What a handsome lad, that's my boy...

[coinopratedhero]

WHO: hangtherisk and coinopratedhero
WHERE: 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.

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[hangtherisk]

Tom couldn't remember the last time he'd hurt this bad. He'd been through more in his allotment of years than most did in their entire lives---on top of the usual childhood mishaps of broken arms and stitches, he'd been shot five times now since the beginning of the war. It made sense, in a terrible way, since the natural response to a man on fire flying at your face was to unload a clip in its direction. He'd gotten hotter over the years, but there was no melting bullets cased in adamantium

[coinopratedhero]

Jim swallowed, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth as he crossed the room, standing next to Toro's bed and leaning over him with a weak smile.

Battered as he was his boy had grown up handsome...

"Toro? It's Pappy, kiddo, how are you holding up?" He brought a warm hand down to stroke through the matted hair on the less-bruised side of the young man's face. "I'm so sorry, I should have been here sooner. Cap told me what happened."

He cast about for a chair and tugged one of the little rolling stools away from the wall with his foot, easing himself onto it with his gaze stuck on Toro's sleepy face.

God, what a mess this was...

[hangtherisk]

Tom opened his eyes a little bit wider, failing to sit up like he'd meant to. He moved forward and then slumped back with a hiss of pain, the movement aborted by exactly how dizzy and sick the painkillers made him. They'd figured that out ages ago---that he and Namor reacted to things most people didn't because there was something in them a little different, a little off. Nowadays, they called them mutants---and a whole slew of other names not half so nice.

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,

[coinopratedhero]

"No no Toro." Jim shushed him with another slow stroke of his hair, taking one battered hand in his (oh so careful of all those needles stuck in his poor boy's arm) and squeezing as much as he dared.

"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.