girlofclay | (no subject)

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Betty Barnes is not afraid of heights. That would be ridiculous and incredibly inconvenient, to be a pilot and afraid of heights. She loves heights, always has done. Loves flying, loves being up high feeling the weight of the air against her wings. What she doesn't love, though, is falling. She nearly fell off a train once, in the last war in Germany, rescued only at the last second by her best friend's hand around her wrist.

Steve, who wasn't even a pilot, who learned to fly by watching her, who would later willfully fly into the Arctic Ocean, leaving her alone, angry, and not a little guilty. It had taken a few years after the war for Betty to find her wings again, when Howard and Peggy called her up, said they needed a pilot who could handle new and dangerous aircraft without having to worry about other military commitments, and that was how Bombshell Barnes ended up flying for the brand new SHIELD.

Officially they weren't involved in Korea. Officially Leviathan wasn't either, but officially Leviathan doesn't really exist, so that makes things complicated. But it was as a civilian, officially, that Betty ended up flying near enough to the conflict that when she was shot down - and she hated setting the self destruct on that machine as much as she hated bailing out - and it was a US army rescue chopper that was the last thing she heard before finally blacking out.

The first thing she hears when she wakes up are voices, and she sends up thanks to whichever Saint that looks after covert ops pilots, that they appear to be speaking English.

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Hawkeye was trying to catch five minutes of actual sleep, but he had barely closed his eyes (or it felt like it) when Radar was shaking him awake to explain they'd got a call over the radio that a chopper was en-route with an injured pilot, and as the surgeon on duty he was needed.

He hadn't been entirely sure he wasn't asleep when the pilot in question arrived and it was a woman lying unconscious on the stretcher carried into the OR. He didn't have time to question it, though, she was clearly injured and he didn't need to know anything else right that second.

The surgery is long, but successful, and he manages to actually get his nap when he's done - though it's barely an hour before he's back for a Post-Op rotation. He's just discussing the pilot's condition with the nurse when he glances over at her and realises she's waking.

"Aha!" He says, the cheer in his voice belying the lack of decent sleep "Welcome back to the land of the living. You tried very hard to leave it but today was not your day. How are you feeling, uh... Captain? Barnes?"

Edited 2022-06-27 16:40 (UTC)

Captain, right. That was at Peggy's insistence, although ranks hardly matter anyway as they don't really exist in this new organisation. Technically - as ever - Agent Barnes is a civilian.

But a civilian flying over a war zone is as near impossible to explain as a woman flying over a war zone, so she sticks to the story.

And she's been asked a very specific question, and that's easy to answer.

"Like I fell out of an airplane at five thousand feet," she says, finding her voice raspy and her mouth and throat dry. "Don't recommend."

He chuckles, tucking her chart under his arm so he can move over and pour her a cup of water. He sits on the edge of the unoccupied bed beside her and offers the drink.

"Is that so? And that's just what I was thinking of doing this week. Guess I'll have to make other plans."

He flips out the chart again and inspects it for a moment.

"Do you remember what happened? What your name is, who's president, that sort of thing? No gaps?"

Betty sits up, propping herself up first on an elbow and then moving so she's sitting, without any problems on the way, except that she has to stop and adjust the shirt someone's draped on her, because her flightsuit did not survive the surgery.

Once comfortable, she accepts the cup.

"Captain Elizabeth Barnes, Harry S Truman," she offers. "Not too clear on the first one. It'll come, I guess."

Hawkeye's eyebrow quirks up - sure, she's had a bit of a post-surgery rest, but she should still be kind of groggy from the drugs, and if they hadn't worn off she should definitely be in some kind of pain - too much pain to move so fluidly.

It takes him a second to respond, but he clears his throat and nods after a beat, looking back down at the chart.

"That's to be expected, shouldn't be too concerning, but we'll continue to monitor, just let us know if you're still drawing a total blank after a few days, okay?" He adds a couple of notes to the chart and then grins up at her.

"Welcome to your new home away from home while you recover, by the way. In case you were wondering you've been brought to the 4077th MASH, we provide room and board for the low, low price of being wounded in Korea. I'll be your bellboy for the evening, Dr Pierce, but you can call me Hawkeye."

She catches the eyebrow, though it takes her a second to interpret it, and makes a mental note to better act more wounded, just in case the wrong questions get asked and Peggy gets mad at her.

But if Peggy wanted a spy she could have damn well sent a spy.

"Hawkeye, huh?" Just the fact of the nickname makes her smile, although he's got one of those infectious grins she cant resist. "The guys usually call me Bombshell."

"I can see why" he grins - flirting is practically a reflex at this point, how can he be expected to resist? Besides, it's nice, he thinks, to try and make an injured woman feel beautiful - not that she isn't, of course.

"The crash didn't ding up your outsides too badly at least." He's surprised by that, given the extent of her injuries, but sometimes these things happened. It's not like she's some kind of super soldier... right?

"Well, Bombshell, you just get yourself some rest and dinner will be along shortly. I apologise in advance."

Of course she's not - why would the US Army waste any of that on a woman?

The more he grins the more he reminds her of Howard, whose grin she's been immune to for a long time, but it still makes her feel at home.

"I was stationed in England during the last war, the food can't be that bad."

Edited 2022-06-28 20:30 (UTC)

"Oh, is that so?" Hawkeye says with mock-offence "Well challenge accepted, Captain Barnes, because the very worst that English cuisine has to offer cannot hope to compare to the true horror of our mess tent. Wounded men recover quicker just to get away from it. Why, I had a kid here last week who lost his leg to a minefield, he grew it back just so he could run away from breakfast."

The first part's true, at least. In fact the kid had been shipped home, and he was the lucky one - he hadn't gone home in a box. He can't dwell on that, though, he can never dwell on that.

"We fed some to a North Korean two weeks ago and they stopped shelling us for three days because they felt sorry for us." he adds, keeping the flow going mostly to see if he can make her laugh.

She'd believe it - seen enough just from the air that she'd not be surprised, but she's seen a lot in her time that she doesn't care to dwell on either, so she takes the joke in the humour it's intended.

And while she doesn't laugh, she does smile: half a grin pulling at her mouth.

"You got to be careful," she warns. "Over do it and they'll put you out of your misery."

"Oh, my misery is pretty big, in order to put me out of it they'll have to send me all the way back to Maine." He jokes - there's a ring of truth beneath the humour there as well, of course, but it's not exactly headline news; everybody's miserable here.

He'll take the smile as a win, and he stands up to hang her chart back at the end of her bed.

"You just get some rest and prepare yourself for dinner, I'll go see some of your roommates here," he jerks his head towards the other beds "but if you need anything at all just call me or one of the nurses, okay?"

"Wilco, Hawkeye," Betty confirms. "Rest and dinner. That I can manage, at least."

Though she knows damn well rest is going to be the hardest part of this. Especially if he's suspicious of her healing time and she has to pretend to be normal.

As it is she expects to just be left heere waiting for orders about what to do next.

Hawkeye flashes her a grin and then heads off to do his rounds.

After a while, she's brought a tray of food - even the baby-faced young corporal who brings her the tray apologises for what's on it, and the food is... well. It's army rations, even the eggs come powdered.

It's later in the evening when Hawkeye reappears, speaking in hushed tones with the nurse as he gets a recap on everything that's going on with his patients. They're likely too far away for Betty to hear, but if she's paying attention she probably doesn't miss the way the nurse says something with obvious concern and glances in her direction. Hawkeye's gaze follows.

Betty wasn't exaggerating when she said she'd had worse, so she eats the food without complaining out loud, and without fuss (but she does regret that her flight rations probably got lost in the crash. They would have been better than this).

She's a light sleeper by practice, and isn't about to get any when the doctor and nurse start their hushed whispering- furtive talk like that gets her attention more than anything else would - and when y e over in her direction she can hardly help herself.

She lifts a hand and waves.

The nurse looks offended, Hawkeye stifles a laugh and waves back.

There's another brief conversation before Hawkeye says something that earns a begrudging acceptance and the nurse goes back to the desk while he comes over to Betty. He picks up her chart briefly and skims over it before looking up at her.

"So," he says, conversational but quiet so as not to wake any of the other sleeping patients "I hear you're doing better than expected."

It's a real shame this has come up, because she's not a fan of having to keep secrets, even though she's used to the necessity. But because she's experienced in this necessity, she looks both optimistic and honestly confused by the concern.

"Good - that's good, right?"

Hawkeye is silent for a moment, glancing back down at her chart before hanging it back on the end of the bed.

"Seems to be," he agrees easily, apparently satisfied with her honest confusion "You just got some people a little freaked out with your good luck is all. Guess the damage wasn't as bad as we thought."

That, or something is really off here. It's unsettling him, too - the damage was less than he would have expected, but he still wouldn't expect her to be this good, this quickly - but he's controlling it better than the nurse.

"I grew up in Brooklyn," she offers as explanation, and with a wry smile to try and turn it into a joke.

"We come out tough - it's the water."

Hawkeye laughs.

"Ah, that'll explain it," he nods "I'm from Maine myself, little town called Crabapple Cove, means I can barely handle a hangnail without taking to my bed for a week."

He's still not convinced, mind, but he also doesn't see what the big deal is - so there's something a little weird about her, so what? She's nice and she's on their side, right?

He'll keep a closer eye on her medically, just in case, but otherwise he's just happy to accept that they've got a lucky break here.

"Crabapple Cove?" She repeats the name, and laughs. "Yeah that's in Maine, alright. Never herad a town name more New England."

She's managing to keep a quiet tone throughout all of this - again, practice. You don't want to wake anyone if you can help it.

Hawkeye grins, unashamed. It is a pretty quintessential New England kind of town and he loves it - he misses it, in fact, like an ache, but he's careful not to let that part show.

"Anyway, I'm keeping you awake, and you... well, you don't have as much healing to do as we thought, but you should still get some rest."

That's not the answer she wanted - Betty doesn't currently feel tired and the prospect of lying awake bored looms ahead of her irritatingly.

She tightens her lips for a second before lying back.

"Sounds like an excuse to get some sleep yourself."

"Alas, duty calls," he waves his hand at the room in general "somebody needs to be on shift in case of a medical emergency, and I have drawn the short straw. Seems to happen a lot, that, I guess straws are just one of the many things the army is short on."

Truthfully, the idea of somebody new to talk to - somebody pretty and entertaining - is definitely a tempting one. He doesn't want to keep her awake, but if she stays up to talk, he's not going to stop her.

She snorts quietly, and shifts slightly on her cot to signify making room on the chair next to it.

"Yeah I sometimes feel like I draw that straw a lot."

He glances around the room, judges that everybody else is comfortably asleep and nobody needs his immediate attention, and takes the offered seat with a smile.

"Mm, I think those are the only straws there are in the war."

"In any war," she remarks, and then smirks faintly at him. "First time?"

He looks old enough to have been drafted the last one, but he may have missed it. Certainly he probably didn't rush off like she did.

"It is," He nods "I was lucky enough to avoid the draft last war, but this time they just had to have me."

He pulls a face, indicating what he thought about that.

"So it isn't your first?"

Betty gives a shrug, along with a grimace that implies for my sins

"Trasnported planes for the Brits. If you ever want me to show my age, get a whiskey in me and ask me how modern planes compare to Hurricanes."

"Now, I'm not supposed to go taking patients out for drinks or asking ladies about their age," Hawkeye protests jokingly, though then he leans forward a little with twinkling eyes.

"Though, if you're offering..." he grins.

Betty scoffs again, amused by and convinced she's immune to his flirting.

"If your mess even has a decent whiskey here. Otherwise you might have to settle for soju."

"The mess? Never. The officer's club, on the other hand... also no. But my tent... well, okay, we don't have any either, but we do have gin. It's not a decent gin, but it's made with love right here at the 4077th." He offers with a grin.

Normally he actually wouldn't go offering patients alcohol, not so soon after a plane crash, but... well, she's fine.

Betty bites back on a laugh.

"Is your homemade moonshine at least better than the powdered eggs?"

"That I can promise," he says firmly, and then there's a beat "well, I can promise it'll help you forget about the powdered eggs, at least."

"That will do," she remarks.

"Back in your tent, though? You need me to keep an eye on all these sleepy heads or will it have to wait?"

Hawkeye considers the options for a moment, but as tempted as he is, and as little work as he needs to do right now, he's not quite the type to drink on the job - if any of these boys took a turn for the worse and needed to get back into surgery, he'd need a clear head to do it.

"Let's say tomorrow night?" He offers - that also gives another day to monitor her condition and make sure she actually is getting better and doesn't just look like it.

"Tomorrow night," Betty confirms, shooting him with a single imaginary finger-gun to confirm the agreement. "If I'm up for it and the doctors sign me off for terrible moonshine, I'll be there."

Should she be cheerfulyl agreeing to go back with a doctor to his tent and be plied with booze? Definitely not. But that's partly why she's doing it.

"Oh, don't you worry about that," Hawkeye grins, leaning in close like he's going to tell her a secret "I've got connections, I'll make sure the doctors give you the go-ahead." He winks.

Straightening up, he glances around the room, figuring it's probably time to do another check on everybody's vitals and the rest of that whole 'actually doing his job' part.

"I'll let you get some rest. You need anything else, you just call and I'll come running."

"Aye, Captain," she says, ripping out a salute she's been casually mocking for years, and settles down again. She's almost instantly bored, but then sometimes boredom is also a blessing, and she decides to enjoy the semi-peace. Eventually, listening to Hawkeye do the rounds, she does drift off to sleep.

The next day would be boring as hell if she didn't manage to sweet talk one of the nurses (and a senior one at that - it's nice to have powerful women on your side) into acquiring a book for her, and then spending a long time warning her explicitly off Dr Pierce.

So when evening comes, and she finally gets signed off for ambulant recovery, she pulls on a borrowed shirt and pants and heads out to find this "swamp."

It's not hard to find - quite apart from being right in the middle of the camp, there's a familiar figure in a hawaiian shirt lounging on a lawn chair outside holding two martini glasses.

"There's the only Bombshell I want to see in camp," he calls out cheerfully when he catches sight of her, holding out one of the glasses in her direction "your table awaits madam."

Betty almost laughs at the sight, but decides to settle on a laugh as she strolls over, removing a hand from a pocket to accept the glass, with a bit of a bow like she's asking him for his hand to dance.

"I should tell you I've been explicitly warned against you Dr. Pierce," she says. "Apparently you're a menace to society and a threat to my honour."

If he can find her honour that is.

"I have heard it said," he agrees mildly, as though she'd given him a compliment instead of an indictment.

"I'll have to tell Margaret her warnings are getting less effective." He adds in an amused tone "Would you like to sit inside or outside this evening?"

"If I have to look at a canvas roof for any longer I'm going to go crazier than I already am," she says seriously. "Don't get up."

Fortunately there is a chair right by him, like he's already set it up for two, and she joins him in that.

"Hooch is for drinking, not sleeping in."

"And it's such a lovely evening." he agrees, waving his glass at the overcast sky - it's plenty warm enough to sit outside, yes, but it would be nicer if they were looking at stars rather than clouds. Still, she's not wrong, it's better than canvas.

"So, now that you're feeling better, how much longer will the 4077 be graced with your delightful company?" he asks pleasantly - he assumes it's probably not long, the army isn't exactly fond of convalescing.

"You know, I don't know," Betty admits. "I went in to see the little guy, called USAF, they say they'll send someone to pick me up when they've got someone spare."

Which doesn't bode well, but also means that Peggy's scrambling to rescue the mission, get Betty a replacement pland and get it to Korea. So she's stuck waiting for that.

"Oh, well that is good news." Hawkeye grins, lifting his glass in a 'cheers' motion.

"For us, anyway. Not so much for you." he adds cheerfully.

He suspects she might actually chafe at being stuck here, especially when she seems to have healed up (remarkably quickly), but he hopes they can joke about it and keep the mood light.

Sometimes that's all you can do.

Yeah, he's read her right. Betty is not looking forward to being stuck, but she'll make the best of it.

Starting with the gin...

...which she gags on as soon as she takes a sip.

"Oh wow, this is disgusting."

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