Whumptober Day 18!

Link to the Ao3:https://archiveofourown.org/works/34210837/chapters/86071141

Title: Sprained Ribs - Clark

Prompt: No. 18 ‘The Doctor Is In’ - “Now Smile for the camera”, doctor’s visit, CPR

Word Count: 969

Clark shut the bathroom door behind himself and took a deep, shaking breath to calm his nerves - not that it would help. It’d been a good half-hour since the accident but he still felt like his veins were on fire with the amount of adrenaline pumping through them, and the rest of him didn’t feel much better either.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror above the sink, wincing when he saw the scrape on his cheek and the dirt coating his hair and blue Kryptonian suit. Slowly, because he was still pretty sore, Clark unclipped the cape from where it was attached at his shoulders and let the fabric drop to the tiled floor while he got the top-half of the suit off. His chest was painfully tight beneath the alien garment, and he quickly discovered why.

A large, angry-looking bruise covered a good portion of his left side, his skin clouded red and purple in the area of damage. To make it worse, without the support of the tight Kryptonian suit to hold it in place, Clark was pretty sure he could feel part of his ribcage shifting uncomfortably with every breath he took. This couldn’t be good.

It hurt, and though it didn’t hurt badly, considering that he rarely ever got hurt in the first place, Clark was in a bit of pain since he wasn’t all too used to it. He was about eighty-percent sure he had broken something, especially since the last time he had been in this much pain was when he broke his wrist during the battle with General Zod in downtown Metropolis (though that had healed quickly enough to not need any medical treatment besides being gentle with it). But this… this might need a doctor.

He was at the farmhouse in Smallville, so the nearest doctor would be Dr. Whitaker at the clinic a few miles away, though Clark’s parents had decidedly stopped taking him there for checkups when his first ‘powers’ started developing at age eight due to his Kryptonian physiology. There wasn’t exactly any physician Clark could trust with the knowledge of who or what he was, and even if he did know a trustworthy doctor there was still the issue of differences in treating Kryptonians and humans for injuries.

Scratch that, Clark did know a trustworthy doctor who knew how to deal with Kryptonian medical emergencies, and said doctor happened to be about ten feet away on the other side of the wall, currently scrubbing out the inside of the fridge while she cleaned the farmhouse kitchen.

Darcie had admitted to him once that she was a certified combat medic specialist, and though Clark still wasn’t quite sure what that meant, she had assured him that it was almost the same thing as being a doctor at the ER (or close enough that the actual difference would never be too much of an issue for him). He had seen her work once or twice before, and Clark had to admit, she was pretty good at administering emergency care in high-stress environments (such as ice-encased scout ships and downtown war zones). Long story short, Darcie could probably figure out why he was having trouble taking deep breaths.

Clark sighed tiredly and opened his mouth to shout for her (not that he needed to raise his voice since both of them could hear a heartbeat on the other side of the country), “Darcie?”

He had expected her to take a moment or two to set her cleaning tools aside and come ask what he needed, but to his surprise, the expected knock came on the door before her name was even half out of his mouth. Clark, being a gentleman, opened the bathroom door to see Darcie standing there with her dark hair tied up in a messy bun, a surprisingly domestic-looking sunflower-patterned apron tied around her waist, and a pair of bright orange rubber gloves covering her arms almost up to the elbow.

“I’m just grabbing the extra bottle of bleach,” she explained quickly, absently pulling one of the gloves off of her hand, “The one in the kitchen is empty and I know your mom keeps another under the bathroom sink- ”

Darcie stopped, blinking slowly as she took in the sight of him half-undressed, pretty banged-up, and smiling apologetically at her from his seat on the closed toilet. She stared back, her eyes widening ever-so-slightly when she noticed the large bruise forming on the left side of his chest, “How the fuck did you do that?”

Clark paused, chuckling nervously despite himself, “Um-”

His would-be answer was cut off as he groaned in pain, Darcie having moved to stand beside him and press her hands along his exposed back and left side in a quick rhythm until she located the damaged ribs near the bottom of his chest. A frown crossed her features when Clark gasped raggedly, and she pressed a little harder on the bones to confirm her suspicions. “Three of these are sprained, Boy Scout. You’re just lucky nothing broke. What did you do - collapse a building on top of yourself again?”

Clark couldn’t help but smile at her mother-henning, and put a protective hand over his throbbing side before she could poke him again. “It was just a flying accident, I promise.”

It hadn’t been anything serious - he’d just come into the headwind at the wrong angle and lost control, resulting in a crash into yet another mountainside (Clark was pretty good at flying, but he still hadn’t quite got the hang of dealing with sudden changes in weather). Darcie must have guessed as much and wrinkled her nose in response - the polite equivalent of rolling her eyes in his direction - and shook her head, “Stay put. I’ll get you an ice pack.”