savetheearth | Mission - Pancakes / Backdated to the morning of April 3rd

Who: Tony and anyone awake at Willow Ridge after the Kidnapping Incident
What: Demon be hungry, so that means pancakes for all.
Where: Willow Ridge kitchen
When: Morning of April 3rd, after Nathan's rescue
Warnings: Possibly some recollections of violence, but otherwise only pancakes. Maybe eggs. We'll see.

Dressed in jeans and a light T-shit, one could almost forget just the night before he'd been barely able to walk under his own power and bleeding all over himself. Quite the change, though watching closely it was still evident Tony was a little tender and sore. Moving stiff and careful while he cooked.

As it turned out, healing was hungry business. Fortunately Willow Ridge was equipped with a well enough stocked kitchen, and Tony with a little skill instilled by Hajime. Despite his best efforts, he still couldn't really use chopsticks with any kind of efficiency. Fortunately pancakes only required a spatula.

Stacks of them, in fact. The first attempts, under-cooked or over had already been eaten, but now he was on a roll. Why not ask him why he's cooked so much, or join in to help devour the abundance? Surely, he figured, the others would wake soon and they'd be hungry as well. Though likely Tony was far over-estimating their hunger by comparing it to his own.

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Yeah he figured Richard would get it pretty quickly. 'Bit of trouble' was usually code for 'all hell broke loose' again. As usual.

"I've been keeping an eye on Nathan, you knew that. Let my guard down for five minutes and the douchebag copy showed up and snatched him. So I had to go get him back, that's all." Minus a few key details, mind you.

Casually he slides a plate full of pancakes in Richard's direction before going back to cooking like a fiend.

"Nathan's fine, little shaken up but no worse for wear."

At one point he would have been worried out of his mind. After spending several nights barely sleeping and seriously considering at one point that he might be having a heart attack he had decided that Tony was very well equipped to look after himself and he was driving himself insane over the wrong kinds of reasons.

Tony's physical health isn't something he needs to be watching out for anymore.

He takes the plate, glancing around for a fork before he digs in.

"Good. What about you?"

Unfortunately being Tony's guardian means becoming desensitized to his constant injury, or going completely insane. On the bright side he's more or less indestructible now, so while he takes the beatings he will continue getting up again and again. Whether or not that's a good thing is still up for debate.

Precisely, it's not his body that needs to be worried about. His already fragile mind, on the other hand...

A fork slides his way, as well as the strawberry syrup because of course he insists on the strawberry.

"Mm, avoided the worst of the trap, thanks to Nathan. Still ended up with a few more holes than I'd have liked, but you know me, I'll be fine. The copy won't be bothering us again."

His fragile mind is something that Richard is more than prepared to admit that he needs to concentrate on. The physical injuries don't mean much if his head is falling apart even while his body is healing. It requires an entirely different approach that's still a learning process for him, but he's doing his best.

"Glad t' hear it," he murmurs, applying the strawberry syrup liberally to the top of his pancake stack. "You got rid of it?"

He's improving, small steps, but it really can't all be done alone. A good support network has been invaluable in the process, however. Tony knows he has places to go when he needs to be safe. He has a home, and a family. That's the most important part.

Now it's just learning how to deal with his own head. Richard's doing great, they still have a long way to go but they're getting there. Bit by bit.

"Finished the job." Which is a roundabout way of saying yes, more or less. There was more to it, but he didn't want to go into gory details at the breakfast table. Speaking of he'll be joining now with his own stack of pancakes to devour.

"Good boy," he responds, a little muffled around a mouthful of pancake and strawberry syrup. Though he'd been standing until then, he moves to join Tony at the breakfast table and sets his fork down to briefly and fondly ruffle his hair again.

It's a dad thing. Don't question him.

"Hope you kept it clean. Blood's a pain in the ass to scrub out."

"Heh," You know, that's really the last thing he'd expected to hear on the subject. He'd just more or less admitted to killing someone... but it was necessary, wasn't it? To protect Nathan, to protect them all from further harm. And truth was, Cesar's copy had killed himself. Tony just finished him so he wouldn't suffer. "...Thanks." He adds after a few moments of startled contemplation.

It was all very confusing, wasn't it? A year ago if anyone had told him this would happen he'd not only think they were completely insane, he'd be aghast. Tony then wouldn't hurt a fly, wouldn't even raise a fist in defense much less... this. And now look at him. How times have changed.

How they've all changed.

But he can't say that he regrets any of it. He beams up at Richard, tired and sluggish but overall no worse for wear. Things certainly could be worse. "No blood. He dissolved into feathers, funny enough. Weirdest thing I've seen." And that was after watching him melt from acid... That still ranks pretty high on the gruesome chart.

Honestly if that had happened before the mafia had taken him he'd have been sick to his stomach and unable to act. Again, how times have changed.

It was startling to Richard, too, when he thought about it. A year ago, all of this would have been too much for him to deal with. He'd just taken a kid in off the streets and he was even questioning the wisdom of that decision, and now here he was praising that same young man for killing someone.

The thought was enough to make him pause in his eating. How much had he been changed by all of this?

"Yeah.. weird," he muttered distractedly, poking a mouthful of pancake around on the plate. "Did they all do that?"

In the face of... well everything they'd been through, the importance of certain behaviors has certainly changed. When you can't rely on or trust anyone but yourself and your close circle, when even the police are a danger to you, you learn to take matters into your own hands.

Especially matters like kidnapping and attempted murder.

"Dunno, he's the only one I've heard of dying so far. Not really something I feel like experimenting with, all things considered." What happened was necessary, but tragic. He isn't going to suddenly change his stance on the value of life because he had to end one.

He's just going to freak out quietly later that he did have to end one.

"Yeah. All things considered, that's not somethin' I'm going to encourage you to experiment with."

As if to drive that home, he chafes one hand lightly over Tony's wrist as they sit together. Even through all the changes, for both of them, he still doesn't worry for the kid any less.

He just worries about different things.

"Yeah... let's not. That's a slippery slope I don't even want to consider going down."

He's not some mindless killing machine, but he has a feeling it could be a risk. Being what he is, it would likely be very easy to fall down that path and never be able to turn back. Demons aren't exactly associated with restraint after all. He offers a little reassuring smile, before stuffing his face full of pancake.

"Thanks."

He'll take that gesture to mean Richard isn't disappointed in him, and isn't giving up on him just yet.

"Don't even worry about it. I got my eye on you."

It came out like a joke, but all seriousness was meant. If anyone was going to check Tony when things started getting out of hand, he might be one of the best people to try it. At least, until even more of the kid's power started falling back into his hands. Who knew when it would actually end?

"You're welcome for that, too."

"Good, at least someone does. I might just need it."

He doesn't know how far the rabbit hole goes, or how far he'll end up unwillingly. Fortunately he's fairly certain Richard could do something about it if he did end up slipping. Although the question is how far is he willing to go if necessary?

Not something Tony feels like dwelling on so much so he'll just eat pancakes instead.

"I knew I could count on you."

Mission - Pancakes / Backdated to the morning of April 3rd

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