WHAT: Kate gets stitched up by Dan WHERE: Chakrabarti Clinic WHEN: Backdated to Day 2 of the Creepy Fuckers (aka Tuesday) WARNINGS: Some talk of blood and monster chomping STATUS: Complete
Kate was pretty sure she had the worst luck lately. At home, things were a mess - her mother was a criminal working for the mob, arrested and awaiting trial, leaving her basically orphaned - but they were improving. Clint wanted her to be his partner, brought her to see his family and watch her back. She had someone to lean on.
Then she was blipped into an alternate universe out of nowhere?? Which she had mixed feelings about, honestly. They skewed toward the more okay-ish side right now because not only had she somehow found herself saddled with an overprotective dad-type in Mobius, but there were also a bunch of Avengers here, and her inner fangirl was living for it.
But of course there was also the part where she’d arrived in the middle of some sort of Whitewalker-zombie hybrid apocalypse, without her bow. She’d literally ended up treeing herself for self-preservation after scooping up a dropped phone and hoping she could reach someone (because 911 did nothing). She probably should have taken that as her sign to lay low until all the excitement died down, but was that what a hero did?
Nope. Of course not.
And that was how, on her second day in Vallo, she ended up getting sharp, scary monster teeth embedded into her arm so deeply that she could quite literally do nothing but scream in response. All the while, Katou mercilessly mocked her because ‘I thought you knew better!’ until Mobius opened a Timedoor and quite literally yanked her through it by her good arm.
It was a good thing he’d decided to take her in and, apparently, watch her like a hawk. New Asgard was pretty, too.
The clinic they ended up at was buzzing, but that didn’t stop them from being ushered into the back nearly the second they stepped through. The gash on her arm was long, deep, and bleeding pretty profusely. She must have looked just as bad as she felt - and since her face felt unusually numb, that was not good at all.
Honestly, Mobius had no idea how he’d ended up in this situation - one day it was just a smattering of a few other residents and him and Loki playing house in New Asgard, a repurposed fishing village that had become a home by the sea (including the parts where, some days, the salt spray felt like stinging rice landing against your face) and the next he had this young girl sort of plop into his life. She was technically grown but, really, at that age? How grown up were you?
You were still figuring out the ways of the world - and yourself. What you wanted, where you fit into everything - even Mobius still was, to some degree, and he was decidedly older in terms of numbers. But only just now remembering who he had been and how he could honor his past while crafting his own future? A challenge.
He was up for the challenge, however. And welcomed a new addition to New Asgard, deciding he’d do whatever he could for her. Plus, Kate Bishop was furthest ahead on the timeline post-Blip which was very, very interesting.
Less interesting when she got her arm chomped on, however. That was just distressing.
The Timedoor was quick to whoosh closed behind them at the clinic, and he would just follow anxiously while she was tended to. He asked if it was alright if he stayed in the exam room with the crinkly paper-covered cot and the smell of rubbing alcohol and apparently it was fine, so - here he was. Dan happened to be the nurse fixing her arm and he slipped into a pair of latex gloves to get the job done.
“Kind of a memorable way to make an entrance, huh?” he chuckled lightly, first cleaning around the wound, getting at the blood - he got it to stop bleeding, of course, pressure there, gauze on top of gauze until it finally ceased. “I’m Dan, by the way. Been here almost two years now - this type of thing happens a lot.”
“Something to look forward to, I guess,” Kate replied, a little breathlessly. Now that the bleeding had stopped, the lightheaded feeling she’d been struggling with was fading. She wasn’t particularly blood-averse, but seeing that much pouring out of her arm after having an inhuman creature attached to it had made an impact. She straightened her back a bit more, though she tried to hold her arm very still to not make more of a mess for Dan.
“You guys seem pretty well prepared, so I figured it had to be frequent,” she admitted. “These things are new, though, right?” Nobody had seemed really sure how to fight them yesterday, and it was only today she’d gotten her hand on a sword to jump in and assist with; her usual choice of bow and arrow did literally nothing, disappointingly.
“Apparently they were present in the snow globe version of Vallo,” Dan replied, adding topical anesthetic to numb the area - he worked quickly and efficiently, his touch gentle; that was just his aura anyway, gentle. A summer breeze or the end of a bout of rain - he’d definitely changed a lot from his more wayward days, when he searched for something he’d never find, like an understanding of his own father. Whom he tended to understand only when he gave in to inner darkness and rage that burned bright as a supernova.
Nursing was more his calling, however. He felt at peace here, getting to do what he was meant to do at the clinic - and he continued his schooling, knowing he’d become an official RN (he already had the CNA classification under his belt) and that wasn’t something he’d get back home. But anyway.
He should elaborate on the snow globe thing. “It was kind of a darker version of Vallo that some people got pulled into - very apocalyptic. There were those things running around and I guess somehow they made their way here too,” he added. Kind of distressing, when you thought about it. How much more was going to cross over? Maybe he shouldn’t actually think about it. Instead he began sewing up Kate’s arm wound, now that she wouldn’t feel the needle and surgical sutures. “She’s going to be fine, by the way,” he glanced at Mobius. “Promise.”
“I just didn’t want her to get eaten so soon into the Vallo adventure,” Mobius huffed a laugh, sitting on one of the stools with wheels in the exam room. It was either that or hovercopter - or faint. But no, he was made of much tougher stuff than that.
Kate shot Mobius a grateful smile. He may have been from her world and vaguely familiar with her, but he had no reason to take her under his wing like this and watch her back. She appreciated him for it. Coming in here without Clint or any solid allies could have been much, much worse.
She always did her best to compartmentalize and not worry about herself much, especially in the midst of a fight. But being around Dan kept her strangely calm, too. He had a very calming vibe about him which she considered a good thing. Especially since he was the one who would be stitching up her arm
“Thaaaat sounds like the darkest snowglobe I could possibly imagine,” Kate told Dan with furrowed eyebrows. Hearing that there had been a dark Vallo where these creepy fuckers roamed around free was concerning and disturbing in and of itself. But contained in a snowglobe? Seriously? It was like an oxymoron. “Aren’t snowglobes supposed to be happy? Santa Claus and reindeer and Christmas trees, right?”
Mobius hadn’t been here for the whole snowglobe situation, but he had been dropped into Vallo during a crisis - that one just happened to be Interitus, a soul-sucking, magic-sucking entity that knocked out a good portion of the population in attempt to absorb power and life force like it was a sponge. In that sense, he related to Kate as well - some people were lucky enough to land in a new universe when things were calm but them? Not so much.
“Timelines do crazy things,” he said. “I would wager there are a few different Vallo’s out there. Many more snowglobes.”
Dan agreed with that too - he didn’t have as much experience with time and space, but his months (years?) here had shown him that most anything was possible. “Whatever you can imagine happening here, will happen,” was his sage piece of advice, as he finished up the stitches.
Well, that wasn’t ominous or anything. Kate figured she’d rather be told now to expect anything - not that she hadn’t already gotten on that line of thought given her disastrous arrival - than be surprised by it later on down the line. She would probably still end up surprised, though. Vallo seemed like it was full of them.
“I’ll never look at a snowglobe the same ever again,” she said solemnly. She cracked a smile like it was a joke, but really - she was pretty sure she’d never be able to look at a snowglobe here without worrying there were people and man-chomping monsters inside it. Thanks for that wonderful brainworm, Dan.
“You’re also not properly preparing me for long emergency room wait times,” she joked, grinning at Dan. “Do you have super stitching powers?” She couldn’t believe he was already done stitching her up. She’d thought for sure it would take longer, but it was always possible that being bitten like that made it feel worse than it was. She could be pretty reactionary.
“I’ve done this a countless number of times,” Dan replied with dry humor - he was pretty fast on the draw these days. Especially when it came to stitches. They were very well done, however - and he made sure to bandage Kate up nicely too. “Just keep this on for about twenty-four hours - then you can wash around it a couple times a day. Depends how fast you heal but in most cases, a week for an arm wound is all you need to keep them in for too. You can come back and I’ll take the stitches out.”
“Does she get a lollipop?” Mobius asked, though he was clearly teasing. Probably. Or maybe not.
Dan grinned and snapped the gloves off, disposing them in the proper biohazard waste receptacle. “All good patients get something - just a sticker though, sadly. Lollipops have too much sugar.” Not that it mattered for the many, many adults who came to the clinic and often had horrible diets (seriously, he cringed) but he wasn’t about to encourage those bad behaviors either.
Hiding vegetables in food was beneficial, and it was a hill he would die on. But anyway.
He rummaged in a drawer and procured a sticker - one that was mostly purple, a whole penumbra of different variations of the shade, and featured Hello Kitty. Great Patient! it said, so he unpeeled the backing and placed that on Kate’s shirt.
Kate looked down at the sticker on her chest and looked up between both Dan and Mobius with a big, bright smile. Her arm was pleasantly numb, and she felt infinitely better than when she’d first been dragged in here. And then she got a sticker for her trouble? Uh, hell yes, she was here for that. And this one even perfectly fit her aesthetic.
“You get me,” she told Dan with a dramatic sniff. Then, she reached up and gave him a hug - well, half of one, quick and with her undamaged arm. “Thank you. You’ll be my go-to super-stitcher from here on out.”
Chances were she’d end up here again. Her face was covered in little butterfly bandages already - she tended to get beat up in the heat of a fight, that was clear.
Dan wasn’t expecting the hug but he took one anyway - and wrapped his arm around Kate to squeeze gently in return. It was a nice switch from the usual, however. Usually he was fighting with completely stubborn individuals who basically had to be strapped to an exam table, fought him tooth and nail on sitting still enough for treatment, and then complained when they were told that they couldn’t fling themselves back into danger all haphazardly, like how a toddler might fling Cheerios from a high chair, right after walking through the exit doors.
Sigh.
Point was, actual gratitude happened to be appreciated. “I’m happy to be your super stitcher but - try to take it easy for now,” he advised. “I don’t want you to rip the fresh stitches open.” There was always next time to get your hero on. He wasn’t naive about that part.
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Mobius promised. “Alright, kiddo - let’s hit the road, I guess. I’d say we can stop someplace for pizza, but - ”
The city was under siege, apparently. Or about to be. Possibly the pizza may have to wait until later but - that was fine too. He’d get a chance to properly welcome Kate to Vallo soon.