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“I’m fine,” Jean croaked, sitting up in bed to make a show of it. He’d been lying down for most of the morning, listening to Marco tell him not to speak or move or do much more than drink tea and rest. Jean was tired of it.
Marco shook his head and sat on the edge of the bed. It creaked beneath his weight. “You sound like shit.” His hand rested against Jean’s shoulder, another sign that Jean appreciated but found himself frustrated with. His voice sounded like he had taken to eating gravel and it felt as if he had.
Jean growled and shrugged Marco’s hand off his shoulder. A deep phlegmy cough followed, ripping its way through his chest and splattering against his curled hand. He screwed his nose up at the sound. This cold was getting the better of him. “I’ve got stuff to do,” Jean whined, barely able to make words past the pain in his throat.
“If you keep talking, you’re not going to have much of a voice left.” Marco pushed Jean back onto the bed despite his struggling. Jean was too weak to fight back and he hated it. Instead he lay there sniffling defiantly and pouting at his circumstances. Marco lectured him again, “You really have to stop talking and rest. It’s only going to get worse if you don’t.”
Jean rolled his eyes and rolled over in a swirl of blankets, curling himself up with a huff. “I hate this.” His voice sounded like it would give way at any moment, lost to the sniffles and the coughs that drove him mad. “I could be doing things and not lying hereuseless.”
With a sigh, Marco crossed his arms and stared down at Jean’s face with a slightly amused smile on his lips. “Give me one good reason I should let you out of bed.” When Jean peeked up from the blankets, Marco had raised his eyebrows, an expectant look on his face.
Taking a deep breath, Jean pulled a face of his own, pouting once again at how captive he felt, how useless it felt to lie here while Marco looked after him. There was no way he was going to win against that face; so he answered in his deep croaking voice with the best reason he could come up with on short notice, “I’m Batman.”