And I can tell you I've been moving in so slow

[priordivergence]

Darrow's hospital fees are low to begin with and between Darrow supplying me with a budget and my paid leave, I'm not exactly hurting. Still, when my doctors had offered to waive the fees for my casts if I was willing to provide feedback on new technology that might also help me heal faster, I'd jumped at the opportunity. Anything had sounded better than being wrapped in a plaster dead weight.

I've been out of a cast for almost a three weeks now and I have an appointment at Panoptes Solutions to give my feedback. I'm not exactly sure what answers they'll want and I didn't do a very good job of taking notes, too busy trying to do pull ups and strain my body.

I probably owe flowers to everyone who had to put up with me while I was healing.

But first, Panoptes.

Comments

[ahollowman]

"Hi."

The exit interviews for the new polymer casts were supposed to be given by some of the interns, but Tony had taken a short lunch, and there was little he liked more than shuffling things up. So he decided to sit in on one his very own self. He slid in across from the young woman into a low chair in the quiet lobby and folded his legs one of the other before dropping the materials on the small coffee table between them.

He smiled, a lopsided thing that was a lot of different smiles at once, but mostly professionally friendly as he stared at the ink he could see that wasn't covered by clothing.

"T ... ris?"

[priordivergence]

He moves casually but with purpose and I can tell he must not be expecting someone quite like me. His eyes linger on my tattoos in a way that I've gotten used to from strangers. I think, based on some of the young staff here, I can't be the first person he's seen with tattoos.

I wonder if it's my scars.

"Tris Prior, yes," I say.

[ahollowman]

"How many times?" He asks, heedlessly stepping over personal boundaries, despite the fact that it has nothing tondo with the task at hand, or that she might not like strangers prodding her for her story. If she refuses him, she refuses him.

"Those are bullet wounds, right? How many times?"

He arranged the papers on the desk in front of himself while he spoke, until the forms were spread out so that he could see all of them at once. That was the decision-making process, rather than the numbers printed at the bottom corners. Tony tapped his bottom lip with the end of his pen.

"God, this is a lot of questions. Are we paying you for this?"

[priordivergence]

I look at my shoulders and then back at the man. Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise. I'm here because he's working on medical technology. Why wouldn't he know what bullet holes look like? Even so, there's something a little canny about his expression, like he knows from experience.

"Are you asking how many times I've been shot at or how many times a bullet has actually landed?" It's a staggeringly large number of the former and, thankfully, only two of the latter.

"I don't think I'm getting paid. But the cast was free if I did this interview? What's your name, by the way?"

[ahollowman]

"How many times one landed," Tony said, because he knew how many bullets had been shot at him. It had to be in the hubdred thousands, somewhere, at least.

He frowned and checked the paperwork in front of him. Was she really not getting paid for the exit interview? He reminded himself to amend that. The trial members ought to get at least a couple hundred for the showing up. This was what happened when Tony didn't decide these things. Cheapskates.


"Tony Stark," he said, ignoring that he was admitting he was the owner and chief operator.

[priordivergence]

"Tony Stark," I repeat, unable to hide a faint note of amusement. It doesn't matter if they were born in Darrow or not; everyone knows that name by now. "Isn't this usually an intern's job?" Not that I mind meeting the man who made my cast possible, it just seems odd that he'd do something as trivial as a small interview.

He already knows my name but I stick out my hand to shake it and give him my full name anyway. "Beatrice Prior."

[ahollowman]

Tony shook the hand with a strong grip and a self-assured pump. Her grip was strong in return, and that endeared her to him. Flimsy handshakes gave him the willies. They always seemed untrustworthy. Possibly he associated them with Justin Hammer.

"Usually, yes. But I'm wealthy and eccentric, so if I ask to do something way below my pay-grade, they tend to just not question it. Today my whim was to give exit interviews. Impressions? Of the product, not my person."

His eyes lingered on the scars for a moment longer, before he hefted the clipboard over his lap and picked up his pen.

[priordivergence]

He looks me over and I wonder what he sees. Or what he thinks he sees. He knows my scars for what they are but that doesn't tell him who I am. It's never stopped people from trying to read into me. So when we shake hands, I'm firm about it. I don't try to intimidate him with an overly aggressive grip but I make it clear that there's more to me than my size might otherwise suggest.

"I liked the cast," I say. "I didn't have to wrap up my leg in a plastic bag to get clean. I live by myself and I could still make it around my apartment."