bakerstreet | ( nursed back to health shipping meme. )

"Me that brought you back, yeah." There's bullet holes to busy herself with, and in the meantime she resolves to let him rattle off questions as they come to mind. Blood now stirring, the wounds bleed anew; set upon quickly with a cloth and salve, they're no longer any real danger. The arm closest to her is tended first, and she moves slowly across his chest.

Once he's finished she considers explanation. It's a lot for a layman to take in, but then, this compound is hardly a place to find laymen.

"Resurgence," she answers, honestly and cautiously. Not a word that will mean much on its own. Hardly had any meaning to her until it had been explained - but there's security to worry about, and he's hardly in a position for long-winded exposition. Her free hand does a little wave, fingers waggling to lend a little energy to her more simple summation: "Magic." She takes the moment to flash a reassuring little smile, and resumes work.

"I don't know a lot of specifics. I'm not with-- all these people. Avengers, the spy types, any of that. Think consultant, I suppose. They wanted you back, I'd have to guess something with Sokovia? Not even two days ago." Said lightly, as it falls well within her wheelhouse. He's in experienced hands. "But it's alright now. You're back and someplace safe, and the rest of this is nothing. Bed rest, steady meals, you'll be back to normal in no time. Swear it."

It feels strange, letting someone other than Wanda tend to wounds. He's just never been in a situation where anyone else was available, never mind preferable due to their skill set. She seems to know exactly what she is doing, so Pietro lies still and lets her, his eyes on her face, gauging the level of confidence and calm with which she works.

In spite of himself, a weak smile pulls up the left corner of his mouth in response to her reassurance and the single-word explanation. Magic is something he would have scoffed at once upon a time, but since HYDRA turned him into the fastest man alive and his sister into a one-woman arsenal of psychic power, he no longer questions anything anymore. Especially now, considering he knew himself to have expired and yet, here he is.

"Nor am I," he agrees. "Although, maybe I am honorary Avenger now after all this." Pietro winces a little at the mention of his home. He doesn't have to have been around for the past two days to know that his country is probably no more. "Sokovia, yes. Will I be, though?" he asks, giving her a look of genuine concern. "Back to normal?" Is there such a thing as back to normal after what he has been through? "And what of you? Where will you go?" The last question he does not ask is what if he needs her because something goes wrong and she has already gone?

"I'll try not to get starstruck." It would be shocking if he wasn't, considering the implicit sacrifice and effort they've already gone to on his behalf. It's a little jolt of levity she can guess from experience is preferable to wholly serious comfort. "You will be. This is a lot to process at once, natural to be nervous, but I promise you will. I've come back from worse myself."

Physically, of course. She can't speak to mentally, for either of them. He's handling it quite well thus far; she's tentatively pegged him as the resilient type.

That he asks about her is a visible surprise. Having hardly thought far ahead herself, she answers from a space outside of her element.

"I'm not sure. They're doubtful, up there, and I figure they'll want to barge in when I'm done and monitor you, make sure I'm not scamming them somehow. Probably discouraged from leaving until that's done with." Accommodations imply to her they either expected a much more lengthy process, or it's a security measure. Incredibly possible she's wrong, but a little wariness doesn't hurt. "And then...I'm not sure. Maybe go home, probably not. Find someplace new."

If there were more energy left in him, that might've made Pietro laugh a little, actually. The idea of anyone being starstruck over him is hard enough to process, never mind a beautiful woman who literally just brought him back to life. He does manage a half-smile, though, to acknowledge the levity. He appreciates it, after all; if any situation could use it right about now, it is this one.

Misty tells him that he will be normal and, if he is honest, Pietro worries that she might actually be wrong about that. How can he ever be normal again? He is willing to trust that, physically, she will have fixed him enough that he could have a normally functioning body, but how can a man be normal mentally when he has been dead for several days only to be dragged back into the land of the living unexpectedly? It is not, after all, a particularly pleasant experience to be yanked back into existence as such. He will, perhaps, be functionally normal, but he will never be the same Pietro Maximoff he used to be, not really.

Still, he appreciates her reassurance and the identification with his situation that she offers; it means that he can believe that she isn't simply guessing. "Where is home, for you?" he asks. "You would not want to stay? Surely, you are bigger asset to the team than I am," he points out. He's fast; she's a miracle. It would be nice to see her around more. It would be nicer, still, to have someone around who has, if she is to be believed, been through the same or worse than he has. Wanda used to be the single most important person in his life because she is the only one who has been through everything with him. Now, there will be a rift that can never, ever be completely closed between them. Pietro has died and Wanda has not. She can never understand this new part of him and it would be nice to have someone around who can understand it and would, perhaps, be willing to talk about it with him now and again, when things get especially difficult or uncomfortable for him to deal with on his own.

"You are probably right that they'll keep you until they believe I'm fine on my own. Could be couple hours, could be longer. I don't know them that well, yet." He pauses, then. If they keep her long enough, maybe she would change her mind about wanting to go. "Maybe you have already found your someplace new?" he asks, an eyebrow lifting as he looks up at her.

Mental normalcy is trickier. Hard enough for empowered individuals, hostile as the world can be and amidst the misfortune they naturally seem to attract, and harder still after a trauma so...far reaching. Any unhappiness of hers isn't solely attributable to it, she would argue, and she's functional. Things may even be looking vaguely upwards. If not normal, a close approximation. The important sentiment being that he will be okay.

"Louisiana," she answers, and is about to elaborate before he continues and the mere notion makes her honestly laugh, tinkling self-deprecation. An Avenger or associate she is not. "I'm not a - heroing type," she explains, hand to her heart. "Hardly my element, all the combat and sneaking around." The line of fire hardly suits her, be it literal or metaphorical. That he doubles down only increases the flattery.

"It'd hardly be up to me even if I had! They're putting me up, so I won't just up and vanish on you overnight, I promise. Much else is a lot to imagine would even be on the table right now - especially considering I'll have you to worry about already."

In the meantime, she's advanced to a paste carefully applied to each wound, and is finally about to bandage him up.

Pietro smiles a little at her humility. "You seem pretty heroic to me," he points out helpfully. It doesn't really matter that he doesn't know how much they paid her or whether it took a lot of convincing to get her here. To him, all that matters is that she's here and she's brought him back. Not only that, but she's mending the rest of him so that it sticks. That feels pretty heroic to him.

That said, though, he does not press the subject because Pietro isn't a heroing type, either. At least, not in his mind. He had not done what he did because he thought himself a hero. He saw a Sokovian child about to die and he reacted. He hadn't meant to sacrifice himself consciously, he just knew that the child had not yet lived. He had joked to Barton "you didn't see that coming," but honestly, neither had Pietro. It had been an impulse and a stupid one, in retrospect. He didn't regret saving that life, but he regretted what he knew Wanda must have felt after he had.

It's reassuring, though, to know that she isn't going to just leave. He nods. "I appreciate that probably more than you realize," he tells her honestly, his eyes shifting down to watch the way she prepares to bandage him. "You are good at this," he observes. "Steady hands. And your bedside manner doesn't hurt," he adds with a smirk.

There's no staving off warm cheeks at that, but she doesn't have to acknowledge them directly. Focus on bandaging doubles, and with an artful tilt of her head, just so, the worst of it ought to obscured by her hair. Hardly heroic. Moral and willful, inclined to make the world around her fair up to and including individual demise, but no...vigilante. Nobody sanctioned by anybody. Nobody expected. Nobody, period. But it's incredibly kind to say.

"Decent, is all, and everyone ought to be decent." Her bar is admittedly high, but she'll hold fast to it. On skill, "It's just practice. Having someone actually keep still on their own takes a lot of the challenge out, to be fair. Some of it's owed to you." A smile is flashed back, carefully rationed before it's back to hair curtains. "We'll put in a good word for each other when everyone rushes in."

In spite of himself, Pietro finds himself smiling a little bit as he looks up at her while she works, her hair mostly obscuring her face from his view. "You are not very good at taking a compliment, are you, Krásná?" he asks wryly.

If he were feeling a little more himself and a bit more up to it, this is the part where Pietro might really turn on the charm and try to flirt with her a bit more. For now, calling her Beautiful in Sokovian will have to be enough. If he's lucky, she'll be stuck here long enough for him to feel up to it. If he's especially lucky, she'll be receptive. He's not always especially lucky.

"I can only imagine that not all of the team here is in the field. Whoever works down here normally," he says, looking to his side and noting the wall of body-sized drawers before looking back at her, "is probably not the kind of hero in the middle of the fray, no?"

Context doesn't leave her wholly in the dark, but it's fortunate for her she can't place the word. It could be a great deal worse. "I wouldn't say I'm the most experienced person for it," she murmurs, steadily bandaging. Arms can be wrapped, the abdomen is a slower process. Gentle, in the hopes of not drawing any further blood.

Compliments are thoroughly foreign territory. She's used to animosity, or nothing at all. A morgue is hardly where she'd like to spend her time, but the real point he's making comes through.

"No arguing that. Awfully kind of you, worrying about my employment so soon after all this. Worried for yourself, or just unusually generous?"

A huff escapes him and, on the heels of it, a wince and a groan for the way it makes his body move unexpectedly with it. "Can it be both?" he asks a moment later when he recovers from the jolt of discomfort. Pain might be a stretch but it's definitely uncomfortable.

He would shrug in addition, but that feels like a poor decision, especially considering that she'd specifically said that part of the reason this was going as well as it was is that he has been lying very still for her. "I would like to know that you will be around if something goes wrong or if I..."

If he what? There are so many ways for him to finish that sentence that he doesn't really know which to choose. "If I have problem or question," he decides because that seems the least complicated filler for the blank space.

"It can be both." Wincing on his account, she's got sympathy enough to spare a brief, careful squeeze of his hand. Grounding, something to distract if only momentarily. Human comforts are important, indispensable things. He makes a fine point, then, and she chew it over.

"I can't promise they won't shuttle me off anyplace or keep me away awhile," she points begins, in a tone that cautions against rapidly thrown up hope, "But I'm not gonna up and abandon you to this. It's - a lot, and most people won't really get it. I won't willingly leave until you've had time to get any problems and questions out of your system, I promise."

Pietro's eyes move to her face again when he feels her take and squeeze his hand, offering a welcome distraction from the wave of pain. It is strange the sorts of things a person will notice in unexpected moments of tactile connection. One would think that he would notice perhaps the warmth of her hand — which of course he does — but he also notices how soft her skin is and how firm the squeeze is. He notices the scent of her shampoo when she moves and, with her, her hair swinging slightly; maybe a little stale like she hadn't washed it this morning specifically but at least semi-recently.

"I do not see that happening," he says. "Not if my sister has say in it. She will not let you go until you or they make her and if they want me alive, they must value what I can do. If they value what I can do, they must value what she can. My sister is much, much more powerful than I could ever be."

He finally tears his eyes from her face, looking around the room again as if reflexively to look for Wanda, like just talking about her will make her materialize there. When, after a few seconds, she predictably does not, Pietro looks back at Misty again. "You have done this before, you said?" he asks suddenly. "What I am doing right now? How long does it take?" he goes on and then lowers his voice to clarify. "How long does it take to to feel normal? Or, at least, close to it? Tell me the truth, I can take it. Lower your voice; my sister might not take it as well as I will if she can hear us, wherever she is."

No contact of any sort has been made with Wanda yet, but Misty's seen the face even if she wouldn't be able to put a name to it. While as a general rule she gets antsy at the notion of autonomy and mobility being tied to strangers, she can trust enough in Pietro's tone that this is intended to be a positive sign. He seems on the level, and some of that must extend to family. And she had just brought him back. There couldn't possibly be bad blood to fret over.

Easier to address immediately are the questions. "Just healing. Blame the shoddy locale on the suits, I promise I'd have picked something more comfortable. Right now you're healing, just...faster." And following his quiet clarification, voice quiet as requested,, "Just adjusting. Coming to. All of this is a lot on your nerves, but that'll get better once you can get somewhere nice, see a familiar face, eat, so on. After that it...depends. Hits some things harder than others. I've seen animals walk it off like nothing ever happened, people too, but it's not universal."

She hardly feels real, some days.

"Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe you'll always get a little twitchy about something related to all this. Too early to call. I like your odds, though."

In spite of himself, Pietro gives her a small, wry smile. "I do everything faster," he intones. "Well...not everything," he amends and, ah, there it is. There's the flirt people who know him well enough would expect to have seen come out by now. The smile melts away again at her response because it's so open-ended and vague. He imagines she has to do that; she cannot promise something with no certainty to it, of course, even if that would be preferable to hear.

"Why you like my odds?" he asks, half-amused but half-curious. He wonders if that's just her way of trying to make him feel a little bit better when she can tell that he's starting to feel a little anxious. One would think it would be easier to accept coming back to life than to accept leaving it, but one would be wrong, Pietro's finding out.

His eyes move back, briefly, to the cameras before they settle on Misty once more. "You'll let me know when I can sit up? Stretch? Get off this metal table?" he asks, the last bit coming out alongside an upward tug of the left corner of his mouth in a half-smirk. She's already acknowledged that this isn't the most comforting setting and it's easy for him to believe that it was not her choice of locale.

She reddens to such an extent one could confuse it for a secondary ability or a side effect, but thankfully there's no pressing it. She can focus on the work, and glance up only once he's taken a marginally more serious tone - it's not better, she'd prefer he be wholly comfortable, contented, but it's easier to converse with when set against flirting.

"Because you came back quick for someone out so long, you know who you are, and you're acting like what I have to imagine you normally act like." Which may sound like a low bar, but she's never managed so complete a rebound that quickly. It suggests a fortitude she thinks she respects. "And you're clearly in fine shape. Doubt you'll be too out of place in your own body."

He's fortunate. Only one remaining hole in his arm to wrap, entry and exit wounds, and he's done. There's a check to be sure each gauze pad or strip of cloth is securely fastened, more for her own peace of mind, and then she settles for plucking a rag off the table beside her and wiping her hands.

"You can sit up, but I wouldn't stretch just yet. Give the blood a minute to get to your head, and then a lap around the room. Gotta go in increments, you're still warming up." Everything to shake loose and adjust.

A wry smile crosses his expression. "This is nothing," he replies, his eyes trying to meet hers. "I am letting you off lightly; I see you turn pink and you don't respond so I think you don't like that kind of attention, but if I were acting like normal, I might not take it as sign to back off but take it as challenge instead," he confesses. "Maybe I come back fast because I am fast. Do you know what I can do? Did they tell you anything?" he asks, shifting the subject for her benefit, making sure that his attraction and interest is clear, should she decide she's receptive, but also not lingering on it lest he upset her and lose the loose grasp he's got on the one person he knows right now who can understand what he's experiencing.

Much of Pietro's attitude is forced. For the better part of their lives, he and Wanda were alone and while he only has — had, actually; now he has less — twelve extra minutes of life that she didn't have, he always considered himself the older twin and, in that, it became his job to protect her. Pietro protected Wanda from everything when he could and that included his own feelings, especially his fears. So by now, he is an expert at hiding that sort of thing. It comes naturally and reflexively, even though it's probably safe to let this pretty stranger know where he really stands. It's just easier to pretend everything is okay.

When she gives permission, Pietro heeds her advice and sits up, only barely restraining the urge to follow the movement immediately with a good stretch. His body feels stiff and uncomfortable, like it's been trapped in one position for entirely too long and, he supposes, technically it has. He doesn't know much about death but he does find himself wondering if he'll be stiff for a long time while his body fights its natural course of action in his death having started to allow rigormortis to set in. He wonders, too, whether that will have negatively affected his speed.

...and then he wonders whether he even still has it at all after having been killed. Does that sort of thing stay with a person? Because Misty is so insistent that he take it easy and go slowly, taking small incremental steps toward normalcy, he is wary in spite of the desperate urge to test it out. Surely, taking said lap around the room at Mach 2 isn't what she means by increments. He doubts that vibrating a hand just to see that it'll actually vibrate isn't what she means by letting his blood take some time to get used to flowing again. The itch to try it is there and he gives her a small smile that falls short of his eyes in his attempt to ignore it.

"You are good at this," he observes aloud. "Keeping people calm. You make it so that I almost want to take things slow like you say, and I am not the kind of man who takes things slow anymore."

"Not something I've got a lot of experience responding to," she murmurs, all the pertinent information that need be shared on that front. Uniform disregard as a potential anything is the standard she's come to begrudgingly accept. Deviations are unpleasant passing come-ons from unsavory sorts, or...this, now. There's a hell of a learning curve to tackle.

It's good to have a shift, however. She's quick to shake her head at his question. No idea whatsoever; beyond her pay grade, hush-hush stuff. (Of course, publicized accounts of both twins will be cropping up in the news, in following days - but there's only so much news an isolated individual can keep up with.)

"Been through it, like I said," she replies. "Not with anybody there. I know what I would've wanted to hear, gives me kind of an edge."

( nursed back to health shipping meme. )

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sorry, work ate me alive and I had almost no creative juices left the past few days...

zero worries!!

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