part 1
"Imma be real for a second," Duke said. "I'm fuckin starving."
"That's understandable," Spoiler responds. "Crime fighting is hungry work."
"True that," Duke sighs. "Batman makes us carry cash you want noodles?"
"If you're paying then of course I do," Spoiler responds easily. "You know any good places?
The thing about Steph, is that a lot of people underestimate her. Even other bats, who should really know better, seem to do it all the time. Duke privately thinks that its because she's funny and upbeat that people will just let her fade into the background as a dumb blonde.
People do this to Duke sometimes, other heroes, other bats, they'll just let him become white noise.
He wears bright yellow for fuck's sake.
Unfortunately for this Steph, future Steph and Duke spend a lot of hours together, and he knows what she's like when she is on the hunt.
Duke knows the protocols for time travel, he knows the protocols for dimension travel. Duke also knows that he's tired and starving and going to have to track down whatever Turbo Emo version of Batman is out there.
"The future."
"Weird name for a noodle place," Spoiler mutters, the lenses in her mask drawing in together.
"Not a noodle place," Duke belatedly realizing that he just completely blurted that out. "The answer to your question."
Spoiler crosses her arms.
"The question was about noodle places."
"The other question," Duke gestures vaguely at Spoilers brain, because that was so helpful wasn't it. "The one you didn't ask."
"Oh," Spoiler says about as lamely as Duke feels right about now. "OH! Damnit I was betting on dimension travel."
Duke raises an eyebrow under his helmet.
"Dimension travel?"
"Yeah like maybe you're a happy universe' Batman," Spoiler says, her body language loosening into typical Steph. "Or wait..."
Spoiler gasps, leaning into whisper: "Are you Evil Batman?"
Duke barely doesn't burst out laughing.
Barely.
"Like do you bring presents and joy?" Spoiler continues, conspiratorially.
Duke breaks into helpless giggles.
"Santa?" Duke practically shouts through his laughter. "Evil Batman to you is Santa??"
"Am I Wrong????"
Duke laughs even harder. Spoiler politely gives him time to collect himself.
"I've met both and so I can tell you, yes."
"Wait, wait hold on," Spoiler waves her hands as if to dispel the previous conversation. "Santa is real?"
"Yes," Duke says gravely.
"Wow," Spoiler blinks blankly at the sky for a couple seconds. "That is going to need a lot of processing."
"I think crises are best had over noodles don't you think?"
Steph's head whips back around.
"Fuck yeah lets go!"
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12/APR/20XX
i think that was my goal.
remember? the one i was mentionin' about twenty nine pages ago? i'd said something like...
"and when i achieve it?"
"...guess i'll finally close this book for good."
so, i'll count that to be my goal.
therapist agrees, so you can't get on me about that.
sharing inner thoughts was never something i'm great at. so much so that you might've forgotten that's what this was for.
can you believe that? s'posed to be a thought journal. daily mental-state evaluation.
ended up talking about my friends instead.
wasn't for me, i suppose.
...after some amount of pages, huh? geez.
[This calls attention to the fact that the book is much thicker than it was when it started. Seems instead of switching to another one, his journal just... gained pages.]
point is.
seems to me like a good place to stop things at.
i'll give you a final update, and we'll call it. alright?
——
breaking the news went as smoothly as if we'd entered the room and broke a vase on the floor instead. (undyne about did just that.)
the second calamity was when mettaton and my bro show up kinda late
holding hands.
turns out my bro is much more decisive than i am.
apparently it was mettaton first, then paps who decided after a few serious dates.
congrats to 'em.
been deflecting questions best i can all day from the announcements, so i was thankful my bro showing up like that took enough of the heat off me n' tori.
i...
can't stop smiling.
well- alright, that's a given.
but i mean this doofy grin i haven't kept up this long in ages.
i'm not even trying for this one.
all this talk about relationships, i think undyne's gotten excited. talking about marriage and all that. alphys has gone beet red.
grillby and the bar gave me a hell of a lot of pats on the back. i'd be bruised if i weren't bones.
if it wasn't that which would've bruised me, it definitely would have been the punch flowey gave me. the comment that earned me it?
"so..."
"this makes me your dad, right?"
he didn't take it well.
despite the petal-haver's apparent hatred... i think he's secretly glad that toriel's happy.
my bro sure took the news well.
granted, since he already thought me and her were dating, he just was happy for the public announcement.
"WAIT."
"DOES THIS MAKE ME AN UNCLE?!?"
"Are we gonna get another sibling??"
"WAIT, are we gonna get a SKELE-sibling?!?"
"whoa, slow down-"
"Frisk, NO??"
"Do not encourage this BONEHEAD to-"
"I think that is quite enough."
tori puts her foot down on that conversation.
living situations shouldn't change much for now, but maybe we'll figure out something else in the future. (staying with my bro. don't panic.)
concerns about my health have slowed down, as i've gotten more used to daily magic usage. noticed way less bad days recently, right? papyrus still insists on teaching me to use attacks better, so i've got that to look forward to. there might still be ups n' downs health-wise, but i'm confident in getting through 'em now.
paps is noticeably still somewhat anxious about it, fidgeting whenever everything is brought up. which is fair, but. still.
i'll get him a therapist like i've been seeing. an in-person one'll work better for him, i think.
not sure what else'll change, really. everything feels mostly the same.
other than (gasp) public handholding. (scandalous.) every time we're beside one another, tori's finding some form of physical contact.
that's different.
...in a good way.
right now, it looks like the aftermath of a wild party. friends knocked out in random spots; dangling half-off the couch or sprawled across the floor. i think frisk and i are the only ones still awake, since they wanted to put blankets on everyone.
"(Psst. Is one blanket enough?)"
they raise a large blanket in gesture with a questioning look.
i speak extra softly so i don't disturb toriel laying at my side, with her head on my shoulder and an arm across my torso; hand met with mine.
"(yep.)"
"(Kk.)"
frisk lays a blanket over me and tori. they stare contemplatively before speaking.
"....."
"Goodnight, Dad."
"...'night, kid."
welp.
guess that's it, huh?
....
i'm happy.
caring is nice.
———★
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐍𝐃
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In the spirit of the holiday season can we consider that Mercedes is a family BECAUSE the vibes are rancid not in spite of. They have that awkward family dinner thing going for them and I mean that with love.
Complete with the grandpa that says wack shit like we’re closing the gap to Red Bull (Toto), the ‘sure let’s get you to bed grandpa’ uncle (James A), the rich uncle that may or may not be in a new age wellness cult (Lewis), the cousin that everyone is compared to (Bono), the one that came for the spiked eggnog (Shov), the hormonal teenager that is loud about how much he hates sitting at the kids table (George), the kids table (Mick, Fred, Kimi), the one they don’t talk about but still haunts the narrative (Nico), the goodest boy (Roscoe), the one sane relative that went low contact and moved away to live his best life (Valtteri).
But they all still come together year after year, no matter what (for Susie, Merc fans and the Silver Arrows to take aim once again). Happy Holidays! Hope next year is a good one!
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