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crushribbons · 2 months ago

Text

thanks, peg J

summary: Dr. Michael Robinavitch needs help building a shelf.

cw: 2.7k words, fluff, my actual husband is an actual doctor i should probably know more/anything about how hospitals work, vague age gap (reader/oc is in her 30's), vague to graphic depictions of injury/illness, fem!OC/reader.

a/n: paging dr. daddy :) <3

(gif cred)

She pulled her stethoscope off her neck. “Oof. Sounds like a ball of a Friday night. Is it from Ikea?”

“The Ivar,” Robby specified with a nod and shrug. He looked back down at the patient list from their shift, which couldn’t have been ending at a more merciful time. The last man she had examined had spat on her. And what else should she expect?; she’d diagnosed his pain as a small kidney stone passing through his urethra and written a prescription that would all but eliminate the discomfort. If that wasn’t deserving of a loogie to the face, she didn’t know what else would be. Robby let out a sigh that sounded exactly like the exhaustion tugging her eyelids down.

Nurse Dana swept by them, her fleece jacket already three-quarters of the way on. “Don’t take too long on those autographs, kids, or night shift will just let you keep right on rolling.”

A raspy little laugh slipped past Dr. Robby’s lips and the corners of his eyes crinkled the way they always did on the rare occasions someone could tug a genuine smile out of him. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure if the lack of breakfast and the bag of Ritz crackers she’d scarfed down for lunch were the only things making her light-headed.

“Yes, ma’am,” he called after Dana. The charge nurse raised her hand without turning around and wiggled her fingers at them while darting out the double doors that led to the waiting room and exit before anyone could stop her. Robby turned back to the doctor next to him and handed her the clipboard he’d just finished signing about two hundred times.

Her hand grazed his, and the level of attention she paid to how warm and rough his fingers felt made her grit her jaw in frustration. It was her first year as an attending, how could she be letting something as ridiculous as a workplace crush get to her? She realized it had been a while since she’d spoken, and that Robby was pulling his own coat and backpack from underneath his desk.

“Need any help chasing down the million nuts and bolts that are guaranteed to burst out of the little bag when you open it?” she offered jokingly. Robby’s eyes flicked to her too fast. She felt her hairline heat up, worried she’d overstepped.

None of the attendings did anything outside of work together; the work hours were long enough to get their fill of each other without feeling the need to add alcohol or food to the mix. Some of the students and residents would occasionally hit bars after their shifts, and though she had no desire to join them, it made her miss the relative lack of responsibility of med school. Dr. Robinavitch, in particular, never broached the topic of his personal life at work, so she tried to do the same. There were too many patients to see and too much to accomplish to bother checking if the attractive ER chief with the puppy-dog eyes had plans for the weekend. No matter how much she wanted to.

He let out another chuckle, though this one was without humor. "Don't tell me you got nothing better to do than that," he said. "On a Friday night."

"I'm, uh, still finding my way around Pittsburgh." It was true. Her residency in California had spoiled her, and she found the stark greyness of Pennsylvania off-putting. She rarely ventured from her apartment for anything other than work and necessary grocery shopping.

He regarded her for a few seconds. His gaze felt heavier than it should have, as if she had some symptom that didn't line up with her lab results. She remembered what Dr. Santos had muttered to her on her first day at the Pitt when she'd caught the new doctor staring a little too long at Robby typing his notes.

"I know. He's crazy hot, right?" Trinity had pinched her elbow and embarrassment had made her stutter nonsensically. Then, to top off the humiliation, Trinity had started swaying her shoulders side to side and singing under her breath, "I will be your father figure, put your tiny hand in mine..." The younger woman was known for being abrasive, but, shit, she was a perceptive little fucker, too.

"I'd be a fool to turn down help wrangling Ivar. Ikea furniture is my Achilles heel," Robby was saying when she snapped back to the present. He seemed hesitant. He couldn't tell whether she'd been joking or not, and, frankly, she couldn't either. "But I couldn't ask you to–"

"You'd be doing me a favor," she cut in quickly. He would, in more ways than one. "If I sit on my couch with my cat for one more weekend, I think they're gonna start letting me collect Social Security."

A genuine laugh! Her stomach flipped upside down at the sight and the sound. Both were warm and inviting and made her want to kiss each of the individual lines on his weathered face. "Then by all means, please."

Oh, wait. Was this happening? Was it, actually? Nerves gnawed at her while she finished handing off the patient list to the night shift. What was it? A date? A friend helping another friend put a shelf together? A coworker helping another, older and more senior coworker who intimidated the hell out of her put a shelf together?

As Robby departed through the same double doors Dana had dashed through, he turned and pointed significantly at his phone, and she pulled hers from her pocket to see that he had texted her his address. Nothing else, just the address, dashed out in Robby’s usual efficient and minimalistic tone. He hadn’t even included the city and zip, but he didn’t need to. Living further than 15 minutes away from the hospital seemed like something a less dedicated physician might consider, but she knew that Robby didn’t really live at the address he’d sent her, anyway. He lived in all the exam rooms and hallways surrounding her, their sanitized scent pricking at her nose one last time before she stepped into the waiting room and the few remaining rays of sunlight waiting to greet her outside.

The door opened on her second knock, or, more accurately, before she could even finish it. Goddammit. She should have taken more time to consider what an off-duty Dr. Robby might look like.

“Hey,” he said, a genial smile lighting up his tired face.

“H–mm, hi,” she replied. She tried to hide a swallow.

Robby stood aside and let her pass through the front door of the aged but charming brownstone. The long hallway was lined with dark wooden panels that creaked when she walked over them. She tried not to feel him following behind her, the scent of some musky shampoo or body wash drifting off him. She also showered directly after a shift. Too much hospital.

A line of hooks held various jackets and sling bags, and a haphazard pile of worn sneakers sat beneath them. “I gotta get a rack for those, or something,” Robby muttered from behind her, noticing her sightline.

“You should see mine. The floor of my closet is a nightmare.”

She walked into the living room and couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face. It was sparsely but cozily finished, an overstuffed couch and matching loveseat positioned atop a plush rug that hugged her feet taking up most of the space. And, of course, a veritable disaster of boards, planks, plastic bags, and ripped cardboard in the middle of all of it.

“Yikes.”

“Thank you, again, for helping me with this,” he said, and came to stand beside her. “Why is it that I can perform a trach in my sleep, but the assembly of Swedish furniture is my downfall?” He scratched the back of his neck, the white t-shirt he was wearing showing off far too much of what was usually hidden beneath a few layers of thermals, scrubs, and hoodies. Her hairline started to feel hot again.

She cleared her throat and made her way over to the pile of shelf. “For what med school costs, they really should be teaching us the essentials like this stuff, too!” He didn’t respond, making her look up at him. He was watching her again, with that sort-of-absent-but-always-thoughtful x-ray vision. She wished he’d stop.

“You really got none of the cynicism and all of the optimism out of your residency, didn’t you?”

She flushed and looked back down at the ground, unsure if he was making fun of her. “It being basically on the ocean didn’t hurt. Lots to be optimistic about in northern Cali, it’s so beautiful.”

Robby shook his Midwest-born-and-bred head. “Damn hippy.” His voice was gruff, but his dark eyes were sparkling and she felt some of the tension in her shoulders dissipate in a giggle. He crossed the room and through an arch that led to the kitchen. “I ordered some Chinese for dinner, hope that’s alright,” he called back to her.

The tension returned tenfold and her heart began doing somersaults in her chest. Dinner? This included dinner now? Sure, it was time for dinner, but she hadn’t wanted to be so presumptuous as to suggest adding food to this friendly favor she was performing. Robby returned laden with white paper takeout boxes and a handful of napkins and chopsticks. “Like lo mein?” he asked. She nodded.

“Yes, but you really didn’t have to get anything for me! That’s so nice,” she gushed, trying to reign in the attraction to this man and behave as if he was just any other rugged, kind, intelligent guy she might come in contact with. She was so screwed.

He pressed the box of lo mein into her hand with a pair of chopsticks. “It’s the least I can do to thank you for helping with this,” he shrugged. “Hopefully, you still have an appetite after that bike accident from this morning.” The memory of the young man’s torso torn open and spilling out onto the operating table sent a nauseous wave from her head to her stomach, but she quickly compartmentalized it, as she’d learned to do long ago.

“Why do people even buy motorcycles,” she muttered rhetorically.

“Uh, because they love visiting you so very much,” he returned with a wink that made her miss her mouth with the chopsticks.

Two hours later, the shelf was only two-feet tall and missing three of the nine screws it had required so far.

“Peg L, peg L, peg L,” Robby said through gritted teeth, “where the fuck is peg L?”

She held the instructions centimeters away from her face, hoping the proximity would illuminate its solutions somehow. “Peg L goes into plank K. We just placed plank H.” He stopped running his hands along the carpet to search for the missing peg L and looked up at her with a speck of encroaching insanity peeking through.

“I’m out of order?”

��Miiiike,” she laugh-groaned. “Did you already use peg G? We need J right now!” When he didn’t answer, she glanced up from the “simple” instruction packet. A sleepy kind of flush appeared on his face, and he pulled the reading glasses off to massage the bridge of his nose and–hide it? Then, he sighed.

“God, no one’s called me just…Mike in forever.” It was a complete sentence, a complete statement, a complete story, and he was done talking about it, but it made a million questions bubble up in the back of her throat. She ignored them.

“You’re at work too much,” she almost whispered. Why she was no longer scared of stepping over some professional, coworker boundary, she wasn’t sure. Maybe it was the way he had accepted her help with such a domestic task, or the fact that they were seeing each other in something other than scrubs for the first time (the loose, perfectly worn-in jeans he was wearing would surely be appearing in her dreams that night), or maybe it was because their legs had been pressed together for the last half hour as they tried to decipher the mysteries of Ivar. Whatever it was, Robby–Mike, felt it, too. He stared into her eyes before averting them to the floor and mumbling,

“Yeah. I know.” He put the glasses back on. “So, peg J.”

“C’mere, ya little Swedish asshole,” she agreed, and they resumed pawing around the rug to try and find the screws that, as predicted, had spilled from the package as soon as Robby had ripped it. She tried to avoid brushing against his hand as well as she could, until her fingers bumped into a tiny piece of metal, and she snatched the screw from the ground. Carefully consulting the instructions, she looked from the page, to the screw, to the page, before shouting, “Oh my God, I found it!”

His hands were cradling either side of her face in a second, and then he was kissing her. The part of her brain that handled compartmentalization clocked in at lightning speed and swept all her confusion into the bin so she could focus on nothing except his beard scratching her, his warm hands cupping her jaw. Well, well before she had gotten her fill of him, he pulled back and blurted, “Awesome! Good job, let’s put it in.” He plucked the screw out of her hand like the conversation had just been on pause, scooting over on his knees to the feeble half-shelf.

She sat in complete shock until Robby, without turning to face her, said, “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

“Mike.”

“You just looked–and I, it’s been…I’m really sorry.”

“Mike.”

He was attempting to twist the screw into place with his fingers so he didn’t have to come get the screwdriver from beside her. “I overstepped. It won’t happen again. If you want to take it to HR…”

That was enough to jumpstart her brain again, and she burst into laughter, forcing him to finally spin around.

“HR? Really?” She made a phone out of her pinky, fist, and thumb and held it to her ear. “Hello, Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center Department of Human Resources? Yes, I’d like to file a report against one of your doctors.” She was having a hard time stifling her laughter. “Dr. Michael Robinavitch. Yes, the hottie from the ER, that’s correct. He really laid one on me—"

It was Robby's turn to cut her off, and he did so by rolling his eyes and snatching the instructions out of her other hand. "Hey!" She dove after them but decided instead to drag him in by the collar of his shirt for another kiss. They both held each other tightly, Robby's hands wandering, respectfully, under the hem of her shirt. When she tugged a handful of his hair, he grunted in annoyance.

"Watch it. Don't have much of that left."

"You've got a lot for an old man." She regretted it as soon as she said it, even though he had already alluded to it. His head dropped and apologies bubbled up and out of her lips, assurances that that's not how she'd meant it, that he was the most attractive man she'd met at the Pitt, but he waved them off.

His glasses were sliding down his nose again. He cleared his throat and pushed them back up. "Are you okay with it, then? I mean, I know I'm not..." Her heart ached when he trailed off, nervously scratching the back of his neck again.

"Very ok," she whispered. She reached for his hand and took it. He was fiddling with a screw that she plucked out and tossed to the side. "I'm 31, you know, Senior Elder Doctor Robinavitch."

Robby smiled, clearly in spite of himself. He tucked a piece of hair that had fallen into her eyes behind her ear. For a minute, they just sat and looked at each other, matching each other's lazy smiles. "That's it. Didn't want to have to do this, but you're fired."

"Okay now I want to take this to HR."

masterlist

#being RESPECTFUL with this one cuz the tag is still growing :)#i'm not off hiatus just dropping and running lol!!!#this show is so effing stressful i have no other recourse but to stare at Him #the pitt x reader #dr. robby x reader #michael robinavitch x reader #doctor robby x reader #laneywrites #noah wyle if you see this i am free thursday night please reply if you are also free thursday night #trying a new (lazier) aesthetic w this one and it feels good feels organic xx

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keferon · 2 months ago

Note

Two Peas in a Pod: part 2/?

*slips another piece into your mailbox*

_____________________

Jazz was still feeling a little woozy from his donation in the dark hours of the morning. Blaster had breakfast changed from the usual to something that felt more like a treat, probably a reward for his good behaviour, and to help his body recover. Fish heavy in proteins, fat, all that healthy stuff. Something that normally he would have tried to savour, but he wolfed it down from excitement. Too many questions ran through his head, and most he couldn't bring himself to voice.

The mer, the mer would pull through. Blaster told him about how he had saved their life with his blood. Praised him high and low. Because Blaster knew how Jazz felt about seeing blood, about how hard blood tests were for him, and that was only a tiny vial. Not three big bags of it. Jazz hadn't seen how much they had taken – because he had kept his eye closed until they left in a hurry –, and hearing about it made him dizzy for other reasons, but he honestly felt real proud of himself.

It was a new feeling, different from other moments of pride – like when he figured out the lock codes. Yeah, this gave him butterflies and the drive to help more.

Blaster laughed when Jazz offered that the vets could take more if the other mer needed it. His handler didn't think it would be, but he would pass it on to the vet team.

Jazz's morning checks were a little off, expected with having a little less fluids and feeling off-balance, but it was kept short and quick. Blaster told him that if he learned anything more, he'd tell him next time he came by and then hurried back down to the staff area. Blaster was needed elsewhere, understandably as there weren't many mer experts here, though he did leave Jazz his waterproof stereo if he wanted to play some of his favourites.

But, the orca mer was far too busy causing a whirlpool from the laps he was swimming. He was too excited to sit still, and embarrassment be damned he started practising old vocals. He didn't remember much of his mother tongue, and he was pretty sure that his pronunciation was off, that or had one hell of an accent. Echo-speech was even more rusty. And once he had gone over and over what he could recall, Jazz began to really worry. A few sentences and handful or so of words was all he had? Gods, I hope I can at least make a decent first impression. Blaster said they were just like me, so hopefully, that will give me some starting points.

More than he cared to count, Jazz would swim into the shallow waters of the medical bay and hope to see something through that window. But no one ever came close enough for him to hear any news of the mer. He couldn't even see anything on his radar, wherever they had done treatment, it wasn't in the hospital ward. It almost felt like he was being purposely kept in the dark.

And just when Jazz was starting to worry that things had taken a bad turn, a group of staff turned up around four pm. He wasn't able to ask any questions, or rather they refused to answer. Shooing him away as they got to work. Starting with closing the gate to the bay to 'keep him out'. Jazz could easily climb those walls, but that wasn't the point. Even if the gate window was closed, he could pick up that they were setting up the water hammock. But it wasn't until he heard the cautionary beeping of the hoist lift approaching that it dawned on him – the mer was coming. Now.

"Jazz," Blaster called, "… Jazz," he blew the training whistle and finally got his mer's attention. "Stop pacing and get over here."

"But–" Jazz looked back longingly up the wall.

"Jazz," his tone dropped to a firm one, and Jazz begrudgingly swam over to the pier. The human crouched and made sure that they held eye contact before he spoke. "I need you to promise me that you will stay in your enclosure."

He sunk a little, trying to play into his cuteness, but being far too anxious to really pull it off. "What do you mean?"

"Jazz," now warning him. Blaster knew full well that he was more than capable of getting into or out of places he shouldn't, bloody Houdini mermaid, "this is serious. Things are going well, we want to keep it that way. Which means keeping things calm and feeling safe. You're excited, I get it, we all are. But in about an hour, they'll be waking up and – from past experience seen with wild Mers – they will likely freak out. And the last thing we need is you hauling your tail over that wall and making things worse. Understand?"

The beeping was louder how and the hiss of hydraulics caused Jazz to look up. The arm of the lift was visible over the wall. They're here!

"Jazz," Blaster hopelessly called for his attention once more.

Within moments, a massive bundle was carefully raised, the staff calling out and coordinating. Jazz's gaze was fixed on the black and white fluke poking out, it was the only part of them he could see, and his heart began to race. Once they became hidden by the wall again, Jazz moved back to pacing by the gate without even thinking. Listening to people hopping into the water to unstrap the mer and call back n' forth. "Careful, careful! – Watch the head! – Someone give me a hand over here! – We're clear on this side! – Keep the head up!"

Really starting to sound like a broken record, Blaster chirped the whistle and called out to him again. The expression he wore must have been pretty pitiful because the look on Blaster's face dropped. "If I open the view port… will you promise me that you will wait, that you will stay in your enclosure?"

"I promise," he answered hastily, placing his hands on the gate, over the panel that would slide open.

"And that you will wait until everything is in the clear, till the staff come to oversee the integration. There will be no rushing things and no asking staff when we will open the gate."

"I promise," he repeated, trying not to beg.

Satisfied, Blaster pulled out his radio, "Blaster to Control; when the team is out of the Mer enclosure's medical bay, open the view port. Jazz's stress is mounting without a visual."

"Can do," came a quick reply.

Though, opening the panel was not. Several minutes went by, the hoist had cleared out, and much of the staff had returned to their other duties. Only two remained double-checking the mer's breathing and pulse. The moment that the last of them left, Jazz heard the lock disengage, and he retracted his hands as the panel shifted and began to slide open. The window was too small to get more than his hand – maybe up to his elbow if he wanted to push it – through, and sat just at water level– any movement sending water hopping to either side. But it gave him a clear view of the surface area inside.

Oh.

Oh. Jazz stopped breathing. While the mer's body was mostly supported by the fabric of the hammock, cradling them on their side, effectively hiding most of them from Jazz's angle. Propped up on a soft floating platform was the mer's head, face towards the gate. Sharp features and elegantly shaped finials, with flattering lines of their markings complimenting the peaceful expression as they slept. The butterflies from earlier came back stronger than ever, his heart thundering as words fumbled from Jazz's lips, "he's beautiful…"

_____________________

-GLC

Orca Prowl really is just-- too fucking pretty, omg, I'm living through Jazz in this moment like when I first saw your designs of him.

I'm more than happy to continue writing for you, you bring me so much joy. I screamed when I saw how much you liked it. If you have any requests you would like me to add to the story, leave it in the tags or comments ♡ I now plan to continue until the tsunami and a bit afterwards, maybe more, we'll see~

Upd: There is a next part!

Oh. MY GOD. OKAY ALRIGHT OKAY ALRIGHT OKA

I'M ABOUT TO START PACING IN CIRCLES JUST LIKE JAZZ OVER HERE KDLCNFJFLFB PL E A S E THIS IS SO GOOD. The tension?? You can fucking TASTE it IT'S SO GREAT GLC I LOVE YOU

The way it all starts at night and then you (as a reader) have all this additional time to boil in your anticipation?? So fucking great. Like you can really feel how little power Jazz has over the wholse situation. The plot is moving but he doesn't have any saying in it. Well. Yet heheh

Anyway haha. Im normal and I made some art>:D

#apocalyptic ponyo #jazzprowl #jazz #prowl #blaster #ponyo jp writing #GLC #merformers #maccadam #transformers #damn imagine living your whole life with stupid dolphins and pretty much equally stupid captive merfolks #and then meeting a guy with an Engineering degree #must be wild~~~~#Wait I just realized. Those workers never had any experience with sapient merfolks besides Jazz #they all are like “he will freak out” but their understanding is based mostly on animals and captive mers #and those tend to become VERY stressed if they suddenly wake up in some new strange environment and discover they have a company #while with Prowl it would be the exact opposite I imagine??? omg. After all the time he was kept in those tiny ass temporary pools???#having no company besides humans who are constantly poking him and staring at him and making him take their weird medication an-#-d sometimes drugs if he acts aggressively?#like after all this shit???#I have a feeling he would see/hear other orca nearby and his first initial reaction would be OH THANK FUCK there's a company #orcas are very VERY social after all~#I got carried away haha. I LOVE THE FIC SO MUCH #MUAH #this is freaking amazing #.....damn okAY one more thought I just had #there's only a small window for them to look at each other #Prowl wouldn't properly see Jazz ehehehjfkfnfmfj. He would sorta kinda see him right. But then he would ACTUALLY look at him. like.#for the first time see his entire body? and Jazz looks SO wrong #Okay I'm done spamming haha

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