Baby, You Don’t Gotta Fight - 8
Summary: Dr. Christine Palmer is just living her life, content in her job as a trauma surgeon and happily moonlighting as Peter Parker's general physician at her old friend Stephen's request.
One evening as she finishes up examining Peter, she encounters the force of nature that's Sharon Carter, who seems to have a reckless streak a mile wide.
She's not sure what to make of the spy-turned-Avenger, but she can tell Sharon's hurting, and Christine's healing nature won't be ignored.
AO3 Tags/Warnings: Background Relationships, Awesome Christine Palmer, Snarky Sharon Carter, Peter Parker is a Good Bro, Stephen Strange is a Good Bro, Blood and Injury, Medical Procedures, Field Medicine, Sharon Carter Needs a Hug, SHIELD-critical, mild (non-explicit) sexual content, Sharon Carter Loves Burgers, emotional constipation, ethics
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Chapter 8
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Eight times in two weeks.
She'd been to that damned pub and eaten the Lucky 10-3 with a side of parmesan truffle fries eight times in two weeks. She'd fairly gorged herself on that delicious, sinfully juicy burger with the garlic aioli and bacon jam. On one of the visits she'd asked them to add a fried egg and it nearly sent her to a state of bliss.
Her out-of-character eating habits meant she'd been to a goddamned hot yoga class every day she wasn't scheduled for doubles at MetroGen. She'd even gone to the gym in her building and used the elliptical machine. Which, gross.
It was all Sharon's fault.
Except for the fact that it wasn't.
It was hers.
Damn it all, it was her own damn fault.
Her box in the department's mail center held a fancy black envelope. There was some heft to it, along with pretentious looping golden writing. Experience told her what to expect.
The East Coast Surgical Society humbly requests…
Christine rolled her eyes. Another gala. Of course.
She read through the rest of the invite, did a benefit-risk analysis in her head of if it was worth it to even bother attending or just sending in a small donation. Galas were always boring and full of equally boring people. In the end, it was the highlighting of a new scholarship for assisting medical students who had been victims of the Blip in getting back into medical school.
How could she, in good conscience, say no to that?
She tucked the envelope in her bag and looking at her watch, decided she could go for a visit to a nearby Thai place before making her lonely way home.
“Doc?”
She whirled around. James Barnes leaned against one of the pillars holding up the giant port over the main public entrance to MetroGen.
She smiled, puzzled. “Can I help you, Sergeant?”
“Please, call me James or Bucky,” he said, striding over to join her. “I happened to be in the area and figured I’d check in, see how you’re doing.”
“Oh?” she asked, eyebrows raised as they started walking towards the nearest subway entrance. “Am I supposed to be in some kind of trouble?”
“No,” he said. "But it’s not every day an Avenger comes through your ER."
Ah. She understood.
“I’ve yet to have an Avenger come through my ER,” she said, voice deliberate. “I just assumed you were there supporting a friend. Nothing extraordinary about it, to say nothing of the privacy laws I and my colleagues are bound by.”
“That’s good to hear,” he said. “She’s doing well, since you’re not going to ask.”
She smiled and nodded. “That’s great. I’m glad, really.” She was glad.
“Heading home for the day?” he asked, following her down the steps.
“I thought I’d grab dinner first. There's a restaurant near my place I’m a frequent flier at.”
He swiped his card after hers. “Mind if I join you?”
She studied him. He was a tall man and with his neatly cropped hair, very handsome. His eyes seemed to see more than most would be comfortable knowing and even with the glove, the power that his arm seemed to lend to how he carried himself was evident.
“Is it really a question?” she finally asked.
He smiled, genuinely. “Yeah, I ain’t looking to cause trouble.”
“You’re buying,” she assented.
With a laugh, he stepped into the railcar after her.
He ordered in actual Thai. She didn't bother pretending to not be impressed, especially when the older man taking their orders smiled so wide she half-expected a sun beam to emit from his mouth. Her order was not in Thai, though she always made a habit of trying to pronounce the dishes correctly.
“Any other languages you speak?” she asked as she squeezed the lime wedge into her water.
James smiled ruefully. “It's less that I speak them and more that I know them. I'm not sure how all of the stuff they shoved in my brain got there, but it's useful sometimes.”
“I'm both fascinated and horrified,” she admitted. If she'd gone with a neurology specialty, she'd probably have wanted to do a paper on James and his unique mental condition.
“At least you're honest about it.” He did nothing with his own water, save for stirring the straw around. "Not many people are."
“I'm know you didn't drop in just to invite yourself to my dinner," she finally said. "Is everything okay?"
He focused his attention on her, as if everyone and every thing in the cozy little restaurant was miles away. She didn't flinch, didn't shift in discomfort. She knew the game well, just from a different sort of arena.
"What about your reaction to her scared you?"
Okay, that she hadn't expected. Damn.
"Is that what you think happened?"
The side of his mouth quirked up in a smirk. "I know that's what happened. And so do you, or you would have answered the question."
"I really don't like you," she muttered.
James let out a short laugh, eyes twinkling. "Yes, you do."
She stewed in annoyance until their food was brought out and then proceeded to stab at a piece of the crying tiger steak with more viciousness than it deserved. Once she'd eaten a few bites of the steak and the sticky rice, she settled. At least the food was always delicious.
Meanwhile, James seemed wholly unconcerned as he added a mix of chili oil and peanut sauce to his phat thai.
"I've never liked uncertainty," she finally said. "Even knowing that she will bring nothing but uncertainty, I want that kind of rush."
"Present tense," he murmured.
"Yes, present tense." The admission was both a relief and a sentence. "I want her."
James absorbed that information. "She's not easy, and I don't mean that in the hopping into bed sense."
"Oh, I've figured that much out by myself," Christine said.
"Are you going to call her?" he asked.
"I doubt she'd even take my call," she said. "And anyways, she's still my patient."
"Then make her not your patient," James suggested. "You haven't seen Sharon Carter as a patient at either your hospital or the clinic you volunteer at. You've treated two different women and there's no paper trail to suggest it's her. Just hand her treatment off to someone else."
"You say it like it's simple," she argued, food forgotten.
"Because it is simple," James said, taking a bite of his noodles. He chewed and then swallowed. "You either want to take a chance on a relationship with Sharon or you don't. And even if you don't, you might as well stop trying to be her doctor, because all it's going to do is hurt her. I think she's been hurt enough."
"I don't want to hurt her," she said. "That's the last thing I want to do."
When they finished dinner, she tried not to be alarmed by James's offer to walk her home. His smile was probably meant to be reassuring, but it was missing the mark by a degree or two. Still, she wouldn't gain anything by saying no, considering how dangerous the man was.
"Listen Doc, I like you," he said when they stood in front of her building. "So I'm going to help you out. Sharon likes to go watch amateur baseball and softball in Central Park when she wants to do some thinking. You might find her there some afternoon."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Christine wasn't much for sports, though she'd been known to attend a Rangers or Mets game on occasion. She also used her disinclination for the great outdoors to avoid spending long stretches of time in Central Park. But she found herself wandering around near the Hecksher Ballfields one Tuesday afternoon. She spotted Sharon sitting at the bleachers and watching a softball game.
"Who's winning?" she asked, sitting next to her.
"Definitely the finance team," Sharon answered. "Engineering can't seem to hit off of the pitcher."
"Did you play?"
Sharon watched the game, smirking when the pitcher struck out the first batter of the inning with a ball that looked as if it would be out of range but then curved back in.
"I never got the chance. My free time was used for martial arts, trips to the shooting range, and foreign language lessons." She let out a low whistle when the next batter hit a double. "I think I would have liked it, though. Maybe it would have made me a better team player."
"My parents insisted I pick a sport while I was growing up. I finally chose swimming because I hate running and getting dirty," Christine confided. "I could have gone to college on a scholarship for swimming but I was done."
A single.
"What events did you swim?" Sharon asked.
"Hundred yard backstroke and backstroke in the medley relay. The coaches also signed me up to dive one time, but all it took was seeing another diver hit their head on the board and I went "nope!" I just did cannonballs and to this day I have the school record for lowest diving scores."
Sharon laughed. "Not the sporty type?"
The latest batter walked and the bases were loaded.
"Any and all exercise I do is under protest," she said. "Any my yoga instructor knows that."
The next batter struck out.
"So, you're not into sports and particularly outdoorsy. What brings you here of all places?"
"I wanted to see you."
Sharon was silent as the batter stepped up to the plate. Ball one. "Let me guess, Barnes?"
"Yes." There wasn't any point in denying it.
Strike one.
"That man is the biggest pain in my ass," Sharon said.
"Well, he helped me find you so I can't really agree."
"You found me. Now what?"
The batter swung, connected with the ball, and it went flying up and over towards them. Christine didn't have a chance to react before Sharon pushed her down against the foot section of the bleachers. She looked up to see that Sharon had one arm extended, and amazingly, that her hand held the foul ball.
"Are you okay?" Sharon asked. She tossed the ball over the fence to the nearest team's coach and helped her up.
"Yeah," Christine said, voice shaky.
"Good."
"How did you catch that bare-handed?" Christine asked, taking Sharon's hand in her own and checking for fractures. "And how are you not screaming in pain?"
Sharon shrugged. "My time on the run left me with good reflexes. And this is far from the worst pain I've felt in my life."
How did Sharon just brush off pain like it was nothing? The only person Christine knew who could do the same was Peter, but he was enhanced with that spider-healing of his, not to mention he had Stephen, who was almost obsessive about ensuring Peter's health and safety. Sharon, to her knowledge, was simply a dangerously trained spy of a human.
"I would feel a lot better if we put some ice on this," she said.
Sharon eyed her suspiciously. "Just the ice?"
"And four ibuprofen," Christine added.
"Two," Sharon countered.
"Done. Come on, I have a first-aid kit with instant cold packs back at my apartment."
"Your goal was actually two, wasn't it?"
Christine simply smiled. "I'll never tell."
"This isn't going to keep happening," Christine said as she wrapped up Sharon's hand. She'd had Sharon sitting on the couch so it could be iced on and off. Every switch-up she checked that circulation and sensation were good. "The whole being your doctor thing. If you're under an alias, that's one thing. But as Sharon? I can't. Not at my hospital. You'll have to see someone else."
"Okay?" Sharon asked, confusion clear on her face.
"I can't be accused of a breach of ethics if you're not officially my patient."
"And what exactly would the breach of ethics be?" Sharon asked.
She was really going to make Christine spell it out. Well, that was fair enough.
"I'm planning on starting with asking you to be my date to the EC Surgical Society gala on Friday evening. Then, if that goes well, I'd like to bring you back here and spend the rest of the night kissing you senseless."
Sharon nodded. "What changed?"
Christine let out a breath. "I have this thing about control," she said. "And you... you can't be controlled. You're reckless and seem to have zero regard for your life and you're capable of things that terrify me. But I feel more alive when I'm around you than I've ever felt outside of the operating room. You make me want throw away caution and I'm tired of trying to talk myself out of it. So, if you'll let me, I'd like to give this whole thing between us a shot."
There it was. Out in the open. And Sharon was just studying her with dark brown eyes that betrayed nothing.
"I'll let you on one condition," Sharon finally said.
"Which is?"
"You go ahead and kiss me senseless now."
With a laugh, she pushed Sharon back into the couch and did just that.
