Duty (An Armorer/Paladin Story)

Aftermath

The late night and sleeping all day was going to screw up our sleep cycles for a bit. After we landed, I dutifully went to the clinic, where I was diagnosed with two cracked ribs  and some soft tissue damage. They used the tissue accelerator, and where I'd been squeezed felt better, including my arm. Because I had a female doctor, I also showed her the handprint on my breast where that fucker Cobra had groped me while he was squeezing the life out of me and had her work on that too.  Bastard.

After that, I joined everybody at dinner, which is where my dogs found me. Excited woofing, mad tail wagging, and tummies exposed for rubs. Torburn licked my face and Sigurd put his head on my shoulder as I hugged him. After I told them how much I'd missed them, they settled down and when I asked about Odin or if there was any news, I just got the canine equivalent of a shrug. We all went up to the rec room, which is where Nick found us and we gave our after action report. Nick in turn told us that the criminals had been transported safely to The Raft, so hopefully they'd stay put for awhile.

Around midnight, Peter sent me some selfies from the dance, which I put up on screen to share with the others. It wasn't hard to see why Peter liked this MJ, she was cute as a button and looked vivacious, the kind of girl who would find it easy to have fun and whoever was with her would also have fun. Pete was shy and had a tendency to tripping over his tongue when he was awestruck. I fancied that he was getting better with that last part, though; hanging out with his heroes Iron Man and Captain America--and the men they actually were--was giving him a boost to his self-confidence.

"The flowers are perfect for her," I said to Wanda and Natasha. She was wearing a cute short green dress, strapless, so the wrist band on the corsage was a great call. Peter's tie and silk pocket square complimented her dress well; they looked like they belonged together without being all matchy-matchy. "Nice call on the tie," I said to Tony.

"That was actually Rogers," he said, a little irritated. "I thought he should get a red one."

"They would have looked like Christmas," Bucky said, starting to laugh, which set the rest of us off. Even Tony, reluctantly. The last photo was them at a bakery, apparently sharing a slice of cake. I had to work hard to keep the gush to a minimum when I texted back. It looked like they'd both had a good time, and I let out a mental breath I wasn't aware I'd been holding. I'd really wanted him to have fun and, just as important, for his date to have fun with him.

I slept in the recliner in my workshop for a couple nights until my ribs felt better. I had a talk with the lab that had done the cosmetics and asked if they could do something for hair color that could be washed out completely rather than fading over multiple washings but wouldn't run when I sweated or if I got rained on. They came up with a range of colors that used a mild chemical rinse to dislodge the dye from the hair, which then was shampooed away; I could choose between "Hot-cha Pink," "Vivacious Violet," "Electric Blue," "Passion Red," Gorgeous Green," "Total Teal," "Oil Spill," (which was a black that had hints of blue, green, purple, and yellow) and "Mouse Brown," "Dishwater Blonde," and "Flat Black." They coordinated colors with optics, who made contacts for me in all the colors plus a hazel brown for the 'natural' colors. And my pride and joy, a pair of sparkly silver contacts that had a steel-ray rim around the edge of the iris. I loved them and asked them to make me several pairs so that I wouldn't run out. They definitely weren't for every day, though; the silver obscured the pupil, so it was a weird look. It went well with the hair. Costuming thought this was fun and had masks made for me in white, gray and black that revealed my eyes. We also came to a compromise that my costumes needed to be functional for the field, and when I asked, Steve came up with a design that matched the tactical look of his, Bucky and Sam's suits. It was a full body suit in combat fabrics including Kevlar with a high neck constructed to help protect against strangulation, long sleeves, gloves with a gauntlet that went halfway up my arms and held four throwing knives and over the knee boots with a modest heel that I could run in. I added a shaped metal piece on the heel where, if I was being held from behind, I could kick back and inflict some damage. There was highly shock-absorbing foam padding over the shoulders, biceps, shins and quads, and reinforcing over the ribs. They were in exciting shades of gray and there were some obviously armored elements that I made; metal bars here and there, like on the back of the hand, that would help to deflect a blade. The torso was intricately pieced together from several different fabrics for a subtle detail and that also minimized the sheath of the urumi. It also felt really good to wear, sort of like a compression sock for the whole body.

In exchange for the new field costume, I agreed to keep wearing ornate costumes for the public appearances, like Halloween, where we had a trick or treat party for the public at the visitors center. That was fun. The new field costume was well received by the public. The first time I wore it, one of the baddies said I looked hot as he tried to hit me. I said thank you and kneed him in the groin.

Nothing was changing on other fronts, though. Odin was still out of it, we hadn't heard from Thor or Sif, and Loki was keyed up and anxious but couldn't--or wouldn't--tell me anything. We had Thanksgiving again at the Barton's, which was much nicer than the previous year.

I couldn't shake the feeling that something big was approaching. I just wondered if we'd be ready for it.

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The story continues in Book Three, Star Dust.