ax_main | Caleb and Cal

After Takedown, Caleb wakes up in the infirmary with Cal watching over him.

Cal shifted in his chair. He'd never spent much time in infirmaries or hospitals (that he could recall), other than his time as a fucking experiment, with the Right, and that didn't count. That was, in fact, precisely what he was doing his fucking best not to think about. But he had still somehow expected that chairs in those kinds of place would be hella uncomfortable. And here he was, being proven right.

Maybe it was just the circumstances. Being in a medical environment. Being the reason for Caleb having to be here. But even when he tried to set that aside, the chair didn't feel any less uncomfortable.

He wiped his hands over his face, and then back through his hair. He was still in the black outfit Gilmore had handed them, and he'd only unzipped the very top so the collar wouldn't feel as constricting. He owed Gilmore a debt, for managing to get Caleb out of that fucking collar. He wasn't sure how he was gonna repay it, but he intended to.

He shifted in the chair again, keeping an eye on Caleb's unconscious form. It didn't matter how uneasy he felt, being here. He'd stay here until Caleb was cleared, and released.

As Caleb groggily came to consciousness, he reached out for Frumpkin reflexively and found him curled up by his side and vibrating with a purr. He looked around the room blearily, his hand buried in the comforting warmth of his cat’s fur, and only stopped when his gaze landed on the Cal-shaped smudge next to the bed.

The events of the day came back to Caleb slowly, then all at once.

“Hello,” he rasped. His mouth and brain both felt like cotton. Or clouds.

Cal had sat up when he'd noticed movement, and now he stood in a sudden hurry, to step closer to the bed. "Hey. How are you feeling? Do you need anything? I can call somebody."

“Water?” Caleb asked. And his glasses. Where were his glasses? He glanced around for them, moving stiffly and wincing when he turned a way his body didn’t approve of.

"Don't move," Cal told him quietly, and stepped towards the bedstand. There were Caleb's glasses beside a pitcher of water, so he handed them to him first, before pouring him a glass. "Can you sit up a bit?”

Caleb put on his glasses, then nodded and slowly sat up. He gingerly rested back against the bed’s headboard. “How long have I been out?”

"A few hours," Cal replied, holding the glass out to Caleb, ready to help him hold it if needed.

Caleb took the water and gulped it down, nearly draining the glass empty in one go. He stuck the glass between his legs rather than trying to reach for the bedside table, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Is everyone okay? Are you okay?”

"I'm fine," Cal answered immediately, to get that out of the way. He didn't properly understand why Caleb would be asking, and there was no other answer he considered making. He couldn't really afford to be anything but fine right now. "Everyone... Everyone's back." He couldn't really speak to how they were doing, but that was something. "We got everyone back."

“Good,” Caleb said, nodding as he tried to get his thoughts in order. “That is good. Doctor McCoy mentioned there were some injuries, but they had all made it back.”

Cal opened his mouth to agree with the sentiment, but all that came back was a blurted out, "I'm so sorry." His eyes prickled with tears, and he blinked a few times to make sure they didn't spill over. "I'm sorry I let them take you. I couldn't - I'm so sorry, Caleb.”

Caleb looked confused, and overwhelmed by the sudden outpouring of emotion. At a loss as to what to do, he started to reach for Cal only to withdraw his hand before reaching out again. His hand hovered awkwardly. “No. It is okay. No no. You have nothing to be sorry for. You did not do anything wrong.”

"I left you," Cal retorted angrily. He ignored Caleb's hand, because he couldn't think about that now.

“No,” Caleb disagreed with a frown, and now he did take Cal’s hand. He hadn’t thought for a second that Cal had abandoned him. The Right had found them; the only thing to do had been to run. “You panicked. Anyone would have. I would have. You did the right thing, Cal. If you had stayed, they would have taken both of us.”

"And if I'd fought, they wouldn't have taken either of us," he replied mercilessly, but he also didn't move away, didn't pull his hand back. On the contrary, he clung to Caleb's with how much he meant his apology, how terrible he felt for leaving him behind. What was the point of everything he could do if he couldn't help out his friends? If he ran at the first sign of trouble?

At least she wouldn't show up out of the blue again.

The thought made him want to puke.

“Or they still would have taken both of us, and we would have paid for it. You think I got this for being their number one student?” Caleb pointed to his eye, then to his ribs. “I fought back. I killed my handler.”

Caleb, who struggled to look anyone in the eye, met Cal’s gaze and, very earnest, said, “You did the right thing, Cal. I would rather you ran than get caught and be subjected to whatever they had in mind for you.”

Cal didn't get it. Tears welled up in his eyes, of frustration and guilt, and then he pulled his hand back, out of Caleb's, and looked aside, running that very hand back through his hair. "Yeah, or I would've fucked them all up then and there. I have enough mimics going on that I could've." Fuck, the teleportation alone.

“Maybe. Maybe you would have, but I am glad you did not take the risk. I am not worth it. And—” Caleb sat up, ignoring the stab of pain in his side, and tried to take Cal’s hand again. “You came back for me, Cal. You saved me.” Ugh, he’d had been trying to avoid that. It wrongly implied that that only reason Cal leaving him behind was okay was because he’d made up for it, and that wasn’t the case.

"You're a fucking asshole," Cal told him, but he'd let Caleb grab his hand again, and he was clinging back to it. "'Not worth it'? You're-" The tears made a comeback, choking him up for a second, but he was still glaring at Caleb. "You and Clint - no one else is worth more than you two.”

Overwhelmed by the sentiment, it took Caleb a moment to find his voice again, but when he did, he shook his head, and firmly said, “I am not worth your life.” No one would ever die because of him again. No one.

"That's not your call to make," Cal replied angrily. Of course he'd risk his life for Caleb. He had, and he would again. Even after he'd made up for abandoning him - if he ever could - he would do it again if he had to. Caleb and Clint both mattered that much.

“Yes, it is!” Caleb insisted just as heatedly. He knew even as he said it that that wasn’t true, but he needed it to be.

"Well, tough luck, because I'd come for you as many times as it fucking took," Cal replied, his voice shaking with anger and thick with emotion, "and there's nothing you can do about it.”

Caleb jerked his hand out of Cal’s. “Yes, there is!”

"Yeah?" Cal challenged heatedly.

“Yeah!” Caleb shot back.

"Like what?"

“I don’t know!” Caleb shouted, then immediately fell into an uncomfortable silence, looking away from Cal and down at his hands with a shake of his head. “Just…don’t. Please.”

Cal hesitated, then reached out to rest his fingers on Caleb's shoulder. "I couldn't live with myself if I didn't try, man."

Caleb glanced out of the corner of his eye at Cal’s hand on his shoulder. “Better you feel guilty than be a corpse.”

Cal pulled his hand back slowly, figuring it wasn't welcome. It made sense. "They took a lot from me," he said, quietly, his voice more than a little thick. "But before, I'm not sure I knew what it was like, to care for people that much. If it's the one good thing I can do with what they made me, I'll do it. And maybe neither of us will be corpses."

Caleb wanted to scream. He wanted to shout and to shake Cal for being so stupid, but he swallowed it and buried his hand in Frumpkin's fur. A frown pinching his brow, he shook his head and, voice rough with emotion, finally said, “They did not make you anything. They tried, and they failed. Do not give them credit for who you are.”

There was another pause, longer than the first, as Caleb reassessed the terms of his and Cal’s friendship. It was different than he’d thought, than what he’d been telling himself it was. Cal would risk his life for him, and there was nothing he could do about it. And he’d do the same for Cal. “You have my back and I have yours, yeah?”

Whatever was going on inside Caleb's head was so loud it managed to scrape against Cal's shields, even without touch. It was a struggle to keep it out, and right when Cal would have buckled, it quieted, and he breathed a silent sigh of relief.

His frown of concentration eased as he focused back on Caleb, but he didn't know what to answer, how to answer Caleb's first words. Caleb had seen it, seen him. He'd seen him kill her. He should know exactly what they had made Cal. And if he didn't, there were no words Cal could find that would do better than what Caleb had witnessed.

So he was glad when Caleb went on, and he could answer his next words instead. Easier words. This was an easy truth. "Yeah. Of course."

Caleb stared at Cal a long moment, his expression unreadable, then nodded. “Okay.” He felt…better. The thought of Cal (or Clint or Molly, really) risking their lives for him still didn’t sit well with him, but like this he could bear it. He could understand it.

"Okay," Cal echoed immediately, something unlocking in his chest at the fact that Caleb was finally accepting it. It wasn't what he'd expected from this. He hadn't expected to have to argue for giving a shit; he'd only expected Caleb's anger for letting him be taken. Cal blinked back tears, now, all of a sudden. "I can't imagine not having gotten you back.”

It was then that Caleb realized that Cal would have missed him. He didn’t know why, or how, and it certainly wasn’t deserved, but all the same it sent this intense rush of feeling careening through him. He shook his head, swallowed back against the emotion, and awkwardly said, “Well. I am here.”

"Yeah," Cal confirmed, frowned, and visibly pulled himself back together, glancing to the side for the time it took him. He gave Caleb a small smile when he looked back at him. "Yeah, you are. Do you need anything? From your room? I can go see where Pike's at, and if she could get to you tonight?”

“Maybe later. I do not really feel like being poked and prodded right now.” Between Gilmore with the collar, and the doctors with his injuries, he’d had enough of that for one day.

Caleb glanced around the room, considered how long he’d be stuck here with just his thoughts, and asked, almost reluctantly, “Could you bring me a book?” He probably wouldn’t be able to read well, given the state of his eye, but at least he’d have the option.

"Sure," Cal agreed readily. It was going to be his next offer. "What do you want? Or should I bring a selection?”

“Fiction. The stacks on the left side of my desk are my To Read pile. Any one from there is good.”

"Okay," Cal nodded. The acknowledgement also served for Illyana's bracelet, which he had put back on after the mission, and he disappeared in a blink! of pink energy.

He came back two minutes later, after spending most of that time trying not to break down in Caleb and Clint's empty room, and ten seconds grabbing three fiction books from that To Read stack. That way Caleb could choose what he most felt like reading. Cal reappeared with another blink, and put them down gingerly on the nightstand. "Here you go.”

Caleb smiled at seeing Cal had brought him options. “Thank you.” He read the spines, then picked up the book on the top of the stack. Sing the Four Quarters. It was about bards who sang magic.

“Are you going now?” Caleb asked as he needlessly reread the summary on the back of the book.

Cal glanced at the door, then turned back to Caleb. "Would you mind if - I mean, I can stay out there if you'd rather, I don't have to stay here-here.”

Caleb felt a rush of relief; He didn’t want to be alone. “No. You can stay.” He fidgeted with his book a moment, then gestured it toward Cal. “Would you, ah, read to me? Please. I—” He gestured at his swollen face. “It is difficult.”

"Sure!" That was even better; something to focus on that wasn't his own thoughts. Cal grabbed the book, then pulled the chair closer to the bed, and dropped in it. He opened the book to the first page, and started reading. "'Was it something I said?' The innkeeper laughed as the young woman continued her headlong dash out the door, ignoring him completely."