I've never had or been in the presence of someone with a concussion, so I apologize in advance for any glaring errors in its portrayal/blame them on how freaking durable the Pines family is when it comes to physical injury.
Pathetic.
That was the perfect word to describe Stan, because when the giant robot thing went crashing to the ground, the main thing that went through his head was panic over whether his would-be murderer was alive.
Mabel barely had time to lower them to the ground before he was running frantically towards the smoking, burning wreckage, heart pounding in his chest worse than it had since the day he first came to this stupid town, worse than when he first got the stupid portal working again, with please don't let him be dead waging war against stop caring about him you stupid idiot he obviously doesn't care about you and I can't.
Faintly, through the ringing in his ears, he could hear the kids calling out to him as he rushed to the spot where the trai- his bro- Ford had been standing when the robot crashed, hoping against hope that he wouldn't have to see-
As the smoke began clearing away, he saw the giant hand, with its fingers buried up to the knuckle in the ground and positioned until they kind of looked like a giant metal teepee. And curled up inside it was a familiar shadowy figure, who after a moment coughed and slowly sat up.
Stan was disgusted by the rush of relief that filled his chest and made his knees go weak.
"Great Uncle Ford!" Dipper's voice was cracking with anxiety even more than usual as he rushed forward. "Great Uncle Ford, are you okay?!"
Ford coughed again, and then crawled out of the giant hand's wreckage and slowly got to his feet, holding a hand to his head.
"...Yes, I'm all right, my boy. Mostly, anyway, I think I might have-"
CRACK!
Guess all that time in the multiverse didn't give him perfect fighting reflexes after all, Stan thought, flexing his throbbing fist in vicious satisfaction and ignoring the shocked and indignant (respectively) cries of his niece and nephew.
After a moment Ford slowly pushed himself up on one elbow, wiping the blood from his lip, and said in a dazedly accusing voice, "...You hit me."
"No sh-shirt, genius!" Even through the sudden rage tinting his vision with red and breaking through the relief, some stupid part of Stan's brain registered that the kids are here enough to keep him from using the word he actually wanted to say; instead he advanced on Ford again, snarling like a mad dog. "You sicced that thing on me just ta get your stupid house back?! What is WRONG with you?!"
"No!" Ford slowly pulled himself to his feet, swaying unsteadily until he staggered back against the giant hand, "It was an accident! I was-looking for a solution to my problem, and the robot overheard me talking to myself! I never would've-the closest I came to that was…thinkin' about lurin' you into my spare cryo tube in my secret bunker with a trail o' money, but I wouldn't've actually done it!"
He didn't seem to realize how that really wasn't helping his case, not least because it sounded like the lamest lie Stan had ever heard from a guy who wasn't even a good liar to begin with-
"It's true!"
Like a hillbilly-shaped jack-in-the-box, Old Man McGucket popped out of the wreckage and hobbled towards them, coughing and hacking and using his beard to wipe some of the ash and smoke from his face.
"Stanford didn't mean ta hurt ya none, he was jes' talkin' out loud and accidentally gave the robot an attack order!" He stumbled to a halt in front of them, favoring his right foot, and wrung his hands. "...In retrospect, I mighta needed ta change its wiring in a few spots in case o' somethin' like this happenin'."
…Stan wanted to believe it.
He desperately wanted to believe that this whole thing was a stupid accident on Ford's part instead of him wanting to get rid of Stan so bad that he'd resorted to-to that.
On the other hand, he couldn't afford to trust in anything that seemed like Ford didn't totally hate his guts, not anymore, and the crazy old man that lived in the dump wasn't what he'd call a reliable witness even on his best day…
Stan looked back and forth between them in growing frustration-and then he saw the trickle of red oozing from under Ford's palm, and that his glassy, watery eyes had slightly uneven pupils as they stared pleadingly at him.
Again, he felt disgust at himself, because he knew what a pathetic idiot he was for what he was about to do…and that he was going to do it anyway. With a groan he pushed his glasses up enough for him to pinch the bridge of his nose.
"...Let's just go inside and see what you idiots did to yourselves."
Thankfully the porch was the only thing that had been seriously smashed up, and as he limped through the wreckage Fiddleford offered to fix it for free, which Stan obviously accepted with no take backs.
Without even needing to be asked Dipper retrieved the medical kit, while Mabel got a bowl of water and some clean rags from the kitchen.
Their parents probably wouldn't think it was a good sign that they'd learned how to do this so well, but hey, it just meant they were living dangerously the way kids should.
While they were doing that, Stan herded Dr. Frankenford and McIgor into the downstairs bathroom and had them sit on the edge of the tub while he checked them over.
Both of them were pretty bruised and scratched up all over, meaning Mabel was probably going to use up her whole box of goofy bandages on them by the time they were done. McGucket also turned out to have a high tolerance for pain, considering he'd been able to limp all the way inside with a broken ankle, and a few nasty slices on his arms and chest that were definitely gonna need stitches. Stan wondered if Mabel knew enough about sewing to handle that, since it'd definitely be cheaper than taking him to the hospital, and bonus, the kid'd probably make the stitches butterfly-shaped or something, so it'd be like getting a few fancy tattoos.
As for Ford…
"The good news is, your concussion probably isn't fatal," Stan finally said, sitting on his haunches in front of his brother. "The bad news is, you have a concussion."
Ford blinked a few times, and then muttered, "The metal plate in my head…prolly shielded me from the worst of it."
"Very funny."
Ford reached up and knocked on the side of his head.
Clank, cla-
"Son of a groppin'-nyeaugh!"
"...And that's why you shoulda waited ta do that until you're better, knucklehead." Stan recovered from the surprise of realizing he was serious about the plate enough to wring out a fresh cloth, and began sponging away some of the blood caked around Ford's ear and clotted in his hair, trying to ignore the memories of younger times tapping his shoulder.
After a minute Ford's eyes opened again, and widened like he'd just realized something.
"...Dipper?" he croaked; his eyes wandered dazedly for a moment until they settled on where their nephew was helping Mabel clean up McGucket (who now, sure enough, had multicolored bandages wrapped around his hands and the smaller injuries on his arms). "Could you and your sister…go downstairs and…get the…" he frowned in concentration and then brightened, "green case on my desk? It has some…some things inside that should be more effective…than a hospital."
Dipper blinked, then quickly jumped to his feet. "Uh, yeah! Yeah, sure, I can totally do that!"
Ford gave him a wobbly smile. "Thank you, my boy."
Stan tried to not let himself feel more bitter than he already was.
An expression of impending joy overload spread across the kid's face, accompanied by the faintest sound of a squeal building in the back of his throat, until he contained himself and sprinted off for the basement, racing Mabel.
"You got some kinda healing voodoo crap?" Stan asked once they were gone.
"...Jheselbraum the Unswerving gave it to me," Ford murmured, wincing as Stan began cleaning out the cut with peroxide. "She said…with my personality I was probably going to need it." He chewed his lip for a moment, before adding, "...I'm just realizing that might not have been entirely complimentary."
"Nope, I don't think it was," McGucket muttered, trying to flex his toes and giving a tiny yelp of pain. He was by now lying sprawled in the tub, with his ankle propped up on the edge of it and wrapped in an ice pack to keep it from swelling too much, foot pale and dirty where they'd finally unwrapped all the bandaging that had been around it. Ideally he would've gotten an actual bath, since whatever he was covered with probably wouldn't do his injuries any favors, but it seemed better to handle one problem at a time, and besides, Stan already had to see his own gross old man body once a day, he wasn't in a hurry to see someone else's-
"I want my house back."
…Oh that's okay. It's been a whole twenty minutes since you tried ta kill me, I totally needed another reminder of why you did it. Oh, right, sorry, it was just an accident cuz you were talking out loud to a robot about how ta handle this 'problem.'
How ta handle me.
Stan took a deep breath through his nose, and another one out, reminding himself that it would probably upset the kids if he screamed or punched his brother again-and instead compromised by picking up the bag of frozen peas Mabel had grabbed from the fridge and slamming it just a little too hard against the side of Ford's head.
Ford moaned and went cross eyed for a second, before forcing his vision to focus on Stan again as he clamped his own hand over the ice pack. "Lemme finish, St'nley. I wanna…have my house back, but…you don't…gotta leave. Never said that."
That pleading was back.
It had to be a lie, now that his plan had failed, right? He'd been gone so long maybe he'd actually learned how to lie properly, if Stan tried to trust him he'd just be falling into his trap, whatever it was, he couldn't-
He couldn't see any tells.
Not even the signs of someone who was really good at hiding their tells.
Just a lot of pain that Ford was trying to push through with a scary amount of success as he stared back at Stan.
He could tell he wasn't going to be able to meet the stare for long without something inside him breaking; to his relief, at that moment the kids came back with the med kit or whatever it was, so he didn't have to.
Yes, I enjoy having people punch Ford just a little bit too much.
Deal with it, world.
