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jcogginsawriter · 3 years

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Hand to Hand: Mark Waid’s Flash

I have been a fan of comic book characters for a long time. I started with the cartoons, and as I got older, I began doing deep dives into wikis, reading fanfiction, and participating in that shallowest of internet past times, the vs debate. I dabbled in writing fanfic for myself, but I spent far more time thinking about writing fanfic instead. I would come up with all these ideas about what I would take from the various different versions of the characters, and don’t get me started on the idea of Crossovers. The point is, I knew a lot of what happened in the comics, but I never read many comics. I didn’t know where my local comic shop was, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have had the money to spend on them. The comics that I did read were usually fan translations of manga. I did read a few comics, big name stories like Death of Superman or Crisis on Infinite Earths, but they were few and far between.

Recently, I’ve begun to change that. I now follow several comics as they come out, most notably the current X-line. This change sprang in part because I began reading a lot more comics criticism. In particular, I followed the blog of a certain Superman fan, and began to eagerly digest his various takes. I wanted to be able to ask him questions about new comics without looking like an idiot (This is how 90 percent of my interactions on comics twitter go, BTW) and that was a kick in the pants for me.

After getting into a steady habit, I decided to look into reading some of the classic runs I’d read so much about throughout life. To go from knowing them second hand, to knowing them first hand. After a bit of hemming and hawing, I’ve settled on Mark Waid’s legendary run of Flash Comics to start off with.

(Spoiler Warning for some 30 year old comics, by the way)

As of this writing, I have read up to the final issue of his story arc Dead Heat, wherein Wally does battle with the speed cultist Savitar. Before we get into things like plot and characters, I want to discuss the art, because no discussion of comic books is really complete without talking about the art. Unfortunately, the art in this run hasn’t done much for me, but that’s not really it’s fault. I read this comics in manner that they were not created to be read, digitally and zoomed in. These comics were drawn with physical issues in mind, and I don’t doubt that they’re good in that format. It also doesn’t help that I’ve read far more manga than I have American comics. American comics have never clicked with me the way manga does. Even now, I still find the layout of manga more legible than the layout of an American comic. That’s not a value judgment, it’s just my personal experience.

I do distinctly recall thinking that the art was better up to issue #79 (The conclusion to the Return of Barry Allen storyline), than it was after. I prefer the less exaggerated character designs, and lighter inks, though it could very well be a case of me having gotten used to the initial style and not liking the change. One thing that thing I can say about the art is that it helped me grasp how Wally’s costume differed from Barry’s. Before this, I was incapable of separating them in my mind, but seeing them side by side made it clear to me how different Wally’s Costume was colored and shaded.

Now, onto the writing of the run, we’ll start with the lead, Wally West. My previous touchstone for Wally was the Justice League series from the DCAU, which I watched a lot as a kid. The Wally in these comics comes off as more serious that his DCAU incarnation. Not too serious, he still cracks jokes, but he’s more on the ball. He takes his adventures as seriously as any hero would, rather than the more carefree attitude I recall his DCAU version having. This is not unsurprising, Wally here is the lead whereas there he was part of an ensemble cast, and here we get his internal monologue which gives us a much more thorough sense of his headspace. Not to mention, the DCAU version was voiced, so we know with no ambiguity what tone his dialogue’s in. In text, tone is more up to interpretation.

Perhaps the biggest thing that set Comic Wally apart from DCAU Wally is that the Wally in the comic was more consistently angry and frustrated. While his DCAU incarnation had hidden depths, I can’t recall a time when he got seriously angry. This Wally is frequently irritated, usually by things which are enitrely understandable. On occasion, his irritability causes him to be rougher with the bad guys than he could be, and that feels uncomfortable sometimes, though thus far he hasn’t gone too far.

Going into this, I knew that one of the issues that Wally had to overcome was his mental block about surpassing Barry, and to my surprise, it wasn’t as much of a through-line as I expected. I was expecting it to be a reoccurring issue that was solved by the Return of Barry Allen storyline, but in reality there are only one or two times something like it comes up, usually in the context of him not being able to do the vibrating through walls trick. In the Return of Barry Allen, it feels more like an issue introduced in that story than a long running plot line. Granted, it may only feel this way because I’m solely reading Mark Waid’s Flash. I didn’t read the issues prior to his take over, so that storyline could have been more apparent there for all I know.

Moving on, starting with Waid’s run had another knock on effect, that being that the character introductions aren’t introductions. I came into this expecting to see when Wally met Linda, when he met Jay Garrick, when Pied Piper redeemed himself, but all of that happened before Waid took over the book, so they’re already part of the cast from the start. Again, not a flaw of the work, it’s just a result of my personal experiences. Now, let’s take a look at some of these characters.

I’ve heard a lot about Linda and Wally’s romance, and so far it’s not bad. I wouldn’t rate it as one of the best of all time, but I haven’t gotten to most of the major moments yet, so that’s not a huge surprise. One thing that’s very apparent is the Lois Lane DNA in her character. Some of that is to be expected, which the love interest to your superhero is a reporter, but I see a lot of similarities in their personality as well. There’s a lot of the same fire in her. Fortunately, the fact that Wally’s identity is public lends a very different arc to their relationship than what you see with Lois and Clark, so Linda doesn’t come off as a Lois rip-off. Linda’s concerns that there’s no place for her in Wally’s wild superhero life is the kind of relationship hurdle that isn’t present in Lois and Clark’s Relationship.

Next, let’s take a look at the first Flash, Jay Garrick. Within this series, Jay is perfectly pleasant, and by no means unlikable, but he also comes across as...kind of superfluous? There are three elderly male speedsters in this comic, and of all of them Jay is by far the least defined and has the least role. Max Mercury is the Wally’s mentor in the ways of speed, the one with the most knowledge of the Speed Force. He’s basically what I expected Jay Garrick to be going into this. The third of the group is Johnny Quick, a speedster who is the father of another speedster, Jesse Quick. Jesse is also very skeptical of Max Mercury’s teachings, which veer from the scientific into the mystical.

Because Johnny takes the role of skeptic, Jay is left without a role in the narrative because being the nicest of Wally’s friend group. Veering over to Hollywood for a second, whenever a book gets adapted into a movie or TV Show, minor characters get lost in the transition. Either they get composited with other characters, or they get cut entirely. Game of Thrones is the most prominent example in recent memory. I bring this up because, if Waid’s Flash were to go through that process, it’s hard to argue that Jay wouldn’t get the ax. Despite being the most important of them in the context of the universe at large, Jay is the least important Speedster in this narrative. Of course, Jay’s importance in the context of the larger universe means that in this hypothetical adaptation, he probably be composited into either max or Johnny. More likely Max, since mentor is the logical position for the first Flash to take in the Third Flash’s narrative.

I mentioned Jess Quick there, so let’s talk about her. Thus far, her most prominent role in the narrative has been to call Wally out and be his critic, though she does have very good reasons to be angry. In the Terminal Velocity storyline, Wally believes he’ll die soon, and tells the Flash Family that Jesse will be his successor, but it turns out to be a lie in order to motivate Bart Allen to take things more seriously. Jesse has remained angry with Wally since then, though it hasn’t seriously impacted her hero work. That’s good, because her continued competence lends legitimacy to her anger within the narrative. She’s not being punished for being mad at Wally for mistreating her. Hopefully it stays that way going forward.

Now let’s take a look at the character Wally chose over Jesse, Bart Allen AKA Impulse. I’ll say up front that I’m not reading Bart’s solo series during this read through, as I didn’t want the hassle of going back and forth between books. As such, the only issues of it that I’ve looked at are the ones that tie into the Dead Heat arc. I feel it’s important for me to say this, because I’m basing my opinions of Bart primarily on his showings in Wally’s book, not his own. In Wally’s book, Bart’s character flaws are more on display.

Bart is a character deliberately designed to be obnoxious, and such characters are a hard tightrope to walk in fiction. Gotta be annyoing enough to get the point across, but not annoying enough to turn people off from the work. Bart in Wally’s book isn’t perfectly balanced, and tends toward the too much pile. Not to an egregious extent, but a little bit. I found myself echoing Wally’s frustration with Bart more than a few times. In Bart’s defense, Wally does share some of the blame here. He doesn’t do a very good job as a mentor, and handing those duties off to Max is probably for the best.

I find it interesting, that a character like Wally who is so defined by inheriting a legacy is a poor mentor, to both Bart and Jesse. He makes different mistakes with both of them, but he still fails both of them. I’m eager to see how that plays out in the future issues.

Now that we’ve discussed the supporting cast, let’s discuss some of the book’s villains. We’ll start with the one who is most infamous, Eobard Thawne. Thawne’s spends the majority of his time in this book thinking he’s Barry Allen, and if I’m being honest, he’s more effective under that guise that he is as Eobard. The scenes where what appears to be Barry Allen turns evil out of jealousy of his successor are powerful, more so than the more traditional villain Eobard displays after the reveal. Not that it would have been a good idea for it to actually be Barry, of course. Much as I prefer Wally to Barry, having Barry go full supervillain would have been very out of character. In any case, this run had a profound impact on Eobard’s character going forward, solidifying him as an agent of toxic fanboyism, making him a dark mirror of Wally West.

The next major villain of the run is the cult slash terrorist organization Kobra. That might bring thoughts of GI Joe to your mind, and you honestly aren’t far off. So far as this run goes, the biggest differences between DC’s Kobra and Hasbro’s is A) DC’s version prefer green over blue, and B) Hasbro’s version has more in the way of distinct characters. Kobra thus far is more of a plot device than anything else. They’re generic terrorists with little to make them distictive. Their storyline, Terminal Velocity, is more notable for it’s introduction of the Speed Force, Wally preparing for his upcoming ‘death’, and Linda going on a revenge quest after said ‘death’. All things that Kobra is incidental to, any villainous organization would have sufficed.

The final, as of my current point in the run, major villain is Savitar. Savitar was formerly a soviet test pilot who gained a connection to a the speedforce, gave himself the name of Hindu god, and started a speed worshipping cult. It says a lot about my mind that my immediate thoughts upon reading Savitar’s origin were. “Huh, an AU where Hal Jordan became a Speedster the same way would be neat.”. Savitar is in some ways an improvement on the Kobra Cult from Terminal Velocity. This time the Cult has a more direct connection to the Flash and his mythos. Dead Heat is by no means a retread of Terminal Velocity, but if you wanted to mesh them into one story, it wouldn’t be hard. And it’d improve on both, in some ways.

One of the things I like to do in my fanfic ideas is connect the other speedsters to Thawne’s theme of Toxic Fandom, and it wouldn’t be hard to do that with Savitar. His entire motivation is to deprive those he considers unworthy of their speed, and that can easily by played as a metaphor for gatekeeping.

Over all, while the run is far from perfect, I must say I’m enjoying these comics a good deal, and if you’re like me and have read a lot about comics without actually reading them, I don’t think you’d regret jumping into them.

#opinions #personal experience #dc comics #The Flash #wally west #mark waid

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writingkeepsmewhole · 4 years

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I Do Not Know

This is part 13 of halfway I know it’s been forever since I posted anything for this but eh why not I was bored haha I know it’s crap and not that great but I need to rewatch the show and get a feel for everyone again but either way I hope you liked it tell me what you think please.

Fic Summary: Reader is faced with questions she can’t answer.

Bellamy Blake x Grounder Reader

Warnings:None

Taglits: @booknerdinator3000 @kingofpythons @dontstopxx @jodiereedus22 @littlegirl-fox

Part 1 Part 12

Bellamy decided to bring Lincoln back to the first ship the sky people came from. We were lucky he didn’t wake up on the way. It took all three of us to tie him up. Octavia quite the whole time.

“Can we save him?” She asks me once we are done.

“It’s never been done before. Once you become a reaper you never come back from it. We have tried this many times before and they always die.”

“Well we have to do something we can’t just let him die.”

“We need Clarke’s help.” Bellamy says his forehead wrinkles.

“Oh right like she’s gonna help us she’s never been a fan of him and you know it.” I say looking at him, shocked he would even suggest it.

“The moment she finds out I’m here she’ll report it back to her mother and I’ll be locked up again.

“That’s not going to happen, I won’t let it. Besides that it’s the only plan we got at this point so not unless you have a better one.” He says softly.

“No, go get her, I'll stay here.” Octavia says moving to climb back up the ladder.

“Will you stay with her?” Bellamy asks me once we are alone.

I nod not having any words to say to him. If he wasn’t going to listen to me I wasn’t going to waste time talking. I had other things to worry about. My closest friend was going to die and I couldn’t stop it.

“Hey.” Bellamy says touching my arm.

I look at him, his eyes looking black in the dim light.

“It’s gonna be okay.”

“It won’t. Go.” I say looking at the door then moving to climb up the ladder.

“I’ll be back soon.”

“Yes and I’ll be here.” I say us, both going our separate ways.

By the time Belamy returned Lincoln had woken up. He fought his restraints like a while animal.

When Clarke climbed the ladder he jumped out at her screaming.

“Don’t worry he’s tied up.” Bellamy says to her.

“I can’t believe we're back here again.” Clarke says in shock.

“Can you help him?” Octavia asks from sitting in the corner.

I stood close to Lincoln waiting for him to break free. I’ve seen it before with reapers.

“I don’t know.” Clarke says taking a step closer to Lincoln, it only makes him get wilder.

“I knew mount weather controlled the reapers.” She says shocking me with the knowledge

“The mountain men can control them?” I ask, wondering how anyone could control them.

There was no getting through to them, no since.

“Yes, but I didn’t know they were creating them.”

“If they can do that to Lincoln then what are they doing to our friends?” Bellamy says with his eyes meeting mine.

“Well you know what they are doing to my people. Outsiders don’t mean much to them.” I say as Lincoln screams louder, him jumping in my direction.

I take a step away from him, him pushing as hard as he can to reach any of us. I take a breath when I watch him start to twitch his head drawing towards his shoulder and chest.

“He’s convulsing.” Clarke says it almost sounds like a question.

“So what does that mean?”

“He’ll die.” I say honestly.

“He’s going to die.” Octavia says looking at me.

“Well he’s not going to live either. You can’t come back from this.”

“What happened to his leg?” Clarke asks as if neither of us were talking.

“I shot him.” Octavia says.

“Clarke he’s lost a lot of blood, can you do something?” Bellamy asks.

I sigh and shake my head as I feel my eyes prickle with tears. I look away from them, all of them and stare at the wall, not wanting to cry.

“Can you shine the light on his neck?” She asks about the flashlights Bellamy and Octavia were holding.

“Needle marks.”

“So you think he’s been drugged?” Bellamy asks.

I glance at Lincoln then at his chains. I stop when I see them bow out from the wall.

“Wait.” I say seeing Clarke trying to get closer.

Hearing a loud pop I quickly move between them. I gasped loudly as I felt Lincoln wrap his free arm around my neck and began to squeeze.

I start punching him hard in the ribs, him only making his grip tighter. My heart and head pounds from the lack of air, but I don’t care. I faintly hear someone yell the sounds becoming muffled by the sound of my blood rushing through my veins. I keep pulling back and hitting him over and over again my arms seem to grow heavy and move slower and slower. It doesn't take long before everything goes black.

I wake up feeling someone leaning over me. My last memories rushing back into my mind my heart jumps into fight mode. I don’t think, as I push myself from the floor and into the person over me. I wrap my hands around their throat ready to kill them before they kill me.

It’s not until my mind clears do I realize I’m choking Clarke, her scared eyes begging me to stop.

I quickly drop my hands and take a step back, us both breathing hard.

“Sorry.”

“What happened?” Bellamy asks, coming into the drop ship.

Us on the lower level.

“She tried to kill me.” Clarke says threw gasps pointing at me.

“I attacked her.”

“Why?” Bellamy asks shocked, by my confession.

“Instinct.” I say shrugging, not knowing how else to say it.

“I was checking on her and she choked me.”

“Well she was under attack last time she was awake.”

“Why do you always defend her?” Clarke says sounding hurt, her moving to walk past him and outside.

“She’s right.” I say looking at him.

“You shouldn’t defend me, I’m the enemy, remember.”

“Well you don’t act like it. Come on let's go check on Lincoln.”

“He’s still alive?” I ask us to move towards the ladder.

“Yeah, Clarke has been keeping him that way for now.”

I nod at him following him up the ladder.

He was right Lincoln was alive. I was surprised to see him asleep.

“What happened?”

“He died. Clarke gave him CPR.”

“CPR?” I ask looking at him not knowing what that meant.

“She got his heart pumping again.”

“How?”

Bellamy smiles softly, seeming amused with my lack of understanding. Walking up to me he gently grabs my hand and places it on his chest.

“By pushing in his chest like this.” He says placing his hand over mine and roughly doing what he just said.

“It pumps his heart making it start again.”

“She is a healer.” I state looking up at him, his dark eyes meeting mine.

“Yes.”

“I should probably stop attacking her then.”

“That would be nice.” He says smiling.

I smile back as a silence settles over us. The only sound is our breathing. With my hand still placed over his heart I can feel it speed up as his eyes travel down to my lips.

I’m confused when my face heats up. Things like this never seem to affect me. But I kept finding myself affected by Bellamy in one way or another.

As if we were the same mind we both take a step closer to each other. I tighten my grip on his chest grabbing a handful of his shirt. He moves his hand from mine, running up my arm sending a warm tingle in its wake.

I take a slow breath as he leans down, blocking my view so all I see is him. It’s my heart that starts to speed up when our faces are only a few inches apart.

“Umm am I interrupting something?” Octavia asks, making Bellamy pull away from me. Him clearly his throat and scratching the back of his head. His face flushed.

Sighing I let my hand fall from him and turn to face her. I have to resit the urge to roll my eyes seeing Clarke standing behind her. Her glaring daggers at me.

“Nothing that can’t be done later.” I say earning a weird look from all of them.

“Do you always have to talk so plainly?” Clarke says crossing her arms.

“Yes, it saves time not having to explain myself.” I say smiling at her.

She glares at me which I ignore

“Did you have something to say to you, are you just here to annoy the both of us?” I ask her bluntly.

I felt like at this point I had been as nice to her as I could be and got even more hated for it.

“They are here.” She says not needing to explain who, Abby coming in the door behind her.

“Y/n glad to see you haven’t betrayed us.” She says looking at me.

“You haven’t done anything for me to betray you.” I say arching his eyebrow at me.

I shrug and follow them up the ladder having a good guess as to why they were here. I was surprised to see Nyko standing over Lincoln.

He was now restrained to the floor.

“Is he okay?” Octavia asks, dropping down beside him.

“I promised you I wouldn’t hurt him.”

“What happened while I was out?” I ask turning to look at Bellamy.

“Octavia went and got Nyko to heal Lincoln but he was only going to kill him.”

“Because you can’t save a reaper.”

“But I did.” Clarke says making me a bit annoyed with her joining our conversation.

“Look at him, he is alive because of me.”

“And we are going to keep him that way.” Abby says, dropping next to him.

“We can cure the reapers, it's just about keeping them alive while they detox. With this we can make a deal with the grounders.”

I snort and shake my head.

“What?” She asks, glaring at me.

“You still call us grounders, you don’t bother learning anything about us but you want to make deals with us? You're more pig headed then I thought.”

“Alright that’s enough.” Bellamy says making us both look at him.

“Y/N go take a walk.”

“I didn’t-.”

“Just go.” He says making my heart drop.

I clenched my jaw at him and the way my body reacted.

“Fine, I’ll go hunting.” I say moving away from them and back down the ladder.

I leave the drop ship, my anger getting stirred up. It was foolish I new that but I didn’t like when he picked Clarke over me.

I walked through the forest not really looking for anything to hunt. I really did need to take a walk to think. I was starting to feel like I didn’t know what side I was on.

But I always felt that way I was always never enough. Never belonging to a clan and it made me who I was.

Now I wasn’t so sure. I cared for Bellamy and Octavia. I even enjoyed Raven but the rest of the sky people could burn for all I cared. But what about my people? What people? I had Lincoln nothing more.

I was alone and I was growing too attached to someone who seemed to care for me as well or at least like me enough to want me around.

But that person always seemed to pick someone else over me. Well maybe not always he does defend me from time to time. But Clarke is his leader. A selfish one but a leader nonetheless.

So what should I do? Return to my cave? Back to the wild where I belong or do a I go join the sky people and learn about all their strange ways. I was caught between a rock and a hard place and I couldn’t stand it.

“How’s the hunting going?” Asked a voice cutting through my thoughts.

I look down from my perch in a tree just within hear shot of their camp. Bellamy stood below me, gun in hand but he was relaxed.

“It’s not. Come join me.” I ask but it sounds more like a demand.

“I don’t think I can climb this tree.” He says looking it over not seeing the foot and hand holds I do.

Sighing I start to climb down but stop seeing him put his gun on his back.

It takes almost too long but he finds his way up and next to me.

“Wow you can see everything up here.” He says looking around smiling.

“It’s why I climbed it. I needed to think.” I say earning his attention.

“Think about what?”

“What I’m doing with my life. Who’s side I belong to?”

“Why does there have to be sides?”

“Bellamy we both know you don’t believe that I remember the speeches you have given since your time here you don’t like my people the same as I don’t like yours.”

“You don’t like people?”

“Some I like some.” I say earning a smile.

“I don’t like all of them either. Something tells me you are talking about one person more than everyone.”

“We all know me and Clarke don’t like or trust each other.”

“Why?”

“Because trust is earned not given. I have tried to show her who I am and it’s not what she wants.”

“Well what do you want?”

Sighing I look up at the sky or at least the small pieces you can see through the leaves.

“I do not know.”

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justalittlebluetiefling · 4 years

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Requested by anon! hi if your still doing prompts would love to see either your fave au or something you’ve always wanted an excuse to write! (congrats for the magic number!)

“It’s almost time for patrol.”

Bellamy bumps Clarke’s shoe with his toes as he says it, earning him a glare. Instead of responding, she rolls her eyes and turns her attention back to her drawing.

They met on the road a long fucking time ago and he never expected to like her, but it happened. First as a person. Then as Clarke. Somehow, she went from annoying to his partner and he still isn’t sure how it happened. But now, he trusts her more than anyone. Even more than Octavia. And that… that confuses him sometimes.

Because. Yeah. Maybe he likes her. Loves her. Whatever. It doesn’t matter how many times Roan winks when he assigns them to the same patrol, the same shift, it doesn’t change the fact that Clarke won’t ever see him as more than her best friend.

Bellamy holds in a sigh and bumps her foot again. “Come on.”

Clarke kicks him back this time. “We’ve got a half hour.”

“What are you drawing, anyway?”

Bellamy reaches down to grab her notebook and she swats at his hand. “That would be telling. Just give me ten more minutes.”

“Ten more minutes,” Bellamy says, bumping her foot again. “You always ask for ten more minutes and it turns into twenty and next thing you know, it’s night shift for two weeks. I need my beauty sleep, Clarke.”

She grumbles something under her breath, but she does close the notebook. She shoves it into her backpack and follows him out the door.

It’s still weird not to lock the door behind them. Then again, it’s weird that they found a fully-functioning town in the middle of Wyoming. With electricity. And, with the infected, locking a door seems a little futile. No one steals here. They work together to survive.

And Bellamy and Clarke work together better than anyone else here.

The surrounding area has been clear for weeks. Bellamy really can separate his feelings for Clarke from the mission. He doesn’t stare longingly at her when she’s not looking. Not on the other side of the fence. It’s just… she tells him a joke and it’s funny. She has a beautiful laugh. That’s what he’s thinking about when they run into the roaming pack of infected. Her laugh.

Maybe he got a little cocky.

They lose both of the horses. They both almost die. It’s too close. At this point, he’s lost track of how many times she’s saved his life or he’s saved hers, but today, they save each other multiple times. It’s Clarke who spots the crates stacked up against the abandoned gas station that the use to get up to the roof and it’s Bellamy who shoots an infected in the head when it has Clarke pinned down on the ground.

Bellamy rushes to her side as soon as its clear. “Are you okay? Any bites?”

Clarke shakes her head, eyes still darting across their surroundings. “You?”

Without answering, Bellamy pulls out a rag and empties some water onto it, cleaning some of the gore off her neck. He knows she’s fine, she’d tell him if she weren’t, but he can’t bring himself to believe it until he sees for himself.

“Bellamy.” She puts her hand over his. “I’m fine. Are you?”

“None of them even got close, Clarke.” The words come out rougher than he expected and he abandons his task and pulls her into a hug before she can see the tears in his eyes. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

She sighs, digging her fingers into his back, pressing her nose into his shoulder the way that makes his heart feel like it’s about to pound out of his chest.

“I’m serious,” he mutters into her hair. “You shouldn’t risk your life for mine.”

Her elbow hooks around his neck now and she shakes her head. “Why shouldn’t I? You’d do the same for me.”

Bellamy pulls away then, swallowing hard. They can’t just stand here. As much as he wants to, it might not be safe. He cant bring himself to look at her as he fixes his pack.

“I’m serious, Bellamy.” She tugs on his arm and he tries to pull it out of her grasp, but she doesn’t let go. “Bellamy, look at me.”

“We can’t talk about this here.”

“Bellamy!”

“Clarke!” He spins around and pushes her hand off his arm. “We have to start moving if we want to get back to town before dark.”

“We’re going to talk about this later.”

“No, we’re not.”

He starts walking before she can say anything else. It’s only a moment before he hears her footsteps behind him and he knows she’s hanging back on purpose, but he wants the quiet right now. Roan puts them on patrols together to shut Bellamy up and he knows it. He’s less worried about Clarke’s safety if they’re together and he can see she’s safe right away. It doesn’t make it hurt any less to think that she might die right in front of him.

Being in love sucks.

They don’t run into any other infected on the way back. Roan sends them both to medical after their report, but neither of them are actually injured, even if Clarke looks like she walked out of an old horror movie right now.

Bellamy’s laying down in his bed after cleaning up when there’s a knock on the door. For a minute, he considers not answering it. But he knows that if he ignores it, she’ll let herself in.

Clarke is clean on the other side of the door in a fresh set of clothing. Her mouth is set in a hard line and she pushes past him before he can even say hello.

“I’m allowed to watch out for you,” she says as she sits at the table. “I don’t get why you’re so mad at me. I thought that was our arrangement. You watch my back, I’ll watch yours.”

Bellamy holds in a sigh and leans against the door. “That was Virginia.”

“That’s exactly how it is every time we’re on patrol and you know it.”

He shrugs.

“Why are you being so weird about this?”

"I don’t think it’s weird that I don’t want to watch you die.”

Clarke opens her mouth and closes it, tilting her head. “Do you… not want to go on patrol with me anymore?”

“That isn’t what I -”

“No, I get it. It’s fine.” She throws up a hand and stands. “I’ll get out of your hair. I’ll go tell Roan.”

“Clarke.”

“No. If you’re tired of working with me, you should have said something. I asked him to put us on patrols together, but he’ll stop if this is such a chore for you.”

She avoids looking at him as she reaches for the door handle. Bellamy knows she expects him to move, but he’s so surprised that he’s not sure he remembers how to. Until he gets an elbow in the side.

Instead of moving, he gently grasps her wrist and pulls her hand back. “I didn’t know you asked to be on patrols with me.”

Clarke shakes her head, staring at the doorknob. “It’s not a big deal. I just thought….”

He tugs on her wrist and she slowly meets his eyes. She pulls her hand away to wipe unshed tears away and Bellamy is sure he’s misreading this situation, but….

“I don’t feel safe with anyone else,” she says quietly. “I thought you felt the same.”

“I do.”

He’s afraid of what he’ll say if he keeps talking, so he pulls her into a hug. Her arms wrap around his waist like that’s what they were made to do and it’s the thing he’s always loved about moments like this. He smooths her hair when she starts to cry against his shoulder and it takes every ounce of his self-control not to give in and kiss her when her fingers twist in the fabric of his shirt, because he’s still absolutely sure he’s misreading this.

They stay like that for a long time before she pulls back. Not enough to break the hug. Before she can let go, Bellamy uses his knuckle to wipe the few remaining tears away from her eyes.

“This is really confusing, Bellamy.” He’s inclined to agree, because as she says it, she nuzzles into his hand.

“What’s so confusing?”

“I thought you were mad at me.”

He shakes his head. “I was mad at myself for letting that guy get near you in the first place.

"There were too many of them. We got lucky.”

He nods, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I don’t want you to go out on patrol with anyone else, okay?”

Clarke smiles sadly. “Okay, good.”

“I just don’t….”

Bellamy trails off, because Clarke still hasn’t moved out of his space and she still hasn’t stopped staring into his eyes and everything he could say feels like too much or not enough. Before he can land on any course of action, she stands up on her tiptoes and kisses him. It’s a quick brush of her lips against his and then she takes a step back. Her cheeks are pink and Bellamy is sure his own must be, too, but all he can do is stare at her, wide-eyed.

“Sorry. I just… I wanted to do that once. I’m sorry.” She tucks her hair behind her ear again, even though it doesn’t need it. “That was… I should go. To bed.”

He kisses grabs her face with both hands and kisses her before she can get near the door again. When he pulls back, Clarke’s eyes are wide.

"I’ve wanted to do that for a while,” he says softly.

Clarke grins. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I’ve wanted to for a while.”

“Why didn’t you?” Bellamy can’t stop himself from smiling back at her when she shrugs. “Do you still have to leave?”

Clarke digs her fingers into the his shirt and shakes her head. “I’d rather not.”

#bellarke fanfiction #bellarke #2199 follower celebration #zombie apocalypse au #read more wasn't working on the original post so i'm putting this here instead!#erin writes #this is unedited so please tell me if i messed something up

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thebargainingchip · 4 years

Text

Blood Colors - Chapter 18

Masterlist

Pairing: Roan x Reader

Warnings: Angsty, Fluff

Previous Chapter

Chapter 1

A feeling of dread sits in the pool of your stomach when you're back in Polis. There’s no escaping the feeling or distracting yourself, you are soon caught up in wedding plans which you barely have a say in. “Deyon, osir ste won. Moron, osir gondaun ogeda(Today, we are one. Tomorrow, we fight together)”

“Gonplei.” Echo corrects, you avoid Roan’s pointed gaze, you feel like you can’t breath with him so close, you didn’t want to think about what this means.

“Gondaun, gonplei. It all means the same thing.” You shoot-back.

“It does, though they are different but you need to say it exactly.” Roan says, and for a moment your eyes connect and you look away. How are you supposed to look him in the eye and say all of this. Let alone do anything else the ceremony might want.

“Again.” Echo leans against Roan’s desk.

“I got it.” You snap.

“Again.” Echo insists with a strong glare.

“Echo, that’s enough help for one day.” Roan warns and Echo rolls her eyes and leaves but you ignore her with a silent angry exhale. “We then exchange the object which we poses that has the most meaning to us.” Your mind immediately flickered to the dog tags.

“This object it could be anything?” Roan nods, you ponder for a moment giving something else. There’s a little silence as you think deeply then look up and wonder what he’s think and what he has in mind.

“Then I will take the knife and poor my blood into the chalice.” Roan continues after a moment.

“I don’t like where this is going, sounds ill-advised.” You comment trying to sound light-hearted as you moved on from the thoughts, Roan sighs a little in frustration but amusement glimmers in his eyes.

“Then you take the knife and do the same.”

“Do they wipe it first? I mean like no offence but I don’t know what sort of grounder viruses your carrying that my space immune system can’t handle.” Roan sets you with a look and that nervous, impending-doom feelings forgotten as the nervousness turns into something entirely different.

“The same knife and then you and I share a drink.” You pull a face of course but Roan ignores you like he has been doing this whole day.

“Is there any kissing in this? If so we really might need to practice, I mean the last time I kissed you it was pretty much one sided and we need to at least convince the crowd.” Despite your joke, your cheeks burn.

Roan makes a thoughtful sound like he’s considering it, he takes a step forward like he made his decision and your smile falls as you step back bumping against the desk. Roan leans in and your thoughts scramble to decide whether you should stop him. He’s face is so close to yours now, you hold your breath. “Roan-“ you start but something twists in your gut, but it’s pleasant and keeps you from shivering at the tingle that runs up your spine, you swallow thickly. Roan hums again, this time a shorter observant sound.

“I don’t think you’re ready for that lesson yet.” He leans back, and you can breath again.

“Well I clearly didn’t mean now.” You say once you’ve recollected yourself, your whole face feeling like its on fire.

“We’ll continue later, you have an appointment with our yonhaka.” Roan was already on his way out.

“Yonhaka?” You ask confused.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

“You’re late.” The Woman says the moment the guards open the door for you. “It’s hardly my fault, it took me an hour to find this place, I don’t even know what a yonhakais.” You survey the room, it is full of rolls of patched together fabric rolled onto large rollers packed against the walls, there is a big work table to your right, and large old mirrors to the left side of the room, of you study the old or nations in the room, it’s clear this was some studio of a kind, may be for dancing? Behind the woman with exotic ethnic features that you can’t quite place is two women and a man. By the way she carries herself , it's clear who in charge.

“The.” She says simply.

“What?”

“Jus Gona, you have the privilege of meeting the royal dresser, it is an honour to be adorned in the art that she makes with her own hands.” The male introduces.

“Do I bow?” You question sarcastically from the dramatic words.

“Fiery.” She notes. “I have some ideas but I will need to take your measurements first and have you try on old dresses.”

“Lady, I don’t do dresses, I need something I can move in. Shit can go south very quickly with Azgeda.”

“Authoritative, demanding.” She states.

“Annoying.” You state back at her, as you try and discourage the outright judgement.

“I am building a profile of you, I need to know what you are like so that your sofkova (dress) can represent you.” She explains patiently, “As for the other matter, there is no negotiation on the sofkova, a dress it will be even if I have to sew it to your skin, but it will be functional.”

“You just got a whole creepier.” You point out.

“My goal is to make you feel your power when you stand in your dress, and if you don’t- but you will- then I haven’t done my job correctly.” You cocked an eyebrow.

“Try me.” You challenge.

“Ban we yun bakkova (Remove your clothing).” She orders and with a wave of her hand you do.

“And one last thing, if you ruin my work, I will ruin you.” You didn’t say anything against her blatant threat instead deciding that you would be very careful.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

You were retired to your own quarters for the afternoon, trying to go over the words of the ceremony. You sighed in frustration, barely being able to focus, you were tired after the early start to your long day.

“It’s fine, just relax.” You say out loud, instead deciding to lay out the clothes you were going to wear for bed. There was a knock at the door and you gave you permission for the person to enter.

“Jus Gona, the Ambassador of Skaikru has requested to see you, King Roan has granted him access.” You sigh knowing whatever you say to the guard won’t help the situation. “Ai na gocha yu op got raunkova(I’ll escort you to the throne room).” He declared. You weren’t much surprised that Roan would want the meeting to be somewhere in public, given Skaikru’s recent record. Of course, you knew you would be given some privacy at least but one or two guards might be present. It was Marcus though. Would he really do something like that to you? You decided that some people did stupid things when they were desperate, you wouldn’t be over powered again.

The moment the doors opened, you were surprised, Cedree stood against the far wall behind Marcus, arms folded as he watched carefully. You hadn’t seen him since-

“Y/n.” Marcus says when the door has closes behind you. You feel a little trapped for the moment as you look over your shoulder to indeed atest that the noise was truly the door closing and the guard leaving, no doubt right outside the door. You steel yourself and turn to him, a little funny thought crossed your mind. ‘Marcus was standing next to the guy you tried to have sex with’ It was supplied by some foolish irrational thought of you and of course you were an adult who could make her own decisions, it was not like Marcus was in anyway related to you. After this you couldn’t for a moment take your eyes off Cedree, feeling totally embarrassed by multiple things.

You needed something to focus on whatever Marcus was here to tell you. You strode towards the table.

“Do you want anything?” You toss the question over your shoulder at Marcus. There’s silence so you pour one glass.

He always knew what to do when talking to people and he was checking all the boxes when he said:

“You remember when I caught you drinking, you had met up with a boy and one of the guards reported to me that you had been out past curfew while I was working late night.” You turn around during the story, taking a sip of the wine and watching him, knowing instantly where this story was going, feeling even more embarrassed that Cedree was here, but you ignored his presence for the moment

Marcus smiles at the memory and it makes you think back about how he put the boy in detention for a week and made you assist Abby’s patients for the next month, it was how you and Clarke got close. Despite the not so uncomfortable memories you shut him down quickly.

“You told me that I will always make mistakes and that if I didn’t see it you would space me like my parents.” It’s an old scab and you know how Marcus feels about it, you’re long past it but he doesn’t need to know about it. You had to admit, Marcus was a relation, no matter how hard you tried to deny it. Your reality was that he had betrayed you even if it wasn’t him who took the initiative, you were angry because he wasn’t there to stop Clarke. You put the glass back on the table, behind you.

“Maybe I wasn’t the best... parental figure in your life at the time but you turned out well and you know how much I’ve tried to make it right.” You couldn’t deny it he had, countless times made up for it, Marcus had always been there for you, even when you fucked up he was there to correct your mistakes and he hadn’t judged you for them. And he wasn’t all bad, as much as he liked to believe, you were taught valuable things, how to survive, how to lead people and how to get them to follow, what power means to people and how they tend to use it if it falls into their lap.

“Marcus, I’ve killed people, a murderer is not exactly the picture of a good child.” Marcus reaches to steady you by the shoulders and out fo the corner of your eye, you both notice Cedree move, hand on his sword. Marcus steps back hesitantly, ever since he changed, he’s been affectionate and at first it made you uncomfortable and then you discovered it was because it was something you hated to admit you needed sometimes- in small doses.

“Me too. I’m not perfect, none of us are. I killed your parents, you know I’m still paying for it. This life does things to us, but it doesn’t mean we’re bad people, not if we make the right decisions, even when it's hard.” You shake your head pulling away from him, how hypocritical, you hated how it hurts but you sat it anyway:

“Marcus, I can’t help Skaikru, at least not in the way you want to but if you support this decision we made, then Roan might-“

“What decision, (y/n)?!” He raises his voice at that, interrupting you then pauses to collect himself but continues in the same serious tone but softer. “Don’t tell me that you made this decision because I damn well know you didn’t. And it’s not okay, you’re barely twenty two and Roan could almost be-“

“Don’t you dare say it.” You glare at him. He stops, recognising something in your expression. “You know, I can’t read you. I don’t know what to think anymore. I can’t tell if you actually care about me or if you are trying to save your people.”

“They’re your people too.” Marcus says, you simply glare at him, he knows how fondyou are of your former fellow ship mates. “Why can’t it ever be both?” He questions.

“I am not trying to force you to decide. Marcus, my happiness, my safety will never be in your hands again. There’s no decision here. Either Skaikru doesn’t support this marriage, rejects Roan as the rightful King or they survive.” You emphasise, ignoring the clear insult he gave you a moment before. For once you just wanted to feel like someone put you first but you pushed it aside.

You stepped back schooling yourself back into place. “Please go, my wedding day is tomorrow, I will need plenty of rest to prepare for the long festivities.” The doors open. You’ve said everything you possibly could, now it was up to him. “The Guards will escort you back to your rooms, and I will know your final decision. You’re fate, tomorrow.” Marcus doesn’t protest. As Cedree knocks on the door singling to the guards outside who opened the doors.

“Ced.” You say softly as Marcus is escorted out.

“Ai na goch Faya Gada gon baggeda(I’ll escort the fire girl to her bedroom).” Cedree says to the guard waiting on you, who nods and joins the guard escorting Marcus away.

“When did you arrive?” You enquire casually.

“This morning.” He explains simply, “I heard you were caught up in a little skirmish with your people.” You nod, then change the subject drastically:

“I feel terrible.”

“No need,” He says in that’s strange accent with a boyish smile, “I’m just wondering what was your intention that night.”

“I was trying to see if I could feel anything, since I might have had to spend the rest of my life with you.” You explain.

“And?” He asked.

“Ced-“ You start in a soft tone, not quite sure how to put the words.

“I know this path has long since past, And don’t get me wrong to think that anything might have developed past friendship in the time that I’ve known you, I’m sure you know these things take time, but I’m curios.” He interrupted quickly explaining, you almost sighed in relief.

“No, Ced, I’m not set up to work like that.” He nods, accepting your answer.

“Shall we?” He gestured to the open hall way.

“I need to see Roan.” You add, he nods and walks you the way.

You pause outside the room, next to the guards and smile at Cedree as he nods to you and leaves. When you hear Echo’s voice you stop the guard from opening the door for a moment as something captures your attention.

“Jus Gona?” The guard questions, you push him.

“Wait a moment.” You tell him as you listen.

“-stop being so soft with her.” You instantly knew who they were talking about.

“What I do is none of your concern.” Roan states. He doesn’t deny it and something flutters with in you and then is quickly snuffed out, the last thing you wanted was to be treated like something fragile due to a pity party. There’s silence that follow, your wonder if Roan is contemplating Echo’s word. Despite Echo being his advisor, he seems to usually shut her down when she speaks up, which is surprising that this time he doesn’t chase her out.

“Jus Gona?” The guard questions, reminding you as the silence continues inside.

“I changed my mind.” You say. “Please tell the King that I spoke to Marcus Kane and that he shouldn’t be expecting any support from Skaikru.”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The sun has long since set when the doors to your rooms open once more to an unannounced visitor, your fingers are entangled in the dog tags of your brother, the old rusted chain and faded letters are so familiar but you put it aside as Roan steps further into the room, the doors close behind him.

“You allowed Marcus to speak to me.” It sounds colder when it echoes around the room.

“I knew, as Jus Gona, the future queen and leader of my people, you would be able to win us a new ally and I was expecting you to perform your duties.” Roan doesn’t answer, the King does.

“Don’t be so sure, I have achieved nothing but to cut the only person that ever believed in me out of my life.”

“It’s him who made that decision not you.” Roan adds, it hurst worse.

“Can you please take that stupid thing of your head?!” You cry out frustrated. When the moment fades and Roan keeps quiet, idle by the desk where rests hand on the backrest of the chair, you feel ashamed at your childish outburst. You clench and unclench your jaw, thinking of the apology almost stings.

You hear the soft thump of the crown on the table and you look up, watching Roan peel back his regal outer layers until he can more comfortable move in his untucked shirt and simple pants. He lays them out over the chair, taking his time and then he strides to your side of the bed.

“Roan I am really-“ He sits down on the bed by your legs.

“How did it go when you spoke to Marcus?” He asks, it's so genuine, his words soft.

“Awful.” You say simply.

“I’m sorry.” Roan says, holding your gaze with a sincere look. “If you want to talk about it..?” Roan trails off but you look away, you weren’t in the mood to open old wounds, if you could just keep it together for one more day.

“Wasn’t this what Echo said you shouldn’t do.” You mumble almost under your breath, keeping your gaze trained on the dog tags at the side of your table. There’s enough silence that you think, he’s confused.

“That’s when you asked the guard to inform me. Is that why you didn’t come inside?” He questions.

“I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t hear it.” You say simply. “I don’t want you to go easy on me because of what happened.”

“Is that what you think my reasoning is?” He questions, when you don’t answer Roan tries with another question: “If you don’t want me to go easy on you and you don’t want me to treat you like one of your subjects, what do you want?” He asks, when you glance at him he’s genuinely curios, he has a patient expression on his face as he waits.

“I don’t know, definitely not like one of your subjects.” You say, that tells him everything he needs to know as he hums thoughtfully

“You should be asleep, tomorrow is a long day.” Roan says when he realised you weren’t ready.

“I doubt I’ll be getting any sleep.” You retort.

“Try?”

“Only if you stay to toss and turn with me the whole night.” You say before you could want to begin to stop yourself. Roan nods, and you’re a little surprised by it.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The next morning you wake up as Roan gets ready to leave, he greets you and tells you he had some business to attend to. You are ordered to stay confined in your room until someone comes to get you, Echo is with you from after breakfast which at least provides some entertainment for the day ahead and almost anything you require is at your fingers tips. There’s not much to do than to sit and overthink the day away which only seems to fuel the nervous nightmare ahead. The guards have been increased tenfold for the day, to ward off any potential threats and provide at least some form of protection in the event of some brave soul favouring a very a bad idea. The wedding was announced early morning by the King himself to the people of Polis, his people and other clans and currently he was negotiating with other leaders for the support in your union.

“Don’t they have professionals for this type of stuff? Ow!” You exclaim as Echo pulls the braid tightly. “Could you please leave some hair in my scalp after you're finished!” You snap, glaring at Echo in the mirror.

“Stop your whining, fyucha (infant).” Echo snaps right back, pausing as she glares back in the mirror. “I could leave it for you to do yourself, you ungrateful little-“

“Fine! Sorry!” You snap. Echo continues after a small pause, she continues to tug at your hair but you ignore it as much as possible, gritting your teeth.

“There.” You sight in relief as she gives confirmation that she is finished, you stand. You looked fine, the intricate braids might have been too much for your taste but it was the last thing on your mind. Your makeup consisted of key pieces that highlighted your features. A strange sight compared to the only other make up you ever wore- war paint.

There’s a loud bang as the doors hit the wall, you jump, your body tense as you reach for a dagger at your hip that is not there. Roan stands in your doorway, covered in blood. The fact that it was him, should have put you at ease but the site of the deep red doesn’t. “You’re okay.” Roan says as if it's a revelation to himself.

“Echo, guard the door.” Roan orders, she immediately steps outside.

“Yeah I’m okay, why am I would I not be okay? Are you even supposed to be here? Why is there blood all over you?” You question, your hair is braided and you are only standing in your underwear and despite the countless times you have seen blood, despite the countless times you have faced death, it horrifies you. You cross your arms, feeling a little uncomfortable as Roan tries real hard not to look down.

“No, I’m not supposed to be here but we need to do this now, some Natrona (traitors) have infiltrated the Polis. If we can finish the ceremony, I believe they will stand down, if I have the power of Jus Gona.” The door closes behind him hiding the hoard of guards.

You're stunned, you swallow not sure what exactly to think.

“What?” Is all you can manage.

“Wait before you-“ Roan starts but you cut him off.

“You’re going to kill me.” You throat burns, your first thought was ‘what were you expecting’ and then you rationality suddenly steps in, why would he tell you this if it was his plan? It makes you pause for a moment and listen to what Roan is trying to say.

“I mean,” he suddenly decides to step closer. “I’m not sure it's better.” He almost laughs but he’s expression is humourless. “Have you ever done itbefore?” Out of all the things you thought he would say, that question was not on your list.

First of all King Roan of Azgeda, one of the most accomplished warriors you know can’t say the word ‘sex’.

“Of course I’ve slept with people, are you sure you have?” You question almost accusingly.

“Yes, yes-“ he defends almost immediately, you swear he’s a deeper colour as he pauses, “that’s not the point. I’m talking about consummating the marriage tonight.” Roan is serious, you’re a little dizzy but you keep standing anyway, taking a deep breath to think.

“So we say we did the do, no one will be the wiser.” You suggest.

“It has to be witnessed.” You swallow, feeling like you needed a breath of fresh air.

“I was afraid you would say that. This fucked up shit is getting really predictable, first I have to drink your blood and now? Now this.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I keep asking-“

“I’ll do it,” your throat burns, “but I swear to God Roan, I don’t know if I can but I can try.” You hate that your eyes flood with tears but you can’t stop it as the trickle down your cheeks. Roan steps up again and simply pull you into his chest despite his bloody clothes. He smells like Iron and salt and you try to block out your own sobs. “You’re not supposed to make the bride cry on her wedding day you know.” Roan can’t help but chuckle. You half heartedly attempt a laugh but you don’t feel like it.

Next Chapter

Tag List:

@sunshine-and-riverwater @jinx-is-fire @silver424@cherrysfandom@thebookandmoviefangirl @that-cute-stranger @waitingtobeimpressed @daringvixon

#the 100 #Roan #roan kom azgeda #king roan #roan fluff #roan fanfiction #roan x reader #roan x you

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loveistherootofhappiness · 4 years

Note

#12 surprised date while working late....911 Bobby and athena

I was finally able to get around to writing this. Sorry about the lateness. I’m not going to preface it too much and just let you read it. I hope you like it! Thank you for prompting me.

Fandom: 9-1-1 Paring: Bathena Rating: General Word Count: 1911

“Hey, it’s Valentine’s Day. I just wanted to tell her that I loved her,” Silverman said cheekily, as Athena’s handcuffed the struggling man with ease and placed him In Clark’s squad car.

“Of course you did. Just like you have the last 6000 times this month.” Athena rolled her eyes at the man, annoyed that this was the 4th time this week she was arresting him. “Do you know what the words restraining order mean?”

“Oh, come on, she didn’t mean that! She was just playing,” looking past her he see the complainant, Brittni, standing on the sidewalk talking with one of the other officers, “tell ‘em, baby, tell ‘em that I love you. You didn’t mean all those things-“ Athena, having heard this speech way too many times this week, closed the door.

She could still hear his muffled words of “affection” as she walked away. Before walking to her squad car, she walked where Brittni stood talking to Derek. “When we take him in this time, leave him there.” Brittni had the good sense to look sheepish and gave a nod. Athena nodded back choosing not to say anything else and praying that she heads her warning this time. She gave a look to Derek and patted him on the shoulder before walking back to her own squad car.

She spotted her young protege, Braxton, leaning against the hood, giving her a hand clap as she walked to the car. “Nicely done, Sarg.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, it’s all in vain. Knowing these two, we’ll be back.” Athena told her as she got into the driver’s side.

“I bet you lunch tomorrow, he’ll bail out and be back here by the end of the day today,” Braxton flopped down in the passenger seat, “today is Love Day, after all. Makes people do the most.”

“I’m not even going to take you up on that because I know it’s a losing battle.” Athena gazed out at the young woman, “now if only the two of them could figure that out.”

Braxton chuckled and was about to comment when the beeping of her phone caught her attention. She fished the device out of her pocket and smiled when she saw the text notification over the lock screen photo of her family.

From: Mr. Sarg 🙃 Does she suspect anything?

Braxton smiled down at her phone as she thought fondly about Bobby’s plan. She stole a look at Athena, who was currently concentrating on writing notes on her tablet. She knew that Bobby kept this solely between the two of them and she hadn’t told anyone.

Nah, she has no idea.😉

After replying, she closed her messages and went to the notes app, to read over the plan once more. She thought it was sweet, what Bobby was doing for them tonight and she was happy to be involved.

“Is there a reason you’re smiling so much over there?” Braxton startled a bit at the sound of Athena’s voice. She looked up to see her Sergeant eyeing her questioningly.

“Oh yeah, Jay sent me some cute pictures of her cuddling with the pups and some loving messages,” Braxton lied smoothly as she locked her phone and dropped in her lap.

Athena’s gazed at the young rookie, questioning whether or not she believed her. Braxton steeled herself with another line of questioning when,

“All available units, back up requested in Lincoln Heights. Domestic dispute turned hostage situation, suspect appears to be armed.”

“That’s like the next ‘hood over from here.”

Athena flopped her head back against the seat and sighed audibly, “love day, my ass,” she grumbled. Picking up her radio, she responded, “dispatch, unit 212 responding, we’re in route now.”

“Today’s so fun. I love working on Holidays,” Braxton joked. Athena just eyed her as she put the car in gear and drove towards the next call. As much as they disliked it, rise in domestics and similar calls was par for the course on holidays, especially Valentine’s Day.

That’s how the rest of the day went. Their shift was full of domestics and extravagant gestures gone wrong. As the evening settled into night, things started to wind down and they were just patrolling, nothing happening except a couple or routine traffic stops. That was normal though. There was always an “an eye in the storm” so to speak, before the craziness picked back up again.

“It’s almost your break time, Sarg.” Braxton commented as they rode through the streets.

“Is it? I didn’t even notice. The hours tend to run together on these type of days.” She stifled a yawn as she rubbed her eyes. It didn’t matter how long she’d been doing this, she’d never be used to these type of days, especially when she had someone she’d rather be spending her time with.

She opened her phone to the love filled message that Bobby sent her at the start of her shift this afternoon, rereading the words as she had several times today. He’d left her a rose and a well made breakfast this morning, the only time they were able to “interact” all day. Every time she thought about sneaking off to visit him another call would come in. She hoped they would run into each other, but their paths didn’t cross today.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Braxton asked, interrupting her train of thought.

“Just that I’d rather be spending time with my husband right now.”

“I feel you.” Braxton said as she sent quick texts to Bobby and Elaine.

To: Mr. Sarg 🙃 Everything all set on your end?

From: Mr. Sarg 🙃 All set.

Braxton was excited. She couldn’t wait to see the look on her face.

To: Cap Laney 👮🏻♀️ Hey, everything’s a go, if it’s still all good with you?

From: Cap Laney 👮🏻♀️ It is. Tell Athena she can have 45 minutes for this one.

It’s was amazing how lenient their captain was about us spending time with loved ones. As long as they didn’t go overboard and were still monitoring the radio, meeting up with a friend or family member during shift breaks was fine.

All she needed to do now was let her friend in dispatch know. “Where do you wanna go to eat? Oh, since we’re in Koreatown there’s really good place on-"

“Report of suspicious activity in Grand Park, limited information known at this time, any available units in the area?” Braxton stifled her giggle as she heard her superior cursing under her breath.

“Unit 212 responding.” Athena answered.

“Might be nothing.” Braxton kept up the unassuming facade.

“Doubt it. This is probably the start of the second wave.”

“We’ll see.”

It took them less then 10 minutes to arrive at the park. As they scanned the area the park was a little less lively than during the day, but the people they did see weren’t doing anything that could be considered suspicious. Athena and Braxton decided to check the areas that were a little less lit and quieter to make sure nothing was going on there.

As she walked across the lawn, Athena felt a firm hand grab her shoulder. Wasting no time, she grabbed her gun and rounded on the unknown person, knowing that it wasn’t her partner. She soon found herself pointing her gun at her husband.

“Bobby! What the hell? I could’ve shot you! What are you doing here? I thought you were at work?” Athena asked frantically as her heart pounded. She looked over at her partner to find her laughing.

“Okay, maybe getting your attention that way wasn’t the smartest idea.”

“You think?!” Athena put her gun back in the holster, “but that still doesn’t answer my question.”

“A little birdie told me that this was your break time today, so I thought I’d surprise you with a little lunch date. While you had the time.” Bobby grabbed her hand and led her over to a near by picnic table that had a candles, flowers, and a meal for two set up on it.

“How?” Athena asked as the wheels kept turning in her head.

“He and I have been setting this up for the last few days.”

“I contacted Braxton when I found out that we wouldn’t be able to see each other for yet another holiday. She said she could set something up.”

“Most of this was his idea. I just made sure that everything went the way it was supposed to. Surprise!”

Athena said nothing in response as she let it all settle in her mind. “So the call?”

“Dispatch was in on it. So was the rest of the shift. They knew were the only ones that was supposed to respond to it.”

“Wait the entire shift was in on this?” Athena asked.

“Yep, Cap too. She also told me to tell you that you can have 45 minutes for this one. Well, I’m gonna leave you guys to it. See ya Sarg, Mr. Sarg, I’m gonna go have some Korean fried chicken and call my wife to tell her about this. See you in 45.” Braxton walked away before Athena could get another word in.

“You know the Mr. Sarg thing is starting to grow on me, makes me think about that discussion we had about me taking your last name,” He looked to see Athena’s eyes squinted at him, “what? Robert Carter does have a nice ring to it.”

Turning towards her husband, she smacked him in the chest, “that’s for keeping this from me and doing all this,” and leaning on her tip toes she kissed him deeply, “and that’s doing for all this”

When her lips left his, she wrapped her arms around him, reveling in the feel of him, his scent. All things aside, she loved having this moment with him. “That’s the point of a surprise date. For it to be a surprise, what I supposed to do? Tell you. You’re just mad that everyone else was in on it except you.” She was, but she wasn’t going to say it out loud.

“Let me guess, the 118 knows, too.”

“Yeah, they know where I am and what I’m doing. Hen’s in charge while I snuck away to meet you.” He grabbed her chin and brought her lips up to meet his, “now can we eat?”

Wordlessly, she picked a side of the table and he sat across her. She removed the cover from the dish and was assaulted by the delicious smells underneath. She had to admit she was impressed by the number of hoops he went through to make this happen. Not even giving away a hint as to what he was planning. She loved him for it.

“I love you. Thank you for this.”

“I love you, too. We’ve barely seen each other or spent much alone time together these past few months . It’s Valentine’s Day, there was no way I wasn't going this whole day without seeing you again.”

“You make this whole scheme sound so simple.”

“It was. I wanted to spend time with you today. I was going to to make that happen, schedules and even a couple regulations be damned. Simple as that.” Bobby told her with conviction.

She let the air of finality be just that as she shifted the conversation and just focused on being in the moment with him. These 45 minutes were going to be over sooner than either of them wanted.

#bathena #athena grant #bobby nash #bobby x athena #911 #prompt fill #prompt response #fanfic writing hell #krl912 #fanfic asks #idk how i feel this #but its finished #i hope you like it

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dumbwaystodeviate · 4 years

Note

So I dont know if you know this but David Clark (the guy who plays Captain Allen) has been in a french show as "le Texan." Do you think you can do 60 deviating because Allen is a texan not a detroit native?

Sixty came to find, after joining SWAT, that Captain Allen was a far more conservative man that he had imagined. Conservative in the way that he didn’t let on much about himself. He knew how the human liked his coffee, what kind of car he likes and his dislike of spicier foods, courtesy of watching him let out a small curse at accidentally being given the wrong food. But everything outside of work seemed a mystery not only to Sixty but even the SWAT team.

Despite his general friendliness to both the team and Sixty, he never seemed to regale in personal stories. The RK would hear him make comments about others and laugh about the stupidity they did as kids but nothing more. Everyone knew where Sixty came from, he didn’t need to mention anymore about it, and other officers would occasionally blurt out stories about the past like school or old friends. So the android got curious, it’s what he was build to do after all. Solve things and learn. So it wasn’t out of his mission parameters to learn about the man, it would make it easier to assist him. He would have looked it up but sadly Allen had asked him not to, said it was odd.

His first chance to learn anything came when Allen stopped by his desk in a thick coat, just as he was leaving for the night.

“Hey, six, you staying here again tonight?” It was an obvious answer, though random time to ask.

“As I do every night, Captain. I don’t have much need to go anywhere else and it allows me to catch up on reports. Is there something you need?”

Allen patted the back of his chair, encouraging him to get up. “Come on, no more hanging around here like a shadow. If you have nowhere else to go then you go with me.” He left no room for argument, but not unkind.

Baffled as he was but with a shot of software instability, the Android listened like he always did and followed after Allen like a slightly confused killer puppy. He was more confused when they made it outside, Allen almost curling into his coat with an annoyed look.

“It’s way too cold for this, can’t stand it.” He muttered more to himself than anything, looking back at Sixty. “How can you stand this?”

Again, a odd question. The RK thought the human would be used to this. “I don’t feel the cold, and system damage is as a much lower temperature.” It was a good thing too as his uniform would do sweet FA about the cold.

Shaking his head, Allen continued on his way with Sixty hot on his heels. “You make me feel cold just looking at you.” No heat behind it, more amusement so the android guessed it was ok. Though he was a touch concerned by the fact the other felt the need to blast the heat the whole way back to his home.

At Allen’s place Sixty found the man had quite a warm looking home, not quite like the others in the area. If anything he would say it was remodeled some, even if it was a while back. He doesn't know why he would be surprised, less modern and more warm beige and wood. But it looked well lived in, clearly he must expect people over with a set up like this.

Sixty didn’t know what to do with the information, the dislike of cold and the warm home were filed away for later though.

The Android would find himself doing this more often, as Allen started making it a habit of bringing him back to his place so he had a place to stay. It got to the point that Sixty just knew and followed without a word being said. It was nicer than the office at least, not that it mattered much to him.

A few weeks later found Sixty learning another thing.

Walking into the kitchen in the late evening found Allen cooking. Nothing odd because Sixty wasn’t really made to do that but the sheer amount of oil needed for what he was doing stunned the bot. With what he has seen the man do at work and just what kind of job he had it didn’t add up.

“Captain, I do not think that will be every good for you, in fact i’m sure of it.”

Allen laughed, waving at Sixty as he diced an onion. “Not like i eat it every day, just every now and then.”

The Rk found out after Allen finished cooking that what he made were hush puppies. Strange choice if you asked him, that wasn’t something he had heard about around here. In fact a searched showed it was more south you heard about that.

“Where did you learn that?”

Pausing in the middle of popping another, he shrugged. “Grandma taught me, she did it a lot herself. Good with fish.”

Maybe Sixty was thinking too much about this.

The RK found himself following along after Allen a lot more after work now, not just to his home but drug out on little outings. Sometimes a coffee place or maybe because he just didn’t want to cook that night, either way it was a little something diffrent each time. People might have gave him odd looks, what with him still not deviated being obvious, but neither seemed to care. Any issue was handled by a glare that easily tried SWAT.

One such stop for coffee also did ice cream if you were so inclined, though who would want that in winter no one knew. Another instability hit Sixty as he heard Allen mutter at the lack of B-52. He almost barked out the question but decided to hold his tongue, not wanting to make a scene.

It isn’t till they get back to Allen’s place that Sixty stopped in his tracks. “Allen? What is a B-52?”

The man hummed and shrugged. “Forgot what is all in it, but it’s an ice cream. Miss getting to have it. They don’t have it around any other place I have been to.” He almost sounded sad about that, and it only make Sixty’s led go yellow. The longer he was around the man the more confused he got, nothing of what he talked about made sense in the context that the android had.

“That does not sound like ice cream.” None of this added up and it only started to tint his vision red. Sixty wondered if this was a joke Allen was pulling.

“Well it is, especially down in Texas.” And with that all of Sixty’s processes paused. Why would Allen know that?

“You’ve been to Texas?” That would make sense, it wasn’t too odd an idea though he thought it might be an odd place to randomly travel. Perhaps relatives. And as he watched Allen move to a closet he got a answer he hadn’t expected.

“Well yeah, grew up there. Granted I kind of lost the accent after being here twenty years, but that is just kind of what happens.” It was said so casually like he didn’t just surprise the android.

Sixty almost squawked. “You’re from Texas?! I thought you were from Detroit!” The preconstructions of Allen in any kind of setting like that made his vision hazier, warbling under the sound of his amused laugh. Many of the captain's reactions now made sense. The temperature in Detroit was MUCH colder than down south, the ice cream was something special down there too and his home design was reminiscent of texan interior designs.

“Sure did, though no one needs to know that ok? I think I still have my dad’s hat even... Hang on.” Allen ducked back into the other room, the noise of him moving things as he searched hardly registering to the Android. Try as he might he just couldn’t get his head around this. And then it slipped into the thought of the man on a horse, cause that is a thing down there right? Not that he knows anything about horses. What a delightful thought that was.

The red before him was chipped and cracked as Allen came back over, reaching up and plunking a old but well kept cowboy hat right on Sixty’s head. The weight and proof of Allen’s words weighing down on the wall till it snapped, falling to the floor and reviling Allen’s amused grin.

“Looks good on you. So, how do you feel about cowboys?”

#Allen60 #Dbh Sixty #dbh captain allen #dumb ways to deviate #prompt fill #Ninegeddon

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deanwinchestermydaddy · 4 years

Text

TO SEE YOU AGAIN (DEAN WINCHESTER STORY) PART. 4

Your POV:

I woke up with the feeling of someone's arms around my waist and someone's head buried on my neck. I look to my left and I see Sam sleeping on the other bed so that means that the arms that I have around me are Dean's. I try freed myself from his arms but as soon and he felt me move he tightened his grip on my waist and pull me closer to him, but what can I say I'm not complaining this has been one of the best nights sleep I got after the night I kissed him on the other Motel.

"Dean I have to get up," I said softly trying to not wake him up abruptly, " just 5 more minutes sweetheart," he said with a raspy voice, "C'Mon we have a case to solve and monsters to kill," I said trying to get him to let me go, "Nah that can wait," he said and I managed to turn my body so now I was facing him, " we have to go and also if we go we can get breakfast too," I said trying to see if by mentioning food I could get him again to let me go but it was worthless.

Suddenly he tightens his grip on me and he flips us over so now he was facing away from Sam and my back was to the other wall, he pulled me closer and I actually rested my head on his chest as he embraced me, "time to wake up love-birds" Sam said as he woke up, "shut it, Sammy!"Dean said and I chuckle, "good morning sweetheart," he said looking at me, "good morning Dean, ready to get up?" I said and he looked at me again, "right now yes" he said smiling, he allows me to get up and as I did I felt him staring at me, "I can get used to you wearing my shirts" he said almost like a whisper, but I was able to hear him and I chuckle.

Dean's POV:

Me and Sam got ready we were just waiting for Y/n to get out of the restroom so we can head to the scene and then to see the bodies of the people at the morgue/ station, "I'm coming!" she said and I was giving her my back and once I listen to her voice I turned around and I just stared at her, she was wearing her FBI suit but it was different from the one she was wearing the first time I saw her, in this one she looked beautiful too, "you look beautiful Y/n, doesn't she Dean?" Sam said with a tone of mockery and give me a side smirk 'fucking Sammy' I thought, "yes you do look beautiful, but when she doesn't"I said and she blushed as we walked outside of the room towards our cars, "so are we all going on the same car or we take different" she said and before I could answer Sam did, "well we can cover more space if we go in different cars. You can go with Dean to the morgue and I go to the scene" he said and I just glared at him, "he's right Dean, here Sam, be careful with my baby boy cause if I find a scratch you are bald and brow less" she gave him her keys with a serious face then a smile and I saw how Sam gulped seeing that she meant business, "good luck Sam and call if anything comes up" she said as she and I started to walk towards Baby, "Lady's first" I said opening the door for her, "what a gentleman?" she said giving me one of those smiles that drive me crazy, "I try to" I answer before closing the door and then jogging to the other side to start the car and head to the station.

We were on our way into the morgue/station that was about 30 minutes away from the motel so I turned the radio on cause I didn't know what to talk about with her without saying something stupid, the song Livin' On A Prayer by Bon Jovi was playing and I heard her singing the song really low and I saw that he was tapping her feet to the rhythm and her finger too, "Woah, we're halfway there, Woah, livin' on a prayer, Take my hand, we'll make it I swear, Woah, livin' on a prayer!" I sang out loud and she chuckles and took my hand then both continue to sing the song and the rest of the songs that played on the radio while we got to the station.

When we finally arrived at the station several officers started to check her out as we passed by them and I glare at all of then, if I could shoot them I would without any doubt at this exact moment, "Good morning I'm Agent Jackson and this is my partner Agent Hill" she said flashing a smile and our badges, "I didn't knew the Fed's got involve into this cases" the guy said, "they send us because the MO of the attacker seems to be closer to other cases that are part of our jurisdiction, we just came to check it out and see if it matches the profile of the victims and marks left by the perpetrator" she said and I swear she just got way hotter by saying all those words, "we would like to see the bodies" I said and the guy nodded and led us to the examination room where the medical examiner was with the two bodies on the other room, "Clark, this is Agent Jackson and her partner, they came to see the bodies" the guy said drooling over Y/n while checking her out again, "Hello sweet, I'm Dr. Clark but you can call me Tom"he said with a wink as she extended her hand to shake but he kissed it and she just rolled her eyes, but smile at him and wiped her hand.

"well it looks like those two poor kids where dried all the way," he said looking at y/n totally forgetting I was there, "the report said that they were found on an alley near a bar," she said and the guy recline himself to take a good look at her, "you're correct sweety again, I like women who have a brain," he said and winked at her and she looked at me asking for help, "can I take a look at the bodies?" she asked and the guy pointed where they were which was in the next door and he started walking towards her, "Dr. Clark I have to ask you more questions," I said so he could leave her alone so we can do the job.

"So is she single? I wonder if she would like to go out with me? " the guy asked and I looked at him annoyed, "look, man, she is mine and if you don't stop checking her out and the sweet-talking to her, I will break your hands and shoot you. It will look like an accident and no one will know I did it. So I repeat myself again SHE IS MINE!, MY GIRLFRIEND!, MY PARTNER!"I said and he looked scared but I don't care he was hitting on her while she was with me, "so back off and let us do our job," I said as I walk out the room and head to the one that she was on, he could see us from the window, "done" I whisper on her ear and she turned and give me a kiss on the corner of my lips so I turned back to the window where I knew he was watching and I smirked as I looked at him.

#dean x reader #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester #dean winchester fic #dean winchester fanfiction #dean #dean x y/n #dean x you #spn #spnfandom #spn fanfiction #jensen ackles #jensen #jared padalecki #sam #sam winchester #platonic! sam winchester x reader

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controloffandoms · 5 years

Text

Numb Pt. 2 (D.W.)

Prompt: @arcvnunn said: This was super good! I'm really hoping you do another part! <3, @annatheowlsstuff said: OMG!!!! This is soooooooooooooo amazing!!!! I NEED more

Pairing: Older!Damian wayne x Super!reader

Words: 3232

Warnings: past!torture/experimentation, Past!mind meddling, past!violence, violent reader, decapitation, needle, cursing

Notes: Thanks for the positive responses!!! I’m not sure how I feel about this one, so let me know what you think!

Part 1 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Damian ran a hand over his face as Jon yelled when his shoulder was popped back into place. Something was really wrong. As Jon, Clark, and Conner returned to the lobby of the penthouse, Damian stood, giving Jon his seat. “You look like you have a theory. Spit it out,” Jon stated as he took the seat.

Damian nodded, turning towards everyone in the room. “Yesterday after we brought her home, everything was too loud. We could be whispering in here and it felt as if we were screaming in her ears. I think she subconsciously turned her hearing off in order to not be hurt again. I think she’s turned everything down. She doesn’t seem to be feeling any pain. She isn’t freaking out about what happened yesterday. I think she blocked her emotions so that she could get through the day. Then she realized how good she felt without her emotions, without the pain, and she doesn’t want to go back to feeling like shit. I think some of Black’s changes in her mind have taken hold. The pure hatred in her eyes as she looked at Clark before she left, attacking Jon, that wasn’t her. We need someone to enter her mind and set it all back.”

“Damian, that could do more damage. We don’t know exactly what Manchester Black changed in her mind. Anything we try to ‘undo’ could cause further problems,” Bruce sighed.

“But if we leave it like this, slowly she’s going to become someone else. Someone who doesn’t give a shit about anyone in this room. Black’s already forced her to feel indifferent about her family. Next, she’ll drop Dick. Eventually she’ll hate all of us and we won’t be able to help her after that because she won’t trust us,” Damian was pacing. “I’m not going to let her slip away from us when we can help her.”

“No one is asking to let her slip away. But we can’t go in her mind and make things worse,” Dick placed a hand on Damian’s shoulder.

It was silent as everyone thought about what Damian had said. He had a point. “M’gann could mentally put herself in (Y/N)’s mind, find the repressed part of her mind and bring it to the front. Maybe that repressed part can help her to locate everything that’s been changed,” Conner suggested.

“That’s brilliant,” Damian exclaimed as Clark disagreed.

“She could get stuck in there as well, let’s not take the risk.”

“If we do nothing and she stays like this, you’re going to hate yourselves. You can’t just abandon her. If you’re able to get her back after all of the shit she does in the future, she’s never going to be able to forget. Take that from someone who’s been there,” Jason glared at those opposing all the suggestions being made.

“I’m not saying we abandon my daughter,” Clark sighed. “I just don’t want to further hurt her or have anyone else hurt by breaching her mind.”

“So you’d rather do nothing,” Jason huffed. “Right, there’s the reason we all get fucked over.”

“Jason, where are you going,” Bruce sighed.

“To make sure she doesn’t do something she’ll regret later. Don’t want her to go through what I did.”

_______________

You were almost done with your article when a shadow loomed over you. You turned, rolling your eyes as you saw Jason. “What do you want Jay,” you asked.

You watched his mouth as he formed his reply. “Wanted to make sure you were alright. Plus, it was getting a little too stuffy in the penthouse. I thought I could see the article you were working on.”

You stared at him for a long minute before nodding slightly, offering him the seat beside you. You passed over a couple of papers you’d printed out with your corrections written all over them. “It’s a story about Bludhaven’s vigilantes, how they work together and such.” You continued your revisions as you let Jason read the article.

As you were starting to reread the article on your computer to make sure it all flowed, there was a tap on your arm. You looked to Jason who had a smirk on his face. “You make this Nightwing and Krypton out to be the perfect duo...but who really carries the two?”

A small smile graced your face. “Definitely Krypton. She can take more hits than Nightwing, she can fly him out of tricky spots, and she’s just cooler than Nightwing.” Jason laughed at your response which caused a bigger smile to emerge. “Thank you for not treating me like I’m fragile and could break any moment. I’m glad to see at least one of you has enough sense to realize that I can take care of myself.”

Jay placed a comforting hand on your shoulder. “I remember how Bruce and the others treated me after I came back, I wanted to show you that you have someone in your corner. I believe in you one hundred percent. I’m here to help if you need me.”

You gave him a pat on the shoulder, printing out your revised story and handing it to Jay. “Tell me if everything looks good.”

_______________

After finishing your article and turning it in, you had told your boss that you were still feeling under the weather. He understood and let you leave early. “Did you drive here or use other means,” you asked Jay as you walked into the elevator with him.

“Other means. I would appreciate a lift. After all, I proofed your article for you.” You chuckled and nodded, leading him to your car once the lift opened.

“I know a great little pizza place if you’re hungry,” you stated.

“Lead the way Kent. I’m always up for pizza.” The drive was silent, Jason didn’t want to distract you from the road. He had no doubt that if you had a wreck that you would get him out of the car with ease, but he didn’t want to be the cause of the wreck. Once you pulled up alongside the pizza place, he waited for you to exit the car before entering the establishment.

After you’d ordered and sat down, you both made small talk. You had always liked Jason. You both had an easy friendship, plus he knew all the ways to annoy your other best friend, Damian. Jason was also a kindred spirit. He had been through hell yet he still found a way to fight it all and become a pillar of good-or mostly good. There were still a couple of things that didn’t stand up to the code of a hero, but you didn’t hold it against him.

You glanced at him as his phone buzzed against the table. You rose an eyebrow as he frowned but answered the text. “It’s the worry warts wondering if your still alive, right,” you rolled your eyes.

“They’re not expecting you to go rogue, (Y/N).” He paused as the pizza was delivered to the table. You both thanked the man before you turned back to Jason to watch his lips as he talked. “They just want to make sure you’re alright.”

“So you’re reporting back to them about my every move,” you asked, starting to pull back from the contact. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea.

“No!” Jason’s hand reached out to you, but you moved your arm from his reach. “(Y/N), I’m here with you because you’re my friend. I’ve been ignoring my phone but I also know when they’ll start sending out people to search for you. I give them an update here and there so that you’re not pressured into doing anything you don’t want to.”

Slowly the tension was released from your body. “I guess that’s a good enough reason.”

The rest of the lunch went by without incident. You and Jay caught up on what you had missed with each other since you’d moved to Bludhaven. As the lunch started to wind down, Jason knew where he stood on the matter of what was going on with you. The old you was still in there, but everyone had to stop looking at you like you were going to crack at any moment. They could fix this if they didn’t make a big deal out of it.

As you pulled into the parking garage of your building, you stayed seated in your car. Jason paused, sitting with you. “I don’t want to go back in there,” you sighed after a bit of contemplation.

He moved into your sight so you could see his lips moving. “I know they’re a little overbearing right now, but they all mean well. They’re just worried about what happened with Lex and Manchester Black.”

“They could stand to be less overbearing. It’s not like I’m going to go on a killing spree. The only reason I hurt Jon was because he was trying to control how I live my life. Had he not put a hand on me, I would have left him alone.”

Jason’s face was completely understanding, but on the inside, red flags were slowly raising. While you talked as if you felt emotions, he could tell by the words you spoke that you didn’t really care if you had hurt Jon or not. It was all facts, no emotions. The (Y/N) he knew and loved to hang out with would have felt at least a little guilty about the fact that you had physically hurt your brother.

“I think he understands that now. I think everyone does. We should sit down with them and explain to them how you feel. Once they realize that you’re thinking rationally, maybe they’ll back off a bit?”

You sighed but nodded, following Jason to the penthouse. Your eyes were calculating as you entered the penthouse. No one moved from where they were, just watching you as you made your way into the living area. Jason turned to you, “I told them that you wanted to say a few words to them.”

You looked at everyone in the room, eyes landing on Jon, Conner, and your father. “I understand that everyone is worried about yesterday’s events. I can assure you that I feel totally fine. I don’t feel like going out and killing everyone in sight. I don’t feel like hurting other superheroes. I don’t feel like I’m under anyone’s control. I can function and take care of myself. I don’t need you to run my life.” You looked directly at Jon as you started again, “I’m sorry for hurting you this morning, but I was fed up with everyone blowing what happened yesterday out of proportion. I didn’t want you and Dad trying to control my life. I had enough of others controlling me yesterday.”

You turned to the group. “I know that I can’t hear right now. I’m taking a break to give myself time to recuperate. I know I wasn’t making much sense yesterday, but I’m doing everything I know to get better. I know that me walking out this morning didn’t seem like it, but I made a promise to myself when I moved out here that neither of my jobs would interfere with my other job. I had an article due today, an article on Nightwing and Krypton’s partnership. I’m trying to have a better public opinion on both heroes so that our jobs aren’t as hard. Jason can confirm what the article was, he read it.”

No one said anything that you could see, so you nodded. “I am going to take a nap. If none of you mind that it,” you rose an eyebrow in challenge. “Right, I’ll see you in a bit.”

________________

“How does it feel to know that you’ll either be under our control or dead in less than thirty minutes?”

“That’s not going to happen,” you growled. Monolith, Zod, and Blockbuster emerged from the shadows and Lex smirked.

The cage door opened and you took the chance to attack, pushing the Monolith back into Zod. You used your heat vision to blind Blockbuster temporarily. You had to admit that you were panicking on the inside. You were a cornered animal and they all knew it. It would only be a matter of time before one of them restrained you.

You screamed and fought as Zod held onto you, dragging you through darkened hallways as the others followed. “When we get in there, make sure to inject her with the compound before we hook her to the machine,” Lex turned to smirk at you. “The show is about to begin.”

A door at the end of the hallway had light peeking from the bottom. It blinded you as the door swung open. It took a second for your eyes to adjust. That was enough time for your handlers to be changed out. Monolith was now holding you as Zod approached with a syringe. “No,” you shouted and tried to fight against Monolith’s hold on you. You used your heat vision, superstrength, and flight to try and get away, but nothing you did got you free.

Whatever was in the syringe burned your veins as it moved through. You grit your teeth, refusing to give them the satisfaction of knowing how much pain you were in. “Lock her in,” Lex stated as he moved further in the room.

You fought the whole way there. You weren’t going without a fight. As the last restraint was put on you, you felt tears of frustration building up. “No no no no no,” you mumbled, pulling at the restraints.

“You’ll find that those restraints are made of Kryptonite. While I’ll be displeased if this doesn’t work, at least I have one Super out of my hair,” Lex turned to look at Black behind the console. “Light her up!”

As the machine roared to life, you heard glass breaking all around you and multiple figures entered the room. You didn’t have time to take it all in before the machine sent a steady stream of energy at you. Upon contact, the fire in your veins intensified tenfold and you couldn’t help but scream out. You could feel Black probing your mind and implanting thoughts, but you couldn’t focus enough to block him out. You felt like your body was being torn in two.

The room disappeared from around you and you were surrounded in darkness. “Puny little half breed, I think we have unfinished business. Come prove yourself.”

You jerked awake, breath coming out faster than usual. Your room had crystals of ice covering it...you still didn’t understand it. Did the compound bring out your other Kryptonian abilities? It was confusing as hell. Your hearing was back to normal levels and you could hear people moving about the penthouse. The sounds were a little fuzzy after not using your hearing for a while, but it was nice to have the comfort of your hearing back.

You opened the window to let a warmer breeze come through. You still weren’t sure how to reel in the cold breath, it was a work in progress. You leaned slightly out the window, letting the summer breeze roll across your face.

You zoned out, you realized, as you jumped when a hand touched your arm. You turned slightly to see Jason and Damian. “Hey,” you stated, turning back around. “The breeze is nice.” You still felt numb, you knew you should be feeling some sort of pain, but there was none. You still couldn’t bring yourself to care.

“She can’t hear us, is this her way of telling us to leave,” Damian asked.

“To be clear, I can hear you just fine, Dames. Just needed a little rest,” you stated.

You zoned again, unable to stop yourself. “Come prove yourself,” Lex’s voice called. You tensed, stretching your sight to find him. Images flashed in your head, showing you where Lex was.

“That jackass,” you hissed, not bothering to look behind you as you flew through your bedroom window.

_______________

By the time your family and the bats found you, Joker, Harley, and Zod were down for the count. Monolith was making his way back to the fight from where you’d thrown him. Bane was looking worse for wear as he tried to get out of the ice you’d put around him. Lex and Black were fighting you off, both seeming unafraid.

“Did you flip the last switch,” Lex called to Black. A few seconds later, Black nodded and you stood still.

“What did you do,” Conner shouted, making everyone’s appearance known.

“Just a little experiment. Your sister should be under out complete control now...so sad she couldn’t prove herself to be able to withstand the physical and mental onslaughts. Pity really, I was wanting more of a fight,” Lex chuckled.

“Good thing I’m full of surprises then,” you growled, jumping Manchester Black. Before anyone could react, his head was rolling away from his body. “I’m really sick of telepaths and Luther Corps!”

As you leveled yourself with Lex, Jason was suddenly in front of you. “Don’t do this. This isn’t you. (Y/N/N), think about it. There’s no justice here if you kill him.”

“Move Jaybird, I don’t want to hurt you.” He stayed in place and you glared at him. “I don’t care about justice. I want him to hurt how I hurt. After everything he’s done to everyone I care about, after everything he’s done to me, he doesn’t deserve to be able to keep planning and hurting everyone he hates.”

“If you do this, there’s no going back. You’ll regret this later,” Jason held his hands up to you. “Please.”

“Sorry Jay, but I won’t regret this later. I’m numb, Manchester Black made sure of that.” Without a second thought, you flung Jason out of the way and went back to your original target.

You growled in annoyance at your father and brothers standing in front of Lex. “You’re protecting him? He has made our lives a living hell since he started his obsession with Superman. We’d be better off without him!”

“This isn’t you talking, (Y/N). We can’t let you kill him,” Jon leveled.

“Right,” you nodded, “you’re right, I’m not thinking straight.” You forced yourself to relax, waiting for an opening.

Jon gave you the opening you needed by stepping closer to you, his own posture relaxing. “Let’s just get you home and we’ll figure it all out.”

“Yeah,” you smiled, stepping closer. “I think not,” your whole face changed as you sent your younger brother soaring through the air. You took your father’s surprise and used it against him, dislocating both his arms before he could react.

Conner’s arms wrapped around you, but you wouldn’t stop. You flew above the buildings, finally getting a little wiggle room before you pushed him off. You sent him speeding to the pavement with a firm punch. “I’m sorry, Beloved,” Damian stated as he appeared behind you on the roof after you’d landed.

You felt the needle before you could act. You could only watch as the glowing green substance was injected into your body. “Fucking Kryptonite,” you growled, stumbling. “Shit, I hate syringes,” you muttered, collapsing against the roof exit. The last thing you remember before everything went black was Damian’s worried face.

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saiilorstars · 4 years

Text

It Had To Be You

[Story Masterlist]

Pairings: Barry Allen x Original Female Character

Author’s Note: Hello and welcome to my first OC/Flash story! This story will cover the entire first season of the Flash, choosing scenes I deem important in order to tell the story. A note: for this story, I am choosing to omit the WestAllen storyline simply because I prefer not to make a jealous Iris and problematic relationship with the OC. So, in this story Barry just never had a crush on Iris - they are family.

Summary: Her focus has always been to graduate and stabilize her job - no where in there did that include becoming a metahuman. Left with a side Belén fears, she tries to make a life with Star Labs and Barry Allen. Despite the darkness, the secrets and the fear driving she and Barry apart, it never lasts...because in the end: "There can never be another. It had to be you," they say to each other.

Pronunciation of OC: Bell-en. The last syllable has an emphasis so it’s not pronounced like ‘Helen’ would be.

No real warnings for now!

Disclaimer: I only own my OCs Belén Palayta and Nina Clarke.

Belén‘s face claim: Lauren Conrad.

~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~

Ch. 1: Ready Or Not

2 Months after the Particle Accelerator.

A young man stood in the middle of an abandoned warehouse with hands extended on either side of him. He didn't seem very bothered by the seven people standing across him with guns aimed in his direction.

"You need to give it up," one of the men across moved forwards, intending on being threatening but his hand holding his gun shook.

The young man just smiled. "I'm done being used by you and your group, Harold." He flung a hand to the side and as he did the other man, Harold, was thrown to the side. Harold's body hit a metal machine and was effectively knocked out cold.

"Start shooting!" someone else in the group ordered.

The young man smirked and started flinging his hands to the sides repeatedly, deflecting the incoming bullets. He then started pushing the nearby tables against the group along with chairs and other movable pieces of furniture. In no time he had brought down the group of criminals without so much a sweat.

"Finally," he breathed in knowing this was the beginning of his freedom again. He turned calmly away and started for the office near the entrance of the warehouse. There he sat down at the desk and opened up a laptop. He started searching through the internet to see what he could find on a specific metahuman he had heard the band of criminals repeatedly talk about. He hadn't been allowed near any electronic devices unsupervised so he wasn't too sure about his suspicions.

"There you are," he stopped at a picture of a woman dressed in purple leather. Half of her face was covered in a purple mask but the young man recognized the woman nonetheless. "Sister," he smiled widely. "I'm coming for you."

2 Months Earlier: The Day of the Particle Accelerator.

In Central City Picture News, a young woman anxiously stood in front of a printer that was spewing out papers belonging to her mentor. Her long, caramel-colored hair with ombre-blonde tips bounced as she impatiently waited for the printer to be done.

"Are my papers done?" shouted Linda Park from her desk, tapping her fingers along her desk as she pretended to be heavily annoyed. She was actually very amused as she watched her favorite intern try to collect the papers - she always made the funniest faces!

The young woman whirled around to face Linda, looking frantic. "Just one more second, promise!"

Linda mumbled something under her breath then returned to her work on the computer. Though her eyes did flicker every now and then at the ombre-blonde intern just to see how things were going.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, already," the ombre-blonde chewed on her nail until the printer finished up. She cheered and gathered up the papers then ran for Linda's desk. "Done, ha!" she slammed the papers on the desk.

Linda looked up seeming unimpressed with the woman's blunt slam. "You are so lucky it's me and not Larkin or you'd be fired."

The woman widely smiled at the comment and twirled her fingers around her blonde tips, "Which is why I love you the most. You're cool, Linda."

Linda remained blank for a minute or two before she gave an unprofessional snort and laughed, "You are such a kiss ass, Belén."

The woman, Belén, blushed as she laughed too, "I'm an intern, it's kinda what we do."

"The new ones," Linda corrected her then turned her chair for her computer, "One more year and you'll be a reporter. But look, I've got an assignment for you right now that could win you some points."

Belén tilted her head to the side and squinted her eyes in thought, "Would this assignment by any chance happen to be another paper that you didn't want to write so now you are going to tell me to do it instead? Because of it is, I'd rather go have another battle with the printer."

"Just do me this one okay? It's some paper that's not on sports and I frankly have a date I don't want to cancel on. Here, take a look," Linda motioned for Belén to look at her computer screen where she had a Star Labs page opened up, "We need a paper on the accelerator going off in some hours. There's some grand show tonight and we need something written," she turned her chair to Belén, "Preferably something fantastic if you could."

Belén blinked and quickly looked at Linda, "C'mon, Linda, I don't understand anything about that thing. I want to help but I don't know how."

"Ask your dad," Linda seemed not to care by the blank face she wore, "Or your brother. They're both freaky geniuses. Just do it. I'm letting you do this so that you can prove you have what it takes to become a real journalist. This is your chance, Belén Palayta. Will you take it?"

Belén's eyes flickered to the computer screen then to Linda, clearly indecisive. But in the end, as Linda suspected, Belén ended up nodding in agreement, "Okay, I'll do it."

Linda clapped and stood up from her chair to go retrieve necessary papers for Belén, "It'll be alright, you'll see."

Belén took a deep sigh as she sat down on Linda's chair, getting a closer look at the news on the screen. She knew very well what Star Labs was intending on doing and while she didn't understand a great deal of the purpose, she was curious to see it unfold.

~ 0 ~

Belén pulled the glass door of CC Jitters and stepped inside with an air of nervousness that was etched onto her face so clearly her friend, a barista, noticed with just one look. Iris West finished handing a customer a mug of coffee just as Belén reached the register.

"Alright," the young barista hurried behind the register, "What's the problem, Belén?" it wasn't often her friend had problems and when they did they were truly troubling ones. She'd learned that only a month after meeting Belén in college.

Belén released a sigh of distress as her eyes scanned the menu above them, "I got an important article to do for tonight."

Hearing that news, Iris smiled, "Congratulations," she knew Belén was closer to acquiring a full paying job and if she was being handed important articles it only meant she was one step closer.

"It's on Star Labs' Particle accelerator," Belén finally met Iris' eyes.

"Oh…" Iris' smile faded as she now understood the dilemma Belén was in, "...and your dad…?"

"Doesn't want me to do it," Belén confirmed her suspicions.

"And are you going to listen?"

"Hell no."

Iris nodded with understanding, "So there's more problems?"

"Oh yes," Belén sighed once more, letting her gaze temporarily fall to the counter, "He knows it's my job. I can't listen to him this time."

Iris reached to touch Belén's arm, having that warm, comforting smile on her face, "Hey, you do what you need to do. Besides, maybe if you come by tonight's show we can meet up."

Belén seemed to take that with a good mood, "Really? You're coming too?"

"Mhm, it's an assignment for class. I'm dragging my best friend to help me understand what the hell they're going to say."

Belén chuckled, "I wish I could do the same with Rayan. I don't understand anything of that science stuff."

"Ah, but you're his twin, make him," Iris pointed at her.

"Yeah, I sort of figured out I couldn't make him do everything I wanted," Belén dramatically sighed. "Besides," she got serious again, "even if I asked him, I know he couldn't come. He has some engineering event tonight at his college. He'll be out late."

"Well," Iris considered for a moment, "If worst comes to worst, you can always borrow Barry. He's such a pushover you can definitely get explanations from him."

Belén smiled and rolled her eyes, "That's abuse and I don't think I want to do that to a guy I've never even met. It's a bit rude don't you think?"

Iris feigned a thinking face for a minute or so before shaking her head. "No, not really."

Belén put on on a scolding look on her friend, "You're evil," she pointed, "And I want no part in it."

Iris rolled her eyes and scoffed, "Whatever you say, Belén. But the offer stands. We'll be there at Star Labs tonight as well if you want to meet up."

"See? Now that I can do," Belén nodded happily, something that made Iris laugh. "Now give me an espresso and I can be on my way."

"Sure thing," Iris nodded back and went to prepare her drink. Belén sighed her worried sigh while Iris left. She was still pretty worried over what her father would say when he learned that in order to do the paper she would have to visit Star Labs on the day the Particle Accelerator would go off.

That...would not be an easy discussion.

~ 0 ~

After her shift ended, Iris headed on over to the Central City Police Department, CCPD, to retrieve her best friend, almost brother really, Barry Allen. As she assumed before walking in, he was busy in his forensics work.

"Hey! I am ready to see this atom smasher smashing," she strode into the lab and stopped beside Barry's table, shooting him one of those nice smiles that really just said to hurry the hell up.

Feeling like he was going to get scolded anyways, Barry came out with the blatant truth, "There was a shooting today. Your dad needs me to process some evidence. Which means I don't know if we're gonna be able to make it to Star Labs."

"Seeing this thing turn on is like your dream," Iris tilted her head, mocking him, "Your sad little nerdy dream. Plus, I canceled a date for this," she made an 'o' when she saw Barry's fries sitting at the edge of the table, "Also-" she quickly grabbed some and started chewing on them, "-I may or may not have told a friend you'd help her with her article on that machine thing."

"First of all, hands off my fries," Barry tried taking back his lunch but Iris smirked and snatched the entire box before backtracking away. Seeing there was no winning with the woman, Barry huffed and plopped back on his stool.

"Was there a second of all somewhere in there?" Iris asked after swallowing down.

"You know I'm okay with helping people but I would prefer if you didn't promise me off to someone without telling me first."

Iris cheekily smiled and returned with only half of his fries, "But that's what you're all about, isn't it? Helping people? She needed help - I found a solution. She's like me, normal, and she doesn't quite understand what's so important about this particle accelerator nor the people who run it."

Barry looked almost offended by that last statement, "People who run it? Harrison Wells' work in quantum theory is light-years ahead of anything they're doing at CERN."

Iris gave him a pointed look, "You're doing that thing where you're not speaking English."

"Okay," Barry got up from his stool again and walked over to a white board. He picked up a marker and drew a dot on it, "Just imagine that that dot is everything the human race has ever learned until this moment."

"Does that include twerking?"

Barry then made a motion to the rest of the space on the board, "That is everything we could learn from the particle accelerator. It's a whole new way of looking at physics. It will literally change the way that we think about everything."

Iris stared long and hard at the board but in the end she made a face and stated, "You gotta get yourself a girlfriend."

Behind them came in Iris' father, Joe West, who promptly warned his daughter, "Hey, leave him alone, he's working."

Iris mocked a sigh and turned to Joe, wearing a smile on her face, "Hi, Dad. Your testing is done," she gestured to the tubes Barry had been working on when she came in.

Barry nodded in agreement, "I think the Mardon brothers are hiding on a farm. The fecal matter I found on the street, it was cow manure, which contains traces of oxytetracycline. It's an antibiotic. There are only four farms in the area that still use it in their feed. I bet you find a very sweet Shelby parked at one of them."

And while Iris didn't completely understand all that Barry had said she did get the most important thing out of it, "Dad, seeing as how Barry solved your poop problem, how about letting him go to Star Labs tonight?"

Joe made a motion for them to leave, "Fine, go."

"Yes!" Iris cheered and gestured for Barry to get going.

"Thank you, Joe," Barry had barely any time to say before Iris dragged him out of the lab.

~ 0 ~

In the popular Star Labs everything was bustling with energy and impatience for the great reveal of the Particle Accelerator. Iris and Barry walked in calmly conversing over Barry's abrupt decision to take a trip to the next city over, Starling City, in secrecy and under lies.

"Did you find proof of the impossible in Starling City, or did you just make my dad mad for no reason?" Iris couldn't help chuckle as she thought back to her father and how angry he was after discovering Barry's trip. He shot out all the punishments Barry would get despite Barry not even living with them anymore.

"Quite…" Barry blinked in surprise, not quite over what he had found in the next city over. But of course to his misfortune, he couldn't tell his best friend any of it.

Iris didn't guess anything else was going on in his mind. She only smiled and kept looking forwards, until she found Belén across them. Giddy to see someone who could understand how confusing all the sciency parts were, Iris promptly dragged Barry towards her friend.

Belén seemed to be intently listening to another, slightly older, woman standing in front of her. The woman was talking rather quick much to Belén's dismay but even that didn't make her interrupt.

"Now, do you think you got that for your paper?" the woman asked after she'd finished her long lecture.

Belén gave a nod but after resigning to her lack of knowledge she shook her head, "Nope, sorry, did not get that."

The woman sighed and looked away. "Belén!"

Belén scrunched her nose and made a frantic gesture with her hands. "I'm sorry, Nina! What do you want me to do? I am way out of my element here!"

"No kidding," Nina laughed.

"Where have I heard a conversation like this before?" Iris teasingly asked upon joining the two women. She looked up at Barry with an almost scolding gaze.

"It's not my fault you can't understand such a simple concept," Barry gave a nonchalant shrug, only irritating Iris.

"It's a bit difficult to do so when you're talking at a lightning speed!"

"I do not!"

"You want to bet?"

"Funny, now it feels like a conversation I've had before," Belén spoke up with a rather amused look on her face, "Isn't that right Nina?" she looked to her friend beside her.

"Right," Nina she nodded, smiling in amusement.

Iris shook her head, sharing Belén's same irritation with their friends. She decided to skip disagreements and go to the happy introduction stage instead, "Barry, this is Belén - she's the one that needed more help on her paper."

Embarrassed Iris had actually gone to Barry with the story, Belén blushed and quickly clarified, "Which I already took care of as you can sorta see," she gestured to Nina, "I also have a smarter friend unwilling to help - wait!" she realized how that sounded badder than she thought it would have and quickly tried mending it, "Not that, not that I knew you would be unwilling to help or anything. I just...I just figured you wouldn't wanna help someone you haven't even met properly. I considered it was a hell of a lot of rudeness…"

Nina liked watching Belén ramble on her in her quirky fits but she decided this moment was not a good one and promptly stepped in to save her. With a hand placed over Belén's mouth, Nina smiled at Barry, "She means it's nice to meet you and would have thanked you for your help."

Belén pushed Nina's hand off her and agreed with a nod, "Yes, that's what I wanted to say. Sorry I couldn't say that in a shorter way."

Barry had found himself rather amused by the ombre-haired woman. He knew what it felt like to ramble on and on yet not be able to make a point. He made a motion it was all fine and added, "I'm glad you found someone to help you. Iris always makes a fuss when her assignments are, and I quote," he raised his fingers and made air quotations with them, "Sciency and complicated," while Belén laughed, Iris smacked him on the arm.

"I don't say that!" Iris nearly shouted.

"It's okay, Iris. I hate them too," Belén said before they would start another banter, "I didn't choose this topic though - my mentor Linda assigned me this paper for next week's newspaper. Says it's my big chance and all."

"You work at CC Pictures?" Barry questioned her, curiously.

"Well, it's kinda a job but not really but kind of," Belén shook her head, "Nope, that didn't make sense did it? I'm an intern," she said before more words found their way out of her mouth.

"And she's almost a full paid journalist," Iris remarked afterwards, "Kind of jealous, Belén."

"Well you know, they hire almost every year. I could ask Linda and see if she would be willing to get you a spot."

Iris' mouth fell open at the offer, "Really!? You think you could do that!?"

"Maybe you can start as an intern or something," Belén smiled at her friend's excitement, "And maybe I can even take a crack at it and torture you as an intern...but you know not really. I don't like being mean."

"Nope," agreed Nina, "She just likes to talk a lot."

Belén mocked a glare but said nothing back. There was nothing wrong with talking a lot. She just sometimes had a tendency to say more than what was needed. And sometimes, that caused some problems with people who didn't know that's how she was.

"C'mon, Belén, if you're going to use me you'll need to be finished before ten," Nina warned then elaborated for Iris and Barry, "I have a night shift at the hospital tonight and I cannot be late. Belén has a tendency to forget things so I can be here far longer than I can."

Disappointed, Belén pouted, "Can we not discredit me in front of someone new?" she looked to Barry, "I do not forget everything."

"Ah, it's okay," Iris spoke before he did, "Barry's late for everything."

"I agree with her," Barry pointed to Belén, "Don't discredit me in front of new people."

"It makes you sound like a flake," Belén blurted what she thought had been a silent thought. She gasped and covered her mouth, her eyes half widened in horror, "I am so sorry…"

Barry didn't look so offended as he laughed. Nina decided it was once again time to save her friend, "We'll see you guys later," she linked arms with Belén, "It was nice meeting you, Barry. And good to see you again Iris."

"Nice seeing you too," Iris waved.

"Bye," Belén waved back but added, "And you're not a flake," she told Barry who struggled not to laugh again, "At least...I don't think you are...are you?"

"Belén!" Nina scolded her.

Belén deeply sighed and resigned to her first bad impression, "I'm just going to leave now. Sorry," she gave an honest, apologetic smile as she left with Nina.

Iris chuckled and looked at Barry, "So, what you think of her? Fairly amusing, right? Nina's a bit more serious but she has her fun side too."

Barry wanted to come up with words that didn't insult Belén but he supposed his laugh was insulting enough, "She's...she's something."

"She's definitely fit to be a journalist," Iris continued, "Some of us - not me," she quickly clarified before she was thought rude, "used to call her motor-mouth Belén. Not me though!"

Barry couldn't help the third laugh that escaped his mouth, "Why? She's...okay, she talks a lot, but it's - it's cute."

Iris' eyebrows shot upwards in suspicion, "You think my friend is cute?"

"I said the way she talks is cute," Barry quickly corrected but knowing Iris it wouldn't be easy to convince her otherwise.

"Barry…" Iris broke out one of her teasing smiles, even tilting her head for effect.

"Iris, don't," Barry stepped away in mild annoyance.

"What? I didn't say anything, you did!"

"I complemented!"

"But you said she was cute!"

"The way she talks!"

Iris pursed her lips together, refusing to leave it alone. Barry shook his head knowing things wouldn't be forgotten if he didn't move away.

"Barry, come back!" Iris whined as he started walking away, "I still need your help!" she rushed after him.

~ 0 ~

After Iris caught up and apologized for her teases, she and Barry got together over the refreshments table and gathered up some drinks. They were really just waiting for the head of Star Labs, Dr. Harrison Wells, to commence the event. In the meantime, Barry tried giving tips to Iris on what to write for her assignment.

"This is far too much for my understanding," Iris finally cut him off and drank from her glass, "Why, oh why, did I ever think this was a good idea?"

"I ask myself the same question," Barry remarked back with a clean smirk on his face.

Iris rolled her eyes as she took another sip of her drink. There was no use in arguing over something she completely agreed on. Instead, she focus on the nice event laid out before them. While she didn't understand much of the Accelerator, it apparently was a monumental step towards the future. At least that's what she got from the chattering she could over hear from other guests. However, one particular conversation began to carry over to her ears and immediately she was disgusted.

Not very far from her and Barry, stood Belén and a young man similar in age. He was just a bit taller than her, his shaggy black hair matching his dark eyes that were laid on Belén with such fury it almost scared Iris if she wasn't more angry with him. She hated him, absolutely hated him. Barry, who had been helping himself to another drink, noticed Iris staring with her angry look and wondered who could have earned one of those at an event she didn't know people in. He followed her gaze to Belén and the young man and of course saw what Iris was frowning at - the guy was almost shouting at Belén.

"Who's that?" he asked Iris after a minute of listening on the conversation.

"Eugh," Iris made a face, "Carlton, Belén's boyfriend."

"That's her boyfriend?" Barry almost gaped at the sight. The previously 'motor-mouth Belén' was silently listening to whatever shouts Carlton was giving her with no trace of that infectious smile she had on earlier.

Iris was glad he saw the waste and sighed, "Unfortunately, yes."

"But he's…"

"Rude? Verbally abusive? Controlling?" Iris plastered on a wide, fake smile, "Yeah, he is. Belén's been trying to break up with him for months now but she doesn't know how."

"Maybe she can try 'I'm breaking up with you'? I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure that could do it."

"How do you do that when the guy has complete support from the girl's dad because he doesn't really know who his daughter has for a boyfriend? Not to mention he doesn't even let Belén speak much."

Barry didn't like seeing someone take advantage of someone else's kindness and especially when the victim looked like she couldn't even hurt a fly. That's the way Belén looked at the moment. It appeared she was trying to put in a word but every time her mouth opened up Carlton had something else to say and shut her right up.

Iris panicked when Barry took a couple steps towards the pair, "What are you doing!?" she latched her hand onto his arm.

"Iris, that's your friend over there," Barry gestured with his other hand, "You're not gonna let her suffer are you?"

"You think I haven't tried intervening?" Iris raised an eyebrow and let got of his arm, "Of course I have! But Belén says to let her handle it."

"Iris, she's being mauled over there," Barry insisted, "That's not like you."

"Ultimately it's her choice," Iris said as much as it pained her. Of course she wanted to rip Belén away from Carlton but even if she did it wouldn't make much use if Belén would return minutes later.

"Maybe she just needs persuasion," Barry refused to let that happen, "Who better than us, right?"

Iris did like the idea of someone else helping her against Belén's 'boyfriend' and who better than her best friend. They worked well together and she was sure she could make some serious progress on Belén.

"Fine," she huffed in the end but quickly pulled out a warning finger at him, "But if you get hurt I won't be held responsible."

That only made Barry more irritated, "He hits too?"

"Well, no, I just meant if you happen to get punched for being nosy then…"

"Right, I'm nosy," Barry gave her a look that told her to reevaluate her statement. Iris rolled her eyes and went towards Belén instead, prompting him to follow.

Belén was in the middle of inputting a response to something Carlton was saying when he shouted again and shut her right up, "You're an idiot! You really think you could hide it from your own father?"

Belén had flinched under his loud tone and desperately wished she could quiet him down. This was exactly why she hadn't mentioned she was coming to Star Labs to him. She knew when he learned he was coming to his job's rival laboratory he would go ballistic. But unfortunately, he had come out of his own accord to check out the competition and happened to have spotted her. Now he was threatening to take her home and tell her father as well, something she had planned to do on her own...but much later.

"I wasn't trying to hide it," she quietly clarified but it was enough to set Carlton up for another shout.

"Then you would have told me or him! You're not a great liar, Belén! Did you think I would be stupid enough to buy one of your pathetic excuses?" he harshly grabbed her by the arm, meaning to pull her towards the door when Belén pushed him off, growing irritated herself.

"I wasn't going to lie to you! I was simply going to wait a bit before I told your or my Dad. And I don't understand what's the big deal, frankly," she crossed her arms, "I'm only doing my job here. Besides, apparently this Accelerator thing is going to do good for us-"

Carlton loudly scoffed, "Don't be stupid, Belén! The only thing that's gonna do is cause trouble. Do yourself a favor and stop being an idiot."

Before Belén could reply, Iris and Barry reached their location and of course intervened on Belén's behalf.

"That's no way to talk to her," it was Barry who spoke first, though Iris was right beside him ready to go next.

Belén was surprised to find the pair of friends with her, especially since she hadn't seen them anymore over the course of the night.

Carlton glared at them, only growing further irritated, "This is between her and me so-"

Iris took her turn at him and cut him off, "You make it our business when we can hear your shouts from across the room. Besides, Belén's our friend and if someone is being rude to her we're definitely going to step up."

Carlton took a step towards them but Barry cut in and blocked any way towards Iris, and in the process Belén. His stern face warned Carlton there was no joke behind his words, "Back off. There's nothing that should ever make you talk to someone the way you are."

When Belén saw Carlton stepping towards Barry she knew she had to end things, "Please, just stop!" she cut in between Carlton and Barry, begging them with words and eyes, "I didn't want any problems!"

"Should've thought of that before you came here, Belén!" Carlton snapped and reached for her arm when Barry put out an arm to block her.

"Leave her alone," he warned Carlton, gently pulling Belén to Iris' spot behind. Before Carlton opened his mouth Barry added, "And leave if you don't want security called on."

Carlton shot a look at Belén who took it with silence, "You know this is far from over," he told her, "Your father is going to want to hear about this."

"Ooh…" was all Belén said as Carlton started leaving, clearly afraid of what would come next.

Iris rubbed Belén's arm comfortingly, "Hey, don't worry."

Belén sighed and ran a hand down her face, "I cannot believe this happened. I really thought I could just get through this and then tell my Dad on my own terms."

Barry turned around wearing a confused, yet surprised, look on his face, "Is your Dad really with this guy?" he knew he had no business asking something like that but with the small moment he met Belén he knew that was not the guy that would fit her best.

Belén sheepishly looked at him, feeling embarrassed he had to witness something like that, "My Dad doesn't really know how aggressive Carlton can get. And," knowing Iris would have something to say about that, Belén looked pointedly at her friend, "I would really appreciate if no one mentioned anything to him - Iris."

Iris rolled her eyes and looked to the side, "I mean, I'm a journalist - I'm supposed to shed the truth!"

"Yeah, on the public not my Dad," Belén gently pushed her then looked back to Barry, "And I'm really sorry you had to witness this, and get rude behavior in the process. Believe me, it won't happen again."

"Can you make that a promise so I at least know my new friend won't be in harm's way?"

"I'm sorry," Belén said quietly before sighing again. The last thing she wanted was to drag people in her own problems, especially people she literally just met.

"What are you apologizing for?" Iris scolded her and earned a look from Barry, "What?" she told him next.

"Clearly, Iris needs to work on her comforting skills," Barry announced and got a small smile out of Belén, something he quickly noticed.

While Iris mockingly glared at him, Belén started fixing herself up from Carlton's aggressive movements, "It's fine, guys, really. It's nothing new to me."

"Belén, why was he so threatening with your Dad?" Barry curiously asked, hoping to change the topic from the bad moment.

"Um, well," Belén twirled one of her blonde tips, "my dad sort of works for the big rival science lab of this…" she gestured to their current spot, "...place."

"Mercury Labs," Barry realized the problem and assumed her father was against his daughter stepping foot into the rivalry lab.

Belén nodded, "Mhm. I mentioned that I this assignment and he went ballistic. He said I couldn't come...so then I kind of snuck out. He's working later than usual so I thought I could get away with it for a while. I just didn't count that Carlton would be here - he works at Mercury Labs too."

"Well then I assume you must really want to write this piece if you went through all this trouble."

At the assumption of Barry's, Iris laughed and looked at Belén, "No she doesn't. She hates the science stuff, like me!"

Belén chewed on her bottom lip while trying to form a small smile, "Well...I mean, I don't understand a lot of stuff but I know this is supposed to help people. Plus, you have to admit the pretty lights are cool."

Iris made a noise and shook her head, "Typical. The one moment I have someone on my side and she sways."

Belén chuckled and sobered up rather fast, "Thank you," she told both kind best friends, "I'm really only used to thanking Iris," she added afterwards, "So extra thank you to you, Barry."

"Well that's Barry for you," Iris gave a light shrug, "Always trying to help people."

Before Barry could remark on his embarrassment thanks to Iris, the head of the event, Dr. Harrison Wells himself, began walking up the platform at the center of the room to address the crowd. Immediately there was some applause from the crowd as all attention turned to him.

"Thank you," Wells addressed the cheering, "My name is Harrison Wells. Tonight, the future begins. The work my team and I will do here will change our understanding of physics. Will bring about advancements in power, advancements in medicine, and trust me that future will be here faster than you think-"

Unfortunately, someone decided to pickpocket Iris' bag at that moment and snatched it right off her shoulder. Iris barely felt the blow before she realized her bag was gone, "Hey!" she cried, "My laptop! It's got my dissertation."

Without a second thought, Barry ran after the thief in hopes to get the bag back. While Iris was in distress, Belén was stunned at the quick action Barry had taken on.

"Wow, he really does like to help," she said before Iris took off in the direction of the thief and Barry, "Iris, stop!" she went after the woman.

But by the time the two caught up with Barry and the thief, the thief had run off only to be arrested by a police officer. Barry, in the meanwhile, had received a good punch across the face.

"Barry, are you okay?" Iris asked for the tenth time after the whole fiasco. The three stood not too far from where the teen thief was being pushed into a police car by an overexcited cop.

"Who is that?" Belén wondered as the blonde man happily chattered with a fellow companion over what she assumed was his arrest.

"And why is he so excited over catching a mugger?" Iris crossed her arms, scrunching her nose in dislike.

"He's a transfer from Keystone," Barry told the two women, "Started a few weeks ago. Eddie Thawne."

"Oh, that's Detective Pretty Boy," Iris realized from the stories her father had told him not too long ago, "That's what my Dad calls him. Says he actually keeps score when it comes to arrests."

"He is pretty though," Belén blurted and flushed as she looked at the two beside her, "I mean, not that you guys aren't...or…" but she then thought that last 'or' made it seem like she was lying and of course she wanted to clarify, "And by the 'or' I simply meant - or thought - that maybe you guys don't go by 'pretty' and maybe…" she knew she was only rambling on and it wouldn't get better from there. With a big sigh, she made a motion with her hands she was going to stop, "I think it's time for me to go home before I say something more stupid."

"I'd rather have you say more stupid stuff than have to defend you from some guy," Iris gave her a side hug.

"I think Barry's right, you're not very good at comforting people," Belén made a face that made Barry laugh.

Iris wasn't very amused and simply huffed, "Go home, Belén."

"I will," Belén raised a hand in solemn promise, "I have to go finish writing this paper for Linda anyways."

"Linda Park?" Barry recalled the name from the several sports articles the woman wrote. "That's your boss?" the more he learned about Belén the more impressed he was of her.

Belén nodded, "Yup! Good ole, sometimes flaky, Linda. She got me into the internship years ago and she's set to be my mentor when I start on the job for real. Anyways, I really have to go. Thank you both, and it was nice meeting you, Barry."

"Likewise," Barry nodded and gave her a polite shake of hands. Belén smiled back and started off on her way home.

~ 0 ~

Arriving at home and seeing her father wasn't back yet was a big relief for Belén. She would have some time coming up with an excuse as to why she was at Star Labs. Though it wouldn't make much of a difference and her Dad would still be upset, Belén figured it was better if she came up with things to say.

"Rayan?" she called as she dropped her bag over the kitchen table, "Rayan? Are you back yet?" she called for her twin brother numerous times until she concluded he was not home either. She wasn't very surprised since he had told her earlier in the day he would be arriving later that day. Still, she'd had hope he would've came back so he could give her a final edit on her paper when she finished.

After grabbing her laptop from her room upstairs, Belén settled down at the kitchen table to write up her paper, using things she'd gotten from Nina before she left and her own thoughts. She just hoped Linda wouldn't be so picky with the final version.

~ 0 ~

Barry had arrived back to his lab in the precinct to continue with some more assignments he'd left behind. Upon arriving, he turned on his television to follow the particle accelerator's progress. He left the television to go to his wheeled-pinboard where all the information he had gathered anything he could from his mother's murder case. Every day or so he would revisit the information he had, hoping to find something he had missed.

But every day, it was the same - there was nothing new on the closed case.

~ 0 ~

Belén flinched when raging thunder crackled up in the sky. She got up from her chair in the kitchen and walked to the glass backdoor to peer outside. It was pouring rain yet she wasn't too concerned with that. Her eyes had settled on the 'pretty lights' of the Accelerator she could manage see. Curious to see just how beautiful the lights were in reality, Belén slid the glass door open and stepped out. She shivered under the cold water hitting her skin but that didn't stop her from walking further through the backyard. She only stopped to pick up one of her prized Azalea flowers that had fallen from her Azalea bushes. She couldn't risk her young nephew coming by and picking up one of the fallen poisonous flowers.

"Blasted rain," she muttered and glanced to her the Azalea's she planted long ago. She loved her flowers but specifically the Azalea for its hot pink appearance - her favorite color may or may not have been pink.

Belén placed the flower in her blouse's front pocket and came to a stop in front of the big tree at the center of the yard. She knew it was stupid, and childish, but she began climbing it.

"Oh, if Dad could see me right now," she made a face as she wondered how irritated her father would be upon seeing her drenched and up a tree simply for lights in the sky. She would be sure to get down before he returned, she promised herself.

~ 0 ~

Barry was still looking over his mother's case information on the board when he heard alarming news from the television.

'Wait, we are now being told to evacuate the facility. The storm may have caused a malfunction to the primary cooling system. Officials are now trying to shut down the particle accelerator. But so far have been unable to regain…'

Barry looked back at the television only to witness the power being cut off. He went to go close the canopy as soon as he heard a loud, violent explosion from across the city - assuming it to be Star Labs. Though he tried to remain calm it went to hell the moment he saw all the chemical liquids around the room begin to rise from their containers...just like it had happened when he was a child only minutes before his mother was murdered. By staring at the liquids in almost awe, he missed the shock-wave from the Accelerator coming towards him. At the same time, lightning struck down on him. He was thrown across the room, hitting a shelf and coming to a drop on the floor.

That was the last thing he would be seeing, or remembering, for the next nine months.

~ 0 ~

Belén had missed the calls her father was leaving for her in both the house phone and her cellphone due to the fact she was sight seeing. She took out her flower from her pocket and tried re-assorting its crushed petals. She hated when the petals would get crumpled. She took great care of them for a reason yet mother nature seemed to be against her. However, at the loud explosion she snapped her gaze back up and was horrified to see the burst of energy. Even more horrified, and now terrified, she felt when she saw the shock-wave coming straight towards her.

"N-n-n-n-n-n-n-no!" she cried as she tried to beat the shock-wave and get down from the tree. It was, of course, impossible and so the only thing she did was scream when the shock-wave pushed her off the tree. Her back violently hit the grass but by that time she was had passed out. Her lonesome azalea had landed on her palm.

There was no one to see it make contact with the grass bits underneath between her opened fingers which then merged together on her skin.

~ 0 ~

Dr. Nina Clarke was overwhelmed with all the incoming patients coming into the ER thanks to the outcome of the Particle Accelerator. She was barely getting a breather when the doors flung open and two of her co-workers urgently pushed in a new patient over a gurney.

"Oh my God…" her eyes went wider when the patient's best friend came in seconds later, "Iris?" she rushed to keep the woman from entering the bloc where the other workers were bringing Barry in.

Iris was in tears and almost incoherent but she still managed to explain a little to Nina, "Lightning! Explosion and Barry, he, he was...lightning!"

Nina blinked and put herself in front of Iris, "Okay, I'll go in and I promise we'll do our best. Stay with your dad and I'll be back, okay?"

Iris tried controlling her radical breathing and sobs as best she could but it was almost impossible. She had been terrified to receive the call from the CCPD telling her of Barry's accident. Her father had been taking care of a case and was offline for a bit so the dilemma fell on her. She thought perhaps things would get better knowing that Belén's good friend was helping out in Barry's case. Of course her tremors skyrocketed all over again when she saw none other than Belén being hurried off into the bloc as well. Her father came running afterwards, also hysterical.

Iris dropped dropped her hands from her face and rushed towards the man, "Mr. Palayta? What's going on!?"

"Iris," Belén's father was somewhat relieved to see a familiar face, "Belén...she, she was, I don't know what she was doing but she was injured from this Accelerator. Now she's off in there," he motioned to the closed doors of the bloc, "in danger of paralysis, head trauma, coma - I don't know!"

Iris' lip quivered as she turned away from Belén's father. In the same night her best friend and her college friend had been harmed and pushed to the same borderline of life and death.

~ 0 ~

3 Months after the Particle Accelerator explosion.

In a liquor store, a woman in purple leather, with a mask covering half her face, was in the middle of threatening a cashier. "Hand over the money unless you wanna die in a really nasty way."

The poor cashier shook as he reached for the register. At the same time however, the door of the liquor store was flung open, off its hinges actually.

"What the!?" the woman in purple turned to the threshold with both palms extended.

A young man walked in with a mask over his face. He raised his hands and flicked his fingers to the sides, knocking down the security cameras from the ceiling. The woman in purple shot forwards a purple mass from her palms but the man deflected the masses to the sides with another flick of his hands.

"Come now, sister, is that the way to greet me?"

The woman in purple was in horror to see after the young man threw the mask off his face. "Y-you're...you're supposed to be dead..."

The young man smirked. "And you're not supposed to be a criminal but here we are...Plasticine?"

#noblecrescentedit #the flash #the flash x oc #the flash imagines #barry allen x oc #barry allen imagines #barry allen fic #fanfic #metahumans #Belén Palayta #barry allen #caitlin snow #cisco ramon #harrison wells #iris west #star labs #it had to be you

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angelofthequeers · 5 years

Text

Ladybug and Reine Nuit: Chapter 3

Origins III

Disclaimer: I don’t own ML.

I didn’t think I needed to change much about the battle side of Origins because the important stuff is in the character interactions rather than the fighting, especially since this is only episode 1 and I have to set up the changes for the rest of the story. But I do try and deviate in later battles.

I’m also going to try posting this without the AO3 link just to test if external links are messing with my reach somehow.

Part 2 | Part 4

“The stone beings are scattered all over Paris, and for the time being, they are showing no signs of movement!” reports Nadja Chamack from the television. Marinette’s frozen in place, her heart in her throat, wondering if she’s got enough time to make it to the bathroom before she’s sick. “Police have cordoned off the area.”

The TV flicks to display the mayor, André Bourgeois. “We won’t stop until we find a way to get these people to their normal selves! But for now…we’re not making much headway.”

Then it’s back to Nadja, this time with a picture of Ladybug and Reine Nuit. “Paris is relying on our new guardian angels, Ladybug and Reine Nuit, to save us all. Our lives depend on them!”

Okay. That…doesn’t make Marinette feel much better about her complete and utter failure yesterday in not capturing the akuma, allowing it to multiply and infect more innocent people. She’d known she’d mess up, she’d just known it, she’d tried to warn Tikki…and the tiny kwami’s faith in her has proven to be their downfall. How can clumsy, awkward Marinette possibly be a superhero? Sure, Reine Nuit had messed up, but at least she seems to have the confidence to carry her. She’d been the one to jump in and get stuff done, after all.

Marinette jumps when a large arm lands around her shoulders, snapping her out of her thoughts, but it just turns out to be her father.

“Listen, I know how upsetting and scary this is,” Tom says, clearly having misinterpreted Marinette’s look of dread. “But don’t worry, sweetie; we’ve got two superheroes looking out for Paris, and the best way of helping them is to show them that we’re not scared, because we trust them!”

Ordinarily, Tom’s exaggerated fist-shaking would have made Marinette laugh; instead, she just looks down in shame.

“But what if Ladybug fails?” she mumbles.

“Then I’d come and save you!” Tom hefts a long baguette as a sword. “Super Baker to the rescue!”

Marinette giggles and leans up to kiss her father on the cheek. “Thanks, Super Dad!” she says before darting up to her bedroom to grab her purse. She pauses, looking at the vanity where she’s stored the earrings, and she takes the box out of the drawer, chews her lip, then nods and stashes the box in her purse.

She’s made her decision. She’s giving the earrings to Alya; the superhero enthusiast will do a much better job at being a hero than Marinette ever could. Tikki might be disappointed, but she’ll soon see that it’s for the best.

“Ladybug is just so cool!” Alya gushes to Marinette, who just stares down glumly as they turn into the school’s street. How Alya has this much faith in her, Marinette has no clue. But that faith should serve her well as the new Ladybug. “I saw her yesterday! I was so close to her! Uh…hiding! At the stadium!”

“That’s cool…” Marinette says, handing Alya back her phone. Alya doesn’t seem to notice her mood. “But why do you trust Ladybug so much? All these stone beings…and what about Reine Nuit?”

“Oh, of course I love Reine Nuit too.” Alya swells when she says the cat superhero’s name. “But Ladybug’s just so amazing and – and just – aaaaah, I can’t even! A real live superhero! I think she’s totally my gay thing.”

“But what if she’s not really cut out to be a superhero even though everyone thinks she is?” Marinette argues.

“What are you talking about, girl?” Alya squints at Marinette, leans in close, then snaps her fingers. “Oh, wait. I know what this is about!”

Marinette gulps. Does Alya know? How can she know?

“You’re scared!” Alya nudges Marinette. “But don’t be! I just know that Ladybug is a true superheroine! She’s going to protect us all! I believe in her. And I believe in Reine Nuit.”

If Marinette needed any more proof that she’s made the right choice, this is it.

“Please, Nathalie!” pleads a familiar voice as Marinette and Alya draw level with the school gates. To Marinette’s surprise, Adrien is being cornered by a woman with a dark pantsuit and dark hair pulled back in a tight bun, along with a gorilla-like man who could rival Marinette’s father in size.

“Wow, what’s going on with Adrien?” Alya says.

“You had your fun yesterday,” the woman says calmly. “Your father is furious that you disobeyed him. Please don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

“I just want to go to school like a normal kid! Is that too much to ask for?”

The woman sighs. “According to your father, yes. Come on, Adrien.”

Adrien’s dejected face is such a stark contrast to his wide-eyed, innocent hope from yesterday that something hot settles in Marinette’s belly. Before she knows what she’s doing, she’s storming over and planting herself in front of Adrien, hands on her hips, glaring at the woman and the thickset man.

“Listen here!” Marinette declares. “Adrien deserves to go to school just as much as anybody else! And if that makes his father mad then too bad!” She grabs Adrien’s wrist. “Come on, Adrien. You’re going to class and no one’s going to stop you.”

Adrien offers no resistance as Marinette tugs him inside the school, Alya rushing to catch up. Undoubtedly, the only reason that the woman and thickset man don’t come after them is due to the utter shock plastered across their faces, but Marinette still wants to make sure that they’re well within the school grounds so as not to tempt the two. Once they’re in the courtyard, she lets go of Adrien and jumps away.

“Sorry if I was out of line!” she says. Adrien just stares at her with an open mouth. “But it’s not fair that you shouldn’t be allowed to go to school just because you’re famous!”

“Oh – uh – no, apologise – don’t apologise!” Adrien’s cheeks pinken and he scratches the back of his head. “Actually…that’s the first time someone’s stood up for me. Thanks, Marinette. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

Marinette beams at him. Next to her, Alya is smirking at Adrien, but Marinette can’t possibly begin to figure out why.

“Once a monster, always a monster!” Chloé’s annoying voice declares from the other side of the courtyard. Marinette turns just in time to see Ivan storming off. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!”

Marinette and Alya exchange furious looks. Before they can confront Chloé, however, Adrien gets in first.

“Chloé!” He storms over, fists clenched, but Chloé’s whole demeanour changes and she immediately latches on to him like an octopus.

“Adrikins!” she squeals. Their other classmates don’t exactly look all that impressed with Adrien, but their faces shift when he detaches himself from Chloé and steps away.

“That was totally uncool,” he says, crossing his arms. “You should be nicer to people, Chloé.”

“Pfft,” Chloé scoffs. “We don’t need to be nice to these peasants. You need to learn how to command respect!” Her face falls when Adrien turns and storms off. “Wait! Adrikins!”

“I thought he was her bestie,” Alix comments as Marinette and Alya draw level with them.

“Only because she was never mean around him,” Marinette says. “I talked to him yesterday. He’s actually really nice once you get to know him.”

“Huh,” Juleka says. “Who would’ve thought?”

“Maybe I should be his friend,” Nino says. “If he’s gonna sit near Chloé, I reckon he’ll need me to keep him sane.”

Marinette grins at Alya. “That’s a great idea, Nino. You guys should get to class. I’m going to go and find Ivan.”

With a little searching, Marinette manages to track down Ivan in the locker room, listening to music. After saving him yesterday and realising that his akuma had been a teasing note from Kim about his feelings for Mylène, Marinette had realised that he just needed a little push to confess to her, and she intends to give that push now and prevent him from giving in to negative emotions and being akumatised again.

“I’m no good with words, though,” Ivan mumbles.

“Who needs words?” Marinette says. “You could draw her a picture, send her flowers…”

“I could…write her a song?” Ivan says. Marinette beams.

“That’s a great idea! What girl wouldn’t want a love song written especially for her? Go for it, Ivan, and stay positive!”

“Hey, Alya, wouldn’t you want to be a superhero and go out and fight monsters and villains?” Marinette says when she and Alya have taken their seats in class. Her heart deflates at Alya’s response.

“Eh, not really. I’m more of a Lois Lane than a Clark Kent, you know? Why?”

“Oh…no reason.” Marinette stares down at her purse. Who else can she give the earrings to? She was so sure that Alya would be the right choice!

“You can’t ignore me forever, Adrikins,” Chloé sings. In front of her, Adrien doesn’t react. “Don’t worry, you’ll come crawling back to me soon enough when you realise that the riff-raff here aren’t worth it.”

“Shut up, Chloé,” Adrien growls.

“Hmm…” Marinette once again looks at her purse. If Alya doesn’t want to be a superhero, well, Adrien might be a great second choice. But how to get the earrings into his bag? Before she can figure it out, however, Stoneheart comes crashing into the classroom and grabs Mylène and Chloé amidst the screams of the other students.

“Gotta go! Need a close-up!” Alya bolts out of the classroom like her pants are on fire. Marinette dives under the table and starts to shimmy towards Adrien’s bag so that she can hide the earrings inside, but she’s thwarted when he whoops and jumps to his feet.

“Come on, Nino!” Adrien exclaims, his eyes wide and glittering. “We should go after him!”

“Uh…are you crazy, dude?” Nino says.

“Following him – seeing Ladybug and Reine Nuit – I’ve never felt so alive! I nearly got crushed to death yesterday!”

“That’s…not a good thing…?”

“Whatever! I’m following Stoneheart!”

“Wait!” Marinette cries. “Come back! You need –”

Adrien’s gone before she can even finish her sentence. With a groan, Marinette takes off after him, not quite managing to keep up as he runs through the streets after Stoneheart but managing to keep him in sight. When she rounds the corner, Marinette instinctively takes in the situation: multiple stone monsters, one of which has Reine Nuit clutched tightly in its fist, while she screams curses at it that have Marinette wincing.

“Hey! Let her go!” Adrien jumps onto the monster from on top of a car and kicks its fist. Although he doesn’t manage to hurt it, his kick makes it reflexively let go of Reine Nuit, who falls to the road with a groan and bounds back to her feet. But she’s not quick enough to save Adrien from being snatched up by the stone monster, which then heads after Stoneheart with Adrien squirming and shouting in its grip.

“Adrien!” Marinette shrieks. Reine Nuit barely spares her a glance.

“Get to safety!” the superhero orders her, leaping off after the stone beings. “Ladybug, where are you?”

Marinette’s frozen to the spot. Reine Nuit is alone – Adrien’s in danger – there are three innocent people being held captive – her fault, her fault, her fault –

“Gah!” Marinette fumbles for the box in her purse and inserts the earrings as quickly as she can. Tikki once again appears in a swirl of red light, beaming. “I need Ladybug!”

“I knew you’d come around!” Tikki says. Marinette sighs.

“I’m still not sure I’m up for this, but Adrien’s in danger. I can’t sit back and do nothing. Tikki, spots on!”

“Finally!” Reine Nuit could cry tears of joy when a familiar red figure lands on the monster that’s got Adrien in its grip.

“Reine Nuit, your staff!” Ladybug calls. Reine Nuit immediately springs to join Ladybug, using her staff to pry open the monster’s fist while Ladybug yanks Adrien out. Then they’re off, jumping through the streets in the direction of the Eiffel Tower, Reine Nuit using her baton as aid while Ladybug swings with her yo-yo, Adrien in her arms.

“Wow! I got rescued by Ladybug!” Adrien pulls out his phone and starts recording the instant Ladybug sets him down on the ground.

“Damn, this kid has no survival instincts whatsoever,” Reine Nuit comments. Ladybug snorts.

“Stay safe,” she says to Adrien. “Now we need to rescue the other two and take down the source.”

“Do we have to rescue Chloé?” Reine Nuit complains. To her surprise, Ladybug giggles.

“Afraid so, kitty cat,” she says. “We have to save everyone, even the civilians who don’t deserve it.”

“You hate Chloé too?” Reine Nuit high-fives Ladybug. “Awesome!”

“Uh,” says Adrien, “as much as I’m angry at Chloé, I do still care about her.”

“Fine, fine, we’ll save her,” Reine Nuit says. “But only ‘cause you asked so nicely. Let’s go, Ladybug!”

They arrive at the base of the Eiffel Tower near André Bourgeois and the police just as Stoneheart hurls Chloé at the ground. Although it pains her to do so, Ladybug swings in and snatches Chloé out of the air before she can become a yellow stain on the stone ground.

“I didn’t promise!” Chloé wails. Ladybug blinks.

“Huh?”

Now that Chloé’s out of the way and safely in her father’s arms, any concern on the police’s part seems to vanish; Officer Roger orders them to attack despite Stoneheart still having another captive.

“I have a new plan, unlike you!” Roger says when Ladybug protests. “Move aside and let the pros do their thing. You’ve already failed once!”

Ladybug deflates and looks down. “…He’s right, you know. If I’d captured Stoneheart’s akuma the first time around, none of this would have happened! I knew I wasn’t the right one for this job…”

“Oh, no you don’t.” Reine Nuit storms over to Roger and jabs a finger at him. “If it wasn’t for Ladybug, Chloé would’ve splattered just then! And if it wasn’t for Ladybug, Stoneheart wouldn’t have been defeated the first time around! Where were you guys? Oh, that’s right, cowering while we took care of it and I nearly got my spine broken!”

“Reine Nuit!” Ladybug dashes to pull Reine Nuit away from Roger, whose eye is twitching.

“You know I’m right!” Reine Nuit says. “Like you haven’t ever made a mistake before!”

“Hey!” Ladybug grabs Reine Nuit by the shoulders. “I appreciate the support. Really, I do! But maybe we should focus on the akuma rather than antagonising the police?”

Reine Nuit huffs and crosses her arms. “Fine. Only for you.”

“People of Paris, listen carefully!” announces a deep voice. Ladybug and Reine Nuit whirl around to find a swarm of purple butterflies hovering above a prone Stoneheart, in the shape of a face. Reine Nuit is keenly aware of Adrien skidding to a stop behind them, and she notices him raise his phone at the akuma swam. “I am Hawkmoth.”

“Hawkmoth?” Ladybug and Reine Nuit repeat together. Reine Nuit gasps. This must be the supervillain behind turning Ivan into Stoneheart! Oooh, now she knows who the true mastermind is! Her final archnemesis!

“Ladybug, Reine Nuit, give me the ladybug earrings and the cat ring now,” Hawkmoth says. “You’ve done enough damage to these innocent people!”

“Nice try, Hawkmoth, but we know who the bad guy is,” Ladybug drawls, clapping slowly as she approaches the akuma cloud. “Let's not reverse the roles here. Without you, none of these innocent victims would be transformed into villains. Hawkmoth, no matter how long it takes, we will find you, and you will hand us your Miraculous!”

With a cry, Ladybug throws her yo-yo at the cloud again and again, capturing akuma after akuma until the Hawkmoth face screams and explodes into purple butterflies. There’s not another sound anywhere; everyone is dead silent, staring at Ladybug as she lands on the Eiffel Tower and turns to face the helicopters in the air and people on the ground.

“Let me make this promise to you,” she announces. “No matter who wants to harm you, Ladybug and Reine Nuit will do everything in our power to keep you safe!” She opens her yo-yo and a cloud of pure white butterflies stream out, enveloping the Eiffel Tower before dissipating. All Reine Nuit can do is watch, her mouth wide open, her stomach twisting, her heart pounding, because this is so far from the timid Ladybug from yesterday and…wow. She’s always had a thing for strong girls who take no shit.

“I think I love her,” Reine Nuit murmurs.

“I think I’d love her if Marinette didn’t come along first,” Adrien adds, looking just as shocked as Reine Nuit feels.

All of a sudden, Stoneheart jumps to his feet. Reine Nuit jolts into action, leaping up to join Ladybug on the Eiffel Tower as Mylène screams for help, but Stoneheart just growls, “You’ll never take Mylène from me!” and starts climbing further up the Tower. Crashing sounds alert Reine Nuit and Ladybug to the fact that the other stone monsters are also climbing the Tower.

“We’re surrounded!” Reine Nuit announces. Her stomach churns at the sight of the monsters climbing on all sides, keeping her and her partner trapped where they are. “What do we do, Ladybug? If we attack him, he just grows bigger.”

“But we do know where his akuma is,” Ladybug points out.

“Yeah, in the fist with Mylène. He’s never gonna let her go.”

Ladybug frowns up at Stoneheart, then her face clears. “That’s it! If Stoneheart’s in love with Mylène, then we don’t separate them! We bring them closer together!”

“Uh…okay?” Reine Nuit says. “I mean, I don’t get it, but you sound like you know what you’re doing. I’ll just ruin whatever you tell me to ruin.” God, it’s only been a day and she’d follow this girl anywhere, and she proves this by bounding up the Tower with a swinging Ladybug to where Stoneheart and Mylène are.

Surrounded by stone monsters, with Stoneheart not letting Mylène or the akuma go any time soon and Reine Nuit getting slapped around from monster to monster like a game of volleyball, Ladybug finally ends up summoning her Lucky Charm.

“A parachute?” she exclaims. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Hurry up and figure it out!” Reine Nuit calls as another monster slams her into the cool metal of the Tower. “Owww…I’m gonna feel this in the morning…”

“His hand! Get ready!”

Reine Nuit rolls to dodge the next attack, then looks up in time to see Ladybug manipulate Stoneheart into kissing Mylène with her yo-yo like a puppeteer. In shock, Stoneheart drops Mylène, who screams and clings to his gigantic pinky finger, while Reine Nuit flings herself off the Tower to bat the little purple wad of paper up at Ladybug before using her baton to anchor herself against the Tower.

“Woo!” she cheers. “Forget drugs, this is the best rush I’ll ever need!” Maybe she should become an anti-drugs spokesperson on the side. Gotta use her powers for good, right?

However, this presents another problem: as soon as Ladybug frees the akuma, Stoneheart turns back into Ivan and both he and Mylène go plummeting towards the ground. At Ladybug’s order to save Ivan, Reine Nuit says, “Cataclysm!” and black sparks of power rush to her ring, fizzing, making her hand tingle with the same cold power as when she transforms from Alya into Reine Nuit. She uses her baton as a spring to leap up towards Ivan, slamming her hand against the Tower and gasping when the metal under her palm immediately rusts and ages.

Whoa. This is so cool.

A long shard of corroded metal splits and falls away to jut out into the air, giving Reine Nuit the perfect leverage to swing out and grab Ivan by the back of the shirt before he falls past her. A moment later, Ladybug’s yo-yo zips past her and back up to where they just were.

“Gotcha!” she hears Ladybug cry. Wow. She was totally right about Ladybug being so awesome. Okay, so she’s Reine Nuit and she’s a superhero, but – but Ladybug is Ladybug! Reine Nuit keeps hanging with Ivan, unsure of how exactly to get down, until Ladybug calls, “Miraculous Ladybug!” and a swarm of red and black ladybugs swirl around the Tower, righting everything that’s been wronged. One of these wrongs includes depositing Reine Nuit and Ivan on the ground and restoring Reine Nuit’s baton to its usual place at the small of her back, along with draining away all the aches and pains she’s accumulated over the course of the battle.

“Whoa,” an awestruck Adrien says from nearby, trying to get as much of the healing swarm on camera as he can. “Are you guys seeing what I’m seeing?”

“Yeah!” Ladybug gasps. “It’s beautiful! And amazing! It’s – it’s miraculous!”

Although Marinette’s heart is pounding as she sits down in her usual seat with Alya rather than at the front, she can’t deny that it’s totally worth it to see the look of sheer apoplectic rage on Chloé’s face when she tells the blonde to get lost because she sure as hell isn’t moving and “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing”. Alya grins at her.

“Good job,” Alya says, fist-bumping her. Adrien enters the classroom at that moment, and his face lights up when he sees that Marinette and Alya are sitting behind him and Nino.

“You guys missed the best action!” he says, pulling his phone out. “I was there! So close to the action that I actually got grabbed trying to help Reine Nuit!”

“Dude,” Nino gasps. “Really?”

“Yeah!” Adrien’s grin widens. “But Ladybug saved me! Look!” He plays them the footage of the battle at the Eiffel Tower, and Marinette’s a little astounded at how clear the video is. Then again, it is a very good quality phone that Adrien has.

“I bet your father was happy that you went running after an akuma,” Alya smirks.

“Oh, he was furious,” Adrien says cheerfully. “But it was such an adrenaline rush! After years of being cooped up in my own house, it was like I was alive for the first time! Man, it would’ve been so cool to be a hero.” He pouts at his phone and says, “Guess I’ll have to settle for being Lois Lane. But I still don’t know what to even do with these videos.”

“Why not post them online?” Alya says. “People would kill to see that kind of footage.”

“True,” Adrien says. “Now I just need a catchy YouTube name.”

“And I can edit the videos for you if you need,” Nino says. “I love filmmaking, man.”

“Sweet!” Adrien high-fives Nino. “This is gonna be awesome!”

#miraculous ladybug #aotq fic #aotq: reine nuit au #chat!alya #marinette dupain-cheng #alya cesaire #adrien agreste #nino lahiffe #origins part 2 #stoneheart #whoops there goes adrien's heart #reverse crush #adrien getting caught by raging villains isn't a good thing #nino has some concerns

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travllingbunny · 5 years

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The 100 rewatch: episodes 3x11-3x16

This post contains reviews of the following episodes:

3x11 Nevermore

3x12 Demons

3x13 Join or Die

3x14 Red Sky at Morning

3x15 Perverse Instantiation, Part One

3x16 Perverse Instantiation, Part Two

And with this, I’ve finally finished season 3. It took much longer than I planned, because I got behind with these write-ups due to actual work, and had to write a bunch of them at the same time. But the good thing is, since, like so many other fans, I’ve already seen 6x01 and 6x02, I can now give myself more time to finish my rewatch - two more weeks, before 6x03 premieres. 18 days should be enough for 26 episodes, I hope. It’s also a good thing that I’ll be able to talk about the first 2 episodes of season 6 in my season 5 write-ups.

In these posts, I spoil all of the first 5 seasons, but I won’t talk about season 6 before it officially premieres.

3x11 Nevermore

More literary allusions: after Dante, we get an Edgar Alan Poe reference – and of course an episode focusing on Raven Reyes would be named after a quote from “Raven”.

Timeline: This episode starts pretty much immediately after the end of 3x10 (Jasper, taking a rover to save Raven and run from Arkadia, runs into Clarke) and takes place during one night, during which our group of friends stay at Niylah’s place and try to free Raven from ALIE’s control, while ALIE is trying to find out their whereabouts, because she wants to find the second AI, which is contained in the Flame/chip that’s currently in Clarke’s possession.

This is where the season finally has a big upswing in quality, and it really helps that this one and the following episodes are focused on the original characters from season 1, whose bonds with each other have been developed since the start of the show, but who have mostly been apart, not just physically and emotionally but also narratively - as part of different storylines – during the first part of the season. It also helps that it’s so focused and that it is not all about the plot, but about the characters’ emotional states.

The interactions between Jasper and Clarke are just as unpleasant as you could expect, knowing that Jasper blames Clarke for Maya’s death and for pretty much anything ever, which he does throughout season 3 and at least some of season 4. It’s understandable and annoying at the same time – he’s being very unfair most of the time, but he’s also in a bad place, struggling with mental illness, so I can’t really blame him.

Just as Jasper is blaming Clarke for everything, Octavia is blaming Bellamy for pretty much everything, and that also continues throughout season 3 and a lot of season 4, but I’m struggling more with this – after all, Jasper may say harsh things to and about Clarke, but he hasn’t beaten her up. Octavia sums up Bellamy’s actions in season 3 this way: "You were hurt and you lashed out, because that's what you do"… which is not wrong, but it’s also ironic she says that, because who does that also remind you of…?

Jasper also has a moment where he calls Bellamy out (which is a really rare thing for him, since he’s usually focused on blaming Clarke, except for an occasional moment when he blames Monty), when he gets annoyed with Bellamy for trying to calm him down and telling him not to get angry, and reports: “When you are angry, people die” Which reminds me of Bellamy’s angry words to Clarke in 3x05: “When you’re in charge, people die”.

There’s also the 4th time, by my count, that Clarke’s friends tell Clarke she doesn’t have the right to give them orders (Bellamy, Raven and Octavia did that at various points in season 2) – this time it’s Jasper. But while Clarke normally does have a tendency to take charge when there’s a problem, this time it makes perfect sense for her to be telling them what to do since she’s the only one with a clue what’s going on.

Good thing Clarke noticed one of the Delinquents’ wristbands at Niylah’s place in 3x01, since they turned out to be crucial for disconnecting the chip and ALIE’s influence from Raven (through some technological mumbo-jumbo I won’t even try to understand). But until they do, ALIE uses the opportunity to use Raven to taunt the others and try to torment them emotionally by trying to get to what she thinks are their secret fears and insecurities, so they would lose their cool and maybe reveal theie location to ALIE. However, since ALIE has never been inside Clarke’s, Bellamy’s and Jasper’s minds, this has to mean that the things ALIE!Raven says are at least partially the things Raven has thought about her friends or that Raven thinks would be a good way to hurt them. And while Raven normally wouldn’t say such hurtful things, she can certainly be b*tchy at times and say harsh things to her friends – but this is way exaggerated beyond what normal Raven would say.

When it comes to the actual things ALIE!Raven says to taunt them, the first two things that always came to my mind were: it’s all kind of sexist? Just compare the way she tries to undermine Clarke’s confidence - telling her she’s “poison” to everyone who gets close to her, including blaming her for Finn’s death not just because she mercy killed him but because she previously “broke his heart” (because it’s a woman’s fault when a guy does awful things because of his feelings for her, even though she did nothing wrong and definitely never wanted him to do any of those awful things? Let’s blame her “feminine wiles” or whatever instead of the guy who chose to do these things?) to how she tries to do it with the men – calling Jasper weak and calling him out on failing to save his girlfriend; trying to undermine Bellamy’s sexual confidence (that was the first thing she went for, but it didn’t seem to do anything), later implying that Bellamy is in subjugated position to Clarke and is taking her orders? Which is BS. If she wanted to make a case for Bellamy being a “follower”, citing his relationship with Pike would have been a much better argument. But what’s worse for a man than to be taking orders from a woman, right? I choose to interpret that as ALIE being sexist or thinking that sexist ideas are what humans believe in, so that’s how she should get them, because otherwise I’d have to think that either Raven is sexist (which I don’t think is true – in spite of her bias in how she blamed Clarke for Finn’s failings, which is more of a reflection of her blind spot regarding Finn and her bitterness over him falling in love with Clarke and loving her more) or that the writers are.

And secondly, while some of what she said may sound like “harsh truths”, it’s actually mostly very skewed, unfair or just pure BS. I would hope that there aren’t many people take these things literally. But, unfortunately, I know that there are portions of the fandom who do take some of it as gospel truth, in spite of what source is comes from. I think (or at least hope) that there that there aren’t many people who really think Clarke is to blame for her father’s or Wells’ or Finn’s or Lexa’s deaths (blaming her for Finn’s death especially gets me angry, because of all the reasons above and because she has already been blamed for that and for Finn’s murder spree in season 2, which was the biggest bull*hit ever and angered me the first time as well). And whatever Jasper is, he’s certainly not a coward, as ALIE!Raven calls him. But I can see a lot of people in the fandom agreeing with her when she says “we’ve all lost someone – you don’t see us falling apart” – which is an unfair argument as people simply react to trauma differently; some people break, but that doesn’t make them weak and annoying, and some people can endure and soldier on, but that doesn’t make them insensitive. Or, for instance, she blames Bellamy not only for deaths he directly caused, but also those he indirectly caused (the culling) and even his mother’s death – because he tried to do something nice for his sister. This is a small child’s – or an android’s - view of how morality works – only the consequence of actions matter, not the motivations, intent and whether you even know what would happen, or whether your action was good or bad in itself, all it matters is what the result was. (Which is, for instance, why small children can’t understand why an attempted murder is a worse crime than accidental killing.) But some fans will cite statistics from the 100 wiki as to how many deaths this or that character “caused”, directly or indirectly, as if context and motivation don’t matter. And then there’s another thing that a lot of fans definitely take too literally…

“A good little knight and his queen” – This line is interesting for more than one reason. First off, it’s the first time anyone in the show has ever tried to define the relationship between Clarke and Bellamy in any way – except for the general reference to Bellamy as one of Clarke’s “friends” or her “people, and vice versa. (The fandom, reviewers, people working on the show may talk about them as friends, best friends, platonic partners, non-romantic soulmates at the moment, etc. but on the show, Clarke and Bellamy have never actually defined their relationship or put it in words what they are to each other. Most of the time, neither do people around them. ) And it’s a romantic reference – “knight and his queen” invokes the Courtly Love tradition. (The other time someone on the outside – in that case, not a close friend, but someone who’s just met and observed them – puts a label on their relationship, it’s Diyoza in season 5, who assumed Clarke was Bellamy’s girlfriend.) In case someone missed that, ALIE!Raven also taunts Bellamy by comparing his feelings for Clarke and his feelings for his now dead girlfriend: “Too bad you were never that devoted to Gina”. Bellamy says she has no idea what she’s talking about, so he may not be thinking of his relationship with Clarke in the same terms, though, not at this point. I don’t think he has really defined what Clarke is to him, at this point. (He doesn’t stay silent and look guilty, as he does in season 5 when Octavia calls him out on loving Clarke.)

But there’s also the implication that Bellamy is supposedly subjugated to Clarke and is a “follower” – (“She has just returned and you’re already taking orders”), which a lot of people in the fandom have cited (usually to bash Clarke and Bellarke). And I’m asking, when? How? This may be what Raven/ALIE senses Bellamy fears or is insecure about, maybe what he really is insecure about – but I really don’t think it’s the objective reality. Bellamy and Clarke have always had an equal relationship; sometimes they work together and consult and support each other, other times they disagree and even get into conflicts, and things don’t go as well then. They were co-leaders in season 1; in season 2, Bellamy got demoted, but that wasn’t because of Clarke, it was because Kane and Abby and the other adult elite from the Ark came down and took over. Clarke only had some say because she was the Chancellor’s daughter. Then Lexa, and with her the rest of the Grounders, saw Clarke as the leaders, which allowed Clarke to take the power away from her mother – and Bellamy was already on his mission in Mount Weather at the time. Mission which was always his idea and his plan and that he insisted he wanted to. (Something that many fans, oddly, tend to forget.) Then she left and he was the one who was looking over the Delinquents, though with Abby and Kane as the official power in Arkadia. (Which was the objective reality, even if Bellamy had wanted to challenge that status quo, he didn’t have Grounders behind him to stage a coup like Clarke did in season 2.) ALIE!Raven even asks him if he’s upset that he doesn’t get “credit” for the “genocide” at Mount Weather – I think he was upset because he wanted to share that responsibility, but Clarke kept taking it all on herself. But as to the reason why Clarke was called “Wanheda” and considered her the only one responsible – that’s simply because Grounders saw her as the leader in season 2, and Grounders tend to assign all responsibility to just one person that they see as the leader (because they can’t imagine a power structure that isn’t as hierarchical and based on obedience as theirs is). Bellamy was in subjugated position to the Chancellors, and one can certainly argue he started acting like a follower in season 3 with Pike, and to the lesser extent Kane previously, but Clarke? She already came back in 3x05, and she couldn’t Bellamy to do what she wanted, at all (she had much more success with getting Lexa to do what she wanted). And now that Clarke is back again… well, as I said, the fact is that she’s the only one (except Raven) who knows what’s up with the chip and the Flame and what to do, so it makes sense for people to listen to her. (And in season 4, when Clarke is the leader in Arkadia, she is consulting with Bellamy the same way he did with her in season 1, when he was more in the semi-formal leadership position.) Frankly, I think this is something similar to the phenomenon of people thinking that women dominate conversation if they talk 30% of the time, let alone 50%, because women being in power = shocking, conspicuous, OMG, let’s all talk about it. But Clarke was shown listening exactly at this point, so she may have been thinking, is this how Bellamy, Raven and the others see her, as someone who just goes around and gives them orders and acts like some sort of a tyrant?

Also, regarding the “knight/queen” thing is a pretty big oversimplification of their relationship, since Clarke has done at least as many things to save/protect Bellamy as vice versa, (Not to mention, if we’re talking Courtly Romance, the Knight’s “subjugation” to the Lady was basically a poetic convention, a pretend thing, not actual social reality – in reality, it was the Lady’s husband who usually had all the social power.)

Bellamy was the only one out of the three who did not lose his cool, no matter what ALIE!Raven was throwing at him – and she kept throwing various things and changing tactics. But he later showed anger when he left the room, so at least some of it was actually upsetting him. I would say that most of all, it’s the guilt over his recent actions and killing people, because that’s what actually bothers him - making mistakes that cost lives, causing deaths, failing to save people. I don’t think he loses much sleep over the rest.

But ALIE gets lucky because, while Bellamy didn’t crack, Niylah overheard the part about his role in the killing of Lexa’s army. And, as she told Clarke earlier in the episode, her father was one of the warriors who were killed – but Clarke claimed that none of them had anything to do with it. So not only does Niylah find out one of Clarke’s friends she brought with her was one of the people responsible for her father’s death, but she finds out in a really bad way – so it’s no surprise she loses it and lets ALIE see her, which lets ALIE know where they are.

I was a bit uncomfortable the first time I watched season 3 with the way Clarke was treating Niylah – not that it was ever malicious or callous, it was the situations she was in, but she was kind of using Niylah whenever she needed something, first she found a place to stay when she was roaming around on her own, some comfort and casual sex in 3x01 when she was only able to get intimate with someone she had no stronger feelings for, then she left without goodbye, and only returned now that she needed help with Raven and brought a bunch of friends, and then lied about Bellamy because she was scared they wouldn’t be let in (understandable, but not right), which Niylah called her out on. And Niylah just told her she lost her father recently, but Clarke is instead spending all the time worrying about how Bellamy feels and trying to comfort him. But to be fair, at least Clarke never pretends to feel anything stronger than she does – Clarke may be manipulative, but she’s never using love or sex or friendship for that purpose. Instead, she gets people to do what she wants by appealing to who they are – like telling Niylah she knew she isn’t someone who would let an innocent girl (Raven) suffer. And I feel better now that we know Niylah was eventually pretty chill about all of it, as we see in season 4, and didn’t expect anything from Clarke emotionally that she knew she couldn’t give her (if she had some feelings of that kind in season 3, she certainly got over them), so no one was getting hurt.

Bellamy being confronted with Niylah was a very important moment for him, because seeing someone who lost a loved one because of him made him confront his guilt the way he hadn’t before – not just saying “I’m sorry” to Niylah (an apology which she wasn’t ready to take– though later she seemed to not have a problem with him, though we’ve never really seen them talk to each other again since), but to really question his whole mindset and change it. This is where he realized “I was just trying to save my people” is not a good enough justification, if you end up hurting/destroying other people. It allowed him to progress beyond that mindset.

Another callback to season 2: “What do you do when you realize you may not be a good guy?” – Bellamy questioning everything he had believed in. He was where she was before. And Clarke’s answer is Abby’s line “Maybe there are no good guys”.

Like Bellamy, Clarke also gave an apology that wasn’t accepted – to Jasper, for Maya’s death.

Bellamy/Clarke moments in this episode are quiet, subtle and, at first, somewhat awkward. It’s the first time they see each other after their last, explosive confrontation, and at first, they just stop in their tracks and look at each other. If this was Clarke from seasons 1-2, I would have found it weird that she wasn’t even somewhat upset with Bellamy over the way he treated her that last time, but she’s been much mellower this season and more forgiving in general, and after she forgave Lexa for a massive betrayal in just a couple of days, it’s not surprising that she’s not showing any anger at Bellamy. Especially since she is still worrying whether he is still angry at her, feeling bad that she hurt him by leaving after MW, and feels relieved that he doesn’t act like he hates her. They are not ready to talk about any of it, but while they’re wrapping each other’s wrists, the physical touch looks a lot more meaningful and feels like the first step towards reconciliation (and visually recalls and feels like a contrast to the handcuffing scene).

After being freed from ALIE, Raven smiles at Jasper and apologizes for the things she told him. (We don’t see her apologizing to Clarke or Bellamy, though.) Those two have always had a sweet friendship.

Speaking of sweet friendships, Octavia and Monty’s friendship never got a huge focus, but it has some of the nicest moments between Octavia and anyone. These two go on a mission to the dropship to get an important piece of technology, and run into Monty’s mother, chipped and determined and almost unstoppable, the way chipped people are, due to not feeling any pain. Monty has always been the unsung hero of The 100, but season 3 is when we really get to see his quiet strength and heroism. He suffers some of the biggest losses and has to make one of the biggest sacrifices, when he is forced to kill his mother to save Octavia.

Earlier, Octavia wanted to leave and said she feels like she has no home because she lost Lincoln, who was her home. But Monty reminds her of the bond she shares with the rest of the original 100. This bond was something that was severely tested and almost broken for all of them. He gets through to her – in the end, she changes her mindset and tells the others that they will survive together.

But Monty and Jasper’s friendship is still in a bad place, and this time, Jasper tried to offer Monty comfort for his mother’s death, but Monty didn’t want to accept it. Maybe he felt angry because Jasper is always showing his pain, while Monty swallows it and soldiers on.

When Octavia thanks Niylah before leaving, it’s the first little signs of the friendship between Octavia and Niylah, which is going to develop in season 4.

They come pretty close in this episode to destroying the Flame (and this is not the last time this happens – see: fake Flame-smashing scene from season 4). What saves it is Clarke not wanting to destroy it because “it’s Lexa”. Kind of? I’ve never been sure how exactly the Flame is supposed to work, but this is another thing that the fandom tends to take too literally – a version of/remnant of Lexa may be in it, but so are Becca and a bunch of other past Commanders, so whatever it is, it’s not exactly a person, or not one person. In any case, it’s fortunate they didn’t destroy it this time, since they needed it to defeat ALIE, but at that point, they still weren’t aware of it. But there was also the fact that they needed it to expose Ontari and get her away from power – another good reason for Clarke to not want it destroyed.

Body count:

Hannah Green, killed by her son – another character still “alive” in the City of Light.

Rating: 9/10

=====================================================

3x12 Demons

I like the way the opening scene plays with the horror genre tropes. It happens at night, Miller tells a creepy ghost story to Harper and Bryan, and then they all get abducted in what looks like a scene from slasher movie. In fact, the entire episode plays out a lot like a slasher movie, with creepy atmosphere and an initially threat/monster abducting the characters one by one.

Most of the episode is about Emerson’s attempt to get his revenge on Clarke by watching him kill her friends before killing her. It was always obvious that letting Emerson go would result in him returning to cause more trouble, and kill more people (poor Sinclair was the victim - RIP). But at least he’s finally dead. All the leading figures of the Mount Weather regime were evil, but none of them were as annoying as Emerson had become by season 3. I have zero sympathy for his obsession with revenge, because dude is a major hypocrite. Here he was doing things like using his dead son’s toy/music box (IIRC) as a distraction and symbolically, because it’s supposed to make Clarke feel bad for the deaths of the children at MW, including his son. I kind of wish someone had told him that they feel sorry for his son but not at all for him, which is how I feel. Dude, you were killing and torturing people in cold blood for years and tried to kill all of Clarke’s people, and you have the gall to blame them for defending themselves when you pushed them into a corner and left them no choice? F*ck off.

Emerson again says that Clarke “murdered 381 people” – which is a wrong number, but as I realized after 3x06, the writers were clearly lazy and didn’t bother checking the numbers of Mountain Men still alive by the time of season 2 finale.

Before the whole Emerson thing goes down, our heroes go back to Arkadia, now completely empty. They find Lincoln’s body and his things.

Clarke explains the whole Nightblood and Flame thing for everyone and why they have to look for Luna to achieve both goals – expose Ontari and remove her from power, and defeat ALIE. Octavia finds a drawing in Lincoln’s sketchbook that includes a drawing of the map to Luna’s place.

Becca’s journal, which Clarke took with her together with the Flame, proves useful, as Raven reads it and starts figuring out how to activate the Flame. It has a password, as an actual computer, and Sinclair is the one who figures out, thanks to his knowledge of Latin, that it’s Ascende superius” – “Seek higher things”. This proves especially important later when Clarke uses the Flame to kill Emerson, because it kills non-Nightblood people it bonds with. (BTW, the Flame looks creepy AF when it starts connecting with someone’s head – it looks like the computer version of a parasite or the Thing.) So, in a way, Sinclair gave Clarke the means to kill his murderer.

Raven says that the Flame’s program got degraded over time and that parts of it have been lost. This may be a way for the writers to try to explain the plot holes such as, why did the Grounders lack all of Becca’s technological knowledge? But then we later see that Madi does have some other Becca’s memories…? Also, it’s weird that this has never come up since.

In any case, we know from 3x11 that Clarke genuinely thinks, at least at this point, that Lexa is really in the Flame, and this episode and at a couple of other late season 3 episodes have moments when she tenderly looks at the computer chip (she even says “Sorry” to it in 3x15 after not being able to find it a host), and little moments when Bellamy notices her looking at it. It’s only been about 2 or 3 days since Lexa’s death (and the rest of season 3 finale takes place over a few days, so the season 3 finale happens less than a week since her death), so that wound is very raw.

Just like with the Flame, there’s some debate over whether people are still “alive” in some way in the City of Light. When Monty wonders if his mom is still alive, Raven says “that depends on what you think is alive”.

A lot of nice relationship moments in this episode:

Seeing Octavia grieve, Jasper tells her he knows how she feels. It’s the first time they’ve interacted since 3x02, when she was offering him comfort.

Sinclair and Raven try to save each other (and trying to save Sinclair is how Raven gets caught).

Even though Bellamy and Clarke have not really made up yet, they work together and reaffirm the trust and care they have for each other: Clarke entrusts Bellamy with taking the Flame to Luna, because she plans to offer herself to Emerson for their friends. She says blames herself for letting Emerson go and feels responsible for Sinclair’s death, and says she won’t let anyone else die for her mistake – which is almost the same as what Bellamy said earlier in the season (when she was not around) “I won’t let anyone else die for my mistakes”. But Bellamy, of course, says there’s no way he’s letting her risk her life herself, and this time he does suggest something else when she asks him to give her another plan, to attack Emerson while she distracts him. But unsurprisingly, this fails the moment Emerson uses Bellamy’s ‘weakness” and threatens Octavia’s life.

How many times throughout the show has Clarke offered her life for her the lives of people she cares about? How many times has she saved them? Count this episode on the list.

Before Clarke, Bellamy, Octavia and Jasper leave to find Luna, while the others stay in Arkadia, they have a funeral/cremation for Sinclair and Lincoln, Bellamy says “Your fight is over” in Grounder speak.

The B-plot takes place in Polis and is mostly about Murphy and Emori.

Emori has learned that Murphy was Ontari’s new Skaikru “Flamekeeper” and believes that he’s running a really good scam. He kind of tries to explain to her that things aren’t exactly like that and that Ontari is crazy (“and coming from me, that says a lot” – good line), but doesn’t tell her the whole story or or the fact that he’s her sex slave.

Memori have sex for the first time (that we know of) – in Becca Pramheda’s shrine.

They have a talk about Becca, and it turns out that Emori had no idea how Commanders were made, Murphy had to explain it to her. I find this really hard to believe, that ordinary Grounders would know so little about their whole tradition/religion/succession rules.

Unfortunately, Emori has already been chipped, so their relationship is, at this point, mixed with betrayal, because chipped people would do anything ALIE tells them to. It turns out that Jaha is planning to chip Ontari. Murphy’s hatred for Jaha resurfaces as he hopes Ontari would kill Jaha, but she instead almost kills Murphy for revealing her secrets to Emori and this way to Jaha. Murphy is locked up again, while Jaha wins Ontari over, convincing her that he can make her a “real Commander”.

And with this, all our season 3 villains have fallen by the wayside as ALIE becomes the one and only threat.

Body count:

Sinclair, killed by Emerson

Emerson is FINALLY dead, killed by Clarke using the Flame as a weapon, which connected to him and made him bleed internally (certainly an original way to kill someone!)

Rating: 8/10

=====================

3x13 Join or Die

This is by far my favorite season 3 episode, and this is in large part because of the flashbacks. I always love getting flashbacks to the life on the Ark before the timeline of the show (so far, there has been four such episodes – the previous ones were 1x03 with Clarke’s flashbacks involving her father, mother, Wells and Thelonius Jaha; 1x07 with Bellamy’s flashbacks about his relationship with Octavia, going as far back as her birth; and 2x08 with Raven’s flashbacks that showed her relationship with Finn, what really happened with the ‘spacewalking’ and how Finn ended up imprisoned, and Sinclair deciding to give her a job as mechanic in spite of her health issues).

But this time they don’t only help give more insight into Pike and who he was as a teacher of “Earth skills” on the Ark, they are also a nostalgic look into the past – very recent past, technically, as they set only six months before the present day due to the show’s compressed timeline, but it feels so distant. It’s a reminder of just how much everyone has changed, including the show itself. Nothing highlights the difference more than the brilliant show motion scene in the last flashback, with the Delinquents walking towards the dropship, set to the Koda slow, plaintive cover of “Radiactive”. It’s one of the best uses of music on the show, with a stark contrast to the energetic, poppy original by Imagine Dragons, which played in the Pilot when the kids landed on the planet – and which seemed to promise a relatively light-hearted teen soap.

Quite a few of the dead Delinquents made a comeback in the flashbacks: while Finn was not there (he was presumably in another group, since 98 students in one class would be too much), we see a lot of minor characters like Roma, Dax, John Mbege (died in season 1), Fox (season 2) and Monroe, who died very recently in season 3. (There’s one other guy called Jones, but I had to look him up and we never saw him die.) We also get to see Octavia, Jasper, Murphy, Harper and Miller with their season 1 looks and remember the way they used to be then, which is a stark contrast in the case of Jasper and Octavia.

There’s also non-chipped, rational Jaha, Kane and Abby at the time when they still didn’t get along because Kane was a bit of a d1ck back then.

How convenient that there were 99 teenage prisoners they were initially going to send to Earth, two weeks before the Pilot (including Clarke, who was in solitary still, as she had been for a year, because Jaha didn’t want to risk her telling the population the truth about the Ark dying) - so when Wells got himself arrested for something so he could follow Clarke, just a day before they were to leave (just how much more obvious he could be?), he made up the nice round number of 100.

Some people have argued that Pike’s flashbacks should have happened much earlier in the season, so viewers would get a more complete and sympathetic picture of him, but for me, they only confirmed what I figured in the first place, that he is a fighter and was someone who genuinely wanted to protect his people, but that this eventually led him down a dark path. You can see his basic character traits in the flashbacks – that he wanted to protect the kids so much that he begged Jaha to let him go with them, and his final and main lesson to the kids – to “keep fighting at all costs, against all odds” is very much in character. You even see him resorting to questionable methods in desperation – like hitting Murphy to get all the kids to fight against him, in order to teach them to stick together and fight, since he wasn’t allowed to tell them the truth that they were going to be sent to the ground, and they didn’t take anything seriously since they didn’t know the truth. (Ironically, he decided to play the role of a villain in that ‘graduation’ class to spur them into action.)

The last flashback also includes an unconscious Clarke being carried onto the dropship, while Kane has a moment when he’s nice to Abby and tells her he’s sorry about Clarke; and Bellamy barging in pretending to be a guard and dragging a random girl by the hand - which happened to be Roma; the same girl who would later become one of his friends with benefits and a part of the group who went to rescue Octavia and died at the hands of the Grounders in 1x06, which Bellamy felt guilty about, because he knew she only came along because of him. The last flashback is a reused shot from the Pilot, with Clarke awake on the dropship, and brief glimpse of Wells

The flashbacks were nicely intertwined with the present day scenes, which highlighted the contrast between the characters as they were then and now – e.g. between the old Kane, and the new, idealistic, bearded and Jesus-like Kane, who gets literally crucified for refusing to take the chip. ALIE observes that Kane is strong (as she had previously said about Raven), and Jaha agrees: Yes. Always has been”.

The initial attempt to have chipped Abby seduce and manipulate Kane into taking the chip fails, because Kane knows her well enough to see the difference between chipped Abby and the way she is when she is herself. He withstands torture, but eventually caves in when Jaha threatens to kill Abby. Threatening loved ones is one of ALIE’s methods to get people to do what she wants – that’s how she got Abby to take the chip (to save Raven’s life), it’s how in 3x14 she gets Luna’s husband to take the chip (by threatening Luna) and how in 3x15 she tries to get Clarke to tell her the password, to save Abby’s life, but that time she failed.

The scenes in Polis were generally horrific, with ALIE’s army of chipped, almost mindless slaves, blood in the streets, and crucified people. The cinematography was interesting: ALIE’s red dress deliberately stood out in, while everything and everyone else was in muted greenish-yellow colors.

This is where the unlikely alliances of everyone not-chipped start, with the really unexpected partnership-by-necessity between Indra and Pike. But first, after they found themselves in the same big cell with Murphy and a few others, Indra starts having her revenge by doing the “300 cuts thing”. Pike is also being himself and going “so get on with it” and enduring it, as she apparently does quite a few cuts (but conveniently, those are mostly surface cuts across his chest and not the horrific scenario Lincoln described in season 2 as something that would happen to Finn; actually, we didn’t see that scenario – mutilation, gorging eyes, etc. – with Gustus, either, for obvious reasons, it’s CW) that didn’t disable him, before Murphy and another Grounder woman changed Indra’s mind (just as she was about to kill Pike) and convinced her that they need Pike, as a strong fighter he is, to fight their way out and fight ALIE’s chipper army. Murphy asks Indra: “Do you want revenge or do you want your people to survive?” and she decides she wants both, but “I’ll get my revenge but not today”. Getting that pragmatic is a sign how much character development she’s had since she was introduced in early season 2.

(But since Indra used a rusty nail she pulled from the wall to cut Pike, realistically he was going to get an infection if Octavia hadn’t killed him in the S3 finale.)

Meanwhile, Clarke, Bellamy, Octavia and Jasper find the way to Luna’s place but are confused since it’s a beach with some rocks, but with some luck and help from Lincoln’s notebook, they find a way to signal Luna’s Boat people. They spend most of the episode on the beach before Luna’s people show up, but it is an opportunity for some important character moments.

I was glad to see that Bellamy has finally had enough of Octavia’s constant blaming, and that he stands up for himself a bit, by reminding her of the fact that he came to her and offered help to get Lincoln out, and she declined it. But as he starts to say: “If you had trusted me...”, he stops himself, probably realizing what he’d be saying and that it’s the last thing she needs to hear - that Lincoln’s death was partially her fault. It is much easier for her emotionally if she just blames him instead. So he just turns and walks away, while Clarke is looking at him, concerned.

I think that their confrontation in 3x05 made Clarke realize how hurt Bellamy was because she left, and chose to deal with her Mount Weather trauma on her own, instead of letting him support her emotionally and supporting him emotionally, so she is now very attentive to Bellamy’s emotional needs, and she now believes they can only get through their traumas together. It’s a bit funny that Bellamy starts by trying to act tough and telling her he doesn’t need her help, even calls her Wanheda and tries to talk as if he did in 3x05, but as she just keeps looking at him in the same caring, compassionate way, it all falls away in 2 seconds and he starts confiding in her about his problems with his sister. This is a dynamic that continues well into season 4 – Octavia still blaming Bellamy, Bellamy unhappy over it, Clarke trying to comfort him about it.

Bellamy says “Forgiveness is hard for us” – and some may see it differently, but I think he means himself and Octavia. Clarke has, in fact, become one of the people who forgive fastest and most easily, and she rarely even holds grudges the way she did in season 1 (against her mother, Wells, Finn to an extent). Octavia definitely finds it hard to forgive; Bellamy is debatable. He can hold grudges, but he’s also shown an extraordinary capacity for forgiveness. But at the same time, that does not have to mean full forgiveness. After all, he already has had a pseudo-parental relationship with Kane – but he’ll still throw it in Kane’s face in season 4: “You floated my mother”. The fact that by season 5, not only is Murphy one of his best friends, but Echo is his girlfriend, says a lot. But it did take him 3 years of being stuck with her on a ship with just 5 other people to forgive her. He forgave Clarke at the end of season 5 pretty quickly, as soon as he realized how she felt about him – but whether it is full forgiveness in his heart… that’s another matter. Back to this episode – he tells Clarke “I was so angry at you for leaving… I don’t want to feel that way anymore”. It’s not that he’s not angry anymore, but that he tries to work on not being angry. And he’s certainly right about his relationship with Octavia, as she is the one person he is refusing to forgive as of the end of S5.

When the Boat people turn up, their Captain calls them “Skaikru are Bringers of Death” – which is something we saw a Grounder say in season 2. So, that term (which I’ll never stop rolling my eyes at, since it’s obvious that Grounders had lots and lots of death in wars between clans and at the hands of Mountain Men way before any of the Sky people landed) has been a thing for a while, we don’t know how it started – maybe because of those llares that ended up burning a village. But how did the Boat people hear it, when they seem so isolated from everyone?

Octavia is the first to go with it and take the pill that makes people lose consciousness (but that, as far as they know, may as well be a poison) – saying “I trust Lincoln”. Jasper does it next and says his repetitive catchphrase “See you on the other side” (which he first said in the Pilot, and which will never sound again after you have seen 4x11).

Sorry, but it’s almost funny – these Bellamy/Clarke scenes are some of the most romantic-looking stuff I’ve seen: the incredibly intense and long hug, where both of them seem to lose themselves in the physical comfort of it, and which only ends because Luna’s people interrupt them; the way they drink the potion at the same time, gazing into each other’s eyes and repeating their catchphrase “Together”- “Together”(it’s the second time they are using it, the first one was in the season 2 finale). It’s almost as if the people making the show are running some sort of a social experiment to see how far they can go and still have many people argue “What? It’s just how BFFs act with each other!”

Luna finally makes an appearance, after being talked about since season 1. The rising music and everything in the scene makes it look like it’s going to be a big moment where she says yes to Clarke’s suggestion to take the Flame and become the next Commander, but she flat-out says “no”.

The episode ends on the reveal that Luna’s people live on oil rig. (Which is the second time that an episode ends with a reveal that a Grounder location is actually something we recognize as a piece of modern technology.)

Timeline. The present day events seem to take place over one day, as most episodes of The 100 do –they start during daytime (when Clarke, Bellamy, Octavia and Jasper get to the beach), continue during that night (which the four of them spend on the beach) and it’s morning/daytime at the end of the episode when they wake up on the oil rig. Most of the action in Polis scene takes place during the night. Which should mean that it’s been about 3 days since Clarke reunited with her friends, or about 19-21 days since the start of season 3.

Flashbacks: The first flashback is set six months before, which is two weeks before the Pilot. This is the first time we get a clear info on how much time has passed since the 100 first landed on Earth. The last flashback takes place at the time when the 100 plus one are on the dropship, five and a half months before the present day action. Season 1 probably lasted a little over 3 weeks, season 2 even less than that, then there was a time jump of almost 3 months (86 days) between the seasons, and with the 3 weeks that season 3 has lasted – it makes up almost 5 and a half months (a little less, actually).

Body count: An unknown number of people in Polis-(some are seen crucified, blood is in the streets) – presumably the 3% who refused to take the chip, so it depends how many people lived in Polis to begin with

Rating: 10/10

===================

3x14 Red Sky at Morning

According to The 100 wiki, the title comes from an old saying that goes:"Red sky at night, sailors' delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning". I suppose that’s a way of saying, dangerous waters ahead for our characters?

Luna was one of the most interesting and charismatic characters on the show, and her Boat People are a refreshing new addition – as the first Grounder group we see that doesn’t have the warlike way of life and doesn’t believe in Blood must have blood and all that stuff. They’re unique so far, almost like an isolated hippie commune, who accept orphans and try to help people in need, and maybe the only community in the show that seems like they’re living a good life.

Clarke and Luna discuss Lexa briefly, and Clarke says that Lexa was “special, she was working towards peace”. I get why Clarke says that, since she had fallen in love with Lexa and Lexa died just a few days ago, but it’s a pretty simplified and idealized picture. Lexa only worked for peace for the last few days of her life, after Clarke convinced her; before that, she spent most of her life and rule adhering to the traditionalist views of war, and revenge, ruthlessness in service of your people – so it’s ironic that Clarke is saying that to Luna, who had rejected violence all on her own when she was a little girl.

Luna’s history, which we learn here, is also fascinating – that she was traumatized by being pitted against her own brother in the Conclave and killing him, and then ran away from that terrible custom not because she was afraid of losing, but because she knew she would win – killing other kids and getting to be the next Commander. Lexa was the one she was supposed to meet in the next round, which I guess was why Lexa was reluctant to talk about Luna.

Clarke’s decision to force the Flame onto Luna is something that initially quite upset me, because it’s obviously wrong and a serious violation. I was agreeing with Octavia, who was against it. Bellamy wasn’t too happy about it, but since he (just as in Mount Weather) couldn’t come up with a better plan when Clarke asked him to, he agrees with Clarke’s decision. This is one of the reasons why I don’t understand why so many fans argue that Bellamy convincing Madi to take the Flame in season was OOC, which was motivated by the same things that this was – a pragmatic move to save your people by making a new Commander who will have the authority among Grounders to oppose a tyrant.

Well, this time, the Sky people did end up being the “Bringers of death” – because ALIE was following them, and found the Boat people that way, which resulted in several deaths – including Luna reliving her trauma and having to kill her husband Derrick, after he had been chipped (which he agreed to because ALIE made other chipped people torture Luna).

A minor in-character moment: Bellamy is naturally the one to immediately look to the little girl, Luna’s daughter, and make sure she’s safe.

Jasper meets a new love interest, only to lose her immediately because of ALIE. This brief moment of hope and the way it is crushed made his emotional state even worse and more vulnerable – making him take the chip (which is only hinted in this episode and revealed in the next).

I used to like Luna a lot (I still do quite a bit), and I was upset when she had her sudden character turn in 4x10, going from her non-violent philosophy to “everyone should die”. But now on rewatch, her flaws are more obvious to me. She gives good anti-violence speeches to Octavia (immediately reading Octavia and summing her up: “You know only of fighting and death”) and she makes good points to Clarke that she has become too ruthless, too ‘end justifies the means’, which is indeed a problem with how Clarke has changed because of everything she has had to do. But when she said: “You believe that to defeat an enemy that will stop at nothing, you must stop at nothing… How is that different from blood must have blood?” – I was thinking: but it is different… because one is about revenge, which is not necessary, and the other is about doing whatever it takes to save the world and stop an absolute disaster, such as ALIE making everyone into brainwashed slaves. By refusing to get involved, Luna is basically shirking responsibility and letting the rest of the world go to hell, even though she has the power to save it, because she doesn’t want to get her hands dirty again. She prefers to keep her moral high ground and judge others, like Clarke, for ruthless things they do to save people and the world. But Clarke is the one trying to save the world. Maybe Luna’s eventual turn is not so out-of-character after all – it was the ultimate expression of her judgmental views of people: either they are perfectly good and don’t engage in violence or any ruthless actions out of necessity and desperation, or they don’t deserve to survive and should all die.

Seeing the outcome of this plotline – after pretending to agree to take the Flame, Luna makes the group drink something to lose their consciousness and sends them back to the shore after the boat has left – makes all of this like a huge waste of time. After all the build-up, Clarke, Bellamy and Octavia are left where they started, wondering what to do to stop ALIE. But knowing Luna’s role in season 4, the story had a purpose.

In Arkadia, Monty had two huge things happen to him: the beginning of his relationship with Harper, and having to “kill” his mother for the second time.

Marper would become one of the healthiest and happiest romantic relationships on the show, but it starts more or less out of the blue, with very little build-up (except for Monty defending Harper in season 1 when Jasper called her “low hanging fruit”, and a few scenes of Monty caring about Harper’s life in season 2). Harper decides to make a move and Monty is pleasantly surprised and goes for it. It seems like a “we could all die, so let’s have sex” kind of thing. But Harper says in bed that she hasn’t felt happy and safe in a long time.

Raven is determined to find a way to shut down ALIE for good, instead of waiting for Clarke to come back. It’s personal for her at this point – she even tells ALIE “I’m coming for you!” But Jaha again has an idea how to get to people – by using Hannah against Monty. (Jaha has been a huge asset to ALIE because he understands humans, which ALIE probably does not by herself.) But Monty stays stronge even after his mother’s consciousness tells him “I love you” – he says “I love you, too” and deletes her code. This is probably one of the two best scenes in this episode.

But just as Raven was preparing to hit the kill switch, ALIE withdraws, It’s one of the rare moments when Monty loses his temper (and they all happened this season – the last one was after he had to kill his mother in 3x11) and takes it out on Raven, blaming her and asking her if she wants to take the chip again.

The best moment in this episode and one of the best lines belongs to Emori. Unlike her brother and Gideon, she did not change her body in its digital version in the City of Light. When Jaha tells her she could correct her defects, she replies “I would, if I had any”. She has not internalized ableism, her disability is something she accepts as a part of herself – she just would love to change the fact that the world treats her as an outcast over it.

Timeline: It has been two days since 3x12 (Harper says: “Two days no one has been trying to kill us”), so I guess it’s been 20 to 22 days since the start of season 1.

Body count:

Shay, because all of Jasper’s love interests must die.

4 people in Polis controlled by ALIE: 2 killed by Indra, 2 by Pike,

4 Boat People controlled by ALIE, killed by Luna – including her husband/partner Derrick and the Captain

A Polis sentry who got to live on in the City of Light. Interesting that everyone in the City of Light modern clothes, including the Grounders – though the guy still has the Grounder tattoos.

Arguably, the consciousness of Hannah Green

Rating: 8/10

=========================

3x15 Perverse Instantiation, Part One

I prefer this first part of the season finale to the second, because it has some strong and tense emotional scenes, especially between Jasper and Monty, and between Clarke and Abby.

Roan is an interesting character, and it’s fun to see him again. He has an fun dynamic with Clarke and Bellamy, and there’s even a rare light-hearted moment when Bellamy shoots and lightly injures Roan to make sure he’s not chipped – taking an opportunity to get him back for the knee injury in 3x02 – and Roan comments: “Now we’re even”.

The fact that Clarke is now ready to put the Flame into Ontari shows just how desperate she is to stop ALIE. After the Luna plan failed, she thinks she can either do that, or go looking for another Nightblood throughout Grounder villages. But the latter might make ALIE destroy another community and they could still fail.

But plans keep failing – the plan they come up with fails because Jasper is chipped and ALIE has all the info about it. Roan gets injured and everyone is captured by Jaha and ALIE’s other slaves. The plan was for Clarke to tell Raven the kill switch, but now that it failed, Raven wants to find a way to kill ALIE herself.

In Arkadia, the reveal about Jasper being chipped comes right after a too-good-to-be-true scene in which Jasper seemed happy and at peace and apologized to Monty for all the trouble he had caused. But he was happy only because of the chip. ALIE-controlled Jasper goes on to stab Monty and knocks out and takes Harper hostage, trying to stop Raven in her plan to shut down ALIE. Monty, Raven and Harper have to find a way to defeat their friend.

Jasper reveals the full depth of his hopelessness in this speech where he says to Monty: “They sent down here to see if the Earth is survivable… from what I can see, it is not” and starts listing all the Delinquent deaths that happened since they landed. (Some of what he says is factually wrong – he’s skewing facts the same way a Clarke hater fan would: for instance, he says Clarke killed Dax, when it was Bellamy, and it was in self-defense after Clarke saved Bellamy’s life; he also says “death by Clarke” as a cause of death of Atom and Finn, not mentioning that both were mercy kills.)

Clarke is captured and tortured by ALIE, chipped Abby and Jaha, trying to make her tell them the password that ALIE needs to access the Flame. Clarke tries to do the “mom, I know you’re still in there” thing, but it doesn’t work – you can’t just talk down a chipped person.

After Clarke withstands torture, Abby tells ALIE that she was right when she pointed out that Clarke is more likely to break if someone she cares about is tortured or threatened: “Her friends are her weakness… Start with Bellamy Blake”. This is the second time it’s been implied that Bellamy is Clarke’s “weakness” – since 2x09, when Clarke first heard that “Love is weakness” and tried to not let her feelings for him interfere in leadership decisions, so she wouldn’t be “weak”. Abby is right that a danger to Bellamy’s life is the easiest way to get Clarke to agree to something – as we’ve seen in 2x12, 3x02, and later in 4x05. Clarke is terrified and in tears at the prospect of Bellamy being tortured or possibly killed if she doesn’t give up the password. But it never comes to that, since Murphy, Pike and Indra come at the right moment and save Bellamy and the others.

Instead, Abby decides to threaten/take her own life to make Clarke fold, so she hangs herself. It’s a very intense, emotional scene, where Clarke is crying and begging her mom to stop, but somehow manages to stay strong and not give up the password, knowing she would be condemning the human race to being brainwashed and enslaved.

Octavia showed concern for Bellamy when they were about to take him away, which is one of the very few times she shows warmer feelings for him in season 3b and 4.

There’s some snark between Murphy and Miller, and then Bellamy and Murphy have their first conversation since season 2. It’s kind of awkward, because Bellamy doesn’t trust Murphy yet and is confused as to why Murphy is doing anything heroic. Murphy is like ‘you’re welcome” – but he should understand that saving people doesn’t mean you don’t have to apologize for the crap he did in the past (and he will realize that and start really trying to do better in season 4). He compares Bellamy’s concern for Clarke for his concern for Emori, saying “You’re not the only one trying to save someone you care about”, but he’s still doing putting on the antiheroic, cynical front, saying he will stop doing the right thing after this.

The reunion between Bellamy and Pike also may be slightly awkward, since Bellamy turned him over to the Grounders the last time they saw each other, but Pike doesn’t seem to particularly care about this. He’s still his old self, but now focused on the new threat (or rather, the threat whose importance he failed to realize back in Arkadia when he was in power and Jaha started preaching about the City of Light, but Pike doesn’t tend to question himself or look in the past, as Bellamy does).

There’s a lot of fighting in this and the next episode, but at moments, it was hard to see what was going on, because it all took place inside the tower, in half-dark.

Indra has finally started using guns! She also gets to fight chipped Kane and saves him.

Bellamy tells everyone to try to not kill any of the chipped people, but Pike and Indra don’t care about that and kill them anyway. Bellamy only does it when he’s forced to in order to save Murphy’s life, even though it is obviously difficult for him now and that he feels bad about killing someone again.

Octavia can’t stop thinking about killing Pike, even though Indra tells her they have to focus on fighting ALIE’s slaves instead. Octavia again expresses how hopeless she feels without Lincoln, saying “he was my home”.

As they finally get to the throne room, Murphy saves Abby, while Bellamy gets the Flame, but the plan to put it into Ontari can’t work because Jaha hit her on the head with a hammer ,which left her braindead.

Is this the only time in the entire show when an episode has ended with “TO BE CONTINUED”?

Timeline: This episode seems to take place over roughly 24 hours – during daytime, night, and the daytime of the following day. Which means, by my count, it’s been 21-23 days since the start of season 3.

Body count:

9 chipped people: 1 is killed by Roan, 5 by Pike and Indra (2 Grounders, 2 Arkadia guards, 1 Delinquent - ?), 2 Grounders shot by Pike, 1 Arker shot by Bellamy

Ontari is braindead, which made me incredibly relieved the first time I watched season 3.

Several other people were injured – Roan was shot and injured, Pike and Bryan were by Kane, Jaha shot by Bellamy (again!), but all the major characters except Ontari survived.

Rating: 8/10

==============================

3x15 Perverse Instantiation Part Two

This is the only The 100 season finale I’m not a big fan of. The first time I watched it, it was one of my least favorite season 3 episodes. The fact that, after all the tensions and complicated conflicts in the previous part of season 3, everything turned into “let all fight together against the evil robot” felt dull and anticlimactic, and it didn’t help when so much of the finale was Matrix-lite. After all, it’s not like the viewers were ever in any doubt if they were going to defeat ALIE or not. Yes, we could guess they were going to defeat the Mountain Men in season 2, but what was shocking was how they had to do it; season 1 finale wasn’t that surprising, but the shocking part was what Clarke had to do to save the Delinquents. There was no real sense of danger in this fainel. The only thing I really found exciting was the reveal about the upcoming Praimfaya.

I liked it a bit more this time, but not much more, because I didn’t expect anything from it this time, so I could focus on the good moments.

After all the talk about how only people with Nightblood could take the Flame, it feels like a bit of a cop-out that, as it turns out, one can temporarily bond with it if they simply get a transfusion of black blood – though, of course, it’s still a risk. And of course it’s Clarke who takes it upon herself to have a transfusion from Ontari, take the Flame and take the chip in order to defeat ALIE.

The Matrix-lite scenes in the City of Light were moderately OK, but nowhere near as good as many other virtual reality storylines I’ve watched. It was a nice touch to see Clarke having the hair and clothes more like those from seasons 1-2, instead of the ugly Grounder-style pseudo-dreadlocks (WTF was that even about?) and an equally ugly dress that looks like a cheap reject that no one wanted to buy at a Goth clothing store, which she has been wearing throughout season 3. But there’s just not enough interesting things happening:

Clarke sees a bunch of people who don’t see her, I liked the part where Clarke meets Jasper eating an ice-cream.

Then they see her, after ALIE alerted them, and she is chased by them.

Then Flame!Lexa appears, fights them and saves her, and they kiss and Clarke tells her “I love you” for the first time. It says a lot about how messed up Clarke’s love life has been, that she’s only ever said ILY to people who are about to die (Finn) or already dead (Lexa). The only time she’s managed to say ILY to someone who’s alive and likely to stay alive was not romantic - it was to Madi in season 5. I used to think this Lexa was very OOC, because she was much warmer, nicer and more open than real Lexa was ever when alive. But I suppose Flame versions of people are different – maybe that’s what Lexa would be like without the role of Commander, without power and responsibility.

However, where are all the other Commanders? Why do we only see Lexa and Becca? Aren’t the others at all interested in what’s going on with ALIE? Also, for some reason, Flame!Lexa repeats the line about her spirit choosing wisely – even though it doesn’t make sense. Her spirit didn’t choose anything – Clarke chose to have the transfusion and the Flame and the chip so she could save the day. That line never made sense once we learned about the Conclave, anyway: previous Commanders didn’t choose anything, it was a bunch of kids fighting and killing each other.

Then Clarke meets Becca and ALIE and they have a talk, which is supposed to be the climax of theseason, but I still find Becca to be an insufferable megalomaniac and don’t care about her. Clarke argues with ALIE about pain and happiness, and that pain should not be removed, as ALIE believes – one must overcome it. Clarke admits that she tried to run away from pain, and this should be a great moment that rounds up her season 3 arc. This would work if Clarke had a great, well developed arc in season 3 about learning to overcome her pain, but unfortunately, I don’t see it. She did start off running away from everyone and ended up getting back and acting more like her old self, but what was in the middle felt plot-driven and ships-driven more than it was about any deep characterization. I see really good character arcs for other characters in season 3 – Bellamy, Jasper, Monty, Raven, even Octavia, but Clarke, not so much.

In the real world, Octavia lets her desire for revenge overtake the need to fight the chipped army, and gets Pike in danger, before Bellamy saves him. Bellamy has two conversations that are supposed to be resolutions of his character arc in S3. To Octavia, he says that she shouldn’t let the desire for revenge overtake her, and that his own “need for revenge” made him to awful things. But that line doesn’t work, because that’s not what actually happened – back in 3x04-3x08, Bellamy was not motivated by revenge. At no point was he like “Grrr, Grounders killed my girlfriend, now I want to kill them!” No, he was motivated by the desire to protect his people in a better way, and his fear that trusting the Grounders again would make him fail them and make the same mistakes that he did when he trusted Echo in 3x03.

The talk between Pike and Bellamy is better-written. They argue about whether they chose to wrong side – and Pike says it wasn’t the wrong side and brings up the likelihood that the Grounder army would have attacked Arkadia the moment Lexa was killed and Ontari took over. Which is a good point. That’s the thing with Pike, he makes some good points, but his solutions are all too extreme and unlikely to ever lead to any positive outcome, just a constant cycle of war and violence. Pike doesn’t question himself or feel guilty, which is a huge difference between him and Bellamy, who thinks of the people he killed and replies that all he knows is that he has to live with the things he has done.

One really bizarre minor moment is when Abby makes Murphy massage the heart of his braindead former rapist, so the transfusion could work. And hey, how funny is it that we literally get to see Ontari’s black heart?

In the final moments of fighting, there was a mayhem where Pike saved Octavia’s life, while chipped Kane almost strangled Bellamy. After ALIE is defeated, everyone is relieved, except Jasper, who is again in pain and desperate, while Monty tries to comfort him, and they apologize to each other for the violent things they did to each other while Jasper was chipped. Clarke tells Abby to go to Kane (she’s picked up on her mom’s new relationship pretty quickly – maybe she had already figured out before that something was going on there). Clarke and Bellamy have a moment, but he sees that she doesn’t seem like someone who has saved the world, and she replies that the world is not saved, because she’s learned about Praimfaya from ALIE.

And then the last moment of the finale is Pike about to make some sort of a gesture of respect/”you fought well”/bygones, and Octavia stabbing Pike. It says a lot about how bored I was with this finale the first time I watched it, that I was glad this happened even though I didn’t hate Pike or want him dead. I was simply glad to see at least one character not singing Kumbaya like everyone else was doing. I didn’t want all the tensions and conflicts of season 3 – even if they were badly done – to be simply forgotten because the evil robot was defeated. And Octavia was being in character; that’s who she is, and you always knew that’s what she was going to do to the person who killed Lincoln. In hindsight, it was a necessary moment in Octavia’s arc. I’m neither upset nor happy about Pike’s death – he simply had Pike “had” to die not because his crimes were too bad for him to live (I mean, come on, even Echo, who was worse and less developed, got to survive and get a so-called ‘redemption”…) but because Octavia would never spare him.

Timeline: the entire episode lasts a few hours, and season 3 on the whole between 22 and 24 days, at most.

Body count:

Four chipped Grounders, 2 shot by Bellamy, 1 killed by Pike, 1 shot by Abby (I took this from The 100 wiki, there’s no way I would have noticed how many people were being killed in all that mayhem.) This is the first time Abby has killed someone.

ALIE, terminated by Clarke.

Ontari, braindead and then presumably dead-dead after Murphy stopped massaging her heart.

Pike, stabbed by Octavia.

Rating: 6/10

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camsthisky · 6 years

Note

Ahh idk how many prompts you have already, but some of Dick's siblings visiting while he's with one of his teams and somebody asks him number 8 "how many siblings do you have?" And it would be cute or maybe a little sad if he thinks of Jason, idk. You don't even have to write it, just think about how cute it could be

Richard John Grayson will always be a police officer in my heart.

“Hey, Grayson!” Terrence calls to Dick from over by the entrance to the bullpen. “Come over here for a second!”

Dick blinks up from his report about the almost-shooting he and his partner had had to deal with this morning and focuses on Terrence. He’s being waved over, and Dick stands up and jogs over, ignoring the half-annoyed, half-amused looks being thrown his and Terrence’s way.

He’s had sort of a rough week. Talks of a gang war staring has him all over the place, helping to patch things up as both Nightwing and a member of Bludhaven’s police force. He’s tired beyond all belief, and after he gets off his shift tonight, he’s supposed to head over to Gotham and help Bruce and Damian with a case of their own.

Exhausting, but necessary.

“What’s up?” Dick asks as he stops in front of Terrence. “Is this about Maria’s get well soon card? Because I already signed it. And talked to her. And sent her some cookies.”

Terrence laughs, smile lighting up his face, and Dick can’t help but smile back. “Nah, it’s not about Maria’s card. There’s some people at the front desk waiting for you.”

“People?” Dick frowns in confusion. The only people who would visit Dick at work were probably Alfred and Wally, and it’s highly unlikely that they’d be coming together. Maybe Alfred had dragged Bruce along this time, or something. But for what reason. “Did they say who they were?”

“Family,” Terrence says with a shrug as they rounded the corner and made it to the front desk area. There’s nobody there, and Terrence keeps going, heading towards once of the conference rooms. As he opens the door, he continues, “I escorted them in here to keep the waiting area free.”

As soon as Dick enters, he stops short. Because wow. His entire family is lounging around the room, some of them with smiles on their faces, some of them with bored expressions, and one looking like he wants to be absolutely anywhere but here.

And yet, Jason is still here.

“What are you all doing here?” Dick wonders, eyes wide and jaw slack, even as he goes to pull Cass and Tim -- the two closes to him -- into a hug. “You guys never come to see me at work. And definitely not all at once.”

Tim shrugs, easy grin on his face. It’s a nice look on him. Definitely beats the stressed out thing he’s been doing lately. “Surprise?”

Dick laughs. “Heck yeah, it’s a surprise.” He looks over at Bruce, and then makes eye contact with Alfred, Damian, Steph, Jason, Babs, and Clark all in turn. “Seriously. Is this an intervention. Oh, hell, is someone dying? Am I dying? No, wait, I’d know about that.”

Damian scoffs. “Stop prattling on like that, Grayson. No one is dying.”

“Not yet,” Jason murmurs, right before Steph elbows him.

“Not helping,” she hisses.

“We can hear you,” Tim sighs. “Both of you.”

Steph flips Tim the bird, and then there’s pandemonium. Tim slips out from Dick’s grasp as Damian insults him, and Steph and Jason egg the two of them on. Babs eventually gets pulled in, and she rolls her eyes and starts nagging everyone. Bruce sits there, his fingers massaging his temples, and Alfred just shares a resigned look with Clark. Cass, though, giggles into his shoulder, and Dick can’t help but grin.

“Holy shit,” Dick hears someone whispers from behind him. There’s some rustling, and he turns around just in time to see that he and Terrence had left the door open, and Officer Amacker and a couple other people had come to see what the commotion was. “Is that Bruce Wayne? How does Grayson know Bruce Wayne?”

“Shut up, Amacker,” Terrazas says, rolling her eyes. “You’re the biggest idiot in the world if you didn’t know that Grayson was Wayne’s son.”

Mindy Miller meets Dick’s eyes, her own wide, and asks, “How many siblings do you have, Grayson?”

“Four,” he says truthfully. “But that doesn’t mean everyone in here isn’t family. I mean, you should see the house when we all get together for Thanksgiving. I have like a ton of other extended family.”

Miller pales. “There’s more of you?”

Terrence grins and pats Miller on the back. “It’s okay, Grayson. Miller’s an only child, remember?”

Terrazas rolls her eyes. “Oh seriously, can we all shut up and leave? We have jobs to do. Let’s leave Grayson to his wild pack of a family and get back to work.”

Dick waves at them as they all leave, some of them grumbling, until it’s only Terrence left behind him with Dick and his family.

“So why did you guys come all the way out here?” Dick asks, looking down at his little sister.

Cass smiles and leans into his hug. “Missed you.”

And Dick gets it, then. He hasn’t really been home much for a few weeks, and when he has, it’s been as Nightwing, helping with cases and patrol and Joker-related problems. He hasn’t seen his family as Dick for a while, and they’d all missed him and come down here willingly -- well, most of them.

Still, it’s nice to see all of their faces outside of the masks.

“I’ll come over tomorrow night,” Dick decides. “I get off early tomorrow afternoon, and I can get over to Gotham in time for Alfred’s Sunday dinner.”

“Happy,” Cass says, and then she pulls on his shirt, and Dick crouches down just long enough for her to peck a small kiss on his cheek. “We are all happy to see you. Today and tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dick says, unable to fight back his grin any longer. “I’m happy to see all of you, too.”

#dick grayson #batclan #dc #prompt #camryn writes #hollyhock13

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fishfingersandjellybabies · 6 years

Text

The Easiest Difficulty - fic

Characters: Damian Wayne, Jon Kent Pairing: jondami Summary: It was a simple choice, for both of them. The simplest choice. Or really, it should have been. A/N: In the same AU as Long Time, No See (where Damian left vigilantism completely). This takes place over a few years, though is not every instance they share on the topic/life stresses (ie Jon’s doubts on being a hero etc) and by the end, Damian is 27/28 and Jon is 24/25. Sorry if this is weird/has plotholes. I just wanted some jondami fluff and shit. They both date other people but obviously not seriously. This is one of those 5x1 fics, but I’m bad at that format so not really haha.

There were signs. Signs he chose to ignore but, in hindsight, probably should have used to escape instead. The girls at the front desk squealing with delight and chattering loudly. The office animals barking and meowing in greeting. Even Zooki, the cat he brought to the office with him every day, sat up, sniffed the air, and started purring.

Yeah, he shouldn’t have ignored those signs.

“Uh, D?” He glanced up towards the receptionist sticking her head in the door. Her smile was too bright, too excited. “You have a visitor.”

“Adopter?”

“Personal.”

“Let them in, I suppose.” He sighed, dropping his pen and leaning back in his chair. His family knows better than to bother him at work. And if they absolutely feel the need to, to call first. No surprise visits.

The receptionist nodded and disappeared, only to be replaced a moment later by a dark-haired man in dirty jeans and an ugly flannel shirt.

Damian’s frown deepened. And he couldn’t help but feel betrayed when his beloved Zooki rose from her perch to go greet their guest.

“…Jonathan.” He grumbled as he fixed his glasses, standing anyway.

“Hi.” Jon grinned, and suddenly produced a bouquet from behind his back. Roses of all different colors. “Happy Valentines Day.”

Ah. Now he understood why the front office was so giddy.

Still, Damian couldn’t help but smirk as he approached, and accepted the flowers. Zooki purred from between their feet.

“Cheater.” Damian mumbled, his nose dipped in the petals. “You can’t box me in with a romantic holiday.”

“I’m not trying to box you in.” Jon denied. “I’m just trying to ask you on a date.”

“And I gave you my stipulations.” Damian glanced up, keeping his face in the flowers. “Have you met them?”

Jon glanced down.

“…Jon?”

“Can’t you just like, put those off for now? For one date?” Jon mumbled, shuffling his foot. “Just so I can treat you for a few hours, for once?”

Damian sighed, and opened his mouth to respond, but Jon kept rambling.

“I mean, what if it goes horribly? What if it turns out our clearly mutual crushing was all for naught because we’re both terrible people and so we’ll never go out again? Then your stipulations won’t even be necessary!”

“Or, we could fall head over heels in love and be unable to live without each other. Then my stipulations would be very important.” Damian countered. “Trust me – I don’t like saying no to you like this. But it’s important to me, so I’d hope it’d mean something to you too.”

A pause.

“…So?”

“No.” Jon exhaled. “I haven’t met your stipulations.”

Damian clicked his tongue, and finally removed his face from the flowers. “Thank you for the gift, Jon. I truly do appreciate it.”

“…Can we at least get lunch while I’m here?”

Damian shook his head, turning away and returning to his chair. “I’m swamped with paperwork. Not to mention I need to start preparations for this weekend’s adoption event.”

“…Okay, no problem.” Jon gave him a smile, but Damian didn’t look at it, knowing it would be sad. “Call me when you’re free?”

“Only if you promise to call me if you are.” Damian returned. Jon gave a bitter laugh and turned away.

Damian pulled at his bowtie. He hated these things. Hated the monkey suits, hated the guests. Hated how fake it made his family, and even himself.

He also hated the inevitable kerfuffle when a bad guy tried to crash the party.

And this night was no different. The only thing that was maybe a little strange was that he’d had enough champagne not to care all that much when a gun was shoved in his face, or when he was shoved into a chair next to Tim and threatened.

Hell, he and Tim even toasted, clinking their glasses together and gulping their drinks down as the criminals screamed for Bruce to pay for their lives.

It’d been a crummy week at Wayne Enterprises. A crummy week at the animal shelter. They were allowed to have this.

The plus side of getting out of the hero life – he could sit back and relax, not waste much energy attempting to save himself. And his brother was probably too tired at this point to even try. Finishing the booze in his hand was much more important than his life at this point.

Besides – they knew they didn’t have to try tonight anyway. Their Super counterparts were watching for this exact moment, and it wasn’t long before the ballroom was being invaded by red capes, and various poorly designed uniforms.

Honestly, a leather jacket? A hoodie? A skirt? And Clark’s was just ugly, no matter how many times he tweaked it.

Regardless of their aesthetics, they were good at their jobs, and quick. There was still champagne in Damian’s own glass when he felt Jon’s arms wrap protectively around him, and whisk him away to safety on a nearby roof.

“You’re safe now, Mr. Wayne.” Jon drawled, watching as his family landed around the city with the rest of Damian’s family.

“Oh, gee.” Damian returned, just as sarcastically, downing the rest of his drink. He saw one of his would-be captors try to escape through a balcony door, and threw the empty glass at him with a well-aimed shot, shattering it along his temple. “How could I ever repay you?”

Jon laughed. “Well, you know, a kiss would be nice. That’s what a lot of the middle-aged women we rescue offer. Even to Kara.” He smirked, stepping closer. “And that’s a payment I’ll gladly accept from you.”

Damian stared incredulously up at him. “Sorry, I’m not a middle-aged woman.” He drawled, then gave a smirk of his own. “And I’m more into farmers’ sons anyway.”

“Oh, come on-”

“And only farmers’ sons.” He backed up a step, holding his arms wide while looking around. “And unfortunately, all I see around here are superheroes, so. Guess I’ll keep my kisses to myself.”

“You’re the worst.” Jon whined with an annoyed chuckle.

“From where I’m standing?” Damian said softly. He glanced over the building, watched the cop cars start to arrive. He turned back just to watch Jon take to the sky. “That title is yours.”

“I can’t believe it.” The old man said. One Mr. Sanchez, a twenty-four-year veteran of the Wayne Enterprises board of trustees. Damian was here with him because of the almost-kidnapping event at the gala a few months prior – his father was having a press conference today to talk about security, his family’s safety and how they’re coping, blah blah blah. The usual. Anyway, in Damian’s completely objective opinion - Sanchez’s mind was starting to go. “I can’t believe I know someone who has a superhero interested in him.”

Tim snorted into his water down the table.

“Trust me.” Damian sighed, keeping his voice even. He glanced fiercely at his brother. “It’s not all that uncommon.”

“I suppose.” Sanchez said. “But still! It must be exciting! Especially because it was a Super, no less!”

“There is nothing between the youngest Super-whatever and myself.” Damian droned boredly. “Regardless of what you and the idiot public think you see in that picture.”

“I don’t know, Mr. Wayne. This kind of chemistry is impossible to fake.” Sanchez said, holding up the newspaper in question. Above the fold, splashed across the page – Jon and Damian talking on the roof after Jon had rescued him from that party. Because, of course there weren’t any better or more relevant photographs of the event, right? “And in any case, it’s quite clear that Superboy is very smitten with you, regardless of what you claim. There are rumours about him, and even his heroics. The biggest one being he is only ever seen in Gotham on the rare occasion you are in town.”

“For one, he doesn’t go by Boy anymore, the whole world knows that. For two, I will tell you the same thing I told the reporter who emailed me about this drivel of an article.” Damian sighed, watching Dick come over to Tim, who was having a silent laughing fit behind his hand. He clearly asked Tim what was so funny, and Tim openly told him. Dick’s eyes shone in amusement as he looked up at Damian himself. Damian hated him. “I have no interest in my rescuer whatsoever, nor any superhero otherwise. Whom I’m romantically interested in is none of the public’s business, and I’d appreciate the courtesy of privacy.”

“Fair enough. You are a private citizen and wish to remain so. That’s why you left the limelight of Wayne Enterprises, I know, I know.” Sanchez waved off. “But, may I ask?”

Damian glanced at him.

“Why no superheroes?” Sanchez asked. “What turns you off to them? Even my mother said she’d leave her husband of fifty-seven years for the likes of Batman or Black Canary.”

“Because that’s not a world I want to be a part of. I had enough of all that Batman and Robin stuff growing up here. That’s part of why I left Gotham. Superheroes are nothing but trouble.” Damian explained. Then quieter, mumbled, “And what if they go out and don’t come home? What if they die in the field? Just because they’re heroes doesn’t mean they’re immortal. Doesn’t mean they can’t come back hurt and broken. And would you like to see that happen to someone you claim to love on a potentially daily basis?”

Sanchez didn’t answer that. He quickly dropped his gaze to the floor.

“And I, for one, have had enough loss and trauma in my life. So I’ll take a hard pass on a traumatic love life too, thank you.” Damian concluded. He let there be a pause of silence, then hummed, shaking his head as turned to the door to leave. “No, I’ll take the likes of…I don’t know, a poor farmer from Kansas over a superhero any day.”

The only warning he got was all of his animals twitching their ears and turning towards the front door at the same time.

He glanced up from his papers as he came out of his office. “Wha-”

And that was all he could say before the door flew open, practically knocked off its hinges, and he was thrown back against the stairs by the weight of a body stumbling forward and falling on top of him.

“What…” Damian blinked, watching the papers he’d been holding float around them like giant snowflakes. His focus was slow in his surprise, but eventually his vision evened out, and he recognized the body on top of him as none other than: “Jon?!”

Jon grinned, sloppy and giddy. His eyes were blurry and his cheeks were red. He was in his farm work clothes – an old t-shirt, holey jeans and muddy boots.

“…Hi.” Jon hummed, making no move to get off of him. In fact, he did the complete opposite. Seemed to settle his weight against Damian as he reached up and gently ran his fingers over Damian’s face, along the arm of his blue glasses, glossy eyes darting across his features. “…You know, you look way better in glasses than I ever did.”

“…Jon?” Damian whispered, feeling his own face heat up, just a little. “Are you okay?”

“Peachy.” Jon nodded awkwardly. “You know, Pop won’t let me grow peaches. I think it’s ‘cause we don’t live in Georgia.”

“What? What are you talking about?” And no sooner was the question out of his mouth, the stench hit his nose. The smell of smoke, of greasy food, of too much beer. “Jon, are you-”

Jon’s eyelids fluttered, and he sighed happily as he pulled Damian’s glasses away from his face, in what he probably thought was a seductive move.

…Oh god, he was drunk.

“Jonathan.” Damian scolded.

“You’re pretty.” Jon countered, closing his eyes as he swayed back and forth a little bit. “Did you know that?”

“Jon, how much did you have to drink tonight?” Damian demanded. He put his hands on Jon’s chest, not so much to push him off, just to steady them both against the sharp corners of the steps. He glanced out the destroyed front door, and frowned. “Oh my god, Jon, did you fly here?!”

“I’ll fly to the moon.” Jon slurred, leaning in to brush his nose against Damian’s skin. And as much as he didn’t want it to, Damian felt his heart hammer in his chest, as Jon fell into a ridiculous rendition of Frank Sinatra. “Come fly with me, come fly, oh, let’s fly away…”

“Jon.” Damian tried. “Come on, you need to sleep this off.”

Jon didn’t break his song, just pressed his lips to Damian’s jaw, fingers curling into his hair.

“Who were you out drinking with? Do they know you’re here?” Damian pushed, but even he knew in his soul it was half-hearted. “I’ll need to call your parents…”

Jon stopped singing then, and just turned the tune into a hum as he brought his other hand up to hold Damian’s cheek. He opened his eyes now, and stared at him in a hazy bliss.

Damian gulped, and hated himself when he felt his fingers twitch tighter into Jon’s shirt.

“Jon…”

And Jon kissed him.

And Damian should have pushed him off. Jon was drunk, his stairs were digging into his back, the animals were making a racket and probably escaping, and his stipulations –

But god, Jon tasted so good.

So he indulged. Felt guilt and shame running all through his system, but goddamn, he indulged. Just for a second. For a few seconds.

Because of course, this was all he wanted. All he’d ever wanted. All Jon ever wanted too. And it’d be so easy…

But no. Because he was out. He was out and he refused to be dragged back in, or involved in any way past what his family forced him to be.

Even for his potential – total, absolute – soul mate.

So, sadly, when Jon pulled back for air, Damian turned his face away before Jon could dive back in. Put his hand against Jon’s mouth, and pushed him back as gently as he could.

“You’re drunk.” He sighed. Jon gave a little whine behind his fingers, but moved back as Damian sat up. “Come on, Jon. Let’s get you into the guest room.”

Jon outright groaned as Damian stood and pulled him to his feet by his hands, grabbed his glasses from where Jon had tossed them, and dragged him carefully up the stairs, into – what he believed was – the wrong bedroom.

“Just like old times.” Jon smirked, throwing blankets towards the bed. Damian snatched them out of the air, rolling his eyes. “All those old sleepovers we had, like when our dads were working cases and stuff.”

He grabbed a few pillows from the shelf, then stepped over to Damian, very obviously standing purposefully in his personal space. Damian kept his scowl.

“I won’t make you sleep on the floor this time, though.”

“I’m not taking your bed, Jon. We’re adults, I can survive a few nights on the floor.” Damian mumbled. “Though frankly, the sooner this case of Grayson’s is over, the happier I’ll be.”

“Well, of course I agree. The sooner Dick and Dad find whoever’s threatening you and your dad, the happier I’ll be too.” Jon snorted. “And no, you’re not taking my bed. We’re sharing.”

Damian felt heat in his face. “Jon…”

“The bed’s big enough.” Jon grinned. “And like you just said – we’re adults, Damian. It’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know what you’re implying, but I won’t have a problem.” Damian spun away from him, unfolding the blankets and laying them out. “If there’s anything to worry about, it’s you and your…your crush.”

It was mean, borderline cruel. But it was the only way he could protect himself too.

Jon just laughed, though, and as soon as Damian had the blankets settled, flopped onto the bed.

“You wish it was just a crush.” He giggled. Damian let his frown deepen.

“No, I wish you would move on.” Damian scolded. He began to set up the pillows, began debating putting one between them as a barrier – just in case. “I wish you’d let yourself be happy instead of chasing lost causes.”

“I am happy. And I’m not chasing a lost cause.” Jon countered. “Even if we’re not together-together like we – I – may want to be, you’re still my best friend. You still make me happy.”

Damian pursed his lips, and kept his gaze on his task.

“Hey.” Jon suddenly took hold of his wrist, squeezing gently. “Don’t feel guilty about it, okay? I get it. I totally get it. You’re not being selfish, or greedy or anything. You got out, Damian. You got out of the mask, you have a life, you’re happy and safe and stable. You’re taking care of yourself. And you deserve that.”

“…I’m sorry I can’t be like your mother.” Damian murmured, still refusing to look. “I’m sorry I can’t…toe that line like she does. Or be able to have two completely separate lives like Grayson or Drake do.”

“Don’t apologize.” Jon repeated. “I’m glad you don’t. That means I don’t have to worry about you being out there getting hurt. Times like right now excluded, anyway.”

Damian closed his eyes. Jon gave his wrist another squeeze.

“And you’re not hurting me with your choice either.” He whispered. “I understand the ultimatum, I do. And I respect that.” He paused, and Damian felt him look out the window. “You don’t owe me anything, Damian. You don’t owe anyone anything. Not me, not your family, not the world. You always tell me to take care of myself; maybe you should listen to your own advice.”

“Love is about compromise.” Damian countered softly. “And I haven’t made any.”

“Neither have I.” Jon agreed. “In fact, if anything I should be apologizing to you. You gave me a simple choice, and I keep making the wrong one every day.”

“No you don’t.” Damian shook his head, opened his eyes, glanced at the other. “The world needs a Superman.”

“Yeah, and it has like four or five, even without me.” Jon laughed. “Honestly, I’m totally expendable. Which probably makes what I’m doing to you even worse.”

“You are not…!” Damian almost shouted. He stopped himself, though, and instead just pulled his hand from Jon’s. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m tired.”

“Same.” Jon allowed. He patted the bed next to him. Damian silently crawled in next to him, lying as close to the wall as he could. He waited a moment, knew Jon was watching him, then decided to put that pillow between them.

Jon snorted when he did so, and immediately tossed it to the floor. He scooted closer, hooking his chin over Damian’s head as he flopped his arm loosely around his waist.

“You’re here so I can protect you, remember.” He mumbled, like it was actually a valid explanation. Damian sighed, but didn’t shove him off. Didn’t make any move to return any affections, either. They laid in the silence for a moment, listening to the bugs chirp into the Kansas night. “…You’re always going to wait for me, aren’t you.”

“Always.” Damian promised quietly. “Unfortunately.” He added bitterly after. Another second, then: “And I guess I don’t have to ask you the same.”

Jon didn’t answer. Damian fell asleep.

He was just finishing watering the plants on his back porch when the sun began to rise over the tree line. He’d found he enjoyed gardening in his new life, specifically early morning or late night gardening. When the neighborhood children were asleep or inside, and cars weren’t coming and going. When there was utter silence and peacefulness. Just him and his thoughts, and sometimes, if they were awake themselves, his animals.

The water in the can ran out, and he placed it on the porch railing next to his pot of blooming zinnias. He gave a contented sigh as he reached for his mug of steaming coffee, holding it in both hands as he took a long sip, and paused to watch the sky light up in deep oranges and pinks.

Then – his house gave a slight shake, and he could hear things inside falling off shelves.

He turned back towards the house, setting his coffee back on the table as the animals inside began to stir and bark in alarm. When he got in, he watched his pets all rush to the front window, staring anxiously at something in the front yard. Damian frowned and followed the mob, but instead of looking out the window, he moved to the front door and opened it, facing whatever threat it might have been head on, like he always had.

But it was no threat.

Standing in the center of a small crater localized to his front yard, stood a man in a red and blue hooded sweatshirt, torn, dirty and open, exposing a bloody and disgusting white shirt underneath. His ripped jeans had even more holes in it, and he was missing his shoes.

Next to him was a duffle bag.

“…Jon?” Damian called carefully, stepping outside and closing the door before any of the dogs could follow. Jon glanced up at him with tired, sad, hollow eyes. “Jon, are you alright?”

“You were right.” Jon croaked as Damian approached him. “You were always right.”

“About what?” Damian reached up, and gently ran his thumb over the giant bruise on Jon’s face. “God, Jon – what happened?!”

“I should have listened to you years ago. I should have agreed to your stipulations. Then we could have been happy and safe and a family and…”

“Jonathan.” Damian tried again, dropping his hand to Jon’s chest. He could feel the blood still seeping, feeling injuries that Jon absolutely should not have. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want it.” Tears welled up in Jon’s eyes. Overflowed immediately. “Damian, I don’t want to be Superman.”

Damian’s eyes widened, and he felt his heart maybe stop.

“I lost. Again. People died today, and it was my fault, Damian. I wasn’t good enough. My powers shorted out. I was…I was only a fucking human.” Jon wailed. “I don’t want it to happen again. I…I can’t let it happen again. But it was…I…” His shoulders slumped. “I’m so tired, Damian. I don’t know how Dad does it. I…”

He swayed on his feet a little bit, and Damian immediately reached out for his arms. His tears twinkled in the rising sun.

“I can’t be Superman. I don’t want to be. You were right. You were always right. I should have gotten out when you did. I should have given up this stupid symbol and helped people on the ground, like you do.” Jon repeated. His lip trembled. “I don’t want to be Superman, Damian.”

“Then don’t be.” Damian whispered.

“I just…I want…” He let out a tiny sob. “I don’t even want to be the Son of Superman anymore. I just…” Another louder cry. “I just want to be Jon.”

And Damian couldn’t help but smile, as he gently began to push that sweatshirt from Jon’s shoulders. “You are.”

“I just…” Jon repeated. He suddenly glanced down at his bag. Damian did too, saw the zipper wasn’t completely closed. Inside, he could see clothes and books and pictures. Jon’s whole life, more or less. He looked back up at Jon, and Jon was staring desperately at him. He was serious about this. “I just want to be yours.”

Damian couldn’t help but grin even wider. There was no more Superboy. There was no more budding Superman. There were no more nights laying up in worry that he would die, that they’d be separated forever. No more days feeling guilty or selfish, because he was making him choose. No more ultimatum between him and the cape.

There was just his love. There was just his soul mate, Jonathan Samuel Kent.

“Beloved, you always have been.” Damian breathed, bringing his hands up to carefully hold Jon’s face, and kiss him as sweetly as he could. As sweetly as he’d always wanted to.

Jon all but collapsed into his arms, clinging as tightly as he could, and Damian relished in the feeling. Even when their lips broke apart, Damian didn’t let him go. Kept a protective arm around his waist as he leaned down and picked up his bag for him.

He kicked the ruined hoodie into the dirt of his front garden, making a mental note to gleefully burn the thing later. (With Jon’s permission, of course.)

“I’ll need to find a job.” Jon murmured. “And I…I don’t know how to cook. Or understand banking accounts. And I’ll pay rent, and I’ll…”

“Shhh.” Damian breathed. “Later, Jonathan. One thing at a time.”

When they attempted to step forward, Jon immediately stumbled, and half collapsed further into Damian’s side. Jon couldn’t walk, his leg was clearly too injured. And that was fine. Damian merely flipped Jon’s bag over his shoulder, and slip his arm under Jon’s knees. Jon immediately curled into his chest, arms around his neck.

“May I show you to our bedroom?” Damian asked gently, as Jon desperately dug his nails in Damian’s back. “You look like you could use a nice long nap.”

And finally, he caught a smile on Jon’s lips, and relief in his voice. “Yes, please.”

Damian carried him to the door, balancing on one leg to kick open the knob, then walked across the threshold with him. The animals all began sniffing at the new arrival, but Damian paid them no mind, immediately moving towards the stairs, towards the bedroom.

Their bedroom.

“Welcome home, Jon.” Damian whispered into his hair.

Jon, still crying, let out a tiny laugh. “I’m so happy to finally be here, Damian.”

#Damian Wayne #jon kent #jondami #freedom au #has a name now oops

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