Legend

First Days

I walked into the suite of my new business with mixed feelings: pride, terror, curiosity. I had a front desk although no receptionist just yet; Tony (it had been really hard to break the habit of calling him Mr Stark, but he insisted since we were in business together) was going to send down somebody, but he or she hadn't arrived yet. I enjoyed the promise of the enterprise, smelling the new paint on the walls. I'd wanted a mural instead of god-awful art like you usually find in offices. Tony'd been offended, challenging me to find crap art anywhere in the tower. I knew I couldn't--he had a great art collection throughout the tower--but he did understand the desire for uniqueness. Uncle Bucky had surprised me one day, coming in with an old sketchbook. He flipped it open to show me several pages of the body in motion. There were both male and female figures, but they weren't playing sports, which would make it kind of cheesy, they just showed movement. It was an odd sketchbook; about half of the pages were gone.

"This was one of Stevie's books," he said casually. "When you said you wanted murals, I thought of them." The studies were transferred to the walls of the waiting room and the hallway, including the doors. They had a faint Art Deco flavor, which added to their appeal I felt. In any case, it looked sensational and I had a little plaque done up to give credit where it was due, including Bucky for donating the source material. He was bashfully pleased to be included and gave me the whole sketchbook. He said I wouldn't be here forever and if I liked the look, I should be able to use it wherever I was.

I passed through to the back. I was going to be using the clinic for the foreseeable future for sample collection to be sent to Dr McCoy--Hank--it was hard to get used to calling people by their first names. He'd be handling the genetic analysis. I already had anonymized data bases from the X-Men and the Avengers; small sample sizes, but I would be taking samples from each client I saw. I wanted to study trends, see if there were observable links between placement of the mutations on the chromosomes and strength of the mutations as well as fine-tuning identification of what the mutations were by their locations. Any blood draws for additional information would also be handled upstairs for now. When the operation moved in the future, I would be handling sample collection. Because the threat of alien invasion from space was always a looming threat, municipalities had asked for people to take basic first aid and CPR; there were organized brigades for those who wanted to help more, and as someone who worked in physical therapy, I'd decided to use my anatomy and physiology classes and had studied in parallel to my masters degree. First I'd earned an EMT-B certification during my first year, and just a few weeks prior, I'd passed the state certification test to become a paramedic. It wasn't the classes that were especially difficult for me to get through, it was the hours of experience. Avenger Tower was always ground zero when the aliens attacked the city, and I'd much rather be doing rather than cowering in the emergency shelters.   Wayne Enterprises--Medical was developing a blood analyzer that would  enable us to take a drop from a client's fingertip, put it on a specially designed chip, and stick it into an instrument that could check for specific parameters that could indicate muscle damage or other problems affecting the client. By the time it was estimated to be ready, J would have graduated from med school and would be able to interpret them beyond a cursory comparison of numbers.  We'd be able to give our clients fast, accurate  results.

There was a short hallway ; a bathroom, handicapped accessible, was behind the reception area, then a small dedicated custodial supply closet, then the big room. Since the staff for this side of the wall was just me, the testing area and exam room were rolled up into one space. I had an office off to the side. It was bigger than I felt I needed, but Tony had approved the extra space. He and Mr Wayne--damn, Bruce--had battled over who was going to provide the office tech. Tony had won, mostly because I needed his tech to interface with the tower systems. Bruce had taken over providing the equipment I needed for the work with clients, including extremely high-speed cameras that would allow me to analyze clients with superspeed, like Quicksilver, if he ever needed help. I was still waiting for equipment to arrive, but the treatment tables as well as the other furniture was set up. I went into my office and pounded out details until lunch, then I opened the door and went down a flight of stairs to the training room where I'd be helping Bucky. I had a pretty interesting setup. There was access to my office from inside the tower, of course, but there was also an external stairwell, well concealed, that street level heroes could use to access it. The Night Nurse was also moving into retirement, and Tony had agreed to discreetly provide emergency care to the population who were depending on her. He was using an extension of the protocols they used during the first Kree-Skrull invasion so that they could use their hero names rather than their legal names.