Utter shame.

And annoyance.

The audacity of these people to pull off something like this.

Doctor DC was not expecting confetti, a welcoming banner with the words "Welcome, Warrior! Defeat the Devil!" on it, and loud cheers from the nurses as she entered their break room of the department.

Those were not prepared for her.

And the nurses were also not expecting her to enter. They could not hide the horrified looks that have grazed their faces.

"What. Is. This?" The doctor articulates each word, emphasizing each syllable of it. She crosses her arms and bites her lip in hopes of hiding her fuming anger. Bitterly, she grabs a stray piece of paper confetti from her hair and crushes it in her hand. 

Nurse Rose nudges Nurse Mylene to the front. She follows and shows off a smile, playing it off to show that the whole thing is just a joke that was never meant to offend the doctor.

"Uh, it's really nothing personal, doc!" Nurse Mylene starts, her voice cracking due to the pressure. "It's just for-"

"DEFEAT THE DEVIL!" An all too familiar voice cheers out loud from behind her. The doctor exhales heavily and shuts her eyes tight, counting to 10 in her head to cool off.

Nurses Rose and Mylene frantically signal Adrien about the situation at hand and they do it in a quiet manner while throwing their hands in the air, hoping to convey their message clearly.

Adrien got it already though. His fists were still in mid-air from his cheering. He couldn't put them down. He was frozen in place.

And all the more his blood runs cold when the doctor turns around to look at him in the eye.

More like glare at him in the eye.

"Doctor..." he shakily whispers. "I-I," he stammers. Doctor DC holds up a hand at him.

"Let's talk about your tasks outside," she grumbles and grabs his arm before pulling him out of the break room.

Nurses Rose and Mylene mouth their apologies to Adrien and he could only show them a smile before being pulled out.

It took Adrien an extra few days of training to finally be admitted in the cardiology department. While Nurse Nath was starting his training with Doctor Chloé, Adrien had to work double time with Doctor DC to at least reach half of what Nurse Nath has finished.

If one would say Adrien was stressed, Doctor DC felt more.

She is used to 24-hour (or ever 36-hour) shifts simply because she is a doctor. But to use most of those hours to take care of a clumsy, restless, and idiotic newbie nurse. She has completely forgotten the feeling of being a babysitter and at the age of 30, she is not thrilled to be one again.

Oh, God. When will I ever get a break again? She thought, rubbing her forehead as she feels annoyed with the early morning nuisance.

She crosses her arms as the bashful and now quiet nurse waits for his first scolding of the shift.

Adrien squeezes his eyes shut and anticipates whatever things the doctor has to say to him. You'll get used to this, he repeats in his head, You'll get used to this.

Marinette lets a long sigh and notices the new demeanor of the nurse, tensed shoulders hunched a bit and just waiting for a scolding. Just like a babysitter, she won't go straight to scolding yet.

"First day in your official department and you decide to shake things up," she mutters under her breath. "No wonder why I don't find myself surprised anymore."

The nurse slowly opens his eyes, masking the shock he is feeling now because the doctor did not scold him at all.

"Doctor?"

"What?" she suddenly spits out.

"N-Nothing," he stutters and the doctor holds her head high. She starts to saunter away and gestures at him to follow her.

"Come," she simply utters. "It's time for my rounds." And the nurse immedaitely grabs a nurse cart from the side of the station and fumbles in place before following the doctor.

------------

"Okay, please don't move-"

"No!" The patient shouts, accidentally shoving the nurse cart away from his bedside while he brings his arm back to him.

They are just in the second hospital room assigned to Doctor DC and Adrien is starting to lowkey panic since this patient refuses to have his blood extracted even if Doctor DC said that it must be done. And speaking of Doctor DC, she is still tending to another patient in the shared room. Adrien would not want to further disturb her because of one patient who refuses to have his blood taken.

"Sir," Adrien calmly starts, bringing the needle away so that it won't cause any unnecessary harm, "may I ask why you refuse to let me extract blood from you? I can do it later if you want me to-"

"I don't trust you," the man spits out immediately and tightly crosses his arms in front of him.

Adrien almost freezes in spot but keeps his cool, what he does not notice is that Doctor DC has now moved to stand behind him and that the doctor-nurse pair, Doctor Chloé and Nurse Nath have arrived at the door of the room.

Doctor DC takes a step forward, assessing the situation. "What's going on here?" She asks loudly, throwing a stern look at the nurse.

Adrien gazes at the floor as the man lets out a huff.

"I refuse to have my blood extracted by this nurse," the man states.

"And why would you not want him to do it?"

The man scoffs and points at the tensed nurse standing by his bed. "Look at him. He does not look competent enough to even do it and you expect me to trust him? No, I won't settle for someone like that. I know my rights as a patient!"

"Would you want someone else then to do it aside from this nurse?" The doctor continues, now noticing that her colleague and the other new nurse has been standing by the entrance of the room to do their rounds as well.

"Someone with more confidence, that would be great!" The man demands.

"Nath," Doctor DC suddenly calls the other nurse at the door. Adrien whips his head to see that he has had other audience this whole time.

"Yes, doctor?" The nurse immediately steps in the room. Doctor Chloé follows but still stands near the door, staying quiet.

"Please take care of this patient as Nurse Adrien and I have to step out for a moment."

"Of course, doctor," he utters and takes his cart with him as he approaches the bed of the patient.

Doctor DC supresses an eyeroll and starts to walk to the door of the room. Adrien has no choice but to follow her.

"Go easy on him," Doctor Chloé murmurs just as the other doctor passes by her.

Once they are out of the room, and making sure that the door is closed, Adrien instantly begins, "Doctor, would you allow that patient to talk in that way to you? He was demanding you."

"I handle patients like him almost every day. I know what I'm doing. What I do not know is why that patient does not trust you at all."

"T-That's the thing. Doctor, I do not know," Adrien admits out loud then hangs his head low.

"Then what do you know?" Doctor DC crosses her arms in anger. "Because, clearly, acting confident is not your forté."

Adrien looks up to see her stoic expression and her eyes ablaze in fury. "Doctor-"

"Starting from this moment, Nurse Nath will do most of your work. You, go back to studying the basics." She shakes her head and walks back to her office, shoving her hands in the pockets sewn on her coat.

Adrien could only helplessly watch her as she walks away.

He doesn't want to admit it but it's becoming a familiar sight for him - seeing the doctor's back as she walks away from him.

Yet, it is a sight that he is starting to hate with a passion.

For the next hours, while Nurse Nath has been going around and tending to extra patients, Adrien was just in the nurses' station, going through his old book on the basics of nursing.

He hates it so much. He could not believe that he is opening such a book in the hospital he is now working at. How embarrassing!

"Tourniquet, medial cubital vein, 15 to 30-degree angle..." Adrien murmurs the words he highlighted four years ago as he reads through an old chapter in the book.

He takes a bite from his chocolate bar that he buys before every shift and eats during breaks. This is not supposed to be his break though, but does he have any choice? He's 'banned' from going to the patients' rooms and it's not like as if he can do anything about it.

He can't, by the way. Perhaps one may have forgotten that bit.

Adrien takes his book and brings it out with him to the part of the station where they store the nurse's carts. He nears one and kneels on one knee, propping the open book on his other knee and going through the list of things, especially apparatuses, that need to always be placed in the cart.

He does not want to admit it out loud, but he's bored. And he did not expect to be this bored working in the hospital.

Though, it's his fault for not having the confidence. He thought that he could gain confidence with his kind of work. He was excited to be with people and helping them...but there are really just some who can still be very strict and apathetic with the people that try to help them. And that hurts a lot with his self-esteem and courage.

Adrien suddenly hears someone enter the station and he sees that it's Nath, who looks tired but still goes to their meeting table located at the middle and opens a few charts for him to write on.

"Nath," Adrien calls him and the other nurse turns his head toward the direction where he heard his name. Once Nath sees Adrien walking towards him, he forces out a very small smile.

"Hey," Nath greets him in a soft and tired voice. He watches Adrien take a seat beside him then goes back to writing down the patient's information on their charts.

"So..." Adrien starts and peeks at what Nath is working on at the moment. "how are you doing with everything?-"

"Look," Nath interrupts him, almost losing his patience, "I don't know if you can see but I'm a bit busy now."

"Oh," Adrien mutters and taps a finger on the table. "I just..." He trails off as he continues to watch Nath write down in almost perfect detail for each patient. "Wow," he sighs out loud. "Nath, you're so good. I wish I could be like you."

"Then set your priorities straight," Nath merely mutters, his eyes still on the charts.

"W-What do you mean?"

Nath lets out a long sigh and drops his pen on the paper to face Adrien. Nath keeps his deadpanned expression. "I'm here to study," he points out, "You're here to be liked."

Adrien's face falls in an instant, his smile turning into a frown in less than a second. He could not even find it in him to reply because Nath made a reasonable point.

"Anyway." Nath stands and collects his charts, balancing them on one arm. "I need to work on these fast. I'll go ahead...uh, see you around." He walks away, and goes left leading to one of the many corridors in the hospital that will bring him to, hopefully, a more quiet place where he can work in peace.

Adrien stays in his seat though, not finding the strength to stand and go back to work. He internally admits it, he's hurt but he only has himself to blame. That statement held a lot of truth that he did not want to face.

As Adrien continued to sulk and grabbed his book to try to study again, he did not notice a certain doctor standing behind a wall who overheard the whole conversation of the two new nurses.

------------

"Catch," Doctor Chloé says as she throws a brown paper bag at her colleague in the office.

Marinette grabs it with ease and smiles at her. "Thanks for buying for me."

"I don't know if I'm your minion or colleague. You confuse me at times, Mari."

Marinette simply shrugs her shoulders and takes a mini chocolate croissant out of the bag. "At least it spices up your work life, right?"

Chloé scoffs and takes a seat on the office chair, across from Marinette and she drags herself near her.

Marinette throws a skeptical look at Chloé after taking a small bite from her croissant. "Why are you suddenly near me?"

"You did not take my advice about going easy on the newbie nurse, didn't you?" Chloé asks quietly. Marinette groans and pushes Chloé's chair away.

"Why are you bringing this up?"

"Mainly because my nurse is now the one doing a lot while you are making yours go back to 'basics'?" Chloé scoffs, "I bet you do not even know how Nurse Adrien feels now."

Marinette stops mid-bite, remembering that conversation she accidentally overheard between the two nurses. She was supposed to check up on Adrien but was surprised to see him talking with Nath. Yet she was more in shock when Nath suddenly said something that clearly affected Adrien.

I'm here to study. You're here to be liked.

"Chloé," Marinette starts off slowly, placing her unfinished croissant on her desk. She does not feel like eating anymore. "This is a hypothetical question...what if I know someone who might be hurting? And maybe...I might be the only one who could cheer that person up?"

"Who is this?"

"I said that it's a hypothetical question-"

"Cut the crap, Mari. I know you're talking about Nurse Adrien. What did you really do this time?"

"I didn't do anything!" Marinette defends herself. "I just know that I'm the only person that could talk to him...but you know that I'm not good at that."

"I would know that. We were rivals in medicine school."

"See!"

"But!" Chloé continues, cutting off Marinette before she can even go on with her words, "the only way we did become close was when we became partners for one paper. I was the one who reached out, not you."

"Yeah, we were like that before...really stubborn."

"True, and that's basically who we are. But maybe, you need to be more patient with him?" Chloé suggests. "I mean, basing it from the both of you, you're the one who needs to reach out."

"Reaching out is so hard to do," Marinette whines and shakes her head. Chloé lets out a soft laugh and playfully punches her colleague on the shoulder.

"But it wouldn't hurt to be the bigger person sometimes. Well, if you refuse to do that then I'll make him practice on me. He looks like he's really gentle."

Marinette slams her hands on the desk then lets out a huff, "Oh, shut up, Chloé."

The blonde doctor lets out another laugh, this time louder than the one before. "I like it when I tease you. It helps with my self-esteem at times."

After that short but needed conversation, Marinette gave her unfinished croissant to Chloé, which she was not happy with and said that she should have not bought it in the first place, and left the office to find the newbie.

Marinette walks through the corridor, greeting fellow nurses, doctors and patients along the way. She hides the fact that she is finding someone specifically. She reaches the nurses' station but find that it's empty. Everyone must be working but she knows one should not be, so where is he?

He wouldn't be eating, would he? Doctor DC has noticed that he would only eat chocolate bars during his shift which is very unhealthy. She makes a mental note to secretly treat him to a real meal someday...maybe after scolding him for choosing such an unhealthy diet.

She continues to walk in another corridor, her hands in her pockets, and almost decides to just call it quits for the night until she hears a familiar voice coming from a room with its door left ajar.

Through the small space, she sees how the newbie nurse was talking to a dummy arm - used for training. A tourniquet is wrapped around the upper arm and the nurse is holding an empty syringe.

"Sir, may I ask if you could make a fist? This will be fast and very gentle..."

So, this is what he has been up to.

He's been practicing on the dummy arm for the past hours.

Doctor DC knocks on the door then pushes it open. Adrien stops and widens his eyes as the doctor suddenly appears in the room. She takes off her coat and saunters in to take a seat at the table. After placing her white coat on the table she rests her left arm on the table and raises an eyebrow at the nurse. "You won't learn that much if you keep on practicing on a dummy arm. Use mine for practice. Extract blood from me."

"N-No, I would not want that for you, doc," Adrien stammers and shakes his head. "I'd rather not do it on you, doctor."

"Tell me all the steps while you are doing them," Doctor DC continues despite Adrien's words of protest.

"Doctor DC, why would you even want me to do this?" He asks, exasperated.

"Because I trust you," she answers wholeheartedly and it made Adrien's heart skip a beat. "So, I want you to prove that you know what you are doing."

Adrien could only blink and unfasten the tourniquet around the dummy arm in silence. "Okay..." he whispers then faces the doctor again after exhaling a deep breath. "Excuse me," he starts, treating the doctor as his patient, "I will be extracting blood from you and I'll be gentle doing so. This will be fast." He ties the tourniquet around her arm and grabs a cotton soaked with alcohol to rub it on the spot where he will get blood from her.

"Okay, nurse," Doctor DC plays along, "tell me what I must do."

"Please form a fist and then I will tell you when I'll ask you to slowly relax from that form."

Doctor DC quietly complies and watches the nurse grab another empty syringe.

"I will be extracting blood from the medial cubital vein," Adrien mutters, bringing the syringe near the doctor's arm.

"Very good," she praises him, "yet, you can still extract from other veins, right?"

"Yes, doctor," Adrien replies. "Though the medial cubital vein is the most common one to extract blood from. I shall insert the needle at a 15 to 30-degree angle into the vessel," he continues and presses the needle into the arm of the doctor, placing it through the correct vein. "Please open your hand slowly to relax it." The doctor follows and Adrien extracts blood through the syringe as she relaxes her hand, filling up the syringe to a fixed amount. Once finished, he says, "I'll now remove the needle from your arm and will press down on the vessel with a clean gauze." He presses a gauze shaped into a square on the spot where he took blood from the doctor and fastens it with medical tape around it as he transfers the blood from the syringe to another vial that the test laboratories would use for studying the blood. 

Right after Adrien unfastens the tourniquet around the arm of the doctor, she truthfully says, "You actually are really gentle, newbie." She is actually surprised. He is good at this.

Adrien could feel his cheeks starting to blush but he tries to stop it from spreading by coughing it out. "It's really not that much, doctor...just like you said, I went back to studying the basics."

She grabs her coat and slips one arm through the armhole and stops halfway. She hesitates at first, but decides to just push through with what she wants to say. "So what if he's here to study while you're here to impress me? That's still a goal."

Adrien lets out a soft gasp, finding himself shocked with what the doctor suddenly uttered. Did she hear his conversation with Nath hours ago?

"And a goal is still a goal no matter how weird it is," she continues, "as long as that goal brings good to the people around you and yourself."

"...do you have a goal, doctor?" the nurse quietly asks the doctor while fixing the table, clearing the stuff he used and placing it back in the toolbox.

Doctor DC chuckles and leans close to the nurse. "My goal at the moment is to make this idiot the best nurse out there. And I'm telling you this, I never fail." She draws back and fully wears her white coat, also taking a few seconds to fix the collar. "Starting tomorrow, you'll go back to your normal duties," she tells him, making her way to the door. "As always, I expect the best from you. After all, you are Team DC, right?" She smirks at him and leaves the nurse in the room, walking back to her office.

------------

"Okay, all done."

"Really?!" The patient looks at the nurse's finished work and looks at him with awe in her face. "I did not even feel it! You're amazing, Nurse Adrien!"

Adrien lets out a shy laugh as he carefully transfers the blood into a clean vial. "I just needed courage and confidence. Even though I'm still working on it a bit more, I promise that I'll always give my best." He tells her, smiling at the patient.
 
"I hope you won't mind me saying this but I overheard a certain mishap the other day with something you did," the patient confesses, "I was actually scared when Doctor DC told me that you were the one she assigned to extract blood from me. So, I would like to apologize for doubting your skills. You got your magic again."

"Of course he got his magic again," Doctor DC chimes in, standing beside the nurse by the bedside of the patient. She faces him and with a hint of a smile playing about her lips she says, "He should have never doubted himself in the first place."

And Adrien sworn that he could have melted that instant.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The last update on this story was in June (2020), so I am so sorry for this really overdue update.

I hope you still enjoyed it!

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