"No, actually, some people do 'touch wood' instead of 'knock wood'!"

"I can knock it." He knocks it. "I hadn't seen you in your armor before, it's really pretty."

"Rete told me so, I'm glad you like it."

"I think the Tinker powersuits thing is a bit silly but it is an excellent instance of one and you saved my, uh. Something more important than my life."

"It's not much of a powersuit. Just lets me fly and not panic if I see a gun or a Shaker, it doesn't have, I don't know, missiles or anything. And it will let me carry you. How do you prefer to be hauled?"

"Just lets me fly." Giggle. "I don't care especially. Where are we going -"

"There's rooms in Protectorate HQ and if they kick up a fuss I can let you have the couch in my workshop. I don't know if it's pretty enough but it'll last till you can look at pictures of all the hotels in town."

"Sounds good." He extends a hand. It's only a tiny bit shaky.

"You seem lucid enough for piggyback." She swings him onto her back and steps into the air. The bot follows.

Fëanáro clings and tries to remember who lived around the Beltway.

"Welcome to HQ." She sets him down.

It's a very human building. He does not cry over his library. 

"Director's being kind of a pill about the rooms. Workshop it is."

The workshop is very clean but not very decorated and has a view of the water. The couch is squashy and red.

He sits down on the couch. "Rooms are only for heroes?"

"For Wards, but that's the idea."

"I'm going to tell people back home that the English word 'heroism' means 'the capacity to submit to capricious and incompetent authority' and usage will not persuade them otherwise."

"It's at least more specific." She sort of shakes off her armor, which folds itself up and puts itself away. Helmet stays on.

Yes, she's very particular about the helmet. He can't know her secret identity, that would be a meaningless violation of a not-meaningless norm and Elves actually do understand those. He wonders vaguely if she is pretty under the helmet. He can't figure out why he just wondered that. He wonders instead how she designed the suit, which is a much more sensible thing to wonder.

"You need anything? Rete also brings me takeout even when I am not in traction, turns out most places will serve a polite robot."

"Good of them. Yeah, I should eat."

"Do you only eat pretty food or anything like that?"

"I don't eat products of animals that've been kept in tiny cages but otherwise everything humans eat is fine."

"I admit I do not know where my Mexican place keeps its animals but they have a vegan burrito. You going to be annoyed if I get carnitas?"

"Nah but once the world's not in danger I might try to invent better farming practices with magic."

"There's a market for especially humanely farmed things but most people are too price-sensitive and limited-availability-sensitive."