Victor

The door opens and he wants to pretend to be asleep, but his power levels are on display on the monitor for anyone who walks in. It's the green kid again. He'd rather be alone, but it's better that it's the green kid than the people who call themselves his parents.

"Hi," the boy waves and closes the door a little too loudly. He makes a face and mumbles an apology before turning back to Victor. He puts his backpack down on the floor and takes a seat in the chair next to Victor's bed. As usual, he takes a tablet out of his backpack and in the corner of his eye Victor sees him pull up a checker's game. This kid loves checkers. At least once a week he's been asking Victor to play and never once has he taken him up on the offer.

"Do you want to be black or red today?" Neither. Victor looks at the wall. "Or we could just watch some TV." The kid takes the TV remote from the table next to Victor's bed and soon they're watching afternoon cartoons, or at least the kid is. Victor is still hoping he'll leave, but after one show ends and neither of them speaks, the kid is still here. On weekdays he usually only stays an hour, but it's Saturday. Last Saturday he stayed for almost four. Four hours of awkward silence from Victor, knock-knock jokes and TV cartoons from the kid.

"Why do you keep coming here?" Victor would at least like to know why he has to deal with this kid. He thought if he ignored him, he'd stop coming back, but it's been three weeks and this kid hasn't taken a hint.

"My parents are trying to keep me away from my best friend and keep my mind off my other best friend. She died." His voice is so calm, but the words are full of conflict.

"Why?" Victor asks. The kid turns the volume on the TV down and meets Victor's eyes.

"She jumped in front of a truck." Shit. Victor wasn't expecting that kind of answer. That wasn't even the question he was asking.

"That's not what I meant... What does that have to do with you being here?" Victor asks. There are plenty of other kids in the hospital that green boy can bug. Garfield shrugs.

"If I'm here volunteering a few hours a week, that's a few hours a week they don't have to supervise me. They have friends who work here. They'll tell them if I don't show up or if I do something I shouldn't." Garfield looks at the TV screen again, but doesn't turn the volume up. Again, he dodged the question.

"I saw your sign in sheet. You don't get any visitors and the other volunteers don't come see you either." Because Victor didn't want them to. He'd told the other kids who were out for volunteer hours and adults with therapy dogs to leave him the hell alone. He doesn't want anyone looking at his new face. He doesn't want to look at his new face. He'd told Garfield that too, but the kid just kept asking annoying questions, so then Victor didn't talk at all. For the last three weeks, Garfield would come, sit and watch TV, play video games or try to get Victor to play checkers and Victor has refused to respond. He kept hoping Garfield would move on and find someone else to bother, but Garfield clearly can't take a hint.

"Why me? Isn't there anyone else you could hang out with? Someone who actually wants a visitor?" Victor tries again.

"Don't you want to know why my friend jumped in front of a truck?" Garfield asks. Victor's eyes widen. Again, the kid went to a place he didn't think he'd go and again, he avoided answering Victor's question.

"Yes, kind of." He is curious. "But, answer my question first."

"...You think you want to be alone, because you're different now, but trust me. You don't." Garfield meets his eyes again. "I wasn't always green... It was hard for me too. I thought it might be hard for you, the change... I don't know what happened to you and you don't have to tell me, but I know it's hard." Those words hurt, but they help too... Everyone else just keeps telling him how lucky he is to be alive, how lucky he is that his parents are geniuses and happened to be testing this technology when they did... but Victor, doesn't feel lucky. There have been many moments in the last few months when he wishes he'd have just died. Garfield is the first person to acknowledge that this is hard for him and it sounds like he's got some shit to deal with too.

"Why did your friend jump in front of a truck?" Victor asks.

"...These people showed up at the orphanage we lived at... We think they were after her, but don't know for sure." He looks away from Victor now and he wonders if Garfield is lying for a second, but there's too much emotion in his voice. And there's too much in those words to unpack. Orphanage? "We think she decided to jump because she didn't think she could get away from them... My friend is trying to track them down, to figure out why they were after her. I want to help, but my parents just want me to forget about it, like it never happened."

"Maybe you should start at the beginning," Victor suggests. Garfield looks up and he pauses, like he's thinking about it and then he starts. He tells Victor all about his childhood, when he became green, his parents dying an all the trouble that happened after. Being a green kid without parents, was not easy. Victor is starting to feel lucky, that even though his parents had experimented on him without his consent, at least they were still here to deal with the aftermath. Garfield's parents saved his life and then died... leaving him to fend for himself.

He talks about finally making friends and then a charity ball where his classmates got blown up and killed, then about running away, getting adopted and finding out about the death of his friend. The more he talks, the more Victor begins regretting the weeks of silence. All this time he was only thinking about himself, he didn't realize that Garfield might also need a friend... He'd just assumed he was another honor roll, good-goody two shoes out for brownie points, but it couldn't be further from the truth.

"I'm pretty good at computer stuff... Not as good as I could be if I'd studied more, but maybe I can help..." Victor says. Garfield shakes his head.

"If my parents find out, they won't let me hangout with you anymore and then you'll be alone again." Garfield says. "Can we just play checkers and watch cartoons and not talk about how you could be the terminator?" Victor frowns. "Sorry."

"It's okay... It's just... I wish they hadn't done this... I wish they'd just let me die." Victor's non-bionic eye tears up, a reminder that the other one isn't the one he was born with. That makes him tear up more. It's the first time he's said these words out loud in a while. He'd told them to his parents once, but they ignored him, so he didn't say them again. Everyone else at the hospital just kept reminding him to be grateful, so they probably wouldn't want to hear the truth either. Garfield pats his hand.

"I know, but they didn't. So, let's make the best of it." Garfield says.

Author's note: Howdy! I hope you don't hate me. Sorry this is a week late. I should be back to regular Sunday updates now. Also, it looks like some people were upset about how violent the last two Raven chapters were. Apologies. I'll update the tags and in the future I will put a note at the beginning of any chapters with heavy violence, so you can choose how and if you read them. I'm not 100% happy with this chapter, because I wrote it a bit quickly, but I really wanted to get back to regular updates. Thanks for sticking with me.