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"They keep trying to," Robin said with a rough chuckle, "But whatever lets me survive the attempt at turning me into a pile of ash seems to be shedding any lingering radiation. I jus' wanna get outta here as soon as possible. Don't really like hospitals."

 

She peered at Raina over her mask and the tired smile was clear even with the oxygen mask over the bottom of her face. "Took some shrapnel through the lung, though, and I don't get to walk until my O-sat stops tanking when I get out of bed. Super-lame. How's'it at school?" She asked, not picking up on whatever Riley and Fred were discussing in the corner. "Wanna come back tomorrow night an' help me sneak outta here?"

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"Yeah sure," Raina told Robin blithely, "if you can't pass an O-sat, I'm sure we can cheat it somehow. It's not like you need that to, I dunno, freaking live or anything!" She gave Robin a very gentle shove against her chest, just in case Robin had been planning any kind of early escape maneuver. "You may as well stay here anyway, school's boring as hell, just like always. At least here's you've got television and no classes. Milk it for all it's wortth while you've got people feeling sorry for you!" When even that did not elicit the hoped-for rest, Raina sat down on the edge of the bed and looked over towars Riley and Fred. "What are they on about, anyway?"                                                                                                               

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"It's not supposed to be like this," Riley muttered blackly, looking over at Robin in her hospital bed. "World fulla people with powers and costumes, supposeta be able to fix things when they get broken. Help people when they're hurt. Today was...Jesus." He scrubbed the palms of his hands against his eyes, the movement showing off how noticeably darker the parts of his skin that had been pressed against Tesla Atom had been. "I've seen bad stuff before. Stuff like that. But it's supposeta happen somewhere else. Not in your Goodman Building. And not to Robin, fer Christ's sake. You were great, though, honey," he said to Robin. "You shoulda seen her. She was bustin' heads, takin' down legs...it was grea."  

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"Sounds beastly," Winifred commiserated before immediately pulling a sour face. "Poor choice of words, my apologies." She opened her mouth to make some excuse to usher Raina out into the hall but something about seeing Riley so deflated - as deflated as the stubborn survivalist had ever been in her presence, at least - made her press her lips into a thin line instead. She'd wanted to fix the whole affair as efficiently as possible but she realized now that no amount of alchemy was going to entirely undo the consequences of the disastrous encounter. She'd have hardly wanted Sanderson to intentionally go behind her back to cast some potentially dangerous bit of spellcraft because it was easier than honesty. With a look over to the injured Robin she inwardly cursed the cowardice of her initial plan.

 

For a moment she said nothing, focusing on controlling her breathing until she was confident in her composure. Then she retrieved a cheap, plastic pencil case from the backpack that had transported her roommate's possessions. The zipper hitched slightly as she pulled it open and the feline caricatures emblazoned across its slick surface wouldn't have been her first choice but there was the idiom about beggars. Its contents clinked softly against each other as she produced a stoppered glass tube filling with a vivid golden liquid that caught the light in such a way that it might have been faintly luminous itself. 

 

"I, ah, may have an alternative plan, ladies," she announced, holding the vial up for them to see. "A lesser elixir of my own devising, based on what little genuinely reputable documentation of the Philoso-- ah. Well." The petite scientist cut herself off, suspecting that just then was not the time for a full explanation of her process. "The crux is that it facilitates the conduction of qi in the body, enough to noticeably decrease recovery time. I've successfully tested it on myself, naturally, enough to confirm repeatable success with regards to minor cuts and mild burns." She powered through that detail before anyone could ask for clarification. "Given Robin's already prodigious capacity for healing, however, I believe the effect on her would be markedly more dramatic. Should you consent to he attempt." Squaring her shoulders, she set her jaw and tried to look less hesitant. "It will work, I'm positive. I'll quite understand if you'd rather not chance it, though. I realize I... I would understand."

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"Yeah, see, I don't think I want people feeling more sorry for me, though," Robin pointed out only to look over as Fred and Riley returned. Although her gaze rested on Riley, heavy with concern for his palpable tension, it shifted quickly to Fred and the vial she held.

 

"Dang, Fred, that's a lotta words," Robin said, blinking once over the top of her plastic mask. She reached up, her movements slower and stiffer than normal but no less determined as she pulled the oxygen mask off and pushed her self forward enough that she wasn't against the bed. The machines beeped a protest as she held one hand out, already complaining as her pulse changed and her oxygen levels began to drop - not too fast but enough that anyone looking at the machines might notice it. "Y'had me at 'decrease recovery time'."

 

Her hand was impressively steady as she held it out for the vial and despite her quip, Robin softened her raspy voice. "Fred, I trust you. I get it. Nothing ever's a sure thing but if you think it'll work, that's all I need to know." And unless someone stopped Robin, she was going to take it and drink it before she could think better of drinking questionable alchemical elixirs. 

 

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"Whoa, maybe we should think this over," Raina cut in, raising a hand but not actually so much as touching the vial of stuff. "I'm not a scientist or anything, but I'm pretty sure an experimental pool of one isn't going to tell you a lot about how safe something is for anything but that one person. No offense Fred," she said with a quick wave, "but your potions don't exactly have a pristine track record. It's not like you're not going to get better, Robin, and probably a lot faster than anybody else here would. Is it really worth taking the risk to speed the process up a day or two?" Raina looked almost physically pained to have to be the voice of reason, but there were risks and there were risks.                                                                                               

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  • 2 weeks later...

To his surprise, Riley found himself weighing in on Raina's side - well, sort of. "This is the red formula, right, the one that didn't do the skin thing?" He took the bottle from Fred and held it up to the light, a look of concern on his face as he contemplated what it would be like if Robin was turned into a raving feral monster like the - suddenly he set down the bottle and ran, bolting past Fred and Raina down the  hospital hallway, his eyes wide and pupils round. Opening a door led him inside a big hospital single-toilet bathroom and he stepped inside, closing the door shut and locking it behind him. He didn't vomit, he didn't break - he just crouched and stared at the door, his muscles tight and breathing coming slow and shallow. 

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Winifred weathered Raina's objections with a carefully neutral expression, reminding herself that the witch's concerns were after all entirely reasonable even if her throat did tighten when her 'track record' was brought up.It was no easy thing to be called a fool with good reason and she closed her eyes for a beat longer than could really be called a blink to maintain her composure. When Riley took the vial and eyed it suspiciously, though, she made a small, strangled sound in the back her throat like someone who had been punched in the stomach and was trying very hard not to give any sign of weakness. She'd just about managed to straighten her back again when he abruptly ran out, leaving her to grab the test tube again before it could roll off of the table he'd hastily set it down atop.

 

The alchemist looked back and forth between the open door and the other teens in the room, uncertainty writ large across her face. Finally she took a step over to the bed and placed the vial within Robin's reach on her bedside table with a little more force than had been intentional. "As you will," she mumbled with an uncharacteristic lack of diction, shoulders slumped and generally looking miserable. She hurriedly stepped out of the room as well, as much to avoid looking at Robin or Raina as to follow Riley and looked up and down the hallway for some sign of which way the survivalist had gone.

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"That's it, done with the hospital now," Robin said, as if it was as simple as that. Reaching up, she pulled off the oxygen mask with one hand as she pushed herself all the way up to swing her legs to the side of the bed. She shook her head slowly, pulling at the tape first that held her IV into her arm and with a quick jerk, yanked that out. Robin stood slowly as she really had no desire to crash to the ground like a felled tree - that would really hurt, after all - and pressed her hand to the IV site to slow any bleeding while her body healed the minor injury. It wasn't like the hospital gown covered all that much as it flapped behind Robin as she walked slowly over to rumage through what had been brought to pull on jeans and discard the gown for a hoodie she could pull on over her bandages. She did have to pause to catch her breath against the wall but the teenage titan rebounded quickly. She was used to moving through discomfort and, clearly, there were people who needed help to attend to; her friends, in this case. 

 

Reaching out, she snagged the vial and tucked it into the pocket of her hoodie. "Riley's a little shook up," she told Raina, her words a little shorter as she was working on less air than was particularly optimal but it wasn't like she had to have an actual fight. At least, Robin sure hoped not. "It was... It was really bad." She said simply, shoving down the still raw memories of the Feral's neck snapping under her hands. Robin paused to lean on the door frame before she went to follow in the wake of whatever direction the other pair had vanished towards. 

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