Summary:Steve aids Sif with her mysterious stab wound (read as: bullet in her shoulder). Tony and Bucky arrive and while one stays to delegate, the other leaves when memories catch up. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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It's been days since the bizarre battle in the part of this city known as 'China'. Days since Loki spirited the injured Hod off to the healers at a mountain named Sinai, two young Midgardian women proved their warrior skills in said battle, and she took a strange stab wound to the back of her left shoulder. Her shield arm.
What has Sif truly concerned is that it STILL pains her. She can tell it's already completely healed, and yet, certain movements almost feel as if she's being stabbed all over again. It's a sensation she's completely unaccustomed to, and isn't sure how to reconcile.
Walking a bit more slowly than usual, she passes by one particular building as she has many times before, rubbing her shoulder absently as she goes.
The front door of the mansion opens and closes to the sound of someone humming quietly. It's a pleasant sound and the man can carry a tune, at the very least — something from the Old Country, maybe passed along from unknown grandparents to mother and then on to Steve himself. Turning on the stoop, he tosses a ring of keys and tucks the motorcycle helmet firmly under his shoulder.
Espying Sif, however, has the Captain slowing noticeably in his steps before he continues on down the walkway at a more brisk pace. "Lady Sif?" His voice carries without containing an ounce of the well-known bombastic volume that belongs to Thor. At the front gates, he opens them and slips out; the sound of the AI turning the locks can be heard in a swift hum and click. "Haven't seen you in some time." His smile is friendly and his eyes flick from her face to her shoulder under her massaging palm…and then back to her face. A concerned light enters his gaze. "You okay, milady?"
Too preoccupied to notice the humming, Sif only stops when she hears her name called out and her hand promptly drops from her shoulder. She looks for the source, turning the wrong way at first and then orienting herself toward where Steve is. "Steven, hello. It has been some time, yes. I take it you and your shield brother are well?"
She tries to avoid his question about how she's feeling, but she's only ever known this Midgardian to be a kind soul. And, it WAS a Midgardian weapon that stabbed her. He might know a proper elixir to cure it.
"I assisted in a minor battle in the town of China not long ago, and a stab wound I took to the shoulder has oddly continued to pain me despite having healed."
Steve sucks a short inhale through his bared teeth. It's a grimace of concern that flashes over him without unnecessary pity in its wake — a thing long-practiced around Bucky. " That's no good. If it's still giving you trouble, we can take a look at it inside. Infirmary downstair's got a good selection of things we could use. Linens, ointments, you name it." Completely aborting his plans (whatever they were), the man turns around and opens the front gate again. He gestures for Sif to follow and stands aside to let her pass.
"Barnes is well." Now there's a glow that slowly suffuses him, especially at his ears. "Very well. He's happy. It's the simple things." Even if sharing makes the Captain nearly tongue-tied and prone to shorter sentences, it's clear as day that he too is happy. At his right hand, a golden silicone ring etched in black eternity weaving in Gaelic style.
Sif steps past Steve into the property of this building she's never really paid much attention to before, but … it is markedly different from the Embassy so close by. First off, the GREEN. Until just this moment, she'd not realized how much she'd missed seeing green, even as meticulously maintained as this area. It reminds her of the few times she's had the privilege of visiting Queen Frigga's palace gardens.
Steve's change of demeanor when speaking about Bucky is more than apparent to Sif, and she offers him a small smile. And no, the new ring was not overlooked. "I am glad that you are both content. Such is a bond that only a rare few find, especially on Asgard." She waits politely for him to lead on, her eyes taking in everything about the lawn and the building, but of course completely unaware of the extent of the security measures she's just walked into.
"It's nice to be content for once." He sounds not exactly dry, but also truthful in his pink-eared state. Steve leads the way into the interior of the mansion itself. The architecture is airy and open, with doors leading off into side halls and furniture usefully situated for visitors to rest while awaiting council with the resident Avengers. He waves at the front desk's security and apparently, Sif passes muster at nothing more than a glance. It was like the mansion's AI giving the thumbs-up on the desk's plasma screen.
"Come on down here." Down the stairs they go and into the cooler basement level of the mansion itself. At the end of the white-washed hallway, interspersed with pastoral paintings and framed pictures like any other hospital, one can see glass doors. "Tell me about your shoulder. It's a stab wound?" Steve asks.
"It is," She replies promptly to Steve's question, "though of a manner I have not experienced before. The adversary was a short bowstrike away, up at the top of an edifice, and was not using any manner of bow or throwing knives that I could recognize. Nor was there an arrow or blade for me to remove, merely the stab from such a distance. Nothing else."
She seems a bit honestly perturbed by this, though it's more that she is annoyed that she couldn't place the weapon used than anything else.
Steve listens to the description of the action and the manner of the wound being sustained as they enter the infimary. The glass doors slide open, easily wide enough to admit a gurney with the Hulk atop it (they make those that strong?) and the Captain then pauses by one of the empty recovery rooms. The curtains are pulled and tied up to one side on the entry-wall already to indicate a readiness and pristine set-up for an incoming injured combatant.
"Sounds to me like a bullet wound," Steve offers up after another few seconds of musing to himself, his eyes gone distant in thought. They return to keen presence and land on Sif again. "Sounds like you got shot. You haven't been shot before?"
Another leap is made and Steve's wheat-gold brows slowly rise. "…is the bullet still in your shoulder, Sif?"
"With arrows, yes. Many times." Sif frowns faintly as she tries to parse Steve's question. "I thought bullets were thrown from slings. I am fairly certain that no one in that battle had a sling."
Now that they're in the healer's space, she moves to take her shield off of her back and winces the moment that that elicits a particularly sharp twinge from her shoulder.
Steve marks the flinch after the motion of removing the buckler from her person. Yep, it's somewhere on her shoulder, he's seen similar reactions in his own men — had seen reactions in the troops he once directed in the war, he correct his own mind.
"I can look at it if you want," he offers, patting the white-sheeted and padded hospital bed. "Just gonna have to remove the jacket first." His sharp eyes pick out the ragged edging of what has to be a bullet hole — those he knows well enough, to Bucky's unending dismay. What embarrassment he might find in the proffering is squelched down and anchored beneath memories of having to dig bullets out of himself, after all. It must hurt something awful, having it lodged under the skin still. Steve does glance aside at the drawers of the nearby desk, wondering if there are scalpels within.
Setting her shield and sword down nearby, Sif then also removes her jacket. It's a similarly wince-inducing process, but it's done promptly enough. Now clad in only a plain t-shirt, she settles to sit on the white-sheeted bed, not really sure about lying down, even if this is a healer's space. She watches Steve as he seems a bit lost, and can only empathize. This overly white room is nothing like the healers' rooms she is accustomed to on Asgard.
Even as Steve's opening up the second drawer, frowning down at the neatly-organized and sterile-wrapped instruments, he's sighing to himself. A glance back at Sif to see the jacket settling down beside the weaponry. He can see the bullet entry point on the t-shirt as well, but not on the skin just yet.
"Might need to move that sleeve too, I think." Or even remove her shirt, but as if the polite Captain is going to mention this option. His voice is still even, but man, those ears. Those ears are red now, even despite the sangfroid of finally finding an instrument. It has a special notation on its sterile sleeve: FOR ASGARDIAN USE ONLY. Must be one of the scalpels treated as to actually be able to break open the skin of the tough warriors.
Having been told a few basic things about Midgardian mannerisms, when Steve says she might need to move her sleeve, she looks to be starting to remove her shirt. However, she only pulls her arm out of the one sleeve, keeping the majority of the shirt's fabric covering the front of her torso in the manner that she was informed is the standard level of Midgardian modesty. It's no more severe than certain small villages among the Vanir, so she has no complaints.
It does leave a good portion of her back and left side exposed, though. And reveals that she apparently hasn't bothered with Midgardian foundation garments.
Look at those ears turn such a lovely rosy color now. At an extreme mental distance, Steve has indeed noted the lack of supportive undergarments by the lack of banding of any kind at the middle point of Sif's ribs. Still — now he can see the site of the bullet wound.
His voice will be heard easily enough down the hallway of the infirmary of the Avengers mansion, above what sounds like the faint scuffling of plastic and waxy paper. It comes from in one of the side recovery rooms. "I can cut it out if you want me to, but it's gonna hurt. I dunno that we have any needles sharp enough to pierce your skin. Might not be able to inject anything numbing." He's got the scalpel out and in his hand, steady despite the task ahead of him.
Now there's a Bucky wandering in, in a very nice suit. Tony took him out to lunch, it seems, somewhere fancy. Curious, he knocks on the frame of the door. "It's Barnes. Okay for me to come in?"
Sif watches Steve rummage about until he finds something he thinks will suffice, then nods. "I am no stranger to pain. Do what you feel you must." She turns a bit so she's seated on the medical bed somewhat sideways and waits patiently.
She is — very likely intentionally — seated so she's facing the door, and when Barnes knocks on the frame, she looks over to him. "Friend Bucky. You are of course welcome." She looks over at Steve then back. "Perhaps you can explain to me why your shield brother's ears have been turning increasingly red?"
He shows no such discomfiture. "Oh," Buck says, casually. "Steve and I were raised in a period of Midgard's history where people were much more concerned about modesty in dress. The amount of skin you're showing now would be considered very immodest by the standards of that time, so he's embarrassed on your behalf."
"…what he said," Steve mumbles, having a very hard time focusing between the toned shoulder of the Asgardian warrior-woman and the fact that his shield-brother is dressed rather impeccably in that suit. Damn. Those ears really do get more red. Rudolph's nose, eat your heart out.
"Do you want to bite down on something first?" Unfailingly respectful of Sif's preferences in the matter, he asks this of her. The scalpel's still held above the shoulder, poised and ready to be used upon the skin where he can see the faintest puckering of scarring from the bullet.
Sif ohs and nods. "I was informed of Midgardian thoughts on proper attire, I did not realized that they changed so… quickly. I recommend you never visit Alfheim during festival season, Steve. I am certain Kai could explain to you in far more detail."
He then asks if she wants something to bite on? Why? Her expression makes her confusion more than clear to Bucky and then to Steve as she glances back and up at him. "Something to bite down on? Why?"
She's waiting patiently for Steve to cut the bullet out of her the back of her left shoulder where her healing factor has sealed it in, and he's asking her non-sensical questions instead of just getting the bullet out? Is this more Midgardian modesty she'd not been told about?
Tony Stark ambles in, dressed to the nines in tailored Italian silk. "Is it that kind of party?" he asks upon spying Sif, and Steve there with a scalpel? That gets an odd look from the billionaire. "What's an Alfheim? Is it like Fort Lauderdale? Can we go?" Then, to Sif, he says, "Tony Stark, nice to meet you Miss…?" He doesn't blush. Hell, he doesn't even miss a beat.
HE's apparently translator, now. Buck explains to Sif, first, "Since we don't have pain medications that will help, you may grit your teeth in pain. Midgardians would. So ….you could have something to bite on."
Nevermind the flashes that gives him, of all the times they shoved the guard into his mouth, before everything dissolved into white light and pain. A beat of empty pause, and he rallies. "Tony, this is Lady Sif of Asgard. Lady Sif, this is Tony Stark, an engineer and inventor and Avenger."
Now apparently under an invisible spotlight with his surgical tool and the sudden influx of not only Barnes, but Tony as well, the Captain feels his shoulders tighten next to his spine. He sighs slowly and looks down at the site, steeling himself.
"Hey Tony." He gently places a hand on Sif's shoulder, his palm large and very warm while not sweaty — yet. "Alright, milady. I'll be as quick as I can." Squinting at the site, he then puts the scalpel to her skin and begins pressing down upon it.
Sif is instantly alert when the unfamiliar — if formally dressed — man enters and just starts asking all the questions. She's even reaching for one of the small blades she keeps in her boot (Barnes likely knew it was there) when Bucky makes the introductions, and that's enough for her to relent again. That, and the fact that both he and Steve are here and not alarmed by the man's presence. "Ah. Inventor Stark. Well met." She nods slightly, so as not to disturb Steve since he has a medical blade in his hand.
And then he cuts into the healed skin of her shoulder, and she merely closes her eyes, the muscles in her neck tensing but her should remaining relaxed. The bullet itself made it past the deltoid muscles in her shoulder and is lodged against the very top of the bone in her upper arm, extremely close to the joint itself. It's either sheer luck or Aesir healing that has all of the attaching ligaments in that area still intact.
And even as Steve's using the scalpel to try and get to the bullet and blood as red as any Mdigardian's wells up and starts to drip down her back and side, the incision is already starting to try and close up again.
How fast can you work?
Does Tony see the blade? He's got a quick eye, but he's also got a poker face, and he's all smiles. "Asgard? You know Thor?" He gives Steve a wide berth as he does his work. He stands near Bucky and folds his arms across his chest in a way meant to not wrinkle that fine silk. His brow knits, and he goes quiet as he watches milady's skin try to close up again so soon. Okay, now he's interested.
This…..it's hitting him. Her being cut, her healing. It's necessary, but….the memories are rising up like a wave.
The first sign is him swallowing hard. The second is the way there are suddenly beads of sweat at his temples…..and then Bucky's turning on a heel without a word, and vanishing back out, having turned an awful gray color.
Warrior James is squeamish, apparently.
Having to fight the woman's healing factor is a surprise to Steve, but he's not going to linger any longer than he has to. With a concentrated scowl, he opens up the skin a last time and then sticks his fingers into the parted flesh to grab at the bullet. He gets it with his fingernails and pulls it out quickly. Both flattened round and scalpel retreat; the former plinks into a silver tray set to one side and the scalpel is set on the countertop — because Steve is a heathen — kidding, it's because he's not a medical major and he's noticed the tail end of Bucky leaving.
His lips press into a moue of deep concern. Still, per their shared military beliefs, immediately-wounded comrades take precedence. "Let me get the blood off, see how it's going to close up," he comments as evenly as he can manage. A handful of sterile daubing cloth works at the runnels of crimson down her back.
Sif's eyes pop open again at the rustle of fabric just in time to see Bucky disappearing, and her expression is also one of concern, though with a bit of confusion mixed in. She glances over at Steve after he's pulled the bullet out of her shoulder, but stays still as he's apparently not done.
The incision, now that the bullet has been pulled, stops bleeding far more quickly than a human would, and is already working to undo both what couldn't be repaired with the bullet in the way and the incision Steve made to extract the slug.
And Sif still seems mostly unaffected by this. Which isn't actually true, but thousands of years learning how to mentally handle pain is showing here.
Tony Stark glances at Bucky as he goes, then he turns back to look at the procedure in progress. He doesn't let much show either way on his concern for Bucky or lack thereof. The poker face has been with him so long it's reflexive. "That," he says, "is very intriguing. Lady Sif, was it? If I were a biologist, I would be begging to study you." To Steve, he says, "Do you know what that kind of healing factor could do for humanity if it could be harnessed?"
True-blue eyes rise and linger on Tony. "Erskine had a pretty close run at it." The Captain finishes swiping away the blood farther beneath the incision site. He takes up more sterile fabric and then dares to gently clean around the rapidly-closing wound. He blots at it and finds it a reddened line rapidly paling out to new skin. It's really rather disarming to watch and reminds him of the feeling of his own skin knitting together; veins and arteries have an especially disturbing sensation of slithering together like self-braiding ropes.
Sif gets a gentle squeeze on the top of her shoulder before Steve steps away, collecting up the wadded bloody fabric. "You've got the heart of a lioness, Lady Sif," he compliments quietly. "Never met someone like you, not even during the war."
The material is discarded in the nearby bin labeled with its appropriate biohazard signage and he makes to wash off his hands in the sink as much as he can manage. "Tony'll be sure to get you sorted out if you need anything else. I've got to go make sure Buck's okay."
Tony gets a slightly-damp friendly pat on the shoulder in passing — poor suit — and there goes Steve, leaving the genius-inventor with the Asgardian warrior-woman. There's biology to talk about!
Or not.
Maybe?
Still probably not.