nate kennedy. trauma surgery attending. thirty four. cause I know my weakness, know my voice and i'll believe in grace and choice and i know perhaps my heart is fast but i'll be born without a mask. like the city that nurtured my greed and my pride, i stretched my arms into the sky, i cry babel, babel, look at me now
“they’re delicious. have you ever had a cuban coffee? those alone will keep you up through the apocalypse.” she sighed, exiting out of the last screen she had open, now officially without anything to do. alex downed coffee like a cow drinks water. usually, when she wasn’t with a patient, she had an iced coffee in her hand. now, she was trying to bore herself into calming down. “ugh, my kingdom for a damn nap. i’d love to be asleep right now.”
“i definitely have not. and i’m not sure i have the composition required for that. sounds like it would probably fuck me up.” he tilted the nearly empty cup in his hands, glad that he hadn’t tried anything quite that exotic. he was entirely unadventurous when it came to that kind of stuff. “just fifteen minutes. that’s all i want. or eight hours, if i could get it, but i’d settle for fifteen minutes.”
her early morning procedure had been pushed back, and she hadn’t been paged to the ER all day, which was a bit of a surprise. slow days around here didn’t come often. “ well when you go and jinx it like that it doesn’t bode well, ” she says with the raise of her brow, “ why’d you have to go and do that ? ”
“i know, i know. i’m sorry. i should learn to keep my mouth shut.” nate frowned, rubbing the back of his neck. he ducked his head sheepishly. “i just don’t like when it gets quiet, right? it freaks me out.”
𝙃𝙀 𝙁𝙊𝙐𝙉𝘿 𝙃𝙄𝙈𝙎𝙀𝙇𝙁 𝙉𝙊𝘿𝘿𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝘼𝙇𝙊𝙉𝙂. having shared the sentiment. a quiet er always felt more ominous than anything else. plus, he HATED sitting around the nurse’s station doing paperwork. “ i know what you mean, man. it’s like the calm before the storm and we’re all just waiting around for something to come sucker punch us in the face. ”
nate spun the nearly empty coffee cup in his hand, knowing he should be using the slow period to get ahead on some paperwork, but still unwilling to do it. he really hated the endlessness of the forms and files. he’d take a slammed day in the e.r. over the paperwork any day. “i mean, hopefully not, but that’s kind of the vibe, right?”
“usually, i’d be inclined to disagree but there’s a new cuban coffee stand in the caf and they make cappuccinos — i had four.” alex didn’t look up from the screen as she tapped away at the keyboard at an almost alarming speed. usually on a slow day when she was working the er, she would be knocked out on a couch in the break room or in an on-call room. not today, apparently. instead, she was wide awake and working on inputting information. “what, you’re thinking it’s some calm before the storm shit?”
“four cappuccinos?” though if there were any acceptable vice for medical personnel to have, caffeine was the one. nate honestly didn’t care much for the stuff, but he could down a couple of cups of black coffee in a pinch. he couldn’t really imagine willingly drinking four. but judging by alex’s intense typing speed, he could clearly see the effects. he just raised his eyebrows, trying not to smile. “nah, hopefully not. i personally have not had four cappuccinos, so i could really go for a nap about now.”
— victoria had a bad habit of biting at her nails. fingers next to mouth, she nibbled gently as she reviewed all the charts in front of her. many people that were discharged the day before, but it seemed that no one knew how to finish a chart properly. the frustration was bubbling in her chest as the attending spoke, ❝ i believe one would say you just jinxed us, doctor. ❞ her lips spread in a slight smile, making the last change on the current chart and closing it. ❝ do we have some wood you could go knock on? i think someone has some hidden in here. ❞ a joke, something to get the doctor to think of anything else, as she scoot back in the chair like she was searching under the desk.
“damn. probably yeah.” he’d known before he said it that making his thoughts known out loud was not necessarily going to be appreciated, but sometimes he couldn’t help himself. he hated a room that had gone too quiet. nate scrunched his nose at victoria’s teasing, and he leaned across the desk to tap his knuckles against the back of her clipboard. probably not actually wood, but at least it wasn’t plastic. “it’s the thought that counts, right?”
whispers of a quiet emergency room quickly erupted across the surgical ward , leaving the interns and residents visibly restless. deciding to give the vacancy a peak , noelle left her residents with unfinished paperwork and sought out the trauma unit. ‘ did you scare off all the patients , nate? ’ she mirrors his focus and gives a nod towards the emergency room enterance. ‘ the whole floor is talking about the silence. ’ she takes a seat beside him. ‘ now that i’m here … it feels …. eerie. ’
“i didn’t purposefully scare off anyone.” his fingers traced the lid of his cup. if he was perfectly honest with himself, he could admit that there was a possibility he had unintentionally turned someone off the emergency room. he could be imposing at times, especially when his strong and solid military demeanor came in. but he hoped that in most emergency situations, that simply came across as competence. he ducks his head at noelle with a shrug. “yeah, a little. things slow in neuro today too?”
“slow days in the e.r. make me nervous.” nate sat back in his chair, staring at the nearly empty waiting room with a frown. no major entrances in over an hour, and nothing of much significance all day long. he couldn’t deny that he enjoyed a faster-paced day, especially because sitting around waiting tended to mean that something drastic was bound to happen eventually. he sipped at his coffee, gone cold hours ago. “just doesn’t bode well, you know?”
“Man, I just heard an intern called a nurse a princess.” He sucked his tongue against his teeth then laughed as he straddled the back of a rolling chair and settled his arms over the top. Pausing, he took a bite of the pudding cup he held aloft. “Ten to one says they chop him up and add him to the mystery meat for lunch tomorrow.”
“oh, that’s cute.” nate looked up from where he’d been stabbing at the world’s most unimpressive salad and grinned, happy to have company for what was likely to be an incredibly short lunch break. “i love intern flavored meat. really brings out that taste of overwhelming anxiety and ignorance.”
paging doctor nate kennedy ( chris evans ), the trauma surgery attending ! they are thirty four years old and are originally from boston, massachusetts. they are known to be very responsible, but they can also be reserved.
hey hey i’m lexi, let me introduce you to this golden retriever puppy of a dork nathaniel declan kennedy. tw: death and war
nate’s an only child, raised by a single mother in boston, mass. his mom is the sweetest, a waitress who worked her ass off to care for her little boy who was the light of her life. she taught him to be a hard worker and to be loyal, two things which nate basically formed his entire personality around.
his mom had always really wanted to go to nursing school before she got pregnant with nate, a one night stand gone entirely wrong, and she never had enough money or time afterwards to devote herself to a career change. that was where nate picked up the idea of becoming a doctor at a young age, and he was never really able to let go of it.
he did well enough in school, though his grades were nothing exceptional. nate was captain of his high school football team. he considered trying to go pro for a few years, though he was never really good enough for that kind of thing. really he just preferred the action, the high intensity environment, the team of like minded people all working towards one goal.
that was what lead him into the navy. it slightly diverged from what had always been his original life plan, but serving helped him get through school and still get a leg up in the medical field.
he was deployed for a few years and saw a lot of action. while he can never regret signing up, nate definitely witnessed more than he was ready for, and he doesn’t always carry that weight particularly well. he’s still very haunted by the men he lost during his time at a corpsman.
the high intensity of serving translated well into his work as a trauma surgeon. he keeps a cool head and
(listen i googled it and you can’t actually transfer accreditation from being a corpsman into civilian life which is not ideal but here we are and we’re sticking with this logic ok? i’m sorry)
WANTED CONNECTIONS
your basic tragic exes plot because i’m unoriginal trash
