A/N: Welp, someone had to get this fanfiction section going. It might as well be this dork.

A Doctor, Sort Of

"How did you even manage this? I thought it was leg day."

"Yeah, leg day: the day I use my arms to walk in case my legs get blown off."

Dr. Fox only sighed in response. The bodyguard had shown up at her lab ten minutes prior and presented her with the forearm he'd managed to snap clean off, trying his best to look completely casual about it despite the pained tears at the edges of his sunglasses.

"Hawkodile, you know my PhD is in Biochem, right?" Dr. Fox asked as she worked on taping back together and slathering ointment on Hawkodile's wound.

"Well yeah but, I mean, you fixed Rick's back just fine."

"Still…" as much as she appreciated having a willing test subject for her experimental healing ointments, her conscience picked at the back of her mind. One of these days, she worried, one of her friends would show up with something she'd fail to fix. This was especially true for Hawkodile, who had come to her with a variety of wacky and dumbfounding ailments from his training over the years. "A crack in the back is one thing – reattaching half of an arm can lead to a number of complications. If I don't connect this just right and keep it secure while it heals, I'll have to snap it back off and start over."

"…Oh." Hawkodile frowned and blushed with embarrassment over his misunderstanding. (She assumed that was why he was blushing, anyhow.) "Sorry. I didn't think this would require so much touching…. I mean so much… um… medical… stuff. I could go ask someone else if-"

"No, I'm already almost done. Just hold still – you keep shaking your hand." She finished up filling the cracks in Hawkodile's arm with ointment and started to wrap a tight bandage around the injury. Hawkodile's shaking only seemed to get worse as she gently ran her hands over his forearm to check the bandage, but despite this she was managing alright. "I just don't get why you don't go to a medical doctor in the first place."

Hawkodile didn't respond. Dr. Fox looked up and realized he was avoiding eye contact and sweating heavily.

"…Hawkodile, are you… afraid of the doc-"

"Oh hey look at that! It looks like you're done patching up my arm!" Hawkodile pulled his arm away, leaving one last bandage untied and dangling. "Thanks, Dr. Fox! I'll just be-"

Dr. Fox took the untied bandage ends and gently tugged, causing Hawkodile to yelp loudly and freeze in place. "There's no reason to be afraid of doctors, Hawkodile," she said as she tied the loose ends and finally let her friend go. Thankfully, he didn't try to bolt again. "They go through rigorous training to be licensed to practice medicine. Frankly, they know a lot more about the medical field than I do."

"I said I'm not afraid, alright? I'm not afraid of doctors!" Hawkodile's face grew increasingly red as he protested. "I just…"

Hawkodile turned away from Dr. Fox, clenching his good fist and tightening his shoulders. His next words came out as little more than a stubborn mumble.

"…I just… I trust you, okay?"

"Hmm?" Had she heard that right? If she had, that was a rather unscientific way of looking at things. "What was that?"

"Nothing. Thanks for your help, Dr. Fox." Hawkodile left, thoroughly frustrated with himself.

Dr. Fox watched Hawkodile storm out, perplexed by his sudden change in mood. Hopefully it wasn't a side effect of the ointment; she wrote down the strange occurrence in her notes just in case.