Day 41: Breakfast

[oftemptation]

Endrance turned his head to look at the intercom, giving it a look that would wither an entire rose garden in an instant. He would never get used to ending up in his room again from somewhere else in the Institute

Comments

[gottabetactile]

[Thanks for the guilt trip there :<]

Kon yawned hugely, finally dragging himself back to the land of the living and out of the deep - almost to the point of being comatose, though that was nothing new - sleep he'd spent the night in. He was starving and- it was morning? Had he slept through the whole night

[wing_head]

[One stars 'n stripes father figure with a shoulder to cry on?While his nurse had seemed intent on getting Steve directly to breakfast, he had managed to talk her into letting him take a look at the bulletin board. Steve had only quickly glanced over it, though when he spotted a note addressed to him and the other people he knew here he paused to read it. The news hit with an almost physical impact. Harry was dead. It was a little difficult to believe at first, news like that always was. There was an odd time lapse between reading the news and actually feeling it. After that, Steve didn't even bother with the rest of the board, just giving it a quick glance to make sure there was nothing else important that he needed to see

[gottabetactile]

OK, this was awkward. Kon got not wanting to talk about stuff that bothered you - not that Superboy ever got bummed out over anything really but if he did he wouldn't want to talk about it either. But not wanting to talk about stuff that had you crying and looking as thoroughly depressed as this guy did wasn't a good idea. Before Kon could say anything, an older man joined them and he apparently knew this guy - Peter - and knew what had happened which meant he was doing better than Kon was.

Still touching Peter and trying to offer some comfort, Kon turned to the new guy to ask, "Should I go? If you two wanna talk..." If they were friends then they might want to talk about whatever had happened in private and Peter definitely needed someone to talk to. Kon wasn't going to butt in and get in the way if that's what they needed. He'd feel a little bad for ditching someone when they were hurting but it would probably be easier for Peter to talk to his friend than a stranger.

[wing_head]

For the moment, Steve would let peter decide if he wanted any additional company or not. He glanced around for a moment, noting where the staff was and how many of them were paying attention. None of them showed signs of keeping more than a casual eye on the situation, despite how upset Peter was.

There was no way he could just tell Peter it would be okay. "I know it hurts, Peter," It was never easy to deal with loss, and with the way it switched from night and day, it really could have been just minutes ago. It was probably for the best, if Peter had been a mess like this last night he could have been in much worse shape. Peter had trailed off, but he seemed like he might keep talking, so Steve didn't say anything else for the moment, giving Peter space and time to keep talking.

He shouldn't have let Peter and Harry go alone last night, if Steve hadn't insisted he go to the clinic this wouldn't have happened. Steve clenched his jaw, and put an arm around Peter.

[gottabetactile]

Oh. Oh no. Kon wanted to think that maybe whoever Peter's friend was, he might just have been hurt, or taken for experiments, or something (and when had that become the better choice?) but there was no way he could get that idea from what Peter said. And he was apologising to Kon for being rude? Guy was broken up about a friend of his dying and he thought he was being rude? It would almost be funny, except- yeah.

Kon forced a smile, squeezing Peter's shoulder as he said, "Don't apologise, I-" There wasn't much Kon could say there. He was sorry? Like that would help anything. He understood? Except he didn't, not really. Sure he'd lost Tana and Roxy and all his friends when they'd moved on after he'd gone missing but they were still out there, still alive and hadn't died right in front of him.

Face it Kid, you have no idea how to deal with this. Of course, Peter's friend didn't seem to be able to do much more either. What could anyone say, really? You couldn't make it stop hurting and you couldn't bring people back from the dead.