+1 small, superpowered boy

[bilocate]

Today is a day Alex is especially glad he brought his pocket notebook with him, as it means he can take notes on the weird PSA. He doesn't seem scared, or even particularly surprised, as he jots down some quick things to remember to ask his dad about later - interdimensional stuff sounds like something out of his dad's sci-fi movie collection - and makes a note to himself to look for the door home after no more than an hour. That's probably enough time to look around around without also being so long his parents will notice and get worried.

Once he's got his notebook stashed away again, he starts off towards the direction he's fairly sure he came from, just to make sure the door is there. After a few moments, he winces and clutches his head. Apparently, headaches could travel across dimensions, too. Biting his lip, he carefully looks around, trying to gauge which adult looks the least likely to be annoyed by a kid. Eventually, when the headache throbs especially badly, he gives up that endeavor to approach the nearest person who doesn't look clueless and asks, as politely as he can manage, "Do you know where I can get some aspirin? My head is killing me and it's been long enough since I took some I can have some more. I think."

If time worked the same across dimensions it would have been easier to tell, but alas.

Comments

[bilocate]

Alex nods his agreement. "They've been talking about it on the news. It's so sad. But I guess there's nothing I can do, since I'm not a doctor." Heck, his dad is a doctor, and there's nothing he can do about it.

"I guess. At least it's winter. It's always worse in summer; I get really exhausted just doing normal stuff when it's hot out, and all the hours of sunlight make the headaches worse. Winter's the best." Winter: the season of long nights, blissful cold, and all the fun a kid could have in the snow. Snowball fights, sledding, it's all near and dear to his heart, good family memories mixed in with lesser, livable amounts of pain.

He smiles and decides it's probably okay to give Steve a hug, if it's quick. A lot of people don't like to be touched, though, so he keeps it brief. Steve looks a lot better when he smiles and Alex wants to keep it that way. "Well, I mean it. You're very dad-ish."

Listening with remarkable seriousness for a child, he still winces at Steve's list of illnesses. Any one of those was bad. Altogether, it made for a really rough life. He couldn't imagine what all of that would feel like at once. He's glad Steve's alright now, but the mental image it paints is bleak. No wonder he was okay with something as scary as the idea of being experimented on.

Since his dad's a doctor, he knows a little bit about metabolism. "Wait, wouldn't you need lots of food if your metabolism is going that fast? Especially if you're also healing that fast? Should we be looking for food for you right now?" He'll help Steve look for a diner or something if he needs to.

[shieldborne]

"You're a little young to have to worry about the drug crisis yet," Steve says gently. "You take care of yourself and learn, for now. The world's gonna need you later on."

He looks thoughtful at the talk of preferring winter. It was always the opposite for him. Thick summer air wasn't pleasant, but breathing icy air could shut down his airways at a moment's notice, and when your back is hinky to begin with, slippery walkways don't help. He'd offer sympathy, but the hug derails him, and he melts a little, visibly. He returns the hug very carefully, with all the wary gentleness of someone who knows his own strength, and gives Alex a careful stroke on the head, smoothing his hair.

"Don't worry, I ate all four sticks of fried butter this morning for breakfast," he jokes. "No, you're right, I do need to keep fueled pretty well, but I was also engineered for endurance. It's no good to have a soldier collapse in the field if he's not eating enough. Don't ask me how it works, but I'm all right on three or four meals a day, as long as they're big meals."

"What about you, though? Are you hungry? There are plenty of places around for food and snacks."