that’s not dealing with it. That’s trying to anesthetize your brain so you don’thave to deal with it.”

“Then why is ibuprofen OK? That’s what I took for my shoulder. And I could really use some—"

“Did you go to the gym and lift right after that?”

“I’m not a complete idiot,” Cade said.

“Of course not; you knew it wasn’t a magic pill. Pain is how your body tells you to be careful until it’s had time to heal.”

“My stupid brain’s had as much time to heal as my shoulder.”

“Maybe it was hurt more. Look, dude, all I’m trying to say is, there’s a reason for pain, whether it’s in your head or your shoulder. If you want to get better, you have to pay attention to what it’s telling you.”

“So what am I supposed to do, wallow in my feelings?”

“You can face them without wallowing. If you hear a tornado siren in the middle of the night, what do you do? You could put in earplugs and go back to sleep. You could bitch about being woken up. Or you could get your ass out of bed and check the radar to see what’s going on. Listen to the goddamn message.”

“I’mlistening.” Cade said. “I’m listening to my brain right now.”

“And what’s it telling you?”

“It’s telling me that I want to think about what you’re saying, but I can’t concentrate on a goddamn thing until the elephants stop tap-dancing on my skull,” he said plaintively.

Donnie leaned back in the chair with a hint of a wicked grin. “Oh. Do you want some ibuprofen? You should have said something earlier.”

im too cool !!! i got it finished just in time !!!

you know what that means !! time to start torturing myself with angstpril !

masterlist thing : here !!