2013-02-11 Secondary Treatment

Some things never change.
It's been a while since Domino's driven this route through the city. By all counts she shouldn't be on the road at all, old bandages only holding the red stuff inside of her so well as she leaves the safety of one facility only to climb into her car and drive herself across New York to go to another. It's an unnecessary move, she would have been in good hands at the Institute. They could handle the physical damage just fine. The mental side, the emotional side, those were another matter.
Dom's business is hers alone. Her failings, her shortcomings, she has her own means of dealing with those. It's what leads her outside of the familiar door to one of those few truly independent sources that she considers to be a good ally, throwing back another set of pills to dull the pain while rapping a set of knuckles against the doorframe. She's already having trouble standing, only further weighted down by all of her gear.
Some things never change.
On the other side of the door, One pauses partway through stripping off an armored vest to peer through the peephole. There's a brief snort of laughter, then he unhooks the shotgun wired to the knob, unlocks it, and opens up for his visitor. "You look like hell," he greets her.
There's a long pause, then a small, crooked smile tugs at his mouth and softens his cold features. He turns his back, pulls a fresh sheet from a stack next to the door, and spreads it across the couch. "Come on in," he says. "I'll have a look at you as soon as I get changed."
The albino braced against that framework gives a humorless smirk in turn, "I feel about twice as bad. You know where I might find a doctor around here at this hour?"
That long pause is a bit unexpected, though Dom waits until she's allowed inside before calling you on it. "Expecting company or something? If this is a bad time..."
Yeah, she's just giving you shit. She's here now. She's not anxious to ditch treatment and drive herself back to Westchester. "Take your time, when you're ready I'll be the unconscious chick in your living room."
There's not a huge amount to keep hidden between doctor and patient. One's concession to modesty is to keep his back turned as he rips open the velcro tabs keeping his vest in place. The undershirt he removes is spotted with blood from what appears to be a bullet graze or a shrapnel wound. The injury is minor, just a cut to the flesh of his arm that's wrapped with gauze and forgotten. "Don't tempt me. And don't be fresh," he jabs back, his voice slightly muffled as he holds one end of the bandage in his mouth during the tying process. "You know I'd cancel if I had another date. You're my favorite."
He dons a t-shirt over his slacks, slips on a pair of exam gloves, and settles down next to Dom with his tools close at hand. "It's the skin, you know? It presents an interesting challenge, both professionally and personally. Do you have any idea how hard it is to fix someone as pale as you without leaving a scar?"
"You get enough business out of me," Dom points out with a low chuckle while settling herself onto the couch. "Maybe not so much lately, but what I lack in frequency I make up in other ways."
It's impossible to overlook your own injuries while she's resting. "Someone refuse to pay for your services again?" she asks, gently removing her coat and gear webbing.
By the time you return to her side there's a more legit smirk waiting for you. "You always say the sweetest things. But, that's why I keep coming back here. You take pride in your work, and I just -love- to be a medical anomaly for others."
Onto the sitrep. While working her shoulders out of that armor, which has the addition of dark blue along the outsides and a black and red X buckle in front, she gets you caught up to speed. "High-velocity pistol cartridge, close range, lost approximately forty percent of muzzle energy before entering through the back. Just missed the heart. Think there's some secondary fragmentation in there, hard to tell. If I'm lucky the jacket didn't separate from the core."
One's head and neck remain perfectly still, but his eyes snap back and forth, taking in details and filing them away as needed. After a few seconds of observation, he's all business again. "I'm fine," he replies. "Heard a rumor that a local biotech firm branched out into cloning. Went to take a look around. Bogus info, but they had a hell of a security setup. Now hold still."
He assists in getting the armor out of the way and inspects the GSW, one brow arched critically all the while. "No exit wound, I assume, or you probably wouldn't have made it here. Want some morphine? I'm going to have to do some prospecting. This is going to get worse before it gets better."
"So long as you had fun," she jokes in a deadpan tone. "You ever come across one of those that's the real deal, you've got my number."
There's a forced chuckle which follows. "Don't let that pale skin fool ya, Doc," Domino sourly teases while uncovering a second bandage, this one right up front. "Clean a pass-through as any. Guess some higher power was looking out for me." From the look of things she's had a few hours to heal, already. Someone with some obvious skill had handled the initial patching. Downright hospital-grade. The offer for morphine is almost dismissed outright, it's not the first time she's opted to rough it through moments like this. But, given the circumstances... Hasn't she tortured herself enough, already? Plenty of time to pick up where she left off once you're finished, too. "Ah, hell... Alright. Been a while since I tripped to cloud nine."
"I'll make it a mild dose. If I wanted you passing out on me, I'd just ask you if this rag smelled like chloroform." One graces Dom with a small, tight-lipped smile as he rolls her over to inspect the exit wound. "At least you had the sense to get basic first aid before you made the trip here. It costs me almost six hundred dollars to get a corpse removed and disposed of."
Jokes, at least by his standards. He's still smiling as he loads a syringe with a minute dose of painkillers, finds a vein, and performs the injection.
A few seconds later he's working, starting at the entry wound and searching for fragmentation as he goes. This sort of trauma surgery is his specialty. In a matter of minutes, he's found and extracted three metal slivers.
"I think that's everything," he says, dabbing a drop of sweat from his brow against one shoulder. "Grazed a lung, but that'll heal as long as you don't smoke or run any marathons in the next few days. It'll hurt like hell for a while, but as usual, you don't seem to have any permanent damage. Now let's patch you up."
"No sense in dirtying up another rag," comes Dom's level reply. "I suppose now might be a bad time to say that I've got eight hundred and thirty in my pocket, huh."
Yep. Excellent healthcare coverage, and she chose to abandon it all to come back -here.- That's thinkin.'
Oh, but the moments she shares with you... The familiar symphony comes and goes, your tools acting like the maestro's wand while she provides the notes on command. Meds only do so much to take the edge off, getting shot is -never- a pleasant experience for the recipient.
The albino mock-sighs, "There go my weekend plans. Hey, uh. Odd question, but medically relevant," she hisses through her teeth. "You didn't find any bone fragments or anything in there, did you..? 'Cause if you did, they're not mine. I mean--they are, sorta, but they're not."
You didn't give her -that- much morphine.
"Nothing that looked abnormal, but I also wasn't looking for anything abnormal. We can talk terms later. Better yet, buy me dinner and we'll call it even." One's got that eyebrow arched again. He reaches over to a nearby side table, opens a drawer, and pulls out some. Namely, a bottle of vodka and an empty rocks glass. He pours himself two fingers' worth, downs it, then fills the cup with rubbing alcohol from another bottle and dips his scalpel in it.
"Remind me not to drink that," he says. "So. Anything you want to tell me? I can't help you if I don't know what I'm healing."
Dinner? "Now Doc, aren't there rules against dating one of your patients?" Dom asks with a small grin. "Dinner, drinking, if you're lucky there might be a movie in there somewhere."
At first she's half expecting you to down the rubbing alcohol, too. When you tell her to remind you about it she can't help but laugh. "Award-winning facility, right here."
Then it comes down to the matter at hand, -how- all of this happened. Meh, it's not like it's any big secret, right? A handful of other people had been there during the whole thing. "Had a little disagreement with myself. Guess who won?" Pause. "Serious. There was a copy of me. When I killed her the slug passed through me. Any 'extra bits' lurking around might have come from another body. Let's hope the DNA matches or I'm screwed."
One's eyes narrow. "I don't have a license. I don't have to follow the rules. Now hold still. We have a lot of work to do."
Without another word, he dives back in. It's not that his second inspection is any more thorough, but all of the tiny bits and pieces of organic matter he'd normally leave behind to be absorbed or expelled during the healing process are extracted. Nothing is left to chance.
This is a more complex procedure. It takes longer. No second is wasted, though. No movement without a very specific purpose. The only break he allows himself is when he rolls Domino over to inspect the exit wound again. It's only then that the creases across his brow and at the corners of his mouth are visible. "How're you holding up?" he asks as he preps a second injection. This one is a combination of antivirals, antibiotics, and every other broad-spectrum immune booster he currently has access to. "I can give you something stronger for the pain, if you like. This is just to help fight off any uninvited guests."
Man. Maybe she shouldn't have said anything at all. And what, risk dying from an infection? "So that's going to be a 'yes' to the movie," she grumbles upon hearing that they've got a lot of work left to do.
Removing bits of metal is nothing unusual for Domino. She's had fragments all over the place to go fishing after. It's much less common to have to track down and extract biological chunks. Chunks that also came from a doppleganger? That's a first.
"Agh--! Pretty sure..that bit used to be part of me."
The upside is that she's greatly increasing her odds by seeing a second professional about this matter. Much like your own thoughts on the matter, she prefers to leave nothing to chance. It hurts, it sucks, but it beats the alternative. Fortunately they don't have to add possession by a demonic entity to the list.
Present..and accounted for," she hisses softly. As for the pain? "That all depends on if you want to catch up with a couple of drinks, there's always time to pass out later." Of course, if getting some rest is in order she would have a hard time stopping you from injecting her again.
The doctor reaches for his glass of alcohol, then catches himself and shakes his finger at it in a tsk-tsk fashion. "I'd prefer you coherent if you can hang in there a bit longer. Hold on, I'm almost done."
After checking the exit wound and providing it with similar treatment, he patches Domino up with neat, tiny stitches and tapes bandages in place over both holes.
"Christ on crutches," he sighs. "All done. If there was any foreign matter in there, it's gone now. I can compare it to a healthy sample of your tissue if you wish. But later. Definitely later."
Well, Dom's head is swimming. Her body feels like it's got a giant spot-welder punching its way through her chest. She barely knows where she is right now. And she's tired. Oddly familiar territory, this. "Think I spend ..more time in a daze around you than not. You're good, Doc," she jokes with a hazy grin. "Surprised the girls aren't lining up outside your door."
With your confirmation that the work is over she pulls a hand up, extends her thumb, then lets gravity carry her limb back down with a lifeless *whump.* "Later is good, we like later. Hey. If anyone ever asks you to join them on a field trip to Limbo..? Tell 'em to go fuck themselves. -Nothing- like the brochure."
Ow. "So. How ya been?"
One can't help but chuckle and shake his head. He produces another glass, pours himself a second drink, and gives it a sip. He reaches out a thumb as well, still laughing, to brush it against Domino's cheekbone. "Better than you, looks like. Been shot a couple times, but nothing center mass. Can't really complain. How about you, other than the hole in your torso?"
As he speaks, he carefully helps her back into enough of her outfit that she's covered in all the appropriate areas. "Couldn't help but notice that you changed your look, for example."
There's that lopsided grin again. "Sounds like fun. Oh, you know..."
Roadtrip across the US, assassinating the leader of another country, being given a hit on a friend of a friend, blowing up a chunk of Bakersfield...
"Nothing too major." Oh frig, right. The armor. Maybe she should have changed before running out this way. "Thought that it could use a bit more color. Good to update the design once in a while." And almost out a whole collection of allies living in secrecy, -good job,- Domino! Firing on all cylinders today.
"Speaking of that false biolab hit of yours, how good is your info network on that front? Secret facilities, government backed black-ops projects, that sorta thing."
"Peerless," One replies after only the briefest of pauses. "I knew Organitech was a pipe dream when I went in, but I also had personal reasons for making an appearance. In any case, I'm not just a sawbones, I'm a damn fine bioengineer. I stay off the grid for my own reasons, but I dedicate most of my personal time to chasing down leads, raiding research facilities for new equipment, and developing procedures of my own. All this..." he gestures to his apartment/office. "...just pays the bills."
"We all have our reasons," Dom quietly agrees. The info you share is promising, perhaps even the exact sort of thing she had been hoping to find in you. "I know we haven't operated on this level in the past, but I've got a job for you, if you're up for it. There's something out there that I want more info on, should be right up your alley. Anything and everything you can scare up without drawing attention. Above all else, this needs to stay between us. Sound like the sort of thing you'd like to pursue?"
"It does," One admits, giving a single nod and a small smile. "Why don't you get some rest? When you wake up, you can give me the particulars and we can work out a plan. I don't know about you, but I could use a few hours' worth of sack time and you don't look fit enough to keep me company."
It's one of the few times that Domino is ready to speak but the listener is not ready to hear. Always playing her hand close to the chest, even the smallest pieces of information seem to be of great interest to others whenever they slip free. That you're willing to wait it out is both unexpected and curiously refreshing. ..Okay, and a little irritating. For a woman that always wants to keep moving, keep forging ahead, being told to sit back and give it a few tends not to go over so well with her. Still, with as beat down and drugged up as her body currently is, arguing the point is only going to accomplish so little.
"Gonna hold ya to it, One."
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