Chapter Text
Dr Parry was a weird young man.
This was a well known fact throughout the compound. Not for any reason one could pinpoint, but a general feeling that everyone around him had.
There was an unease to being in his company, a slight offness. He was ever so slightly alien. Uncanny, that was the word.
By all accounts, the 26-year-old was normal as any. He had been a prodigy, starting to study medicine at only 15 where others started at 18. He quickly climbed ranks and, after a large number of NDAs, was hired by Helen Cho to be on the Avengers medical team. All he had requested was Midsummer’s Day off and a flexible schedule, which had been easy to grant.
And by the gods, was he good. His surgical precision in practices and tests was like no other, according to Dr Cho, even with two missing fingers on one hand (which really must have given him nerve damage). Though no one had asked him about it yet. Most conversations with him were closed off and humour strictly non-personal.
After a particularly bad alien, most of them ended up in the med bay. Dr Parry and Cho had patched up the most critical wounds, and now they were keeping records while the team lazed around— or as they would like to call it, recovered.
Eventually, they got around to discussing their worst injuries. Tony clumsily brought up the topic of Parry’s fingers.
“Hey, Parry, right?” At the man’s nod, he continued. “Yours would be the fingers, I guess. When’d it happen?”
Parry tensed, before forcefully relaxing. “Yes. At twelve.”
Everyone came to attention quickly. This was the most information he had given them about himself ever.
“Accident with a knife,” he said, sighing. He then turned his gaze down to his clipboard again.
Eventually it became clear that was all he was giving them. They moved on to other topics, but not forgetting what he told them.