Kevin glared at the greyed out armor pieces as though he could intimidate them into reanimation.
Unfortunately, charged or not, the little bit of goo that remained of Glitch’s software refused to even acknowledge that the old pieces of themself existed. Once extracted out of his phone, they’d gone completely silent.
“Kevin?”
This was stupid- why wasn’t Glitch pulling themself together? It should have been instinctual for them to seep into one entity- he should know, given his experience as Bootleg. Glitch was certainly smart enough to know this, they grew up in the Omntrix after all. One didn’t just not pick up a thing or two when living in a device that complex.
A large hand encapsulated his shoulder, jolting him out of his one-sided glaring contest with what was left of his friend. Head whipping back, he blinked at Phil’s worried expression. At least he thought it was worry- it was a similar face to the one Gwen and Ben wore sometimes when they thought he wasn’t looking,
“Kid, I sent you to bed hours ago.” Phil said, mustache twitching with the softer syllables. “What are you doing out here?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” He mumbled in reply, straightening in his seat a little as he crossed his arms. “What are you still doing here?”
“Trying to figure out what’s going on with the power-” Glancing at the table, he cut himself off of a tangent. “Oh, you were checking on Glitch.”
“So?!” Kevin snapped. “What are you going to do about?”
“Umm... Frankly? Not much.” Phil shrugged, eyebrows raised at the defensive tone before his expression softened. “But kiddo, you’ve got to give him time.”
“It’s been two weeks since the fight- that’s plenty of time.” Looking away, his fingers picked where skin met the newly repaired Antitrix in irritation.
“It’s really not.” Crouching down, Phil placed his hand on Kevin’s, pulling his fingers away as he leveled with him. “You’ve got to remember that Glitch went through just as much as you did- if not more. He watched his brother get launched into space without knowing if he every would see him again just to then go up against an intergalactic conqueror in a battle to the death, TWICE, before ultimately losing and getting stranded in the desert.”
Phil brushed Kevin’s hair back gently, voice soft as he continued.
“A mechamorph’s body is dependent on their state of mind, and frankly, Glitch is well beyond the point of exhaustion. That’s not even taking in account for the stresses his body has to undergo with working around his Human DNA. Just give him time to recover.”
“But what if he doesn’t?” Glancing up, Kevin’s throat was hot and tight with the knot currently lodged in it. “What if he’s stuck like this forever? Than it’ll be all my fault- and I’ll have killed my friend- and- and-”
“Oh, hey hey.” Arms wrapping around him, Phil pulled him close into a hug. Firm enough to be secure, but loose enough to where Kevin could leave whenever he wanted. Kevin sniffled before burying his face into his shoulder, taking in the weird mix of electrical fires and old man deodorant as he struggled not to Phil’s shirt wet.
-//-
Kevin needs a lot of things, a hug is one of them. Especially when he’s stressing over the fact that one of the few people in the world that seemed to want to understand him might be dead.
Phil’s not exactly sure what he’s doing when it comes to Kevin, but damn if he’s not trying.
