John, Steve, and Cecelia
A/N: Disclaimer's in the first chapter.
(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)
For John, the last week had been pretty unreal. It wasn't the new clothes or the sweet-as-hell new digs he got to live in that made it that way either. No, the air of unreality was down entirely to the adults around him and how they were dealing with him and Rogue.
Tony had only been the start of it, with his blasé reaction to and easy acceptance of their powers. Captain Fucking America had been right there with Tony - and that would forever shock the hell out of John because the dude was from the fuckin' thirties and forties. Steve should be freaking right the hell out about mutants in general, never mind having two such dangerous ones all up in his face. Instead, Steve had just been completely unconcerned. It blew John's mind.
The fact Steve had been so quick to ok John at least fighting with the adults had initially thrown John too. After John'd thought about it for a little bit though, it made sense that Steve'd be ok with it. A lot of guys John's age had been signing up for the war back in the late thirties and early forties, and on top of that, it'd been the Depression and all of that. That had meant that folks had been scrabbling for whatever work they could find in order to be able to afford to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. People had had to grow up fast, including Steve, so Steve probably had the mindset that someone mid-to-late teens was capable of being an adult and making adult decisions if they wanted to be.
John figured that if Rogue had wanted to fight too, Steve'd be as ok with her as with John. While John took a lot of the stories told by folks who'd never met Steve with a pound of salt, a few of the stories had been confirmed by Steve himself in the last week and a half. Including the bit about Peggy Carter fighting alongside Steve in at least one battle. If Steve was ok with that, and ok with Natasha (who scared the holy hell out of John), Rogue wouldn't be a problem if she had wanted to fight. Rogue rather understandably wanted no part of that shit, though. At least not on the 'use my mutation against the enemy' level anyway. She was still learning to defend herself without using her mutation, even if she only trusted Logan to teach her because of her skin.
The rest of the Avengers had been just as accepting of the mutants in their midst. Enough so that John was beginning to wonder if maybe the entire planet wasn't actually solely comprised of people who were bigoted assholes after all. That everyone seemed as inclined as Steve to treat him and Rogue as adults was gravy. Delicious, delicious gravy that had made Bobby (who's called them every night) shit jealous. John was pretty sure the only reason Bobby hadn't come to join them was because his parents were still under the delusion that their son was attending a school for the gifted and *not* a mutant.
Case in point, the two of them had automatically been included in the meet-and-greet slash coordinating-our-forces meeting with Tyr. Who seemed to be as cool with their presence as Thor and Loki, though that could be because Tyr didn't know they were kids yet. John wasn't quite sure if Thor and Loki understood that, and they'd been on Earth for nearly two weeks now. It hardly mattered to John that he didn't have anything to contribute to the planning aside from sharing what he was and wasn't capable of with his mutation and what he knew of 'normal' fighting. Being included was more than enough.
(_)(_)(_)
"Our biggest problem, and our biggest advantage." Steve said somewhere in the middle of the planning. "Is going to be the high-population-density areas. Lots of innocent civilians who are going to be in the line of fire, but also more defenders in those areas. And we're going to have to account for folks with little to no training, but access to guns or other weapons jumping into the fight, which is going to mean dealing with and hopefully somehow reducing accidental friendly fire. I know I saw more than one regular civilian fighting back during the attempted invasion here, and I sincerely doubt that reaction will be unique to this city."
"And the biggest problem in that area is going to be China and India." Tony chimed in. "There's over two billion people in that area alone, just over a billion in each country."
Steve gave Tony a wide-eyed stare. "Two billion?" He echoed, his voice nearly a squeak. "That's the world population when I went down!" Steve had known the population had grown, of course, but that was just ridiculous.
"We're over seven billion now." Tony told him.
Steve nearly whimpered. Over triple the population in just seventy years? Yikes. "Ok, so we're going to have to put a lot of defenders in China and India, with that many people there. Depending on what sort of firepower Thanos will be bringing to bear, one or two strikes and he'd wipe out a just under a third of our population."
"Charles has already put out feelers for folks to start gathering local defenders." Steve said. "Which will help immensely. Locals will know the lay of the land better than we will." Steve looked at Tony. "Has anyone thought to warn the various governments, and their militaries?"
"Not that I know." Tony admitted. "Not my arena, not Charles' either, though he does have a few government contacts. But from the patterns Jarvis has been tracking, a warning might not be needed. There's been an upswing in military-related activities pretty much planet-wide. Some of it may be various idiots thinking to take advantage of the chaos going on right now, but not all of it."
Steve nodded. There would always be opportunists he knew, even if he really disliked that reality. "We need to figure out a way to get the word out to everyone and be believed, just to make sure." He said.
Tony wrinkled his nose and sighed. "I'll yell at Fury later." He promised.
Steve tried to level a stern look at Tony, but he was pretty sure more than a little of the amusement he was feeling was showing through. "At least try to play nice." He said.
"I will if he does." Tony snarked. "Which means we're pretty much doomed, because he won't."
"Forgive me, sir, but it is nearly two pm." Jarvis said, speaking up for the first time.
Tony looked slightly startled before he responded. "Thanks for the reminder, J."
Steve glanced at him. "What's that about?"
"Charles has connections." Tony said with a grin. "He knew of a doctor that was used to working with mutants, which means atypical pretty-much-everything. Someone like that is our best shot at a doctor who can handle the weird shit that comes with super soldiers and aliens and defending the world. She's coming in for an interview at two thirty. If I like her, I'll let you guys take a poke at her. If she manages to deal with all of us and still wants to work with us, we'll have a qualified on-site doctor. Given that we're *going* to get banged up ... "
"Having a doctor on hand that we can trust would be a very good thing." Steve finished with a nod. "Right. We'll wrap up here until you're done so you don't miss anything potentially important, and then if she passes muster with you, we can all talk to her and see from there."
(_)(_)(_)
Cecilia Reyes' life hadn't been the easiest. Watching her father be gunned down, and the subsequent difficulties her family had faced in surviving in the aftermath, had left their mark. But she had risen to the challenge, and dedicated her life to helping those that needed it the most.
In service to that desire, Cecilia had become a doctor. More specifically, a trauma surgeon. She had chosen this route because it provided the widest base of information, and was of the most use to the largest number of people. Most doctors and surgeons specialized. They could only diagnose and treat certain aspects of the human condition, and thus served a smaller segment of the population. Trauma surgeons had to be able to spot and treat a wide range of problems - and do so swiftly and efficiently to save lives.
She'd fallen into treating mutants mostly by accident. She'd been in Louisiana right after a particularly destructive hurricane had gone through when she'd spotted some injured folks who were doing their best to avoid the numerous personnel assessing and treating injuries. It had taken a lot of talking and a very careful approach to get those folks to let her treat them - at which point she had realized why they'd been so paranoid.
For Cecelia, it had highlighted a unique and growing problem. Those with unique physiologies - whether they were mutants or not - really had no one to turn to when something went wrong. So Cecelia had started working in that community, learning as she went.
About a year later, she'd discovered that she herself was a mutant when part of a wall tried to fall on her and she shielded herself. She'd gone looking for someone who could help her learn how to control her mutation, and found Charles. That had been three years ago.
Cecelia had actually been in the city when all hell broke loose. She just hadn't been at the epicenter - thank goodness. She ran a clinic in a part of town with a very high concentration of mutants, well north of Stark Tower and far from the six or so blocks that had been the center of the attack. She had promptly put her partner in control of the clinic for a couple days and headed into the affected area to help treat the injured, whether they were normal humans or otherwise. She'd returned once the overwhelming crush of incoming injured had eased, only to get a call from Charles.
The idea of becoming the Avengers' on-site physician had a lot of appeal. Cecelia knew that that group, like the X-Men, were going to be at the forefront of a *lot* of battles before all was said and done. They were going to need someone who could treat their injuries and help them stay in top condition when they weren't injured. The only question was whether or not they'd be willing to trust her with that responsibility.
Cecelia arrived for her interview with Mr. Stark ten minutes early. She was dressed in a nice but practical T-shirt, jeans and hiking boots. She'd debated what to wear for quite a while. While a nice suit or overtly 'doctor-ish' apparel had their appeal, Cecelia had a feeling that it was the wrong approach. Mr. Stark was well-known for his intolerance of stuffy, boring people ... or stuffy, boring anything for that matter. Cecelia had a feeling that most of the other Avengers would be likewise, so she wanted to come off as human and approachable.
The woman at the help desk greeted her warmly and pointed her to a specific elevator, informing her where she'd be going and that an escort would be awaiting her, to lead her to the interview room. Cecelia figured the escort was part of the security measures in the Tower, to make sure relative strangers didn't go where they had no business being.
She was therefore not quite ready for her escort to be Mr. Stark himself. Though after a moment's reflection, she decided that she really ought to have expected that.
"Mr. Stark." She greeted the man.
"Doc Reyes." Mr. Stark greeted her. "Call me Tony. Mr. Stark was my father."
"Then call me Cecelia." Cecelia said. She considered offering a hand to shake, but she had heard from more than one source that Mr ... that Tony did not like that sort of thing, so she didn't. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Likewise." Tony said, then gave her a distinctly lascivious up-and-down.
Since Tony's flirting was as legendary as most of the rest of his personality, she had expected something of the sort. She wasn't a supermodel, but she was good looking, and Tony had a reputation for hitting on damn near anything human, never mind good looking. She gave it the attention it deserved, which is to say none at all.
"C'mon, interview room is this way." Tony said, his mouth quirking a bit.
Cecelia followed him to a small conference room. Tony flung himself into a chair on one side of the table. After a moment's thought, Cecelia opted for the chair next to him, rather than across from him.
"So." Tony said. "This is less about if you can, and more about if you will. I've read your file - you've got the chops to deal with the weird shit physical problems we will doubtlessly be throwing at you, or I wouldn't even have let you in the building, Charles' recommendation be damned."
He tapped the tabletop, and Cecelia blinked in surprise when the tabletop essentially became a computer monitor, displaying photographs of a number of people.
"We've got a bunch of oddballs." Tony said. "There's me, there's two folks from another world/dimension/whatever - we're still figuring out which it is - whose culture and medical knowledge is a lot different from modern-day America. We've also got a guy from the forties, two ex-assassins, and basically every last one of us has weird-ass quirks at the very least. And most of us are probably going to fight you on getting treated for one reason or another."
Cecelia smiled. "Tony, if I hadn't been sure I could handle recalcitrant, quirky patients, I wouldn't have bothered trying for an interview at all." She pointed out. "I can handle quirky and recalcitrant, no problem. I can even handle you guys not telling me everything right off, so long as I am informed of things like allergies, problematic drug interactions, and things of that stripe."
In other words, she wasn't going to demand - for instance - all the details as to how the arc reactor in Tony's chest worked. That didn't matter. What *did* matter was whether or not Tony was prone to chest pain, lung infections, breathing problems or the like due to the casing's location. The same sort of thing went for everyone else. Whether or not they entrusted her with the nitty-gritty details of their physiological conditions would be up to them - she just needed to know the important bits in order to treat them effectively.
Tony regarded her for a moment, then grinned. "You just might do, Cecelia. You just might do. We'll see if you can survive the gauntlet first, though. J, tell Steve to come down here."
After that, one by one, Cecelia met the various Avengers. She couldn't help but start to make purely mental notes about each of them as she met them. They were all so interesting!
Steve would be a challenge to treat. The serum had evidently gifted him with an extremely fast metabolism and something remarkably similar to a healing factor. Dosing him with medication, whether to dull pain or for a surgical procedure was going to be tricky. Especially since Steve had a very cavalier attitude about pain and injury. She wasn't going to be able to trust him to tell her when he was hurting.
Thor and Loki would require extensive, very careful experimentation as to whether or not they could tolerate human drugs at all, never mind how they would be affected by them. She foresaw a lot of blood draws in their future to figure that out, though there was hope that they would just be like Steve, since both of them could consume human foods without problems. She was also going to need to talk to their version of a doctor to ascertain whether or not their internal structures were similar enough to a human's that she'd be able to do anything for them. Fortunately, someone from Asgard had arrived earlier in the day for a visit, and was more than willing to pass on the request.
The bad news was that she'd essentially be working blind with Loki, as he was not actually Asgardian, and apparently what the Asgardians knew about the physiology of Jotuns didn't amount to much. Weirdly, and Cecelia would give her right arm to figure out how that worked, apparently if Loki looked Asgardian, his body acted and reacted like an Asgardian body would, so that would help, but if he ever reverted to his Jotun body for some reason, they'd have more than a few problems on their hands.
John, Rogue, Logan and Remy would be the easiest to deal with. Since all four of them had been at Charles' for at least six months, there would be records there for her to work with regarding treatment. Rogue's skin would be a challenge, but hardly the biggest one that Cecelia would face. Logan's admitted tendency to come awake claws first (especially if he'd gotten knocked out while fighting) would be a bigger problem than Rogue's skin ever could be.
Natasha and Clint would require much the same caution and care that Logan would. Both of them had massive paranoid streaks, lightning fast reflexes, massive trust issues and no small amount of close-combat skills. One unfortunate misstep with either of them and she'd be in a world of pain - and they wouldn't even mean to do it. Nor would she hold such a reaction against them. She had also gotten the sense that there was more going on with Natasha than Natasha had been willing to admit in their brief interview.
Cecelia made due mental note of the fact that both Bruce and Betty made it clear that Betty was pretty much the only one guaranteed to be able to approach Bruce without coming to harm in an emergency situation. Hulk was unlikely to get hurt, and apparently any injury Bruce suffered prior to transforming was healed by the transformation, but there was always the possibility of an injury happening. Just because no currently known weapon could hurt Hulk didn't mean he couldn't get hurt in the future, and Bruce could get (very slightly) hurt without transforming. Bruce also made sure to inform Cecelia that his blood was radioactive.
While none of them were actual Avengers, Cecelia was also introduced to Pepper, Darcy, Jane and Betty. The odds on those four ladies getting tangled in some event, and thus hurt, were pretty high since three of them were involved with Avengers and the fourth, while not involved with an Avenger, was a part of the group and thus a potential target or potential collateral damage if she was around the Avengers and they were attacked.
Once she'd met and talked with everyone, the group talked amongst themselves for a bit. Tony came over a minute or two later and grinned at her.
"Congrats, Cecelia. You got the job. C'mon and I'll show you our doctoring facilities, and you can tell me if I missed out any important equipment."
The Avengers' trauma area turned out to be an entire floor. There were two surgical suites, each able to be completely cut off from the rest of the floor if necessary for whatever reason. Both were equipped with state-of-the-art equipment. So was the rest of the floor. There were a dozen individual rooms for long-term care, each supplied with equipment that could turn them into an ICU in seconds, if that was required. There were several self-contained rooms to deal with unknown and possibly communicable contaminants. Each room had a large airlock on the outside wall, allowing an affected Avenger to enter the room without exposing the entire rest of the Tower to whatever they'd been covered in. They also had much smaller airlocks on the inside wall through which to pass clothes, food, medication and other items. The airlock controls - indeed the remote controls for everything on the floor - were located in a central hub, so that if the person in containment went crazy, they couldn't just let themselves out. Well, not without wrecking the room, anyway. Unfortunately, with several of the Avengers, if things got that bad, there wouldn't be a damn thing anyone could do to stop them, as they were more than strong enough - or equipped with weapons sharp enough - to get them out of pretty much any form of containment that could be dreamed up.
There was also a huge pharmacy with three different locks on the door, stocked with pretty much every medicine on the planet, FDA approved or not. Apparently, Tony had opted for an 'if it's legal somewhere, it's fair game' approach to medicine, given the oddball physiologies of the Avengers. It wasn't a bad idea, as there was no telling if FDA approved drugs would be usable. Cecelia would just pretend she didn't know the other stuff was here. She'd had practice with that.
That done, she was shown to the next floor down. There were several apartments on this floor, meant for herself and whatever medical staff got hired later on. She'd have to see about finding one more doctor and a nurse at the very least - she would not be able to be on call 24/7 by herself.
