Faces of Midgard

NPC blog for Earth-based characters. Associated with Beyond the Bifrost. All characters available for application.

[middlingrealm]

Blood will Tell | Closed RP

[peraudacia-adastra]

Jane didn’t watch Game of Thrones, but she had a good enough knowledge of Star Wars to know the reference Don was making. She picked up a clipboard and smacked him lightly on the elbow.

“I told you, Donald, this isn’t Loki. Because he’s dead. I saw it happen.”

She had her doubts on that subject but she wasn’t going discuss them with Don. Unfortunately, Balder being a full blood brother just made things more mysterious instead of less. Why hide him away? Why adopt Loki when there was already another heir? As far as she knew, Balder would not have been in any danger.

This is getting more and more like a VC Andrews novel every minute.

“This is… a long lost relative, apparently.”

[middlingrealm]

“Dead?” Don blinked. “Well that’s news. Be nice to hear about that down here on Earth.”

“In any case, I figured either you all were hiding something from me telling me this was a friend or this was some sort of surprise,” he shrugged. “It’s good to know it’s the latter, but that also opens up a whole score of other questions, I’m sure. Bombs like this don’t drop soft, in my experience.”

“So what do you want to do about it now?” he asked. “And what do you want me to do about it?” He had a feeling he was going to be doing a bit more lab work in the future if Janey had her say about it.

[middlingrealm]

Blood will Tell | Closed RP

[peraudacia-adastra]

WHAT THE - beeeeeeeeeeeeep~

The Blue Screen of Death flashed in front of Jane’s eyes and she blinked at the chart, her mind in freefall as she absorbed Don’s words.

A brother? A BROTHER? Oh my God, what the hell is this, why do I get myself involved in these situations, what the fuck is going on-

“Oh, it’s definitely a friend,” she said, her tone light. “Trust me, Loki is… not in the picture. He has been Photoshopped out and put in the trash.”

Thor has ANOTHER BROTHER - but I can’t tell him - he can’t know - Karnilla definitely can’t know - does BALDER know? No, doubtful because he’d probably tell Thor.

Jane peered at the chart, trying to read it. “So is this guy… a half-brother?”

It was hard for to her to see Odin cheating on Frigga from the little she’d seen between them but shit happened.

[middlingrealm]

“Janey?” Don tilted his head at the blank look he got from her at the information. “Janey?” he snapped his fingers in front of her eyes. “Earth to Ja--oh,” he stopped when she finally answered.

“Well, it . . . it’s good to know that now--during the testing I was kind of afraid you were asking me to help your boy toy save that megalomaniac with the horns who tried to play the game Risk for real with Manhattan,” he said, taking the clipboard back. “In which case, I would say you all could go suck it.”

“But no, this--with results like these, this isn’t a Jon Snow Game of Thrones kind of surprise sibling situation--or well, is it now?” He scratched his chin. “Who knows--anyway, not so much that as much as it is a Star Wars kind of situation . . . I mean, minus the twins and the princess thing. Or I guess this makes the new guy Luke and your hammer boy the princess?” He paused again, thinking on the analogy. “Whatever.”

“In any case, no,” he clarified. “Markers this close generally indicate that the genes of both parents are the same for each sample . . . for humans anyway. Like I said, messing with alien DNA is anyone’s guess with the lack of samples to go on--but by our standards, these are full blood brothers. Which makes me have to ask,” he circled his irritation back, “how can you say for sure that you’re not having me help Loki? Last I’d heard, the guy who brought the invasion down on us was your boyfriend’s brother.”

[middlingrealm]

Blood will Tell | Closed RP

[peraudacia-adastra]

“Shit.” Jane’s eyes flicked up and down the paper, widening as Don’s explanation began to filter through her brain. “So this is basically a more effective, biologically-targeted version of strychnine? Those bastards.”

She looked up. “Okay… that is fucked up but why would you want to tell me this without Thor being present?”

[middlingrealm]

“That isn’t bad enough?” Don joked, but found it fell flat with the seriousness of what he had told Jane and her expression back at him. “All right, all right--it’s over here.”

He stepped back beyond the printer to where several vials sat, labelled and innocuous. A screen was illuminated in the machine arm suspended over the samples, displaying several irregularly spaced bands. “The sample of the neurotoxin--which is what that poison is, by the way--had some of the subject’s blood still in it. It took a while, and some of the fancier equipment I got with my last grant to extract it, but I got enough to run a few profiling tests on it to serve as a point of reference against what your new space Viking boyfriend gave me. I could only do a a preliminary set of tests, but I figured checking the similarities in the sequences of DNA could only help us figure out how close the reactions with Hammer-man’s blood would be to the guy they dosed with the stuff.”

He indicated the double chart above the samples, sliding his finger from one set of illuminated bands to the other. “Everything kept coming up almost identical to original sample of blood pulled from the neurotoxin, which I thought was weird--well, weirder than checking out a neurotoxin in alien blood,” he shrugged. “But in any case, I figured that merited a few other tests just to be sure it wasn’t some sort of fluke. Now, I can’t be absolutely certain because this isn’t human DNA I’m working with, and I don’t have a lot of it in the case of your missing guy, but every test I ran with some clean samples from your boy came up the same,” he said. “And by human standards the number of markers that match here . . . well, those would be blood siblings.”

“Now, I don’t know how close DNA is on Space Viking Heaven Planet, but I thought you all said this was a friend,” he said, levelling his eyes at Jane. “Not a brother.”

[middlingrealm]

Blood will Tell | Closed RP

[peraudacia-adastra]

“I know there are problems, Don, but they’re better than the alternative,” Jane said, swallowing down her frustration.

She peered at the data Don was showing her and tried to summon what biology and biochemistry remained from her college days.

“A mutating drug? That is… that could be a horribly effective weapon,” she murmured, her throat suddenly dry. “So it starts off with sleep paralysis and then what? What does it attack next?”

[middlingrealm]

“Once the sedative state shifts, it goes into a straight paralytic--full sensation included,” Don reiterated for summary. “It might be hard to tell if the subject exposed to it is unconscious or not depending on how closely someone’s monitoring it, because once he comes out of the kind of ‘sleep-state’ he’s entirely motionless--there’s no real control over the neuromuscular junctions. They’re non-responsive.”

“But the real issue comes afterward,” he went on. “This thing has three stages. The first two aren’t lethal, and if the concentration of the drug is under a certain ratio to the brain chemicals, then we just get this kind of semi-conscious ragdoll effect,” he said, turning around to pull up a second sheet of paper. “But if you manipulate the ratio so that there’s a saturation compared to the normal brain chemicals--well, then you’re in trouble.” He handed the second sheet to Jane, pointing down the list of percentages and results on the page. “After this point,” he let his finger stop about halfway through the findings, “it doesn’t block or reduce the signalling to the neuromuscular junction. It does a 180 and begins to mimic the neurotransmitters--essentially causing muscle contraction on overdrive.”

“So basically, if you pump a guy with enough of this stuff, his brain will overdrive the muscles in his body--you’ll get loss of coordination, twitching,” he ticked off the symptoms on his fingers, “convulsions, the communication between the brain and muscles gets interrupted, and respiration stops.”

[middlingrealm]

Blood will Tell | Closed RP

[peraudacia-adastra]

“Viking space Prince doesn’t care about you,” Jane said calmly, following him into the office. “Viking space Prince has more important things to worry about than what Dr Donald Blake is doing or thinking.”

As do I, was the unsaid implication.

As Don closed the door, Jane turned around and folded her arms, her eyes darkening in frustration “I guess the next time aliens invade New York, I’ll just tell the Avengers to stay home, hmm? Let Donald Blake handle this, because he will definitely not ‘smash up’ Manhattan and will have everything under control, right?!”

She was so tired of people making snide remarks about the Avengers ‘wrecking’ Manhattan. As if Don could have saved New York without any mess or destruction! As if the alternative (being conquered by aliens and ruled by a sociopathic pretender to the throne) was actually PREFERABLE!

He isn’t worth it, she reminded herself. He can’t bear the idea of them being able to do something amazing and he especially can’t bear the fact that you went from him to Thor.

Swallowing back her irritation, Jane deliberately unfolded her arms and gestured. “Why don’t you just get to the point, Don? What’s so important that you had to see me alone?”

[middlingrealm]

“Look, I just know what I saw,” Don held up his hands defensively at her sharp retorts, “and what I see happening day after day. I get more people in here with new types of chemical poisonings or lingering effects of being in that alien debris messing up their systems than I have the offices for. More people with ‘abilities’ keep showing up and more places get broken or torn down and more people get injured or sick because of it. I just don’t want to be another one on the list of buildings under construction in New York.”

“In any case,” he cleared his throat and stepped over to one of the large printers, “there are a couple things I was able to determine from the sample you guys brought me. For one, this isn’t really a sedative compound,” he explained as he picked up a sheet of paper from the tray. “Well, not only. Now, I’m going off the idea that these guys--the aliens and all--they’re at least by and large similar to humans in their systems and . . . probably--” he lingered on the word, still doubtful, “--most of the chemistry involved . . . so if that’s the case, this stuff would definitely be able to pass through to the brain and suppress the central system and block some things at the neuromuscular junction.”

He indicated several of the columns of data on the sheet to Jane. “What the presumptive testing determined was that first--” he pointed to the top section, “this isn’t anything we’ve seen before, and second--” he trailed his hand down the side margin, following the numbers to the bottom, “it doesn’t keep the same characteristics over time.”

“In other words, it starts off one way--inducing effects similar to a sedative,” he explained, “but then once it’s engaged with the chemicals that would nervous system, it disperses. The molecule’s behaviour changes, and after a few minutes saturated with the type of brain chemicals it might have, it takes on properties similar to a sort of nicotinic acetylcholine inhibitor--something like muscle relaxant . . . without the benefit of the anaesthetic lack of sensation.”

[middlingrealm]

Blood will Tell | Closed RP

[nornqueenkarnilla]

“It has inundated where I should be able to find his consciousness,” Karnilla said, peering out into the steam over the darkness. “The barriers that should be here are gone.”

What she had remembered as labyrinthine sets of hedges and garden flowers that mad up the construct of nooks and crannies in Balder’s mind had been cleared, levelled into a hissing sea. She raised her hand again, watching as the liquid, though painful to her projected form, did not eat away at her as it did the more physically present landscape around her. 

“I am going in,” she resolved, taking a step forward. She bared her teeth with the sharp intake of breath that came at the burning sensation, but moved her next foot forward. It is not actually harming you, she assured herself. It is sensation without sense. It only feels as though it is harming you.

“I will find him here,” she determined in her next strides out into the waist-deep pool, “and he will help us find where he truly is.”

[firstsonofasgard]

Thor ground his teeth, watching the scene before him, his phone making the slightest crunching sound in his hand. 

[middlingrealm]

Don paused at the door to his laboratory office as Jane’s phone buzzed audibly. “Viking space Prince upset he’s not included?” he guessed as he led Jane inside, away from the rest of the clinic.

The walls had several charts up, and they fluttered a bit on some of their untaped corners with the whirring of several large machines. The blue lights from a few computer screens wavered underneath a few post-its with some unintelligibly underlined phrases scribbled on them, and a few plastic bins sat with their sealed, packaged contents slightly misarrayed.

“Because I can tell you right now he wouldn’t like hearing what I’ve got to say,” Don said as he closed the door. “It may not be much, but this lab is all I’ve got, and I’d rather not have it smashed up like Manhattan.”

[middlingrealm]

Blood will Tell | Closed RP

[firstsonofasgard]

“I doubt you know every Queen there is to know in the whole of the Nine Realms,” Thor turned a sharp look to Karnilla, agitated by everything. “I know that it is difficult, and unfair, Donald Blake. Your patients have been waiting far longer than we have…but this case is very time sensitive, and we do not wish to lose any small leads that we may have into the matter…”

If Thor lost Balder again…

Don stopped to flirt with Karnilla, and Thor’s brows rose. He was a brave soul, he thought. He did not believe that he could have done the same, even if he had found her attractive.

[nornqueenkarnilla]

“I know those that matter,” Karnilla defended, and would have gone on to challenge Doctor Foster’s amusement at her, had the alchemist Blake not praised her in a way that seemed it was somehow more than simple appreciation, but less than purely complimentary. Her lip curled in distaste, sneering to expose some teeth.

“To your business, alchemist,” she hissed in dismissal to the door. “where your attention belongs.”

[peraudacia-adastra]

“Don’t apologise, Thor, he’s getting something out of this, too,” Jane said sharply. She walked right up behind Don and put a hand on the middle of his back. “Thank you, Don, we’ll wait here for the results,” she said, opening the door and shoving him out into the corridor, a little harder than she meant to, and closing the door as he turned, mouth open to retort something.

“I’m sorry about him,” she apologised, going back to Thor and taking his hand, “he can be an idiot but he’s very good at his job.”

[middlingrealm]

“Right, time-sensitive, got it,” Don waved his free hand back as the door rested on his shoulder before it could close. “Just . . . give me a few hours, and I’ll see what I can do. You can wait here for a bit, or show yourselves out,” he shrugged allowing it to shut with a click. “Don’t really care which.”

“Alchemist, sheesh,” he shook his head before turning down the hallway. “Everyone expecting me to work miracles in half the time . . .” his grumbling echoed behind him. “Can’t even take a compliment . . .”

[middlingrealm]

Blood will Tell | Closed RP

[firstsonofasgard]

It was likely SHIELD who had provided the syringes, then. But that could mean anything now. SHIELD had been so infected with HYDRA that it was now difficult to really distinguish between the two. Both had been reduced to minimum numbers. Both operated from unknown bases. Both were a part of the same organisation for long enough that they might as well be the same, in some instances.

“And these men in suits…You know what agency they were from?” it seemed as though he didn’t. Thor might have stopped Don, except that the other man had finished, and Thor had not even noticed.

That was, perhaps, all the more unnerving.

“Elsa is a Queen,” he furrowed his brow after the absent-minded correction. “I would like the BB-8 bandage.” The little orange robot was more cheerful than Elsa. He had liked Rey, too, and seeing the mechanical beast reminded him of the character.

Thor knew he hardly had need of the bandage. He would heal within a moment’s time…But he wanted the bandage regardless.

[nornqueenkarnilla]

“What queen?” Karnilla brought her focus back to their conversation from her brooding. She glanced at the small strips Doctor Blake had proffered to the Odinson before exhaling with some impatience. “Hn,” she folded her arms a bit more tightly, “that is no queen I know among the Nine.”

“I take it since there is a policy about these instruments you are using,” she deduced from the conversation, “that you anticipate–or have had–other patients of superlative qualities to tend to?”

[peraudacia-adastra]

“Patients with ‘enhanced abilities’?” Jane repeated, frowning. “And you say these have been passed around all the NYC clinics? What was the name of this guy’s agency, Don?”

She swallowed a laugh at Karnilla’s grumpy question. “Elsa isn’t real, Karnilla, she’s imaginary… a fairytale,” she clarified. “You don’t need to worry about her.”

[middlingrealm]

Don brought the round orange and white bandage over Thor’s arm, quickly peeling it and adhering it to his skin in place of the cotton. “They looked to me like the Feds,” he shrugged. “I mean, since the Battle of New York, and what with the whole SHIELD thing in Washington, and the fish oil scare, plus some of the wacky things going on here, I’m glad we at least have something--not everyone has access to things like this, but our Head is pretty good at keeping us stocked and up to date. We’re lucky.”

“And you’re lucky too,” he added as he settled the items in his tray packing them up and and disposing of what was no longer needed, “since we have the equipment facilities to accommodate research like this.” He packaged the vial and boxed it, picking it up on his way to the door. “I’ll be expediting this research, right?” he only half-asked, “since you probably want it before all the other patients I had before you today?”

“And don’t worry, gorgeous,” he winked at Karnilla as he passed. “That cartoon’s nowhere near as queenly as you are, even if she is popular with the kids.”

[middlingrealm]

Blood will Tell | Closed RP

[firstsonofasgard]

He was far too eager to prod at something he found interesting, as all healers seemed to be, Thor thought. The prince came forward reluctantly, settling himself uneasily in the chair and rolling up his sleeve.

“Code gold?” Thor gazed across at the giant Midgardian questioningly. Men in suits were, as he had come to learn, not a particularly good sign in most cases. Who was he giving his blood to?

His gaze moved from Don to Jane, now more uncertain than before.

[nornqueenkarnilla]

Karnilla seethed, near to baring her teeth, but drew back now that the mortals had determined her blood should not be drawn. “Not taboo, forbidden,” she insisted, but it was low to a grumble. “And his enthusiasm hardly comes off as innocent.”

She pulled back from the group, arms crossed over her chest. Let them take from the Odinson, she thought to herself behind an uncomfortably clenched jaw. See what they might determine. If it was not enough, she would search for other means to find his whereabouts–perhaps on her own.

[peraudacia-adastra]

Jane caught Thor’s glance and reacted, moving back to him and slipping her hand into his free one.

“What do you mean ‘code gold’, Don?” she asked, eyeing the syringe as he picked it up. “Where did you get those? Which company?”

It might be the same company that had kidnapped Balder, she thought. If they were already producing equipment that could pierce Asgardian skin, what would they not do with an actual Asgardian?

[middlingrealm]

“Hm? Oh, gold’s for patients with enhanced abilities,” Don explained, keeping his tone glib to try to keep his patient’s discomfort at a minimum and his focus somewhere else. “And the guy seemed more a government type to me--had a badge and talked to the Head directly. We’re not the only ones who’ve gotten new supplies--especially around New York.”

He pulled the needle away, already drawn up with the sample and hardly a hitch from his patient. “I can’t complain about their effectiveness, though,” he indicated he was finished with a slight flourish as he removed the needle directly into the dispoal unit, closed off the syringe, and set it on the tray. All the while, he had put his other hand to work with a clean cotton ball, effortless in his well-practised multitasking. “These things are supposed to be able to get through most anyone’s skin--from Captain America to you, buddy.”

He reached beside the finished sample to the bandages. “Now, do you want a Princess Elsa or a BB-8 bandage?”

[middlingrealm]

Blood will Tell | Closed RP

[middlingrealm]

“Wh–” Don was taken aback by the reaction. “It is just an ordinary procedure,” he attempted to explain. “If the toxin is taken intravenously, then we’ll have to see its reaction to a blood sample to determine its effects.”

He nearly choked, however, as Janey stuck her face in front of the second of their alien patients. If he recalled the footage and state briefing correctly, even a casual strike from one of these people could do major damage. And here she was challenging one.

“Janey–” he worried, easing gloved hands down from a placating gesture.

[firstsonofasgard]

“It is not so in Asgard,” Thor explained uneasily, stepping slowly forward, ready to throw himself in front of Jane if need be. “Blood is…sacred. We do not touch it if it is not absolutely necessary – and with our advances in such things, it never is.”

He could easily see Karnilla’s discomfort. He ought to have relished in it. Thor found that he could not.

“Is it possible to see what you need to see with my contribution alone?”

[nornqueenkarnilla]

“Do not trifle with me, girl. It is not a sense of propriety, but of integrity and survival,” Karnilla hissed at the minuscule mortal as she locked eyes with her.

Thor began to explain, and her hackles continued to rise. “It is even more so in Nornheim,” she asserted, “and for the blood of those of the Norns in particular. With it–in the hands of one who knows the art–there are few limits to what one can do with even a small sample. What is limited by propriety for you and Asgard,” she narrowed her eyes at the Odinson, “is forbidden true Nornir.”

“And offering up as much before is likely how such a mess was wrought to begin with,” she said, her shoulders still tense and hands half curled round the inklings of a defensive spell.

“But do not dare question my investment in this search,” she latched her gaze back upon Doctor Foster. “I may be bound by precepts you have no notion of, some I risk breaking already by being here,” her eyes smouldered violet embers in their ire, “but I will have Balder back again.”

[peraudacia-adastra]

From a volcano to a toddler who isn’t getting what she wants. Give me strength… I will not sink to her level, I will not sink to her level….

Jane took a deep breath. “I am not ‘trifling’. It’s a cultural taboo? That is all you had to say, Karnilla. You didn’t have to blow a gasket and make a big song and dance. I am sorry if we accidentally broke a taboo but it was an innocent request on Don’s part.”

She turned back to her ex, raising her eyebrows. “Can you manage with just Thor’s blood?”

[middlingrealm]

Don looked a bit put on the spot. “I . . . had no idea,” he said, still a bit baffled at the intensity of both of their reactions.

“I suppose I could work with one sample,” he conceded, “but the results won’t be as conclusive. The more constants available measure it against the better the reading would be.”

He went back to the syringes, checking among an array of them. “But if one is what we’re allowed, one is what we’ll work with.” He plucked up one from the far end of the selection, opening up the plastic seal. “I was wondering when I would get to use one of these new ’code gold’ types,” he mused a bit over the tool. “We only have about fifty total, but the suit made a big to-do how it’s supposed to work through . . . enhanced skin types.”

“Let’s have that arm,” he nodded at Thor, indicating he should take his seat and allow him access.

[middlingrealm]

Blood will Tell | Closed RP

[middlingrealm]

Don blinked a little at Jane’s shift of focus to him, but recovered, smile intact. “Right. We’ll just have you two come in here,” he opened up the third door on the right of the hallway, revealing a small room with a grey-cushioned exam table and clean paper running over it.

“The sample Janey gave me has just a bit left in it–enough that I might be able to test it and see what sort of substance we’re dealing with,” he explained, stepping toward the side of the room to set the broken syringe in question down on a countertop, still nestled in its paper protection. “However,” he went on, sanitising his hands and picking up a clean set of gloves, “in order to see what sort of reactions it has been causing, we’ll need some samples to eliminate other variables. If this wasn’t meant for humans, we’ll have to test just what it is it does on a cellular level to those who aren’t.”

He adjusted the gloves on his hands and unpackaged a new syringe from one of the supply shelves. “An injected substance likely was intended for a circulatory or neural effect. We’ll need some blood from you two to determine more about what this stuff is supposed to be doing in the body and what sort of effects it could have–long and short-term.” He kept his tone light and neutral as he explained. “Now, if you would just relax and take a seat, miss,” he indicated the table to Karnilla, “we’ll draw a sample and get to work figuring this out.”

[firstsonofasgard]

Thor bristled at the information from Jane and Don, feeling his skin crawl at the thought of it. “Is there not some other way to determine what it is you need to know,” he asked, tone almost a growl. He was certain that such practices were the reason that the toxin existed in the first place.

All that Thor could think of was the taking of blood samples from him when he had first awakened on Midgard some two or three yearly cylces of Earth’s sun before. Surely the doctors had put them somewhere…and someone else had gotten their hands on them.

[nornqueenkarnilla]

“You want what from me?” Karnilla recoiled in the doorway of the examination room, her eyes wide with visible disgust at the idea. “Barbarous!”

“What manner of game are you playing?” she whirled round to demand of the Odinson. By his discomfort and his question, however, it seemed he had not anticipated this bent to their investigation.

“Is this what qualifies as advanced alchemy here? This … invasive, vulgar practice?” she ranted, turning from one face to another before eyeing which exits she might use. “You may no more have my blood than you may have my corpse to examine, mortal!” she snarled.

And with how the Norns would see it, she thought, it would be tantamount to the same.

[peraudacia-adastra]

Jane’s temper flared and she gripped Thor’s hand harder, holding onto herself as much as him. She couldn’t afford to get into a shouting match with Karnilla. For one thing, she was liable to get tossed against the wall.

This spoiled brat…

“Do you really think we’d ask you for this if we had any other choice?” she demanded, keeping her eyes on Karnilla’s with an effort. She’d once stood on a living volcano and stared into the smoking centre. This felt similar.

“I guess your sense of propriety is more important than someone else’s wellbeing… someone else’s life. But that’s fine, you go back to what you were doing before, you were having so much success before, right?”

She raised her eyebrows and waited for the explosion.

[middlingrealm]

“Wh--” Don was taken aback by the reaction. “It is just an ordinary procedure,” he attempted to explain. “If the toxin is taken intravenously, then we’ll have to see its reaction to a blood sample to determine its effects.”

He nearly choked, however, as Janey stuck her face in front of the second of their alien patients. If he recalled the footage and state briefing correctly, even a casual strike from one of these people could do major damage. And here she was challenging one.

“Janey--” he worried, easing gloved hands down from aplacating gesture.

[middlingrealm]

Blood will Tell | Closed RP

[middlingrealm]

Don skewed his brow at Janey’s insistence on charm, turning his gaze from her and back to the woman she had named Karnilla. Charm–looking at her thick black curls and full-feminine curves, he thought he might be able to manage that in this instance.

He nodded, turning from his office and over toward one of the halls that led to the lab cells as Jane spoke to  her accompanying aliens. “Right in here,” he spread a bright, handsome smile to them as he held the door open.

[firstsonofasgard]

“Can you stop looking for a fight in everything for just one second?” Thor snapped, quiet enough that the rest of the waiting room would not be privy to their conversation, but still filled with venom. He was losing patience with everything, it seemed.

His hand still burned (there were no healing stones on Midgard, after all), and every moment that Jane spent in that office with a man he did not know put him yet more on edge. It was all compounded by the idea that somewhere, and he did not know where, Balder was alive and he did not know in what state he would find him – if he ever found him.

Thor glanced up again as Karnilla’s weight made the floor creak when she leaned just slightly toward him. He looked back, seeing the open door and the smiling face of Doctor Blake. The Thunderer could not help but frown a moment. There was something just a little bit off about the man.

Years of training had drawn his eye to the way that Blake stood, favouring one leg over the other. An injury, perhaps. Probably long term.

Jane’s invitation forward was all that Thor needed. He glanced once at Karnilla and then stepped toward Jane, passing by Doctor Blake and glancing at him once more as well. There was something insincere in his smile, Thor decided. The prince of Asgard’s brow furrowed yet a little lower, and as he drew level with him and then stepped past, he noted that the mortal was a little taller than he himself.

That seemed wrong. He had not known a single Midgardian yet who was of such stature.

Thor turned his gaze away, a hand coming unconsciously to the small of Jane’s back as he drew level with her instead, looking about them and down the chemical-smelling halls. All of their healing facilities smelled strangely. It was always so jarringly different from Asgard in this way most of all.

The brush of the fabric of Jane’s shirt against the gradually receding rawness of Thor’s skin made him wince just a little. He flexed his hand before bringing it back to her waist, clearing his throat.

“Thank you for seeing us on such short notice, Doctor Donald Blake,” Thor finally managed past all of the roiling feelings that flexed and tumbled in his chest. “You must be a busy man.”

[nornqueenkarnilla]

Karnilla pursed her lips in a dark scowl at the Odinson, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “What should be done in private?” she glowered at Doctor Foster before her Aesir guard dog could escort her with his hand at her back.

They were ignoring her, she thought, bristling. Her simmering gaze followed them to the door, where the bright smile of the alchemist met her.

He seemed awfully cheery, she thought with a suspicious lowering of her brow. Left in the centre of the waiting room on her own, however, she elected to approach the hallway where the rest of the company had entered.

“What is it we are being shepherded away for?” she asked again, a slightly insistent tone on the edge of her words. She brushed past the alchemist with a brusque step so as not to lose too much distance behind the Odinson and his Midgardian.

[peraudacia-adastra]

“Dr Blake needs to take samples from you to test the toxin,” Jane responded.

She took Thor’s hand, carefully avoiding the raw patch of skin, and rubbed her thumb in a circle over the centre of his palm, hidden from the other two. She sensed he was uneasy - over Don? Karnilla? Balder? All three, probably.

“As you are the Queen, we thought it only suitable that you go first, right, Don?”

She threw the ball into Don’s court, confident that he could handle the situation for now while she found some cold water and bandage for Thor’s skin.

[middlingrealm]

Don blinked a little at Jane’s shift of focus to him, but recovered, smile intact. “Right. We’ll just have you two come in here,” he opened up the third door on the right of the hallway, revealing a small room with a grey-cushioned exam table and clean paper running over it.

“The sample Janey gave me has just a bit left in it--enough that I might be able to test it and see what sort of substance we’re dealing with,” he explained, stepping toward the side of the room to set the broken syringe in question down on a countertop, still nestled in its paper protection. “However,” he went on, sanitising his hands and picking up a clean set of gloves, “in order to see what sort of reactions it has been causing, we’ll need some samples to eliminate other variables. If this wasn’t meant for humans, we’ll have to test just what it is it does on a cellular level to those who aren’t.”

He adjusted the gloves on his hands and unpackaged a new syringe from one of the supply shelves. “An injected substance likely was intended for a circulatory or neural effect. We’ll need some blood from you two to determine more about what this stuff is supposed to be doing in the body and what sort of effects it could have--long and short-term.” He kept his tone light and neutral as he explained. “Now, if you would just relax and take a seat, miss,” he indicated the table to Karnilla, “we’ll draw a sample and get to work figuring this out.”

[middlingrealm]

Blood will Tell | Closed RP

[middlingrealm]

Don thinned his lips as he considered what Jane told him. “All right. I’ve some time–you’d like me to look at it immediately, right?” he assumed. “Probably everything is immediate with these alien-avenger things.”

He turned the glass in his fingers, checking how much of the toxin remained in the cracked reservoir. “I can probably draw some conclusions from this much here, but I’d need samples of the blood it affected as well,” he said, rising up from the desk and wrapping the tube back up safely. 

“You think they would consent to that?” he asked as he stepped over to open the door from the office.

[firstsonofasgard]

“It was geared toward Asgardians,” Thor suggested, “but not those nearer us in physiology.” Though to be quite fair, Thor was rather certain that most of those that shared blood between Asgard and Nornheim were of Vanir/Aesir descent or some variation thereof. Indeed, it seemed quite odd that he should have suffered so much more than Karnilla.

It only served to fuel Thor’s fear that the drug had actually been meant for him.

The prince’s brow drew low in mirror to Karnilla’s, his thoughts going internal. Crossing his arms over his chest, Thor stood and thought. They had tested it upon Balder, perhaps…But that still did not necessarily explain how it was that they had come to know that Balder was of Asgard and not of Midgard.

Then again, Balder had probably not made it difficult…Nor had Thor really, upon first arriving on Midgard.  They were enough out of their element on Midgard now, it seemed, that it was hardly difficult to tell.

[nornqueenkarnilla]

“Those of us in Nornheim are not a different species,” Karnilla hissed at Thor, insulted. “We are nearly identical in physiology, if a little more inclined toward Vanir genetics–since the expulsion.” No doubt Asgard called that event in their shared history something else more palatable, but she let the term sting on the air as it was.

Doctor Foster’s alchemist had come to the door of the room and opened it, clearly wanting something from the two of them. He held the door open as he snapped off a set of gloves, and Karnilla shifted her weight–an attempt to catch the Odinson’s attention without resorting to physically touching him.

[peraudacia-adastra]

Jane launched forward, grabbing the edge of the door and glaring up at him with all the force she could muster.

“No, I don’t,” she muttered. “Well, Thor might consent but Karnilla definitely wouldn’t. Not if you treat her like a specimen. You’ll have to use that elusive charm of yours and really flatter her. If you want your clinic to remain pristine and whole, do not upset her.”

Having delivered this warning, she moved forward and went over to Thor and Karnilla.

“Please come this way… I think we all agree this should be done in private,” she said in a low voice.

[middlingrealm]

Don skewed his brow at Janey’s insistence on charm, turning his gaze from her and back to the woman she had named Karnilla. Charm--looking at her thick black curls and full-feminine curves, he thought he might be able to manage that in this instance.

He nodded, turning from his office and over toward one of the halls that led to the lab cells as Jane spoke to  her accompanying aliens. “Right in here,” he spread a bright, handsome smile to them as he held the door open.

[middlingrealm]

Blood will Tell | Closed RP

[firstsonofasgard]

“I do not know Donald Blake,” though he had once impersonated him, “and so I cannot accurately answer your question,” Thor turned his back to the interaction happening in the other room. It was too tempting to wander in there when he was watching the conversation beyond the glass. He could not very well leave Karnilla alone with a group of unsuspecting mortals, either.

“But if Jane trusts him, then it is relatively safe to say that he is our best hope.” Their best hope next to SHIELD, and that was a toss of the die these days. Too few agents remained, and from what Thor understood, not many could be trusted any longer.

He could not call in any of the Avengers, either. Perhaps Natasha could be trusted to proceed with caution and quiet…and Steven too…but it had been some time since he’d received any communication from them. They had disappeared into Midgard not to be seen. Stark was unreliable, and he did not have enough of rapport with Barton. Banner was a reliable man, but the other aspect of his nature was too readily available, and was certainly not subtle. They would have enough troubles with Karnilla’s lack of abilities in that field.

“Midgardian alchemy is different from our own,” Thor scratched at his beard, keeping his voice low so as not to be overheard by the patients sitting in the waiting room. “But it figured out how to make a compound that can hurt us. I can only assume that though it seems rudimentary it is in some ways far more advanced than ours was when we operated at this stage of development on Asgard.”

[nornqueenkarnilla]

“And how does your Midgardian lady know him?” Karnilla asked warily.

The Odinson kept his voice close as they stood apart from those seated in the waiting room, though a young girl scribbling in a book filled with plain, lined images absently allowed one of her sticks of coloured wax to roll closer to their feet. Karnilla eyed it a moment before nudging it back in the girl’s direction with her toe.

“A bludgeon is rudimentary but effective to its purpose,” she commented on his praise of Midgardian alchemical studies. “I’d hardly consider it advanced–necessary though it may be. The same for these compounds they have concocted.”

“What I should like to know is why its effects were variable between us,” she raised her thumb to worry at her nail in thought, “and why it had no effect at all upon your Doctor Foster. Such a substance should require an insight into physiology beyond this realm, but to be so specific …” her thoughts aloud faded back to silent cogitations before she swept her imperious gaze back toward the glass room in which the two doctors consulted. Her hooded lids darkened with the draw downward of her brows as those thoughts progressed unspoken.

[peraudacia-adastra]

“What exactly is in the compound… it affected my two companions, one of them had a severe reaction but I didn’t react negatively at all. In other words, it’s somehow been coded to react to alien DNA but not human and I really need to find out why and how, if at all possible.”

Jane paused, watching Don examine the tube. “Please,” she added, glancing back over her shoulder towards Thor and Karnilla. She could sense Thor’s uneasiness at the situation; Karnilla was looking at them but also through them, clearly lost in thought.

[middlingrealm]

Don thinned his lips as he considered what Jane told him. “All right. I’ve some time--you’d like me to look at it immediately, right?” he assumed. “Probably everything is immediate with these alien-avenger things.”

He turned the glass in his fingers, checking how much of the toxin remained in the cracked reservoir. “I can probably draw some conclusions from this much here, but I’d need samples of the blood it affected as well,” he said, rising up from the desk and wrapping the tube back up safely. 

“You think they would consent to that?” he asked as he stepped over to open the door from the office.

[middlingrealm]

Blood will Tell | Closed RP

[middlingrealm]

Don did not bother to get up. “Wasn’t given much of a choice, but nice to see you anyway,” he said with a gesture for her to take a seat in the chair in front of his desk.

“I’m guessing with the company present,” his eyes flicked back through the glass toward Thor, “this isn’t really a social call.” He leaned an elbow upon the desk with some interest. “So, what exactly is it? Some alien disease that’s been brought over and you need a blood test done with discretion?”

[firstsonofasgard]

“Wh — but J —“ he wanted to go after her, but Jane had already disappeared behind the desk and through to the other side of the window where the top of the blond haired man’s head could be seen. He did not stand when she entered, but remained seated, and Thor crossed his arms, biting off a sigh. 

The prince had to resist the urge to pace, thinking that this must have been how Sif felt every time he left her behind when she wanted to come along. A strange thought. Thor frowned at himself. lifting a hand to rub at his bear before returning it to its position inside of his elbow.

He glanced back at Karnilla, who stood in an identical stance behind him, looking as displeased as he felt. “Suppose we should…seat ourselves…” he murmured, nodding at the small, metal-framed, chairs that had been provided for those awaiting their results in the waiting room. They looked hard, upholstery thin and cheap, in brown tweed.

[nornqueenkarnilla]

“The seats hardly look substantial enough,” Karnilla said, eyeing the small, bent metal chairs suspiciously. “I’d rather stand.”

She surveyed the others in the room, now feeling as much an experimental subject as the rest of them as Foster passed through the glass to speak with the man on the other side. “Will this Blake healer be able to tell us what we need to know?” she asked, impatient.

[peraudacia-adastra]

Jane sat down. The smile on her face froze at Don’s question and she swallowed down the angry retort. She didn’t need to give Don an excuse to be a dick, he would be like that anyway, if he was in the right (wrong) mood.

“No, I wouldn’t go to you if that was the problem, which it isn’t.” She brought out the glass tube from her pocket where she’d wrapped it in a tissue. “I wanted to know if you could analyse this.”

[middlingrealm]

Don furrowed his brow at the piece she brought out, examining it with a hard look to his eye. “And what exactly would I be hoping to find in my analysis?” he asked cautiously, but opened a drawer to pull out his gloves regardless.

The thin plastic snapped at his wrists before he reached out toward the glass. “Some background would help determine which variables I would be dealing with.”

[middlingrealm]

Blood will Tell | Closed RP

The lab offices kept relatively quiet for the day, with only a few patients waiting for their results in the lobby–a young girl with her mother fiddling with her bracelet, a heavy-set man attempting to cover his nervous hands with his use of his iPhone. Don scratched off another set of tests from his list, matching the creatinine levels on the renal test against the IDMS, and setting the stack aside. 

The glass wall of his office, lined with frosted bands toward the bottom that gradually thinned up around chest-level to transparency, allowed a survey of the lobby and the bustling brunette bob of his office assistant sending out another call concerning the results of the lab.

The Post-It beside his own desk phone was hastily scribbled, and periodically he would glance at it with a skewed expression before he went back to verifying the test results the lab assistants had printed off.

What Janey could want his help for, he could not possibly guess.

He set the papers he had been working on into the outbox, and began work on another stack–he would have to go out to discuss the results with the patients in the lobby shortly, but there was no reason why he could not save himself a bit more time by completing the next written verifications. The kidneys were not going anywhere at the moment, and people tended not to mind waiting overlong if the news turned out to be good, besides.

The front door opened and Kim began cooing about something loud enough for the sound to make it through his glass office walls, and Don caught just the bare hint of familiar brown hair over the frosted bars before the broad shoulders and instantly recognisable features of the Norse alien thunder god came into his office.

Don frowned. Kim had not said anything about Janey bringing company–certainly not of the extra-terrestrial sort.

Behind them, another woman entered, tall enough for the beginnings of her ample figure to slink past the frosted decorations, a cloud of black hair curling through nearly the whole expanse of the door frame. 

Don quirked a brow. This was new.

[firstsonofasgard]

The sterile smell of the healing facilities in Midgard were something that Thor was uncertain he would ever fully become accustomed to. Absent were the soothing scents of Asgard’s healing wing. In their place were the sharp, metallic scents of cleaners and floor polish.

It was a wonder anyone ever got well here.

His nose wrinkled for a moment before he had moved on. If he breathed in the air long enough he would no longer notice the scent. Thor rubbed at his still-aching arm, flexing the tight burn on his hand. The skin had begun to heal, but more slowly than he was used to expecting, still angry and red, shiny with scar tissue.

Another pang tightened in the center of his chest.

The receptionist, a bubbly, dark-haired girl, stood as they entered. There was a cheerful flush to her cheeks, and she bounced on the spot, seeming to be uncertain of where to go as they approached.

He could feel the eyes of the patients in the waiting room on them as well. Thor closed his eyes a moment, taking a deep breath.

[nornqueenkarnilla]

Karnilla brought up the end of their train into the building with a scrutising eye, passing her glance around the glass walls and white floors of the clinic’s reception. With the way the glass seemed to surround the central seating of those Mortals who waited for their care, it rather seemed they were more specimens on display than patients to be healed.

She folded her arms underneath her breasts as she stood in stern, if uncomfortable, silence. The way over had held some further discussion about her attire, and the current ensemble she wore was rather plain for her tastes with the dress’ solid maroon colour and only the hint of lace at the back and the edges of the short sleeves. Her legs felt exposed, however, empty of adornment as it stopped at the knee, and she made up for this with an eyelet open at the bodice for balance.

The Mortals were staring. She knew the Odinson and the Foster had played her for a fool with their discussion of fashion. She just knew it. So much for being inconspicuous.

[peraudacia-adastra]

Jane caught the frown on Don’s face as he saw Thor and she gritted her teeth for a moment. Hopefully Karnilla’s presence would make up for having to deal with a guy who was almost his height and could throw him across the room. 

Don’t act like a child just because Thor’s here, she thought, turning to the secretary.

“Thank you, Kim, I know Doctor Blake’s expecting me,” she said and turned to the two giants trailing in her wake. “If you’d just mind waiting here for a moment, this won’t take long. Kim, would you mind getting them a hot beverage?”

She walked across the room and opened the door of the office without knocking.

“I appreciate you seeing us at short notice, Don.”

[middlingrealm]

Don did not bother to get up. “Wasn’t given much of a choice, but nice to see you anyway,” he said with a gesture for her to take a seat in the chair in front of his desk.

“I’m guessing with the company present,” his eyes flicked back through the glass toward Thor, “this isn’t really a social call.” He leaned an elbow upon the desk with some interest. “So, what exactly is it? Some alien disease that’s been brought over and you need a blood test done with discretion?”

[claudia-cher]

[middlingrealm]

MCU stills [031/100] ↬ Darcy Lewis in Thor: The Dark World