Malcolm wasn’t paying much attention, so he missed most of what Hiro said. He looked at Hiro with a bit of confusion.
“I heard ‘nope’, which isn’t fucking surprising. Believe me, I’m a lot older than you might think,”he said.
Hiro sighed, half upset he hadn’t heard. “ I..it’s fine it’s whatever.” He said and looked at the buildings ahead
Malcolm noticed Hiro’s reaction and he narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
“The fuck did you say, kid? I know you said something else,”he asked.
“ it’s nothing really,” he said and kept his eyes on a clearing. Hiro stoped, drawing his bow and loosing an arrow.
Malcolm’s eyes narrowed further, his expression almost a scowl, but he sighed and calmed when Hiro stopped. He watched the arrow, wondering what Hiro was shooting at.
Hiro took two deep breaths, feeling as though the world had slowed entirely. He waited till the big cat leapt at him and Malcolm before letting the arrow fly straight into the cats head, piercing through its lower jaw and out the back of its head
Malcolm blinked at the sight of the cat, an eyebrow raising. He otherwise didn’t flinch.
The bots surrounded him and Bax shifted into a defensive position. Though, they all calmed when the cat was dead.
“Hmm… well, I see we have breakfast,”Malcolm commented.
“ yeah..” he said and sighed “ I heard it not that far back and thought it run but it didn’t. “ he said, glad they’d moved topics
Malcolm sighed, then shrugged. He hadn’t heard the cat at all. Though, he was mostly deaf in his left ear, the tattered thing that it was, and was going deaf in his right ear.
“Well, I can prepare it. I’m more used to cooking birds, but you get what you get out here,”Malcolm said, rolling up his sleeves as he approached the cat.
“ sure thanks dad..” he said softly as he was walking away. He went to go retrieve his jacket and stuff from where he through it
Malcolm paused, bewildered. He glanced over at Hiro in confusion. Did the kid just call him ‘Dad’ or was he hearing things? He wasn’t sure.
Malcolm pushed aside that nagging question and went to work on preparing the cat. He brought out his toolkit and found a stash of miniaturized cookware. He snickered triumphantly, glad he had made them, then brought them to full size before starting to cook.
Hiro came back with wood for a fire, igniting it with his powers.
“Thanks, kid,”Malcolm said.
He cooked enough for the pair to eat. While he wait, he brought out a miniaturized cooler and stashed the rest of the meat in there. Then, when it was done, he handed Hiro a plate, before making himself one.
“ thanks..” he hesitated a moment before sitting and eating
“Don’t worry, kid. I can cook a pretty fucking decent meal, and I’ve never been one to poison folks,”Malcolm commented.
He calmly ate, watching the six bots patrol the area.
“ it’s not that.. I don’t know.. never mind “ he said softly
Malcolm turned and sighed.
“Alright. Spit it out. What the fuck’s on your mind?”he bade.
Hiro looked to Malcolm “ your the only man I’ve ever met besides the man who created me.. and you’ve been like a father so I wanted to ask.. could I call you dad?”
Malcolm stared blankly at him for a long while, then turned to stare at the pot. So, he had heard the kid right earlier, but… to be so openly called ‘dad’… Had he truly been fatherly to the kid? He hadn’t noticed it, not one bit.
“I…”
Memories of his youth, before the explosion, came to him. He had once had a fiancé, and they had talked about children a few times. They had been open to the idea, even curious what it would be like. Then that fateful day that shredded Malcolm’s life into nothingness, almost literally.
“… don’t know,”he said, his voice barely a whisper.
“ I understand.” He said and lowed his head a bit “ just.. just don’t push me away like he did.” He said, referring to his creator
Malcolm glanced at Hiro at the last bit. His eyebrow raised.
“Your dad?”he asked. He understood what Hiro meant, but he wanted to make sure he was referring to his father, and not to Malcolm himself, even if the boy didn’t know of his involvement.
He didn’t yet respond to Hiro’s plea though. His mind was still whirling with the revelation of his apparently paternal actions around Hiro, and he had no idea what to do.
“ he wasn’t a dad though, no matter how I see it I was always just a experiment to him.. nothing more..”
Malcolm grunted in acknowledgment. He wasn’t about to openly admit that, up until Hiro had pointed out that he was acting like a father, he had only seen Hiro as just a walking experiment. It honestly still stunned him that he would act like that. When had Malcolm ever been paternal?
Around machines. Nanobots. All the things he had ever built. And Hiro was among them, even if Malcolm had only designed the nanobots and the basics of his skeleton.
“I see,”Malcolm mumbled.
Hiro huffed “ let’s just get set up, it’s only a bit further “
Malcolm was surprisingly silent, and he cleaned and packed up everything, returning the cookware and cooler to miniature size and putting them back in his toolkit.
He followed Hiro, still without saying a word, his eyes distant with deep thought.