milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

It occurred to Rikki, after getting home, that when the Night Nurse asked her if she lived alone, what she meant was is there someone who can take care of you until you're more healed? So when Rikki said, well, there's Benji, she... might have gotten the wrong impression. But it's late, so Rikki figures she can last the night and call Anya or Steve or someone in the morning to check on her.

That might have been a mistake, because around four AM, Benji wakes her up, whining like he needs to go outside now. Rikki painstakingly tugs on a sweatshirt and shoes and heads for the apartment door. It's almost a relief when she gets Milliways instead, because although she's not really interested in being in a crowd right now, the door to outside Milliways is way closer than the alternative.

Benji comes bounding through the door first and runs ahead and back and ahead and back a few times, because Rikki's doing the Jesus Christ everything hurts shuffle. It's not like she hasn't come to Milliways injured before, but she usually tries to downplay it at least somewhat. This time, there's no chance to cover up the bruising on her face or the still-too-pale tint to her skin - at least the sweatshirt is good for covering up, especially with the hood pulled up. Thank god the door is only like a few feet from her Door, cause she severely underestimated how not okay she still is. Rikki fumbles with the door for a second - casts on both her hands and no use of her thumbs, it's gonna be a bitch to work with, ugh - before letting Benji run on out.

While she waits, she leans against the wall. Hopefully her dog will have mercy on her and not take too long out there.

[ooc: plotlocked, sorry! Should be an open visiting post later.
content warning for mention of torture.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's one thing about staying hyperaware of one's surroundings - it's damn useful for spotting people.

As a result, about two seconds after Rikki leans against the wall, there's a crash from the other side of the room as a chair is unceremoniously overturned when its occupant bolts out of it.

James vaults the nearest empty table between them and crosses the room at a dead run.

"Rikki?!?"

Steve bounds up behind him, and has a quick look around the bar for anyone he knows works in the infirmary.

It's not that she's hypersensitive or on-edge or anything, but she does kind of flinch at the noise when she turns around to face whatever's coming at her. (Anyone making a loud noise and running at her like that would put her on edge, even if she'd just come from a week-long vacation in Hawaii doing nothing but swimming and sunbathing.)

Luckily, Bucky is not a difficult figure to identify. She manages a weak smile. "Hey, Uncle James."

"What the hell happened?"

He skids to a stop beside her, but doesn't reach for her - not yet.

"You look like -- like -- ah, hell. Want to lean on me?"

Steve hovers behind Bucky, ready to catch Rikki if she can't walk any further.

"I, um." I was tortured for information I didn't have seems a little harsh. "Really long week." To understate... a lot.

Whatever. Leaning on him sounds good, assuming that leaning on him is code for sort-of hug, so she'll take that. And peer at the other worried supersoldier. "Hey, Steve."

He slips his arm around her, supporting her as best he can and keeping her close.

The look he throws at Steve is damn near frantic. What do I do? What do we do?

"Hey, Rikki," Steve replies and moves closer, offering his arm as well.

He sees Bucky's look, and asks Rikki gently, "Do you need anything? To lie down and put your feet up, maybe? We can fetch and carry for you, no problem."

"I have Benji outside," she points out. Because, well, responsible dog owner, and also she's kind of focused on the one goal right now. Because once she gets Benji dealt with, she can go back to sleep.

"We can call him in," James says.

He's just one small dog; how hard can it be?

"Because like I said, you look like hell."

This close, it's impossible to miss the pattern of violence to the marks on her face, not to mention the casts on her hands.

(Someone's going to die for this, if he gets half a chance.)

"And I'm betting you're hurting like it, too."

"How about I take Rikki to the infirmary," Steve says quietly, "and you get the dog, Bucky?"

Because a, Rikki clearly needs more medical attention than even two old soldiers can offer, and b, given what Bucky did to that vault where he'd been held, Steve is fairly certain Bucky doesn't associate anything medical with healing and comfort.

Edited 2015-01-21 04:47 (UTC)

"I'll be fine," she says. Although, admittedly, she doesn't put a whole lot of sincerity behind it.

She kind of suspects it might not matter what she says at this point, anyway.

He nods to Steve, even as his expression takes on a grim set.

There's still visible worry in his eyes as he looks down at his niece (different universes be damned, she's his niece in every way that counts as far as he's concerned).

"Yeah. You will." A beat. "But ... "

Carefully hesitant now, picking his words.

"... would you... mind? If - if a doctor... checked you over?"

Steve stays as upright as ever, but inside something just melted into a puddle.

"Of course, we'll only go if you're all right with it," he says to Rikki, but the reassurance is all for Bucky.

It's possible that the significance of what just happened flew over Rikki's head, because she's not as privy to the details of what happened as Steve is, and also -

- She's tired. Would be happily, deeply unconscious right now if she didn't have a dog who needed to outside once in a while, everything aches except for what particularly hurts tired. And seeing a doctor can't possibly make things worse. At worst, she'll get told what she already knows.

She tips her head against Bucky's shoulder. "It's okay with me."

"Okay."

It's the gentlest he's sounded in ... years, probably. He can't remember, and it's not important right now anyway. James shifts his arm around her back, cradling her a little closer, so that her head continues to rest supported by his shoulder.

"Hang on," he warns, and with a quick bend, he scoops her up into his arms and turns to face Steve.

"You take her, like you said." The look in his eyes says a lot more than the words. "I'll be right behind you both, with Benji."

Steve takes Rikki carefully.

"I've got you."

He starts for the infirmary.

Where he will find Dr. Tam: on duty but otherwise unoccupied at the moment, and hurrying in their direction almost as soon as he sees them.

"Can I help you?" The question's directed at both of them, once he sees that Rikki is conscious.

Rikki is maybe a touch disappointed that it's not Dr. Sandhu on duty, if only because she's seen him before. Devil you know and everything.

Still, she manages a more-or-less friendly look, I'm totally conscious! look for the doctor. It's kind of hard to have dignity when someone's carrying you. "For the record, I can walk."

She'll let Steve do the explanation.

Steve sets her down on one of the beds.

"She came into the bar looking and moving like she's in a lot of pain, and her uncle and I thought she ought to have a doctor look her over.

"Uh, I'm Steve Rogers and this is Rikki--Rebecca Barnes."

In case that's helpful.

It will be, once he has a chance to take a look at her file.

"I'm Dr. Tam. Can you tell me what happened, Ms. Barnes? And -- I see you've had some treatment for it already?"

The casts on her hands look decidedly primitive, but functional; applied by someone who knew what they were doing.

"Um."

She'd... really rather not talk about it, to be honest. Especially not with Steve present. "Yeah, I saw a doctor, back where I live? She said I was okay for going home, so."

He takes in her reluctance, and his voice goes a touch gentler. "What happened in general terms, I mean -- though if you've already spoken to your doctor about it, I'd understand if you'd rather not go over it again. Are you taking anything for pain?"

"Just Tylenol."

Not... ideal given the whole broken bones thing, but the Night Nurse does not generally do heavy painkillers outside of her immediate care. Well, that and head injury.

She thinks for a second. Broad strokes, most important stuff seems safe. "Um, broken thumbs. Minor concussion."

Steve stands away from Rikki and the doctor, his arms crossed over his chest. His expression is...perhaps not the most friendly.

(He is not as suspicious of doctors as the Barneses may be. But yeah, too much time in hospitals. It still makes him twitchy.)

It hadn't taken Benji too long to finish his business, which is probably just as well, as James's patience is rather shorter than usual. It had taken a bit longer to coax the dog into coming inside without Rikki - but James is familiar enough, and Rikki had been comfortable with him before.

Together, the two of them, dog and man, had tracked Steve and Rikki to the infirmary.

James arrives first, led-and-followed by Benji, who's evidently not going to let the man out of his sight -- until he sees Rikki, that is, at which point he lets out a whine and creeps toward the bed.

For his part, after one look at Steve's face, James turns to focus on the doctor with a near-feral stare.

Simon's speaking as James and the dog enter. "If you're still in pain, I can prescribe something stronger if you'd like. Any nausea from the concussion? Or vision problems?"

He pauses at the sound of the whine. If that's Rikki's dog, he's not going to evict it just yet. (So long as it doesn't threaten to knock things over.)

"Maybe?" She likes not being in pain. Less so the mental fuzziness. "Some nausea. Mostly just tired."

To be fair, it'd be hard to figure out what symptoms stack with what. Rikki's attention slides off to Bucky and Steve, and although she extends a hand and says settle down to Benji, it might not strictly be for only the canines of the group.

Benji whines again - he's used to jumping up on the bed with Rikki - but he settles down close by.

Steve relaxes a fraction. They came here for help, after all, and Bucky is not going berzerk.

He'll take victories where he can find them.

He nods. "That's fairly normal after a concussion. How long ago were you injured?"

(He's not ... oblivious to the new arrival's tension, but isn't going to make an issue of it. Especially since it seems to be mostly a protective reaction, so far as he can tell. Maybe this is the uncle Rogers mentioned.)

Rikki shrugs up a shoulder and pets Benji on the head absent-mindedly. "Like... three days?"

Much of which she spent asleep.

"Who did it?"

His voice is low, and very carefully controlled to keep it even.

Deadly even.

At Rikki's look -- terror is probably too strong a word for it, but alarm may be too weak -- Simon glances at the man who spoke.

"Unless anyone else is in immediate danger," he says steadily, as much to Rikki as to him, "that can probably wait for later."

Steve puts his hand on Bucky's back.

The look he turns on Simon for interfering is sharp as the knives he carries, but before he can speak he feels the touch of Steve's hand on his back.

The silent message is as clear as if Steve had spoken aloud.

"Fine." It's a little flat, but without the nearly lethal intensity of before. James looks past Simon to Rikki.

"Later," he says, but this time it's almost gentle. "When you're feeling better."

A beat; he doesn't quite smile, but there's a flicker of something rueful in his glance.

"I think I've missed a few important things."

The look Simon gets from the other Barnes in the room, on the other hand, is quietly grateful. This is... not a time when she wants to start filling in the gaps her uncle's missed.

(Honestly, she's kind of surprised they lasted this long.)

She ducks her head. "Yeah. Um. There's some stuff."

Some stuff that, by the sound of it, she'd rather not discuss -- at least not just yet.

"In the meantime ... Ms. Barnes, I'd like to run a quick basic scan of you, just to make sure there's nothing wrong beyond the usual aftereffects of concussion. And then see about something for the pain."

Rikki shrugs. "Yeah, that's fine." She's honestly pretty ready for this whole thing to just be over so she can go back to sleep.

Stev steps back to let the doctor do his work.

(It's possible he givs Bucky's jacket a little tug to do the same.)

He takes the hint, and lets Steve draw him back a few steps.

It doesn't stop him from watching intently -- the doctor, Rikki, Benji, and every damn thing in the room, plus all the lines of sight and angles of attack that he can spot -- but he's quiet about it.

She's getting good care. She's going to be okay.

"This won't take long," he reassures her.

And in fact it doesn't; the diagnostic imager works quickly, and shows that her broken bones have been competently set, her bruises and cuts are healing well, and her concussion symptoms haven't been masking anything worse.

After asking a few quick questions about allergies and drug use history, he prescribes a medium-strength medication for pain management, to be taken in conjunction with bed rest and plenty of fluids.

(He's planning to ask, once she's better rested, if she'd like a treatment to speed up the healing on the breaks and bruises.)

And throughout, Rikki does her best to be cooperative, answering questions and letting him scan her, despite rapidly-dwindling energy levels. By the end, she's kind of feeling a little bit like the barely-conscious, sitting-on-a-bed dead.

"Thanks," she says to Simon, and then goes quiet.

She's exhausted, it's obvious. Something in his expression softens, just a little.

"Get some rest, kiddo," James says, quietly. "You know Benji'll keep watch... and I'll stick around and keep an eye on him."

And on her, of course; that part goes unsaid. No way is he leaving her vulnerable. No way in hell.

He glances over at Steve.

"Guess that means you know where I'll be for the next couple of days." It's a little dry, but there's a hint of wry amusement there all the same.

"Guess I will," Steve replies.

Which is to say he won't be far, either.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only