#and it was doing this awful noise i can only describe as frying too

[neondiamond]

.

#i got up at 4 am to take noodle outside and when i did i noticed the electric post in my neighbour’s yard was trying to catch fire #like there were bright orange sparks #and it was doing this awful noise i can only describe as frying too #which was pretty scary tbh #and so i called the power company this morning #and the lady on the phone was trying to get me to tell her the name of the part that was making sparks… #like i’m meant to know that as like a normal person that doesn’t know shit about electricity #anyways i decribed it to the best of my very limited knowledge #and hopefully they’ll send someone to fix it before it actually catches fire properly #what a fun 4 am adventure 🙃

[cranetreegang]

Fallout 4: Grand Zealot Brian Richter x FemSol: Undercover

A little something about Grand Zealot Richter. This guy... his voice!!! UGH!! Why can’t he be a companion... or a husband. Anyways, FemSol is going ‘undercover’ in the AntiRadaway gang to find DiMA’s memories. And she will do *anything* ;) to prove her loyalty. 

If you’re here for just smut, go to the section for Loyalty Questioned and Morning After. 

Any feedback is great! Thanks for reading! :)

Going Undercover

“So, I’ll need to get into this submarine. Figure out where your memory is being stored. All while, not killing them.” I hummed out loud my thoughts. “If I end up a ghoul, or worse, bald, I’m gonna be a lil’ upset.” 

“It would be best if you didn’t interact with us once you leave. We can’t have you raise any suspicions.” DiMA brought up.

“You’ll have to stay here then, Nick.” I looked over to my partner who didn’t seem to like the idea. “We can talk more about it later.” Nick nodded and didn’t press the issue in front of the synths. “I’ll let you know once I’ve recovered the memories. Or if something else comes up.” 

“Good luck, traveler.” DiMA at least seemed sincere with his farewell wishes. Nick walked me outside where we could converse alone. 

“I don’t like this.” Nick immediately stated.

“We don’t have much of a choice. It’s not like you blend in.” 

“And you’re not rad proof.” He countered back. I rolled my eyes with a sigh.

“Yeah. I know. Again, we don’t have a choice. If I’m gonna get his memory, without bloodshed, I’m gonna need to go alone.” 

There was a tense silence as he came to terms with this venture. He reluctantly nodded. “Alright. I think you should still report back to us once you’ve made progress. I don’t wanna worry about you anymore than I already am.” 

“Deal. I’ll meet up with you after I’ve gotten in.” I shook his outstretched hand before going in for a brief hug. “Try not to fry your circuits worrying about me. I’ll be back to bug ya soon enough.” 

He choked out a laugh with a matching eye roll. “I’ll keep digging around here while you’re gone. See what turns up. I’m not too convinced about this whole ‘brother’ thing.” Nick’s features faltered for a moment. I worried about him, and these new ‘relations’. With another set of goodbyes, I headed towards the Nucleus. 

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

Meeting the Grand Zealot

Their camp wasn’t hard to miss. Even in the thick fog, warm lights led me towards their entrance. What I stumbled into was not the greatest first impression. I watched an intimidating, but soft-spoken man order for two cultists’ loyalty. Grand Zealot, they called him.  She shot her ‘brother’ without hesitation. I pushed down my already mounting hesitation at joining them. At least I knew what would happen if they suspected me. The Grand Zealot’s attention turned to me. 

“You. What are you doing here? Did Far Harbor send you?” He had a presence that could make people submit to him. If I was a lesser being, I would have without question. He was the one that I would need to convince. A bubbling anxiety formed in my chest at the challenge.

“Whoa! It’s okay. I’m not from Far Harbor. One of your… people spoke to me. Near Arcadia.” I needed to be as honest as possible. That seemed to work best when lying. ‘Half-truths’, as Deacon called them. 

His eyes stripped me a part where I stood. “Quite the journey. So, explain to me what you’re doing here. You come seeking a place among Atom’s children?” 

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

He seemed convinced after I explained my interest in joining their cult. Just enough to let me participate in their trail. As I stood over the spring, I started to question what exactly I was doing. Drinking this seemed unwise. I gave a silent pray to whoever was listening at this point, before taking a mouthful. I wanted to puke. It tasted like watery acid. My insides twisted and felt like they were being ripped a part. My vision grew blurry. My ears began to ring.

A voice called out to me that brought a relief to my anguish. A motherly figure appeared in front of me. I followed her without question. The feelings were strange. The visions even more so. She was warm and comforting. Like an answer to a long forgotten question. She led me to a small clay statue. I presented it to the Grand Zealot. His eyes grew wide at the sight of the figure.

“A woman led me to this. Mean something to you?” I wondered. 

“A woman? Led you to that icon? What woman? What did you see?” Grand Zealot questioned. 

“I don’t know how to describe her. Motherly? She showed me… things. I’m not quite sure what to make of it. I followed her to this thing.” 

He looked at me in awe. Whatever happened was the right thing as he led me inside without further question. He almost seemed eager at my joining. He even urged me to speak to the High Confessor about my vision. I watched him climb up the submarine to a decent vantage point that overlooked the base. 

This couldn’t have gone better, and I even had ‘Mother’s’ blessing. If only Deacon could see me now.

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Her (3rd POV: Mainly Richter’s thoughts)

Brazen. That’s what she was. She spoke to him without fear, or hesitance. She tried to seem submissive, but the fire in her eyes gave her away. Others looked away from him with respect, or fear. Maybe both. But her, she matched his gaze with one of her own. Richter pondered on this for sometime. She was obviously a leader, yet she was here as a follower. When she returns from her latest exploits, he watches. 

She’s not what she seems. She’s friendly to their siblings. Her eyes wander around. Looking… no searching. Analyzing. He’s seen her poke around the base. She’s sneaky though. She’s always had a reason for being there. He’s even had her followed a handful of times; only for them to lose her quickly in the fog. Like she goes invisible, they told him. 

No matter. She hasn’t done anything to provoke him. Instead, she’s been helpful. Sister Mia and Zealot Wares spoke highly of her. Sister Mia said that the woman fixed the arches. He went through them the other day, and didn’t feel the warm glow of Atom. He looked over the pump himself, and was unable to find any tampering. As he watches the woman approach, he wonders if he is trying to find something wrong with her.

“Grand Zealot.” She greeted with a hint of a smile. Her teeth. Far too white for a regular wastelander. Her skin was nearly flawless. He hadn’t seen this level of pristine since the Enclave. Even then, she was even more so. Like she was preserved through the harshness of life in the Wasteland. Many have come to the conclusion that she must’ve been a vault dweller at some point.

“Sister.” He greeted back. 

“I’ve taken care of Sister Gwyneth.” Her head was held up a bit higher. 

“I see.” He caught himself frowning at the news. “She brought it on herself. Won’t ask you for the details. Doesn’t really matter to me.” He stated. Her eyes flickered for a brief moment. Something caught her interest, and he was curious as to what. “You’ve done well. Proved your devotion and more important, your loyalty. Atom smiles on you, Sister.” 

She gave a pleased smile and gave a low bow of her head. “Glory to Atom.” He shifted as he handed her something fitting for her. 

“Take this. It’s not just a weapon, it’s one of our sacred artifacts.” He handed her the large hammer. Her brows rose with shock before she resumed an impassive, but pleased, mask. “Go forth, and show no mercy to the enemies of Atom.” 

She held over the hammer in thought. She met his gaze once more. “Was there something between you and Sister Gwyneth? I heard that you two were close.” 

He laughed a bit. He didn’t take her as one to listen to rumors. “Ha. No. She was just a good woman. A touch odd, but someone you could rely on. Always managed to turn up a cache of Mirelurk eggs on beaches you thought were clear. We were better with her.” His smile shifted into something more somber. “Shame to watch her slip away. Can’t be helped now.” 

She gave a soft smile. “You’re not like the others here. You’re different. Why is that?” 

The statement rocked him from his usual composure. “Brazen thing, aren’t you? What makes you say that?” 

“I can just tell. You have this… aura about you.”

He found himself entranced by her. He told her about his time as an Enclave soldier. He spoke of how he was found clinging to life by the High Confessor. He hadn’t told many of his siblings about this. He found himself enjoying telling his story to her as she listened intently.

He noticed she had a certain sadness that gleamed in her eyes. Something the Archemist spoke of. 

“How did you know that you would be rescued? I hope this doesn’t come off as brash, but you were trapped. Seemed hopeless.” She wondered. 

“I didn’t.” He admitted. “Thinking back now, I believe that Atom is what kept me from… joining my comrades.” 

She hummed in deep thought before speaking again. “Thank you. Talking about… about the past, can be difficult at times.” Her brows furrowed and she looked away from him. “I had another question.”

“Go ahead, Sister.”

“I also heard another rumor. I’d heard you were the last one to see Brother Edgar. What happened?” 

He bristled at her question. She was striking nerves he didn’t realize he had exposed. How could she possibly know about Brother Edgar. “Edgar?” He asked confused. She nodded and waited for him to continue. “Crawler got him. Happens sometimes. Nothing more to it,” he had to compose himself for a moment, “,was there something else?”

Her features hardened. He would even describe her as being disappointed. “No. Nothing else, Grand Zealot.” She gave a short nod, and left without another word. He watched her head towards her bed. Leaving him with much to think about.

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

Breaking In

I laid in bed listening to the soft chanting slowly subside. The bustle of noise was waning. The only sounds that could be heard was the creaking of the sub and the footsteps of roaming zealots. This would have to do. I looked around and was satisfied that mostly everyone was asleep. 

I padded my way through the sleeping cultists towards the blocked off section of the base. The usual guard was missing. Must be guard rotation. I gave one final look around before going inside. 

I was greeted by several laser trip wires. I grimaced at the fallen cultists littering the place. What a pity. I knelt down by the entrance trying to find any signs of movement, and gather my thoughts on how best to approach this.

“What are you doing here?” The soft voice of Richter echoed down the tunnel. I cursed my luck at the one person I didn’t want to know I was here. A million thoughts went through my head on how this would play out. None of them were promising. I looked back to Richter. He didn’t have his rifle drawn on me, so that was a good sign. 

“I could ask you the same thing.” I countered back. He gave me a stern glare. He came towards me and knelt down like I was. 

“I saw you come in here.” He was more observant than I gave him credit for. 

“I thought everyone was asleep.” 

“What are you doing here, Sister?” He had a hint of concern laced in his voice. I frowned at the forming attachments I was starting to have with these people. I looked back down the trapped hallway.

“Curious. That’s all.” I deflected. I could see his displeased grimace from the corner of my eye.

“Your curiosity will get you killed.” 

“Hasn’t so far.” I smirked at him. He didn’t seem amused. “I’m checking this out. I don’t care if you join me. But, don’t try to stop me.” I stated while trying to stand up. He grasped my arm and kept me knelt. 

“Wait.” He paused. “You don’t know what dangers lie ahead. Or what they’re trying to protect.” He gave a worried look towards the tunnel then back to me. He cared. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. 

“You don’t think me capable?” 

He shook his head while squeezing my arm. His hold on me was tight, but not enough to hurt me. “That’s not the issue.” 

I knew the issue right then. I could see it in his eyes. The only way he would leave me to the task, was by reassurance. He gripped his forearm. I leaned over and placed a light kiss on his cheek. I hovered near him enough to whisper, “Don’t worry. I’m pretty hard to kill.” 

His hazel green eyes were ablaze. His cool demeanor broken.  He wanted to say so much. “Sister… you’re setting down a dangerous path.” He whispered so quietly back to me.

“A path that I won’t be going down alone. I have Atom with me.” I hoped that would be enough to convince him. His brows furrowed. “This is like a pilgrimage. Something that I must complete.” 

He opened his mouth to object, but quickly closed it. “Very well.” He released his hold on me. “Go with Atom, Sister.” 

“See ya soon, Richter.” I smiled at him. He had a hint of a bitter smile playing on the corners of his lips. With him leaving, I went through with my mission. 

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

Loyalty Questioned (Mild Smut/Sex Scene)

“You are under question, Sister. Even if you are a messenger of the Mother.” Tektus stated. I tried not to tense up at his accusation. I would only have so much time to react. 

“That’s unfortunate to hear. Especially since I’ve given so much to Atom.” I looked around the room. Two guards, Tektus, and, the most concerning, Richter. I’d need to deal with him first.

“There is more you can give. I was granted a vision, as well as the Grand Zealot. Atom requires that you spread His word through generations.” Tektus began. “Atom requires you to bear a true Child of Atom.” 

My blood froze in my veins. I almost wanted to laugh at what he was suggesting. I kept a straight face, thankfully. 

“I see.” I kept any vile feelings out of my voice. I focused on my breathing. In and out. I’ll make it through this. 

“The Grand Zealot has offered himself for this task.” Tektus motioned over to Richter. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He’s shown interest in me for some time. His execution in the matter was less than desirable though. 

“Atom has chosen well.” I bowed my head at Tektus, who was more than pleased at my compliance. This was going better than expected. Let Richter fuck me, then I’ll leave with my life. Not a bad trade considering all the things I’ve been doing under their noses.

“Then go. Go and deliver Atom’s will.” Tektus pointed towards Richter’s room. I frowned at the rush of this. I didn’t spare anyone else another look. I walked into Richter’s room. I’ve been here before. Though the circumstances were far different. I heard his footsteps behind me. He shut the door, but I kept my back to him. 

“I won’t touch you.” He whispered behind me. He was close. Close enough that his breath hit the back of my neck. “Even if Atom commands us, I won’t take you.” 

I faced him. He was tense. I suppose I was too. I let my mind wander on how best to approach this. I needed them to believe I was loyal. If they’re questioning me, then I won’t have the leverage needed to bring peace. 

“Did you dream of taking me, Grand Zealot?” I asked. 

“Your brazenness has no bounds.” He frowned a bit. “But, no. I didn’t.” He whispered the last part. I tilted my head in a bit of shock.

“You lied. Why?”

“The High Confessor had a vision of a child. Your child. I felt… he would have given you to someone who would not respect what you are.” 

“And what exactly am I?” 

“Not something that can be conquered, like the High Confessor believes. I see the fire in you. You burn brighter than any Glow. I’m not sure if it’s Atom’s will or not. But, I know I don’t want you tamed. Or your fire extinguished.” Richter confessed. “That’s why I volunteered myself.” 

I realized I lost full composure. I looked away from him and took a step back. “Take off your armor.” I commanded. 

If he was surprised at the authority in my tone, he didn’t show it. He started to strip away the pieces of heavy armor. I watched him. Once the armor was off, I circled around him. He didn’t move, nor look at me. He had his gaze focused directly in front of him. I smirked a bit at the good little soldier in front of me. 

He was well built. The wetsuit did little to hide that. I stopped in front of him. My hands trailed up his chest to the zipper on the front of his suit. I felt his body was rigid under my touch. 

“Do I make you uncomfortable, Grand Zealot?” 

“No.” He whispered. His hazel eyes met mine. I could see them starting to darken with want. I held his gaze while I undid his wetsuit. His breath hitched as the cool air hit his hot skin. I could feel the heat against my fingers. He slipped out of his suit without hesitation. He was bare to me. He showed no shame in this. 

I felt a fever creep up my neck to my cheeks. I knew my facade was starting to break. I walked around him again. He had numerous scars. Knives, bullets, burns, and scratches. I traced one long claw mark on his back. His skin raised into goosebumps. He was so warm. The Glow of Atom’s embrace, I’ve been told. 

I felt along his shoulder towards his arm. I came around to his chest. I saw a tattoo of what I assumed to be his Enclave assignment. I frowned a bit at how that reminded me of Nate. I traced over his designation of Lieutenant before letting my other hand go up to his neck. His beard was coarse. My fingers briefly tangled against the hair. I settled on his cheek. 

He wanted to touch me, but held himself back. I couldn’t deny how much I admired that in him. His restraint. His respect. His nobility. All things that reminded me so much of the past. I realized that I did want him. Not out of obligation to my cover, but for my own selfish need. 

“Richter?” I whispered. We were so close to one another. My body pressed against his. My lips a mere breath away from his own. My other hand felt his heart beat just as fast as mine. “Do you want me?”

He took a deep breath. “If you’ll have me.” 

I pressed my lips against his to answer him. It was gentle and almost too sweet. His lips were so hot and rough. With my silent permission, his arms were quick to pull me closer against him. He kissed me back with a ferocity that was nearly feral. One of his hands tangled into my hair. Even if I wanted to pull away, I couldn’t. 

It was like my breath was taken from me. He must have felt the same, because he pulled away with a gasp. He looked at me with a hint of shock. His hand moved from my hair to my cheek. His thumb brushed over the skin. He had an intense stare as he looked over my flushed face. Like he was trying his hardest to memorize every detail of me.

I stepped away from him which caused him to frown for a moment. His eyes lit up as I disrobed myself. He looked over me with awe. He pulled me back against him. The heat of his skin against mine was overwhelming. I shuddered at the contact. His hands moved up my back while his lips claimed mine once again. They didn’t stay for long before he nipped at my neck. He sucked a bit harshly in some spots. I let out a shocked gasp that melted into a moan as he continued his marking. 

“Richter.” I let out in a breathy moan. He met my gaze.

“Brian.” 

I smiled a bit. “Lyra.” I told him my real name. I wanted to curse my foolishness, but knew it was already too late. His eyes were glazed over with a grin forming. 

“Lyra. What a beautiful name, for a beautiful soul.” He kissed me once more. His touches were everywhere on my body. He lingered over some areas longer than others. He seemed enraptured at times. He laid me on the bed as he started to claim me. 

His movements in me were powerful and deep. Hitting a place in me that I had long forgotten. I tried to keep my pleasure from reaching others’ ears. He seemed to have the opposite thought in mind. His growls and rough groans echoed in his room. It sent shivers up my spine at the low noises he made. The way his chest vibrated against my own. 

We clutched onto each other as we reached our limit. As if we were trying to become one with the other. I held his gaze while coming down from our blissful high. He placed several kisses over my lips, cheeks, and neck. He shifted us in bed until I was firmly placed on his chest. I laid my forehead against his cheek. 

“Your skin.” He murmured while tracing down my sides. “It’s practically untouched.” He moved up my arm and held my hand.

“I’m not from here.” I dumbly blurted out.

A slight laugh escaped him. It sounded unusual coming from him. Like he hadn’t done it in a long time. “No. That’s plain to see. I suspect that you grew up in a vault.”

“That’s a good guess.” A silence hung in the air for a moment. His hand left mine, and instead went to my cheek. He moved my loose hair behind my ears. He was so tender and gentle. I hadn’t felt something like this in a long time. I closed my eyes and enjoyed his care. 

“The vault I was in…,” I paused. Finding the right words was hard. 

“You don’t have to tell me.” He whispered with a comforting kiss on my forehead. 

“I want to. Even if you won’t believe me. It’s a bit outlandish when I think about it.” I tried to lighten the mood. He frowned a bit.

“I trust you, Lyra.” 

My gut twisted for a moment. He trusted me. Even though I would be an agent of his demise. That was a moral dilemma I would need to face another time. 

“I didn’t grow up in the vault. I used to live in Colorado actually.  It was beautiful. The air was so clean. Never thought I would miss that.” I thought back to my time in the mountains. The snow. The crisp fall air. “I met my husband there. He was stationed at an army base. We moved to Boston once he finished his tour in Alaska. We just had a baby. A beautiful son.” Brian’s fingers kept tracing over my cheek and jaw. “We were rushed into a vault. I saw it. It was like the sun, it was so bright. Then we were frozen. For over 200 years. Someone came and killed my husband. They took my baby. I’ve been looking for him since.” He wiped away the freshly formed tears. He gave me a soft look before kissing my forehead gently. 

“The Archemist spoke of a sadness in you. A great loss. I’m sorry.” He didn’t pity me. No… he understood far too well. I suppose that’s how life was now. Horribly tragic. 

“Thank you for listening. I haven’t talked about them since I first woke up.” My brows furrowed. How long ago was that? 

“You remind me of him.” I admitted. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispered. I shook my head while stroking his bearded cheek. 

“Don’t be. I don’t mean it in a bad way. It’s… you’re kind. Loyal. Strong. Nate was like that.” I smiled. He softly smiled back.

“I’m glad you see such qualities in me.” 

I kissed him to bring the talks of the past to a close. He was content with this as he placed me tight against him once again. I nuzzled into his neck. He was so warm and comforting. I relished in him. I fell asleep faster than I had in a long time.

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The Morning After (another mild sex scene)

I awoke in confusion at first. Seeing myself wrapped around Brian, reminded me of last night’s events, and confessions. I watched him sleep for a moment. The most relaxed I’ve ever seen him. Like a kitten, I mused with myself. I brushed through his unruly beard. My fingers gently worked out the knots that had formed. 

“Morning.” He greeted with his eyes still closed. His voice laced with sleep. 

“I could help you tame this, if you’d like.” I teased a bit. He squinted one eye open. 

“Do you not like it?” 

“That’s not what I said.” I countered. “I think it’s a little… overgrown. That’s all.” I bit my lip to hold back my amusement at his disgruntled expression. I got on top of him which got his attention. “I’ll be leaving today.” I shifted my hips a bit, and felt his already hard member press back. His nostrils flared at my, not so subtle, intentions.

“Where are you going?” His hands gripped my hips. His fingers digging into my soft flesh. I smirked a bit while leaning over him. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” I kissed him then bit his lip. “I heard some rumors that I’m gonna check out.” 

“Rumors?” He questioned, displeased. He tried to still my moving body. “I’m not sure-,” he was trying his best to focus, but I was doing my best to not let him.

“I’ve worked with less.” I managed to steal another kiss from him. He groaned at his crumbling will to stop me. I rolled my hips again which sent him over the edge. He put himself inside me. Although I was eager, I still needed some time to adjust to his girth.

“I don’t like… the idea of you wandering around the island aim… aimlessly.” He panted. 

“I’ll be fine. I’ve gotten the hang of this place.” I kissed him with the confidence I felt. I pushed myself up and down on him. He hissed while shutting his eyes. I heard him curse me under his breath. I sat back to take full control. I leaned back to brace myself against his hairy muscular legs. My head falling back in a luxurious bliss. He felt so good in me.

I heard him moan in pleasure at the sight. His hands crawled up my belly then settled back on my hips. Finding my pace too slow, he started to help me. He held and moved my body to a penetrating pace. I fell back on top of him. He wrapped around my body. His arms moved me like I weighed nothing. 

“I’ll miss you. While I’m gone.” I moaned. He grunted in response while finishing inside me. His mind had to catch up while he let out shaky breaths.

“Do you have to go today?” He asked winded. His eyes begged me while he kept himself from vocally doing so. 

“Yes. Or else I fear I’ll never leave this bed.” I smiled which he in turn gave a lopsided grin to. 

“When will you be back?” He nipped at my neck and ear. 

“Soon. I don’t know how long this will take.” 

“Alright.” He huffed. 

I stood up to start getting dressed. I felt his eyes on me as I covered myself in my gear. I was about to turn around to bid him farewell, when his arms wrapped tight around my waist. His nose buried itself into the crook of my neck. 

“Be safe, Lyra. I look forward to your return.” He kissed my neck before releasing me. The gut retching guilt I felt last night returned. I let out a shuddered breath. Do I have to leave? Couldn’t I stay here forever?  I faced him. He was handsome in his disheveled form. Something out of a dream or movie. I placed a long lingering kiss on him.

“I’ll be back soon.” I promised him. He gave a short nod.

“Atom guide you.” He whispered as I left. I laid against his door for a moment. The cool metal helped center me. I’ve compromised myself. Deacon warned me about this. Getting involved with someone while you’re undercover. I just wanted to feel human again. To feel alive. Now… I wonder what that will cost me.

#brianrichter #richter #fallout4 #fallout #fanfic #smut #grandzealot #zealot #children of atom #far harbour dlc #far harbor #grand zealot richter

[hpsamantha]

the intern - avengers

Word Count: 3384

Warnings: Language 

POV: Clint Barton

Sam had insisted that they turn up a full day before Tony was expecting them, something that Steve protested at first until Natasha pointed out that they still didn't have written confirmation from Ross that all charges held against them had been dropped.

Part of Clint felt awkward about turning up unexpectedly; Tony would see it as a lack of trust. The assassin side of Clint thought that the precautionary measure was totally justified.

They approached the unmanned front entrance and paused.

"Umm...F.R.I.D.A.Y?" Steve tentatively asks the air, unsure if she would reply.

"Good evening, Captain Rogers," comes F.R.I.D.A.Y's smooth voice.

"May we enter?"

"Certainly," the A.I. replies, "though I should inform you that, since you were not expected until tomorrow, Mr Stark is not here to greet you."

The doors slide open and the foyer lights up as they enter.

"Is Vision here?" asks Wanda hopefully.

"No," F.R.I.D.A.Y replies. "He is attending a meeting on the east coast. Ms Potts and Colonel Rhodes are also unavailable. The only person currently in the building is Y/N. I will inform her of your arrival."

Clint looks around at the others. "Who's Y/N?" he asks them.

The rest of the team shrugs but F.R.I.D.A.Y responds. "She is Mr Stark's intern. Y/N is currently in the kitchen but she has just informed me she will come down to welcome you."

"Did anyone know Tony has an intern?"

More shrugs. They only have to wait a couple more seconds before they hear light footsteps running in their direction.

A teenager, dressed in leggings, a Sherpa and a t-shirt (reading: 'How can you speak 6 languages and sound like a dick in every single one of them?' Which also had the flash logo under it, with the name, 'Cisco Ramon') skids into the foyer. Clint notes that the child was semi tall, with H/C hair and E/C eyes that snapped rapidly from one Avenger to the next as she approached. Clint has spent years honing his instincts, and despite the girl's casual air as she approaches them, something tells Clint that the teen's movements are controlled and purposeful.

Clint almost ignores his instincts when the kid opens her mouth.

"Uh...hi! Hi guys! I mean, Avengers, I mean..." the child ruefully rubs the front of her neck. "Um...I'm Y/N, Tony's intern. He, um, he told me you were arriving tomorrow. Not that you're not welcome today, of course!"

The ramble cuts off and the team exchanges looks varying from amused to confused.

Steve takes the initiative. "We hoped we could turn up early. Get settled in ASAP."

"Cool, cool!" exclaims the teen, smiling now. "That's very cool. Um, would you like me to show you to the rooms Tony has set up for you? You could dump your bags and then I could either give you a tour or you could just explore the place yourselves, or whatever?"

Steve explains to Y/N that everyone but Scott has been here before, but they accept his offer to show them to their rooms, which is how they all end up walking after girl, who points out rooms to Scott along the way.

"...and that down there is the gym room. The weights on the bench press go up to 10 tons..."

Clint wonders what Tony was thinking, allowing a teenager to stay somewhere as risk-attracting as Avengers HQ. It just doesn't make sense.

Something else that doesn't make sense is Sam's attitude towards them. Sure, she appears excited and welcoming, nothing unusual about that. The thing is, kids her age usually do this whole 'gobsmacked-with-awe, hero-worship' thing when meeting even one of the Avengers, never mind a half dozen of them. Hell, adults do it too.

It's not like Clint wants the teen to be drooling over them all. The down-to-earth attitude is a really nice change when meeting a civilian. It's remarkably mature and a little bit odd.

He shows them all their rooms, asks if they've eaten yet and offers to make a stir fry when Natasha says they've haven't, claiming that she was making one for himself anyway.

Nat stands at Clint's door as he pulls clothes out of a bag and places them in the closet.

"Any thoughts on the kid?" She asks.

"I was hoping you knew," he replies, to which she shrugs.

"I've got a theory, but I'm not certain."

"Wanna share?"

"Not yet," she replies, tapping her nose before heading back to her own room.

A short while later, Y/N is separating stir fry out into bowls and the team converges at a large dining table. Clint watches as the girl helps herself to a bowlful of stir fry and then starts to head in the direction of the bedrooms.

It is Scott who stops her. "Hey, Y/N, aren't you going to eat with us?"

The teen looks surprised and a little bit anxious. "I don't want to intrude on your meal."

"Not at all," says Sam.

So Y/N sits down next to Scott and applies herself quietly to her meal.

Clint begins the interrogation. "So, Y/N, how long have you been interning for Tony?"

"Hmm....about, eight months?"

"Enjoying it?"

"Sure, absolutely. The tech is amazing."

Natasha takes a turn. "What do you do as an intern?"

Y/N reaches for her glass of juice and takes a long swallow before answering. "Whatever needs doing, I guess. Tony occasionally lets me tinker with stuff in the lab."

A few eyebrows rise at this. Tony's lab is sacrosanct. Bruce was always allowed free range but for everyone else entry was based on a 'look but don't touch' policy. Memorably, Sam was once banned from the lab after The Coffee Incident of 2015.

The kid then tries to turn attention away from herself by asking what brought the team to HQ earlier than planned, but Steve deflects that one nicely.

They all take it in turn to engage the child; clearly Clint isn't the only one who is curious. Y/N answers their questions (sixteen years old, Senior year, Midtown School of Science and Technology, an application to Tony's September Foundation), looking a bit harried by the time she finishes answering that last one about how she met Tony.

When F.R.I.D.A.Y announces that Tony has arrived back from wherever the hell he was, the child looks relieved.

They hear Tony before they see him. "Well, would you believe it, there was no Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough at the store I stopped at on the way back, so I hope you like Chunky Monkey, kid. I really shouldn't eat this crap, but..."

Tony enters the room, spots them all at the dinner table and stops cold.

"Hi," the billionaire says flatly, clearly not pleased about being caught off-guard.

Steve stands. "Hi Tony. I hope you don't mind, we pushed forward our arrival." He doesn't bother trying to explain why and Tony doesn't ask.

"Why would I mind?" Tony saunters forward and wanders over to pull up a seat next to Y/N, before turning to the kid. "You OK?" A silent conversation seems to go on between the two of them.

Y/N nods quickly. "Yup. We've had stir-fry. You want some?"

Tony shakes his head. "Nah. It's Chunky Monkey for me. You could get me a spoon though."

Y/N raises an eyebrow and gives Tony a look that can only be described as critical. "You know Pepper hates it when you skip meals."

"Jeez! I hate it when you two gang up on me. How much does she pay you to keep me on the straight and narrow? I promise I can better whatever she's offering you. How would you like a nice shiny new phone, hmm?"

Clint watches to two verbally spar and realizes that this Y/N kid is close to Tony. Close in a way only one or two other people are. Clint doesn't know what to make of it and, looking around the table he can see that the others don't either.

Tony eventually concedes to eating some stir fry and, standing up from the table, he ruffles Y/N's H/L hair on the way past. Y/N makes an annoyed noise, but grins as she starts collecting everyone's empty bowls.

Later that night, after Y/N has headed to bed, Sam brings it up.

"So who is he really Tony? The girl."

Tony gives him a bland look.

"My intern," he replies, before making his excuses and heading to his own bedroom.

POV: Sam Wilson

The following weekend, Y/N the Intern makes another appearance at HQ. She studies quietly in her room. She joins Tony in the lab (and Sam is not at all suspicious of the way they shove something under the desk when he approaches the lab at lunchtime).

At Tony's invitation, Y/N also sits and watches them spar in the training room, her gaze razor sharp as she observes evasive man-oeuvres, feints and offensive attacks.

She joins Steve, Sam and Scott on a morning run, and Sam is surprised at how fast the kid moves, for a Tall-ass.

However, it isn't until Sunday afternoon that the team comes to realize why Y/N is there. Sam, Nat and Clint head to the gym room for an afternoon workout, only to find her there, doing bench presses.

At first, Sam doesn't understand what has gotten Natasha's attention when she nudges him and gestures subtly towards the girl. He looks at Y/N, frowns at Nat and (at her repeated gesturing) looks again.

That's when he spots it. The weight counter indicates that the child is pressing five tons. Sam looks sharply back at Natasha who nods. Sam looks back at the counter. There's no way it can be correct. Steve can't lift five tonnes, never mind the rest of them. Only Thor and Hulk can manage that kind of weight.

Y/N is not wearing a suit, or technology of any kind, as far as Sam can see. She has a couple of thick bands around her wrists, but that's it.

After a moment, the girl returns the weight to its resting place and sits up. She gives the three of them a smile and a hello as she wipes the sweat off the bench. She hesitates a moment, as though trying to decide whether to stay or go, then she waves at them slightly awkwardly and exits the room.

Sam can't help himself. He goes over to the bench, positions himself and tries to lift the bar. It feels like he's trying to push a small moon out of orbit. Impossible. He sits up.

"What the fuck?!" He asks Nat and Clint.

POV: Scott Lang

That evening Scott is one of the last to arrive when the pizza is delivered. He arrives just in time to hear Nat asking Tony a question.

"Did you know your intern can bench press five tons?" Natasha asks Tony conversationally.

"Really?" said Tony, lifting an eyebrow. "I thought it was four and a half."

"Five tons." She repeats. "Who is she really Tony?"

"She really is my intern, and her name really is Y/N." Tony reached for a pizza slice. "Seriously, the girl has brains coming out of her ears. You should see what she can do with a chemistry set."

"She's enhanced. So spill the beans, Stark. I've got my suspicions, but I'm really not sure it's my place to air them."

"Y'do?" Scott chimes in. "Let's hear them then, your suspicions."

Y/N picks that moment to wander into the room, a thick physics textbook tucked under one arm.

"Kid, you'd better take this one," says Tony. "Natasha is convinced she saw you lifting five tons in the gym room earlier."

The rest of the Avengers all turn to look at Y/N. The teenager bounces from foot to foot, an expression of mild panic on her face.

"Uh...Mr Stark, can I see you in private for a minute?" The girl asks.

Tony nods and wraps an arm around Y/N's shoulders as they wander out of the room. They return fifteen minutes later. Tony sits back down and unconcernedly picks up another piece of pizza. Everyone else stares at Y/N in anticipation, the teenager standing awkwardly in front of them all.

"So?" Natasha raises an eyebrow.

Y/N clears her throat. "So...you're right. I'm...different. Enhanced. Whatever you want to call it. But..."

The child looks at Tony before taking a deep breath and continuing "...I don't really know you all like Tony does, so if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not share anything else about it, for the moment."

The room is quiet for a moment before Nat shrugs. "Fair enough."

And that is the end of that. For the moment.

POV: Tony Stank

Tony has a particular spot he likes to sit in on the modular couches in the Avengers lounge room. It's a corner single seater; no-one elbowing him and plenty of personal space. Clint and Sam seem to think this is hilarious and sometimes refer to Tony as 'Sheldon', ungrateful swine that they are. The Sheldon jokes are the only reason Tony doesn't put up a list of house rules on the fridge door; no need to give them any more ammunition, regardless of how annoying some of their habits are.

Tony gets back to the tower one day after a grueling Stark Industries board meeting (Pepper must have been in the mood to torture him – there was absolutely no need for him to be there) and heads towards his seat. All he wants is a drink and some soothing AC/DC in the background.

He reaches his seat and stops cold. On it is a pillow covered in an image of Edna Mode, from the movie The Incredibles, holding up a super-suit and accompanied by the words: 'Fine. I will also fix the hobo-suit'. Tony stares at it, stupefied, for a few moments before he hears sniggering from the direction of the kitchen. Turning, he sees Nat, Scott and Clint watching him, wearing various expressions of amusement.

"Which one of you dicks is responsible for this?"

Clint laughs out loud as Scott responds.

"We all really like your intern, Tony. She's got a wicked sense of humor."

"That little shit." He finds himself reluctantly smiling. It figures Y/N would worm his way into the hearts of the team quickly.

Vision wanders into the lounge from his bedroom.

"Is anyone able to explain this to me?" He holds up another pillow of Edna Mode, this one with the words 'No Capes!' in block letters. Tony snorts.

"Vision buddy, talk to my intern."

POV: Wanda Maximoff

It is Wanda who is next to pick up on one of Y/N's abilities. It isn't surprising, really. After all, she reminds her of Pietro. She is quick and lithe and has a ready smile. Plus, with her psionic abilities, it makes sense that Wanda would pick up on another person's unusual mental talents.

It is a Friday night and they had all greeted Y/N warmly when she arrived, smiling somewhat shyly at them as she'd slumped down on the lounge next to Tony.

"Hey, kid," greeted the billionaire. "How was school?"

A shrug. "Same old, same old."

Tony had remained tight-lipped about the teenager, only admitting that she was Enhanced and determined to use her abilities to help people, so Tony wanted her trained. As a consequence, Y/N now spent a couple of hours each Saturday learning hand-to-hand combat from Natasha and Clint.

Wanda watched now as Y/N discussed a school science project with Tony, who appeared more relaxed and animated talking with the teen than he had done all afternoon with the Avengers team.

Suddenly, mid-sentence, Y/N went silent. Her eyes took on a distant quality.

"Kid, everything OK?" asked Tony.

"Uhh..."

"Y/N?" asked Steve.

Y/N turned to look at Tony.

"Is anyone expected tonight? Like, guests I mean?"

"Noo..." replied Tony. "Why do you ask?"

Y/N ignored Tony's question. "Are there any threats on the horizon? I mean, are you guys on alert right now, for any particular reason?"

"You're making me pretty damn alert." Tony's eyes were sharp as he watched Y/N stand up and turn in a circle. "Talk to me kid."

Y/N rubbed the back of his neck in a frustrated gesture, before turning again to Tony.

"Something's wrong. I think...maybe...something's coming?"

Tony only narrowly beats the other Avengers in standing up.

"Can you be any more specific?" Steve asks as Tony started running F.R.I.D.A.Y through a series of security searches.

Y/N shakes her head. "Sorry, no. It's just a feeling right now."

"Are you sure you're not just being..." Sam trails off.

"Paranoid?" Supplies Tony, eyes flickering over the results from F.R.I.D.A.Y. "Y/N doesn't do paranoid. She does, however, have excellent instincts. If she says something's wrong, then something's wrong."

Wanda watches as Y/N suddenly swivelled towards the elevators which, as if on cue, give a friendly 'ding'. Y/N tenses, her hands fisting, and without conscious thought Wanda engages her telekinesis and braces herself.

The elevator doors slid open to reveal one of the cleaners; Wanda recalled that his name was Richard, although she'd never come into close contact with him before. Tony, still distracted by his screens, glanced over at the cleaner and then back to the readouts.

"This part of the complex isn't scheduled for cleaning in the evenings." Tony calls out, as his hands moved rapidly to pull up data.

Richard smiled and cold dread shivered up Wanda's spine. She knew that type of smile. So when Richard throws three small canisters in their direction, she reacts in a split-second, encasing the canisters in a telekinetic bubble. She held the bubble steady, unwilling to release it for fear of what might happen to the canisters if she did.

Natasha is across the room almost before Wanda can blink, knocking the guy out cold within seconds. And just like that, it is over.

The canisters are transferred to a decontamination lock-box before Wanda releases her hold on them. Almost immediately, they begin to hiss with the release of an unknown substance. A substance which, three days later, the CDC informs them is something unseen before and utterly, devastatingly deadly.

The following day, Wanda strolls into the common area to see most of the team quietly watching Tony argue with someone on the phone.

"I know. I know that M/N. I'm not arguing with you on that score." Tony runs a hand down his face. "But I promise you, steps have been taken in the last four days to make sure it doesn't happen again."

"What's going on?" Wanda asks Scott.

"I think that's Y/N's Mom on the phone," he replies, "and she's not happy about her coming back here after what happened on the weekend."

"No," says Tony. "Yes. Yes, M/N. I understand. Absolutely. You have my word."

"I've never heard Tony sound so whipped before," whispers Rhodey, who had arrived a couple of days ago. "I wish I was recording this."

When Y/N visits HQ again the next weekend, she is accompanied by a beautiful middle-aged woman who greets each of the Avengers politely but coolly. M/N, it turns out, is Y/N's Mom.

M/N says little. She watches as the Avengers train and as Y/N trains with specific team members. She joins them for meals and listens to the conversation. She watches how Y/N interacts with the team.

Tony is at pains to please the woman and Wanda realizes that the kid must mean a lot to the billionaire, for him to go to so much effort to accommodate M/N.

Wanda's curiosity gets the better of her. She dips shallowly into the other woman's mind, and encounters an intense well of emotion directed towards Y/N; deep love, overwhelming pride, curdling fear and fierce protectiveness, all rolled into one. It is so intense that Wanda backs out, but not before glimpsing a series of images M/N is projecting.

A man, with the same E/C eyes and warm smile as Y/N.

A small child who can only be a younger Y/N, crying as she lifts up a broken pair of glasses.

A blue mask. Tidal's mask.

Busted, thinks Wanda, eyeing the unassuming teenager.

#marvel #avengers #tidal #intern #stark #tony stark #tony stank #wanda maximoff #clint barton #scott lang #steve rogers

[aj-artjunkyard]

Trials Of Apollo Oneshot Series CHAPTER SIX

Takes place after the burning maze. Spoilers!

Meg propped her red high-tops up on the wooden table, engorging herself in a greasy chicken wing. I myself reclined on the sofa next to her, chewing on the best tasting fish I’d come across in a long time. The aurae brought whatever food the demigod, legacy or ex-god would like best. In my case, it was a typical ancient greek dinner - grilled fish with a small side dish of olives and olive oil. It reminded me of the old days, the heavenly smell wafting from my mother’s kitchen (minus the olives of course, as they had not yet been invented) while young Artemis and I played with nymphs, climbed trees and held archery competitions. Granted, my mother usually added a garnish of ground ambrosia, but that was slightly too impossible for me in my current state. Still, the thought brought tears to my eyes. I missed my sister and mother, more than words could describe. I managed to blink back the moisture welling up, but I was still glad we dined alone.

Our table looked pathetically desolate compared to the tables around us, which held fifteen demigods each. No one really wanted to talk to those who had pulled their respected leader into a quest which had gotten him killed. So, with our backs to the crowd, we ate in thoughtful silence (at least on my part) until Meg stirred me from my nostalgic reverie.

“You think Ella will finish the book thing in time?” Meg asked, pulling a chicken bone from her mouth and flicking it across the table.

“The Sibylline Books.” I corrected.

“Same difference.” 

“That’s my line.”

“Will they be ready or not?”

I sighed with exasperation at the impatience of my master. 

“I do not know.”

Meg rolled her eyes. 

“You never know anything.”

“Hey! I know as much as my father has left intact in my memories, and that is not my fault.”

Meg ignored my defence, and leaned over to my plate to prod my fish in the eye. 

“That’s gross,” she said, screwing up her face.

“Yes,” I agreed. “It is in fact disgusting to poke someone else’s food when they know you haven’t washed your hands.”

“Not that, dummy.” She pointed at my forkful of fish, which was halfway to my mouth. “That.”

I rolled my eyes and took another bite. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s hardly cooked.”

“It’s grilled.” 

Meg stuffed her face with another few bites. Her mouth was so full I was surprised she could still breathe. “Aren’t you supposed to put batter on it or something?” She asked, spraying my face with spit and bits of chicken. I grudgingly wiped it off. 

“Is there anything you Americans don’t deep fry?” 

In response, Meg lifted her feet off the low table, swivelled around and dropped them heavily onto my legs. She was now lying the length of the sofa while half-draped over me, pinning me to the soft cushioning. “Ow.”

She snorted at my discomfort, then continued to inhale her meat. 

My mind wandered around the possibilities of ever seeing my family again. My uncle Poseidon, who had always been my favourite uncle (although my only other uncles are either titans or Hades, so I guess that doesn’t come across as much of a compliment, but it is). My good friends, Hermes and Dionysus, who were always up for a good prank on Ares or ready with a bottle of wine after an awful day (but remember, alcohol is bad, kids. We only drink it because we are each over 3000 years old. Do not attempt until you are the same age, no matter what Dionysus tells you). My sister, the sharp huntress whom I would defend to the death. My mother. Sacred Sibyl, I missed my mother. I missed her warm hugs, her sweet honeysuckle scent, her soft, caring voice. I couldn’t stand the thought of never feeling her comforting presence again. I had to get home.

…

I woke, drenched in cold sweat and gasping for breath. ‘Blasted nightmares,’ I thought, desperately trying to rip the sheets off myself with shaking hands. My legs were still partially entangled when I attempted to stand, resulting in me thumping loudly to the floor. I grasped around in the dark for the small bedside table to help me stand. When I found the edge, I began to pull myself up, but the table tipped, sending me back to the hard floor and spilling its contents onto my head. The digital clock that clattered beside me read 01:38. I growled at it and stood, despite my quaking limbs. My nightmares had wildly unsettled me in ways I wouldn’t tolerate. ‘You’ll never hang onto those memories’, they taunted. ‘Give it a week and you won’t even remember their names’. 

“Shut up, shut up!” I hissed to myself. I began wondering, stumbling towards to bookshelf at the end of the long room. ‘What kind of brother forgets a sibling?’ “Stop.” ‘What kind of son?’ “Stop it!”

I began to yank old, dusty, leather bound books from the shelf, looking for anything with my name on the front. I needed to remember me. Anything. Anything at all. Finally, a large black book with the emboldened golden letters ‘APOLLŌ’ printed on the spine caught my attention. It was a few inches thick and the cover was almost as wide as my chest. Eyes widening, I harshly ripped the book out from its place, the sudden weight bearing down on my weak arms almost causing me to drop it. I did not wish to make any more noise than I already had. I wrapped it in my gangly human arms and lugged it out the door. 

I cannot say I knew where I was headed. I simply needed to get somewhere, to feel the crisp night wind sting my skin into feeling anything but numbness. I found myself marching up a hill. The extra muscle exertion distracted me from my troubles, so I kept climbing. A good way up the hill, I started to feel the pull of the familiar. Temple Hill. I scanned the assorted statues and . There was no particular order, other than ‘most important at the top’. Further on, a massive red crypt loomed, decorated with flames and human skulls. The name Mars Ultor came to me, but I overlooked it. My mind was so busy with rushing thoughts and doubts that I feared any more information might make my brain explode.

My fingers fidgeted with the tears and rough leather texture of the book in my grasp. I felt as if a band composed of nothing but timpani were performing a drumroll in my mind, getting more and more intense with each passing second. Unable to stand still for much longer, I bolted to my right, keeping my head down and following whatever path was under my feet. 

Maybe the last scraps of my godly essence guided me to the place it felt most at home. My mind was caught in such a flurry of panic that I barely noticed I was climbing marble steps until the steely cold shocked my unprotected soles. I was in an circular, open room held up by bronze pillars that were rimmed with gold. A golden dome sat over my head, and an array of my favourite items littered the right side of the room - a golden bow, a quiver stocked with arrows, an elegant grand piano. In the middle of the temple, an altar sat, waiting for sacrifices. I padded to the back of the room, my bare feet echoing on the smooth marble. Sliding my back down a pillar, I sat and heaved the book open. I was too flustered  to have possibly read a word, but the pictures soothed me. There were a few century-old ink sketches of the 'Apollo Belvedere’ in Rome, next to a modern Polaroid marked ‘Latona and Her Children, Apollo and Diana, carved 1874’ I smiled at the tranquil scene. Mother rarely appeared as such now, certainly not after the invention of many modern braid styles (she got me to teach her how to use Instagram so she can ‘see the videos all those pretty young ladies post’ and learn new hairstyles. She’s admittedly very talented. We tied on our self-held Let’s See Who Can Braid Their Hair The Fastest completion). A tear dripped onto the picture. I turned the page.

This one showed the ‘Diana as Huntress’  statue in Berlin. Artie always huffed about her statues, said they were ‘Too dramatic’. She questioned why she, a seasoned hunter, would ever stand around and wait around for the wind to blow the right direction just so she could look cool to the monsters charging at her and her girls. She can say what she likes, but I know that she prefers it when sculptors include her dogs. Just a thought for any artists out there, looking to gain Diana’s favour *wink*. I grinned at the thought of her thirteen year old form pouting up at me. The memory was fuzzy, but still clearer than usual. I turned the page again.

Again and again I flicked through photos of my relatives, skimming over the paragraphs just enough that it reminded me of their names and their relationships with me. Hermes/Mercury was my impish best friend, who I’d vowed to love for eternity. Hera/Juno was my stepmother who caused my mother and siblings nothing but pain, but somehow we respected each other enough to eat cabbage together and compliment each other’s hair. Dionysus/Bacchus was the ultimate party-man, often inviting me to play for his revelries. 

I turned the page once more. This time, I was met with an image that spanned the length of the two pages. At the top of the page, black threatening letters spelled out ‘JUPITER, FATHER OF APOLLO’ and in smaller writing ‘St Petersburg, Hermitage Museum’. Even from glancing into those blank, marble eyes, my anger spiked. ‘There he is’, I thought, ‘sitting all smug on his little stupid throne-’ I admit, my thoughts turned to bitter toddler-like insults. But looking at the god responsible for my misery made me want to throw the book across the temple and storm away. So I did just that. The book smacked into the alter (which tipped) and thumped open onto the floor cover side up, the crusty pages wrinkling under the force. I left the hook where the golden bow had hung empty as I went.

…

Twang!

The arrow just inside the red circle of the target, and I mentally awarded myself seven points. Not that it mattered. Judging by the moon’s position in the inky sky, it was now 3am - I had been at Camp Jupiter’s open-air archery range for almost two hours. No one else had been here when I arrived, and I was glad it had stayed that way. I needed time alone. To stew. I had first come out with the intention to ‘practice’ (still an alien concept to ex-flawless archers such as myself), but now, this long into the session, I was only blowing off steam. Channeling my frustration into every loose of an arrow, imagining the target as everyone who had wronged me over the course of this forsaken punishment. My knuckles tightened. My eyes narrowed. My shoulders tensed. 

Twang! An arrow buried itself deep in the flesh of Commodus’ shoulder.

Twang! A wooden shaft protruded from Caligula’s throat.

Twang! Blood seeped through the mauve suit surrounding Nero’s manipulating, insensitive heart.

Twang! Zeus howled in pain at the arrow embedded in his sternum.

Twang! Python writhed in agony, agony he deserved-

“Apollo!”

I yelped and my shot went wildly off course, flying high with no power or distance, and landing in the grass in front of the target with a thud. Whipping around, I was about to tell whoever it was to GO AWAY when I was met with an equally startled young man, dressed in pyjama bottoms and the signature purple Camp Jupiter t-shirt, with the gold letters SPQR emblazoned boldly on the front. He quickly raised his hands in a placid manner, showing that he meant no harm. Nevertheless, I remained on guard. There had been a few who had not exactly welcomed the bearers of Jason’s coffin warmly, and this had been a close friend of the son of Jupiter. I feared I could not take this particular demigod in a fight. Even though he looked to be not much older than myself, he towered above me - perhaps a few inches beyond six foot tall, which made my lanky 5”6 feel minuscule. He had handsome asian features and soft brown eyes that I wagered could shift from kindness to anger in moments. He wore jet black hair in a military cut, making him seem like the world’s youngest army general.

“Frank Zhang.” I nodded to him once before turning back to my anger outlet. I was in no mood to talk. Not after loosing any way to contact my family. Not after loosing my memories to oblivion. Not after loosing Jason. Not when I knew he could react violently, as some already had. And if his heritage and blessing from Mars went against my mortal pathetic self, I doubted I would last more than ten seconds. Thankfully, he did not look like he came to pick a fight. He came forward and stood beside me silently, watching as I drew back the bowstring. I felt his eyes bore into me, assessing my posture, my strength, my balance. It was off-putting. That, dear readers, is why my arrow went rogue. It wasn’t my fault. It thunked into the wooden leg that held up the target. I felt my cheeks redden. I glared at the stupid arrow, willing it to pick itself up and hover over to the bullseye. Unsurprisingly, this did not happen. It stubbornly stayed where it was, planted in the wood. 

I really hated having an audience for my failures, especially if the audience was a child who had once hoped and prayed for me, the Great Golden Archer, to be his father. I doubted Frank felt such a longing anymore. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. He was smiling sympathetically at me, having witnessed my disgraceful excuse for a shot for the first time. I decided that Gaia coming back and swallowing me whole at that exact moment would not have been protested against.

“Here,” Frank said calmly, reaching towards me and adjusting my grip on the bowstring. “You’re gripping the string too far up your fingers. You don’t want to make a fist around it.” He peered down at my feet. “And you’re too tense. Relax your stance a little.” I obliged, already seeing my stupid mistakes. My cheeks seemed to heat up even more, and I found myself resisting the urge to bury my acne-ridden face in my hoodie. Frank seemed to notice, and backed off, instead ambling over to a small supply shed where he scooped up a bow and a fistful of arrows. I kept myself occupied from the daunting future that would have Frank humiliating me by nocking another arrow. This time, I tried to take on board what advice I’d been given.

I angled my left foot closer to the direction of the target, so I took on a more open stance, then checked my fingering was correct. Taking a deep breath, I used my back muscles to push my shoulder blades together as to take the strain off my arm and shoulder muscles - an unforgotten golden rule of archery. I drew back the bowstring until I reached my anchor point (the index finger touching the corner of my mouth), and fired. Twang! Not a bullseye, but well within the first yellow circle. I grinned in delight. Success was a rare feeling nowadays.

“Good job.” He congratulated quietly, grinning and turning to his own target. We both drew our bows.

After about ten more shots, and four bullseyes on my part (how many frank got is not relevant, moving on), Frank suggested we go back inside.

“It’s early,” he said, rubbing his eyes and letting out a yawn. He started walking down towards the fifth cohort’s barracks, so I followed. “We should get back. Jason’s funeral is later, and you’ve barely been to sleep.”

“How did you know?”

Frank scratched the back of his neck and smiled awkwardly.

“Well, you made a bit of a racket when you were leaving the barracks. What with the whole…falling and throwing books and stuff…”

Yup. The ground was more than welcome to swallow me now. I stuffed my hands in my pockets as I felt my acne-riddled face turn tomato coloured for the umpteenth time that morning, and glared at the grass.

“Apologies.” I muttered. “I panicked.”

“Yeah, you seemed upset so I told the others to leave you alone. I thought maybe you wanted some peace and quiet. But you were gone for ages, so I came to find you.”

I shot him a questioning look. ‘Why?’ He read my mind. 

“It’s my job as Praetor to make sure everyone’s safe,” he explained, his chest puffing out slightly at the little self-reminder of his recently increased status. “And, it sucks. To loose people, I mean.”

I looked up at the Roman. His eyes were shimmering with tears, but he looked me in the eye anyway. He wasn’t afraid to show emotion, which was a rare trait, especially in the legion, but one I had always admired. 

“I only knew him for a few hours. Why do I feel so awful?”

“Because Jason was a great demigod. The greatest. He made an impact on everyone he talked to.” -Frank gestured around the camp- “He really made an impact here. Especially with the loser fifth cohort.”

“He-he told me to fulfil his promise. To build temples for every god in the pantheon.”

“Yeah. He could be like that. Noble, even at the worst of times. But that’s not the reason you’ve been drilling holes into the archery equipment for an a few hours straight.”

I answered with all the intelligence of someone who hadn’t slept since 1am. 

“Huh?”

“I didn’t think to check here first,” he said. “I went up to your temple.”

I got flashbacks to my toddler-esque temper tantrum.

“Ooh. Yeah…”

“Yeah.” He responded in a tone that said ‘been there, done that, got the t-shirt’. “Families are messy.” 

“I miss them.”

“That’s normal. Bitterness is normal. You aren’t being overdramatic.” 

I smiled at the confirmation. 

“Thanks. It means a lot.”

We were back at the barracks. Frank smiled at me one last time and patted me on the back, before lumbering in. I followed. 

I slept soundly the rest of the night.

…

I walked, lead-legged, up Temple Hill. The whole camp was eerily quiet. Jason’s body had been given proper honours, and the legion had been given the day off from duties. I couldn’t stand the prying eyes of 200 kids for much longer, so, even while I had only gotten four hours of sleep and was weighed down with grief, I travelled to the only place in the camp that was truly ‘mine’. 

Tired and weary, I plopped down on the seat of the sleek, white grand piano. I ran my fingers across the smooth fallboard for a solid minute of distracted silence, before lifting it to reveal the ivory keys. They were chipped and yellowed and seemingly out of place compared to the stark white of the piano itself, were inevitably out of tune. I played a short scale, opened up the lid and tightened the loose turning pins I had hit, then continued with my scales. I repeated until I was positive that every key was in perfect harmony, which took all of ten minutes.

Satisfied with the tuning, I took a deep breath and splayed my fingers out on the keyboard, and played a tune that inspired grace and felt to me like a ballerina daintily dancing on water. After a second, the fingering flowed into my memory, allowing my hands to glide elegantly across the piano while I stared over the rim and through the gaps between the temple’s pillars, and into the distance. The sky was clear and perfect blue, and the warm breeze swept gently through my hair. I remembered sitting with my mother on Delos, our shoulders touching as together, we played two parts of the same harmony. Like two streams running down a mountain, weaving around each other and sometimes intersecting to make one stronger melody. My heartbeat calmed from the stress of what was now everyday life to me. Peril, danger and death.

A jarring dissonance of notes jolted me back to unwelcome reality. I rolled my eyes glared at the pudgy young demigod beside me.

“You know, there are ways to make your presence known without scaring flocks of birds away.”

“Yeah I know,” Meg replied shrugging. “But it’s not as fun as watching you jump ten feet in the air.”

“I wasn’t scared! I knew you were beside me!”

“Uh huh,” she grunted, turning her attention to the keys and banging a few more notes without mercy.

“I just tuned those, you monster.”

Meg smirked. Then she ordered me to shift over on the bench, and practically bounced down in the middle, leaving me with one leg hanging off the side.

“Teach me that one. The one you were playing.”

I was too taken aback to argue it’s difficulty, especially for a beginner. I thought we had long since given up on the piano lessons (Meg was not very good), and even if we hadn’t, this tune was graceful and elegant - not words commonly used to describe Meg McCaffrey. But I admit, I missed playing with someone. And so we began.

“Why don’t you watch me first, try to absorb as much of the tune as possible before I teach you the left hand.”

Meg tried to hide her smile.

“Yeah. Whatever.”

Bit of a shorter chapter this time. Sorry for the long wait, I started writing out several completely different chapters and never finished them because they just weren’t good enough. Also, the point about ‘No romance’ in these chapters still stand. Frank and Apollo were written as a kid and an adult becoming good friends, NOT BOYFRIENDS. 

#toa #trials of apollo #lester papadopoulos #meg mccaffrey #TOA oneshot #story #fanfiction #fanfic #my fanfic stuff #fanfics

[theonyxpath]

By Lauren Roy

Jo’s breath fogged the Perspex case, momentarily obscuring the prototype from view. Inside, the device lay dormant, all sleek silver curves and a blank interface awaiting its commands. On its own, Jo told herself, it was just a machine. It made no moral judgments. It saved lives or ended them, and the person who fed it the instructions was to thank or blame, not this lump of metal and wires.

Jo hated it a little bit anyway. She also needed it, and that made her hate it even more.

“Hey, kiddo, shake a leg, yeah?” Blake had been on edge all night. They’d gotten into DuttonTech so smoothly — fake badges letting them into restricted areas, Jo’s disguised tools sailing through security, green lights across every board. Blake trusted Jo and Dana to get them in, sure, but the fact he’d gone the last few hours without having to subdue so much as a slightly suspicious intern was making him antsy. Jo couldn’t blame him; Archangel never hired their crew for the cakewalk jobs.

But she wasn’t going to let Blake’s nerves unsteady her hands. She was elbow deep in the display case’s guts, only the last set of clamps and a weight sensor left to bypass. Easy peasy lemon-squeezy. She’d be home and in her pajamas in less than two hours, cracking a pint of victory ice cream and texting Leanne with the good news, that help was on its way. This was a killing machine in Dr. Alexander Dutton’s hands, but in Leanne’s possession? Jo’s sister could use it to save thousands.

She just had to unlatch the clamps.

Blake checked the cameras for the hundredth time. Downstairs, the security guards in their cozy little command room were watching the same looped feeds of Dutton’s lab Dana had set up hours ago. He knew the timing of their rounds, knew which guards just jiggled the occasional doorknob and which would swipe their access cards and look around the empty, after-hours rooms. He’d studied the dossiers Dana gathered for him over the last few weeks. The patrol team closest to their floor right now consisted of an ex-military type and a guy whose pre-DuttonTech police record was peppered with assault charges from bar fights. Ideally, Blake wouldn’t have to trade blows with either of them, but he believed in being prepared.

Waiting was killing him. He’d offered to smash the case when they first got here, just grab and go, but both Dana and Jo had shot him down. Something about delicately calibrated this and potentially volatile that. Of course, that described everything that DuttonTech put out these days, especially the volatile part. Blake had seen firsthand the damage the company’s products wrought. He’d wielded some of them himself, back in another life.

He’d never stop paying for that. Could never. But working for Archangel assuaged some of the guilt. He clenched his fists and tamped down the urge to find some other volatile thing and pitch it into anything that looked delicate.

Dana had six different data feeds scrolling past on her glasses’ left lens, telling her all DuttonTech systems were normal. She was jacked into the guard station’s audio, listening to two guards being wrong about the top five horror movies of all time. She’d set her little worm free on DuttonTech’s R&D servers — after, of course, she downloaded clean versions of the files to her own drive to peruse later. According to her own internal stopwatch (ONE one thousand, TWO one thousand) her team was right on schedule.

It was too bad they’d never be able to take credit for tonight, because damn, they were good. She imagined herself at some fancy Archangel cocktail party, regaling new cells with the story. Maybe she would embellish it, just a little, add in a tiny scuffle so Blake could have his crowning moment of awesome. Add in a few extra lasers for Jo to have to limbo under, and…

Click.

“Shit,” muttered Jo.

The lights in the lab went red.

There was an extra clamp. There was an extra freaking clamp, and it was so tiny and so obvious in hindsight, exactly where Jo would have put one if she wanted to protect her valuables from someone like herself. It hadn’t been on the blueprints Dana procured in one of her hacks, because of course it wasn’t. Dutton was notoriously paranoid. He’d either installed it himself, in secret, or had one of his lackeys do it and…what? Wiped their memory? Had them killed? Transferred them to a DuttonTech facility in Antarctica? Jo wouldn’t put any of that past him.

But that didn’t matter now. Their cover was blown. Dana was counting off the seconds until security got to them, her fingers flashing over her tablet’s screen. “We’re about to have company.”

Blake came and crouched beside Jo. He glanced at her hands, frozen on the prototype. “Kiddo, we’ve gotta run. Now. If you don’t have it free, you have to leave it.”

“I can’t.”

He frowned. “You stuck?”

“No.”

“Something gonna cut off your fingers if you move?”

“No.”

“What is it, then?”

Jo closed her eyes and pictured her sister’s face. “Leanne. She’s with the LRE in Caracas.”

Blake’s sharp inhale told her that he hadn’t known. Jo didn’t talk about Leanne much. He and Dana knew that Jo’s parents had been dissidents, murdered by their government for speaking out. They knew she and Leanne grew up in safe houses where they were never truly safe, and that Jo had turned to Archangel when she got old enough to be more than a charity case for the organization. That was about as much intel as Jo ever shared, because talking about Leanne made her worry. And worry had sharp, sharp teeth.

“You saw the emails Dana intercepted. Dutton’s going to sell this to the enemy, then that’s it for the resistance. This isn’t just about Leanne.”

Blake might let everyone else in Archangel think he was all muscle, minimal brains, but Jo knew better. He’d read the whole dossier, not just the guards’ vitals. “How long do you need?” His voice was deadly calm.

“However long you can buy me.”

“Get that thing out of there.” Then he was gone.

“We’re doing what now?” Dana gaped at Blake as he assessed the camera feeds on her tablet. She’d managed to lock the guards out of the elevators for the time being but couldn’t keep them out of the stairwells. One patrol had only been a few stories down.

He grunted as the patrol he was monitoring gained another landing. “We’re holding tight until Jo gets that damned thing free. What else can you do to keep them out of here?”

Dana peered around the lab. Until now, she hadn’t really let herself see everything. Sure, she knew the layout, and had a strong idea of what other projects DuttonTech’s brain trust were working on, but being here in meatspace? The temptation to start taking things apart would have distracted her from their mission. She’d kept her eyes firmly on her work and ignored the siren song of the shiny.

Now, though… She took it all in, performing a frantic inventory with a glance. “Get me a screwdriver,” she said, “and every inch of wire you can find.”

For a hasty build, it was impressive. Dana had to guess at what a quarter of the parts she found even were, but as she stared at the small mountain of electronics Blake dumped on the desk, the schematic came together in her head. The spliced wires and electrical tape meant it would never win any beauty pageants at the hackathon, but that didn’t matter.

As long as it did its job.

She dragged her cobbled-together creation out into the hall. It whined as it powered up; the highpitched tone of power gathering combined with a low, ominous hum. Dana listened a moment, until it sounded stable enough, and darted back inside. As Blake shoved a pair of desks across the doorway, Dana scuttled further into the lab and planted herself near Jo. The other woman nodded slightly, acknowledging her presence, but didn’t peel her eyes from the device inside the case.

“How are we looking?” Dana asked.

“There’s a wire on the last clamp. It’s what tripped the alarm. I’m trying to make sure it’s not going to fry the whole thing when I remove it.”

“Smart,” said Dana, then, “Oops, hang on, big noise.” On her tablet’s screen, the camera view showed two guards emerging from the stairwell. She counted (ONE one thousand, TWO one thousand, THREE) and yelled, “Blake, NOW!”

Across the lab, Blake slammed his fist down on the trigger Dana rigged. He dropped into a huddle, covering his ears.

The lab doors were, by necessity, prettied-up fire doors. Sure, deep-pocketed investors on a grand tour of DuttonTech could glance through the extra-thick glass to see scientists bustling about within, but if something exploded during a demo, those investors (and their wallets) would be safe. Now, those same doors muffled the worst of Dana’s sonic barrage. The pair of guards dropped to the ground, hands covering their ears as they writhed in pain.

The disruptor’s effects would only last for so long, though. Already, Dana could tell the pulses were losing their potency. “Thirty seconds, Jo. Then they’re back on their feet and super pissed.”

It was impossible. Jo held the wire pinched between her fingers, this hair-thin filament, and knew it was all for nothing.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Leanne, I’m sorry.

If she’d only taken one last look, she’d have spotted the trap. If she only had another five minutes, she could undo it. But time was well past up. Blake and Dana stood by the doors, their jaws set, their expressions grim. That awful thrumming pulse outside let out one last whump, and an eerie silence took its place.

If she was fast enough, faster than she’d ever been in her life, she could mitigate the damage. Not prevent it entirely, but… But enough.

Jo steadied the prototype with her left hand, readied the wire in her right.

She held her breath.

Pulled.

The spark traveled up her fingers, to her wrist, straight up to her elbow. The sharp tang of hot metal, melted plastic, and seared flesh filled the air. Had she taken the brunt of the jolt? She thought so but wouldn’t know until Dana got a look at the device later. When they were safe. Jo pulled the prototype free of its case and ignored the tingling in her fingertips. She joined Blake and Dana at the door. “Let’s go.”

In the hallway, the security guards were gaining their feet. Blake smiled.

The first one got up. He staggered as his balance betrayed him, but Blake wasn’t going to take that for granted. Guy like this? He had to fight after being pepper sprayed, tazed, or whatever the hell else they made Navy SEALs do. Sure, Dana’s device had done its damage, but Blake bet this guard was exaggerating its extent. It’s what he’d have done.

Three strides and Blake was in the ex-SEAL’s face. Sort of. The dude was a giant, six-and-half feet tall with a neck like a tree trunk. Blake only came up to his chest. His opponent swung, a short, sharp blow that would have knocked a weaker fighter flat. But Blake had training of his own. He deflected the jab, but as he’d suspected, the guard wasn’t as bad off as he’d pretended. More shots rained down, driving Blake backwards toward the lab.

A streak of red skittered down the hall toward him. Jo had liberated one of the lab’s fire extinguishers and shoved it his way. Blake danced out of the ex-SEAL’s reach and scooped it up. Only one shot at this. He swung it in a high haymaker arc, cranking the extinguisher’s heavy bottom into the ex-SEAL’s jaw. The big man went down in a graceless heap.

Blake looked back to where Dana and Jo huddled in the doorway and signaled them forward. Jo winced as she passed the first guard. Then she stopped short. “Uh. Blake?”

He thought the second guy was down for the count. It was the bar brawler, the one who should’ve been an easy takedown except…except he’d managed to unholster his sidearm and push himself to his feet. His arm wavered, but even if his aim was off, the hallway was narrow enough that he’d probably hit one of them.

“Easy, now,” said Blake. “Let’s all be calm.”

“Drop the extinguisher,” said the guard. “And you, put down the device.” He swung the gun toward Jo, and Blake felt his heart hit his stomach. That wasn’t a standard-issue piece. It was a DuttonTech special; destruction in Glock’s clothing. Blake had carried one of the previous generation himself. He’d seen what they could do, how the bullets tore up a body as they passed through.

“Okay.” Blake lowered the extinguisher, hoping to get the guard’s focus back on himself. “Look, we’re cooperating, see?”

“Oh, fuck that,” snarled Dana. She shoved past Blake, keeping to the other side of the hall from the guard — out of arm’s reach, but drawing his attention.

“I’ll shoot!” The guard whirled to follow her. His finger tensed on the trigger.

Blake barreled forward. He could never beat a bullet, but he had to try. The corridor seemed miles long, the air thickened like molasses. The guard might as well have been on the other side of the world, for all the good Blake could do. He saw the trigger pull back in agonizing detail, heard Jo screaming Dana’s name.

Dana just kept walking.

The gun didn’t fire.

Time started again, and Blake plowed into the guard at top speed. He drove him back and slammed his wrist against the wall until he dropped the weapon. Blake got a forearm across the guy’s neck and twisted to look at Dana. “What the hell?”

“Oh. Yeah.” She stopped fiddling with her eyepiece and came to stand beside him, still well out of the guard’s reach. She addressed the guard instead of Blake. “That thing that split your eardrums two minutes ago? I also had it resonating at the same frequency as the timing crystal in your shiny new gun. Probably cracked it. You shouldn’t pick it up again.” She gave Blake an apologetic grin. “I should have told you: I don’t make unitaskers. Learned it from a TV chef. Now will you knock him out, so we can go?”

Archangel paid damned well. Jo funneled most of her paychecks down to Leanne, helping to fund the revolution and keep her sister fed, clothed, and armed. With what was left, she bought tools to help with her craft. One of the first things she’d learned was, to be a good thief, you ought to have a good getaway car. So, she sunk a ridiculous amount of money into an old tank of a car and paid even more to have it tuned up, tricked out, and street legal. It had served her well so far, and now, with DuttonTech heavies chasing them through the city’s 3 A.M. streets, Jo prayed it’d get them home safe one more time.

It took 10 blocks for the black SUV to catch up to them. She’d figured a clean getaway was too much to ask, but Jo cursed the universe anyway. “Get ready,” she said, and jammed on the gas. Bullets hit the car’s frame like a sudden spate of rain. The back window spidered with cracks but held firm. She was glad she’d splurged on the bulletproofing.

The SUV sped up, drawing even with them. Jo stared ahead at the rain-slick street. The good thing about pulling off their heist so late at night was that no one drove in the business district at this hour. They had a good straightaway and, as she watched, all the lights turned green. In the rearview, Dana flashed her a thumbs-up.

Metal screamed, and the whole car shuddered as the SUV slammed into their side. Jo fought the wheel to keep them on the road. In the passenger seat, Blake swore as the door crunched inward.

PULL OVER, came a voice over the SUV’s bullhorn. RETURN WHAT YOU STOLE, AND WE’LL LET YOU GO.

Blake flipped them off.

Another sideswipe, and the car rode up on the curb. Jo swore and yanked them back onto the street, but not before she took out a row of newspaper boxes.

“You know what?” said Blake. “We’re risking our lives for this thing, I think we deserve a demo.” He pulled the prototype from the backpack Jo had shoved it in.

“Uhhhh.” Dana poked her head into the front seat. “Remember that talk we had about delicate and volatile?”

“She’s right. And I might have damaged it when I took it out of the case,” said Jo. “We don’t know what it’ll —”

But Blake was already pushing buttons, and the blank interface was responding to his touch. The options flashing by read stun, pulse, and stream, and a slider ran from low to high. Blake selected pulse and pushed the slider all the way up.

“Point it at them, not us!” Dana shrieked.

Blake turned the device and held the business end up to the window. Jo caught a glimpse of the SUV driver as he aimed. All the color drained out of the DuttonTech security woman’s face. She turned her wheel, disengaging the SUV from Jo’s car, but not soon enough. Blake slapped the automatic window button, and as soon as he could get the prototype’s nose through the gap, he fired.

THOOM.

They couldn’t see the pulse, but they felt it. Jo’s fillings buzzed. Every bone she’d ever broken ached like there was a storm overhead. The SUV flipped up and over, and for one terrible second, Jo could see what the pulse had done to the people inside, how none of their features were in the right places anymore. How everything had gone so very red. She’d be seeing that in her nightmares for years to come.

None of them said anything as they pulled away. In the rearview, Dana’s eyes were wide, her lips gone white. Blake let out a ragged sigh. The device’s interface blurred, cleared, then switched to one blinking red word:

Error.

The sun was coming up by the time they got back to their safehouse. Dana switched on the morning news while she examined the prototype. Not a word about their break-in at DuttonTech. Not a peep about a late-night car chase in the business district, nor any stories about a deadly crash. DuttonTech had covered it all up. Was that good for them, or bad?

Can’t worry about that just now. Let’s make sure we’re not going to explode first.

She handled the device gingerly, as if it might wake up and turn the three of them into human slag, but it turned out there wasn’t much chance of that. She could see the burn marks where Jo had pulled it from its kill switch. Once the casing came off, the insides were about as fried as she’d expected, even though Jo had taken some of the shock. “I don’t know how this even turned on in the car, let alone fired.”

“Is that it, then?” asked Jo. “All that work and it’s just…a hunk of metal?” She didn’t have to say her sister’s name for Dana to know she was thinking of Leanne, how she’d been counting on getting the prototype out intact to help her. Dana had made that connection long before she handed Jo and Blake their dossiers.

“Hey.” Dana set her tools aside. “First off, we’ve set DuttonTech back. They don’t have the physical prototype, and their IT group is going to have a miserable time sorting out the mess I uploaded to their servers before anyone there can even think about building another.”

Blake came in from the kitchen, carrying a tray with three coffee mugs and Jo’s pint of victory ice cream. He’d declared getting out alive a sufficient win, and Jo hadn’t argued the point. “She’s right, kiddo. We’re not even close to done. If Dana can’t get this thing up and running, someone in Archangel will know who can.”

“I have an idea about that.” Dana took her mug gratefully. She was bone tired but needed to stave off sleep as long as she could. There was too much to do. “The woman who taught me to do what I do, she studied alongside Dutton back in the day. If we can find her, I think she’ll be able to fill in a whole ton of gaps.”

Jo frowned. “‘If?’”

“No one’s heard from her for a while. She went off the grid, and we don’t know why. Last place she was spotted was Brussels.” Dana set the prototype aside and tapped her tablet awake. “Who’s up for a rescue mission?

The Trinity Continuum Core Rules and Trinity Continuum: Æon are available in print from Indie Press Revolution (core, Æon) or in PDF/print-on-demand from DriveThruRPG.

#Onyx Path Publishing

[juuheizou]

do juuzou too lol he's my fav

what i think realistically: he was in the adoption system before big madam took him. she might have even got her claws on him through the system. think about it. there’s no reference to his birth family that i can remember at any point in either series and those are usually ppl who get contacted when their missing child is found, his choices for a name are either the name madam gave him or one he picks himself (technically also from madam, but still) and no one disputes it, and even his surname (suzu = bell, ya = roof or house, in his case) sounds a lot like something madam would give him. who knows what kinda research ishida did/didn’t do, but it wouldn’t be the first case of human trafficking through the adoption system if madam did get him that way, and even if she didn’t adopt him (though she must have legally changed his name at some point for the ccg to call him what she named him instead of trying to get him to remember his ‘real name’ at any point) there is a correlation b/w trafficked children and children who have been in the system. his character wiki describes baby suzuya (like before madam, which i have zero recollection of) as ‘somewhat normal, albeit a tad twisted,’ and my hc is that even though it might have affected his time w madam and vice versa, he was born autistic and his birth family gave him up when they got his diagnosis/realized his “problem” couldn’t be cured.

what i think is fucking hilarious: he’s into heavy metal and can scream along to his favorite songs. of course he can fry scream, but if he really needed to get an entire room’s attention or wants to scare the shit outta someone for laughs, he can also false chord scream like a rabid pterodactyl and hold it for a fairly long time bc (fun fact ahead) men castrated as boys develop extra long bones in their ribcage and that added lung capacity was a less obvious part of why human castration was common practice in choirs of the middle ages. he can go low and growling to where its like ‘that noise should not come from the cute face attached to that small body’ or he can push it high enough to imitate, like i said, a rabid pterodactyl.

what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends: he was committed at some point b/w the end of the original series and the beginning of re. now in putting this one under ‘heart-crushing and awful’ i’m not trying to scaremonger or say no one has ever been helped at a psych ward or developmental center –i see it being part of why he got so much more together over such a short timeskip– but having to choose b/w potentially losing everything to his inability to take care of himself and giving up a great deal of the basic rights most ppl take for granted in exchange for the help he needed is a painful thing, esp for someone like him who has had his autonomy stripped from him for most of his life in one way or another and is the kind of person who values his freedom. akira was the one who checked him in, after he hadn’t been to work in days and she found him in a state of neglect she had only seen in the dens of ghouls w/ horribly mistreated captives, before. he almost fell into that pattern of neglect again within weeks of coming back, but that time it was his new partner hanbee who tracked him down after not seeing him at the field office for a few days and found him sobbing/trashing his apartment/hurting himself over not wanting to go back to the ward but having no idea how he was going to avoid it. hanbee was terrified by the v real possibility of losing his beloved squad leader, so from then on, hanbee made it his mission to help him out and that’s how he became the hanbee we know who canonically has ‘personal care of investigator suzuya’ listed as his ‘life’s work.’ to this day, between the system, being a human pet, living at the academy, and being institutionalized, suzuya gets agitated at the slightest hint that he might not have total control over himself and taking his autonomy, whether by physically restraining him or fucking w his mobility aids or manipulating him mentally or even just bossing him around, is the quickest way to break him if you’re a villain, and the quickest way to get lashed out at if u meant well.

what would never work in canon but canon is shit so i believe it anyway: his are crying meltdowns, and he doesn’t tend to cry unless he’s melting down. crying is more a loud-meltdowns-got-me-punished thing that he picked up and learned over the years than a natural response to emotion. personally, i had always imagined his reunion w/ shinopapa being more overwhelming than anything until he has a chance to process it at his pace, so maybe this one still works, but i’d still say ch.179 killed it.

send me a character and i’ll give one of each headcanon

#haha nvm what i said abt my mutsuki headcanons being wordy #long post #headcanon asks #answers #anon #i obv put a lot of thought into suzuya juuzou #autistic king #ik ive made like two jokes abt aggretsuki but really suzuyas the metalhead among them #mutsuki probably worked fry screaming into his internal monologue from hearing suzuya do it #and being like 'scary but mood' #suzuya's english is not great but one of his fav songs is 'silverwing' by arch enemy

[whitewolfbumble]

Behind Enemy Lines - Part Two of Two (Bucky x Reader)

COMPLETED

Summary: Bucky was trapped in a locked down facility, the very one you were home grown in. Now you were back and to get him out you had to battle criminals, your past, and your fears to do it. Alive, preferably, but there was no promise of that.

Prompt: “What are you doing here?”

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Language, violence/blood, death, angst, kissing because let’s balance that angst lol

Word Count: About 5k

A/N: Don’t get too comfy because down we go... This was written for @sweetboybucky 1K Writing Challenge! Congrats babe!

MY MASTERLIST // SEND ME A REQUEST // PART ONE

The descent down to save your lives began quietly, though you doubted it would stay that way for long. This hell hole was full of gruesome surprises, most of which were burned into your memories and left you screaming from the nightmares of it.

The floor below the one you saved Bucky from was empty, as was the floor below that. Soon enough you would have to get through the carnage of bodies and blood you left in your wake, lining both stairwell and hallways. But facing that would hardly be a problem to you. There was another, bigger problem now that changed the game since your ascent up here.

“So, your brother?” Bucky asked beside you, reserved and concerned.

His arm was slung over your shoulder as the pair of you walked, Bucky’s leg hitching awkwardly and making him falter a bit with every step. You figured maybe something (or somethings) was broken. Not an easy feat to break the bones of a super soldier, but he’d heal. Eventually. If your brother held up his end and the two of you could get out alive. But it wasn’t going to be fast enough.

The big thing now was that you had added Bucky- a powerhouse of a person to be sure- but he was hurt and slow. Days of torture and electricity frying his flesh plus a broken bone (or several) left his usual prowess more than a little muted and sluggish. You couldn’t risk moving too slow but also couldn’t run full speed out of here with your hurt team mate in tow. 

It was a precarious position to put it lightly.

“The one and only,” you muttered, eyes scanning the corner of the hallway for the cameras. The little ever blinking red lights indicating they were watching were still off. You breathed out a puff of air and walked on, pulling Bucky along with you. 

Switching stairwells was a fucking ballsy move, but you knew this place better than anyone. Certain doors were locked on certain floors from the stairs to the hall (literally over to fuck people trying to escape over). Meaning if you didn’t shift stairwells and had the unlucky fortune of getting trapped, you absolutely knew with Bucky’s slow speed you wouldn’t get out alive. So better to take a big risk than guaranteed doom you figured.

“And you trust him?” Bucky questioned, limping along, his hip to yours as you held on to him.

You gave Bucky a sideways glance and a grin with little real joy in it.

“Of course not. He ratted me out more times than I can count,” you sighed before continuing, and it wasn’t because of your brother’s betrayal in your old life. You had a hard time now faulting him for keeping his head above water by throwing you under it, however painful the outcome for you. “But we won’t make it alive without him.”

And you tried not to let the two entirely empty corridors you had just passed through give you too much hope that Ward would actually pull through for you. Nothing ever worked out when you hoped. Blood and sweat and pain was how you got out of situations like this, and to that formula you would stick too.

You scooted along the wall at the far end of the hall, the little L-shape section giving you two some protection from view of anyone who left their apartment. You rested Bucky against the dirty wall, taking a break to straighten up and look around.

“Alright,” you began, taking precious seconds to fill Bucky in. You couldn’t wait until this powderkeg of a scenario blew up so now was as good a time as any. “To survive hell, you need to know a couple things. Stay away from the windows unless you want to be shot by snipers. Machetes are the weapon of choice here, so assume everyone has one and enjoys butchering in their spare time. There is no place to hide, no safe place to lay low, no time to make a plan, no time to think. You act or you die. This is worst possible life scenario here, so no pulling punches.”

“Understood,” Bucky nodded. He was a man that could handle a mission as well as any you had seen, but you watched his eyes flit back between yours, something bubbling underneath their surface. It made you shake your head slightly.

“Pity won’t help you here either.” you warned, guessing at the guarded emotion behind his eyes and poking him in the chest. 

Yeah, you grew up in this, and yeah you were irreparably damaged by it, but that only meant if there was a person who could survive this it was you. No time to stop and feel upset about it now.

But instead he stood up from the wall to his full height and pulled you in close, pinning your body suddenly to his. He gave no warning before his lips hit yours, warm and instantly intimately deep.

Your breath caught in your throat, stopped by a euphoric little hit of emotions flooding your pained and split open body. For a brief moment you felt his broad hand wrap around your waist, pressing you into him harder as his kiss did the same. 

It was a fast and deep fire that passed between you, the flames still licking inside you under you skin when he broke apart from you just a quickly as he connected. It left you as breathless as a fight did and as dazed as a punch to the head.

“You said no time to think, so I didn’t. Just acted.” Bucky murmured to you, tucking a piece of sweaty, dirty hair behind your ear. His ice blue eyes shone an inch from yours with an intensity that did nothing to quell what you were feeling.

Mission minded my ass, you thought, reversing your previous musings.

“Not exactly what I meant,” you swallowed, willing yourself to step back and not back into him. Despite how fucking amazing that felt, you two just did not have the time here. “But I’m not complaining. Last thing, no more lovey-dovey shit til we get out with our hides in tact, hmm?”

Try as you might you couldn’t help a side smirk break through your expression. Or a spark of hope in your chest that you’d get out with him at your side. Because you wanted more of that fire. More of the feel of him pressed to you.

But hope had never been your friend. The fact that you were feeling it now was undoubtedly an ominous herald of what was coming.

Three more floors and not a single other living person to dodge or fight or kill.

Bucky didn’t comment or even give you a sideways glance at the carnage that painted the floors and walls of your recent ascent. Brains and limbs, blood and shards, bone and muscles lined these halls as the dead bodies they belonged to lay in silence. You had been a one person army in a war for someone far dearer to you than a thousand of these wretched people.

Beyond the judgement of Bucky, which didn’t seem to come, you hardly cared what you had done or what it looked liked. All you wanted now was the get out and leave this behind, ideally forever.

But with every step you were growing more impatient. And anxious. And restless.

Another floor, another now cold bloodbath, and another empty desolate space. That stillness as the two of you shuffled and huffed down each hall started in you a feeling that was growing with every step.

Fear.

Maybe you had only escaped this place once, but you had tried practically daily for years to get out. You were always making plans, always trying to wheedle and plot and struggle your way to freedom. You knew these gritty halls, knew these awful people, understood the routine…

This was wrong.

That thought hit you like a ton of bricks and it was only then that you realized a bit of hope there rooted in you. There was too much of it for you to dash it away out of hand as though it had never been there, and it made you feel sick. When you stopped and looked to Bucky you could feel the panicked flooding of a fresh batch of adrenaline in your veins to match the doom you felt.

Shit. This was all wrong.

“What is it?” he whispered low in the near dead silent space.

Your eyes were moving a mile a minute, taking in absolutely everything you could, though this grey concrete lined hall with cheap wooden apartment doors looked like every other hallway. Nothing was out of place (even the blood dripping and pooling around the several bodies at one end).

“There is something… Just…” You struggled with the words to describe a formless, emotion-wrought weight in the depths of you. “I don’t…”

This came on so suddenly there had to be a reason. Had to be something that sparked this survival instinct you hadn’t felt in exactly this way since you were last here.

Narrowly your eyes picked up something at the end of the hallway.

It was small, easily ignored, and nothing invasive or obvious. But you spotted it and immediately kicked everything inside you into high gear, noise and stealth be damned.

Despite your size and strength verses Bucky’s, you squeezed your arm around him tighter and pulled him along with you as you took off down the hallway. He kept up as best he could but your speed wasn’t hampered by either his hindrance or help here. He could be unconscious and dead weight in your arms and you doubted you would move any slower.

As you two passed by the camera, only then did Bucky see it too.

A tiny red blinking light of a security camera, now on and capturing your every move.

They were coming.

They were coming.

The drum of voices and footfalls and knives scrapping on the ground echoed and followed you, sounding louder, getting faster, driving you mad. It followed on your heels and chased you down the huge concrete stairwell, hidden in the shadows you until you just couldn’t take it.

They were several floors above you, screaming and jeering and gaining speed. They would overtake you in minutes. You clung still to Bucky, holding him upright and trying not to scream at the top of you lungs as your worst nightmare- your worst reality- was so fucking close to happening all over again.

You clenched your fists so tightly in your palms you felt the warm pricks of blood popping up from your fingernails breaking skin. The humidity in here was stifling and cloudy and felt like it was holding you down enough to make tears spring up in the corner of your eyes.

You were never going to let this dirty concrete coffin be the last place you saw before death took you, and in all the years that hadn’t changed. It made you desperate and reckless, but with the oncoming horde of unseen people on your tail you weren’t going to make it out if you didn’t try something. And try it right the fuck now.

“C’mon,” Bucky said over the echoing yells, willing you forward with words and holding you back because of his injuries. “Only a few more floors to go! We can do this!”

You shook your head, sweat dripping off and landing around your tired, lead-heavy feet as you shuffled him and yourself forward as fast as your frantic steps could.

“Not here,” you said, strained and on the verge of panic. Shit, you had to keep it together. If only that wasn’t near impossible, as you too vividly knew what would happen if you were caught. “We have to get to the north-side staircase. Now!”

You veered the two of you to the exit of the fourth floor- only four more to go until freedom that you would not probably never reach- and through the hallway. This was the one you exploded a couple hours earlier, with sticky red completely coating every square inch of this place. It covered the light fixtures and lightbulbs, casting a dark and twistedly eerie crimson glow on everything.

Bucky blinked surprised at the carnage as you entered the floor, but you didn’t. Your focus was in trying your best not to lose balance underfoot with the chunk of sinew and organ slime covering the floor, and decidedly not thinking about the decision you were currently making.

You pushed through the most unnerving corridor to exist, only rivalled by blood river in The Shining, to get to a small stairwell that you had avoided in every single one of your escape plans as a child. Because even then you weren’t stupid enough to try and escape this way, even at your most desperate. It filled you with far more dread than the hallway you just left.

The white light cast down around you with an uplifting, almost palpably calming glow as you entered the north-side stairwell. The feeling was a lie, a cruel deceit, as this was anything but a safe haven. It was lure and a dangerous one at that.

You swallowed, halting Bucky as he stepped forward and instead pushed your backs to the door.

He looked confused, both at you stopping and your drawn furrowed look of hesitation. You had come in head first into this building with little regard for safety, and now this bright and airy path to freedom gave you pause?

Grimly you nodded to the windows. They lined floor to ceiling in a filmy glass that carried all the way from the top floor to the bottom one. No one was allowed in here, save the Boss. You would be safe from the mob at least, but as far from actual safety as you could be.

“First rule,” you muttered. “Stay away from the windows.”

Bucky’s mouth opened slightly as he looked to the windows before clamping shut.

“So, hacked to death by a crowd or shot by a sniper, huh?” he said, cluing in grimly. Anyone coming in here that wasn’t the Boss would be shot, friend or foe. You had taken a bullet to the leg before and you weakly tried to forget that feeling.

“If we go fast,” you said, trying your best to stay optimistic and almost succeeding. But not quite. “We’ll be fine.”

And if not, at least your deaths would be quick. Hopefully.

Before you even took a first step out to what was a fucking terrible plan, a voice sounded from above, your skin tightening in sudden fear and locking your bones together.

“I don’t think so, sweet princess.”

That name. That little pet name that haunted your dreams and filled you with equal measure of crippling fear and burning rage, said from the mouth of your torturer for so many years.

You didn’t have to say a word to Bucky or explain who the voice was. His face grew dark and muscles tensed for a fight, having heard your stories in gruesome detail before being subjected to his own round of torment at the vile man’s hand.

Steps came down from above, slow and measured. Two pairs, actually.

When the man came into view, stopped at the top of the flight of stairs in front of you, he looked exactly as you remembered as a child. It was as though he was endlessly bound to outlive you and time itself, always alive as though to be a continued, nagging torture in your mind.

He was wearing a thin linen shirt that was too faded to be butter yellow, a sweat stained white tank top, and old beige shorts that couldn’t contain his beer belly. But the most noticeable attribute of him was the disgusting air of unchecked power a dirtball like him exuded. He ran this place and he knew it. Even called himself the Boss, his real name lost to time. His wrinkled, papery skin was almost tattooed with the invisible, disgusting deeds he had proudly done in his life. One such victim of his power being you.

And beside him was your brother.

You didn’t know if the punch to your emotional gut was because of the Boss or because of Ward, who must have ratted you out. Just like when you were kids.

“Bucky,” you said quietly but controlled. “Meet my brother Ward.”

You abstractedly gestured to your brother and Bucky’s only response beyond cold eyes was the slight squeeze on your shoulder, the pressure of his hand the briefest of comforts.

You noticed Ward’s hand, blood dripping in a stream it. It once- the last time you saw him actually- had a total of five fingers on it. Now there were two.

“Punishment.” Ward said, voice not fully like or unlike his usual tone.

It was that same tone the usually vibrant and annoying brother used when he sold you out. Shut down and robotic, but still your brother all the same.

“And what’s the reward for a job well done than?” you said bitterly, looking to the Boss.

He merely smiled, thick lips drawn over scummy teeth.

“You get to die.” he said simply.

That made your eyes narrow at him, not particularly fearful of the threat. You were marked from death since you walked in here, but that would never be the Boss’s first choice typically. He loved watching the sweet agony he inflicted on people, more addicted to it than any junky you had ever seen.

“He kills you, ruins you, and you die by your own brothers hand.”

Ah okay, so it was agony he wanted. He wanted one of his righthand men to pay for betraying him. 

“But if you survive,” he continued, thickly smug. “Then your brother is killed and you, little princess, are strung up like a present just for me. That is until you find some way to kill yourself. Because there’s going to be no other way to escape this time.”

You took a breath, shaking your head. Eventually you couldn’t help a bit of a smile spread across your face, with a low breathy chuckle following. Bucky was both furious at the Boss and slightly unnerved at your reaction, though his eyes stayed focused protectively on the threat in front of you.

“I’ll stay…” Bucky said, low and firm before you could get your laughter under control. “And you’ll let Y/N go. That’s the only thing going to happen here.”

“Bucky,” you said, smiling and trying to calm yourself down a little and set your smile back into a neutral (or even angry) face. “It’s alright, whatever happens, it’s going to be fine.”

You could see in a brief flash of his eyes to yours that he knew it wasn’t going to be. The horde would close in at their commanders orders once given, the snipers were visibly poised across the street, the Boss had your brother (as much as chip to play in all this as anything else was), Bucky was injured and barely able to fight, you had no backup, no way to escape unharmed, no chance to get away… This wasn’t going to end well at all.

But all that didn’t matter. For a brief moment, it just didn’t matter to you anymore.

“What?” you said to the Boss, rage creeping into your speech and overtaking each word as you spat them out, turning from humourous to furious. “You thought you could put me in a cage match all those times and get off without having to fight me yourself? Huh? Or sell me off by the hour to scumbags and not think I’d be back to fuck you up?”

You took a measured step forward, dropping away from Bucky, voice lowering dangerously.

“Whatever happens to me, you don’t win this. I won’t let you win this. Whether it’s at my hand, or Bucky’s, or someone else on my team, or even my brother one day when he grows a pair of fucking balls… Someone will take you down and I will win that day. I will.”

There was silence, deafening and suffocating, his beady eyes watching you, dark and angry at the insubordination from the likes of a “little princess” like you.

You waited for him to signal to the snipers to mow you and Bucky down, or maybe giving the okay to the few who were left to come in and overtake you and end this theatre.

The outcome was worse.

“Kill her, Ward.” he said darkly, taking a step back.

Ward immediately took a step forward, face guarded and unreadable. The same face he always had when he found you or sold you out to get ahead in this shitshow. It was distant and shut down, emotions gone and certainly wasn’t personal to him anymore going by the look on his face and speed in his movements. But to you, this was obviously and completely personal.

You weren’t kids anymore, and it wasn’t only your life on the table here so you forced that aside.

You pushed Bucky back, who reluctantly complied though despite his injured, slow body his muscle were tense and begging to be let loose. But it was finally time to teach your stupid brother a lesson.

Your brother, for all his skills, was never a creature of evolution or growth. He had enough ambition to be cunning and move up in the ranks, but that was all. You were a person who thrived and collected fighting techniques, martial art skills, practiced strategic maneuvers, always looking to expand and grow and become better. Become faster. Grow beyond any restraint or enemy.

But he was taller, less exhausted, less concerned with your feelings than you were of his. It left you two equally matched.

Once in striking distance Ward’s fists lashed out without regard for three entire missing fingers, powerful swings seeking your flesh. Blocking was useful to a point, so you did block the first few hits, your elbows swinging up and fists covering your own face. But ducking down you kicked in his knee twice and hard, rolling on the ground swiftly and with the ground as leverage, kicking out the side of his leg powerfully.

Like a ton of bricks he went down and you pounced, slamming down on top of his body with fists and feet wailing at every pressure and sensitive point your trained mind could hit. You had to get him unconscious or incapacitated, get him out of the way and deal with the Boss.

Your determined thought was interrupted with a boney, battle-hardened fist to the face, a crack of pain matching the sound that echoed in the stairwell at the impact.

You were thrown off of him and on your back, your feet flying up protectively as he tried to pounce on you this time. In a flash you saw the glint of a knife and raised your knee to his chest, using the force to move his body too far to one side and yours too far the other for Ward to plunge it into your abdomen. The knife went sliding out of his hand and clattered blissfully down the stairs.

Another kick to his side and punch to the face happened instinctively almost as shocked, you began to realize he was actually going to do it. Was actually trying to kill you himself this time.

That thought and the rage that went with it spurred you on enough to land a couple more pounding hits, but Ward landed far more. He had you on your back and had the upper hand before long, but killing you with his bare hands was something far different than killing you with a weapon.

As the strikes came, the hits became ever so slightly lighter, but maybe that was just the amount of pain you body was starting to feel, numbing to the sensation after so much fighting.

But maybe the Boss saw it too, as something that had been trained on Bucky, keeping him back and out of the fight this whole time, was thrown into the middle of you two siblings.

The distinct clatter of a gun hit the concrete floor, coming down from the Boss’s position up the flight of stairs, not a foot from you and Ward. Immediately you heard Bucky yell out your name in furious panic as both you and your brother reflexively reached for the weapon.

You hand gripped the metal fast as lightning and before you could blink two shots rang out, the light clinking of the bullet casings floating down to the ground a moment after.

You breathed deeply and calmly, the sight in front of you not reconciling with rational thought right away. You were on your back, still hands holding out the gun straight at Ward as your training dictated. He was just in front of you, body wavering a little as hands clutched his chest.

Confused, you watched dark fluid spread out from underneath his fingers, staining his grey shirt. Another few seconds later you saw that it was a deep red. A moment after a thick drop, then a steady stream began to pour from his mouth.

His guarded gaze suddenly didn’t look shut off from you anymore. The gleam in Ward’s eyes looked pained. Heartbroken even. His watery, accusatory eyes held yours, forcing his tormented and betrayed look squarely on you.

He watched you a few seconds before those vibrantly deep eyes went lightless, and his body dropped onto your legs. His warm blood soaked into your clothes, but the sensation did nothing but chill you so deeply into your bones you never thought you would be warm again.

You saw Bucky drop to his knees in front of you, several metres away, his blue eyes catching yours, but you couldn’t exactly see him. You couldn’t really see or feel or understand anything right now. What did break through your shock was a laugh. It was a familiar one. Cold and terribly cruel.

You turned to the source of the laughter, seeing the man of your nightmares at the top step, looking down on the scene with sick glee.

You got up with the same speed as the sun rising at dawn. But this wasn’t a fresh new day. This wasn’t anything close. Not a beginning at all.

With the gun in your hand you waved the man down from the steps, him not having much choice in the matter now. Unhearing and unspeaking, you waved him down the next flight as you and Bucky followed suit, each taking the man’s sweaty arm in hand.

Being so close to him, the snipers wouldn’t shoot. The mob wouldn’t come and stage a rescue. With your gun on him, trained at his side, he wasn’t going anywhere you didn’t want.

The Boss spoke, rambling on about how you wouldn’t kill him. How you were soft- always had been- and it wasn’t your way. How the team wouldn’t let you. How much fun it was watching you kill you only brother. Your only family. How he had now and always taken everything from you. How there was nothing left to you at all.

A hitch caught in your throat at those words as you stepped down to the ground floor. You pushed it down reflexively, trying to breathe through the weight that was increasing on your chest, threatening to burst.

Light hit your face and warmth your skin, though it went no deeper into you and did nothing to set off the chill in your bones. The sun outside was weak but there. The sky wasn’t much blue but it lingered in spots between the clouds. The freedom of escaping this building was lost on you though, the air none the fresher and just as stifling as inside had been.

You were dazed, about to choke on acidic bile rising up inside your beating chest when the sounds of reality snapped back in your ears, however minimally.

They rung, like someone had been yelling, Bucky by the red-faced, chest-heaving look of him. He turned an angry eye from the Boss to you, softening and pained look replacing it as you looked back at him. You saw you were at the gate. The far reaches of your torturers power and domain.

You didn’t speak. Didn’t think. Didn’t feel. You hadn’t done any of those for some time now it seemed.

What you did do was pull the trigger three more times- one for each of Ward’s fingers he took- and left the Boss on the ground to bleed out without so much as looking at him.

Back on the compound there was quite the whirlwind of activity, everyone hearing about what happened from your brief radio home on the jet. It wasn’t exactly common occurrence for a lot of the past day to have happened. 

An Avenger kidnapped without anyone (save you) noticing, another member sneaking off and finding them, not calling for backup, saving the day and bringing the kidnapped Avenger back home relatively unscathed? It was not stretch to say usually things were a bit more structured with mission briefings, a plan of attack, a team assembled and leader to call the shots.

But from what you told them, no harm no foul really. Bucky kept generally quiet on the matter, except for concerned and pained looks in your direction speaking volumes and not going beyond notice. He was unusually quiet- even for him- with face pale and breath shallow, like it hurt him to breath in too much though there was no physical injury to account for it.

“I got in, found him, got him out,” you said to sum up again with a loose shrug, eyes locked to your friend’s. “He was being tortured, probably for some Avenger-related information but if that’s what they wanted, they really picked the wrong team member. He’s a tough one to crack, that Barnes.”

The lie roll off your tongue easily and coolly, as though reality had also been like that. Like this had all merely been as simple as a grocery run from a bad part of town.

You could see a hesitation in Natasha and in Steve behind her, like something in your demeanour wasn’t quite right. Their expressions wavered, their personal little ticks showing themselves: Steve’s concerned frown and a bit of a furrowed brow from Natasha.

It didn’t matter to you though, you would never tell them the truth anyway. Everyone has secrets, you still weren’t ready to give up yours yet.

So you stayed in the med bay for a time and got patched up, before listening to stories from Sam and Clint being their funny, foolish selves, always needing to bring the centre of attention back on them somehow. After that was a drink with the others now that everyone had congregated to see and hear the drama of the day, followed by jokes and laughter and mundane talk of political landscapes and such.

But eventually, after some hours when you were sure you wouldn’t be noticed, you slipped away.

You didn’t go to your room or escape to another quiet place of the compound. You couldn’t handle being inside any longer. Instead you walked calmly straight outside.

You carried straight on across the grass until the glow of the compound was only faint on your skin. Once enough distance was between you and them, you broke out into a run, breaching the forest line in a sprint, thrashed by twigs and scratched by bushes until you had enough.

Collapsing to the ground you gasped for breath, clutching your throat and the ground, body shaking and heart dying in your chest as panic and grief not only set in, but shattered both your facade and numbing shock with an explosion of sheer agony. You had no other option, no other ability but to face your past and the murdering of your only family member, and it stole every particle of oxygen from your body.

In among your strangled gasping, your body let out a sound from deep within your soul, choked out like that of a wounded creature, pitiful and unearthly in the dark night. It was pure pain, greater and deeper and from the most tortured dying place in your soul. The moan didn’t stop, just ran out and echoed alone louder and louder. The sound of it broke you over and over again.

The mask was broken, the pretense gone. The truth of where you were from and what you had to do laid bare and open in the darkness around you.

The mournful wretched moan from that dying part inside you snapped in half, a scream taking its place in a shrill ear-shattering volume, anguish flooding every inch of you like stabs to your flesh you just couldn’t see or get away from.

Footsteps sounded behind you, almost negligible to the sound of your cries, warm arms around your hunched over body barely a comfort to you at all.

Bucky’s frame was wrapped around yours, his scent and presence and touch unable to broach your pain. The stumble of his cheek was against yours, rough and bracing against your tear-softened skin.

“I didn’t- I didn’t want to go back!” you sobbed, unhinged and uncontrolled, face digging into his own. “Please, I just didn’t want to go back!”

“You won’t have too,” Bucky whispered to you, trying in vain to say something- anything- that would help a helpless situation. He knew what it was like to lose everything, to give up a piece of yourself to simply survive even when you don’t want too. But not what it was to kill your only family in this world. “You will never have to go back there.”

“He’s dead,” you sobbed, coming out like a high pitched shot, the words bringing more tears and more torment in your veins. “My brother’s dead, and I did it! Bucky, I killed him! How could I.. why could.. how can-”

Words tumbled out without reason or control, tears flooding your eyes and clothes.

And Bucky simply held you. There was nothing else to be done. Nothing he could say, no amount of gratitude or sympathy or reasoning able to fix this or take this pain away from you.

Like you, he could only endure it, his few tears slipping down with your endless ones.

A distance behind him the silhouettes of the Avengers lay dotted in the woods and on the ground in front of the compound, both called and held back by your sobs in the darkness, and as unable to help you as you were. As unable to erase the horrible place and what was done to you. To erase what horrors you had committed.

A/N: Thanks for reading loves! Let me know what you thought of this angst!

Permanent Tags: @dontpanc, @smodvocate, @bunsterjonez, @buckybonky, @marveloustrashpanda, @hangirl93, @captainrogerrsbeard, @friendly-neighborhood-lich-queen, @thisgirllikeme, @jjsoccer11, @innerpandablizzard-blog, @fanatic-fanfic, @mdgrdians, @christinky

Bucky Barnes Tags: @bexboo616 @kaaatniss

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky fanfiction #bucky fanfic #bucky angst #marvel #marvel fanfiction #avengers #avengers fanfiction #angst #behind enemy lines #behind enemy lines part two

[hannahindie]

Dean vs. The Mothman

Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Reader, The Mothman Word Count: 4,531 (Whoopsy doodles!) Warnings: Canon violence, language, sassy reader, and a date gone horribly wrong. A/N: I wrote this for two separate challenges. The first is for @waywardmoeyy and Moeyy’s Awkward Moments Birthday Challenge. My prompt is bolded in the fic below! The second was for @uniquewerewolfsuit’s Mythical Creatures Challenge. I had a blast writing it, and my words got slightly carried away. I really hope you all enjoy it as much I enjoyed writing it. However, I couldn’t have done it without my wonderful betas...

@trexrambling: “I was just hit with the memory of me making a lake of BBQ sauce on my plate and now I'm just sitting here giggling to myself hahaha” (I had to include this because this very incident is the reason I thought to put it in this fic. My ode to my sweet waterbear and her giant lake of barbecue sauce)

@pinknerdpanda: “Eek!!! Anxiety extreme” (Also, you can thank her for the song choice, because it fit perfectly and I love it. She’s my twin.)

As always, tags are at the bottom. If you’d like to be added, please send an ask or an IM. :)

The first thing you need to know is that grenade launchers are freaking awesome. The second thing you need to know is that they are also very loud, and a little more...explode-y than you would expect. The reason I say this is because I'm currently sitting on my ass, choking on concrete dust, and hoping to God I didn't just kill the two random dudes that had, for some reason, appeared in the middle of the bunker I had set my sights on. My eyes are on the slowly settling dust cloud, grenade launcher across my lap, and I breathe a sigh of relief when I see two shadowy figures emerge from the rubble.

“Oh shit, I thought I killed you.” I stand up and take a better look at the two men brushing debris off their shoulders and out of their hair. The shorter of the two squints through the dust, and the initial glare turns into a look of awe when he realizes what I'm holding.

“Is that...is that a grenade launcher?”

His voice is deep and gravelly, and it does things to me. I remind myself to keep that in mind for later, when I'm not trying to save a town from utter destruction.

The giant next to him rolls his eyes, “Don't even think about it.”

The shorter one grins, and even from here I can see the sparkle in his eyes. I like this one. “I’m both jealous and a little turned on right now.”

“Dean!” Sasquatch hisses, and I can't help but notice the dimples that form even when he's frowning. Good Lord, where did these men come from? Whatever they put in their water, they should probably keep drinking it.

“Well, you're a man after my own heart. I've been wanting to use this thing for a long time, but I was hoping it would be a little more successful. Sorry I almost blew you up.” I'm pretty sure I just shouted that. Am I shouting? I told you, grenade launchers are loud.

They walk closer to me, and the shorter one holds out his hand. I realize that the ‘shorter one’ is...not so short. Seriously, where are they from? “The name’s Dean. This is my brother Sam.”

I look from one to the other, and I can tell my mouth is hanging wide open. They can't possibly be who I think they are. “Winchester? Sam and Dean Winchester?” They look at each other in confusion, but I can't understand why. Surely they know that they're legends? Right?

“Yea...how do you know?” Dean asks, and he truly doesn't seem to know. They have no idea. Oh, bless ‘em.

“You guys are legendary. I mean, I figured ya’ll were real and not just some sort of fish tale, but to see you in person...holy shit.” I sling the grenade launcher over my shoulder and rest my free hand on my hip. “I'm glad I didn't blow you up. Although, knowing who you are, I'm guessing it wouldn't stick, huh?”

Sam laughs, “Hopefully not. So, I'm guessing you're a hunter too, then?”

I nod, “I try to be. I do okay… Luckily, this is the first time I've nearly blown someone up, so I guess I'm doing something right.”

Dean looks back over his shoulder at what's left of the old bunker I just demolished, “What are those, anyway? I've never seen anything like it. They're everywhere.”

I grin. These boys have no idea what they're up against, do they?

“Ya’ll ever heard of Mothman?”

“What did you think you were hunting when you got here? Surely you noticed what this town is famous for?” I say around the mouthful of burger I just took. Dean's watching me with this look that's a combination of awe and appreciation. It's like he's never seen a girl put away a burger.

“Well, yea, but there's no lore, and no indication that he's back. You've got a festival honoring him! Nobody seems to mind it, and the disappearances don't really match up with what happened before.” Sam looks flustered, and I start to feel bad for picking at him. This is a weird situation, after all.

Dean stops staring at me long enough to look at Sam, “What are you going on about?”

I grab a handful of fries and carefully begin to dip them one by one into the pool of barbecue sauce on my plate, “He’s talking about the Mothman’s M.O. It's not really his thing to take people. He's more of a...well, a death omen. Or a warning of impending disaster.” Dean looks confused, and I raise an eyebrow at Sam, “Didn't you tell him anything about it?”

Sam frowns, “Yea, I did. He just didn't listen.”

“Yes, I did! There's this giant moth-”

“Dean, it's not a giant moth! It's a Mothman-”

“What's the difference, Sam? It's a giant thing with wings, and it's taking people-”

“There's a huge difference-”

I slam my hands on the table, and the suddenness of it interrupts their bickering. Out of all the stories I've heard about the Winchesters, their sibling squabbles had been left out. It’s cute, but we have work to do.

“We don't have time to argue about who's right. Dean, since you weren't listening to your brother, here's the rundown.”

Dean grins at Sam, “I like her.” Sam just rolls his eyes, and I sigh.

“Great. Keep it in your pants, Winchester. We’ll talk about our feelings later. Anyway, in November of 1966 there's a report that several men digging a grave in Clendenin, West Virginia, saw a man-like figure flying overhead. It's sometimes considered the first sighting of Mothman, but the one you hear about the most, the official first sighting, happened in the TNT area a few days later by young couples that went parking.”

“TNT area...that's where we were earlier. Wasn't that a munitions plant during World War Two?” Sam had apparently done some research.

“Yea. If you look close enough, you can see that those bunkers are spread out in a very specific pattern. They were built like that in case one of them exploded; it would keep the others from going up. They're mostly empty now, although I think the Reserves use them for storage on occasion.”

Dean reaches for a fry on my plate, and I smack his hand. He frowns, “So where's this giant moth fit in?”

“According to the two couples, they saw a ‘large flying man with ten foot wings’, and when their headlights hit him, his eyes glowed red. So Mothman, not just a moth. He was seen by a few other people in the area. There were a couple of volunteer firefighters that described it as a large bird with red eyes. Someone else described its eyes as looking like bicycle reflectors, and another man blamed the strange noises coming from his television and the disappearance of his dog on this Mothman. The sheriff and a wildlife biologist claimed that it was a type of local heron or crane that can grow to be almost the size of a man.”

Dean sits back and crosses his arms, his eyes occasionally drifting back to the fries I've got left. “So...that's it? I thought you said it was a death omen, or a harbinger of impending disaster. So far, he's just scared some kids necking where they weren't supposed to.”

“That's where the Silver Bridge comes in. In December of 1967, the Mothman was spotted near the bridge and, shortly after, the bridge collapsed. Forty-six people were killed when they went into the water. The Mothman wasn’t seen again, and the locals began connecting his appearance with the bridge collapse.” After grabbing a couple more fries from the plate, I shove the rest at Dean and he smiles happily.

“So, what do you think? Is it really the Mothman?” Sam asks, frowning at Dean as he shoves a handful of fries into his mouth.

“Initially, no. Honestly, I just thought it was a giant owl and that some kids afraid of getting in trouble just made something up. I've made fun of it for years...until I saw it a couple weeks ago. I just happened to be going through town when I saw it on the top of the old Historic State theater. A few days later, the first couple disappeared. A hiker found them in the wildlife area...or what you'd know as the TNT area.”

“How do you know it was the Mothman and not someone or something else?” Dean asks as he polishes off the rest of the fries faster than I've ever seen anyone eat before; it's my turn to look impressed. He winks at me, and I feel my cheeks flush. His charm was something I had been warned about.

“Because the couple was found twenty feet up a tree, with talon marks as big as a damn pterodactyl. It's the Mothman,” I grumble.

Dean wipes his hands off on a napkin and tosses it on the now empty plate, then leans back in the booth, “So what was your plan earlier? Was a grenade launcher really the best option?”

I roll my eyes, “Listen, it wasn't my first choice, despite my overwhelming need to blow something up. I'm the only hunter that stays in this general area most of the time, I had to improvise. But since that plan didn't work, we’re on to plan B.”

Dean cocks an eyebrow, “And what would that be, sweetheart?”

I wiggle my eyebrows, “It's time for us to go on a date.”

Sam's standing outside of my car, his arms crossed and a look I can only describe as a mixture of amusement, jealousy, and irritation on his face. I'll give it to him; his facial expressions are what dreams are made of.

“Y/N, are you sure about this? Being bait isn't exactly the best plan…” He trails off, and I think he might actually be concerned.

I smile, “Sam, this isn't my first rodeo, and I'm usually on my own. And if it's Dean you're worried about, I think I can handle him.” I wink at him as Dean opens the driver's side door and climbs in.

“What are you two talking about?” he asks cautiously, his eyes moving between the two of us.

“Nothing. Let's get this show on the road. The faster we get this done, the faster I can get Norma’s famous apple pie.”

Dean looks at me with wide eyes, “There's pie?” I nod, and a wide smile crosses his face, “What are we waiting for then?” He turns the key, and Sam takes a step back. “You know the drill, Sammy. Stay close, but don't scare it off. This should be a piece of cake.” Sam nods and then walks to where the Impala is parked, gives a quick look over his shoulder, then disappears into the driver's seat.

“Is he always this anxious?” I ask as I fiddle with my seatbelt.

Dean scoffs, “Only when there's a pretty girl involved.” He glances at me from the corner of his eye and clears his throat, “You look nice. Pretty convincing date attire.” He pulls out into the main road, and I smooth down the edge of the dress I'd picked out earlier. I'm glad it's dark, or he'd be able to see how red my cheeks are.

“Thanks. I'm not really sure how observant a Mothman can be, but I figured we shouldn't chance it. I don't know how many more opportunities we’ll have, since I already blew one of his lairs to hell.”

Dean laughs, “Good point.” We drive in silence for a moment, and I guess it's too much for Dean because he turns on the radio.

Say you, say me say it for always That's the way it should be

Well, this is awkward. Nothing like Lionel Richie on a fake date, especially one that I'm beginning to think I'd like to be real. I clear my throat, “Turn here.”

Say you, say me say it together Naturally

Aside from the music, we travel the next few minutes in silence. I sneak a glance at Dean and his knuckles are white on the steering wheel. Surely he's not that worried about this hunt? I suppose he doesn't know me well enough to assume I'll be useful, but still.

“You can park here.”

He stops the car, but leaves it running. Lionel Richie is still going, Lord help me.

As we go down life's lonesome highway Seems the hardest thing to do is to find a friend or two That helping hand “So I guess we just wait?” I ask quietly, unsure of what to do now that we’re here.

Dean turns to face me as well as he can in the cramped front seat. Maybe we should have brought his car. “Well, we should probably sell it. You know, make it believable.”

“Mmhmm. That's...that's a good plan.” I'm stuttering because as I'm talking, he's moving closer to me. Dean Winchester is an inch away from my face, and never in a million years did I think this would ever be an option, fake or not.

Someone who understands That when you feel you've lost your way You've got someone there to say I'll show you

His hand gently cups my cheek, and it's rough and warm; a hunter’s hand. I can guess where the callouses and scars are from because I have my own. I close my eyes and drink it in for a moment. I've had my fair share of one night stands and meaningless romps in the backseat of this car, but it's been awhile, and something about Dean feels different. Ruse or not, I'm going to savor it.

Say you, say me say it for always That's the way it should be

Before I can open my eyes, his lips are on mine and boy are they a contrast to his rough hands. They're soft, and they fit against my lips like they were made to be there. His hand moves to my hair and his fingers are tangled and it takes everything I have to not moan when he gives it a gentle tug. If this is acting, what in the hell is this like for real? If I ever have the opportunity to find out, I might just die.

Say you, say me say it together Naturally

He smiles against me, and I pull back for air as I look at him questioningly, “What?”

“You're a good actress. For a second there, I thought you might be enjoying it.”

I shrug, “Well, it's all part of the gig. Sometimes you have to make some sacrifices.” I say it with a wink, and for the first time in my life I actually pull it off smoothly. ‘Atta girl.

Dean looks around, then squints through the window, “I don't see anything, do you? I don't hear anything, either.”

I look through the windshield, “No, but Lionel’s dulcet tones could be covering up any sound. Seems pretty quiet, though.”

Dean's eyebrows furrow in concentration, then he suddenly brightens as he looks at me with a grin, “I think we need to up the ante a little bit. Get in the backseat.”

I can feel my jaw drop, “Excuse me?”

Dean is already scrambling between the seats to get in the back, “We've gotta sell it, Y/N, or we’ll never catch the Mothman. Come on, hurry up.” I stare at him, suddenly recalling the stories that I'd heard that weren't so great. Sam and Dean were heroes but, by all accounts, also very dangerous. I've always ignored those bits but now, sitting in the dark with Dean after only knowing him for a few hours, I was beginning to wonder if I'd made a bad call.

He leans forward, and though the only light coming into the car is from the full moon, his moss green eyes shimmer. “Do you trust me?”

The answer should probably be no, but there's something different about Dean, something more than any other hunter I’ve met.

So you think you know the answers, Oh no Well the whole world has got you dancing That's right, I'm telling you It's time to start believing oh yes Believing who you are You are a shining star

“Yea, I trust you.”

He smiles, “Then come on!” He holds his hands out and I start to climb over the back seat. My feet get tangled and I can feel myself start to fall.

“Dean!” I shriek as I feel gravity take over and I start to fall awkwardly into the backseat. This is exactly why I never wear dresses. I feel arms wrap around my waist, and I squeal as I fall into Dean’s lap, “That was ladylike.”

Dean laughs, one arm draped across my lap and the other wrapped around my back. He wets his lips as his eyes search mine, “I thought it was adorable.” He somehow manages to flip us around so that my back is flush with the seat and he's hovering above me.

“That was smooth. You know, you could take a lady out to dinner first.”

He leans in, his lips ghosting over the shell of my ear, and I shiver. “Technically, I did pay for dinner...so…” He trails off and kisses me again. I wrap my arms around his neck, my fingers running through the short hairs at his nape, and sigh into him. Fake or not, this isn't something I'll be forgetting any time soon.

Say you, say me say it for always Oh that's the way it should be Say you, say me say it together Naturally Say it together, naturally

Just as the song fades out, I hear a snap of a twig. I pull away from Dean and put a finger to his lips to quiet him. I nod my head towards the sound and raise my eyebrows. He frowns as he cocks his head and tries to pinpoint where it came from. There's another snap, this time from a different direction, and Dean pushes himself away from me. Just as he begins to sit up, the door flies open, and he's jerked through the opening and into the darkness.

“Dean!”

I scramble to get out of the car, and all I can hear is thrashing and grunts as Dean tries to get away from whatever grabbed him. It occurs to me that the shotgun I have hidden for this very scenario is in the front seat and not the back, so I fumble with the door handle and dive into the front.

“Y/N! Run! It's not-” Dean’s frantic cries are interrupted by what sounds like an incredibly hard punch.

“I’m coming! Hold on!” I grab the shotgun but drop the handful of shells I'd grabbed from the glove compartment. “Shit!”

“Y/N, run! It's not Mothman, it's just a person! It's a person!”

I freeze. A person? All of the disappearances and Mothman sightings...and it's a person? Dean runs back out of the tree line and is waving towards the car, “Get in the car, go! Get Sam!”

I look back towards the car, then shake my head, “No. A monster is a monster, Dean! We can't let him hurt anyone else!”

Before Dean can answer, a huge man bursts through the brush and tackles Dean to the ground. Dean’s head hits the ground hard, and he goes limp. The man stands up and sneers at me. Shit. I aim the shotgun and pull the trigger, but it doesn't slow him down. He crosses the space between us in three huge strides, and I'm quickly trapped between him and the car. He backhands me hard across the mouth, and the force of it causes me to drop the shotgun.

“You're pretty. I like you...I might just keep you alive.” He's holding a knife, and I can feel the cool metal trace along my jaw and down to my throat. I try to pull away, but he’s twisted his hand into my hair and any move I make makes it feel like my scalp is on fire.

“You can take me, just leave him alone. Don't hurt him anymore.” There's a tightness in my throat, and it occurs to me that I'm willing to sacrifice myself for a man I barely know...but it's also a man that's lost almost everything to save the rest of us.

The man holding me laughs, “You obviously don't know how this works.” He leans in, and I cringe as he sniffs my hair. “I can't leave someone alive. I'd get caught. The difference with you is that you're not going to get away, alive or not. I think that's worth the exception.”

I take a deep breath, “I see…” I pull my leg back as far as I can with the car behind me and kick him in the balls as hard as I can. Whatever protected him from the shotgun blast I sent his way didn't cover that part of his body, and he releases me with a whining groan as he falls to his knees. I bring my knee up hard into his chin, and it gives with a sickening crack. I think I just broke his jaw. He falls over, and I run over to Dean, sliding to a stop next to him.

“Dean! Hey, handsome, c’mon. Wake up...please wake up. We've gotta go, I think I broke him.” Dean groans and rolls his head towards the sound of my voice, but his eyes stay closed. “Dammit, Dean, get up!” I look up, and instead of the collapsed giant I expected to see, the grass is empty. “Shit! Dean, come on-” I'm cut short when something grabs me by the hair from behind, “Shit!” I scream, the pain the worst I've ever felt. The monstrous man drags me by the hair back to the car, and I can feel every stick and stone on the ground digging into my flesh. I'm crying, I can't help it. I try to call for Sam, but the only sound I can make is a strangled sob.

The man remains quiet, and when I look up I see that his jaw is at an awkward angle. How he's functioning enough to continue his attack, I have no idea, but I do know that nothing I can do at this point will stop him. Short of Sam showing up, Dean and I are screwed.

The man twists my arm behind me, hard, and shoves me into the ground. I can feel the bone aching to give, and one more twist will probably do it. I squeeze my eyes shut and wait, but the moment never comes. Instead, a strong gust of wind blows over us, and the man releases his grip on my arm. I scramble away and cower against the car as I look up and see the impossible. After everything I've killed, every monster I've fought that by all accounts shouldn't have existed, the very one I grew up listening to stories about is above my head, it's giant wings sending waves of dusty air in my face.

The Mothman swoops down and hits the man with a giant claw, tearing a gash across the man’s face. The only thing he can do is scream as he hits the ground. He throws his arms up in front of him, as if that's going to stop whatever the huge creature is going to do next. It drops down and wraps both talons around him, one close to his throat and one around his waist, and flies up into the air.

“Y/N!” I jerk my head around and see Sam running across the clearing, his eyes wide as he slides to a stop next to me. “Are you okay? What the hell is going on?”

“It wasn't the Mothman...it was just a person, Sam. A person did all of it.” I look up into the sky to see the large creature disappear into the trees, deep in the TNT area. The serial killer that had been wreaking havoc in Point Pleasant was just a dot in its huge feet. “I think...I think the Mothman just saved us.”

Sam helps me stand up, and I cradle my arm gently against my chest. I hear a groan and look over to see Dean slowly sitting up, a hand to his head. He looks over and sees me and Sam standing dumbfounded.

“What the hell happened?” he mumbles.

I look back up at the lightening sky and shake my head, “You're never gonna believe it.”

The Impala is warm against my back as I lean against it, my bones aching with a combination of exhaustion and the wringer they'd been put through earlier. I close my eyes and let the sun soak into my bruised skin. The last twenty four hours have been a whirlwind, and I am looking forward to curling up in bed and sleeping for the next week. I hear someone walk up to me, accompanied by the familiar hiss of a beer bottle being opened. I open my eyes and raise an eyebrow.

“A little early for that, isn't it?”

Dean pops open another one and hands it to me, “Nah. We've not been to sleep yet, doesn't count.”

I take it and sigh contentedly as I wrap my fingers around the cool glass, “Fair enough.” I take a long drag and relish the earthy bitterness of the beer as it slides down my throat. “So. Mothman is actually trying to help people. Like, that's a legit thing that's happening.”

Dean shrugs, “Weirder things have happened.” He raises his beer to his lips, and I can't help but wish our little show hadn't been interrupted. Not really something I should think about right now, but you make out with Dean Winchester and see if you can think of anything else.

“I can't think of any, but sure.” We watch the sky for a moment, and I feel him shift a little closer to me. “How long are you guys staying?”

“I figure we’ll take at least a day or so. We don't have anything lined up and…” his hand drops down to where mine is, and his fingers intertwine with mine, “I know someone that I owe an actual date. One that involves Norma’s famous apple pie.”

“Oh, yea?”

He smiles, and it's enough to stop the world. “Yea. A serial killer interrupted us, kinda put a damper on things.”

“Hmm...I didn't know that was a real date. I just thought you were a really good actor.” I grin at him, and he shakes his head.

Dean grabs the beer from my hand and sits both of them down, then grabs me by the waist and pulls me into him, “Oh, you'd know if I was acting. That was the real deal, sweetheart. I guess I'll just have to show you again.”

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#moeyy’s awkward moments birthday challenge #mythical creatures challenge #supernatural fanfiction #dean winchester #sam winchester #dean x reader #reader insert #mothman

[fontonascreen]

Basically posting this just to show off my headcanon that Crow rides a Big Wheel. Under the cut because it’s ramble-y.

Tom and Crow were waiting at the top of the basement stairs. Their creator had been down in what was affectionately referred to as his lab all afternoon working on a project for ConGypsCo. Some mid-80s college rock blared from his stereo as soldering fumes wafted up to them.

“Hey, Joel!” Crow yelled.

The music suddenly got quieter and Joel yelled back, “What?”

“Can we go outside?” Tom asked.

“Uh, yeah. Just stay in the yard!”

“Sweet!” Crow cheered.

Joel heard Crow scamper outside, rolled his eyes, and went back to his soldering.

Crow drug his big wheel out of the garage and mounted it.  He scooted down the driveway at a painfully slow speed, his long legs making pedal based travel difficult.

Tom, having no legs, was unable to ride any pedal based vehicle and ended up hovering behind him making generic motor noises.

The game went on for a while until Tom finally started whining. “I don’t want to play Warrior of the Lost World anymore.”

“We weren’t playing Warrior of the Lost World,” Crow replied. He swiveled his head around to face his brother quizzically. “Is that why you kept calling yourself Megaweapon and trying to run me over? Huh, sort of makes sense now…”

Tom sounded confused. “What were you playing?”

“I was about to ask you if it was time to accidentally murder somebody because I was jealous that my best friend got a singing contract.”

“Let’s regroup here…”

“Should I be shooting up heroine?” Crow asked.

“We could start a seemingly meaningless bar fight and utterly get our own asses kicked.”

“Only if I can be a down on my luck stock car racer who is secretly working for the county police.”

Suddenly, Tom blurted out, “Car!” and smashed into the back of Crow’s bike making it skid a few inches.

“Servo! We’re not playing Warrior of the Lost World anymore!” he whined. Joel’s station wagon pulled past them into the driveway. “Oh. It’s just Mike.”

“Hi guys, whatcha up to?” Mike asked once he had gotten out and grabbed a bag of groceries from the back seat.

“Playing generic biker movie,” Tom replied like it was obvious.

Mike only smiled and nodded. “Ah. Well, I’m going to get dinner started. Stay off the road.“

“We will,” Tom and Crow both replied. They sounded bored.

They waited until their other dad was inside before resuming their game.

“Ah ha! Come get me, copper!” Crow cackled and started to pedal away… slowly. He got about three feet before his front wheel rolled off the pavement into the yard and he got stuck. Grunting from the effort, he rocked back and forth trying to free himself. It wasn’t very successful. “Aw, damn… Hey, Servo! A little help?”

Tom was in the middle of hovering circles around him and singing “Bad to the Bone”. Suddenly, he stopped mid-verse and froze, his gaze fixed on their next-door neighbor who had apparently been giving them the stink-eye for the past 5 minutes. “Uh, Crow?”

“What?” Crow spat, irritated.

“Remember that neighbor Joel and Mike told us to ignore?”

“Yeah. What about her?”

“I think she’s coming over here.”

Crow turned so he was looking in the same direction as Tom. Sure enough, their tiny, tight-faced neighbor looked even more tight-faced as she strode toward them.

The first time they had met the woman was the day they moved in. She had spent a good forty-five minutes sneaking around the house, trying to peek in their windows. After catching Mike and Joel in a rather chaste “welcome home” kiss, she decided that she needed to spend every chance she could get evangelizing them. The fact that this apparent couple had, what she called, homosexual robotic demon spawn, didn’t help their case either.

Crow and Tom stared at her, their beaks agape, vaguely realizing that it was too late to run. As a last resort, Tom hid behind Crow.

Their neighbor briskly made her way across the driveway, her modest flats making faint clopping sounds as she did so, and stopped in front of the two cowering bots. “Hello,” she greeted, her voice falsely sweet

Crow tentatively looked up at her face. She looked like a cat taunting its food.

“Hi, Mrs. Soderstrom,” they mumbled.

She didn’t waste any time. “Do you know where you’re going to go after you die?”

Crow stared at her, clearly not amused by the question. His ping-pong ball eyes were more blank than usual.

Tom continued to cower behind his brother. “Our dads told us not to talk to you!” he blurted.

Mrs. Soderstrom’s smile became pained for a second, but she quickly changed her question. “Do you know where your… dads are going to go when they die?”

“Joel said he assumes he’s just going to stop existing,” Crow admitted. “He wants a boring funeral if you ask me.”

“Are you aware that your dads are going to go to Hell? Do you know what Hell is?”

Crow and Tom glanced at each other.

“Uh, The Beatles?” Tom guessed.

“Mike always said he thought that all our time spent having to watch bad movies was Hell,” Crow answered. “Well, at the very least, purgatory…”

Mrs. Soderstrom’s smile turned into more of a self-satisfied smirk. “Jesus Christ, the Son of God, described Hell as a place of outer darkness where there will be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. A place of regret, torment in fire and no water.”

“That sort of sounds like our first apartment actually,” Crow replied.

Tom started whimpering.

“You will be thrown into a fiery lake of burning sulfur where the smoke of those tormented there goes up forever and they find no rest…”

“So, basically a giant hot tub… of fire?” Crow asked.

“That doesn’t sound very nice at all,” Tom said through some sniffles.

“Do you want to know how to save your dads from Hell?”

Tom nodded.

Crow looked skeptical. “Just so we’re clear, why are Joel and Mike going to Hell exactly?”

Mrs. Soderstrom gave them their first genuine smile. “Well, the Bible condemns homosexuality as an immoral and unnatural sin. Leviticus 18:22 states: Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

Crow’s skepticism turned to confusion. “But… our dads never lie to each other.”

“Yeah. They’re both pretty honest fellas,” Tom added, his voice wavering.

“Look!” Mrs. Soderstrom snapped, her patience ending for a second before going back to her fake tone. “Do you know about the creation account in Genesis?”

Tom looked up at her. “You mean the ‘let there be light’ one?”

“The one with the snake who sort of sounds like Gilbert Godfrey?” Crow added.

The woman closed her eyes briefly and sighed through her nose, trying to keep from yelling at them. Her forced smile returned and the sight made Tom slip behind Crow again. “Genesis 1:1 teaches that “in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” On the sixth day, God created Adam. When God created a partner for Adam He created Eve—not another Adam.” She bent down so she was about eye level with Crow. “You see boys, God wants your daddies to have mommies. Wouldn’t you rather have a mommy?”

“We don’t need a mom!” Tom protested, but then he unsurely glanced at Crow. “Do we?”

Crow shrugged.

“Don’t you need someone to clean and do the laundry?”

“Well, actually, Joel does that…” Crow said.

“Then, who cooks?”

“Mike,” Tom replied.

Mrs. Soderstrom began to get flustered again. “Who pays the bills? Does the taxes?”

Crow started staring blankly at her again, unsure of where this line of questioning was going. “Servo.” He looked around. “Can we leave, now?”

Tom’s voice lowered into a comedic whisper. “Crow! Crow, let’s go!” He made a few pathetic whining noises and started hovering to the door.

He looked after Tom, not sure of what he was supposed to do. Turning to face the neighbor, there was a beat before he blurted, “Uh… Bye!” Crow awkwardly crawled off his bike, tripping and falling on his face before hurrying off so he could open the door for Tom. His claws slipped on the handle until he managed to push it open. He heard her trying to pray after them as he made it inside.

Mike was in the middle of slicing up vegetables for a stir-fry when Tom flew by him. “Hey Servo, how’d generic biker movie go?”

Tom replied with a whine, and continued down into the basement.

Crow trudged in after him.

“What’s up with Servo?” Mike asked.

Crow sighed and joined him at the counter. “I dunno.” He watched Mike cut peppers as the neighbor lady’s words swam around his head. Did he really need a mom? Suddenly, he had an epiphany. “Mike?”

Mike replied with a hum.

“I don’t want to alarm you with this news, but it appears that I’m a Disney princess.”

He chuckled. “What?”

“Think about it! I don’t have a mom, my dad’s a crazy inventor who fell in love with a beast…”

“Crow, it was the princess who fell in love with the… Hey!”

Crow ignored him. “… I’m beautiful, of course. I have a magical connection to most woodland creatures. I tend to sing a lot. I can paint with all the colors of the wind. I always seem to be missing a shoe. I’m overly trusting. I sometimes struggle to remember the proper names for common household objects…”

Mike snorted. “Well, Crow, it seems like the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of you being a Disney princess. Congratulations.”

“I’m glad that’s settled.” Crow was silent for a couple of seconds. “Do you think some day my prince will come?”

Mike threw his hands up, exasperated. “I don’t know!”

“Yeah, he’s totally going to come…”

Meanwhile, Tom was confronting Joel down in the basement. He hovered over to his father and set himself down on his workbench.

Joel glanced at him, but continued studying his blueprints. “Hey, Buddy. What’s up?”

Tom looked over the plans for a few seconds. These particular ones were scribbled over a few spare napkins and the back of an old grocery list. He looked up and sighed. “Joel?”

He smiled at him. “What?”

“Joel? Are we going to go to Hell because we don’t have a mom?”

Joel’s face dropped. Straightening up, he cleared his throat and put a comforting hand on Tom’s shoulder. “That’s an oddly specific question, honey.”

“The neighbor lady, the one who lives next door, y’know? Said because you and Mike lie to each other, God made Adam and Eve. And since we don’t have a mommy, God was going to throw you and Mike into a giant hot tub that sounds like our first apartment!” Tom cried. He ended with over dramatic sobbing

Joel’s brow furrowed, not quite following Tom’s rambling. The little robot buried his face into his side and Joel wrapped his arms around him. “Calm down, Tom. What were you saying about our neighbor?”

“She said you and Mike were going to go to Hell. But it sounded scary and not fun at all and I don’t want you to go there,” he explained through sobs.

“Well, it’s sweet that you’re worried about us, but remember what I said about our neighbor?”

Tom sniffed. “That she’s one weird…”

“Mama jama,” Joel finished.  He leaned his forehead on Tom’s dome so he was eyelevel with him. “That’s right and you shouldn’t listen to her. No one’s going to Hell.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. Don’t worry your little head about it. Okay?”

“Okay, Joel,” Tom said before shifting positions and wiggling his head so it looked like he was wiping his nose on Joel’s shirt.

Joel patted him on the back, as Tom moved away from him. “Are you going to be alright?”

“I think so.” He went back to looking at Joel’s blueprints. “What are you making anyway?”

Joel picked up a metal cylinder and examined it. “Well, it’s supposed to be a self-sustaining, self-cleaning, exhaust filter, but it’s not exactly turning out like I’d hoped.” He held it up to his ear and shook it. It made a hissing sound.

Tom glanced at Joel uncertainly. “Is it supposed to do that?”

Joel put it down and slowly got in between the cylinder and Tom. “I don’t think so.” He tensed and turned away from it slightly and grimaced, waiting for something to happen.

The cylinder finally made a muffled pop and emitted a puff of smoke. There was an electrical surge before it finally started to vibrate and give off a subtle green glow.

“What the Sam Scratch did you put in that thing?” Tom demanded.

Joel stared at it dumbly. “Baking soda. A lot of baking soda.”

“Wow! You pulled a Mike. Good one, Joel!”

“You get the salad tongs. I’ll get the old refrigerator open…”

“Honey? You okay?” Mike called from the kitchen.

“Yeah, the lights did the thing!” Crow added, scurrying to the top of the basement stairs. He was met by Tom coming up the other way.

“Joel made a nuclear reactor out of baking soda,” Tom informed him. Begrudgingly, he hovered to get a pair of tongs from Mike.

“Cool! Can I see?”

“Stay upstairs, honey. You’ve absorbed more than enough radiation for one lifetime.”

#I apologize for this being ramble-y. #gay space dads universe #and their robot children #and their weird neighbors #Crazy Christians

[mnm-inc-miles]

05/30/2019

JACKxJJ

Jack didn’t text his brother before coming over, afraid he’d tell him not too. He stood on the porch debating knocking when the door swung open and JJ almost plowed him over.

“JJ...” he jumped in surprise.

“Jack,” his eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay...cuz tonight was rough. And you seemed...”

“You couldn’t call? Or text?”

“I uh...” he took a moment to observe his brothers appearance, he had what looked like a gym bag and a distant look in his eyes. “Where are you going?”

JJ eyed his brother a moment, looked at his own bag then back at his brother and sighed. “Nowhere; why don’t you come in.”

“I can go if you don’t...”

“Jack stop,” he spoke with surprising gentleness. “You’re here, you should stay, it’s late. Can I get you anything?”

“A burger?”

JJ raises a brow, his face lighting slightly, “Was that a joke?” There was a tinge of aggravation in his voice that time.

“Uh, kinda but, I am a bit peckish...I didn’t eat much for dinner. You have leftovers right?”

JJ looked suspicious but offered a chuckle, “From the BBQ? Yes, I can warm one up for you.”

“Are you hungry?” Jack chewed his cheek when he asked the question, and tried to look calm as his brother watched him and took his time responding. Eating when others are was always easier, at least while he still had control over the compulsion.

“I could eat,” he spoke nonchalantly, as if there was nothing beyond his statement but the words themselves. He read Jack easily, knowing his brother would feel uncomfortable eating on his own. “I‘ll have fries too.” Reaching in the freezer he dumped a sizable portion on the tray, clearly intending on sharing.

Jack sat down and started talking about this that and the other as JJ listened and cooked the food. His brother was a man of few words, he often got his point across with less words than most people and he often preferred to listen. Jack was not so much the same, he wasn’t exactly talkative, but it took a lot to get his point across.

As JJ finished preparing he placed to plates down on the table and pursed his lips, “drinks?”

“Oh yeah...I’ll have water, that’s fine.”

“What about wine?” JJ offered and his brother shrugged. Grabbing a bottle and some glasses he finally sat down next to Jack.

“So...” Jack gingerly poked the burger and gently tossed a few fries around his plate then looked at his brother who took a huge bite from his own plate. “Are you ok, you looked like you were going somewhere when I got here...” JJ inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. “Sorry...” he paused. “I’m...sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”

“Why don’t we eat first, you’ll give me indigestion.”

“You’ll talk after?” Jack cocked his head in surprise. JJ gave a slight nod as he took another bite. Jack looked at his burger and felt nauseous, then back at his brother. “Were you even actually hungry when I said I was?”

“Were you?” JJ responded. He often answered other people’s questions either with another question or just rather vaguely depending on the topic. He had a point though. Jack knew it and he sighed and resigned to eating his own food.

He finished half the burger and a fry by the time JJ cleaned his plate. “Need a doggie bag?” JJ smiled, reaching for the plate.

Jack wanted to tell him not to assume he was finished but, in fact he was. His brother, generally, was quite adept at reading people. “Cute,” he smiled back as JJ wrapped the plate and put it in the fridge. “So...what happened today?”

“I don’t know,” JJ stated matter-of-factly. “I honestly...I don’t have an answer for that, it was...a new sensation for me.”

“You completely shut down after you lowered the music...”

“I am well aware...”

“But you were able to talk to Benni some...”

“I’m a pretty capable man most days.” There was a silence for a moment and JJ moved to the next room, Jack shuffled after him.

“What were you thinking?” He stood in the doorway of the living room as JJ sat on the couch and held his head in his hands. “You said it was different, so it wasn’t a vision thing?” JJ was quiet and Jack moved closer. “You’ve got to be able to explain it somehow...”

JJ shook his head, his face still in his palms. “I...I don’t know,” his voice was tender, to the point of breaking. “The best I can describe it was a headache. I just...when I turned it down, and I had no idea it would effect me either, but when I turned it down...I suddenly felt like my head would explode. But it wasn’t painful, it was just pressure...and everything around me...it felt like someone put noise cancelling headphones over my ears...”

Jack slowly made his way to JJ’s side and sat down gently, he touched JJ’s back and felt his brothers tension suddenly melt away. “That sounds awful...but it didn’t seem to last right? I mean, you did talk to Benni.”

Nodding, JJ offered a shrug. “Maybe it was an equilibrium thing, I won’t begin to pretend I have all the answers, and Benni, I miss her it was easy for me to push through the discomfort. Plus, when I shut down she gets upset. Sometimes, she also lets me get away with it other times, she’s...a complete enigma to me.”

“Really?” Jack raises a brow. “Someone is an enigma to you?”

“Please,” JJ sighed with a slight smile. “I might act like I know people, and I think mostly I just get lucky, but she’s not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

Jack slapped his own thighs, “Then why the heck did you let her go?”

Tears formed in JJ’s eyes and Jack immediately regretted the question. It was quiet for a moment before JJ spoke, “You heard her, she was thinking about it anyway. Plus she’ll be happier with him. I’m really not easy to get on with romantically. I’m a loner, and before you get on me about being able to change...I don’t have a desire too. I’ve done a lot of changing already, and yes people always continue to grow as they live their life. But right now, I am who I am, I can’t always be available to people emotionally, even physically. I just need the space. I guess I’ll find someone that can handle that, maybe. I’m not saying never...I just know I’m a difficult person to pair off with.”

“I wish you wouldn’t pigeon hole yourself...”

“Jack...” JJ stood up and began walking away. “I’m tired, are you coming to bed with me or do you want a guest room?”

“I’m sorry...”

“For what?”

“We were talking, and now you want to go.”

“It’s not personal Jack, I just...I don’t have anything else to say. I’m tired, my head hurts, I just...” his voice broke and he paused, looking up at the ceiling. He exhaled and looked back at his brother. “I’m very tired...and emotional, I need to sleep on it.”

Jack walked over to his brother and pulled him into a hug. He once again felt his brothers tension ease up with the affection. “I’m sorry about Luke and...” JJ tensed again and pulled away, headed toward the stairs. “Hey, please let me finish.” But his brother continued up the stairs and down the hall toward the bedroom. Jack plodded after him eagerly, “I am sorry you lost them, but I get it okay...” he finally caught up and grabbed JJ’s wrist. “I know you’re protecting Colin, I can only imagine how hard it is to admit what you need to do, and I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner...” JJ’s knees buckled and he slowly let his body find the ground. Jack wrapped his arms around his brother who started to cry. “It’s okay...you need to understand that more than you need to prove to anyone else that this is the right call. You feel guilty and I can tell it’s hurting you. You have to let it out and then let it go.”

“I’m a terrible father Jack...dad always thought he was, but he was always here for me...even at some of my darkest moments, I can’t...I just can’t do it. Especially in this place...there’s too much evil...”

“You don’t have to convince me,” Jack whispered as he ran his fingers through his brothers hair. “I love you, I’ll always support you. There’s nothing about you I’ve ever been ashamed of. You’re a good man, dad knew it too.”

JJ cried harder as his brother hugged him tightly. The two sat in the ground for the rest of the hour when JJ finally breathed a sigh and began to stand up. “Alright,” he offered a slight smile. “Now I’m definitely tired...”

“I almost fell asleep on the ground,” Jack offered jokingly in return. They readied themselves for bed and as they lay in silence JJ rolled over and hugged Jack tightly in wordless gratitude.

[mnm-inc-miles]

1 WRITING

JACKxJJ

Jack didn’t text his brother before coming over, afraid he’d tell him not too. He stood on the porch debating knocking when the door swung open and JJ almost plowed him over.

“JJ...” he jumped in surprise.

“Jack,” his eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay...cuz tonight was rough. And you seemed...”

“You could call? Or text?”

“I uh...” he took a moment to take in his brothers appearance, he had what looked like a gym bag and a distant look in his eyes. “Where are you going?”

JJ eyed his brother a moment, looked at his own bag then back at his brother and sighed. “Nowhere; why don’t you come in.”

“I can go if you don’t...”

“Jack stop,” he spoke with surprising gentleness. “You’re here, you should stay, it’s late. Can I get you anything?”

“A burger?”

JJ raises a brow, his face lighting slightly, “Was that a joke?” There was a tinge of aggravation in his voice that time.

“Uh, kinda but, I am a bit peckish...I didn’t eat much for dinner. You have leftovers right?”

JJ laughed, “From the BBQ? Yes, I can warm one up for you.”

“Are you hungry?” Jack chewed his cheek when he asked the question, and tried to look calm as his brother watched him and took his time responding. Eating when others are was always easier, at least while he still has control over the compulsion.

“I could eat,” he spoke nonchalantly, as if there was nothing beyond his statement but the words themselves. He read Jack easily, knowing his brother would feel uncomfortable eating on his own. “I‘ll have fries too.” Reaching in the freezer he dumped a sizable portion on the tray, clearly intending on sharing.

Jack sat down and started talking about this that and the other as JJ listener and cooked the food. His brother was a man of few words, he often got his point across with less words than most people and he often preferred to listen. Jack was not so much the same, he wasn’t exactly talkative, but it took a lot to get his point across.

As JJ finished preparing he placed to plates down on the table and pursed his lips, “drinks?”

“Oh yeah...I’ll have water, that’s fine.”

“What about wine?” JJ offered and his brother shrugged. Grabbing a bottle and some glasses he finally sat down next to Jack.

“So...” Jack gingerly poked the burger and gently tossed a few fries around his plate then looked at his brother who took a huge bite from his own plate. “Are you ok, you looked like you were going somewhere when I got here...” JJ inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. “Sorry...” he paused. “I’m...sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”

“Why don’t we eat first, you’ll give me indigestion.”

“You’ll talk after?” Jack cocked his head in surprise. JJ gave a slight nod as he took another bite. Jack looked at his burger and felt nauseous, then back at his brother. “Were you even actually hungry when I said I was?”

“Were you?” JJ responded. He often answered other people’s questions either with another question or just rather vaguely depending on the topic. He had a point though. Jack knew it and he sighed and resigned to eating his own food.

He finished half the burger and a fry by the time JJ cleaned his plate. “Need a doggie bag?” JJ smiled, reaching for the plate.

Jack wanted to tell him not to assume he was finished but, in fact he was. His brother, generally, was quite adept at reading people. “Cute,” he smiled back as JJ wrapped the plate and put it in the fridge. “So...what happened today?”

“I don’t know,” JJ stated matter-of-factly. “I honestly...I don’t have an answer for that, it was...a new sensation for me.”

“You completely shut down after you lowered the music...”

“I am well aware...”

“But you were able to talk to Benni some...”

“I’m a pretty capable man most days.” There was a silence for a moment and JJ moved to the next room, Jack shuffled after him.

“What were you thinking?” He stood in the doorway of the living room as JJ sat on the couch and held his head in his hands. “You said it was different, so it wasn’t a vision thing?” JJ was quiet and Jack moved closer. “You’ve got to be able to explain it somehow...”

JJ shook his head, his face still in his palms. “I...I don’t know,” his voice was tender, to the point of breaking. “The best I can describe it was a headache. I just...when I turned it down, and I had no idea it would effect me either, but when I turned it down...I suddenly felt like my head would explode. But it wasn’t painful, it was just pressure...and everything around me...it felt like someone put noise cancelling headphones over my ears...”

Jack slowly made his way to JJ’s side and sat down gently, he touched JJ’s back and felt his brothers tension suddenly melt away. “That sounds awful...but it didn’t seem to last right? I mean, you did talk to Benni.”

Nodding, JJ offered a shrug. “Maybe it was an equilibrium thing, I won’t begin to pretend I have all the answers, and Benni, I miss her it was easy for me to push through the discomfort. Plus, when I shut down she gets upset. Sometimes, she also lets me get away with it other times, she’s...a complete enigma to me.”

“Really?” Jack raises a brow. “Someone is an enigma to you?”

“Please,” JJ sighed with a slight smile. “I might act like I know people, and I think mostly I just get lucky, but she’s not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

Jack slapped his own thighs, “Then why the heck did you let her go?”

Tears formed in JJ’s eyes and Jack immediately regretted the question. It was quiet for a moment before JJ spoke, “You heard her, she was thinking about it anyway. Plus she’ll be happier with him. I’m really not easy to get on with romantically. I’m a loner, and before you get on me about being able to change...I don’t have a desire too. I’ve done a lot of changing already, and yes people always continue to grow as they live their life. But right now, I am who I am, I can’t always be available to people emotionally, even physically. I just need the space. I guess I’ll find someone that can handle that, maybe. I’m not saying never...I just know I’m a difficult person to pair off with.”

“I wish you wouldn’t pigeon hole yourself...”

“Jack...” JJ stood up and began walking away. “I’m tired, are you coming to bed with me or do you want a guest room?”

“I’m sorry...”

“For what?”

“We were talking, and now you want to go.”

“It’s not personal Jack, I just...I don’t have anything else to say. I’m tired, my head hurts, I just...” his voice broke and he paused, looking up at the ceiling. He exhaled and looked back at his brother. “I’m very tired...and emotional, I need to sleep on it.”

Jack walked over to his brother and pulled him into a hug. He once again felt his brothers tension ease up with the affection. “I’m sorry about Luke and...” JJ tensed again and pulled away, headed toward the stairs. “Hey, please let me finish.” But his brother continued up the stairs and down the hall toward the bedroom. Jack plodded after him eagerly, “I am sorry you lost them, but I get it okay...” he finally caught up and grabbed JJ’s wrist. “I know you’re protecting Colin, I can only imagine how hard it is to admit what you need to do, and I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner...” JJ’s knees buckled and he slowly let his body find the ground. Jack wrapped his arms around his brother who started to cry. “It’s okay...you need to understand that more than you need to prove to anyone else that this is the right call. You feel guilty and I can tell it’s hurting you. You have to let it out and then let it go.”

JJ cried harder as his brother hugged him tightly. The two sat in the ground for the rest of the hour when JJ finally breathed a sigh and began to stand up. “Alright,” he offered a slight smile. “Now I’m definitely tired...”

“I’m a terrible father Jack...dad always thought he was, but he was always here for me...even at some of my darkest moments, I can’t...I just can’t do it. Especially in this place...there’s too much evil...”

“You don’t have to convince me,” Jack whispered as he ran his fingers through his brothers hair. “I love you, I’ll always support you. There’s nothing about you I’ve ever been ashamed of. You’re a good man, dad knew it too.”