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Peter had gotten shot before. Really, it’d be much stranger had it not happened.
That sort of thing came with the territory: one would be hard-pressed to find a special agent that could boast a successfully evasion of this fate. It was almost something of an initiation. A badge of honor in its own right.
(And if those trains of thought tended to become embarked on in the interest of making oneself feel better in face of terrible agony brought on by a bullet grazing, penetrating, or simply passing through… well.)
This didn’t make the experience any less… sucky, honestly, didn’t make it any less painful. Nay, excruciating.
His shoulder throbbed. He could hardly feel the length of his arm at all, let alone move it. The painkillers had worn off a little while ago, but frankly—suffering in silence seemed a preferable alternative to flagging a nurse. They buzzed like worker-bees from one room to the next, heads full of tasks need minding, tunnel-vision in full effect.
Plus, he did not really feel like talking.
And maybe he ought to count his blessings while he could, though they did not seem as such at a first glance: for one of the two of his… of his… whatevers, would undoubtedly be descending upon this very hospital room in a short time. Then, talking would not be optional. Then, he’d have to placate them as though it weren’t he who’d gotten shot. There was no way they wouldn’t make a thing out of this. Peter’s lip curled at the thought of being fretted over alone.
He let out a longsuffering sigh preemptively, pinching the bridge of his nose.
At once, footsteps.
They neared his room at a troublingly speedy pace.
At a point, it became clear there was not one set, but two.
Hoffman and Lindsey barged into the room without so much as a knock. That was just as well.
Apparently, Peter stood corrected: thinking—perhaps, hoping—he’d at the very least be assailed by one at a time was a gross display of naïveté.
“We came as soon as we heard,” Lindsey, who didn’t falter for a second, remained on a surefire trajectory to Peter’s bedside. Hoffman fell back. In the corner of his eye, he could see him standing perfectly still. “Erickson only called once you were out of surgery. Can’t believe him, honestly. When I see him—”
His attention was on Lindsey for the most part, however. “—you’ll say nothing,” he cut in. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Barely felt it.”
Lindsey sat down by his side, took his hand (the uninjured one) between her own. Her fingers were cool. “They said it went through, Peter.”
“Yes, came and went, as it were,” he rolled his eyes, looking straight past her. He didn’t need to see the look in her own to feel their intensity; really, he couldn’t look precisely for it. “It’s nothing. Didn’t catch anything vital, just some… meat.”
Unfortunately, they landed on Hoffman instead. The man looked… well, constipated. He still hadn’t moved from the very spot he’d become rooted to, though it seemed for all the world as if the weight of Peter’s eyes on him jostled him into movement, as if he’d been hotwired. His first step was visibly hesitant, though he approached the bed soon with more assuredness.
“Christ, Hoffman,” Peter huffed, and none too kindly. There was simply something undeniably satisfying in punching down. His voice teemed with some immature, childish glee at the presented opportunity. He was certain Lindsey would’ve scolded him in any normal circumstance. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna be sick right now—and you a detective. Christ. There’s no hope for our police force after all.”
Hoffman sat down at his other side. The mattress dipped beneath him, causing Peter to slide thataway as well. Hell, even Lindsey appeared minutely jounced. All at once, Peter felt awfully crowded. His eyes flickered down at his lap under the scrutiny of his whatevers, thumbs twiddling restlessly.
“Well?” Peter furrowed his brows, glancing at him briefly. He couldn’t make sense of it. Hoffman was never at a loss for words (even when Peter desperately wished he’d be), so, what was all this then? “Don’t tell me cat got your tongue or something.”
“It could’ve been worse. You could’ve been seriously fuckin’ injured, Peter,” Hoffman huffed out, all in one breath. There was no levity in his tone, though he spoke softly. “And you’re acting like it’s… like it’s…”
“What? Like it’s no big deal? Because it isn’t,” Peter insisted. He made to cross his arms over his chest petulantly, though regretted the decision swiftly. Pain like a small shockwave sped down his injured arm, left a tingling discomfort in its wake; he hissed through his teeth. “You’ve been shot before. You both have. Be serious.”
“Are you being purposely obtuse?” accused Lindsey, her grip on his hand firm. She glanced at Hoffman, and Hoffman glanced back, and some kind of understanding passed between them that Peter didn’t seem to be privy to. That was annoying. “We care for you, Peter. What’s not clicking?”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Peter retorted as though he hadn’t inferred she’d very nearly used a stronger word, “but I’m alive. I never would’ve… never would’ve not been.”
“It’s not about that,” Hoffman interjected, looking at him significantly. His hand reached out, cradled Peter’s face—and fuck that, because now he really had nowhere else to look; nowhere but that severe expression and searching eyes. “You’re… hurting. That’s a lot to… to grapple with.”
His face flushed, a twinge of shame curling in his stomach. “I’m not a dainty fucking flower, Hoffman.”
“You might be stupid, however,” the other man shot back, “concerning this, at least. Because it’s not about that either.”
“Okay,” sighed Lindsey, “okay, let’s just… take a step back.”
Both of them rolled their eyes, but ultimately did as told.
-
By the time he’d gotten hauled back home—well, back to Hoffman’s place that they’d all but shacked up in, on account of its size and practicality as opposed to the agents’ hotel rooms—Peter was… starting to put two and two together.
They were worried. Both of them. It was no small thing, either.
It was bizarre.
Peter had knocked his shoulder into the kitchen’s doorframe on an occasion and subsequently got to watch both of their hearts break in real time—and it wasn’t even that bad. Overreactions to the nth degree.
Momentarily, two pillows tucked into his side offered decent cushioning for his arm, which had been well secured in a brace. A small pillow was tucked beneath his back for spinal support, and there was one beneath his feet that rested atop the coffee table. Over his legs and lap, a blanket. Around his shoulders, a blanket.
It was as though those had popped out of thin air. No way did Hoffman have that many on hand.
He watched him now, through a door cracked ajar, intently stare down a kettle boiling on the stovetop. (Tea would actually be quite nice right now, Peter would grant it.) He couldn’t see his face—or his front, really, merely the back of him—though he didn’t need to in order to picture the comical, cavemannish expression. As though he could intimidate water into boiling faster. Peter huffed a soft laugh.
He could see a whole lot less of Lindsey, who was coming and going from eyeshot, from one end of the kitchen to the next and making only brief appearances in the area Peter could directly observe. Tidying up, undoubtedly, as she ever did the second a singular stress hormone became expelled by her brain.
In an impressive show of reflexes, Hoffman pivoted and caught her, one strong arm looping around her waist to draw her close. Threw her off balance, too, though she braced against his chest before she could fall. Peter couldn’t hear the whispers they exchanged—not that the subject matter was difficult to infer.
Lindsey melted into him, arms about his waist and head tucked beneath his chin. In a brief trip down memory lane, Peter recollected the way he would’ve once felt slighted, jealous. He couldn’t dredge that up if he’d wanted to now, couldn’t so much as feel piqued. (Not that he wished to.) Lindsey and… Mark fit together well. (And they weren’t hard on the eyes, either.)
In a short time (and after an exchanged kiss), they reappeared—and not empty-handed. Tea and biscuits in tow, Peter would admit this wasn’t so bad. Not bad at all, really.
And because they were predictable, they each deposited themselves at either of Peter’s respective sides. Thankfully, Hoffman was furthest from his injured arm. A known klutz with little to no awareness of his strength and size, it was already only a matter of time ‘till he unintentionally swatted or smacked the afflicted area—and to increase that risk, well, there wasn’t any good sense in that. Lindsey, who’d sat down first, might’ve done so with this in mind.
“What’re we watching?” asked Peter. Hoffman was already manning the remote, as always.
“A Clockwork Orange,” replied Hoffman.
Peter looked at him, deadpan. “What, they didn’t have Cannibal Holocaust or something?”
“Uh-huh. Next best thing,” the man hummed, obnoxiously (and purposely) chipper.
“It’s a good watch, honestly,” offered Lindsey unhelpfully. She’d stretched across the couch like a cat, head in Peter’s lap.
“Not you too,” Peter sighed. She shrugged apologetically, turning her head to press a faint kiss to his clothed stomach.
“You’ll like it,” Hoffman, finding it unbearable to be excluded from one single thing, kissed Peter’s cheek.
Peter figured it didn’t even matter. Letting his lips find Hoffman’s (for Hoffman’s benefit, he’d reason, not his own), he strongly felt the movie would become the last thing on his mind soon enough.