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kuramirocket · 3 years

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MEXICALI, Mexico — Lucía Laguna carries her fate tattooed on her face — from the corner of her mouth to her chin, black lines surf across her coppery skin — the tribal art honoring her people will also serve an important function later on.

“After my death, it will be guide me to my ancestors. With the tattoo, they will recognize me and can take me where they are," she said, as she talks on the banks of the Colorado River.

But under the merciless sun, Laguna, 51, worries about the fate of the river and its impact on the Cucapá, her Indigenous people. A searing drought is exacerbating the deadly heat in a region that long ago saw its river flow diminished, after almost a century of U.S. engineering projects.

"Cucapá means people from the river, that's why we are fighting for it," she said, pointing to a decrease in the river's flow she is seeing every year. “We cling to the river and fight because it gives us water so that the fish can arrive and we can earn our livelihood. But it is a fight that seems that we will never win," she said, disheartened.

Mexico is experiencing the worst drought in three decades. NASA images from the recently released Landsat 8 satellite showed the extremely low levels of the Villa Victoria dam, one of the capital's main water reservoirs.

According to meteorologists, three quarters of the country suffers from drought; in 16 of the 32 states, it affects their entire territory. Thus, 60 large reservoirs, especially in the north and the center, are below 25 percent of capacity.

"Over the past 70 years, the temperature in Mexico has a clear and conclusive increasing trend. In the last decade, it increased very rapidly and that rise is even higher than the average for the planet," Jorge Zavala Hidalgo, general coordinator of the National Meteorological Service, said.

Rainfall has always fluctuated, he explained, but now the rain is concentrated in fewer days. "And that is bad because we all want it to rain — but nobody wants it to flood, especially the farmers, because that destroys the crops. That is why we are studying everything that is happening."

The increase in temperature especially affects the forests, which go from being a paradise of greenery to time bombs for fire risks. As of May 5, 562 forest fires had been registered, 27 percent more than in 2020. And the burned area grew 69 percent, reaching almost 900,000 acres.

"There is more drought and therefore the vegetation is waiting for someone to arrive, light a leaf and from there, the fire begins," said César Robles, deputy manager of the Fire Management Center of Mexico's National Forestry Commission. "The area affected by fires is directly correlated with the increase in temperature and the decrease in rainfall."

An area resident, Imelda Guerra Hurtado, 43, pointed to the barren lands of El Zanjón, an arid, semi-desert enclave that reaches the banks of the Colorado River delta.

She remembers her grandparents taking her fishing — and points to areas that used to have water.

"Sometimes we feel that we are dying of thirst. Although many deny it, the climate has changed," she said. "We have always lived off the fish in the river, since I can remember. Now we can only fish once a year and it is our main livelihood."

U.S. engineering and their consequences

The Cucapá are one of the five native tribes of Baja California, and they descend from the Yuman people. According to official data, there are now only between 350 and 400 members of the Cucapá people but, in the 19th century, Western colonizers documented between 5,000 and 6,000 nomads who organized into clans.

"You have to understand that these Indigenous people see the entire region, both the part of Mexico and the United States, as their territory. In their traditions, it is remembered that they received a lot of water and, little by little, they were running out of that flow," said Osvel Hinojosa-Huerta, director of the Coastal Solutions Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

The history of the Colorado River, and the problems it suffers today, is an ode to progress and engineering that tried to tame nature. It is the most important water system in northwestern Mexico. It is essential for farming in a semi-desert region.

In the 19th century, the river reached Mexico with a wild power of about 42,000 cubic feet per second. At the beginning of the 20th century, however, the United States began struggling to convert the arid regions of the Southwest to arable land, thus undertaking engineering works to divert water to the Imperial Valley of California.

"From 1922, everything started badly," Hinojosa-Huerta said. The United States did a study to divide the water from the Colorado River and, coincidentally, it was the 10 wettest years in the basin." Thus, a distribution was made on paper that included more water (16 percent) than there actually is. And then the reservoirs began to be built.

Treaties, dams — and then climate change

In 1936, the Hoover Dam was inaugurated, between Nevada and Arizona, which lowered the flow to 164 cubic meters per second for Mexico. In 1944, a bilateral treaty was signed that guaranteed Mexico about 1.8 million cubic meters of water per year, but most of it goes to agriculture.

The agreement did not consider the rights of the Cucapá people and their ancestral relationship with the river. But it affected their traditional ceremonies, causing a shortage of fruits and grains, and the trees and shrubs used to make houses, boats and clothing. "Nobody asked us anything," Guerra said.

In 1966, the Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona was erected, and the river's flow decreased to 8 cubic meters per second. But what no one seemed to count on, between treaties and dams, was climate change.

"In Mexicali, it has never rained," Hinojosa-Huerta said, "the flow that reaches the region and that supports agriculture comes from snowfall 2,600 kilometers [1,600 miles] in the Rockies."

It all depends on precipitation in Wyoming and Colorado, but since 2002 snowfall has been below average, depleting the river and resulting in a "desolating panorama," he said.

Years of warmer temperatures, a failed rainy season last summer and low snow cover have combined to cause Mexico's Baja California rivers to decline.

Hell on Earth

But heat also kills. In 2019 there were at least eight deaths in Mexicali associated with high temperatures; in 2020, they were 83.

"People cannot live with those temperatures, that is, people die", Zavala said, "although they are used to the heat, even small increases break the threshold for the human body to survive."

On Aug. 14, 2020, Mexicali registered 122 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking the record of 121 that dated from August 1981.

Froilán Meza Rivera, a veteran journalist and writer from northern Mexico, consulted the archives of the Secretariat of Hydraulic Resources. It appears that in July 1966, in Riíto, a Mexicali community, a thermometer reached an unprecedented figure of 140 degrees Fahrenheit. And that was its limit: the mercury rose to the top and could not measure any more.

It would be the highest figure in the world: according to the World Meteorological Organization, the highest recorded temperature is 134 degrees Fahrenheit on July 10, 1913, in California's Death Valley.

The region is exposed to the worst possible scenarios in terms of a climate emergency, according to Roberto Sánchez Rodríguez, an academic from the Colegio de la Frontera Norte. "Governments have mismanaged resources, and that is why there is less water available," he said.

Fishing

Since 1993, the fishing territory of the Cucapá has been included in the Upper Gulf of California and the Colorado River Delta Biosphere Reserve, which has a surface area of 2.3 million acres. This protected area was created to preserve the flora and fauna, such as the vaquita porpoises and the totoaba, which are at the brink of extinction.

"We abide by the rules, we know that species have to be protected because we are an Indigenous people, we use the nets and equipment that the government asks of us and we do not go out when it's not our turn," said Rubén Flores, captain of a panga, a boat used for traditional fishing.

An earthquake in 2010 also affected fishing. "It left us huge cracks that got bigger, and that doesn't allow us to fish like before," said Hilda Hurtado Valenzuela, 68, president of the Sociedad Cooperativa Pueblo Indígena Cucapá, one of the associations that groups together the people who are still fishing.

Sitting on a plastic chair near the patio of her home in El Indiviso, a semi-desert piece of land, she said she likes to get away from the sun. For a long time, she has not seen the sun as a source of life but as a tough enemy who takes out her tribe, destroys the river and forces them to forces them to do their chores and work at night during the harshest moments of summer.

"Unbearable"

"The heat here is unbearable, we have never experienced this. There are even people living on the streets who die because they cannot stand the temperatures," Valenzuela said. "And it also affects the animals because less water arrives from the river and the fish breed with the mixture of fresh water and salt, so there are fewer and fewer fish."

The townspeople insist that they do not fish the totoaba, whose swim bladder is considered a delicacy in the Asian market for its supposed medicinal and aphrodisiac properties (when it reaches China it costs $55,000 or $60,000).

But the intense demand leads to fishing with professional nets, thus also trapping the vaquitas and leaving them on the brink of extinction.

Various environmental and journalistic investigations have pointed to the Dragon Cartel, a criminal network with Mexican, American, Chinese and other intermediaries who conspire to exploit and fish the totoaba in that region.

Flores said that just by looking at the sky, he knows what the weather will be like. That's why he shakes his head disapprovingly every time he sees the relentless sun.

"Something strange is happening here. It is as if the sun lasts longer, so the fish do not like that heat. They are born less and weigh less." It used to take them two days to fish for curvina, now it takes them a whole week, he said, looking at the river.

The intense drought also has affected the fish's reproduction, so they must go further and further out, with poorly prepared boats, with small engines and without much fuel.

"We comply with everything, but the people of the surrounding towns also fish and don't (comply) —and many times we're punished for that, said Paco, a veteran fisherman with more than 25 years of experience.

"And we must also be careful because the narco is there, they follow our routes through the area and they fish in order to hide tons of drugs underneath. We tell the police, but nobody does anything," said Paco, whose last name is being withheld for fear of retaliation.

"I want the river to stay"

Lucia Laguna considers herself a guardian of the Cucapá, keeping alive their language, customs and traditional clothing to preserve them. Her memory is one of the most important reservoirs of the Cucapá past.

Kneeling on the banks of the Colorado River, she touches the dark water with special devotion while reciting an ancient song. Two little girls are with her.

"My tata [grandfather] fishes because without that we cannot eat. I too would like to be a fisherman, because I really like the river and being here," Marleny Sáenz, 10, said.

"I want the river to stay, to have our traditions," she said. "I like to sing because it is part of me, I feel very proud to be part of this town."

It is a ritual that they used to celebrate on the banks of the river. From time immemorial they burned the cachanilla, a wild plant with a fresh aroma, while chanting their songs so that the fishermen would be lucky in their long expeditions at sea.

"It is about opening paths, so that everything goes well," Laguna said.

"We are paying the consequences of the pollution of other people. The people of the cities have to understand that we are affected by what they do. They do not live alone in the world," she said sadly, touching the water and singing to the river.

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somethingusefulfromflorida · 3 years

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I saw a youtube video yesterday that got me thinking

The world record for the highest altitude free fall was set by Alan Eustace in 2014, just shy of 136,000 feet (nearly 26 miles), well into the stratosphere. These sorts of jumps are achieved with helium balloons; most use gondolas, capsules for the jumper to stay in for the ascent, but Eustace was unique in that he attached the balloon directly to his pressure suit, saving weight and allowing him to go higher than the previous record holder Felix Baumgartner's 128,000 feet.

There is a hard limit for balloon-based ascents around 170,000 feet because at that altitude the pressure becomes so low that all balloons would pop. The only way to get above this line would be to ascend in a rocket powered space plane; outer space begins at at the Karman Line, defined as 100 kilometers above the surface, some 330,000 feet. The highest altitude achieved by a crewed space plane was 367,500 feet by SpaceShipOne in 2004. The problem here is that any jumper at this altitude would be going far too fast to survive reentry with the atmosphere; they would burn up.

This could be avoided by having the plane ascend and crest in a parabolic arc, and jumping at the peak when lateral velocity is at it's minimum, so it's feasible however unlikely that someone may one day be able to fall from space. A jump from the International Space Station some 420 kilometers up (close to 1,400,000 feet) would require a jumper to enter a spacecraft and launch in the opposite direction of the station to slow down enough to avoid burning up. They would nee to slow down until they are no longer in orbit, at which point they would jump from the craft and fall straight towards the ground (careful to avoid the falling craft itself). The problem here is that slowing down relative to the spacecraft would necessarily mean that their altitude would decrease before the jump; the craft would begin falling towards the Earth before the jump, so to maintain the same altitude as the station it would actually need to angle itself upwards as well as away from the station. It would slow down relative to the surface, but wouldn't fall, effectively hovering in place as the forces canceled out. Of course, any jump from this altitude would still risk burning up as the jumper would continue to build up speed for hundreds of kilometers before hitting the atmosphere; to avoid this, they would need to be wearing a wing suit of some kind so they could glide and slow their descent. Parachutes would be used as they plunged deeper into the atmosphere, but too early and the chutes would be ripped from their cowling and possibly kill the jumper with the sudden jerk.

Perhaps it would be best if the jumper were inside a heat-shielded gondola for a portion of the descent, like an Apollo command module or a miniature space shuttle orbiter, and then jump from the craft closer to the ground. They would still be in free fall for the entire duration, just protected from the atmosphere at the start; if wearing a pressure suit is okay, there's no reason a shielded gondola shouldn't be. Hell, even if it doesn't count, they could still break the record by jumping out of it anywhere above the 136,000 mark. If being in the gondola disqualifies you from being technically in free fall, then they could ditch it after re-entering the atmosphere at the Karman Line and fall freely without it for the remaining 300,000 feet or so, absolutely DESTROYING the 136,000 record.

Nobody has ever survived a fall from the mesopshere before (it fluctuates with the seasons, defined by temperature and pressure; it's bottom can be as low as 164,000 or as high as 213,000). Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated about 230,000 feet above the surface in February 2003, killing all 7 astronauts onboard. Their heat shield was damaged when a piece of foam insulation broke off from the exterior tank on liftoff a week earlier, striking the orbiter as it ascended. When they re-entered the atmosphere at the end of the mission, the damaged section overheated causing the entire orbiter to break apart. Despite falling from 230,000 feet, recovery crews were able to find organic remains that hadn't burned up, so the fall could have been survivable had the orbiter remained intact (though the drogue chutes were designed to slow them down after they hit the runway, not to slow their descent while in free fall, so they still would have been going too fast upon impact).

#felix baumgartner #free fall #base jumping #halo jump #alan eustace #world record #free falling #space #falling from space #outer space #iss

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tsarisfanfiction · 4 years

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Melt IV

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Angst Characters: John Tracy, Scott Tracy, Virgil Tracy, Gordon Tracy, EOS

Part 4 of my entry for @gumnut-logic‘s SensorySunday: Smell. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

I’d say I’ve got this fic back on track - despite John going off on me at the start of this part - but that would be a lie.�� I know where I think it’s going to go from here, but we’ll see if it listens to me. I’m doubtful.

“Talk to me, Scott. What happened?”

Virgil wasn’t the only one worried. All John had had was heat readings way past Scott’s suit’s parameters to deal with to tell him what was happening to his older brother as the avalanche had borne down on him and Gordon – who, aside from an increased heartrate and rising temperature in his gloves, had no maladies reaching Thunderbird Five’s sensors. Scott would no doubt be devastated when he found out that John had sacrificed Thunderbird One to the avalanche to shield them; ideally he’d have opened the cargo bay doors and swallowed both brothers up, away from the snow, but there were limitations to remote controlling Thunderbirds from space. He’d done what he could, and no matter what Scott had to say about it later, John would never regret it.

Lives before machines. Relegated to listening and watching rescues and his brothers’ recklessness (all four of them, no matter what Virgil might claim about being the responsible one), John had learnt to prioritise. A Thunderbird could be repaired, or replaced. A brother could not.

He had no desire to ever be the eldest brother, and if he had to destroy his sole big brother’s Thunderbird to keep that title away from him, then he’d do it as many times as it took. Similarly, he had no desire to end up an only child, nor indeed to have anything less than one older brother and three younger. John had always had a gift for gaining unauthorised access, but it was with his own Thunderbird that he’d honed that to the art it was now. His siblings thought he did it to help them with their missions, to take part as best he could.

They weren’t wrong; John was a member of International Rescue just as much as the rest of them. It just wasn’t the entire reason – or even the main reason, if he was honest to himself. Gaining control of the most innocent of things – a plane door, a train signal – was always to keep his brothers as safe as they could possibly be in this dangerous job their father had left in their hands.

Sometimes, John resented their father for that, in his darkest moods, when there’d been yet another too close moment, when he’d been the sole witness to a brother’s breakdown because the pressure was just too much. He resented him for leaving them, even if there was really no other way Jeff Tracy could have left the world – with a bang, saving lives.

That end awaited them, one day. One day, all together or one by one, they wouldn’t come home from a rescue and the world would mourn a hero, forgetting that heroes had families, too. Up in space, in a constant state of danger as opposed to the ever-fluctuating levels his brothers threw themselves into, John didn’t know if he’d be the first or last to follow their parents. He suspected the latter, because that was all he could ever do, wasn’t it? Watch, and be useless when he most wanted to be able to do something.

He hadn’t been useless today. He’d had Thunderbird One at his disposal, and both his brothers were alive. It was just another day of too close, bringing back to the fore the ever-lurking fear that one day too close would become too late.

EOS was taking Thunderbird Two to the nearest hospital with a burn specialist unit. Not New Zealand – for all that was their usual hospital, the local one they liked to use whenever they had a choice, there were other, better hospitals closer, and John was worried.

“The HeliPod exploded,” Scott rasped at him. He looked awful, and John didn’t bother trying to convince himself that it was just the hologram’s blue tinge making him seem pale. Enough of his big brother was being projected into his Thunderbird that he could see where his mangled uniform had been cut off, stuck to burns that should never had happened. “Some of it landed on me. Gordon tried- Gordon! John, how is Gordon?”

Typical Scott.

“Gordon is fine.” He knew for a fact that Scott had already been told that. Several times.

“Has he woken up?”

“We’re talking about what happened,” John reminded him. Gordon had woken up. In fact, he’d been awake since Virgil had put him in the cargo pod, but all three brothers had unanimously decided that Scott was a higher priority. If Scott was thinking properly, he’d have known that Virgil would not leave an unconscious patient alone for that long (as much as John hated it, as long as he was only there via hologram he didn’t count), but he wasn’t and all three of them had unashamedly preyed on his concern about Gordon to get him to co-operate.

Cruel? Probably, but Scott had long since proven that the only way to get him to even vaguely co-operate with medical care was manipulation. They’d deal with Storm Scott later when he figured it out.

“Give me an update on Gordon, Thunderbird Five.”

Of course, the downside was that Scott had a single-track mind regarding their younger brother and getting him to focus on anything else would be an absolute nightmare. Right now, John was rather concerned about an ‘exploding’ HeliPod, considering nothing Brains ever built and approved for use would explode unintentionally, and would appreciate more details.

Besides, Scott had suffered through the first stage of treatment.

“He has a broken leg and a broken wrist, but both breaks are clean,” John assured him. “His suit protected him from the cold so there’s minimal concern regarding hypothermia. His fingers have some first degree burns, but nothing of concern. And yes, he has regained consciousness.” Scott visibly relaxed, and John kept a close eye on him for an escape attempt even as a hurriedly typed message to Virgil informed him of the update to Scott’s knowledge. A moment later a text reply arrived.

Almost done w G.

“Now, what was that about the HeliPod exploding?” he asked Scott. “That shouldn’t happen.”

“I don’t know,” his brother groaned. “Gordon took us around the peak, and then it fireballed.” No, John did not like the sound of that.

He immediately pulled up all the scans of the area, looking for anything that could have possibly caused a malfunction of that level. Nothing immediately showed itself, but John was nothing if not persistent.

Especially when his brothers were involved.

“Thunderbird Two will be arriving shortly,” EOS chipped in, just as Virgil left the pod and headed back to Scott’s side.

“Thank you, EOS,” his brother said. “Scott, this is your stop.”

“What?” Scott sounded horrified at the idea, and John watched Virgil jump forwards to lightly hold him down, securing the straps enough to stop any successful escape attempts from their injured brother. “What do you mean, my stop?”

“Exactly what I said,” Virgil said matter-of-factly. “You might be conscious, but you’re still seriously injured beyond anything we can handle at base.”

“This hospital has a specialist burn unit,” John interjected, before Scott could start arguing back. It didn’t pacify their older brother at all, but there was nothing he could do about it as Thunderbird Two landed and Scott found himself being pushed out to the waiting paramedics. Virgil ushered the climbers out as well, to thanks and more apologies.

“We’re not leaving Scott there alone, are we?” Gordon asked him and he turned to his younger brother’s hologram. Of all of them, Gordon knew best what it was like to be alone in a hospital, and always made a point of ensuring none of the rest of them were alone for long. The only thing stopping him this time was his own injuries, none of which were severe enough to justify taking up hospital space when they could treat them just fine at home.

“Kayo’s on her way with Grandma,” he informed him. Their sister was furious at what little information he’d already streamed her way, and it had taken some stern words from Grandma to get her to agree to go to the hospital instead of heading for the crash site to investigate. “Scott won’t be alone.” Gordon sighed but seemed pacified enough for the moment.

There was no cameras John could legally use in the hospital, but when it came to his brothers, John wasn’t overly concerned about legality. It took barely a minute to get into the security system, tracking Scott’s journey and watching as he was taken straight to the burn ward. There was no sound, but he could see Virgil debriefing one of the physicians before heading back to Thunderbird Two.

There was nothing more John could do for his brothers; EOS kept the feed from the hospital up in the corner, always showing whichever camera was currently focused on his brother, but John had better things to do than sit and watch helplessly as they began work on Scott’s injuries, although he couldn’t help glancing over periodically to see high-grade anaesthetic being administered before treatment began.

Thunderbird Shadow was quick to appear, landing next to Thunderbird Two. John watched as hugs were exchanged, Grandma briefly entering the module to hug Gordon, and then the two women were heading inside. He directed them to the relevant ward personally, rather than letting the well-meaning staff waylay them, then watched Thunderbird Two take off for home.

Satisfied for now that his brothers were in good hands, and allowing Gordon to patch himself through to a by now agitated Alan – who had been largely kept out of the loop and therefore getting more and more frustrated ever since Thunderbird Shadow had taken off – he turned his attention to the biggest concern of the day.

He needed to talk to Brains.

Part 5

#sensorysunday #sensorysunday2020 #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #tsari writes fanfiction #john tracy #scott tracy #virgil tracy #gordon tracy #alan tracy #eos #kayo kyrano #grandma tracy #melt

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spn-safeandsound · 4 years

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15. Meg Complicates Things

Safe and Sound

Dean Winchester x Original Character

Episode: 1x21; Salvation

Word Count: 7,605

Warning(s): Mature language, canon violence + gore, demons, John Winchester

Author’s Note: Hope you enjoy! Please reblog and like!

Masterlink in Pinned Post!

Julia,

When you were born, I remember taking one look at you and knowing that our family was complete. You weren't an expected child but you weren't an unwelcome one, either. Your mother and I knew that you would be a blessing, just like each of your siblings. And we were right. Our lives would not have been the same without you.

You're special, kiddo.

You were young when your mom got her diagnosis but you still knew that something was wrong. You were scared but you still put a smile on your face for Naomi whenever you saw her. You were strong for her. You've always been so strong and I always thought that you got that from me but I know it's not. You got that from Naomi. All of you kids got her strength. You and your siblings have been there for each other through thick and thin, even when I wasn't there. Never let that go, Julia. You will always need your family.

I'm sorry that I left but I have something important to do. John knows that and he's accepted that I have done all I can to help him with the demon. This important task is big—bigger than just me—so I don't know if I will see you again for a while. It could be months but it could also be years.

I just want you to know that I'm proud of you, Jujube. I always have been and I always will be. I know your mother would be very happy to see the woman you have become. I know I am.

I love you, kiddo.

Lucas Alexander

Julia wiped the tears from her eyes and set the letter down on her lap. Her dad was gone again and she didn't know whether to be sad or angry. The sad part of her was winning, though. Luke was saying goodbye in the letter and even though he had never been good with words, she felt the love he had for her and her family. Even with that love, though, she didn't want to say goodbye. She had just lost Levi, she didn't want to lose her dad, too.

When she had woken up that morning, John was the first person she saw. He had pulled her aside to break the news that Luke had left for an important hunt and apologized before giving her the letter Luke wrote for her. At first, she was in shock but now she was confused.

What could her dad possibly be doing? What was oh-so important task that needed to be done? Why would it take so long?

Julia didn't just feel sad for herself, either. At least she got to see him. Abby and Beth hadn't and that was going to destroy them. Abby was the closest to their father but Beth had always been a daddy's girl, too. Julia only hoped that Luke sent them letters or called them to tell them what was going on. Otherwise, the three of them were pretty much left in the dark.

Julia grabbed her phone from the nightstand and opened it, sending Beth a text message.

Jules: Did Dad send you a letter?

It didn't take long for her oldest sister to reply.

Beth: Yeah. He sent one to Abs, too. Call me when you have the time

Julia sent a confirmation back and sighed in relief, glad that Luke had made contact with her sisters, too.

"So, this is it," John told Sam and Dean as the two of them looked over the various research that he had gathered on the demon that killed Mary and Jess; Julia snapped her phone shut and slid off the bed she was sharing with Sam, heading over to the table where the Winchester boys were huddled. "This is everything I know. Look, our whole lives we've been searching for this demon, right? Not a trace, just nothing...Until about a year ago. For the first time, Luke picked up a trail and called me."

"And that's when you took off," Dean finished, crossing his arms over his chest.

John nodded. "Yeah, that's right," he confirmed. "The demon must have come out of hiding or hibernation."

"What's the trail?" Julia asked, her eyes shifting from the information on the wall to John.

"It starts in Arizona, then New Jersey, California," John explained. "Houses burned down to the ground. It's going after families, just like it went after us."

"Families with infants?" Sam wondered.

"Yeah," John nodded. "The night of the kid's six-month birthday."

Sam stiffened, looking at his father in shock. "I was six months old that night?"

"Exactly six months."

"So, basically, this demon is going after these kids for some reason. The same way it came for me?" when John avoided his eyes, Sam scoffed. "So, Mom's death...Jessica. It's all because of me?"

"We don't know that, Sam," Dean stated.

"Oh, really?" Sam huffed. "Because I'd say we're pretty damn sure."

Dean gave him a frustrated look. "For the last time, what happened to them was not your fault."

"Right," Sam raised his voice. "It's not my fault but it's my problem!"

"No, it's not your problem, it's our problem!"

Julia sighed and walked over so she stood between the brothers, gently grabbing their arms. "That's enough," she said calmly. "Come on, settle down."

And, like magic, Sam and Dean took deep breaths and calmed down. Julia looked at them in surprise as they turned to John to focus back on the demon. Either they weren't really upset or she had forcefully calmed them down and she had no idea how she did it.

"So, why is he doing it?" Sam asked John. "What does he want?"

John's curious gaze went from Julia to Sam. "Look, I wish I had more answers, I do. Luke and I were always one step behind it," he sighed sadly. "We never got there in time to save..."

Everyone shifted uncomfortably as he trailed off, knowing exactly what he wasn't saying.

"All right, so, how do we find it before it hits again?" Dean spoke up, looking to John for answers.

"There's signs," John told him. "It took us a while to see the pattern but it's there in the days before these fires. Signs crop up in the area; cattle deaths, temperature fluctuations, electrical storms..."

"Demonic omens," Julia muttered thoughtfully, wrinkling her nose.

John nodded at her. "And then I went back and checked and..."

"These things happened in Lawrence," Dean realized.

"A week before your mother died," John confirmed before looking at Sam sadly. "And in Palo Alto, before Jessica."

Julia pursed her lips together, her eyes stinging, and grabbed Sam's hand. She squeezed it tightly, knowing that if she was having trouble, he was two times worse. He bowed his head, holding onto her tightly and drawing comfort from her.

"And these signs, they're starting again."

Sam looked up. "Where?"

"Salvation, Iowa."

It was a ten-hour drive from Manning, Colorado to Salvation, a little town an hour outside of Des Moines, Iowa. Sam and Dean took turns driving through boring Nebraska, taking their time off to sleep, while Julia switched between taking naps, reading, or talking to whoever was driving so they wouldn't fall asleep.

She was able to talk to Beth and Abby, both of whom were equally upset about the letters that they received from Luke. Julia was even informed that Taylor, Lizzie, and Maggie got their own letters, which somehow made Luke leaving all the more official. Beth was really torn up about her letter and Julia could tell that Abby was, too, but she wasn't one to share her emotional distress. Abigail Petersen was the closest you could get to a female Dean; always staying strong for others in their time of need while hurting on the inside.

After a long drive, they had just entered Salvation's town limits when John pulled his truck over to the side of the road. Dean followed his lead and all three of them got out of the car to see what was going on.

"God damn it!" John angrily slammed his hand against the bed of his truck. "Son of a bitch!"

Dean gave his dad a concerned look. "What is it?"

"I just got a call from Caleb."

"Is he okay?"

"He's fine," John confirmed for Dean. "Jim Murphy's dead."

Julia exhaled sharply at the news. "Pastor Jim?" her voice wavered. "How?"

Pastor Jim had been an uncle-figure to her and her siblings just like John was. He was a faithful man like her family and had trained in the hunting life with her dad, though he was a couple years older. Before he retired and went to preaching full time, the Petersen family used to see him every year around summertime.

He was also important to the Winchesters for the same reason. Sam and Dean had spent more time combined with Pastor Jim and Bobby Singer than their dad growing up. Sam had always told her that he liked staying at Pastor Jim's house because he'd make good spaghetti.

"His throat was slashed. He bled out," John sighed. "Caleb said they found traces of sulfur at Jim's place."

"A demon," Sam stated flatly. "The demon?"

"I don't know," John shook his head. "Could be he just got careless and he slipped up. Maybe the demon knows we're getting close."

"What do you wanna do?"

"Now we act like every second counts," John declared. "There's two hospitals and a health center in this county. We split up and cover more ground. I want records. I want a list of every infant that's going to be six months old in the next week."

"Dad, that could be dozens of kids," Sam pointed out. "How do we know which one is the right one?"

"We check them all, that's how," John said sternly. "You got any better ideas?"

Sam quickly shook his head. "No, sir."

John nodded and silently dismissed them; Julia paused as she turned back to the Impala, sensing his energy. He was angry and upset, a little guilty. Even if the man acted like a cold drill sergeant most of the time, it didn't mean that he didn't have feelings like everyone else.

"Uncle John, are you okay?" she asked tentatively.

Dean and Sam looked back at Julia before their eyes slid over to their father as they waited for him to answer her.

"Yeah," John's tone was exhausted; it was clear that he just wanted this all to be over with. "It's Jim, you know? I can't..." he paused for a second, his determination strengthening. "This ends, now. I'm ending it. I don't care what it takes."

They split up just like John said they would. John went to the women and children's hospital while Dean went to Salvation Memorial, and Julia and Sam went to the medical center.

Julia and Sam acted as police officers, asking the receptionist on the pediatric floor for all the records of the babies that would have turned six months old that day. It took a while for them to gather all the information but, in the end, there were only ten records they had to jot down.

It was when they were leaving the medical center that they had trouble. Julia was in the middle of reciting some of the records for Sam when he stopped in his tracks. He winced painfully and held the bridge of his nose, like he usually did when he was having one of his visions.

"Sam, are you all right?" Julia anxiously asked him, stashing the notebook under her arm so she could steady him. "Sam?"

"Yeah...yeah, I'm just..." he paused, grunting as another wave hit him. His energy was twisting just like the last time he had a vision and it worried her. "I'm getting something..."

He winced, unable to speak again while the rest of his vision passed. Julia just made sure that she was staying calm and steadied him, making soothing noises as he continued to see whatever was coming to him.

"A train," he whispered once his vision was finished.

"A train?" Julia stood on her tiptoes to put the back of her hand against his forehead to check for a fever; he felt normal. "Tell me what you saw, S."

"I saw and woman and her baby," Sam breathed, pulling his backpack around his body so he could pull a map of Salvation out of one of the pockets. "I kept hearing a train and the—the demon was there."

"Okay," Julia nodded, pulling the notebook out from underneath her arm. "Give me a location of the train. Maybe something will match."

Sam nodded and pointed at the map, his finger trailing the marked train tracks. "All right, there's a Violet Avenue."

Julia went through the list of names they wrote down, wrinkling her nose in concentration. "There's one on here," she told him. "Rosie Holden, born to Monica and Charlie Holden."

"Let's go."

The Holden household was only two blocks from the medical center. They had to cross through a park that was strangely full of kids for a rainy day but the neighborhood the new parents lived in was nice. If this had been another life, Julia could see herself living on a street like this.

Luckily, just as they crossed onto Violet Avenue, Sam pointed out a woman only a few years older than them, pushing a baby stroller on the sidewalk and holding an umbrella over her head. He whispered to Julia that it was the woman he saw in his vision.

"Hi," Sam greeted the woman when they approached her just as she was attempting to close her umbrella and keep a hold of her baby's stroller. "Here, let me hold that for you. You look like you don't need that anymore."

"Oh," the woman smiled kindly as Sam made sure the stroller kept still. "Thanks."

Julia grinned and looked under the hood of the stroller, taking a peek at the baby. She was the cutest little girl—but most babies were cute, it was just science—with long eyelashes and big brown eyes. "Wow, she's beautiful," she complimented the woman. "Look at those eyelashes. Is she yours?"

"Yeah," the woman nodded proudly.

"Oh, wow, hi," Sam cooed to the baby. "Sorry, we're being rude. I'm Sam and this is Julia. We just moved in up the block."

"Oh, hey, I'm Monica," Monica perked up in realization and introduced herself before looking down at her baby. "This is Rosie."

"Rosie," Sam confirmed while Julia smiled, glad that they found the woman that Sam had a vision of. "Hi, Rosie."

The baby just stared at him, quietly picked at the blanket that covered her.

"So, welcome to the neighborhood."

"Thank you," Julia silently awed as Rosie blinked up at her and Sam. "She such a good baby."

"I know," Monica nodded. "I mean, she never cries. She just stares at everybody. Sometimes she looks at you and I swear, it's—it's like she's reading your mind."

That made Julia pause but her smile didn't falter. If the demon was coming for Rosie and Monica tonight, just like it did for Sam and Mary, did that mean Rosie was like Sam? Did she have mental abilities like him already? Or was that why the demon was coming in the first place?

"What about you, Monica?" Sam wondered politely. "Have you lived here long?"

"My husband and I, we bought our place just before Rosie was born," Monica informed them, pointing to the house they had all stopped in front of.

"And how old is Rosie?"

They already knew how old the baby was from her records but they needed to make sure that they were the family the demon was coming after.

"She's six months today," Monica looked down at the stroller fondly. "She's big, right? Growing like a weed."

"Yeah," Sam laughed sadly, looking down at Rosie; Julia grabbed his free hand, squeezing it tightly. "Monica..."

"Yeah?"

"Just, uh, just take care of yourself, okay?"

"Yeah, you too," Monica smiled gratefully. "We'll see you both around."

Julia nodded and waved as she started walking again, up her driveway where an SUV had just pulled in. A man Monica's age got out of the vehicle and greeted his girls with fond kisses that brought a sad smile to Julia's face. They had to make sure the demon didn't ruin this family. They just had to.

"A vision," John's voice was flat as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

After speaking with Monica, Rosie's mother, Julia called Dean while Sam freaked out. He and John were already done with their recon missions and had rented a motel room for their use. She had explained to the oldest Winchester brother what had happened to Sam. Sam had then pried the phone from her hand to tell Dean that they needed to tell John what exactly was going on.

Telling John about Sam's visions didn't exactly go well.

"Yes," Sam answered, pressing his fingers against his pounding head. "I saw the demon burning a woman on the ceiling."

"And you think this is going to happen to this woman you met because...?"

"Because these things happen exactly the way I see them."

"It started out as nightmares," Dean stepped in, moving from his spot on the bed next to John and making his way over to the table where Julia and Sam were seated. "Then it started happening while he was awake."

"Yeah," Sam breathed, agreeing with his brother. "It's like—I dunno—it's like the closer I get to anything to do with the demon, the stronger the visions get."

John bristled and set his annoyed gaze on his sons. "All right, when were you going to tell me about this?"

"We didn't know what it meant," Dean offered tensely.

"Something like this starts happening to your brother, you pick up the phone and you call me," John glared at him.

Julia shook her head in disapproval; there had been zero times that John had picked up the phone, despite each of them calling many, many times over the last nine months. He had practically abandoned his sons and now he was getting onto Dean for not getting a hold of him? It was his fault that Dean—or Sam, for that matter—didn't inform him about what was going on.

Dean scoffed. "Call you? Are you kidding me?" he asked in disbelief. "Dad, I called you from Lawrence, all right? I called you when Julia was dying. I mean, getting you on the phone? I got a better chance of winning the fucking lottery."

Julia was surprised by Dean's words but proud, nevertheless. Dean had always followed orders and never argued with his dad; he had always taken John's crap without protest. It was nice to see him breaking out of his daddy's-little-soldier persona and coming into his own person.

Not to mention that she had a thing for angry Dean. He was gorgeous, what could she say?

John was silent for a few seconds before he answered. "You're right," he admitted; Dean relaxed, having tensed when he realized what he had told his father. "Although I'm not too crazy about this new tone of yours—"

Of course, Julia mentally scoffed.

"—you're right. I'm sorry."

"Look guys, visions or no visions, the fact is that we know the demon is coming tonight," Sam spoke up. "And this family's gonna go through the same hell we went through."

"No, they're not," John declared firmly. "No one is, ever again."

Sam's phone rang at that moment; he flipped it open and looked at the caller ID—which declared it was an unknown number—and answered the call, putting it on speakerphone.

"Hello?"

"Sam?" a woman spoke.

"Who is this?"

"Think real hard, it will come to you."

Sam's face hardened. "Meg."

Julia stiffened at the mention of the woman who had killed her brother. She had heard from Dean that she fell out of the building when Sam trashed the altar she was using to control the Daeva. If she was still alive—because Julia doubted that she'd just survive a seven-story drop like that—it meant that Meg was probably possessing the poor girl's dead body.

Dean took the place behind Julia, putting his large hands on her shoulders comfortingly. Absentmindedly, forgetting that John nor Sam knew about them, she reached up and held the hand on her left shoulder.

"Last time I saw you, you fell out of a window," Sam said, his voice low and tense.

"Yeah, no thanks to you," Meg said sourly. "That really hurt my feelings, by the way."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "Just your feelings? That was a seven-story drop."

"Let me speak to your dad."

Sam nervously looked over at John, who was slowly making his way over to the table where the rest of them were gathered. "My dad?" he faked confusion. "I don't know where my dad is."

Meg clicked her tongue. "It's time for the grown-ups to talk, Sam. Let me speak to him now."

John held out his hand to Sam and the youngest Winchester reluctantly handed the phone over.

"This is John."

"Howdy, John," Meg chirped. "I'm Meg. I'm a friend of your boys. I'm also the one who watched Jim Murphy choke on his own blood."

Julia inhaled sharply, squeezing Dean's hand at the mention of Pastor Jim. Dean returned the gesture and rubbed her palm with his thumb.

"Still there, John-boy?"

"I'm here," John confirmed shakily.

"Well, that was yesterday," Meg boasted. "Today, I'm in Lincoln, Ohio, visiting another old friend of yours. He wants to say hi."

A man spoke now, his voice shaky and frantic. "John, whatever you do, don't give—"

Meg shushed him, cutting him off.

"Caleb?" John stiffened; Julia and Sam exchanged concerned looks while Dean tightened his grip on her. "You listen to me. He's got nothing to do with anything. You let him go."

"We know you have the Colt, John."

John paused for a second. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, okay," Meg scoffed. "Well, listen to this—"

They could all hear the quick slash of a knife and then there was choked gasping. They assumed the worst; Meg had just slashed Caleb's throat and there was nothing they could do to save him.

"Caleb?" John called, paling considerably, his eyes sparkling with tears.

"You hear that?" Meg taunted him. "That's the sound of your friend dying...Now, let's try this again. We know you have the gun, John. Word travels fast. So, as far as we're concerned, you just declared war—and this is what war looks like. It has causalities."

John angrily clenched his jaw. "I'm gonna kill you, you know that?"

"Oh, John, please. Mind your blood pressure," Meg scolded him mockingly. "So, this is the thing. We're going to keep doing what we're doing. And your friends, anyone who has ever helped you, gave you shelter, anyone you've ever loved? They'll all die unless you give us that gun. Next on the list is Luke Alexander, so I'd think hard."

Julia gasped softly at the mention of her father. She had no idea where he was and now demons were going to be on his ass unless John gave them the Colt. While Dean clenched her hand tightly, John gave her an assuring look. She relaxed as much as she could; John wouldn't let her dad get killed.

"I'm waiting, Johnny. You better answer before the buzzer."

"Okay," John agreed quietly.

"Sorry? I didn't quite get that."

"I said okay," his voice hardened, a murderous glint in his brown eyes. "I'll bring you the Colt."

"There's a warehouse in Lincoln on the corner of Wabash and Lake," Meg informed him. "You're gonna meet me there."

"It's gonna take me about a day's drive to get there."

"Meet me there at midnight tonight."

"That's impossible," John scoffed. "I can't get there in time and I can't just carry a gun on a plane."

"Oh," Meg clicked her tongue. "Well, I guess your friends die, don't they? If you do decide to make it, come alone."

She ended the call, then. John flipped the phone shut and tossed it back to Sam. Julia sighed and let of Dean's hand, though he still hovered behind her worriedly.

"I'm just gonna say it," she spoke up, her eyes nervously flickering over John. "I think Meg's a demon."

"Really?" Sam gave her a surprised look.

John agreed with her. "Either that or she's possessed by one—"

Julia mentally disagreed. Every demon had to possess a body. Otherwise they wouldn't be anything other than a cloud of black smoke. She certainly wasn't going to correct John, though; she was way smarter than that.

"—it doesn't really matter."

"So, what do we do?" Dean wondered.

A determined expression fell over John's face. "I'm going to Lincoln."

"What?" Sam, Dean, and Julia spoke in unison.

"It doesn't look like we have a choice," John stated firmly. "If I don't go, a lot of people die. Luke will die and so many of our other friends."

"Dad, the demon is coming tonight. For Monica and her family," Sam reminded him, a conflicted look on his face. "That gun is all we have. You can't just hand it over."

"Who said anything about handing it over?" Dean, Julia, and Sam gave John confused looks. "Look, besides us, Luke, and a couple of vampires, no one's really seen the gun. No one knows what it looks like."

"So what, you're just going to pick up a ringer at a pawn shop?" Dean raised his eyebrows.

"An antique store," John corrected him.

"You're going to hand Meg a fake gun and hope she doesn't notice?"

"Look," John sighed. "as long as it's close, she shouldn't be able to tell the difference."

"But for how long?" Julia spoke up. "What happens when she does figure it out?"

"I just—" John paused before continuing. "I just need to buy a few hours, that's all."

Sam gave him a knowing look. "You mean for us," he stated. "You want us to stay here and kill this demon by ourselves?"

"No, Sam, I want to stop losing the people we love," John declared. "I want you to go to school. I want Dean to have a home. I want...I want Mary alive. It's just—I just want this to be over."

Julia tightened her grip on her rosary, blessing the jug of water for John. He had confessed that Luke was usually the one that made holy water, so she had volunteered to bless the water for his trip to Lincoln. She had also written the blessing down for him, so he could make more for himself if he needed it.

Sam and John stood in front of the mechanical weapon stash, making sure everything was prepped and waiting to go. They were talking about something but it was too quiet and she was too concentrated to eavesdrop on their conversation. The three of them were waiting for Dean to come back from an antique store from the next town over with a gun that resembled the Colt.

She finished blessing the water, finishing her prayer, and brought the jug back over to John. He gave her a thankful smile and wordlessly put it in the stash after filling up his flask.

"Sam, do you mind if I speak to Julia alone?"

Shit, Julia panicked to herself, did I do something wrong?

Sam simply nodded; John led Julia around a hundred feet away from his youngest son so he couldn't overhear what they were going to talk about.

"Did I do something wrong?" she blurted out nervously.

John had always made her nervous. She didn't know why, though; he had never been rude to her or did anything to hurt her. In fact, he was nicer to her than he was his sons, but she chalked that up to the fact that she wasn't a Winchester and he didn't have to father her like he did Sam and Dean.

"No, of course not," John shook his head. "I just wanted to tell you that you can back out of this, if you want to. This isn't your fight."

Julia's mind raced. She wasn't going to walk away from Sam and Dean; they were her best friend and lover, respectively, and she loved them to death. They had been part of her family since before she was even born. You can't walk away from family and she wanted to help the Winchester finish what that demon started twenty-two years before when it killed Mary.

And, this was a little selfish, but she wanted Meg to die, too. She could hardly stomach the fact that Meg was still around but Levi wasn't. Abby and Beth weren't there so they couldn't do anything about it, but Julia was. She owed it to herself, her family, and—most importantly—Levi to make sure that Meg was sent straight back to Hell.

"I'm not walking away," she told John firmly. "You guys are my family, too, and Meg killed my brother. This isn't something that I can just ignore while leaving you guys in danger. If I can help, then I will. I'm not leaving."

John sighed and clapped a hand on her shoulder. "You're a good person, Julia," he smiled softly; Julia turned away, embarrassed. "And you're good for my boys. Especially Dean..."

Julia quickly looked back at him, shocked. "How do you—how do you...?"

"How do I know that you and Dean are together?" John supplied when she trailed off. "It's hard to miss it. You two are like magnets or something. Either way, it's good. You guys have always been close. Do you love him?"

"I don't—I don't know," Julia stammered, flushing. "I'm certainly heading that way, though."

"Be patient with him," he advised.

"I will," she promised him and then joked, "This is one of the things I can be patient about."

John shook his head with a small grin. "Just make sure to look after my boys, all right?"

"Of course."

"Let's get back over to Sam. I'm sure Dean will be back any minute now."

John was right; only a minute after they rejoined Sam, Dean showed up. He parked the Impala only a few feet away from the truck and got out, carrying a wrinkled paper bag that was conformed into an outline of a gun.

"Did you get it?" John asked him.

Dean gave him the bag without a word; John pulled the gun out. It was nearly identical to the Colt but it was easy to tell the difference since they knew what the actual Colt looked like.

"You know this is a trap, don't you?" Dean told him. "That's why Meg wants you to come alone."

"I can handle her," John assured him. "I got a whole arsenal loaded; holy water, Mandaic, amulets—"

"Dad."

"What?"

"Promise me something."

"What's that?" John blinked at him.

"If this thing goes South, just...get the hell out," Dean shoved his hands into his jacket, voice shaking slightly. "Don't get yourself killed, all right? You're no good to us dead."

Julia grabbed Sam's hand and they both squeezed each other tightly. If things went wrong, and Meg found out that the gun wasn't the Colt, this might be the last time they see John. It was nerve-wracking and John wasn't even her dad; she couldn't imagine how Sam and Dean felt.

"Same goes for you," John turned so he could see Sam, Dean, and Julia all at once and pulled the Colt from his jacket. "All right, listen to me. They made the bullets special for this Colt. There's only four of them left. Without them, this gun is useless. You make every shot count."

"Yes, sir," Julia and Sam spoke in unison while Dean nodded.

"I've been waiting a long time for this fight," John sighed. "Now it's here and I'm not gonna be in it. It's up to you three now. It's your fight, you finish this. You finish what I started. Understand?"

Sam, Dean, and Julia all nodded at once; John handed the Colt over to Dean, who took it without a word.

"We'll see you soon, Dad," Sam promised his father, trying to stay optimistic.

"Be careful," Julia added, glancing at Dean worriedly. He hadn't spoken much since he got back and she could tell that he was having a hard time with what was going on. He had already lost his mother to this demon and now he may lose his father, too.

John nodded at them. "I'll see you later."

He clapped Sam on the shoulder and gave Dean a serious but fond look before closing the back of his truck and getting in. The truck rumbled as he drove away, mud squelching each time the tires rotated.

Julia sighed sadly and reaching over with her free hand, taking Dean's. She held onto her boys as the truck disappeared down the road, leaving them to finish the fight by themselves.

It was past nine o'clock and they were still watching Monica Holden's house, waiting for the demon to show up. Throughout the three hours they had been parked on the other side of the street, they tossed around ideas that could work in getting the young family out of their house. So far, they had come up with nothing.

Halfway through their stakeout, Julia was antsy and—admittedly—a little bored. Ignoring Dean's protests, she had climbed into the front seat and settled herself in the middle of Sam and Dean. It wasn't anymore exciting in the front but this way, she was able to carry on conversation better than when she had to lean forward to get a hint of what the brothers spoke about.

"Maybe we could tell them that there's a gas leak," Sam suggested after a silent five minutes. "It might get them out of the house for a few hours."

Dean scoffed and looked over Julia's head at him. "Yeah and how many times has that actually worked for us?"

"And we already spoke to Monica outside of her house," Julia added. "It'll be suspicious if we randomly show up at night to tell her to get out of her house."

"Yeah, you're right," he gave in and paused for a few seconds. "We could always tell them the truth."

Julia turned to Sam this time, an eyebrow raised; it amused Sam to see Dean pulling the same face at him.

"Nah," the three of them chorused.

"I know, I know," Sam sighed. "I just—with what's coming for these folks..."

"Sam, we only got one move and you know it, all right?" Dean stated. "We gotta wait for that demon to show itself and then we get to it before it gets them."

Sam nodded in agreement and looked back at the Holden's house.

"I wonder how Dad's doing."

"I'd feel a lot better if we were there backing him up," Dean muttered.

"I'd feel a lot better if he was here, backing us up."

The three of them continued watching the house for another half-hour when Sam spoke up again. "This is weird."

Julia gave him a curious look. "What?"

"After all these years, we're finally here," Sam told her and Dean. "It doesn't seem real."

"We just gotta keep our heads and do our job like always," Dean advised his little brother.

"Yeah, but this isn't like always."

Dean cocked his head and agreed. "True."

"...Dean, Julia," Sam said hesitantly. "Uh, I just wanna thank you guys."

Julia's eyes darted back to her best friend. "For what?"

"For everything. You've always had my back, you know? Even when I couldn't count on anyone, I could always count on you guys. And, uh, I don't know...I just wanted to let you know. Just in case."

Julia's eyes stung and she bowed her head. She was grateful for what Sam said but they weren't needed. She didn't love Sam because it felt like she owed him or that she had to be by his side all these years. She loved Sam because he was her brother and best friend rolled into one. She looked after him for the same reason as Dean—even though she was two-and-a-half years younger than him.

And she didn't like the way he was talking. It was like he didn't expect to make it out of the fight and was already saying his goodbyes.

"Woah, woah, woah," Dean objected, looking at his brother in disbelief. "Are you kidding me?"

"What?"

"Don't say just in case something happens to you," Dean shook his head firmly, irritated. "I don't wanna hear that fucking speech, man. Nobody's dying tonight. Not us, not that family, nobody. Except that demon—that evil son of a bitch ain't getting any older than tonight, you understand me?"

Sam reluctantly nodded; satisfied, Dean turned to Julia.

"Julia?"

"I know, Dean," she whispered, wiping her wet eyes.

An hour later, Dean started calling John. He called three times, each time getting John's voicemail.

Frustrated, Dean harshly closed his phone. "Dad's not answering."

"Meg might be late," Julia offered, trying to stay positive. "Maybe he doesn't have cell reception."

"Yeah, well—"

Out of nowhere, cutting Dean off, the radio started making noise. It was staticky, like they weren't tuned into the nearest radio tower. Julia reached in front of her, turning the knob so the volume was higher.

Around them, the wind started blowing harder, jostling some of the thinner trees. The lights in the Holden's house flickered on and off. The staticky radio, the wind, the flickering lights...they were all omens.

"It's coming," Sam breathed in realization.

The scrambled out of the Impala at once, drawing their guns—and in Sam's case, the Colt—and entering the house after Julia picked the lock. It was quiet on the first level but suddenly, there was chaos.

A man—Julia assumed it was Charlie Holden—popped up out of nowhere and swung a bat at Dean. Dean quickly ducked, missing the blow, but a lamp was trashed in the process.

"Get out of my house!" Charlie roared at them; Dean quickly grabbed the man and pressed him against the wall, hardly effected by his struggles.

"Please, Mr. Holden, please," Julia pleaded. "Please be quiet."

Charlie continued to struggle but Dean locked him up. "Be quiet and listen to me. Be quiet and listen," Dean said sharply. "We're trying to help you."

"Charlie, is everything okay down there?" they heard Monica call from upstairs.

"Monica, get the baby!".

"No, don't go into the nursery!" Sam shouted at the same time as Charlie called, "You stay away from her!"

He was struggling against Dean's grip again but the oldest Winchester had no more patience. He backhanded Charlie so hard that he fell unconscious, slumping to the ground. Dean quickly picked him up, heaving him over his shoulder.

"You guys go," he told Julia and Sam. "Get Monica and Rosie."

Julia and Sam took off, up the stairs. It was easy to find Rosie's nursery, considering that Monica was crying and screaming desperately for help. When they entered the room, she was pinned against the top half of the wall by the door and there was a dark figure with yellow eyes standing next to Rosie's crib.

"ROSIE!"

Sam quickly held up the Colt and aimed it at the demon. He pulled the trigger but it disappeared in a cloud of black smoke. Monica fell to the floor now that the demon was gone.

"Where the hell did it go?" Sam asked frantically.

Monica didn't care; all she could focus on was Rosie.

"My baby!" she exclaimed, lunging forward; Sam quickly caught her, helping her stand up. "My baby!"

"Get her out of here," Julia told Sam, hurrying over to Rosie's crib. "I got her."

"Rosie!"

Sam tried to pull Monica out of the room but she was fighting him. "My baby!"

"Julia's got her."

Julia quickly picked up Rosie, including her warm blanket, and flinched away as the crib shot up in flames. Making sure that she held Rosie properly, she raced out of the nursery and down the stairs, following Sam and Monica out of the house.

"You get away from my family!" Charlie shouted at Julia and Sam as he was held back by Dean.

"No, Charlie, don't. They saved us," Monica cried, turning to take Rosie out of Julia's arms; she wordlessly passed the baby, giving Monica a sad smile. "They saved us."

Dean let go of Charlie and he immediately went to Monica and Rosie, wrapping his arms around them.

"Thank you," Monica looked at Julia, Sam, and Dean gratefully.

Julia nodded and smiled softly. She was so glad that the Holdens were safe from whatever the demon had wanted to do to them. It was nice to see the love that the three of them shared. She envied that.

"It's still in there!" Sam shouted, his gaze locked on the nursery window where the same figure they had seen earlier was standing.

Dean immediately grabbed Sam before he could run back into the house; Julia joined him in holding the youngest Winchester, who was fighting hysterically.

"Sam, Sam, no," Dean grunted.

"Let me go! It's still in there!"

"No!" Dean raised his voice. "It's burning to the ground. It's suicide."

"I don't care!"

"Well, we do," Julia helped Dean continue to pull Sam away from the house.

The three of them looked back at the nursery window; the demon was gone.

Dean paced back and forth in their motel room, his phone up to his ear as he tried calling John again. He had already tried four times and his dad had yet to answer. "Come on, Dad. Answer your phone, dammit," there was still no answer; Dean shut his phone and tossed it on his bed before turning to Sam and Julia, who were sitting side-by-side. "Something's wrong."

Julia nodded in agreement while Sam stared blankly at the wall behind the television.

"You hear me?" Dean asked his brother, frustrated. "Something's happened."

Sam didn't react the way that Dean wanted him to. "If you guys had just let me go in there, I could have ended all of this."

Julia sighed in frustration, tired of his pity party. She and Dean saved his life; he was willing to kill himself because of his rage but he didn't even care. "Sam, you would have died," she said firmly. "All you would have ended was your life."

"You don't know that," Sam protested feebly.

Dean walked over to their bed, standing in front of Sam with his arms crossed over his chest. "So, what, you're just willing to sacrifice yourself, is that it?"

Sam abruptly stood up, towering over Dean. Julie got to her feet, too, ready to intervene if things got more heated between the bothers.

"Yeah, you're damn right I am."

"Well, that's not going to happen," Dean raised his voice. "Not as long as me and Julia are around."

"What the fuck are you talking about, Dean?" Sam matched his volume. "We've been searching for this demon our whole lives. It's the only thing we've ever cared about."

"Sam, I wanna waste it. I do, okay?" Dean tried to placate him. "But it's not worth dying over."

Sam reared back like he had been struck. "What?"

"I mean it," Dean insisted while Julia nervously shifted from foot to foot. "If hunting this demon means getting yourself killed then I hope we never find the damn thing."

"That thing killed Jess," Sam reminded him lowly. "That thing killed Mom."

"You said it yourself once," Dean stated. "That no matter what we do, they're gone and they're never coming back."

Sam clenched his jaw and grabbed Dean's shoulders, roughly pushing him against the wall. "Don't you say that, not you!" his eyes glistened with tears. "Not after all this. Don't you say that."

"Sam!" Julia rushed toward the brothers, tightly grabbing Sam's arm to pull him away from Dean. "Get off of him!"

Surprisingly—because Sam was much stronger than her—she managed to pull Sam away from Dean. It must have been because he was more sad than angry and he truly didn't want to hurt his brother.

Once Sam released him, Dean said softly, "Sam, look," he gave Sam a pleading look. "The four of us, that's all we have. It's all I have. Sometimes I feel like I'm barely holding it together, man. Without you and Jules or Dad..."

He trailed off, not wanting to finish his sentence. Sam exhaled shakily and walked back to the bed he shared with Julia while Julia gave Dean a small smile and reached for his hand.

"Dad," Sam said quietly, tears still in his eyes. "He should have called by now."

"You should try him again," Julia suggested.

Dean nodded and grabbed his cellphone, calling his dad once again. Dean looked surprised when John took his call, but it wasn't the eldest Winchester who was answering.

"You three really screwed up this time," Julia, Sam, and Dean heard Meg's angry voice.

While Julia and Sam stiffened, Dean angrily clenched his jaw. "Where is he?"

When Meg spoke again, they could practically hear her devious smirk. "You're never going to see your father again."

(Gif is not mine)

#supernatural rewrite #dean winchester x oc #dean winchester x reader #supernatural #dean winchester #Sam Winchester #supernatural fanfiction #dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester x original character

13 notes · View notes

chibistarlyte · 4 years

Text

some days

Most days, Shouto is fine.

But some days...

Some days, Shouto falls apart.

my eternal thanks and gratitude for kat @sunshineijirou for betaing this for me. <3

tw: suicidal thoughts/ideation, depression, dissociation, references to ptsd, unintentional self-harm

(also available here on ao3)

Most days, Shouto is fine.

He goes about his daily routines, attends school, pays attention in class, executes practical exercises with focus and expertise, hangs out and studies with his friends in the evenings, maintains a decent sleep schedule, visits his mother on Sundays.

He texts and video chats more with Fuyumi and Natsuo, trying to repair the threads between them that had been destroyed as soon as his Quirk manifested. They both love and support him in their own ways, and he's grateful to have his siblings back in his life.

His Quirk training is going well, for the most part. Shouto works on his endurance during their individualized lessons and steadily builds up his tolerance to extreme and fluctuating temperatures so that he may use both halves of his Quirk at once. He hones his skills with precision attacks, betters his close-quarters combat techniques, and receives great marks for his efforts.

He makes a point to spend time with his friends. Even when he's feeling less than social, he still curls up in the corner of a couch in the common room and allows himself to bask in the comforting sound of conversation around him. He asks Midoriya to help him practice his English by posting on popular pro hero forums and makes sure he doesn't forget to lend Sero the next volume of their favorite manga. Sometimes he goes on runs with Iida in the morning, or spars with Kirishima when they both have the free time. Shouto enjoys Yaoyorozu's company while they drink tea and chat about their days, and even finds peace sitting quietly at a table while Bakugou flits around the kitchen making various meals and largely ignoring Shouto's presence.

All in all, Shouto is fine. A well-adjusted, studious, friendly, if not reserved, kid who has a good head on his shoulders and a bright future ahead of him.

But, some days…

Some days, Shouto falls apart.

Shouto wakes to the smell of burnt sheets and wet cotton.

His chest rises and falls at much too quick a pace, his heart pounding a staccato rhythm against his ribcage almost hard enough to bruise. His left arm is littered with small-degree burns that have already begun to scab. Crystals of ice cling to snow-white eyelashes and trail down his cheek, some of them already having melted away and dripped down to soak through his pillow and his sleep shirt. The taste of ash clings to his tongue, his throat dry and scratchy when he tries to swallow it down.

Another nightmare, Shouto realizes as he flops back down on the futon with a tired sigh that runs deep into his bones.

He hates nights like these. He can never quite get back to sleep after jolting awake in terror, often spending the rest of the night watching shadows dance across his ceiling until the bleak dawn seeps through his curtains and coats the darkness in the cold light of day.

Shouto hears things in the silence of his dorm room, hears his father's booming voice in the darkened corners, and hears his mother's cries in the still night air. He hears Fuyumi's muttered reassurances on the other side of the walls where he knows his classmates are sleeping. He hears the deafening whistle of a boiling kettle as if he's lying right next to the stove. He hears the cracking of his own bones as he drops to the floor after a beating, hears his own retches in his ears as he vomits on the tatami floor of the training room.

Before he can talk himself out of it, Shouto throws the covers off and stumbles to a stand. He drags his feet to the sliding doors leading to his balcony, roughly tossing the curtains open and sliding the door with just as much careless force. The cool, late autumn breeze greets him immediately, bringing him back to himself for only a few moments. He steps outside, and the shock of cold concrete soles of his bare feet grounds him in a way nothing else ever could.

Shouto steps forward to the railing, crossing his arms and propping his chin on them and watching the city lights shine and twinkle down the hill. A gust of wind kicks up and blows his hair back from his face, stinging his skin, and for a moment, Shouto closes his eyes and imagines he's falling. Flying.

When he opens his eyes again, his head is angled downwards and his sight is trained on the ground five stories below.

Shouto wonders, not for the first time, what it would feel like to jump.

A sigh blows past his lips, the warm puff of air lost to the chilly wind that caresses him fondly, making him shiver.

A sound from below pulls Shouto back to earth—the sound of a door sliding open then closed once again. Following that is the sound of footsteps, just a few scrapes of shoes against concrete until the noise stops again. The wind dies down just enough for Shouto to hear the static sound of music coming through a pair of headphones, though he's too far away to determine any specific tune.

His heterochromatic gaze shifts just a bit lower until the balcony below his own comes into his sight, and he sees the ash blond poof of hair that could only belong to one person.

Oh, right. Bakugou's room is just below his.

Shouto watches Bakugou from above, watches as his classmate goes through what seems to be a familiar routine of stretches—he pulls his arms across his chest one at a time, rolling his shoulders as he switches to the other arm. He then kicks his feet up behind him, one at a time, holding them close to stretch out his leg muscles. He does some lunges, some wrist stretches, some neck exercises, and it's all very normal and mundane, but Shouto can't stop watching. Bakugou looks good in his hoodie and joggers, and it suddenly hits Shouto that he's still in pajama pants and short sleeves despite the frigid temperature.

Yet...he can't feel a thing. Which is fine by him. Sometimes Shouto would rather be numb than deal with the sensations of living. It's how he survived for so long, after all.

He blows out another sigh and lets the wind carry it far away.

It's when Bakugou stretches his arms straight up and tilts his head to the sky that the blond freezes, his ruby eyes catching Shouto's own mismatched stare. Cold seeps through his veins, and Shouto can feel the icy hand of dread reach into his chest and start frosting over his skin.

A scowl immediately darkens Bakugou's handsome face and he yanks one of his earbuds out with more force than necessary. "Oi, the fuck you starin' at me for, half-n-half?" Bakugou demands in his usual grumpy tone, his eyebrows creased in irritation. "Stop being a fucking creep, jesus."

"S-sorry," Shouto stammers, though he stays completely still, like prey caught in the eyes of a predator. Bakugou just scoffs and resumes his stretches, though he leaves his earbud out for some reason. The action—or non-action, he supposes—perplexes Shouto.

He doesn't know what possesses him to start talking, but before Shouto can stop himself, the words come tumbling out. "What are you doing?"

Bakugou pauses his shoulder rotations and shoots a glare up at Shouto. "The fuck does it look like I'm doing?"

"Uh…" Shouto says eloquently, swallowing around the sudden lump in his throat. "I mean...that's not…"

"Spit it out, I don't have all goddamn day," Bakugou says as he lowers himself to the concrete for some pushups.

Shouto rolls the words around on his tongue before simply saying, "You're up early." It's then that Shouto realizes that he actually has no idea what time it is. He has no clue whatsoever how long he's been awake, how long he's been standing out here in the cold. He hasn't even thought about the inevitable and unstoppable passage of time until this very moment when it becomes startlingly clear that he's lost a good chunk of it to his mind being far away from his body.

Bakugou grunts out as he lowers himself as far as his muscles will allow before pushing himself back up. "I'm up this early every morning, dipshit." He does a couple more pushups before continuing, "You, however, usually aren't."

The observation catches Shouto by surprise, enough that his eyes widen, and his heart stutters in his chest. He's usually flat-out ignored by Bakugou when the other teen isn't screaming in his face about rival-this and rematch-that. So the fact that Bakugou has at least paid attention to Shouto's sleeping habits has him feeling some kind of way.

Shouto should brush it off, should keep to himself, and let Bakugou think whatever he wants. But perhaps it's the unrealness, the liminal space in which early mornings exist, that prompts Shouto to confide in Bakugou. Just this once.

"Mhm," Shouto hums in agreement, and the small noise is almost lost to the wind. "I...couldn't sleep. Nightmares."

Bakugou makes some sort of noise in acknowledgement but says nothing else.

Shouto's chest still feels heavy, and his muscles ache, though, from the cold or staying in the same position for so long, he isn't sure. He pulls himself fully upright, gripping the railing tight with his numbed hands. Sucking in a deep breath that freezes his lungs, he hoists himself up onto the railing and maneuvers to sit. His legs dangle on the outer side of the railing and looking at the ground from this high up, Shouto almost feels weightless. As if he really would fly if he just let go.

Still, he holds onto the railing as the cold metal bites into his palms.

"The fuck are you doing?" Bakugou asks, and when Shouto looks down, his eyes meet red. His classmate is standing with his arms crossed, glaring daggers up at Shouto. "You're gonna fall if you're not careful, and don't expect me to catch your sorry ass."

Shouto lets out a breath of a chuckle despite himself, noting how much the exhalation makes his body shake. "Would it be such a bad thing? If I fell," he says easily, tipping his head up to look at the sky. The city lights are too bright to see the stars, but it must be nearing dawn because he can see tiny wisps of blue spread like smoke into the inky black of the night sky.

"Of course it would be a bad thing. I can't kick your ass if you're not here," Bakugou says with a growl, and Shouto would find it heartwarming if hearing such a thing from Bakugou didn't shock him enough for his grip to falter.

"Bakugou?" he asks, wanting confirmation that what he'd just heard isn't a trick of his addled mind.

"Shut the hell up and get down from there." Bakugou's glare softens, and though a frown is still pulling at his mouth, he almost looks...concerned.

Huh. Maybe Shouto really is still dreaming.

He doesn't move, and Bakugou growls again from the floor below.

"Seriously, half-n-half, get down. No way you can hold yourself up on those shaky ass twig arms of yours."

Shouto then looks down at his arms, which are, in fact, trembling. The notion strikes him as odd because he would have been able to feel the contraction of his muscles, right? But his arms have gone numb so long ago that Shouto finds it remarkable he still has limbs left.

The logical part of his brain tells him to use his left side, to warm himself up before he freezes to death.

But the other half of his brain asks him if such an end would be so terrible.

Shouto sighs again and his breath turns to frost in the air.

"I'm gonna fuckin’ come up there and get you myself if you don't get down," Bakugou threatens, his glare renewed, his tone brooking no argument.

The urge to be defiant rises up in Shouto, the same kind of defiance he shows his father. But he reels himself back before anything comes of it. Bakugou is not his father. Bakugou is not asking anything unreasonable of him. Bakugou is not trying to hurt him. If anything, Bakugou is trying to help him...in his own Bakugou way.

But...Shouto doesn’t really feel like he deserves to be helped.

In any case, he doesn’t have the energy to start a fight this early in the morning—even though he still doesn’t know what time it is—and does what Bakugou says. He curls his legs up to his chest and slowly, shakily, turns until he’s facing his balcony door. He gingerly extends his legs down, and his feet find purchase on the concrete again. Shouto almost feels disappointed.

He peers over the railing, leaning forward enough to make eye contact with Bakugou. “Happy?” he asks in a voice that sounds more petulant than he intends.

Bakugou just rolls his eyes and waves Shouto off. “Better not catch you sleeping in class, you stubborn bastard,” he says before putting his earbud in again. Shouto watches Bakugou head for his own door, and once the blond disappears, Shouto allows himself back into his room.

He lies down on the futon, watching the sun chase away the shadows on his ceiling until his alarm goes off.

It’s hard to focus in class.

The blank notebook page stares up at him almost mockingly, teasing him about the notes that should be there. Shouto chews on the inside of his lip and taps the tip of his pencil against the paper, not actually writing anything. He couldn’t write anything if he tried, anyway—he hasn’t heard a word of what Cementoss has said this entire class period. His gaze keeps tearing away to the window, where the dull grey clouds have blown in to cover the sun that had only shown its face for a short time that morning. He hopes for snow, but it’s not quite late enough in the season for that yet. If he’s lucky, though, maybe it’ll rain.

The lunch bell rings, and Shouto very nearly jumps in his seat, his attention snapping back to the present fast enough to give him whiplash. He looks up to see Midoriya, Iida, and Uraraka standing in a half-circle around his desk. Midoriya is the first one to speak.

"Are you okay, Todoroki-kun?" the broccoli boy asks, and Todoroki looks blearily up at his friend. He blinks his eyes a few times to get Midoriya to come into focus.

"You don't look so good," Uraraka points out, reaching her hand out to touch Shouto's forehead. Against his will, Shouto flinches away and immediately feels guilty at the hurt in Uraraka's soft brown eyes.

"I'm fine," he lies, then backpedals, because he feels awful lying to his friends, and adds, "Just...not feeling well, I suppose…"

"I can escort you to Recovery Girl if you are feeling unwell," Iida offers in that earnest way of his, and it hurts Shouto to hear his friends being so concerned for him when he really, really doesn't feel like he deserves it.

"Thank you, but I'll be okay," Shouto says and forces a smile that he knows looks fake as hell and that his friends, especially Midoriya, can see right through his ruse. "I think I might nap a little during lunch."

Midoriya looks like he's about to argue, but the boy bites his tongue and nods. "If you're sure...but, please, let us know if you need anything, okay, Todoroki-kun? We're here for you."

Normally, this would be the time when the group closes around Shouto for a hug, but the three of them hesitate to touch him. Shouto's thankful they hold back, because he's afraid he might break if they actually hug him.

"Thank you," he says again, packing up his things as he watches his friends leave the classroom. They all shoot him small smiles and waves as they depart, and Shouto manages a half-wave in return. He slides his notebooks in between the textbooks and other supplies in his bag, narrowly missing bending the cover of Sero’s manga he still has to return.

His vision swims as he stands, then zooms in and out as if he's looking at the world through a fisheye lens. He wrenches his eyes shut and takes a deep breath to steady himself before shouldering his bag.

He hears the scraping of chair legs on linoleum as he makes to leave the classroom, and against his better judgment, Shouto turns around toward the source of the noise.

Bakugou levels him with a glare, still sitting at his desk with his chair reclined back on its two hind legs. Silence stretches between them, heated and tense, until Shouto turns the cold shoulder on Bakugou and exits the classroom.

He finds himself up on the roof of the school, a seating area that is often used during the summer but now sits vacated as late autumn prepares to give way to winter. Shouto is grateful that he's alone, grateful he doesn't have to put up a facade and pretend he's okay today when he's really anything but.

He allows his bag to fall off his shoulders and drop to the concrete, but the weight on his shoulders doesn't ease. He lets his feet guide him to the edge of the roof, where he sits on the stone parapet and dangles his legs over the outer side, just like he did on the railing this morning.

The wind isn't as harsh as it was in the early hours of dawn, but it still brings a comforting and familiar chill as it blows right through him. Shouto feels empty, as if he could be carried off by too strong of a gust. He feels a few stray raindrops on his face as he tilts it toward the sky, eyes as stormy and grey as the clouds above him watching as they churn and swirl with the promise of a downpour. Shouto hopes for one—anything to help cleanse this apathy out of his system.

He spends his entire lunch hour up on the roof and returns to class soaked to the bone and shivering.

Shouto is well aware of the looks he's getting from his classmates as he peels his drenched uniform off his frigid skin to change into his winter hero costume. He's aware of the hushed whispers traded back and forth behind his back, and though he can't quite make out what's being said, he knows they're talking about him. Shouto chooses to ignore it, chooses to pretend not to notice the concerned looks Midoriya and Iida throw his way, acts like he doesn't see the way Bakugou won't stop glaring at him the same way he was when Shouto left class earlier.

He shrugs his shoulders into his thermal harness, clicks the temperature regulator at his collar, pulls his sleeves down to hide the burns on his arm, and puts his wristbands on and tightens them almost enough to cut off his circulation. He slides his feet into his boots, tucking the fabric of his jumpsuit pants into the top until it’s mostly seamless. He adjusts his belt, hooking the notches into the holes and attaching his emergency canisters. Everything is done methodically, and Shouto focuses on these small, mundane actions to keep his thoughts from spiraling into much darker territory.

When Aizawa tells them the exercise for the day is going to be civilian rescue, and that Shouto is going to be one of the students acting as a victim, Shouto wants to sink into the ground right then and there. He had been hoping to be able to blow off some steam, whether it be sparring or Quirk training or something else besides this, but his teacher’s word is final and Shouto does as he’s told.

The class makes their way to Ground Beta and splits off into their separate roles. Aizawa ushers those on the hero team away so that those on the victim team can find places to hide themselves and await rescue. It’s still raining and cold, which Aizawa says will help them build up some endurance to the elements.

Shouto makes himself at home in a partially collapsed building, hiding amongst the rubble and structural damage. He lies flat on his back, feels the sharp edges of broken concrete digging into his lower back, his legs, his arms, and the discomfort grounds him. It keeps him from drifting too far off the face of the earth, keeps him from separating too far from himself. The icy raindrops falling through the gaps where the ceiling has caved in feel almost comforting as they pelt against his face.

He feels cold, but the regulator on his back prevents his body temperature from dropping too much. He feels the heat seeping through his jumpsuit as the device activates, keeping him warm. For some reason, the heat puts him on edge.

Time suspends itself in a cloud around him. Shouto has no idea how long he stays there, letting the rain soak through his previously dampened hair when he hears the distant sounds of his classmates communicating with one another. He can make out neither individual voices nor what’s being said, but he hopes they take a while to find him. He hopes he can fade away unnoticed if only to get away from all of these ugly thoughts and feelings plaguing him today.

Shouto just wants it all to stop.

The rescue team finds him eventually, totally soaked through and shivering. He blows out a shaky sigh, his breath condensing into a white cloud as it escapes his tightening lungs. Yaoyorozu leans down next to him, placing her fingertips delicately on his forehead.

“Can you move?” she asks, as they were trained to do upon finding a civilian who needs help.

“Don’t think so,” Shouto answers, his voice raspy from cold and disuse. “Hypothermia, maybe.” He may seem like he’s playing his part well, but he really can’t feel his limbs very much. He can’t remember how long ago they started to go numb. He tries to move his fingers, but they’re almost frozen in place. They ache.

Yaoyorozu nods and lowers her head in concentration for a moment, pulling a thermal blanket out of her arm. “Why didn’t you use your Quirk?” she whispers to him as she tucks the blanket around him, concern knitting her dark brows together. “Your lips are practically blue.”

“Didn’t think of it,” Shouto answers weakly.

Yaoyorozu sighs and looks behind her to their other classmates in the rescue group. “Kirishima-san, can you carry Todoroki-san?” she asks the strong redhead. “He’s immobilized.”

“Sure thing!” Kirishima agrees readily, coming over to Shouto and Yaoyorozu. He pauses, his mouth tilting into a frown. “Uh...Todoroki?”

Shouto sighs. “I’m fine, Kirishima, just get on with the exercise,” he says a bit impatiently, wanting this whole thing to be over so he can just have five goddamn seconds to himself.

The guilt starts seeping in the second he’s propped against Kirishima’s back, as he lays his head against the rubber shoulder pauldron. Shouto’s such a piece of shit that he can’t even treat his friends right. Kirishima doesn’t deserve to be snapped at like that. Yaoyorozu doesn’t deserve to be brushed off. Midoriya, Uraraka, and Iida don’t deserve to be lied to the way Shouto did earlier.

Shouto doesn’t deserve such wonderful friends.

At the end of class, he’s the first one to leave. He says a word to no one and convinces himself the red eyes following him out the door are just an illusion.

“Oi! Asshole!”

Shouto looks down from where he’s sitting on the railing of his balcony, legs hanging over the outer side once again, and sees Bakugou seething at him from the balcony below. He shrugs, looking back up to the grey evening skies still spitting out sprinkles of rain.

“Don’t fucking ignore me!” Bakugou yells, pointing an angry finger up at Shouto. The blond’s hands begin sparking in his ire. “Wanna tell me what the fuck is up with you today?”

Shouto shrugs again, still not looking at Bakugou. The magic of the morning has well worn off by this point, and he no longer feels like spilling his troubles to his classmate. What’s the point? It’s not like Bakugou can help him. It’s not like Bakugou even wants to help him.

It’s not like Shouto deserves help, anyway.

“It’s nothing,” he says simply.

“Bullshit,” Bakugou fires back immediately. “You’ve been acting like a goddamn zombie all day, and your fucking friends are worried sick about you, you fucking dickhead!”

“Why do you care?” Shouto spits, sending a heated glare down at Bakugou. The heat surging in his veins chases away the cold in his bones way too quickly, causes his grip on the railing to falter from the shock of the change in temperature.

“...I don’t,” Bakugou says after way too long of a pause, crossing his arms in a defensive stance. “It’s just fucking annoying watching everyone mope over your moping ass!”

Shouto rolls his eyes so hard, he’s certain they’ll get stuck in the back of his head. “You wouldn’t understand,” he says dismissively, averting his gaze from Bakugou again but this time keeping the ground in his sight.

The wet concrete looks a little too enticing at the moment.

“Fucking try me,” Bakugou says, his voice dangerously low. “You think you’re the only one that struggles with shit? That carries a bunch of fucking baggage that’s a bitch to unpack?”

“Why don’t you try and unpack your own before rifling through mine?” Shouto says, and immediately regrets it when he sees the shadows descend over Bakugou’s face.

“The fuck did you just say? You wanna go, half-n-half?”

Shouto just shakes his head. “It’s not worth it…” he says. “I’m not worth it.”

“Fucking—cut that shit out! You’re pissing me off,” Bakugou snaps, then lets out a mix between a growl and a sigh. “Just...get down from there. Stop being an idiot.”

“Stop acting like you care when you don’t,” Shouto says without thinking, though he considers Bakugou’s words. Considers not throwing himself off the balcony, considers barfing up everything he’s been keeping bottled inside since the sound of his mother’s screams woke him up in the middle of the night, considers daring to think that maybe, maybe, he isn’t so worthless after all.

He and Bakugou hold a staring contest for what feels like forever and Shouto finally gives in with a sigh.

“Fine,” he says with resignation, shifting on shaking arms to turn himself around to face the sliding door back into his room. Shouto pauses for a moment, gripping tight enough on the railing that the metal indents his skin. He slowly slides his legs down, his bare toes touching the bottom rung of the railing.

“Oi...what the fuck are you—”

Shouto releases a breath at the same time he releases his hands.

For a few blissful seconds, Shouto floats down towards the earth below them. But instead of allowing himself to plummet down into oblivion, he reaches his hands out and grips the rail of the balcony below his own. The metal sings as his numbed skin slaps down on its slippery surface, and he curls his fingers around the top to tighten his grip.

Suddenly, sweaty hands are gripping his arms and pulling him up.

“Jesus fucking Christ, what in the goddamn fucking hell was that?!” Bakugou yells at him as he drags Shouto over the railing none-too-gently, stumbling backward himself until he lands right on his ass with a listless Shouto in his arms.

“You told me to get down,” Shouto says, curling against Bakugou’s chest. He tucks his head in the crook of Bakugou’s neck, noting the way the other boy stiffens at the contact but can’t bring himself to do anything about it. “So I got down.”

Bakugou huffs and, surprisingly, wraps his strong arms around Shouto. It’s then that Shouto realizes just how cold he is, how cold he’s been all damn day, and how warm Bakugou is.

He realizes that warmth could be comforting, too.

“That’s not what I fucking meant and you know it,” Bakugou says, and there’s a strange softness to his usually gruff voice that Shouto can’t place.

They sit in silence for a little while, the rain coming down steadily around them. The sound of the raindrops is almost enough to lull Shouto into the sleep he’s been chasing since before dawn. Bakugou’s hand somehow ends up at the back of Shouto’s head, his rough and calloused fingers combing through Shouto’s wet, matted hair.

“You are worth it, half-n-half,” Bakugou finally says, so quietly that Shouto can’t be sure if the other boy actually said anything. He squeezes Shouto tighter, enveloping the taller boy with his natural warmth that’s usually hidden behind a cold, barbed wire fence. “Don’t fucking let anyone tell you otherwise. Not even yourself.”

Shouto blinks his eyes open half-mast, letting Bakugou’s words sink in, past the freezing rain that has soaked into his skin, allowing the reassurance to melt the ice in his veins and bring warmth back to his blood. His tingling fingers curl into the soft fabric of Bakugou’s hoodie, and he buries his nose against Bakugou’s neck until he can feel the other boy’s pulse fluttering against the tip.

“You’re worth it, too, Bakugou,” he says on a contented sigh.

Bakugou’s chest rumbles with a deep chuckle that barely makes it to his vocal cords. “Shut the fuck up, you idiot.” Nevertheless, his grip on Shouto tightens just the same. “Now will you let me take you inside so you don’t fucking freeze to death?”

Shouto contemplates the offer for a moment, has half a mind to decline, but. Well. He’d still have to go inside to get back to his own room, since he foolishly and impulsively jumped down to Bakugou’s balcony.

“Okay,” he agrees tiredly.

“Can you stand?” Bakugou asks, the softness of his voice still sounding out of place to Shouto’s ears.

Instead of replying verbally, Shouto reluctantly pulls himself away from Bakugou’s warmth and immediately starts shivering. He tries to force his muscles to cooperate, but the moment he attempts to stand, his legs buckle beneath him.

Luckily, Bakugou has quick reflexes and catches Shouto before he can fall.

Shouto allows Bakugou to lead him into his dorm room and doesn’t fight when the other boy forces him to sit on his bed. Mismatched eyes clouded with exhaustion watch as Bakugou digs through one of the drawers of his wardrobe. The blond lets out a little noise of success and steps over to the bed, holding out a bundle of fabric to Shouto.

“You need to get out of those wet clothes,” Bakugou says, not meeting Shouto’s gaze. Shouto can swear he sees pink tinting Bakugou’s cheeks.

Gingerly, Shouto reaches out for the clothes—an oversized t-shirt with a skull on it and a pair of sweatpants—and just sits there, holding them in his lap. This all feels so...unreal to him. Maybe he really did jump off his balcony and now he’s stuck in some weird, coma-induced dream where Bakugou’s being...nice to him.

The thought also strikes him that his own room is just a floor up, and he could easily go upstairs and change into clothes of his own. But the idea of even standing up, let alone going all the way up to his room, feels like some insurmountable task and right now all Shouto wants to do is sleep.

“Well, don’t just sit there like a moron, fucking change,” Bakugou says impatiently, shoving Shouto’s foot none-too-gently with his own.

The action jolts Shouto out of his reverie and he gives Bakugou a disengaged nod. Seemingly satisfied with Shouto’s wordless answer, Bakugou busies himself with searching for something else as Shouto removes his soaked shirt. He tosses the heavy article onto the floor with little care and slips into Bakugou’s t-shirt. It hangs off his narrower shoulders but it’s warm and Shouto almost hunches down into it to chase the comfort it brings him.

Shouto’s only a few centimeters taller than Bakugou, but it’s enough of a difference that the other’s sweatpants sit high on Shouto’s ankles when he puts them on. Shouto stares blankly down at his own legs before a tiny, almost nonexistent smile makes itself known and he lets out a breath of a laugh.

“Something funny?” Bakugou asks from the other side of the room, head tilted and one eyebrow raised as red eyes bore into him. The usual cutting edge to his voice isn’t there and Shouto blinks dumbly at him for a few moments before shaking his head.

“It’s just...your sweatpants are too short on me.”

“Well, no shit, you’re taller than me,” Bakugou says as he steps over to the bed once more, this time holding a towel. He unceremoniously drops it atop Shouto’s head. “Dry your hair,” he commands before disappearing into his bathroom, presumably to change his own clothes.

Shouto reaches up hesitantly, rubbing the towel over his drenched locks and trying to coax the moisture out. His movements feel slow, delayed, like he’s crawling through molasses and burdened down with weights attached to his limbs. He lets out a heavy sigh. He’s so tired.

Suddenly there are hands batting his own away, and Bakugou furiously scrubs at Shouto’s scalp with the towel. “Fuck’s sake, icyhot, stop dripping water all over my goddamn bed,” he chides, though once again, any kind of sharpness is absent from his tone.

With another sigh, Shouto leans toward Bakugou and finds some strange sort of comfort in his hair being pulled and twisted and roughed up.

By the time Bakugou pulls the towel away and drops it to the floor with Shouto’s discarded clothes, Shouto’s hair is a right mess. The naturally split colors of his hair blend together in a tangled amalgamation of crimson and white, almost looking pink where the strands are mixed, and Bakugou puffs out his cheeks to try and hold in a laugh.

“You look fucking ridiculous,” the blond chortles.

Despite himself, Shouto smiles a bit. “Your fault,” he accuses without any real heat, flopping down on the bed and exhaling every bit of oxygen from his body. He sinks into the comforter and whereas all day Shouto’s felt flimsier and emptier than a plastic bag, now he feels heavier than the barbells Kirishima and Midoriya deadlift during their workouts. If he’s not careful, he’ll fall asleep right here and now and he really doesn’t want to burden Bakugou any more than he already has.

The thought causes his lips to pull into a frown, guilt already creeping into his chest.

“Oi, whatever your stupid brain is thinking, stop it right the fuck now,” Bakugou says, nudging Shouto over to make room for himself on the bed. Shouto complies, rolling over onto his side and curling into himself just a bit. He has a hard time keeping his eyes open.

“How about you get under the covers instead of stupidly lying on top of them?” Bakugou asks, already pulling his comforter out from under Shouto’s deadweight and throwing it over the shivering boy.

Oh. Shouto hadn’t noticed he was shivering again. He wills his Quirk to activate, to up his body temperature and allow the warmth of his fire side to bring him back to the world of the living.

Bakugou sidles up behind Shouto and Shouto stiffens, his muscles taut and aching.

“Why are you doing this?” Shouto asks, his tongue thick in his mouth. He’s surprised he sounds anything remotely close to coherent. The care and consideration Bakugou is showing him is almost too much for Shouto to handle. Sure, Shouto thinks of them as friends, has thought of them as friends for a while, but Bakugou always makes it astoundingly clear that he sees Shouto as a rival and nothing else. The fact that Bakugou is going to all this trouble for him is...strange. Humbling. Leaving him completely floundering.

Bakugou sighs, and Shouto’s surprised to feel the puff of warm air against the back of his neck. “Do I need a reason to?” he deflects, settling his arms around Shouto and pulling the taller boy close. Shockingly, Shouto doesn’t flinch away from the touch. Rather he welcomes it, sinks into it, loses himself in it the way he’s been losing himself to his darkened thoughts all day.

“I guess not,” Shouto sighs, too tired to press the issue for now. He’ll bug Bakugou about it some other time. But for now, all Shouto can do is close his eyes and allow the comfort of the boy behind him, holding him close, to lull him into a thankfully dreamless sleep.

Shouto hides his smile and allows himself these few precious, unexpected moments of peace in Bakugou’s arms.

#todobaku #bakutodo #todobaku fic #bakutodo fic #bnha #boku no hero academia #my writing

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emeraldwaves · 4 years

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Title: What We Lack Part 22 Pairing: Kacchako, Deku/Melissa, Todomomo Rating: T Word Count: 4,463 Read on Ao3 Summary:

Quirkless.

They’re the last people anyone expects to have a child without a quirk.

Neither of them can fully wrap their heads around it, but Ochako knows Katsuki is struggling far more than her.

Thank you to Kelly and Adri for reading this over <3

The ground felt cold against Arata's knees. His body shivered, his temperature dangerously low. He had to warm himself up after the fight with Shouhei but he couldn't bring himself to move. Around him he could hear the murmuring of the massive stadium, though it was muffled, drowned out by the sound of his heart throbbing in his ears. Each beat was painful; a reminder that he once again, was a loser.

Meanwhile, Shouhei left the field victorious.

Shouhei, Shouhei, Shouhei. It was always Shouhei. Even when they were kids, he always had to be the best. Arata supposed it was part of his 'Bakugou' nature. But even now, Yuuta only cared about Shouhei. Part of the reason he wanted to come to the school in the first place was to follow the idiot.

Arata couldn't stand it. Even after all his training, all the grief and drama he'd caused with his parents, he hadn't been good enough. Endeavor would be ashamed, probably wouldn't let him back in the house.

His hands curled into fists, trembling against the ground. This wasn't how this was supposed to go at all. He had to get up, but his legs didn't want to move, his body shivering.

Soon, Shouhei would stand on the podium in first place and Arata would be stuck as second place. He should've been the one to stand there, make his parents proud, make his grandfather proud. He wanted to prove that a Todoroki deserved to hold that spot. Would his legacy be staying at number two?

He didn't even want to go to the ceremony. But he couldn't look like a sore loser either, part of these matches were used to garner attention for internships and eventual work studies.

"Arata-kun," Mina's voice cut through his thoughts and her hand gently touched his shoulder. "You need to get off the field."

He clenched his fists hard, pressing his teeth in his lips. He didn't want to get off the field, he wanted to redo the whole goddamn match.

"Arata-"

"No!" he snapped, his body lurching forward.

"Come on," Mina said softly. "We have to take you to the infirmary before the award ceremony. You're freezing, you need to be warmed up."

His body shook, even under her touch. He knew he had to get up. He had to prove the match hadn't hurt him that much.

"Let's get you ready, okay?" she said softly.

Arata growled, rolling his eyes as her hand gripped his arm, lifting him up. "Come on. The longer you stay on the field the more you're going to worry your mother," she giggled.

"I'm fine," he snapped, yanking his arm away from her as he stumbled down the steps. He clutched the jacket Shouhei had given him. He should've tossed it to the side, but he clung to it, his body still shivering.

Mina sighed. "Arata-kun, I know it's hard to lose, but you did incredibly well! You're going to get plenty of offers-"

He grunted, drowning Mina out as she tried to reassure him, but he didn't need it. He wanted to start training again. Obviously this loss only proved he needed to be better, he hadn't worked hard enough before.

Stepping out of the stadium and behind the backstage area, Arata sighed. It was warmer indoors, but his body was having a difficult time accumulating heat. He had created too many things during the fight with Shouhei.

"Arata!" Yuuta cried out, his eyes trembling as he stood at the top of the stairs. "I was waiting for you!"

He stumbled down the stairs, leaping over the first two, almost tripping, like the idiot he was. He jumped forward and hugged him. "Are you okay?!"

Eye fluttering shut, Arata leaned into his brother. He should've pushed him back, should've told him to run off to his stupid boyfriend. But Yuuta's body was so warm, familiar. Arata had clung to Yuuta so many times when they were younger, his body cold from using too much of his heat. Yuuta, despite having a fire that could fluctuate temperatures was always so warm, and Arata wanted him here, wanted him close. If he could, he would've sucked the heat from his brother, clinging to it.

"Arata..." Yuuta sighed, hugging him hard. He pressed his nose to his shoulder, staying close. "Why would you do that?" he whispered. "I know you've been pushing yourself to be better, but don't you think this is getting to be too much? You know how dangerous this can be. You're freezing..."

He was, and Yuuta was so warm...

Arata's eyes shot open and he pushed away, shaking his head. "What... what the hell are you trying to say, Yuuta?" he stammered.

Frowning, Yuuta looked hurt. "W-What do you mean? I'm just worried about you, Arata. I don't know how many times I'm going to say that to you until you start to actually believe me."

He shivered again, reminded his body was still cold. Yuuta had provided a brief reprieve, but Arata didn't want to stay close to him. He didn't need that anymore; they were far too old.

"I don't know how many times I have to tell you there's nothing for you to worry about," he grumbled, pushing past him to walk up the stairs. "Go help your boyfriend."

Yuuta frowned. "You know I can care about both of you right? Shouhei is my best friend and boyfriend, but you're my best friend and brother. I care about both of you."

"Yeah, I know. You've told me," he muttered.

His brother stepped forward, reaching for Arata. "I just want you to know I'm happy you won-"

"No," Arata growled, shoving away from him once more. "Don't you dare say you're happy for me when you know damn well I wanted to beat Shouhei-"

"But you still did amazing-"

"It doesn't matter. Don't you get it, Yuuta? Second place doesn't matter!" he yelled.

Yuuta frowned. "I'm not going to argue about this with you again, Arata. Second place is amazing. You beat everyone in your own class, and you beat me! If second place doesn't matter, then you must think I really suck..." He bowed his head, glancing down. "I want you to be happy, but if that means destroying yourself, then I don't want to support you."

The words were a lot stronger than Arata expected. He always knew Yuuta didn't understand, he didn't expect him to. He didn't need his support either...

"Fine," he said. "I have to go prepare for the ceremony."

Yuuta pressed his teeth into his lip, nodding as he turned his back on Arata, stepping away.

As cold as he was before, with Yuuta gone, it was even colder.

Arata was an idiot. Yuuta stormed away from him, making his way to find Shouhei. At least his boyfriend would accept his congratulations. He didn't understand why his brother was so angry all the time, but quite frankly he was more than sick of it.

It didn't help that Arata would get to stand on the podium. Second place was more than enough for Yuuta. Hell, he would've settled for third. He said he didn't care about the sports festival, really he hadn't, but he did wish he could've stood up there with Shouhei and his brother.

Instead, he would watch the two of them from the sidelines. It wasn't that he wanted to win, but he liked the idea of it being the three of them-

"Yuu!"

He blinked, pulled from his thoughts by Shouhei's excited voice. His boyfriend ran toward him, his smile wide as he scooped Yuuta into a strong hug.

"Shou!" he laughed, hugging him back. The difference between his brother and Shouhei's hugs were glaringly obvious. Then again, he hadn't been at odds with Shouhei for the past few months.

"I've been looking for you! Where were you?" he chuckled.

"Oh, I was with my brother. But uhm, Congratulations!" Yuuta said, pulling back. He leaned in, pecking his lips against Shouhei's. "I'm so proud of you!"

"Really? Even though I beat your brother?" Shouhei said, stroking his fingers through Yuuta's hair.

"Yeah, he's... fine," Yuuta said, despite knowing his brother was anything but.

Shouhei nodded, and Yuuta let his shoulders sag. Shouhei always knew when not to ask about something and this was definitely one of those times. "The ceremony is about to start!! I'm so glad you didn't miss it!"

"Are you kidding?" Yuuta snorted. "I wouldn't miss it for anything, Shou."

"C'mon!" Shouhei grabbed Yuuta's hand, tugging him toward the field.

When they arrived back at the entrance of the stadium, Shouhei was dragged off by Mina to head toward his podium.

Yuuta hadn't expected to stay with Shouhei, but watching him rush off, he felt a pang in his heart. Maybe next year he would be up there too. Rushing back towards the 1-A seating section, Yuuta didn't want to miss it.

"And now, the moment you've all been waiting for!" Mirio's voice boomed from the speakers. "It's time to announce the winners of this year's sports fest! It's so exciting!"

"Very," Tamaki muttered into the mic next to him.

Yuuta leaned forward, his knee bouncing up and down. He prayed Arata wouldn't be visibly angry. Yuuta had seen plenty of footage from the year their father had won, and of course, Katsuki had been a total mess. Then again, Katsuki had been a total mess the year he won as well. As much as he didn't want to, Yuuta kept having flashes of Arata being so angry that he did something ridiculous on the winner's podium. Arata wasn't usually like that, but with how he had been acting lately...

"We present the top three winners of this year's sports fest. It should be no surprise to see Bakugou Shouhei in the number one spot! He's followed by Todoroki Arata-"

It was a miracle Yuuta didn't fall out of his seat. He was leaning forward so far to watch the podiums rise up. Shouhei stood on the tallest and he waved. He made himself float upwards, doing a flip in the air as people cheered loudly for him.

Yuuta scoffed. His boyfriend was such a show off.

Next to him, Arata stood completely still. He kept his eyes turned toward the ground, the front part of his hair covering his face. With a sigh, Yuuta pulled in a long breath, at least he was just going to be quiet.

Mina approached Arata and draped the medal around his neck. Yuuta winced when he saw the way she squeezed his cheeks and laughed, clearly congratulating him.

The silver medal hung around his neck, but Arata's gaze stayed fixated on the ground. Yuuta had a feeling he wasn't going to look up. He wished his brother could be proud of himself.

When had Arata gotten so angry? Yuuta tried to put his finger on it while he watched his brother and his boyfriend. The three of them had always been so close, but lately Arata had been insufferable. He'd tattled on them at school when they tried to help Sayuri. He had gotten angry at getting in a different class, and he'd even gone so far as to go train with their grandfather. If only Yuuta knew why...

Arata wanted to be the best, Yuuta could understand that. But his attitude...

Shouhei flipped around and turned up toward Yuuta, waving back and forth with a huge smirk on his face. A laugh slipped from his own lips and he waved back.

He was proud of his boyfriend and his brother, but there still was that small pang of jealousy, wishing he could be up with them.

Suddenly, his eyes widened and he stood up, gasping.

"Todoroki-kun?" one of the girls in his class stared up at him, confused as to what he was doing.

"Uh..." he glanced around and shook his head. "Sorry, I gotta, uh... I gotta... be right back!"

"Wait!"

He heard a few of his classmates murmur behind him, but he didn't care. How could he have been such an idiot? Had it really taken him this long to figure out?! The three of them had always been inseparable, but lately he and Shouhei had probably made Arata feel left out. He most likely wasn't jealous, but Yuuta could understand if he felt alone.

This whole time, his brother had felt alone and Yuuta had been so caught up in his relationship with Shouhei to notice. But he'd felt it, just now, when they hugged... It was why it felt so weird.

He had to talk to his brother. He needed to apologize, and maybe, just maybe, Arata could calm down and things would start to feel a bit more normal.

Sayuri knew it was coming. She braced herself for it when her brother won.

She was proud. She was. She was always proud of her brother. The crowd erupted when the podium began to rise up, a large number 1 on the stone behind Shouhei.

Bakugou Shouhei. Always number one. Something Sayuri would never have.

She couldn't deny that Shouhei looked good up there. He stood tall, with pride only a Bakugou could have. The smirk on his face was genuine, and she could tell how happy he was. He made himself float, doing a backflip as he showed off his gold medal. At first, he pointed toward them, but then he turned in another direction and Sayuri could only assume he was looking at Yuuta.

"THAT'S MY FUCKIN' SON!" Katsuki screamed, hollering loudly. He leaned over the balcony, thrusting his fist into the air. "Suck it, Half and Half!" he growled, pointing at Shouto and Momo.

"Katsuki!" Ochako hissed. "You're making a scene."

"When does he not," Shouto scoffed, folding his arms over his chest.

"Don't be a sore loser!" Katsuki snorted and turned back to the field. "I'm so proud of you, kid!" he yelled. He wrapped his arm around Ochako and hugged her, pressing his lips against her forehead. "That's our son. I'm so fucking proud."

"I know, me too," Ochako giggled, wrapping her arms around Katsuki's waist. "I can't believe he won!"

"I can! Who else did you think was gonna fuckin' win!? He's been training for weeks!"

Sayuri pressed her fingers into her legs. She had expected this. She had planned for this moment and yet, the longer she sat there, the louder the noise grew. Her parents were so loud, the crowd was so loud, everything around her threatened to drown her in the noise.

She couldn't breathe, the sounds choking her, trapping her emotions in her lungs. How could she do this? How could she watch this? Was this going to be the rest of her life? Staring at her parents back while Shouhei rose higher and higher above her?

There was no way for her to catch up. There was no way she would be able to climb to those heights. She was forever grounded and she had no idea how to ever get her parents to laugh with the same excitement.

Nothing she did would ever compare. The three of them would always share this bond, something she would never truly understand, despite how much she wanted to.

"-yuri? Sayuri?"

She jerked up, noticing the hand over her knee.

"Kazu?" she blinked, facing him.

"Are you okay? You're really pale and you keep digging your fingers into your legs," he said, leaning closer to her.

She inhaled sharply, glancing down at her thighs. The indentations on her legs were red when she pulled her hands back quickly. "I-I... I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" Kazu asked, concern apparent in his green eyes.

"Y-Yeah!" she laughed, rubbing the back of her neck. "I'm fine, I think, I uhm... I think I need some air."

"What? But we're outside?"

"A-Away from... the people, I dunno." Jumping up, she turned around in the bleachers and began to run up the stairs.

"Sayuri!?" Her mother's voice echoed behind her but she couldn't turn around to look at her. Her legs carried her up the stadium steps and out through the entrance as she pushed past crowds of people hoping to slip out early. She pushed and pushed, making her way to the sidewalk as she panted, doubling over trying to catch her breath.

Where was she supposed to go?! She couldn't walk home, it was way too far, but her parents weren't going to be ready to leave for a bit. Of course, they'd probably want to celebrate too and how could she look Shouhei in the eye when she was being such... a brat!?

She knew she shouldn't make it about her. This wasn't about Bakugou Sayuri, this wasn't about her at all. And yet here she was, being dramatic once again.

Swallowing, she tried to fight back the tears as she recalled her father's back. He had lunged forward over the railing, cheering and laughing with her mother. He was so proud. He was so happy.

Those emotions, her father would never direct them towards her. It would never be the same. Sure, he didn't hate that she was quirkless, but she would never make him so proud.

She wanted to scream, or punch a wall. Her body felt so constricted and all she wanted to do was explode.

It was too much. She thought she could handle it; she had prepared all week to handle it. And yet, seeing Shouhei rising up on the platform. It was too much for her. Everytime she thought she could handle the path her life was going to take. Something would happen and it felt like the whole world was crashing down on her.

She clutched her stomach, her body tense as she tried to pull in air. She felt dizzy, like she might faint from how desperate she was to breathe. No matter how hard she tired, air didn't seem to want to come to her lungs.

It was so stupid! She had told Shouhei to win; in fact she probably would've been pissed at him if he lost at this point. Yet here she was, freaking out that he had actually gone and done it.

Really, what had she expected? Even if he hadn't won he still would've gotten far. There was no way around witnessing her parents cheer for her brother. Why couldn't she let it go? Why had she not been cheering with them too? She was proud of him! She was! And yet-

"Sayuri!" Her father's voice echoed.

She froze, turning to see him running for her. She couldn't talk to him. Not now, not when they were supposed to be celebrating. Shaking her head, she turned from him and immediately dashed across the street heading into the park. Anything to avoid talking to her father.

The second Sayuri bolted from the stadium, Bakugou knew he had to follow her.

Ochako called after her, but he immediately took off, chasing her. He pushed through the crowds, ignoring people calling out his hero name, asking for selfies and wanting to take a picture.

There was a part of him that wondered how things would go if Shouhei won the sports fest. He expected Sayuri to react intensely, but he hadn't expected her to run away so quickly.

He glanced around the street, looking for any sign of her blonde pigtails. He rubbed his forehead, growling. He understood her frustration, he did.

He saw her on the sidewalk, panting heavily, her body shaking. He was just happy she hadn't gone far.

"Sayuri!" he yelled and she immediately took off again, dashing across the street into the park. "Goddamn," he cursed. Running through the crowded sidewalk, he made his way across the street, heading into the trees, and down the path into the park.

"Sayu!" he yelled again, knowing it wouldn't take him long to catch her. Small explosions popped in his hand as he propelled himself forward towards her.

Her small frame continued to run down the path, deeper into the park, but Bakugou didn't lose sight of her bouncing pigtails.

With a burst of speed, he moved forward, grabbing her wrist. "Sayuri-"

"Dad-" she gasped, not realizing how he had closed in fast. "Let go!"

"No," he growled while she struggled against his grip.

"What are you doing!?" she yelped. "You should be back there with Mom, celebrating!"

"And where the hell are you supposed to be?!" he snapped.

Her brown eyes went wide, trembling. "I don't fucking know!" she yelled. "Anywhere but there!"

"Baby Girl," he sighed, letting go of her wrist. "We can't let you just run around the damn park-"

"Why not!? You should be in there celebrating, not dealing with my stupid ass-"

"Oi! Stop talking yourself down. I don't wanna hear it," he snapped, pressing his fingers against his forehead. "Look, I get that this shit is going to be hard-"

"Do you!?" she hissed, cutting him off. "Do you know what it's like to sit and watch you cheer for Shouhei knowing you'll never do that for me?!"

"Now you're just making assumptions, Sayu!" Katsuki knew he couldn't lose his temper, not when she was desperately trying to work something out.

"I'm not! There is no way you will ever be able to do something like this for me! I hate it! I hate knowing I'll never..." she paused, her lip trembling as fat tears rolled down her cheek. "I hate knowing I'll never make you and Mom proud."

"Don't be a dumbass," Katsuki growled. "Your mother and I have made it clear that we're proud of you. No matter what you do or what choices you make, we're gonna support you and be fuckin' proud!"

Her lip trembled and she turned her head to the side. "You say that, but I know you don't mean it."

Groaning, Katsuki ran his fingers through his hair. "Sayuri, I don't know what your mother and I have to do to fuckin' prove to you that we're always going to be proud of you."

"But I'll never be able to do what Shouhei does... what you and Mom do! I hate that! I hate..." she trailed off, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, a sob choking through her lips.

Katsuki thought back to their conversation, when she asked if he hated if she was quirkless. She had asked him so bluntly, had made horrible assumptions. Maybe, it was never that she was scared he hated her, but more that she hated herself and didn’t know how to handle it.

Would she ever be able to?

Pursing his lips, Katsuki sucked in a deep breath. "Sayu..." he said slowly, taking a step toward her. "I need to ask you something, and I need you to answer me fuckin' honestly."

Sniffling, she looked at him and slowly nodded. "O-Okay," she stammered, waiting for him to speak.

"Do you hate that you're quirkless?"

The question hung in the air for a moment, awkward silence floating between them. Sayuri's mouth was open and she blinked, staring at her father. She looked flabbergasted, completely taken aback and confused why he would even ask her.

"O-Of course, I do!" she yelled. "It's the worst-"

"No," he said, cutting her off. "No, no. Stop. I want you to really fucking think about this for a second. Take everyone else out of the equation. Me, your mom, your brother, fuckin'... society! Throw all that aside. Do you hate... yourself? Do you hate that this is the way you are?"

Her chest rose and fell, like she was trying to breathe through a pit of sludge. "W-What?" she asked.

Clicking his tongue, Katsuki rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm just askin' you to be fucking honest with yourself. I don't want you to care about anyone else's opinion. I just want to know, deep down, if you really fucking hate this. It's got nothing to do with my feelings or anyone else's just yours. Bakugou Sayuri, do you hate being quirkless?"

She turned her gaze to the ground, her fists trembling at her side. "What... what the hell kind of question is that Dad?!" she snarled, her eyes narrowing at him. "Of course, I fucking hate it! Do you really think there's any way I could like being this way?!"

Her voice echoed around them, her anger tensing up the atmosphere.

Pulling in a slow breath, Bakugou nodded. "Okay."

"Okay...? Okay!? You ask me this serious as fuck question and you just-" He cut her off by hugging her, pulling her close to his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his hand to the back of her head. He had promised her he would always keep her safe, he had promised he would do anything.

Even if it meant asking for the one thing he never wanted to ask for.

Swallowing, he pulled back and turned away from her. "C'mon, I'll take you home."

She blinked, staring at her father's back once again. He could feel her eyes burning onto the skin of his neck. She obviously didn't understand, but she would.

"You will?" she asked softly.

"Yeah. I gotta come back and celebrate with your brother, but I'll drop you at home so you can have some fucking space," he muttered.

"T-Thank you..." she whispered.

He glanced back at her while they walked back to the street, seeing the tears flowing down her cheeks. He couldn't do it anymore. He couldn't watch her suffer over and over again. Just as he had feared, her whole life was going to be plagued by this, especially if she couldn't overcome it.

Deep down inside, she hated it, she hated herself. Katsuki could understand that, but he couldn't watch his daughter feel that way.

Her own sludge monster was consuming her, just like in his nightmares. He couldn't reach her either. No matter how hard he tried, it wasn't him that could save her. There was only one person who could help her now and it tore his heart from his chest to even think about it.

Katsuki paused, his red eyes looking her up and down. "For the record," he said, his voice abnormally soft. "I have never hated you like this. To me, you will always be my daughter. Quirk or no quirk, you will always be perfect."

He wasn't great with words, he never had been, but he hoped, after everything, she would maybe remember these ones.

Looking into her brown eyes, he thought, for a moment, things looked a little clearer.

#kacchako #todomomo #bakugou katsuki #uraraka ochako #todoroki shouto #what we lack #oc kids #yaoyorozu momo

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techcrunchappcom · 3 years

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/frankensteins-castle-is-now-have-become-a-tourist-attraction/

Frankenstein’s castle is now have become a tourist attraction

Student of records and manual Cyrille has been taking me across the Swiss metropolis on a Frankenstein go to and the sculpture of the beast at Plainpalais, the web page in which it submitted its first homicide, was too acceptable a photograph occasion to miss.

Frankenstein is a specialty however developing fascination in Geneva, energized by the bicentenary of the beast’s creation. It was in June 1816, 200 years prior, that a gathering of five youngsters from England accumulated in an estate sitting above Lake Geneva and attempted to unnerve each other with apparition stories.

‘Waking dream’

According to the current travel stories blog, one of them, 18-year-old Mary Godwin, had a “waking dream” which she related one night and mesmerized her crowd, which incorporated the English sentimental writer Lord Byron.

Mary was joined by her future spouse, the 23-year-old artist Percy Shelley, who had relinquished his first wife and youngsters to abscond with Mary. They were all free-thinking bohemian spirits – what we would call today elective creative’s.

Byron urged Mary to record her frightening story; she began promptly and called it “Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus.”

The best travel journal online blog stated A duplicate of that first release gazes me in the face. It’s one of the six creator’s duplicates Mary Shelley got herself and it’s brimming with comments; most would discover their way into the subsequent version.

Artistic summer

The Geneva-based Fondation Martin Bodmer, perhaps the greatest library of uncommon books on the planet is praising the bicentenary of Mary’s bad dream with a show. There are pictures, canvases, first versions, and original copies that clarify the foundation and reproduce the setting of that abstract summer.

Teacher David Spurr from the University of Geneva, the keeper of the show, fills me in.

He shows the 1816 meteorological records from Switzerland; the most extreme temperature in June fluctuated between 10-12 C (50-53 F). A manually written note says that even toward the month’s end “there was not a solitary leaf on the oak trees.”

Today Villa Diodati is exclusive; however, the delightfully manicured gardens are periodically open to general society.

Birches, pines, and lime trees ascend over the blended fragrances of rose nurseries, lavender supports, and columns of citronella hedges. Muscat plants encompass the manor slopes, as they did in Byron’s time; and somewhere out there the Jura Mountains rise delicately over Lake Geneva. The nurseries are a spot for motivation now as they were at that point.

In the estate, the youthful companions read a collection of German phantom stories by candlelight. At the point when that was finished, Byron urged them to develop shocking tales of their own.

This is the place where Mary Shelley came up trumps with her considerations of what might occur if a researcher-made life utilizing power. Tests with this new actual wonder were extremely popular at that point and individuals were especially captivated with its capacity to cause spasms.

Destroyed château

The top travel blog in usa stated In 1803 Giovanni Aldini, an Italian researcher broadly passed an electric momentum through the body of a balanced man before a welcomed crowd in London; the group thundered as his dead jaws started jerking and his inert appendages began moving.

Mary’s book was distributed to extraordinary well-known achievement, yet the primary version didn’t bear her name; the distributer accepted that deals would endure if peruses realized that it was crafted by a young lady.

Precision robots

The Shelleys cruised on the Rhine in transit back to London. It’s conceivable, yet obscure whether Mary had the opportunity to visit those two locales.

Teacher Spurr offers another alternative; he gives me a French volume by Francois Felix Nogaret, called “The Mirror of True Events” distributed in 1790.

Whatever the motivation, it’s Mary Shelley’s creation that turned into the object of our interest; she can legitimately call “Frankenstein” her own.

#best travel journal online blog #current travel stories blog #top travel blog in usa #Travel

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avengerofiron · 3 years

Text

the people who built me || danny & tony

summary: tony has a choice to make when he encounters iron fist during an enforcer patrol. he chooses family. (solo incoming when lola gets time about The Consequences TM - sorry tony)

when: a few days before the siege

word count: 10,094 (we thought we were brief. we were not.)

trigger warnings: torture mention, abuse mention, death mentions

featuring: danny rand

TONY: Everyone made mistakes. It was a fundamental part of life — a fundamental part of science — to do something once, find out where you went wrong, and improve on it for the next situation that came your way. That innovation was what Tony lived for, what he breathed every single day in Stark Industries or as he acted as Iron Man. It was innovation that other people boasted about, too, until the point where mistakes became too much for them to simply brush off, when mistakes were too large to sweep under the rug, that’s when things got dicey.

Tony Stark had a habit of making things dicey.

The Sentinels weren’t his doing, though. For once, he wasn’t the guy in the room to create the targeting system, or the artificial intelligence, or even the giant, maniacal robots designed for one purpose and one purpose alone. These robots were created by men before Tony was even born, years before most kids would remember their first appearance on the scene just after the events went down in Cuba.

Their design needed a little work. Tony could say that with certainty. Their morality needed a complete overhaul, and if Tony could see that, if he could spot it a mile off with no hesitation, he didn’t see how they were going to spin it to make the public agree — but they did. They did, even if Ross stepped into every meeting with a face that looked like he’d been chewing on a wasp because his ass had been well and truly handed to him by the World Security Council. . Security. Sometimes it came at the cost of what really mattered in life. Sometimes, in the process of making a better world, you destroyed the old one that was perfect in its own unique way. Sometimes, people needed a little bad to make the good worth it.

Tony was still learning that. Of course, it was a little hard to learn with Ross breathing down his neck, the warning lingering on the horizon of every decision he made or didn’t make in the field.

He couldn’t afford to mess up. He couldn’t afford to make a dicey mistake, couldn’t afford to pull a Tony Stark.

Inevitably, that was exactly what would happen.

The Sentinels tracking system picked up an anomaly that wasn’t significant enough to investigate, but enough to suggest that something not entirely above board was going down in Hell’s Kitchen. Someone had latent powers they were aware not to use was one of the suggestions thrown around the meeting room. Others said it could be a fault with the system. Either way it needed checking out, and enforcement agents had been put on clean up duty while the robots handled the real, perceptible threats that they didn’t need to negotiate with. . Not just enforcement agents — Tony, specifically. Iron Man, glorified janitor, delegated to the bottom of the pile for the past month because he dared not to disclose some minorly crucial facts to his employers.

Bastards.

“You’ve reached the point of the fluctuation, boss,” FRIDAY informed him through the helmet’s sound system. “So far I’m picking up a single heat signature other than your own.”

“Tell me it isn’t burning up,” Tony replied. “I’ve had enough of fire people for one lifetime.”

“I wasn’t with you during that one, boss. Must’ve been the other computer.”

“Must’ve been.”

“The temperature signal appears human. They’re moving slowly — no adrenaline spike as of yet. I would suggest landing before things get nasty.”

“When have you ever known my missions to get nasty?” Tony asked. FRIDAY remained conspicuously silent, but her presence was noted. Tony could almost imagine her rolling her eyes. “Alright, darling. Let’s get this show on the road.” . He landed on the pavement in the alleyway, hand up and palm glowing. “Hi there,” he announced, voice robotic but not nearly as warped as he would like it to be. (Doing things you fundamentally disagreed with was easier when you were wearing a mask, he had found — Iron Man had always been more of his true self than Tony Stark, billionaire playboy.) “I’m Iron Man, you’re in breach of the Sokovia Accords, and we’re going to need to have a little chat. If you don’t mind, come easily and this’ll all be—”

The figure turned. The way he moved was as familiar as someone stepping around Tony’s kitchen counter, or pulling Tali over on the couch onto his knee, or messing around with Colleen in the gym, clearly holding back while Tony was watching because Tony didn’t know, couldn’t know, the truth.

The truth that was staring him in the face now.

He was wearing a mask, of course. Even Danny wasn’t trusting enough to know that running around with his own face in New York City in the current climate would result in anything but trouble. Tony still knew him, though. He knew him when he was a kid, chasing after him at galas. He knew him as a man, talking about a plane falling from the sky and snow surrounding him. He knew him as a cousin, broaching a subject, a word, Tony had always dodged, backing off the second Tony didn’t bite.

(Sometimes he wondered what would’ve happened if he did. If he gave Danny the truth in that moment, if he opened himself up, if he admitted something to both of them that he’d been carrying since he was fifteen years old. Sometimes he wondered, but not tonight. He was a little preoccupied.)

The man in the mask, the man on the Sentinels’ system, the man on FRIDAY’s tracker, the man he was sent to arrest …

It was Danny Rand.

DANNY: Over the last few years, Danny had had a few very close calls in his life of vigilantism. He’d been stabbed (multiple times now), shot (though only by Harold), kidnapped (also multiple times, which was worrying), maimed… The list went on and on. He had plenty of personal experiences to tell him just how dangerous this life was, plenty of scars and near-death moments to inform him just what he was risking every time he pulled that bandanna over his face.

He’d only recently come to consider the law to be one of those potential consequences.

Danny had never been arrested before. He’d certainly come close a few times in his early days back in the city, when his heart beat too quickly in his chest and he swung his fists at anyone who looked at him too closely, but he’d never seen the backseat of a patrol car. Thanks to Harold’s meddling, he’d even found himself on a federal watchlist for a moment or so, but Jeri took care of it before it could lead anywhere substantial. The closest Danny had come to prison was his forced stay in Birch, an experience he desperately wanted to avoid repeating.

If he were smart, he supposed, he might have scaled back the vigilantism to prevent an arrest. It was what Ward had advised him to do, on more than one occasion. Money can do a lot of things, Danny, he’d warned, but this isn’t one of them. If they catch you, they will send you to the Raft. Not some nice prison for tax evaders, the fucking Raft. And he was right. Danny knew he was right, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to hang up his worn hoodie and yellow bandana. Every time he tried, Ward’s voice was drowned out by a thousand others.

Protect my city. Matt, who hadn’t died for him but almost did, who’d trusted him to save a city he hadn’t even managed to stay in.

Danny Rand failed an entire city. The place he was sworn to protect. Sowande, who had been cruel and ruthless and right. . You should never have borne the Fist. Davos, angry and bitter and hitting the nail on the head every time. Danny had power, and he didn’t deserve it. He hadn’t earned it. Not really, not in the ways that counted. If he did nothing with it, if he failed New York the way he’d failed K’un Lun, what was the point of him? What did any of the sacrifices made to get him where he was mean?

So he didn’t stop. He kept fighting, kept roaming the streets with his Fist glowing as if there weren’t robots out to drag him in and enforcers less understanding than Colleen looking for a high profile collar. Because he needed to make amends. (Because he didn’t know how to stop.)

Tonight had been quiet. He hadn’t seen any sentinels, hadn’t run into any enforcers. He’d barely even seen any crime, only taking out one mugger by well into the morning hours. He probably should have been glad for it, but his skin itched and his chest was tight and he wanted to hit something. When he heard a quiet tang of something unmistakably metallic landing behind him, he was almost relieved. Finally, finally, a chance to let out some of that pent up rage on something he didn’t have to feel guilty for breaking.

But then he turned around, and the world tilted on its axis.

Everyone knew who wore the Iron Man suit, but even if he hadn’t there was no mistaking Tony’s voice beneath the modulated tones. Danny had been following Tony Stark around since he was a little kid, been clinging to his pant legs since he could walk. The fifteen-year gap in their relationship amounted to surprisingly little when he crashed on Tony’s couch as often as he did as an adult. Tony was there in good moments and bad, there on Christmas and in hospital rooms, at family dinners and in the moments when he couldn’t scrape himself off the floor. Tony had been there for all of that, and now, he was here for this.

And Danny froze. . Tony was frozen too, and though Danny couldn’t see his face, he had a feeling the wide-eyed expression beneath Iron Man’s mask was a pretty close match to the one he wore on his own face right now. Uncertainly, Danny shifted. Half of him wanted to walk towards Tony while the other half screamed at him to move away. He didn’t know which half was right. Maybe neither of them was.

“Hi,” he said experimentally, as if checking to see if his voice still worked. “I don’t… Uh, I can’t go to jail.” He bit his lip, barely stopped himself from adding, ’Please, Tony,’ because if Tony didn’t know who he was now, there would be no hiding it after something like that.

TONY: At least Batman roamed the rooftops of Gotham with a voice modulator. At least Daredevil pulled off that dark, mysterious, brooding, silent vigilante type. At least for the few weeks Tony himself managed to keep an alter ego on the down low, he wore a mask that covered the entirety of his face, his whole squishy human body, and his multitude of self worth issues all in one handy package. Danny was out here in a hoodie that wouldn’t have been out of place in Rhodey’s grungy backpack in MIT and a bandana that was riding up on his entirely too familiar nose, his voice breaking through in a weak attempt at a different pitch that Tony could see through in an instant, because he wasn’t a moron.

He was a genius, a fact that he often lamented over, and a genius who loved Danny Rand, at that.

Christ, it was looking at his own heart staring back at him, wide eyed and about to bolt, feet two seconds away from running down the alleyway and never looking back. Tony could catch him, of course. The suit could catch a rocket, if it wanted — but the question was whether he wanted to. The question was whether he wanted to see for himself, up close and personal, what Danny learned in the years he was gone, what knowledge he shared with Colleen that made the woman utterly terrifying. The question was whether Tony was willing to put someone else he loved in cuffs while the man he’d asked to marry him remained on the run, being fed intelligence from Stark systems, being told that if it came down to it, Tony would make the hard choice because it was the right one. . Making the right choice always seemed so difficult. Tony told himself that he needed compasses, like Steve or Sharon or Jarvis, Yinsen or Rhodes or Rumiko (not all of them were good compasses, but that was beside the fact), in order to make them. He told himself that he didn’t know the difference between wrong and right, because when he looked back at his extensive list of personal defects and lifelong tendency towards making mistakes, he figured that was proof of some void in his chest that other people had filled, something his parents failed to cultivate or he burned away with liquor.

But he knew, now. He knew it as much as he knew when Steve looked at him he’d burn down the world to put things right. He knew when he looked at Danny, he could never put cuffs around his wrist. he could never let anyone touch a hair on the kid’s goddamn head, and he wasn’t a kid anymore, Tony knew that, but he was. He always would be.

Tony lost him once before. He wasn’t losing him again, not by choice, not like this.

Of course, of all the words Tony could have chosen to put that sentiment into the universe, he went with something completely …

Well, completely Tony.

“Yeah,” he said, helmet retracting quickly. “No shit you can’t go to jail.”

“Boss,” FRIDAY interjected, “perhaps we should shut off the Panel communication servers-”

Tony clicked one of the panels on the suit’s arm, and FRIDAY faded into nothingness — along with Ross’ feed to this conversation. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Tony demanded, taking a step forward. “Do you just think you can go around the city in … in not even spandex. You’re in less than spandex. You look like you raided a Goodwill and then they kicked you out because you were making the babies cry. I … I do everything I can to try and stop you from getting into shit, Da— Iron Fist, and you and all the, uh … the other ones, you all keep doing this!”

DANNY: Surprisingly, this wasn’t actually a situation Danny had been in before. When he first returned from K’un Lun, he had seen no reason to lie to people about where he had been and what had been done to him. He told the Meachums everything, didn’t understand why they didn’t believe him immediately because it was real. He knew it was real, had the scars and the nightmares to prove it. He told Colleen who, while more receptive, still spent the first few hours of their acquaintanceship looking at him like a bomb about to go off. He told the doctors at Birch, positive that they would understand what he was saying and let him go, so sure that it would reinforce his sanity. He told anyone who would listen about the Fist, and everyone looked at him like something inside of him was broken. Like it was some wild story invented by a child’s mind in order to avoid accepting the truth.

Danny had never wanted Tony to look at him like that. He’d looked up to Ward as a kid, sure, but back then, Tony had been his hero. He’d wanted, so badly, to do everything Tony Stark did. He remembered saying as much to his mother one night as she was putting him to bed, remembered barely stopping for air as he launched into an elaborate retelling of what he’d done at the Starks’ that day, adding animated hand gestures to the conversation as he went on and on about Tony’s games that only he really knew all the rules to and the way he was never angry when Danny and Sharon made up their own rules on top of them, the way the three of them laughed and played and no one flipped the gameboard over when they were losing the way Ward always did and no one cried like Joy used to. The Meachums were family, but that had always been more because of Harold than the children. The Carters and the Starks were family because of Tony and Sharon. Because of Danny.

And now, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d be the reason they stopped being family, too. . He didn’t think Tony would arrest him. Not if he knew it was him, not if he recognized the eyes staring back at him. On a logical level, Danny knew that Tony never put him in cuffs, never take him to the Raft. But old paranoia told him he was assuming too much, old anxiety clawed at his gut and demanded to be free. Ward had put him in a mental institution, had paid people to hurt him while he was there. Harold had traded him to the Hand, had pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger. Joy had hired someone to kidnap him, knowing he might not survive the experience. Davos had cut into him, bled him out over a clay pot, shattered every fucking bone in his leg twice for good measure. Danny loved his family, he really did. But he had a lot of bad experiences with trust, a lot of scars he could have avoided if, for a moment, he had loved less.

Tony Stark was not Ward Meachum. Danny knew that. Tony never would have hired guards to chase him down the street with guns in hand because he was afraid of losing money, wouldn’t have hurt him over and over and over again to save his own reputation. Tony wasn’t Joy or Davos, either, and he certainly wasn’t Harold. Tony was a good man who loved Danny, who had always treated him like a person instead of a billionaire, who had let him be a kid when no one else seemed interested in doing so. The Carters and the Starks and the Rands, they were a different kind of family than he’d had with Harold and Joy and Ward. They were less cutthroat, less money-hungry. Sharon and Tony had never wanted anything from him except for him to be himself. Danny knew that. . But that old paranoia still hovered for a moment as he and Tony stared at each other, both still as they assessed the situation. Danny stood lightly on the balls of his feet, ready to bolt if he needed to, as if it would make a difference. He couldn’t outrun Tony when he was wearing the suit, and even the intimate knowledge he’d gained over the last few years of vigilantism wouldn’t help him much against Iron Man. He was pretty sure Tony had some kind of x-ray vision in that thing, so hiding in a dumpster would only end up embarrassing him.

Danny didn’t realize he’d been holding a breath until Tony spoke and he let it out, a quiet exhale as a wave of relief hit him so hard it threatened to knock him off his feet. Tony didn’t sound like Iron Man, enforcer of the Accords right now. He sounded like Tony Stark, exasperated older cousin getting ready to gear up for a pretty intense lecture. . Tony did something with his arm that Danny thought might mean the higher-ups couldn’t eavesdrop anymore, and Danny’s shoulders relaxed just a little. He still carried some tension in his shoulders as Tony launched into his lecture, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t getting arrested for the moment. It allowed him to relax enough to look mildly offended, if nothing else. “Hey,” he said, “Je --- uh, my friend said spandex is lame. And this is comfortable! I need to be comfortable.” Not that the outfit was the point, but it was the principle of the thing, wasn’t it? He had to defend his style choices. “Look, you’re mad. I know you’re mad. Can I just --- I can explain. Okay? It’s just, uh, it’s a really long story, and I ---” He broke off for a moment, searching for words momentarily before continuing, “I punched a dragon! And now I’ve got --- I’ve got control over my chi, and I --- A building fell on Daredevil! And he told me, he said, ’Protect my city,’” his voice got momentarily deeper in a poor imitation of Matt, “and I couldn’t say no, because he was gone! And then --- And then my brother did a sacred ritual on me and I broke my leg and went to China, which you knew that part because of course you would have noticed that I was in China, right? And now I’m back! And, um, yeah. That’s it.”

It was an utterly nonsensical explanation, a series of stories strung together that, from the outside, seemed completely unrelated. Danny had never been the best at setting the record straight, especially not under pressure. Tony knew that, of course.

TONY: He wasn’t his father. Tony had never been his father, and recently, he’d stopped feeling inferior about that fact and started feeling grateful. He rarely gave over to anger. His rage, when it was prompted, came relatively smoothly. It built in him, gathered in his chest, curled around in his mind until he found the way most appropriate to put it to good use. There were rare occasions when Tony lost his cool, at least in that regard.

This was one of those rare occasions.

He was pissed. He was pissed off, and he was angry, and he was every word that he could think of to describe the rising heat on the back of his neck, the way his hands balled into fists. Any other man in a metal suit would use the mask to its fullest potential at this moment and hide his weakness. Tony had never been good at covering the emotions on his sleeve, not when it came to enemies, not when it came to strangers, or the press. Definitely not when it came to family.

He was angry, but he was terrified, too. His throat felt tight as he spoke, his voice raising but not nearly strong enough to have any kind of weight behind it.

“You know I’m mad?” Tony repeated, raising an eyebrow. “You know I’m mad? Are you fucking joking me?” Danny stopped talking, and Tony held up a hand. “Listen, this is the moment where you zip it, alright? This is the point where you stop talking, because I have a lot of things to say to you, and you just—”

Danny kept. On. Talking.

(Jesus, that ran in the family.) . The words that were coming out of Danny’s mouth were quick and panicked, and suddenly Tony was having flashbacks to when Danny was nine years old. Sharon assisted in the breaking of one of Tony’s vases, entirely accidentally, and Danny had a hundred and one excuses for Tony, not one of which included any form of a lie. At that stage, the kid had been utterly incapable of keeping a single detail from Tony. Secrets weren’t something that existed between the three of them.

Except they had. Except every time Sharon and Danny walked into his house in Malibu, Tony had to clean up weeks of evidence of his real life, the life he led on a daily basis. He had to hide the people he spent time with, the things he wasted time on, the things that kids didn’t want to see and he would die before he admitted to, because they, for God knows what reason, looked up to him. Cared for him. Loved him.

Danny was talking fast, and he’d never lied to Tony before except for when he had, but when he said dragon Tony couldn’t find even a piece of his heart that doubted the validity of what he was saying. “A building fell on Daredevil because he chases that,” Tony interjected, before Danny could go any further. “I don’t know the guy as anything other than a dot on my threat analysis, but come on. He goes out in a mask and he tries to make a difference, and that’s honourable and heroic and all of those things, but it’s also fucking stupid.” . What Iron Fist was doing was stupid. FRIDAY was in his ear reminding Tony that he was stupid, that there was a timer on this conversation and Ross would realise before long that Tony had tapped out, and that only spelled trouble when Tony was already on the shitlist …

“This life,” Tony said, taking another step forward, gesturing at Danny’s gear, “this life only ends one way. It ends with you in the ground. It ends with someone taking joy in putting you there. And that’s … I do this because I killed people. I killed innocent people for decades. I killed people, and I need to make up for that but Christ, you …”

Tony sucked in a breath, and all pretence went out the window.

“You had ten years.” He was yelling. No, yelling would be easier — he was trying to scream, but the words were barely coming out. “You were ten years old and you were dead. You were dead and that damn near killed all of us, you know that? You ever wonder why Sharon’s mom worries more than is even close to normal about her coming home in a box? You ever wonder why I … I was in a cave and I was seeing so much shit, and they were going to kill me and I saw you. I saw you and you weren’t even dead. You weren’t. You were alive the whole damn time.”

Tony stepped back, then, heart beat pounding loud in his ears. “You can’t do that to us again.” He said it the same way Pepper had, pushing herself out of bed, shooting him a glare on the way down to the couch. He said it like there was no other solution, like Danny would stop or he wouldn’t, and Tony would be able to walk away — but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t even be able to stop himself if Danny asked him to. “If it wasn’t me,” he continued, “if it wasn’t me here, tonight, things would be different. You know that, right?”

DANNY: There were days when Tony reminded him so much of Ward that Danny ached with it, moments when his cousin got a look on his face and it felt like Danny was looking at his brother instead. This moment, with Tony clearly and understandably angry and Danny standing in front of him with some dangerous stunt only faintly in the rearview mirror, was one of them. Danny couldn’t help but think back to the thousand and one times he’d had this conversation before. In Ward’s office, when he and Danny were slowly making their way back towards being brothers. On his couch, bloodied and beaten, with Ward quietly trying to pretend not to be terrified. On the runway of a private airport, Ward threatening to lay down in front of a plane to keep Danny from going off on his own.

He’d had the conversation with other people too, of course. Colleen, who waited up until he stumbled home at five in the morning with bruised knuckles and blood on his hands, who asked him quietly how many times he’d lit up the Fist, how many hours of sleep he was running on. Claire, who told him how terrified she was that his obsession with being something he wasn’t would take away everything good about what he was. Jessica, Matt, Luke, Misty… Danny had people who loved him, people who knew what he did and tried desperately to convince him to do it in a way that wouldn’t kill him in the end. And Danny wished he knew how to do it for them. He wished he knew how to be the sort of man who might get a happy ending, the sort of man who could die peacefully of old age someday instead of the sort destined to bleed out in a back alley gasping and wheezing and waiting for help that would never come. He wanted to be that person for them, but he couldn’t. Most days, he still wasn’t confident he knew how to be a person at all. . Tony was talking to him as if he was one. Tony was talking to him like he was a child, perhaps, but he was talking to him as if he was a person all the same, like he was more than a weapon, and Danny had to remind himself that that meant something. He opened his mouth to say more, to dig his grave a little deeper, but Tony told him to be quiet and Danny had always wanted to do pretty much anything Tony told him to do.

It was Tony’s turn to talk now, Tony’s turn to talk about how buildings didn’t typically fall on men who didn’t run into them when they were already shaking, and Danny winced just a little. “A building fell on Daredevil because I ---” He cut himself off, taking a deep, shuddering breath. How much should he reveal here? How much did he tell Tony about the things Iron Fist had been a part of, the things that happened because of him. As far as the police knew, Iron Fist had been nowhere near Midland Circle. Danny Rand’s involvement in the collapse had been swiftly covered up by Ward, who made a hefty donation and requested that his brother’s trauma not be capitalized on to a very receptive commissioner with a very big check. Danny could tell Tony, right in this moment, that it wasn’t Daredevil’s stupidity that dropped a building on his head --- it was Danny’s. He wondered if that would change Tony’s perspective or make him angrier. . “I know how this ends,” he said instead, quiet and apologetic and utterly unafraid. Danny had always known how this would end, had thought he’d seen the end of it more than once, with Bakuto’s blade slipping silently between his ribs or Harold’s gun aimed firmly at his head or Elektra’s face inches from his own or Davos carving him up or Rhyno’s gang watching him shiver and shake and vomit blood onto the warehouse floor and laughing. Danny knew how this story ended, and he’d made his peace with it. If he died tomorrow, he still would have lived far longer than he had expected. He’d accepted death at ten years old with a plane shaking around him, accepted it again a few months later with sweat beading on his brow and boys his age hitting him over and over and over again because there was no mercy in K’un Lun, not even a little. He’d accepted his death at the mouth of a cave, welcomed it when he stepped inside with nothing but his clenched fists and his aching muscles to face a beast he’d only heard of in storybooks. Death was nothing new, nothing scary. Danny had known it for years.

Tony went on then, talked about why he put on a metal suit, and Danny took a shuddering breath, closed his eyes for a moment as the words rushed out before he could stop them. “So have I,” he blurted, sudden and thick and full of grief. “I’m --- I had a job. I had people to protect, and I failed them, and they’re --- I have things to make up for, too. I have scales to balance.” You are nothing. Danny Rand failed an entire city. The place he was sworn to protect. Sowande’s words echoed in his ear, and they were true. They were true, no matter how many people claimed they weren’t. . When Danny’s plane went down, he’d never considered how it affected other people. He’d been ten years old, had his father’s body and his mother’s screams burned into the forefront of his mind, and thoughts back to New York had never been to think of how the people he’d left behind were coping with his presumed death. He remembered Joy talking about it shortly after he came back, quiet and mournful. He remembered the way Jeri looked at him with more emotion in her expression than he’d ever seen her wear before or since. He remembered Sharon showing up to his office and threatening to kill him for disrespecting the memory of a person she’d loved. He’d heard all those stories, but he’d never really stopped to ponder them.

Not until now.

Tony’s words rung in his ears, and Danny flinched. “I wasn’t…” He started, trailing off because what could he say? I’m sorry my plane went down? I’m sorry you thought I was dead and it broke you? I’m sorry you had to lose me? Danny had been a ghost for a very long time, a child haunting the people who had loved him, sainted by his death. And he was alive now, he was back, but they were still haunted. The ghost of the boy they’d known still hung in the corners of their minds, still rattled chains in the basements and made the floorboards groan. You couldn’t undo fifteen years of grief. . “I’m not trying to,” he said quietly, and it didn’t feel true even if it was. Danny didn’t want to die. He’d realized it all at once in Rhyno’s hideout, when BB crouched beside him and they’d both understood with abject certainty that the gang would be disposing of a corpse by nightfall. Danny didn’t want to die, but he’d still gone after Davos mere hours after he was rescued from that warehouse. He’d still gone out, alone and unarmed, to fight a man who’d already beaten him once, still landed himself in the hospital with doctors who whispered in voices they thought he couldn’t hear about the probability that amputation would be required to save his life. Danny didn’t want to die, but he didn’t know how to stop chasing death, either. He didn’t know how to walk away. “I know.” He said quietly. If any enforcer but Tony had found him, things would be different. Things would be worse.

Danny ran a hand through his hair, eyes burning. “I can’t stop, Tony. I can’t --- The way I was raised, after that plane went down, they taught me… I wasn’t a person to them. I was --- I’m a weapon, Tony, a, a thing, and I don’t --- It was expected there. That I’d… They expected it.” They expected him to die. Some of the kids took bets on it, in the beginning. ’If he lives more than a month, I’ll do your chores for a week.’ ’You can have half my rations for three days if he makes it a year.’ They hadn’t even tried to hide it, had spoken about it clear and outright well within earshot. Danny had grown used to that, over the years. It was how things were. He wasn’t supposed to live. He wasn’t meant to.

TONY: He’d been pretending his entire life. He’d been wearing masks since he was a child, going to galas with his father’s hand digging into his shoulder, leaving bruises in the shapes of his fingertips that expensive material always managed to hide. He’d been pretending from the first second he put on the metal mask in that cave, pretending that he was capable of becoming something bigger than former warmonger, Tony Stark, the boy turned man who was so naive as to believe that the person who helped raise him was incapable of hurting him, incapable of ordering his death.

Obadiah loved him, Tony had reasoned. Obadiah loved him, and he couldn’t possibly have known about any of the deals under the table, couldn’t possibly be the mastermind Pepper said he was. Obadiah loved him, and that was exactly why he wanted Tony dead, because loving Tony Stark had never been easy, not for anyone.

Rhodey’s career almost ended just by associating with him. Pepper was dropped into a blazing fire. Rumiko’s family all but disowned her, Tiberius’ stocks dropped, Sharon was forced to pick him up off the floor and discharge him from hospital, driving home silent and pretending that there wasn’t this large, unspoken thing sitting in the space between the driver and passenger’s seat. Loving Tony meant Maria cried every damn night. Loving Tony was so damn difficult that it made Howard want to hurt him, and he had. . ‘You’ll understand when you’re a parent.’ He’d uttered that more than once. ‘When you’re looking at someone you watched grow up, someone who has disappointed you, lied to you, failed to become what they should be — when that happens, Anthony, you’ll understand that it isn’t as black and white as you seem to think it is.’

Tony was looking at Danny. He was looking at Danny, and he felt like his heart had jumped out of his chest and was spluttering on the pavement between them, sustained only by the muddy water in the puddles of the alleyway, but he didn’t want to hurt him. He didn’t want anything to hurt him.

All Tony wanted, in that desperate, aching moment, was to bring Danny to a place where they never needed to have a conversation like this again, a place where they didn’t need to dance around the truth for months and years, because the Starks might have lied, the Carters might have made their name out of mistruths, the Rands may have misdirected, but their kids were honest. The three of them, they’d always loved each other different.

They’d always loved each other right.

(Tony was capable of that, after all — of loving someone in the correct way, of not turning into his father. In other circumstances, he may have been relieved. He had other things on his mind at this point in time.) . “Is that how you want it to end?” Tony would understand that, too. He would understand it more than almost anything else, that desperate need to go out in a blaze of glory to prove himself, to tip the cosmic scales, to cleanse his hands, to make himself worthy of being called hero by kids and parents alike. He’d tasted a human death. He didn’t much care for it. He would understand.

Just like Danny understood him.

I have scales to balance. Tony shifted, feeling like the conversation was on a Dutch tilt, like he’d had a few too many and the world wasn’t that blissful blur anymore but something far more disconcerting.

“Okay,” Tony breathed. It took him three attempts to make the word audible. “Okay, you can’t stop. That’s … we can work with that. We can make that happen, but you— if you want to do this, you have a chance now to do it right. Legitimise yourself. Get the protection of the Panel. Think of the good you could do if you didn’t need to look over your shoulder every five minutes for the cops.” Tony sucked in a breath, taking another step forward. “Register that weapon. I know you. I know what you stand for. Other people might not. They wouldn’t get it. If you …”

(It was Maria at the bottom of the marble staircase, head in her hands, shaking it gently when Tony asked if they were leaving after all. It was Steve, looking up, meeting his eye, putting the pen back in its case and walking away, taking the air in the room with him. It was Natasha on that balcony, or Rhodes in a plane saying hanging out with you is bad for our friendship, or Pepper asking what the hell was wrong with him that he could think, even for a moment, she would be okay with…)

“Please,” Tony said, reaching out a hand. “Come with me. Let me fix this, for you. Let me fix all of it.” We don’t have much time.

DANNY: In the months after he was brought into K’un Lun, after the wounds from the plane crash had healed and he had learned to breathe around the biting cold of air far crisper than even the coldest winters in New York, Danny had developed a habit of running away. It happened often in the beginning, so much so that sometimes he’d find Chodok waiting for him at the edge of the city with a knowing expression on his face, sad and disappointed and utterly unsurprised. He never got far, of course --- there was nowhere to go. There was no way out of K’un Lun, wouldn’t be until the gate opened fifteen years later, but Danny hadn’t wanted to believe that back then. He’d struggled to understand the complexities, had a hard time wrapping his mind around the new rules that seemed so strange compared to what he’d grown up with. How could something be there and then not be there? How could there be a way out one day and nothing the next? How could he exist for the rest of his life in a place that had made it so abundantly clear to him just how little he belonged?

He remembered Chodok, on one of the occasions he found him waiting at the gate for the next grand escape, looking especially exhausted. ’Why do you do this?’ He’d asked, frustrated and at his wits end and sounding more like a father than anyone else in the city had ever bothered and Danny had felt a rush of anger and grief so unexpected it had nearly knocked him off his feet. He’d wanted to scream, wanted to pound his tiny fists against the ground as if he had the strength to bend it to his will, to make it into something familiar and safe and home. His throat had felt tight and Chodok’s hand’s gripping his shoulders had been the only thing keeping him upright. ’I was trying to go home,’ he’d said, quiet and mournful. ’I’ve been trying to go home, I just want to go home and no one will let me. Why won’t you let me?’ . The outburst was embarrassing in hindsight, so childish that Danny felt humiliated at the memory, but the sentiment remained. There were days, even now, when he looked out into the city’s skyline and the thought would cross his mind, strong and certain and utterly nonsensical. I want to go home. Why can’t I go home? It reminded him of sitting in a helicopter with Colleen, of coming back to New York after months away, of looking down at the lights and feeling nothing where he should have felt safety. ’That’s the beauty of it,’ she’d said, ’it can be whatever you need it to be.’ ’What do you need it to be?’ He’d asked, because maybe if he knew her answer he could puzzle out his own. And she’d said home, like that was all there was to it, like one word was a complete sentence, and Danny felt nothing. He’d fought like hell to get back to New York, had nearly died for the city a hundred times over, and he felt nothing.

It took him a long time to understand why. It took him years to realize that it wasn’t buildings or sidewalks that got him out of bed in the middle of the night to run barefoot through the snow, desperate for a way back. It wasn’t his family’s old brownstone or his father’s office that tightened his chest with grief and rage and confusion when Chodok asked him why he insisted on running away time and time again. It was never New York that Danny was trying to get back to. It was Ward. It was Joy, it was Sharon. It was Tony.

Tony, who was looking at him like he’d ripped his heart out of his chest. Tony, who had accepted him back into his life as if he’d never left it, who had never once questioned where he had been or why he was different or why sometimes it seemed to hurt him just to breathe. Tony, who must have known all along that Danny had a nighttime hobby but who had never quite let it come to the surface because knowing meant he’d have to act on it.

Tony, who looked just as frustrated and tired now as Chodok had back then. . It occurred to Danny, quite suddenly, that there had been more than one driving factor in his grief that day with Chodok’s hands on his shoulders. It occurred to him that he’d spoken of home, but that hadn’t been all he’d wanted to say. The words hit him now all at once, quiet thoughts soaked in a child’s anger. Why didn’t you let me stay with you? Why did you give me away to Lei Kung? He doesn’t even like me, but you do. You’re the only person here who’s ever been nice to me, and you gave me away. Chodok must have known, when he’d found a boy in the snow, what would happen to him in K’un Lun. He must have known what he’d go through. He must have known they’d warp Danny into a weapon, must have known they’d beat him and berate him and hurt him, and he’d still done it. Danny thought, back then, that Chodok was the only person who’d never hurt him, but he had. Maybe not directly, but he had.

And now here was Tony, with that same expression on his face, and one key difference Danny recognized with ease --- Tony would never hurt him. Tony loved him the way Chodok couldn’t, the way Lei Kung and Harold couldn’t, the way maybe even Wendell couldn’t. Without consequence. Without condition. Danny had gone against him in a way that would have been punishable by death in K’un Lun, in a way that would have made Tony well within his rights to put him in cuffs and take him to the Raft, and Tony didn’t. He wouldn’t. There weren’t many people who loved Danny like that, and he thought Tony might have been first. He thought Tony might have been the first person to look at him, before K’un Lun and the plane crash and everything else, and decide he was worth loving.

He hoped letting him down wouldn’t change that. . “No,” Danny said, too quickly for it to be true. He paused for a moment, closing his eyes and swallowing before amending. “I don’t know.” He knew how it was supposed to end for him. He knew he’d been meant to die on that mountainside, when the Hand’s soldiers invaded the path he was supposed to guard. The Iron Fist was always supposed to die an honorable death in battle, and there was no K’un Lun left to die for but there were still battles to be fought. If he lost his life in one, maybe it would make up for the battle he’d missed. Maybe the only way you could find redemption was through death.

Tony went on then, offered options, and Danny felt like he was suffocating just a little. Register that weapon. Could he do that? It left a sour taste in his mouth, twisted a knot in his stomach that he didn’t understand. “Tony…” The name fell from his lips in a whisper, and it sounded like an apology, even to him. How could he explain it? How could he talk about K’un Lun, about the lasting damage done to him there? He’d belonged to someone once. He’d been a thing, and they had owned him. He existed for them, bled for them, would die for them, and they’d treated him with as much respect as they treated their swords. You kept a weapon sharp, you kept it clean. You gave it a sheath to rest in, you recognized its power when it was in your hands. You showed a weapon respect, you understood the danger it represented.

You didn’t love it. . You didn’t call a weapon by its preferred nickname. You didn’t ask it how it felt about the solution you used to clean it with. You didn’t value its opinion, you didn’t tuck it into bed at night, you didn’t hold it close when it woke up screaming, didn’t wipe away its tears when it cried. When a weapon had an owner, it couldn’t be loved. And Danny wanted, with the same childlike desperation that inspired his outburst in Chodok’s arms more than a decade ago, to be loved.

If he signed the Accords, it wouldn’t make people love him less. He knew that. On a logical level, he knew that. But the heart was not a logical organ, and his was beating so quickly in his chest that some paranoid part of him feared his ribs might break. “I can’t,” he said quietly. “Tony, I just can’t.”

TONY: He wasn’t talking half as much as he was ten minutes ago. Danny wasn’t arguing, wasn’t trying to plead his case. He wasn’t putting the pen back in the case like Steve, or reaching a hand out to him like Sam had on the grass that day. He wasn’t looking at Tony how Obadiah used to, like he was exhausted and frustrated and disappointed all in one, like he couldn’t understand how Tony could be so intelligent and still unable to grasp what he conceived to be simple facts of the universe, and he sure as hell wasn’t looking at Tony like Howard used to.

He was looking at Tony a little how Maria used to, though — a little like Tony was breaking his heart. Tony decided not to think too much into that.

Maybe this would be easier if Danny was arguing. Maybe it would be easier for Tony to say he was convinced to let Danny go, or that he was persuaded to break the code that he’d signed up to enforce, if his cousin was standing in front of him in a goddamn bandana making a case for his vigilante activities that Tony had been resolutely ignoring for the past six months (years, really. Not just months. Years, since he came back).

Tony could’ve been dead in Afghanistan. He could’ve been dead and he wouldn’t even have the chance to stand in front of Danny and make a decision that should be difficult.

It wasn’t difficult.

“Stop,” Tony said, raking his fingers through his hair. What he’d give to be a few shots down right now — and with that thought, memories came flooding back of Sharon, barely out of high school, coming to sign him out of the hospital because he didn’t want Obie to see him, because of the shame that came with it. Memories came flooding back of Pepper, and of Rhodes falling, and of Steve in Siberia, and … . He turned from Danny. A tactical misstep, undoubtedly, but Tony wasn’t thinking tactically. He knew Danny wasn’t going anywhere. He knew that, because he knew Danny.

He also knew something else. He ran his hands down over his face, eyes burning, and turned back to meet his cousin’s eye.

“Just because you love someone,” he started, swallowing thickly around the lump in his throat. “Just because you love someone doesn’t mean you’re good for them, right? Just because … I mean, I’m not good.” The suit whirred as his hand went to his chest. “This thing, it’s never— I’ve never worked right. I’ve always been hard, you know, difficult to …”

Tony sucked in a breath. FRIDAY was in his ear, despite the mute order. (He really needed to work on obedient artificial intelligence — but like his friends, Tony always preferred having bots around him that were willing to call him out. A moral compass of his own creation.) They didn’t have much longer.

They didn’t have any longer. A holograph appeared from the arm of Tony’s suit, detailing several targets (colleagues) a few metres from the alleyway.

He looked up once more. “I want to be good for someone. I need that.”

A long sigh, and the helmet formed over his head. “No wonder I’m in permanent heart failure,” he muttered. “Come on, idiot. My co-workers are coming, and if they get a shot in on us, I’ll die of embarrassment before I get to kill you.”

DANNY: When Danny was ten years old, his childhood ended in a heartbeat. He was a boy one moment, sitting on a plane and listening to music that was probably a little too old for him, staring out the window at mountaintops that looked so small. Then the world started to shake and the plane started to groan and all at once, life as he knew it was over. His mother was sucked into open air, his stomach bottomed out, his father’s voice grew more and more desperate until he couldn’t hear it at all. Danny hadn’t died in that crash, but the boy he’d been when he stepped on that plane? He was gone the moment the debris hit the snow.

There were no children in K’un Lun. It was Davos who told him that, Davos who sat beside him when he was terrified and desperate and trying to understand what was going on, why he was being beaten and pushed and hurt even when he hadn’t done anything wrong. We’re kids, he’d said, almost pleading as he gripped bruised ribs and tried not to cry. Why are they hurting us? We’re just kids. And Davos, if anything, had been confused. He hadn’t understood that, in other parts of the world, things were different. He hadn’t been familiar with cultures that saw children as precious things to protect. There are no children in K’un Lun, Danny, he’d said, in what Danny figured now was a tone as close to gentle as he’d known how to make it. We’re weapons. And so he had been. For fifteen years, he had been a weapon instead of a child, a thing instead of a person. . But he didn’t feel like that now. Standing in this alley, with Tony across from him, Danny felt like he was nine years old again. He felt like a child, being scolded by a parent. He felt like he had when he’d knocked his mother’s wine glass off the table and shattered it against the floor, when his father sat him down and lectured him on caution. It’s so easy to break things, Danny, he’d said, it’s so easy to do damage. It’s hard not to. It’s hard to be good. We have to try anyways.

Danny’d broken something much worse than a wine glass now. He’d broken a law, broken more than one law, actually. He’d broken Tony’s trust, too. (And he’d broken more than that. A quick flash of a memory popped into his mind --- the Reaper, blood on his lips, grinning up at Danny. This is my favorite part. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Danny’s throat felt tight.)

He’d opened his mouth again, to explain or to argue or to beg forgiveness, but he snapped it shut quickly when Tony told him to stop. Obedience was an easy habit to fall back on after K’un Lun, especially when he was on edge. Tony wasn’t Lei Kung or Priya, wasn’t Yu-Ti or Master Khan. He wouldn’t beat Danny into submission if he didn’t comply without question. But Danny’s mind was split between two places, and there was some comfort in doing what you were told when you were at a loss. There was some comfort in silence, too. . Tony turned away from him, and Danny squeezed his eyes shut and took a breath. He was disappointed, he knew. He’d disappointed Tony, and that was the last thing he’d ever wanted to do. “You’re one of the best people I know,” he offered quietly, because it was true. “I’m not…” he trailed off, chest aching. “I’m not what anyone wanted me to be. I don’t know how to be what anyone wants me to be. Not you, or Ward, or Sharon, or Colleen, or…” He trailed off, smiling tightly and giving his head a self-deprecating shake. If he listed all the people he’d let down, he knew, they’d spend all night in this alley.

Something was happening inside the suit, and Danny wasn’t a smart man but he could guess what. Tony had been here too long, and enforcers didn’t work alone. Someone else was going to come soon. Someone who wouldn’t want to talk things over, someone who didn’t love him enough to forgive his transgressions.

For a moment, the whole world seemed to hold its breath. Danny was pretty sure Tony wouldn’t arrest him, but he didn’t quite relax until Tony told him to come on. His shoulders slumped and he nodded his head slightly. He moved to follow Tony before hesitating, pausing with one foot still lifted in a half-step. “You’re going to get in trouble for this, aren’t you?” For helping him. For loving him.

TONY: Being a good man always came with too many terms and conditions for it to be something Tony genuinely strived for. Being a good man meant making choices that cost people their livelihoods. It meant dropping bombs in foreign countries and focusing purely on the statistics of such a move instead of the human impact. It meant saying no when you wanted to say yes, saying yes when you wanted to say no. It meant hurting the people you cared about and spending your entire life following those you didn’t, because they’d offer you a leg up the career ladder, or get you that coveted contract.

“No,” Tony said, holding his hand up. “We’re not doing that, okay? We’re not. I … I’m not the guy people put weight on, alright?” Tony was the fixer. He always had been for those he cared about, for those he didn’t, for his family and friends and strangers all in one. He was the guy people went to when they needed out of a bad situation, but the second people started loving him, the second they shifted into thinking of him as more than just a means to an end, the second they started looking at him like he knew Danny was behind that bandana, things changed. That was when people could really hurt you, when they could get inside you and twist you inside out, when they could let you down.

He’d already dragged Steve down with him, a truly good man, a man who deserved so much better than anything Tony could give. He wasn’t going to do the same thing to Danny, not without a warning. Not without a comprehensive list outlining all the reasons why Tony Stark wasn’t someone to consider a hero. . “You don’t need to know who you are,” Tony replied. “You don’t. You … I know you’re going to hate me for saying this, but you’re young, Danny. You’re so fucking young. You’re … I was still selling weapons when I was your age. I still believed Obie wasn’t trying to put a hit out on my head. I was still calling Ru every time I got drunk, and you, you didn’t even get your childhood. You didn’t get to be a teenager. You’re young. Your mistakes, they still count, but they’re not … you’re not irredeemable. You’re not.”

No one was. Not even Tony, not even when he found that hard to accept.

You’re going to get in trouble for this, aren’t you? Tony hesitated, just for a moment, then shrugged a shoulder. “I’m already in a shit load of trouble, Danny,” he said. “Helping you isn’t going to be the thing that drags me down.” As it had always been, Iron Man’s greatest foe was himself.

And then the Enforcers arrived, providing a rather convenient outlet for the anger that particular thought prompted. “Keep tight,” Tony called over, “but the second you see a gap, you get out.” With that, and trusting that for once Danny would listen to a word he said, Tony sent a blast towards one of the Enforcers, knocking them back before their weapon could fire.

This was going to be so much paperwork.

#char: danny rand #discord

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