6098/Scars and Stitches

Scars and Stitches
Date of Scene:	03 January 2019
Location:	Avengers Mansion, New York City
Synopsis:	Tony finds Steve in Avengers medical, and attempts to help.
Cast of Characters:	Captain America, Iron Man

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Captain America has posed:
A relatively quiet night's sleep passes for the Captain and when the next morning dawns, he makes his way down to the Medical Bay within the mansion. The staff on-site aren't terribly surprised to see the broad-shouldered super-soldier wander in with a new scuff, but this one's a doozy, even if it's healed up enough to require removal of the stitches put in initially by SHIELD medical personel.

This time, Steve's sitting stoically in a chair while an RN carefully works at removing the thin strands of suturing from his cheek. She recognizes it as being caused by a knife and has commented at Steve's luck that it's shallow. It ran close to the bone as is. Steve, being the polite guy he is, replied something in the vein of 'lucky indeed' and 'teaches him a lesson about keeping his distance'. He doesn't, however, go on to explain the Whats and Whys and Hows of the wound itself. He just sits there in his t-shirt and sweatpants, staring off to one side, mentally a thousand miles away while she works.

Iron Man has posed:
    "Hi Francine; we're going to be moving you down the hall again," Tony's voice suddenly comes in over one of the monitors to the left side of the long panel screens in the medical bay. There isn't a visual, it's audio only: Tony doesn't need to suddenly get an eyeful of something going on inside medical. Hopefully Francine the RN doesn't jump at his sudden intrusion. Unlikely: most of the staff is used to their somewhat abrupt boss's habits, and this one isn't any surprise, the poor medical staff have been rotating rooms in the basement medical for weeks off and on as new sections were repaired (and upgraded). It's annoying to be shuttled, but the upgrades from Stark are nothing to sneeze about either. A perk of the job is the tech. A downside is the constant new tech!

    "And I---you know what, I'm supposed to do my heart readout for Dr. McCoy. I'll be there in a minute or two," Tony concludes to Francine, and abruptly terminates the verbal 'call'.

Captain America has posed:
Francince's got nerves of steel. Rather than flinching or jerking at the tiny knotted stitches, she merely smiles a little to herself. It's always interesting working here in the mansion. Every RN has their favorites. Luckily for Tony, he's one of hers, more than likely for his charismatic snark.

Steve doesn't jump either, though his eyes flick to and linger upon that blank monitor. Then they close and he seems to cycle through a few breaths, as if centering himself.

"There we go, last one," says Francine quietly as she pulls it carefully. A few blots with sterile gauze and she eyes the wound professionally. "It closed beautifully, Captain. You'll barely have a scar if anything." She takes up her tray and walks to the door, pausing at it to add, "If you need anything else, don't hesitate to stop by the front desk. Otherwise, you're free to go." Then she's gone, leaving Steve to sit. And so he does, watching the door expectantly. A minute or two passes far more quickly than he expects...

Iron Man has posed:
    It was less than a minute; Tony gave a guesstimate, overall. "Aw, don't be like that, Fran," Tony says to Francine on the way in, teasing as he attempted a cheek smooch to the nurse but got swatted. He strolls into Medical, already halfway through removing his suit jacket, revealing his bright Game of Thrones shirt under it, the big wolf's head glowing slightly from the arc reactor in the center middle of his chest.
    "Arrr, Cap'n; permission to come aboard?" Tony asks, immediately taking in the injury as he approaches across to the machine at the wall just beyond where Steve sits. There's a slightly more critical check over Steve visually, though, from an alert Tony. There's no touch of inebriation this time.

Captain America has posed:
From Steve, a one-sided dimpling. He replies drily, "Aye, Stark, permission granted. Here to trim the topsails? Or raise the forec'sle?" By the way he considers Tony, he's wondering precisely what other reasons the man would have to visit other than the very-necessary regular heart check-up. His eyes fall briefly to the glow of the arc reactor seen through the weave of the themed shirt. "Appropriate," he adds, nodding towards the lupine insignia. Tah-dah: the Captain gets the reference.

Iron Man has posed:
    Tony nods simply, after checking which shirt he has on, "Stark has come," he says, happy to play. He doesn't always keep track of exactly every little fact, so he did need to check which shirt it was. He isn't ashamed or embarrassed about his own activity at all, he goes about it in a bored manner that doesn't take his full attention to pull open a panel of the apparatus, type in a few things into the associated holographic input that opens, and then pull two leads out, up under the shirt, attaching. While talking.

"I refuse to be the next to lose an eye. Between Fury, Thor, and now you? I mean, I appreciate being the best looking on the team without any competition, but nobody wants to just win by default," Tony chatters. He clips another lead underneath, which makes the light pattern of his chest rotate in a circle as he boots one of his test sequences.

    "I read the report." Of course Tony did, SHIELD info files aren't out of bounds for him.

Captain America has posed:
"Lucky that I didn't join the club," Steve quips quietly. As Tony works at booting the sequence, he takes a moment to feel carefully at the recently-closed slice. Oof, still tender, mustn't touch. He leans his head back to watch what the genius-inventor's up to, if simply out of idle curiousity (and a base mindset to learn as much as he can as fast as he can about the world around him, even if it's solely through observation and not through elucidation).

However, Steve's not shocked at all to hear that Tony nosed around the recent reports. Word of mouth flies fast enough, though electronic messaging is faster yet. "Then you're all up to date." It's a bland reply from the Captain, his eyes now averted off to one side again almost introspectively. The faint furrow between his brows betrays concern.

Iron Man has posed:
    "Lucky, right. I'm not so sure about your track record making your own luck lately, let's stay away from Vegas," Tony teases back, but it isn't harsh in tone. He needed to look away to a panel, and that softened the brief razzing. He tap-taps, and then settles back to allow the machine to do its job, taking over the RN's chair instead of actually sitting on one of the medical beds. It isn't like he's injured.

    There is, then, a quiet pause. Which is weird, and rare, with Stark. It suggests something serious is coming down the line. And Tony doesn't disappoint: "So he's out of his mind, but something got through?" Tony asks.

Captain America has posed:
Steve maintains his composure even after the semi-expected topic of conversation emerges from the depths of silence. He continues to look anywhere but at Tony as he confirms evenly,

"Something got through." It seems like it'll be a battle of recalcitrance for a minute or two. Then, the blond speaks up again, quieter yet in volume. "I wasn't sure if it would. Shot in the dark." This speaks to the risk he put himself into yet again, as always.

Iron Man has posed:
    Some people make an assumption that Tony Stark is too arrogant to deal with people well. Feelings are indeed difficult and worth dodging: but that's when they're his own. Somebody else's is a different story, and Tony has a natural charisma to encourage people to relax, talk, and come to good mutual agreements. Steve is getting a little bit of that Stark diplomacy here.

    He considers Steve's point, rubbing under his chin a little and then doing a pass of fingers down the right side of neatly trimmed goatee.

    "I take it back, then. Maybe we should go to Vegas," Tony replies. The joking tone doesn't last. "But what do you think? You know your friend."

Captain America has posed:
A huff of a laugh from Steve even as he makes to rub at his eyes -- or at least does so more heavily on one side than the other. He's got some darkness beneath them as if he never hit REM despite sleeping through the night.

"It's a Bandaid. It doesn't fix the problem, it just hits the brakes." A heavy sigh and he looks at Tony with a small, weary shake of his head. "'m not gonna tell you what I said, Tony. It's not your problem to solve." At least that's out of the way in a blunt manner.

Iron Man has posed:
    Tony snorts, "I didn't ask what you said. Seemed pretty private to me." Somewhat aloofly, Tony turns to his console to check through the current scan, and get the next running, exchanging one lead, and grunting a little as the power from the arc reactor clearly enters a different cycle. "Forgot my drink," Tony observes in a grumpy way. "Tastes weird, this cycle. Hard to describe." He grins ruefully, stretching, and looks back to Steve now.

    "Not my problem, no, you made that clear. I do listen sometimes." Sometimes. Tony grins roguishly. "I wasn't intending to /do/ anything. But if you don't want to talk about it to me, okay."

Captain America has posed:
Steve continues to sit and watch the technology in action. His face is set in a stoic mask at this point, only marred by the ruddy scar to heal soon enough. His brows flick and fall at 'sometimes' and he looks away as if trying to avoid smiling. Maybe an expression other than severe politeness will fissure deeper into his calm.

"I dunno what there is to tell you, Tony. He's in there, but it's not going to be an immediate fix. The longer he goes on in this state, the more he disappears. I know there's answer, I just... I don't have it yet."

Iron Man has posed:
"How long've you known the guy?" Tony asks, sliding without any effort into his more usual conversational tone, and diffusing with more comfortable line of questioning. "I mean, I know he's from when dinosaurs roamed the earth, right?"

    Tony responds to a strange little alert on his panel, shutting it off, and restarts the current scan. Clearly any issues are with the scan, not with him.

Captain America has posed:
The odd sound is enough to capture the Captain's attention, but not for long. He's no technological genius - rather infamous for the opposite state, more likely, though he works avidly to change this daily. Given that Tony appears nonplussed at the sound, he doesn't pursue questioning it.

"My whole life, it feels like. Grade school, if we're being more accurate. The only dinosaurs around then were the models in the classroom." There's a wry undertone to that clarification and this bleeds away into his earlier stiffness of delivery. "I'd call him a brother save for he's not blood." It's a brittle topic of conversation to be handled by Tony's kid-gloves.

Iron Man has posed:
    "Brothers by blood are way overrated. Mine's a terrible example of a human being," Tony comments without much emotion. It's a little bit flat: but more just that he's being entirely indifferent about it, in the same way he'd smirk to a reporter about the subject.

    "Better to create your circle. Preferably out of metal and wire," Tony says with a sly sideways grin. "Still have my first robot." There's two things in Tony's tone: a dismissive casualness, but also the very real emotion of that he hasn't thrown out the old robots. They do mean something, to the inventor.

Captain America has posed:
Steve returns that curl of lips, but in the pale. He's at least slightly reassured to hear the genius-inventor's real feelings on things both old and new -- family and technology.

"Never had a brother. Had to find mine...and I found him." A beat, and with a grimace that's almost apologetic, he adds in a murmur, "Buck's partly metal and wire." Like that moment of terrible humor is going to somehow lift his spirits. The Captain seems almost ashamed at his weak jest afterwards, his eyes tracking away again. "Sorry you got the short straw with yours."

Iron Man has posed:
    Tony watches Steve as he makes the uncomfortable joke about Bucky's missing limb, but chooses not to razz about it. Not really the time, and Tony can read a room about the angle of his comedy. It's easier to talk about his own lousy brother anyway.

    "It's all right, I do well otherwise. I just think of it from his perspective: /he/ got the best brother," Tony says, cheeky as always, with a direct and shameless smile.

    Then some sobering. "He's actually in a coma now. Electrocuted. Long story. Nothing I can do other than wait and see if his body figures itself out," Tony says to his console.

Captain America has posed:
A blown sigh. "...'m sorry to hear that too, Tony. Nobody deserves that, much less being on the outside and wondering when they're gonna come out of it." The sound of fabric and metal reacting to motion is Steve shifting on the chair. He doesn't leave, however. He ends up resting his jaw against his folded fingers, not quite the Thinker despite the classical lines of his face.

"How d'you even go about..." He scowls at his own feet, clad in sneakers. "I mean, what do you, compromise with yourself? Not feel guilty about being free and not stuck in your own mind? How d'you..."

Iron Man has posed:
"Well, there's a lot of things I'm /actually/ responsible for, like the years my company made weaponry," Tony comments, and meaningfully pulls the leads off of the arc reactor by reaching under his shirt with his right hand. He shakes the two long leads once -- red and black -- and tosses them back towards the medical console. "I'm going to go ahead and work on making /those/ right, not the things in my brother's life. I didn't electrocute him. Maybe it happened because of our rivalry, or who knows." Tony is starting to get a little stressed, there's some touch of tension and anxiety. He pulls his shirt back down, busying with tucking it in.

    "People aren't like machines. If only," Tony observes. "I don't see a point in being tortured over it. Doesn't help your friend any if you're suffering, does it?"

Captain America has posed:
There's not an immediate response from Steve. His own set of teeth hasn't lessened in grit, but it appears that the genius-inventor's answer settled at least a fraction of his inner fretting. Finally, a sigh in the room filled with the quiet hum of medical technology and he glances over at Tony, eyes falling from his face to the motions of straightening shirt. Out to the hallway of the medical bay now, his regard travels, and lingers.

"No, it doesn't help," he says nearly sotto-voce in agreement, " - but it's easier to say than do." His tired tone suggests this is an old habit he's turned over many a time in his head, kept entirely to himself on the whole. "Guess we'd better just keep working at things, huh." He looks back up to Tony's face again.

Iron Man has posed:
"So. Focus on the good you /are/ doing," Tony says, shifting gears, truly to shake himself out whatever his own issue was that he was working to suppress. "It's better for him that you're there and trying, right?" Tony folds up the wall section, rotates it, and taps a key-panel to the side. The whole thing retracts and returns to the previous configuration. After all, nobody else uses that console for testing what Tony needs to test.

    "You can trust that /I/ will always see the best side of myself. Work on that?" Tony teases. "Come on. Let's get out of the mansion. Sub sandwiches?"

    Tony snares his jacket from where he'd hung it over one of the medical machines, pulling it on.

Captain America has posed:
"Won't say no to a sub sandwich." If there's one thing Tony apparently knows, it's that the Captain's perpetually hungry, to some extent. That super-serum does burn calories like wildfire through chaff. The offering in normalcy also helps. For a small period of time, he can focus solely on the task of assuaging the growl of his guts.

Steve gets up and gestures ahead of himself. "I'll grab a coat and meet you in the main lobby." He pauses on an inhale and finally decides on what he was going to add. "And...thanks, Tony." The man doesn't expand on what's earned Tony his gratitude, but it's easy enough to infer. A little nod of respect to accompany this statement and then he's off to collect his jacket.

Iron Man has posed:
Tony's eyebrows lift a bit. He didn't realize he actually did something to help. Or rather, which thing it was that helped. He does, of course, take full credit for doing so when the appreciation falls in his lap, though. "Sure, but don't think this is now all the time. Most people make appointments and get rescheduled a few times," Tony teases to Steve's back. But after Steve's left to get his jacket, JARVIS pipes into Tony's ear, "And you did not even prompt for advice from me, sir; well done."

    "Yeah. Sometimes I do all right," Tony replies to JARVIS, exiting the medbay.