Hank, Madelyn - Wednesday afternoon

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Doctors 1 and 3 and a plate of raspberry chocolate chip cookies.. And talk. An waful lot of talk.



Hank tapped on the door of Madelyn's suite softly, hopefully not loud enough to wake her if she was sleeping again. "Madelyn?" he said, loud enough to be heard but again, hopefully, not loud enough to waken. "I brought cookies..."

Madelyn was indeed awake, just out of the shower, in fact. Dressed in an ancient man's flannel shirt and faded jeans, towel still around her shoulders as she dried her hair, she opened the door with a hopeful look. "Did I hear you say cookies?" she asked with a grin.

"You did indeed," he said cheerfully. She looked VERY nice all rumpled and freshly showered, but he made a determined effort not to think about that. "Raspberry chocolate chip." He held out the plate, giving her a hopeful smile. "I could help you eat them, if you like."

"Ulterior motives, hmm?" she teased, standing aside and holding the door open. "Come on in - I've got coffee just about ready. Just give me a sec to tidy up? Need to tame this mess before it dries like this and it starts eating students."

"Of course. I know all about unruly hair." He smiled at her, slipping into the room, setting the cookies down on the table and sitting down on a couch that looked reasonably sturdy. "Yours looks very nice all tousled, though.... much less undignified than fur pointing every which way."

With a chuckle, Madelyn sat herself down in the armchair, not wanting to get hair all over him. "But you look so much like a giant blue tribble when it's like that," she told him, digging her hairbrush out from underneath her and starting to work it through the tangles. "Gah, I should cut this again - it's getting way too long to manage properly, and I spend all my time wrestling it back out of the way... Only I look like a puffball when it's short. How's everything downstairs? Kids okay?"

"Everything seems fine. I took some cookies down for Moira and the children, and she said everything was okay before she chased me away to get more rest." He smiled fondly. "I've missed her." He watched her tussle with her hair for a moment, then reached out to take the hairbrush gently. "May I?"

"You're not the only one who's missed her," Madelyn began, before giving Hank a startled look. "Um, sure," she said, letting him take the brush, before giving him a wry grin. "I have trouble getting at the back."

"So do I." He moved behind her, unpicking the worst tangles with agile fingers before starting to brush, working his way up from the ends of her hair. "Trying to brush my own back isn't easy, even with arms as long as mine." She really did have lovely hair, and it clung damply to his fingers in a way he tried to ignore. "Have you been catching up on your sleep?"

"Here and there. You know how it is when you've been on alert - it's hard to settle. Now most of our patients are gone, I should settle down again." It was actually somehow relaxing, having someone else brush her hair - she and Carlie used to do it for each other before she moved out and she cut it short for medschool. Closing her eyes, she unconsciously made a small happy humming noise. "Jubilee caught me napping earlier - she ended up giving me a shoulder massage as part of her apology."

"Good. I'm sure you needed it." He kept brushing, keeping the strokes slow and even... he'd been good at this, once, although it'd been a while since he'd had a chance to practice. "You handled yesterday's adventures very well indeed," he said quietly. "I was very glad to have you there, despite the danger."

"I could say the same for you," she said with a smile, even if he couldn't see it, standing behind her as he was. "How're you pulling up today? You seemed a bit out of it after that neural blast or whatever it was. And you took a bit of pounding."

"My head was pretty fuzzy for a while afterwards, although I have no idea how much of that was exhaustion and how much was the blast, after a while." He'd gotten the knots out now, and was just brushing her hair, starting at her scalp and drawing the brush slowly through the soft strands. "I feel a lot better now, although I'm still a little tired. I'll nap again in a while."

Madelyn began to nod, but that wouldn't do while Hank was brushing her hair like that - it was very pleasant, in fact. "I'm ready and raring to go. I'll go down and relieve Moira in a bit, and probably go on until midnight before I need the break again. I'd rather keep Moira off nights, since she's only here for a little while and will need to be operating on all cylinders when she goes back to Muir."

Hank nodded. "I should be up and alert by midnight, if you'll contact me," he said, the slow, regular motion of the brush soothing. "She needs plenty of rest,in her condition.... the early months of pregnancy are, I understand, actually when you get the tiredest." He smiled a little. "She says I get to be an uncle," he said happily.

"Consider your beeper paged," Madelyn said, making another contented sort of noise. "The first trimester is when all the vital developing is going on - it uses a lot of energy and nutrients. And there's the whole adjustment to having a new life inside you... it's not surprising it's tiring." She chuckled slightly at his tone. "I can't think of a better uncle - you really love kids, don't you, Hank?"

"I really do," he said softly. "I've always wanted to have them, but... well. If that doesn't happen, I can at least be an honorary uncle. I think I'm looking forward to the baby's arrival almost as much as Moira is." He wasn't going to wallow in self-pity all over her again, but he couldn't entirely keep the wistfulness out of his voice.

"My brother Joe has two - Sarah and Michael. Sarah's nearly six now, and Michael's four... they're quite a handful, but adorable." Madelyn wisely steered the conversation away from parenthood, hearing that wistful tone. "I don't see them nearly often enough, but I spoil them rotten when I do. We'll have to do the same with Moira's. And I daresay Dani will be wanting help with her baby, whatever she decides she wants to do."

Hank brightened. That was true. "I've already volunteered to babysit," he said cheerfully, still brushing her hair gently as they talked. "For both of them. And I won't even teach them any naughty words. Although I may teach them *interesting* words, like 'arbitrary' and 'unjust', which are important weapons in any child's arsenal when arguing with parents."

"Oh, Nate will love you for that one..." Madelyn said with a chuckle, reaching up to check his handiwork. Not a tangle. "You can't braid at all, can you? I prefer to get it out of the way, if I can."

"I can, and I'd be happy to." He wasn't brilliant at it... his fingers, for all their agility, were too thick for a really neat, tight braid, but he did reasonably well. Jean had taught him, he remembered, years ago. "And Nathan will just have to get used to it." He grinned impishly. "When I was four, I told my father that his insistence that I go to bed at eight o'clock was not a reasoned assessment of my need for sleep but an arbitrary adherence to a tradition established for the convenience of parents, not children. I think that's when they started to suspect that I wasn't quite normal."

"A parenting handful indeed," Madelyn said with another chuckle, holding up a hair tie she'd been wearing around her wrist for this eventuality. Well, for the eventuality of braiding her hair back, that is - having Hank do it hadn't featured in her mental plans. "Moira won't thank you for introducing those sort of concepts to what's probably going to be a full-powered toddler."

Hank tied off the end of the braid, letting go with a little reluctance. That had been... nice. "It's never too early to instil a sense of justice, especially around here."

"I'll remind you you said that when Moira's looking for the person who explained the concept of the Bill of Human Rights to a two year old," Madelyn snorted, getting up and moving to the kitchenette. "Coffee? To go with the cookies and to say thank you for acting as my personal hairdresser?"

"Coffee sounds wonderful." Hank smiled. "And you're welcome." He sat down again, yawning a little. He was having more trouble shaking off his weariness than usual. He didn't generally need a lot of sleep... still, it had been a very strenuous day yesterday.

She knew well and truly by now how Hank liked his coffee, given more than a year of working in the medlab together, and brought back two steaming mugs, his in one of the Hank-sized mugs that tended to be kidnapped by the coffee addicts. "Still tired?" she asked, sitting down on the couch beside him and reaching for a cookie. She'd been very patient, she'd thought. "Ooh, these are good," she added, slightly muffled by cookie.

"They are... and yes, a little. Another nap should take care of the last of it." He sipped the coffee and sighed happily. Mm. Caffiene. The doctor's friend.

"Well, let me know if you need more sleep tonight - I can always pull a double shift and you can owe me later." Madelyn shifted into a slightly more comfortable position, still a bit stiff even after Jubilee's massage and the hot shower. "Gah, I really need a decent workout to get rid of these kinks, but my training partners are either out cold in the medlab, or partially tenderised - Al's got bruises on her bruises at the moment."

Hank brightened. Now there was an opportunity not to be missed. "I'd be happy to fill in," he offered. "Tomorrow, maybe? I'm not especially battered, and I could use a workout myself. And no double shifts... I'll be fine by tonight."

Madelyn gave him a sceptical look, but held her tongue, sipping at her coffee instead. "As long as you promise to keep both feet on the floor," she said, wryly. "Some of us don't have enhanced agility, and my dignity is a fragile and precious thing."


"A fair fight, I promise you," he agreed. "And I'm not at my fastest just now, either, with the bruises, so you'll have an additional advantage." He winked at her. "Please be gentle with me."

She nearly snorted coffee at that. "I think your manly pride is going to be safe, even if I have been sparring with Haroun lately," she said, although there was a certain glint in her eyes that said she wasn't going to make it easy for him.

Hank grinned. "Haroun, hm? I hope he hasn't been teaching you bad 'ignore the pain' habits."

"Unlike Haroun, I like to listen to what my body is telling me, most of the time, any way. Although to be fair, he's always in some degree of pain with the cybernetics, so it's easy for him to shrug off a bit extra..." Madelyn bapped herself lightly on the head. "I forgot to say - I think he's due for a full exam, cyberware included, especially after that mission. There seems to be some issues with the hormone implants and the filtering."

Hank nodded. "While he can't move and thus can't run away, we can do a proper exam," he agreed. "He's worse than Nathan for dodging the doctors, some days, isn't he?"

"He's got issues with proving his worth to the team," Madelyn said with a brief eye-roll. "So he tends to avoid admitting anything that might look like a weakness."

"Oh, dear." Hank sighed. "There are times when I wish I worked in a field that attracted the emotionally and mentally stable." He grinned ruefully. "Of course, without our endless dramas and angst and so on, I'd probably get terribly bored."

"What's the saying? 'You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps?' I'd say it fits this place rather well," Madelyn agreed, although there was a brief flicker in her eyes at the 'bored' part. "That's what Jubilee said, last night. She said I was bored with the work here, and that's why I was trying to relieve my glory days with the FBI by going out in the field. " Contemplating her coffee for a long moment, Madelyn went on. "After the stuff that came up recently, about using my skills more... I can't help wonder if she was partly right."

"Madelyn..." Hank reached out to touch her shoulder gently. "The work here is many things, but it's never boring," he said gently. "I don't for a moment believe that. I think you were frustrated at being sheltered and kept metaphorically barefoot and scrubbed in the medlab - which at times you have been, I admit - but bored certainly isn't a word I'd use around here."

"Very true," Madelyn said wryly, remembering her words to Haroun. "It's just... as terrifying as something like that can be, I have to admit, there's something in me that relishes the challenge. I feel more tangibly useful, I suppose... I was never cut out for the regular GP type work you get here during our quiet periods - my professors at medschool picked up on that pretty early on."

"Working here is not unlike being a veterinarian," Hank said whimsically. "You never know what's going to happen. One day it's all brushing teeth and administering heartworm tablets, then next thing you know there's a wounded boa constrictor on the table." He shook his head and smiled. "I, for one, was glad you were with us," he said softly. "I couldn't have handled that many wounded alone."

Madelyn laughed at the analogy. "Boa constrictors indeed... And I'm glad I could help, Hank, instead of being a liability. When Nathan told me I was coming along... I have to admit I was worried about slowing you down." She gave him a brief grin. "Not that I'd have admitted it at the time."

"I wasn't concerned for a moment," Hank said firmly. "Although I hardly expected you to take a share of the fighting, it never occurred to me that you might slow us down. You are too skilled, and too intelligent, to ever do so."

"Well, if you get me some tranq darts that can handle that sort of wind, and I'll help even up the odds should there ever be a next time, God forbid," Madelyn told him, only half-joking. "I could have gotten Dyson from that distance with something like that, but I wasn't about to use live ammo on those poor bastards."

Hank nodded. "Definitely heavier darts.... and possibly rubber bullets of some kind. And the tazer. I promised you a tazer, and I haven't forgotten."

"A tazer would be very good, yes - I can handle myself reasonably well in hand-to-hand, but I'm screwed once you throw powers into the mix. And rubber bullets... I should have thought of that myself. They hurt like hell, but they're not terminal."

Hank nodded. "I know I'd be happier if you were properly armed next time," he said seriously. "I'll even include that utility belt."

"You and me both." Madelyn finished the cookie, and snuck another one. "A utility belt? Like yours?" She grinned. "You'll have to start calling me Batwoman or something. I've got the right coloured hair for it, at least..."

Hank paused. Okay, brain, as delightful as a mental image of Madelyn in a skintight costume is, now is not the time. "You do indeed," he said, trying very hard to avoid thoughts of black spandex. "I could make you a little bat-mask, if you like, to preserve your secret identity."

"I'll save that one for Halloween I think," Madelyn said with a snicker, poking him a little in the ribs. "But I'll definitely take the utility belt. I envy yours - it's lucky it's way too big for me, or I would have stolen it a while ago."

Hank grinned. "I'll make a small one to fit you," he promised. "And I'm holding you to that Halloween thing. You'd look astounding in a Batgirl costume."

Madelyn wrinkled her nose at him. "Sure I would," she said, in a tone that said 'I think you're insane and I'm going to humour you'. "But I'd appreciate the belt, a lot. There's never enough pockets in the world."

"You would!" Hank grinned. He had a New Mission. Carlie would help him with this, he was sure. "And I'll put the belt together for you as soon as you can, and fill it up with Interesting Things."

"Ooh, presents, and it's not even my birthday..." Finishing her coffee, Madelyn set the cup down on the table. "I'll have to think of something I can do for you in return... You've been spoiling me shamelessly lately. Not that I mind, but I like to return the favour."

Hank smiled. "I never turn down gifts of food," he said hopefully. "Or a shoulder massage."

"Or brushing those hard-to-reach places?" Madelyn suggested, nodding at the hairbrush lying on the coffee table. "Not now, of course, but next time you have a Bad Fur Day, just call."

"Temptress." And he meant it, too. "I will." He finished his coffee and smiled ruefully. "And I should go. Moira made me promise to seek my bed when I started yawning at her."

"And this couch isn't as comfy as the one in my office, and they're both too small for you," Madelyn agreed. "Thanks for the cookies, and the chat." She gave him a slightly mischievous look. "Satisfied I'm okay?"

"I was sure you would be." He grinned. "I wanted to satisfy myself that you were awake, since I'm about to not be." He patted her hand gently as he stood. "I have every confidence in you, my dear, I want you to know that."

"But you do like to fuss, which I don't mind at all," she said, getting up as well. "Now, to bed with you, Doctor McCoy. Don't make me put you there myself."

"Now there's a thought." He winked at her. "No, I'll put myself to bed. Farewell for now, dear lady... and don't forget to wake me when it's your turn to sleep."

"I won't, believe me. I have your beeper number and I'm not afraid to use it."