From this post and written at the same time as @janetm74 requested some Scott and OC Jen. So have some soft tenderness with them both for your Sunday afternoon...
He’d found her, even though she hadn’t expected him to.
She’d followed protocol and reported the injury, the result of a careless trip over rubble that she hadn’t paid enough attention to. A lump of metal had cut into her palm as she had reached out to catch herself from hitting the floor, leaving a jagged gash along the skin between her thumb and first finger.
She’d had worse before, had patched up injuries at home far more severe. It was always awkward when it was her hand, trying to hold gauze in place as she simultaneously wound bandage around her hand to hold it in place. She rarely did a good job, but she had managed it often enough that she knew it would heal regardless.
What she hadn’t expected was a hand meeting hers as she had pulled a roll of bandage from the medkit aboard Thunderbird Two. She hadn’t expected Scott kneeling on the check plate floor of the med-bay with a raised brow as he pushed the medkit further along the bench, away from her reach.
It was only a scratch, she’d cut herself worse in the kitchen when she hadn’t been paying enough attention to the knife she’d been using. He didn’t need to be there, didn’t need to check on her as if it was some kind of life or death situation. Briefly, she wondered who had let slip, if John or Eos had let on that she had reported the injury, or if someone else had seen her from afar.
“I’m fine,” She started as he took her injured hand to examine the cut, “Scott, I can—“
“I know.” His smile was small, soft as he looked up to her again, “But you don’t have to fix it yourself, let me help?”
Blindsided would be the wrong word, it wasn’t a shock that he cared enough to want to help her, it was Scott after all.
Jen had spent a lifetime looking after herself though, even her time in the Air Force had been spent a fraction removed from her team. Her superiors had called her too self sufficient, she had called it pragmatism for when she inevitably ended up alone again. She had patched wounds, changed locks, fixed leaky faucets, all without needing to ask for help of anyone who might let her down.
Scott Tracy was hardly the kind of man that let people down.
He was the kind of man that took it upon himself to take the medkit from her hands and use it himself to patch her up.
He didn’t wait for her to nod her acceptance before he pulled two wipes form the medkit.
That side of him wasn’t new to her, she’d seen it before in a dozen different places and ways. His touch was light as he wiped the blood from the healthy tissue, careful to not take the antiseptic wipe anywhere near the wound itself.
“Tell me something,” She started softly, eyes fixed on his hands as they worked.
He hummed in response, equally as soft as he glanced up to her with a soft smile.
“Would you accept this kind of help?”
From the way he snorted, she knew she had caught him out. Even in the Air Force, Scott had been notorious for helping others but never wanting anything in return. From what his brothers had often told her, the same was still true for the leader of International Rescue.
“Maybe it’s the kind of help we should both learn to ask for.”
Steri-strips were pulled from the kit next, each placed in a careful line along the length of the wound.
They’d both gotten good at forcing help upon the other, usually by way of listening ear when life had gotten heavier than it had a right to be. There had been more than one night sat after hours on bleachers by the running track where only the stars had been a witness to their conversations.
Admittedly, it had usually been Scott doing the listening, always too attuned to his squad and too good at coaxing the problems from his team.
Having met and lived with the rest of his family, she could finally understand just why that was.
His lips quirked in a smile as he discarded the backs of the strips, “I have my sources.”
Definitely a conversation she needed to have with John at some point in the near future.
“Your sources told you I couldn’t manage this myself?”
He shrugged as he pressed clean gauze into her palm and reached for the bandage she hadn’t gotten to make use of.
“I’m fully aware you can manage it yourself, Jen.” He murmured, holding the end of the bandage and gauze in place with one hand as he wound it around her palm with the other, “I’ve seen how you manage plenty of times before.”
Because in the Air Force he’d seen each and every time she’d plastered over the cuts, cleaned out scrapes, and bandaged sprains. He had been Captain Tracy, and nobody had hidden anything from him.
“But I don’t want you to manage,” He continued, reaching for the scissors in the kit and cutting the bandage before tucking it in on itself, his fingers wrapping carefully around hers and giving a delicate squeeze as sky blue eyes looked up to her, “I don’t want you to think you have to do anything on your own ever again.”
She could only smile to him in return, nodding in acceptance as her fingers returned his squeeze, “Remember, the same goes for you, Hotshot.”
He chuckled as he lifted her fingers to his lips, “F.A.B, Solo.”
