Work Text:
This could be the one. The right combo of chemicals and scrap metal to finally make the bomb you and Ghoul have been working on for a whole day now. It would suck to see it happen without him, but he huffed off to go on a supply run with Jet after the billionth attempt failed some hours ago. You didn’t hold it against him, knowing you definitely needed a break as well from the failures that kept piling up, endless prototypes that didn’t blow up right, or even at all, but you were so sure that this one was the right one - just need to add the last ingredient in and –
shit.
It's sizzling. Why is it sizzling? It shouldn't do that, it shouldn't melt all over your hands like that. You feel the burn and you bite back a scream, continuing to try and control the messy reaction and contain it as much as possible, scribbling through teary eyes and burning arms in your notebook quickly about the mess so you can study it later. You are so caught up in trying to control and continue the process through progressively more and more teary eyes, ignoring the burning and stinging in your arms, that you don’t even notice your friends are back until you hear Ghoul’s voice behind you.
“Hey, I thought I'd find you here! did you finally get the-” he starts to ask, then notices your arms and the mess on the table. Jet immediately rushes to get a fabric to clean the mess, while Ghoul forces your hands away from the table and your experiment, not without your objection, and takes you to wash off your arms. You do your best to bargain with him on the way to the tap, not caring much for the growing excruciating pain if it means getting more useful bombs out of this.
“Let me write one more line please! We’ll need it for next time, Ghoulie, we’ll need it-” “You won’t have arms for next time if I let you, asshole, and we kinda need them too”. You open your mouth to object but he just sticks his tongue out at you, leading you now to the tap and placing your hands below it.
Ghoul gently holds your arms to the water stream and starts to lightly scrub your wounds, and as the water runs over your arms you get to see for the first time the full extent of your injuries - your arms are covered in red stinging burns from your fingertips up to a bit above the elbow, the skin is irritated to hell and you can notice several holes where the chemical mixture has eaten into your skin and flesh. The water stings the already irritated and hurt skin as the pain becomes somehow even worse, and the tears you’ve been desperately holding are now flowing freely down your face at an embarrassing rate.
“Are you alright? Am I hurting you? I can go more gentle if you need-” Ghoul scrambles to say as he notices your tears. Realising he got the wrong idea completely, you rush to cut him off, fighting through the sobs.
“It's n-not you, y-you’re doing great. I just fucking h-hate myself for making y-you take care of me while I-I’m crying like a baby over this s-stupid hand thing”
He cups your face in one of his palms and lifts your head gently to look at him. “Do you think none of us ever cried when we got hit?” he asks you with his stupid crooked smile that always melts your heart. “Do you genuinely think you’re the first of us to get upset at an injury? Or at yourself because you got injured? It’s a part of life, dickhead, and Destroya help me if I'm not here to take care of you just like you did to me a million times”.
The words seem to escape you. You just nod and continue sobbing, letting him lightly scrub your burns and lacerations from the irritant, begrudgingly letting him take gentle care of you. It’s a nice gesture that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, but the guilt and pain are still too overwhelming.
Ghoul is still gently cleaning your arms from the remnants of the mixture and wiping your tears when Jet comes back, with some scrap fabric that was once Party’s shirt and the medkit. They both sit you down gently at a booth, Ghoul running off to clean the experimentation table with the fabric while Jet softly lays your hands on the table and inspects your wounds.
“I can dress my o-own wounds, Jet, it’s o-ok” you say through the tears, attempting to lift your arms to take the kit from him. He firmly holds them down and says “I know you usually can. I'm doing this for you because now you can’t, and because I am your friend who cares about you. let me take a look”.
Jet takes out a long bandage from the kit, wets it with a little bit of water and starts wrapping it around your left hand. He holds it upright, slightly angling it as he wraps the bandage around the palm, making sure to cover the entire damaged area. When he finishes and puts the left arm back down, he stops to give you a hug, and you all but melt into his soft touch. Jet holds you close, pulling back from the hug a bit to caress your face with his big hands, wiping away your tears and reassuring you that “I am taking care of you because you deserve it. You’re not weak or stupid, you’re just my friend who’s hurt, and I'm happy to take care of you because I love you. Ok?”
“Ok” you sniffle. The tears have progressively gotten less embarrassing and flow down slower. You can almost breathe like normal again.
He gives you one last squeez and comes back to repeat the wrapping process on your right arm. As he wraps, the tears come to a slow halt, slowly fading away in the warmth and comfort as you let Jet cover your wounds. Just as he is done wrapping your arms and moves to cover the holes and burns in your fingers, Ghoul comes back from cleaning the table to check up on you - energetic rat as always, but there’s obvious worry in his eyes. He’s holding your notebook in his hand, waving it like a looted prize and dangling it just out of your reach (not like you could even attempt to reach it, as Jet softly but firmly held your hands in his).
“I can’t believe it survived! I thought all our notes were done for!” you squealed happily, almost jumping from relief.
“I still can’t believe you were willing to bet your arms on trying to salvage this thing, you so owe me for forcing you away!” Ghoul gave you his shit-eating grin, but you could see the relief in his eyes. At the end of the day, he was just glad you were going to be alright, even if you’d been a colossal fucking dumbass.
Jet wraps the wounds on your fingers with small fabric scraps, tying them tight while berating Ghoul for making you jumpy. “I can’t wrap their fingers like that, asshole. Stop fucking dangling that stupid notebook before i let them punch you in the face like they so clearly want” he says with a smile, as Ghoul sits in the other couch of the booth and plops the notebook on the table in mock defeat.
You knew your arms wouldn’t be very useful for the close while, as you and Jet both knew what this kind of burns does, but at least you managed to get some good notes in for next time (and Ghoul promptly reminds you that he’ll slap your arms clean off if you try to do another experiment before you heal). As Jet finishes wrapping your fingers, he lifts them gently for you to see and approve of the wraps, you nod to approve and smile.
The pain was no longer overwhelming, as Ghoul and Jet did their best to make you feel better by talking about the cool scars you’ll have when this heals. You couldn’t help but smile when picturing how your arms would look, splotchy white scars covering your forearms and hands, thinking about how this bit of pain will later become a funny story you tell about your badass scars.
You reach out to hold Ghoul’s hand and nuzzle against Jet. “Thanks for taking care of me even though I was being a dick. It's on you guys to calm Party and Kobra when they find out though” you say with a mischievous smile, watching the colour drain from their faces. This is going to be interesting for sure.