WHO:
hangtherisk and
coinopratedheroWHERE: Toro's hospital room
WHEN: The evening of Jim's arrival in the city.
WARNINGS: Derp and squish and sadtiems.
SUMMARY: Jim is visiting his boy in the hospital. =(
FORMAT: Para para para.
(
I'll stay here with my little man near / We'll listen to the radio )
He squinted, his swollen, bruised face protesting the movement. The hand in his hair had weight to it, affection.
"Pappy?" he repeated thickly, questioningly. A thought hit him and he sucked up his breath hard. "'M I dead, Pappy?"
It seemed reasonable enough, as addled as his head was. Pappy wasn't in this rollercoaster of a future and Bucky'd tried to kill him and everything was so screwed up and wrong, it'd make sense that this little slice of right would be a bastardization of the pearly gates opening for him. Jim was a good enough man that he was sure he'd go to heaven, android or no.
Toro exhaled just as shakily as he'd inhaled, coupling it with the whine of a sob.
"'M sorry, Pappy, really. I tried."
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"You're not dead, Tom. I got into this city place just a little earlier today. Cap went and picked me up and told me where to find you."
He would have given about anything to have been able to scoop Toro up out of the hospital bed just then and held him like a child, but he was too scared of what it would do to all his setting bones and other broken bits. Seeing his son so battered was hard enough but that pain in Toro's voice was another huge step beyond what he'd been ready for.
"And if you aren't grown up all handsome..." he said slowly, trying to gently guide the subject to something happier and bolster Toro's spirits a little.
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He looked up at Jim---his familiar, even features, as all-American handsome as Horton could make them---and felt his eyes prickle and his heat rise sympathetically. He choked, overwhelmed.
"You always were one f...for flashy entrances," he said. He tried to smile, but it came out as more of a grimace. There were too many grit teeth and bruises for the expression to be anything but pained. On his next breath, he made a soft noise of hurt. "---that ain't...Rikki's dead, Pappy. She's dead an' it's all my fault."
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"Don't go saying things you know aren't true. You weren't the one who hurt her now." He consoled, lips pursing into a thin pained line as poor Toro's face shifted from one pain-underlined sadness to another, a smile hardly hinted at (though he hadn't expected much smiling, really.)
Jim squeezed Toro's fingers a little more, warming his hands some to try to put a familiar edge on his comfort. He knew that with the way Tom's body burned up drugs he was probably in far more pain than the standard doses of morphine could help.
"Blaming yourself won't mean you can change it, Tom."
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"I---I asked her to help me. I shoulda just did it on my own, shoulda---shoulda thought---"
He felt young and he felt stupid and he felt weak. This was defeat, pure and simple, and all he had left were sizzling-hot tears and the weight of his guilt. He wasn't sure if it'd been easier if he were alone---if Pappy hadn't winged in just to see him fail---or if being alone was the exact thing that would crush him.
"Don't leave," he rasped, because he'd just about had his fill of people he loved doing that. "I don't know what I'm gonna do."
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He didn't know Rikki, hadn't the faintest of who she was beyond what Cap had told him which was basic at best (and he'd grasped so very little after hearing the words 'Toro' and 'hospital' in the same sentence) but he knew that Toro was in tears over her loss and that was quite enough.
"Take it easy now, you're going to toast this place and then where will we be?" he chided gently. "Deep breath now Tom, it's going to be okay. We'll figure out what to do from here, you and me."
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Robot or no, Jim Hammond was the best kind of father Tom knew.
He let his heat go, allowing Pappy to soothe his natural instinct to burn. Not here, not now. Later, when he was healed, when he could walk, he'd fly up as high as he could go and burn until he was exhausted and all that anger and misery had bled out. Jim's words soothed. It was what he needed to hear.
"S'good to see you, Pappy. Don't know what I'd do if I didn't have you."
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He slipped one hand away from holding Toro's then, digging into his coat pocket and producing the big sack of penny candies he's spent a good amount of time picking out that afternoon. There was an orange and a tangerine each in the fray.
"I hear the war is pretty far gone now but I'm told hosptial food hasn't improved any despite all this advancement."
He sighed a little wistfully, setting the candy on an empty patch of bed where Toro could reach it.
"Maybe this would all have been more appropriate when you were younger but I didn't think it could hurt either. You've gotten so big, you're probably as tall as me now."
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Lying there in his singed sheets and all busted-up with the penny candies on his stomach, Tom realized how much he'd missed home. Times were tough but he understood them. He'd worried about the future, but it was easier to worry about a future you only had dim ideas about than dread a future you knew would ruin you.
Worst yet to have a specter from that future pound in exactly how inescapable it all was. Tom's stomach twisted with the thought.
Hang, if Bucky could see him now he'd probably hit him again for crying like a sissy. The thought had a rueful kind of humor to it.
Tom sniffed hard, plucking at the twist-tie that held the candy in. He only had one hand that wasn't in a sling, and his fingers were numb, too clumsy to get it undone.
"S'great, Pappy. Really, it is."
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"There we go. I'm sure your nurses wouldn't mind letting you have a treat after all this."
The bag flowered open at the top with a soft rustle and Jim picked himself out a peice of licorice. He'd never needed to eat, but the pleasure of flavor wasn't lost on him either, and he chewed the little black chunk thoughtfully, giving them both a moment of quiet before trying to ask a question of Tom, who was clearly worn out beyond all reason despite just being still in bed.
"How old are you now, Toro?" he asked finally.
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"Nineteen in May," he said around the sweet, surprising himself at the thought. "'Least, as far as I can figure. It was November of '42 when I left home and July of '09 when I got here. So I guess I'm overdue for a birthday, anyhow."
He almost, almost added that Bucky was twenty-two, fancy that. But when the thought reached his tongue he realized there was no way he could spit the words out. He covered up the spike of misery attached to the aborted attempt by pawing through the bag and seeing what was at the bottom.
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"As long as you haven't grown out of liking candy I think I'll live though. You have a place to live in this city I guess. Got a job?"
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He'd done well. He knew he'd done well. He'd settled on so many decisions with the internal train of thought of this is what Jim'd want me to do. Jim would be proud of this.
And now, seeing his face as he looked at him, it was obvious he'd made at least a couple right choices along the way.
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"Well if you managed to pick up three before I'm sure you'll manage to find at least one again. Especially if you're going to school." He patted Toro's arm, pride puffing his chest and warming his skin automatically. Leave it to Toro to do everything possible and thensome.
"Are you liking school? Is it tough?"
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