Nathan and Madelyn, Tuesday morning

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Nathan hobbles into medlab after another Danger Room session that got the better of him. He is, to put it mildly, getting increasingly bewildered. (Other applicable words include 'frustrated', 'angry', and 'confused'.) Madelyn can't offer much in the way of advice, but does give him a little reassurance.


Swearing under his breath, Nathan hobbled into the medlab, only the fact that he was well and truly pissed off keeping him moving forward instead of collapsing in a nice corner somewhere to nurse his hurt pride. "Madelyn?" he called, his voice catching a little, which only irritated him worse. He hadn't stopped to take off the leathers - he'd had the strong suspicion that if he sat down, they'd be carrying him to the medlab.

"Here." Madelyn appeared at his elbow, in that startling way the medlab staff had - there were jokes about a series of trapdoors - and clucked her tongue at him. "C'mon, let's get you on an exam table and off your feet," she said, slipping her arm carefully around his waist and letting him lean on her shoulder.

"This is getting... ridiculous," he said through gritted teeth as she helped him over to the table. "I don't think anything's broken at least. But there's always tomorrow."

"You're telling me," Madelyn replied darkly. Nathan wasn't the only team member to hobble into medlab after a training session lately. "Right, start with the important part - did you hit your head at all?"

"I think my head is the only thing I didn't hit. Or get hit." He sat down, wincing as his ribs protested. Loudly. In chorus. "Can I just... lie down and pretend I'm dead? Please?"

"Table's right here," she said, helping him onto it and easing him into a lying position. Already she was running through basic examination procedures, noting his pupils were reacting normally to light and there didn't seem to be any bleeding into the eyes... no sign of head trauma of any kind. She moved down to his shoulders, starting with the one that had been dislocated back at Columbia. "Anything broken?" she asked, knowing he knew what that particular sensation felt like.

"No." He grimaced up at the ceiling of the medlab. "I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong."

"How so?" she asked, lifting his arm carefully to rotate the joint. Stiff, but not crucially so. Some inflammation and bruising - hell, a lot of bruising, by the looks of it.

"I can't get through these damned scenarios." He gritted his teeth, trying to ignore both the pain and the seething frustration. "Any of them, lately. No matter who's running them."

"You do seem to be collecting more than your fair share of knocks," Madelyn said, feeling her way down his ribcage. He hissed in pain once or twice, but it was more bruising than anything else. She'd run him through an X-ray to be sure, 'though. "Maybe it's been decided you were getting through the old scenarios too easy?" she suggested. "They've cranked things up a bit to test your fitness now you've mostly healed up?"

"I cannot," Nathan said crankily, "make any sense out of them. I flatter myself that I have a fairly decent tactical imagination, but I don't see any real-world applicability. In parts of the scenarios, yeah, but not when you put all the parts together."

"Humph." Madelyn satisfied herself there were no broken bits, and moved back to the other end of the bed. "I'm going to have to take your uniform off?" she said briskly. "At least the top - I want to check out the bruising on your ribs."

Muttering, Nathan yanked on the zipper. "Body armor... hah. Pitiful excuse for body armor... I think my bruises have bruises." Of course, he was being unfair. Body armor of any sort was only designed to take a certain amount of force, and he'd been taking hit after hit like a particularly sloppy amateur.

"Here, let me help..." Madelyn took over, pulling the zipper down and then helping him sit up so she could get the jacket off so she could work on the body armour itself. Nathan's torso, when revealed, was a spectacular rainbow of bruises, old and new, and she hissed in sympathy. "Ow. I hate to tell you this, Nathan, but this is going to be damn painful tomorrow."

Nathan gritted his teeth. "It's fairly painful now, actually," he muttered. "Serves me right, in any case. It'll be a reminder not to be that careless next time."

"Somehow I think this is not a lot to do with 'careless'," she said wryly, examining his back. The kidneys were tender, but she wouldn't be able to tell if they were damaged without a urine sample. She helped him lie back down and set about making sure he hadn't ruptured anything. "Didn't you say the scenarios were impossible? That doesn't strike me as carelessness on your part."

"There's no such thing as impossible. There's just a failure to find the solution." Nathan bit his lip, telling himself not to growl at Maddie. "Sorry. I'm a little on edge," he said, a bit grudgingly.

"No offence taken," she said mildly as she gently felt his liver for any swelling or pain - people in pain tended to lose their manners a bit, and she was used to it. At least he wasn't flailing wildly at her everytime she touched him like some past patients... "Well, there doesn't seem to be any internal bleeding, so score one for the damned body armour," she said at last. "I've got some cream for the bruising, and a hot shower will help, but you're going to be pretty stiff and sore for a day or two."

"What a coincidence. I don't have another scenario for two days. I suppose that means they figured I'd come out of this one in less than stellar shape." And that was just... really fucking galling. Nathan tried not to grind his teeth. "Don't see the reason behind the enforced medlab visits after every damned scenario," he grumbled. "It's not like I didn't have a lot worse in training at Mistra. If I screwed up then as badly as I am now, medical treatment was a no-no anyway. It was good incentive."

"Well can I put in my two cents about being glad you are coming in?" Madelyn said dryly. "Because this isn't Mistra, and Moira would skin you alive if you went staggering around refusing treatment again. And sure, it's just bruising today, but better to be safe than suffering internal haemorrhaging and dying later."

"I know." Nathan sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck. "I just... have no fucking clue what all the mixed signals are about. Alison, Scott, Ororo... they're all doing it. They throw me into a shooting gallery, or whatever the scenario of the day is, and then when I mess up, they pat me on the head and shoo me off to the medlab." He gave a faint laugh, one without much force behind it; a real laugh would have earned screaming protests from his ribs. "I'm all bewildered. See? This is my bewildered face." And now he was sounding as if he had hit his head.

"Indeed I do." Madelyn had the penlight out and was shining it in his eyes looking for signs of concussion before he could move. "I wish I could give you some advice on what they want, but I don't have a clue myself, except that it seems to involve people coming in battered. And speaking of which... I want some X-rays of your ribs, just to make sure you haven't cracked any."

"All right." She helped him down off the table and he wobbled a little, leaning on her again. "I just don't want to screw this up, Maddie," he said, grimacing. "This means a lot more to me than I ever thought it would, and it really does not feel like it's going all that well lately."

"You're not going to screw up, Nathan," she told him firmly, taking his weight on her shoulder again. "And while neither of us can see it right now, there's a plan here. Probably. Well, likely."

"Mmm. Power of positive thinking..." He looked down at her, mustering a somewhat unsteady smile. "Did you have a brownie?"

"Two, actually," she said, grinning. "I ended up having to work them off on the treadmill - when you make chocolate brownies, Mr Dayspring, you make chocolate brownies. No wonder you and Angie could see through time."

"I was thinking of doing them with the kids this week." That was it. Happy thoughts. Non training-related thoughts. "Maybe cutting back on the chocolate. And definitely not eating any myself - Moira's still not sure that wasn't as much me as Angie."

"Definitely cut back on the chocolate," she told him seriously. "Some of the little kids would explode on that much chocolate. And keeping away from them yourself also sounds like a good idea, as fun as you tripping was to read." They reached the room with the X-ray machine and she propped him up in front of it before moving to set things up. "Tell your ribs to smile for the camera," she said with a smile.