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It had been longer than anyone was really comfortable with Flash not having been separated from the Venom symbiote, and after much reluctance, he was convinced to submit to the procedure. Neither party was happy about it, but the actual event which took the symbiote from him happened in a matter of minutes, behind the closed doors of the medical lab in the SHIELD headquarters. The symbiote carefully contained and sent for testing, while Flash gave several vials of his blood and was dismissed, temporarily, to recover. Half a man again, at least in his own mind, he wheels himself through the medical bay doors and into the main corridor, stopping once he's in fully out in the hall. Flash takes a moment, gritting his teeth and breathing methodically, before gripping the wheels of his chair, and setting off down the hall at a slow pace.
Teddy hasn't had much to do recently, which means he's been able to take leave and be out of the headquarters more often than usual. That also means he has things to catch up on whenever he /is/ on the job. That explains the pile of file folders he's going through as he walks down the hall in the opposite direction of Flash's wheeling. When the other man comes out of the infirmary, Teddy glances up and catches him taking a moment, which causes him to frown. "Hey, Flash, need a hand there?" He takes a few steps closer in case he can help out with the chair at all.
"What?" Flash stops his chair, and glances back. "Oh, it's you. Altman, right?" Flash doesn't sound happy, but from the look of him, why should he? No doubt the last time Teddy saw him he was much taller, and had two working legs. "If you wanna help, get the door for me," he says a bit grimly, gripping the wheels again and starting to ease himself forward. "Actually, on second thought. You drink, Altman?"
Teddy blinks down at Flash and nods to acknowledge that is, in fact, his name. That's all he does at first, though, because he knows better than to ask about what happens behind those doors. Sometimes it's best not to know. The rest he can work with, though. "I do in fact drink," he says, glancing to the door, which he'll move to open anyway after says, "Looks like you need one. Can you have one?"
"What do you mean, can I have one?" Flash looks at Teddy a bit incredulously, as if maybe he thinks the young man has been roped into some kind of plot to keep Flash from spending the week without the symbiote completely blackout drunk. Because that's pretty much his plan. Beats being lucid, that's for damn sure. "I better be allowed to have one. Hell, I better be allowed to have all I want, considering what I go through here.." He wheels himself forward, through the open door. Maybe the kid isn't trying to stop him, after all. It's hard to tell, especially without the usual second opinion kicking around in his head. "Sorry. Don't mean to snap at you, just.. tough day, not at my best. The cure for that is whiskey." No it isn't, Flash, you just don't want to face the world alone.
Teddy lets out a sigh as he holds the door open, glancing away from Flash with his mouth pressed in a firm line. "Because I don't know if whatever they have you on will…You know what? Never mind." He watches the other man wheel himself through, then follows and lets the door shut behind him. "Whiskey it is, and don't sweat it." The corner of his mouth curls up in a smirk. "Know a good place?"
"They don't have me on anything right now. Took it allllll away," Flash says. If he hadn't been just coming out of the medical lab when Teddy found him, there might be reason to think he'd already been hitting the bottle. Nope, this is just the morbid self-disgust and self-pity starting to show through. "There's a liquor store a couple blocks down," he says with a motion of his hand in that general direction. He's no stranger to it, it would seem. "What's your preference? Irish? Scotch? Bourbon?" Whatever the variety Teddy might think is best, one would hope he's not holding out much hope for Flash to spring for the good stuff. This is a man who wants to get as drunk as he can as quickly as he can for as little as he can, and then probably pass out in a ditch somewhere.
Teddy glances in that direction and says, "Oh, we're doing it that way." It's not spoken with anything more than a bit of detached acknowledgement, though there is a glance to Flash that suggests Teddy is a bit worried about where this night will lead. "I like bourbon, but let me treat you, alright?" He takes a few more steps in silence, but curiosity gets the better of him. How couldn't it? "What the hell happened in there?"
"I hate bars. People don't know what to do with me in a bar," Flash says, failing utterly to hide any of the bitterness in his voice, if he was even trying, which is questionable. "Great choice. And no. I've got a military pension entirely devoted to this kind of thing." He continues to wheel himself along as they leave the building entirely, and after some hidden-secret-base-trickery, they find themselves on the street, heading toward the fabled purveyor of spirits. "Not sure your clearance is high enough to know, but.. to hell with it. Once a month they take away the thing the gives me back my legs and my abilities. Supposedly if it stays with me for much longer, they worry it'll take over my brain, or something." He frowns, and shakes his head. Maybe this isn't the kind of thing they should talk about on the street? Flash doesn't seem concerned. "Ridiculous, if you ask me. I have it under total control, even without the drugs.." he pauses after trailing off a bit. "Only good part is that when they take it away, the booze actually *does* something." Speaking booze, that liquor store isn't far now.
"Alright, booze is on you," Teddy says, slipping his hands into the light jacket he wears. Out on the street, he doesn't seem to mind talking about whatever it is they're talking about either. He's known there are other agents with powers, plenty of them, but he doesn't actually know their details. As he walks along, he keeps his eyes peeled on the liquor store, though he does lean a bit in the other man's direction. "Listen, I don't want you to take this wrong way, but you sound like a real downer." The blond's smirk suggests he's being playful, though, and he follows up by asking, "What, were you married to this thing or something?"
"Bourbon's a good cure for that, too." No it isn't, Flash. Really, someone ought to stage an intervention. "I'm actually a laugh riot, on my good days. People love me." Do they? That's up for debate. It's *always* been up for debate. "Not married. We're partners, he and I. We give each other what we both need. They take it away, and I feel like half of what I was. Yeah, maybe I'm a bit of a downer." There's the store. Flash wheels forward and pushes the door open, and pushes himself through. The store owner gives him a half-hearted nod; he's seen Flash in here many times. Too many times, maybe. "Let me ask you, Altman. Better to lose something dear to you, and then get it back, only to have it taken away? Or to not get it back at all?" Where's the goddamn whiskey aisle.
Teddy appears to find something in this explanation understandable, as he nods with a sympathetic smile. "Yeah, I have one of those, too," he says, probably referring to the partner bit. "I don't actually know what I would do if they took him from me. Probably everything I could to get him back." Good advice there, Teddy. What harm could come of it? He follows into the liquor store and nods up at the shop owner, making sure the door is shut behind him. "Better to figure out a third alternative," he suggests. "Let's drink on that."
Flash kind of gives Teddy a quizzical look, but decides better than to press him on whatever gave him pause there. He's talking about an alien organism, but he expects Teddy isn't. "My options are a bit more limited than yours there, feels like," he says with a glance down to where his legs used to be. Flash makes his way down the aisles until he finds what he's looking for. His good friend, Jim Beam. A couple of bottles are deposited in his lap, and then he's off toward the register, where he'll pay for the merchandise and try not to mouth off to the guy behind the counter. "Come on, let's crack these open somewhere." Classy plan, boys.