#literally these kids just witnessed someone dying right in front of them

[rad-batson]

Damian Wayne Headcanons :) in which I give him actual character growth, suck it dc writers

this is extremely long, I am not sorry

He has literally no footsteps, you cannot hear him walk, even when he stomps around in one of those moods, it’s just barely a little *pat pat pat*

He doodles on everything. With everything. Some Gothamites have found intricate floral designs etched into the roof or random brick walls (most likely with a knife) after seeing Robin patrol.

He has like 20 weighted blankets, all different weights and sizes depending on his mood.

His favorite item in his room is a silver Nintendo DS. (He likes to use the little chat rooms, even if no one else is on the other end. He doodles and writes little messages. It’s like his diary.)

He loves all animals, and that includes the creepy ones. Especially the creepy ones.

Once, Tim started screaming bloody murder over a massive bug with a bajillion legs in his room. Damian now houses it in an enclosure in his bedroom. Her name is Mildred, Millie for short.

When he was in the LoA, he was forbidden from stimming in front of others. It took two years for anyone in the batfamily to ever witness him stimming.

His most common stimming behaviors are shaking out his hands, scratching his palms, and rubbing his hands across different surfaces. When he’s really stressed, he’ll snap his fingers.

He absolutely hates cameras. They’re loud and make him uncomfortable. One reporter almost got scratched when they got too close to him with the flash on. He only barely tolerates the security cameras in the manor. Barely.

He can and will be roped into any dare imaginable. Bruce repeatedly forbids him from taking dares from his siblings for months at a time.

He has a compartment in his utility belt dedicated to treats for any animal he sees on patrol.

When he’s tired, he’ll speak a mixture of Arabic, Mandarin, and English. Only Bruce can make sense of it, and occasionally Jason.

Bruce absolutely refuses to yell at Damian. Even if some of his other kids argue that he’s being too nice, he’ll only use his Batman voice and his Soft But Disappointed Dad Voice, but he will Never yell.

(He doesn’t tell them it’s because of what happened the first and only time he yelled at Damian. Bruce moved his hand a bit, and Damian flinched wildly. Bruce cried for hours over the implications of that.)

Damian only feels comfortable sitting if he can clearly see the main entrance. If not, he’ll sit with his back against a wall or he’ll stand.

He dutifully takes the responsibility of feeding and grooming every Wayne animal. They receive the most nutritious and filling meals on the market (all while receiving lots of head pats.)

He has very strong eyebrows just like his father. They tend to pull the same exasperated expressions too, highlighting their resemblance.

Talia taught Damian at a very young age how to write perfectly with both hands. He no longer remembers if he is naturally left or right-handed.

The one insult he cannot handle is “spoiled brat.” A few months after he arrived, someone in the family called him that as a joke, and he completely shut down emotionally. No anger, no sadness, no resentment. Literally just nothing. For days. No one knows why, but they will never let it happen again.

You know he’s Up to Something TM if he swings his legs back and forth while he sits.

He is obsessed with those cheap TV documentaries about famous plane crashes and shipwrecks. After finishing one, he’ll find the nearest family member and tell them all about it: how it happened, what human error caused it, and his fool-proof plan for if it ever happens again and he is nearby. Usually, it’s Alfred.

For the first few years at the manor, Damian’s favorite spot is the family graveyard. Everyone calls him dramatic. He just likes how it’s so quiet. (And he’s dramatic.)

When Jason waxes poetics about dying over dinner, Damian just groans and says, “So have I. You’re not special.” That’s how the family learns he was repeatedly revived in the Lazarus Pit due to the fatal nature of his training and abuse.

His first ever crush was on the cute male tech at Alfred the Cat’s vet. Damian was 12. Jason, who accompanied him, proceeded to give him both The Talk (“It’s okay to like boys”) and The Talk (“Your body is ✨changing✨”) on the drive home.

He will not text back unless it is absolutely necessary. He will leave people on read. He does not hate you. (…Probably.)

Titus is a registered therapy dog, trained in helping Damian through panic attacks and sensory overload. If you ever see Damian asleep on the floor, eyes cried out with Titus resting on top of him, you know why.

When he was 13, he tried to fake his own death after he failed a test at school and “dishonored the family name.” Bruce and Dick had to sit him down and explain that grades aren’t everything, and they still love him unconditionally.

He talks to animals like they’re human. He has a habit of venting his frustrations to Batcow in particular. And his fish while he feeds them.

His love language to others is a mixture of gifts and quality time, usually without words.

One day, Damian was snooping around the house and found that one of the electrical closets leads to a tiny space—barely two feet wide—in between the sheetrock and the foundation wall with nothing but a single hanging lightbulb. It took years before anyone else found it, but by then, Damian had painted an 8x10 ft mural on the wall and created a small bed of blankets and pillows for when he needs a quiet place to escape unwanted stimuli.

When he sleeps, his cheeks puff out like a little chipmunk. It’s adorable.

During the Winter Olympics one year, Damian falls in love with figure skating and decides he wants to try it out, but he never asks to take up lessons in fear that he will be horrible at it.

Duke figures this out and now takes him ice skating just enough to avoid suspicion. It’s become their bonding activity.

Once, Jason and Tim made him try a Sour Patch Kids-flavored energy drink. He immediately spit it out and said, “What the fuck?! That’s even worse than drinking from the Lazarus Pit.” And that’s how the family learns that Ra’s made Damian drink from the Lazarus Pit a few times.

One day, Steph told Damian about the wonders of concealed self defense products. Now, about 80% of the mundane items Damian owns is secretly a knife. He will purchase any item that is secretly a knife. Including several fake lipstick tubes.

He has rigorous self-control when it comes to sleep. Sure, his schedule is a bit fucked up for someone his age, but he is in bed and asleep exactly when he tells himself. (His siblings could never.)

His entire wardrobe is soft items he “found” stole from the laundry room. If it’s comfortable, it’s his now. (No one complains. In fact, having Damian steal your clothes is considered a privilege.)

He hates whenever Alfred tries to recreate dishes from his childhood. It’s just not the same. Alfred understands.

When he’s really stressed—like the “I am one stubbed toe away from a complete meltdown” stressed—he will finger paint. He likes the feeling of it on his skin.

Due to his time in the LoA, Damian has a habit of never telling anyone if he’s injured. Instead, he’ll pretend nothing’s wrong until he passes out or literally can’t move right and someone calls him out. He’s working on it, though.

There’s a massive system of fish tanks in his room complete with handmade decor and multiple venomous species. No one even realizes until Alfred mentions it during dinner.

He has hyper fixated at least once on every single artistic medium you can imagine. His top three are oil paintings, mosaics, and pottery, but he mostly sticks to drawing in his free time.

He has taste tested all of his pets’ treats at one point for “research purposes.”

Giving friends their own nickname is one of the most intimate things Damian does to express his relationship with someone.

Once, he was having an argument with a sibling, and they said, “Oh yeah? Well at least Bruce wanted me!” Damian didn’t leave his room for exactly six days. He even stapled blackout curtains to his windows and the vents. Bruce chewed the shit out of whoever said it and spent hours every day talking to Damian through the door to convince him that, yes, Bruce wants him and couldn’t ever think of a family without him. Damian didn’t come out, however, until he heard Bruce crying while begging him to eat. Damian slept in Bruce’s bed that night and the following week.

When he turns 15, he gets really obsessed with Måneskin.

He’s exactly the kind of Art Hoe that is completely loyal to his favorite brand of art supplies and wouldn’t touch other brands with a 10ft pole.

He has weirdly thin fingers. Like creepily thin, especially as he grows older. Someone commented on them once, and Damian proceeded to wear gloves nonstop for a week.

There are exactly four (4) people who are allowed to touch him without permission first. Dick, Jon, Bruce, and Talia in that order.

His eyes are actually naturally blue. The reason they are green is because of the Lazarus Pit. It’s always the Lazarus Pit. (They barely glow in the dark too, but you need to really pay attention to notice.)

He can wiggle his ears. The only people to ever witness it are Cass and Duke. They’ve been sworn to secrecy.

Whenever one of his many pets sleeps in his bed, he tries to stay as still as possible without touching them so they don’t get annoyed and leave, but they always worm their way into his arms.

As he grows, his family is surprised to learn that he isn’t building the same muscle as his dad. Instead, he’s lean like his mother due to an extremely fast metabolism. He eats a lot to maintain proper health. (His cheeks are still puffy when he sleeps, though. And when he smiles.)

Dick is his emergency contact for school, partially because Dick isn’t as busy, partially due to that time Bruce “died,” but mostly because Damian is terrified of disappointing Bruce if he ever gets in trouble. Thankfully, Dick is convincing Damian otherwise.

His favorite ever birthday gift comes from Tim. It’s a pottery studio he spent months building on their property in secret with several pottery wheels and a kiln.

His hands have always had a sort of surgical accuracy to them due to his stealth training, but it never came to the forefront of everyone’s mind until one particular mission when Tim got shot, and they needed to get the bullet out as quickly as possible. Despite being bigger than most of his family members by now, and Tim refusing to stay still the whole time, Damian was the only one capable of taking the bullet out. While riding in the Batmobile. Going 80 mph. Completely painlessly. Damian is immediately given the de facto role of Combat Medic.

Jon likes to send Good morning texts to Damian. At first, he didn’t know about the “only responds if it’s an emergency” thing, though, so he decided to stop after a few weeks of Damian never replying. Within an hour of not getting the usual text, Damian was at Jon’s house in full Robin gear to make sure he was okay.

He and Steph like to paint each other’s nails when one of them is stressed. After Damian comes out as pansexual, Steph paints little pride flags on his fingers.

He only plays Minecraft on creative mode. He likes building farms and wildlife preserves.

At 16, he gets asked out by a pretty girl in school that Damian had a crush on last year, but he thinks it’s a joke because he can’t fathom anyone liking him so he turns her down.

As he grows, his looks become more androgynous, again eerily resembling his mother, but his voice drops low enough that it doesn’t cause much misgendering.

Then he starts thinking of his gender a bit more and wonders if he’s also a They.

He likes to paint all over the soles of his shoes whenever he gets a new pair. No one will ever really see it, of course, and it eventually wears off the more he walks, but he knows it’s there.

It’s a nice day in the park. He’s doing homework on a picnic table while Titus and Ace run around, and he can’t stop thinking about his future.

Yesterday, there was a school assembly about choosing a career path. Alfred slid him an SAT prep book during breakfast. And his class was assigned one of those “Which career path is best for you?” quizzes.

He gets Veterinarian.

It takes a full five minutes as Damian stares at the results, thinking about the crazy, out-of-this-world idea of not being a vigilante or assassin his entire life, what it would be like if he just turned his back on the future which was so carefully laid out in front of him since birth, before it clicks into place.

Damian doesn’t want to be Batman.

He doesn’t want to lead the LoA either.

Two years later, Damian enrolls in Gotham University and majors in Wildlife Biology on the Pre-Vet track with a minor in Studio Arts. He gets a dorm room, works in the pottery studio, and volunteers at the local animal shelter.

He is content.

Does some of this stray from canon? Yes. However, I do not give a rat’s ass. Thank you, and goodnight.

#damian wayne #i have a lot of feelings #he is my blorbo #batman #batfamily #long post #robin damian #robin dc #dc #dc universe #batfam #batfamily headcanons #bruce wayne #autistic damian wayne #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #cassandra cain #stephanie brown #duke thomas #jon kent #dc robin

[2023himbotournament]

CONTACT YOUR GOVERNMENT AND DEMAND A CEASEFIRE FOR PALESTINE

For Eu look up:

Voices in Europe for peace

For Usa look up:

US campaign for Palestinian rights

BOYCOTT FOR PALESTINE

FOA (Friends of Al-Aqsa) have organized a boycott in support of palestine. Here are the key companies to boycott:

HP (Hewlett Packard)

Coca-Cola

Israeli produce

We will be ending our call to boycott

PUMA once the contract with IFA officially dissolves in 2024. Until then, we encourage you to continue boycotting PUMA products.

Please help to spread the word by sending this copypasta to as many blogs as you can and/or going to FOAs website where you can find posters to download and print out

Ok I'm not a copypasta person unless it's memes but like. Look I'm not Palestinian but I'm also a Southwest Asian and my mental health has definitely deteriorated seeing just. Everything. Especially the increase in racism and islamophobia (I'm also muslim) and seeing all the hate crimes and knowing that someone could probably shoot me in the head while I'm writing gay fanfiction in public and justify it by saying that I could've been a dangerous terrorist and therefore my entire family tree must be eradicated-

basically what I'm trying to say is that I'm hoping that making this post on the himbo tourney blog will get some eyes on this. Like. I've been feeling really powerless about this and kinda just like shriveling up and dying lately. Tbh. The world is fxcked right now. In the year of our lord 2024 /ref, here we are post undertale we are being pro-genocide how funny is that haha. It's not funny. It's. It's not. It's not funny . I can't. I've seen too many videos of children dying and crying and I just. I saw the one thing about the kid with cerebral palsy whose parents got shot right in front of them for literally no reason and then they got yelled at by soldiers and like. People literally will look at this and call these people animals?? I saw that term get thrown around a lot. It's just disgusting and like.

have people seen the bingo the literal genocide bingo. People are treating this like a joke like. Do people not realize that Southwest Asian people are like... people??? We're people you know. Like this is mainly targeting Arabs but I've seen stuff about people discriminating against the rest of us too (mainly because they can't tell the difference. Because the idea of not treating Asian cultures as interchangeable applies until you get to Southwest Asia I guess even in progressive circles everyone just says Arab for everything even here I've seen people like-). I'm Persian and I'm still scared someone will cut my life off. I'm 16. Nowruz is next week and I just want to live to it with my family. My mind is inundated wit the tears of the families that had never gotten to have their celebrations. Because of one group on one day.

one group on one day. One group on one day. it's always that. it's always that for people like us.I feel like I'm going insane. It's just 9/11 in America all over again. I wasn't even born for that. But you can just feel it all around you. And now we have the sequel, across the world. But it's used the same way. 7/23. Can't wait for the memes /s. This one thing happens therefore we can dedicate multiple months to killing all of you just making you suffer stripping your dignity you don't deserve anything and we'll make the world hate you because fxck you and then the world goes along with it because nothing good ever happens and I just want to escape from this but every time I go on tumblr it's just this and I know if I ever stop seeing this it means that the worst has happened anyway

and then people try to act like YOU'RE the bigot because you're trying to hold a country's government and military force responsible for war crimes just because the country has its branding in minority groups. How about I make this crystal clear: I don't give a flying fxck about what Israel is, it's what it's doing that matters. I'd be saying nearly the same shzt if they were PERSIAN, and that is MY ETHNICITY. I literally do not care. It doesn't matter. Because killing people is wrong and that should not be a controversial statement but I guess some people like the sound of screams in the morning. The Palestinian death toll has surpassed the 7/23 death toll. And it's still going. And not all the deaths have even been accounted for because bodies are still buried under rubble. Because they're still bombing people and they won't stop. And no one will make them stop.

like I don't give a fxck about Hamas either, I heard some of the members did genuinely say some like directly quoted antisemitic shzt and also they like condoned a racist caricature of a black woman in a magazine I think but I'm not sure about the second one (I know the magazine thing definitely happened but I'm not sure of their like involvement at all-) like. I don't need to suck there dzcks like some people do it's one group of fxcks like I don't. They're just the excuse being used for this. You're bombing the entire population of a country where the majority population is fzcking tater tots. You're attacking children. You are killing children. Paint yourself purple. Dammit. Just. Again it's 9/11 all over again but in another country.

even then like it's like. You know that trope in cartoons that shows up more often than you'd think that was in like Avatar and Korra and RWBY I think where there's like a fictional minority that is oppressed and wants rights and then active protest is represented by an evil terrorist group who attacks people and is the villains of the media and passive protest is always portrayed as good and active protest is evil and there's no nuance and also they just frame the group as just like evil spawned out of nowhere not addressing that they literally would not exist if not for the truly evil system of oppression that basically created them. Like.

You know Hamas only exists because Palestinians were already treated like shzt right? Like they were already displaced and didn't consent to the whole Israel thing and like look up Nakba it's fzcking awful like. Hamas is just a symptom of the disease and there will just be another Hamas if you try to knock it down without actually like. Doing anything about. the fact that Palestinians are oppressed. but people will just act like you can keep punching at Hamas like that'll result in anything like they're the flowers not the roots y'know-

also I'm calling it here, this entire thing is gonna definitely be used down the line by Neo-nazis I mean it kinda already is being used to justify antisemitism but like I saw the stuff of people trying to redefine antisemitism to be synonymous with antizionism and make isrseli and jewish synonymous and to basically gatekeep jewishness from anti-zionist jews (I'm not kidding I actually saw shzt like that) and it's like. Y'all they're gonna turn around in a year or two like "ohhh look at the big bad scary jews- I mean Israelis their identity is literally tied to the genocide of Palestinians they are inherently evil there is no denying it!" (Ignoring the fact that the USA and other bastards of colonization did the same shzt as Israel literally the same story history is repeating itself but we have social media brands this time-). And then like what the fxck do you do about it when the word antisemitic now means anticolonialist so no one takes it seriously anymore. What the fxck are you supposed to do about that. And when they probably made themselves right because they probably contributed to Palestinian Genocide themselves they don't care they're just using them as props in their fxcking jew hatred. But like. Yeah you are now tied to this nationality that is tied to fxcking genocide what do you do? It's like perfect to use for fearmongering around Jewish people since the shzt they used before somehow worked despite literally being pulled out of their xss istg like where the fxck did any of the bank stuff come from like. The fzck?-

im tired. I'm so tired. Both in the literal "It's past 1am" sense and the less literal "make the stop" sense.

I just don't want people to die. I just want people to be happy. I just want people to not suffer but every day it feels like it's getting worse and I just want something to change for the better and I'm scared. Why do people act like it's a bad thing to not want people to suffer? I don't understand. I just. I just don't understand. I. am I naive? For this?

does this wish make me naive?

#I can't take it anymore #I want to cry

[carnalhaus]

if you STILL find yourself wondering why exactly sledge is so insanely fixated on praline, here u go :p

the whole reason sledge exists as a character is to show the impact praline can have on people. he’s actually not the only character used for this purpose, he just happens to be the only one still presently with her.

it’s worth mentioning that because of this, sledge has nothing else going on in his life. he had a completely normal youth with absolutely nothing traumatizing or strange. and then he met praline, and i think that’s when you really have to put yourself in his position. she quite literally plagues his daily life, he’s constantly responding to calls about this girl, she is the root of everything stressing him out. she’s doing crazy shit, cutting her face open, ripping her trailer apart (in the most literal sense), pulling knives on people, it’s the kind of thing that stays stuck in your mind when it’s the only interesting thing you’ve experienced in your mundane life.

he is very afraid of her because he doesn’t understand her or why she does what she does. he sees her throw herself into these dangerous situations without a care in the world and it’s mind boggling. it’s like watching a deer stare at the headlights. she can save herself, but she doesn’t, and he doesn’t understand. throughout the years that quite literally kept him up at night.

when she dies, the reason he becomes so fixated on it is because of guilt. he ends up realizing how much he failed her when he meets enid and actually *talks* to her, something he never did with praline, and figures out that these girls are just suffering. they were both beyond frustrating and hard to understand, yes, but all they needed was for someone to look at them and listen. he tries repairing this with enid, doing it right this time and actually trying to offer her support outside of her family that doesn’t care for her. hell, he even defends what she does sometimes because he’s so desperate to understand and protect her like he failed to protect praline. enid dying was his worst fear come true, and just a few months later, praline is killed too. both of those are enough to cement in his mind that he has amounted to absolutely nothing in his life. he goes off the rails from carrying the responsibility of two lives, two girls that looked to him for protection, and he didn’t protect them from jack shit.

keep in mind stuff like this isn’t really uncommon, in a sense. i went to an alternative school where a majority of the students there had horrible behavioral issues sparked by abusive homes, witnessing murders, involvement in gang activity, the foster system, etc etc. i even found myself getting irritated with certain people sometimes because no matter how hard you tried to understand why they did what they did, it just wouldn’t make sense, they wouldn’t listen. to put it in perspective, praline is exactly like these kids. she’s frustrating to the point where all you want to do is give up on her because she’s a lost cause. that’s what sledge did, that’s what most people do to kids like this.

he views her as a jesus christ figure because above all else, she quite literally “came back.” he ruined his life over guilt, and now he has to live with the fact that she’s alive, here, in front of him, staring at him, and he can’t go back and undo anything. he can’t get his job back, he can’t go back home, he can’t show his face anywhere, and it’s all because of her. he really has no other choice at this point but to stay with her, stat, and enid, because what else is he good for ? absolutely nothing. finding her was probably the only influential thing he’s ever amounted to in his boring miserable life. he’s dedicated to them because there is genuinely nothing else he’s useful for in the world.

it’s still mind boggling to him that she’s still alive, again put yourself in his position. that trailer had the bodies of six girls in it, all killed and torn apart, there is no logical way that she should’ve been able to get away that night. he was hanging onto a delusion that he wasn’t even fully sure he believed in because it was so outrageous, and it turned out to be true.

meanwhile, praline doesn’t think about him much. he’s not any different from other people in her life, ignoring her, doubting her, turning a blind eye. but there’s something deep down, in her 16 year old self way down there, that wants to keep him here. maybe not consciously, but she still holds onto the silly fantasy that maybe he actually can help her one day. but i think she knows that time has already long passed and now he’s just hanging around like a useless ghost repeating the motions from way back when. she can still wish he did something though.

#carnalposting #my ocs #praline #sledge #sorry for the spam but not really #i haven’t been posting on here for a while so now that i actually have content i gotta #i need to update u on the lore. i can’t keep u all in the dark

[angelicimagines]

(Regular Ask | Any Mod) Post-Game Hajime, Nagito, Gundham, Sonia, and Akane dating the Ultimate Enologist who always plays tricks on them with swapping their drinks (innocently). Like; Hajime being asked to taste their new concoction, and it's literally just orange juice/favorite drink with no sweetener/additives, LOL.

Hello there Anon. This reminds me a lot of those "potions" that we all made when we were kids but they were really just soap and some other stuff mixed with water. I also took some creative liberties with this one cuz I had to mix it up a bit. Here's your request. In other news tumblr crashed on me in the middle of this and deleted a whole ass section. I am ready to fight god with only primal rage as my weapon. -Mod Shuichi

(Post–Game) Hajime Hinata, Nagito Komaeda, Gundham Tanaka, Sonia Nevermind, Akane Owari with a playful Ultimate Enologist!S/O.

Hajime Hinata🍊

🍊 Is immediately suspicious of you. You served him a glass of your new "concoction" but it just tasted like orange juice. Does he look like an idiot to you? 🍊 Begins "interrogating" you about the drink like you're in a trial. You must be the ultimate actor because your acting skills were top notch during the questioning. 🍊 He's out of truth bullets, shit. You got lucky this time, he has his eye on you. 🍊 He is also a massive hypocrite. 🍊 He loves watching others' reactions to your "concoctions". You usually pull this trick when they have already tried some of your original work, so they definitely don't expect to taste lemon juice in what is supposed to be a glass of your newest work. 🍊 Tries to hold in his laughter because then it would look suspicious, like you two were up to something. Maybe in the future though. 🍊 Back on track, he just knows you're paying tricks on him and wants to confront you about it, but… 🍊 Man's a simp. You're just so happy whenever someone falls for your tricks and you genuinely have a passion for creating and pranking and who is he to stop your fun. 🍊 When you do pull the trick on him, y'all have a back and forth debate on whether or not the drink is actually a new creation or apple juice. 🍊 You insist it's a new concoction and he goes "NO THAT'S WRONG!" Oh shit, he's onto you. Rethink your strategy stat! 🍊 You gave him something actually original and said it was "orange juice". 🍊 He drinks it, blinks a few times, and then glares at you. You apparently have a deathwish because you lean closer to his face and feign innocence, batting your eyelashes at him while asking what's wrong. 🍊 You expected another interrogation or maybe a "listen here you little shit", not a kiss on the lips. A surprise to be sure. 🍊 That was the start of a routine. Everytime you played your tricks on him, he'd pull you in and kiss you. You didn't know why he did that, but it was a fun way to get kisses. 🍊 If you ask him, he'd say he wanted you to taste teste your new drink <3

Nagito Komaeda☘️

☘ Very conflicted on how to feel. On one hand, he is sure what he is drinking is not the liquor you said it was; but on the other, who is he to doubt an ultimate? ☘ Plays along and congratulates you on your drink, saying it was very tasty. Bonus points if you do this trick in front of others and they're saying it's plain juice and not whatever fancy name you had said. ☘ Lowkey loves when others argue about your drinks. He always takes your side and it's hilarious. ☘ "I'm telling you that's not wine, it's cranberry juice!" ☘ "It's wine, if the Ultimate Enologist says so then it's wine. Did you spend years studying wines and their craft?" ☘ "I'M NOT AN IDIOT THAT'S CRANBERRY JUICE!" ☘ After a few more tricks he figures it out. You're playing a prank on him huh. ☘ He lets you know by saying thanks for the juice instead of whatever it is you said it was. ☘ You almost dropped the glass you were holding. He thought it was due to his luck, but he let it pass. Your face was just too funny to let the opportunity pass. ☘ Even though he knows, he still plays pretend from time to time. One because it makes you happy and two because you have to keep the illusion going for the others. ☘ You bargained with him over that last point. You promised him cuddles (after lot's of convincing that he did deserve them) in exchange for him acting along when you pulled your trick on others. ☘ Now he gets your cuddles, free drinks, and gets to witness your funny moments when you pull the prank on others. Man he really is lucky. ☘ If you name a drink after him or if one of your drinks is inspired by him he'll cry. Will refuse to drink it himself. ☘ You also share a drink that you say it's a new wine but it's really just dyed water. Others are confused by your couple ritual but y'all are happy so who cares. ☘ Nothing makes him happier than hugging you while you work on your drinks though, it fills him with hope <3

Gundham Tanaka🐹

🐹 Is convinced you're working with dark magic. You made wine taste like orange juice, what type of sorcery do you practice? 🐹 Asks you to see the process to check for magic. Oh no, you're fucked. 🐹 Or so it seems. When he's not looking you swap the drinks and keep the illusion going. He has yet to find out. 🐹 You sometimes pretend to add blood (red food coloring) to the decorations of the glass you serve your drink in and pour a special wine into them to make it look like blood. 🐹 People are convinced you two are vampires because of this. 🐹 You make non alcoholic drinks for the Devas in exchange for protection and a special place in his dark realm. You can also pet the devas free of repercussions. 🐹 Is insulted when someone even dares to suspect your drinks aren't really anything new. How dare they question the work of his soul's chosen companion sorry Hajime. 🐹 Very confused as to why others argue with you over your drinks. He is certain the contents of that glass are not apple juice, it's your new concoction inspired by the Devas. 🐹 The day he finds out your secret is the day the apocalypse began (not really but it felt like it). 🐹 You were preparing your drinks for the trick and waiting for him. He decided to surprise you by showing up a bit earlier and that resulted in him catching you mid switch. 🐹 Kept staring at you and the drink back and forth repeatedly, until the information was processed. 🐹 He's been tricked, sabotaged, and quite possibly bamboozled. 🐹 Began to doubt your status as a mortal and started having a crisis. In front of two perfectly fine drinks but ok. You came clean after that and he feigned betrayal. Even got the devan in on it too. 🐹 Both of you acted like it was a scene from a telenovela while trying to hold in y'alls laughter. You eventually got to the part where you begged for forgiveness. 🐹 Will forgive you on one condition, you pull that trick on Souda <3

Sonia Nevermind👑

👑 Before you even got to pull your tricks on her you were already her own personal enologist. Only the best for a princess. 👑 Does notice that your concoctions taste strangely like every day juices you can buy from the store, but she decides to give you the benefit of the doubt. 👑 Loves it when you do it to others though. She might not know what is happening but watching you argue with Fuyuhiko over what you just served him is hilarious. 👑 Gets whiplash whenever you pull your trick right after a formal event. You serve a magnificent cocktail never seen or tasted before and the next second you serve her what tastes like pineapple juice. 👑 You come to her for inspiration on what drinks to do next, it mostly involves references to the occult disguised as fancy people drinks. 👑 Does she find out about your secret? Yep 👑 She was looking for you to spend quality time together when she say you pour a glass of peppermint lemonade and label it as "new drink". 👑 Someone walked up to your stand and asked to try said drink and you served them the lemonade. They were extremely confused and from there a discussion started. 👑 She scurried away before you could catch her, equally as confused as the poor customer you just served. 👑 The next day, she asked to try some of your drinks and they all tasted like normal drinks. What happened to your awesome concoctions you served during parties? 👑 She's on a mission now, she's gonna get to the bottom of this mystery. 👑 One time, while you weren't looking, she snuck into your storage room to confirm her suspicion and found you working on your new wine (legit this time). 👑 You didn't seem to mind she had snuck into your storage room and invited her over to see the process. After that was done you offered her a glass as a taste test. 👑 She took a sip and it tasted like…mango juice? When she looked at you with a confused expression you laughed and offered her a glass of the actual drink. 👑 In that moment she realized she doesn't mind your tricks that much, if it makes you smile that brightly she'll always for for it <3

Akane Owari🤸

🤸 She would gulp down anything that you "concocted" for her because she loves you and you make killer drinks. 🤸 Would probably "get drunk" on whatever you decided to give her because of placebo effects and whatnot. 🤸 It is very fun to give her something like lemon water and saying it's a new type of tequila and you want her to do the honors of taste testing it. 🤸 Gladly does it and comments that it takes a bit like lemon. Then gives suggestions to other flavour you could add in your "tequila". 🤸 Others have tried to convince her it wasn't a new concoction because after the ntheenth time she had fallen for the trick it got a bit worrying. 🤸 She denies it every time. 🤸 One time you were serving her a glass of your new "drink" that was really just apple juice dyed to look like fine wine. 🤸 "Thanks for drink S/O, it looks delicious!" 🤸 You try to supress your giggles as she drank the whole thing and gave you back the glass. 🤸 She did comment that it "kinda tastes like apple juice" but that theory was dismissed due to the color of the drink. 🤸 Your plan fell right into place, good for you. Though the cheering had to be reserved for another time. 🤸 That time would be when you were cleaning the dishes because it gave you some alone time to cheer on your victory and you had a bunch of glasses to clean. 🤸 As you left with her empty glass in hand to get started on the dishes, Akane smiled to herself and lighty chuckled at the recent exchange 🤸 Plot twist, she knew that you were just messing with her. She played along with you because you always had the brightest smile whenever serving her a drink and she loved seeing you happy. 🤸 She just wants to see you happy, plus she gets free drinks <3

#mod shuichi #sdr2 x reader #sdr2 #goodbye despair x reader #danganronpa2 #danganronpa 2 x reader #super danganronpa 2 #goodbye despair #danganronpa goodbye despair #gundham tanaka x reader #gundham x reader #gundham tanaka #hajime x reader #hajime hinata x reader #hajime hinata #nagito komaeda #nagito komeada x reader #nagito x reader #sonia nevermind #sonia nevermind x reader #sonia x reader #akane x reader #akane owari #akane owari x reader

[evienyx]

DSMP Citizens POV- Part 1

I've seen a lot of the memes going around, but I'm not funny enough to write that, so here's my addition to the trend :p

This is part one, because I had a lot of fun with this and want to do it more.

- - -

DSMP Citizen POV Masterlist

- - -

Sometimes, it was odd for the residents of the Dream SMP to be reminded of the fact that the constant state of chaos that their server was in was not, in fact, reflective of every server.

"Why did we move here?" One woman in Snowchester whispers to another as the sirens go off for yet another nuke test and they duck down into their bunker.

The other shrugs. She doesn't have an answer. No one does.

Things started out all right, the people supposed. There weren't any wars, at least. Some of those who lived on the server before the Revolution could remember back far enough to tell you about the first true conflict, between Dream, the creator of their home, and TommyInnit, a sixteen-year-old who could yell shockingly loud, even for a teenager. Dream fought against Tommy and Tubbo (yet another teenager), and it seemed to all be in good fun.

Some will tell you now, though, that the signs of tension were already there, and when Wilbur Soot joined, those tensions only escalated.

One moment, things on the server were normal, the next, there was a Revolution.

"Did anyone else hear Dream shouting about 'white flags' this morning?" One person would ask their friends, and receive nods in return. "Anyone know what it's about?"

"A Revolution," one would respond. "Wilbur Soot and TommyInnit are starting a new country."

"Oh," the first would hum. "How long until they get completely crushed?"

"Eh, I give 'em a week."

It was only a week, but it did not end the way anyone thought it would. Instead, L'Manburg gained its independence after TommyInnit gave up his discs once he lost a duel with Dream.

"Is the L'Manburg cabinet missing someone?"

"No, I don't think so. Anyway, did you hear that Dream just declared that Eret is to be crowned king?"

"...Can he do that?"

"He's Dream. He can do whatever he wants."

After the Revolution, when the server finally had more than one ruling faction, more than one place to live, things seemed to pick up a bit. President Soot, with Vice President Innit (VP Tommy, the people called him), ruled over L'Manburg, and called it a place of freedom. When word spread to other servers, people came to see for themselves.

And often, they stayed.

It was peaceful, for a while.

"President Soot announced he's holding an election," one man said to his wife one day.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Said it was for democracy." The man snorted. "He and Innit are the only party running, though. Sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me."

"Darling, I know you're still salty about losing the war, but there's no reason to talk bad about a child," his wife said.

The man wrinkled his nose. "Still."

It was peaceful during the campaign.

For a while.

Then, though, Quackity announced that he was running for president, with GeorgeNotFound, best friend of Dream himself, as his running mate.

"This feels like a sitcom," one girl says as she watches the debate reruns with her friends.

"At least it's entertaining," her friend replies, shoving popcorn into his mouth.

And, for the people of the Dream SMP, from both L'Manburg and the Greater SMP, it was entertaining.

Until the election results came in, Schlatt was declared the winner, and President Soot and VP Tommy were banished.

"Dude, dude!" One teen says to their friends, running up to meet them on the Prime Path.

"What is it?"

"I just saw Technoblade join the server!"

The arrival of the Blood God shifted something in the people of the Dream SMP. When he joined Pogtopia, the rebellion being led by the two ex-leaders of the country, the people felt something settle within themselves.

All of a sudden, choosing sides wasn't as simple as where you live.

It was what you care about.

As the son of the ex-president burned down the old flag, the people of the Dream SMP, of (L')Manburg and of the Greater SMP, realized suddenly that they had to make a choice.

Without even wanting to, without doing anything to deserve it, they would have to fight.

Some people went to Pogtopia, some stayed in Manburg, some in the Greater SMP. Those in the latter two stayed where they were because they wanted to stay out of it.

It didn't change anything, in the end.

In Manburg, they watched their president (Emperor) fall further and further into alcohol, yelling at his cabinet and talking of expanding into territory that they had no right to.

In the Greater SMP, murmurs of King Eret's attempts to assist the Pogtopia rebels filled the alleyways.

In Pogtopia, people sat and watched the decline of the man that they had all once believed in. As Wilbur Soot slowly devolved until he was no longer recognizable as the man who had once led people to freedom, the residents of Pogtopia ate potatoes farmed by a man famous for his bloodlust and pretended that they were sleeping somewhere warm.

The day of the Manburg Festival, though, things felt better. Other than ex-president Soot and ex-VP Tommy (Wilbur and Tommy, the two insisted. No one listened), everyone, even the rebels in Pogtopia, were invited to attend. The people wandered through the stalls playing games, watching as Soot's son attempted (in vain) to drown Technoblade, buying food, and chatting with people from other factions, friends and family that they hadn't spoken to in weeks.

When the time came for the speeches, before the true festivities were set to begin, everyone was feeling good about the day. People congratulated Secretary Tubbo for a successful event, and offered him small words of encouragement for his speech coming up. The teenager would grin at all who spoke to him, and looked (rightfully) proud of how well he organized and decorated the festival.

Secretary Tubbo gave his speech, and people clapped, and then fell silent as President (Emperor) Schlatt laughed, asked for his Vice-President's assistance, and encased the teenager in a cage of concrete.

And then he called Technoblade to the stage.

And then, in front of the people of the Dream SMP, a teenager was executed in a spray of color that shot toward the sky.

Fireworks rained down on the people in the stands, then, and, regardless of where they were from, the people of the Dream SMP ran.

The Pogtopia ranks grew that day, and a nineteen-year-old who claimed to be a doctor without showing any credentials forced four other people to help her heal VP Tommy after he fought Technoblade in a pit, egged on by a man who once might have called himself his brother.

"How is this kid not dead yet?" One of the helpers asked, looking at the unconscious teenager's face.

"Pure spite?"

The first hummed. "Sounds about right."

One day, a bit after the festival, the people of Pogtopia woke to find Vice President Quackity walking through the ravine as if he owned the place.

One resident was noted to rub his eyes, blink three times, and then say, "It's too early for this shit," before heading back to bed.

A surprising number of people followed his lead.

Finally, the day of November 16th came, when Wilbur Soot and TommyInnit vowed to take their country back.

"I heard President Soot is planning to blow up L'Manburg," one Pogtopian woman mentioned to her friend as they suited up and prepared to fight, as they had signed up to be part of the forces.

"That's stupid," her friend replied.

"Bet you ten diamonds he blows something up."

"Fine."

As the country of L'Manburg blew sky-high, one woman was seen following another, screaming that she wanted her diamonds.

When Pogtopia won the war, the forces from both sides sat outside of the remains of the van as President Soot, VP Tommy, Secretary Tubbo, Dream, Technoblade, and many more, all piled inside to confront Emperor Schlatt.

They emerged fifteen minutes later, and Dream announced to the crowd that Schlatt was dead.

There was no time for the news to sink in, as they played hot potato with the presidency, going from VP Tommy to Wilbur Soot to Secretary Tubbo.

"President Soot is leaving, do you see that?"

"Probably going to the river to celebrate the win, if you know what I mean."

"Literally shut up. Never speak again. I hate you."

As the newly-inaugurated President Tubbo finished his speech, the people felt a wave of relief wash over them. Maybe the server could finally be peaceful once more.

Then, there was the tell-tale hiss of explosives under their feet, and the people ran as the ground beneath them fell away.

Stories of what happened next are conflicting, to say the least.

Words of President Soot dying in the explosion, of him turning the blade on himself, of another man killing him.

"He had wings," people who saw the man said. "Blonde hair, a green hat and robes. He stabbed Soot with the guy's own sword."

Technoblade apparently gave an incredible speech, and anyone who was there to witness it lamented that they hadn't recorded it.

Then, two Withers flew through the sky, and blood ran down the newly-exposed stones, and people who had never experienced death on the server before finally knew what it was like to die.

Afterward, though, when the anarchist had fled and the ex-President lay dead, President Tubbo, with VP Tommy by his side, stood and addressed the people, and made promises of a brighter future, and the hope and determination in his eyes was enough for the people to hope that maybe he was right.

("Whoa, cool wings, dude," a resident of L'Manburg said to their newest neighbor, a man in green with wings, burned across all the feathers, sprouting from his back. "Wait, what happened to them?"

"Oh, I was protecting my son from the explosion," the new resident replied.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. Is your son all right at least?"

"No, he died just a few minutes afterward. His last life, too." The man sighed. "As much as I hate to admit it, he probably deserved it."

A beat. "What did he do?"

"Well, you may have heard of him. Wilbur Soot? He was the president here before Schlatt, I believe."

"...Holy shit, you're the bird man that killed President Soot!"

"Yeah, mate, that's me."

"...He was your son?"

"...Yeah."

"...What the fuck is wrong with your family?")

#dsmp citizen pov #dream smp #dsmp #dsmp citizen memes #these memes have been the funniest thing stg #theyre bringing some good laughs to me at the least #anyway this one was a little angsty and a little long-winded #i wanna do one soon that is more direct #like from the pov of one particular person #when i have time i will bc this was really fun #mcyt #tommyinnit #wilbur soot #dsmp citizens #tubbo #dream

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 26, part two

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Content note: This episode has a lot of lightning, but this post does not have lightning flashes--I’m using mostly stills for those parts, or I’ve snipped out the unfriendly frames before giffing.

Qing-Jie

Having successfully ruined Jin Guangshan’s party plan to get the Yin Tiger seal, Wei Wuxian dashes off to tell Wen Qing where her brother is. She hops up to hit the road with him, but then sorta-faints because she’s starving. In a rare moment of tenderness between these two, he catches her and gently sits her down again. 

Normally they’re busy out-toughing each other, both before and after this moment, but right now Wen Qing is openly vulnerable. Wei Wuxian responds to that, predictably, with all of his kindness and with his usual slew of unwise, impossible-to-keep promises.

As she eats the bread he’s brought her--a parallel to an important piece of bread in his early life--he says they have to believe in Wen Ning’s survival. Cut to: Wen Ning, not surviving. 

I mean, yes, yes, he’s only mostly dead, but he’s never going to be fully alive again, so.  

24 Hour Party People

Back at the party, Jin Guangyao, deliberately, I think, goes to offer his pops a drink while his pops is still super furious and looking for someone to take it out on. The servant lady is like, better you than me, pal, and helps JGY get his drink ready. Pops, predictably, knocks the drink onto Jin Guangyao.

(more behind the cut)

Lan Xichen is standing by with a hanky and a face full of worry. Lan Xichen is so Lanny that he thinks JGY needs to go change clothes after getting clear alcohol spilled on him, rather than just letting it evaporate and smelling pleasantly of booze for the rest of the evening like a normal party guest. 

JGY launches into a criticism of Wei Wuxian, which Lan Wangji listens to very carefully, frowning. Lan Xichen, Nie Huasang and Jiang Cheng listen as well, and don’t speak up. 

A Clear Conscience

Then Lan Wangji *literally* steps out of his brother’s shadow, and speaks in defense of Wei Wuxian. This right here is Lan Wangji’s turning point, as far as I’m concerned. Xichen is gazing at JGY, totally on board with JGY’s spin of the situation, and his shadow falls away from Lan Wangji’s face as LWJ steps forward.

Lan Wangji says, isn’t what WWX said true? JGY puts on his customer service smile and says that the truth isn’t something you’re supposed to go around saying out loud. 

I’d like to say this is what’s wrong with cultivator society but this is really a universal human thing; every society has rules about upsetting the social order, and they are very frequently at odds with basic compassion and morality. 

Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng stay silent but Lan Xichen goes and throws Wei Wuxian under the bus carriage, saying his character has changed. 

Lan Wangji nods decisively at this, and bows to Lan Xichen, silently asking permission to follow Wei Wuxian. Lan Xichen grants permission, telling Lan Wangji to do his best. Lan Xichen probably thinks he and Lan Wangji are in agreement, in this moment, but that nod of Lan Wangji’s was nothing of the kind.

That nod was Lan Wangji agreeing with himself; he is going to try to bring Wei Wuxian back but he is also going to listen to him.  Meanwhile Lan Xichen is tying himself in knots to appease Jin Guangyao. The divergence between the brothers will just grow, from this point onwards.

Lan Wangji leaves to go follow his boyfriend conscience, while Jiang Cheng continues to silently listen to the commentary of others, and gets so mad he crushes a wine cup.

It Was A Dark and Stormy Night.

Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian arrive at the prison camp, and the first person they encounter is Granny, with a defaced Wen Banner in her hand and Wen Yuan on her back. 

Whenever I read a meta or a fic that talks about how the juniors are so sweet partly because they are “untouched by the war” I want to point to this moment. A-Yuan endures an absolute truckload of war trauma by the time he’s four years old, and while Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji both deserve a lot of credit for saving him at great risk to themselves, Granny and Uncle Four are the first heroes of A-Yuan’s story. His kind, mellow personality has a lot in common with theirs. 

This is followed by an eternity of Wen Qing running around asking if anyone’s seen her brother. Eventually Wei Wuxian gets tired of this and gathers the guards together, threatening them with Chenqing. 

He doesn’t need to play it; just holding it up has every Jin dude instantly kneeling and scared. 

The guards send him and Wen Qing go to a giant field of corpses, where Wen Qing runs around checking to see if any of them is her brother. Wei Wuxian starts off kind of detached and angry, but eventually snaps out of it, tucks away his flute and starts helping her to search. 

Wen Qing finds Wen Ning, mostly-dead with a lure flag speared into his belly. Wei Wuxian grimly takes in the situation from across the field of corpses. 

When he arrives at Wen Qing’s side he sees this talisman in Wen Ning’s hand. 

This is the talisman that Wei Wuxian made for Wen Ning back in Gusu summer school, before the war. It’s the one that Wen Ning was wearing at his waist when they met up after the massacre of Lotus Pier. It’s supposed to literally protect Wen Ning from having his spiritual consciousness snatched, as well as being a symbol of Wei Wuxian’s sense of responsibility for, and affection for, Wen Ning. 

Wei Wuxian, understandably, loses his shit at this point. Less understandably, he is about to decide that the best way to express his sorrow and rage is to re-animate the corpse of his friend, right in front of the corpse’s sister. Like, seriously, dude. Dude. 

Ghost General

This super-questionable decision leads to one of the most badass sequences in the show, which is unfortunately chock full of lightning flashes, so not everyone can watch it. Wei Wuxian and his flute and swirls of resentful energy come marching out of the darkness of the corpse field, back to the guards. 

The guards have decided to slaughter all of the prisoners and then run away, which would be a good plan except they should really have skipped right to the running away part of things. When Wei Wuxian accuses them of killing the prisoner in the corpse field, they claim that the Wens have a habit of falling off of a hill and dying. Wei Wuxian can relate. 

At this point Wei Wuxian summons up Wen Ning 2.0, ultra badass edition, who comes flying through the air with his odd, straight-armed fighting stance and cool solid-black eyes and rock-and-roll hair. 

Soundtrack: *Four Sticks*

Wen Ning proceeds to whale on the guards and scare the shit out of his relatives.

Then Wen Qing shows up and begs Wei Wuxian to stop. She explains that Wen Ning is only mostly dead. Like, if he was fully dead would she be okay with this? 

Wei Wuxian tries to reel Wen Ning in and realizes that he is not actually in control of Wen Ning. Ok, see, right from the first day of Wen Ning 2.0, WWX is aware that his control is iffy. Why does he think he’s going to be able to control him later? 

Anyway, this is where we learn Wen Ning’s grown-up name is Wen Qionglin. Wei Wuxian yells this name, and Wen Ning looks up like a cat hearing the “food noise,” and then proceeds to get control of himself. 

This is such a nice symbolic moment, that will be replayed later in the temple, when Wen Ning saves Jin Ling from Baxia. 

Wen Ning has a remote-code-execution OS vulnerability throughout the story; his soul is at risk of being stolen, and he is magically controlled by Wei Wuxian, Xue Yang, Su She, and Baxia.  Meanwhile Wen Qing, Wei Wuxian, and random kids on the street mostly treat him as a child, despite his clear adult capabilities. Wen Ning’s journey in The Untamed is at least partly about asserting his full adulthood, and his ability to overcome magical control is directly connected to that journey.  

After getting Wen Ning to chill, Wei Wuxian calls the floating resentful energy back into his own body, which looks about as comfortable as swallowing a burp. 

On the plus side, apparently resentful energy keeps your hair dry even when it’s raining.

Wei Wuxian should take a page from the guards’ book and slaughter all the Jin witnesses to this situation, but he decides to be the better person and let them live. They go running off down the road, where they encounter Lan Wangji and give him the 411, saying that Wei Wuxian resurrected dead people.

Meanwhile Wei Wuxian collects Wen Qing--half-fainted, again, in an echo of the start of their journey--and collects the Dafan Mountain Wen group, who are hiding, wisely. When they see Wen Ning, Uncle Four and some others start to freak out, but Wei Wuxian tells them that fierce corpses are cool, and they all grab horses and mount up.

Where Are You Going?

Lan Wangji is waiting for them, nonconfrontationally indulging in some visual poetry while he waits. 

In a show where every prop is exquisitely, carefully designed to enhance our understanding character, his Gusu-toned umbrella reveals surprising red and yellow threads woven in, right above his eye line as he looks at Wei Wuxian. 

Wei Wuxian speaks first, saying “you came to stop me?” Lan Wangji doesn’t answer, but asks him where he’s going. Then Lan Wangji warns him that he’s about to abandon orthodoxy forever, if he follows through. 

Wei Wuxian challenges this idea of orthodoxy, asking if Lan Wangji remembers the promise they made together, back in Gusu. It’s worth noting that they both appear to think of it as a co-promise, even though Lan Wangji didn’t speak aloud at the time. 

The conversation will continue in the next episode, because what’s better than a rainy romantic cliffhanger?

Soundtrack: Four Sticks by Led Zeppelin

#the untamed #the untamed gifs #wangxian #wen ning #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs #episode 26

[harostar]

Copy and pasted from elsewhere. My attempt to summarize Roman Holiday!

Roman's story follows him as a young man in Mistral, getting into trouble with a pair of Spider goons (Brick and Mortar). They attack him for mugging someone on their turf, so he beats them up and steals the protection money they were carrying. A week later, the Spiders pick him up and bring him to meet Lil' Miss herself. (Roman likes milfs.) He convinces her that he can do better than her current people, and eventually rises to become her right-hand man over the years.

But he's overly-ambitious, taking the Twins on a raid of a gang's base of operations. Paul Parrot has a "treasure" in the basement, which turns out to be a Rat Grimm he imported from Menagerie that he feeds people to. Roman manages to outwit him by injuring the Grimm with the twins' help, then provokes Paul until he flips out and his rage makes him the more desirable target for the Grimm. They escape, but Lil' Miss is pissed about him moving on his own AND putting her daughters' at risk. This was all according to his plan, as he wanted to get out of having to play bodyguard to the twins.

Eventually, he's caught taking an extra protection payment for himself. His old partner, Cammie (very similar to Ilia) warns him and lets him escape after a fight. He flees Mistral, going over his options — Vacuo has a strong criminal element, but it's hard to break into. Atlas is...well...Mantle has nothing worthwhile and trying in Atlas itself is too risky. So he heads for Vale.

Roman's first criminal act is holding up a bank, which goes comically. Literally no one believes its happening, because Vale doesn't HAVE major criminal stuff happening. A pair of incompetent Huntsmen (Roch and Kandi) try to stop him, but end up beaten while Roman escapes. They end up in hot water of their behavior, with Ozpin being interviewed about it briefly. Roman begins building a name for himself, coming to the attention of Hei Xiong. He's threatened, but walks away alive and decides to further reinvent himself by having his Spiders tattoo covered.

Meanwhile, young Trivia begins to rebel against her parents. They keep her in isolation, forcing her to wear a brown contact to hide her mismatched eyes in photos and whenever guests come over. Her father is a prominent City Manager working for the Vale council, and they make a big fuss over her "overactive imagination" and "refusal" to speak. She has a private tutor, a former Huntress that was fired from Signal Combat School after getting a student killed. I THOUGHT it might be Gretchen, but it doesn't match what we know — it was Signal, not Beacon, so Ozpin wasn't involved. Trivia drugs her teacher and sneaks out using her Semblance. She goes into the city and gets bullied by a gang of girls, ending with the police picking her up. One of the officers suspects abuse, but their hands are tied. There's a party going on, and Trivia rampages through it using her Semblance to cause trouble.

As the years go on, Trivia keeps sneaking out and rebelling. She goes on a stealing spree in town, coming home with a ton of new stuff. Her father catches her and notes that he paid everyone off to cover up her antics. In a rage, she throws her new parasol at him. This leads to her parents locking her in her room, using increasingly complex locks. She studies tutorials and manuals to learn to pick locks, but eventually has one too complex. With "Neo"'s encouragement, she tries to damage the lock with hairspray and a candle. Instead, she starts a fire and is forced to leap from her window to escape. In doing so, she discovers she can make her illusions more solid temporarily — reinforcing her parasol to break her fall, and being caught by "Neo". Her parents are furious, and her mother smashes "Neo" in front of her. Trivia finds she can no longer make "Neo", but realizes it was simply her own wishes being expressed by her Semblance.

Trivia is sent to Lady Browning's private finishing school, a school her mother graduated from. It has incredibly strict rules, uniforms, and a bunch of mean girls led by the Malachite Twins. Trivia is relentlessly bullied, until one night she sneaks out to follow the twins. She witnesses them attack Roman, and helps him escape. Afterwards, Lady Browning offers her a spot in her "advanced" program and asks her to help capture Roman. This advanced program trains...well....basically Black Widows, for lack of a better way to describe it. Advanced combat lessons, espionage training, lessons in deception and reading other people, ect. Trivia excels, but also makes contact with Roman. She introduces herself as Neo, because she doesn't want to be connected to her father. She also begins dying her hair and altering her uniform, beginning to create the persona we all know.

They immediately form a strong partnership, with Roman training her further in combat and criminal stuff. He has the Schemes Board from Chibi, and they plot together before pulling off their first big heist. They hit up the warehouse supplying most of the city's coffee, and steal what they can. Roch shows up, having lost his license and out for revenge. Neo hits him with a truck to save Roman, and they end up destroying the warehouse leaving them with the only supply of coffee to fence. Roman gifts Neo with Hush, while she gives him his signature hat and makes matching outfits for them.

They carry out various wacky crimes, making a profit while putting Xiong in an awkward position. He controls crime in Vale, and has the police under his thumb. But he doesn't want to claim he's involved with these wacky crimes, nor does he want to admit he's got competition. His conflict with Lil' Miss starts heating up, with both parties starting to gun for Roman.

Neo discovers Lady Beat's server room, and realizes the school is a way not only to train agents but to basically have hidden cameras on all the prominent families/businesses in Vale. She steals the hard drive, fights off the Twins when they come for her, and realizes Lil' Miss and Lady Beat are working together. Honey Wine, Roman's old friend from Mistral, helps the Spiders capture him to pay off her loan to Lil' Miss for her Vale nightclub. In desperation, Neo approaches a pair of cops parked outside Roman's apartment — they take her to Xiong, who calls himself her "uncle". He explains that her father owes him a lot of money, and he intends to use her as a hostage to get his money. Even so, he wishes he had a smart kid like her instead of his idiot son Junior. Neo knocks him out and assumes his appearance, joining his forces as they go after Lil' Miss and her gang.

Neo hijacks the Bullhead, rescues Roman, and then they decide to lie low at her parents' for lack of anywhere else to go. Cue a nod to Blake and Sun visiting Menagerie, with Roman shocked when she points out that the big mansion is her house. Her parents are furious, but let them in. Her parents drug them with tea, intending to trade Roman and the hard drive to Lil' Miss to get out from under Xiong. They've both been hoping to take over Xiong's empire, but Roman faked being drugged and takes them both out. He finds Neo, and they devise a plan to get everyone off their backs and get rid of the hard drive. Roman sends the data to Lisa Lavender, while Neo plays decoy and discovers her father in her old room. She realizes he was stealing Dust from Xiong, and hiding the cache UNDER her room. This was the reason he was so angry about the fire. She's furious to realize he basically had her locked in a prison over a bomb, and locks him in her old room.

She disguises herself and Roman as her parents, then tricks Lil' Miss into firing on her old room. The Dust explodes, killing everyone still inside the mansion — her father, and likely her mother, Lady Beat, and Hei Xiong. Roman asks if she's okay, but Neo is kind of...shrugs and not sure how she feels. They ride off into the sunset together.

So basically, Roman and Neo are best buddies. Roman was QUITE LITERALLY Neo’s first and only friend, after a lifetime of isolation and bullying. Also the first person to not give a shit about her being mute, or about her “weird eyes”. He just accepted her without question, and encouraged her to never settle for less than  she could take. 

Junior is a pathetic crime boss because he’s the idiot son of the ACTUAL crime boss, who Neo ended up killing. He seems to have submitted to Lil’ Miss Malachite after his father died.

Neo is a Black Widow highly-trained spy and assassin, as well as a Savant that learns rapidly through observation and a shit-ton of tutorial videos. She loved Fairy Tales growing up, with her favorite being “The Girl in the Tower”. (lol)

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby roman holiday #rwby roman holiday spoilers

[shadowfae]

We’re all pretty aware that the tumblr otherkin community is at a huge decline; I was wondering if you have any theories as to why that is?

American Protestantism, the decline of queer oppression in North America and the AIDS crisis, helicopter parenting, web 3.0, morality politics, and  Tumblr’s porn ban; roughly in that order and rolled up into one bombshell that was a few years in the coming but nobody really saw it and understood it until it was far too late.

That was a mouthful and probably only made sense if you follow current cyberpolitical theory. For some of you reading this, as with every other hot take I have this has a chance of being passed around, that alone is enough. But for others who had no idea what I just said and need the ELI5 version, let me explain that. Buckle up, this’ll be a long one, and will go into fandom history a bit as well because it is actually relevant.

As we know, tumblr is a very American-centric platform. Twitter is also this way, but less so, but tumblr has it bad. Now, I’m ‘lucky’ in the fact that I’m Canadian and a twenty minute drive from the American border, so that puts me in the ‘privileged’ majority. (I say privileged because I’m not really sure what else to call it. Most of the information going around about politics either directly affects me or indirectly affects me approximately one or two links of contact away. Someone who’s only influenced by American politics because it makes their sister’s online friends sad is not going to be privileged in that way.)

This means that American politics and their social climate overwhelmingly affects tumblr’s social climate. This also bleeds through into other fandom spaces, on twitter, instagram, and Pixiv to name a few places; but here’s where I spend the majority of my time so here’s what I’ve witnessed.

America’s main religion, as far as I understand (from the raised agnostic and currently neopagan view I have), is some weirdass capitalistic-Protestantism that is so many miles from what the actual Bible says that if I were a betting man and knew more about cults than I did, I’d say it’s some weird fucking cult and never set foot in the country again for any reason that isn’t gaming free shipping through a PO box. If you have no idea what I just said but are at least vaguely familiar with Christianity, this graphic explains it pretty well. So we can see there’s some glaring issues with that ideal.

The decline of queer oppression and the rise of queer rights in North America, which is to tenderly include my own country but we all know when people say ‘in NA’ they mean ‘America, and Canada where it applies because the right-wing Republicans are really good in the propaganda department to convince everyone that Mexico is a drug-lords-and-anarchy wasteland to the point where even I don’t actually know what’s down there other than bad drivers and heat’; means two things. One, it’s a good thing by a long shot and do not mistake this as me thinking queer oppression being lessened is a bad thing. But two, it means that thanks to the AIDS crisis, queer folks lost a lot of first-person sources as history.

The queer elders in NA who survived are typically either a) bitter anarchists who are often POC, probably still dirt poor and do recreational drugs or b) university-tenured TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists). Category A are the people who Republicans have deemed worthless in every way, because racism, queerphobia, ableism, and all the other ways to be wrong and different and Evil that they can’t handle, because Jeezus would never want them to actually learn to love someone who wasn’t just like them, and they don’t have the compassion to do better. Category B are the people who want to be different in just a teensie little bit, typically with TERFs they want to be lesbians, but they don’t want to challenge the status quo. They’re fine with the way things work, they just want to be on top oppressing others over ripping the whole damn thing down and building a more forgiving system.

Now, due to all those ‘isms and the cheerfully malicious aid of the Republicans, pun not intended but drives home the cruelty of it all, we also see the rise of helicopter parenting. The invention of the internet did not really help this. Basically what you’ve got is a whole bunch of parents who saw the civil rights movement, just got access to the internet and things going viral, know the world is changing, and like all parents, they’re scared for their children. Now instead of parents knowing one or two people in their classes who just went missing one day and everyone assumed they ran away, they hear about eight homicides in the city of kids going to parks at night and dying. The Satanic Panic was another event around this time that contributed to that, but I’ll let you research that one.

This means that all of these parents, instead of doing what their parents typically did and let their kids wander off for the day so long as they’re back by sundown, they can’t let their children out of their sight. There might be a freak accident where their child is decapitated on the playground swing! Their baby might get murdered by an evil Satanist walking home from school! Their dearest darling might go online and tell their address to someone who’s got a 100% chance of being a pedophile who will show up and kidnap them in the night!

…You get the idea. 

Combine those three things I just established, what we’ve got is a lot of queer kids who have a lot of internalized shame for being different and wrong, because they’re queer, and they can’t find spaces offline to be themselves, because all of the elders who would do that are dead and/or inaccessible and their parents won’t let them go to any clubs that aren’t school-related, which they’ll never find a GSA or queer club because Republicans, ‘isms, propaganda, and the war on Category A queer adults have all done their best to ensure that those spaces don’t exist.

So you have a generation of kids who I am the youngest of. The first generation on the internet. The late Web 1.0 (usenets and Geocities) and early Web 2.0 (livejournal was the big one, ff.net too, also 4chan but fuck those guys) generation. What we were taught was: trust nobody on the internet with your real info no matter how much you like them, this is a wilderness and any crimes that happen won’t be punished or seen so don’t put yourself in a position where you’re going to be the victim of one, and everything you put online is never getting taken down so don’t put anything up that you’re not willing to have on the front page of your local newspaper.

This worked out pretty well, actually! You had kids who knew that if they got in trouble, there was no backup coming to save them. Because the form that backup might take - parents and police - wasn’t going to help. Best case, they’d be banned from their friends and online support groups for being queer. Worst case, they’d be jailed and put in juvie and conversion therapy and turn to drugs and become evil Satanists just like everyone says they secretly are already. So they learned very quickly to take care of themselves. Nobody was going to save them, so they learned to not need saving.

And then, well, Web 2.0 shifted to Web 3.0. Livejournal died because parents - the Warriors for Innocence was the big name - went “gasp how horrible my children are being exposed to the evil pedos and homosexuals they’re going to do drugs and die of AIDS!”. Which is uh. It’s filled with a lot of bigotry, and I’m not excusing them - absolutely I am not - but you can kind of see where they’re coming from, if you tilt your head and squint.

Either way, LJ died, tumblr took its place, Facebook was fast taking off, and the fandom folks who had seen mailing lists go inactive, web admins take their fanfic sites down due to copyright, entire fandoms burnt to the ground in flame wars, said ‘fuck that we’re making our own place’ and that’s how AO3 got made.

That’s important. A lot of folks move to AO3, because well, the rules let them. The rules say ‘you can throw literally anything up here so long as it’s fan content and is not literally illegal, so we don’t get taken down’. It’s a swing for the first generation internet users, those kids who know this place is a wilderness and are carving out our own sanctuary.

But. The children under us. The children for whom AIDS is a nightmarish fairy tale, for whom the ghost stories are conversion therapy, for whom know they can’t really talk to their parents about being queer but can trust they probably won’t get kicked out over it. The children who haven’t spent ten seconds without supervision except online, and their reaction isn’t ‘oh thank god I’m finally free to express myself’ but ‘if I get in trouble, who will protect me?’.

And there’s nobody there. Because we went in knowing there was no backup. And that was fine. But now, the actual adults have figured out that hey uh, maybe we should make cyber laws? Maybe we should make revenge porn and grooming children over the internet crimes? And they grew up with that. They grew up learning that no, even if your parents are suffocating and controlling, they’re always be there for you! Some adult will always be there to protect you!

That isn’t the case. It’s not. But they expect it, because it’s always been done for them. They don’t really want to change the status quo, because that means doing it themselves. They can’t do that, because they don’t know how, they’ve been controlled for every single part of their lives thanks to helicopter parenting and without that control, they don’t know how to keep their lives together, and they demand someone come and control it for them, without restraining them.

Effectively, they want someone to ensure they never face the consequences of their actions. Helicopter parents will rescue you from whatever you did, because you’re their precious baby and it doesn’t matter if you punched a kid, you can do no wrong and the other kid clearly started it.

But being queer is doing wrong. Being queer is something Jeezus doesn’t approve of. So they want to make it something he could approve of! But if it’s too off what they consider to be okay, if it’s too different and weird and wrong and evil, that can’t do, that’s still bad, and they’re precious angels, and children, and minors, why are we the adults not protecting them and letting them see it? Why aren’t we being just like their parents  but queer-friendly, why aren’t we protecting the children?

The adults who taught us were the children of those who died as a result of AIDS. The eldest of my generation knew some of them personally. My therapist’s younger brother died at 20 of AIDS, and she told me what it was like. But they don’t have that. These kids of web 3.0, they don’t have that. What they have is over-controlling parents, and the expectation that someone will always be there to protect them but hopefully in ways that don’t hurt them this time, no real understanding of why Category A queer elders are the way they are, and so much internalized shame that they have to do some pretty fancy logic-leaping to keep them from collapsing entirely.

They can’t turn into Category A queer youngsters, because they don’t know how to unravel the system around them, because they’ve never had to actually make choices in their lives and live with the consequences, because they don’t have the example of how to do it. They can’t unravel their internalized shame because again, that’s hard and they don’t have their parents to take away the consequences and pain. It doesn’t come easy to them, so it may as well not come at all.

But, you ask, if Category A queer elders aren’t around to teach the kids, then how are they learning anything positive at all? Well, Category B, our university-tenured TERFs, who don’t want to change the status quo but want to just be at the top of it instead.

For a lot of kids who don’t know how to make hard choices but want to be queer, this is an extremely attractive option. But when they go online to queer spaces, a lot of them say fuck terfs, we don’t support your hate, and they go ‘yeah okay that makes sense’. They can say fuck terfs without ever actually questioning why terfs are bad. They’re Bad and Evil, just like drug addicts, just like fairytale nazis, just like the evil homophobes.

And we saw them say ‘yeah fuck terfs’ and we were like, ‘aight you got it’ and we never questioned if they actually understood us. They didn’t. They didn’t, and we didn’t do enough to fix it, because not enough of us realized the problem. So terfs got a little sneaky. They hid behind dogwhistles and easy little comments, hiding their rhetoric in queer theory that you’ll absolutely miss if you just memorize it and never actually question it and understand why that point is being made.

This goes back to America sucking, because their school system is far more focused on rote memorization over actual logic and understanding of the text. They’re engaging with queer theory the way they’ve been taught, which is memorize and don’t think, don’t question. Besides, questioning and understanding is hard. Being shown different points of view and asked what they think is not only hard but requires them to go against all of the conditioning that says to just listen and agree and never question it, which goes back to tearing the system and internalized shame down, and we’ve established they can’t do that so naturally they don’t do that.

This begets, then, the rise of exclusionary politics. They’re turning into Category B queer youngsters, because we told them ‘hey that’s a terf talking point what are you doing’ and they never questioned why. They learned you can do all sorts of things, just don’t say X, Y, or Z, because they never thought deeply about it.

The children who have grown on Web 3.0 do not want to do any heavy lifting to make things easier for themselves long-run. They want to do as little as possible and have things get better for them. There isn’t enough of us left in Category A, because Category B terfs are very good at recruiting young folks and Cat. A is overwhelming poor, dead, and easily dismissed in the system as evil and bad, so we can’t exactly convince the young folks to listen. If all of the young kids could agree to tear down the system, a lot more older folks might listen. Change always starts with the young, and there’s a reason for that.

But Republicans have figured out, if you get people fighting, they never put together a force that can actually stop you. TERFs, who want the exact same thing as Republicans but with themselves on top, are doing this to queer youth, and Cat. A elders can’t fight back because there isn’t enough of them and the odds are against them, and the young folk like me who follow their lead.

People can kinda handle gay people. It’s not so far from the acceptable normal that it’s impassable. But you want them to handle kinky people? Gay people of colour? Kinky gay people of colour? Trans people? Those are bridges too far to step across. The original idea was to get the foot in the door with marriage equality and inch our way through with racial equality, sex positivity, dismantling ableism and perisexism (forgive me if that isn’t the word for anti-intersex ‘ism), and see if we can’t patch up the system instead of inciting a civil war over this and have to tear down the system entirely.

Well, we might’ve managed that if not for AIDS being the perfect ‘Jeezus is killing all the evil gay people for being sinners’ propaganda machine. As it stands now, not a chance in hell. So long as Republicans and terfs keep everyone fighting, nobody has the power to dismantle their empire, and they stay in power.

So then, you ask me, “Lu what the fuck does that have to do with the decline of otherkinity on tumblr???” and now that you’ve got all that background knowledge, here is your answer.

Those children who want their experiences curated for them and the evil icky content they don’t like to be gone because it disgusts them and anything that disgusts them is clearly sinful problematic and should be destroyed, are what we call ‘antishippers’, or anti for short.

They like being progressive. Sort of. They learned what Republicans and terfs have honed to a fine talent: keep people fighting, hold them to a bar they have to constantly make or risk being ostracized, and harass the people who don’t play along into getting out of your sight forever. Sound familiar?

They learned of otherkinity, and particularly fictionkind, because web 3.0 means if something goes viral on one site, it doesn’t just go viral on that site, it makes it to worldwide newspapers and twitter and nobody ever, ever fucking forgets it. They realized the following: “Hey wait, if I’m this character for realsies, not only does it help me deal with the internalized shame I’ve done nothing to actually fix because that takes work, I can also tell these people who draw gross content I don’t like they’re hurting me personally, and that actually sounds credible, and I can shame them into stopping”.

If this is your first time here and that sounds sickening, it damn well should, and I am so, so sorry that any of us had to witness this, and I am more sorry I and everyone else who personally witnessed this didn’t realize what was going on and put a stop to it. I answer asks and browse the tags and clear up misinformation and it isn’t just a genuine desire to help. It’s damage control, and my own way of trying to deal with the guilt of not stopping this. I’m well aware I couldn’t have seen it coming, I was a teenager myself still learning and no one person has that much power. I still feel like I should have done more, and I’ll do what I can to fix what’s within my power to fix.

So back to the story. This all culminates around 2016 or so. Trump wins the election, and every queer person ever knows they’re fucked, and the younger generation’s only ever heard horror stories, never seen actual oppression that this could bring. We’re all scared. We all don’t know what to do. Nobody has any answers or any control over the situation.

So they lash out. They attack others for drawing things they don’t like, for challenging them in literally any way, for asking them to reconsider the vile shit they just said, for so much as defending themselves from the harassment they just got. And when challenged, they yell “But I’m a minor! A literal child! How dare you attack me, clearly you get off on this, you evil pedophile!” and they sling around every insult in the book until one sticks. Pedophile is a pretty good one, so is abuser, and sometimes zoophile works out too. Freak is great, everyone gets right pissed off about it.

The fact that Category A queer elders were called pedophiles and freaks is not a fact they know or care about. The fact that they are quickly making every fandom community super toxic is also not a fact they care about. The fact that the ‘kin community has words and terminology and they actually mean shit, and the fact that they’re spreading misinformation faster than we can keep up with, are not facts they care about.

So they come in, take our terms, make it impossible for us to find new folks. They realize our anger is easily a power trip, because we’re already made fun of, so they get off on the little power they can find and make fun of us too, and then when we get rightfully annoyed and pissed off, they can hide behind being minors.

Then tumblr implements their porn ban, because nobody’s stopping them, because it isn’t profitable to have porn on here. Considering most of the otherkin community, and most fandom communities, are full of adults who do occasionally talk about NSFW things, and the fact that they’re just banning everyone who so much as breathes wrong, this begins the start of a mass exodus, scattering already fragile communities to twitter, pillowfort, dreamwidth, and a few other places. Largely, twitter, where you can’t make a post longer than a snappy comeback and where the algorithm is literally designed to piss you off as much as possible.

So community elders have largely left, because they can’t stand the drama and the pain of what’s happened, and that’s if they didn’t get banned for being kinky furries who do talk about how their kintypes merge with their sexuality. Most community members have also left or stopped talking about being ‘kin, because they get associated with antishippers and toxicity and it’s just not worth it. Those of us who are left get drowned out by misinformation and trolls and wishkin and antishippers who appropriate our terminology because it supports them getting a power trip, and whenever we argue, we get called pedophiles and freaks and worse.

And now there isn’t much left. I hope we get to find a better place. Othercon was a good place to talk about it, I did a whole panel (it’s on Youtube!) about what we want to do about it. But I don’t really have any answers. 

But to sum it all up... America’s political climate ultimately culminated in destroying queer spaces, and we survived, and then people who wanted to destroy smaller communities to get on top showed up and we were all but defenseless against something we had never, ever dealt with before on this scale.

One of my twitter mutuals mentioned how kinning and otherkin are now completely separate communities. It’s really the best I can do to keep hoping that continues, until nobody realizes the words are at all connected to each other. It’s the best anyone can hope for, now. I hate it. I hate every part of this. But maybe we can salvage what’s left.

#luteia laments #otherkin #fictionkin #alth #alterhuman #asks #anonymous #long post // #discussions #on community history #on politics #on public relations #commentors feel free to add your own thoughts! #Anonymous

[spideytingle616]

Five Months [5]

Part 4 / Masterlist

*based on the five stages of grief*

Pairing: Peter Parker x Female Reader

Warnings: angst, death, mentions of anxiety/panic, possible implications of sexual activity, blood/injury, swearing

Summary: The first time you touch your soulmate, you’re able to see a glimpse into your future. What happens if your future is also your end?

Word Count: 12.7k wow wow (bold and italics are thoughts, scenes following a +++ are a flashback)

A/N: Thank you all who have read this story! I have had this planed for almost a year, and I’m so happy it actually became a thing, though I apologize for taking so damn long with this part. I hope you enjoy. This chapter features a lot of flashbacks, so buckle up.

Chapter Description: Maybe the universe isn’t so bad…

Month Five, Acceptance: Love, and Never Forget

A new day. A new month. A new semester.

The subway ride feels extra bumpy today, most likely due to the large pit in your stomach. Going to school is never something you looked forward to, but when you got there, someone was usually waiting for you.

Someone that made the grueling day a little easier.

You sigh and slump into your seat. How does a train full of people make you feel so alone?

A completely different person could be seen in your window reflection. Or maybe you were just so numb at this point, your body was nothing but luggage you were simply dragging along.

Fuck, you were exhausted. Beyond the undereye bags and the dry hair, your frame looked like it was ready to buckle down and rest. It was already curling in, prepared to do so when given the chance. Your eyes shut tight as you clenched your fists, trying your best to quiet the anxiety that flowed through your body.

When you open your eyes, you look at your reflection one more time, ignoring the cold stare that met your own. The world keeps going, and so should you.

Everything was more or less the same at Midtown. People were alert after their long break, but they still dreaded the upcoming classes. Friends were reuniting with one another and chatting, and everything seemed normal.

But it wasn’t, at least not for you.

You close your locker, and as you turned away from the wall you were met with familiar faces coming your way. The two friends kept looking at one another as they walked toward you, and it was clear that they felt unsure about approaching.

It wasn’t like you were purposely avoiding them, so to speak. But their worried texts were plentiful, and with everything that has happened, you pushed away from their coddling. Your responses were short, usually, something along the lines of “I’m fine” and “doing good”. Whether or not they trusted that you weren’t sure, but it kept them off your tail long enough for the time being.

Fake it till you make it, right?

“Alright, let’s get this over with,” you joke, opening your arms wide. “Come here.”

MJ and Ned smile at the gesture, quickly accepting the hug. It was definitely something all of you needed. You buried your face into their shoulders, happy to be with them again. Guilt pooled in your chest.

“I missed you guys… and I’m sorry for how I’ve been acting” you sigh.

MJ tightens her grip on you, snuggling her face closer to yours. “It’s okay. We get it. We were just worried is all.”

“Still, it was selfish of me to do.” You pull away, looking between the two. “This whole thing is not just about me. I should have been there for you guys too instead of pushing myself away.”

“Well, we’re here now. Whenever you’re ready, to talk or hang out, we’ll be there.” Ned offers, and a smile reaches your face.

God, your friends were amazing. You couldn’t bear to hurt them even more with your doom and gloom. They deserved someone that would be there for them and listen to their concerns, instead of hiding in their own pool of guilt.

You quickly shake your head before speaking. “Thanks, I think I’m gonna be okay, though. If you guys need more time that’s totally fine, but I’m good. Nothing has to be weird between all of us, we can just hang out like old times, you know?”

Your friends glance at one another, their eyebrows pulled slightly tighter.

“Well, if that’s how you feel, then I’m glad,” Ned says, looking back at MJ for reassurance. “But you know, it’s totally cool if you still need time. After all, it’s been a rough month.”

You bite your tongue back from replying, your jaw suddenly tense.

Yeah, no shit…

+++

He’s gone.

Oh my god he’s gone.

He’s actually dead.

If someone came and ripped your heart out of your chest, it would be painless compared to how you felt now. You continued to stare at Peter even after his eyes closed. If you continued to look at him, maybe you could still pretend that he was alive.

When the police showed, everything was a daze. The flashes of red and blue sirens drew a queasiness deep in your stomach. As the officers forced you to let go of the boy, their voices muddled into the air. You felt completely disassociated from the scene in front of you, and all you wanted to be held in Peter’s arms. There, you could pretend that everything was okay.

“They’re still breathing!”

The shout draws you back into current time, their words shooting a current throughout your body. It couldn’t be…

“Airways are clear, but his respiratory rate is dropping. Get him on the stretcher now. Don’t let him go into shock.”

Were you hearing all this right? Too many things were happening right now, and no one bothered to tell you anything. The police were pushing you away from the scene as if you were a random pedestrian, and you were ready to grab them by the throat and scream at them. When you see Peter getting lifted into the ambulance, his suit now more red than blue, that was the last straw.

You push your way through toward the paramedics. If they were taking him, you were going too. You were right behind the red and white doors before a hard shove comes to your chest, stopping you from coming any closer.

“Excuse me miss, this is private business,” what looked like an EMT said. “Stark Industries does not want anyone seeing this. I’m going to have to ask you to go back with the crowd.”

You stare dumbfounded; at least Ned was able to get a hold of him, but the fact that they were acting as if you weren’t a witness and Peter’s friend angered you even more. “No, you don’t get it, that’s my friend in there. I- I need to be with him if he’s still alive. Please I-“

“Look, as much as I’d like to believe that we were not told anything about other parties being involved. So, to keep this under wraps, we cannot let you ride with us. If you actually do know the patient, you can follow us and figure out your clearance there,” they finalize before walking away and jumping into the vehicle. You don’t even get a chance to breathe before they’re gone, and the only remnant of Peter was the stain on the street.

The EMT did have a point. If you wanted to keep Spider-Man’s identity a secret, you couldn’t draw attention to yourself. Slipping under the newly posted yellow tape, you’re swallowed into the shadows before the police even notice.

Now here you were, in a dirty subway car at ten in the evening. Being a teenage girl, this situation would normally terrify you (Seriously guys, no means no. Why are you even near us to begin with?), but luckily the murder scene on your dress and the hollow glare in your eyes drove most passengers away from you.

Staring into space, your brain tries to process everything that just happened in the past hour. You sprinted across the city to find your dying soulmate, only to find out he isn’t dead? Or at least, not yet. Based on his current state, it could still go either way.

Shouldn’t you be feeling hopeful? Or at least some sort of relief knowing that Peter has a chance? Your body internally cringes at the idea. Getting your hopes up wasn’t great; part of you always hoped for a happy ending with Peter and look where that got you.

All you could feel was dread, and it wasn’t much better than the heartbreak prior.

The car slows down as the rest of the passengers stand and walk toward the doors, but not without giving you a worrisome stare. You ignore their eyes as they pass by; you couldn’t care less about what they thought.

You look down at your hands and focus on blood caked under your nails, trying to rub the residue away. Some looked like it came off, but the red-brown still pigmented your skin. Chest tightening, you lean back in your seat and let your head knock back.

Peter’s blood was on your hands, both figuratively and literally.

---

A chill travels through your spine, bile working its way upward.

Was that really only a month ago?

The bell sounds, its ringing bringing you more despair than usual. Your conversation was brought to an end, MJ and Ned giving you a nod to signal their departure. They forced a smile your way, and you keep your calm composure even after they turn away.

Pulling the straps of your backpack closer, you take a deep breath before walking to class.

---

“First order of business: team captain. Miss Allan’s parting was unfortunate, but both she and I believe this team will do amazing at the international competition this summer. We just need a new captain.”

“Mr. Harrington, I’m honored-“

“Not you, Flash.”

You and Ned snicker under your breaths, earning your partner an elbow from Betty. MJ rolls her eyes at the two of you, but her smile gave away her amusement.

Decathlon was supposed to be done for the school year, but your team’s win at D.C. earned Midtown a spot at its international competition in Paris. You didn’t expect the school board to approve the trip, especially with the large expenses it ensued. But apparently, they found an anonymous donor.  

Though no one could figure out who would willingly spend tens of thousands of dollars for a kids’ trip to Europe, no one was complaining either, especially when they were paying to include an actual vacation with it. As ecstatic as everyone was about the opportunity, it also meant that you would soon be back to frequent practices. And as much as you enjoy this club, more work is never fun.

“After careful consideration of each of your prior performances, I’m happy to announce that our new captain will be none other than Michelle Jones.”

Harrington continued his announcements, but you already stopped paying attention. You nudge MJ after the scattered applause, mouth still agape.

“You didn’t tell me you were gonna be captain. Congrats!” you whispered.

“Well, to be honest, I didn’t know until just now. But I would have been pissed if I wasn’t.”

“And I would’ve had to listen to you complain about it, so it’s a win-win… can your first order be to rearrange the seating? I love Cindy, but sometimes she smells after gym.”

MJ scoffs. “Done, but it’s your fault if this all goes to my head.”

“Oh, I think it already has,”

“Yeah yeah, whatever. Just be quiet so I can listen.”

You roll your eyes as you let her turn away from you, grabbing your phone in the process.

You: Guess who the new captain is…

Liz: It better be MJ, I put in a good word for her and everything

You: It is lol. Good choice by the way, she’ll probably be a better captain than you

Liz: whatever 🙄

In the past month since she moved, the two of you found comfort in one another. Both of you fell in the direct line of fire, and as brutal as that was, it also meant that you weren’t alone.

+++

Lately, it seemed that your timing was nothing if not impeccable.

You speed walk to the cafeteria, breath getting heavier with each step. You’re usually one of the first in there, trying your best to beat the rush of students, but you just had to go to the bathroom beforehand. Amateur move, honestly…

Once you turn the corner, you stop in your tracks. Just ahead was Liz and her mom, both with boxes in hand. Her mom takes a right, most likely heading toward the office. All that was left was you and her, and the ten feet of tile in between.

“Hey,” you call out, gaining her attention. A tint of regret coats the air around you as you walk closer.

Where do you start, after everything that has happened?

“Liz, hey. What’s up?”

“Oh, hey. Nothing much, I’m just packing things from my locker and whatnot. My mom’s grabbing my file from the office, and after that we should be good, or whatever.” She sighs, looking down at her things.

“Wait, packing? Are you… are you going somewhere?”

“Yeah, my dad doesn’t want us to see him in trial. We’re moving all the way to Oregon tomorrow. My mom has family there… nice area apparently, or whatever,” She purses her lips. “New York allows prisoners to call as often as they want, so no worries there, plus I’m all set for college so I can more or less breeze through senior year.”

You nod. Though you suppose the situation could have been worse, it was evident that Liz was hiding all the struggles she just got handed. Maybe if you were closer, you’d be able to comfort her, or tell her what she needed to hear.

“Liz, you’ve probably gotten this a lot, but I’m really sorry about what went down. I can’t even imagine what that’s like.”

There’s a pause before she finds your face again. “I think you do though. Maybe not exactly the same as me, but you were part of this too.”

You tilt your head, confused at her words. Setting her things down, she slings her backpack around to her front, unzipping it to find what she was looking for. “Peter left this in my dad’s car, but something tells me it was meant for someone else. It’s a little wilted now, but I still think it looks nice.”

In her hand was the rose that Peter had the night of the homecoming dance. You were so annoyed when you saw it. However, this time was different. You were not sure what you felt, but you were grateful nonetheless.

You take the flower from her, admiring the purple-red petals. Underneath, a card was tied around:

A rose for a rose.

You might not be my date, but can I SWING BY for a dance?

You let out a quiet scoff. If the pun didn’t give it away, the web doodles might have.

“You think I would’ve figured it out sooner,” Liz shrugged.

“If it’s any consolation, I didn’t realize until it was right in front of my face," you joked back, earning a smile.

“I won’t tell anyone, by the way. He was just trying to do the right thing, and it’s not my secret to tell anyways.”

You nod at the gesture, relieved that things were not getting any messier. Not as much as they could, at least.

“I’m sorry too by the way…” she starts. “if I got in the way of you and Peter.”

You shake your head. “No no, it’s fine. Really. That was Peter’s choice to do that. I even told you we weren’t soulmates, so…“

“Yeah, well, I could tell that wasn’t the whole truth. Or at least, I couldn’t believe that it was the truth.” When you don’t reply, she continues on. “Obviously, I don’t know the whole story, or maybe even half of it, but almost everyone thought you two were soulmates before you even said anything. That’s gotta mean something, right?”

You pause for a moment. For someone who was only two years older, she was a lot wiser than you imagined. “Yeah, maybe it does… I don’t know, it’s just so complicated, you know?”

“I can only imagine.” She offers a smile. “But assuming he’s okay, wherever he is, I think it’d be a lot less complicated if you were in it together.”

With that, the conversation seemed to be over. You both knew that you weren’t really friends, but there was still a connection there. What happened homecoming night created a bond between you, a burning ember in a pile of ash. Everything died down, but there are still remnants that continued to burn.

If you guys chose to, you could let that memory die with the rest of the fire. But you could also choose to keep it alive and learn something from it.

Liz clears her throat, breaking the silence. “Looks like my mom’s ready, so I should go catch up. Thanks for saying goodbye.”

“Well, thanks for the mini therapy session. Hopefully, Oregon treats you better. If you wanna, you can text me once you’re all settled. We can talk, or whatever you want, really. Doesn’t even have to be about this.”

Her eyes light up at the offer, surprised at the generosity. “Yeah. I’d really like that. Thanks.”

You watch as she grabs her stuff from the floor and walk down the hall. The two of you send each other one last wave before parting ways, but you don’t move from your spot. Not until she was fully out of sight.

When she’s completely gone, you think about her words again. Maybe it would be easier.

Or maybe it’s just a faster route to trouble.

---

“You, me, Catacombs of Paris. It’s been on my list for years, and we are not missing out on that.” MJ declares, interrupting your daze. You didn’t even realize the meeting was over, most of the group already filing out of the library. “Jeez, how deep was your conversation with your pen pal? You look like you just woke up.”

You huff as you stood up from your seat. “How do you even know it’s her? Could’ve been my mom checking up on me.”

“Well, whenever you and Liz text, which is pretty regularly now, you get that weird crease between your eyebrows, and something tells me you’re not thinking that hard when you’re answering, ‘how are you’ from your parents.”

“You know, I think someone’s a little jealous that I have other girl friends to talk to.” You joke, checking her shoulder. “Any other creepy spots you’re forcing me to go to?”

Your friend’s face lights up, relishing at the opportunity to talk about her interests. You knew she had hours' worth of knowledge on the subject, and it gave you the chance to avoid talking about yourself. It wasn’t easy to distract MJ, but you had your ways.

It was easy to distract yourself from your current situation with Liz. After all, she was more or less doing the same thing. Your relationship was symbiotic; One of you would talk about your problems so the other could take their focus away from theirs, and vice versa. Mutual therapy, as you both called it.

The bonding made you feel safe. You made a friend and found someone that would need time to heal too.

At least, that’s what you thought.

For the last few conversations or so, the tone has taken a rather lighthearted turn. Liz started her new semester at Oregon a week earlier than Midtown, and she was already coming for the title of Ms. Popular. Though, with her being a hot, new senior, you shouldn’t have been surprised.

She was using her mom’s name for more privacy and was basically starting fresh. Liz even said she could still go to NYU if things died down after the trial. You were ecstatic for her, of course. She was incredibly strong for taking her life into her own hands and making the best of what happened, yet deep down you still couldn’t help but feel frustrated. In the end, even the people that have it worse still find ways to turn it around.

Your stomach turns. Maybe it wasn’t time that was the issue.

Maybe it was you.

---

Life’s kind of funny. Less than a year ago, you thought meeting the Avengers would be impossible. The only time you ever saw them was on the news or some badly edited PSA. For you, they seemed more fictional rather than real.

Now here you were, in the same car that Tony freaking Stark uses, being driven to the one and only Avengers Facility.

Despite the news about the Sokovia Accords, and the infamous “Civil War”, as they coined it, the building continued to stand tall and proud. The squeaky-clean windows and trimmed hedges were simply another reminder of how this lifestyle was beyond you.

Peter has been staying here for the past few weeks so the doctors could track his progress in private. With his mutated DNA and dangerous alien technology, they wanted to make sure there was not any permanent damage to his systems. Though this caused him to miss the rest of the semester, he knew it was for the best.

Despite taking a nasty hit, his super healing got him back on his feet, more or less. Just a few hours of physical therapy and some tests were enough to get Peter back to full mobility. However, he was still advised by the doctors to take things slow. Just because he could move doesn’t mean he should so soon.

This was the fourth or so trip here, yet every visit still felt like the first. All of this was so overwhelming, but you try not to let it show as you walk through the glass door. When you couldn’t find Peter in his room, your panic started to become visible.

Finding one guy in a 300,000 square foot building? How hard could it be?

Answer: not impossible, but still rather embarrassing.

After a few wrong turns here and there, you eventually made it to what seemed to be your destination. You wound up in a gym twice the size of your school’s. It had every piece of equipment one could need to train for a life-or-death mission, and you were struck with awe once again.

Your attention quickly focuses on the sounds of leather on leather. Across the gym was a boxing ring, holding none other than Tony Stark and your best friend.

The two didn’t notice you yet, so you took your time heading closer. Peter was in deep focus, his grey shirt tightening around him every time he threw a punch. Sweat covered the top half of the fabric as his curls brushed his forehead, and you could feel your throat drying up at his appearance.

You would have shown up earlier all those other times if you meant you got to see this…

“Y/N! Hey!” Peter greets when he finally sees you. “Sorry, I should’ve texted you that I was still in here. Guess I lost track of time.”

You wave it off. “Don’t worry about it. Looked like you were doing some good work.”

“Yeah, I sure hope so. Did you know the only fighting knowledge he had before this was from movies?” Tony interrupted, pointing a glove at the guilty party.

“Hey c’mon, Rocky is a solid resource,” He defended. “You ever seen it?”

The billionaire paused, mentally going through the five stages of grief. “Yeah kid, I think we’re done here. He’s all yours.”

“Sounds good,” You respond, turning back to Peter. “Something tells me you might need to freshen up before we start studying, so I’ll just meet you in your room. If I can find it, that is…”

The boy nods, feeling extra gross and sticky now that you brought it up. You send the two a small wave before walking out of the gym, trying your best to retrace your steps. Peter watches you until you vanish, to which Tony raises an eyebrow.

Maybe it was just him, but the spiderling was rather obvious with his emotions.

“Normally I’d say, ‘don’t do anything I wouldn’t do’, but clearly you don’t listen to that,” He says, snapping Peter back into reality. “Just keep it in your room, alright? Last thing I need is to spray this whole place with disinfectant.”

Peter’s mouth parts, slightly uncomfortable at his mentor’s words. “What? No, it’s not like that at all. She’s just helping me with all the schoolwork I’ve missed.”

Tony immediately stops, punching pads half on. “That- that’s it? You get a second chance at life, and all you’re doing is studying?”

He shrugs. “Well, you know, I haven’t taken my finals yet-“

“Finals that you can pass if you just study the night before like a normal kid.” He walks closer to Peter. “You escape the jaws of death and the one thing you want to do is study? What happened to you teenagers and wanting to ‘live a little’?” He mumbles the last part, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t use this experience as an excuse to shy away. I’m not saying go off and be reckless, but at least have a little fun, yeah? Do what you want.”

From one man who had a near-death experience (or several) to another, maybe he had a point. But then again, if you try to sacrifice yourself multiple times, you must be more than okay with the thought of leaving this world and the people you care about.

Tony finally finishes packing up, while Peter was still in the ring, contemplating.

“She’s a good one,” he shouts to the boy, getting his attention. “Might even like her more than you.” He pauses, realizing how that sounded. “No offense, of course.”

The boy’s face sours as Tony keeps walking. “Some taken… oh and hey! I know it was you that paid for the Europe trip!”

“Nope! Wrong billionaire!” He swings the door open, turning around to look at Peter. “But uh, I think there’s a light festival the same weekend you’re in Prague. You should check it out.”

“Uh-huh…” he grins, playing along.

+++

Thanks to his powers, Peter’s hands always got extra sticky when he was nervous. So, when Mr. Stark called him to come to his office a week or so after the incident, he tried his best to keep his hands to himself.

“Hey, Mr. Stark. You wanted to see me or something?” he asked, awkwardly shuffling through the door.

Tony looks up from his phone and nods at Peter. “Kid, hey. How you feelin’?”

“Oh, well I’m actually doing pretty goo-“

“That’s great,” Tony interrupts. “Anyways, here you go.”

He slides a paper bag toward the boy, to which Peter responds by checking his surroundings. Was this a test? Because there are some major drug deal vibes happening right now.

“What the heck are you doing, kid? Just take the damn bag.”

Peter snaps back to the man and quickly snatches it off the desk. He peeks inside and is shocked when he sees the bright red and blue suit. He clutches the bag closer, afraid it would be stripped away from him a second time.

“You- you’re giving it back to me?” Peter grins.

“Well, it didn’t really teach you anything when I took it away, so I might as well just give it back. Plus, your other one looks ridiculous compared to this.”

His smile falls a little, and Tony quickly backtracks for clarification.

“What I mean is that you did good work. I didn’t believe in you after the ferry incident, but you were determined. You followed your heart and ended up catching the guy. However, you also ended up getting shish kabobbed and almost died, which isn’t as good.” Stark mumbles the last part, getting a little off track. “I told you before that if something happened to you, that it would be on me. But if you won’t listen to me then… I guess I have to mentor you, and make sure you know what you’re doing.”

Peter’s eyes widen. “As in…”

“Training every morning. We can practice using all your suit’s abilities along with combat in case you’re stuck without it. We’ll track your health and progress to make sure you’re not pushing it. Last thing we need is you showing off and hurting yourself.”

“Yeah, got it.” He replies, mouth agape. “I- thank you, Mr. Stark.”

He couldn’t believe it. This was all happening so fast. A few days ago, he thought he was supposed to be dead on the sidewalk. Now, everything seemed to be going well. Maybe too well? How was Mr. Stark so calm about it?

“Well, to be honest, you shouldn’t be thanking me. It was your girlfriend that pretty much convinced me to do this. Y/N or something?”

He cocks his head. “Wait, Y/N? What do you mean?”

“We met at the hospital when you were under surgery.” He shrugs. “Kept telling me how you were a good kid who was going to help the city at all costs, that you were soulmates and this was doomed to happen, you should get another chance, etcetera etcetera,” He dismisses with his hands. “It was pretty moving, really. She really believes in you, so I thought I should do the same.”

Peter tries to keep a neutral face, but this information made his mind go even faster than before. You never mentioned that you met Mr. Stark, much less had an actual conversation with him. With all the crap he’s pulled on you, you still said all that. And to an Avenger, no less.

He doesn’t comment about Mr. Stark’s confession, only giving him another thanks followed with a goodbye. From the looks of it, Tony was rather done with the conversation anyways. He leaves as awkwardly as he came in.

As Peter walks back to his room, he notices the air around him feels lighter. Fresher, even. He smiles at the thought.

For the first time, in a very long time, Peter was optimistic for the future.

---

Never mind, maybe he should have died that night.

Studying was a far worse punishment.

Peter groans and buries his face deeper into his pillow, a string of obscenities following shortly after. You turn and frown at the sight. Sure, you weren’t any better during finals week, but this was just sad.

“C’mon dude,” you said as you shook his shoulder. “Get up. We’re almost done with this.”

He groans louder at your comment. “Too much work. Math isn’t even real.”

You shake your head in amusement. “Yeah okay. Tell that to Gonzales, I’m sure you’ll keep your number two spot after that.” You snort, not registering Peter’s shock as he propped himself up.

“Two? Don’t you mean one?”

Shit. “I mean, not exactly. Finals week happened a little bit ago. Grades change, you know?”

“Okay…” He gives you a look. “Well, then who scored high enough to beat me?”

Your lips tighten, but your silence, in turn, answers his question.

“No…” Peter realizes. “You- no….”

“Pete-“

“You’re first now? You took my freaking spot?”

Your mouth hangs open trying to think of a proper response and your friend scoffs. “Wow,” he says, shaking his head. “After all this time, I didn’t realize my best friend would become my enemy. Now I actually have to try.”

“Ouch. A nice congrats or something would have been nice, you know,” you reply, rolling your eyes. “Whatever, at least I’m being nice and trying to help.”

“Help? Or sabotage?” Peter smirks, sitting up. Stiff from his previous meltdown position, he clasps his hands together and stretches his arms upward. He doesn’t get very far before he flinches back down, hands now gripping his side as he quietly whimpers.

You immediately assume the worst as you turn closer to Peter, but he shakes his head, a sign telling you it’s nothing serious. He takes a few more deep breaths before looking at you, now sheepish.

“Sorry bout that. I think I overdid today,” he explained, gently rubbing his abdomen.

“Peter…” you pout. “Thought the whole point of you being here was so that you wouldn’t overdo it.”

“Yeah yeah, I know. I didn’t think a late-night workout would cause too much trouble,” he says, and your eyebrows furrow, disappointment evident. Peter slumps further down, throwing his hands up. “I won’t do it again, okay? It’s my last weekend here, anyways. I’ll take it easy for the next few days. Promise.” He then offers his pinkie to you, and you accept it with a sigh.

Your eyes wander down his chest, stopping at the top of his waist. You’ve never actually seen it, the wound and the scar that it left. At least, not since the incident. Your chest tightens at the thought. It was so bloody, and dirty, and just plain gross.

It was supposed to be the end of him, the end of everything you had. And now here he was, studying for a calculus test.

How was all that a month ago?

“Does it always hurt?” you ask before you could stop yourself. Peter follows your stare before looking at you again.

“Nah, just sometimes,” he starts with a small shrug. “It’s usually a dull ache every now and then, but it hurts more right now, cause, you know…” He looks away in shame. “Speaking of, I need to put this cream stuff on before I forget, supposed to keep it clean and help with the healing. I forgot to put it on after training.” He leans forward to grab the tube off his desk, and you could tell the easy motion was rather painful.

“I could do it if you want,” you offer, eyes widening immediately afterward. The two of you have been keeping physical distance between one another, and now here you were, basically asking to caress him. “I mean- if you think it would be easier.”

He takes a moment to think before giving a small nod, not saying anything as he hands you the cream. You both seem unsure of this, but you slowly grab the tube anyways. You take your time unscrewing the cap, giving Peter a chance to change his mind. When you look back up, he’s already staring at you, waiting for your next move.

You scooch closer toward Peter, and the air starts to get thicker. Tense. One wrong move could ruin this whole thing. You cringe at the thought. It’s not that deep, you tried to rationalize.

But this was Peter. Every small action meant something more.

Fisting the bottom of his t-shirt, you bring it to his chest to reveal the scar. You let out a shaky breath, looking at the newly exposed skin. It was the same as the last time you saw it: You could still see the tinges of pink under the lights, and his chest was still firm. But now all that was blemished with a horrid red line on his right.

That fucking scar. If looks could kill, your stare could probably reopen the wound that was once there. It makes you so frustrated to know the memory still stains his body. Peter once mentioned that his powers speed up his healing process, but marks like these last a lifetime for normal people, so you imagined that if it were to go away, it wouldn’t be for years.

You shake the thoughts from your head as you squeeze the cream onto your fingers, using your thumb to warm it up. Shifting your weight forward, you lean in even closer to him and gently touch Peter’s skin. The contact causes him to tense at first, but he eventually softens under your touch as you massage in the substance.

Peter doesn’t take his eyes off you. He watches how softly your fingers graze his scar, and how his skin was burning at the contact. It reminds him of that weekend: The hungry kisses, the skin on skin after you took your shirts off. Even when you were pulling him for more, you were never rough. You let him dip his toes first, making sure he was doing what he wanted.

Mr. Stark’s words come back to him. Live a little… have some fun… do what you want…

And right now, Peter thinks he wants more.

He sits up straighter (or at least as much as he could) and brings his hand up toward you, tracing your jaw with his fingertips. His thumb rubs the center of your cheek, bringing your focus away from his scar. You don’t realize how close the two of you are until you face him again. Peter’s stare flickers between your eyes and mouth, and you swallow hard. Though his touch was warm, your mind was frozen.

Were you supposed to do something? What did Peter want? Your questions were soon answered as he started to close the distance between you, ever so slowly. And though a part of you wanted to meet him halfway, memories cloud your head.

Blood.

Rubble.

Tears.

Peter holding on for dear life.

Fear shooting through your veins.

With a sharp inhale, you put your weight on your palms and back away. Peter stays where he is, his body a few seconds behind. After a few seconds, he lowers his hand down as concern floods his eyes.

“I- I should go,” you announce. Pushing yourself off the bed, you quickly pack your stuff away, not bothering to check if you got everything.

“I thought we were going to study more-“

“Just look up some practice problems online and you should be good. The curve helps a lot too.” You zip your backpack. “You’ll be fine without me.”

Peter fumbles for an excuse. “Well, it’s getting late, though. Wouldn’t you rather spend the night like last weekend?”

“No, it’s cool. Happy said they always have a driver on call just in case. Might as well put use them,” you shrug. “Anyways, bye!”

You quickly slam the door behind you, and Peter cringes at the sound. What the hell just happened? He brings his palms to his eyes with a heavy sigh. The last thing he wanted was for things to be awkward, yet he still managed to drive you out of his room and onto a two-hour car ride instead. Did he misread the situation that bad?

Meanwhile, you were still on the other side of the door, eyes wide. Did you really just do that? You were always so upset when Peter didn’t communicate with you, but now you were no better. You turn back to face the door, hand on the doorknob, yet the turn never came. Eventually, you let go and back away, and pull out your phone before turning the corner and out of the hallway.

At that same moment, Peter decided to stand up and follow you. Even if you wanted to leave, he didn’t want all his feelings to go unsaid. He pushes through the soreness and reaches the door, yanking it open.

He sticks his head out into the hall, but he doesn’t see you. Peter’s frame shrinks. A big part of him wanted to chase you, to see if he could catch up before you had the chance to go, but if you were already so far gone, it must be for a reason. With a frown, he slowly shuts his door, hoping that maybe you’ll come back before the click.

You never do.

Sleep never comes to you that night, thoughts about a brown-haired superhero circling your head. You knew that leaving was not the best idea. And not turning back when you had the chance was also not the greatest call. But at that moment, the idea of confronting your fears and worries seemed so much worse.

Grabbing your pillow, you smother yourself as you let out a quiet scream. By the time you uncover your face, you can already see the sun.

---

Neither of you mentions that night. Not that you were purposely avoiding the topic. In fact, you wanted to apologize for your abrupt exit, and maybe talk about what was going on between you two, but there was never a good time to do so.

Peter’s reappearance was not going as smooth as you thought it would. No offense to the boy, but you didn’t think many people would notice he was gone. But with the lack of Spider-Man sightings, and all the chaos surrounding homecoming weekend, people were chatty.

The first day he came back to school, Flash kept asking what happened to the friendly neighborhood hero. Poor Peter tried his best to blubber an excuse about him having a mission out of the country, but that just confused his classmates even more.

Others were asking why he missed all those weeks of school, which caused him to create an elaborate lie about having an extended family in Europe. It took everything for MJ not to outright laugh at the scene, which you later scolded her about.

Combine that and all the work he needs to catch up on, you thought it would be best to wait a little longer.

Eventually, Friday rolls around and all of you have survived another week. You, Peter, Ned, and MJ were talking around your locker before school when Ned claps his hands together, a lightbulb turning on in his head.

“Oh, dude! Now that we’re all here, we should all play some D&D!” He grins, getting giddier by the second. “We finally have a good amount of people, plus it’ll be a good way to have Betty get to know you all better as a group. I got this new book for Christmas and I’ve been planning a campaign for weeks. Spoiler alert: it’s awesome!” He quickly spits out, looking toward the group for a response.

Turns out Betty and Ned were soulmates, though no one knew until recently. Except for MJ, of course. When she gossiped about it homecoming night, Ned spilled all the beans.

They found out a few weeks after D.C., but though the two of them were pleased with the pairing, Betty didn’t feel ready to go into a relationship. Ned was accepting of this, being the sweetie he is, and the two of them are slowly building a friendship, though they are quite affectionate with one another. It was adorable, and slightly jealousy-inducing all at once.

MJ crinkles her nose. “I suppose I could try it. No promises that I’ll enjoy it, though.”

Ned, Peter, and you all stare at one another before bursting into laughter. Your amusement confuses MJ, but she doesn’t interrupt the moment.

“Oh Michelle,” you begin, grabbing her by the shoulder. “You are in for a world of fun.”

“Does that mean you’re in?” Ned points to you.

“Of course, dude! You’re the best Dungeon Master around. That, and your mom always has tons of snacks for us whenever we play.”

“I’ll take what I can get, I guess,” he scoffs. “Should we plan for tomorrow or something? I need to add a few more details and Betty should be free then too.”

“I’m good.”

“Same here.”

“Actually, I can’t. I’m busy.”

The three of you turn to Peter, who shrinks down in size and offers a shy smile.

“C’mon Pete. I get you have a lot of catching up to do but I’m sure a small game break wouldn’t kill you,” you said.

“No no, I get that.” He shakes his head. “It’s just that I was gonna start patrolling this weekend… “ he explains, and your blood runs cold. “But you guys go on and play without me, I promise to join next time.”

Ned nods, the three of them continuing to talk like normal, but you stay silent, keeping your eyes in Peter’s direction. Patrolling? How come he never told you about this?

It’s five minutes before class when MJ and Ned decide to leave, heading to their first period history together. Peter decides to go to class too, but you grab his arm before he gets the chance to turn away.

“Are you seriously going out? What happened to taking it easy?” you hissed. Though your tone was rather snippy, deep down you were terrified for Peter. Sure, he was fine now, maybe even better with all his training, but was he ready to go back out?

Were you ready for him to go back out?

“I’ve been taking it easy for a week, and people are starting to get suspicious. I don’t know if I can make it through another one of Flash’s confrontations without getting caught,” he sighs. “Look, can we just talk about this later? Class is about to start.”

You scoff. “You’re just trying to avoid the subject.”

“No, I’m not. I just don’t want to hear you lecture me when I’m already heading to one. And besides, I already know what you’re gonna say so what does it matter?”

“You literally just described ‘avoiding the subject’,” you bite back, concern turning into frustration. “Nothing good happens when we don’t talk, Pete.”

“Oh really? Are you sure about that?”

“Yeah dude, I’m pretty sure. That’s kinda how a friendship works.”

“Right. Friendship…” A pause. Peter’s face hardens as he looks at you. “Fine, let’s talk: why didn’t you kiss me?” he asks, jaw clenched.

Your hand lets go of his arm and falls slack. When you said you wanted to bring up the almost-kiss, you didn’t mean now. Why was he turning this on you?

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, if I can’t avoid the subject, then you can’t either.”

You shake your head. This was not the time to talk about this. He takes your silence as an answer and moves a step back.

“I’m going out. Tonight,” he announces. “I’m not waiting around.”

He doesn’t give you a chance to reply before he turns around and walks away. The action surprises you; Peter was never the one to walk away. If he was, it was because there was a danger that he needed to tend to.

This time, he willingly chose to.

You mull over what he said before he left. I’m not waiting around. He said it with such conviction. It almost sounded like he wasn’t talking about Spider-Man.

He was talking about you.

+++

You didn’t realize the Avengers had their own private hospital section, but considering their job description, you shouldn’t be surprised.

The stale, air-conditioned air of the hospital welcomed you the minute you entered. Goosebumps prickled your exposed arms as the atmosphere around you shifted.

Yeah, you really didn’t like hospitals. Especially now.

The nurses didn’t know anything of you or your involvement either, so they couldn’t let you go past the designated waiting room, leaving you all alone in a stuffy room. You’ve been staring at the fish tank for the last five minutes, waiting for someone to at least come in and talk to you.

Ugh, fuck this.

You texted MJ and Ned the news about Peter, which was a rather chaotic conversation. You promised you would let them know the whole story soon, but now didn’t feel like the time. Not when your other half may or may not be alive.

When you left the school, Ned spammed Stark Industries with emergency messages, which finally got Tony Stark’s attention. You overheard some nurses at the desk talking, and apparently, he was somewhere in the building, talking down a woman. You had no doubt that it was May.

God, if you thought you’ve been through it, you couldn’t imagine how she felt. To find out your nephew, who was basically your son, is a crime-fighting superhero is one thing. To find out he was almost killed and is currently fighting for his life all in one night is another. You were surprised her head didn’t explode right then and there.

Another ten minutes pass by before May comes out from the patient area, eyes red and completely distraught. Tony Stark was close behind her, holding the door open as May’s crouched figure passes through.

You stare at the two of them and accidentally make eye contact with the billionaire. He sends you a nod before heading back to the hospital rooms, like it was the only safe thing to do. The anger from before quickly disappeared; at least you weren’t the only one in shock.

“Oh, Y/N,” May says when she spots you. “I didn’t know you’d be here. It’s super late, I think it’s safer if you went back home. I don’t want your parents to worry. Do you need me to call and talk to them? I can take you home if you need me to.”

“May, you don’t-“

“I mean it’s probably best if I go do something. I don’t think I can sit here for very long without pulling my hair out.”

“May-“

“This is all just hitting me so hard. I mean, how did I not even realize this? I feel so stupid. God, the nerve of Tony to pull this. I should have never trusted him-“

“It’s my fault, May.” You snap, ceasing her rambles. “I did this… I fucking caused all of this. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what to do and one thing led to another and… I killed him. I killed Peter. I am so sorry, May. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

May doesn’t respond right away, still processing everything you said. Her shoulders slump down slightly as she cocks her head. Out of all the news she got tonight, this one confused her the most. But as she focused on you and your shivering body, she realized she wasn’t the only one that had a rough night.

She takes your hands. “Let’s talk, alright?”

The next fifteen minutes were spent by you blubbering about everything. The soulmate memory, his Spider-Man secret, how you tried to keep apart, and how you found him downtown. You skip over the rather intimate parts, knowing it was probably not going to help May. Your face is red and splotchy by the end of it, and a handful of tissues covered the small table next to you.

May doesn’t say a word until you’re done. Though a nice gesture, her silence was more due to her complete shock.

“I am so fucking sorry, May,” you whisper at the end. “I should have told you, or someone, at least. It’s just that, it was Peter’s life on the line. I didn’t want to do anything and hurt him. I thought it was best if he made the call, but look where that got us.” You wipe your eyes and look away. The guilt was unbearable. May was nothing but caring to you, and you repay her by killing her nephew.

“God... I knew Peter was having a rough time, I always heard him at weird hours of the night, but I thought it was just school or something. I’ve always checked on him, but he would always say he’s busy.” She shakes her head. “I don’t blame you, though. I mean, I’m not exactly happy this all went down the way it did, but I can’t be mad at you for at least trying to save him, even when it hurt to.”

You sniffle at her words, trying to suppress any more tears. “He still got hurt, though. Peter being my soulmate cost him his life…” you whisper the last word.

May offers a sympathetic smile as she smooths your hair. “You know, people say the reason for soulmates is to be with someone you love forever, but it never takes into account some people’s forever is shorter than others,” she explains. “When Ben died… I was so angry at the world. Why give me this amazing person if I only got them for a short time? Sure, the world can give me another soulmate or something, but it almost defeats the purpose… makes it seem that I had to have this one soulmate before I had to a ‘real��� soulmate. Even after all this time, part of me will always want him…

“But even if Ben isn’t with me forever, I was with him for his forever, and I found a way to be okay with that. I gave him all the love I possibly could have, and I have no doubt in my head that it was worth it.”

You smile and nod at her words, but she could tell you weren’t completely getting the point. “You and Peter are great together, friendship or more. There’s no way he regrets spending his time with you, and I don’t think you do either. The two of you always had something special. Don’t push away from that, even if it might seem easier.”

You find May’s hands and give a firm squeeze, a silent way of saying thanks. For months, you have been trying to go for easy: less drama, fewer risks… but it was still a whole lot of pain. And for what? Never getting to be with your best friend in the way you truly wanted? May made it seem like the choice was obvious, and you wondered if it actually was.

A few quiet minutes pass until Tony Stark steps into the waiting room and approaches the two of you. You and May quickly stand up, waiting for the worst. You already experienced Peter’s “death”, you didn’t need to go through it again, especially if it’s real this time.

“Is he going to be okay?” May quickly asks, hands close to her chest, protecting herself from any hidden blows.

Tony’s mouth tightens before answering. “More or less…” he starts, looking down before continuing. “The wound was deep, and if he couldn’t heal as fast as he could, this would be a different story. However, it was still caused by dangerous, alien hybrid technology and he was already in a rough state prior to the… stab.” He cringes at the word. “Scrapes and bruises, a broken rib, some significant brain injury… Dr. Cho is doing the best she can, but as of right now, he’s in a comatose state.”

You gulp at the news. “So, what does that mean? When will he wake up?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“But- but he will wake up, right?” you clarify.

A pause. Tony’s jaw ticks. His eyes quickly leave you before blinking and meeting yours again, but you notice it. The doubt behind them.

“I don’t know…”

---

It’s almost midnight, which means you’ve spent the whole night worrying.

You were out on the fire escape freezing your ass off. It would only take ten steps maximum to grab something warm, but the bite of the wind kept you alert.

You weren’t going to leave until you knew Peter was safe.

He barely talked to you since this morning. He sat near Ned at lunch instead of you and took different routes to class. You texted him a few times throughout the day, but he never replied.

So, when you sent a message checking in on him with no response back, you weren’t sure if it was him ignoring you or that he was in danger. You let out a sigh of worry as your breath dissolved into the night.

You never realized how nice your view was. The most use your window got was when Peter came in, but that hasn’t happened for months. It’s crazy that you consider that a simpler time in your relationship.

Your ears focus on the sounds of the city. The bustling noises often brought you comfort, knowing that there were thousands of people going through the motions of life. Tonight, however, it sent a feeling of loneliness to your veins. New York kept going on while you were wallowing and worrying. It didn’t need you, even though you needed them.

A sudden urge to cry makes your throat tightens. You really hope that Peter was alright.

When you check the time again, you saw that a new day began. You decide to shove your phone back in your pocket. Watching the clock every ten seconds wasn’t going to help.

You sigh, maybe you’ll feel different today. Maybe you’ll feel warmer because holy shit is it cold outside. At what temperature does hypothermia kick in? That seems like a question to Google, not experiment.

You’re about to turn back when you hear a soft thwip, and a Peter hanging outside down on the stairs. You weren’t too sure how he was feeling at the moment, his covered eyes not giving any hints, but you send a soft smile nonetheless.

“I’m not a damsel in distress if that’s what you’re thinking,” you break the ice.

Peter turns himself right side up, taking a seat on the railing next to you. He pulls his mask off and drops it in his lap, and you can see his face isn’t as icy as this morning. But his mouth was pulled tight, unsure how to go about this.

“I’d consider frostbite to be a crime,” he shrugs. Luckily, you had your window open this whole time. With a quick webshot, Peter sticks and catches the sweater hanging on your chair before offering it to you. “Especially if Spider-Man can stop it.”

You bite your cheek. Part of you didn’t want to give in, but there was no way you could last another minute out here. Slowly, you grabbed your sweater, your fingers grazing the fabric of his suit. A way of saying thank you.

“Slow day?” you ask, pulling the sweater over your head. The extra layer was already warming you up, and your body relaxes a little.

“Well, considering the biggest thing I did today was helping tourists find their way to the subway, I’ll let you figure that out,” he laughs. “Though I suppose some good work is better than no work at all. At least the city knows I’m back.”

Peter realizes that the last sentence wasn’t a good idea, your face slightly dropping at his words. He tries to keep talking in hopes of distracting you. “So uh, any reason why you’re out here tonight?”

“I was waiting for you. Couldn’t sleep until I knew you were safe, I guess.” you sigh, looking back at the skyline. “I also wanted to apologize, for how I reacted. Even if I didn’t agree with you, I could have at least listened to you.”

Peter awkwardly nods, guilt surfacing at your confession. “I mean, I could have done the same thing too. I was so focused on the dumb rumors I let Flash get into my head. That was my first mistake,” he jokes, causing you to snort. “I’m not trying to get into myself into any death matches anytime soon, but I still want to help out, you know?”

“Always the hero… I learned that back in D.C.,” you sigh. “I guess I’m still trying to figure things out. Everything just feels weird right now, and I don’t think I’m making it any easier.”

He doesn’t say anything and faces back toward the city. He takes a breath of the city, smelling the mix of laundry detergent from your apartment basement and the exhaust from the streets.

For all his life, Peter was dedicated to New York. He loved going to the museums with May and Ben; he always tried to pay street performers with whatever spare change he had in his pocket; he rolled his eyes every time someone brought up New Jersey; most importantly, he wouldn’t take off the suit until he knew his home was safe, even if it was almost morning.

He’s done everything he could to protect his neighborhood and the people who need it most, yet he feels… almost distant from it all. As if Peter was trying to find something more to it. A faint memory passes through his head- what did Ben use to say all those years ago? Something like, “home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling”?

Peter’s brain sticks to the thought.

Suddenly, the last month hits him.

“I thought of you,” he starts, still looking out into the night. “When it happened, all I could think about was you.”

Your face softens as the beating of your heart becomes audible.

“I was so… angry about it all. I was so pissed off at myself. Even if I knew that was gonna happen, even if I knew or thought I guess, that that was the end, I was an idiot for not spending my time with you. I should’ve used whatever time I had trying to be something more to you, instead of pushing away what we already had. At least if I did die, I would be at peace with everything,” he chokes up a little at the end. “You’re my best friend, and one that somehow gets me. This place is my home and I’d do anything for it.” He turns his head closer. “But it’s nothing without you. Life feels complicated, it’s always been complicated… but I think it’d be easier if we were in it together.”

You bite your lip and pick at the skin. They’ve been chapped since you came out, but it didn’t stop you from using it to cope with your nerves. Peter was laying it all out on the table, and you were the one left silent.

“You don’t have to tell me why we didn’t kiss, it’s completely understandable if you rather just let it go. I’ve pushed you away too many times, it’s only fair you get to do the same at least once. But I want you to know this.” His eyes were bright under the moonlight.

The last hurrah.

“I would keep you in any possible way I could. I told myself that I need to be able to do what I want, and I want you, for however long I can get you,” he sighs. “If you’re not ready for that, okay. If you never want that- fuck – that’s okay too. I love you. I will always love you,” he says, passion dripping from his words and into your heart. “If you could wait for me, I can wait for you too. Whenever you’re ready, just say when. I don’t care what I’m doing, or where I am, I’m always going to be here with you. Even if you don’t want me, I’ll be here.”

I’ll be here…

+++

It took five days for Peter to wake up.

Five days of nonstop worrying and utter stress. Five days of you traveling to the hospital first thing after school until your parents texted you to come home. Five days of you not sleeping because you were waiting for the call, and you had no idea what to expect when it did.

The first day was somewhat bearable. May and you slept in the waiting room that night, and when you woke up, which was about four hours later, she took you home. Sitting in a sticky, vinyl chair was not helping you, and if May had to wait there for another minute, she was afraid she’d have another meltdown.

You were still a little numb from it all by the time you got back. It wasn’t until almost midnight that you started to realize, oh shit, you don’t know when Peter will wake up. If… he’ll ever wake up.

That first night you cried in your bed until the morning. Your face was swollen for the rest of the day, and when your parents came back on the second day, they were panicking that you had an allergic reaction.

You told May not to tell them. They didn’t need to know, and they didn’t need to coddle and worry about you. May, who didn’t exactly think it was a good idea, reluctantly agreed anyways. So, when your parents were fussing about your appearance, you laughed it off and told them you watched The Notebook the night before with some friends.

It was just easier that way.

The second day was spent with you wallowing in your room, waiting by your phone for something. May told you she would keep you updated and that you shouldn’t worry, which both of you knew was just empty advice. Hearing nothing was just as bad as hearing something.

Later that day, MJ sent a few news articles about the Vulture and his arrest. Apparently, his suit gave out not too long after he left the scene, causing him to suffer some internal injuries and harsh burns. He got caught by Stark Industries and was arrested quickly after, and is currently awaiting trial. It was likely that Adrian Toomes would be under bars for a while, and that brought you both relief and guilt as you tried to sleep.

The third day sent you to school, and at least gave you something to focus on. The tension between you and your friends was palpable, but no one bothered to address it, not sure where to even go. The only mention of that night was with Liz in the hallway before she left, and that was enough for you.

You went back to the hospital on the third day (after telling your parents you were staying at school for newspaper), and though there was nothing new about Peter’s condition, you still wanted to be there just in case. May was too busy with work to come in unless there was an emergency, and you hope that brought her more relief than stress.

You spent your visiting hours watching Peter sleep, or whatever people did when they were in a coma. You at least liked to pretend he was just sleeping, it made you feel better about his chances of waking up.

His face was so pale and frail under the fluorescents, and you wished he could wake up just long enough to get some actual food in him. You hoped he was at least somewhat at peace right now and resting away all of the stress he’s put himself under. The stress that you were also a cause of.

“I’m sorry, Peter. For everything,” you whisper. Even if he could hear you right now, you’re not sure you want him to. You slowly stand up from your chair and step closer to the boy, brushing his curls back. Gently, you lean forward and press a kiss to the top of his head, brushing the area with your thumb afterward. “I hope you’re doing okay…”

The fourth day is mostly the same. After school, you lied to your parents and went straight to the hospital. You quietly worked on homework while sitting next to Peter, glancing at him from time to time and sending his hand a reassuring squeeze every now and then. He looks the same as yesterday, and you’re not too sure if that’s good or not.

“You know he’s not going anywhere,” you hear from the doorway. Their voice was instantly recognizable. “Dr. Cho says he’s doing alright, though. Still don’t know when he’ll wake up, but he’s alright for now.” Tony Stark says.

You scoff. “No offense, but that ��for now’ part doesn’t seem so reassuring.”

“Fair enough,” he shrugs, taking a seat next to you. “But considering this is probably my fault, I’ll take that over nothing.”

You shake your head. “It’s not your fault. It was bound to happen either way, no matter what you did, it wouldn’t have changed anything.”

“Yeah, that’s what everyone says, isn’t it?” he mumbles.

“Trust me, I actually mean it. If we’re going to put blame on anyone it should be on me… or the universe or whatever.”

Tony tilts his head. “Universe as in…”

“-soulmates, yeah,” you answer. “In our future, we saw each other after the incident, and I thought he died… now here we are.”

“Right, here we are…” he repeats. “They told me someone else was there at the scene when I got to the hospital, but I wasn’t sure who they were referring to until I saw you afterward. Nice to meet officially meet you…”

“Y/N,” you introduce yourself.

Tony nods. “I’m sorry about how all that went down though. I knew the kid wants his identity to be a secret so I tried to keep everything under wraps as much I could.”

“No hard feelings,” you smile. “I was definitely upset at the time, but I could tell you were just as worried as I was. You wanted to protect him… I do too.” You turn and look at Peter, watching his chest go up and down with his breath. “I’d do anything for him.”

You don’t notice Tony’s faint smile as he watches you and Peter. Young love was beyond him, and watching it happen right in front of his eyes was both sweet and nauseating.

“I should be heading back, I only came here for a quick check-in. Still have some loose ends to tie up regarding press, but nothing to worry about.” He stands up, straightening his jacket. “Glad we got a chance to chat.”

“Me too.” You watch as he walks away, words still at the tip of your tongue. “For what it’s worth Mr. Stark,” you begin, gaining his attention again. “Peter is the type of person who would do anything to save people. He looks out for his family, his friends, me… I can’t imagine someone who’s more of a hero than him, and that includes the Avengers. No offense,” you half-joke. “Whatever you decide to do with him, I hope you give him another chance. He’s really amazing- powers or not.”

He nods, impressed at your words. Tony doesn’t say anything, choosing to offer you a smile before turning away, leaving you and Peter alone. You don’t stay much longer after he leaves, and you follow yesterday’s routine of kissing Peter’s head before heading out.

The fifth day is rainy, perfect to match your somber mood. School decided that today would be a great day to kick your ass and give you tons of homework, even though finals week was already fast approaching. You also forgot an umbrella this morning, and your clothes were still damp from your walk from the subway station. For the cherry on top, no one has had any updates on Peter since he went under, and your hope was starting to falter.

Without thinking, you took Peter’s hands in yours and started to fidget around with his fingers. The cuts on his knuckles were turning pink and gradually healing, while the calluses on his palms were still evident. Much of the skin around his joints were rough, but it meshed so well with the smoothness around it. You were never touchy with other people, but you desperately wanted Peter to squeeze your hands back. At least show some indication that everything was going to be okay.

When you actually felt a squeeze, you almost couldn’t believe it.

You straighten in your chair and turn your head up. A slow flutter of the eyes and a twitch of the lips make your body tense in anticipation. Is he…?

“Peter?” you whisper.

A quiet groan escapes his mouth as Peter’s eyes gently open, taking in the bright lights. You sigh in relief and blink away at the tears trying to come. This better not be a dream.

“Y/N?” he asks, voice dry and scratchy.

“Oh jeez, maybe don’t talk yet. I’ll go grab you some water and tell the nurses you’re up, okay?” you loosen your grip on Peter’s hands, but he squeezes again.

His head does the tiniest shake as he stares down, watching where your fingers touch his. “Stay. They’ll figure it out.”

You bite the inside of your cheek. “Fine,” you give in. You’ll be out of here soon enough when they find out, and you wanted to spend time with the boy who came back from the dead. “If I get in trouble though, you cannot play the ‘sick patient’ card.”

Peter lets out a gravelly laugh, his body still trying to figure out how to be awake. “I’ll try my best…” he mumbles.

“You’ll try your best? Seriously?” you scoff. “You finally wake up and your first words are some half-ass promise?”

He takes a deep inhale, both humored and annoyed at your teasing. “Fine. I promise I won’t… as long as you promise to be here.”

You smile at his quiet words, taking his knuckle and forcing his pinkie finger up. You gently wrap yours around it, looking him dead in his tired eyes. “I promise I’ll be here,” you whisper.

”I’ll always be here…”

---

A month ago, you promised Peter that exact same thing, and it feels like you already broke that promise. The world has offered you a second chance, and you were doing the same thing Peter did the first time: pushing away out of fear. Could you really waste another five months doing that again?

Could your heart handle that?

“Sorry if I made you uncomfortable or something,” Peter stammers. “If you need some time alone, that’s cool,” he offers, fumbling to put his mask back on.

“-Peter, wait.”

He immediately freezes, looking at you with wide eyes. The wind was starting to pick up, and his curls gently blew in the breeze. The dry air irritates his lips as he picks at it, waiting for your next response.

You move closer to him, inch by inch on the railing; your hands are almost touching, your pinkie desperately wanting to link with his gloved one. You take a deep breath and let it trap in your chest as you stare at the boy in front of you.

Peter Parker.

Spider-Man.

Your soulmate.

But most importantly, your best friend.

The wind moves through your hair and chills your body, yet it jumpstarts every nerve in your system. Peter was alive; you were alive; and fuck, was it a good feeling.

You wanted more, so you leaned in. Your nose touched Peter’s and your mouths closed the gap. A small, innocent kiss to tell him you want more, and that it was his call to keep going. When you stop, and Peter realizes that yes, you did just kiss him, he comes back for more. And he’s not looking to stop anytime soon.

His hand lets go of the railing and wraps around the small of your back, keeping you close and balanced. He keeps the other one gripped tight to the metal; he doesn’t trust himself to not get dizzy from you.

You cradle Peter’s face and deepen yourself into his presence. Your heart is hammering against your chest and you love it. It makes your body heat up and radiates the air around you. You hum against his mouth as you suck on his bottom lip, making Peter whine at the feeling. Your sweater rides up as you press yourself closer, and his thumb draws circles on the exposed skin. The small action makes you smile; you were only half-sure you weren’t crying at the amount of love that was running through your veins.

It seems like forever until you two are pulling away, absolutely blissed out and breathless. Neither of you go that far, faces still just a space or two away.

You look into Peter’s glassy eyes. If something were to happen to him, if you had to say goodbye to him in the worst way possible, if you had to grieve for a lifetime in order to move on, if you had to spend every day thinking of him and crying until your face was red and dry…

It was worth it. You were grateful to be loved by Peter Parker.

You catch your breath and take a slow inhale. It smells like cedarwood. Home.

You lean forward again and Peter meets you halfway. Your lips are just touching when you whisper into his mouth his new favorite word.

“When.”

Part 4 / Masterlist

Taglist: @eridanuswave @spideylovin @mktravelbuggie​  @bintfalastin8​ @runway-to-my-aid​ @selfcarecap @peterbenjiparker​

#tom holland #peter parker #peter parker x reader #Peter Parker fluff #peter parker fanfiction #Peter Parker angst #peter parker imagine #peter parker x reader smut #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x you #Peter Parker fanfiction #five months #Peter Parker imagine #spider man fanfic #marvel imagine #marvel #Tom holland x reader #Peter Parker series

[bluecatstory]

The fortunate one

Boy met a tea kettle genie. Unfortunately, this wish-granting genie did not get to grant a single wish. This is an AU 100% based on Neil Gaiman's The October Tale. Also, the main pairing here is GoYuu (Gojo Satoru/Itadori Yuuji), so please click back if you don’t like it. 

---

“Ahh, this feels great. I haven’t got this good stretching from a longg timeee.”

Yuuji Itadori had had a fair share of abnormal things in his life. Like how he had weird tiger markings (?) on his face and genetically non-dyed pink hair. Like when he used to have a jellyfish imaginary friend. Like how his friend Megumi may or may not have the ability to summon dogs. Or, like sometimes, he could still see his family talking and laughing in the house like they never left. 

Yuuji figured he might not be normal as well. But it was not really a problem for him. He had found a way to ignore it and keep on living. 

So back to where he was, lying on the floor as he looked up to the white-haired man fly (?) - floating on-air, black cloak fluttering and his eyes covered with blindfolds. The only thing not depressing and stuffy about him, Yuuji thought, was his constant smirk. 

“Are you a genie?” Yuuji asked out loud. He was even surprised by how straightforward he sounded. 

“Hmm, what makes you think of that, sakura boy?” The strange man’s smirk widened into a mischievous grin. 

“Because when I rub the kettle, you appear in a puff of smoke? Like a... tea kettle genie? Or you’re at least a magical being. You can float and see through your blindfolds, I guess. Your clothing is not similar to the genie that I know, but it may just be how people reimagine them. All in all, the highest chance is still that you’re a genie.” Yuuji rambled. 

The man seemed like he was about to burst into laughter. 

“Well, I was about to introduce myself as a dark overlord or some sinister being to scare you a bit. But… Ding ding ding! You got it, smart boy! This is a genie-in-the-flesh!” 

The man - or genie twirled around in the air. And like a grand performer, he ended it with a cool pose like a hero in Yuuji’s shounen manga. He folded his hands and bowed deeply. 

“Rejoice! Through heavens and earth, you are the fortunate one. I am the genie of the tea kettle. And I have the power to grant you three wishes. A very helpful tip: Don’t even start with the “I wish for more wishes.” That doesn’t work, and you’ll lose a wish. Ok, go!”

Yuuji just stared at the overly-enthusiastic genie. 

“If you have problems thinking, I can give you some suggestions: Money? Become the richest? Find One Piece? You ever dream of flying—”

“Umm… sorry, Mr. Genie, sir.” The boy suddenly raised his voice. “It’s ok. I don’t have any wishes. I mean, thank you and all that. But I’m good.” 

The white-haired being just made a face like Yuuji’s answer was the most outrageous and grabbed his left chest as if he had a heart attack. “Honey, sweetie, I’m THE genie. Just say a word, and the world will bow down to you. Come on. You definitely have something you desire. Just say whatever.” 

“It’s fine, really. Just like I said. I don’t have anything.” The boy with tiger markings smiled at him. “Do you want anything to drink? Is chamomile tea fine with you? Or water? Do you get thirsty after a long time staying in that kettle?” 

“Well, yes, I am thirsty, but hello? Genie? Three wishes? Anything in the world?”

“Come with me. I’ll make you some.” Yuuji’s smile grew as he led the astounded floating man. 

...

“Thank you. Can you add sugar to it?” 

“No problem.”

“But I don’t understand. Everyone, literally everyone I've met - they always ask for a bigger house, power, control, a big harem,... Ooh, I get one! Do you want a girl, like someone tall with big butts, to love, hold, and cherish you? Or if you bat for another team, I can definitely arrange that—” 

The pink-haired boy just cracked up. Never before have the genie heard such a cute laugh. 

“Sorry I’m good. And please call me Yuuji. I’m not sweetie, honey, or dear. Do you have a name, or should I just stick with Genie?” 

The silence suddenly filled the room. The boy nervously reached out and waved his hands in front of our current neighborhood genie. 

“Did… did I say something wrong, Mr. Genie?”

“Not wrong, very strange, though. People always want things. And you insist that you don’t. Are you absolutely sure? And you can drop Mr. Genie. Call me Gojo.” 

“100%. No wishes. But if you need me to free you, I’ll make my wish right now. Uh… Is it ok, Gojo?” 

“No need for that, my cute Yuuji. It’s just community service. Now, I’m not entirely convinced so! Guess who’s gonna stick with you for the time being till you say yes: Me!”

Yuuji laughed again. This time was soft but hearty laughter. If there were an award for the best smile/laugh, Yuuji would surely win, Gojo thought. 

“Sure, sure. How’s the tea?”

It was the finest tea Gojo the Genie had tasted for centuries. 

Like a curious kid who just got a hand on a new toy or witnessed a magic trick for the first time in his life, Yuuji’s questions came like a flood to the genie. He asked where Gojo came from, whether Genii had families, if he felt the need to please everyone, or just doing his job as a community worker who happened to grant wishes. Gojo calmly answered in his most genie way. That Yuuji should not think of him as a mortal, for he was a powerful, magical, and omnipotent being. 

“Ok, but do you like pancakes? You hungry?”

Although Gojo was stuck in the kettle for you-don’t-know-how-long, he was very, very updated with the current world. So yes. Yuuji just flashed to the fridge and whipped up the batter. After a few minutes, hot buttery sweet pancakes were already presented on the plate. 

Gojo poured all honey on the pancakes as he ate with delight. 

He jerked up suddenly. The sugar rush must have given him an idea. 

“I know! Just make a wish, and all specialties from around the world would be on this table in a snap. Each will be the most mouth-watering, scrumptious delights served on golden plates. All for you!”

“Yeah, I’m good. Actually, would you care to buy some groceries with me? There’s nothing left in the fridge for two people.” 

“Urggghhh. Fine. Take me to whatevs, Good.”

“Gojo!”

Chapter 1 - End. 

#bluecatstory #fanfic #jjk #goyuu #goyu #long fic #i guess???

[sunshineandcybertronians]

A Chance Like This - Knockout x reader

Word count: 7,740 Warnings: none Takes place on the episode “Flying Mind” A/N: This is the longest oneshot I’ve ever written and actually turned out pretty good. I wrote this over a year ago. I think I did a good job adding enough that it wasn’t just the whole episode written down.

You were staring wide eyed as Bulkhead told the human charges about his adventure being stuck on Nemesis. The group of listening humans, including you, was standing on the high platform closest to the groundbridge.

“And when the Insecticons backed off, I got inspired by my proximity to the power core, and did what I do best.” He hit his fist into the other servo making a loud crash for dramatic effect.

Miko and you stood by the yellow, metal guards while Jack leaned on the desk, Raf was sitting by the computer, and Agent Fowler stood in the back.

“Whoa,” you let out. Being stuck on the ship would be something you hate; you would have no idea how to get off.

“You trashed Megatron’s ride like a rock star in a hotel room.” Miko threw her hands into the air.

“So what are we going to do now?” you asked when you realized the Decepticons would in one spot and unable to move for a long period of time.

“We should hit the ‘Cons right now, while their vulnerable,” Arcee said to her teammates with determination.

“Megatron’s warship may be grounded, but let’s not forget we remain vastly outnumbered,” Ratchet, who was apart from the group and on your right, reminded.“Especially since he has added the insecticon hive to his ranks.”

“Then maybe it’s time for me in call in an air strike,” Agent Fowler stepped closer to the railing. “Or for us to consider more extreme measures, Agent Fowler.” The prime had a grim look in his optics that made you uneasy. He gestured for Ratchet to follow him down the corridor. Their heavy, metal steps resonated through the room. Your heart pounded as your mind searched the all the possibilities of what could happen with worry. Not just because Optimus Prime having that emotion was a reason for concern. 

Because there was someone on Nemesis that you didn’t want hurt.

He walked back into the room with a blue circular object, with gray designs covering it that made you stumble back.

“Is that…?” you began, but couldn’t finish the sentence.

“The spark extractor? Yes,” Optimus replied.

“I thought that… doing that would be too violent and wrong… to just take all of their sparks at once. Why…?” You struggled for words in shock.

“Although I would greatly prefer lesser means, it could be our only chance to end the war.”

“I guess. I just wish… it didn’t have to end like that. There has to be another way, right?” your eyes reflected sadness and hope.

He let out a sad sigh. “While I wish the same, I fear we have no other option.”

You whimpered. There was the urge to say more and attempt to convince them to choose another path. Yet you knew everyone would probably get annoyed at you for defending the villains, and Optimus Prime made up his mind. Who were you to question his decision? There was still something inside of you that wanted to stop it, that wasn’t at peace.

You didn’t want all of the Decepticons to die. You didn’t want Knockout to die.

You didn’t know him that well, but you were fond of him. His personality, his finish, just everything about him made you have a soft spot for him. When you got the chance, you’d try to get pictures of him, it was just hard to without getting caught. You wished you were actually friends with him, although now it would be too late.

The thought of him dying twisted and stabbed your heart. You probably should have never let yourself get that attached, but there was no going back.

A beeping at the console in front of Ratchet interrupted your thoughts.

“Optimus, I’m detecting a massive energy spike at the Decepticon crash site. It appears to be dark energon.” Ratchet had a serious and grim expression on his faceplate.

Everyone, except Optimus Prime, flinched at the news. They stared at the map with a purple circle on what you assumed to be the crash site.

The groundbridge lit up with the light swirling and dancing once Ratchet flipped the switch. It seemed much blurrier than usual. That’s when you realized how much tears formed in your eyes. You swiftly blinked them away, refusing to be caught. A part of you wanted to run in, to see if there was a way to save him or see him one more time. The thought of seeing his faceplate twist in pain in flinching as his spark was wretched away from him was enough you have you rapidly blinking. Please don’t cry in front of them; please don’t cry in front of them, you repeated in your mind. How would they react if they knew you cared for a Decepticon? They would probably send you to therapy or a mental hospital or something.

All the Autobots but Ratchet, who was staying, and Optimus, who seemed to be planning on entering last. They effortlessly shifted to their vehicle forms and quickly went through. You took a sharp breath when you noticed the extractor in Bumblebee’s hand as he transformed.

Fowler was saying something to the prime about how he had to be there to witness the Decepticon defeat, but you couldn’t pay attention. You just kept thinking about Knockout. Was he going to die? That couldn’t be right. Not now.

Optimus agreed to bring Agent Fowler and drove through the groundbridge. Then the light disappeared, leaving you to wonder when it would be done.

The last time you saw him could literally have been the last time you’d ever see him. You’d never get the chance to meet him or be friends with him. He’d be gone forever. You were panicking. When would the spark extractor be generated? Had it already happened? Was he already not existing anymore? Would you feel something when he was extinguished, like suddenly feel a part of you was missing or punched in the gut? All of these questions and negative emotions filled you and you believed you would burst. You already wandered and began pacing in the corner where everyone would be less likely to notice you. Just in case you broke down crying, which was becoming more likely by the second.

“Team’s down, requesting medevac,” Fowler’s voice came through the comm.

Your eyes widened and your heart leaped. “What?” you turned to the screen. You had been prepared to gain sadness from Knockout being terminated, not the Autobots being injured. Needless to say, you were concerned.

“What happened?” Ratchet asked.

“The Nemesis shot some crazy beam at the 'Bots and now they’re frozen.”

“What?” Jack asked.

“Are they…” Raf wasn’t able to finished the sentence in fear.

“I don’t know. I need to examine them. Hang tight. I will be there.” Ratchet opened up the groundbridge.

It took a while to get everyone back. Ratchet was the only one big enough to carry them and had to do so one at a time. As they were brought in, all the humans grew more sad and worried. It was terrible to see them still and lifeless like that. You prayed they were okay.

“Did they get the chance to use the spark extractor?” you asked when the question crossed your mind and you managed to reached Fowler on the higher platform.

“No. The 'Cons were too fast,” Fowler answered.

A sigh of relief escaped you, however as you did so, you masked it as a cough, to avoid everyone’s questioning eyes. It meant Knockout was alright. It may have been wrong, with everyone frozen, but you were actually happy the turn of events happened. It meant Knockout was still alive. You just hoped the others didn’t stay that way forever.

The other three on the floor below were still gazing in sorrow at the awkwardly posing cybertronians as Ratchet scanned them. His metallic steps echoed through the quiet room as he inspected the console.

“They’re alive, but I’ve never encountered this form of stasis lock.” He held his chin with his digits while staring at a large screen that currently showed Optimus.

“The 'Cons are crossing the Atlantic,” Fowler marched right up, near the vitals displayed in green. Ratchet’s optics shifted from the console’s information to the human. “Making a bee-line for North America,” he waved his arm horizontally to illustrate his point.

“Wait, we can track them?” Jack noticed as the three other walked over on the floor below.

“Why aren’t they cloaked like usual?” Raf lifted an eyebrow.

Your eyes widened when you realized it now that they mentioned it.  Fowler’s facial expression changed, a clear indicator that the same just occurred to him.

“None of this makes a lick of sense,” the black male voiced what everyone was thinking, “they had us in the crosshairs, but the 'Cons just took off.”

“They even bailed on that spark extractor thingy.” Miko waved her hand, as confused as everyone else.

“Megatron could have gotten the spark extractor AND destroyed Optimus. He would never turn down something like that. Why?” The thought tangled in your mind as you tried to make sense of it.

“Wait,” Jack said when an idea struck him. “If the ship isn’t cloaked, maybe the communications relays are open and-”

“Ehp, eph.” The medic cut him off and rotated around to the teenagers. “Are you suggesting that we just call Megatron and ask him what’s happening up there?!” he sarcastically thought, attempting to show the insanity of the idea.

As ridiculous and unlikely as it sounded, surprisingly, it didn’t sound like a bad idea considering the circumstances. The kids simultaneously shrugged and Ratchet looked in shock as it struck him that they were serious. For better or worse, it was probably the best plan. You needed to know what was going on. It was worth a shot. Ratchet then stared at Fowler and you for your opinion. You both did the same as the humans before.

After contemplating, he finally opened up communication. This gave enough time for the three to climb up onto the same floor you were on. “This is Outpost Omega One to Decepticon warship. Megatron, please respond.” If he felt awkward sending a message to Megatron, he wasn’t showing any signs of it.

He glared at the larger screen, waiting for a response, but none came. You held your breath. Were you actually going to hear Megatron? Even if he was on Nemesis and couldn’t do anything to you while you were safely at the base, the thought terrified you. At the same time, you wanted him to answer, to figure out if everything was okay, if Knockout was okay. Maybe you would get lucky and the shiny, red mech would answer. However, that scenario was unlikely and everyone would be suspicious if you began fangirling before you could stop yourself.

More silence. Was it supposed to be this long? Did Megatron decide to ignore them?

“Megatron,” Ratchet repeated.

Everyone seemed to freeze, yet there was more silence. You expected it to last as long as the last one, when suddenly a noise hit your ear. A bee-do-beep of someone connecting to the comm link reverberated in the air.

“Megatron has been relieved of his command,” an unfamiliar, intimidating voice shot out of the speakers. There was no picture on the screen identifying who it was. Almost made you wish the 'Cons stayed quiet, but it presented an important piece of information and you were eager to learn more.

Ratchet’s faceplate briefly twisted in confusion before returning to its former stern state. He was probably wondering who it was and how Megatron, being as strong as he is, could be pulled off of his Decepticon throne. The latter was the one currently on your mind, along with if Knockout was well.

“Who is this?” Ratchet questioned.

“ 'Who is this?’ ” the deep voice repeated.

“Have you taken control of the Decepticon vessel?”

All of the humans stared at the huge cybertronian monitor, while Raf stared at Ratchet. Fear of the current situation was written on the young boy’s face.

“I AM the Decepticon vessel

The color drained from your face at that news. The warship was alive? Whaaa…

"Any Cybertronian who interferes with my mission will be neutralized,” Nemesis continued.

The previously green screen suddenly hosted large pictures of frozen Decepticons. It flickered through three individual images, displaying some vehicons frozen to panic and insecticons on the ceiling unmoving. To your dismay or relief, it didn’t show Knockout. It only left you feeling restless at the uncertainty of his condition. Then they faded away to how the console appeared before.

“What mission?” Ratchet asked in a less authoritive tone, most likely a result from processing the new, alarming information.

“Priority one, decrypt Iacon database and recover Decepticon technology.” he spoke as if reading a script

“For what purpose?” the medic pressed for more information.

Everyone stayed focusing on the blurry, static picture as if it would change into something interesting. No reply. Then the static identification picture blinked out as the link ended.

“He hung up? Rude!” Miko commented and crossed her arms. You stared at her. Clearly her priorities were pretty mixed up if her first concern was a huge warship being rude, rather than the fact the Decepticon vessel just got a mind of its own and is holding the 'Cons hostage or worse.

There was no telling how dangerous it could be. Although, your top concern was what happened to Knockout. You prayed with all of your heart he was safe.

“Rude?!” Apparently, the older agent had the same thought as you. “There’s a giant spaceship, flying around, collecting Decepticon weapons of mass destruction!” He waved his hands around.

“Ah ah,” Jack interrupted, “A ship filled with neutralized Decepticons.”

“How does that make it any better?” you questioned.

“This could our only chance to slip aboard and download the Iacon database,” the teenager explained. He pointed up as if the ship were above you.

“So Optimus can decode it,” Raf finished Jack’s thought.

You nodded and had to agree. It was a great plan, and you were surprised it never occurred to you.

Ratchet turned to them, staring down as he processed it. “Ingenious.” He was clearly impressed. He looked up with certainty. “I will infiltrate the Decepticon warship.”

“No!” you blurted out. Provided, you were mostly concerned about Knockout, but you still cared about your other Cybertronian friends.

“Not ingenious,” Jack disagreed, putting emphasis on the first word. “You saw what it did to the Decepticons.”

“And probably Megatron too,” Raf added.

“And team Prime,” Miko read more off the list of Cybertronians who were neutralized. Her gaze became hard and serious.

“Yeah. We can’t have you frozen too,” you objected.

“But that tub had me dead to rights, and I’m still breathing,” Fowler pointed out, smiling.

“The ship may be blind to humans,” Jack concluded the best answer.

A smile crept onto your face as a plan cooked in your mind.

“Very well, Agent Fowler,” the Cybertronian reluctantly agreed. “But at the first sign of trouble, I am bridging you right back here.” He shifted to face the console and pulled out what looked to be an alien version of a USB, like what Jack had that restored Optimus Prime’s memory. “Now, in order to download the database, you will need a compatible transfer drive.” He held out the USB, which was relatively the same size as a book. A slightly oversized book.

“A what?” Fowler had confusion written all over his face as he took the drive with two hands.

“He’ll also need tech support,” Raf volunteered with a smirk, knowing that he’d be coming along.

“And backup,” Miko nodded with her arms crossed.

“Which includes me.” You stood tall. You wanted to help your friends. Besides, it would be cool to go on the ship and possibly see your favorite Decepticon. It would be nerve-racking, but your excitement removed any fear.

“Hrmm, very well,” the medic grumbled. Faltering over to the controls for the groundbirdge, he punched in the coordinates and the way through started up out of nowhere.

The colors danced around in a wonderful phenomenon, however your eyes and mind had grown accustomed to it with how frequently it was used. You took a deep breath to steel yourself, knowing that the enemy’s vessel was on the other side.

“Be careful,” Ratchet reminded, his voice taking a more gentle tone.

“We will,” Jack nodded before marching through.

they casually walked in, confidence boosted by the fact they were all paralyzed. They all stood there, towering over you. The fact that they were so stiff and lifeless made it feel like a horror movie. As soon as Fowler made it through, the swirling vortex closed behind you as if it was never there.

“Fowler to base. We’re in,” the agent reported back with the drive tucked beneath his right arm.

“Good,” Ratchet answered. “Their data core should be accessible from any console.”

All of you began your trek through Nemesis’ dark and long corridors. They all stood there, towering over you. The fact that they were so stiff and lifeless made it feel like a horror movie. Miko stared up and Jack stepped over a giant foot.

Was the fact that the corridors were long mentioned before? Because you were beginning to sweat. You prayed that you wouldn’t have to walk much farther. Then again, this is a Cybertronian sized ship. What did you expect? And of course Megatron would have to punish the Decepticons with long walks and halls that all looked the same!

Raf gulped when you reached the end of the corridor and it split into two, “H-here’s one.” He tentatively point to the right.

Your prayers were answered, both of them. A console, and the one you wanted to see the most.

You spied Knockout, frozen and leaning on the console. He may have been paralyzed, but at least he was still alive. It made your heart ache and wish you could help him. However, it was probably better that he wasn’t awake, so he would be unable to squish any of you. That was the problem with him being a Decepticon.

The Japanese girl ran up to him. She banged her fist on him three times. Knock, knock knock! You had to clamp your hand over your mouth and bite your tongue to prevent yourself from screaming at her to be careful, not hurt him, or mess up his finish.

“Doc Knock is knocked out,” she grinned with satisfaction.

You smiled slightly and loosened up at  Miko’s joke, finding it somewhat humorous. Although you felt guilty for it.

After Miko confirmed that Knockout wouldn’t be awake to hurt you, you were the first to run over. Your eyes stared up at him and all of his shiny glory. The way the light from the console shone on him and causing the illusion of his color being slightly altered was magnificent. He was even more hot in person, especially this close.

Your heart skipped a beat. You had never been that close to him before! After some hesitation, and wiping your hands on your pants, you lightly ran your fingers against his finish. Although it wasn’t long, since you didn’t want to ruin perfection with your oils. It felt so smooth and glossy. A touch of heaven. That made you both want to touch it more, and afraid to touch it in fear you would spoil it. You were dragged back to reality and took a step back when Raf began speaking.

“Look. The ship’s decoded two sets of Iacon coordinates.” Raf stepped closer and stared up at the console with wide eyes. Red from the screen reflected off of his glasses. A beep cut through the eerie silence and a row of random lines was added to the other two. “Three!” he added. The young boy flipped around to Fowler and the drive. “Let’s rip and run.”

“Okay,” you nodded and stared up, trying not to lock your gaze on the red mech since everyone was watching. “How’re we gonna get up?”

Without any words, Raf rushed to the bottom of Knockout’s pede with Agent Fowler following closely behind. You tilted your head in question of what they were going to do when they began climbing on the Cybertronian, using him like a ladder to get up. A bright red blush to rival your crush’s armor sprang onto your face. It came into realization that you would have to do the same.

“There’s the port,” Raf said once he reached the top, but you hadn’t made it up yet.

You never felt more nervous in your life. At first thought, you considered taking your shoes off, as to not scuff the paint. However, you were doubtful of how clean your socks were, besides, the others would question why you took your shoes off. Taking a deep breath to calm your nerves, you placed a shaky hand on Knockout to steady yourself as you hesitantly began climbing.

“Sorry, Knockout. Please forgive me,” you whispered under your breath, facing down in attempt to make this plead unheard by the others above you.

Your face became a more radiant red, if that was possible as you made your way up him. You did everything in your power to not get finger smudges on him. Thankfully, the way he was leaning forward made it easier to scramble up, rather than having to vertically scale him.

Fowler and Raf had moved a lot quicker than you as you were hesitant and careful. You heard the drive click into the port and a soft beep emanated from the data being downloaded. When you reached the top, you stayed standing on Knockout, on the black part between his head and red shoulders, for a few seconds, not wanting to leap off of him. You debated sitting on his shoulder or not. At first you decided you had a job to do and the others may judge, although it was a shame considering you would probably never be the same position again.

Taking a glance down, you noticed that Miko and Jack decided not to climb up. Another blush crept up as you realized that you didn’t need to climb up. Well, it was done. Now you wanted to stay, and you were glad you were able to touch him so much. You pressed your lips together into a line and pondered it. On second thought you decided you would sit, you didn’t need to stand on the console. They didn’t need your help. Besides, you were afraid you would accidentally press a wrong button on the control panel if you did.

With a smile, you sat on his shoulder. You made a small prayer that your pants were clean enough. It felt nice sitting there, like you belonged there. You were convinced you could have stayed like that forever. When you were sure no one was looking, you stared down and admire Knockout’s face.

That’s when a brilliant and awesome idea came into your head.  What if you took a selfie? That would be like a dream come true, aside from actually being friends with or dating him. It was risky, as in they could very well spot you doing it… It was too tempting. You would probably never get the opportunity for this again. The rewards outweighed the risk, and you simply couldn’t help yourself.

You stepped down and flipped out your phone. After tapping on the camera, you started to angle it correctly.

“Seriously?” Miko on the ground shook her head in disbelief.

“When else will I get a chance like this?” Your eyes stayed fixed on the phone screen, carefully positioning the phone so it gets both you and Knockout’s face without dropping your phone. Dropping it this high would probably break it. With the way his helm was dangling from being shot with the paralyze beam, it made it more difficult than you wanted.

Upon clicking the button to take the picture a few times, you smirked and examined the selfies. They were clear and fit enough you and him in. It was a little dark, but there wasn’t much you could do about it. If you activated the flash, you’d have the whole room’s shifting their focus onto you. Apparently the teenage girl decided to ignore you, because she wasn’t paying you any attention now. Thankfully, no one else seemed to take notice of her remark. You were very giddy and grateful that you got the opportunity to do that. You felt like a kid left in a candy store, told you could get whatever you want.

Miko and Jack below stared up. They studied the screen and the warship’s destination displayed on it.

“Um, why is the warship heading for Manhattan?”  Jack inquired upon peering closer at a smaller screen to the left of the larger one.

Everyone else followed his gaze to verify the truth of his words. What you saw confirmed it. It displayed a map of the north section of the western hemisphere. One moving circle hovered above the Atlantic ocean, most likely where you were located now, and the other stayed grounded in New York.

Raf’s eyes shifted back over to the decoded coordinates. The first set was flashing. “Because that’s where first set of coordinates are located?”

“What?!” you let out in surprise, sitting up straighter and almost standing. Thankfully, this didn’t draw any attention to yourself and they didn’t notice you sitting on the Decepticon. They were too concerned with processing the information and staring at the screen.

Fowler’s face displayed fear like you had never seen from him before. “What would a relic from Cybertron be doing in the Big Apple?”

“The Iacon relics landed on Earth eons ago, Agent Fowler,” Ratchet explained gravely on the other side of communications, “long before the city was built atop it.”

Jack immediately deciphered the meaning of the situation. “Which means if the ship wants this one it may have to move some buildings out of the way.”

All of the present humans’ eyes stayed locked on the map in horror. The Nemesis clearly  had lots of power, and without the Decepticons controlling it, it would make no effort to stay hidden. It would simply use all the fire power it could to complete its goal. How much damage would be caused and how many lives would be taken if it reached the city?

“Our mission just got complicated,” Fowler stated while pressing the earpiece. “How do we deter this ship?”

As he spoke, you noticed the other two humans, climbing up. Barely managing to stop the whine that desired to vibrate in your throat, you hopped onto the platform for the console’s keyboard. You couldn’t help but cross your arm and glare whenever Jack and Miko appeared in your line of vision for ruining your time with Knockout. Instead you averted your gaze to the map as they stepped onto the same platform as you. Normally you’d be nervous and doubting if it could support everyone’s weight, although these uncertainties to the back of your head. Raf was staring down, holding his chin while he thought.

“I would advise disabling the navigation module. Call up the main navigation menu,” Ratchet instructed.

You followed everyone’s gaze to the controls to the left of the one you stood on.

“There,” Raf pointed. How he knew that the other panel was for the navigation, you had no idea. It looked exactly the same as the one you were on. Maybe because it was under the screen displaying the map.

Before the boy could make any other movement, Agent Fowler lifted his hand in front of him. “Step aside, son.”

He leaped to the other side. When he tried to figure out how to make it work, it pressed his hand onto a slab of metal that stuck out slightly farther than the rest. As soon as his hand came into contact, there was a zap. Electricity danced around his hand. You and the other three jolted in shock. The government agent groaned previous to falling backwards unconscious. Unfortunately, backwards was right off the platform.

“Agent Fowler!” Jack cried out.

All of you rushed to reach him, but it was too late. He took a heavy hit as he slumped to the floor. You cringed at the muffled bang of him colliding with the ground. All you could do was pray that the damage from both the shock and falling would only be temporary. He rolled over and groaned weakly.

“System access detected,” the same voice from early on the comm broke you out of your transfixed horror. Once again, you and the other three jumped and hastily searched the room, although this time out of fear. Your figures were rigid. “Interference will not be tolerated.”

“There,” Raf said once he spotted it.

He pointed up at something that resembled an egg poking out of the ceiling and lowering slightly. It was shiny and black. If you were seeing correctly, you thought you saw a camera installed in it. It swiveled around to scan the room.

“Reveal yourself,” it demanded. At one point, the camera seemed to point straight at you

“It doesn’t see us,” Miko grinned in victory, loosening up her fighting stance.

You felt yourself smile a little, relieved at the good news.

“Yet,” Ratchet grumpily reminded. “The ship must not be scanning for carbon-based life-forms. But once it widens its search parameters…”

“We’re toast,” Raf finished.

“I’m bridging you back.”

“No,” Jack waved his hands in an 'X’ while firmly refusing. “There are millions of lives at stake in New York, and we four are currently the only ones who can do anything about it.”

Once again, Jack was the master of logic, and you agreed. If humans couldn’t be seen, then the four of you were the only ones who could save everyone. You glanced down, shifting from Fowler to Knockout, your eyes lingering on the red mech. You didn’t want the same thing to happen to you, but you needed to stop this thing to save Knockout from this frozen state… oh, and the Autobots… aaaannd all the other people in New York that you completely just forgot about. Apparently Knockout’s life, although he wasn’t technically dead, meant more to you than millions of people. You had strange priorities. Maybe it was time you got them straight and/or took some therapy… Nah!

“If it knows we’re here now, shouldn’t we talk more quietly so it doesn’t detect us through sound?” you urgently whispered.

“The sounds you’re making is too quiet  for the ship to detect,” the medic answered you. “You’re out of your element, Jack. These readings, the ship’s rapid recovery,” he listed, “all point to the fact that Megatron employed Dark Energon to repair it.”

Jack had leaped down when Ratchet was speaking. “Hold on,” Jack interrupted as he took Fowler’s pulse. “If you’re saying the ship is fueled by dark Energon, we can dump it, right?”

Miko and Raf lowered themselves on the edge and let themselves drop to follow Jack. They landed on their feet with zero apparent injuries.

It probably wasn’t a long way down if they were fine, but it looked unsettled from your position. You bit your lip as you prepared yourself to jump. However, when counting down from three, you stopped on two because of an idea floating into your brain. You practically skipped back to Knockout and climbed down on him. Not only did you get to touch him again and be close to him

“Hmm,” Ratchet made a sound of approval you never thought you’d hear. “You’ll need to reserve the warship’s Energon infuser. Follow the main overhead conduits,” he instructed.

“I think I should stay here,” you stated, holding your hands close to you, “in case anything changes on the screen and to watch Fowler. I don’t think we should move him in this state and I don’t think we should just leave him either.”

They nodded. “Good idea,” Jack approved, “Just stay out of trouble.” With that, they bolted down the corridor, following Ratchet’s directions.

“I will.” You mumbled as they turned out of sight, “Not much trouble I can get into just sitting here.” You knew what they meant, don’t get neutralized. Then once again, your eyes landed onto the familiar glossy finish.  With a smirk, you added, “Well, if he were awake I see how I could get into trouble.”

Most of your time was spent admiring Knockout, sitting on him and kicking your legs back and forth. You occasionally glance at Fowler or the screen to make sure nothing changed. To most, it may have been uninteresting, but considering that most did not have an obsession with a shiny red Decepticon, or maybe most would if they knew his existence, you were occupied with studying every detail of Knockout. The only thing that could make it better is if he were awake, in a situation where you’re friends, and you could talk.

While gazing into his face, you realized something you could do. Something you were tempted to do. Kiss him. Your face flamed up to the same color as his armor. You could do it, no one would see. Wait a second, there were probably security cameras, although even if that weren’t a possibility, you’d still be hesitant just because it’s embarrassing. Whining slightly, you bit on your lip as you restrained yourself.

A sound of smooth motors moving distracted you from your current daydream. Your eyes immediately leapt to the ceiling to observe a gun device lowering and pointing at you.

“I am infested with alien life-forms!” Nemesis growled.

It must have widened its search enough now. “Uh oh.” You let yourself slid off of Knockout. Fortunately, the cannon was aiming higher, probably at your head, thus it just barely missed Knockout. You were barely look back at the blaster before it began firing again. A light blue electrical orb sailed over your head as you ducked and bolted out of its path. Your head turned all over the place, with your hair flying, to find a place to hide.

Strangely enough, when the fact that it was an area built for larger creatures was taken into account, there weren’t many places to take cover. One of the few places you spotted was underneath the console controls, a dark pocket to stay out of sight. That was the area you rushed to. Blood pounded in your ears as you pumped your legs as fast as you could, paranoid that a blast would hit you.

Once in the cover of the shadows, your eyes searched for any danger. You noticed Fowler still passed out on the floor. Fortunately, the warship seemed to completely pass over Agent Fowler, probably since it already shocked him. That made it easier for you; all you needed to worry about was yourself. In the middle of your thought, you spotted the gun lowering itself until it saw you. Without any time to spit out a curse at your luck, you lurched out of the way.

“All parasites will be eradicated!” it shouted again.

The only other place you could go to avoid being neutralized was behind Knockout. You didn’t want him to get him himself from being your shield; however that blaster wasn’t giving you much of a choice. You ducked behind him, your back just an inch away from touching him. The balls that Nemesis attempted to throw at you buzzed upon coming into contact with him. “Sorry.” You hoped it wasn’t hurting him.

It seemed like it ran out of options of how to freeze you, or maybe it just hadn’t calculated another way yet. Before it could, the gun slowly choked and paused like a lawnmower running out of gas.

“Critical power drain. I am… in… command. Prepare to be… neutralized…” The final string of its power and command was undone. It sputtered while being pulled back into the ceiling, a welcomed action that caused you to sigh in relief. The light began to fade from red to blue.

“They must have done it.” You smiled in victory.

The screens and lights faded from creepy red to a pleasant blue, not to different from the color of energon or the Autobots’ optics. The room was still dim, yet it filled you with hope and served as another sign that the mission was accomplished. Agent Fowler was gradually waking up. You were unaware if the damage had simply worn off, or if all the Cybertronians who were hit would presently wake up.

Your gaze shifted to Knockout. You felt guilty about using him as a shield, but now you were worried about something else. What if he wasn’t paralyzed anymore? He did seem to be slumping over more. You decided to hide in case he wakes up, not wanting him to crush you or be disgusted by a human. If he was disgusted at the sight of you it would break your heart. You managed to drag Fowler under the console into hiding with you, to prevent him from meeting the fate you imagined.

Upon seeing Jack, Miko, and Raf dash to you, a rush of joy came over you. The fear of being caught by a non-neutralized Decepticon flowed out of you and was replaced with euphoria for saving the day and the mission completed. You came out of hiding under the console to meet them. The whole time you moved as quickly as you could while helping Fowler walk.

“You’re back! Is there a button we need to press to make the Cybertronians go back to normal or-” you began, wanting to make sure Knockout and the Autobots would be able to move again.

“They’re already waking up.” Jack pointed behind him, “We saw Megatron unfreeze. We need to get out of here.”

“Megatron?!” Your eyes widened and felt a scare cord being struck at the tyrant’s name. Your friends were brave.  Then your brows furrowed in confusion, since Knockout was still frozen. Then you nodded when you remember how many times he was hit when you were hiding. Of course it would take him longer to come out of it, considering that the ship was firing every three seconds.

Miko slung Fowler’s arm over her shoulder. "On your feet, soldier!” She aided you, taking the man’s weight out of your hands.

“And beavers and ducks and walnuts and grandma?” he deliriously spoke while flailing his other arms as much as you would allow. With that he wiggled out of yours and Miko’s hold, causing him to fall onto the ground again. Miko appeared seriously freaked out. If it weren’t for the still dangerous circumstances you were in, you might have laughed.

A beep emitted from the monitor which drew your attention to it. A fourth Iacon relic location was revealed. The bar that displayed the download progress was half way filled.

“That’s all that’s been downloaded?!” Jack exclaimed in frustration at the slow rate of progress.

Maybe it would have been better to let Nemesis stay in control for just a little longer to download more. Then again, that wouldn’t have been an option considering that it detected you humans just seconds before you shut it off. If it had seen you sooner, you all may have been immobilized.

“The Iacon file must be huge!” Raf reasoned in attempt to calm the older teenager.

The whirring of a groundbridge appearing from behind made you turn around. There it was, your beautiful ride home in all of its colorful glory, although not as glorious as Knockout’s colors you might add. Speaking of which, you probably needed to book it out of there before he awoke.

“Sa-weet!” Miko let out. She attempted to carry Fowler out by supporting his arm on her shoulder. Raf did the same on the other side. “Come on! Here’s our ride!” Her eyes locked onto the portal as they stepped towards it.

You were about to copy their movements when you noticed Jack standing his ground. That was when you remembered the drive. Oh right, you felt like facepalming, you were such a dummy! How could you forget something so important?

Raf noticed it too. “Jack?” he turned his head.

“Get Fowler out of here,” Jack ordered.

“I’ll help.” You ran back to him. You didn’t particularly want to be around when Knockout came out of his neutralized state, for reasons stated above. Although you didn’t want to seem like a coward, especially after the other three dumped the dark energon while you stayed behind. Plus, you were still somewhat reluctant to leave Knockout.

“No, I can handle it, you need to go!” He waved his hand.

“Nope! I’m helping,” you shook your head, firmly refusing.

He sighed knowing that it would absorb too much time to convince you to go. Marching forward, he stared at the drive with the precious downloaded information. “Some’s better than nothing,” he admitted. “I’m not leaving without that drive.” With that he clambered up.

To your amazement, you began crawling up Knockout before Jack did. You grinned at your triumph over your uneasiness about it. Now if only you had remembered gloves. It was painful to feel how oily your fingers were on his flawless finish. You could possibly leave a note apologizing for the fingerprints. You pouted when you remembered that you had to leave as soon as possible and couldn’t linger on his shoulder that time.

Promptly, you hopped off onto the panel and tugged on the drive along with Jack. His back was facing Knockout, while you were facing the opposite way, wanting to see Knockout as you worked. You grunted while pulling on it, the drive showing resistance.

As soon as the Decepticon medic opened his optics, you saw, since you had been staring at him without realizing it. “Uh oh,” your face paled. Your eyes widened, however, not from shock, from staring into his amazing red optics. You didn’t think you’ve ever seen any more gorgeous optics, the way it was a glowing red ring surrounded by dark red. It made you forget everything for a second. Maybe it was worth possibly becoming squished to witness it.

The way he smirked after spotting you just made him twice as hot. At that moment, Jack noticed your reaction and turned around, his facial expression making it clear that he already guessed what happened. He stepped back, completely forgetting about the drive.

Knockout flicked his servo into a long, skinny drill that would be terrifying enough to make it into a horror movie. At this motion, Jack stumbled back and fell. You took another step away while crouching and gnawing on your lip. No, he’s the villain and about to kill you, you can’t be mentally fangirling over how hot he is, you thought to yourself.

“Say 'ahh’,” he spoke in a threatening tone with his smooth voice while moving the drill closer to you and Jack. Yet his face still appeared as handsome as ever and you wished you could take a picture.

“Ah,” you quickly said, before you could stop yourself from following his command.

His drill flinched back and paused. He seemed confused and raised an optic ridge, surprised and amused by your response. A small smile began to creep into his facial features.

“I’m here to offer a second opinion,” Ratchet, who you hadn’t noticed coming through the groundbridge because your attention was set on Knockout, said right before he threw a punch. It knocked the Decepticon medic, who was turning around, into the console with a loud crash. The impact then sent him flying back and hitting the ground, his back facing the ceiling.

You felt bad for him, staring down. Who knew Ratchet could pack a punch like that? Or maybe you should have known. Once again, you were tempted to kiss Knockout, as if your affection would heal him. If there were camera filming, whoever would watch it would think you just walked close to Knockout and not realize unless they actually paid attention. Either that or there would be so much going on they would completely miss it.

Plus, Jack and Ratchet were focusing on each other. It left an opening. In the chaos and what was going on, you’d do it so briskly no one would even notice. It was risky, but the lack of time pressured you. When else will you get a perfect opportunity like that? In the end you decided to go for it.

You allowed yourself to slip down and began rushing to his face as soon as your feet hit the floor. Since you had made your decision so quickly, Ratchet was just beginning to reach over to pick Jack up while you were doing this. Upon reaching the mech’s white faceplate, you leaned in a placed your lips on his cheek for a second. He felt so cool and smooth, like before. However your lips were more sensitive than your fingers, making the experience twice, or even triple, times as amazing.

You heard the drive being pulled out with a shink, which meant it was time to go. After giving him a small peck, you practically skipped around to where they’d see you, feeling giddy with what you’d done.

“Where’s (Y/n)?” Ratchet asked while he searched the room.

“Down here!” you yelled and waved on your tippy toes, now standing just a foot away from the tip of Knockout’s helm.

Ratchet reached down to pick you up after handing Jack, who was in his other hand, the dive. You could have run just fine, but the Autobot medic was faster than you, and he probably wanted to get you out of there as soon as possible.

“Bye,” you yelled and waved happily, still excited from what you accomplished, as you were carried through the tunnel of light.

Although the whole dark energon taking over the Nemesis was a bad thing, you were still happy it happened. If it didn’t, Knockout would now be dead and you wouldn’t get to see him up close or kiss him. You hoped you would see him again soon.

#TFP #Knockout x reader #Knockout #Knock Out x reader #tfp x reader #flying mind #fluff

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 276: Our Turn to Save You

Previously on BnHA: In a refreshing change of pace from the usual “the adults refuse to tell the kids anything” shtick, Deku and Kacchan flew around trying to get Tomura’s attention while refusing to explain jack shit to Endeavor! Deku eventually thought to ask Kacchan why he was getting in on this, and Kacchan launched into a two-page Denial Speech which seemed expressly designed to prime him for losing his quirk any fucking second now! Tomura then showed up and the two of them were all “KJSDLFK” but thankfully Gran dove in to rescue them from dying INSTANTANEOUS HORRIBLE DEATHS, and reminded them that there are practically SIX WHOLE GROWN-UPS left who can definitely still fight Tomura and won’t die at all!! And one of those grown-ups is Aizawa! Who’s getting ready to fight Tomura now! Listen Horikoshi you fucker, when I asked for more Aizawa angst and badassery this ISN’T WHAT I –

Today on BnHA: Tomura is all “THIS QUIRK WON’T STOP ME BECAUSE I CAN’T READ” and sort of shrugs it off and continues to kick ass even though his Decay and AFO powers aren’t working. The pros all try to stop him with Endeavor taking the lead, and because THEY ALL SUCK, APPARENTLY, nothing they do is effective in any way whatsoever! Meanwhile Gran dumps Deku and Kacchan off and is all “YOU’LL BE FINE HERE” which is the most ridiculous thing anyone in this manga has ever said, and then pretty much as soon as he says it at least nine more High Ends (excuse me, NEARLY High Ends) just POP UP OUT OF NOWHERE and are all “RARR” and the heroes are all “oh shit” and Tomura is all “lol yeah I actually had more High Ends this whole time” and Ujiko is all “it’s true!” and, fuck. The chapter ends with Tomura charging in to kill Aizawa only to be intercepted by MY TWO PRECIOUS BABIES, MY DARLING LITTLE HERO HATCHLINGS, and...!! I blame Gran for this.

gotta say, my sense of time is distorted enough as it is these days without chapter leaks coming out A WHOLE ENTIRE DAY EARLY out of nowhere. not that I’m complaining, because I want to see Aizawa kick some ass & immediately lose his fucking quirk as much as anyone, but it is disorienting

anyway time to dive into this chapter which I predict will be titled “everything instantly goes horribly wrong.” I’ve had a lot of time these past two weeks to think about what is going to happen next, and I’m pretty sure I nailed it you guys

so we’re opening with a familiar sight

I like that Horikoshi thinks that helicopters go “chop chop.” well, close enough

anyway, so yet again we have a scene in BnHA of a town in the process of being destroyed by villains while a helicopter whirs (WHIRS, Horikoshi) and chuffs (SOMETIMES THEY CHUFF TOO) anxiously nearby. I wonder if this helicopter is going to fucking disintegrate. that’d be something new

ARE YOU GOING TO DIE, MISTER LIVE REPORTER SIR. OH MAN. OH GOD I’M ANXIOUS

dozens, you guys! there are dozens of them left! not to worry then. the good guys definitely still got this

oh hey it’s that news anchor with the cutely fucked-up backstory of chopping off his own horn so as to more handsomely report the news

oh god don’t tell me this whole thing is going to be broadcast live. that’s all we fucking need right now. I wonder what’s going to throw society into chaos more, the reveal of just how powerful Tomura is now, or the exposure of what the government-mandated child soldiers get to do during their super-educational practical on-the-job training! no coffee-fetching for these kiddos! we’ve got ‘em rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands good and dirty!

oh hey and it looks like this means that All Might will get to watch protege #2 lose his quirk live on TV -- HEY WHAT ARE YOU SERIOUS

BAD BABYSITTER!! MY GOD MAN, I KNOW YOU’RE THE INDULGENT GRANDFATHER TYPE, BUT MAYBE CONSIDER CHANGING THE CHANNEL TO DOC MCSTUFFINS FOR THE TIME BEING??!

also I know this is just a perspective thing probably but lmao his hand on her shoulder is fucking huge. All Might you been working out again

but seriously this is not good for either of them to witness. they don’t need more trauma in their lives! All Might doesn’t need yet another thing to blame himself over! and he has conflicted feelings about Tomura still on top of that which I’m sure isn’t going to make this any easier. ANGST ALL AROUND. EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK, EVERYWHERE YOU GOOOO

MOTHERFUCKER I --

is Mitsuki looking at fucking baby pictures of Kacchan. reliving the memories of the good old days, thinking about how far her baby boy has come and how proud she is. that’s just great you guys. that’s just fucking great. these aren’t even red flags at this point these are red fucking tapestries

(ETA: and this basically goes without saying, but I’m sure the fact that not one but THREE Todorokis are represented in this little montage means that Endeavor and Shouto are also going to be just fine.)

:)

HE’S SO HAPPY just fucking try and tell me he doesn’t have a mental fucking link to Tomura and Deku you guys. this bitch knows exactly what is going down right now and he is LIVING FOR IT. that does it. someone please save my spot in the chapter for me I am going to go take a quick walk to calm down

and of COURSE that’s a fucking lie though, god -- [frantically clicks to next page]

LOL HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS

FUCKING MANUAL IS HERE TO SAVE THE DAY LMAO. YOU CAN ALL FUCKING RELAX NOW. and fuck me, I’m so fucking happy RockLockRock is still alive as well but WHY ARE YOU STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO AIZAWA IN WHAT I LIKE TO CALL THE “CAUTION: YOU WILL GET SHOT” ZONE. swear to god Horikoshi THAT MAN HAS A FAMILY don’t you even think about -- !!

sigh, anyway so then the rest of the page is panels of Gran & The Boys, Endeavor, and Tomura, along with the text “WHICH SIDE IS THE VICTOR”, which is not helping matters any! also the title of the chapter is “Cheating” which I assume is a reference to both the erasure of Tomura’s quirk, and the soon-to-happen permanent removal of Aizawa’s. I’m just an optimist like that

oh hey and Tomura’s sending out some quick orders to his squad as well

and to think this homicidal maniac is in my top ten favorite characters. sob. I do love you kiddo so please don’t take it personally that I have to unequivocally root against you here. maybe if you listened to me once in a while and would even just consider my radical alternate plan of not killing anyone in sight

anyway lol but here everyone including myself thought he was going straight for the bullets and instead he was pulling out his phone. shows what we know. [braces myself for the follow-up panel of him putting the phone away again and THEN reaching for the bullets!!]

meanwhile we’re being introduced to some new sidekick of Endeavor’s who’s probably going to set the record for shortest time in between being introduced and dying horribly. sorry Kido. I’m just jaded

don’t mind me I’m just putting up emotional walls in between myself and any new lovable characters as a means of self-preservation. mmhmm. he can manipulate the trajectory of things. that’s nice. he seems nice. wouldn’t that be a nice quirk for Tomura to steal and then trajector a bullet straight towards Aizawa ffffff

(ETA: watch this space, everyone. Endeavor’s Sidekick Kido. gonna fuck everything up for everyone, mark my words.)

so I can’t help but notice that now that Tomura can’t use his quirk anymore and is helpless, they have all decided to just sit around doing nothing again?

like. far be it from me to openly wonder why they are not immediately knocking him out or setting him on fire again or whatnot. I am just a lowly civilian. it’s not my job to question these things

(ETA: I must learn to be patient.)

also lmao at Manual saying Aizawa’s ankle is “twisted”, similar to how Deku is constantly “twisting” all of his arms and legs all the time. or did he mean “twisted” in the sense that his leg was pretty much literally wrung out like a fucking towel

anyway so Manual is waterbending liquid into Aizawa’s eyes like that’s supposed to help him NOT close them

has Horikoshi ever had water splashed into his fucking eyes. he and I have had very different experiences as to the effects of this apparently

there we go!!

at least someone out here is fucking trying. for a second there I was honestly worried we were going to see a repeat of “oh well he seems dead enough, let’s just leave, see you at the victory party this weekend, X-Less”

LMAO WHAT KIND OF NONSENSE

[GRABS THESE PANELS AND WAVES THEM IN FRONT OF THE UNCONSCIOUS HAWKS] DID YOU HEAR THAT. DO YOU SEE THAT, BOYO. FACTS. BEING WEAK TO FIRE IS, IN FACT, 100 PERCENT A CHOICE. IF YOU HAD JUST DONE MORE PUSH-UPS AND TRAINED HARDER YOU WOULDN’T BE IN THIS SITUATION RIGHT NOW. SMDH. YOU FUCKING WIMP. YOU RECREANT. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED

hooooh man. hokay. whew. has anyone seen my suspension of disbelief. I’m so used to having it on me at all times when I read this manga that I must have let my guard down and now it seems I’ve spaced it out. well we’ll just keep a lookout for it

so now we’re cutting to Ujiko who is gleefully bragging that Tomura’s strength is on par with All Might Prime’s, which is just great. and now he’s also starting this sentence and then just... not... finishing it

that’s fine. you just trail off, then. hang those implications. whatever dude

meanwhile RLR and Manny are helping Aizawa limp away while he awkwardly has to twist his neck around to be able to still keep Tomura in his line of sight. I feel like there was probably a better way for them to do this but whatever

anyway thanks for confirming that Ujiko did make Tomura into a Noumu in addition to giving him AFO, though, Horikoshi! that’s very nice of you to unsink one of my theories like that. appreciate it

and hold up, so it occurs to me that “Being Fireproof” could still be a quirk, but just a mutant-type quirk rather than an activation type, meaning that Erasure would have no effect on it! aha! oh, there’s my suspension of disbelief lol it was in my pocket the whole time!!

anyway so Endeavor and Tomura are tussling but I really wish they’d be more careful because if Tomura is still capable of super strength and super speed then he could propel himself out of Aizawa’s line of sight really easily and I feel like this isn’t really helping

is it just me or do they look like they’re TRYING to jump in between Aizawa and Tomura, like?!?! GUYS

LMAO now Gran is just

SHUP. toss. dusts off hands. well that takes care of that

and apparently he’s under the genuine impression that a mere “now stay put you dumdums” is going to have any effect on these two whatsoever. lol okay. we’ll see

anyways YESSSSS, KACCHAN MEET GRAN, GRAN, KACCHAN

meanwhile Kacchan falls silent as he mentally tries to work out who tf “Toshinori” is lmao. I’M SO CHUFFED ABOUT THIS. YES THAT’S ANOTHER USE OF THE WORD “CHUFFED.” VERY VERSATILE AND REMINISCENT OF HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRLING

and now here’s a convenient map showing how far away Deku and Kacchan are from safety!

thanks for that. that’s so reassuring to have this nifty little visual

OH MY GOD GRAN

DO YOU WANT TO FUCKING DIE?? DOES EVERYONE IN THIS FUCKING ARC HAVE A DEATH WISH. MY GOD

“BUT FAR BE IT FROM ME TO LEAVE WITHOUT ANY OMINOUS FORESHADOWING!!” NO INDEED WE CAN’T HAVE THAT!!!

rather than focus anymore on how goddamn foreboding that is, I would instead like to take this moment to call attention to the fact that Gran apparently knows Bakugou’s name but not Present Mic’s. that’s amazing

sob

what good indeed. imagine if they couldn’t even do that. I imagine that would have some far-reaching consequences which might even be interesting to explore as part of a story

:O

I made the same face as them just now fyi

fucking Schrodinger’s High Ends. they only exist when the plot says it’s convenient for them to exist. maybe they’re like fairies and if you say you don’t believe in them they drop dead. where the fuck did these things actually come from?!

WAY TO DROP THE BOYS OFF IN THE MIDDLE OF NOUMU FUCKING CENTRAL MY GOOD MAN. MAYBE WE SHOULD SCROLL BACK UP AND UPDATE THAT MAP. GOOD JOB LMAO

WHAT THE FUCK

welp. they deleted Tomura’s quirk and then sent the strongest guy they had after him, annnnnnnd he went and beat him anyway in like two fucking seconds. so that’s. ... wowee. ...so do we have a plan b, or...

like, holy shit though?? and can you imagine the kind of psychological impact this is having on everyone watching this live on TV right now?? this is literally the anti-Kamino. holy fucking shit. also did Tomura lose an arm or am I just not understanding this image right?? NOT THAT IT SEEMS TO BE BOTHERING HIM IN THE SLIGHTEST??

(ETA: somehow I missed the fact that he is even calling attention to it lol. “I’ll raise [the other hand] when it’s back.” fucking look at Mr. Transcendent here who’s so powerful that when you tear his arms off all it does is make him more sassy. is he secretly related to Mirko.)

idk guys I really think my original chapter title was better

at least Endeavor isn’t fucking dead just yet. four more pages and you might actually make it out of this chapter alive my good man

blah blah blah flashback to Ujiko explaining that the Noumu could be activated by an electric current flowing through them, and that they’re programmed to move only on Tomura’s orders. you know. just more good news

oh hey but at least these ones are mindless so I guess it’s okay for the kids to kick their asses without feeling too conflicted. it’s just too bad “their strength is higher quality than the others” but you win some, you lose some

OH GOOD, THEY’RE GOING STRAIGHT FOR AIZAWA

I’M SURE THAT MIDORIYA “MY BODY MOVED BEFORE I COULD THINK” IZUKU AND BAKUGOU “I’M THE ONE WHO’LL GET PAYBACK FOR THAT DAY” KATSUKI WILL TAKE THEIR GRANDPA’S SAGE ADVICE AND GO AND HIDE WHILE THEIR TEACHER IS IN DANGER. IT’S NOT LIKE THEY’VE LITERALLY GONE TO SCHOOL FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR EXPLICITLY MAJORING IN NOT DOING THAT. YES THIS IS FINE THIS IS FUCKING FINE AND GREAT

NOW WHAT’S HAPPENING THERE’S LOTS OF RUBBLE FALLING AROUND AND STUFF MOVING AND SOMEONE IS TALKING

OH IT’S HIM

excuse me. EXCUSE ME. no, you are NOT. going to fucking die, Aizawa Shouta. HORIKOSHI KOUHEI!!! YOU’RE UNDER ARREST FOR THE CRIME OF DRAWING THIS FUCKING PANEL. THIS ONE, RIGHT HERE. YOU KNEW WHAT YOU WERE DOING. HOW DARE YOU. how FUCKING dare you sir

and if anything happens to RLR I SWEAR TO GOD!! you know what?! you know what?!?

STOP IT

[sitting curled up into a little ball with my knees drawn up to my chest, drawing little finger circles on the floor] I see. so he’s not even concerned about himself at all. it’s his two tiny little hero eggs, his problem children, and the fact that if he dies here there won’t be anything preventing Tomura from finding and killing them. ahh. okay. it’s okay. that’s fine

and goddammit what is he pulling out from his belt. everyone is on the same page here, right? Aizawa’s Not Allowed To Die. that was the deal. WHAT HAS THIS ALL BEEN FOR OTHERWISE

(ETA: yeah but he seriously did just pull a knife out of fucking nowhere though like the kid in that fucking vine lmao. APPARENTLY HE’S HAD IT THIS ENTIRE TIME?? “what if I just stabbed him” lulz. based on the way things were trending, I’m willing to bet it would have literally bounced off of Tomura’s chest at this point, but I’ll give him credit for making the effort.)

NOPE NOPE NOPE NO

(ETA: Shinsou being in the bottom corner... ;_; )

is anyone listening to me!??! I’m over here screaming myself fucking hoarse??! AIZAWA ISN’T FUCKING ALLOWED TO DIE??!! HELLO!?!?!

lol well at least RLR didn’t get steamrolled over

well everyone. we’ve reached page 18. one more to go. what are the odds we end with the boys arriving in the ta-da nick of time to defend their teacher. just who is watching over whom

THERE IT IS!!!

OH NO OH GOD AM I CRYING??! YOU HAD TO GO AND PUT THOSE FLASHBACK PANELS IN?? HIM SAVING DEKU AND CO. AT USJ, PLUS THAT ONE TIME HE DEFENDED BAKUGOU DURING HIS MOST VULNERABLE MOMENT IN FRONT OF A NATIONAL AUDIENCE??? “IT’S OUR TURN TO SAVE YOU”???

and they look so determined and desperate?? and the “Aizawa-sensei!” echoing in both their minds?? and meanwhile Aizawa looks fucking horrified though, because of all the... [gestures] you know? the Terrible Danger?? sob??

anyway. I really let this manga do this to me every damn week. let it just have its fucking way with me. at least Horikoshi didn’t end up breaking the law after all. I don’t know if I could continue to support a mangaka who is willing to commit an actual war crime. no touching Aizawa. OKAY?? OKAY

#bnha 276 #aizawa shouta #shigaraki tomura #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #gran torino #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #so what sound do *you* think helicopters make? #I googled this and found some excellent answers #my favorite one was dubdubdubdubdub #but tocotocotoco was a close second #whop whop whop #batabatabata #wuppa wuppa lmao

[deathisanartmetzli]

More Than Meets the Eye || Vic & Metzli

TIMING: Early August

PARTIES: @natusvincere @deathisanartmetzli

SUMMARY: Vic runs into Metzli and gets a lot more than just unwanted flirtation.

CONTAINS: Gore

As the final remnants of the sun dissipated, Metzli let out a soft sigh. It was a long day, a little too long for their liking, but it was finally over. Giving the place a final look, checking off each box on their nightly routine list, they heard a faint crack. Curiously, the crack seemed to echo. The sound of rock breaking apart likewise broke their concentration.

Following the sound, it led to the sculpture section of the gallery. Nothing seemed out of place in the slightest. Metzli walked through to make double sure, and when they found nothing, they headed back towards the front to grab their things.

Metzli was quick to swing the strap of their bag and engage their security system, doing it twice out of cautiousness. Their footsteps clacked against the tile floor, coming to a stop as they exited. The key slid in and an audible click sounded as the door locked. Pocketing their keys, their eyes caught sight of a rather beautiful woman. They smiled and thought maybe they could get lucky today. “Good evening, miss. How do you do? Lovely evening, is it not?”

The definitive worst thing about being a vampire (besides that annoying eternal life thing), was being forced to avoid the sun and it’s beauty at all costs.  Even in Vic’s worst days as a human, the sun had a way of adding both a literal and figurative brightness to her day, because even in the darkest of times, it always returned.  Now, without it, darkness loomed.  The quacks of the 21st century would say something about vitamin D deficiency.

The twilight of the late evening gave at least some sort of loophole from this problem, and it was when she found herself venturing out most when she wasn’t working.  The plus side, too, was that most people were too wrapped up in trying to get home to their families to even think about bothering her.  But fuck all, apparently she wouldn’t be so lucky tonight.

Vic usually lingered in her walks by art galleries, enjoying careful peaks inside if they were already closed for the night.  She had been planning on doing just that, too, until a person locking the door all but accosted her.  Her face instinctively formed into a scowl, automatically on the defence.  “I’m not your miss.  I am a grown woman”, she said.  At their second question, she looked the person up and down, a firm scowl still set, though morphing into one a bit more judgemental.  “Well, it was a good evening.  Do you need something, or can I continue on my walk?”

“My, my. You really know how to make a gentlethem swoon,” Metzli retorted with a chuckle. It wasn’t often that someone met them with such disgust within the first second. It usually took about ten, so this was a remarkable record. “I never claimed you as mine, but maybe just for the night you can be,” They flirted, horribly so. The fact that Vic had no interest only made them want to bother her more.

Metzli faced Vic fully now, hearing no heartbeat and gathering a familiar scent in their nose. They leaned onto the door and crossed their arms casually to take in Vic’s unrelenting visage. The sight only made them smile wider, revealing perfect white teeth. “Do you treat everyone with such charm, or is it only special people like me?” This was no longer about the art of flirting, but the art of annoying.

Just as Metzli opened their mouth to continue, another echoing and rocky crack resonated in their ears. This interruption made their head snap towards the glass doors, to peer inside. “Did you hear that?” Everything, the annoying and flirting, was out the window now. Something felt off. Something felt…sinister.

Vic stared stone faced at the person in front of her, blinking twice as she tried to decide exactly what about their interaction was so swoon-worthy.  She let out a huff, her stone face somehow becoming even more stern.  “I don’t belong to anyone, blobfish.  Especially not dense, odd-looking people like yourself.”  The lack of a heartbeat didn’t help either, though the fact that she didn’t think to automatically call a hunter on this person made her gut flutter uncomfortably.  Especially after hearing barely 3 sentences from them, it was already clear that they were relentlessly annoying.  Turning in a potential vampire should have been easy, but especially when they were as antagonistic as this person was.

“Can I tell you a secret?”, she asked, slapping on her famous fake charm for only a moment before turning it off in an instant. “There is nothing special about you.  Never was, never will be.  When I leave here, I will never think about you again, even though you’ll spend the rest of the month at least thinking about me. Now I’m only going to say this once, so make sure you turn on your listening ears.  Back. The fuck. Off.”

Just as she spoke the last of her threat, a loud, earthy rumble could be heard inside the gallery.  She turned to it, her eyebrows furrowed in investigation.  “Of course I heard it, stupid.  Did you accidentally leave someone in there with the merchandise?”  The sound rumbled closer rather quickly, and she forced herself to look back at the person in front of her.  “Don’t you work here?!  Shouldn’t you know what’s going on in your own place of employment?!”

Without a shadow of a doubt, Metzli knew they poked the bear thoroughly. Only, this was definitely a vampire bear with a vengeance against her own kind. Or maybe against amazing people flirting with her. They didn’t know, but they certainly knew she was way off base with the blob fish comment. “Whoa there. Blob fish? Fuck that. I’m attractive and you’re way too hot headed to acknowledge such decadence.” There was no malice in their tone, only a light joking one.

“Furthermore, while you have every right to turn down my advances, I don’t think I ever gave you a reason to be so…for the lack of a better term, bitchy towards me.” Metzli was mocking Vic, and it was obvious with the kind of voice they used. Layers upon layers of annoyance and sarcasm, molded together to serve in their words. Their toothy grin remained plastered on their face as they retrieved the keys from their pocket.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, gorgeous, I gotta ch—“ Something crashed into the door, breaking the glass and frame completely before Metzli could even put the key in the lock. “Fuck!” Glass sprayed everywhere as the two vampires were knocked to the ground by an unknown creature. It took a few moments, but Metzli managed to follow the trail of broken stone. Nothing but their eyes moved until they locked onto a grotesque and slobber-ridden chupacabra. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Hm, you seem really eager to prove how attractive you are.  Am I sensing some deep-seated insecurity here?”  Vic blinked in surprise when she was called bitchy, tilting her head in offense.  “Ooh, I can see why you approach strangers on the street instead of using acceptable ways to find someone to validate you as a person with fake praise and sexual favors.  Your lack of tact explains a lot.  Having a hard time finding a first date, Honey?  Try not insulting people you’re trying to pick up.”   She wanted nothing more than to slap the grin off their face, but her words had the ability to cut deeper than any physical injury could muster.  

She was about to bite again at the pet name, seriously second guessing her decision not to figure out for sure if this person was a vampire like she thought, when she was thrown to the ground unexpectedly, glass shattering all around her.  Her eyes landed on a slimy, thin, reptilian creature, and she looked at Metzli with disgust.  “What the hell is that?!”

She stood up quickly, dusting herself off and not bothering to help her companion stand up.  Was the gallery doubling as some weird, supernatural breeding ground?  She didn’t have time to ask, because the creature was seemingly bounding toward them without hesitation, fast and slobbery and with nearly nothing stopping it.

Gathering their wits about them, Metzli dove towards the chupacabra, not hesitating to halt its path towards Vic. Though most people would mistake this as a heroic act, it was more showboating than anything. “It’s a fucking chupacabra, numbnuts!” They barked out the statement, struggling to hold the creature still. Thanks to living over a century, their strength was more than quintupled now, but even that wasn’t a total advantage here.

Metzli huffed as they threw the chupacabra to the side, hoisting it several feet away. “That was a sculpture before it was this. Someone must’ve donated it as a threat or because they’re stupid.” They thought out loud as they moved over to Vic. Survival was crucial here, and so was keeping a low profile. God knows what this would do to the gallery’s reputation. And a woman dying in front of it too? No, that wasn’t going to happen. Not on their watch.

The creature growled and shuffled around, trying to refocus and find its prey. With widened eyes, Metzli watched as the beast loomed closer, baring its teeth in a threatening show of dominance. They stepped back slowly, trying not to make any loud noises. The time to get out of dodge was now, and they knew they’d have to bring the aggressive woman with them if they wanted to protect their gallery’s image. Before bolting for a dark area nearby, they reached for Vic’s hand, and uttered a single word, “Run.”

It was highly offensive to be thrown to the ground and then be called a name within mere seconds.  Vic shot Metzli a look, one that was sure to let them know how incredibly displeased she was, before her eyes found their way back to the creature, trying to study it.  She certainly had never heard of a kookaburra in White Crest, but stranger things had happened.  “That’s not a bird, you imbecile.  It’s a lizard!”

With the creature momentarily disabled, Vic took the opportunity to stand up, backing behind the person she had determined was responsible for this whole mess, Metzli.  “You and your staff didn’t think of double checking the matter before you allowed the statue in your facility?” she asked incredulously, disgusted by the clear lack of customer service going on here.

At Metzli’s command, Vic took off immediately, pulling the other person with her and not taking a second to look back to see if they were being followed.  Even if Metzli had clearly gotten the name of this thing wrong, they seemed to have at least some knowledge of what it might be.  “What the fuck does it want?”, she asked as they ran, no more breathless than she’d been when they were standing still.  “How do we fucking get rid of it?”

Metzli practically rolled their eyes all the way back as Vic ridiculed them and their staff. “I told you, it was a statue! A full blown, marble statue! No movement, and no charms indicated a live creature resided in it!” Their words jumped about as they ran, too frantic to keep it even. “In here!” Vic was pulled into a dark alley, a little roughly, but she was put behind them. Being much taller than her, they covered her completely.

“Chupacabras don’t normally go after anything but goats, I thought. But maybe it’s mad.” Metzli whispered, taking slow and controlled steps back, leading the two further into the alley. “If we stay put, it’ll go away and bother less important people. Like humans.” A quiet laugh escaped their lips and they grabbed a metal pipe, just in case. Vic seemed like she could beat the shit out of something, but Metzli couldn’t rely on pure assumption right now.

“Can you do anything other than be an ass? You look strong. Super strength or are you just one of the useless undead people with toned bodies for show?” Even now, Metzli just had to push some buttons.

“A statue in White Crest”, Vic shot back incredulously.  “It’s entirely irresponsible to assume that anything brought to your facility is just going to be normal.  Wouldn’t it make sense to hire some sort of...supernatural curator or something?”  Normally, she wasn’t so forward when it came to issues of the supernatural.  She wasn’t one of the idiots who flaunted her knowledge around the town as if they were speaking about the sales at the grocery store instead of something as life or death as supernatural creatures.  But Metzli clearly knew about the subject, so much so that they might be the only person helpful enough to help her survive whatever situation they had gotten themselves into.   She nearly let out a shriek as she was pulled, and her eyebrows pressed together at how close their bodies were pressed together.

She looked up at her companion, a huff leaving her lips before she spoke.  “Mad like angry, or mad like losing its mind?,” she asked, chancing a peak toward the creature.  She scoffed, pushing Metzli away from her at their idea.  “What kind of immoral slob do you think I am?,” she demanded, clearly offended.  “First of all, who said anything about being undead?”.  Even with an admission she knew of the supernatural, and this person’s apparent knowledge of her lack of heartbeat, a stranger would never get the privilege of hearing about her status as a vampire. “Second- we cannot just let this thing off to destroy people’s lives.  We have a responsibility to stop it before anyone gets hurt, you depraved ingrate!”

She swallowed, frustrated, and looked between Metzli and the creature once more.  “I’m a rather adept boxer”, she said, clenching her fists as she spoke.  “But I’m not confident that thing won’t turn itself back to stone once I try to take a swing- is that something it would do?”  Her eyes settled on Metzli, who she just decided she hated asking for help.  “What about you?  Are you good for anything other than being annoying and irresponsible?”

Boy oh boy was Vic getting on Metzli’s nerves. She was so hot-headed that she couldn’t even give a semblance of grace. “Listen, I’m trying to help you, despite how fucking disrespectful you’ve been. I’m new to this fucking place, but you’re too fucking busy to even give me a chance. A single. Fucking. Chance.” A low, guttural growl tickled through their throat as they glared at Vic. She had finally gotten on their bad side, it didn’t matter how hard they tried to push through the anger, they needed a minute.

Forcing a breath through their teeth, they squeezed the pipe to the point of leaving indents before finally succumbing to calmness. Metzli simply muttered, “They’re mad, as in angry. And no, turning to stone isn’t a specialty. Someone else must’ve done that. Also, I can obviously hear that you have no pulse, and you’re fucking freezing.” They rolled their eyes and paced forward to the entrance of the alleyway to take one last look at the chupacabra. “Fine. We’ll take care of it. But only if you stop being such a dick. I was trained in a clan and can handle myself well, and…fuck. Fine. If you need help, I guess I’ll have your back.”

They reached a hand out, motioning for Vic to shake their hand, “A small truce for now. I don’t know what your problem is with your own species, but I’m willing to put aside everything if you are. I haven’t had the best few weeks so…I—so—ugh. Sorry I blew up.”

Vic blinked, stopping for a moment to let her gaze fall on Metzli as they blew up on her.  She pressed her lips together, processing exactly what was being said to her.  Everything that they said felt justified- they were thoughts that had been tossed around her own brain for decades now. Thoughts that she worried everyone felt anyway. But still, despite how her mind was feeling, her mouth went on the defense.  “I’m too busy trying to survive”, she muttered, though her eyes flashed away from Metzli’s.  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

Her eyes wandered to where Metzli’s hand was wrapped around the pipe, and then back to their face, letting out a low breath of her own.  “What do you suppose it’s so angry about?”, she wondered aloud, bracing herself for a fight with the creature, as if one were only moments away.  “I have an undiagnosed medical condition”, she lied matter of factly, not interested in sharing the truth.   She wanted to tell Metlzi that they’d probably take care of it in terms of self-preservation anyway, but maybe after upsetting them, it was best to leave well enough alone.  She let out a huff before shaking their hand reluctantly.

“A truce”, she agreed, as ridiculous as it felt, “I suppose I can put insulting your character on hold until we’re in a safer situation.  I’m… sorry if anything I said offended you”, she said through gritted teach.  Before either of them had a chance to have any closure on their apologies, the creature was bounding toward them.  It rushed it’s body into Vic, sending her against the wall of the gallery with a grunt.  

“It’s probably mad at the people who turned it int—” Words were interrupted by the bellowing roar of the bounding chupacabra, followed by a crunching blow. There was no time to react, to stop the beast from running straight into Vic. Without thinking, Metzli threw their body at the chupacabra before it could do anything else to her. The metal pipe was thrusted into its chest with pure force and it screeched in pain.

Limbs thrashed and teeth snapped over and over again until Metzli was successfully thrown off. “Come on, Medical Condition! Rip its fucking head off!” they demanded, getting pummeled and bitten over and over again. Black blood pooled on the ground as it seeped from every bite.

A hand found a slippery grip on the protruding pipe, pulling it out and using it as a method of defense. It was the last resort, the last chance Metzli had against the devastating blows. Whether they lived or died didn’t matter, but they made a truce and told Vic they’d protect her. And if there was anything Metzli was not, it was a liar. They kept it distracted, trying to give Vic the chance to compose herself and attack properly. It was a struggle, but they wouldn’t lose their resolve.

Thankfully, Vic’s brain had the chance to process what Metlzi was trying to say before the wind was figuratively knocked out of her.  It would have crushed her body if not for Metzli’s intervention, and for the first time, she was actually thankful for their presence.  With the new defensive attack, the beast had found a new target in Metzli, and at first, all Vic could do was stare in disbelief at it’s anger and violence.  Violence on this scale, while it was something she might have incited, wasn’t something she experienced first hand often, or even liked to think about.  It brought back painful memories that were too stubborn be forgotten after 400 years.

But then her companion’s words shook her out of her temporary stupor and she sprung into action, using the chupacabra’s distraction to her advantage.  She jumped on the creature from behind, muttering expletives in Swedish as it tried to throw her off, fighting for dominance.

She grit her teeth when she finally got a good hold of it’s head, and with Metzli’s earlier advice ringing in her ears, she tore it off.  The creature’s body stood stiff for a moment, as if time had frozen between the three of them, but then it tumbled to the floor, sending Vic down with it.

She looked up at Metzli, the previous rigor of a fight in her features replaced with concern.  It was the first time she had felt any type of sympathy for the other person.  “Are you going to be okay?”, she asked, pushing herself up.  “You’re looking rather rough.”

Stillness took over not only their body, but the air surrounding the two. Metzli felt their thick and congealed blood pool around them, and they felt so hungry. The chupacabra’s body was still very much warm as it laid dead on the ground next to them. “Nice job, Medical Condi…” But they trailed off, black consuming their vision as dizziness took over their head. Rolling over, they managed to get to their knees and crawl to a wall to prop themselves up. This was the worst condition they had been in since their days in the clan.

“I think after all of that, I should get at least a date at the bar,” Metzli coughed raspily until it bled into a dry chuckle. Despite the pain they were feeling, they wanted to give the notion that they were more than fine. Great, even. “I’ll even buy the drinks.” They continued to joke, only being half-serious about the gesture. Vic was definitely appealing visually, and even showed strength that they respected, but her personality was a little too hot-headed for their taste. But if there was anything Metzli had learned in their years of living, it was that people, just like them, put on a front to conceal their true selves from others.

“Hey…”, Vic said, walking the short distance to them.  She rested her hand on their back, leaning down to get a good look at their face.  Their condition was possibly even worse than she thought it was, and there weren’t many ways to help an injured vampire that she was comfortable with.  

A Vic from last year would have seized the opportunity to turn them in to a hunter.

Instead, she said, “We need to get you some animal blood.  I know a guy, if you don’t.”  She tucked a hair behind her ear, still refusing to acknowledge the truth of what she was.  Thank god for Metlzi’s impeccable timing for annoyance, because it gave her a chance to recover.  “Don’t hold your figurative breath, Sweetheart.  You know, you’re a lot more likely to get laid if you don’t sound so desperate.  You sound like an insufferable teenager when you continuously come onto someone who’s clearly not interested.”

She pressed her lips together, leaning her back against the wall they were using as a crutch.  “Sorry about your statue”, she said genuinely, gesturing to the bits of glass that surrounded what used to be a door.  “I hope the gallery has good insurance.  

Seeing Vic a little concerned, Metzli couldn’t help themselves and said, “Ha. You care about me. Well, you did. For at least two seconds.” They spit to the side, black blood spattering on the floor. Aches and pains cascaded to every nerve, making them grimace as they got to their feet. “Nah, I’m good, Vic. I’ve annoyed ya enough for one evening. It’s getting boring.” Each step hiccuped with a limp and they rolled their eyes at themselves. Being so injured was annoying, but it was also exhilarating to have been so close to death. So close it made them laugh. “That was a lot of fun though. Would’ve been funny as shit if I had died.”

Vic’s concern was so out of place that it made them stumble and reposition their hands on the alleyway wall. “My gallery will be fine. Thanks, though. Maybe you’re not so bad. ” Metzli teased, walking around the corner and passing the ruins of their entrance door. Glass crunched under every step. They sucked their teeth and took out their phone to start making calls for the door, subsequently taking out a business card and holding it out for Vic. “If you wanna keep in touch, here’s my card. Sorry your night got all ruined. Pretty women like shouldn’t have to deal with shit like this.”

Vic didn’t bother to suppress her eyeroll, which was so much easier than acknowledging that Metzli might have been right.  Still, there was an itching of concern for them, especially when it was notable that they were still definitely not in good shape.  “Our definitions of fun are vastly different”, she decided out loud.  Inwardly, she decided to walk Metzli home, or at least make sure they got home okay.  She figured it’d be better than having to worry the whole night if they made it safely or not.  Even if she’d have to sneakily wait till whatever time they decided to leave.

She took their card, but vowed to destroy it when she got home.  In her hands, if she were in another state of mind, it would be too dangerous for her to have that kind of information. She let out a breath, tucking it into her pocket and looking back at them, her face barely changing.  “Nobody should have to deal with shit like this”, she argued, unblinking.  “But I guess that’s the world we live in, isn’t it?”

For so long, she thought she had been making the world they lived in a better place by ridding it of vampires.  When one proved to her the amount of humanity they could have, like Metzli did tonight, she had to wonder who the real monster was.

#wickedswriting #more than meets the eye #chatzy #vic and metzli #gore tw

[cupcakesnomnomnom123]

Durarara!! x The Outsider

Crossover

*note* AHHH this cross over is my new thing I swear lol. I don’t usually write fics because I can’t hold my attention down long enough to think about a whole story. I usually like to draw because I love it and it gets my ideas out quicker. But I can’t stop thinking about this scenario and the dialogues between the characters that I have to let it out! This is my first fanfic so please be gentle but still love some criticism to my writing. ☺️ also THANK YOU for the support for the other post. I’m glad y’all like it. Also! Not going to be too much Shizaya yet. I wanted to be more Tom and Shizuo friendship centric here.

<TW> mentions of murder, child rape, cannabilisim

(Scenario: News has spread all over Japan of a brutal sexual assault and murder case of 10 year old Misaki Suzuki in Ikebukoro. Details of the murder was leaked to the public early leading to Tom Tanaka arrest while the public and social media are pushing for his death sentence. Tom is waiting to be put on trial. Shizuo visits his accused friend in jail )

Seeing Tom after a week since the… incident.. it looked like Tom aged 10 years. Shizuo sits down and picks up the phone on the left side of the wall and sees Tom so the same. They wait till security leaves and they were alone.

“Hey Tom.. are you okay?…. Wait, shit uhh sorry…that’s a dumb ass question to ask. How are you holding up?”

“…Not very good honestly… who knew being hunged over, fired and being put to jail on the same day really wears a person out haha…”

Tom laughs to lighten the situation but Shizuo can tell it’s fake and self depreciating. Shizuo raises his right arm and tries to rub the exhaustion from his eyes. He looks earnestly at Tom.

“You didn’t do it.”

Tom drops the small smile he had and his eyes showed what he truly felt inside. Completely hopeless.

“Why do you think that? You even said you saw me. Everyone thinks I did it. Even my family. I know they do…my mother refuses to answer the phone. And she always answers the phone. Hell I’m even starting to believe it too. “

“No”, Shizuo says sternly,”it doesn’t add up. I told the police I was with you most of that night. All those fucked up things that happened to the kid. It doesn’t even make sense….you couldn’t of been the one to do it. I’m sure there were cameras at the bar we were at. You couldn’t be at two places at once Tom. That’s impossible”

“A lot of impossible things happen in this city Shizuo. I’m staring at a guy who can lift trucks with no problem”

“This isn’t the same thing.”

Shizuo hates that Tom is feeling this way. He’s upset and pissed at the whole situation. He was pissed the whole time the police was questioning him. He doesn’t have a problem with them per se, even with his bad history with them. It was the repetitive way they were asking the same.damn.questions. Over and over just said differently. It was to see if he would change his story and it was getting on his last nerves. They were betting on Shizuo to give up Tom because they got DNA evidence and even bite mark evidence. All matching down to the very last tooth. But he hold his ground and kept telling them the truth. The police were obviously getting annoyed but he didn’t give a damn. They were trying to get justice for Misaki. They wanted to blame the person all the signs who is pointed at. It made sense. He still would of beaten their asses. But would not helped his or Toms case at all.

He first thought was Izaya since he’s always the cause of all Shizuos problems. This time, it didn’t have izaya’s stink and it didn’t sit right with Shizuo. Izaya usually makes himself known that Shizuo is the bane of Izaya’s existence. The flea is a coward and ruin people’s lives, however…. this… even he thinks izaya doesn’t cross a certain line.

After dealing with the police for hours he went home but he couldn’t get much sleep. The image of Tom running away covered in Misaki’s blood burned in his mind. When he did sleep he wake up having nightmares of finding Misaki body in that dark alley over and over. At the time, he didn’t knew what he saw being he was buzzed from the night of drinking .He didn’t know it was the little girl till he saw the face. The body itself was almost unrecognizable. The body was mangled and ripped apart like a huge animal had gotten her. She was close to Akanes age and sometimes in his dreams both their faces will merge together staring at Shizuo with those same cold dead eyes. That wasn’t the worst part of his nightmares. The absolute worst part was imagination giving him vivid images what the Tom imposter did before Misaki’s murder. He wished he didn’t know..

“Didn’t you also hear from the police shizuo.?,” Tom avoids his eyes.”They also found my DNA all over the scene. They found dna in the building, the van, clothes, inside-

Toms stopped when his voiced hitched a little.

“…the cops showed me pictures…..They were trying to get me to confess but I really don’t remember after I was drinking. I shouldn’t kept drinking. You were right I should of stopped after drink three I should-“

“Hey”. Shizuo says in a harsher manner than he intended.

While Tom tries not to completely break down in front of Shizuo, Shizuo looks at the situation with pure anger and frustration. He can feel the familiar burning feeling simmering beneath his skin. He’s used of being feared like a inhuman beast he is. People feared, and held animosity towards Shizuo. He’s used to that. But Tom wasn’t. Tom literally has the whole world against him right now.

“You don’t deserve to be here..” he almost whispers in the receiver. “ you’re not the monster everyone says you are. I know this not because I was with you most of that night. I know you. We wouldn’t be friends if you pissed me off.”

Their was silence between them. The pause went on too long for Shizuos liking. Toms smile was tired, a little shaky when he sighed but grateful. It was a sigh of relief someone was there at their lowest.

“I think this is the first time you called me one. I was wondering if you ever referred me besides being your boss.” Tom closes his eyes while slightly leans back in his chair with his arms crossed and one side of his mouth perked up. “It feels weird getting the side of being pepped talked at but….” He looks at shizuo with thankful eyes

“Thanks…for getting angry that night. Well, for my behalf. Honestly, that’s the most nicest thing someone has done for me so far since I’ve been in this cage. I’m glad I still have you as a friend. Though I’m not your boss anymore.”

Shizuo doesn’t let too many people in his life in because of the fear of him accidentally hurting them. But this is Tom. Who was their for him at his lowest. He helped him to get most of the thugs off him during middle school. Gave him the suggestion to dye his hair blonde. Given him a job where everything else has failed. Even with izaya interfering with most of them, he knew his temper alone is the first cause of them. Tom helped him so much more than Shizuo deserved. Tom was the last person to be in this fucked up position. Even with the limited pool of relationships he has, he knew when a friend needed him. So he said what he knew he can do best.

“I’ll kill the asshole who put you in this mess. You didn’t kill the girl. I will prove your innocence one way or another. No matter what. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure where to start but I will find them.”

He can’t ask Tom to trust him. He’s afraid to ask. It would be too much faith to ask he had on him when he didn’t had that much faith in himself. Back of his mind, he’s afraid to fail. The voice nagging him, telling him he’s a fuck up. He’s nothing more than a beast destroying everything in his wake. But he’s gotta try. He’s too scared of the alternative option. Tom dying alone believing he’s not worth saving. So he squashes, pushes, kickes and punches that voice back as far it can go. Tom needed to see he’s trying. Tom just smiled at him.

“I trust you on that shizuo. I don’t usually go for violence but this is a special case. I wish I can be there to witness you do it. You still owe me a drink.”

“You still want to drink after this?” Shizuo jokes. Tom smiles a little wider and puts his left hand on his chin in contemplation.

“Hmmm You right. I’m done with drinking for a while. I’ll just settle with trying not to get killed in prison.”

*Aannnd that’s it! Im not sure how much I can do writing before I burn out but the dialogue is the fun part. Doing backgrounds will forever be a fun and the bane of my existence. I hope I stayed IC. I want to do a scenario where shizuo and izaya will work together but my brain will go straight to fluffy moments lol. *

#durarara #shizuo heiwajima #drrr #the outsider #stephen king #orihara izaya #tom tanaka #fan au #fan fic writing #my artwork

[theglitterypages]

Title: Let's Fall In Love Part 1

Pairings: Nishinoya x fem! Reader

Warnings: None

Word Count: 3000+

••••

You looked around you to see if you knew someone at this place but all you see is unfamiliar faces, you sighed before fishing your phone out of your pocket, you typed a message and sent it immediately.

After placing your phone back to your pocket you heard squeals nearby, your eyes landed in a group of girls surrounding a tall guy weaing glasses.

“Oikawa-san, can we take a picture?”

The guy smiled and looked at the short girl in front of him while the other girls surrounding him was obviously dying because of his smile.

You just raise your brows and proceeded to walk away so you could finally watch your cousin play.

“Oh, hello. I'm Y/N I'm Hinata Shoyo's cousin. Nice to meet you all.”

“Oh! Hinata told us you'll be coming, the game already started. They lost the first set.” you gasped and immediately looked at where the players are just to see your ginger cousin looking so serious.

You bit your lower lip and guilt filled your heart, you kinda get lost on your way here that's why you were so late.

When the second set of the game started and they scored you silently screamed. You don't know Hinata's teammates yet but those determined look on their faces makes you want to cheer for them aside from the fact that you're here to support Shoyo.

You witnessed how Hinata became fond of volleyball as he talked about his idol, the little giant. You're just a few years older than him but you've seen how he grew up loving volleyball even if his height became some sort of hindrance.

You couldn't help but be proud of how far he is to the old Shoyo, if they win this match this is their ticket to the nationals, Shoyo's goal.

“They're trouble.” you commented as you look at the players of Shiratorizawa. Yachi was able to hear you and she immediately looked up at you, “H-How can you say so?” you narrowed your eyes as you stare at the players on the other side of the court, those stern faces are obviously full of pride and for them to have such pride, they must have the talent as well.

“Their eyes screams determination and pride. It is ideal to have the confidence in matches like this and they must be confident because I've heard that they've been into Nationals but their own pride may become their own destruction in this match as well.”

Yachi blinked for numerous times with her mouth gaped open, you noticed her silence and you looked down at her. “Sorry, did I say too much?” you smiled awkwardly and Yachi immediately blushed as she shook her head.

“Ah no! No! You just seems so smart and you're so—so pretty.”

“Thanks for thinking so..”

You also blushed and focused on the game once more and you saw Karasuno's libero trying to chase the ball with all his might but he failed.

For a guy who's small, he's energetic and he's also fast, you can even tell that he's an outstanding libero just by the way he holds himself inside the court, not to mention that he's good looking, the blond bangs is a big plus in his looks as well. You blushed when you realized that you were too focused on him and shook your head to snap out of the spell that little guy has put into you.

“Ugh, the guy's serving again.” Saeko said as she looked at the big guy on the other side of the court.

“Monster.” you whispered silently, that dude is obviously a monster. His posture screams dominance, it was as if he's silently declaring that he owns the court, that he owns the game.

When Shoyo entered the court your eyes literally shone in glee. You clapped so hard and shouted in top of your lungs.

“Go, Shoyo!!”

Hinata was surprised to hear you shout but he waved anyways and winked, you smiled at him while waving and suddenly your gaze landed at their libero once more.

Nishinoya was frozen in his position when he saw you standing beside Yachi, he has no idea who you are but you're probably Hinata's friend. Noya's expertise is spotting real beauty in every place despite of the fact that he's crushing hard on their manager.

His admiration for Kiyoko has become a common joke among the team but he wouldn't deny the fact that he is indeed attracted to her but not to the point that he'll court her or other stuffs.

As he looked in your direction, his eyes met yours and the two of you are frozen. Your breathing hitched for an unknown reason, his eyes are intense, despite of being a small munchkin those eyes made your knees weak for an unknown reason.

You kept on telling yourself to look away and focus on your cousin but he's not looking away either and you can't let yourself be defeated.

More seconds has passed and no one's backing down not until you heard the crowd shouting, your eyes widened and you looked at Shoyo's direction just to see his spike get blocked by the red haired guy.

You worriedly looked at Shoyo and you bit your lower lip as you tightened your grip on your sling bag as you close your eyes for a silent prayer.

Nishinoya smirked as he witnessed that. It was amusing, really, because that nervous look on your face feels like you're the one playing in the court, damn, he loves how adorable it was.

He let out a deep breath and fixed his posture, now, he just feels himself become more determined to win, he doesn't know if it is because of you or it is because he wants to cheer up his team, either way, his desire to win is burning.

He's gotta prove himself now.

When Hinata was able to score you screamed just the same time that he did and you laughed. “Shoyo hasn't change much through these years. I'm glad.” you whispered.

You can still see that small child you used to take care of before, Hinata has always been a happy virus, he's good at influencing everyone's feelings and it is one of his remarkable traits that you've loved.

But when your gaze landed at Nishinoya, who jumped so high you couldn't help but chuckle at his similarity with your cousin, it may appear that they're twins.

“Number 5 has been playful in guessing where to block. Since most of his intuitions were right he'll end up being too confident, once that happens they should lead him as far as possible and then prepare to attack.”

“Oh YN, you're smart!” Saeko commented and you shook your head, damn you didn't notice that you talked out loud.

“Shoyo's stamina and his speed could be annoying sometimes especially if you're the one being fooled by him. That brat kept on running away from me when he was a kid every damn time it's time for him to sleep.”

You smiled upon seeing how he scored again and everyone around you also clapped. “You sounded like a Mother eh? You're so mature.” Saeko smiled and you smiled back.

•••

When Ushijima go for a spike, you saw three blockers from Karasuno jumped but you smirk upon knowing what they did. “They opened a path for their libero.” you looked at Nishinoya who was able to dug the ball and kept it on air, you saw him sat on the floor as he breathes heavily.

That spike was surely strong, it would probably kinda painful too, Nishinoya looked into your direction and your eyes widened, you immediately looked away and turned to their setter instead.

Nishinoya smirked, “Too late sugar plum, I've been watching you watch me since earlier.” he whispered.

“What are you saying Noya? By the way nice receive!” Daichi complimented and Noya just smiled.

“No, you guys are the reason why I got it.”

Saeko gasped and she looked at you, “So they didn't put three blockers to stop him?” you nodded and smiled as you glanced at Nishinoya, “They cornered him so he would be forced to go for that spike, a spike that landed to where their talented libero is placed. Directly blocking forceful spikes from that guy would be bothersome and dangerous for their fingers but if they can corner him to spike on the direction of their powerful libero the ball will be theirs.” Yachi nodded knowingly as she made a mental note to remember this tactic.

“Are you a volleyball player too YN-san?”

“I was. I hated sweating too much though so I stopped playing. I prefer using my brain than my body.”

•••

“Your brother is smart.” you told Tsukishima's brother, he smiled at you and rubbed his nape, “He may look spiritless most of the times but yeah, he is smart and the more he feels down the more he became strong.” you nod and looked back at the court.

“The pressure is on their setter, your brother is doing good in being able to touch those spikes, nothing hurts a setter's pride than those and the total blocks of course. The more the pressure, the more they'll change their pace. At that time they may lose their balance.”

You looked at how Hinata saved the ball and you got worried for him but he stood up like it was nothing and attacked. You sighed in relief as you touched your chest, “Shoyo will be the death of me.” you breathed out and Yachi giggled beside you, “It really is scary when they chase the ball with everything they got.” she told you and you totally agreed.

Another powerful spike was given by Ushijima and you gasped after seeing Nishinoya saved the ball, it was beyond amazing, you imagined yourself being the one in his place and you can already tell you might end up with tons of bruises because of that man's spikes.

But even if that spike must've been painful to receive you see nothing but determination in Nishinoya. He's a strong willed soldier, a man probably destined to be a libero.

Karasuno took that set but Shiratorizawa wasn't fazed at all. Another spike from Ushijima came, Nishinoya tried to save the ball but he fell on his back because of the impact.

You worriedly glanced at him, your hand flew to cover your mouth as you gasp, the long haired guy come to his side to check on him but Nishinoya stood up by himself with a dangerous look on his face.

“He has the advantage of being the biggest among us but that fact wouldn't affect me as a libero because in this court no one is equal to him but me.”

•••

It was the final set, a serve that you thought it wouldn't even make it in, has passed the net and Nishinoya immediately saved it with all his might.

Ushijima spiked it down but Nishinoya saved it for another time and later on they scores when Asahi hit it. Everyone went wild including you, you held Yachi's hands, “YES!!!!” you screamed loudly.

Nishinoya heard that unfamiliar voice scream so he took a glance on your direction just to see you cheering with Yachi, he smirked and looked at Daichi, “Thanks, Nishinoya!” Daichi told him and Nishinoya proudly looked at his captain.

“Karasuno can depend on me!”

You heard that shout and looked at Nishinoya's direction, when his eyes met yours he smiled at you, at first you didn't know what to do and you wanted to just look away but that would be impolite.

So you chose to give him a small smile as your cheeks reddened because of embarrassment.

Nishinoya gulped hard at the smile he had received from you and he looked behind him trying to see if that smile was for someone else but no one was in his back, meaning, that smile was meant for him.

Your heart was beating fast when you see Karasuno prepare for a synchronize attack, everything depends on every point and when you saw Hinata jumped your breathing hitched and it almost feel like your heart rate dropped after speeding up just seconds ago.

Hinata hit the ball but it was saved by Ushijima, it was spiked once more and Hinata was hit by the ball, you gasped and immediately called out his name. “Shoyo!!” you held your chest and tried calming yourself when you saw him got up as if it was nothing.

Ball was exchanged in a breathtaking manner and you almost had a heart attack they prepared for another synchronized attack this time, “First tempo...” you breathed out when you saw Hinata mixed in and as he jumped it seems like he was flying.

He hit the ball and as it flew towards the other side of the net receivers tried diving in to get the ball but it already dropped on the floor.

There was a stunned silence amongst the crowd and at that moment all you could hear was your heartbeat. You see Hinata landed on his feet while breathing heavily and at that moment the crowd has gone crazy to cheer the new champions.

Tears started forming at the corner of your eyes as you see the whole team hugged each other, it was a heartwarming moment, and the way each player held into each other made you tear up.

Your eyes landed on Hinata and you smiled even if he's not looking at you, you were there when he came home when he lost the match when he was in Junior high school. You were also there when he begged you to let him practice with your teammates so he could be good in volleyball.

Before you see Hinata's smile right now, you've heard his cries first, you witnessed him cry out of frustration before seeing him like this.

And you must say his hard works are all worth it.

•••

After the awarding ceremony you prepared to leave just like the others but before you could even leave, Shoyo already shouted your name as he held his medal.

“YN-SAN! WE WON! WE WON!”

He was hopping playfully as he charged himself towards you to hug you. You laughed and hugged him back, you're basically lifting him so you tapped his arm, “Shoyo, you're not a kid anymore, I can't carry you around like I used to.” you joked but he just giggled as he took his medal off his neck.

He jumped to wore it on you and you looked at him cluelessly, “Y/N L/N the best big sister ever!” you blinked and suddenly you felt tears streaming down your cheeks.

“I'm proud of you Shoyo. I'm so damn proud of you.” you took off your neck and give it back to him with a smile, you pat his head as he giggle and your eyes landed at his teammates, they were smiling at the two of you so you smiled back.

“Congratulations.” you bow your head down for a bit and they did the same.

Nishinoya's eyes are sparkling as he look at you but you didn't notice that. He wanted to introduce himself but he doesn't want to ruin your beautiful moment with Shoyo.

“I have to go now, Shoyo.”

“But we just met! We're gonna celebrate, come with us! Come with us!”

“Shoyo, Kuro and I will—”

Hinata glared at you as he pointed his team, “You came to watch us but you'll see Nekoma?!” you laughed and shook your head, it is true that you're friends with the players from Nekoma but the reason why you have to call Kuro is because you asked a favor from him.

“Aren't they your friends too?”

“But I'm your cousin!”

Childish. That's the word you'll use to describe him but you can't resist that cute pout on his cute face.

•••

“Shoyo, wake up idiot.” you shook Hinata but he's still sleeping, Nishinoya on the other hand was sitting in front of you and he's half-asleep.

“You look horrified YN-san. Don't worry, they're just tired. Nishinoya and Tanaka sometimes fall asleep with their eyes half open too so don't be scared.” Sugawara smiled at you as he handed you a juice, you gladly accepted it and drink some before sighing as you look at your cousin once more.

“Ahm guys, thank you for taking care of my cousin. I know that Shoyo is sometimes too hyper. Sir and Coach thank you for guiding him.” you bowed to all of them but everyone shook their heads, “No, no, you don't have to thank us. Hinata is a good player.” Daichi smiled.

Nishinoya woke up and his eyes immediately met yours, you let out a sound of surprise when he suddenly sat up but you ended up smiling as you see how he looked. Noya smiled back and wiped his mouth, you silently chuckled because of his gesture and seconds later you heard your phone beeped.

“Uh-Oh, Shoyo your Mom is texting me. We have to go." You shook him but he's still unresponsive, you felt bad to wake him up but you just have to go home, “Ugh, I think I should leave him here. Ahm wake him up once you guys are gonna go. My house is a bit far so I really have to go.” you looked at your cousin and pat his head, “Sleep well you little monster. Please take care of Hinata for me, sorry for the trouble.” you bowed to his teammates and they stood up to bow down too.

“Thank you for cheering for us.”

“Oh, that's nothing. It's nice to meet you all, see you soon.”

“Take care YN-San.”

•••

You were walking as you put your earphones to listen to some music but you suddenly heard someone shouting behind you.

“Oh...Nishinoya, why?”

“I asked Shoyo where—” he paused, catching his breath as he look at you, “I asked him where you live and my house is a little near yours. Would you mind if I go with you?” you suddenly felt your cheeks heating up, you had to look away from Nishinoya and mutter a response to his question.

Noya smiled at how you reacted, “So, you're Shoyo's cousin. You're tall.” you looked at him and chuckled as you shrugged your shoulders, “I stopped growing years ago. You'll probably be taller than me in no time.” you replied, still avoiding his gaze.

“Is that an attempt to cheer me up? I don't really mind my height.”

“I'm glad that you don't you look...” you paused for a moment to think of the proper choice of words but your mind just went blank when Noya suddenly walked in front of you with a smirk.

This is why you wanted to go home early, there's something in Nishinoya's presence that makes you weak and even if you're a little taller than him, he can affect you more than you can affect him.

“I look what?”

“Fine. You're also a great libero, the double save was amazing, not to mention your sets.”

“You're beautiful.”

He said it like it was nothing and you wondered if he's joking or not but you've decided not to comment anything about it.

••••

“Y/N, can I get your SNS accounts and your number?”

You took his phone from his hands and typed your Social Media Accounts before giving it back to him. “Thanks for walking with me. I appreciate it.” you took the key of the gate of your house while Nishinoya watch you.

“Your parents are not yet home?”

“They only come home on Weekends. I live alone in Weekdays.”

“What? You should go inside then, don't come out of the house at night. If you need something always buy them at morning but if it's something that you really need you can call me and I'll bring it to you just don't come out alone. It's safer for you to stay inside.”

You laughed at his long speech and he narrowed his eyes at you unamused that you chose to laugh at his kindness. “Hey, I'm serious. It's dangerous for a young lady to stay outside at night. You should ask Shoyo to stay with you sometimes, even though it's not much it would be better if there's someone with you.” Noya has no idea why you're laughing at his sentences, he's genuinely worried for you, it's not really ideal for a young lady to be alone, he should tell Hinata to stay with you at some days of the week.

“Don't get too worried Nishinoya. My Dad taught me martial arts. Thanks for walking me home. Congratulations super libero.”

“Go inside first before I go home. Lock the gate, your door and windows.”

“Yes Dad!”

•••••

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#haikyuu nishinoya #nishinoya x you #nishinoya oneshot #haikyuu noya #haikyu x reader #haikyuu!! #noya x reader #noya x y/n #noya x you #nishinoya x y/n #nishinoya x reader