"All right."

Cuddle. "You can come down with me when I go ask him about the tiredness thing, and if he wants any tests of my regeneration to take data on or whatever you can watch?"

"Mm. Yes."

"It is amazingly endearing, how you look at me when I'm damaged."

"You look so good when you're damaged."

"Red is a good color on me."

He laughs.

She kisses him. "I love you. Feel up to talking to Hank?"

"Sure."

He will even put on clothes for the purpose.

Probably wise. Lacey is perfectly happy to ogle him in between coming out from under the blanket and being fully clothed.

He scoops her up and kisses her and puts her down again.

She grins at him. But--downstairs.

Hank is, in point of fact, in his lab.

Well that's convenient.

Lacey explains the sleep problem.

Hank would like a couple of tissue samples to analyze.

He can have them. Almost a pity it's so clinical, the hurtiest thing on display is getting stabbed with a needle for a blood sample.

And Hank will store these to look at later and turns to Serafin. "I've been giving the problem some thought, and I've synthesized a polymer with an incredibly high elasticity that should be able to withstand your transformations."

"Useful, I guess, even if it doesn't survive everything I can turn into."

"Well, it's only the first version," he says, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"Sure."

He opens a drawer and extracts a shiny black pair of knee-length shorts. "We'll, ah, have to do the testing outside," he says, gesturing at the ceiling. It's pretty high, but not twenty feet.

"All right."

"You can change over there," he says, gesturing to a curtained-off area.

So he goes and changes into the shorts.