The Armorer

We resolved in the Observatory. I watched groggily as Heimdall strode toward us grimly. "Help is on the way," he told me, his rich voice soothing. I nodded and he gave me a glass of an opaque thick liquid. Thor looked at him in alarm. "Drink this," he said, and I obligingly took a drink.

Then looked at him in betrayal. Damn, that was nasty.

"I am aware of the flavor," he said austerely. "But drink it, regardless. It will help your throat." I took a couple of deep breaths, then chugged. What can I say? I went to college before binge drinking was a problem thing. It's surprising how certain skills come back to you. The beverage was even worse in large amounts, but at least it was over soon. I panted for breath, trying not to cough. If it had been a less classy joint, I would have spat to clear my mouth. After my eyes stopped running, I mopped them and thanked him. My throat did feel a lot better.

I recapped my adventures briefly, then asked that Sigurd and Torburn be looked over as I wasn't sure what they'd been given. "They seem ok, but still..." I looked at the dogs worriedly and Thor promised to have them seen to.

"Torburn?" Heimdall asked, and almost cracked up.

"Shut up," Thor muttered, and was spared further teasing by the arrival of a couple people with a wheelchair. This was nice and too big for me, but enabled me to sit back, sparing my ribs. It was a long walk along the Bifrost bridge. I remembered to take off the handcuff-straps from the helicopter.

In the medical suite, an authoritative woman asked what had happened; the summary was concise because I only described the physical effects of everything. She nodded, dismissed Thor and the pups, and sent me to the bathroom. Yay! Then I changed out of my stained and torn clothing and into a loose long gown. Not one of those bare-in-the-back hospital gowns that we have, but real, huge clothing. Then she helped me up onto a table and I lay down. She waved her hand, and a haze surrounded me; I dropped down my vision to see particles bombarding my body, then cycled back up to normal, deciding to take a break from my curiosity for once. Another wave, and the particle field went away.

"You have two broken ribs, separated rib cartilage, a cracked rib and sternum, severely bruised internal organs, a concussion, damaged lungs from breathing corrosive vapors, and bruises over most of your body. Which do not show." I gave her a short version of the chemical bath that precipitated this condition, and a faint line formed between her eyebrows.

"This will complicate your treatment," she said after a moment. She assisted me off the table and onto a chair. Another woman brought her a jar, a pretty thing of glass and metal. She twisted the lid off and told me to breathe the vapors. As I was sniffing--it was kind of medicinal but fresh smelling--she gathered together a group together, and from their occasional group looks toward me, she was discussing me with them. I was too tired to care about being a freak though. It was a little too cool in the room for comfort, so I twisted my feet in the over-long dress to warm them up and relaxed, holding the jar beneath my chin so that I got the treatment every time I breathed and closed my eyes.

I must have dozed off; I woke with a start to a light touch on my arm. She took the jar from me where it had been resting on my chest and listened to my lung function. "Your lungs are healing nicely," she said with approval. "There is not much that can be done for your broken bones, I regret to say; for some reason, all our attempts to accelerate bone healing have resulted in weaker bones. It is in your best interest to allow them to heal naturally." I nodded, unsurprised. "The concerns are your tissues. As they react to the trauma of your injuries, they will continue to swell awhile longer, but your skin seems to be limiting the swelling. This will become more uncomfortable for you. Additionally, you have a small laceration on your liver which is bleeding, and this needs to be addressed. Normally, a small incision is made, treatment is a matter of seconds, the liver healed, the blood removed. But with your skin..." She shook her head.

"Look, " I said, remembering. "In the pocket of the skirt I was wearing is a knife. It can cut my skin if you use enough force." One of the other women glided off at her look. When it was brought to her, she looked at it with a slight curl of her lip. I took offense. "That's good work," I snapped. "It's not beneath you to use it." After a cool look at me, she instructed the other woman to sterilize it.

"We think that we might be able to reverse your skin damage," she said a little abruptly, and I listened intently as she described a regime of oral medicine and a salve that would attract the medicine to the skin; exposure to ultra-violet light would be needed to stimulate the changes to the cells.

"I'm very interested," I assured her, "but at the same time, the ability of my skin not to burn has been an enormous asset." I flash to the mob in the jungle; I wouldn't have been able to finish the shield if I'd had to worry about being burned. "I think it might have saved my life once." She chewed on her lip as she considered this.

"It might be possible to retain that cellular change," she said finally. "Might."

"Anything you can do to preserve that," I said, and she nodded. I went back on the table, there was a new smell, bitter and stale and dank, then there was just dark.

When I woke up, I was on a bed in a dark room. A big lump next to me proved to be Sigurd, and the pressure on my ankles must be Torburn. I stayed still and took stock of my situation. Thanks to the dogs, I was nice and warm. My head felt fine, my lungs were fine, most of the pain in my midsection was gone. My ribs still hurt, but I was feeling remarkably chipper from somebody who'd walked away from two aircraft crashes in one day. I sat up carefully, which woke Sigurd, and there were tummy rubs to be administered as he made funny little sounds of contentment. Then Torburn came up and had to be have major ear skritches. I felt relieved; if they were back with me, they must be ok. While I was still fussing over Torburg, Sigurd sat up and barked; a moment, then the illumination came up. I squawked in dismay when I saw my purple skin.

A different health care professional walked in and examined me. The news was good; they'd healed my brain, my internal organs, including my liver; even with the new blade, it had been difficult to slice the skin but they'd managed. The rib cartilage had been set to rights but the ribs and sternum were still broken. Although my concussion was treated, I was warned against reading too much or concentrating too long for a few days; apparently Asgardian physiology was different in the brain too, and she wasn't sure how my brain would be after being whapped around like it had been. The skin treatment they'd tried later had effectively removed the impervious nature of my skin; they'd managed to retain my inflammability on my arms and the front of my torso, but the rest of my skin was back to normal. "The discoloration of your skin will fade in time," she said encouragingly. So the purple was just bruising, not a new way to be a freak. Good to know, but if the rest of me was like my arms, I was going to look like an eggplant for awhile. I was thrilled that the artificial toughness was gone--my skin was more sensitive than it had been for years, so I could tell without testing that the change had been made--but I was a little disappointed I didn't still have my entire fireproofing. It was such a great safety measure for a blacksmith.

I was allowed to get up and have a shower; when I was done, I had a new shapeless gown to wear; this one had been hastily cut down and I no longer looked like I was wearing a mutant Snuggie. I took a minute to test my vision; nobody'd said anything about that and I didn't want to bring that up if I didn't have to. I was able to quickly cycle through my increased spectrum and sighed with relief. My tough skin was nice, but my bread and butter was that enhanced sight. The healer had me stand still when I came out and carefully put a short corset type thing on me, providing support for the ribs but not squishing them. I couldn't bend at the waist, but on the other hand it helped to control the pain from the broken bones. I followed her back to the room that I remembered where Thor was waiting with his dad and Heimdall. I felt like a little girl around all the big people and in the dress that was still too long. They all flinched when they saw me. I didn't blame them; the bruises freaked me out too.

There was some polite chit-chat; apparently I'd been held in stasis for two days after the surgery for the skin treatment, then I'd slept another day. Odin gestured forward a man whom he introduced as the guy responsible for their magnificent dogs, who were apparently the results of a millennia or so of research, careful selective breeding from canines all over the Nine Realms, and a nudge of genetic manipulation. Wolves were pretty popular in Norse mythology, but not so much dogs, and Baldur envied other races their dogs so he...made himself some. They weren't just smart dogs, they had intelligence at least equal to ours, with a range of personalities and senses of humor. True companions. A big dog walked into the room and looked around. I thought Sigurd was huge, but this one had about forty pounds on him. Torburn gave a happy little bark and rushed over, his tail wagging. "That is his mother, Gretl," Baldur said as we watched the reunion. Gretl gave her son a thorough inspection and it seemed like they had a conversation. They both came over and she gave me a thorough inspection too; I quailed a bit, thinking of the trouble I'd gotten her kid into, but she finished, gave a short bark to Baldur, and left. Baldur assured me that she thought I was acceptable, and I felt pretty good about that.

It appeared I was finished with; we left the medical suite. Baldur peeled off with a farewell and Sigurd, Torburn, Thor, Heimdall and Odin walked with me to the Observatory. Odin asked about Loki, but I wasn't able to tell him much; I hadn't gone down to visit. Since I felt a sense of obligation for the excellent medical care, I said that I would visit, and Odin seemed pleased. In the Observatory, Odin gestured to a guard, who handed Thor an enormous pile of books for Loki. I smiled; it looked like I wasn't the only one being pressured to say hi. I thanked Odin and Heimdall for their assistance; they brushed it off in that Asgardian way, and Heimdall got the Bifrost spinning up.

When we were put down, I'd expected to be returned home to Seattle, but instead I was in a parking lot next to a strange building. Hot! Hot parking lot! I had no shoes and no fireproofing, so I bolted for the first entrance I saw. The pups were right with me; their paws weren't used to the heat either. Thor caught up to us easily and opened the door. "Fury wants to debrief you," he said, leading us into the Avengers facility in New York.