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marauderundercover · 3 years

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Day 6: Party

WARNING: GRAPHIC VIOLENCE

Continuation of days two and three

Marinette grins at her reflection in the mirror. The costume was perfect- close enough to the original that you could tell who she was, but also with her own touch so that she didn’t hate looking at the costume. She’d even curled her hair slightly. The knock at the front door makes her squeal in excitement, knowing exactly who it is.

“Cass!” She cheers, opening the door and grinning widely at her best friend. Sure, Cass didn’t talk a lot (she was like Luka in that way), but she always seemed to know when Marinette needed help out of her own head. And she was eternally grateful for that. She was even more grateful that Cass had agreed to do a duo costume with her since Jason apparently didn’t want to dress up. He was ‘too old’ or something. Well, Marinette wanted to have fun and wear a damn costume.

“The suit is amazing! I’m not sure the cowl I made will be good enough for it.” Marinette says worriedly, examining the stitches on Cass’ costume. “Where’d you say you got this?” She asks, frowning. It was definitely higher quality than the Halloween store downtown. Cass just smiles, the one that basically says ‘not telling’. Mari just grins, used to it by now. She passes the cowl to Cass and grabs her own domino mask, sliding it on. Posing next to Cass in the full length mirror, Marinette takes a picture and sends it to the group chat that Jason had recently added her to. Dropping her phone into her purse and grabbing her keys, she turns to Cass.

“Ready?” She asks.

“Ready.” Cass says. Marinette grins. Look out, Gotham, Batman and Robin are out on the town.

---

Dick squeals as the picture comes through on the groupchat. He was beyond relieved that Jagged had scheduled his Halloween party two weeks before the actual holiday. It meant that he, and the rest of his brothers, could actually go instead of being on the extra patrols they always had to schedule around the holiday. Grinning, he opens twitter.

@flyingrayson

Look at my little sisters! Aren’t they the cutest?! #halloween #Waynefam #jaggedstone

[image description: One girl stands with a hand on her hip, dressed in what is obviously a spin on a Robin costume, including: a domino mask, black tights, dark red tunic with a Robin logo, gold belt, knee high emerald boots, and a dual sided cape black on the outside and gold on the inside. Another girl stands next to her with her arms crossed over her chest, dressed in what is obviously a Batman costume, including: black catsuit, yellow utility belt, black cape, and a redesigned black cowl.]

---

Marinette pecks Jason’s cheek and grins.

“What, not a Robin fan?” She asks teasingly at his frown. He huffs.

“Not really. More of a...Red Hood guy.” He says, and she snorts.

“Of course you’d like the one with guns.” She says, shaking her head with a smile. “His costume is actually probably one of my favorites. Well, besides the whole helmet thing.” Jason grins, pulling her in and giving her a sweet kiss before he glances behind her and groans.

“My brothers just walked in.” He says and she smiles.

“Go say hi, I’ve gotta go ask Uncle Jagged a question really quick. I’ll be right back and Cass and I can show your brothers our awesome costumes in person.” She says, pecking his cheek before walking away. She looks around for Jagged, but frowns when she doesn’t see him in the main room. Pulling out her phone, she sends him a quick text asking where he is.

In the garden with Fang!!!!!!!

She shakes her head fondly. Of course he skipped out on his own party to spend time with his crocodile. Smiling, she heads out to the garden to try and get to him. She’d wanted to see if the man planned on being in the US around Thanksgiving. Bruce had already invited her (probably to get Jason to show up) and said she could invite any of her family as well. Since her parents and superhero partner were both dead and her grandparents didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, she decided she’d really love Jagged and Penny to come instead. As she walks outside, she’s shocked that Fang doesn’t immediately run up to her.

“Uncle Jagged?” She calls, frowning. Where was he? And why was it so dark out here? Fang was scared of the dark. Jagged never would have brought him outside without more lights on, he was too protective of him. She tenses when she notices a slumped figure next to the bench Jagged had put in the gardens for when she visits. It was one of her favorite places to sit and design.

“Hello?” She calls, watching the figure for any movement. Seeing none, she steps closer and her stomach drops. Immediately she runs over and checks her Uncle for a pulse. She sighs in relief when she feels it, but the gash on his head is worrisome. How-

“Hello, Birdie!” An amused voice rings behind her, making her blood run cold. She whirls around and manages to catch a glimpse of the man’s pale face before a thick piece of metal flies at her head and the world goes black.

---

“Jaybird! Where’s Mari and Cass? They’re blowing up on twitter, even MDC liked my tweet!” Dick says happily, making Jason scowl.

“Did you seriously post my girlfriend all over your twitter?” He asks grumpily. Dick nods.

“Oh yeah. Her and Cass looked too cute to keep it to ourselves. Where are they anyway?” Dick asks, scanning the room.

“M said she needed to go talk to her Uncle about something. Personally, I think she was just avoiding you guys. You all crowd her every time you see her.” Jason reprimands, crossing his arms. Replacement rolls his eyes.

“It’s ‘cause she’s so much cooler than you. And she’s not an asshole like you are.” He says.

“Something’s wrong.” Cass says, suddenly appearing at Jason’s side. He jumps slightly, but then frowns at her.

“What?” He asks, surprised to see the deep scowl form on her face.

“Don’t know.” She huffs.

“Well if Cassandra believes that something is wrong, we should investigate.” Damian says, looking relieved that he wouldn’t be asked to socialize with anyone. A startled scream from outside makes the five vigilantes tense before running towards the noise. Jason curses when he realizes it’s Penny Rolling, Jagged Stone’s….something. She’s kneeling by a slumped figure, shaking it until a groan escapes it. Jason feels his blood run cold when the figure’s hair catches the light. It’s Jagged. Then where-

“Where’s she? Where’s she at?” Jagged slurs out, blinking wildly.

“Who?” Penny asks, gently holding the man’s face. Jason frowns at the gash.

“M. He wanted ‘er.” He says, and though the man is looking around crazily and slurring his words, Jason can tell he’s completely serious. And M-

“Do you mean Marinette?” Jason asks, stepping forward. Jagged frowns, but nods.

“Crazy clown.” He adds before turning and throwing up in the grass. Jason growls and turns on his heel, ready to go hunt the damned clown down. Out of everyone in this damned city that he could’ve targeted, why did he choose her?

“Jason, wait.” Dick says, grabbing his wrist. “We need to have a plan. Come on. You can’t just go out like this.” He reminds him lowly, Jason’s eyes narrow but he follows anyway. Might as well use the good tools. That fucking clown won’t make it to morning.

---

Ice cold water falls over her and Marinette sits up, gasping in shock at the sudden temperature change.

“Little cold, Birdie?” A voice asks before walking around and standing in front of her- a huge smile on his face and a thick piece of metal in his hands.

“Nothing I can’t handle.” Marinette says, trying not to let her voice shake. This was the villain. The one she never wanted to meet. The one that gave her boyfriend nightmares that he couldn’t explain to her. And now she was alone with him.

“If you’re sure, we could have some...fun before Batsy arrives.” He laughs.

“Why would Batman show up?” She asks. “You do realize this is just a Halloween costume, right?” She flinches as the piece of metal- a crowbar, she thinks shakily- stops inches in front of her face.

“How stupid do you think I am? Of course it’s a costume. A costume posted by one Dick Grayson. You’re a Wayne, somehow. And Batsy always shows up when a Wayne is involved.” Joker says, his twisted grin making her sick to her stomach.

“I’m not a Wayne! Batman isn’t going to come for me.” She argues, cursing her decision to not wear her earrings today. Some days were harder than others, especially leaving in a mask. Even if the mask was a costume. Every time she tried to put on her earrings today, she shook and started to panic. Granted, it was probably for the best. Because she would definitely be tempted to transform and she did not want to give Joker that kind of knowledge.

“Wayne or not, one of the bats will come. You have friends in very high places, Birdie.” Joker tuts, twirling the crowbar in his hand. She flinches as it nears her face, making Joker laugh. “If I wanted to hit you, I would.” He says. She doesn’t even have time to figure out what he means because her shoulder explodes in pain. The pain is blinding and she wants to scream but no sound will come out of her mouth as she gasps for breath.

“That’s no good. A silent bird is a dead bird. So sing, Birdie.” Joker demands, and he aims slightly lower this time, shattering her left arm. And she screams. The pain tearing at her throat nothing compared to the pain in her arm, her shoulder. She sobs, the shaking making the pain worse, but she was unable to stop. It hurt.

“S-stop!” She manages to yell, nearly biting her tongue when Joker grabs her chin and forces her to look up at him.

“Hmm. You’re right! The internet should definitely see this.” He laughs, pulling a phone out. She shakes her head, flinching as he whacks the crowbar against the floor near her chair. He points the phone at her, and she knows he’s recording. The bastard.

“Hello Gotham! Look at this little Birdie. I’m afraid she flew too far, and now we have to clip her wings.” He says, sighing as if he’s actually apologetic. He sets his phone up on the table and stalks over to her before turning and waving at the camera. She watches him move the crowbar around warily, her breathing shaky. God, she hoped Jason wasn’t watching this. Hoped he was somewhere safe, not trying to go do something stupid. She winces as Joker acts like he’s about to hit her, only to stop before the crowbar actually connects with her good arm.

“I told you, I’d only hit you if I wanted to.” He chuckles.

“Go to hell.” She spits out, ignoring the voice in her head (that sounded suspiciously like Tikki) telling her to shut up. To not antagonize the crazy man with the crowbar.

“Gladly.” He says with a grin, rearing back and swinging the crowbar out to hit her in the ribs. Her scream echoes around the room and she has no time to catch her breath before he’s attacking her ribs again. Tears stream down her face, but she can’t scream, she can’t even catch her breath. I’m going to die, she thinks, and the thought is terrifying. She didn’t want to die, she wanted to live.

---

“Do we have a fucking location or am I about to go shoot up every goddamned warehouse in this city?” Jason growls as he zips through the streets on his bike. He knew Babs and Alfred were back at the cave, watching the livestream and working to locate Marinette. And even though he couldn’t see the video, the audio playing through the comms was enough to make his stomach churn.

He didn’t give one singular fuck what Bruce said. He was going to kill that goddamned clown the minute he saw him.

---

Marinette glares at the Joker, barely able to keep her head up. For some unknown reason, he’d decided to use his fists on her face instead of the crowbar. Not that she was complaining. She wouldn’t have survived multiple hits to the head. Not with the force he had. She watches him, and she knows he’s saying something, but she can’t tell what it is. She’s too tired, too hurt, to care what he’s saying anyway. Unless it’s some magical cure to stop her from feeling like she’s broken into a million pieces, she doesn’t want to hear it.

Eyes wandering behind him, she’s relieved when she notices the costumed figure. The cowl, the cape- Batman did come. How strange. Though, she had assumed that Joker was live streaming. So that could definitely explain that one. Deciding she was out of immediate danger, she lets her eyes droop shut, reveling in the darkness that surrounds her. She let’s it stay, and she can feel things slipping away, some of the pain lessening. It’s nice, until someone is poking her and talking much too close to her. She lets out a whine as the person forces her eyes open.

“‘m tired.” She mumbles, wincing at the pain that comes with breathing, with talking.

“I know, kid, god I know. Just keep your eyes open.” A voice says. She blinks, the blue marks on the suit in front of her helping her to identify the vigilante.

“Couldn’t fight.” She spits out, tears springing to her eyes as her attempt at conversation makes her chest ache.

“But you’re fighting now, you’re staying awake. You’re doing such a good job, I’m proud of you. Stay awake kiddo.” Nightwing says quietly. She vaguely feels the ropes slide off her wrists and ankles. Fighting to stay sitting up, because slumping will hurt more than she’s willing to allow, she sighs.

“Jason’s gonna worry.” She mumbles, and Nightwing hums.

“Ambulance is almost here, kid, just stay awake.” He says instead of asking about Jason. She hopes Jason is okay. Hopes he isn’t mad at himself for letting her go talk to Jagged alone. Suddenly, sirens are close and she lets the world finally slip away.

---

The pain is the first thing that clues her in. She isn’t dead. Which is a relief. But the way her entire body aches, is not a relief. Forcing her eyes open, she sighs at Jason’s slumped form in a chair next to her bed. She wished she knew how long she’d been in the hospital so she could scold him. Because he was still wearing the outfit he had on at the party. Which meant he hadn’t given himself a break. Just as she’s trying to decide how to ask the nurses for pain medicine, Jason’s eyes open.

“Marinette!” He gasps, starting to lunge forward, then stopping himself. “I thought, god, M, I thought-”

“‘m okay.” She says softly, and he frowns.

“Okay? You were nearly beaten to death with a goddamned crowbar. You’re not okay.” He argues. She sighs.

“I’m alive, and I’m with you. I’m okay.” She insists, wincing. He looks like he still wants to argue, but stops himself. He scoots closer and holds her hand, kissing the back of it softly.

“I’ll never leave you.” He promises. She smiles softly, before falling back asleep, finally safe.

Tag list: @maribat-october-rarepairs @stainedglassm @kittenmywaythrulife @laydeekrayzee @doll246 @queenz-z @deathssilentapproach-blog @literaryhiraeth @unoriginalmess

#angst #maribat #maribat oneshot #jasonette #maribat marinette dupain cheng #maribat jason todd #maribat joker #maribathalloween21 #maribat dick grayson #maribat tim drake #maribat batman #maribat damian wayne

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thefanficmonster · 3 years

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Filterless

Corpse Husband x Plus-sized Reader (Female)

Warnings: Body Image Insecurities, Low self-esteem, Swearing

Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: Feeling comfortable in her skin has hardly ever been the case for Y/N who’s been struggling with body image issues all her life. However, they only get worse when she sees the ‘type’ of girls her crush is into.

Requested by Anon. Hi darling! Thank you so much for your request (hits close to home 😅) I’m so sorry it has taken me so long to fulfill it and post it but here it finally is and if you’ve stuck around long enough to read it, I hope you enjoy! ALSO! - Never forget how beautiful and amazing you are. Never compare your beauty to someone else’s. We’re all beautiful people and we all shine so brightly and uniquely. No one deserves to be compared to anyone when we’re all so different yet so incredible. Love you and appreciate you with all my heart, Vy ❤

If I ever need my ego taken down a few notches - it never does, it’s barely even present, to be honest - all I have to do is go on Instagram. To be honest, regardless of how I’m feeling, opening that app is bound to make my mood plummet and come crashing into the ground so hard it drives a hole in it - probably in the form of a broken heart.

Being a content creator myself, I often get asked questions about my absence on that social platform specifically. I mean, the questions are based and rational I guess, considering I’m not a faceless YouTuber and yet my Instagram account is void of any photos. It’s not like I don’t post at all - I do! I post on my story often but it’s more often than not scenery I find pretty or a poster I’ve made for a movie/video game. Bottom line is: I barely ever allow a picture of me to make it online. The most my fans are ever gonna get of me is a selfie which is also a super rare occurrence because of how long it takes me to take and choose one I don’t hate.

Ok, but how am I supposed to find the motivation to post any sort of picture of myself when on my timeline I’m always faced with people worthy of posting pictures of themselves. People with such perfect bodies and beautiful faces. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not jealous or envious of those people - good for them! They know what they’re working with and they’re working it well. I have nothing against them, in fact, I love seeing people proud of their bodies no matter their size, shape or weight. Those are my role-models: people who are proud of themselves, their bodies, their attributes and capabilities and don’t hesitate to show them off. Those are the people I look up to but, deep down inside I know I’ll never be like.

Insecure about my body, having been referred to as ‘chubby’ and ‘squishy’ all my life. Inappreciative of the stuff I do: starting from my job as a graphic designer leading towards my job on YouTube - nothing I do, professionally or otherwise, satisfies me. Nothing I do is enough in my eyes because I feel incapable of ever being able to do enough. I’ve been called lazy and a half-asser a few too many times to be able to brush it off as a meaningless insult.

With these problems I’ve had with myself and my own perception of who I am and the work I do, I’ve never had the time for romance or romantic relationships. I second-guess the intentions of everyone who ever shows any interest in me because in my mind I’m nothing special and I have nothing to offer - nothing attractive or likable at least. That being said, I haven’t even been one to make heart eyes at others either. I busy myself with my job and some side-gigs, brushing off any relationship questions with the excuse that I’m ‘just too busy to be in a relationship’ which is technically true.

Having spent twenty plus years with that mindset, one can imagine how surprised I was when I found myself catching feelings for someone. And that someone just couldn’t be any other than the biggest YouTube sensation at the moment - Corpse Husband.

I’m close friends with Poki - her and I were roommates at one point too - so her inviting me to play Among Us with them wasn’t so strange. One or two games, I thought, nothing unusual there, just friendly curtesy. I wasn’t expecting to warm up to the group of famous streamers nor did I expect them to welcome me among them so easily, mostly because my channel is so small and practically invisible to the YouTube algorithm. But soon enough, I became a permanent member of the team, making friends with every single one of those YouTubers I practically thought of a celebrities.

This journey of branching out to other content creators has proven itself to be surprisingly pleasant and has packed my book of friendships to the brim. All of that came unexpectedly, along with a wave of new subs and a higher view count. However, as I mentioned, it hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. I came to finally understand what my high school friends were talking about when they were head over heels for a boy - the butterflies in the stomach whenever he speaks your name; the importance of the laugh you share with him, how special and different it is; how cool it is to be impostors with him - ok they never said that, obviously, but it’s what I have as a substitute to the ‘when the two of you make eye-contact’ bullshit since Corpse and I have never seen each other in person. That is, of course, because of him being a faceless YouTuber and me being a self-conscious and insecure girl.

We do talk all the time though - texting, calling, chilling on Discord, you name it. Our conversations range from deeply philosophical to ones that might mislead someone into thinking we’re high. There’s no topic we haven’t touched upon and yet we still manage to find something new to talk about. We have plenty of similarities but we also never seem to run out of differences we slowly come across as we keep getting to know each other better and better.

And somewhere along that journey I ended up catching feelings.

Human nature of wanting to connect with other people, I curse you for what you’ve done to me.

You might think I’m being overdramatic about the whole ordeal and that this is just a normal, natural occurrence many people experience in their life - some even daily. Well, not only am I far from used to it, but it’s also taking a toll of a different kind on me.

It’s like a constant slap to the face.

That slap turned into a punch when Corpse and I started following each other on Instagram and I started getting daily reminders of how out of my depth I am with this crush on him. In over my head, especially when you look at all those girls whose pics and videos he reposts on his story. Imagine how that makes me feel, what that does to me - puts me back into the ‘Constantly not good enough‘ basket, the one I’ve been fighting to get out of all my life. In the past and in different contexts I could easily say that it was all just my mind hating me intensely but now - now that I know for a fact I’m not good enough and don’t fit Corpse’s criteria - it hurts ten times as much. I’m not one to do shit for someone’s attention or to attract someone’s eyes, but it really hurts my feelings. Often times, it also leads me to doing dumb things and making rash decisions.

Like the one I made two days ago.

Imagine me cringing and shaking my head at my own stupidity as I admit this: I, in a frenzy, ordered a whole e-girl getup with overnight delivery.

Wait, hold up, it gets worse.

I received it yesterday and spent the whole day regretting that decision, but then, in my most insecure hours - which was somewhere around midnight - I equipped the get-up, took a picture and posted it on my Instagram page. First full body pic I’ve ever posted on there. First pic I’ve posted there of any kind. There to stay, not to be gone in twenty four hours. First pic, and it’s not even of me. It’s of who I want to be in order to fit someone’s criteria. And that fucking stings.

As you might imagine, I’ve spent today’s day regretting that decision as well. Recently my mood’s been nothing but regretting rash decisions that have surfaced under the influence of my ridiculous, constantly-present insecurities. And I would’ve probably gotten over it rather quickly had I not received a message from Corpse that read:

“Didn’t think of you with an e-girl aesthetic“

I didn’t open the message, I peeped at it as it was a notification on my lock screen. It’s still there, an unread notification. It’s been two hours since I received it and I cannot think of a single thing to say in response to that.

Truth is, I’m afraid. I’m afraid of so many things right now.

I’m afraid of becoming that girl in the photo, cause I’m most definitely not her.

I’m afraid of letting Corpse down by admitting I’m not her.

I’m afraid of what my own mind has made me do because it hates me so much and I’m terrified of what it might do in the future.

I’m afraid and stranded on things to do.

You can’t be her forever, you know. Being her won’t make your insecurities go away, it’ll only make them worse. Haven’t you learned that by now?

I sigh, frustrated and irritated with myself as I grab my phone and tap on the notification, finally deciding to face the music and allow my instincts to carry me through the interaction. Improvisation, that’s one of the few things I’m good at. Let’s hope it doesn’t fail me.

I’m just about to type out my response - not sure what it’s gonna say - when I give the message Corpse has sent me a second glance. I furrow my brows, finding there’s more to it than that peep through the notification let me see.

“Didn’t think of you with an e-girl aesthetic. You’re personality is so bright and colorful, I could’ve never imagined you were into the darks and blacks“

Because I’m not

I fail to realize until the message has been sent that my thoughts are exactly what I typed out and sent.

And honestly, I’m glad. It feels like I’ve spoken my truth, like I’ve lifted a huge boulder off my chest.

With that rare confidence in mind I go on and delete the picture.

In its spot, I post a picture I just now took - a mirror selfie in my homey get-up consisting of hot pink sweatpants and an oversized blue tee, my hair in a messy bun, my face free of make-up.

I caption it: ‘Oops, had the e-girl filter on for the last one. This is filterless me tho so...Hi 🥴’

A lot better, I’m surprised to hear my inner voice say. I hope I don’t get used to all this kindness on my brain’s part, probably won’t last, but damn if I don’t milk every second of it.

Just then, I receive a new message from non other than Corpse.

“Now that’s the girl I see when I think of you. She’s super cute 😉“

My, oh my, who would’ve guessed Corpse has a game like that - and by that I mean the ability to make me blush so intensely with only a text message.

Now ain’t that better than being someone else, Y/N?

It sure is, it sure is.

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formenis · 3 years

Text

Lesson

Anon asked: “ Can you do a scenario where L hasn't sleep in a while and it got to the point where even the Task Force is worried about him so Watari calls L's secret S/O and she comes barging into HQ and starts yelling at L that he is getting sleep or she is drugging him so he will sleep and L just follows behind her like a love-sick puppy“

A/N: please everyone, let’s give L so much love! Our best detective needs some rest sometimes.

And consider English is not my first language so I’m sorry about all the mistakes you’ll find. I’m trying to improve.

pairing: L x fem!reader

warning: nope

requested: yes

Y/A = your alias

Once Watari said: «L has no internal clockwork or any concept of time. After 102 hours of staying awake, he slept for almost 17 hours» and for him it was not enough.

If you think it's strange, well you don't know L. He goes to the toilette by himself with open doors and slightly changed sitting position. Since he likes clearness, he bathes frequently. But he never washes himself; he just sits in Watari's special "human washer" which includes drying functions.

L is rather picky with regards to clothing, there are always ten or so identical sets of clothes prepared for him. But he cannot put them on by himself…no, rather, he never feels like doing it (Watari has to say something like "banzai" to tell L to lift his arms). Most of the time, he is in his room, sitting motionlessly in that position.

But Y/N L/N knows it very well. She is L's girlfriend for a long time and she is used to L's particular (and almost non-existent) routine. That's her patience and kind personality that caught L's attention. It all started when Y/N went at the Wammy's House for a job interview. They were searching for a new teacher and Y/N satisfied all the prerequisites. During her probationary period all children fell in love with their new teacher, so patient and gentle even with the most spiteful kid.

When Roger Ruvie, the Wammy's House manager when Watari was not there, sent his observations about this new candidate, L agreed in hiring her. And when he met her in person he was hypnotised by her. The children were right, she was special: Y/N became the mother, the sister, the aunt and the friend those children didn’t have. This captured the attention and the interest of the greatest detective in the world.

It didn’t take long for both Y/N and L to fall for each other: the young teacher was attracted by his intellect and by his gaze, so deep and mysterious; on the other hand, L was mesmerized by her personality and by her smirk she had whenever she was right about something. But the thing that convinced L that Y/N was the right one for him was when she beat him at chess.

«Checkmate»

At first, L didn’t pay attention to what she said but when he observed the chessboard he couldn’t hide his surprise. «Miss L/N…you won»

«That's what I said»

But back to the present. Y/N was at the Wammy's House checking the homework of her little students when Roger entered her classroom.

«Miss L/N, there's a call for you»

«Ah yes, thank you Roger» Y/N answers at the phone placed on her desk. «Hello?»

«Miss L/N, it's Watari» the old and warm voice of Quillsh Wammy (as known as Watari) echoed through the receiver.

«Good afternoon Watari, I was correcting some homework. Do you need something?»

«It's about L»

Since the beginning of the Kira case, L moved to Japan. He changed hotel every week until Watari finished the new HQ and for the task-force was compulsory not to use any electronic devices when they were with him. This meant L couldn’t call his beloved Y/N that often and he started to miss her.

In order to solve as fast as he could the Kira case, he dived in the work for entire days and nights. Sugar cubes and coffee were his meals and he almost refused to sleep. He focused his mind and all his being to the case.

At first, the task-force wasn’t that concerned since they realised L had particular habits. But week after week, month after month, the situation got worse. His eyebags became darker and heavier, his skin became more white than his shirt and in general he looked really sickly.

«Uhm Ryuzaki? Did you sleep last night?» Soichiro Yagami asked him, there was worry on his face.

«When the Kira case will be solved I'll sleep» L replied rather tiredly despite his monotone voice didn’t express it. But Watari, who was with them serving ice-cream to everyone, noticed it immediately. He couldn’t bear such sight, he had to do something so he made a decision: if nobody could convince L to rest, then Miss Y/N L/N will.

«That's why I need you here, Miss L/N»

«He didn’t sleep for how much, Watari?! Are you serious?»

«Unfortunately yes. He dedicated every part of his being to the case. And by "every part" I mean literally every part of him»

«I can't believe it. I'm coming there, Watari»

«Very well, Miss L/N»

♰ TIME SKIP ♰

When Y/N arrives in Japan she was truly amazes by that country, so full of life, lights and culture. She can't believe it's the same country where Kira is killing. However, at the moment she can only think about L. She is so worried about him and about his well-being: he can be so odious and stubborn about his work that he would gladly renounce to his health if it meant to solve a case.

Y/N is boiling from rage, L went too far. If he falls ill how can he solve the case? Despite the anger she feels, she is excited too: it's been months since she saw or heard L. She misses him so much…but at the same time she wants to scold him.

«He is more hard-headed than the children at the Wammy's!» Y/N mutters at Watari, who is driving the car. With an excuse, he left the HQ to go at the airport to pick Y/N up and now they were coming back.

«Yes, I know. It's the reason I called you…you are the only one who can convince Ryuzaki»

During the way towards the HQ, Watari informs her about the Kira case, the task-force and all L's suspects. At the same time Y/N warns him about all the new prodigies at the orphanage. The old man smiles kindly when he sees, through rear-view mirror, how Y/N's eyes shine when she started to talk about her students.

After an hour, the two of them arrives at this famous HQ: twenty-three floors aboveground and two floors belowground; Watari said there is a helipad on the roof of the building but the structure is designed so that the helipad and the two helicopters on it cannot be seen by those looking at the building from the exterior.

«Miss L/N, please use the back stairs. I deactivated the cameras so you can reach the monitoring room without being watched by Ryuzaki»

«Alright Watari, thanks»

Y/N did as instruct by him and takes the back stairs in order to reach the elevator. In her mind, Y/N is preparing the discourse to do at L: it doesn't matter if his colleagues are with him, he has to come to terms with her and starting to have a regular and healthy routine.

In the monitoring room nobody has any idea that the greatest detective's girlfriend is there in the same building as them. Actually they don’t know that L has a girlfriend either. So when the task-force see a young woman spread open the main door of the monitoring room they are quite shocked.

«Who is she?» Matsuda looked up from the papers in his hands. Shortly after that, all the other men looked up as well.

«L!»

That voice distracted L from his dossiers and through the reflection on his laptop he recognises Y/N. His lips become a thin line, a sudden rush of thoughts and emotions hits L at the same time. Why is she there? Something bad happened at the Wammy's House? Is it because he cuts ties with everyone during the investigations? Confusion, concern, worry, alarm…fear yet happiness, because he can see her after long time. L is overwhelmed.

«Everyone, please meet Miss Y/A, Ryuzaki's significant other» Watari introduces her at the task-force and each member gasped in shock.

«L! Watari told me you refused to eat properly, to sleep properly…to live properly!»

Ryuzaki spins his swivel chair towards her so Y/N has the chance to look better at him: hollow face, paler skin colour, dark and heavy eyebags. «Y/A, please, I'm not one of your student»

L is somehow relieved that Y/N was there because of him and not because something terrible happened to her or to the children at the orphanage. So he half-sighs in relief when she started to complain about is health.

«Well, you seem like one in this moment! I cannot bear seeing you like this, you know how much important health is for everyone. The lack of sleep or an unregulated diet will affect your mind and your efficiency will decrease! And how can you catch Kira if you're tired?»

Ah, how much L misses those cute "telling-offs". It is clearly Y/N's professional deformation: she worries about people and strangers as much as she does with the children at the Wammy's. So when she finishes her discourse, L couldn’t hide a wide smile.

«I guess you're right, Y/A» L pretended to be sorry but the truth is that he loves seeing that part of Y/N's personality.

«Of course I am! Now let's start from the sleeping part!» she walks closer to him and grabs the wrist. Then she drags him out of the monitoring room leading towards the bedroom. In L's eyes, admiration and love can be seen while Y/N continues with her discourse about a new healthy routine he has to start.

Right before entering the bedroom L stops and hugs Y/N from behind, his arms are around her chest now. «Y/N…you have no idea how much I missed you»

She smiles, removing her teacher mask for a moment, and looks at him. «I missed you too, cutie pie»

L rubs slightly his cheeks against hers in a cute act of affection. Having her in his arm is such a relief for him, L can sense a strong wave of tiredness on his shoulders. «Will you rest with me?»

«Of course~» Y/N caresses his dark hair, something she really misses doing. «I'll stay with you from now on»

#death note #death note headcanons #death note scenario #l x reader #l lawliet #watari #reader insert #female reader #x you #x y/n

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strawberrysoup · 4 years

Text

Pocketful of Posies || Chapter 2

You’d been hiding for years and years now; from your family, from society, from alphas and packs. Suppressants were dangerous but effective and necessary for an omega who refused to be owned—but no suppressants were strong enough to fool the nose of a super soldier, who together with his pack would stop at nothing to bind you to them forever.

pairings: dark!Avengers x reader word length: 5k chapters: 2/? warnings: A/B/O dynamics, power imbalances, noncon and dubcon sexual situations, loss of autonomy, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat — this is a dark!fic, read at your own risk. Open the read more and CTRL + F, search “content warnings” to skip to detailed trigger warnings at the bottom of the chapter.

hey read this: im desperately hoping this lives up to the standards the first chapter apparently set my dudes, fingers crossed i don’t lose any of you with this one 🤞🤞 also before we get started i just wanna let yall know i am very firmly set in my decisions for the designations and i do not apologize lmao 🤙

You had been manhandled often enough in your life but fuck this time in particular. Even if you’d managed to pass as a beta for more than a decade, you weren’t strong and couldn’t stand your ground in the face of an alpha three times your size. Steve had sucked his fingers clean and easily hefted you up into his arms, following Bruce back into the cabin and down into the basement—you hadn’t been allowed to clean the basement, it was one of the off-limits areas that were noted in your many instructions. If a door is locked, leave it alone. No cleaning is necessary in the basement, garage, or third floor. Wash the linens with a scent free detergent. Make sure the refrigerator is properly scrubbed out.

He’d left you on a metal countertop with instructions to be good for Bruce. You weren’t sure what that entailed but as soon as the blond left the room, your mind started to race. There was no way you could get away from Steve, Sam you could potentially outrun, but Bruce? Being left alone with the beta was the best thing they could’ve done for you. You could get away from Bruce.

“Have you been to see a doctor recently?” His voice was gentle, intended to be soothing as he came to stand in front of you. "Any check-ups, clinic visits?”

You knew there was blood drying on your cracked lips, cutting a jarring path down your throat. The taste was still in your mouth, you’d gouged your tongue and it was still actively bleeding. With that in mind you made direct eye contact with the beta before letting the mouthful spill over your bottom lip and drip down your front, hoping the gore would help emphasize your opinions on the situation.

“Sweetheart, I know you’re upset—”

“Bruce, why is she bleeding?” It was like getting punched in the face by alpha pheromones the moment the door to the room opened again and a much younger alpha stepped through with a practically panicked expression.

Before you or Bruce could respond you’d been swept up in the alpha’s arms. He was a few years younger than you, early twenties probably and being manhandled by a fetus was particularly bothersome. His scent kept you still for a few seconds before you started squirming, making a beta-like snarl while he corralled your limbs.

“Here Pete, can you sit with her over here? We need a blood draw and full work up, her natural hormones have probably been devastated by the chemicals in the suppressants she was taking,” Bruce gestured for the alpha to carry you to a metal table, likely meant to be used for some sort of experiments if the rest of the room was anything to judge by. "All of her reproductive organs could’ve been affected, I’ll need to do a pelvic exam. We’ll run an STD panel and—”

“No! I don’t consent!” Your voice came out as a growl, the best one you could manage. "This is false imprisonment! Let go of me you fucking knothead! This is illegal!”

The alpha started to purr immediately and you found yourself rendered boneless under the onslaught. It was startling—you’d forgotten how it felt, how calm and safe it made you feel. Alpha purrs were meant to soothe and comfort, the tones perfectly adjusted to the omega ear. They also caused a completely involuntary reaction in omegas, the same as all other alpha sounds. You had no choice but to feel relaxed, the white noise of a purr jumbling your thoughts.

Bruce smiled down at you, hand running over the top of your head where it rested against the alpha’s chest. "It’s okay, you don’t have to be afraid. I won’t let anything happen to you, I just want to make sure you’re healthy.”

“Isn’t that better baby?” The alpha sat back on the table and pulled you to sit between his legs, tucked close to his chest. “And unless you have a guardian alpha, it’s not illegal. We’re doing our civic duty, taking care of an omega in unsafe conditions.”

The worst part was that you couldn’t fight it; you couldn’t find your way out of the calm static the purr filled your brain with. Even when Bruce started taking multiple vials of blood from your left arm, when he opened your mouth to check the damage to your tongue, when they started undressing you, you couldn’t fight. It was a hazy sort of half thought, that you wanted them to stop. It must’ve been apparent in your eyes, that you were trying to work your way out of the purr’s effects.

“Shhhh, sweetheart, you’re alright,” Bruce murmured quietly as his hands pressed the glands in your neck, fingers brushing gently against the scent gland in particular. "No swelling in your thyroid or mating nodes, that’s good. Suppressants can really cause problems in your hormone glands; the blood tests will tell us for sure but it looks like you might’ve dodged the worst of it if nothing’s enflamed. How long have you been on suppressants?”

Answering was the last thing on your mind, your eyes slowly roving over the room instead. It was some sort of lab set up, tons of machines and parts of machines, technology you couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Bruce had been taking things from one particular cabinet that seemed to hold medical supplies, the rest of the place resembling a robotics factory or some kind of high-tech research and development lab. The doors had swished open automatically when Steve brought you in and when the new alpha came through. Who had automatic doors in a vacation home?

“Should I stop?” The alpha questioned the doctor, chest continuing to rumble. “I might be making her too calm I guess.”

“No, just keep doing what you’re doing Peter,” Bruce sighed slightly. "There’s too much coherence in her eyes as it is, I don’t know if the purr affects her as much as it should. I’m worried that if you weren’t enhanced it wouldn’t work at all. Look at me sweetie, can you focus on face?”

His hands cupped your cheeks, tilting your head carefully while watching your eyes. You couldn’t find the energy to focus on his face; you couldn’t imagine the purr affecting you more than it already was and dreaded the idea that it could be worse. What did enhanced mean? Like the superheroes you’d been hearing about? You didn’t keep up on current events, unless they were Omega's Rights related.

“I’m sure it’s a result of the beta chemicals dampening her omega instincts,” Peter shifted you slightly as Bruce exchanged his gloves for a new pair. "Once her body starts producing hormones on its own again she should revert back to common responses to alpha stimuli.”

“You’re probably right, we’ll know for sure once I get the blood results,” Bruce gestured for Peter to sit up more, bringing your limp body with him. “I’m going to do a breast exam and a pelvic exam and we’re done. There are some other tests I want to run but I don’t have the equipment on hand so they’ll have to wait until Tony manages to get here. Peter, can you help move her arms?”

You felt like you almost managed to swim through the purr, rage fueling you as hands manipulated your breasts. The exam itself was clinical, professional even—or it would’ve been if he hadn’t been cooing at you the whole time, how good you were being, how sweet you were, how pretty your breasts were. Peter had hummed in agreement along with the doctor, his nose trailing up and down your neck. Your hands clenched into fists and you could feel Peter’s grip on your wrists shift with the movement.

“Calm down, baby,” the alpha’s voice cooed gently against the side of your head, lips pressing into your hair as Bruce shifted away and went for the medical cabinet again. "This is important. Suppressants could’ve caused tons of problems, cancerous growths in sexual organs or secondary sex characteristics is very common.”

Death would be a reprieve. The same thought that crossed your mind any time you considered the potential effects of suppressants. A reprieve from the hiding, the exhaustion, living out of your car or a tent, eating garbage because it was all you could afford—from the constant threat of having your autonomy ripped from your hands.

You relaxed your fists until you felt his grip loosen again, even if only slightly. Your only chance would be to rely on surprise and your speed, there was no other way you’d be able to get away. Forcing your body to relax was a trial though, adrenaline was starting to course through you the more you became used to the effects of the purr. Your scent was still massively dampened by the suppressants, Peter likely wouldn’t be able to smell the shift from fear to anticipation. You bit down on the sluggishly bleeding wound on your tongue, reigniting both the pain and blood flow.

“Alright, last part, we’re almost done and then we’ll get you comfortable, okay?” Bruce was wearing new gloves again, a bottle in hand as he walked back over. "Have you had a pelvic exam before?”

You waited until he was close enough and performed what seemed to be your go to act of defiance: spitting blood directly in his face. He reared back with a short curse, Peter immediately releasing your wrists—his goal was likely to readjust you in his lap, to gain a better hold, but you were fast, faster than an alpha (always faster than alphas, it was all you had). You’d slipped from his lap and darted for the automatic doors before either of them could respond. Running through the woods naked was the lesser evil.

Steel bands. You should’ve noticed, the doors opened too soon for them to be reacting to your presence, you were so focused on getting through. But the moment you did, it felt like steel bands wrapped around your torso, pinning your arms.

The alpha’s scent was like Steve’s—the moment your brain registered it the world went hazy. You were floating, body going limp for a precious few seconds that the alpha used to sweep you into his arms and stalk further into the room. Your senses came back just in time for you to be deposited back into Peter’s lap on the table, a massive blond alpha coming into view for the first time. Your gaze was immediately stuck on his, the heterochromatic eyes nearly hypnotizing. Fighting the daze he put you in was overwhelming, especially when a wide smile split his lips and his cheeks dimpled. One massive hand reached out, almost engulfing the entire lower half of your face.

“Hello little love.” Were alphas always as insanely massive as this one and Steve, or had you just stumbled across literally your worst nightmare? “They told me you’re a flighty thing, I suppose I arrived just in time, hm? Are you going to spit blood in my face as well? It seems to be your calling card.”

The look on your face must’ve betrayed the fact that you were really, really considering it. You had a mouthful of blood and nowhere to put it but his face, honestly. Instead you used the fact that Peter was mostly propping you up to lean over the edge of the table and proceeded to open your mouth, spilling blood down onto the alpha’s shoes nice white shoes.

“I wouldn’t challenge her,” Bruce’s voice drew your attention to where he was using a towel to wipe blood off his glasses, a wry smile and affection clear on his face. "She’s putting a lot of effort into being belligerent.”

The blond alpha rumbled with a grin, thumb brushing across your cheekbone. "It’s been a stressful day for her, there’s nothing she can do that will cause any persisting damage anyway. Let her have her little rebellions.”

You wanted to be furious—what kind of asshole looked a person dead in the eyes and called their attempts to escape false imprisonment little rebellions?—but Peter seemed to have realized where your train of thought had gone because he started purring immediately. Your spine went boneless, laying you flat against his chest.

“Can you lean up against the wall with her?” Bruce directed the younger alpha to shift until both of your legs were dangling over the edge, Peter’s back to the wall the table sat against. “You’re going to need to hold her in place, even while you purr. Alright sweetie, let’s get this out of the way. Thor, will you hold her leg please?”

The sound you made was an accident. Desperation and humiliation were crawling up your spine with astounding speed, even with Peter’s purr going like a motorboat and the sound was making it too hard to think through your instincts. Omega cries were a deliberate counterpart to the noises alphas made; whines and cries and hisses, perfectly pitched to make an alpha’s hindbrain stand at attention. The sound you made was a sharp, chirping whine—distress, distress, distress, help me, help me help m—

“Oh little love,” Thor’s voice had dropped several registers and he gently shuffled Bruce to the side so he could stand in front of you, slipping as close to the table as possible and tugging your legs to rest on either side of his hips and gently running his hands over your skin. “Let’s get you taken care of, you need rest.”

The pheromones he was putting out were meant to calm but you immediately opened your mouth, using the overwhelming scent of your own blood to drown them out. The alpha sighed and stepped aside again, taking your leg with him and spreading your thigh to rest over Peter’s leg with your foot planted on the table. A whine rose in your throat again but you locked it down, instead biting down on your tongue yet again. It was as grounding as it was painful, the tang of it souring your stomach.

It was your last coherent thought, that you were starting to feel nauseous from all of the blood you'd swallowed. Thor began to purr just after that and the sound was entirely devastating, bone deep and you went completely limp, your head falling to the side against Peter’s chest and your shoulders dropping. This is what acid felt like, you were pretty sure.

Your eyes lazily followed Bruce’s path as the doctor took his place between your legs again, lifting the other into a matching position. Some part of you was fully aware of how gut wrenching this was; completely naked and spread wide in front of two alphas and a beta, a situation you’d rather kill yourself than be in, but your brain couldn’t follow any emotional tethers while Thor purred. The doctor was speaking, you could feel his hands manipulating your vulva, but you couldn’t understand anything coming out of his mouth.

Peter’s hand came to your chin and tilted your head back until you could see him, smiling down at you. His mouth moved, your eyes almost able to track the movement of his lips enough to read them but your brain gave up halfway through. The two alphas were chuckling over something but you were distracted by the discomfort of something being inserted into your vagina. A sharp yip escaped your lips, your body still completely boneless as your eyes rolled down.

“It’s a speculum, sweetie, I’m sorry it’s uncomfortable,” it sounded like Bruce was talking underwater and you could almost feel his breath on your thigh, your mind irritatingly unable to think beyond the question 'who just keeps a fucking speculum lying around?' "Just a few more seconds while I get a pap smear.”

More discomfort came before the instrument was removed, another yip leading Peter to purr along side Thor. The rest of the exam was a blur, slippery fingers and pressure and foreign sensations. You could barely think, let alone realize that Bruce was finishing up the manual exam, when your eyes noticed movement behind them. You couldn’t really make out anything, nothing would focus, but you assumed it was Steve and Sam.

There were more voices but you couldn’t hear anything for an indeterminate amount of time. It wasn’t until Thor stopped purring again that you were able to start regaining your senses, as much as the continuous rumbling in Peter’s chest would allow. The difference between the sounds the two alphas produced was marked by your sudden ability to focus your eyes, to concentrate on voices, in the way your muscular control was slowly returning.

You were almost glad the young alpha was still purring—it meant that the spike of terror that tried to shoot through you was somewhat dulled, enough that it wouldn’t show in your scent. Sam and Steve had indeed come in, accompanied by a young woman with long auburn hair and porcelain skin, a beta from the scent. As soon as she made eye contact with you she smiled vibrantly, slipping forward and sneaking between your still spread thighs.

“You’re so beautiful,” she murmured, long fingers stroking absently against your neck as she leaned in, forcing your back tighter against Peter’s chest. "Will you let me see your trauma my love?”

Some sort of red miasma filled your vision, a fog you quickly realized was coming from her hands—and realization slammed into you like a freight train. You seen that before, in passing. And then the recognition made you nauseous—Thor. You didn’t keep up with current events, but certain names you couldn’t miss. Thor, Tony Stark, Captain America. Your eyes flashed to the blond man standing towards the back of the room; Captain America, Steve Rogers.

Desperation shot through your body like you’d been tazed. Your foot shot out of Thor’s hold, the alpha hadn’t been putting any actual effort into holding you still since you’d been so dazed, and connected with the woman’s chest to send her reeling. Before anyone else could respond, your throat rasped for several seconds before a warbling shriek escaped. The four alphas in the vicinity reacted like they’d been shot; Thor and Steve both stumbled back, and Sam’s knees practically gave out, sending him careening into the wall. Behind you, Peter, far too close to the source, immediately went limp.

There were several distress calls an omega could make. Most of the time, they were whines or chirps, noises meant to draw attention from packmates. They were small, careful sounds—nothing loud enough to attract attention from a foreign alpha or delta. Omegas were quarry to be stolen, after all, which was precisely why they had one, singular method of defending themselves against their biggest biological threat and that was a shriek.

When in close proximity, the sound was loud enough and tuned just so to daze an alpha’s hindbrain. The evolutionary explanation was that a loud shriek meant that an omega being confronted by an aggressive alpha could both temporarily stun their attacker and summon assistance—alphas or deltas, far enough away that the negative effects were nullified but within proximity to hear that an omega was in danger. The assumption being, of course, that an omega who shrieked was in danger from a stranger, not a packmate.

It only worked for a very short time though, any alpha or delta in the area would immediately converge on the omega’s location and deal with the problem—it was the reason you hadn’t used it outside. There was no reason for the effects to last when it summoned immediate assistance, though, and that meant you needed to move. You slid off the table, bare feet slapping tile as you just barely managed to dodge Bruce’s grasp. The woman, the witch from the news, was on the floor clutching her sternum.

The stairs were a blur, so was the foyer and the driveway. You hesitated at your car for all of ten seconds before running for the forest; your keys were in the pocket of your jeans, back down in the basement. Abandoning all of your possessions hurt somewhere deep in your heart but there wasn’t any time for sentiment. You had to get away, quickly.

Luckily the woods had become your home a long time ago. You moved between the trees silently, feet so heavily calloused from constantly going barefoot that you didn’t even notice the twigs and sharp stones digging into your flesh. Your brain shot into overtime. You needed to steal clothes, then cash. You’d lived with nothing for years, you could do it again for however long you needed to. The only thing you really needed was suppressants; everything else was a luxury.

You assumed they were behind you, you’d been running for a good three minutes. The straight path meant they could follow you easier but the goal had to be the maximum distance possible rather than the most strategic pattern. Your only advantage was being fast and you had no choice but to rely on it, especially since your hindbrain was wailing with every step you took. The suppressants were the only reason you could do it at all, the trade off for quieting those damn instincts being a tolerable mildness of character that did not appreciate the constant, incessant shriek of your baser self while you were trying to focus.

All you had to do was keep quiet until you could find one of the creeks running through the forest—so close to Lake Superior there was water everywhere. You would run through the creek in several different places, to mask your scent and make it difficult to follow. It wouldn’t be hard to find a hunting blind or shack, a hole in the ground was better than going back there. The moment your eyes caught on running water you dove into it, covering yourself with mud before jumping back up to continue running.

Captain America was super fast and you’d bet the rest of them were similar if not the same and you needed more distance. Somewhere in the back of your mind, prey behavior was setting in. Natural selection had driven your existence, you were the result of thousands of years of evolution, and the life you’d lived meant you were far more adapted to being hunted than most omegas. You were vulnerable but not helpless and as you coated yourself in more mud from a different part of the creek, chemosensory instincts started rattling through you.

They were coming. Your scent was inhibited by the suppressant’s and that made it harder for them to follow you but they were doing their best. Combined with the water and the mud, your scent was very difficult to pin down, even for a super soldier. You contemplated climbing a tree to hide, but the insane memory of how keen the noses of the pack following you were spurred you on. You kept running, covering yourself in mud two more times, before finding a tree with a massive tangle of roots at the bottom. Fighting whatever creature had made a home down there was worth it—it went deep, was heavily covered by underbrush and detritus from the trees, but most importantly it was surrounded by wild bergamot in full bloom.

It smelled lovely, spicy and floral with a citrusy overtone. You crawled through the dirt, wiggling between the roots and carefully avoiding crushing any plants or branches that could give you away. Whatever lived in there was out, likely foraging, and you took the creature’s absence to your advantage and pressed as far back into the hole as possible.

You weren’t tired, despite the long, exhausting day and the fucking trauma. Another small grace that adaption had provided was that once an omega began producing adrenaline, sleep became unnecessary—it was actually considered a very unenviable omega trait in the general population, but you’d found it’s uses worth the unpleasant side effects. Your heart would continue to race for the next several hours, your pupils wouldn’t return to normal for potentially days and your blood sugar had sky rocketed and that was going to be a nightmare for how ever long it lasted.

The waiting was going to hurt—there was nothing to pass the time and you had to actively focus on not being terrified or your omega scent could seep through, oh, what was it now? Five coats of mud from the creek, a significant amount of bergamot, and fifteen years of whatever the fuck suppressants did to your scent over time.

It wasn’t ten minutes later that you heard them. Stealth wasn’t their objective, that was clear from the amount of noise they made. You could hear Steve and Peter calling your name, although you didn’t know how they knew it. Thor was speaking, his tone low but certainly not quiet. They weren’t even moving that fast, walking almost leisurely.

“She’ll need to bathe and eat. Clint and Natasha are finishing up in New York. Steve, have you heard from Tony or Bucky? Carol?”

“Tony’s wrapping up, should be flying over pretty soon. Carol and Bucky were on their way up but I gave them a list of things to grab while they’re going through the bigger cities. Shouldn’t be too much longer for them either though.”

Steve and Thor were different than Sam or Peter. You couldn’t pin down exactly what had set your teeth on edge, but the scent the two blond alphas gave off was different. Their pheromones were worse, more infectious. Eye contact with Steve had made your hindbrain beg to go to him, regardless of the rationality you could usually manage thanks to the suppressants. You could remember the feel of Thor’s hand on like it was seared into your skin instead, you wanted him to never not be touching you ever again—

If you could’ve slapped yourself without making noise you would’ve. The stupid omega in your brain, that dumb, easy cunt was going to get you killed. You sealed your lips, clenched your teeth and tucked your hands under your bent knees. Night was starting to fall to your benefit, the shadows were getting darker. You were so far back they would have to crouch down and crawl half way in to see you.

If you could keep your wits until they passed you could double back, trying to find your keys would be a wash but you could grab clothes from the back of your ancient Tahoe. You weren’t sure how long you’d been in the basement, but you didn’t think it was long enough for them to have gone through your things.

“Could she have gotten this far?” You held your breath as Sam stopped far too close to your hiding place for comfort.

“Omegas are fast and she seemed faster than most,” Bruce answered. “We’ll know for sure once her blood work comes back, but from her physiology I’d say she presents as a classical omega. She’s probably the first in her family in a long, long time. To have a scream that loud in this day and age? The omega gene must’ve been skipped so long that there was no chance for it to adapt to modern omega qualities.”

“There’ve been some studies suggesting that the classical omega attributes are making a come back in the general population,” Peter’s voice came from much farther away. "They haven’t been peer reviewed enough yet and they haven’t been replicated en masse because they don’t have enough subjects, alphas aren’t exactly thrilled to have their omegas studied, but—”

“The lack of data aside, I assume there’s a correlation between the alphas willing to allow their omegas to participate and the behavior of the omega in question. Do you think—”

“Focus, Bruce,” Steve’s voice was light with affection. "The point is that yes, she could’ve gotten this far or farther. The way she keeps running into the creek is messing up the footprints and—”

Their voices faded as they continued the same linear path you’d been running earlier. The fact that they didn’t even sound a little concerned that you could get away was both insulting and unnerving. You didn’t need alphas having that kind of confidence regarding your behavior—and why weren’t they moving any faster? The paranoia was immediate and overwhelming, what did they know about that you didn’t? Something they assumed would hinder you farther along in the woods? Something they were planning for when they found you? When.

You forced yourself to count slowly to six hundred, waiting what you hoped was a full ten minutes before silently crawling out of your hide. Their scents were everywhere, you could smell where Sam had been standing almost directly over the opening in the roots. They were still too close for comfort and you turned, running back through the forest. Your feet were starting to feel sore, usually you’d at least watch where you stepped but there just wasn’t time—you had to get away before they could enact their plans.

The clearing the cabin sat in was coming up and you forced yourself to slow as you approached the tree line, keeping a careful eye out for the beta woman. You couldn’t remember what her call sign was, something to do with witches, and you definitely didn’t want her using that red magic stuff on your head.

The extra seconds of waiting paid off, watching her pace the porch for a few moments before her phone rang. She answered, walking inside and closing the doors behind her. You didn’t wait an extra second, darting across the clearing to where you car was sitting in the driveway with the trunk popped. They must’ve started going through your things but stopped part of the way through.

You could see one of your go bags though, squished between your rolled up sleeping bag and tent. The straps of the bag squeaked with how hard you yanked it out, hesitating slightly—instinct told you to leave the sleeping bag, but you’d grown used to the luxury of it and leaving the stupid thing behind made you decidedly sad. You tossed the straps of the go bag over your shoulder and turned away, knowing it would slow you down and—

There was an Iron Man suit standing directly behind you, gauntlets rested on the hips and the head cocked to the side. You froze, as if staying still could prevent it from noticing you. Fuck, you hoped there wasn’t a man in there. A stupid thought, you considered as you stared silently, trying to decide if there was any way out. Hope was a joke at this point but you didn’t have anything else.

“Hi princess,” it was a distinctly human voice, if filtered. "Hope I didn’t miss too much of the fun.”

content warning: nonconsensual medical procedures, general noncon touching/assault.

edited 7/9/21 - still on hiatus

#avengers x reader #dark!avengers x reader #steve rogers x reader #thor x reader #peter parker x reader #bucky barnes x reader #sam wilson x reader #wanda maximoff x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #tony stark x reader #bruce banner x reader #carol danvers x reader #clint barton x reader #will reblog w tags

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 3 years

Text

HASO “Dream Come True.”

Hope you guys enjoy, and hope you all have a great day!

Adam took a drink before setting the glass back down on the table. Across from him, Donovan Red took a pull on his whisky, drinking deeply before setting his glass down wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I’m Sorry about your man….. I didn’t intend for things to go that way.” Adam said staring down at the amber liquid in the glass before him.

Donavan signed, “Not your fault. Sometimes pride gets the better of us, and it’s hard to admit that an outsider might be able to beat us at our own game.” he patted Adam on the shoulder, “But you saved my life, which means I am, and will forever be in your debt.” He smiled

Adam tilted his head.

“That doesn’t seem to bother you too much.”

“I think there are much worse people to be indebted to. A least I know you won’t ask me to do something I don’t want to do. Not like other men I know.” He took another drink, the tattoos on his neck bobbing once and then twice as he swallowed, “So, tell me this favor that you are looking for. How can me and mine be of service.”

Adam sighed and slumped back in his seat. He felt like he should definitely be keeping quiet about what he wanted to tell the man, but it was hard keeping it to himself and the people on his ship.It would be nice if someone else knew what was going on.

And wasn’t that the point.

Isn’t that why he had come here.

“When I joined the UNSC, I never thought about politics. I was a fighter pilot and then a spaceship captain. I am no politician, but more and more I find myself having to do politics like things. People ask for my opinions on policy, and they encourage me to support one group over another. I have to manuver as a diplomat for the GA without trying to piss off the actual diplomat, who isn’t too happy that I sometimes get in the way of them doing their job.

I am the human representative to all of humanity, and I have to behave the right way, but, sometimes, in doing what I know is right people get mad at me for it. I am worried one day they are going to give me an order that I just can’t follow. Not to mention that I have suddenly become the figurehead for an entire political movement. Sometimes I have to make speeches now.” he threw up his hands, “I represent a coalition interested in cooperating with the GA and all her interests, but there is a very heavy isolationist mindset on earth that is mad that we ever even joined the UNSC. They have already attempted to assassinate me once, and I have no doubt that they are going to do it again.”

Donavan grunted and looked him over, “Yes, I remember hearing about that.” He looked Adam up and down slowly, “No offence, but you would make a shit politician.”

Adam sighed and nodded, “I know. The only reason that I have so much pull in the arena is based on what I represent, and how the GA feels about me, but now…. Now I am learning that there are factions of the GA that want me gone.”

Donavan rased an eyebrow in surprise, “The GA?”

Adam shrugged and sighed pushing his glass away from him, “Yes, some very powerful people are after me for something I never intended to do.”

“And who is this exactly?”

Adam shut his mouth forcing himself to think about it for a moment before finally making his decision.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair, “The chairwoman of the GA herself.”

Red almost choked on his drink, spewing some of it out onto the table before swallowing hard and setting his glass down very slowly.

“WHAT!”

“Adam nodded. I was chasing after some information, and infiltrated the pirate wing of the anti-alliance coalition as a man named captain Kell.”

Red held up a hand, “Hold on, YOU are Kell, no shit. I heard the guy was one badass pirate.”

Adam adjusted his eye-patch, “I AM one badass pirate, but either way, I used that cover to get to their leaders and saw a transmission being sent from the chairwoman of the GA that was ordering those men and women to kill me if they could manage it, and now I don’t know what to do. The chairwoman pretty much helped me get my job. As far as I can recall she was one of the most supportive when it came to my promotion to captain. Thought we were allies if not friends, and now I come to learn that she has been operating behind my back to stage my assasination.”

Red leaned up against the table, “Well no shit, that does suck.” He tapped his fingers together, “And of course you can’t tell anyone without proof, otherwise they aren’t going to believe you. If you are going to come up with allegations like those, then you are going to need hard evidence against her.

Adam nodded, “And I do have some evidence, the recording of what she said, but those sorts of things can be doctored. I need to expose her somehow. I don’t know how all of this fits in of course, but it is partially why I came to speak with you.”

Red waited and Adam continued.

“I can’t trust anyone within the GA, or even within the UNSC. My only option is to go outside the law like my enemies are doing. Fight fire with fire so to say. If they are using the criminal underbelly to try and kill me, then maybe I can use it to try and save me.”

Donavan was nodding slowly, “And you are hoping to fight fire with fire to speak?”

Adam sighed, “I don’t know what I am hoping , but I know for a fact you and your men have the most power in this system, enough that everyone knows but no one questions it. I know you can go deeper than I can ever attempt, and I was hoping that maybe you could keep an eye out for me, track the movements of the criminal underworld so to speak while I try and deal with those people who are pretending to do things legally.”

Red nodded slowly, ‘That is something I can do”

“But is it something you are willing to do?”

He tilted his head back thoughtfully to look up at the ceiling above, “I think it is. Not much different from things my men and I already do accept this time it is going to be for a worthy cause.”

He grinned, his gold capped teeth glittering in the dim light, “I-”

Just then, the implant in the side of his neck began to buzz. He held up a hand for Red to be silent, and the other man nodded leaning back in his seat to finish his drink as Adam answered the call.

“Madam president.” His tone of surprise roused red who raised an eyebrow.

“I have to say this is…. This is rather shocking. I didn’t know that you had this number.”

“I can have any number that interests me Admiral.”

“Yes of course.” He shifted nervously in his seat, “What can I do for you ma’am.”

“Do you know what important event happened on July 20th 1969, Admiral.”

He paused not entirely sure if this was a trick question.

“Go on. I know you of all people would know it.”

“The Apollo 11 moon landing ma’am.’

“More precisely, the 2051 anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. And it has been long in coming but the Global Aeronautics Space Division has decided to celebrate the occasion by recreating Apollo 11 down to every historical accuracy. The calculations will be done partially by hand and partially by computer. The Ship design will be exactly that of Apollo 11, etc. etc.”

Despite the stress he had been under the last few days, he felt his heart skip a beat.

“Wait, are…. Are you serious! That is amazing!”

“Yes yes.” She said cutting him off.

“And they want…. Or all of us want you to pilot that ship and command the mission as Commander Neil Armstrong would have in his time.”

The only response he was able to manage was a squeak, and he could feel the fangirl in him coming on hard and fast. He tried to clear his throat and remain professional, his heart pounding, a wide grin setting off across his face.

“Yes Ma’am you can count me in.”

“How confident are you that you can pilot the rocket?”

“I can fly anything ma’am.”

“Even so, we would like you back on earth as soon as possible to prepare for the event. This is a big historical recreation, and we want it to go as well as possible.”

“yes ma’am.”

The line went dead and he was no longer able to fight back the grin on his face.

Red watched him before standing, “We will get to work Admiral, and we will keep in contact. It’s good to know that my men and women are going to have something useful to occupy their time instead of sitting around twiddling their thumbs.”

Adam stood as well and took the man’s hand, “It should be a pleasure working with you.”

Red snorted skeptically, “You are too kind. I doubt it will be so pleasant, but consider yourself as a man who has friends in very low places.”

The two of them nodded and Adam excused himself back to his ship, racing towards his rooms with the giddy excitement of a school boy. The clind in him had awoken. He stopped to sit on the edge of his bed staring at the tiny recreated model of the lunar module sitting on the shelf above his bed glowing blue in the neon light above.

How cool was this going to be.

How dangerous was this going to be?

***

Eris was pleased to learn that she was not lactose intolerant. They hadn’t been sure based on her half alien half human anatomy if she would be able to handle some of the more harsh foods of the planet, but everything seemed to be working properly, a fact she was forever thankful for as she polished off her second bowl of ice cream.

She found the treat novel and delectable.

Leave it to human to think of eating flavored snow, or at least frozen cream.

And she liked it when they put little bits of candy on top.

Martha Sat on the floor next to the couch, and her husband sat in his chair watching ‘the Game’. Eris wasn’t sure what the rules were, but she liked watching them crash into each other. She wasn’t a big fan of all the talking they seemed to do in between the crashing together.

Martha and Jim had invited her to stay over for as long as she wanted after she told them the more detailed story of her life. They had been shocked but ultimately unsurprised to learn that she was less than three years old feeling sorry that she never got to have her childhood.

That’s why they were treating her like this, she knew.

They wanted to give her that little bit of her childhood.

She worried that they would be annoyed at her presence, but they seemed to have time with her sticking around indefinitely as far as she could tell . She wasn’t sure how long she was going to be staying, but for now, she was happy where she was.

Of course part of her being welcome had something to do with how Martha had no one to model clothes for her. Since her youngest son left the house she had been forced to model them herself, which made things difficult when she wanted to make alterations. But now that she had Eris, things were going much more smoothly,

At first Eris had been embarrassed to put on the clothing for her.

Once upon a time Eris hadn’t known better in thinking her body was weird. She had floated around without it using a gravity belt and no clothes, letting her long dark hair and ribbons cover what needed to be covered, but the more she learned about humans, the more self conscious she had grown, until hoodies and baggy pants were the only things she wore.

Martha did not approve of her wardrobe seeming to think Eris would look very striking in red or black.

Eris had tried on a few outfits for her nervousness at just how much of her alien otherness tended to show, with plunging backs and short skirts to show off her marble whie legs. Martha seemed to think the ribbons were pretty, and in everything she had Eris try on, they were on full display.

“Do they work like starborn ribbons?” Martha wondered, “I know they act sort of as solar sales, storing energy from the sun and using that to glide.”

Eris paused, “I don’t know. I was born on noctropolis where there is no sun, so I have never tried it.”

“I think you should.”

Eris shifted nervously, “But.”

Martha just smiled at her, “our backyard is fenced in, no one is going to see you.” Eris thoughts bout it for a moment and then set her bowl down to the side. She stood slowly and walked to the back sliding screen door and stepped out onto their back porch.

Technically it was only fenced in on two sides. The backside was open where the forest met their lawn growing deep and black as it went further back in to the depths.

Nervously Eris reached up and pulled off her hoodie dropping iit to the ground.

The tank top she wore had been made by Martha to accommodate her ribbons.

Once upon a time her gravity belt had allowed those ribbons to wave and undulate, but here they sagged with gravity and flowed behind her in the occasional wind current.

She turned around so they were facing the sun and waited.

And waited.

She felt nothing happening and was abut to go inside when.

When something started to happen.

She felt more…. Energized. Her blood seemed to grow warm and a smile spread across her face. At first she thought it was just all in her head, but then the warmth continued to blossom over her.

Her eyes went wide and she hummed softly feeling recharged from the sun like a battery.

She had her eyes closed and was just enjoying the radiation when she heard something ringing from the inside of the house followed by voices.

She was able to tear herself away from the warmth and stick her head inside.

“Adam, how are you doing.” Jim said and Eris could see Adam’s face projected on the TV.

She recognized a bit of herself in him. She had his nose, and his eyes shape.

“You are not going to believe who just called me.”

Martha smiled as she walked over to sit next to her husband, “Adam I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the president herself.”

Adam frowned some of the wind momentarily taken out of his sales, “Ok, yes it was the president, but.” e lit up almost immediately, “But you are not going to believe what she asked me to do.” He didn’t wait for them to guess, “She wants me to fly a recreated mission of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Historically accurate and everything!.” His grin was so wide it looked like he was going to split his face in half.

Martha’s eyes widened, “Really?”

Jim frowned, “That is great Adam, but…. Historically accurate?”

He nodded vigorously, “Yeah.”

“Son yu do realize the computer they used was less powerful than your mother’s automatic blow dryer.”

He waved a hand, “Yeah yeah, I know I know. Most of the math is probably going to be done by hand.”

Jim snorted and Martha grimaced, “Adam, sometimes I wish you had safer hobbies. I mean flying the omen is one thing, with those shields she could probably survive a meteor impact, but you understand the Apollo 11 mission flew in a rocket that that parts no heavier duty than your average tin can.”

“yes , and that makes it even more awesome.”

“I think you are getting dangerous and awesome confused again, son.”

“Oh come on, this is like a dream come true for me. ‘

Finally Martha and Jim sighed and broke out into smiles, “There is no changing your mind as usual.”

Adam grinned, “Nope.”

He turned his head just then, seeming to look through the camera, his eyes falling on Eris. Shock spread across his face, “Eris, is that you?”

She smiled shyly and moved forward, “Yeah, It’s me.”

“What are you doing there, I thought you were working at the hybrid foundation taking care of Glados and the others.”

She shrugged guiltily, “I…. well glados and the others wanted to go back to the adapted planet, and after that others started getting adopted, but then I sort of burnt out and wanted to come here and meet…..” She paused not sure if she should say

Martha put an arm around her, “She wanted to meet her grandparents and extended family.”

Adam looked surprised for a moment as if not having expected that before shrugging, “Just try to avoid mom’s side of the family if at all possible.”

“Adam.” Martha scolded, though she wasn’t actually mad.

He grinned, “I’ll be home in a few days.” he looked at eris, “Maybe I can show you around town when I get back….. If that’s something you’d be interested in?”

Eris shuffled her feet and quietly looked down, “Yeah,i’d like that.”

She wished she could read his thoughts in that moment. Was he only offering to be polite? She knew better than anyone that her birth had not been his fault. He had had his DNA stolen to make her, but still she couldn’t help but feel an affinity towards him. One that she knew wasn’t fiar for her to feel.

He hadn’t chosen for her to be born after all.

Not like other people

Did he just feel guilty?

Was she unwanted?

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suchplausibilities · 3 years

Text

That episode of Zoey’s (and Simon’s announcement last episode) was extremely well done. They’ve always done a very good job at being inclusive, but come on. I’m black. I trust no television show - especially a network television show - to handle an in-depth discussion of race. And if they manage to do so decently, I definitely don’t expect for them to to address it from more than one angle. So, it was a very nice surprise.

What I really loved:

Zoey not getting it. At all.

Zoey thinking that she got it for a large chunk of the episode

Zoey making a series of false steps in an attempt to be the White Savior

Zoey not getting that she was hearing, but not really listening to Simon

Zoey needing to be told outright that she had no idea what she didn’t know, who her friends really were, and that it was degrading and self-indulgent to think that she did

Zoey realizing that saying “I’ve got your back” was not only a phrase full of empty words - it was insulting

How clear it was at the end of the episode that, even though she’d made huge strides, there was still more for her to learn

Simon making decisions he personally felt comfortable with, and not letting Mo or Tatiana speak for him, just because they all share a race

Every song being sung by a POC (or a collection of POC)

The songs not being enough for Zoey to really understand

Mo pointing out a. how exhausting it was to be expected to explain to a white person how to be less racist, and how it was not his job to do so b. how it was demeaning it was to be defined by his race to the point that he became the person she ran to when she needed advice on how to talk to another black person and c. how he made her own up to her reasons for running to him

Tobin making it clear that rocking the boat by speaking up was too big of a risk, and that laughing at and going along with the racist jokes - no matter how much it hurt - felt worth it if it meant keeping his friends and his job

Simon blatantly explaining that being a black man in this country meant making himself smaller make sure that everyone else stays comfortable, and that he’ll always be a step below a white person when it came to what opportunities he would have.

Simon not mincing words as he told Zoey that her disregarding his being black meant that she was ignoring a vital part of him, and that expecting him to do the same in order to keep his job (and to maintain the status quo) meant that she was part of the problem

The board only being convinced to change when they saw that the social media presence had made the problem too public and to big to sweep under the rug

No pretending that they could be moved by a heartfelt speech - Simon’s points were all about making a company in a shaky situation not completely ruin their public image

Allowing Zoey to actually be part of the problem

The design of the show - the songs helping her to notice things she might not have noticed - means that every episode is inherently about her, but I think this episode was the first in which none of her actions directly affected the outcome (besides maybe asking Tobin why he laughed along with the racist jokes, but, even then, that was likely just the tipping point, given his actions at the open forum and his conversation with Simon). Tobin and Simon did the heavy lifting here, while she walked around hearing songs and realizing how much she didn’t understand and slowly learning

No b plots to distract from the important stuff

Tightrope, which really hits the nail on the head: not everything’s fixed, but they’re better. You take the time to celebrate your wins when you get them (and suffer your losses when they happen), but also don’t let them blind you to reality

The fact that Zoey’s affection for Simon seemed to really turn a corner here, now that she is beginning to see who he is as a complete person. She had a crush, and they’re friends, but it wasn’t ever going to be anything but shallow until she stopped seeing only half of him

*Of course, Simon saying what he did during the press conference had already opened up the can of worms - him retracting his statement would have just made it worse. And, in reality, the company would have done exactly what Simon said: SparqPoint would have written a press release in which they admitted that they were short-sighted and apologized profusely (basically what they did in the show) in unwittingly condescending ways, given managers quota of POC hires, implemented a series of mandatory racial sensitivity courses, and given Simon to a “promotion” that included a raise, lots of busywork, and a contract that limited his ability to interact with the press. I’ve gotta say, though - the positive outcome fit the plot line very well, so I am happy to share in the optimism.

I just really hope that this doesn’t turn into a Very Special Episode for Black History Month that goes on to ignore the problem completely from here on out. Jaded, given that they’ve handled Mo and his story relatively well over the seasons? Maybe. But come on. I’m black. I know how this usually goes.

#i can't say i'm not surprised that they handled this as well as they did - in a way that was very frank and felt truly genuine #but I'm very happy about it #it's so nice when producers and writers take serious situations seriously #no tl;dr this was important and i will not summarize #blackness #zoey's extraordinary playlist #zep #simon haynes #tobin batra #tatiana (zep)#mo (zep)#and #john clarence stewart #because I love him and he killed this

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sophiainspace · 3 years

Note

💫 for that ask deal. Coldwest or whoever you're feeling I guess!

It took a wild heart to tame mine

And it took a wild heart to charm

Now a wild heart’s gone and floored me…

Who wants a love that makes sense anyway?

- ‘Wild Heart’, Mumford & Sons

Complicated Feelings

(Ficlet - Iris West/Leonard Snart)

Joe: Anger

“That man is a murderer!” her dad yells.

It’s almost funny that he still thinks he can frighten Iris away from the guys he disapproves of, as if it’s any of his business. It’s the most irritating version of ‘scared straight’ Iris ever heard of. The fact that she has a bad habit of being attracted to guys her father has personally arrested, is neither here nor there. And it didn’t even help when Iris dated his partner, so it’s pretty clear no guy is ever going to be good enough for Joe West’s (twenty-eight-year-old) little girl.

Still, this is a fairly extreme reaction, even for her dad. He’s currently standing in the West family living room, his face screwed up in such rage that Iris is a little concerned he’s about to burst a vital blood vessel.

Iris rolls her eyes.

This is apparently a mistake; her dad just gets louder. “Are you even taking this seriously, Iris? I’ve personally arrested that guy! Twice! In two different decades!” He shakes a disapproving head. “You wanna come with me down to the station right now? I’ll show you his damn record. Then you can decide if that’s the kind of man you wanna date.”

On the sofa, Iris folds one leg over the other. When she speaks, she tries hard not to match her dad’s volume. Getting quieter is an old trick, that sometimes calms him down a bit. “I know what’s in his record, Dad.”

“How?” her dad demands. He loses a couple of decibels of volume in his curious tone, which is a good sign.

Iris makes a really good attempt not to look smug. She probably fails. “He showed me.”

“He WHAT?”

Iris rubs her ears pointedly, and shrugs. “He helped me break into the CCPD archive building one night. I needed to look at some Santini records for a story I’m working on.” She gives Joe an innocent smile. “Don’t worry, Dad - it was just the archives. I’d never break into the main precinct. I’m not that dumb, and Leonard sure as hell isn’t.”

When her dad rubs a hand down his face and slumps into the seat next to her, Iris knows she’s won. Joe sighs. “Okay. We’ll come back to you breaking and entering right into police property in a minute.”

“Sure, Dad,” she says cheerfully.

He turns his head to look at her. The anger has drained away, leaving real fear in its place. There you are. Iris can deal with worry. As long as her dad is honest about his motivations, she can handle him. “Baby girl, are you really sure about this?” Her dad takes her hand. “I know, I know - you’re a grown-up…”

Progress. Iris nods. “I am, and I can make my own decisions about who I spend my time with.”

She carefully avoids the word date, just as she has for the past five weeks.

“Even terrible damn decisions like Leonard Snart,” her dad mutters.

Iris raises an eyebrow.

Joe sighs in defeat. “I’m just scared for you, baby girl.”

Her poor dad. He keeps trying to keep her out of danger, and it’s a losing battle. Iris squeezes his hand, almost sympathetic. “I know. I promise I’ll be careful, okay? Besides.” She aims a warm smile at him. “It’s not serious. This thing’ll probably be done in a week or two. So you don’t have to worry, okay?”

Lifting Iris’s hand to his lips to kiss it, her dad nods. “So that’s two of you with a thing for criminals,” he mutters.

Iris doesn’t know what that comment is about, and she doesn’t ask. She’s almost glad when the conversation moves on from Leonard Snart. Even if it does turn to Iris’s criminal behaviour, and whether her dad is obliged to report her. Iris has to fight a smile for the whole of his lecture, knowing there’s no way he’s turning her in. When your daughter is the light of your life, ‘scared straight’ will only ever be an act.

Barry: Concern

In the middle of the Cortex, her best friend worries at his lip. “You know he’s a killer, right?”

That really is everyone’s excuse for keeping her from seeing Leonard, isn’t it? Iris folds her arms. “No, Barr. I’d managed to miss that fact entirely. Thanks so much for pointing it out.” She pulls back on the sharp tone when he gives her a look. “And he hasn’t hurt anyone in a long time. Not since that deal of yours. You know, the one that had you saying you could see the good in him? It’s almost like you were trying to reform him.” She shoots him a smug grin.

Barry chuckles, glancing away to the Flash suit - and something strange crosses his face. It would be almost imperceptible to anyone else. But Iris is not just anyone.

Oh.

“Barr,” she asks, stepping carefully around from behind the desk, “you’re not jealous, are you?”

Barry looks back at her with a smile that, if she doesn’t look too closely, is hardly tinged with sadness at all. “Why would I be jealous? I hate to break it to you, Iris, but I got over you a while ago.”

Iris she doesn’t mention the alternative option. If Barry isn’t going to acknowledge the obvious, it’s best if she doesn’t.

But when she thinks he’s not looking, Iris gazes at him. He’s staring at the Flash suit again, his eyes so sad it’s going to break her heart. How long has the poor boy been in love with Leonard Snart?

It seems to take Barry a minute to make it back to the here and now. “I’m just a little concerned, that’s all.” He lays a friendly hand on her arm. “You’ll stay safe, won’t you, Iris?”

Iris matches Barry’s too-cheerful smile, like fake flowers in summer, with one of her own. “Of course I will. Don’t worry, Barr.” She turns away to the door.

When she reaches it, she spins on her heel to get another glimpse of him. Barry is back to staring into empty space with empty eyes. Iris knows he won’t want her pity, but she can give him something. “I’m just having fun, okay?”

He glances back at her. “Are you?” he asks, a little too softly.

Iris tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Of course I am. Did you really think Leonard Snart would want things to get serious?”

She walks away without looking back. Best not to give Barry a chance to call her bluff.

Leonard: Love

“I hope you’re aware that all my friends and family have very complicated feelings about you.” Iris drops her weekend bag on the hotel room bed, winking at Leonard.

The man himself is stretched out on the bed like a big, lithe cat. One leg folded over the other; hands linked behind his head. It’s just the sort of cocky, lazy pose that’s designed to get Iris hot. She’s not going to tell him it’s working already. “Is that right?” he purrs. He pats the bed next to him.

Iris jumps on greedily, falling into his arms. His kiss is warm and inviting, a delightful welcome-home even in the bleakly familiar mid-budget hotel surroundings, with all the identical fixtures and fittings as every other hotel they’ve stayed in, every weekend for the past five weeks. “Mmm,” she murmurs against his lips - so soft and gentle it surprised her, when they first started this little fling. So far from what she’d expected. But by now she’s learned that Leonard Snart always defies expectations. “I’ve missed you.”

“Not like I’ve missed you.” His voice is so sincere, it scares her a little.

But no more than she can handle.

“So.” Leonard lazes back against the headboard, lifting an arm so she can snuggle in against his side - and she never says no to that offer. She wriggles into his embrace, sighing out all the stress of the week as she listens to Leonard talk. “Tell me about these complicated feelings your people have about me. I might be kinda flattered.”

“Kinda?” Iris raises an eyebrow. A full-of-himself criminal winks back at her. “Well, let’s see. The whole of STAR Labs found out that I’m sleeping with you, all at once - alcohol was involved, and no, you’re not getting that story.” Leonard grins, but lets her continue. “Cisco said he could not in good conscience talk to me while I was dating a supervillain who’d once kidnapped him, and slammed his lab door, and then he had to come back for half his stuff, and then he said maybe if you apologise, he’ll think about being okay with it.”

“An apology, huh?” For a moment, Leonard looks as unsure as Iris has ever seen him. Then he shrugs. “Guess that can be arranged.” He sneaks her a little smile when he thinks she’s not looking. “If it’d make you happy.”

Iris hums and kisses him again, just a light touch of her lips on his. He makes the cutest happy noise - it’s enough to set her heart fluttering in her chest. “It might,” she murmurs. “Hmm, who else… Caitlin was tight-lipped for a few days, but then she admitted she thinks you’re hot, and Frost turned up to say that, if she dated men, you’d be pretty high on her list too, and a few other unsettling things along the lines of you go, girl, so I think I’ve won them over.”

Leonard throws back his head and laughs. He looks too beautiful for words when he does that. “Well, these sound like complicated feelings with acceptable resolutions.” He reaches out a hand for her face, stroking her cheek, a touch of concern on his face. The fluttering in Iris’s chest kicks up a gear. “So that can’t be all of it, if everyone in that goody-two-shoes hero store found out at once.”

Iris’s gaze drops to the blanket beneath them. “My dad and I had a fight for the ages,” she admits, with more of a wobble in her voice than she intends. “Worse than when I dated Lee Tarrant when I was sixteen, and he was a coke dealer.” Leonard’s snort is delightful, persuading Iris to entertain him a little more. “In the end I distracted Dad with something else… and now you might have a standing invitation to the weekly West family dinner.” Iris pats a horrified-looking Leonard on the back. “Cecile and Jenna are your way in. Bring Jenna presents. Not stolen ones. My dad will love you in… maybe a week or two.”

Leonard lets out a disbelieving snort.

“Okay, a month might be more realistic,” Iris admits, attempting a grin. She’s a little worried at the distant look that’s turned up in Leonard’s eyes.

“Go on,” he says softly, as if he needs thinking time. “Anyone else express complicated feelings about yours truly this week?”

“Just Barry.” Iris feels the way Leonard goes still against her, but she doesn’t draw attention to it.

Leonard makes a quiet little hmm sound. “Don’t tell me the Flash wants me dead too. Even when I’m fucking his best friend, that seems out of character for our beloved hero.”

Iris gets the sense she needs to tread carefully here. “No, he wasn’t mad. He was a little worried, but mostly he seemed kind of… sad.”

“Is that right?” Leonard’s eyes are a deep, dark mirror of Barry’s, back in the Cortex.

So there is a story there. But Iris is not going to push for it now. She just leans in and kisses him, one more time.

When they finally part, Leonard is gazing at her like he’s seeing her for the first time. She smiles… and he clears his throat. “So. West family dinner, huh?”

Iris snuggles back in under his arm. “Yep.”

“With your dad and not-stepmom and baby sis.”

Damn. He’s really thinking about it. “Yep.” Iris holds her breath.

“…And Barry.”

“Of course.” Barry is a non-negotiable, if Leonard cares about her. Whatever complicated feelings those are, she hopes she’s worth getting past them.

(When did she start hoping she was worth anything to him?)

Leonard makes an oddly thoughtful sound. “And I never have to go anywhere near STAR Labs?”

Iris lets out the breath she was holding. “I give you a couple of months before you’re dying to, just to annoy them all and play the dashing not-at-all-hero while you’re at it… but, no, that is not required.”

Leonard licks his lips, clearly hiding a smile. He rolls them both over, ending up on top of her. She giggles and lets him stay there, just for a minute. Leonard murmurs, “A couple of months, huh? Is that how long you think this thing is gonna last, Iris?”

Her heart is doing that flip-flop thing again. There’s a strong, gorgeous man above her, his muscled, careful arms either side of her head, and - oh, fuck it. She wants to keep this. “Well. I guess that depends.”

He tilts his head. “I’ll bite. Depends on what?”

In a graceful second, Iris has switched their positions, straddling him. His eyes darken with lust. Iris wants to hold onto that look for as long as she can. Maybe a whole lot longer than two more months. “On how long I can keep you interested,” she teases.

Leonard winks at her.

The next kiss leads to another, and another…

Iris lies beside at him in the afterglow, just enjoying his arms around her.

As his beautiful eyes hold her gaze, he asks her, “What are you thinking about?”

She and Leonard have told each other a lot of lies during the past month or so. Iris has told herself even more.

It’s just a fling.

One more weekend, and we’ll call it quits.

We’re just having fun.

I’m not in love.

But Iris is done with the lies. “Complicated feelings,” she replies, cupping her boyfriend’s cheek. “And I don’t mean my friends’ feelings.” She meets his trusting gaze. “I mean mine… and yours.”

His laugh, surprised but delighted, is everything she could need in an answer.

#coldwest #leonard snart #iris west #my fic #I am so sorry that I’m incapable of writing coldwest without a pining Barry Allen #it’s a permanent trope now and I shall have to learn to with it #I think I have all the prompts I can answer already now so they’re closed but thanks for the ones I have!#ficlet #the flash fanfic #none of us can queue this alone

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dinogoofy · 3 years

Text

Rain x GN! Reader.

Asshole.

Its taken me two weeks to get back into the flow of writing fics, but I hope you guys like this!

Warning for swears.

(Disclaimer that this takes place from mkx to mk11, and is not perfectly accurate to the storyline that comes after aftermath, but its my own AU if how I wish it ended, so...)

----

"Shao Kahn was already pushing the line, but mileena as well? Rain, think about what you are saying!" He huffs, his gaze shifting to your eyes.

"You know my reasons." Squeezing your eyes shut, you pressed the palms of your hands to your temples. It's difficult to understand what is going on in Rain's head sometimes.

He had always been hard to deal with. Rain had hired you to help him find someone a while back. Your family line was well known in all relms for their tracking abilities and moral code. You had your doubts about accepting Rain's offer, but the payment offered was more than enough to get you on board.

As the months grew longer, the hunt slowed to a stop. There were No tracks. No clues, not a single strand of evidence to be followed. Rain's brothers remained untouchable. In the meantime, you and Rain had become... close. And you stayed by his side as he shamelessly served Shao Kahn.

Before this, you has always been neutral on outworlds chaotic ruler. But after meeting Kitana and learning of his cruelty in both his political and personal endeavors, you became increasingly uneasy as you remained with Rain.

But now, Shao Kahn was dead. Kotal had taken his place. And it was time to make a decision.

"Is the power- will it ever be enough for you?! Will you ever be satisfied? Mileena is a wild card, Rain! Agreeing to serve her is madness!" Rain's hands flexed, shoulders set back, eyes hard and zeroed in on you. You knew Rain well, you thought. And you could tell there was no getting through to him.

"The power will be enough when I say it is. I deserve everything I want. You deserve-" your heart fluttered as he cut himself off abruptly. Your demeanor softened, and his did too. You almost didn't notice as he started to take a few steps closer to you. His silence was deafening.

"I think you know what I am about to say," He was closer now, close enough for you to just barely feel his breath on your face. He has taken off his mask, and it took every bit of restraint you had to resist throwing yourself in his arms. No. You would never so such a thing. You scolded yourself for being so emotional.

"Do I?" He lifts a hand to caress your face, and against your better judgment, you melted into his touch. You could tell that this was an act. It had to be. From the very beginning you knew that he would most likely only ever love himself. You told yourself that this moment to him is only a chance to get you to remain with him as a pawn. You had always been a pawn to him, and you could tell he hadn't realized you always knew. Still yet...

"Despite my fondness for you Rain, I think this may be where our paths diverge." His body language remained stiff, but he pressed his forehead to your own. His lips in a thin line.

"I know..." This was quite enough. He was such a bad liar that it had started to hurt. You take his hand off your face and into your own, taking a step back from him. Your eyesight locked onto your conjoined hands only.

"This will not be the last time we meet, I can promise you that." For better or for worse, you silently continued after.

"Good. I'll be anticipating our reunion." You take one last good look at him, holding back the words, the tears, the angry and loving things you wish you could say to him in this moment, and you leave him there.

Sometimes, honor and common sense must come before a one-sided love.

You portal back to earthrelm for the first time in months both physically, and emotionally, alone.

----

Whatever time debacle that had just occurred ment, you sure as hell didn't want any part of it. After less than half a week, your younger self had disappeared from the old farmhouse where you lived, and almost everything had gone back to normal.

You hadn't heard from any if your outworld friends in quite some time now, and had faith that whatever had happened, they had it taken care of.

You had just returned from helping an elderly neighbor track down some lost cattle, and were currently curled up in the sofa with a warm cup of tea. Simply enjoying life altogether.

-When a sudden light filled the room, starting you enough to drop your mug, and two figures stepped out of the portal as it shattered on the wooden floors.

"Did we catch you at a bad time?" Fujin had a friendly smile on his face, Nightwolf by his side, his serious counterpart. You were so shocked you almost forgot about the glass.

"Fujin, Nightwolf, I'm almost happy to see you! It's been a while."

"It has," Nightwolf replied, "But I am afraid that this visit isn't simply to reconnect." You sighed, life could never just be simple, could it?

"I had a feeling." You stooped to clean the glass, inviting them to sit while you picked up the pieces. Nightwolf politely declined while fujin stopped to help you.

"Rain has returned. Along with Mileena." If you were drinking water, you were sure that you would've done a spit take. Your head snapped back to look up at fujin, heart almost stopping for a moment.

"I- I thought Mileena was-"

"Dead. We know. After the past and present merged she managed to worm her way into outworld again."

"And... and Rain?" Fujin and Nightwolf shared a look. Oh gods. They knew. They definitely knew. You busied yourself with the glass, taking the other pieces from Fujin and absent-mindedly walking over to the trashcan.

"Rain had resurfaced around the same time Mileena did. We caught them mid battle with an earthrelm man before both disappeared." The glass hitting the bottom of the trashcan was as much of a distraction you allowed yourself to have.

"Rain and I have cut ties. How does this involve me?"

Fujin spoke; "Kitana is now Kahn of outworld. Both he and Mileena want to take her throne, we are asking you to keep Rain in check while we deal with Mileena's uneveitable attack."

You froze for a moment, blankly staring into space. You would get to see Rain again. Maybe even have a chance to sort out the mixed emotions you've been holding in for so long. (By tracking him down and beating the shit out of him, of course. ) But most likely he would hold a grudge for the rest of time afterwards, despising you for "keeping him from his potential". Then again, you thought about Kitana. No, Kitana Kahn. For a moment all you could think about is how proud you were of her. Your old friend, restored to her kinder self and now ruler of outworld. It took a moment but you finally gave the two men an answer.

"I'll do it."

The men nodded.

"Buy us as much time as you can."

----

This was such a bad idea.

You had tracked Rain down in less than a day, and now as he stood before you, you prayed the swell of your broken heart would go down before you choked on your new mission.

Rain was roasting fish over a small campfire in the thickest part of the jungle you had ever been to, a wide smirk on his face. He was not at all surprised to see you, in fact, something about him seemed... different. More genuine. But maybe that is just the hunter part of your brain speaking. The more distracted the target is the easier the takedown will be. He called your name.

"It's good to see you," you swallowed hard, starting to regret agreeing to this before you spoke.

"I wish I could say the same." He stood, sauntering over to you. For a just a moment, his facade almost dropped at your words. You almost didn't catch it. Was he sick? What had happened to the rain you knew? The lair, the theif? No. He hadn't changed, you had to be over analyzing everything about him.

"I believe I know why you are here. Does your support of Kitana really outweigh our past?" The way he said your name after almost made you choke. You narrowed your eyes at him, curling your fists.

"Trust me. That kindness I showed you then won't transfer into Kombat."

The fight was a difficult one, and yet you still won. The demigod, exhausted and face down in the brush, could no longer fight. As you wound your enchanted rope around his wrists, Rain started to chuckle.

"I'm starting to wish I never gifted you that rope." A sly smile plastered itself on your face as you continued to focus on the knots.

"It was designed to help me keep your brothers trapped, you should've known the risks when you commissioned it." Rain mumbled something petty, and you replied by yanking him up off the dirt and into a sitting position, leaving him for just a moment to prod at the dying embers of his fire. You could practically feel his stare burning into the back of your head as he eyed you from behind.

"You are still just as beautiful as I remember." You were thankfull for the setting sun as your cheeks flushed red. He had never sounded so genuine about a compliment before.

"Flattery won't get you out of this." You stated as you sat down next to him, biting into the fish that he was cooking earlier. Damn. The taste was nice reminder of your old days together.

"Worth a try." You snickered at him. His personality surely hadn't changed much, but the way he glanced at you every once in a while caught you off guard. The beating of your heart being a disappointing reminder that you still loved him.

"I realized something the day you left," His drawl of your name caught your attention, but you said nothing, continuing to stare into the small, dying, fire.

"I know you will not believe me, not now, not ever. But I never truly knew how much I cared for you until you were walking away from me." Absolutely not. No. FUCK No. He was not going to do this to you now. GODS you hated how genuine he sounded, how genuine he seemed. It felt like anger and something else were stabbing the inside of your lungs and ripping out pieces of yourself.

And yet part of you knew that for once, he wasn't lying when he said that. At this point, logic had all but escaped from your mind. Grabbing him by the collar of his stupid purple armor, you stared in his eyes, searching for any sort of indication that this was all some well performed lie. But...

Rain was being genuine. He thought that he could rule alone, but the loss of your support ment a more to him than he thought anything ever could. And he hoped that after everything, you would believe him. (This did not mean he would just ignore the fact that you have him under arrest at this moment, however.)

"If I ever find out that you are lying, I'm killing you on the spot. Understand?!" Rain smiled widely as your eyes bore into him. He knew you were serious, you always had been one to keep promises.

When he leaned forward to kiss you, the anger dissipated just a bit, but your resolve, as always, remained the same. You never thought that a kiss would feel so good.

#mk11 #mk x reader #rain x reader #mk rain #mortal kombat #mkx mortal kombat x #mk imagine #gender neutral reader #reader insert #x reader

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3pirouette · 3 years

Text

Fic: An Experimental Design (9/10)

Title: An Experimental Design

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3

Story Summary: Sequel to “What Number?”, also prompted from Steggy Bingo Bash Prompts. Takes place about a week after that fic.

Chapter Summary: Howard figures out what’s going on with Steve and comes up with a short-term solution

Chapter 9: The Lion

Howard looked back and forth between them, eyes shifting quickly. He was still disheveled from rushing over in the dead of night. He wasn’t used to being woken up at 2 AM by his friend in a panic, and it had unnerved him.

What he was met with was not the sight he expected.

The nervous, upset Steve he’d talked to on the phone was slowly transforming in front of his eyes. The anxious man he’d met at the door was now staring him down from the couch across from him, careful to never let Howard all that close to Peggy.

Peggy, hastily dressed as well, her hair falling in a disarray Howard wasn’t used to seeing, sat next to him, unable to stop fidgeting.

Steve eyed Howard, and rumbled low in his chest.

“Did you…” he did a double take, turning to Peggy. “Did he just growl?” Howard’s voice squeaked and he leaned back in his chair, eyes wide.

Peggy pressed her hand on Steve’s shoulder, and even though it wasn’t skin to skin contact, it seemed to calm him. “Can you see why we have a problem?”

Howard nodded, eyes still wide. “How long’s he been like this?”

Peggy shook her head. “Since before this morning. It’s—”

“No,” Steve interrupted. He squinted his eyes shut, running his hands over his face and shaking his head. When he opened his eyes again it was like the fog had lifted a little, like he’d managed to fight it off. “I was fine this morning. I felt great actually. Better than I had since this whole thing started, really.”

Peggy looked at him, surprised. “Why didn’t you say? I thought you weren’t feeling anything?”

He shrugged, bashful, but then an intensity took over that seemed somewhat out of place as he reached for her cheek. “How could I say I was feeling great when you felt horrible?”

Howard tried to catalogue Steve’s rampant mood swings as he attempted to put together what in the hell was happening. “You didn’t feel good, Peg?”

She took Steve’s hand from her cheek and held it in both of her own in her lap. “No. I felt awful. Headache, vomiting, tired...” She chuckled mirthlessly, “Basically everything you’d thought I’d feel.” Peggy leaned on Steve’s arm, hiding a yawn before turning back to Howard. “I managed a nap and felt a little better, but by the time Steve woke up he was already not quite himself.”

Howard let out a heavy breath, fingers pulling at his moustache as he looked back and forth between the two of them.

Steve couldn’t take the man’s prolonged silence. “What?”

“I’m trying to decide who I’d rather take a punch from…”

Peggy crossed her arms and set her shoulders, admonishment clear in her voice. “Howard…”

“You took a nap, right, Steve?” Steve nodded, eyes still alternately clearing and fogging over as he tried to stay focused. “Well, when you sleep your body heals faster. I’d guess that your body actually cleared all of the hormones we gave you while you were asleep. We’d have to test to be sure but…”

Peggy started carefully, “Then why is he acting like a possessive neanderthal? Shouldn’t he be back to just his current normal, slightly possessive, lust crazed state?”

Howard winced, waiting as long as he could before he let the suspicion tumble from his lips. “Well… I think you smell, Peg.”

“Excuse me?” Peggy demanded angrily. She and Steve both sat taller and Howard flinched back, fully expected one of them to swing at him.

He slowly leaned forward once he was reasonably sure he was safe from any stray punches, his explanation sounding almost like an apology. “The hormones we gave you, very specifically for a woman, mimic pregnancy. You’re probably giving off huge amounts of very specific pheromones right now and he’s…” Howard’s hands flailed in the air, trying to get them to the same conclusion he’d come to without saying it explicitly.

Steve’s head dropped into his hands, his fingers scrubbing over his scalp. “Howard…” he lamented, frustrated and tired.

Peggy let her hand scrub over his back, looking over at Howard with daggers in her eyes. “What in the world would make you think doing that would be a good idea?”

Howard shook his head, frustrated himself. “Believe me, we didn’t think this would happen, Steve strutting around like a lion protecting his mate. We thought he’d get at least a day, if not a few, out of it, and if your hormones stabilized, his would follow.”

Steve looked up, eyebrows knit tight. “But pregnant, Howard?”

Howard shrugged. “Worked for Peggy, didn’t it?”

Steve just let his head fall back to his hands. “So, what do we do?” he mumbled, head still hung low. “I can’t follow her around like some overprotective jerk forever.”

Howard cleared his throat, the tightness in his jaw a clear signal he really didn’t have an exact answer. He stuttered and flailed his hands for a moment in a few false starts before sighing and shrugging. “We can’t separate you- you already took out a wall and that was before you were growling at me.” Howard looked at Peggy, eyebrows raised high. “Can you suffer him like this?”

Howard might not have seen it, but Peggy saw Steve’s wince. She let her hand run gently over his back. “I’m sure you know by now we’re both all in for whatever is coming next.”

Howard nodded. “I’ll get a nurse over here to get some blood samples and then I’ll reach out to my guy. But…” he shook his head and stood, moving over to the phone. “Best case scenario right now is we try to even your hormones out and hope Steve doesn’t take down a zebra, or the milkman, until that happens.”

~*~

By sunrise, the nurse had come and gone and Howard had already been back, poking Peggy with what he assured her was at least a temporary fix. He hadn’t even offered to try to give Steve any, saying that his body cleared it too quickly for it to be any kind of answer right now.

Curled up in the corner of the couch, she was at least grateful that she wasn’t sick to her stomach anymore. Her mug was long since empty, but she still turned it in her hands, letting her nails tap along the ceramic as she waited for Steve to emerge from the bathroom. After Howard left, he’d mumbled something about taking a shower and had disappeared. The shower had been shut off for ages, and she hadn’t heard any of his normal knocking about in long, quiet minutes.

She should get up, make something to eat, but she didn’t feel like it. She couldn’t feel much, in fact. She felt a little hollow, unmotivated, and still so very, very tired.

Steve opened the door to the bathroom, looked at her, and moved past to the bedroom, holding the towel around his waist tight, his eyes avoiding her.

She could feel his pain. Whatever was between them was doing that. It allowed then just a sense, but even the smallest sense was enough. He was hurt, and embarrassed, and sad. He felt like he’d failed her, and it made her chest tighten. She didn’t know how to soothe him, because she wouldn’t be treated like his toy or his conquest or whatever else his Neanderthal brain had decided she was. But she didn’t like to see him hurt, and his pain made her own sense of listlessness worse.

She tapped her nails on the mug again, eyes unfocused on the floor as she heard him moving around, getting dressed. She heard the mattress creek under his weight and then nothing but the occasional soft breath.

She didn’t recall making a conscious decision to go to the bedroom, but more like she felt the need, a pull from deep in her gut.

Peggy wanted to know what was her and what was this damned serum, but she’d spent far too much time trying to separate the feelings and found it didn’t much matter anymore what motivated her.

What mattered was when she stepped into the bedroom and found Steve sitting on the side of the bed, his head in his hands and his eyes red rimmed, he didn’t push her away when she lifted his chin and he hugged her close when she sat in his lap. When she pulled him down to the bed, he silently followed her lead, stripping them down to nothing and cocooning them in the bedsheets, every inch of skin touching and their heartbeats slowing and syncing as they both fell asleep, a sense of peace blooming deep in her stomach, even with so much still left to work out.

~*~

Dugan kicked his feet up on the bench in Stark’s lab. The scientist stared at the soldier, but he just smiled back. “You’re here… why?” Stark asked, trying to go back to his notes.

“I’m here because we need another avenue.” Dugan twirled his moustache, staring at the man’s back. “Phillips is on my back, I can’t go any faster than those translators can go, most of what they get us has been bullshit anyway, and we’re running out of ideas.”

Howard shot him a dirty look and pushed his notebook to the side. “What makes you think I have any better ideas?”

“Well, for one,” Dugan kicked his feet to the floor and put his elbows on his knees, “You’re the smartest guy on this base. And for two, we need Steve back if we want any hope in hell of getting ahead of Hydra.”

Howard shot the man one of his best fake smiles, “While flattery would normally get you everywhere,” he dropped the pretense and tossed his notebook at Dugan and the soldier fumbled the catch, “I don’t have anything. I have a hell of a lot of data that tells me almost absolutely nothing. I can’t fix it. I can’t change it without making Steve go Berserk or Peggy have so much pain she should be dead.” Howard slumped in his chair. “If you got any ideas, I’m open to ‘em.”

Dugan flipped through the notebook, knowing none of it would make sense to him. He looked back up at Stark. “You really don’t have another plan?”

“Aside from handcuffing the two of them together?”

Dugan smiled. “Not the worst plan I’d ever heard.”

Howard was quiet for a moment, then his eyes widened, focusing on something only he could see as his brain started to work out the problem. “Yeah… not the worst plan…”

~*~

“We should eat,” Steve mumbled, nosing at the hair at the base of Peggy’s neck.

She hummed, snuggling back into his arms. “Perhaps.”

They’d been awake for quite some time, but despite all the things they kept saying they should do, neither could find the will, or the strength, to get out of the bed. The best answer, somehow, was the simplest: touch. It calmed them both, relaxed them both, and though it gave them no long-term answers, they agreed that torturing themselves by staying away or by fighting, by letting whatever was going on in their bodies take over, was simply out of the question.

Peggy’s stomach picked that precise moment to growl, the rumble reverberating through Steve, too. He laughed, and then pulled away reluctantly.

Peggy rolled, watching him slip on his shorts as he stood. She sighed as he turned back to her. “I’m still not sold on getting out of bed.”

“You don’t have to,” Steve leaned down and kissed her forehead gently. “Breakfast… or brunch, I guess, in bed.”

She felt like she’d just blinked her eyes shut when the mattress dipped and he was back, sitting at her hip with an over-ripe banana, a scrawny apple, and some packets of cheese and crackers that looked like they came straight from K Rations. He spread the bounty out in front of her as she sat up, slipping his undershirt on over her head and pulling the blankets around her waist. “Take your pick.”

She couldn’t help but smile as she picked up the apple. “What a fine feast.”

He shrugged, his eyebrows moving as much as his shoulders as he grabbed the banana. A flush moved up his chest and into his cheeks as he pealed it, “Gotta take care of my lioness.”

Peggy stopped halfway into biting her apple and smiled at him, even though his eyes were set hard on his own piece of fruit. “You do, my darling.” He peeked at her from the side of his eyes, but didn’t look all the way up. “And I have to say, I’m much happier with this than with a zebra. I have no desire to do all that butchering and cooking.”

His laugh wasn’t a full out guffaw, but it was more than a chuckle and it was music to her ears. It felt too long since she’d heard that sound. “Are you feeling better? You seem…” She didn’t finish, but met his eyes as he sat up taller and looked at her.

“Yeah,” he smiled softly, looking back down at his banana that he had yet to bite into. “Still a little foggy here and there, still have that… that voice in the back of my brain, but it’s better.” He bit into the banana, more to try to buy himself time to set his thoughts in line than because the browning flesh looked appealing at all. He swallowed hard. “It’s, uh… a little embarrassing.”

Peggy spoke around her mouthful of apple, eager to cut him off before he said another word. “If you apologize again, I might scream.” She swallowed quickly and shifted, her hand on his arm to get him to look at her. “Everything about this situation is embarrassing, Steve.” She shrugged, her own face reddening as she let her own feeling slip though. “Neither of us likes being vulnerable to start. It’s different… seeing one of us shot or limping around a battlefield- it’s not the same as me vomiting over the side of the bed or having our emotions laid bare for Howard to sift through. Having to bare ourselves to one another was bound to happen at some point, given we’ve pretty much decided to…” She coughed and looked away. They weren’t exactly engaged, but it felt as much in her head.

She was glad his voice was teasing; he could have very easily turned things heavy again and she just couldn’t take any more of that. “If you think I’m not making an honest woman of you after all this…”

She laughed and leaned against him, “Well, in that event, this wasn’t the first time you’ve seen me vomit and it undoubtedly won’t be the last.” She felt more than heard his chuckle and went back to biting into her small apple.

He shook his head as his eyes unfocused in memory. “Yeah, there was that time when we were stuck in France.”

She bit her apple again, shuddering at the memory, “Why any of you weren’t sick is still a mystery to me. You all ate the same stew I did.”

“We didn’t drink the water, though. Dugan convinced everyone else to have beer.” Steve shook his head. “Every time we thought you’d manage to finally stop, your body just found more to get out there. I had no idea your body could hold that much, Peg.”

“It obviously couldn’t, which is why I was spewing it out in the first place.” She shook her head, bumping him in the side as she picked up a packet of cheese and crackers. “Now, please stop talking about vomiting. I’d very much like to enjoy my rations in peace.”

~*~

It was three days with no word before Howard finally called to say that he would be over within the hour. In that time, a parade of nurses had come through, taking their blood and vitals over and over again, and Steve and Peggy settled into something akin of a daily routine.

They touched, they made love, and they tried to take advantage of whatever this time afforded to them meant.

It wasn’t that well tested, as they tended to touch more than not, but Peggy hadn’t felt even a tingle of pain since the shots. It seemed they had an answer, at least for her pain if not Steve’s mood swings, and that gave the Army and the SSR options.

They hadn’t heard a word or a whisper from Phillips or the Commandos, and Peggy was prepared to be shipped out back to London at any moment for Bletchley or worse, to be dishonorably discharged.

Steve swore up and down he wouldn’t let that happen, or that he’d threaten to leave with her, but she was pragmatic enough to know neither of them really had all that much choice in the matter.

When Howard did show up, he smiled like he was the cat that swallowed the canary. “Hey guys!”

He pushed past Steve, eyes just a little wild. “How ya been?”

Steve pushed the door closed slowly as Peggy starred him down in disbelief. “How have we been? Howard, how have we-?” She laughed. “Abysmal! Howard we’re sitting here, hearing nothing, being told nothing, and you waltz in here—”

Howard grabbed her and spun her around in a poor approximation of a waltz, Peggy still incensed in his arms. “Well, I mean, you gotta be at least a little better. Nurses said you haven’t had an ounce of pain in days, and Cap didn’t take me out like a lion hunting a gazelle yet.”

Steve, hands on his hips and chin set tight, strode over to them, “I still might, Howard.”

Howard spun Peggy out of his arms and Steve caught her, helping to set her straight before she toppled over. “What has gotten into you?” she wondered out loud, her anger melting more to concern at the man’s antics.

“Well, it hasn’t been sleep, I can tell you that.” Howard blinked his eyes rapidly, the mania behind them all that was keeping him upright. “But I have a short-term solution.”

“Jesus, sit before you fall over, you insane fool.” Peggy grabbed his hand and sat him on their small couch.

Howard fell into the cushions. “I’ve been called worse!” He rubbed his hands over his face and took a deep breath in through his nose. “Let me explain before I pass out, ok?”

Peggy sat next to him and Steve sat across, elbows on his knees. “You said short-term?” Steve asked, face serious.

Howard nodded, his attitude sobering. “I hate to admit it, but until I know exactly what they did to you, the chances of me figuring out how to reverse it are slim.” He dropped his hands and head, shaking it. “Your bodies are going through complex chemical reactions that no one’s ever seen before. Never mind the fact that I don’t even know if I’m looking at the right thing, the right reactions or the right side effects.” He turned maudlin, the lack of sleep shifting his mood. “I swear, I’m gonna keep trying but—”

“We know, Howard,” Peggy set her hand on his arm, and if either of them saw Steve shift uncomfortably, they pretended not to notice. “So, what’s the solution?”

He swallowed hard and sat tall. “Short term.” He pulled a box from his pocket and opened it.

Two bright, shiny, silver bands stared back at them.

Peggy licked her lips. “Marriage seems like a pretty long-term solution to me.”

Howard looked at Peggy, then at Steve’s tight expression, and laughed. “No, no… I mean, I just assumed you guys were headed there… but no. No. This isn’t…” He chuckled again and pulled the larger of the two rings from the case, showing them the inside where the ring proved to be a hollow shell, incasing what looked to be a plastic ring inside. He hit the ring on the small coffee table, the hard knock reverberating. “Super thin vibranium outer shell, incasing a soft silicone ring that’s embedded with hormones. Slow release through the skin means that neither one of you should be overwhelmed and that Steve won’t sleep it off.” He handed Steve the ring he held and Peggy picked up the second from the box. “You’ll have to change out the inner ring probably once every couple of days- maybe every day for Steve, I’m not exactly sure yet.”

“This is vibranium? Like my shield?” Steve ran his hands over the outer thin inner edge of the ring.

Howard nodded. “When I said your shield was all we had left, I meant it. There were only a few ounces of scraps, shavings really, and at the time I couldn’t see any good use for them. Certainly not enough to make any kind of shield or weapon out of. Turns out, just enough for a set of rings.”

He shrugged at Steve’s continued look of bafflement. “Have you ever met you two? You’re hard on just about everything the Army issues you. In theory, I could give you just the silicone ring to wear, or even put it like a patch somewhere on your body, but if the one side of the silicone is exposed the hormones will leach out into anything or anyone you touch- making it a bad day for them and less effective for you. Sure- silver or gold or even titanium would have done the trick- but I don’t trust either one of you to not come back after your first mission and hand it to me broken. At least with the vibranium it should have a little staying power.”

Peggy couldn’t help but laugh at his cockiness. “I’m more likely to lose my finger than the ring, you’re saying?”

He smirked. “Something like that.”

“So, what does this mean?” Steve asked, still touching the ring like it was something dangerous.

“It means you stay here for a day or so while you get used to them, then we let you loose on the base: Phillips is insufferable without you, Peg.” He shrugged, happy. “The you’re back in the field again with a good supply of back up inserts once we know it’s effective.��

Steve’s sigh was telling, Howard and Peggy could both hear the fears he let go in it. “So, they want us back? Active?”

“Yeah. Phillips is chomping at the bit.” Howard stood. “Caveat is you two go everywhere together, at least for now.” He shrugged, pulling a small bag out of his pocket with more of the silicone inserts inside and put it on the table next to the box the rings had been in. “Like I said, this is a short-term solution. If it works… which I think it will… it will only keep things at bay. You’ve both still got whatever the hell it is they put in Peggy doing a number on you, and the only way we know to keep a handle on that is to keep the two of you together.”

Howard sashayed to the door, hands in his pockets. “You know, it was Dugan who gave me the idea… that we should handcuff the two of you together.” Howard pointed at the rings. “Handcuffs, ball-and-chain, same thing, right?” He smiled. “Try ‘em out. I’m gonna go get some sleep.”

Peggy stood, moving to Steve’s side as Howard left as quickly as he’d come. “That man is a menace to science and society,” Peggy murmured.

Steve waited a breath and then turned to her, eyes serious, he held up his ring. “What do you think?”

Peggy looked down at her own ring then back up with a small smile. “I think if it gets us back working, if we can function without having to find an empty office or a supply closet, it’s a good solution for now.”

“For now,” Steve repeated, softly. He spun the circle around and around, thinking so hard Peggy thought he might explode. “It’s a… when I said I’d make an honest woman out of you, I didn’t really think it’d be today.”

Peggy covered his hands with hers, holding tight and waiting for him to look in her eyes. “It doesn’t have to mean all that, if you don’t want it to. We don’t have to wear them like that. Or we call Howard up and ask him to make something else—”

Steve stopped her words with an emphatic shake of his head. “Well, then, what’s the problem?” she asked.

“No, I just….” He smiled a little, still unsure. “Should we get a judge? Somebody?”

Peggy laughed and looked away, taking the ring from his hand before looking back, serious. “While I fully expect a big to-do that my mother can cry at once the war’s over, I think you and me, right here, is enough for now, don’t you?” She smiled up at him, taking his left hand and wiggling his ring over this fourth finger. “What do you say, Captain? Ready to be tied down to this old ball-and-chain?”

He wiggled his finger at her, his own smile growing. “For as long as you’ll have me, Margaret Carter.”

Peggy’s face soured as she slipped the ring on his finger. “Rule one if we’re to be married: Never call me Margaret. Reminds me of when my mother was cross at me, which was nearly all the time.”

“Duly noted, Mrs. Rogers,” he said, wagging his eyebrows at her and getting a quick chuckle as she handed him her ring and her left hand. “And you? You’re ready for this? Really?”

She nodded. “Every moment. Every mission. Every adventure. I’m ready.”

“Right next to me,” Steve acknowledged, his heart in his eyes, as he slipped the ring on her finger. “My best girl and the right partner.”

“The right partner,” Peggy whispered, lifting on tip toe to kiss him.

He pulled away, her lips still close as he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. “My lioness.”

Peggy kissed him again then tucked her head under his chin, happiness blooming from her belly through her whole body as the events of the last few minutes settled within her. “My lion.”

She had Steve, and she had a solution to what Hydra had done to her, even if it was just a fix for now.

It was all she needed.

#Steggy Bingo Bash #Steggy Fic #3P's Fic

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radramblog · 3 years

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Secret Lair: thoughts and feelings

Part of why I deliberately decided to write about Magic every Monday is because that’s when my EDH nights are supposed to be. However, we’re on an off week again, and we’re also at the one point in time this year where there isn’t a particular New Magic Thing to talk about. Surprised we haven’t seen, like, 3 new Secret Lairs since the release of Crimson Vow.

(Technically, we’ve only had 0.5, since that huge stack of them was the day before the release- that 0.5 the second half of Arcane/LoL crossover which spoiled today. I think.)

Considering I’ve now bought 3 of them (look I preordered the MSCHF one what do you want from me), you might think I have some opinions on them. And I do!

Many Magic: The Gathering players have asked, what is the point of Secret Lair as a product? If that isn’t the opening line to one of the Professor’s videos, I’d be surprised. Secret Lair is, in somewhat pessimistic terms, a method for WoTC to jump in more directly into the secondary market (that is, direct single sales) in a way that doesn’t break their intention of never actively doing exactly just that. Through a combination of choice reprints, fancy new art and card styles, and a solid helping of FOMO/exclusivity, the company has made the bold decision to make a primary, secondary market.

This isn’t WoTC’s first foray into this kind of thing, obviously. I think we’re just far enough away from the From the Vaults that players are starting to forget that they’re basically the same thing, with a limited print run instead of a limited release window, and they’re still apparently doing Commander Collections (fuck me, am I gonna have to get the black one?). That’s not even bringing up things like chase reprints in preconstructed decks (e.g. Seedborn Muse being in the C19 Morph deck) or the entire existence of reprint sets like Modern Masters.

There’s plenty of precedent for something like Secret Lair, but I think it’s the particulars people have issue with. For one, the sheer bulk of them- the idea is just over 2 years old and yet we’re rapidly approaching 100 drops (including Ultimate Editions, we’re at 83), which hasn’t helped the apparent rapid increase in Magic products flying at us all the time these days. While I believe said acceleration is less drastic than certain people may think, the frequent SLDs means it feels much worse than it is. The issue I agree most with is the lack of involvement of the local game store in this equation- especially with COVID, the LGS as a concept has been seriously struggling, and previous iterations of this product design (From the Vault, Signature Spellbook, Commander Collection etc.) have all been delivered through the stores- which in some (FTV/CC) cases has led to price gouging, but that’s an issue with the individual stores and the everpresent threat of scalpers. I will give SLD credit for managing to avoid the scalping issue by just printing to demand, though the delay has led to its own issues.

(The other major issue I have with it is shipping, but that’s an Australia thing.)

With that in mind, I think there’s a lot of good that Secret Lair has brought to the table. I may be biased, but I adore almost every single new piece of cardboard that Secret Lair has brought to the table- the necessity to make them exclusive and special has led to a lot of great new artwork and framing that makes a lot of cards look incredible. Even when there’s reused styles from showcase frames, the art put on them is great, and the reprints are, by and large, all bangers. The only cards I can think of that were in these sets that aren’t playable somewhere are some of the stained-glass WAR Planeswalkers, and I feel like they would have been weird if they didn’t put all of them in somewhere. And even then those are cool because there’s a bunch of important characters (and some not-so important ones) being represented in a style that could very easily have been locked to that one trailer. And Arena.

The other major upside is that the drops have by-and-large been such solid cards that if you’re interested in the singles, they might literally pay for themselves? The reason I got the Artist Series: Seb Mckinnon one was because it was just cheaper than buying a normal Damnation (this is no longer the case owing to the TSR reprint…but it’s creeping up again), and it’s a fancy one that comes with some very nice looking, somewhat less playable cards that I can just sell if I don’t want (I haven’t sold them, and maybe I should have). I’m sure this is the case for a lot of people- there’s been enough of these at this point that I’m sure every player who pays attention would have seen at least a few cards they’d be interested in a copy of (or a pimped-out upgrade). It’s a bit of a pain in the ass, especially with shipping and delays and all that “fun” stuff, but there is potential for Secret Lairs to quite literally be an investment.

(me thinking about that)

…egh. Sorry, I’m not a fan of that idea. TCG cards are for playing with, not locking away and selling 5 years later. I’ll admit to having made cheap pickups that I thought would pay off later, but I can’t imagine devoting real time to moving product around like that. Got enough bulk sitting around anyway.

(basically, fuck Alpha Investments, he’s a prick)

At the end of the day, it kind of doesn’t matter what I have to think. Secret Lairs are clearly working, and they’re clearly here to stay. There’s expansion to them in the form of crossover drops and the new Secret Lair precon commander deck (the 46th drop this year, and the 18th EDH precon, for those keeping score), not to mention the drops that are announced but not spoiled such as a few Artist Series (Nils Hamm, Chris Rahn, Sam Burley), crossovers (Fortnite, Street Fighter, LoTR), and general concepts (dinosaurs, “world tour”). It’s very clear to me that despite the cost of producing these cards and paying artists and all the rest of it, WoTC has found another money printer, and they’re going to abuse the hell out of it as long as they can.

One of the biggest indicators for me that this is going to be a big deal comes from an odd place- the Heroes of the Realm cards made for Wizards employees to celebrate or thank teams on various projects. The Arena team got one in 2018, there was one for the cinematics team in 2019 (well deserved, imo), and there’s a few for specific set design teams (all from 2019. They did a lot of them that year). They’re a nice little idea, and one that probably costs a bit considering they have to commission art and get someone to design and template and frame these cards.

The Secret Lair team is the only group, to my knowledge, to get two of these. One in 2019, and one in 2020. And that’s just what we know about, because these don’t get discussed publicly for a long time after they’re handed out. And if that isn’t a sign that WoTC is all aboard the Secret Lair train, then I don’t know what is.

Although the interaction between “The Secret Lair” and R&D’s Secret Lair makes me giggle. Assuming that works the way I want it to. Neither of these cards have official rulings.

#ramble #mtg #secret lair #mtg secret lair

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lovelivingmydreams · 3 years

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A story by heroes and vilains

Virgil Anker: Confrontation

Virgil hates confrontation. That is probably why it took him until now to talk to Janus. And even now it can’t be avoided any longer, he wants to.

When he saw Roman again the next day, he was momentarily speechless.

When he said he’d try out wearing his flag, Virgil hadn’t expected him to do this. The theatre kid entered the classroom with rainbow hair and a rainbow backpack slung over his shoulder, his red varsity jacket open, showing off his matching rainbow shirt. Roman locked eyes with him and strode over to his desk with an excited grin, sitting down on top of it. “You are extremely extra any chance you get aren’t you?” Virgil chuckled. Come to think of it, he really should have expected this. “I am,” Roman agreed, proud of it, as he took off his jacket. Virgil smiled as he saw the writing. Gay Disney Prince indeed. “Well it looks good on you,” he told him honestly. It did. It was like he was glowing. “Why thank you, mi caballero guapo.” Before Virgil could begin to decipher that, their homeroom teacher walked in and Roman took his seat. The second they were handed their schedules, Roman compared them with a growing smile. “We have almost every class together!” he exclaimed, sounding about as happy about it as Virgil felt. This year was looking better and better with every minute. “Aside from our electives that is. Why am I not surprised you’re taking drawing classes? Though you don’t really need the extra help. You are amazing as you are. Which reminds me. Did you think about sending in your designs?” Virgil didn’t really have the chance to react to anything Roman just said, and when he did, he wasn’t capable of it. Roman had been leaning over to read Virgil’s schedule and hadn’t moved away while ranting, and now he looked up and Virgil could feel his breath on his face. Roman quickly sat up with a sheepish grin. “Sorry. Got a bit ahead of myself there.” Virgil looked away to hide his emberasment. He played with the edges of his hoodie for a moment. He knew he was blushing and that his foundation wasn’t covering it up anymore. Why had he let Picani and the counselors convince him to slowly build off the amount he put on every morning? Sure it was part of letting others in and all that stuff. But he was still nervous about it. Blushes and freckles and heaven forbid any sort of tan hadn’t been seen by anyone other than his dads in ages. Even uncle Thomas hardly saw him without make up on. And J… Well, it’d been a while for him too. Start of last year come to think of it. The last time he’d stayed over at his place for a night. It was a thing that just happened sometimes, when they were too lazy to go home. They both had a bag of stuff in the other’s house for just such occasions. Those days of having so much fun that hanging out just evolved in staying over were something he’d missed a lot. And part of him still hoped they’d come back soon. That Janus had woken up and was back to his old self. “No problem…” he assured Roman, forcing himself not to dwell on those thoughts. Instead he thought about the answer to his question. “Well… I don’t know. You really think he’d want it?” he checked, looking up to read Roman’s face. “Are you kidding?” Roman exclaimed with a look as if the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. “If I were forced in that atrocious ‘crime against fashion’ as you adequately called it, I’d be wishing on every star for a new outfit. And what you have drawn up. It’s not just an answer to his every prayer, it’s the most awesome costume he could ever hope for.” Virgil felt a corner of his mouth lift and looked away again. “Alright… I’ll send it in… But with some adjustments and under an alias,” he insisted. He wasn’t sure how his dad would feel about him restyling the city’s newest hero. “How about Dante?” Roman offered. Virgil did his best not to show how happy that choice made him. He’d gotten the reference. He knew the book. Of course he did. He was a theatre nerd. He was bound to know the classics right? Virgil nodded. “Sounds good,” he agreed. When the door opened Virgil had actually been in the process of taking out his sketchbook to show Roman the finished design, but then the teacher spoke and he immediately found every nerve in his body on edge. Not a great reaction to have when hearing your life long best friend’s name. Virgil couldn’t make himself look at Janus. He’d promised himself over and over again that he’d face him head on when the time came. Principal Stokes had warned him that they were in the same homeroom. But once class started he’d foolishly hoped that they managed to move him in another group after all and had just forgotten to tell him. He should’ve realized he was just late.

Before he knew it, Janus was in front of the desk. “Move, that’s my seat,” he said through gritted teeth. What had him so agitated? He’d taken peace with Virgil sitting next to Roman last year right? Why was he back to being a jerk about it? Sure he’d never liked it, but hadn’t he learned his lesson about telling Virgil who he could and couldn’t sit with? “De ninguna manera,” Roman replied, leaning back in his chair with a confident smirk. Virgil wracked his brain. He’d just told Janus, “No way,” if he remembered correctly. Roman had never talked Spanish for no good reason before though. Was this because Virgil asked about it? Some kind of learning by exposition? “You want to sit with the coolest kid in school? Get here on time.” And then he has to go ahead and say that. Roman definitely did not know the power he held over Virgil’s mood. Hearing Roman say that, without a hint of doubt or insincerity, made Virgil a lot more confident about what he had to do today. Roman Castile had his back, and a lot of other people too. People liked him. He had to remember that. “Excuse me?” Virgil’s eyes widened as he saw that Janus raised his fist. He’d never seen him actually hit anyone. He’d threatened to do it a few times. But never in front of a teacher. Had he lost his mind? “Mr. Bullard! Seat! Now!”

Janus’ gaze moved from Roman to Virgil, waiting for him to say something. Too bad for him, Virgil wasn’t going to say what he wanted to hear.

“You heard the teacher Jan. Just go.” After a few moments of disbelieving silence Janus went to sit at the empty desk on Virgil’s other side. Luckily there was a bit of open space between them. “Good,” the teacher sighed as she continued her class. “As I was saying, I hope the rest of the year will go without any more incidents like yesterday. Mr. Anker, Mr. Castile, I speak for the whole school when I say that we are happy to see you two are back and unfazed by yesterday’s incident.” “Thank you Mrs. Foster,” Virgil muttered a little embarrassed by the attention. He just hoped some different type of gossip would grab everyone’s attention soon. And maybe it already had. Roman’s coming out might distract a little from what happened yesterday. “I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of my radiant presence for another day,” Roman jested, stealing the show effortlessly as usual. Virgil joined his classmates in their laughter, feeling himself relax. The bell rang and Roman and Virgil were among the first to leave the class. Janus, luckily, had to stay back to get his schedule.

Virgil was happy to find that Roman’s locker wasn’t that far from his. “Where are we headed next?” Roman asked while he was collecting his things. “Um…” Virgil muttered as he dug in his backpack. He was pretty sure he knew the schedule by heart already, but they had enough time to make sure. The second Virgil confirmed their destination, the paper was snatched out of his hand. “Hey!” he exclaimed turning around to find Janus studying his schedule. He looked very unhappy.

Virgil was angry enough not to worry about that. His attitude from earlier and now combined made him not feel sorry for the cold shower Janus was going to get once he learned the full truth. “How can we have no classes together? I thought we were going to take sociology?” And he just pissed him off even more. “No!” he snatched the paper back, surprising Janus. When their eyes met he could see surprise shift to hurt confusion. “You were. I tried to tell you that I wanted to do art, and you didn’t listen. Like usual.” And that was all he was going to say about it right now. He was so mad at himself for hoping today would go well after that stupid text. He always got him like that. But this back and forth was hurting him. Hurting others. He couldn’t let it continue. “We’re in building C. Let’s go,” he told Roman, who nodded, collected his last things and starting to follow him to class. Staying out of the argument, like Virgil had asked him last year. “Virge, come on!” Janus was blocking his path, looking at him pleadingly. Looking like the real Janus. No. It’s a trick. Or not a trick maybe. But it wasn’t… He couldn’t back down now. “You are mad, I get it, I’m sorry okay?” Virgil felt his heart clench. It had been a while since he’d said sorry like that. But saying sorry, while a good step, was only a start. He and Picani had made a list of things that needed to happen before Virgil could start letting Janus back into his life. If ever. “Can’t we talk about this? We always work things out,” he pleaded and Virgil flinched. He wanted to. He really did. Not here and not now though. He had to do this. For both of them. They both needed some space. “My decision is final J. I’m done enabling your behavior. I thought I was helping you out, but I was making it worse. I can’t protect you anymore… You are right. Sometimes we have to do what’s best for us. And for me, that is not being around you anymore.” Please, please let it be now. Virgil wished. He didn’t, he was reaching out, and once more, Virgil found himself looking at Roman’s back. “He’s asking you to back off. Give him some space.” He sounded soothing. He wasn’t trying to taunt Janus. Just to diffuse the situation. Janus didn’t see it that way. With a loud bang, Roman was pushed against the lockers, making Virgil flinch. This wasn’t good. He could feel his self-control slipping. He couldn’t have an attack right now. He hated that he’d taken a pill yesterday. If he hadn’t then he might have allowed himself to take one today. Now he was going to lose it in the middle of the hallway and… “Stay out of it Chapero!” This was followed by another bang. Virgil looked up and was surprised to find Roman was now the one holding Janus against the lockers. He looked livid. “You better not know what you just called me,” he warned. Janus grinned at him, clearly feeling vindicated for some reason. “I don’t say anything I don’t mean. Payaso.” Virgil had to put a stop to this. He wouldn’t let Janus taunt Roman into getting in trouble. “Roman! What’s going on? Let him go. Let’s just go to class. Please,” he pleaded, wondering if it would help to lay a hand on his shoulder or make things worse. Roman looked back though and once their eyes met he seemed to calm down. “Sorry. You’re right. We’ll be late,” he sighed, letting go and letting Virgil lead him to their class “Get to class Jan!” Virgil called back. “This isn’t over!” Janus promised, but to Virgil’s relief, he didn’t follow them. Virgil waited until they left building A before he looked over to Roman. He looked really upset. After taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, he carefully laid a hand on Roman’s shoulder. “You okay?” he asked. “I’ll be fine, just pissed off,” Roman assured him before looking at him concerned. “How about you? He was your friend for a long time right?” Virgil sighed sadly. “He lives in the house next to mine. We basically grew up together I guess.” Virgil wasn’t sure if he wanted to smile or cry as he thought back to the countless memories they shared. Janus and his parents had always been a part of his life almost as much as his dad was. “And I tried to protect him from bullies as best I could, you know because of,” he made a gesture to his face. Roman nodded. He understood. “I didn’t realize he isn’t that same kid anymore. I guilted myself into sticking with him. He was my friend, if I didn’t help him who would? He needed me. He stuck with me too. You get the picture,” Virgil shrugged dismissively. Though it was so much more complicated than that. He didn’t want to get into the nuances of his past and his decision now though. There was simply no time. “When he told me to take the same elective as him. I had enough. I told you about the summer camp I went to. What I didn’t mention was that it was a camp where they teach you to stand up for yourself. ‘your needs are important too’ and all that stuff. So when I got home I asked my dad to help me convince the principal to make sure I shared as little classes with him as possible. I felt shitty doing it.” It still felt like a betrayal on his part. “But at camp, I also learned that me tolerating Jan so long isn’t helping him. Mrs. Danvers was on the right path when she separated us last year. We both need to learn be us without the other. And maybe when we’ve figured that out, we can try again.” God he hoped they could try again. He missed his friend. But that might take some time. And the ball was entirely in Janus’ court. Speaking of. How badly had he just messed up with Roman to make him loose his composure like that. “What did he say?” he asked Roman. “Janus likes to brag that he is fluent in Spanish and French. I didn’t know he’d also learned slang.” “He learned slang alright,” Roman scoffed. “I’m pretty sure he was just trying to get a rise out of me, which succeeded.” Roman took a deep breath, calming down considerably. “You sure you want to know?” he asked, much more gentle. “Yes. If it upset you that much, I do,” Virgil said firmly. He wanted to know how mad he had to be with Janus when they inevitably talked later. “Alright. Payaso, means clown,” Roman told him. Clearly he was starting with the less offensive term. Virgil gave him an encouraging nod. “And… Chapero,” Roman’s face when he said the word filled Virgil with dread. It must be really bad. “It means- It refers to my…” Instead of finishing his sentence, he gestured to his coming out shirt. No… “Seriously!?” he growled as he turned, about to tell Janus that he’d have to work twice as hard to make Virgil trust him again now. Because this… This made him want to keep Janus away from his family. What if he’d said something insensitive in front of Logan or Patton? He would not allow it. Suddenly he felt a pull at the back of his hoodie. Stopping him in his tracks. “We can’t be late. Not for him,” Roman reminded Virgil. “You’re right.” There were priorities in his life other than Janus. He could not let him take up a leading role in it any longer if he wanted to heal. Man, he was started to sound like Picani. They arrived in their class and sat themselves at a desk fairly central. Virgil was secretly happy that Roman chose to sit next to him again.

“Well, what do you know? My two favorite boys at one desk. Must be my lucky day!” Virgil looked up. Stacey was sitting on Roman’s desk, subtly respecting Virgil’s personal space while still drawing his attention. He appreciated that. She was good at this flirting thing. “Good morning to you too Stacey.” Roman greeted with a smile. “Hi,” Virgil said casually. “Ro. Guess where we’re going for our date?” Stacey asked excitedly. “No clue,” Roman shrugged as Virgil tried to find a polite way to correct Stacey. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go on a real date with Stacey yet. It wouldn’t be fair to her to let her think he was. And even though Roman clearly wasn’t into him, he wanted him to know that it wasn’t a real date for some reason. “The art studio! We’re going to go nuts on a blank canvas together. Isn’t that the coolest thing you’ve ever heard?” she gushed. Virgil was kind of flattered that she was so enthusiastic. But still… “Well… It’s basically just hanging out,” he corrected her gently. To his relief Stacey seemed unbothered by that. “Yeah. What did you call it? Vibe check?” she verified. “Something like that,” he nodded to which Stacey started rambling again. “Basically we’re going to roll with it as friends and see if we click romantically while we are pouring our souls out on canvas. No click? No hard feelings.” Before anything else could be said the teacher arrived, sending Stacey to her own seat. After History he had art with Stacey. Connor Grant was everything he had imagined he would be. “Virgil Anker… You won the prize at last year’s exhibition. I see here you never took an art elective, did you follow classes somewhere else?” he wondered warmly. They were all sitting on the floor in the studio and getting to know one another. “Um, well I watched some tutorials and stuff online and took some inspiration from that,” he explained. “No formal training? Well such raw talent… It’ll be a privilege to help you find your way Virgil. Such a gift, deserves to be developed with proper guidance.” Virgil grew flustered at the praise and the cheers and claps he received. No one seemed envious. Grant was full of praise for everyone’s unique talents though, so that could have something to do with it.

After class he walked over to him. “Um, Mr. Grant. I kind of have two questions, if that’s okay?” he asked timidly. “Ask away,” the man smiled warmly.

“Thanks. Um… I kind of made a portfolio of sorts. Would you mind looking at it?” he asked shakily as he handed the binder over to him. “It would be my pleasure,” Mr. Grant assured him. Feeling empowered Virgil pressed forward. “Is… Are we allowed to use the studio after hours for private projects?” he wondered.

“Of course. The muse does not work on any arbitrary schedule set by us. You can always ask me for the key,” he said as he locked the room and handed the key over to him. “What… Really just like that?” “I have a spare should I need it. But I’ll need that one back after your date with Miss Stacey.” Virgil blushed and bit back his protest. It didn’t matter. He had the key, he could get on with his day.

He hurried to his locker, hoping to find Roman there so they could walk to Math together. Roman hadn’t arrived yet. Drama must be running late. Virgil packed his things humming to himself when he suddenly felt an hand grab his shoulder and turn him around roughly. “We need to talk, now,” Janus said, clearly in a hurry. Virgil frowned. He was right, but he wasn’t in the mood to talk anymore.

“Are you going to apologize to Roman?” he bit. “What?” Janus asked baffled. “Or any of the people you’ve tormented over the past year, if not years?” he doubled down. “Because the only way, you and I are ever going to be on speaking terms again is if you stop acting like everything I despise in this world. Which, in case you are unaware, is a narrow minded, homophobic, bully.” Janus looked down, ashamed, and that gave Virgil hope he really shouldn’t be feeling now. “I already told you Janus. I’m done. When you start acting like my friend again, I’d like to have him back. I miss the Janus I’d stick by no matter what. But the guy I’ve seen the past year… I don’t know who that is. All I know is I want him nowhere near my family.” Janus looked up. “Listen, I messed up. I got mad and I just said the worst thing I could think of okay? I know that won’t excuse it. What with your dad and his boyfriend situation…”

Virgil stiffened. His protective instincts fully engaged. “What do you mean…” when did he learn about Patton? Why hadn’t his parents told him? “If you said something to upset Patton or Logan, I swear!” “NO! I didn’t… I promise. I just… Need you to hear me out, like now. I need to tell you something important. Let’s just go somewhere quiet for a bit. Okay? I swear I’ll leave you alone after… Just, please Virgil, I need you to know…” There was a part of Virgil that saw Janus’ desperation and wanted to answer. Wanted to lower his guard and follow him. Help him out. He shook his head. “I can’t Jan. I want to. Trust me, I really want to be friends again. But I know that if I go with you now, things will just go back to how they were and that… I was being suffocated by you. I didn’t feel like me with you anymore. Even when we were just us, I couldn’t fully be myself. I’m sorry. But I’ll listen, once you’ve proven you're over this whole,” he gestured to the general space between them. “Thing where you think you can control my life. It’s not good for me.” He was about to head to his class when he was pulled back and slammed against the locker, hard. He didn’t have time to protect himself. The impact hurt. But he kept his composure. “Damn it Virgil! Just stop being dramatic and come with me!” Virgil heard people gasp and shout around them. He just stared Janus down, to make sure he saw that there was no doubt in his mind when he replied. “No!” “Let him go Bullard!” Virgil looked up surprised. Roman had come. He was happy to see him. But he didn’t want their friendship to start off with Roman thinking he couldn’t take care of himself.

“I’ve got this Roman,” he told him. Roman looked at him, his gaze steady and calm. “I know. But you don’t have to do this alone.” Virgil took a moment to process that. Right. Roman knew he was capable of standing his ground. This? was different from when Janus would try to ‘protect him’. Roman was being supportive. Not controlling. He had not once decided in Virgil’s stead. The closest he’d gotten to that was that one time he’d been openly critical of his friendship with Janus, for which he’d been apologetic right away. Two of Roman’s friends flanked him, one, Kelly, whispering something to him. Roman nodded in acknowledgement. He raised his head, squared his shoulders and spoke clear and decisive. “I’ll ask one more time. Leave him alone.” Virgil barely registered Janus stepping away. He would’ve crashed to the floor if he hadn’t stabilized himself a little with his shield. He was glad that that power was a rather intuitive one, because he never seemed to have time to decide to use it. And catching himself was not an application he would have come up with on his own. He rubbed at his chest where Janus’ arm had pressed into him, speeding up the recovery. “Think you can take me Castile?” Virgil looked up at Janus, he was walking towards Roman arms lifted as if daring him to hit him. What was he doing? This was the opposite of helpful if he wanted… Didn’t he want them to be friends again? Roman wasn’t intimidated. “I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of getting me in trouble,” he replied once Janus came to a stop. “So you’re just talk then huh? Afraid to get your butt kicked in front of everyone? Trying to score easy points with Virgil? Hoping I’ll let you steal him from me that easily?” Was he trying to blame Roman for this? Virgil had worried something like that would happen. Janus clearly thought he had no agency of his own. But still… Had he completely lost his mind? “Trying to repay him in some small way for saving my life yesterday. But none of that is any of your business.” Virgil was in awe of how passionate Roman sounded. “Virgil’s decision to finally break free from you has nothing to do with me, and everything with how you’re treating him. I don’t understand what he saw in you that made him stick around this long. But you took it for granted and now it’s done. Leave him alone.”

Just then, Roman’s other friends, including André, arrived and immediately they all started to tell everyone in the audience to get to their classes. As the crowd disappeared Virgil saw the tension leave most of Janus frame. Though he could see him tap his left hand against his leg, a dead giveaway that he was growing more nervous.

“What’s wrong Castile? Don’t want an audience? I thought you lived for the cheers of a crowd?” Roman didn’t budge. “Or maybe this is an exclusive event? Just for your little fanclub and Virgil? Is he your newest devoted follower?”

Virgil winced at the sting of hurt and betrayal in J’s tone. “You guys should head to class,” was Roman’s response to that. His friends did not like that. “You’ll all get in trouble if you don’t get to class in time. Now go. Tell our teacher that Virgil and I will be there soon. I’m not feeling well and Virgil is looking out for me.” Janus scoffed. “Making your friends lie for you Castile? Some friend you are.” Roman quirked a brow, not impressed. “Or tell them the truth. Apparently Bullard wants detention on the first day.” Virgil could tell Janus realized he had made a mistake. Roman’s friends left and Janus doubled down on the false display of confidence. “Now we’re talking! A private show, just for you Virge,” Janus looked back at him, but Virgil didn’t want to reward his behavior with the slightest bit of attention.

He just kept soothing the imprint on his sternum and looked at Roman making sure he wasn’t in any kind of distress right now. “Virge? You okay?” Roman asked. “Yeah, fine,” he muttered. When he tried to walk past Janus though, he was stopped by a brisk hand gesture. He could’ve ignored it, but he could see Janus was seconds away from snapping. He didn’t want to set him off. Not so close to Roman. And besides that, he didn’t like seeing him in pain. “Just get to class. I can handle myself.” Virgil appreciated the thought, really he did. Roman was doing for him what he’d seen Virgil do for others plenty of times in the past. But Virgil had learned by now that that kind of behavior wasn’t very healthy of him either. “Stop mocking me!” Janus exclaimed. Virgil acted without thinking. He ran up to throw himself in between Janus and Roman and then he felt Janus’ fist connect with his stomach at full force. It hurt a lot, and likely would hurt for a while. He fell to his knees, groaning in pain. Roman was at his side in an instant. “V… I...” Virgil looked up and as he blinked away the tears that threatened to overtake his vision he could see Janus was horrified with what just had happened.

Roman was furious. “Messing with him emotionally and mentally isn’t enough for you? You have to resort to physical violence as well? What kind of friend are you?” Virgil flinched. Roman had really picked up on everything hadn’t he? He wanted to argue that Janus would never intentionally attack him, but the way his chest still ached, even though it was drastically overpowered by the pain in his abdomen, was proof that J could lose his temper with him. Janus didn’t respond. He looked down and walked away. Virgil could swear he’d seen tears in his eyes.

Once he was gone Roman turned his attention back to him. “You okay? Should we go to the nurse?” he suggested worriedly. Virgil felt is heart flutter a little at his concerned tone. Roman was making it really hard to get over his crush. But he knew that the nurse wasn’t an option. Besides, he was already healing. “No. Dad will lose it if he knows someone actually hit me. Let’s just go to class. I’ll be fine by the time we get there.” Roman looked uncertain. “Okay, if you are sure.” Clearly he wanted to argue, but he was respecting Virgil’s boundaries. “Thanks for catching that one, but you didn’t have to. I did some self-defense courses. I would’ve been able to get out of harm’s way without hurting him.” Oh? That was interesting. Maybe he could ask Roman for some lessons just in case. He’d watched some videos online on basic self-defense and parkour. The later he’d been practicing every time he went out. Just in case his cloak failed him next time the cops sent someone to figure out who was leaving them packages. You’d think they’d take the intel and not ask too many questions. But clearly that wasn’t the case. They even had heroes on the lookout for him in his regular spots. They must really want to catch him if they went through the footage to get hints on the location where he recorded some of the evidence. “I’ll remember that,” he grinned, trying not to show that most of his upper body was still in various degrees of pain. “Seriously though that’s the second time you’ve jumped to my rescue. Thank you,” Roman said as he helped him up. Virgil once again played off how it hurt with a grin. If not for his healing factor he would probably want to go to a doctor to be safe. And even now he was wondering if whatever he did to heal bruises was good enough to fix more serious injuries. Was it even a serious injury? Or did it just hurt a lot? He promised himself that if he was still in pain when they got to class he’d agree to go to the nurse’s office. It normally didn’t take him long to fix himself. “Guess DreamPrince inspired me to be heroic,” he joked. Because apparently, Dream Prince was now his codename for Roman whenever he was too scared to make his feelings for him obvious. “He does seem to inspire a lot in you. I’m almost envious of him.” Virgil’s heart skipped a beat at that. Did Roman mean…? “I’d love to be the one to inspire someone so much, artistically and the like I mean. Oh, that would be the dream. To be someone’s muse and have them be mine in return.” You already do, Virgil wanted to say. But he couldn’t. Not when he already agreed to give Stacey a shot. “That would be pretty cool I guess,” he said instead finally able to walk without wincing each step. “You sure we don’t need to have you checked out?” Roman was clearly not convinced. Virgil nodded firmly. It was not worth worrying his dad over. “I barely feel it anymore. He didn’t hit that hard,” he shrugged, feeling a little bad for that lie. But he wasn’t ready to tell Roman about his powers yet. Maybe he would be, one day. The rest of the day was hopefully a sample of how the rest of the year would go. Virgil sat next to or near Roman for every class they shared, and he’d allowed himself to sit next to him during lunch. Stacey got a kick out of the fact that Virgil had ‘charmed’ the key from the teacher. Virgil insisted that it was not that big of an accomplishment. They had fun. Stacey had a lot of energy and a curious and adventurous nature. He liked hanging out with her, and he thought she was very attractive. But when the cliché paint fight broke out and they came close enough to feel each other’s breath… Virgil knew that he could kiss her. He could see that she was okay with that. Hoping for it even. It would just take one question and a slight tilt forward… And he wouldn’t mind kissing her. He felt attraction that was for sure. He was even wondering if she’d be as energetic when being kissed as she’d been all night. But he didn’t feel a spark. He’d felt the spark a few times. The little jolt to his heart that told him that he didn’t just want to kiss a person. If that made sense. Not just with Roman, though that spark was still the strongest he’d ever felt. He knew that he liked Stacey, platonically. And he found her attractive, physically. But he wasn’t romantically interested in her. And while he didn’t see the harm in casually kissing... He didn’t want to do that with Stacey. For various reasons. He’d stepped away and Stacey pouted. But she’d agreed that she wasn’t interested in him long term.

She did offer to let him kiss her anyway. For practice. He’d laughed and politely declined to which she pretended to be dramatically disappointed.

When he got home and he told his dads that it was fun, but they were just going to stay friends, he didn’t miss the relief on Logan’s face. He bit back the comment about turning sixteen next October. His dad would have to come to terms with the fact that he was of the dating age sooner or later. But he wasn’t going to push it. He let himself fall onto his bed that night, thinking of Roman and how he definitely would have kissed him. About Janus, and what he’d needed to say. He let those thoughts go though. One day at a time. Today had been okay, all things considered. Maybe tomorrow would be fine too.

Masterlist

Better Together

@moonlightshow00 @naturallyunstablegamer @alias290 @meowthefluffy @frida0043 @angelic-cali @selenechris @theblackveilinreverse @cirishere @hestianerd1

#sanders sides #ts sides #virgil sanders #roman sanders #prinxiety #logan sanders #patton sanders #janus sanders #hero au #tw: homophobic slur #tw: agressive behavior

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mcheang · 4 years

Note

2 sperate fics: 1 with after Lila got exposed Alya is bitter and resentful at Mari for cutting ties with her former classmates and Mari's thriving career and Mari and new friends confront her on this angry grudge she's holding. the 2nd is similar but Marinette asking Lila why she did what she did and why she tried so hard to ruin Marinette for just trying to expose her

Part 1: Grow Up

I am so excited. This is my first request! Normally I post one fic per day, but I actually have a (spoiler!) double feature tmr, so what the heck. I hope this satisfies you. I will warn you that I will only answer half of your request in Part 2 because I already wrote a fic for why Lila lies, which I will post tmr. 🙂

It all came to a head at the next class president election.

The previous semester, the majority of the class had decided to vote for Lila to be class president after she expressed interest in it.

Alya ignored Marinette’s warnings and agreed to be that liar’s deputy.

Chloe and Sabrina played dirty of course. But a surprise came when Adrien supported Marinette as her deputy. Alya had been surprised then because she didn’t think he could spare the time. She didn’t know he knew Lila was a liar and that her reign would be intolerable at best.

Lila won, of course. Despite Sabrina providing evidence that Lila was a liar. The class believed it was all fabricated.

It wasn’t until later that Mrs Rossi forced Lila to tell the truth. Apparently Chloe managed to get the last laugh after all.

After that, the class pleaded for Marinette to take up her old post but she declined because she already made commitments to her new commissions on her website.

Apparently with Lila as class president and Alya as her deputy, Marinette had more free time, which she chose to spend with Adrien since he had also avoided Lila like the plague.

Life became worse. Lila would not be graduating at the end of the year and had detention for the rest of it besides. And all her promises about fabulous class trips and easy fundraising was false.

Without Marinette, the class field trips became commonplace museum tours. Fundraising was hard without her families’ free pastries.

To rub salt in the wound, Aurore had started her own blog. She interviewed Ladybug who finally expressed relief that someone questioned Lila’s interview.

After that, Rena Rouge and Carapace were replaced.

As Alya’s blog support dropped, MDC.com flew up the charts. Celebrities kept name dropping Marinette.

Audrey even gave her a raving review.

Jagged Stone and Clara Nightingale hires Marinette to design their outfits for their joint tour.

Whenever Alya tried to talk to Marinette or get some time with her, her own deputy duties got in the way, or Marinette was busy with something else.

Alya wasn’t blind. She knew Chloe and Aurore had replaced her as Marinette’s BFF.

While the rest of the class had supported Lila, Marinette had her own clique: Adrien, Chloe, Sabrina, Alix, Nathaniel, Marc, and Aurore.

When the elections came up again, Alya wondered if Marinette would let her be her deputy again. But to her surprise, Chloe was the only candidate.

That was the last straw. Alya’s bitterness finally overflowed.

All she had wanted was her Best Friend back. To go back to the way things were. She wanted her blog to be popular again, she wanted to be a hero again, and she wanted Marinette to be her bestie again.

She didn’t know who this popular designer girl was.

Alya protested Chloe’s victory. Why should the class bully be nominated. It should be Marinette. They had done such an awesome job last time.

To Alya’s surprise, it wasn’t Chloe who shut her down. It was Ms Bustier.

She gently admonished Alya for not giving Chloe a chance.

Marinette even piped up that she was too busy. Besides, she believes Chloe will make a good class rep.

Alya wanted to scream. Instead, she sat back down next to her embarrassed Boyfriend. Ugh, couldn’t he be more supportive?

At lunch, as Alya sat with Nino, Kim, Ivan and Mylene, Marinette and her posse came over.

“Alya, what’s gotten into you?” Marinette looked so disappointed. Ha. She’s got some nerve. “How could you say those stuff about Chloe?”

Alya snapped back, “How could I? How could you? How can you all stand there and forget all the mean things Chloe has done.”

Chloe rolled her eyes. “I’m standing right here, you know.”

Adrien said gently, “people change, Alya. And Chloe has changed for the better.”

“But Marinette has changed for the worse!” Alya finally yelled, causing even her own table to stare at her.

While Marinette looked stunned by the accusation, her friends looked furious.

“Excuse me?” Alix demanded.

Alya finally let loose the tirade Caline had build a dam over. “Last time, Marinette was the kind of girl who made time for everyone, who helped everyone, who stood up to bullies. But you...” she shook her head at Marinette. “I don’t even recognise you anymore, girl.”

Sabrina made the first defense. “Marinette doesn’t have to help everyone. It is her decision. You do not get to pressure her like that.”

Marc added, “Yeah, besides she still helps us when she can. She helped us to come up with costume designs for our comics.”

Nathaniel nodded. “And she does spend time with us. Sabrina’s right, Alya. Marinette is free to choose how to spend her time and with which friends she chooses to hang out with. Just because she doesn’t hang out with you anymore doesn’t mean you aren’t friends.”

Chloe sniffed, “Though with how you’ve been treating her, it’s no wonder Marinette moved on. Honestly Alya, you’re a crow. The moment you see something shiny, you fly away. And that’s what you did. When Lila came along in all her glitter, you had a choice to support 2 candidates and you made your choice.”

Aurore stared Alya down. “We all know why you want Marinette back. You want the security of your first year here. You want your blog back. But have you even thought about Marinette’s own feelings? Did you ever apologize for doubting her once Lila was exposed, without asking for anything in return? Did you ever ask her what she wanted before speaking for her? Did you even congratulate her for her success?”

No. Alya swallowed. No, she had not.

Marinette looked at Alya pityingly. “I had hoped you would adapt Alya, that you could see the good in others and let go of the past. But it’s time to face the facts. We can never go back to what we used to be. It’s time to grow up, Alya.”

And with her final word said, Marinette led her clique away. They were going to eat lunch at her place.

And they left Alya behind to pick up the scraps of what had remained of her life.

Part 2: here we are again

Lila was in the toilets again. This was her new haunting ground. Not the star of her entourage, sitting as if she were on a throne. Not with a trail of admirers following her to class. Here, in this stinky cubicle, listening to all the gossip.

Ever since Chloe outed Lila, the class had treated her like a pariah. Alya only talked to her when necessary, mostly to discuss their duties as president and deputy.

Honestly, Lila wished that goody 2 shoes would have replaced her. Hell, even Chloe would have been acceptable. At least then she would be left alone to stew in peace.

But no. Marinette was too busy now with her flourishing business. And Chloe refused to accept the position as second choice.

When Lila had snapped at Alya to just manage without her, Alya had growled back, “No way in (swear word) hell. You ruined my blog, and I’d sooner carry bowling balls to school than do your work for you.”

Lila had rolled her eyes then. “Like it’s my fault you’re a tabloid writer.”

“What did you say?!”

Long story short, Alya had called Mrs Rossi who threatened Lila with military school and no allowance unless she did her duties.

Lila did them. Her class was unappreciative of her hard work. She didn’t blame them. She had been on one of Marinette’s organised trips. She knew her own were mediocre.

Class funding had reached an all new low, too. No one wanted to support the lying president’s fundraisers.

Lila bore her class’ hatred with grace. Sure she had her time with an akuma but Hawkmoth can only keep targeting her so much before he moved on to Alya or some other dupe.

Besides, it was only a matter of time before she moved anyway. Lila could hold on until then. She just needed to be patient.

“Lila?” A knock on her cubicle door.

Lila had patience.

“What do you want?” Lila called back bitterly. “Here to finally gloat?”

“No,” Marinette answered calmly. “Just to get answers, and closure.”

Lila barked out a laugh. Why not? She might as well put an end to their feud. Lose with dignity.

“Ask away.”

There was a pause. Then, “Why? Why did you try so hard to bury me? Even when I stopped trying to point out the holes in your story, you still targeted me.”

It was a fair question.

Lila answered. “You were always a target, Marinette. No matter what you did, you would always have been.”

The ensuing silence was a request for more information.

Lila continued, “At every class I’ve been to, there is a leader. Someone with influence over the school. Someone to knock off their throne. Chloe may be the queen, but her only entourage is Sabrina. You’re the president and the class practically sings you praise. You were real competition. I targeted you before I even met you.”

And she had temporarily succeeded. Before, the classmates that would have once listened to Marinette, had hovered around Lila to answer her every beck and call. The power she had felt back then had felt so good.

“And this doesn’t have anything to do with Adrien?” Marinette was skeptical.

“Oh, I saw how close you were. And yes, you were my main competitor then too. Kagami was the other one. But thanks to Ladybug, he saw through me. You know he was the one to get me to make up that lying disability.”

“Yes, I know. Your story was very moving,” Marinette recalled with annoyance. Even her own Mother had easily forgiven Lila. “Is that all there was to it? Crush me so you could rule my class and win Adrien?”

Lila leaned back. “No, there’s one last thing. I don’t like loose threads. Adrien had something to lose because he let me manipulate the class. But I knew that as long as the class had faith in you, eventually you would come up with some proof that would plant the seed of doubt in my stories. I had no hold over you, so there was no way you would have escaped my plans even if you weren’t class president or into Adrien.”

There was silence once more as Marinette absorbed this.

“Satisifed?” Lila called through the stall door.

“Not exactly,” Marinette admitted. “But i got what I came for.”

Lila nodded, even as she knew Marinette couldn’t see. “Then I’ll see you in class.”

More like Marinette will see her. When Lila became president, Alya suggested they switch seats so they could make plans more efficiently. Adrien had stubbornly followed Marinette to the back. When Lila was exposed, Alya sat in front with Nino, leaving Lila with her own table once again.

As the main door opened, Marinette paused. “One more thing. Do I have anything more to worry from you?”

Lila laughed, a genuine laugh that actually sounded pleasant to hear. “Even if I said no, would you believe me?”

They both knew the answer to that.

But it was the truth, Lila had no vendetta left for Marinette. It was Chloe who had earned her ire, but she was too powerful. Lila was through with Françoise Dupont College. It was no longer worth her effort.

#miraculous ladybug fanfic #miraculous ladybug fic #ml fanfic #ml fanfiction #ml fic #miraculous ladybug fanfiction #alya salt #lila salt #chloe redemption #ml salt fic #lila gets exposed #lila is exposed #lila bashing

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aracaeli · 3 years

Text

The Sign of Three

NOTE: Merry Christmas @elfchensdcartblog from your DCMK secret santa!! I’m sorry for posting it at the last minute possible, I should probably have said Happy New Year instead. Here is my humble gift to you. Also, I’m sorry for not writing it with the accent. Regular english still gives me trouble and I’m not sure I’m capable of writing it right. Big thanks to @dcmksecretsanta for hosting he event.

I’m really rusty, but actually making this gift is more fun than I imagined. I forgot how soothing writing can be. Please forgive any mistake I made, happy reading! ^^

----The Sign of Three----

“You know, this is a very bad idea.” Heiji said to Kazuha for the sixth time that day. He’s practically sulking by now. On default, Heiji is not a big fan of malls. Much less going to a mall two days before Christmas. Suffice to say, the place was packed. People are everywhere. There’s people who are getting their christmas shopping late, young couples celebrating christmas together, or just some rando who had the bright idea to come to the mall near christmas. The mall even blasted out “We Wish You a Merry Christmas'' in every speaker on loop. Heiji swears if he finds the person responsible for that song that guy will have to answer to him.

Kazuha however is chipper as ever. She ignored his comment and instead was busy looking at toy displays in front of her while whistling along on the christmas song. Heiji wouldn’t even be here if Kazuha had not dragged him out. Heck, he wouldn’t even leave the house if it weren’t for her. His plan is to stay at home and do some reading, maybe go out for a bit to get food, but that’s it.

Kazuha apparently had other plans for him. She insisted on making him come with her to her class christmas event today and accompany her to do last minute shopping for the kids. Apparently the school wanted the students to celebrate Christmas by making a christmas event where the kids can play and exchange gifts. Only, the actual event is two days early from christmas because the kids will be celebrating with their own family on the actual christmas.

The idea is stupid. Heiji said as much.

He gets smacked in the head for that. Heiji had tried to lie his way out, but Kazuha immediately saw through him.

And that’s another weird thing about Kazuha lately. They had been married a while, but Heiji was sure that her changes only occurred recently.

Lately, she seems to become more observant. She often notices small things that she didn't notice before. Normally if someone moved her pen when she was away, she wouldn’t notice, but now she was able to tell the exact distance of the pen’s displacement.

Another weirdness is, she woke up by the slightest noise. Before when Heiji had to stay late because of work, he was able to get to their bed without waking her. Now Kazuha is awake when he cracks the door open. If Heiji made a noise, she was able to tell exactly what was causing the noise, even if she was two rooms away. Heiji didn’t know what was the cause, it’s not like it’s the first time he saw that kind of ability. He had good ears, so does his father. What’s weird is that Kazuha suddenly developed one, too.

Maybe it was contagious?

Heiji shakes his head, chasing the ridiculous thoughts away. Despite Kazuha being weirdly observant, Heiji managed to secure an awesome gift for her, in his humble opinion. The subject of his musings is still shopping happily, uncharacteristically unaware of his thoughts.

Kazuha is still looking at the display. But now she has already moved to the far end of the store. She picks up the toys one by one and assesses them carefully, as if it was important evidence on a crime scene. After a while, she held up a toy truck in front of him.

“Do you think Mikoto-kun would like this one?” Kazuha asked, holding a red toy car that resembles a fire truck.

Mikoto is one of Kazuha's students in elementary school, who Heiji really doesn’t like. Mikoto, like most the boys in her class, had a crush on Kazuha-sensei and wanted to marry her when they grow up. Nevermind that Heiji visited the class and told them that Kazuha was already married to him.

In response to that information, Mikoto--who had the smuggest face for someone barely older than a toddler-- just looked at him from top to bottom, face clearly displaying unimpressed. “Oh well, we’ll see about that.”

The audacity.

Not caring what the brat would get for Christmas, Heiji answered shortly, “He’s a kid, that’s a toy. The math suggests that he would be thrilled.”

He thought she would get annoyed with him, but his wife just shrugged and went back to shopping. In the end, she made a decision and took the toy to the counter to pay for it and told him to wait for her. Heiji watched her with a suspicious gaze, wondering if what meets the eye is really the truth.

Heiji thinks it’s weird that Kazuha invited him to the event. While it’s not the first time he has come to her class and participated, it was always such a disaster. Considering what happened when he was present, he should be banned.

In his defense, it was the brat’s fault. Everytime Heiji comes to pick Kazuha up, he will ‘accidentally’ step on his foot. Kazuha makes Mikoto apologize to him of course, but the boy apologizes with a sleazy grin not fit for a child. One time, when he visited Kazuha during class, the brat ‘accidentally’ poured paint all over his shirt. Heiji tried to get back at the kid, but as if sensing his petty intention, Mikoto immediately cried.

Worse, Kazuha never sided with him. She came and comforted the kid while Heiji had to watch the kid buried his face in Kazuha’s chest while giving him the smuggest smile known to humankind. He had to bite back a curse.

Another incident that popped in his mind is when Heiji cursed in her class, in front of the children. It was actually quite comical, the children had simultaneously stopped what they were doing and looked at him in shellshock, Heiji stood awkwardly for a minute. He was about to make a run for it. When one of the kids decided that what he had done was unacceptable on so many levels and tattled on him to Kazuha.

Kazuha had put him on time-out as if he was five despite his protest to her.

“I can’t play favour, Heiji. It’s not a good example for the kids” Kazuha said sternly while putting her hands at her hips. Long story short, he lost the debate.

He had to sit in the hallway to think about what he did while the other children peeked at him curiously from the window.

One kid even booed at him.

Yeah, it was not his proudest moment.

While he was reminiscing, Kazuha came back from the cashier, carrying one more bag in her hand. She didn’t have any trouble carrying it, but he decided to perform his duty as a good husband and took the bag from her hand. Beside, this way her hand would be free for him to hold.

Chiding himself for being sappy, Heiji linked their fingers together in a loose grip, suppressing the blush that always comes despite already being married to her. But Kazuha was having none of it today as she tightened her hand.

Kazuha leaned closer on him. Their arms linked together and her nose almost brushed his shoulder.

“Let’s go upstairs.” Kazuha said, leading the way. As they walked side by side, she broke the silence.

“Did you finish your christmas shopping?” Kazuha asked. The mall was crowded and loud, so Heiji really had to pay attention to hear her.

“I did. Finished it weeks ago.”

“Including my gift?”

“Yes.”

“Is it a living thing?”

“No.”

“Is it a nonliving thing?”

“We’re not playing 20 questions!”

Kazuha pouted. She bit the inside of her cheeks and turned her face away from him. Giving Heiji her side-view. And suddenly he finds himself resisting the irrational urge to kiss that protruding lips in public. Fortunately, unlike with the case of Fairy’s lips, he still had common sense left.

“I think I know what you get me.” Kazuha said suddenly.

Heiji gave his wife a skeptical stare, surely she was just bluffing, afterall he went through a painstaking measure to make it a surprise. He even draws a murderboard, which he hides in Kudo’s house, much to the latter dismay.

“No you don’t.” Heiji sneered.

“Hmm let’s see now,” Kazuha put her hand to her chin, mimicking his favorite pose when solving a case, complete with a smile, which may appear innocent at first but completely devious.

“I know that you suck at handcraft. And I don’t see you working at anything, so it can’t be handmade. You said it was a non-living thing, so it can’t be a pet. Judging by how quick you are in answering my question earlier and the fact we have a joint account, it’s unlikely to be a trip or a dinner.”

Heiji started to sweat. Is this what the suspect always felt whenever he made a show of his deductions? Still, Kazuha is not done yet.

“The fact that you finished weeks ago means you had planned it for awhile. You’ve gone to Tokyo for a suspicious amount of time, it can be unrelated to gift-buying, but my instinct said it was very related. But it’s weird that you go so far just to shop, there’s plenty of places here where you can hide your gift. That suggests the involvement of an outside party. Probably a delivery. Which means…”

Kazuha added a dramatic pause.

“....it was custom-made.”

Damn. What’s gotten into her?

Still, Kazuha went for the kill, “The fact that you’re giving it to me, big chance it was a jewelry. Probably a necklace. Since you had no sense when it comes to women’s fashion, the one you custom it’s not probably the design. If my deduction is correct, that necklace would have my initial.”

Heiji completely avoided looking at her. Somehow his pride is trampled over her deductions. He had plans after all. The only solace he had was Kazuha doing all of that is kinda hot. So he let it pass.

“Am I right?”

Heiji shrugged. “I don’t know, you had to wait.”

Kazuha gives a little happy jump, almost knocking a lady that was passing by them.

“I can’t wait for a necklace with a ‘K’ pendant to come.”

Heiji nodded along with her statement. The pendant that he ordered is actually spelled ‘K.H’, since Kazuha had officially become a Hattori now. He decided to let her little mistake in detail be left uncorrected and changed the subject.

“Can we go now? I think this place is getting more packed.” Heiji said, and true to his word, someone bumped into him. Said person didn’t even apologize and just walked.

“Hold on, I still need to buy one more for Chika-chan.”

“Huh? I thought it was a secret santa.”

“It is, but I’m buying a present for all of my students in the class.”

Heiji frowned. “Why? Isn’t that a bit much even for you? You’ll see them again next year.”

He felt her getting tense. She was looking straight ahead but he can tell that she was carefully masking her face as casual indifference.

Shrugging her shoulder, Kazuha answered, “I just want to make this year memorable.”

Heiji observed her face carefully for any clue, but sensing his curiosity, Kazuha looked back at him and feigned a smile. Deciding to not pursue it further, he noted this exchange and kept it in Kazuha’s folder, a place in his mind palace where he keeps anything related to Kazuha that he finds odd or weird. That folder had recently become thicker and thicker.

“Let’s go up one more floor, I think I see a store selling hair accessories.” Kazuha said quickly as she pulled him along by his hand to the elevator direction. Heiji followed along.

She accidentally stumbled on her steps. Delaying them for a few seconds. In consequence of that, they missed the elevator. As the door closed with a resounding ding sound. It was like a butterfly effect, the world just decide what he needs today is a murder.

If only they got on that elevator, they would have missed the shrill scream of a person discovering a dead body.

But unfortunately they did.

Knowing that scream everywhere, Heiji felt his detective sense alert in an instant. But before running off to the source of the commotion, he looked at Kazuha first, wordlessly asking for her permission.

Kazuha sighed, smiling softly, “Go”.

Heiji gave her a cheeky grin. He handed her the shopping bags to her. Since both his hands are free, he had the chance to strike a cool pose before running off by gripping the edge of his hat and pulling the cap to the front.

“I’ll be back.”

------------------------------------------------------------

In the span of time for one call to the police, five interrogations, and one person broke down crying later, Heiji managed to gather the suspects in the back of the store. The body is found in a clothing changing room. A man in his late thirties, wearing casual jeans and polo shirt. The corpse had been found laying on his back, half his body leaned on the mirror. Eyes wide and mouth wide open. Although there is no blood.

The store owner had been very helpful in aiding his investigations. She closed the crime perimeter and helped gather witnesses. Even though she initially insisted that the man just had a heart attack, until Heiji pointed out the signs that he clearly is poisoned.

Heiji was busy doing his usual detective work that he didn’t really notice that Kazuha hadn't shown up even after thirty minutes had passed since they heard the scream.

Heiji was about to search for her, already worried that something happened to his wife. But as he was about to walk away from the crime scene, Kazuha catches up with him, completely unaware of his worry. She even brought a drink in hand and casually sip the cold liquid from the straw while looking around the crime scene curiously.

“Solved it yet?” She asked. Slurping the boba tea.

Heiji was momentarily distracted by the movement of her lips. Shaking the unwanted thoughts away, he looked back at the corpse.

“Not yet. So far, here’s the situation. Someone is found dead in the changing room of this store.” Heiji gestured towards the corpse.

“No blood.” Kazuha remarked.

Heiji nodded. He feels weirdly proud that she participated in the case. He resisted the urge to pat her head, “Exactly. Death by poison.”

“Cyanide?”

“No, arsenic.”

“Who do you think did it?”

“Well, I figured out the trick, But I’m still not sure who did it.”

Kazuha nodded solemnly. Still slurping her drink. Her gaze turned towards the three people standing behind the store owner who were looking at them the whole time. The three men are the main suspects for the case. Heiji told them to stand far enough so they can’t overhear his conversation. Heiji was sure the culprit was between the man with glasses and the tall one. Although he had no evidence or any defining clue.

“The guy with the glasses seems suspicious.” Kazuha said. Leaning close to whisper in his ears. He instinctively take a step back. Typical of Kazuha to annoy him with her stupid breath and her slurping when he was in the middle of a case.

Heiji snatched the drink from her hand.

“How is he suspicious?” He asked, only half-interested in her answer.

“Look at the inside of his wrist.” Kazuha said confidently at first, but she suddenly turned hesitant and quickly shrugged “But, I don’t know though, you’re the Detective.”

Reluctantly, Heiji followed Kazuha's advice and focused on the man in glasses hands.

Wait….that mark…

“I know who the killer is.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

An hour and half later, they finally manage to get out of the mall. Heiji was sure that they were already late to the event. Thankfully, there was no traffic on the way, so they made it to the school ground less than ten minute later. The event hasn't started yet. Most of the kids were still playing around, although Kazuha’s coworkers had pulled out various games and an assortment of christmas themed sweets out.

When Heiji and Kazuha enter the classroom. The children cheered. Immediately, she was surrounded by her students. They formed a circle around her and tried to get her attention. Looking at the spectacle before him, Heiji can’t help but note that Kazuha is really good with kids.

Heiji put their bag on the gifts table. He searched for an empty chair to sit on. Heiji found one in the back of the room. He sits down on one of the chairs beside the low round table. Heiji was so focused that he didn’t notice someone approaching him.

“So you came.”

Heiji turned to the source of the voice. But he didn’t see anyone.

“Down here”

He looked down and his stare met with Mikoto’s gaze.

“Hey”

Mikoto only grunted. The kid pulled the chair across him and sat down. He slouched on the chair while looking around the room with bored eyes. Heiji noticed that his eyes landed on a little girl with a pigtail who was excitedly chatting with Kazuha. He looked back at the kid and the girl.

Heiji was a very observant Detective. The best in Japan. Despite what neechan said. That’s why the blush on Mikoto’s face didn’t go unnoticed by Heiji. He gave a small sigh. Kids these days, so easy to move on from one crush to another.

“Do you like that girl?” Heiji asked. One eyebrow raised suggestively. He deliberately didn’t gesture on the little girl across the room.

Mikoto looked scandalized, suddenly sitting straight with face flushed red. “What! No! Who likes Chika!?”

Heiji grinned. “I didn’t say anything about Chika-chan.”

Mikoto was about to defend himself. But no words come out. All of his face was flaming red to the tip of his ear. The blush even went up to his ears. In the end, he settled to look away instead. Sulking.

“So…” Heiji began, finding the opportunity to tease the kid highly amusing. “Do you think Chika-chan cute? What’s her deal?’

Mikoto crossed his hand in front of his chest, “She’s not cute! She’s stupid!” he stated, too loud and too defensive to be true. Some of the kids and one teacher had looked their way due to commotion.

“Hey, stupid is a bad word.” Heiji chided.

Mikoto was about to protest. But somehow decided against it and mumbled a low “Sorry.”

Seeing the kid actually reminded him a lot of someone. Although Heiji can’t quite recall who. “Here’s an advice, if you like her, don’t pull her pigtails.”

Mikoto, once again, flushed red. As if he was just caugh red-handed. “I don’t need your advice, I bet you also pulled Kazuha-sensei’s ponytail.”

Heiji laughed. It’s actually happened. The scene of their younger years flashed before his eyes. Kazuha used to have pigtails too when she was young and the sight of her hair swinging around as she walked always seems cute and endearing to him. Although back then he had no idea what the feeling blossomed in his chest was.

Young Heiji never made the connection between the flutter of his heart and Kazuha’s presence. Once Heiji even thought he had heart problems. His mother laughed when he brought his concerns to her. Shizuka had said that he was healthy as a clamp and had nothing to worry about. To his embarrassment, it took him ten more years to finally understand he was in love with Kazuha.

“What are you boys talking about?”

Both of them turned around simultaneously, only to find Kazuha standing behind.

“Nothing,” Mikoto said. Kazuha looked at the two of them suspiciously. “Mikoto-kun, you should join the others. The game is about to start.”

Mikoto sends Heiji a distress signal to help him get away. But Heiji feels no remorse as he shrugged his shoulders in total betrayal.

“Mikoto-kun.” Kazuha said again, voice more stern. In the end, Mikoto sighed and walked away from the couple. Joining the merry and fun of his friends in the center of the room.

Kazuha sat on the empty chair that Mikoto left, staring at the crowd in a somewhat somber gaze, “He reminds me a lot of you.”

Heiji immediately defended himself, “What! I am nothing like that brat.”

“You two seemed to get along, though” Kazuha said.

“No, we’re not. He hates my gut. Apparently he used to have a crush on you.” Heiji added, “And just so you know, those little accidents that he did, are not an ‘accident’.”

Kazuha laughed. “I know. I just wanna show how ridiculous you are, getting jealous of kids.” Heiji opened his mouth, but she cut him off, “Don’t even try to deny it.”

Heiji blew a harsh breath. Looking around at the happy kids around him, the christmas decoration is exquisite, and the cookies smelled delicious, even from when he was sitting.

“Why do you insist I come anyway?” Heiji asked. Although he probably knows the answer. With how observant Kazuha is lately, maybe she noticed that he’s not having such a great time at work.

But his wife is always able to surprise him. “I’m pregnant.”

Heiji gaped at her as the world turned into a standstill. Voices become mute and he swears the earth stop spinning.

Kazuha...is pregnant…

Kazuha is pregnant.

He heard the words clearly. But the meaning didn’t actually register in his head. Kazuha is pregnant? With his child….

There’s another human being that he will be responsible to. Someone who looks like him. Or maybe Kazuha. Maybe a well-behaved kid like Chika-chan or a brat like Mikoto.

What would he do if his kid makes bad choices? Or become too reckless like him?

He could feel his panic rapidly growing by the second. The thought of bringing a human life in this world is downright overwhelming. Kazuha might be good with kids, but he is not. What would he do with one? That’s easy, he should feed it. Oh God, what did you feed a kid? What does a kid even eat??

As if sensing his rapidly growing panic, Kazuha called his name. “Heiji,”

When there was no response, Kazuha grabbed his hand that was laying on the table. The contact startled him. His eyes turned to her.

“We’re gonna be fine, Heiji.” Kazuha added, “Beside, I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I want to focus on raising our family.”

Suddenly, it made sense. Why she wants to make this year christmas with her class so memorable. The way she is acting so weird recently. There’s only one thing he can’t figure out, thought….

“I don’t get why you suddenly become so observant, is that another side effect of pregnancy?”

Kazuha stared at him in bewilderment, “What are you talking about?”

“You! You were suddenly very observant. Like a detect--” Heiji stopped mid-sentence, he abruptly stood up from the chair, knocking it backwards. As if he just received the meaning of the universe, he exclaimed:

“Oh God, our child is gonna be a detective!!”

A/N: And thus, Heisuke is doomed since he was a literal fetus to be a detective by his father.

There’s a local belief in my area that when a mother is pregnant, how she behaves is influenced by the child’s personality. So if a woman often gets angry during pregnancy, that means the child is temperamental, so on. Halfway writing this, I realized that it might be too weird and specific, so I ended up rewriting it into a more general trope. Although dumbass me misread the fact that Kazuha is elementary teacher-to-be, not elementary teacher. Still, I hope you accept this as a humble sort-of-headcanon to your Heisuke AU.

I actually really like the concept of the AU, I had to refrain myself from liking and reblogging all the posts because then you would have easily figured out that I’m your Secret Santa (lol). Can’t wait to see your next works. Good luck and Merry Christmas! ^^

#dcmksecretsanta #my fic #I think the last time I write anything is BNHA secret santa three years ago #this is surprisingly fun #imagining Heiji in ridiculuous situation is my jam #I will never live down the fairy's lips case #that was exhausting

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howtohero · 3 years

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#300.1: Saving the World Part 1

Prologue

The Haberdashery

“Hi, my name is Murk. I am a mud monster and a product of mad science, but I am also an accountant and a lover of classical music. For most of my existence I have tried to simply live a regular life in an increasingly strange world.”

The conference room in Hatman’s Haberdashery was filled with all manner of colorfully clad, or just plain colorful, superheroes, super-trainees, monsters, vampires, werewolves, sewer-mutants, Da Vincis and even a smattering of regular civilians who looked tired, angry, but overall fearless. According to Leonardo Da Vinci II, an android duplicate of the original from the far future, there had never been such an eclectic gathering of people in all of history. They had gathered — or been gathered — because the world, and life as they all knew it, hung in the balance. The world’s supervillains, led by a formerly low rate smuggler named Smuggles, had managed to do the unthinkable, they’d taken over the world, and in doing so they’d imprisoned most of the world’s heroes, world leaders, and superhero bloggers, in a secret prison. The oddball assembly was the Resistance, and at the moment each of them had their eyes on Murk. Some looked at him with confusion, he was by far the most eloquent mud monster they’d ever heard. Some looked at him in awe, over the past several weeks, Murk had rescued many of them from danger and had inspired them to join him in his fight. A few looked at him with pride, they knew him from before you see, and as far as they were concerned, that made his heroics their heroics.

(“I know that guy from before,”) Parenthetical Guy whispered to the warthog-mask wearing man sitting to his left. (“And as far as I’m concerned, that makes his heroics my heroics.)

{“I work with that guy, he does my taxes,”} Curly whispered, nudging Hatman who was looking forlornly toward the room’s exit. There were far too many people between him and it, and it was causing him no shortage of distress.

“When the heroes fell,” Murk continued. “It immediately became apparent that I, and many others like me, could no longer afford the luxury of standing to the side. For a long time I, and many of my ‘monstrous’ ilk have been more than happy to allow superheroes to handle the world’s problems for us. Whenever our homes, our lives, our world came under threat we all said to one another, ‘well, that looks like a job for superheroes,’ and we declined to act. When the heroes fell I saw how selfish I had been. And so I would like to be the first to extend my heartfelt thanks, and my sincerest apologies to the brave heroes who have gathered here today. I, along with my partner and friend, Lawyer Guy have gathered as many civilians as we could. Regular monsters and people who have cowered from or turned a blind eye to the acts of the villains who have dared to subjugate us, and we have come here to offer our assistance. If you’ll have us, we would like to help in any way we can.”

His speech concluded, Murk quickly sat down next to Lawyer Guy who smiled warmly at him. A few people sitting near him muttered polite words of affirmation toward the hulking mud man but everyone quickly became silent once more as somebody else strode to the head of the table.

Everybody in the room, everybody in the world, recognized the gold and white costume, the chiseled, stony features, and the piercing blue eyes of Ultiman. He was the superhero par excellence and when he clapped Murk on the shoulder and smiled widely, Murk’s ragtag civilian crew let out a collective sigh of relief.

“Thank you Murk,” Ultiman said. “Thank you everyone. As I’m sure you can see, our numbers are small but our members are dedicated and we are thrilled to be able to count each of you among us. I’m confident that, working together, we can depose Smuggles and his entire Consortium of Crime.”

***

Smuggles’s Secret Prison

My name is Zachary Schechter and I’d been locked up for a while by the time anybody had made any noise about breaking out. You may know me as the creator, author, and only functioning brain behind How To Hero. Actually you definitely know me as that. It’s a very popular blog. Just take my word on this ok? I was in a secret prison because I allowed my subordinates to talk me into hiring a known supervillain to, let’s see, live in our basement and interject unwanted comments into my blog. As it would happen, this supervillain, Smuggles, took the job as part of some kind of protracted and complicated plan to take over the world. I should have seen that coming of course. That’s basically the only reason any supervillain does anything. For a few weeks I was alone there. Just sitting in a cell twiddling my thumbs. Trying to make conversation with the drones they had guarding the place. The only thing they’d given me to eat is fish. I imagine Chuck the Fish Whisperer had something to do with that. Frikkin supervillains and their sycophantic dedication to their own themes. But then a ton of superheroes ended up there with me, and I knew things on the outside had taken a decisive turn for the worse. The heroes were all stripped of their costumes and gear, and were given supervillain costumes instead. It’s all spikes, horns, and red contact lenses now. It’s a bit silly, but I think the idea is that if the heroes are dressed like villains and forced to do things like play evil charades and watch movies about heroes turning bad, then some of them might actually turn evil. Actually, I know that’s the idea, but I’ll get to that later. Eventually Cowboy Rockstar, the coolest hero of all time, decided to stage some kind of jailbreak. Which was great. And he wanted me to help him plan it, probably because of my proven expertise in all manner of superhero related topics. I bet it was my treatise on the many superheroic uses of drills that got his attention. There was just one teeny tiny problem though...

“So what do you think?” Cowboy Rockstar whispered.

“I think… I think that I designed this prison,” I whispered dejectedly.

“I beg your pardon?”

It was recreation time once again, and Giorgio the Evil Mime had selected an assortment of clips of superheroes becoming evil from various films and TV shows. It’s really shocking how many times Hollywood has returned to the well of “a superhero clad in red, white, and blue murders a person.” We must’ve watched like thirty different clips already.

“Look, Mr. Rockstar, I appreciate you coming to me and all. It’s an honor to meet you and plot in hushed voices with you and everything. But I’m like 90% certain that I designed this prison. And I don’t know about you but Iitalics certainly wouldn’t have designed a prison that people could break outitalics of.”

Cowboy Rockstar furrowed his brow, “Ah, you’re saying this prison is… from your blog?”

I held up my hands defensively. “Hey, I know how it sounds but look around you. The costumes, the robots, the charades. It’s literally ripped straight from my post about running your own unsanctioned prison.”

“You wrote a guide to running an off the books blacksite for housing criminals?” Cowboy Rockstar arched an immaculate eyebrow. “That’s not really a very superheroic activity.”

“Huh. When you put it like that it’s really no wonder that the only person who seems to have implemented any of it is a supervillain who seems to have taken over the world.”

“He had help,” I heard somebody grumble from Cowboy Rockstar’s other side.

Helm Lady was one of the only Hatman proteges to both survive to adulthood and continue her career as a superhero, so it was hardly surprising that she’d been able to sneak up on us.

“Helm Lady, good of you to join us!” Cowboy Rockstar said. “Zach over here was just telling me about how he designed this prison to be unescapable! Isn’t that exciting.”

“Hardly,” Helm Lady said glumly.

“I gotta agree with her on this one,” I said.

“Are you kidding me? You’ve been given a rare opportunity to outdo yourself in a grandiose and practical way! You’ve been here longer than anybody. It seems like Smuggles has some kind of vendetta against you specifically, and so he’s used your own tactics against you! Now, with our help of course, you can show everybody that you’re smarter than you!” Cowboy Rockstar was gesticulating wildly at this point drawing a sharp and reproachful glare from warden Giorgio.

“Hm,” I said, I had already written a guide to escapology. Maybe I’d already unwittingly outwitted myself. Besides, Smuggles’s prison wasn’t actually an exact copy of the one I’d designed on the blog. He’d had to make some changes to prevent it from having any real rehabilitative value. Dressing the prisoners like villains instead of heroes for instance. And villain costumes are very different from hero costumes. They’re like eighty percent sharp edges. I looked Cowboy Rockstar up and down. The costume they had him in had spikes up and down his arms. Maybe we could use them to pick the locks on our cell? We’d still have to deal with the robot guards and who knows what else. But maybe that was a place to start.

“Ok,” I said after a moment. “I’m sure we can come up with something, after all, as I say

on my blog, when you’re in a locked room, anything can be a key.”

Cowboy Rockstar grinned and gestured around the room at the assorted superheroes that were locked in with us, “And we’ve certainly got an eclectic bunch of keys here haven’t we.”

I smiled and looked around the room, maybe this could actually work.

***

“If I had an iPod and a busted time machine we could do this in a snappy montage and be out in no time,” I grumbled to Cowboy Rockstar.

It was the next day, and our recreation activity was something called “evil baseball.” There’s no batters, no outfield, and the only umpire was a deranged mime. The only real resemblance it had to regular “non-evil” baseball, was the fact that there were four bases, and players could steal bases. In fact, the game was pretty much just stealing bases. Because stealing is a crime get it? Ugh, the sooner we got out of there and stopped Smuggles the better. Cowboy Rockstar was manning first base for his team, and I’d just stolen first. I suspected it was because Helm Lady, the “pitcher” for Cowboy Rockstar’s team, had allowed me to get to first so we could chat. It might have been because I’m really athletic though. It’s hard to say.

“I don’t think that’s how anything works,” Cowboy Rockstar said.

“Oh what do you know?”

“A lot, I’ve unknotted several time paradoxes you know. Some experts even say that I ‘invented’ the current iteration of this timeline.”

“Ah, so this is all your fault.”

“Nice try, I didn’t give Smuggles access to an interdimensional warp gate so he could free his fish whispering friend from his prison.”

“Touche.”

“What have you got?”

“I was thinking, we know that Smuggles has everybody’s powers neutralized inside this prison right?”

“Yes.”

“Well not every hero has powers to begin with,” I started. “And there are few people here with relevant talents that Smuggles can’t turn off.”

“Talents such as?”

Giorgio blew his whistle. Apparently I’d spent too long dawdling at first base without even trying to steal second.

“I guess whistling doesn’t go against the mime code of silence,” I grumbled as I started to edge off of first base.

“Talents such as?” Cowboy Rockstar repeated before I took off.

I nodded towards his team’s second baseman.

“Being a giant rock monster with seven hands,” I said before racing off toward Rockblock.

***

The next night I laid awake, staring up at the ceiling of my cell, going over what was slowly starting to look like a plan again and again. If Cowboy Rockstar could use the many razor sharp spikes on his villain costume to pick the locks on his cell, — and he’d assured me that he could, upside down, in his sleep — and then get to the others, Rockblock could probably serve as our muscle until we got out and the other heroes got their powers back. He’d need to fight off dozens of battle drones though. No, that wasn’t much of a plan. Muscle was great, but we’d need some other way to guarantee the drones would stay off of us until we got outside. I consulted the scrap of paper I had hidden in the palm of my hand, directed away from any prying eyes or cameras. The scrap had been discretely slipped into the pocket of my hoodie by Helm Lady. She’d managed to steal a pencil during Evil Mad Libs, and had taken the liberty of jotting down everybody who we knew was imprisoned here. “Our list of keys,” as Cowboy Rockstar had called it. We needed to keep the circle of people who knew that we were planning a breakout small for now. That way there’d be less of a chance of any villains or drones getting wind of it. So Cowboy Rockstar wanted me to identify anybody who might be especially useful in the actual breakout, whereupon we’d obviously free the rest of the prisoners. I consulted the list again, mentally sorting the manifest into those who had powers, and thus were less likely to be especially useful without the use of them, and those who didn’t have powers, and therefore were pretty much operating at 100% effectiveness. There’s another thing I didn’t account for in my own designs, sucks to be you Smuggles. That’s what happens when you build your top secret superhero prison based on the musings of a comedy blog instead of doing your own work you frikkin goon. I circled a couple of names on my illicit scrap of paper and was just about ready to smugly smile myself to sleep when I noticed a faint buzzing. My first thought was wall bees. You wouldn’t believe how often strange buzzing sounds in the How To Hero office ended up being bees in the wall. But this buzzing was more mechanical and well, I guess it must have been there since I was first thrown into this dump. I had managed to sublimate it into the background noise of my time here but now in the dead of the night I was able to really listen to it finally. I tentatively got off of my threadbare cot and walked the length of my small cell. The buzzing was, as I’d feared, strongest by the door. Which could only mean one thing. Door bees! No, I’m kidding, it meant that the old fashioned deadbolt lock was either just for show, or just one part of the cell doors’ security systems. There was some kind of electronic component as well. One that probably wouldn’t be able to be thwarted with some evil-looking spikes. I looked at my scrap once more, I’d have to have a conversation with one of the other prisoners tomorrow.

***

“Professor Flay,” I whispered as I took a seat next to a glasses-wearing black man decked out in a purple jumpsuit with a skull belt buckle.

“Yes?” the man said, clearly startled, “I’m sorry I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“My name’s Zach, and I’m a fan of your Big Book of Fake Science.”

“Um, are you referring to my Complete Compendium of Improbable Science,” Professor Lucius Flay replied.

“Shoot, is that what it’s called? I knew it was something like that, only my buddy lost the cover and title page in a bet with a supervillain we knew who needed them to power his cover and title page powered doomsday device,” I explained quickly.

Professor Flay flared his nostrils, “And you have the nerve to insinuate that my science is fake. Is there a point to this, I don’t want to miss this performance.”

Our villainous rehabilitation activity for the day was “evil karaoke” only songs with the word “bad” in the title were allowed to be performed. Cowboy Rockstar was currently belting out an honestly breathtaking rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”. It was an especially loud and especially drawn out version of the song, so that Professor Flay and I could converse in relative peace.

“What kind of scientist would you say you are Professor?”

“If you must know, I consider myself to be more or less omnidisciplinary,” Professor Flay said.

“That means you dabble in a little bit of everything right?”

“Everything scientific.”

“And that’s not a superpower thing right? You came by all that knowledge on your own?”

Professor Flay waved a dismissive hand at me, “Of course I did. I studied for years to get to where I am today. Sure I may have had to break a few time travel regulations to do it, but otherwise, I come by my intellect fair and square.”

“Excellent!” I shouted a little too loudly. “This is the best version of ‘Bad Romance’ I’ve ever heard!” I quickly added, to cover myself.

“Yeah it’s so good that they should call it ‘Good Romance!’” Rockblock shouted, no doubt trying to help me out.

Unfortunately though, that was the wrong thing to say. Giorgio the Mime certainly couldn’t allow anything gooditalics to happen in this evil facility, so he quickly put the kibosh on Cowboy Rockstar’s performance, much to the chagrin of everyone else in the room. I thought I even saw a drone flash a frowny face. The drones then started ferrying us out of the room and back to our individual cells.

“How much do you know about electronic locks?” I quickly asked as I pressed my scrap of paper in between Professor Flay’s belt and jumpsuit.

Realization flashed across Professor Flay’s face.

“Ah,” he said. “Enough.”

I hoped he was right.

***

The next day our recreational activity was evil baking. There were several different stations set up in the auditorium, each with ingredients set up to make different evil foods. I ambled past “exploding pies”, “sentient food that will actively beg for its life as you eat it”, and “kale cookies” before taking a seat next to Cowboy Rockstar at the “general poisons” table. Helm Lady and Rockblock were already there, and I noticed Helm Lady was taking special care not to touch any of the ingredients on the table. Rockblock, being made entirely out of stone and cando spirit, began handling the various herbs and toxins and following the recipe. I guess they’d decided that somebody at our table had to be doing something to avoid attracting any unwanted attention.

“Where’s Professor Flay?” I asked.

“He just walked in,” Cowboy Rockstar said, nodding toward the door, where a contingent of drones were herding in another batch of prisoners.

“Over here!” Rockblock bellowed, waving three of his giant hands while the other four mixed and mashed various ingredients.

“Quiet,” Helm Lady snarled. I was beginning to regret bringing Rockblock in on our plans so early.

Still, Professor Flay managed to get the message and made his way over to our table.

“Hello everybody,” he said as he sat down next to Helm Lady. He wrinkled his nose as he caught a whiff of what Rockblock was mixing in his bowl. “What are we making?”

“Sulfide sausages,” Rockblock replied.

“Lovely.”

“So?” I asked, raising my eyebrow inquisitively at the professor.

Professor Flay glanced around and, confident that there were no drones within listening distance, leaned in conspiratorially.

“I can build the device you described but-”

“Hey guys, sorry I didn’t come right away. I wanted to do a lap to see if there were any other cooler tables,” a pale skinned man clad in black chainmail and sporting thick rimmed glasses said as he sat down at our table.

“Er… what?” I asked.

“I know Rockblock called me over, but I’m not just going to sit down at the first table that offers me a spot, am I?” the other man replied as if that were a perfectly normal thing to say.

“Uh, I was actually talking to Professor Flay,” Rockblock said.

The bespectacled man laughed, “Oh Rockblock, I’d heard your sense of humor was legendary.”

Rockblock looked confused but Helm Lady put a hand on one of his arms.

“What do you want Glassesman?”

“Helm Lady! Great to see you. How’s the old man?”

“We don’t talk.”

“Oh, is that right? Poor Hats never could keep a protege.”

“Glassesman.” I said, interjecting before things escalated. “You weren’t on the list. When did you get here?”

“Oh, just recently. I wasn’t captured with the rest of you in the first wave.”

Cowboy Rockstar ignored the jab and leaned forward. “Are you saying that Smuggles has found whatever resistance there is? Where’s Ultiman?”

“Keep your ten-gallon hat on buckaroo, the resistance is fine such as it is. I was deep undercover in Smuggles’ operation, but I got found out.”

“No surprise there. You probably started handing out promotional sunglasses to all the villains as soon as you got in there,” Helm Lady muttered.

“Hey, supervillains are a market I have yet to break into. This was a rare networking opportunity for me!”

What a tool.

“Enough,” Cowboy Rockstar said, making sure to keep his voice even.

“What’s with all the hushed tones,” Glassesman said, looking us all up and down.

“Ah,” he said when he’d completed his appraisal. “You’re planning a break out.”

“No we’re n-” Helm Lady started but Glassesman held up his hand.

“Oh please, you’ve got a scientist, a jack-of-all-trades, a bruiser, a non-powered combatant and a…” he faltered when he got to me.

“Blogger,” I said curtly.

Glassesman raised an eyebrow but kept going, “So don’t try to keep me out of this, I’m non-powered too, and I can fight better than a Hatb- sorry exitalics-Hatboy any day of the week.��

Cowboy Rockstar looked as though he was going to say something to get rid of Glassesman but he just sighed and gestured to Professor Flay.

“Fine, sure. Professor you were saying?”

“Um, well, yes. I can build the… device, you asked for but I can’t do it from thin air. I need something to work from.”

We all sat in silence for a moment. I guess it was too much to ask for an omni-disciplinaryitalics super-scientist to be able to whip up an EMP device out of whatever he could find in his prison cell. I’d be sure to inform whatever board certifies omni-disciplinary scientists to amend an asterisk to Professor Flay’s credentials when we got out of here.

“Could you build it out of whatever those things are made of?” Glassesman said, jerking a thumb towards one of the drones.

Professor Flay appraised it, “It appears to run on a lithioplasmic core with a carbon-electrum chassis. Assuming there’s a terrakon multispacial chip rattling around in or near its processor… Yes, I wouldn’t even need too much of it. Just a chunk from the chest if I had to guess.”

“Excellent,” Glassesman said before he stood up and flipped over our table. “And you can tell that cap clad crank that I’m twice the hero he ever was!”

Helm Lady smirked and wordlessly lunged at him, wrapping her long fingers around his neck. Professor Flay and I quickly took cover behind the table. Flay because he was a nerd and wasn’t about to get involved in a fist fight between two highly trained combatants. And me to protect Flay naturally. We needed him fit enough to build us the EMP, I couldn’t exactly leave him. Cowboy Rockstar jumped on Glassesman’s back and tried to pull him away while Rockblock scrambled to gather up the ingredients from his poison. A stray pellet of congealed arsenic bounced over to me and I scooped it up into my hoodie. You never know, right?

In a minute several drones were trundling over to our little group trying to break up the fight. They’d just about managed to pry Cowboy Rockstar, Glassesman and Helm Lady apart when Rockblock let out a deafening roar and joined the fray, sending a handful of drones flying as he growled something incoherent about how hard he’d been working on perfecting his recipe. By this time the other assembled heroes were all looking toward us, but before anybody else could get any ideas about joining the riot, more drones than I’d even realized were in the prison poured into the auditorium and surrounded my friends. Finally managing to pull them apart.

The rest of the heroes, myself and Professor Flay included, were now being rounded up by some of the drones while most of them were being engaged by six of Rockblock’s giant fists. As we walked by though, I noticed his seventh appendage experly flick a chunk of metal in our direction. I stumbled slightly, bending over quickly to grab the robot chunk. And then discretely passed it to Professor Flay before we were split off to return to our own cells.

“I’ll have it done before tonight,” he said to me as he palmed the misshapen blob of metal and wiring.

I nodded and smiled, by that time tomorrow we’d be out of that forsaken prison and saving the world.

***

Night fell, and I paced anxiously around the length of my cell. Assuming Professor Flay was able to work as quickly as he claimed he was able to. And assuming Rockblock had gotten him exactly what he needed. And assuming Cowboy Rockstar and Glassesman and Helm Lady were able to pick the locks on their cells when the time came. And assuming Rockblock could keep any guards off of us. And assuming- Well, there were a lot of assumptions before I’d be tasting fresh air. Our plan was hardly fool proof, and we had at least two or three fools on our team, depending on who you asked. We were making a few too many assumptions for my liking. But it was the best we had, so I guess that was that. There was nothing I could do except wait for something to happen.

And when something happened, everything happened.

First there was a deafening boom, followed by a shockwave that traveled quickly throughout the cell block. If I hadn’t been deafened by the explosion, I would have noticed that the electronic buzzing I’d heard had gone silent. Professor Flay’s homebrewed EMP had worked. I ran to the door and saw several guard drones collapsed on the ground. Their cybernetic features were blank.

Seconds later three cell doors swung open and Cowboy Rockstar, Helm Lady, and Glassesman strode out. Glassesman looked especially smug, even though he was the last one out. The other two were such pros, they decided to let it slide. They quickly started working on picking the locks on the other cells. Helm Lady sprung Rockblock first, just in case there were any drones outside the EMP’s radius that might’ve been trundling our way. Professor Flay’s EMP was a one-shot kind of deal so we’d have to fight or evade any other drones we encountered.

“So far so good eh?” Cowboy Rockstar grinned as he unlocked the door to my cell.

“So far, yeah,” I said anxiously. “We’re pretty much flying blind from here on out th- Woah!”

I took a step back into my cell as Cowboy Rockstar became enveloped in a brilliant white light. I stood agape as he began hovering a few inches off the ground and the light faded into his body.

“What was that?” I asked.

Cowboy Rockstar landed adroitly on the ground and checked his pulse with two of his fingers.

“It’s… I think the EMP must have shorted out whatever device was neutralizing our powers in here,” Cowboy Rockstar said. His fists began crackling with energy.

I looked up and down the hall of cells. Powerful glows or crumpled cell doors told me that many of the other heroes were starting to regain access to their powers.

“Well that certainly changes the game,” I said as I began taking stock of all of the new keys we’d just acquired.

***

We quickly divided into a few teams:

Team One: Nightron, Foresight P. Jones, and Intangi-Bill. None of us had been outside since we’d arrived in the prison and so none of us actually knew where the exit was. Team one would use their respective speed, supervision and intangibility in concert to find a way out.

Team Two: Cowboy Rockstar, Rockblock, and Cannonballer: Baller of Cannons. Our heavy hitters. If anybody could break straight through the walls that surrounded us to the outside it was them.

Team Three: Professor Flay, Electrobug, Digitalized, Psionica. They set about trying to cobble together weapons and gear from the broken husks of the drones that we had at our disposal.

Team Four: Captain Patriot, Brad the Radioactive Man, Amphin, Glassesman, Helm Lady and the Human Wall. The best offense is a strong defense, and if any of our other teams were going to have any hope of doing what they needed to do, they’d need somebody keeping Giorgio and whatever drones he could scrounge together off of their backs.

Team Five: Dr. Hemer, Knife Knurse, and Super Surgeon. A lot of heroes were suffering painful side-effects either from the sudden reemergence of their superpowers or the power-deprivation they’d been suffering since they’d gotten here. Anybody who had any sort of medical knowledge would tend to them until we get help on the outside.

Team Six: Just me. My job was to come up with the team names and I’m not ashamed to admit that I totally phoned it in.

I was sitting back and taking stock of the other teams’ progress when a gust of wind informed me of Nightron’s return.

“We’re not the only prisoners here,” he said panting, parts of his supervillain costume were singed, he must have encountered other guards elsewhere in the facility.

“You’re sure?” I asked frantically. I’m not sure why it had never occurred to me that there might be other prisoners somewhere in this facility. But I had only ever seen the heroes that were in that corridor at communal recreational events.

“Positive, there are maybe five or six other cell blocks just like this one. They’ve got dozens of other superheroes here. But that’s not all. World leaders, para-folk, some civilians. I think I even saw some sort of zoo,” Nightron said.

“Probably for animal sidekicks and the like,” I mused aloud. “Were you followed back here?”

“No, but they saw who I was. I’m sure they know where I’m supposed to be. It won’t be long before we have company here.”

“You’re right. Professor, how are those weapons coming!” I shouted towards where Team Three was working.

“My EMP seems to have worked a little too well, there’s no resteoring powers to these machines, but Psionica has managed to use her telekinetic abilities to reform some chunks of metal into clubs.”

“That’ll have to do,” I said. “Nightron, grab a few of those clubs, if anybody comes you’ll join Team Four. Hit them hard and hit them fast.”

“But what about the other prisoners?” Nightron protested.

“We need to break ourselves out before we can worry about anybody else,” Glassesman said.

“I hate to admit it but he’s right,” Helm Lady agreed.

“Yeah but-” and then, in a whoosh he was gone, because it was at that moment that a platoon of drones filed into our hallway. Two of them hit the ground, their CPUs bashed in by Nightron, before the rest of us even registered what was happening but once we did, the rest of Team Four, sprung into action.

“Zach, over here,” Professor Flay called.

I ran over to him, he passed me a makeshift club and we formed a defensive ring around our medics and the wounded along with the rest of Team Three.

“We are through!” Cannonballer: Baller of Cannons cried.

We helped Team Five get to the large gap in the wall that Team Two had formed as Rockblock and Cowboy Rockstar went to join the fray in the corridor.

“We may have problem,” Cannonballer: Baller of Cannons muttered to us as we joined her outside.

Problem was an understatement. For one thing, the sky was a murky blend of purples, oranges, and reds, and I know I haven’t been doing a ton of “world-building” in this dramatic account of my escape from a supervillain run supermax, but the sky we were all used to seeing was definitely blue. The ground we were standing on was somehow both dusty and crumbly. Every step we took sent a cloud of dust and ground flakes into the air. And we couldn’t see any other signs of life or civilization anywhere at all. I had always assumed that we would be somewhere inconspicuous but local, so that Smuggles could keep an eye on us, but it appeared as though we were in the middle of nowhere with no way of getting to the middle of anywhere.

“What… What is this place?” Professor Flay said.

“Beats me,” I said with a shrug. When I designed this prison for How To Hero I recommended finding a large unused building with reinforced walls that was situated in a place that no cops would ever be caught dead anywhere near. There are literally four or five places like that within a twenty block radius of How To Hero headquarters so where the hell were we. Unless… crap.

“Atomspace,” I said. “We’ve been shrunken down and sent to a prison in Atomspace.”

“Well,” Professor Flay said, taking in our otherworldly surroundings. “That creates a wrinkle in our plans doesn’t it.”

“It certainly does,” I agreed.

And that’s when everything went black.

***

I awoke, chained to a chair, in what may very well have been the most garishly decorated room I had ever seen. And Parenthetical Guy once painted our office neon green and creamsicle orange so that was saying something. The walls were all a deep blood red and there were various supervillainous accoutrements mounted all over the walls. Scary looking masks, futuristic blasters, esoteric looking staffs. A giant serpent’s head wearing oversized sunglasses was mounted on the wall directly opposite me. Below the serpent head sat an ornate, obsidian desk with a high backed leather chair behind it. The carpet was the color of rotting bones, which made a lot of sense when I realized that it wasn’t really a carpet at all, but rather a mat made entirely of very thin bone fragments. Bone fragments that were incredibly sharp at the ends.

“Ouch!” I yelped as I lifted my feet slightly off of the ground.

“Well look who’s finally awake,” a snide voice to my left said.

I turned my head and my heart dropped. Joining me in this chilling chamber were the rest of my friends: Cowboy Rockstar, Helm Lady, Professor Flay and Glassesman were chained to chairs like mine while Rockblock’s hulking form was chained to the wall on the far side of the room. The humans in the chairs also had their feet up in various positions. Rockblock was stuck standing on the bone floor, but at least he didn’t seem to mind.

“What happened?” I asked groggily.

“We were all knocked unconscious after we broke through the prison walls,” Professor Flay explained. “Cerebral implants I’d guess.”

“You’re saying we were all chipped?” I said, bewildered. “That’s crazy. Why weren’t we all knocked out as soon as we broke out of our cells?”

“Because I wanted to see the look on your face when you realized you were in Atomspace.”

All of our heads snapped towards the door where a man wearing a dark gray catsuit, a bright orange domino mask, and heavy metal boots strode into the room. “Do you like how I’ve decorated? Greg the Skeleton King referred me to his interior design guy.”

“That explains the bones,” Helm Lady muttered.

“And the hellfire!” Cowboy Rockstar proclaimed. “From right before we were captured, I’d been wondering about that.”

“Smuggles,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Zachary,” he said curtly. “Mr. How To Hero himself, how does it feel to be so utterly defeated by someone you’ve spent years ridiculing on your infantile blog?”

“I’ll let you know when it happens,” I said.

“Always with the clever little jokes,” Smuggles said as he took a seat in the leather chair and steepled his fingers. “You have been utterly defeated though. I’ve been following your little escape attempt from the very beginning. My people are not idiots you know. We’ve been listening to every conversation, watching your every move. The riot in the cafeteria was especially amusing.” He nodded at Rockblock who just grunted in response. “Quite frankly, you got further than I expected you to. But I’m glad you did, because now you have to admit that I’ve completely bested you. You’ve been thoroughly trounced Zachary. Who’s the laughingstock now?”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to think of a way out of this for myself and my friends, when Glassesman burst out laughing. Smuggles’s eye flashed with rage and he slammed a hand down on his desk.

“I’m sorry, is something amusing here?”

“No no… Well yeah, sorry, it’s just… You got every supervillain to band together, captured most of the superheroes, and basically took over the entire world just to get back at some low rate blogger?”

“Hey, uncalled for!” I shouted.

“I’m sorry it’s just a bit ridiculous don’t you think?”

“Honestly, I kind of agree with him,” Helm Lady said sheepishly.

“I legitimately thought this whole thing was about me,” Cowboy Rockstar admitted. “I’m kind of a big deal you know, being a semigod and all that.”

“Don’t you mean demigod?” Professor Flay asked, doing a little wiggle shake to get his chair facing Cowboy Rockstar.

“Oh, I’m that too. But I’m talking about the cult I inadvertently inspired that has deified me,” Cowboy Rockstar explained.

Smuggles banged his fist down on his desk again.

“Enough!” he shouted, before cradling his fist in his other hand. “Now that your merry band has been epically thwarted and humiliated, I must decide on your punishment. I’m not about to risk you lot plotting another breakout.”

My mind started racing for a way out. This was the first time I had come face to face with Smuggles since he’d unleashed Chuck the Fish Whisperer in the How To Hero basement. Until now I hadn’t realized just how much of what was happening revolved around me. I didn’t even realize Smuggles had been familiar with my blog before we hired him. Maybe I could work with that.

“Do your worst Smuggles. I guarantee you it won’t be anything worse than what actual villains have done to me,” I said, affixing my most smug expression on my features.

“What are you talking about?” Smuggles said, clearly thrown.

“I mean come on. I lived with a real supervillain before. Remember Dr. Brainwave?”

“Wait, what?” Helm Lady said. “You lived with Dr. Brainwave? We’ve been looking for him for years!”

“Yeah well I don’t know what to tell you,” I said.

“Brainwave was a sentimental hack. Killing him was child’s play.” Smuggles said through mounting anger.

I faltered for a moment. So Smuggles had been the one who had mailed that bomb to our office? He was the reason Dr. Brainwave was dead? Sure the guy was a supervillain, but at the end of the day he had been my… my friend. And he’d sacrificed his life to save mine and my friends’. The fact that I was sitting less than three feet away from his murderer was almost too much to bear. Still, there’d be plenty of time to deal with him later. Assuming my plan worked.

“Still before you killed him he made my life miserable. You’ve read my blog, I’m sure you know all about it. So I honestly doubt that anything you plan to do can compare.”

Smuggles literally shook with rage, “I can… I can killitalics you! You ever think about that?”

Cowboy Rockstar grinned, “Good luck with that.”

Ok, honestly I’m not sure what thatitalics was about. Is Cowboy Rockstar immortal? Has anybody ever checked that? Regardless, I decided to just roll with it.

“Do your worst.” I said.

“Guys!” Glassesman shouted exasperated. “I love taunting a bad guy as much as the next guy, but maybe we should all ease up a bit!”

“Oh relax,” I said. “Smuggles is a Z-lister trying to kick it with the big kids. He can’t just shoot us or something. If he wants to be a world-dominating evil monster he’s going to have to come up with a suitably ostentatious way to kill us and honestly, he doesn’t have the imagination. Just look at his face, this is clearly eating at him.”

It was as though a lightbulb went off over Smuggles’s head. His face warped from grimace to grin and he strode around to the other side of his desk.

“I’ve already succeeded in taking over the world and routing your beloved superheroes. I hardly need to prove myself to the likes of you. You can expect to be executed in a ‘suitable ostentatious manner’ shortly.”

I was all read to shoot back a witty retort when everything went black again.

***

I awoke to the sound of cheering, which made me feel pretty good. I don’t often get cheered for waking up. I’m sure Cowboy Rockstar was feeling pretty regular though, people cheer for everything that guy does. I was in the center of a gladiatorial arena, the stands were packed with guard drones and more than a few supervillains. The presence of so many of them here sent a shiver down my spine. Had Smuggles really been able to recruit and control so many supervillains? Next to me, my friends laid in a rumpled heap, all of them still unconscious with the exception of…

“Now look what you’ve done,” Professor Flay said sternly.

I turned to look at him and saw the abject fear sketched across his features.

“Relax Prof, everything’s going to be ok.”

“How can you say that! Look at us! We’re in an arena surrounded by bloodthirsty supervillains for god’s sake!”

“It’s not the supervillains you should be worrying about, it’s whatever’s going to come out of that gate,” I said, pointing to a massive (well, massive relative to our shrunken selves) gate directly opposite us.

Professor Flay shuddered, “I imagine the others are still unconscious to prevent them from being able to do anything against whatever that might be.”

I nodded, “It makes sense, Smuggles doesn’t want to risk anything going wrong.”

“But I still want the satisfaction of watching at least some of you soil yourselves in fear,” Smuggles said as his smug visage appeared on a floating jumbotron that was hovering over the arena.

“You’ll never get away with this you knave!” Professor Flay shouted.

“Oh Professor, I already have. I think I’ll make today an international holiday going forward,” Smuggles said as he leaned back from the camera so we could see his entire upper body on the screen. He was sitting on a golden throne and his fingers were hovering above a big red button. I assumed whatever was waiting behind the gate would be released at the press of that button. And why prolong the inevitable.

“Why don’t you come down here so I can wipe that smug expression off of your face, you absolute goober!” I called up to Smuggles.

Smuggles frowned, “Goodbye Zach, you will not be missed.”

His finger pressed the button. The gate started to ascend. Professor Flay sighed and rolled up his sleeves. I had to admire him, he wasn’t planning on going down without some sort of fight. As the gate rose the cheers of the crowd grew even more fevered. I think I even saw a sign that said “Cowboy Suckstar.” Rude. After what seemed like an eternity the gate was finally fully open and a ferocious roar shook the stadium as a massive beast lumbered into the arena. The ginormous monster truly had it all. Dozens of eyes, face tentacles, spikes, a flaming tail. I had to admit this would certainly be a suitably ostentatious way to die. Of course, I wasn’t about to let Smuggles get his way was I?

“Good god what is that thing?” Professor Flay said as he backed away from the giant monster.

“It’s our way out,” I said calmly as I climbed on top of Rockblock’s comatose body, put two fingers in my mouth and whistled sharply.

“What are you doing?” Professor Flay shouted at me as the monster began galloping towards us on all fours.

I looked down at Professor Flay and smiled, “See you on the other side Prof.”

And then the monster ate me.

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officialleehadan · 4 years

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Feather Bundle

Hello darlings! Today we have something really fun in store! Our first-ever AU Crossover!

For reference, AU stories (for any series) are their own separate cannon, and don't nessisarilly tie into either of the parent-series. They are, however, SO MUCH FUN to write!

Today's awesome prompt was brought to you by Bradford! Thank you so much for your support, and I hope you love it!

Prompt: Vree learns about angels and demons from a very familiar pair.

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Vree very much wished he had never left Ha’reet.

Genuinely.

Deeply.

On Ha’reet, portals to who knew where were not a thing that happened.

And now Vree was in a tavern that seemed to be mostly full of humans and human-Others. At least there were some human-Others in the room, and several looked even stranger than Vree himself in this company. At least there was that.

Of course, Vree also had no idea how to get back to his ship. None of his technology seemed to be working despite his best efforts. Finally, he gave up on the tech at all, and pressed his thumb to the little white scale Lady Hoshi gave him. It glimmered under his touch, tucked safely under his arm-band, and the scent of ice surrounded him.

Help was, hopefully, on the way.

With nothing better to do, Vree eyed the tavern, tucked his tail down between his legs, and went inside to wait for rescue.

Securing a drink was somewhat more difficult, but Vree had a habit of tucking change into his pockets in case needed it, and Ha’reeti coins turned out to be as valuable wherever-he-was as they were back home.

Drink acquired, and food on the way, Vree settled down at a table to wait.

An alarmed cry and a tremble of power skated over his skin.

Vree, driven by pure instinct finely honed by his humans and their ideas of fun, vaulted his table and dove under the counter.

A portal, very much like the one that Vree himself had fallen through, ripped open over Vree’s table.

A bundle of feathers crashed to the floor, overturning the table and raising shouts from the taverns’ patrons as they scattered away.

The ball of feathers struggled and failed until it separated into two distinct humans. They turned out to be a pair, male and female. The male’s wings were bigger, and deep black with a glimpse of white among the darkness. The female’s were pure, soft white, but the edges glinted with silver. They seemed, in all ways a comparison of opposites, dark to light reversed on each other’s skin and wings. To Vree’s surprise, they both bore large, feathered wings that tucked in close as soon as they were detangled, but didn’t quite relax. Vree recognized the posture after a long discussion with his own Human-Liara, who had quite a lot to say about wing-language.

They were afraid.

“Peace,” Vree said into the waiting tavern, and set his drink aside to show them his empty hands as he got to his feet. His tail bristled, but he managed to get his ears to perk up, friendly and inquisitive, but clearly not hostile. “Can you understand me?”

“Yes,” the male human said, a step in front of his female. His black wings mantled protectively, and he eased her back behind him, eyes glinting red with magic. “Where are we? How did you summon us?”

“I didn’t,” Vree said gently and stopped when they both tensed at his approach. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” the female said, fingers clenched on the male’s arm anxiously as she looked around. Her tight curls fell in her face, and she looked close to panic. Vree could relate. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know,” Vree told her kindly, one eye on her mantling mate, who’s eyes flickered about the tavern, waiting for an attack. “Would you like to step outside?”

He vaguely remembered outdoor tables, and anything with wings like that would probably be more comfortable under open sky.

Strange how wrangling alarmed humans made him feel right at home.

He was relieved when they paused, and leaned in close, not speaking, but clearly easy enough together to not need words.

“You go first,” the male decided tightly with a glare for the tavern. “If this is a trap, you won’t like what happens.”

“It’s not a trap,” Vree said soothingly, and walked slowly for the door, which was propped open to the warm breeze outside. “We may even be able to help each other.”

“I seriously doubt it. If you-“

“Blake, he means no harm,” The female cut him off before he could do more than start to mantle again, and Vree hid a smile as he showed them outside to the tables, out of sight of the door, and the odd crowd inside. Fortunately, it seemed that two feathered humans falling out of midair was not the strangest thing to grace this particular tavern. “Thank you. My name is Angelika.”

“I am pleased to meet you, Human-Angelika. My name is Vree. Ha’Reeti.” Vree said, offering his species-name as was the human custom, and bobbed his head politely. She stared at him, but didn’t comment when he turned to her mate. “May I know your name?”

He already knew it, but manners helped a great deal when putting humans at ease. And really, they couldn’t be worse than Lord and Lady Petros.

The make hesitated and shuffled like an anxious bird, before Angelika combed her fingers through his flight-feathers gently. “Blake. You said something about not summoning us?”

Summoning. Vree vaguely remembered something about summoning magic during a discussion with Lady Hoshi, but they had gotten distracted and not come back to it.

“I did not. I have no human-magic,” he assured them, and brightened when one of the servers appeared with his drink, and several glasses of water for them all. He waited for the server to go, this time with a few odd paper scraps from Human-Blake’s pocket and a request for drinks, before continuing. “I was also brought here by portal, although I do not understand how or why.”

“Fun,” Human-Blake muttered, and glared over his shoulder at his own wings. They flared open, and he winced. “Blast.”

“I can’t put mine away either,” Human-Angelika told him softly, and scooted over until she was tucked under one of Human-Blake’s wings, dark skin and white feathers luminous against the deep black of his own. He sighed, glared, and let her take his hand. “Vree, you called us… human?”

“Are you not?” Vree hoped they were, otherwise he had just been very, very rude. “It is considered mannerly on my ship to designate allies and crewmates with species-monikers to prevent confusion. Most humans I have met also presented their Other-heritage upon introduction.”

“Huh,” Human-Blake muttered. “Angel, we are not in Kansas anymore.”

“I noticed,” Human-Angelika murmured back to him, and offered the server a gentle smile when he returned with their drinks. “Vree, I don’t suppose… you said Other-heritage? What is that?”

“Non-human Earth species,” Vree translated easily, and blessed lessons with Human-Amir and Human-Nerea on etiquette. “Please forgive my assumption, but most humans do not have feathered wings. Or indeed, wings of any kind.”

They had another of those wordless conversations, foreheads close together and wings nearly tangled.

“I’m not human,” Human-Angelika said at last once they came to some sort of decision. “I’m an angel. Blake is a demon.”

“My apologies, Angel-Angelika,” Vree accepted the correction, and pulled out his notepad on instinct to scribble down the terms to ask his humans about later. “As to our plight here, I do have assistance coming, and Lady Hoshi may well be able to answer your questions. She is a dragon, and is very wise.”

“She’s a what?” Demon-Blake lunged out of his seat, wings flared wide. Angel-Angelika caught his hand before he could get far, and he stared down at her, before relenting at her gentle pull. “Dragons aren’t supposed to exist!”

“Lady Hoshi definitely exists,” Vree offered, and caught himself holding onto the tip of his tail, a cub-fidget he thought he had broken himself of years ago. “And she is kind. If anyone is able to get us back where we belong, it will be her.”

“You’re pretty confident for someone who got dropped through a portal into God-knows-where,” Demon-Blake said rebelliously, but gave in when Angel-Angelika pulled him back to sit next to her. “So. Portals.”

“I truly wish this was the strangest thing that had ever happened to me,” Vree admitted with a very resigned sigh and a weary thought over the rest of his life. “But unfortunately, this event, although alarming, has not made the top ten, and so far, does not seem likely to do so.”

“Even finding about angels and demons?” Angel-Angelika asked as if it were an oddity he ought to note. She pushed her tight curls back over her scarf and gave him a sweet smile. “You’re very brave.”

“Dragons were worse,” Vree mumbled into his drink as he took a bracing sip. “I don’t even want to think about djinn, and I’m going to have to do a paper on the Fae soon and I suspect they’re as bad as the dragons. So unless you’re worse than all of them….”

They were staring. Vree morosely took another sip and resolutely did not think about the convention in six months, nor the pile of invitations on his desk.

“I think we might need more information,” Angel-Angelika told him after a long while and a gentle request to the server for food, accompanied by more of what Vree thought was probably some sort of money. “So how about we trade you? Since you don’t know anything about us, and we don’t know anything about you, I mean.”

Information. Vree liked information. Information didn’t always make thing less complicated, but it definitely made it easier to figure out what was going on. Before he could reply, a gust of ice-scented air wrapped around him, and he sighed in relieved. “Lady Hoshi.”

“Vree?” Lady Hoshi’s voice rippled through the snow that glittered down from the cloudless sky. The snowflakes whirled and turned into a ghostly image of the dragon herself. “It will take me a few hours to make a portal. Are you safe?”

“Perfectly safe, thank you,” Vree said respectfully as his companions gaped at him, expressions of mingled wonder and alarm. “I believe there may be an instability of some kind. My companions are also from… elsewhere.”

“An angel,” Lady Hoshi said softly, snow catching in Angel-Angelika’s hair and on Demon-Blake’s black feathers. “And a demon. How interesting. Very well. I will give it my attention. Stay safe, dear Vree.”

And then she was gone, snow fading away without a trace, and Vree allowed himself a smile. If she had found him, she would also find a way to return him safely home.

Demon-Blake seemed to be muttering profanity. Angel-Angelika was finger-grooming his hair as he hid his face in her wings.

“Since it seems we have some time,” Vree offered tentatively when they seemed calm again. “Would you tell me what angels and demons are? I admit, I have never heard of your Other-heritage before.”

Angel-Angelika opened her mouth, but another portal suddenly ripped through the air, and a black cat, covered in odd red spines, and sporting a torn ear, the mark of a long-healed fight, dropped through, already hissing. It sported small white patches under the chin and at the base of both ears, and glared balefully at Vree with red-glowing eyes.

“Sproot!” Angel-Angelika cried, and gathered the hissing cat into her arms, heedless of both spines and hissing. The cat immediately went from growling to purring as it nuzzled up under her chin. What happened? Is everyone aright?”

The cat purred louder and butted Demon-Blake’s hand when he reached out to scratch at the white spits, leaving a trail of silver hairs in his wake. The cat chirped up at them, and they nodded along as if it was truly speaking. Finally, it settled into Angel-Angelika’s arms, no longer covered in spines, but still watchful.

Vree tried not to stare. Staring was usually impolite.

“Sproot is another demon, a little like Blake,” Angel-Angelika said when the silence became uncomfortable. “We have help coming too, but it will take a while.”

“As you say,” Vree said, and tentatively offered his fingers to the cat. Lady Hoshi had several cats in her home, and had taught him the proper way to greet them. “Hello Demon-Sproot. I am Vree. Angel-Angelika, since it seems some time, would you still be willing to tell me of angels and demons? It seems there is a hole in my knowledge, and I would very much like to learn from you before Lady Hoshi brings me home.”

Angel-Angelika smiled, and stroked her fingers through Demon-Sproot’s fur, making the cat purr even louder with each pass. Demon-Blake unbent enough to lean over and press his face into the soft black fur with a soft croak that sounded fond.

“Only if you tell us your story as well,” Angel-Angelika said with a wry smile and a glance at the sky. “After all, it’s hardly an adventure without a good tale to share when you get home.”

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