14862/Routing Out the Dead

Routing Out the Dead
Date of Scene:	07 May 2023
Location:	Abandoned church, Queens.
Synopsis:	Captain Britain and Janet van Dyne run afoul of a nest of vampires, and narrowly escape.
Cast of Characters:	Brian Braddock, Janet van Dyne

---

Brian Braddock has posed:
//"While you rest and recover, I'll have an ear to the ground. Vampires -do- breed like rats. Should another appear, you and the Avengers will be made known immediately."//

A promise made to the Wasp while she was convalescing after dealing with a heavy dose of vampire venom courtesy of Baron Blood. Teamwork with Captain Britain had fended off the old vampire, but looking into STRIKE files had revealed an uncomfortable -lack- of information. Having promised that an ear to the ground...

Something has cropped up. Or rather, risen like the dead.

The church itself had been abandoned in Queens after taking severe structural damage during some debacle over the last few years. Funding has been scarce and the chainlink fencing around the location hasn't kept out drifters or unwisely-dared teenagers. It's a hard truth that no one's reported missing drifters. Someone has, however, reported a missing teenager, and they were last seen around here.

Brian shot a message to the Wasp, reporting this and the timeline, suspicious to him when held up next to police calls about weird sounds, unknown characters inside the fence, and yet, nobody ever actually present when authorities looked around -- almost impossibly so. Right now, he's atop one roof over from the church site, resting on one knee and squinting at the building.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Fingertips walk up Britain's shoulders and a pair of red lips brush his ear. "Ah-ah-ah," Janet intones, channeling the ghost of Bela Lugosi. There was no warning or leadup; just the Wasp silently making her approach behind the watchful Brit and timing her advance on silent little flaps of her wings.

Janet immediately shrinks again, zips around Britain's ears once more, and returns to near-normal size on his other side, crouching on one knee to examine the building.

"What do your Jedi senses tell you? Vamp nest, or just a dumping place for old Hot Topic cast-offs?" she inquires with a cheerfully perky demeanour. She's clad in an onyx-black bodysuit, with some light cladding in gold that protects her shoulders and chest. A little glimpse of something silver can be seen for a moment under her turtleneck before Janet tucks it back into place.

Brian Braddock has posed:
Granted, Janet probably wouldn't have gotten swatted -- but there's a moment where the Captain brings up a palm in what was surely going to be some punch-and-roll maneuver. She's at his other side quickly enough, neutralizing any risk, and Brian puts his face in his hand, whispering to himself what must likely be some long string of cuss words. It ends with, "...bloody hell."

Straightening up, he glances over at the Wasp in her superhero digs. He himself is in standard form, Union colors and all, hood keeping his anonymity intact.

"No sign of the lost teenager, no, but also no sign of others. I thought I'd heard rats earlier, but...at this distance, they'd be Rodents of Unusual Size. Or vampires. I saw a footnote on a report to the local authorities about blood spatter they couldn't trace," he tells Janet quietly. "I wasn't the biggest fan of the timing, but in order to be effective, dusk was the best time for such a...stake-out." He lets that one hang for ultimate appreciation (or lack thereof).

Janet van Dyne has posed:
The Princess Bride reference sails right over Janet's Gen-Z head. "I'm pretty sure giant mutant rats are just an urban myth," she reassures Britain. "Like those turtles everyone in Brooklyn swears they see in the sewers."

She looks at him, then back at the church, then back at him. Then sighs. "Fine, I'll go recon," she informs him, and buzzes off towards the belltower. It's a convenient location to land, and she buzzes down into the superstructure below.

<Britain, you got your ears on? The belltower approach is a litle sketchy but no one's inside. I'm in the, uh, whatchacallit, the public area. It's a mess down here-- don't step in something.>

Indeed, the interior of the chapel is a labyrinth of tents, partial barricades, overturned tables, and the many signs of long-term unauthorized residents.

Except... no people.

Brian Braddock has posed:
"...did she really miss the Princess Bride reference? Good god." A murmur to himself as Brian watches the Wasp zip across empty space and into the belltower. He again focuses his senses on the church and the subtle sounds of her wings echoing through the architecture. Then her voice is heard over the comms, breaking his attention.

<I intend to fly in, the better for not contaminating the scene, yes.>

A lack of report of others present has the Captain flying down as well, sleek and silent, through the belltower's accessibility and into the main chapel itself. He pauses, hovering high in the air, hands in neutral half-fists at his waist as he scans the floor. Pews have been shifted around to help create those barriers. Some stained glass windows are broken, some are intact, and the failing light of impending night doesn't fall through them easily.

"There's been no report of the local authorities coming in to remove anyone," he tells Janet very, very quietly, the volume so low that only her sharp ears or the comms might pick up.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet looks at Britain when he arrives; she's perched on a statue of some saint, moving cautiously through the area. "You smell that?" Janet asks Brian, sub-vocalizing just as he does. The comlink transmits her voice with piping clarity. "Smells like an old library down here. Like, a bad, rotten old library. What -is- that smell?"

It's a scent unique to vampire lairs; one doesn't find it in the high places Janet frequents, or any place where the living congregate. It's the smell of death.

She buzzes out of sight into the receiving area. A beat later, her voice buzzes in Britain's ear: "On the right side, there's a gap you should be able to get through. Be careful, the roof's rotted through and I think it's gonna collapse if someone sneezes too hard."

Brian Braddock has posed:
Does he smell what? Brian inhales by small amounts, carefully, as if being sure he doesn't overwhelm his senses. Those wheat-gold brows clash together.

"I do," he confirms sotto-voce. Still, before Brian can answer, there she goes, zipping away and towards the front of the abandoned church. Dipping down without touching the floor or disturbing much of the air, the Captain rotates in place. So many signs of humanity...without humanity.

...and he knows that smell.

<Be careful, Miss Van Dyne,> he says over the comms even as he turns to follow her flight path. <Something died around here. What, I can't tell.> Locating the point of entry, he does manage to slip inside, but it's a close call with those broad shoulders of his.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
They spread out cautiously, searching offices, coat rooms. The cafeteria is weirdly silent, tables upturned to make sleeping quarters covered by old tarps. The blue plastic is as inert as the air; traceries of the dying day's light are all that illuminates the material. The shadows grow longer and more menacing.

<"Britain,"> Janet says over the net. Just one word. She had checked a side office last he saw, and there she was; kneeling next to a body. It's thin to the point of mummification, utterly dessicated. At least a few days old, but so thoroughly drained in bone-dry conditions that the skin has retracted into paper-thin webbing over the bones. It's wearing a black hoodie and jeans, and uncomfortably flourescent bright-green sneakers that contrast the dull sepia tone swallowing up the church.

"She was only fourteen," Janet says, sadly, and hands the kid's cell phone carrier up to Britain with the ID on top.

In the cafeteria, there's a little sound. Like the building is settling as the evening air lets it sweat off the daytime heat.

"What does this to a body? I haven't seen something like this since I was in Arizona," she remarks. Her green eyes cut up to him with the question.

Brian Braddock has posed:
Brian's only just left the cafeteria after his visual sweep when his title comes over the comms. Swish, not a foot set upon the ground, and he flies his way to the sound of breathing -- of life in this building so very quickly turning sepulchrous.

His boots make minimal sounds as he lands and walks over, his mouth closing to a thin line of pressed lips.

"Bloody hell..." he breathes, taking the cell phone carrier and looking over the name.

Then that sound.

It makes the Captain's head swivel in this direction with all the hyper-focus of a bird dog.

It probably won't soothe Janet at all, his reply of, "...Arizona seems a bit sunny for creatures who drain bodily fluids. What were you dealing with there?" He doesn't look back towards her, still listening to the cool, slowly-darkening stillness of the building.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"....Uh, some mutant," Janet says, jerked out of her reverie by Britain's question. She tears her glimpse up from the corpse, looking up at him from her lower position. "Water-mover. Water-kin-- hydrokinesis," she finally gets out. "You know." Fingers wiggle and she makes a *schlorp* sound, curling fingers to her breast. "Except she was draining people and leaving them in the sun so she could survive in the desert."

The silence strains around them. It becomes a sound unto itself. The harder Britain listens, the more incomprehensible it becomes. Water in the pipes? An old forgotten subway line, rattling underfoot? They're in a city, after all, a living thing itself. It pulses and breathes. Such an exhalation whispers through the nave, a little stirring of ocean breeze finding the broken windows and gaps in the walls. The sound comes from nothing and everything, almost certainly the wind. Perhaps the danger is past; the sounds from outside could well be explained by the breeze as they wash over him from every direction.

But if there was no wind in the cafeteria... from where does that sound emerge?

In the moment where Britain's hackles go up, a dessicated hand reaches up and grabs Janet by the throat. The socialite gags and hacks, reflexively grabbing that wrist. The vampire fledgling screams an inhuman note from between blackened and shriveled lips.

A great multitude of cries echo back.

Brian Braddock has posed:
What a deeply horrid sound, resonating on itself in the confines of the church. It sets every fine hair on Brian's body alight even as he's already reaching for the fledgling vampire's forearm.

//Crack//, her forearm snaps like dried kindling, tendons ripping as Brian separates her from Janet forcefully. Sure, it leaves the gripping hand around the Wasp's throat, but the Captain does a weirdly graceful set of steps like he was wrangling an overly large cobra and then throws the newly-formed vampire out of the office with all the force he can muster. She probably hits a far wall like a test dummy stuffed with rice, but nobody gets to see that. He's gone and slammed the office door shut, further barricading it with the chair jammed under the handle.

"How're your crowd control abilities?" he asks of Janet with an airy calm long-practiced as he comes back over to offer assistance with the detached hand. Hopefully it's not attempting any mimicry of Thing.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
When he turns, Janet's still staggering and choking. The severed hand seems to persist with some unholy animation all its own, nails digging deep enough into her neck to leave crescent-shaped bloody dimples. Her eyes bulge and water, and she drops to her knees again, while she yanks and grabs the broken stub of a forearm. Electricity crackles around her fingertips, to no avail, serving no end except singing the dead flesh.

More calls and cries go up. Not human, not anymore. They don't sound like any animal. The cries tickle that lizard brain humans have. That deep ganglion cluster of nerves that screams something is not just dangerous, but *unnatural*.

The door abruptly shudders under a rain of blows from some bony fist, almost immediatley splintering the cheap door trim.

Brian Braddock has posed:
"BLOODY HELL."

Clearly not expecting a demonic Thing event, Brian rushes over post-haste. Inserting fingers between tendons of her throat and the clenching fingers of the detached vampire hand, he slowly forces the grip apart by dint of strength. The very //second// he can manage it, he pulls the hand away from her throat. It quickly tries to crunch down on his own digits, but he promptly throws it into the metal drawer of a filing cabinet and slams the drawer shut.

Compared to the symphony of the undead uncanny valley, the sound is mild-mannered and quaint.

Darting back over to Janet, he tries looking over her throat. "I've never seen them do that, keep at it after a limb's been severed." The door takes another barrage of impacts and shards of wood fall onto the office floor. Captain Britain again looks between this and Janet, jaw set. "Odds aren't in our favor, Miss Van Dyne. From what I can remember, it's either through that door, guns blazing, or maybe the duct. You'd have to shrink me too," he tells her, glancing up at the dusty vent and still finding a concerned tingle running down his spine.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet falls back, coughing and retching, but manages to get herself under control pretty quickly. She straightens up, still gulping in as much as as she can through a red and inflamed larynx.

"I--" she coughs, twice. "Let's take the duct and figure out a new angle."

She digs in her belt pouch, snapping her eyes over to the door as it violently cracks and partially folds in. "Try to stay on my tail, flying while shrunken is very disorienting," she warns Britain. "And watch out for spiders."

Fingertips emerge and Janet places a shrinking disc on Britain's sternum. It's activated with a *tap* and the two of them shrink down until they're mere inches tall, the floor rushing to greet them as the ceiling soars overhead.

"This way!" Janet tells Brian, and buzzes aloft towards the subfloor vent overhead. More coughing, over the vox; it cuts out part of her words. "--tenance room?"

Brian Braddock has posed:
"Of course, Miss Van Dyne," the Captain confirms. Stay on her tail, watch out for disorientation as well as spiders.

Ugh, spiders.

The entire room warps by the aforementioned disorienting amount. It leaves Brian pressing a hand to his temple for a long second before he shakes his head as if this would dislodge the cobwebs of sudden size-shifting. Everything seems slower around him: as he pushes off the floor, the entire door blows inwards from a final impact. Splinters the size of semi trucks (to Brian) explode into the office as he flits up towards Janet and the vent.

"Yes, maintenance room! Or someplace with a first aid kit!" he agrees, disappearing into the vents after the Wasp. Vampires stumble into the room with howls of hunting confusion, a pack of rabid dogs momentarily thrown off the scent.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet weaves around the splinters like she doesn't have a care in the world. Flying at this scale is second nature for her, and her reflexes are if anything much better when she's big enough to sit on a dime.

Up they go into the vents, ratting along the un-used exhaust sections. Janet stays up front, pausing at junctions here and there to try and figure out where to go next. Eventually, the two of them emerge in a room made of cinderblocks, with old and out of date HVAC equipment cluttered around the remains of an old boiler.

"I asked my daughter to come up with something in case of vampires," Janet tells Britain. She pulls aside the turtleneck to reveal a gorget of what looks like pure silver; no wonder her throat wasn't crushed. "And she gave me these." She holds out a pair of canisters that look like smoke grenades. They are labelled, in sloppy handwriting: AgI2.

"Silver Iodide. They use it for cloud seeding, but if we can get it in the air ducts..." she looks at the ducting overhead, then back at Britain with her brows raised in question.

Brian Braddock has posed:
No wings for the Captain, but he keeps up nonetheless. The vents vibrate slightly to the wind of their passing. He stops when Janet stops, follows behind her as steadily and loyally as a heat-seeking missile once she's again in motion.

Out into the boiler room they spill and it feels like stepping out into a major leagues sports stadium at this minute size. Dust winks where their movement stirs it up. Once they land? Swish.

Normal size again.

It leaves Brian again shaking his head as if this might knock his brain back into place from being temporarily askew. Something in case of vampires? He smears the heel of his hand across a temple as he squints at the gorget. "Very good," murmurs he. He doesn't like those telltale crescent moons where blunt nails broke skin above the gorget. It's when the canisters come out that his expression becomes more animated.

"Clever girl..." The door to the boiler room gets a long, focused glance. At this time, it doesn't sound like they've been tracked to here by scent or anything else. "Yes, I agree. Trip the circuit breaker alive, pray it works, and then disperse the iodide. It might even behoove us with how you flew through it. Any blood-scent would be dispersed with it and confuse their tracking." In gesturing at his own neck, he indicates those marks on Janet. "A bit less fun than a hickie, assuredly."

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet blinks at Britain's observation and touches her neck. Upon finding the nail-bites sunken into her skin she hisses in pain and jerks her hand back to examine blood on her fingertips. "Damn, I didn't realize she got me that hard," Janet mutters. Her voice is still a little hoarse, but she's merely clearing it frequently instead of coughing anymore.

"Remember it's smaller when its shrunken," Janet advises Britain. "So the scent won't be as strong. But..." She frets her lip and looks at the recirculator vents, thinking. The socialite puts her fingers to her throat, grimaces, and pinches down hard on the wounds. They start oozing blood again and she smears it liberally over the containers.

"But THAT dinner bell, they can't possibly miss." She jams the canisters into the vents and looks over at Britain, fingers weaving through the release pins. "I hope you know more about electrics than I do," she cautions Britain. "Hit the fans, then try not to inhale too much of this stuff. I'm sure it's not good for the lungs," she advises him, and makes her respirator mask enlarge and clamp down over her fair features.

Brian Braddock has posed:
A wincing nod of confirmation for Janet's realization. Her blood gleams brightly on her fingertips even with the bland lighting of the boiler room, a single bulb which questionably flickers. It proves electricity still runs, perhaps a hold-over from long-dead human trespassers. His wince deepens as he watches her mark the canisters with the proven lure of fresh crimson.

By the time her mask is in place, Brian's already looking to the electrical panels on the wall, his press of lips dubious. "Brilliant. The only thing my shielding can't figure out. I suppose it's pull the pins once the air is going and we leave as fast as possible. Bob's your uncle." Walking over, he pries open the paneling to look it over. Murmuring to himself, he tests a dial before flicking a switch. A grunt as nothing happens. Over to the wiring, where he fiddles with inserting it better into its mount. This time, he depresses the breaker down and up, turns the dial, and flicks the switch. The machinery grumbles all to hell, but...there's the sudden, steady, growing hum of air circulation beginning again. It's bit dusty, smells like mildew, and...very shortly, of other things as well, all unpleasant. Brian makes a face as he shuts the metal panel before walking over to the boiler room door. His gloved hand goes to the knob.

"Alright, Miss van Dyne. Whenever you're ready...and might I suggest, once they're live, you shrink and I'll cup you to my chest? My shielding around me does an excellent job of defending against kinetic impact. It could simply be a matter of...blowing through the thinnest resistances until we're outside again."

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet gives Britain a pointed up-and-down. "First hickies, now you want me to paste myself against those rock slabs you call pecs? Twist my arm a little," she says, feigning protest. There's a sultry amusement lurking in her expression regardless of the danger they're in. Janet does find her moments as they present themselves, it seems.

"Let's try not to bring the building down. I don't know where the fangs are going to go if we wreck their nest. And there might still be survivors in here. The civil authorities will want to see this for themselves."

Janet turns her wrist and pulls the pins. The spoons clatter down the ductwork, and if there was any doubt about where the vampires think the heroes are, it's dismissed. The howling of the undead echoes back at them and there is the sound of feet and claws scraping purchase as a small army of minions starts flooding the building in their direction.

"Okay, on you!" Janet says, and shrinks into a doll small enough to fit in Britain's hand. She frames his fingers out to ensure she isn't crushed against his sternum.

"I'm set, let's go!"

Brian Braddock has posed:
What a droll little smirk back at Janet for her faux protest. Faux-test? Faux-test.

"Agreed," he says nonetheless. "This is an infestation requiring more than one fumigation. I'll avoid support beams as I can. I'm not fond of blustering through them." He cycles through a breath as her deft motions set the canisters alive. Just like that, the fans start to suck the silver iodide as well as blood-scent through the entire building. A tic appears at the corner of one quite-blue eye as the siren-like horror of the undead takes up.

"Very good." Whether or not that's dry enough to address the incoming hoarde or an acknowledgement of Janet's now shrunk-and-tucked presence against his sternum doesn't matter.

It's go-time.

Cue Yackity Sax.

A deep breath which expands the Captain's chest and he breaks into augmented motion. It's breathtakingly quick for any passenger, though not fast enough to cause undue issue. Out into the hallway, he goes, and it turns into one long rugby run, for all appearances. Fun-sized Janet is kept tightly held to him as he takes that corner and WHAM: there goes Captain Britain, shouldering through a sudden wave of vampires. Claws, nails, teeth, all collide with his kinetic shielding and all but spark off. There's no reaching him and Janet, she by proxy of closeness. It's a matter now of making it to some room with a window before his held breath gives out.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
The vampires are strong but young, and inexperienced. Many of them are starving and not at their full strength. Still, the sheer number of them clawing and ripping at Britain provide a challenge even to his defenses. The flickering nimbus of energy around him ebbs and wanes as the hits just keep on coming. A particularly strong and obstinate vampire manages to get a claw around Britain's ankle and hangs on with a death grip, trailing from his ankle and creating more turbulence until Britain can kick him free.

A window does indeed present itself and it's a simple matter for Britain to shoulder his way through it. An explosion of glass creates glittering drops of light in the midnight sky as the barrier goes flying.

Behind him the smoke billows and surges from the building as the silver iodide does its work. Vampires start feeling in all directions, some of them visibly aflame with unnatural white fire igniting their dessicated flesh. Many however are too afraid to leave their nest and end up dithering too long in indecision, until the silver clouds wash over them with calamitous ruin.

It takes just a few minutes for the building to be utterly purged of the nocturnal menace that had been plaguing it.

"<Are we through?>" Janet inquires, and gives Britain's fingers a couple kicks so she can see between them.

Brian Braddock has posed:
The speed of forward motion tears most of the cursing away from Brian's mouth to make it unintelligible...save for when that vampire hooks on. 'Wanker' this and 'cock up' that and a few F-bombs leave him as he continues plowing through the forest of skeletal, fang-rife and talon-reaching bodies. At one point, he does manage to throw off the clinging vampire, but leaves a trail of his blood in return.

Thank god for the window. Out they go and into the air, beyond reach of any of the scrabbling chaos behind them all starting to catch alight. Up and up, to a nearby rooftop, and the Captain lands with a noticeable stumble. Gritting his teeth, he turns to see just what's going on in the abandoned church below.

Flambe a la Undead. Mmm: crispy.

Spreading out his fingers once he feels the Wasp's boots make contact, he too then carefully rotates his palm that she might stand upon it. She's got an easy viewpoint of the smoke rising from the various broken windows and the belltower.

"Yes, I believe our task is complete, Miss van Dyne. The silver iodide is doing as it should. I couldn't guess if any escaped, but many did not. I can tell by the thickness of the smoke. Perhaps I might return with you to the Avengers infirmary? One bloody bastard managed to get hold of my ankle and I'd rather have it professional attended." He can't put weight on it right now as is and there's an uncomfortable sensation of wetness inside the boot, as if curved nails might have pierced both material and skin.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet moves to stand on the end of Captain Britain's palm, enlarging herself to a foot in height. She even puts a boot on his thumb for balance and leans forward with her elbows on her knee, looking down at the mystical conflagration below. "God, what a mess," she mutters sourly.

At Britain's request, she looks back up at him in mild surprise. "I thought you were invulnerable or something," she accuses him. "Or something close to it." She leans past him to look at his foot and winces. "Yikes. Yeah, okay, let's get you in the sickbay," she agrees with him. Janet rubs her own throat, grimacing again and flinching her hand away. "I should probably get this looked at, too. Grubby ass vampire nails, I probably am gonna get a tetanus shot," she mutters with a dark irritation. Woe betide that poor medic.

Brian Braddock has posed:
"Something close to it," the Captain agrees, following Janet's glance down towards his boot. It's just messy enough to merit the wince on her face to follow. He too nods at the way she reassesses her neck and reaches his same conclusion. "I would take the tetanus shot no matter what. I doubt this is the last of them. One nest..."

It's too warm for his sigh to fog in the evening hours, but he does cough once and clear his throat afterwards. This is evidence he inhaled some small amount of the silver iodide despite his best efforts. "One nest means there's another somewhere in the city. Baron Blood's get, surely. For the moment, however, yes, recovery. Call ahead that they might prep the bays for us?"

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet nods up at Brian and settles into the curl of his hand to protect her from the wind shear while he accelerates. Once they're New York-bound again, her voice comes through clearly over the vox net.

"<Wasp to Mansion, we've got two injured coming hot at the emergency access gate. Prep a response team and two beds for me 'nd Captain Britain. Out.>" The callbacks confirm her requests and there's naught to do but hurry back to the safety of the Mansion.

"How many vampires can Blood turn?" Janet asks. A beat later-- "I mean, over time. That nest was full of them. Has he been here a while, or can he really populate a pack of vampires that fast? If we've only set him back a few weeks, that doesn't seem like we're working fast enough. Y'know?"

Brian Braddock has posed:
Fly at speed, Brian does, cutting through the air with practiced ease. Janet's kept from most of the buffeting by his steady curl of fingers and closeness yet against to his chest.

Her question has him quiet for a period of time. Already, the mansion is visible by its lighting and size and he banks towards it. "I've never discovered his process. If it's as simple as draining them dry and having a dosage of vampire venom...an uncomfortable number per day, I'd hazard. He needn't even feed. He might bleed them dry and simply be certain some venom is in their veins. If he needs to share his own blood, I imagine the process would be slower. There's nothing of these details in his files nor in Vlad Drakul's file. I suppose our saving grace is the lack of intelligence in the immature vampires in that nest. If they'd retained any sense of their humanity, it would've been a bloody mess. That's what makes me worry, Miss van Dyne: that Baron Blood has found a way to make intelligent thralls and we don't know because they know how to hide."

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"Oh great," Janet says, sourly, and flops back inside the cradle of Britain's fingers. "That's what I love, bad guys who pull random bullshit out of their asses. It sounds like we might need to talk to some experts, to find out if this is just a weird coincidence or it's something totally new. Strange and Clea are my go-tos for magic, but I don't know if they have any specialism in vampires. That's a thing, right?" she asks a little rhetorically.

Once they land on the campus they're met with medics and the care teams, with Doctor Cho already en route and rushing to the mansion. The two of them end up in the lower sickbay again, and Janet sits in a corner enduring the medic's examination while the nurses get to work bandaging and putting emergency sutures on Britain's ankle while he's on the medical table.

"You take me to all the nicest places, English. It's been a whole week since I was in here last." She flickers an arch look at Britain, but it's immediately tempered by an amused smirk on the corner of her lips.

Brian Braddock has posed:
The wind doesn't steal away all sound of Brian's wry laughter at the complaining, not even when he descends like a falling star from the night sky towards the mansion. Janet's got enough kinesthetic knowledge of flight herself that the Captain knows she won't be startled.

The medical table is attended by an extension of the table itself, the Captain's leg out at angle upon it. He sits back against the mounding of pillows, patiently waiting for the medics to finish working the thread through the tears in his ankle. Not terribly bothered as a whole by the process (especially with fascia numbed and thoroughly cleaned), he rests his attention on Janet, his hood still up.

"Any and all rumors that I know how to treat a lady are surely confirmed then," he replies with an equally dry smirk. He circles back around to, "But Doctor Strange and Clea, yes. What can it hurt to ask of them? If they don't, they surely know others who will -- and it's a thing, yes, as surely as a specialism in electrical engineering or archaeology or the like."

Janet van Dyne has posed:
The technician finishes cleaning Janet's wounds, provoking an endless number of little hisses of irritation from the petite socialite. They're daubed, packed, and closed with suture glue. Janet casts around for scissors and a spare set of scrubs. The sleeve from one shirt is deftly removed and with a quick flourish and twist, the injuries are mostly covered by an improvised blue necksleeve. It doesn't even look all bad.

"You never know -what- will hurt with Strange," Janet cautions Britain. "Sometimes he'll have some obscure reference right at his fingertips ready to go. Othertimes he wants a dram of blood and a saint's fingerbone just to tell you what the weather forecast is. If he wasn't a legitimate doctor, I'd swear he's making the whole thing up as he goes," she insists a little stubbornly.

Brian Braddock has posed:
Truly, the necksleeve doesn't look half-bad at all. The medics probably give her a look or two, but knowing of the fashionista's tendecies, no flack in the end.

Brian lifts his wheat-gold brows in open surprise at what he's told of the Sorcerer Supreme. "Really? You've gone to him with an issue and he asked for a saint's fingerbone? That seems more like a hindrance than a help...though, I suppose if he was required to do some...esoteric ritual in order to find the answer, it might excuse it," he muses. "Still, with such a difficult opponent and no answers, any answer might be besss -- "

The word twists into a grit of teeth. "I believe the tissue isn't entirely numbed there," he calmly informs the medic with a tight smile sans teeth. One last section of torn skin to suture and then he's set.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"Well, it was something like that," Janet tells Britain off-handedly. "I just remember it was super inconvenient and very expensive."

The techs are working with Britain to try and get his wounds tended to, and the priority of staunching the bleeding means they're working faster than the painkillers are kicking in. Janet observes their process for two seconds then throws her hands up and goes to the medicine cabinet. Some clear liquid is transferred into a syringe before it's all neatly repacked. The fashionista sneaks back to Britain's bedside and with an entirely too practiced effort, pumps a few mililitres of the drug into his IV feed.

"Aaaaand a little for me," Janet says, and hooks it up to her own catheter for a little injection of liquid euphoria. The dose she gives *herself* is a good bit larger than Britain's emergency adjustment.

"Miss van Dyne! Those drugs are for medical technicians only!" one of the medics yelps, alarmed. The socialite gives him a completely nonplussed look and twitches her shoulders at him.

"Bill me?" she says, and looks back at Britain with an exasperated expression. "I swear, this place would burn down without me," she declares.

Brian Braddock has posed:
"Perhaps Miss Clea then. I liked her when we spoke at your training gathering last held here. If she knows anything of the vampires, then she knows more than anyone save for Van Helsing himmmm...//bloody hell//."

Definitely not fully numbed yet in that area of his ankle so rife with nerves.

It means he's scowling at the suture work and very much scrounging up a modicum of apologetic patience when he feels...suddenly...a little more slack around the edges.

"...bloody what?" Brian mumbles, looking between the medics and Janet. He catches sight of the needle and blinks at it as if it suddenly proves more difficult to consider than quantum mathematics. "Oh, I see. Right. A blunt off the edge." His chuckling takes on a wobbly pitch for a second before he clears his throat. "Miss Clea then, for questions."

His attention switches to the medics. "You're doing good work, truly, it simply stings quite a bit."

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"If you want a blunt, I'm gonna need to make a trip to my condo to get into my stash," Janet informs Britain. "This won't kill the pain, but it'll make you not care as much."

"What did you give him?" the nurse demands.

"What -did- I give him?" Janet wonders aloud, and reads the syringe label. Then flips it around to read it the other way. "Don't worry, it's not an opiate," she murmurs, and then holds it out for the tech. "Clonidine. Helps me take the edge off sometimes," she explains. The two medical professionals exchange A Look with each other and get back to the task at hand without voicing their opinions to the sometimes-irritable fashionista.

"You know vets use this to sedate race horses, right?" one of them mutters to Britain.

Brian Braddock has posed:
Tennis matches must be a known part of Brian's lifestyle. He looks back and forth between the Wasp and the medics as they speak, turning his head, evincing a gauzy patience.

"Clonidine..." he murmurs to himself, nodding a slow bobble of head. When he looks back to the medics at their suture work, he watches without any cares. The numbing agent must have kicked in entirely at this point.

The medic mutters and he leans in slightly, brows quirked.

"I'm sorry, did you say sedate race horses?" A Look at Janet now. "Miss van Dyne. What are you attempting to insinuate?" he inquires with bluster quickly falling apart to a stifled laugh.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"Me? I'm not insinuating anything," Janet says with a furrowed brow. "That's my go-to if I've been on too many uppers all weekend."

It takes her a few seconds to process Britain's sophomoric insinuation, and his stifled giggles are met with a sudden, dazzlingly amused grin that changes the temperature of the room by a few degrees.

"That's not at all what I was implying, English, but you're apparently cute when you're stoned." She considers Britain, then puts two fingers on his ribs and walks them up his chest before her fingernails drum a little tattoo against his sternum. "But, I like where your head is at. You've got the stamina, that's for sure," she says with an admiring tone.

An awkward beat from the medics. "...Please, just like... five minutes, and we'll be gone," the nurse begs. Janet's brassy entendre is clearly lost on the likes of the sober-minded medical professionals.

Brian Braddock has posed:
"Oh. Well..."

The thought peters out entirely before the Captain shrugs. He's unfamiliar with the sedative as a whole other than it's making everything feel fuzzy and quiet. But then?

The smile. He grins back, lopsidedly rather than Colgate-white and photo-ready. Up her fingertips walk and he tucks chin to consider them. Leaving his head dipped, he looks side-long at the muttering medics and then back at Janet with brows innocently lifted.

"I do hold the record for quite a number of athletic events at Thames University," he reveals. "Including - OW."

"Sorry, knot slipped on that one," the medic apologizes before going back to deftly finishing out the last suture.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet scowls over her shoulder at the medics. It's lucky she has an intellectual appreciation for the work they do, because in the moment it looks like she's contemplating some violence of the immediate and final type.

"Jesus, okay, point taken. Stop ripping his stitches," Janet tells them. There's a little relaxation around her neck that suggests some of the painkilling effect is hitting her, too.

"But maybe they've got a point. I don't want to get you all worked up. Not now, anyway," she says. The petite fashionista rests her elbow on the bed near Britain's shoulder, then reaches up and gently tousles his blonde hair with a few straying pulls of his locks through her fingertips.

"All right. Sleep and mend up. Good work today, English," she tells Britain, and flashes that megawatt smile again just because she knows the effect it has on red-blooded young men. With a little pop on the ball of her foot and a twist, Janet turns away to step out of the medical suite.

Brian Braddock has posed:
None of the nurses and medics appear exceptionally guilty, but they //do// look between one another nonetheless. There's some sort of private conversation surely on the wavelength of the EMT sort.

Brian's hood sits just akilter on his head that some of his blond hair is accessible for the fashionista to muss. He blinks more slowly at Janet and leans back into the mounding of pillows, his smile quieted down too.

"And yourself as well," the Brit replies of good work done. "Sleep tight, Miss van Dyne...and do let me know what Miss Clea wants to do? If she chooses to assist us. Otherwise, we'll need to think of other options." Nothing in the jaunty two-fingered salute he gives Janet speaks to true military experience, but the dry sass? That says he'll be just fine after a good night's rest and a lecture about letting his ankle heal (or else).