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It’s standard procedure to have a doctor on call in the heli-carrier sickbay. Most issues are minor--personnel gets eyestrain staring at screens or repetitive stress injuries, the occasional training accident…
Dr. Sydney Porter yawns and turns a page. This cruise has been much the same. They made a brief stop--it’s above her pay-grade to know where or why--the red-hot rumor is Sao Paolo to exfiltrate an operative. The article about H2N2 influenza isn’t exactly fascinating reading. She yawns again, catches movement out of the corner of her eye and glances over.
A man stands slumped against the door-frame, sizing her up. He’s filthy--like he’s been rolling in mud, and the leather jacket draped over his shoulders looks as if it’s been through an all-out war.
“Can I help you?” she asks. Her guess is this guy is the operative they just picked up--there’s no way Colonel Fury would let such a walking breach of uniform regulations stroll around his ship otherwise, and if he wasn’t on their side, he’d be escorted.
“Yeah, can I get a few ibuprofen? Please?”
It’s a perfectly reasonable request for someone who looks as banged-up as he does. “No allergies?”
“None.” She extends her hand with a couple sealed packets, then sees him wince as he reaches for them.
“Where, exactly, does it hurt?” she demands, withdrawing the offered meds.
Her patient groans--but not from physical pain. “It’s nothing, seriously. Just give me the damn pills, will you?” He makes a grab for them--Sydney raises her hand with the packets above her head, and the groan this provokes is real.
The jacket has slid from his broad shoulders to the floor--there are bloodstains on his shirt.
“I have to take a look at that,” she says, determined.
“Fine!” He sits on one of the benches, lifts his right arm, clasping the back of his neck with his hand. Clearly, he knows the drill.
Sydney gingerly works his tee shirt up. He’s in superb condition, wounds aside. There’s a graze on his right side, just below his rib cage. Three inches above that is an in-and-out wound already starting to clot. Probably doesn’t need surgery, but it definitely needs more than ibuprofen!
She’d better check and see if he’s in the system; if he thinks this is a minor injury, god knows what he’d leave out of a standard medical history. “Name?”
“Oh for crying out loud,” is his exasperated response. “It chipped a rib, that’s all.”
“You know that how? With your x-ray vision?” This guy is taking machismo to a ridiculous extreme.
“Clint Barton. Employee number--” He rattles it off, annoyance plain on his face. “Get on with it.”
A comprehensive medical file on Barton has notes about childhood abuse. No shit, Sherlock--scans on record show numerous healed fractures. If that’s what he got used to growing up, small wonder he’s nonchalant about injuries now. And he’s right--Sydney’s newest scans show one rib cracked along the trajectory of the wound. There’s nothing to be done about it aside from sewing it up
Movement again. She glances away from the display and barks, “Hold it!” She’s caught him with his hand in the drawer containing the ibuprofen packets.
Clint sighs. “Seriously, Doc--it’s no big deal. Right now, all I want is a little something for the ribs and a shower. Then I’ll slap on a few band-aids and sleep for two days. It’s nothing to get wound up over.”
“Not so fast--I’m going to shoot you up with some antibiotics, since I have a feeling you wouldn’t take a scrip if I gave it to you…” A grin flickers at the corner of his mouth. “Let me take a couple stitches…you can keep that handful of pills you think I didn’t see you swipe. But no more than three packets in one day--they will fuck up your liver, and no, I’m not overreacting!”
He’s smiling outright by the end of her diatribe. “Sure, Doc, go ahead if it makes you feel better.”
It’s idiotic to suffer with wounds like those when medical resources are available to treat them properly. Sydney sets the tray up with surgical staplers and all the usual paraphernalia. Barton has relaxed, thinking he’s almost through. He’s even accepted a wet-wipe to clean his face with.
Sydney gets the last laugh; the injection she administers has Barton snoring almost as soon as she’s withdrawn the needle. He wants to sleep for two days? Fine--he can do it in sickbay.
...