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this is only now (where do we go from here) 1/?

[anonymous]

WARNING: past child abuse.

The thing about eight-year olds, Hank muses detachedly as he bulldozes his way through the swinging ER doors, is that they had an endless thirst for knowledge coupled with all the self-preservation skills of lemmings which culminated into situations such as the one he was in right now.

Well, that analogy was patently unfair to lemmings since contrary to popular opinion they did not launch themselves off of cliffs just because all the other lemmings were doing it unlike children who would at the slightest provocation from their peers.

And this might be hysteria, Hank thinks, grabbing a random medical professional in The Wiggles-patterned scrubs by the shoulders and shaking her. "Scott. Scott McCoy."

The woman, who looks barely out of her teens, goggles. "I'm sorry, Doctor - ?"

"I'm here for Scott McCoy. Young boy, red hair, about three-nine?"

"I don't know - Is he a patient of yours, Doctor..." she squints at the laminated ID card clipped to his lab coat. "McCoy? Wait, do you even work here?"

Hank, realising she was going to be utterly useless, lets go of her and zero-ed in on the frowning elderly woman radiating authority heading his way. "Linda, thank god. Is Scott okay?"

"He's fine, Henry." She shoos the intern away and takes Hank firmly by the arm. "You know you aren't supposed to come bursting in like you did. Lord knows what security might have done if you hadn't been wearing your lab coat."

"Where is he?" he says, craning his neck. "I need to see him."

She pats his hand in a manner that from previous experience (ie, numerous lab mishaps) she knows really does soothe him. "Calm down, dear, it's a minor injury." She leads him to a relatively calmer area of the ER where he can see Moira bent over Scott with a stethoscope and Scott happily sucking on a blowpop.

Hank is not proud to admit that he was very nearly brought to tears at the sight of his baby alive, conscious and (somewhat) whole. He couldn't have cared less though, throwing his arms over Scott and smothering him to his chest.

"Ow, dad," Scott says, in the exasperated yet mollified tone only children his age can muster.

"Thank god you're okay," he chokes out, cupping Scott's face in both hands, examining him for damage of any and every sort before planting a kiss on his forehead and hugging him to his chest once more. "What happened?"

"Apparently, little Warren Worthington bet Scott five M&M minis tubes that he couldn't climb a tree," Moira answers, smirking and slinging her stethoscope around her neck.

"Warren's a snooty little twot," Scott adds from around his lollipop.

Linda makes a tutting noise and Hank suppresses a sigh. He really should try to limit Scott's unsupervised interactions with Raven and Charles. "Scott, what did we agree on about calling people terrible names?"

"'Snot terrible if they're true," Scott pouts but relents anyway in the face of Hank's wide-eyed chiding. "We shouldn't because then we'd be worse than them. Sorry, dad."

"As long as you don't do it again," Hank smiles, ruffling Scott's hair. "Also, please, for the sake of my blood pressure, no more climbing trees or taking dares."

"He called me a chicken!"

"But you know it isn't true, right?"

Scott huffs. "I just wanted to show him I could!"

"Being brave means that sometimes we have to refuse confrontation, buddy. Captain America doesn't go around fighting everyone all the time to show them that he's strong, right?"

"I guess," Scott mumbles.

"Look at it this way," Moira says, wearing that soppy expression women tend to get when they see him disciplining Scott, "Warren owes you those M&Ms. You did manage to get to the topmost branches."

Scott brightens. "Yeah he does!"

Hank groans. "You aren't helping."

"Would it help even less if I mentioned that he got a cool red cast out of the deal?"

"Dad! Sign my cast! You too Doctor McTaggert and Nurse Linda!" Scott cheers, waving around an uncapped purple Sharpie - and wait, where did he get that? Hank pats his pockets down and barely represses the urge to bang his head on the nearest hard surface. He doesn't know how Scott came by it but the boy has the stickiest fingers in the state.