luke henry ; robin (notjustsidekick) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2010-10-18 18:05:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | maid marian, robin |
Who: Luke and Toby
What: A visit and a chat
Where: The hospital
When: After this, obviously, but before this (shhh, the timeline makes sense)
Warnings: None
A spare moment in a hospital was carved rather than found: raw-edged and hidden with an underlying sense of guilt at not doing something more necessary when the constant surge of needs and demands never seemed to ebb for long. It took learned skill to avoid having that spare moment taken -- walking head held high, with some patient’s file or another, maybe a murmured ‘Doctor,’ said in apologetic tones (Toby was rarely apologetic when actually working but few people noticed the difference) to give the excuse, and then avoiding any attempts to catch the eye. Now, in well-worn shoes and scrubs too clean to have been worn for the whole shift (someone had come in and been virulently ill before she’d had time to wrestle off one plastic gown and into another) Toby snatched at spare time for coffee, a cigarette -- but more importantly, a visit.
The kid had come in in the small hours of a shift, with a billionaire depositing him on the gurneys, with GSWs no kid that age (ought to be in school) ought to have and had nearly killed him. It had been a rush of snapped orders from the doctor running the room, the paperwork practically shoved across the nurses’ station and as soon as the absolutely necessary was done, he’d been rolled away, white and limp and bloodstained, to surgery. Now it was a far cry from the hustle and heave of the pit downstairs: done with the thrust of surgery, the doctors had all but left him to the monitoring of the nurses and in a room off the main concourse he had been left to recover with no other occupant. It hadn’t taken much to match the name on a file with a name on a forum, nor to notice that under the contact, there was only that billionaire and no next of kin anywhere on the damn thing. That was worse than the gunshot wounds, worse than the gray rubbed-out look to him when he’d come in, worse than the age she’d seen on the file. Visiting hours weren’t long in this place: the staff mostly saw visitors as unnecessary bother and that they got in the way, but the absence of visitors was hard-felt.
Those worn shoes with their soft tread picked a now familiar path across the floor and stood near the end of the bed -- not sitting quite yet in the empty chair provided, as she’d done before, keeping a quiet watch over the kid, but with her fingers curled around a plastic cup of bad coffee, Toby now looked at the boy with a softness to her face and a worried note in her eyes that wasn’t nurse at all, but something else.
Everything before surgery was hazy, and even afterward he spent a lot of time sleeping because there wasn’t much else to do and the drugs made him sleepy. He had no visitors except for Thomas, because none of his friends (the ones who knew him as Luke and not Robin) had been told about what happened. Luke hadn’t wanted to tell them, and he really didn’t know how in the first place - besides, they’d just worry. So when he wasn’t sneaking e-mails to Quinn and Bunny, he was either asleep or awake and staring at the ceiling, thinking. He thought about school and work, and about when he’d be able to leave and how he was going to keep his friends from finding out; there was too much time, so his thoughts ran free and unchecked within his mind. The doctors had their questions, of course, and so did the police; but he hadn’t told them much. Just that he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and he hadn’t seen the shooter’s face because it was too dark. Any suggestion or even implication that Thomas had something to do with it was vehemently denied, and eventually they went away because he ‘needed to rest’ and ‘couldn’t overexert himself’.
It was also during this time that he realized how alone he was. Of course, he’d left his family behind by choice, and so far he’d managed just fine on his own. He still missed them, obviously, but he’d never actually wished they were with him until now. This wasn’t something he vocalized - in fact, he didn’t say a word about his parents even when asked. But it was there, regardless, along with frustration and the faintest threads of worry that he’d be forced to stay off his feet for longer than he would have wanted.
Luke was initially asleep when Toby came in, but it didn’t take long to rouse himself out of it and awaken, blinking away the fuzziness and pulling himself up into a semi-sitting position without aggravating the wound. He wasn’t really surprised to see the nurse standing by his bed, and offered a faint smile when he noticed her. “Hi.” His voice was hoarse, but it wasn’t as weak as it had been before. It was a slow process, yes, but he was regaining his strength bit by bit.
“Hi.” Nurses had a way of smiling in this place: quick and efficient and they didn’t stretch all the way to the eyes -- a little twitch of muscles if you were lucky before it was the next patient and the next bed. Smiles were handed out because it was necessary, like someone had decided they were an essential part of patient-care and thus they were doled out like pain meds, an efficient small flicker of a thing before moving on. The smile Toby gave Luke wasn’t one of those. It was warm and deep and it said she had all the time in the world to hang out just keeping an eye over him. She leaned against the end of the bed without even picking up his chart to look at it -- which was more than a small indication she wasn’t here for the med-round and vitals, and she tapped her fingertips on the plastic coffee cup.
“You okay for water, hon?” Her blue eyes flicked to the side table, pitcher and cup stood by, and her voice had the concern of it being an actual question, rather than a formality. “You can go right back to sleep if you want to, sweetheart, visiting hours aren’t starting for a while.” And the poor kid had no one to visit beyond a distracted-looking billionaire and retinue. No one his own damn age and not even someone else in the room to talk to. It was desperately lonely-looking, and it was a shame and if she chose to spend the time she would’ve used for a smoke outside in here -- well. It was a step in the right direction toward giving up.
There were some nurses that just went in and out, and whispered to each other about the boy with a suspicious gunshot wound brought in by a billionaire - then there were the doctors that were kind but clearly trying to get some kind of explanation out of him that went beyond the vague story he and Thomas had agreed on. It was tiring to deal with, but then there were the nurses like this that made being stuck in the hospital somewhat bearable. Luke had decided he liked her after the first time she’d stopped by, and it was nice to have someone else visit every once in a while.
He still wasn’t accustomed to asking for basic things like water, but he was kind of getting the hang of being a temporary invalid. “My throat is kind of dry,” he admitted with an apologetic shrug. “I’d get it myself, but the other nurses hate it when I try to get up.” Thomas did too, but he was a different story. Luckily even he had to adhere to visiting hours - he wasn’t so good at listening when Luke suggested he go home, and telling him what to do never worked out very well either. “Maybe I will, in a little while. I feel like I spend most of my time asleep anyway.”
“You do,” she agreed, with the frankness of very blunt honesty in the hands of someone who didn’t very often bother with fashioning it into something a little more refined. But she picked up the pitcher and the glass and poured him water with a small smile that hovered on her lips and made a joke of the shared observation -- it made the task a little less formal, a little less like a duty and anything that was a bother. “Lots of lying around in bed. Which is where they want you.” They, not we. Toby had slipped into the gap between nurse and something else, and was sitting in it for as long as the kid looked quite so on his own.
“Catch up on cartoons, eat really bad food,” really bad food. Whether the kid was doing much eating or not would be listed in the notes, but who the hell came to a hospital and left a little fatter with a note for the culinary delicacies? “Sleeping kinda gets you through the time. Bet it seems a while already, huh?” Young enough to be at college, old enough to feel the room like a prison. She cast a look around, the way she did every time she hit this particular floor, this particular room. No additional cards, no flowers, no dumb gift from a girl to say ‘I like you’ and ‘I’m sorry you got shot, you idiot’ at the same time -- same bare walls, same empty feeling. With an enquiring raise of the eyebrows -- Toby didn’t say so much, but she did ask -- she sat down in the plastic chair beside his bed with a sigh of relief, a sip of coffee and she propped her feet out in front of her, one ankle over the other. Here to stay for a bit, then.
Despite his dislike of being stuck in bed all day, Luke tried his best not to complain and did what he could to make it bearable. Whining wouldn’t make it any different, and he didn’t want to start acting like an immature kid - especially when that was what most of the adults he knew thought he was in the first place. “Well, I try.” He’d been in a much better mood after the amount of painkillers he was given had been lessened, although there was still enough to keep him feeling perpetually sleepy. The glass of water was accepted with a grin, and he emptied it in a few seconds.
In a strange way he did suddenly have more time on his hands than he knew what to do with, but despite all those moments when he’d wished he could just sit back and do nothing, he realized now that it wasn’t as great as it sounded. “The cartoons are a bonus. I haven’t had time to watch those since I was a kid.” At the mention of the food, he pulled a face. “I always thought people exaggerated when they described hospital food.” Apparently he’d been wrong. Toby’s glance around the room wasn’t missed, and Luke was all too aware of how empty it looked. Other patients were surrounded by flowers and teddy bears, and had more than one visitor during visiting hours; but it was like this by choice. He could have asked Thomas to inform his friends, or even have done it himself, but he didn’t. As long as his boss wouldn’t fire him and the university realized he wasn’t dropping out, everyone else would never have to know. Avoiding questions was easy - he simply pretended to miss cues like raised eyebrows.
Toby looked him over, a slow sort of assessment that took everything in from the slept in sheets to the sleep-mussed hair and it saw the adult inside who was trying hard to keep everything boxed up tight. Boxes had a habit of filling up too fast, and they had a habit of not being as big as you wanted or needed to be. Thoughtfully, as though it were only just occurring to her, Toby remarked,
“Not got a whole bunch of people coming in and out of here. Not that I’m encouraging a party,” God knows, the head nurse was a dragon when it came to one more visitor than the maximum permitted, “But you know you can have ‘em, right, kiddo? Visitors, not parties.” A smile that caught the corners of her mouth, turned them up -- but something in her eyes when she met his that said she’d noticed and that the light teasing was covering a great deal more observation than perhaps expected from a nurse. She curled those fingers back around the coffee, sat back in her chair and studied him. L. ‘Luke’. Names didn’t get stamped out in full on a forum, all initials and last names and sometimes no names at all -- but you got a sense for people from what they said. This one didn’t seem like the type to want to be all alone and tucked away from the rest of the world for the duration. There was no set stoicism to the jaw, no inset coldness that was the result of years of being isolated. People needed people, especially when sick -- “Not even a roommate to pass the time.” It was the obvious, the point was a little belaboured, but it came with concern in those soft blue eyes that didn’t even try to hide itself.
Luke leaned back against the pillows and glanced at her, simply watching as she reminded him that visitors were allowed. “I know. I don’t mind, though.” It wasn’t entirely true, but he wasn’t going to admit to that. “I mean, there aren’t many people to come visit me.” He hesitated for a moment before deciding not to elaborate further. He assumed she must have known that there were no contacts for family, and Thomas Brandon certainly didn’t have any relation to him. The only thing that really bothered him were the pitying looks he received sometimes, but Toby wasn’t the sort to do something like that and then act as though he was too oblivious to notice. The lack of a roommate was, admittedly, not his own choice; but he wasn’t going to ask for one. It was a hospital, after all, not a dorm.
“I guess people my age usually have more visitors?” It was a question that didn’t really need to be asked, but he said it with a rueful smile and a shrug, as though he was simply part of some minority.
She watched him, this kid without visitors, this kid with the kind of self-possession to not show it bothering him and with the balls to keep to a stupid, clearly untruthful story about how he’d wound up hurt, and Toby felt a little tug of admiration for him, even if he was an idiot in a hospital bed where he’d no place to be. She’d seen ‘T Brandon’ on the forums long enough to see he had business where no billionaire seemed likely to find it, and that was Creations related and had little to do with the four walls and the drug regime and so she dismissed it, and the use of a first name that he probably shouldn’t have and the nurses no doubt were gossiping over on this floor.
“Most people your age who get shot,” no prevarcations or tact used there, he knew what had happened and the doctors with their surgeries and MMRIs knew too, and Toby could tell the truth of it simply by the stone-walling that she’d seen before a hundred times, “Have their parents show up, honey.” The endearment came without thinking, with a sweet genuineness to it despite how easily it had shown up in her conversation. It softened a little of the blunt question that followed, “You’ve got no next of kin listed and you’ve got a billionaire where we should be fending off worried parents.” She reached out a hand, and she squeezed Luke’s, with a frown that was all someone else’s problems. “You leave them behind?” It was the first mention of what-could-be-Creations, the first mention in this hospital (aloud) of him being one of those kids and it was information that made all the guessing -- the kid with blunt force trauma that he ought not have survived if he’d been wearing what he was wearing -- look at a predictable answer.
He couldn’t argue with that, because if this had happened back in Musings his parents would have been at his side in an instant. His mother would have been fussing over him, while his father would be the one ordering the doctors around - he was also the one who would end up giving him the inevitable lecture about how stupid and careless he was, because there was no chance they’d believe the weak story he was sticking to now. The man was the lecturing sort, seeing harshness as a sign that he cared enough to worry. He loved them, that was never an issue, but he just hadn’t been able to stay; they didn’t think he was ready for Independence, so he’d had to take it himself. The look on his face made it obvious that Luke was aware of the fact that his parents should have been at his side, which meant there was a reason they weren’t. Thomas wasn’t family by any means, but he cared in his own way. That counted for something.
“I--” Whatever excuse or explanation he’d been planning was cut short when she asked if he’d left them behind, and the question visibly caught him off guard. Behind his careful gaze was wariness and caution, so his words were chosen carefully. “My parents aren’t here.” It was vague enough to keep from explicitly marking himself as a Creation, but there were numerous things it could have meant. “Which means they can’t come visit me in the hospital.”
A level look from Toby at that. People had all kinds of reasons for jumping portals: some better than others but family (conveniently ignoring she’d left her own in the dust, family these days was something Toby rested a great deal of herself on) was not something you left behind without losing something very precious and very vital. “So there’s no one here to tell you you’re an idiot, then.” It was all matter-of-fact statement, not a drop of sentiment, but the hand on his was warm and it stayed there all the while, even as she took another mouthful of now-cold coffee. “Your name -- it’s on the forums as well as the files.” No vagaries for Toby, no beating around, not when it came to matters of fact rather than feeling. The kid was alone, and it made her heart pull in a way she didn’t much want but couldn’t help, and her tone was all brisk and clear and crisp whilst she visibly softened, and she didn’t look away for a moment.
“I’m putting two and two together here, kiddo, and I’m not drawing up a very clever picture.” Nice and light, even -- “We’ve seen kids come through with bullet wounds and we’ve seen trauma here before. But I’m asking why the hell your piece of shit story holds no water and you’re sticking to it nonetheless, and why you’ve got injuries someone who is in combat might have, and I’m adding in that some of our kind have a certain sorta nightly activity that runs that risk. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
The forums made it all click, and he looked faintly sheepish at the realization. “Oh.” A moment’s hesitation. “I left them behind.” It was said quietly yet matter-of-factly, something he’d accepted but didn’t mention often because there wasn’t quite a complete lack of guilt about it on his part. “But the funny thing is, there are still people here willing to tell me I’m an idiot - or at least imply it.” The only ones who really understood what he did and why were Wren and Quinn, whereas the adults looked at him and saw nothing but a kid, despite the fact that he was practically nineteen. He realized he was young, but he’d left his childhood behind a long time ago.
Toby was only vocalizing what people were likely already thinking, even if the others hadn’t quite put all the pieces together yet and were only suspicious at present. Still, Luke had every intention of sticking fiercely to his story and certainly wasn’t going to admit to anything that suggested it hadn’t been such a random shooting after all. “It’s what actually happened,” he said stubbornly, “and no, I’m not trying to get myself killed.”
There was no teasing now, no light-hearted humor but a tenseness coiled through Toby like someone trying to hide very deep and very passionate anger or worry and doing so very badly. She didn’t pull back her hand, but she looked at him now and the softness in the blue eyes was something quite determined instead. If Luke was an adult, he was an adult who had no obvious signs of people to worry, and worry was what tied you down and grounded you and people were what made you someone who went out at night and did the things that made them worry. His file said ‘eighteen’ and his face was young, the man’s jaw not yet fully-formed from the boy’s face, but he sat there, stoically and he reminded her of so many things and people and his parents.
“They must have been worried. They would be worried. And instead you’re here by yourself.” She said it softly, like she wasn’t thinking about the words before she said them, but rather feeling them, and the hand on Luke’s stilled. “Kiddo, you were lucky this time. And you came in and got the help instead of being stupidly brave.” A smile that was encouragement, if rueful. “You get to skip the lecture this time.”
Despite the fact that he was expecting some kind of lecture, he didn’t look away. She didn’t strike him as the sort who would yell and try to make her point by constantly reminding him that he could have died, but he couldn’t be sure. People expressed worry in different forms, and the way she was looking at him definitely radiated some degree of concern. His age probably had quite a bit to do with that.
Luke attempted a careless shrug. “Probably. But it’s better, them not knowing about this.” Not just the bullet wound, but everything in general - not that he explicitly said that. He knew he was lucky, and he also knew his luck might not last the next time around. That didn’t mean he was going to stop, however; and the lack of a lecture was both a surprise and a relief. The smile that followed was genuine rather than forced. “Thanks.”
“Better for them or you?” Toby drummed her fingers against that coffee cup: he was trying so hard, to be alone, to be strong, to be a man. People grew up so fast, time flew, etc, etc, a whole bunch of phrases applied this side of the portals and in this world. With so little time (comparatively speaking) it was a collision-course toward adulthood. But this kid was lying in a hospital bed with a wound a soldier would’ve been proud of without being a goddamn soldier.
“Brave’s brave, kid -- Luke,” Toby corrected herself, with a rueful sort of smile. “But you shouldn’t be alone because of it. This?” A gesture that took in the empty room, bare walls, “Everyone needs people. Needs a life. And if you’re doing what I think you’re doing,” a shrewd look that said she’d read between file and forum, “You need to hold onto yours.”
“For them, mostly.” His parents would have been worried out of their minds, and to know that their son was purposely putting himself in danger... well, it was just better this way. They’d never be able to understand why, no matter how hard he tried to explain. Not even some of the vigilantes did, despite the fact that they did the same thing. It was frustrating sometimes, but his energy was better spent actively rather than trying to convince everyone that he wasn’t just a kid following a bunch of grown-ups, and was actually capable of making his own decisions without being ‘influenced’ or whatever they thought happened.
For that, however, he had nothing to say - because Toby was right. Thomas was admirable in a lot of ways, yes; one might even say that he was a hero. But all Luke had to do was look at him to see what his life could be like if he let himself push everyone around him away, whether it was done intentionally or not, and he didn’t want that. Yet he couldn’t deny that it was becoming more and more difficult to keep his two identities a secret, especially now; not to mention how tricky balancing school and work with his night-time activities was becoming. He didn’t deny or confirm her suspicions, but then again, he likely didn’t need to. “I know,” he said honestly. It was what made him different from a lot of the others - he still clung to that normal life that many had left behind. “I’m trying. But this... it’s hard.”
She sat back and she drank that damn cold coffee and she didn’t say anything about loneliness or the way it could change a person, make them bitter inside and out and cold enough that the reasons for getting out there, doing things for humanity were lost along the way, because he looked like he knew. Smart kid, too and one she wished wasn’t propped against pillows with pain meds being pumped into him. “It is. That’s adulthood,” she said flatly, but a grin a second or so later, “Surprise. Life is hard, Luke. Balance -- getting out of it can fuck things permanently. I did it once,” lightly, advice from one adult to another -- verging on a ’Life Lesson’, but she hadn’t had to deliver one of those yet and if she were qualified, she’d not be making it to this kid.
“Did too much of one thing, wound up with a whole different life, one I couldn’t back out of. You ought to be in college, making a difference by changing the system,” a wistful little smile above the coffee cup. but a determined look to the boy in the bed. Her voice sounded as though it were all nonchalance: it wasn’t. “You ought not to be in a damn hospital bed.”
Luke just grinned, having heard variations of ‘life is hard’ for a few years by this point. He knew he hadn’t seen half of what life had in store for him yet, but most people his age had likely never been shot by a man who hunted vigilantes and lived to tell the tale. “I never expected it to be easy.” Maybe he wasn’t as experienced as those older than him, but he realized that not every fight was one you could win. He could have stayed and fought the mask killer to the death, but what would it have accomplished? Even if he’d managed to take the killer down with him, there were still countless other criminals out there. “And I am in college,” he added. “I’m doing what I want to be doing, whether it’s considered normal or not.” Vague once again, yet firm in his belief. Thomas thought he could sway him, convince him otherwise; but he had no idea how wrong he was.
“Good, keep in college.” Toby didn’t sound especially proud but she also didn’t sound quite so nonchalant as before, and there was a certain degree of respect -- for both the bravery and the ability to hold it together as well -- in those bright blue eyes. Doing what you want to be doing -- all the fervency and hope of being a teenager without life beating it out of you: he’d been shot and still hadn’t stopped. Either he was stupid, or brave, or stupidly brave, but she smiled as if it didn’t matter. Perhaps it didn’t. “Just don’t wind up being a martyr, kid.” There were the fanatics, the ones who preached through anonymity and got shot and resurrected and seemed to have lost their link with college textbooks and friends and date-nights and reality.
“I will.” The grin was gone, but there was still a hint of amusement within his expression. It was a tricky balance, keeping one foot in the world of normality and the other in the world of vigilantes, and already he was feeling the effect it had on his everyday life. Quitting had occurred to him, but not once did he ever actually consider choosing that option. What he did, what Robin did - it felt right, and he couldn’t imagine turning his back on that. He had faith in himself even if no one else did, and that was enough for now. “Don’t worry - I don’t want to be a martyr,” Luke admitted, leaning back with a sigh. “And I’m definitely not trying to be one.” Sometimes he wondered whether he could really stop it from happening, though; if he had died in the alley, would it have made him a martyr... or just another dead mask? And the fact that he’d stayed instead of fleeing when Max told him to - did that make him brave or stupid? Maybe it didn’t even matter, now.
“Good.” It was a hard, full-stop kind of sound, Toby was very definite on the point. Masks came through Abel’s clinic and bled and died and were all cause and heart and ideal and forgot they were flesh and bone and blood here. Not dying immediately, here it didn’t mean not dying at all -- and she looked at Luke and the list of what could-have-happened if he’d been out of range a little longer, a little too far away...
“You need help, you screw up, out there? Medical,” she clarified, because it was not encouragement but keeping a life inside a skin. “I know someone, one of the paramedics here. He’s good and he knows his ass from his elbow, and he’ll know when hospital is the only possibility, so don’t argue. He treats masks and Creations and he does what he does without reporting in and paperwork -- well. That’s handled. I can let you know who he is and if you just need stitches and a lecture and food not made by a hospital -- well. That’s me.” A brief, brief smile from a woman who didn’t often string that many words together in one breath and looked uncomfortable for having done so. But playing adult when still a kid -- she’d wished, sometimes, too far down the line and through the crossover, that she’d given up playing before it had taken root. Had adults to keep her from having to be one.
Luke knew what kind of ‘good’ that was, firm and not the least bit relenting or yielding in the way it was said. He did think that if he’d been older by at least five years or so people wouldn’t be so worried about what he was doing, but eighteen was young. Nineteen wasn’t much better, really. He still had a ways to go before his age stopped mattering as much as it did, unfortunately; although not as much to himself as it did to others.
Aside from Thomas, the only place he knew he could get medical attention was the hospital, and unfortunately not even Batman could take care of serious wounds or else he wouldn’t have been here in the first place. So the thought of a paramedic who actually treated masks without the questions and suspicion that came with normally visiting the hospital was reassuring, to say the least. “Really?” He considered it for a moment before nodding, because chances were that this wouldn’t be his last injury, and he couldn’t keep coming back to the hospital with wounds that belonged to someone older and in completely different circumstances. “Okay. Just in case, it’ll be better to have somewhere else to go if I can avoid coming here again.” Hopefully nothing would be this serious, as he had no intention of ending up in a hospital bed anytime soon. Her offer didn’t go unnoticed either, and he gave her a genuine smile in return. “Thanks. I’m sure I’ll need a lecture at some point or another, and... I can’t really stitch myself up, obviously.”
“Please don’t try?” Toby offered, sitting back in that chair and getting comfortable with the last of her coffee. The niggling desire for a smoke before a return to a shift loaded with people with far less mysterious and fascinating injuries was there, but she pushed it away without much difficulty -- the kid was more important, more interesting. She noticed the difference between the serious looking man in the bed on arrival and the grin of one still a kid now, without a word but a pleased sort of look that was utterly transparent.
“You’ll end up looking like Frankenstein.” Some people tried it, came in with blood poisoning and angry looking flesh and it was easier to surrender to the nurses the first time around than be pumped full of antibiotics to fight the infection -- some of the nurses called it ‘the idiot tax’, an extra price to pay for delaying actual help. Abel might be in over his head, might be bogged down with masks who wanted more than he could do and ran when he couldn’t do it -- but one kid, one young, half-grown kid couldn’t hurt, right? “I’ll give you his number. Abel, Cassiel. You’ll find him on the forums, he’s got a lot to say.” She frowned at that, obvious concern and worry for her friend. “He does what he can for you lot.”
His lips twitched but he managed to refrain from laughing, partly because she had a point. Thomas could apparently stitch himself up without too much trouble, but not without some lasting scars - and his own first aid knowledge was basic, only meant to keep injuries stable until actual medical help could arrive. “I won’t, trust me. I’m not that stupid.” Yes, he was willing to put himself at risk by donning a mask and attempting to do what he could to keep the city safe, but even he had his limits.
The gunshot wound would surely leave its mark, however faint, but despite not minding he didn’t necessarily want more. Besides, it wasn’t just Toby who would remind him how much of an idiot he was if he ever tried stitching himself up - he’d never hear the end of it. The name Abel Cassiel wasn’t familiar, but then again he’d been behind on the forums lately. Luke would remember it now, at least. “I’ll keep him in mind, and if I need to, then I’ll pay him a visit.” It was almost as dangerous to support vigilantes these days as it was to be one, and even though he didn’t know this Cassiel person, the fact that he was willing to risk that already said a lot about him. “He sounds like a good guy, helping us despite the risk.”
“He is.” She didn’t say anything else, but her fondness was more than evident in those words alone and she tilted her chin upward, as if ready to defend Abel from even the slightest of oncomers daring to challenge what he did. Abel might put himself in danger one too many times, might have a heart as open and easy to wring as he was awkward, but he was a good man and one who put what he had utterly on the line. Her mouth gave a flutter of a smile, one enough to indicate that Abel was a friend, and a solid one. “Give him any crap and it’ll be me you deal with.” A half-hearted threat, but Toby gave the impression she meant what lay behind it. A glance at the watch pinned to the front of her uniform, and a little breath of a sound that could’ve been a sigh.
“Almost visiting hours for you, kid,” she sounded cheerful, bright, all nurse’s optimism and ‘look on the bright side’. “Got that billionaire coming down again?”
Toby seemed trustworthy, and she didn’t seem like the sort to give her own trust unless it was warranted; which meant that she wouldn’t have recommended Abel unless she was absolutely sure he was safe. Considering what he did it was hard to trust others, but sometimes it was necessary to stay alive. “If I ever need his help, I promise to be nice.” It was said mostly in jest, but he meant it too - Luke knew better than to be ungrateful when someone offered help, especially when it came with a personal risk.
He simply nodded at the approaching visiting hours, even though he knew there was only one person who was coming to see him. It was no secret that Thomas visited him, and he was sure that alone caused enough whispers to pass between the various doctors and nurses within the hospital. When a kid was brought in with a gunshot wound and his only connection was a billionaire, well, of course it was going to get people talking. “Yeah, probably.” Luke tried to shrug like it was no big deal, but he couldn’t help a brief smile.
She was easing herself out of that plastic chair with a slow reluctance that was all fatigue and tired muscles, but Toby’s smile was the kind that made you feel warm, deep down inside, made you feel cared-for. It wasn’t a bright thing, didn’t draw attention, but it was like a candle lit inside her and she’d turned it now on Luke in exchange for his. “I’ve got to get back to work,” she said and it sounded like an apology without actually coming out and being one. Toby was good at that, saying things without saying them. There was too much to do, too much she ought to be doing to steal time to keep company with a kid, even a lonely one stuffed away in a room awaiting brief visiting hours. Even if he did make her heart ache.
“I’ll see you in a couple of hours,” the end of her shift, and Toby’s words were too much of a statement to be questioned, that definite pronouncement an exertion of will as much as it was a show of concern or care. She picked up his chart, and she swept a cursory eye over it, looking for the bits and pieces that the doctors didn’t see but were nurse-notes on food and sleep and medications, and she looked up with that smile again, and said, “You’ll be fine,” quite simply. And with the squeak of well-worn shoes on floor, she left, taking her coffee cup with her.