My body is a cage

[beenwaitinglong]

Who: Diego Armando and Bruce Banner
When: August 22nd, Wednesday evening
Where: The subway
Summary: Diego suffers an episode in public, but luckily the Incredible HulDr. Banner is on the scene.
Warnings: None!



He didn't sleep well the night before. Granted, Diego never slept well enough to stop making his doctor nervous, usually around 4 hours a night-- 5 if he was feeling sassy. But that night, he couldn't chase away the lump in his chest that got tighter every time he looked over at Mia beside him.

Guilt. Worry. Regret. Fear. He'd lied to her for this long. He'd done exactly what he wanted to do, given her the impression that everything was just fine. He was a fighter, a man who'd suffered a few little setbacks in life but was strong enough to overcome them. He was still the same man she fell in love with, minus the color of his hair and his eyesight. That's who Diego Armando was, according to Mia.

He certainly was not a medical anomaly. A walking wreck kept alive by a steady diet of pills and treatments, more chemical than his own flesh and blood. A man so twisted and broken he'd thrown his entire life away for the sake of revenge, only recently to reclaim what was left of it, now trying desperately to act like it had never happened and-

"Next stop, Turner. The next stop is Turner."

Diego looked up abruptly, heart throbbing in his chest. For a moment he'd completely forgotten where he was. He'd spent most of the afternoon in a fog that only his harshest blends of coffee could cut through, but even those weren't doing so well anymore. He wearily took a sip from the travel thermos in his hand. There was so little left he had to tilt his head nearly all the way back.

He let it fall forward again and the dizziness got worse. God, he wished this damned visor could be turned off without taking it off his face. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and hope it went away. He returned to leaning against the glass divider beside his seat, resting his head against the cool surface in the hopes it would help. The train was far too hot, right up until he felt his hand go numb and his blood immediately went colder than ice water.

Not here. Not here, now, in front of all these people.

The train slowed down and the doors opened. People pushed their way onto the train while others stood up to leave. Diego stood up as well-- they were nowhere near his stop, but he couldn't sit here. He would head for a bathroom and lock himself in a stall until it was over.

"Watch it!" someone snapped from behind him, and shoved him in the shoulder. The attorney stumbled forward and to his waning conscious horror, felt his knees give out. He kept on falling.

Damn. That was about the last thought he had before he blacked out and the seizure took over.

Comments

[beenwaitinglong]

At least he was a doctor. It would have been even worse, somehow, if he wasn't.

He took a deep breath before he spoke again. "It's complicated," he said, with regards to his condition. "More of an... acquired. Disorder. Than epilepsy."

Another breath and he rolled his head back and forth on his arm, a nervous tic. "I'll tell you the drugs when I remember them all."

[hulkbusted]

"Take your time."

Bruce's eyes tracked over Diego from head to toe, lingering on his headgear. He'd made it off the train without needing guidance on the steps and hadn't given any indication that his vision was impaired getting to the bench. Unfamiliar tech was almost the norm here, so perhaps that was what he was seeing.

He wanted to ask about it, and about Diego's eyes, but that was pushing the doctor role too far. It was feeding his scientific curiosity more than anything else, and that wasn't enough reason to pry.

[beenwaitinglong]

After a few more moments, he had mostly caught his breath. He still felt like the subway had run over him rather than him just collapsing on it. Everything hurt to move and his head was still unpleasantly swimming, but he felt a little more alive again.

"I have-- anti-seizure medication. Immuno-suppressants," he listed. Get the big two out of the way. "Heart medication. Steroids. Pain pills I don't usually use. Sleeping pills I don't take."

He swallowed and let his briefcase fall from his lap down onto the bench in front of him, feeling relaxed enough to let it go.

"Doesn't really matter when it wants to happen. I just get lucky sometimes."

[hulkbusted]

Bruce nodded. It both was and was not funny how well he could relate to that particular sentiment, but Diego had issues that were perhaps more socially acceptable than his own.

"Do you have a doctor or someone I can call for you?" He took his NV out of his pocket and swept a finger over the display. "Or someone I can text just to let them know you're okay?"

[beenwaitinglong]

"I-" Diego hesitated. Daedalus would want to hear about it, but he was fairly certain that he wasn't back at work yet. The last thing he wanted to do was pile stress upon him at this point.

"My doctor's not in the office this week," he murmured. That left only one person. "I should- probably tell Mia I'm going to be late."

Too bad he didn't think hard enough before he said that.

[hulkbusted]

"Give me Mia's number and I'll call her." Bruce offered a faint smile and swiped over to voice functions. "You still sound like you got hit by a Mack truck and you probably don't want to worry people."

He didn't much look forward to telling a stranger that her - friend? boyfriend? employee? - had had an episode on the train, but he could always bury the lead. I'm calling for Diego to let you know he's running late but he said he'll be there soon. Why? Oh he just had a seizure on the train.

No, maybe not. "What would you like me to tell her?"

[beenwaitinglong]

"No. No, I don't," he said, chuckling under his breath. There was also the matter that Mia had no idea that her boyfriend had anything wrong with him, aside from what she could see. And that she probably wasn't going to be very happy about it to find out.

"Tell her I'm just running late," he said. "That I just had an..." An accident? No. That's what the police said he'd had in the courthouse cafeteria all those years ago.

"Sorry," he muttered again. "Forget that part." He recited Mia's number for him.

[hulkbusted]

"I'll tell her you were held up on the train and you're running late," Bruce said. "If she asks me for more details, I'll just tell her you'll fill her in when you see her?" He made it more a question than a statement, but he just didn't feel comfortable oversharing - not about himself, and certainly not about other people.

"Is there anything else you want me to tell her?" he asked, putting her number into his NV and holding his thumb over the call button.

[beenwaitinglong]

He paused for a moment.

"Tell her first thing that I'm okay," he said. He reached up and rubbed his forehead above the visor.

"Thank you for all this, by the way. You didn't have to."

[hulkbusted]

"I kinda did," Bruce said before hitting the call button. He couldn't explain to Diego that he had so very much harm he'd caused that he needed to balance out one way or another.

[ooc: How to handle the call with Mia?]

[beenwaitinglong]

"Not necessarily," he said. "I know plenty of people, doctors or no, who'd happily leave a lawyer on the subway floor."

He chuckled. "Sounds like a punchline to something."

[In her IC contact is fine!]

[hulkbusted]

"Oh, if I'd known you were a lawyer..." Bruce said, half-jokingly, then cut off to listen to his NV.

"Hello? May I speak to Mia?"

[beenwaitinglong]

"A city prosecutor, if that makes any difference," he murmured. It might! Some people just didn't like private lawyers.

But plenty of people didn't like the government in the city. He drifted off to listen to one side of the conversation.

[hulkbusted]

Bruce finished his graceless conversation with Mia, complete with making various What did I get myself into? faces at Diego before disconnecting and letting out a deep sigh that was mostly lost in the sound of the train arriving at their stop.

"Okay," he said, raising his voice over the noise, "she's going to be wanting some explanations, but she knows you'll be late."

[beenwaitinglong]

He sighed, closing his eyes beneath the visor. "I was afraid of that," he muttered. His voice seemed to have recovered after a little rest now. "Thank you for calling her. Otherwise she would have killed me two steps in the door."

He was reaching into his briefcase, digging out a small metal thermos and unscrewing the lid to pour himself a cup of coffee. "Coffee?" he offered. "It's the least I can do for you."

[hulkbusted]

Bruce raised a hand to decline the coffee. "Thanks, but I have a bit of a sensitivity to caffeine." Which had been exacerbated by Loki's little trick.

"Are you sure it's good for you along with your meds?"

[beenwaitinglong]

"That's depressing," he murmured. He finished pouring a cup for himself, set down the thermos, reached into his briefcase... and pulled out a second one. "Decaf, then?"

With his other hand, he took a sip of the first cup. "Mmh. It's not a problem anymore."

[hulkbusted]

Bruce's eyebrows went up. Regular and unleaded? This man was serious about his coffee.

"I guess I can't say no in that case," he said. "What do you mean it's not a problem? Caffeine can be a seizure trigger."

[beenwaitinglong]

Understatement of the century, Dr. Banner. Understatement of the century.

He unscrewed the cap of the second thermos, poured a cup and handed it over. "Blend #39, Tranquility. Decaf, soothing lavender and mint in the nose," he recited, then took another sip of his own.

"And as far as the caffeine goes... Let's just say I've adapted to it by now."

[hulkbusted]

Bruce took the cup and inhaled the steam from the coffee, but he wasn't sure he caught soothing lavender or mint aromas. Then again, he never smelled chocolate or cherries in wine either.

"Diego, you just had a seizure on the train. I don't know what qualifies as adaptation where you're from, but it seems to me that switching to decaf would be the better part of valor here."

[beenwaitinglong]

That's because Bruce was a normal person, and Diego had consumed enough cups of coffee for four hundred people in his life so far.

"It's fine," he said. "I'm immune to it. Some people can lift cars off of babies and some can fly. I metabolize things."

[hulkbusted]

With normal having an exceedingly broad definition, all things considered.

"If you metabolize things, how does that affect your medications?" He was willing to accept the metabolizing thing as a power, but it had ramifications that couldn't help but pique his scientific interest.

[beenwaitinglong]

"Not fantastically," he said. Normally, Diego wasn't this open about what he had to admit was an incredibly dumb ability he'd gained while in the city, but he figured Bruce deserved to have his curiosity sated in exchange for, well, perhaps saving his life.

"The dosage has to be exact. A little too much and it's like I never took any at all."

[hulkbusted]

"Does your doctor have that under control?" he asked, eyeing Diego speculatively. "I know a lot about biochemistry that might be helpful if your doctor needs a consult."

He kept finding these opportunities to use his skills and training that made the tight constraints of a single islands less chafing. He wasn't even surprised to find himself offering his skills so readily.

[beenwaitinglong]

"Maybe," he said. "His name's Daedalus Yumeno. I'm sure he'd rather I not count on it, but I haven't had much of a choice. Can't really control your metabolism."

Another sip of coffee had him finishing the cup, and he immediately went back to the thermos for more.

"Coffee calms me down. I'll be fine in a few minutes."