femmejosephine | Patching Tony Up

Honestly, she loved being an EMT. It let her use some of the skills Section had taught her but in a way that actually helped people instead of hurting them. And yeah, she didn't mind the adrenaline rush she got from working to stabilize someone who'd fallen off a building or gotten bit by a vampire or hit by a car. It was a good use of an adrenaline rush, not a bad one.

She also loved being a restaurant owner, though, and she was working hard to balance the two. It helped that she had a good new waitress in Debora. That girl knew how to handle customers, good and bad. It meant Nikita didn't worry too much about what would happen when she was working a shift at the hospital or recovering from it.

Today was the day after a recovery day, and so she was at the restaurant checking on things and hopefully doing a little paperwork. She glanced up when the front door opened only to see Tony Stark in front of her looking pitiful and injured.

Oh, this was going to be a good story. She could tell already.

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"I don't know good wine from bad, so that might be wasted on me," she said lightly. It wasn't quite true. Section had taught her to know any number of things for missions, and wine quality was one of them. But it wasn't something she should know since her general persona was firmly working-class, so it wasn't something she seemed to know.

She started stitching without any further warnings since anticipation could honestly be worse than the actual pain of the needle. She tied a neat knot in the first suture and snipped the ends, then went to the next stitch.

"Ow," Tony complained when she was suddenly stitching. But he didn't move or pull his arm away. He fought with the urge to reach out and rub at the wound and the fresh stitch. If he touched, he'd probably get a swat, and he'd deserve it.

"Here's the secret. Nobody actually knows good wine from bad. I mean, sure, if you've tasted that particular wine before, you can recognize it. But other than that, the good stuff, the crap stuff, there's not a lot of difference. But it would be the good stuff. I want you to know that. I would give you the good stuff."

"So all those people who pretend to talk about the, I dunno, oak undernotes or whatever are just being pretentious? Should have figured rich people would be pretentious," she said. Tony was rich, or at least rich in Darrow terms, even if he didn't have the same kind of money he'd had before. It didn't change whether she thought rich people were pretentious. She remembered the Section-ordered parties where she was just decoration for some warlord or politician, not to mention that bastard Alec Chandler. He'd been pretentious and a total scumbag.

She put in the second stitch, then gently palpated the ends of the cut, trying to decide if it would be a good idea to put in a couple more just in case.

Tony grimaced and banged a fist a few times, gently enough not to break anything or upset any stacks of business papers, on the desk beside him.

"I mean, I'm sure they have themselves convinced that the wine has oak and peach undertones. Whether that matches up with objective reality, maybe not, but damn they get paid well. You're right, though. Rich people are pretentious. Just look at me, right? Basically just one giant pretense. Not even an actual person."

"People convince themselves of a lot of things," she agreed, which sounded a little like a cynical fortune cookie. Cynical fortune cookies were her kind of fortune cookies.

For a second it looked like his banging fist was going to take a stack of tax paperwork over, but it didn't. It probably would have actually improved the organization of the paperwork if it'd gone off the desk.

One more stitch, just to be on the safe side, and she quickly stitched, knotted, and cut.

"Had a friend once who was big into socialism and being a hippie. And he liked gadgets too. It'd be fun to put you two into a room and see if you save the world or destroy it."

It was very cynical, and Tony tilted his head, thinking of nothing so much as Natasha.

Once she was done, Tony had the urge to scratch at the sutured wound. He sat on his hands to avoid the temptation, lest he ruin Nikita's work.

"Hey. Don't make fun. I've totally saved the world before. At least once. So anything is possible."

He gave Nikita a very serious look.

She got out the skin glue and sealed the edges on either side of the stitches, then fanned her hand over the glue to help it heal faster. She did chuckle at Tony sitting on his hands without any prompting from her, though.

"And I didn't even have to warn you to keep your hands to yourself," she noted. If she'd used a different tone, that might have been flirty, but instead it was just slightly amused.

"Have you? Well, good for you."

"Good for you."

Tony gave a snort, because it seemed very patronizing, and it probably was, but also, he deserved it, and he couldn't prove it.

"I guess I should at least do you the -- arguable -- kindness of sticking around and ordering fifty dollars worth of food and mixed drinks to make up for your time."

He could use the drink, actually. And a sandwich.

"You can if you want to, but you don't have to. I think Phil's table is open, unless someone's claimed it in the last few minutes."

Phil had been gone for months, but it was still Phil's table. Maybe it should be called Tony's table now, but it wasn't. It was Phil's.

She taped a gauze bandage securely over the stitches to keep them clean and dry.

"Do I need to give you the wound care lecture or can I assume you've heard and ignored it a few times already?"

Patching Tony Up - August 24

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