Eight-foot-tall bug-carapaced guys make a mess of six entire blocks north of the river, and Mainbrace's one-afternoon first aid course is clearly out of its depth. She gets gratefully managed out of the worst of it once the active fighting stops, relegated to a hastily thrown-together emergency centre in a store parking lot, making sure shocky civilians have thermal blankets and a hot drink and sit the fuck down without wandering into traffic and making everything worse.
"Hey, MB," hisses Redbough, and nods across the space in what he clearly thinks is a subtle way. "Over in your section, got a panicky-looking one who's gonna make a break for the door, can you do some hand-holding?"
"Sure," Mainbrace says wearily, scanning the chairs for whatever idiot is fidgety. She's not sure how many more I understand, but everyone's doing everything possible already, and we need to look after you properly before you go pitching in to save your spouse/kid/fish/Funko Pop collection she can manage before needing to scream into a pillow.
Then she clocks who it is, and Redbough sees what her facial expression does.
"Oh," he says, craning his neck. "What, is it an ex?"
"Don't look over there," Mainbrace hisses back at him, yanking on his sleeve. "No! It's—" uh— "someone from my local Neighbourhood Watch, and we argue a lot, she's y'know funny about the whole hero deal, I don't want to — embarrass her. In case. It makes things worse?"
She cringes.
"You can just tell me it's your ex and you don't want to talk about it," Redbough says sympathetically. "I'm pan, myself, did you know that?"
"No, really?" Mainbrace says through effortfully un-gritted teeth, because Redbough has made a point of earnestly coming out to everybody, often, repeatedly — as long as he thinks they're single — doe-eyed and twirling a lock of hair round his finger. "She's just a pain in the ass from the neighbourhood, Twigsy."
He looks hurt and disappointed at the nickname.
"I'd better make sure she doesn't take off, in case she has a concussion or something," Mainbrace adds, not managing to keep her teeth apart for this one, and heads off a smart pace before Redbough can say anything else.
The Woman Also Known As Nocebo makes a spirited attempt to scarper before she gets there, hampered by the fact she's tangled up in a blanket and hasn't stopped shaking yet. Mainbrace puts a hand on each of her shoulders and settles her firmly back in her folding chair.
"I have just told the world's least convincing lie that we know each other from going for each other's throats at Neighbourhood Watch meetings," she says briskly. "Has someone actually checked you for concussion?"
"Sure!" Nocebo says.
"Who did it?"
"The other guy," Nocebo says vaguely, looking around to sell oop, dunno where he went.
Mainbrace massages the corner of her jaw to help stop her molars grinding. "Cool story," she says, fishing out a penlight. "Pretty sure you know this drill—" and pauses at Nocebo's flinch. "I'm strictly burger-joint-supervisor-level first aid," she says, sharper, "so if you're actually hurt I'm gonna need you to own up and we'll get you in front of an actual medic."
"There's actual people hurt," Nocebo says, looking away, and Mainbrace takes a sharp breath and ungently takes hold of her chin.
"Do you think I'm an actual Nazi?" she says brusquely. "Like an actual Nazi?"
"What? No!"
"Actual people is Nazi talk."
"You know what I meant," Nocebo mumbles.
"Fuck you and look in the penlight," Mainbrace tells her, and Nocebo looks into the penlight.
"I just pulled something in my neck, I think," she says, and Mainbrace grunts and shines the light in her other eye.
"Favourite colour," she says.
"What?"
Mainbrace shuts the light off and leans right in. "If you were hit in the head," she says, very quietly, "and I asked for your name and address to check your cognition, you might actually tell me."
Nocebo make a little hitched-breathing sound, and says nothing.
"How's your kidney?"
"What?"
"Your kidney," Mainbrace says, not backing off or raising her voice. "With the bootprint."
Nocebo clams up, shaking her head a little, eyes screwed shut; Mainbrace takes a deep breath, and goes to find Redbough.
"Ms. Nimby's being brave," she says, laden to dripping with sarcasm. "I'm gonna take her over to the med trucks, get them to throw her in the portascanner in case she's got internal bruising."
"How long did the two of you date?" Redbough says solicitously, and Mainbrace is nearly tempted to do the quack mindfulness breathing her doctor keeps pushing, opens her mouth to tell him to fuck off.
"Twice," she snaps instead.
"Oh wow." He wiggles his eyebrows. "Really got under your skin, huh?"
"I've obliterated her actual name from my brain with pure hate," Mainbrace says, and walks away before he can say anything else, or Nocebo mounts a successful escape attempt.
