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niqhtlord01 · 5 years

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Humans are Weird: Space Pirates

A merchant’s perspective.... The crew of the transport ship Morbis Ulta were led down into the holds one by one by their captors. Jenka had kept his head down and hoped that the boarders wouldn’t execute him if he just kept following their instructions and so far his plan was working. The battle had been roughly thirty minutes, but for Jenka and the rest of the crew it had felt like an eternity. The Morbis Ulta had been part of a merchant convoy running shipments between the Mumbari and Slitch spheres of influence. Each of the transport ships in the convoy were the size of a city roughly but only needed a small skeleton crew to manage them. A couple dozen engineers, technicians, and other miscellaneous personnel came out to a total of less than a hundred souls per ship. Most of the remaining manpower needed was filled out by mechanical helper bots. Additionally the convoy had been given an escort by the merchant’s guild of three Gemini cruisers. Long sleek ships that appeared as slender crystals glistening in starlight, the Gemini were always happy to lend them out when a profit was to be made for an easy job. There had been no reported danger in the stellar pathways the convoy was to take and the escort was mainly there to clear a path through a asteroid field that sometimes drifted in and out of the route. The merchant’s guild had calculated it would be easier to use the cruisers weapons to clear a path through the drifting asteroids then it would be to reroute around them. Jenka was on the bridge running diagnostic checks on subsystems when the convoy reached the edge of the asteroid field. The three transport ships had grouped together and the escorts had taken position around the bow, port, and starboard of the convoy. The rear didn’t need protection as the main firepower would be used to clear the asteroids ahead of them. They had just begun blasting through the asteroids when all hell broke loose. Hidden in the asteroid belt, three unknown ships suddenly powered up and made a mad dash towards the convoy. The captain of the Morbis tried hailing them several times but was eventually cut off when the Gemini cruisers switched from firing at asteroids to the new ships. Clearly the cruiser commander was not going to take any chances with these new ships and treated them as hostiles. Energy lances shot out from their guns followed swiftly by a barrage of missiles streaking through the void towards their ever encroaching targets, but these new ships had chosen their ambush point wisely as hardly any of the weapons fire ever reached their shields. The drifting asteroids acted as a natural barrier and got in the way of the oncoming fire, detonating them into a shrapnel of rock that further impeded the fire. Little did we know that the real danger wasn’t just in front of us, but all around us. Out of no where a large asteroid smashed into the engines of the Morbis Ulta and crippled her. Jenka remembered being sent flying from the impact and unsteadily rising to his feet to see similar asteroids ramming the other two convoy ships. As one of the asteroids began drifting away Jenka was alarmed to see that booster engines had been attached to the rock and had essentially turned it into a massive missile. He shouted a warning to his captain who attempted to relay it to the escorts but by then it was two late. From every corner asteroids began moving of their own free will and speeding to the escort ships with ramming speed. One of the escorts took an asteroid right into the bridge leaving it a floating husk voiding atmosphere. The other two switched fire from the enemy vessels and began taking shots at the oncoming asteroids as their gunnery crews began wildly firing in all directions. To Jenka’s horror he saw a pair of asteroids with a massive chain between them, the kind he once saw at a dry dock on a world he dropped cargo off at. The two asteroids missed a Gemini cruiser but was caught by the chain pulling the asteroids to spin around the escort in a swirling motion until through sheer strain the entwined cruiser was split in half by the ever tightening chain. The last cruiser didn’t last much longer after that. It had attempted to about face and make a run for it but by then all of the asteroids had begun smashing into it until finally the vessel exploded from the damage. One by one the enemy vessels pulled up alongside the disabled convoy ships and boarding tubes extended to the airlocks. The captain had ordered all crews to prepare to repel borders, but honestly Jenka knew the crew would be as useful as a gang of Rakvargs trying to kill a Morgalik with twigs. The real defense would come from the mechanized helpers who were programmed with defense initiatives. Jenka watch through the bridges security feeds as the airlock doors were blown open and a steady stream of unknown individuals rushed forward. The mechanized helpers were waiting and engaged the borders in hand to hand combat. Their bodies were designed to lift thousand pound cargo containers and easily shrugged off small arms fire. Jenka began thinking they might have a chance until he saw a massive intruder that appeared to be a Predatoria. The fish like alien rushed several of the helpers and simply ripped them apart with their bare hands as if they were made of paper. Behind them came a far smaller intruder who began throwing small discs that mag-locked on to the helpers and then short circuited them. It was only a matter of time before the intruders had reached the bridge doors and had blown them open, after which Jenka quickly found himself in his current predicament. After reaching the holding bay that led to the cargo containers behind a reinforced security door. The surviving crew were put together in a large group. Jenka saw the Predatoria circling them, his mouth wide with a toothy grin as he ran his tongue across scores of razor sharp teeth. Jenka saw the smaller intruder from the screen at a nearby console with a series of wires running to it from a small device. If he had to guess the creature was attempting to bypass security and open the cargo hold doors. “Captain on deck!” Jenka’s attention was torn away as the Predatoria made their announcement and the surrounding intruders straightened up. From down the long hallway leading to the holding bay Jenka could hear a ever growing clanking sound. Through the dark corridor a figure began to take form until finally they stepped into the light of the chamber. To Jenka’s surprise it was something he had never thought to see in person. A human. A human woman to be more percise, he noted as his eyes ran along the length of their body. The “captain” as the, Predatoria had called her, was a seemingly young human female. She wore a long brown coat that was nearly touching the ground and a long brimmed hat with a feather sticking out of it. Underneath the coat Jenka could see a variety of straps and pouches interwoven across a seemingly form fitting black body glove that clung to her like a second skin. Each of the straps was carrying to Jenka’s alarm a different weapon or blade which he imagined she was proficient in. Though the most eye catching feature wasn’t the coat or the hat or the questionable second skin outfit, but a mechanical lump of metal that protruded out where the lower half of her left leg should be. In the place of flesh was a sleek steel finished section of metal that seemed to be alive as it pulsed and flashed with interconnected wires and lights. Jenka was drawn away from further observing the captain when a new figure emerged from the hallway. Standing nearly twice the height of this captain, a imposing Hydra lumbered into the chamber on four legs and gazed about with its five heads. These creatures were known to be highly aggressive and yet the human was acting as if only a light breeze had passed her by. “I will get straight to the point.” the intruder captain spoke. “ I am the pirate captain Amelia Starfeld, and you are all my prisoners.” She began pacing towards the group of captives and they parted to let her pass. “Do what I say without question and you will all be set free with no trouble. Fail to follow those simple rules and we will not have such a pleasant time.” She reached Jenka and looked down at him as if he was nothing more than a spec of dirt. “Are you the captain of this rust bucket?” The directness of the question left Jenka stuttering to reply to which Amelia rolled her eyes. “Clear this one is not.” “Wouldn’t be the first time you left someone babbling captain.” The Predatoria joked from the edge of the group. A few of the other pirates chuckled before shutting up when Amelia’s eyes glanced in their direction. “Now is not the time for jokes Mr. Fig.” she remarked. “Neither is it a time for that ridiculous leg of yours either but you don’t see us complaining about it.” The reply came from over the shoulder of the small alien still working on the terminal. Amelia firmly planted her good foot in the ground and hefted her metal leg. “Hello? It is a classic pirate motif.” She waved her metal leg for all to see. “All the best pirates from my world had peg legs. Without it it doesn’t complete the outfit.” “Then all your famous pirates had terrible style.” Mr Fig remarked earning another round of laughter from the surrounding pirates. “You’re not one to talk either Mr. Fig.” The small pirate remarked again as they pulled out several more colored wires. “You look like you jumped into a dumpster and put on whatever was there.” Mr. Fig looked down at his outfit. “I only wear what I kill. It’s not my fault my prey has terrible fashion sense.” The small alien finally turned around and flashed a grin under their over-sized goggles. “No, it just means you have terrible sense in picking prey.” The surrounding pirates enjoyed another round of laughter before a warning growl from Mr. Fig silenced them. “If you weren’t so important Mr. Tipples I wouldn’t mind killing you for your tiny outfit. It might make a nice glove to wear so that every time I looked down at it I could remember your last dying breath.” Amelia stamped her peg leg several times for silence. “That’s enough squabbling you two. My day is busy enough already without fashion talk.” “Yes captain, sorry captain.” came Mr. Fig and Mr. Tipples responses. Amelia turned her attention back to the captives. “Simple question then. Will the captain step forward and unlock this door?” When no one stepped forward Amelia stamped her leg again and the Hydra moved towards her. “I’m trying to be a team player here,” she said as the several heads of the Hydra wrapped around her, “but my patience does have its limits. Open. The. Door. Now.” She let go of the Hydra who slowly advanced on the nearest captured crew member and began loudly hissing, several strands of drool dripping from its mouths. “Enough!” Jenka turned around to see the Morbis captain stand up. “I’m the captain of this vessel. If you promise to not harm any of my crew I will open the doors.” “Bit late for that old timer.” Mr. Tipples replaced the panel and entered a series of key codes. The massive cargo doors began slowly retracting to the cheers of the pirates. Amelia turned to the captain and smiled. “That was always the plan. We do so abhor violence after all.” Without saying another word she moved towards the ever growing opening to the cargo hold flanked by Mr. Fig and Mr. Tipples. She was the only one to enter while the other two stood guard at the entrance. “Right lads, you know the drill.” Mr. Fig spoke as he casually pulled something from his teeth and flicked it at one of the nearby captives. “Captain gets first pick of the loot then everything else is divided up.” The pirates nodded eagerly and glanced hungrily at the entrance to the cargo hold imagining what treasures lay within. Several minutes passed and Jenka couldn’t help but notice that the pirate captain had still not returned. Some of the pirates surrounding them were getting antsy as the time passed and still Amelia had not returned. They cast glances at Mr. Tipples who in turn looked up at Mr. Fig who simply shrugged. He turned around and called out into the cargo hold. “Captain, everything alright in there?” No reply... “Captain?” Mr. Fig called a second time with a hint of more concern then before. The surrounding pirates were now growing concerned and hefted their weapons at their captives. Mr. Fig was just about to step into the cargo hold when Amelia suddenly appeared again from the gloom startling them. “Jesus captain. A little warning next time before yo-” Amelia glared at Mr. Fig and the sudden look of raw hatred and anger on her face silenced him. Jenka noticed the other pirates take a cautious step backwards as if they knew something that look meant and were just as terrified as the Predatoria. Amelia moved towards the captain of the Morbis Ulta, not bothering to wait for the other captives to move out of the way she merely shoved them violently out of her path. At reaching the captain she grabbed him by the collar and lifted him to his feet, her eyes glaring like knives into his soul. “Did you know what you were transporting?” The captain stuttered as he struggled in the surprisingly strong grip of Amelia. She slapped him across the face sending him flying back to the floor. “Did.You.Know?” Her voice was as sharp as a knifes edge as she looked around at the rest of the crew. Jenka was unaware why the cargo would have upset the Amelia so much. All it was were products being sold to the Slitch Empire. Without saying another word Amelia stamped her leg three times and once again the Hydra appeared at her side. She gestured to the cowering captain on the ground and spoke only one word. “Feast.” All five mouths of the Hydra shot open and the creature surged past Amelia. The captain began screaming as the five heads latched on to him and began biting off chunks of flesh one at a time. He cried and shouted for help as he tried to crawl away only for the Hydra to tear into his legs and pull him back. Jenka recoiled at once putting as much distance as he could from from the horrific scene before him. Several other crew members rushed to their captains side to protect him but the Hydra turned on them just as rapidly. Teeth latching on to throats before ripping them wide open and leaving the gasping crew members bleeding out on the floor. Jenka turned away from the nightmare unfolding before him to see Amelia camly walking away towards Mr. Fig. She whispered something to him, then returned into the cargo hold. Mr. Tipples looked up at Mr. Fig in confusion but with one glance something was communicated between the two of them. Mr. Tipples nodded and then followed after Amelia into the hold. “Aim for their legs. No kill shots. Captain want’s her pet to have its meals alive.” Without further orders the pirate crew hefted their weapons to their sides and began firing into the captives. True to their orders none of the shots killed anyone but sent them sprawling to the floor with cries of pain on their lips from the weapons fire. Jenka tried to stand but was soon himself gunned down. For a moment he was distracted by the ground shattering pain in his lower body until he heard a growing hissing sound. He barely was able to turn his head around to see All five of the Hydra’s heads now looking at him with starved eyes, blood dripping from their mouths. Jenka was crying desperately as he crawled away, struggling for every inch that could be put between him and that monster. The hissing grew louder and louder as he began to sob and claw his way over other crew members laying down on the cold deck. The last thing Jenka felt was the tightening grip of five mouths latching on to his back and dragging him kicking and screaming backwards to his painful demise. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A gruesome finish to a space fairing story for sure, but so many questions are left unanswered. Why did Amelia suddenly break her word and order the deaths of her captives? What cargo was the Morbis Ulta transporting that could so unnerve the Pirate queen of the asteroid belt? Why did her crew stand back and watch their captain’s pet feast on living people? Find out in the next chapter of Humans are Weird: Space Pirates, A Pirate’s Perspective.

#HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are insane #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #scifi #story #pirate #space pirates #hydra

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thebibliomancer · 4 years

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #210: You Don’t Need the Weathermen to Know Which Way the Wind Blows!

August, 1981

Wow that is one hell of a title! At least in terms of length.

Not the best though.

That still belongs to Avengers #12: “This Hostage Earth!”: In Which the Mighty Avengers Battle to Save Their Beloved Planet From a Fate So Deadly That None But the Macabre Mole Man Could Have Devised It!: A Marvel Tale of Most Compelling Excellence!”

The title to this one being a Bob Dylan reference gets its some bonus points though.

Hmm, this issue is written by Bill Mantlo and he’s also the co-creator of Rocket Raccoon, originally an extended reference to a Beatles song.

Guy loves his song references.

The cover is also pretty excellent this time too. Damn but do I miss covers like this. Four different perils befallen the Avengers separated by the presumed villain’s helmet crest.

So take us away, Mantlo.

We start the issue with the return of the ridiculous four-sided television for the Avengers meeting table. Except now its five four-sided tvs on one pole for maximum media absorption from multiple angles.

And the Avengers are watching THE WEATHER CHANNELS!

Scarlet Witch: “Why have you summoned us, Captain America? What new menace confronts the Avengers?”

Wonder Man: “Wait until you hear, Wanda! Cap’s called us together to watch the weather report!”

Don’t be so surprised. The title and the cover are all about weather.

Cap though says that this weather channel may be showing THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE WORLD!

But surely he’s exaggerating. Even if 2012 the movie ridonkulous weather disasters happen and wipe out humanity, the world will keep on zooming through space. Its a persistent rock.

End of humanity is pretty bad too, from the point of view of humanity. Which the Avengers either are or aspire to.

So there are excessive tornadoes in Kansas. So far, of course.

London is flooding.

There are unnatural thunderstorms and torrential rains in New York, so bad that Thor has decided to show up without being summoned to go ‘hey how about this weather, right?’

Buenos Aires is freezing, baffling and befuddling bikini beach goers.

Which Beast ogles.

Beast, pls. The fate of the humanity is at stake here.

And there’s a heatwave over Antarctica melting ice and raising the water levels, threatening low lying countries. Or mostly just England somehow.

The government’s weather monitoring space station with a weird name Samarobyrn has determined that these weather disruptions are too systematic to be natural so the Avengers are going to split into five groups to investigate the five places I’ve already mentioned, since they’re the five places most seriously affected according to the satellite Samarobyrn.

Beast is going to go to Buenos Aires, to his delight.

Wanda and Vision will go to Kansas.

Beast: “The perfect place to send the Good Witch of the East!”

The Wasp and Wonder Man will head to Antarctica.

Wasp: “Great! Finally I get a chance to wear my new fur coat!”

... Wasp. Heatwave.

Thor will investigate the thunderstorms in New York.

And Cap and Iron Man will go to London.

Not sure what they’re going to do against large-scale weather disturbances. Can’t exactly punch the climate. At least not personally.

Maybe punching a weatherman will help. Can’t make the situation worse.

Anyway, the Avengers all head off to their own destinations, with Beast snarking “Say, shouldn’t someone yell ‘Avengers Dissemble’?!”

So, this reminds me of something, really briefly. There was an episode of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes that used the title This Hostage Earth (sadly sans the rest) and also coincidentally seems to share some elements with this story. The Avengers split up to investigate seven different anomalies with Iron Man wryly commenting that he should say Avengers Dissemble.

Doesn’t have much of anything to do with this. I was just reminded because of mentioning This Hostage Earth ect earlier.

Anyway, while all of the other Avengers dissemble, Thor tarries.

So he’s still in the meeting room when Jocasta arrives and wonders what the hell is going on. She only found out there was a meeting at all because Jarvis told her.

Damn, that’s rude, the other Avengers.

Thor: “An oversight, surely. Our ranks have swelled of late, and with no permanent chairman, ‘tis hard to know whose responsibility ‘twas to summon thee.”

Jocasta: “True? And yet I have felt... apart from the others. Being a creature of cybernetic circuits and not flesh and blood, I am always aware that I am... different.”

Thor: “And thou thinkest we do shun thee for it? Nay, milady! The Avengers are a composite of mortal and immortal, android and man-beast, man and mutant! Different, Jocasta? Aye, so are we all!”

Oh, hey. There’s that arc about Jocasta feeling disconnected from the other Avengers. We haven’t touched on it for a while but it was a running thing in the Shooter run previously. She tried to make friends with various Avengers but they tended to inadvertently blow her off due to their own preoccupations or just getting distracted.

So, no, Thor, I don’t think that the Avengers are intentionally shunning her. But I do think that none of them have really been reaching out to her, either. And you’re all she has.

Thor heads out to his mission and this time Jocasta tarries, thinking about things and stuff.

So she’s still in the meeting room when the computer pulls up some exposition based on a random thing Beast asked rhetorically.

“Origin of the word Samarobryn in the disaster prophecies of Michael Nostradamus... Samarobryn one hundred leagues from the hemisphere. They will live without law, exempt from politics.”

Huh!

I don’t think I knew that Nostradamus had a first name!

Weird that someone would name a weather satellite after a disaster prophecy that predicted famine caused by excessive rain. That’s like naming a communications satellite Babel.

Anyway, the Avengers all head in five different directions with four Quinjets and one Thor and Jocasta takes a fifth Quinjet and heads off into space.

Huh! They have five whole Quinjets now!

Thor flies up into the sky and begins yelling at the clouds, as one might expect from Thor.

Thor: “The storm rages as it hast for hours, with a fury that doth threaten the very existence of the Midgardian mortals dwelling below! ‘Tis time to leash the lightning -- to put the rain to rout! Cease, storm! ‘Tis the god of thunder who dost command thee!”

And then Thor gets hit in the face by lightning.

This storm is a rude.

Thor is stunned by all of this lightning in the face, I guess backing up Clone Squirrel Girl’s use of electricity to knock out Jane!Thor that one time, nearly falling out of the sky before whirling Mjolnir like a helicopter to land smoothly.

And then Thor goes back to yelling at clouds except this time not just clouds because he spots the one who hit him with lightning and it is a who and not a what.

Thor: “Descend, Villain! And if yon storm be thy doing -- desist!”

Weatherman: “Have a care, god of thunder! Not even you can command... a WEATHERMAN!”

I have queried an expert who has told me that yes, this guy looks a bit tokusatsu.

(And he’s orange. Spoilers: There’s a different colored one wherever the Avengers go. A full color-coded team.)

Anyway, two hours later and over in London, England, Iron Man and Captain America arrive to deal with London being flooded.

Iron Man: “Do you realize just how selective these disasters are, Cap? After all, England and Holland border on the same body of water -- and the first’s been inundated, while the second hasn’t been touched!”

Huh! That is weird. And seems incredibly implausible or like someone or thing incredibly powerful is also incredibly angry at the English.

While Iron Man flies around shooting the water with repulsors to... shove it back into the ocean? Is that what’s going on?? I mean, if the water is disproportionately high on England’s side of the channel then I guess you could just shove the water and accomplish something but I thought there was something going on with Antarctica melting which would indicate that the sea levels are also rising but then why would it be affecting only England and oh no comic logic has broken me

Anyway, while ^ that is happening, Captain America lands the Quinjet on Parliament since there’s not many good places to land and really, how often can you say to have landed a jet on a government building?

He’s old, let him have his fun.

But it’s not just fun! He’s Captain America, the man who wakes up at 4 AM to go for a ten miles jog so he can be showered and ready to superhero by 6 AM, probably!

He notices some kids clinging to an overturned double decker bus (because how would we know it was London without?) and he jumps from Parliament to swing on a Union Jack flag to the bus.

And then he uses the flag to create a tether to a rescue boat that the kids can cross over on.

AND THEN THE BLUE WEATHER RANGER! appears.

Flying around on a hoverdisc and creating a localized tidal wave. The wave smacks Cap off the bus into the water as Blue Weather Ranger gloats.

Weatherman: “Let that be a lesson to you not to wrest lives away -- when they’ve been claimed by... a Weatherman!”

And now a scene transition to sunny Antarctica where Jan van Wasp is finally getting the idea that heatwave means that her fur coat is superfluous.

While melting Antarctica temps might still be cold, this specific melting Antarctica temp is almost tropical!

And its not just sunny, it seems like the sun is moving closer, like the angry sun from Mario Bros 3 because iiiiiiiiits.... THE RED WEATHERMAN!

Weatherman: “Die, Avengers! The only fate for those who would defy... a Weatherman!”

The Red Weather Ranger blasts them with heat beams of a thousand degrees, melting the ice right out from under them.

Wasp figures that the Red Weatherman is radiating heat in waves so she could hypothetically hit him between cycles.

Hypothetically.

Because she can’t figure out the frequency and instead the Weatherman sets her wings on fire. And her wings are an organic part of her and she hurts when they hurts. So she plummets into the water to put herself out.

Hmm... the yellow and black look good on Jan and fits with the Wasp name but sometimes she doesn’t look dissimilar to an X-Men.

Wonder Man does what Wonder Man does and picks up a heavy thing and chucks it jerkwards.

But they’re in Antarctica so heavy thing is a giant ice chunk and jerk is a really hot guy so the ice chunk melts midflight pelting the two Avengers with boiling rain.

Wow, this is going poorly so far!

Who’s next?

Scarlet Witch and Vision are next! And they’ve gone to Kansas to fight tornadoes.

I’m. Not sure how that’s going to play out. I really feel like the Avengers are out of their element trying to fight the weather. Is it too late to call in the X-Men and specifically Storm?

She’s doing a crossover with Dazzler this month in 1981 so its not like she was too busy.

Anyway, Scarlet Witch flies the Quinjet at a tornado and then is shocked when the jet gets swept into the funnel cloud and spins out of control

She wonders why Vision is just standing there but he learned a thing from the Yellow Claw two-parter and isn’t just standing there.

He actually makes his mass so heavy that it forces the Quinjet to the ground with a WHRUMP!

I can’t imagine that’d be good for either the Quinjet or the passengers but I’ll give Vision this.

Its cool that he can do his thing without outwardly expending any effort.

Scarlet Witch: “Yes, neither of our powers are quite so flamboyant as Cap throwing his shield, or Thor his hammer -- but they have proven most effective, else we would not be Avengers!”

And then she uses her witchcraft to force two of the tornadoes to slam into each other and cancel out.

This also seems dubious. Since tornadoes tend to spin the same direction you’d think that instead of cancelling, they’d become one giant super tornado. Them cancelling each other out seems quite improbable actually. Which is probably exactly why it works.

Take that, SCIENCE.

But there’s still one tornado left and its coming for them! And since it appears to not be naturally formed, it defies Wanda’s nature based magic! Curses!

Annnnnnnnnd... It’s a WEATHERMAN!

The ebony Weatherman. Although he looks purple to me.

Weatherman: “Stand or flee, it will make no difference! Your lives are in the hands of a... WEATHERMAN!”

And another scene transition.

Geez, this plot split the party hard. And I think it’s beginning to realize how hard it is to split the story between six groups because this vignette gets four panels before moving on.

Beast lands in beautiful snow-covered iceberg infested Buenos Aires and takes a brief moment to be horny about a bunch of bikini women who have been frozen alive.

Beast: “Oh, my stars and garters! Those bathing beauties I saw on T.V. -- they’re frozen solid! Maybe I could take one or two back to thaw out in my room at Avengers mansion?”

And then as if to punish him for this, the white WEATHERMAN! immediately appears and freezes Beast solid.

Weatherman: “You will need to unfreeze yourself first, man-beast! So says... a WEATHERMAN!”

Beast: “Yoiks!”

Good thing freezing is basically harmless in comics.

And our final party, Jocasta IN SPAAAAAAACE.

Because Quinjets can still just achieve escape velocity. That’s some good super-science.

Jocasta: “Samarobyrn, Earth’s first weather-monitoring space station! It’s so... beautiful! A shimmering silver wheel in space -- a triumph of science and engineering, created to faithfully serve its creators... as was I. Perhaps that is why I alone thought to come here.”

And since she’s a robot, she just jumps out of the Quinjet airlock that it definitely always has had and uses her EYE BEAMMM to basically propel herself away from the Quinjet and toward the Samarobyrn station.

That’s pretty cool, actually. I’m not sure if, scientifically, laser eyes would actually propel that much, but its a cool thought.

Of course, Jocasta has to do all of this cool stuff because the space station didn’t respond to the docking requests Jocasta sent. So she has to go in through the manual override airlock.

In the station, Jocasta finds no signs of life even though it was supposed to have a five man crew.

She finds her way to the hub of the station where the computer monitors are all monitoring the five separate Avengers missions.

So she’s pretty sure her suspicions were correct.

Jocasta: “The five foes facing my fellow Avengers must be the five crewmen of Samarobryn! They have distorted this station’s functioning from that of weather-monitoring to weather control -- and now exploit it for their own evil ends!”

Samarobryn: “You are wrong, silver sister!”

WELP!

The space station computer has gone all HAL. Dammit, this always happens!

So Samarobryn decides to explain it all.

It had a humble beginning as a computer for the U.S. Weather Service’s Project Earthwatch. But then one of the programmers added something extra to the concoction: NOSTRADAMUS!

No but seriously. The programmer decided to download the disaster prophecies of Nostradamus into the computer in addition to weather data.

And particularly the ones dealing with that Samarobryn prophecy, the one Jocasta read part of earlier. So when the comptuer was installed in a space station named Samarobryn, it went ‘hey that me!’

And decided to expand operations from weather monitoring to weather control.

How does a space station outfitted specifically to only monitor the weather make the jump to controlling it? Fuck you, this is comics.

When the crew grew suspicious, the computer rewrote their brains to become the Weathermen.

Why did a computer designed to monitor weather have the ability to-

Look, this is comics. Where Hank Pym, biophysicist, built a computer with a gun pre-installed and was surprised when it shot him and tried to take his wife. THIS. IS. COMICS.

Anyway, speaking of weirdly sexual computers:

Samarobryn: “I sense that you are a machine like me -- created by others but obedient to none! Join me! Be my bride! Together we will cleanse the Earth of imperfect humankind and stand guard over the paradise which remains... as gods!”

Geez, its just like Aaron Stack all over again, way before the fact. Also, Ultron. A certain type of AI is just attracted to Jocasta, huh?

Anyway, Jocasta lets Samarobryn down easy by shooting him with EYE BEAM!

Jocasta: “Nothing would remain but a lifeless mokcery of a world! No! I reject you! I was created to be the bride of another such as you -- but robot though I am, there is still some spark of humanity burning within me! I cherish it -- and would not see its source snuffed out!”

Samarobryn may be a load bearing computer pillar without arms or legs but it still manages to defend itself.

BY FLOODING THE CONTROL ROOM?

I guess everything in this room is waterproof??

And also by shooting lightning, also in the control room. Where I guess everything is lightning proof.

This is a bad plan.

More than I thought, even, because by shifting attention to defending itself up in space, Samarobryn leaves its Weathermen high and dry.

The Orange Weatherman stops being able to throw lightning bolts so Thor clobbers him.

The Red Weatherman chills out so Wonder Man and Wasp can get close and put him in a headlock.

Uh. I’m not sure if Blue Weatherman actually is affected or not because Iron Man just punches him in the back of the head while he’s distracted.

The Ebony Weatherman’s whirlwind vanishes so Scarlet Witch and Vision can kick his ass.

And Beast unfreezes as quickly as he froze and kicks the White Weatherman’s helmet off. And apparently the helmet was maintaining the mind control because the Weatherman is suddenly confused about where he is.

And with the Orange Weatherman beaten up, Thor senses, with his god senses no doubt, that the Orange Weatherman wasn’t the one commanding the weather. So there must be an unseen agent who arranged this.

So his course is clear.

Thor shoots a giant lightning bolt into space and hits Samarobryn.

He doesn’t know that the station is to blame. He’s just shooting a giant lightning bolt into space because he’s pissed that someone used lightning against him.

I guess when you’re the god of thunder, you can get a little homing capability out of your giant space lightning bolts.

Still though. Wow.

Meanwhile, in space, Samarobryn is still trying to woo Jocasta. For a certain value of woo.

Samarobryn: “It is still not too late, female! Accept me! Accept what must be! I can make you love me!”

Jocasta: “What can a machine who would destroy all those I have come to care for know of love?”

Samarobryn: “Nothing, as humans understand love -- but together we can redefine the word on the basis of our own coexistence!”

Jocasta: “Can you not understand? The fact that I am a machine does not make me less than human! I am, as Thor said, merely... different! I would try to live in their human world -- to understand how to retain that difference that makes me unique -- and yet be accepted!”

This is an interesting conversation but wouldn’t you know it? There’s a power surge. Seems like a space station got hit by lightning.

And when the lights turn back on and Jocasta wonders what happened:

Samarobryn: “I am weather-monitoring space station Samarobryn. Your question is not pertinent to weather evaluation. This unit cannot compute.”

So you know how sometimes a program crashes and you lose all your progress?

Samarobryn hadn’t backed up its sapience and the power surge effectively lobotomized it back to factory settings.

Geez.

LATER

All the Avengers stand around congratulating Jocasta for the good job and apologizing that they overlooked her.

Apparently new safeguards were put in place to prevent Samarobryn from attaining sentience again. Probably stuff like ‘don’t download doomsday prophecies into a weather satellite.’

Hm. I know Samarobryn was trying to destroy the world and all but the cavalier lobotomization of an enemy because it was a computer and thus disposable sits wrong when the Avengers have two AIs on their team. Really, the fact that it was an accident is pretty much all that lets it slide by.

Also: I’m kind of peeved that Jocasta didn’t get to resolve the situation, given that this was blatantly a Jocasta focus issue. She does pull a lot of weight, being the only one to figure out the real source of the problem and distracting Samarobryn long enough for the Avengers to beat the Weathermen. But it feels like Thor swiped the big win from her even though he didn’t even know about Samarobryn. Just shot some lightning into space and resolved the plot.

That plot resolution should have been Jocasta’s!

Anyway. Scarlet Witch says that Jocasta being overlooked like she was indicates that the Avengers need to reorganize and Vision suggests that they vote on a new chairperson.

But they’re interrupted by Cap.

Captain America: “Iron Man, Thor, and I have given some thought to the directions this team has taken -- and should take! I open the floor to discussion! The first item on the agenda being: THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH!”

Which basically means a roster shakeup.

Funny that the Avengers have had a period of disorganization and aimlessness when they didn’t have a permanent writer and now that they are getting one, they’re going to try to get their shit together.

Whatever I do, I shouldn’t miss next issue.

But before then, there’s an Avengers Annual that has to fit in somewhere and since it uses this roster of the team, might as well fit it in now, before everyone changes and it makes no sense. And its a fairly well-known Avengers Annual.

The fairly well-known Avengers Annual that looked at Avengers #200 and said ‘actually this is bullshit.’

Follow @essential-avengers. Also please like if you liked. Its good to know that somebody is reading.

Also, consider donating to the Bill Mantlo Support Fund if you enjoyed vicariously experiencing this issue or if you enjoy Rocket Raccoon or his other stuff like Cloak and Dagger, Micronauts, or Rom.

#Avengers #essential avengers #essential marvel liveblogging #Jocasta #Samarobryn #Thor #Captain America #Iron Man #the Wasp #Wonder Man #Scarlet Witch #the Vision #Beast #the very concept of weather #its out to get us #the mega-TV #too cool to exist #space lightning #regrets that no giant robot was summoned and fought

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miss-spooky-eyes · 4 years

Text

Riddle (Part III)

The conclusion of my Imperial Agent Devinahl’s backstory.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Mentions of child abuse and child prostitution (in earlier parts); emotionally abusive adults; slavery; being torn apart by eels. It is not fun.

NOTES: All names by the Star Wars name generator; all Star Wars universe mistakes by me. I do not own the Star Wars universe.

PART THREE: SCHOOLGIRL

She has no name, and she is always moving.

When they make planetfall, when the doors hiss open and they step out on to a new world, they assume names - names that are written on official documents, printed on identification cards beneath photos of themselves in clothes they've never worn, tossed like scraps are to starving children because they cost nothing to give away. And when they return to the ship, when the engines start to fire and they rise up together, the names are left behind; they have passed over them like shadows on the sand, they leave no impression.

Even the ship has no name - more than that, it has no fixed form. She learns in amazement that precisely the same ship, with nothing more than a superficial alteration of hull markings and emitter beacons, can go from being a small passenger transport out of Ord Mantell to a cargo runner from the notorious junk pits of Yuuv Rata to a classic pleasure yacht lovingly restored by a rich merchant from Alon Prime. 'People believe what you tell them,' Helm tells her, lounging in the pilot's seat, one finger muting the transmitter as they wait for Alderaanian orbital control to clear them. 'If you tell them the right way.' He lifts his finger. 'Acknowledged, Rhu Caenus Control. Have a pleasant day.'

There are no names on the ship, but there are designations. Helm is the pilot; he runs things on the bridge, working most closely with Wheelwright, the Ugnaught who maintains the ship's engines, and Scrivener, who does everything with computers, on and off the ship. Then there is Barber, olive-skinned and with a dreamy smile that only vanishes when he is attending to one of the crew or working on her implants. Yeoman and Bailiff are both human males, but there the resemblance ends; Yeoman is the biggest man she has ever seen, barrel-chested, his arms thickly corded with muscle, and peppers his speech with strange words she learns are Mandalorian. Bailiff is tall but rake-thin, never too far from a vibroblade, and is the one among the crew who is most wedded to the Kaasian accent the rest of them assume and discard as easily as their planetside identities. And then there is Bowyer, short and stocky and unassuming, her own accent rich with Tatooine and her grey eyes perpetually ever-so-slightly narrowed as if against the desert glare - or to focus on something in the distance. Bowyer is the sniper.

They are all human, apart from Wheelwright the Ugnaught engineer, and Locket. Locket is the only one whose designation does not reflect her job on the ship, but then Locket does not have a job on the ship, or if she does, Sifter is the only one who knows about it. Locket can often be found practicing her dancing in an empty storage bay, or in the one large common area aboard when the storage bays are full, bare toes soft on the metal floors, lekku twirling; at other times, she flirts with everybody on board indiscriminately, except for Bowyer, who stops her short with nothing but the ever-so-slightly-deeper narrowing of her eyes. But often Locket is closeted with Sifter in Sifter's office for hours at a time, the only one who ever gets one-on-one time with Sifter. There is a closeness there which the girl senses, even if she doesn't understand.

She does not try very hard not to be jealous.

At first, the girl who had been Stanza and then Gella thought they were simply travelling somewhere, to some planet, some place where she and Sifter would stay at least for a while. But after some time, she realizes that the ship is the place they are going to stay. They do make planetfall, in plenty of places, but they never stay more than a couple of days, or as long as it takes Sifter to accomplish whatever purpose has brought them there. As she learns more about space travel, she begins to understand that sometimes they are travelling simply to travel, spending days or even weeks on journeys which could have been completed in hours. 'Too paranoid for planetfall,' she hears Yeoman mutter under his breath one day as Sifter leaves the bridge after issuing a course correction.

It is a strange life, but she doesn't have too much time to dwell on it, because while everybody on the ship except her and Locket has a job, everybody on the ship - including Locket - is teaching her something.

Helm gives her basic instruction in starship design and the principles of astronavigation, sets her to work manually plotting hyperspace routes. Scrivener talks to her about slicing, about electronic locks and seals, about ciphers and computers, although what Scrivener says is often as incomprehensible as the code which streams across her screen. Wheelwright, or at least the protocol droid that translates for him, talks to her about engines and systems, about critical junctions, vulnerabilities, exposed circuits, pressure points.

Yeoman teaches her about pressure points of a different sort. It's his job to teach her some hand-to-hand combat, a task he thinks is futile - 'You're never going to get much bigger than knee-high to a tuk'ata, little one, if anybody corners you without a weapon, or if you don't kill them within the first two or three blows, you'll be dead' - but nevertheless brings plenty of enthusiasm to. Bailiff is the one to gift her with a vibroknife, her first; he shows her grips and guards and strikes and makes her practice them over and over again, makes her practice throwing one-handed, left-handed, overarm, underarm, at the flimsy targets he fixes to the walls; he has her chopping fruits and vegetables in the galley under the eye of the protocol droid, looking to build up hand-eye coordination and her fearlessness with blades.

She thought Bowyer would teach her to shoot, but: 'Anybody can learn to shoot,' the woman drawls. 'Sniping is different.' She isn't given a blaster, but instead told to practice various different exercises - staying in the same position for a long time, or staring at something without blinking; keeping still and not flinching when Bowyer unexpectedly shouts in her ear or tickles the sole of her foot.

Barber is the closest to a conventional teacher - he gives her files to read on science, history, mathematics, languages - but that is still not very close. He is fascinated with her implants (apparently Doctor Korpil had told the truth about a few things, and one of them was how rare, expensive and high-quality her implants were) and, with his gentle encouragement, they begin to explore what her implants can really do, 'or rather, what you can do with them,' he corrects her softly. She had survived on Draavi Prime by learning to block out any more stimuli than a 'normal' human brain would receive; now she learns that she can, very carefully, widen her perceptual channels a little; not much, but even a fraction allows her to see and in particular hear much better than un-enhanced human eyes and ears would be able to. Before long, the whole crew are joining in the games with which he encourages her to test her limits; elaborate games of hide-and-seek, where she, blindfolded, has to hunt down the rest of the crew, or better yet, corner Devinahl, whose six feet make almost no noise at all as she moves about and who can jump from place to place with ease; or memory games, in which she learns that if she just glances once at something, her enhanced eyes somehow retain that information for a limited time.

Some days, Sifter joins in the games and tests with a vengeance; sometimes, they barely see her for days at a time as she remains closeted in her office, where nobody but Locket is allowed; sometimes she will suddenly appear for one of the crew's meals, sitting carelessly astride her chair, wolfing down food and trading bloodthirsty stories with Bowyer and Yeoman until everybody is laughing or looking faintly nauseous; sometimes she observes such strict protocol that there is virtual silence on board the ship from dawn till dusk. She does not appear to pay much attention to the girl she brought with her from Draavi Prime, but the girl is not fooled; everything that happens on board the ship happens under Sifter's watchful eye.

At night, she sleeps soundly in her tiny cabin. Sifter had showed it to her on her very first day on the ship, had spent time showing her all the locks that fastened the door, explaining patiently to her in great detail precisely how each one kept everybody out. The girl could almost have loved her for that. She never lets anyone into her cabin the whole time she lives on the ship, except for Devinahl. The little creature likes to sleep curled up in her arms.

Locket, the only member of the crew close to her age, at first showed no interest in teaching her anything, or in her presence at all. Then after three months, she suddenly turned friendly, prone to curling up next to the girl on the couches in the common area and paying her compliments, or inviting her back to her, Locket's, quarters, to watch holo-movies or play childish games or experiment with hair, clothes, makeup.

It does not take long to realize that these are lessons, too. It's not long before she and Locket are sometimes allowed out together when they make planetfall, often for shopping expeditions or recreational activities, the two of them trying to outdo each other in successfully pretending to be silly, carefree, laughing teenage girls as they try on clothes or flirt with boys in cafes or play holo-tag. She looks forward to these expeditions, because they are always followed by the same thing; she and Locket both eat dinner with Sifter in Sifter's private cabin. Sifter will ask her questions, testing her recall of the day - how many service droids were there in that food hall? How many exits did the boutique have? How many different alien species on that world? - and she gets better and better at answering. Soon, there are two games; trying to answer Sifter's answers correctly, and trying to pick up on the code that Locket was using to communicate to Sifter whether the answers she gave were correct - bites of her food, lekku twitches, blinks, finger taps. She gets to see Sifter's broad, generous smile if she deciphers the code before the questions are over; and she also gets to see Locket fume.

It's not until much, much later that she realizes that Locket was being tested as much as she was, and by that time, her life on the ship is over. IIn the end, it lasts barely two years before she is summoned into Sifter's office one day, and Sifter looks up from her datapad and says: 'Time to go to work, Schoolgirl.'

Her name is Karia Madeesh, and she is a bad girl.

As Karia, whose parents are both career officers in the Republic navy - there is a framed holo of the three of them on the bedside table in every room she's given - she enters a new world: That of the elite school for children of the rich and influential.

She had never realised that there was a whole industry dedicated to raising and educating the children of the wealthy and powerful, but of course there is. High-ranking career officers in the Republic navy; senior diplomats and bureaucrats; noble houses on worlds whose cultures still clung to aristocratic ideals; merchants running businesses and trading empires that spanned several systems - they all shared two things: A desperation for their children to be equipped with the education and skills to take their places in the same elite strata they themselves occupied; and no time to do it in. And so the institutions spring up, on a hundred worlds: Schools, academies, educational establishments which specialize in taking the offspring of the rich and powerful and educating them to become rich and powerful themselves.

Karia Madeesh attends the Coruscant Sunrise Academy. She spends a year at the Royal Areopagitica on Alderaan. Three different schools on Corellia - the Coronet City College, the Orailus Institute and the Minati Calfax Advanced School - are her home for various lengths of time. She studies on Makeb, and Ord Mantell, and Alon Prime, and Coruscant again. And wherever she goes, she finds herself very popular almost immediately.

When Sifter first explained the assignment to her, she had been sceptical: Why make Karia a bad girl? Even if it gave her an excuse to be constantly moving schools, when Karia's behaviour got too outrageous and she was invariably kicked out, wouldn't it keep her classmates from wanting to get to know her?

She knows better now. Sifter is a genius. Whenever Karia arrives at a new school, word inevitably leaks out that she has been expelled from her last one, and the aura of the 'bad girl' surrounds her. So, too, do her peers, after a short time, all of them wanting to be around this new, rebellious, dangerous girl, who smiles sweetly at the teachers and has no qualms about openly defying them in ways which are sure to call down the wrath of the authorities on her head.

She even finds a way to work her implants into the story. As she tells, or rather reluctantly confides it, they are repairing the damage done when one of the front-line bases her parents were stationed at came under heavy fire. 'They told him it was too dangerous for families, but of course the colonel had to think about his career,' she says bitterly to those huddled around her, breathless, agog. 'Hope the promotion was worth what this school is going to charge you when I'm through, Daddy darling.'

Once again, she is lying to the rich, and she is better at it than ever.

These children don't really know anything, of course. But it's amazing what the slightest crumbs of information can do when combined with others, Sifter says; and parents are very bad at keeping secrets from their offspring. A casual reference to a potential reassignment from the son of a Republic general - 'He said we might have to move again, can you believe it?'; a merchant's daughter showing off her knowledge of a non-aligned world supposedly closed to outside traders; a Nautolan bureaucrat's podling who passes along their uncle's highly unflattering opinion of a Republic supposed war hero they're studying in whispers to make them all laugh; it all adds up. All Karia has to do is pass along the information along agreed-upon channels, and bide her time until the signal comes from Sifter that she is to pull out. Then all it takes is some piece of mischief extravagant enough to get her kicked out, and the same pleasant-faced, nondescript couple who are in all her framed holos will be summoned to undergo a painful exit interview with the head of whatever educational establishment whose patience she has exhausted this time.

They are the same pleasant-faced couple who show up to parents' days (sometimes, though not often, accompanied by a dark-skinned, older woman who introduces herself as Karia’s old nurse); and it is they who welcome her back to an apartment on Coruscant for vacations. If Karia has done her job well enough, though, she is usually invited to a friend's home for weekends and holidays, and that only opens up further possibilities in terms of intelligence-gathering, as she makes one of a party ski-ing the Wokbenlau Alps, or sailing the Triblen Delta, or whispering and giggling in the corner with a group of other girls at a Coronet City soiree. If not, Sifter always has another plan for her, and she slips away unobtrusively from her 'parents' apartment to attend an intensive computer science course, or spend a memorable summer learning to shoot rabid kath hounds from speeder-back on Dantooine, or study Rodian martial arts on Ord Mantell.

If she ever feels bad about what she is doing - if she sees someone who counts her as a friend weeping about a parent lost to an Imperial ambush, or exposed for court-martial - Karia only has to remember the lines at the refugee camp, and her focus returns.

After a few years, her parents 'defect' from the Republic, and Karia starts attending schools on Dromund Kaas, on Avery Station, on Terrek Nor. It doesn't surprise her; the Empire has enemies within that need watching, as much as without, or so Sifter tells her in one of those rare meetings when she is posing as Karia's old nurse. Frankly, it makes little difference: There are fewer aliens among her classmates, but otherwise the rich and their children, Republic or Empire, are much the same.

She never goes back to the nameless ship. Nor does she see any of the crew again. She is almost sure she sees Locket in a holo-news broadcast about the new wave of wealthy Hutts moving in on Makeb when she is at a school there, collared and chained with her leash clamped in some crime-slug's fat fist, but the camera pans away almost immediately and though she studies the recording obsessively in secret, she cannot find a way to identify Locket beyond all doubt. The image makes her feel uneasy, but she tells herself: Sifter has her eye on Locket, just as she does on Karia. Sifter has her eye on them all.

If Karia had ever doubted this, she has her confirmation when things go wrong - the only time that things go wrong.

She really never thinks about her parents any more, about Draavi Prime or the refugee camp or Doctor Korpil and his clinic; those things are safely shut away in the recesses of her mind, and if they surface, it's as dreams, night terrors, rages, longings - things that she can safely process in the privacy of her own room, behind locked doors; harvest the useful emotions from, and shut the rest away. Discard everything that doesn't serve a purpose, Sifter had told her once, back in the days on the ship, and if you can't discard it, find a use for it.

It all works so well until one day, after she had been Karia Madesh for about two years and during her second stint on Corellia, she is strolling through the shopping quarter with her (current) group of friends during their free afternoon and sees her little sister Scerra walking down the street.

Karia stops dead in her tracks. Adrenaline slams through her veins. She cannot move for a moment or two, so great is her shock at having seen Scerra pass by, toddling along on her little legs, each hand held by strange adults. As soon as she can move again, she spins round, ignoring her friends' exclamations and questions, and searches the crowd, pushing through them as she tries to catch up with Scerra and the people who were taking her away.

She catches a glimpse of Scerra's back, the brightly-beaded band which holds back her ponytail, and starts fighting through the crowd to get to her, shouting at the top of her voice for people to get out of her way, swearing, pushing. Her friends catch up to her, a babble of questions, confusion, embarrassment; she ignores them and one by one they fall away from her. There is a rocket tram stop nearby; she vaults the turnstile, ducking under the guards' arm, running to catch up with the glimpse of Scerra's coat she's sure she saw disappearing between the closing doors. She gets to the tram just as the doors slide closed.

She howls in anguish as the tram begins to move, clawing at the doors. The guards have caught up with her, they are pulling her away as the tram accelerates, speeding Scerra away; two of her friends, more determined than the rest, have caught up with her too, trailing shopping bags and showering distressed exclamations. People are turning to look and staring; a crowd is gathering; it's everything she is not supposed to do, and she doesn't care. There is another rocket tram pulling in, and she has to be on it. One guard is holding on to her arms, and she twists out of her jacket, pulling it over his head and kicking him hard, twice; the other reaches for his stun stick, and with a move that comes straight out of the recesses of her brain, where her training is stored, Karia spins into him, driving her elbow into his stomach, then up into his chin as he doubles over, stamping hard on his foot at the same time. She has one glimpse of her friends, staring, wide-eyed, and she is on the rocket tram, racing down the cars to get as far away as she can before it pulls away.

Of course she has no idea where Scerra and the adults who were with her got off the tram, but she is panicking too hard to think about that, or anything except finding them. She tears up and down the tram, grabbing people's shoulders to look at their startled faces then racing away; she leaps off at a random residential district, runs out of the station into the streets, looking everywhere for the distinctive little figure, the pink coat, the bright beads in her hair, screaming her sister's name until her throat is raw. Startled passers-by point and whisper; her comm armband, linked to the school's systems, buzzes and buzzes until she tears it off and throws it into the street. All she can think about is that somewhere in this city is her little sister, her little sister being taken away.

It's hours before she comes to her senses. The frenzy that has been driving her ebbs away all at once, leaving her standing alone on a street corner in a part of Coronet City she's never seen, exhausted, every muscle in her body throbbing with fatigue, her face streaked with dirt, her eyes swollen from crying, her throat raw with screaming. She has missed curfew, thrown away her comm-band; the group of girls she has been so carefully infiltrating have seen her behave with total irrationality - worse, they saw her fight off those guards. She has ruined everything, and for what? She did not see Scerra. She could not have seen Scerra at all.

It's the first time she has been asked to leave a school ahead of Sifter's timetable. Her 'parents' are there to take her away; she sits numbly through the exit interview, gathers her things; the senator's daughter she was targeting won't even meet her eyes when they pass in the hall.

Karia is not surprised when her parents, back on Coruscant, tell her that she has an appointment with a doctor, and she is not surprised when that doctor turns out to be Sifter, Sifter in a white coat leaning back in the doctor's chair behind the doctor's desk as if she belongs there. As Karia sits across the desk from her, Devinahl leaps from Sifter's shoulder, snakes across the desk and leaps at her. Karia catches her, hugs the warm, little body close to her chest, lets Devinahl wind around her shoulders, trilling in her ear and nuzzling her cheek.

'Tell me,' Sifter says, without preamble, once the first flurry of Devinahl's welcome is over.

Karia does.

After she has told her story, as succintly as she can, Sifter shifts position so that she is leaning forward on the desk, her hands folded in front of her. The posture triggers something in Karia's memory, something she doesn't want to remember.

'It was stupid,' Karia says eventually when Sifter says nothing. 'I know, it was stupid.'

Sifter still says nothing for a minute. Then: 'Tell me why it was stupid.'

'I behaved irrationally. I drew attention to myself. I jeopardised my cover and alienated my targets.'

Again, the silence; again, Sifter says, 'Tell me why it was stupid.'

Karia looks down, unable to meet Sifter's eyes. She cannot say it.

'Tell me.'

'Because Scerra isn't a little girl any more.' Hot tears rise up and overflow on to her cheeks, and she cannot even force herself to wipe them away. 'The child I saw was ... was Scerra's age when I last saw her. That was seven years ago. She's almost thirteen now, she isn't - she isn't a small child.' Karia cannot stop the wail in her voice. 'She's - she's grown up without me -'

She cannot go on.

Sifter turns her chair away, turns her head away and studies the wall as the girl in the chair opposite her sobs uncontrollably.

Karia almost loves her for that.

She cries for a long time, and when she finally stops, it's only because she doesn't have the energy to cry any more. The paroxysm has left her boneless, light-headed, slumped in her chair, arms cradling Devinahl automatically as the little lizard creature blinks curious golden eyes at the tear-streaked face above her.

Only once Karia's breathing has returned to normal, with only the occasional hitch in it to betray her recent state, does Sifter turn to face her again.

'No one has taken your sister away,' Sifter says, gentle, steely. 'She is with your parents. She is home. They are Imperial citizens now. They have the protection of the Empire. If you want to protect your family - if you want to save your sister - then serve the Empire. Protect the Empire. Make us strong.'

Karia understands what Sifter is saying; she is still in Sifter's employ. She is still Sifter's agent. She is not being sent away. A wave of relief washes over her so powerful that, despite her exhaustion, fresh tears threaten to spill.

'You won't make this mistake again, will you?'

'No,' Karia promises, sitting straighter in her chair. 'No, I won't.'

She never does.

Her name is Akysa Rakto on Bemeth, and Verls Eldrel on Kries, and Swa-Lu Fothe on Yuuv Rata.

She studies mechanical engineering on Angavel, and galactic history on Mon Calamari, and exobiology on Aeos Prime.

It is not very different from what she did as Karia Madeesh, except that now she is attending universities, not elite schools. Her targets are still sometimes family members of important or influential people, but more often than not, they are protest groups, activists, student societies dedicated to political causes of one sort or another. She never knows whether the particular group she is infiltrating is one that Sifter wants to encourage, presumably with the goal of destabilizing one Republic world or another, or suppress; it's not her job to make that decision. She simply passes on the information she gathers.

More and more, though, she cannot resist adding her own analysis, drawing attention to weaknesses or opportunities she has spotted in the reports that she delivers to dropboxes, hard-encrypted on datapads. What Sifter thinks about this, she doesn't know; she only ever hears from her in the form of code phrases embedded in the mail she receives, and they can only mean a set range of things: Stay the course. Dig deeper. Change focus. Get out.

Her implants are a challenge; she has to come up with stories to explain them, and explain how she can afford to have them maintained. They also make her appearance far too distinctive. When she assumes a new identity, she experiments with different ways to disguise them, ways of wearing her hair, adding new phony prosthetics to change their size and shape, getting fake scars or tattoos or birthmarks to draw attention away from them. Fundamentally, though, they cannot be too well disguised. She simply has to be sure that she does her work so well that nobody suspects her enough to circulate a description of her appearance. It forces another layer of caution, and that can only be a good thing.

They are also invaluable in this work. Often she does not even have to join these societies; just find ways to be in a position where she can, with her enhanced hearing, overhear and record them. Sometimes she won't even get involved in whichever group she is targeting; simply pose as the girlfriend of one of the members, who has no interest in her lover's politics. It's amazing what you can do when you only need a single glance to carry away reams of data inside your head, or when you can overhear a murmured conversation without even being in the room.

Fraudulent intimacy is a part of her work now, of course. It isn't her preferred method, but it is effective. Besides, she wants to know about sex, all about it, all the different games people play, all the ways to find out what someone likes, all the ways to be good at giving it to them. If she knows about it, she can use it; it's a tool, it can't be turned against her.

And it's important to know, she thinks, just how good your body is at lying to you. She learns that it doesn't matter that you know all about hormones and chemical bondings and the rest of it; your body can still produce a wave of tenderness for a sleeping lover that almost brings you to tears, an agonizingly pleasurable aching longing for the touch of their skin, a giddiness at the sight of them, that has nothing to do with your cool, analytical brain. It's good to know this, and be wary, and be smart. For later, when her targets are more dangerous than student anarchists and rebelling adolescents.

She intends to be so smart, later.

In the meantime, she gets better and better at disappearing into the role she is playing (but not too far). She has learned her lessons well: Her family, so far away on Draavi Prime, are what she thinks about when she feels a pang of guilt for those she is betraying, and that silences her qualms. If she ever thought of going home, she does not do so any more; she doesn't want to think of the people they are now, of the grey that must be in her mother's hair, the lines around her father's eyes, Scerra growing into a young woman. She thinks of them instead as they were when she last saw them, but well-fed, healthy, happy, prosperous as they had never been in the refugee camp, unchanging as if they were embedded in crystal. Hers to protect, to watch over. She will be strong so they don't have to.

The only time she struggles is on Yuuv Rata. Her cover, Swa-Lu Fothe, is studying medicine, and when she walks into the medical lab, her body immediately betrays her: The smell of disinfectant, the sound of the tiled floor, the shine of the surgical instruments. She tries to force herself through it, but it's as if her implants are tightening around her head, a band of pain cutting remorselessly into her flesh.

She makes it about half an hour into their first dissection before going outside to throw up. She sinks down on a convenient wall, knees trembling too much to stand, and wonders if Sifter arranged this on purpose.

If it is a test, she passes it with flying colours. Because the young man who comes out to see if she's all right is not just a fellow student; he is a member of the group she is here to infiltrate, a group with ties to another, more radical organization which aims at liberating alien test subjects across the galaxy. Not only that, but he is the son of a high-up Republic bureaucrat, a bureaucrat with high expectations for his son ...

'Are you all right?' he asks her, eyes wide, full of concern.

She nods weakly. 'It's just ... I have a real phobia of labs and hospitals.'

'But you're studying medicine.'

She smiles bitterly. 'It's all my father cares about.'

That's all it takes to get him on side, and soon, their entire class is rooting for Swa-Lu in her brave battle to overcome her fears and crippling issues, and she has been invited to several meetings, and an individual she strongly suspected of being the local cell leader had taken her aside to commiserate with her about the tyrannical effects of parental expectation. (Never underestimate how much the children of the rich hate their parents.) Lying awake at night, curled against her classmate in his narrow bed, she lets the elation surge through her. She has passed the test. This is how it will be, when she joins Imperial Intelligence, when she makes it as an agent: She will take her weaknesses, and make them into weapons.

She is into her fifth year of this kind of work, taking an advanced psychology course on Bogano, when the message comes. Her aunt is dying.

If this moon has a name, she doesn’t know it. The shuttle from Station Zaboor drops her off at a small landing pad, over two weeks after she left Bogano; she’s in a walled compound, surrounded by jungle. There are a number of buildings, but only one of any size: This must be the clinic.

The place is deserted.

As she approaches the largest building, she hears a soft exclamation and turns to see an olive-skinned man in the uniform worn by the doctors here hurrying towards her. It is Barber; leaner than ever, his body feels almost brittle in her arms as he hugs her, but he still wears the same vague, dreamy smile.

'You’re not too late,' he breathes into her ear, the faint whisper a shout thanks to her implants. He pulls back, holding her hands, beaming at her fondly as if she was his long-lost niece. 'Look at you. You're all grown up.'

'How is she?' the young woman asks. 'My aunt?'

His smile fades. 'She's waiting for you.'

The clinic is spotlessly clean, but empty, except for one or two nurses they pass in the hallway. Barber will not respond to any of her questions, except with a shake of his head and a smile; he simply ushers her into Sifter’s room when they finally reach it, and shuts the door behind her.

She had not known what to believe until this moment, but now she sees it: Sifter is indeed dying.

In the five years that have elapsed since they last saw each other, the woman seems to have aged twenty. Her dark hair has not only turned solid white, much of it has fallen out, leaving only wispy strands which reveal plenty of flaky, wrinkled scalp. Her face seems to have collapsed in on itself, her cheeks sunken as if the flesh had been sucked from her bones. She cannot see much of Sifter's body under the blanket, but the full figure she remembers seems to have wasted away.

She looks around. The room is scrupulously clean, perfectly tidy; Sifter is being well looked after.

It is also blank, except for a pile of datapads which lie on Sifter's bedside table. There are no holos (not that she would expect there to be), no medals on display; no plants, no flowers. And there is no sign of Devinahl. The fibreglass stand, moulded to look like a forked branch, on which the little creature used to like to climb and hang stands in the corner, but Devinahl herself is nowhere to be seen.

She takes a seat next to the bed, and waits.

After perhaps an hour and a half, Sifter's eyelids flutter, and she turns her head. 'Schoolgirl,' she mutters, her voice faint and raspy. She coughed, and even that sounds dry and rattling. 'You took your time.'

'The route you sent me on was circuitous,' Schoolgirl retorts (she is hardly a schoolgirl any more, but she will be Schoolgirl for today, if that's what Sifter wants). 'I transferred twice through Nar Shadda. In different directions.'

'I gave my life to Imperial Intelligence, but they're not getting my death.' Sifter coughs again, and again; her body beneath the blankets is racked. 'Water.'

Schoolgirl pours a glass of water from the pitcher on Sifter's bedside, then, realizing belatedly that Sifter cannot hold it, lifts it to the woman's lips herself, tilting it gently. She has never done this for anyone before, and she does it badly, the water spilling down Sifter's chin and running down her neck.

As she apologizes, Sifter waves a clawlike hand, silencing her as she gulps down a few precious sips. 'That's better,' she sighs, her voice sounding a little fuller, a little clearer as Schoolgirl takes the glass away. She fixes Schoolgirl with a sharp gaze as the younger woman sits back down. 'You know I'm dying.'

She considers platitudes, encouragement, and decides against it. 'I know.'

'Nothing to be done. And believe me, I've tried.' Sifter stares at the ceiling. 'A hundred worlds.' Her eyes flick back to the woman sat beside her at the soft noise of comprehension. 'What?'

'I always wondered why you were on Draavi Prime all those years ago. It was a minor operation for someone in your position.' Schoolgirl remembered the very first time she'd seen Sifter, pretending to be another wealthy, bored woman seeking illicit treatments and prohibited remedies from the hospital world's doctors. 'You were looking for a cure.'

'Noval Jhcor Syndrome. It's a rare blood disorder. Incurable. You know how I got it?'

Schoolgirl shook her head again.

'Thirty years ago on Abaddon Prime. The Empire was fighting a rogue colony of Mandalorians. Not just any Mandalorians, either.' She coughed, but shook her head when Schoolgirl nodded towards the water. 'These ones were ... smart. Vicious. Gearing up to fight wars of sabotage and indiscriminate violence on a hundred of our worlds. Intelligence had managed to smuggle a complement of biogenic warheads into their base, but they needed to be armed and triggered. I knew I could get into their base, but the arming device ... the only way to smuggle it in was to hide it with the radiation from an unshielded power core. I got in, armed the warheads, and got out.' She coughed again. 'They never told me the core was using a halenium source. Halenium-1, and I carried it around next to my skin for seventy-two hours. It took twelve years of symptoms before they would admit it.'

Schoolgirl said nothing.

'These are the people I recruited you to serve. And I knew it when I found you on Draavi Prime.' Sifter plucked restlessly at the covers. 'They will use you. Poison you. Lie to you. If you obey them, they will sacrifice you. If you try to run, you'll find the chain already fastened around your ankle before you take your first step. If you disobey, they'll cut whatever they can use out from inside you, then toss you on the dungheap. The only things worse than the things they do to the Empire's enemies are the things that they do to its patriots. And you can't imagine the things they do to its enemies.'

She studied Schoolgirl's face, then snorted. 'You think you'll be different. I can see it in your face. You think that if you're clever enough, and loyal enough, and useful enough, you'll be the exception to the rule. Serves me right for trying to talk to the young.' She turned her eyes away to stare at the ceiling. 'At least I tried to warn you,' she muttered, and closed her eyes.

Schoolgirl let her breathe for a while, before asking: 'Where's Devinahl?'

'Mmm?' Sifter opened her eyes, blinking at her. 'Devinahl? She ran off a month ago. Idiot nurse opened the window a crack for some air and she squeezed through and was off into the jungle before you could blink twice. Doesn’t like the smell of death, my little riddle.' She sighed. 'Just as well. I don't want her to watch me die. The same goes for you, by the way. You're on a ship out in six hours.'

'Where am I going?'

'Mmm?'

'I said, where am I going?'

Sifter blinked several times, as if she was having trouble focusing. 'Oh ... the ship's going to Ord Mantell.'

'That doesn't really answer my question.'

Sifter waved a desiccated hand. 'Quiet. I need to rest. We'll finish this when I wake.' Her eyelids were already closing as she spoke.

Schoolgirl waited while Sifter slept, curled up on her hard bedside chair, listening to the older woman's laboured breathing. Nobody came to check on the patient, or the visitor; she guessed that Sifter had said she wanted to be alone, and Sifter's word, as always, seemed to be law.

After ninety minutes or so, she stood up to stretch cramped limbs and turned to look out of the room's one window, at the edge of the compound where the clinic stood and the lush jungle which pressed in upon it on all sides, threatening to spill over the walls and devour. If the window had been open, she was sure she would have been able to smell it; all that vegetation, all that life. No wonder Devinahl had taken her chance when it came. She briefly entertained the thought of going out to search for the little creature - taking some of her favourite foodstuffs, and venturing out; perhaps Devinahl had merely yielded to a momentary impulse when she escaped, and regretted it almost immediately; perhaps she was merely lost and wanted to come home. The little creature had slept in her arms every night for almost two years on the nameless ship; surely she would recognise Schoolgirl's voice, her smell ...

No. Devinahl was a wild thing. She had made her choice to vanish into the jungle, and it would demean them both, somehow, to try to tempt her back.

A series of those horrible dry coughs signalled that Sifter was awake again, and Schoolgirl turned from the window, hurrying to pour water and hold it to her lips. Sifter swallowed a few sips of water, coughed again, and began trying to push herself upright in the bed. Schoolgirl grabbed for pillows to put behind her back, to support her in some semblance of a sitting position, and Sifter waved a hand at the small cabinet that stood by her bed and wheezed: 'Top drawer, Hidden. Stim.'

It only took a moment to find the hidden compartment, release the latch with the pressure of one finger in the right spot; it slid open noiselessly, revealing a row of identical stims. Sifter beckoned impatiently, holding out one arm, and Schoolgirl grabbed a stim and let that first-year medicine training come to her aid, administering the injection without thought.

Sifter winced, then let out a long sigh as whatever had been in the stim passed into her bloodstream. Her papery skin was unpleasantly hot beneath Schoolgirl's fingers.

'Am I helping you die?' she asked.

'I'll help myself, soon enough.' Sifter's eyes were already growing brighter, her speech stronger. 'I'm almost done tying up loose ends. You're the last.'

Schoolgirl settled herself back into her chair, and waited.

'I manipulated you,’ Sifter said abruptly. ‘That day when we first met. Every time since.'

'I know.'

'Just because you know you're being manipulated doesn't change the fact that you are, Schoolgirl. You're still serving someone else's purposes. Don't forget that.'

'Yes, ma'am.' She said it with exaggerated meekness, hoping to amuse Sifter, and got her reward when the older woman snorted.

'You just remember that when I'm gone. I may not have taught you much, but at least you can remember that.'

'You taught me everything.'

'No, I had you taught. It's not the same.' Sifter sighed, staring blindly towards the window and the jungle beyond. 'I meant to teach you so much more. Keep you with me. Mould you. But I was on borrowed time, and there was so much to do ...'

She trailed off, her eyes straying now over Devinahl's empty perch. 'Maybe it's better that I didn't keep you close. Can't complain all those vat-grown assets can't think for themselves and then replace them with someone I've programmed, in my way.' She half-lifted one hand, then let it loll against the bedclothes in a weary gesture. 'It certainly didn't help the others.'

'How many have there been?' Schoolgirl asked quietly.

'I've recruited hundreds of assets for Intelligence in my day. But you mean my pet projects.'

'Yes.'

'Twelve, not counting you.' Sifter stared unseeing at Schoolgirl. 'Twelve I found, and raised, and groomed, and sent to Intelligence when their time came. Twelve.'

'Are they all dead?'

'Dead, or worse.' Sifter's eyes refocused on her face, and there was suddenly a gleam of humour in the dark depths. Schoolgirl found herself smiling back. 'I told you I'd never lie to you.'

'What about Locket?' Schoolgirl asked, remembering that half-glimpse of the Twi'lek chained to the Hutt, remembering too their shopping trips, nights curled on the couch. She had learned so much from Locket. Even now, when she needed to be carefree, flirtatious, effervescent, it was the other girl's mannerisms she reached for - her gestures, her sighs, her outrageously bright smile. 'What happened to her?'

The gleam died in Sifter's eyes. 'I put her in deep cover with the Hutts. She was going to leash a crimelord for us. Operation timescale was eighteen months. She barely lasted six before the Hutt caught her robbing the strongroom. He had her fed to Morustan eels. My dazzling girl. My jewel.'

To her shock, Schoolgirl realized there were tears in Sifter's eyes. 'Eight years I kept her with me. One more after she finished her training, just to prep her for that assignment. And she ends up torn apart by a Hutt's pets. All because she panicked and tried to run. Didn't trust herself, or me.'

'She loved you,' Schoolgirl said softly. 'As I would have. If you'd let me.'

Sifter blinked away the tears, and the sharpness returned to her voice as she said, 'Well, at least I protected you from that.' She showed her teeth in what was far more a grimace than a smile. 'Here's another lesson for you, Schoolgirl: If you want to destroy someone - I mean, destroy them utterly - let them fall in love with you. People like us are poisoned.'

Schoolgirl resisted the temptation to roll her eyes.

Sifter sagged back on her pillows. 'She was going to be my legacy. My last gift to the Empire. Now she's gone, like all the rest. Except for you,' she added as an afterthought.

She controlled the stab of hurt she felt, and smiled. 'Maybe I'll be your legacy.'

Sifter looked at her as if she'd only just become aware of her presence. 'Maybe you will.' She gave that mirthless smile again. 'My little wildcard. My last roll of the Sabacc dice. Maybe you'll be exactly the person the Empire needs, after all.' She closed her eyes briefly. 'Maybe you'll catch a stray blaster bolt your first time in the field. Either way, I won't be alive to see it.'

Schoolgirl watched the woman's lined face, carefully smoothing out her tone when she said, 'You're tired. Do you want me to leave?'

'Not yet.' Sifter opened her eyes again, and flicked her eyes towards the bedside cabinet. 'Second drawer. Find the datapadd.'

It took Schoolgirl longer this time to find the hidden compartment, which turned out to be a cunningly disguised fake bottom to an innocuous-looking macrobinocular case. She held it out to Sifter, who wearily lifted one skeletal arm and unlocked it with a thumbprint and a cipher code she didn't even bother to try to keep Schoolgirl from seeing. 'Thumb. There.' She watched as Schoolgirl pressed her own thumb to the scanner, locking the datapad to her own thumbprint. 'That's what you came here for. Consider yourself tied up, loose end.'

'What's on it?' Schoolgirl asked.

'Your ticket to Intelligence. If you want it.' Sifter pushed herself painfully upright again, her eyes feverishly intense on the younger woman's face. 'As of now, you're no longer in my employ. You can go back to your family, or you can go somewhere - anywhere - else; if you haven't learned enough by now to make your own way in the galaxy, then you never will. The choice is yours. But if you do want to serve the Empire, that's how you do it.' She pointed at the datapad with one finger, too weary to raise her hand more than a fraction off the covers. 'Go to Avery Station. There's instructions in there for how to contact a particular man, and the phrase to say to him. He'll bring you into the training programme.'

'And who will I be?'

'That's on there too. I've given you the best cover I could work up. It will stand up to anything except the most rigorous scrutiny, and anybody senior enough to order a probe like that will see certain ... details that signal my handiwork. They'll know not to look any further.' She slumped back on her pillows again; her voice was growing rougher, more ragged, her breathing more laboured than it had since she had taken the hypospray. 'It's up to you now, Sch-- Stanza.' Sifter smiled at the look on Schoolgirl's face. 'You should hear your name one last time.'

'Maybe you should hear yours, too,' Schoolgirl suggested tightly.

'Nice try.' Sifter squinted up at her. 'Stay for just a minute. Until I fall asleep. Then be gone by the time I wake up.'

Still nettled by Sifter's use of that name, Schoolgirl nevertheless sat down by the older woman's bedside once more, watching as Sifter painfully settled herself into a comfortable position, her eyelids closing. Schoolgirl sat and listened to her laboured breathing. If it wasn't for the relentless plucking of Sifter's hand at the covers, she would have thought Sifter was asleep. The minutes lengthened, and Schoolgirl was just beginning to wonder if Sifter really had fallen asleep when suddenly the older woman spoke, her voice barely more than a mutter. 'Schoolgirl?'

With her implants, Schoolgirl did not have to bend over Sifter's bed to hear the dying woman better, but she did so anyway. 'Yes, Sifter?'

'Do you remember the day we met? The office? The ugly curtains?'

'I remember,' Schoolgirl said softly.

'You told me you wanted to be nobody.'

'And you said you could arrange it.'

'Looks like I lied to you after all.' Sifter's eyes opened briefly to study Schoolgirl's face, then drifted closed again. 'You are someone.'

'Yes, I'm someone,' Schoolgirl answered. 'I’m just not quite sure who.'

Sifter's lips just quivered faintly, as if she wanted to smile but didn't have the energy. 'You'll find out, believe me. Once you get into the field ... you'll find out.'

Her voice trailed off, and her breathing deepened.

Schoolgirl stayed where she was, bending over Sifter, until she was sure the older woman was asleep. Then she bent closer and pressed her lips to the sleeping woman's forehead. 'Goodbye, Sifter,' she whispered, and left.

Outside, in the hallway, she unlocked the datapad and read the instructions for the contact on Avery Station. Then she opened the file containing the basic details of the false identity Sifter had created for her.

And smiled at the name Sifter had chosen.

'Bystran Sangha? I have a priority order for you from Dromund Kaas.'

The factor turned to look at the woman who had just entered his office. She saw his eyes flick to her hips, her sleeves - checking for weapons - then to her implants, her face, and her implants again.

'I wasn't expecting any big orders today,' he said cautiously.

'I didn't say anything about big. Just fast.' She gave him a pleasant smile while she delivered the code phrases Sifter had given her. 'Sixty-four bushels of crystallised leola root. direct to Kaas City.'

'I think that can be arranged.' Bystran Sanghra waved her inside. 'Come in, let's talk about the details.'

The door slid shut behind her as she stepped into his office, and the smile slid from his face just as swiftly and smoothly, leaving only alertness behind. 'Dromund Kaas,' he murmured, once again peering curiously at her implants. 'Yes, that can definitely be arranged.'

'Good,' she said crisply, and saw with satisfaction that the clipped, military delivery she had been practicing snapped his heels involuntarily shut as if he was on the parade ground before he caught himself and reassumed his sloppy, hunched posture.

'Right, right.' He shuffled through a stack of files next to his terminal. 'Dromund Kaas. And ... what name shall I put on the package?'

'Devinahl.' It came out of her mouth as smoothly as if she had been introducing herself this way for years, and she smiled.

'My name is Devinahl.'

***

Thank you to anyone who read this! Literally any feedback welcome.

#swtor #fic #i wrote a thing #oc: devinahl #imperial agent #and we're done with this

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feferipeixes · 4 years

Text

Jay’s Brother (2/?)

Jay has been working in the cobalt mines her entire life. Against all odds, she’s still alive when so many others have fallen. It’s been decades since she’s had anyone she could call family. And then, out of nowhere, a demon shows up and says he’s her brother.

Naturally, she’s upset.

Chapter 2: Family Reunion (link to chapter 1)

Happy New Year! Hope it’s a good one filled with TAU :D

Thanks to @toothpastecanyon for beta reading! 💝

(See the most updated version on AO3!)

===

Jay stared at the man in front of her and felt his words bounce around in her head. Mizar… He’d called her Mizar. What the heck was he talking about? The name sounded so familiar for some reason, but she couldn’t place it. All she was getting was a warm, fuzzy feeling. Like she was floating on a cloud. Like she -

The stranger took a step forward, and Jay snapped out of her reverie.

“Hey, buddy, stop right there!” she shouted, struck with the reality of being alone with a stranger in a dark alley. “You think I’m not capable of kicking your butt?”

The man paused mid-step. “Why would you do that?”

Jay gritted her teeth. She dropped the plastic bag with her dinner in it to the ground and flexed her hands. She bent her knees and raised her fists. Her arms, weathered by age, trembled with the exertion, but she still held her ground. “Why? Cause I've got nothing to lose, buddy! Go mug someone else.”

He was silent for a minute, and then took a step backward. “You dropped your food.”

She looked up to where his eyes probably were and scowled. “Yeah, and I’ve got nothing else on me. I’m not even worth bothering.”

“I- I’m not trying to bother you.” His voice quivered just a tad. “Oh, z̭̗͍̲̠g̙̳̗̭̮̖̖l̮or͔͚̼͍͙̙k̼̩͢, this is going all wrong.”

She straightened up, confused, at the lack of confidence in his voice. “What’s going wrong? What are you doing here?”

“Well, I wanted to meet you and maybe become friends, yknow…”

Jay scrunched her face up. “No! I don’t know! I don’t know who you are! You’re just some creepy guy in an alley!”

“I’m… No, you’re…” The man’s voice cracked, and he swallowed. “Mizar, I’m your brother.”

Jay felt half the muscles in her body contract at his words. Any fear she’d had at the idea of confronting a stranger in the dark vanished. “No!” she yelled, and stomped her foot forward.

The man eeped and lifted his hands up. “Mizar?”

Her imagination was getting wild again. She saw a crude lab built halfway into an open mine shaft. There was a big vat in the middle of the room. She took a step forward. He took a step back.

“Look, I’m just not explaining it very well…”

They said it was an accident, but she saw, she knew better. One push, and he was screaming, the worst scream she’d ever heard in her life, and it wasn’t his voice. She took a step forward. He took a step back.

“Did I do something wrong?”

Closer up, she could see that the man wasn’t human. He seemed to have a pair of dark wings extending from his lower back. When he spoke, she caught a glint of light bounce off razor sharp interlocking teeth. She didn’t doubt that he could tear her apart if he wanted to, but right now it appeared that he was the one afraid of the old lady.

“You’re not my brother,” she growled. “My brother is dead!”

“Y- Yes, I am!” he stuttered.

He backed up again, stepping out of the alleyway into a deserted street. The starlight illuminated his features, and she froze. A pair of coal black eyes blinked back at her.

He looked vaguely human, but clearly wasn’t. Humans didn’t have claws that looked like they could cut through flesh in an instant. Humans didn’t have wings, and even humanlike aliens didn’t have wings like his. They weren’t black like she thought -- she could see stars in them, like they were like a window into the night sky. And there was nothing in the world she could think of that had eyes like that. All at once, the fear was back.

“What… what are you?” she asked, almost failing to find the breath to speak.

The nervous look on his face morphed into a confused one. “What do you mean? I'm, uh, Alcor. Yknow. The Dreambender.”

“Who?”

Alcor did a double take. “You've never heard of me?”

She stared at him blankly. “Nuh-uh. Are you famous or something? What's a famous guy like you hiding in alleyways and mugging old women?”

He scowled. “I'm not mugging you! And yeah, you could say I'm famous, but like… not really in a good way?”

Jay stood up straight and crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh yeah? Why's that?”

Alcor seemed to droop in response to that. Suddenly, his sharp teeth and claws didn’t seem so frightening anymore. He seemed more like the nervous guy she thought he was when she’d been yelling at him in the dark. He didn’t speak for a minute.

“Don't scream, okay?” he said finally, staring at his feet. Another long pause, and then: “I'm... a demon.”

Jay scowled. “What the heck is that? Are you just making up words now?”

Alcor perked up all at once, surprise written all over his face. “What? You don't know what a demon is?”

“Listen, buddy,” Jay spat, hands on her hips. “I'm a trentile late to get home because I had to work overtime today, and standing around yapping with you is gonna make it two trentiles. Do you want me to kick your butt or is it cool if I just go now?”

His brow furrowed. “What's a trentile?”

”That's it. I'm out of here.”

“Wait!” he called out, but she was already turning around. ‘Demon’ or not, she was pretty convinced at this point that he wasn’t going to hurt her. It was late and she wanted to go home, and if it meant taking a longer route just to avoid this weirdo, so be it.

She walked to the other end of the alley, crouched down, and picked up the bag with her dinner in it. With any luck, it’d still be slightly warm when she got home. She stood back up, and Alcor was right in front of her.

“Please, don’t go.”

“Ack!” Jay yelped, jumping backward. “Stop sneaking up on me, man!”

He flinched. “Sorry!”

“Apology not accepted!” She stuck her tongue out and spun around, but found herself once again face-to-face with the demon.

“Can we just talk?”

“Nope! I’m leaving! Bye!” She turned around again, but somehow there he was, blocking her exit. “Stop it! How are you doing that?”

“I told youuuuu,” he whined. “I’m a demon.”

“I still don’t know what that is!” she barked back.

Fixing her eyes on him, Jay started to walk backwards. She saw him reach a hand out as if to follow her, but then he stopped, sadness written all over his face. She sneered, confident in her victory over his weird superspeed powers.

Then she tripped.

“Frick!” she shrieked. Her arms shot out to try to grab something, but she had been walking down the center of the alleyway to prevent herself from getting cornered, and there was nothing to steady herself on. Her hands moved down, and the base of her palm ended up going right into the concrete, causing her to wrench it back in pain. Finally, her butt hit the ground, sending a shock of pain throughout her body.

All the while, Alcor was watching her, face contorted in concern. He hadn’t moved from where she’d left him.

“Are you happy now-owwwww!” she started, and then had to curl over in pain. The plastic bag on her arm had flipped over and wrapped itself tightly around her wrist; she waved her arm frantically to get it off, then thought better of it and pulled it off with her other hand. She chanced a look at her palm, and -- oh stars that was blood, look away look away look away.

She looked away, and then Alcor was right in front of her.

“Mizar, I- I’m sorry!” he stammered. “I- I should’ve caught you, I should’ve, I just thought you didn’t want me to -- stupid, stupid!”

“Stay right there!” she hissed. With all her might, she slowly scooted herself to the side of the alley. Each movement stung her hand and jolted her aching core. She rested her back against the wall and took some deep, heaving breaths.

“Ah, cheese,” she swore. “Falling hurts a lot more when you’re old. Why’d you keep sneaking up on me, man?”

He winced. “I’m sorry, ugh… Please, just… Let me heal your cut. I feel really bad about making you fall. Then I’ll leave.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Heal my cut? Are you a doctor?”

“No, I’m a -”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember, you’re a demon,” she cut in, scowling. “Whatever that means. A doctor would probably be more useful right now.” She thought of the cut on her hand again, and the bile rose in her throat. “But... okay, okay, fine, if you leave when you’re done I guess you can heal my -”

Instantly, he was crouching on the ground next to her. She eeped in surprise. “How did you do that? I was looking at you this time and I still can’t tell how you moved that quickly!”

He smiled weakly at her. “Yeah. I’m… yeah. Anyway, this might sting a bit.”

“Uh, what do you -”

Before she could finish, he had grabbed her hand and lifted it to his face. She gasped and closed her eyes, not wanting to see what he was about to do, but to her surprise, the pain never came. Instead, she just felt something… wet? And a little bit slimy? She cautiously opened one eye to take a peek, and saw Alcor licking her wound with a forked tongue.

“What are you doing?” she shouted. “You are just some creep! I swear I’ll -”

“Done!” he squeaked, dropping her hand. “Good as new!”

“What?” She looked at her hand. The cut was gone, as if it had never been there at all. “I- Uh, the- you, what?”

“Well, I guess I’ll be going now,” he interrupted, standing up. He smiled again, but he didn’t look happy. “Sorry for the trouble. I hope you have a nice, uh, ‘trentile’.” He started walking away, and Jay’s mind short-circuited.

“Wait!” she cried. “Wait, I -”

He looked back at her, and her voice caught in her throat. Whatever otherworldly feeling she’d sensed from him when she saw his eyes was doubled. He seemed so overwhelmingly fake that it made her mind hurt a little bit just to look at him. It was like watching a dream playing out in someone else’s head.

“How… did you do that?” she breathed. “Do you know magic?”

“You could say that.” Alcor scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “Yknow… ‘cause I’m a demon.”

“Dude, I know, you keep saying that. What is that?”

“Uhh…” He sat down in front of her and started wringing his wrists. “It’s hard to explain. A demon is kind of a sentient bundle of… evil… magic? But but but I’m actually pretty different from other demons -- most of them aren’t as nice as me, haha.”

She rolled her eyes. “Get to the point. So, you’re some kind of magic man? Can you do, like, anything?”

“I- yeah, kind of!” His nervous expression worsened, and he broke eye contact with her. “As long as I get something good enough in exchange, that is. I can’t really do magic for free.”

Jay’s jaw dropped. “Wait. Are you going to charge me? Is this a mugging after all?”

“No, no!” he spluttered, waving his hands frantically. “No, you don’t owe me anything. The blood I drank from your cut was enough to pay for healing it.”

“You drank my blood?” she yelled. “That’s disgusting!”

He flinched and drew back. “I’m sorry -- I should’ve told you, but I just went ahead and did it anyway, I’m sorry…”

Jay closed her eyes to shut out the gibbering demon, and took a deep breath. “No, okay, it’s fine. Thanks for doing it. I just… what’s your deal, man? Who are you and why do you want to help me out so much?”

Alcor opened his mouth, and then quickly clapped his hands to cover it. There was a funny noise -- something small and high pitched that sounded oddly like a giggle.

Jay opened her eyes so she could glare at him. “What?”

“Sorry,” he replied, his hands still covering his mouth. “You asked me about my ‘deal’, and that’s… okay never mind.” He coughed and put on a straight face. “Sorry. I want to help you because you’re my sister, and -”

“I already told you -- you’re not my brother!” she yelled. “I’ve got one brother and he’s dead!”

Alcor frowned. “I am -- well, not your brother, but… it’s weird.” With a sigh, he pulled his knees up to his chest and stared at the ground. “My sister died a long time ago. She was my best friend and I miss her everyday.”

“Okay, but why…” Jay started, then faltered. A memory floated into her head of a girl lying on a cloud next to a comet, and she shuddered. She looked at her hand, the one he’d healed, and thought about how warm it’d felt when it was clasped together with hers. Slowly, she extended it, and patted Alcor on the shoulder. “I… sorry. I know how that feels and it’s the worst.”

“Yeah, but it’s not all bad!” he said, perking up. He looked at her, and the dark voids of his eyes were starting to fill in with gold. “Because you’ve got her soul! I know you’re not her, but I feel connected to you because of it. And I was wondering, yknow, if maybe you’d like a brother. I know I’d really love to have a sister again.”

Jay’s mouth flapped open and shut, unable even to parse his words for a minute. Was this guy seriously offering to be her brother? Was that a thing people actually did? She didn’t trust Alcor as far as she could throw him, but…

The idea of having some family again… It was honestly very enticing.

Not that she particularly wanted to admit that to him right then.

He must have seen the shocked look on her face because he then added, “I know, I know that we don’t even know each other and that I came out of nowhere, and also that I’m weird and creepy, and let’s not forget the fact that I’m a demon, and -”

“Wow, you make such a compelling argument,” she cut in.

He shrank a little and pursed his lips. “Yeah… I’m good at that.”

She shook her head and extended her hand. Confused, he stared at it briefly before grabbing it and shaking it.

“Dude, what are you doing? Can you help me up?”

“Oh!” he replied, looking embarrassed. He stood up and gave her a gentle tug. Before she knew it, she was on her feet as well, without any of the usual old lady aches and pains she got from standing up.

“Thanks.” She looked at him again -- saw the weird mixture of hope and regret that he was radiating, and couldn’t help but feel curious. Curious about her soul, curious about magic, curious about this guy who seemed… just as lonely as she was. “Could you, uh, maybe walk me home? It’s pretty dark out. Who knows what kind of creepy weirdos might be waiting to ambush me in the dark.”

He snorted, and a smile started to breach his features. “Yeah, I can do that, Mizar.”

They started walking back down the alleyway. It wasn’t that much further to her apartment, but… the company was nice. Back on the starlit street, she looked up at the sky again, at the beauty that had been distracting her on her walk home earlier. It was peaceful, much more peaceful than the world she was actually living in. She wondered if that was why she liked it so much.

“It’s Jay, by the way.”

“Huh?”

“My name,” Jay replied, still looking at the stars. “If you’re going to talk to me, at least call me Jay.”

“Oh.” He shuffled awkwardly. “Sorry, Jay.”

“Who is Mizar, anyway? Was that your sister’s name?”

“Sort of. Mizar was her codename. Just like ‘Alcor’ isn’t my real name.”

“Fair enough. ‘Jay’ isn’t my real name either.” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him looking at her funnily. “What, only demons get to have nicknames? Hey, wait a minute, since I have your sister’s soul, does that mean I’m a demon too? Do I have secret magic powers that I don’t know about?”

He audibly sucked in a deep breath and started coughing. She looked at him and cocked her head. “No, uh, no,” he said when he’d caught his breath. “She wasn’t a demon. She was a human, like you. It’s… complicated.”

“Aw, man. That would’ve been so cool. Maybe you could show me some more tricks later?”

He stopped walking and stared at her. “Really? You’d like that?”

She paused, realizing what she’d said, and scrunched up her face. “I mean, maybe. This whole ‘offering to be my brother’ thing is kind of a lot. I’d like some time to think about it.”

A huge smile broke out on his face, which he quickly dialed down. “Yes, yes, of course, that’s totally reasonable.” He started walking again, with a very obvious skip in his step. “Take all the time you need.”

She watched him go briefly. His wings bobbed, and through them she saw the stars glimmer. She sped up to catch up with him. “Hey, tell me something. If I have your sister’s soul, why aren’t you like an old man? You’d have to be at least as old as I am.”

“Oh, I’m way older,” he replied giddily. “Like, millions of years older. I, uh, I’m immortal. But she wasn’t. Like I said, it’s complicated,” he finished, his smile falling away.

She boggled at that, and had to mentally discard most of it because it was just too confusing at the moment. She latched onto the part that made at least a little bit of sense. “It took you that long to find your sister’s soul? I mean, I don’t know anything about souls, but…”

“Oh, no, I’ve met up with her reincarnations countless times. Usually I find them when they’re a lot younger, so we have more time together, but time kind of got away from me…”

Jay gaped at him. “You’ve done this tons of times before and yet you’re still this bad at it?” His face twisted nervously, and she gave him a light punch on the arm. “Kidding. Well, not really. This was awful. Are you usually this bad at it?”

He smiled weakly. “Yeah… sometimes. Sometimes it goes a lot better. There have definitely been Mizars that have reacted a lot worse than you have.”

“Huh. Alright.”

They walked in silence for the next few minutes, until they reached the door of her apartment building. Jay’s brain was still buzzing with both excitement and confusion. Alcor had said a lot of things that she was sure she’d need a lot of time to process, but there was something in particular that was eating at her now. Something he’d said about time getting away from him. She wondered what that meant. Maybe she should ask -

“Anyway, this is your place, right?”

Jay blinked. “Oh, yeah. Thanks for walking me home.” She wiggled her nose nervously. “I guess I better go inside -- it’s really late now. How, um, how can I get in contact with you again?”

He grinned -- his vicious teeth looking so out of place in such an innocent smile -- and snapped his fingers. “There. I’ve put some stuff in your room. When- if you want to see me again, lay the picture of the circle on the floor, arrange the candles around the edge of it, and light them. Then, cut your finger and let a little bit of blood drop in the middle. I’ll show right up.”

She blanched. “There’s no way in Bezsinova I’m cutting my finger on purpose.”

“Oh. Right, of course. Um, then just leave some food there, preferably candy. That’ll work just as well.”

“Alright…” She gave him a little wave. “Bye then.”

Alcor giggled. “Yeah, bye Jay! It was nice to meet you.” He waved back at her, bowed dramatically, and then vanished.

Jay gaped at the empty space the man had previously been occupying, before burying her face in her hands. What was she getting herself into? She climbed the stairs slowly, making note of the fact that she wasn’t aching nearly as much as she’d expected to given that she’d fallen onto concrete earlier. She wondered if it was something Alcor had done when he’d healed her cut.

She stepped into her apartment, and sure enough, there was a big piece of paper with an intricate design on it and a bundle of candles sitting on her bed. She moved them onto the desk, and sat down with a groan. So wrapped up with talking to Alcor she was that she’d forgotten how exhausted she was, but now that she was home it came back in droves.

She pulled out her dinner, which at this point was cold as a rock. Grimacing, she forced herself to eat the whole thing, even though it was almost unpalatable. There was no sense in letting any food go to waste, not after she’d worked so hard for the money to pay for it.

Jay swallowed the last of her food, and yawned. It was a trentile earlier than she usually went to bed, but between waking up early, working late, and falling on her butt in the street, she really needed the sleep. She cleaned up her food, glanced once more at the stuff Alcor had given her, and then got ready for bed.

As she slipped under the covers, she felt the prickling sensation rush over her skin again. She put her glasses back on to confirm that yep, there really was no one else in the room. With a sigh, she took them off and turned off the lights. Maybe, if she saw Alcor again, she’d ask him if he knew what it meant. Until then, she just dismissed it as her imagination overacting again.

If she saw Alcor again. She turned the thought over and over behind closed eyelids. He wasn’t her brother, he wasn’t... but maybe he could be. She didn’t even know why she was considering it. Why should she? The guy had accosted her in a dark alley! It had been a long time since she’d even considered letting herself get close to anyone, but for some reason she felt weirdly drawn to him.

It was all too much for her to process in one night, she thought. Jay closed her eyes, and before she knew it, she was fast asleep.

(AO3 link)

#gravity falls #transcendence au #dipper pines #alcor the dreambender #jay rhysti-du #mizar #reincarnation #my stuff #fic #long post #space arc

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veliseraptor · 6 years

Text

Current WIP Excerpts

inspired by @gaslightgallows, because I am vain and love validation, have a line from each of my current WIPs. with a few exceptions.

there are A Lot.

Life In Reverse

Thanos stood before them, titan in truth as well as name. Loki’s heart jumped into his throat and his thoughts briefly flashed to a shattered world, fingers tearing through his mind, screaming as his being was turned inside out. Fear froze him in place, instinctive, animal.

REMEMBER THIS COLD

Costume Porn: what it says, seriously. (Steve/Loki.)

Masquerade: Steve attends a costume ball. So does Loki.

Steve shifted nervously. “How did you know?”

“Body language,” Tony said simply. “You keep staring at him. Not that I can blame you. Guy looks unfairly good in a suit.”

“Why, thank you,” Loki said. Tony jumped, and then scowled a little.

the hills on fire for miles: The Thor: Ragnarok fic for RTC.

The woman standing in front of them was just barely illuminated by the early dawn light, but it was enough: she was hopelessly striking, lips quirked in a very faint and unpleasant smile, her eyes glittering coldly, looking from Steve to Loki.

“And you,” she said to him, “must be the youngest whelp. The failure. Which makes you…” she looked at Steve. “What does that make you?”

Attempt #432: Someone asked for the AU where one of Doom’s Loki-clones survived. It’s gonna be bad, folks.

His first memory was a silver mask with rectangles for eyes and mouth, looking down at him. “Attempt four-hundred and thirty-two,” it said, “success.”

MCU

Into the Valley of Death Rode the Six Hundred: The “Loki wins” fic where he gloats at Steve in his spare time and then ends up fighting a war on three fronts and actually asking for help with one of them.

Steve opened his eyes to find a hand over his mouth and the strong iron smell of blood filling his nose. He sucked in a sharp breath, heart hammering into motion. “Open your mouth to cry out and I will take your tongue before you can make a sound.” Loki’s voice was low and soft, but there was something ragged and breathless there as well. “Nod if you understand.”

Strange Bedfellows: The “Clint and Loki are captured and undergo TERRIBLE SUFFERING and bond, sort of” fic. Hey, people do it for Tony/Loki I don’t see why I can’t go with it my way.

Clint Barton had observed that missions tended to go wrong in one of two ways. Either it was a gradual stacking up of problems that inevitably led to total collapse no matter how hard you tried to hold on, or it was the kind of thing where you were standing in the middle of the building and the roof fell on you.

The Priesthood of Natasha Romanov: The one where Loki declares Natasha his High Priestess. She’s not really into it, though.

She tried to tell Thor about her encounter with Loki in Berlin, but the minute she got out an “I saw” her throat closed up and then she was talking about the Berlin Art Museum with some enthusiasm, despite the fact that she hadn’t gone. A few circuitous routes met with no more success, and even hints appeared to be impossible. Whatever magic fuckery Loki had worked on her, it was thorough.

important gangbang fic: Important Gangbang Fic.

The best thing about dropping in on Alfish parties was that by the time he arrived, most were too drunk to recognize him, or else too distracted to care.

so when the birds fly South: Loki gets beat up and Steve is the one to find him and I have no idea where this is going.

After months, months of thinking he’d been saved by that missile through the portal (irony of ironies) and then months more after he’d learned he had been mistaken, they’d run him to ground. He could run no further. Only turn and fight, and barely that, so little left in him.

Tear My Castle Down: The “Loki’s punishment is to be a slave to one of the Avengers but this time it’s Steve” fic.

Loki was shaking and pale, one hand braced on the doorframe, the other pulling at his collar, his chest heaving. Steve froze, mouth opening, and Loki half fell, grabbing his arm. “Captain,” he said, teeth chattering. “You need – you need to-”

which carries weight and always weighs the same: My Romanoff Big Bang fic, which is going to be a lot of “Natasha having interpersonal relationships” because I have interests.

Her training would have dictated that she fight until her last breath. That cornered, weaponless, and bleeding, she would go on fighting. Her training had told her they will try to seduce you, to steal your loyalties with grand promises. These are all lies. Of course, by the time Agent Clint Barton had her backed into a blind alley with nowhere to go, her loyalties were already for sale and she didn’t believe in anyone’s promises.

Subordination: Loki acquires his first dom, Sjofn. Shit is fun. Until it isn’t.

But he was a little tipsy, and a lot curious, and the way Sjofn was looking at him as though she wanted to devour him was making his whole body feel hot. Loki had lain with his fair share of women – and others – but feeling quite so pursued…that was new.

Just a Shadow Upon These Walls: Steve starts seeing a ghost. Steve starts seeing a ghost that is Loki. Things get weirder from there.

When Thor had left, Steve found a chair and sank down into it. Loki has been dead for almost two years. A day ago, Loki had been standing in Steve’s kitchen. How did he die? Steve should have asked, but he couldn’t have asked the question did he still have his eyes, couldn’t ask Thor that about his younger brother. His dead younger brother.

post Svartalfheim AU: depressed Loki goes to earth after TDW, starts running into Steve randomly, somehow this becomes Steve/Loki?? idk what

When Loki woke up, the first thing he felt was anger. It burned, sharp and fierce, because he had been cheated; he had died well, he had died loved, with Thor looking at him with something so much like care it had hurt worse than the wound in his chest. And once again, death spit him out, making a mockery of him. Of everything.

Thunderstorms: The sequel to “there’s a hell of a good universe next door” where Thor arrives.

“Steve,” Loki said, not looking away from Coulson, and then went on. “I could have slipped away from your clumsy trap at any time, or had your men fighting amongst themselves in the blink of an eye, or any number of more creative solutions. I could kill you with my bare hands right here, in this room, in – say – five seconds, perhaps less. I could probably even, if I had a mind, undermine your government until it fell to pieces.”

Steve made a faintly strangled sound that Loki ignored. “As you can see,” Loki said, sounding almost conversational, “I have not. And will not. I have little to no interest in involving myself in human politics. Unless I am mistaken, until today, you were unaware that I was here at all. It would be ideal for everyone if you chose to return to that state of affairs.”

forgive the children we once were: Bucky, who freed himself substantially earlier from Hydra’s control (during The Avengers), finds Loki, wounded and near death, after the events of Thor 2. Shenanigans ensue.

The stranger was still alive when Bucky got him into the apartment, though he looked like shit and Bucky had to hold his hand about an inch above his mouth to feel any breathing. Stupid, he thought. Gun's in the bedside table, just take care of it and dump the body. He half twitched toward the bedside table, but stopped at that. He still had questions. Dead bodies drew attention.

Sword Age, Wolf Age: the Ragnarok fic where things go a little differently when Thor comes back to Asgard.

“I have just saved your life and freed you and you would speak of what I owe you,” Loki said, starting away through the woods. “Such is the gratitude of the House of Odin.”

Someone to Watch Over You: Loki decides Steve needs a guardian angel. He doesn’t ask Steve about it. He also doesn’t expect to get labeled a sidekick.

Captain Steve Rogers, Loki had decided, was trying to get himself killed.

I’ll pull the devil down with me, one way or another: Thanos is coming. Loki doesn’t intend to take that lying down.

He stumbled out into Sanctuary, almost falling to his knees, and pried his hands away from the cube. His joints throbbed with the ache of the power filling him almost to bursting. He looked at it, glowing blue with swirls of light inside, and swallowed hard.

If this goes wrong, all the worlds will burn and it will be your fault.

keep your heart (close to the ground): the AU where Loki never invades, so the Avengers never form, and a depressed Steve and depressed Loki meet.

Lukas was leaning against the doorframe, one arm wrapped around his middle, blood covering half his face and dripping off his fingers. He smiled and there was blood on his teeth. “Hello,” he said. “Good. You still live here,” and listed forward. Steve, his thoughts spinning, caught him reflexively.

time may change me (but you can’t trace time): the fic where Loki tries to steal the Time Stone and gets stuck in a time loops. For some reason, it resets every time Steve dies.

“What did you do?” Rogers demanded.

“I have no idea,” Loki said. He was sitting in the sand and staring up at the sky, going over everything that had happened before this had started – everything he knew about the Time Stone and what it could do. He wasn’t getting anywhere.

Seams and Scars: Loki arrives on Midgard with his lips sewn shut.

Clint thought for sure he was going to die when he was slammed against the wall and those washed out, grey-green eyes met his. Clint’s eyes fixed on those gruesome black lines trickling blood. Stitches, he realized. He could see the knots. See the notch of a scar where one had torn through.

Who the hell does that? He remembered thinking, which was the last thought of his own he had before he set the spear to Clint’s heart and remade him in his image.

our history is coming to life again: The fic where a young Loki gets transplanted forward in time to post-The Dark World Earth. Things are not exactly going well for him.

“What happened,” Cap said, his voice tense.

“I’m dead, aren’t I,” was what came out of Loki’s mouth. And then he had to laugh, because obviously he wasn’t, he couldn’t be saying he was dead if he was dead, so he corrected, “was. I suppose.”

Temptation: Loki has a Steve problem.

Well, Loki thought. Well. It seemed his little problem was not solved after all. In fact, if anything, it was made worse. If he was going to imagine fucking Rogers every time he was trying to fight him-

Loki growled to himself. Damn him. Damn him and his beautiful eyelashes and beautiful eyes and sinfully beautiful mouth.

I know I’m the curséd one: Wanda and Loki, imprisoned for their magic, have to work together to escape.

He would not give in. Not to these. Not ever.

He would go mad (madder) first.

finding yourself at the end of the universe: The fic where Loki springs Steve from prison post Civil War, mostly out of spite, and they go on a dysfunctional road trip across space.

“Well,” said the last voice Steve had expected to hear. “That’s interesting.”

Steve’s eyes widened and he stared at Loki, struck dumb. Loki’s eyebrows quirked, gaze sweeping up and down. “Now why,” he murmured, “would they be keeping you down here with me? Have you been bad, Captain Rogers?”

Meet the Parents: Loki meets Sarah Rogers in the Roommates!AU.

“Offend her?” Steve’s eyebrows went up. “Why would you offend her?”

“Well,” Loki said, and stopped, searching for a diplomatic way to say I’m an addict, an asshole, and a bad influence without saying those precise words.

The Cold, the Dark, the Silence: It’s whump. That’s basically it.

His body was starting to fail. Loki could tell the signs of it in the way his hands shook, the chills that swept through him periodically. His healing had already been strained to the breaking point by his near death on Svartalfheim. Without food, with barely any water, the punishment his captors doled out in seemingly growing frustration was taking a toll.

the first steps stumbling forward: On Earth post-Ragnarok, Steve takes up secretly helping Asgardian refugees. There’s a familiar face among them.

“Thor said you were dead,” Rogers said.

“Thor is occasionally wrong about things,” Loki said. He didn’t particularly want to explain I was, sort of, but then I wasn’t, and then I took over Asgard and pretended to be my father for three years, which was actually very nice while it lasted.

escalated almost to an art: Yet another very dirty Loki/Grandmaster fic, where the Grandmaster experiments with drugging Loki in a variety of fun ways.

“You and me,” the Grandmaster said, reaching out and brushing his fingers along Loki’s jaw. “We’re going to have so much fun, aren’t we?”

Loki wished that didn’t sound so much like a threat.

He wished the fact that it did didn’t send a thrill down his spine.

Another Fall: Loki falls from Asgard into Hela’s prison.

“Interesting,” she said. She crouched down. “Where did you come from? The old fool sealed this place unfortunately well.” Loki coughed and choked. Her nose wrinkled. “I suppose if I want to get anything out of you I’ll need to fix you first.”

NOT MCU

Darkness, Darkness: The Morgana/Gwen fic set in “The Dark Tower.”

You should have trusted me, she thinks bitterly, as Gwen’s screams turn into sobs and Morgana’s own eyes sting. I loved you, Gwen. I loved you so much.

There’s a Lesson Here, I Just Don’t Know What It Is Yet: Still need to finish this Natasha/Yelena fic, still kicking myself over using an espionage plot, why did I do that.

“I’m on assignment,” she said blandly, rocking back on her heels, perched still too close. “And you? Still dancing for the Russian government?” Dancing. Yelena wondered if that was deliberate. After their last meeting, she’d tried learning to dance, briefly, but nothing about it had suited her.

the best all lack conviction: Fenris/Anders post Dragon Age II; they bicker, a lot, and maybe make out some too, eventually. Probably I will beat them up a lot too.

The wind blew the rain in on them again and the mage groaned, hunching his shoulders. “I hate Fereldan,” he muttered. “I truly do.”

“Perhaps you should have run to Tevinter,” Fenris said snidely. The mage gave him a baleful look but, to his surprise, did not say anything. He looked so pathetic that Fenris almost felt guilty. Almost.

Witches: Morrigan/Surana femslash fic, in which Merrin Surana would like to bang Morrigan and also become her.

She was tall as all humans were tall and carrying a staff on her back. She looked down her narrow nose at Merrin, Alistair, and the rest, air one of boredom and vague distaste. She was the most magnificent thing Merrin had ever seen.

The Interim: The fic about Morgana’s journey from dying of poison to coming back to Camelot dramatically changed and set on revenge.

She struggled to understand what was going on. To work out what had happened (he poisoned me) and what was happening now. It all hurt too much, though, and all she could do was lie there and whimper and hate how weak she felt. A cool hand pushed her hair off her brow. “It’s all right, sister. You’re safe.”

how this grace thing works: The first year at Grimglass lighthouse.

Felix up and vanished into the library the second he got the chance. He probably would’ve stayed there forever without eating if I hadn’t dragged him out sometimes for meals. He said the previous virtuer had just shoved books in wherever they fit so it’d be impossible to find anything. He dithered over a lot of ways of organizing them before settling on category and author, and then he’d mutter to himself about what category this book or that one really belonged in.

#fic excerpt #confessions of a frustrated writer #i spent way too much time on this

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itspatsy · 7 years

Text

the girl who could be you

Summary: Trish has met a few superheroes, but she's never had one break into her apartment and sit in the dark waiting for her. Not even Jessica was that rude. (or: Trish Walker and Natasha Romanoff have something in common, and they talk about it without actually talking about it.)

Notes: Inspired by this awesome idea by @allofthefeelings.

Read on AO3.

Trish scrambled through the doors of her building, relieved to escape the downpour. Shaking her head and wiping water out of her eyes, she cursed herself for forgetting an umbrella. She exchanged a silent nod with the sleepy-eyed doorman, glad to see him actually awake for once but knowing it wouldn't last long. She envied his ability to sleep anywhere. She could barely manage it in her own bed. She stepped onto the elevator, looking down at her watch to make sure it survived the torrent. It was after nine, not an unusual time for her to be getting home these days.

Until recently, she’d spent as minimal time at the office as possible. But Jessica had still been around then. Had needed Trish there with her. At least, that’s what she’d thought at the time. When Jessica walked back into her life after disappearing for months, traumatized and guilt-ridden and plagued by nightmares at every moment, Trish had worried about leaving her alone for too long. What if she tried to hurt herself? Who would pull her out of her flashbacks? The only reason she went to work at all was because Jessica insisted.

It was slow going, over half a year, but Jess started talking to her about what happened, her snark was coming back in full force, and she’d even cracked a few smiles. It seemed like the therapy was making a difference, that things were getting better. But then Jessica was gone again, and Trish was left wondering if it was her fault. If she’d been too smothering and controlling, or if she hadn't been attentive enough. If she should have given her more space, or if she'd given her too much space. She didn't know, and she couldn't ask Jessica, because Jessica left her no way to find her or get in contact with her.

And it hurt. It hurt to even think about, so she did what she always did when it felt like her chest had permanently constricted and she would never get enough air in her lungs again. She directed all of her emotional energy into external things. Her job provided the perfect source of distraction, and even if there were about a million studies proving how overwork and exhaustion led to an early grave, it was still far healthier than the means of diversion she used when she was younger. So she worked until she was too tired to think, until she felt nothing.

Well, almost nothing. As she opened the door and padded into her darkened apartment, a chill ran up her spine. Something seemed... off. The door had been locked, there was no sign of forced entry, and nothing seemed out of place. There was no reason for her to feel on edge, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t alone.

She quietly stepped through the hallway, staying close to the wall and grabbing a vase off the table as she crept towards the living room. She couldn't help but feel silly skulking around her own apartment in the dark. She was tired, her mind was playing tricks on her. That’s all it was. And yet, in a world where aliens invaded New York, Nazis infiltrated government security agencies, and her best friend was mind controlled by a rapist sociopath for months, maybe it didn’t hurt to be overly cautious.

Trish carefully peeked around the corner into the living room and held back a gasp. There was still enough light to make out a figure seated on the couch. Thin. Leather-clad. Long-haired. Her heart stopped in her chest. Could it be?

Before she could decide her next move, a feminine voice that definitely did not belong to Jessica called out, “I know you’re there, Ms. Walker. Don’t be—”

Before the intruder could finish her sentence, Trish was chucking the vase at her head. Her aim was true, but the woman dodged, and the porcelain smashed against the wall. Trish leapt to the kitchen island, grabbing for a knife and yelling, “Who are you?! What do you wan—”

The light suddenly turned on, and Trish stopped mid-sentence as she came face to face with her mysterious visitor. It was… the Black Widow? Natasha Romanoff. The SHIELD agent that fought in the Battle of New York, the whistleblower that revealed HYDRA infiltration to the public, the Avenger. That was... holy shit, that was awesome, but also what the hell?

With her heart in her throat and brain short-circuiting in confusion, she could only feel a surge of relief that she picked up the ugly vase. Then she gave a quick prayer her mascara wasn't running from the rain. Priorities. She was rarely at a loss for words, but her usually expansive grasp of the English language failed her now, and all she managed was a dumbfounded, “Ummmm… huh?” So much for Trish Talk.

The Black Widow raised a calming hand and seemed utterly unperturbed at having a knife pointed at her. Of course, she’d obviously been in far more dicey situations, and Trish figured a blonde lady moonlighting as a drowned cat probably didn’t cut the most intimidating of figures. Still, she was mildly offended. She could be fearsome and formidable, dammit.

“I apologize for the scare, Ms. Walker. This probably seems very strange to you,” Agent Romanoff said, hand still raised and clearly in soothe-the-terrified-civilian mode.

It was a little condescending, and Trish didn’t think it was particularly fair, seeing as how Romanoff was the one that decided to take a page out of the serial killer handbook and introduce herself by breaking in and lying in wait. But Trish returned the knife to the counter and with as much prim politeness as she could muster (which was a lot, she was used to putting on a show and smiling graciously through discomfort and alarm) responded, “You could say that, yes.”

“Let me help you clean up.” The agent gestured to the broken shards on the floor.

“No, that’s okay. I’ll get it later,” Trish said, waving her off. The superspy standing in her living room was a far more pressing issue. Was it... could it have anything to do with Jessica? She didn't know how Agent Romanoff would have any connection to Jessica, but she couldn't stop the fear from gripping at her chest. Why else would a superhero want to talk to her?

She took a breathe and tried to sound as causal as possible. “I’d rather know what brings the Black Widow to a radio talk show host’s apartment. I doubt you want to set up an interview, not that I would object. But if that is why you’re here, I have to admit, this is a bit of an extreme way to get my attention...” she trailed off, leaving room for an explanation, but the other woman just stared at her, unblinking. It was kind of unnerving.

Romanoff tilted her head to the side slightly, considering, expression inscrutable. After a long moment, she finally said, “Your personal security system leaves a lot to be desired.”

Huh.. okay. That wasn’t really an answer. She was relieved this didn't appear to have anything to do with Jessica, but that just made the whole thing weirder. Trish stared back silently, taking a closer look at the woman in front of her. She looked and talked like the Black Widow she’d seen in the news. The hair was different, but still that brilliant red. Almost the same as the damn Patsy wig, actually. But it looked right on Natasha Romanoff in a way it never looked on Trish. So did the dark leather jacket and fitted jeans and tall boots. She looked good, but her eyes were weary and worn, clear even through her air of cool professionalism. Knowing what she did about the things Agent Romanoff had gone through in the past few years, it made sense. It felt real.

Granted, the technology was available for someone to disguise themselves as another person, but Trish couldn’t imagine anyone with access to that tech would use it to play mind games with a former child star and make themselves look like the Black Widow to do it, no less. On the other hand, was that really more far-fetched a possibility than the actual Black Widow breaking into her apartment to give her security tips? She crossed her arms over her chest, unsure what to think. “So… you broke in to test my security?”

Agent Romanoff apparently decided to continue not answering questions and instead said, “I have a few recommendations. Surveillance, reinforced door, safe room, bulletproof windows, and the like. Check your personal email.”

Trish raised an eyebrow. “You have my personal email?”

She wasn’t naive enough to be surprised someone could access her private email, especially not a spy. Not when regular people did the same sort of thing all the time. Privacy and celebrity didn’t exactly go hand in hand, and Trish understood the enthusiasm of fans. Most of them were harmless, if occasionally overwhelming, but a few crossed the line into creepy invasiveness. Sometimes they’d managed to access personal information: addresses, phone numbers. It’s how she’d ended up with a couple of stalkers.

Hell, her own mother might as well have been a stalker. Ever since she and Jess had left, Dorothy Walker always seemed to know the details of her daughter’s life. Where she was living, her phone number, her work schedule, her favorite coffee shop, her jogging route, every goddamn thing. Of course, Trish blocked her number to cut down on unwanted contact, but Dorothy would just hide her caller ID or use another phone or even change her own number to circumvent it. Trish had gotten wise and rarely answered unknown calls but she was still left with drunken, rambling messages, sometimes remorseful, sometimes berating, but always manipulative and designed to make her feel like shit. A few times, Dorothy had even called the station to pry details about her life out of her co-workers. She was equally a menace when it came to email.

But all of that wasn’t half as bad as when she would orchestrate “accidental” run ins in public, which forced Trish to remain polite lest she draw attention. The last time she’d done it was just a few weeks ago, at one of Trish's favorite delis, and somehow Dorothy just knew. She knew that Jessica wasn’t living at the apartment anymore, and she knew it hurt Trish, so she wouldn't shut up about it. Her mom loved to pick at her scabs, but she loved fresh blood even more. It was almost enough to make Trish change her routine and pick new places to go, but it was her life now, and she’d be damned if she was going to let her mother drive her away from the things she liked. She was often tempted to get an actual restraining order, instead of a Jessica enforced one, but it didn’t seem worth the headlines and publicity. Being in the spotlight, even in a negative way, gave her mother power and satisfaction.

But this was the Black Widow. She wasn’t a fan or a stalker or a controlling mother. Why would she bother with all of this? Before Trish could ask as much, Agent Romanoff continued, “I also included contact information for some reliable personal trainers to start you out.”

"Start me out on what exactly?” Trish asked, a little irritation creeping into her voice. This conversation was becoming increasingly opaque, and she was running out of patience. She just wanted to know what the hell was going on.

Romanoff stared at her as if the answer was obvious. “Self-defense lessons.”

Oh, of course. She should have known. “Okay...?” she intoned, clearly expecting more of an explanation but already figuring she wasn't going to get one.

"You want to be able to protect yourself, right?" Agent Romanoff asked.

And yeah, there was no escaping the cryptic non-answers. But this time what she'd said roiled something deep-seated in Trish. She'd phrased it as a question, but it felt like a statement: you want to protect yourself. It was truer than anything else in Trish's life. Was she just that easy to read? Did she have her victimhood tattooed across her forehead? She considered Agent Romanoff again, in confusion and weariness and, for all her current frustration with the woman, a kind of giddy awe.

Everyone seemed to have an opinion about the Black Widow. She was in the news more often than not. In defiance of the usual 24-hour news cycle, talking heads and pundits were still dissecting her actions in DC months later. In general, governments of the world viewed her with suspicion, and the United States in particular was incensed at the national security risks and damage to international relations her transparency had wrought. At worst, a few countries considered her a criminal and wanted her extradited and put on trial for past actions. Public opinion was polarized, and there didn’t seem to be much middle ground. Many considered her a hero, but as many, if not more, considered her a dangerous loose cannon with unknown loyalties, someone that could not be trusted and should be wearing an orange jumpsuit instead of black leather.

Trish had made her view of the woman clear on her show, after the Battle of New York and once again after the HYDRA Uprising. Natasha Romanoff was a hero as far as she was concerned. The infodump revealed her past for the world to see, at least in part, and it was... awful. The things she had done, yes, but also the things that had been done to her. The incredible violence and abuse, the brainwashing and mental manipulation. It was the kind of thing pulled from the pages of a dystopian horror novel. And still, despite everything in her past, Natalia Alianovna Romanova made a choice to become Natasha Romanoff. She made a choice to be good and do good, to protect people, even when it came at great cost to herself. Trish admired and respected her for that.

The Black Widow was a cipher in so many ways, more so now that she was inexplicably standing in her living room, but Trish had always felt like she could understand her on some distant level. She knew how hard it was to take control after having none and how good and terrifying it felt to finally be able to make your own choices. She understood the need for reinvention, the power that came with making a new name, and the liberation of forging a new identity separate from the things other people forced on you. It took strength and courage to become a new person, to be someone that fought for good, especially if you grew up with no real guidance of what exactly constituted right and wrong.

Of course, Trish knew she could just be projecting her own issues. Scratch that, she definitely was. She didn’t know the woman. Knew nothing about her but for some publicly available records. It was easy for people to think they knew who you were just because they saw you on TV or read your Wikipedia article. She didn’t want to do to Agent Romanoff what people had done to Trish Walker her entire life.

But what Trish knew with certainty was that Natasha Romanoff did the things Trish wished she could do. Despite being a regular human, she held her own with super-powered heroes. She protected people. She saved the world. Whatever darkness was in her past, she was a goddamn superhero in her own right.

Trish Walker wasn’t a superhero. She couldn’t save the world. She couldn’t protect anyone. Not herself. Not even the person she loved the most.

Trish could only stand on the sidelines as her best friend vanished from her life, knowing something was wrong, so completely wrong, but unable to do anything about it. She could only call again and again and leave message after message of panicky where are yous and are you okays. She could only sit with the phone at her ear, baffled and angry and heartbroken, as Jessica told her she had a boyfriend she loved, and she was finally happy, truly happy, so fuck off and mind your own business for once in your life, christ, you’re just like your mom.

When Jessica turned up at her door again, shaking and empty and shattered to pieces, all Trish could offer was shelter and expensive therapists and it’s not your fault. And when she came home one evening to find a note saying I have to work this out on my own and don’t try to find me, she could only hyperventilate on the floor of her kitchen, tears rolling down her cheeks and fingers itching for pills or whiskey or anything that would let her lose herself in a way she hadn’t been lost in years, in a way she wasn’t supposed to still want because she was better. She could only go on with her life, pretending everything was fine and hoping Jessica would walk back through the door one day.

Trish Walker couldn’t help anyone because she was just a useless talk radio host, not a hero. Not like Jessica.

But a different hero was standing in her living room where Jessica once stood, telling her how she could be a little bit of a hero too, if for no one else but herself. Maybe she couldn't protect everyone, couldn't protect Jessica, but she could at least learn to protect herself. It was something.

"Yes,” Trish said, fervently, feeling a shiver in her spine. She could have told herself it was because she was still soaked to the bone, but she knew it was hunger, the kind of desperate craving she'd only ever felt as an addict. “I want to be able to protect myself.” She didn't just want it, she needed it. She needed it so much her body and blood ached for it.

But she still didn't understand, and a question settled in her throat again. Why? “I just… this is all a little hard to comprehend. You don’t know me, but you break into my apartment to give me recommendations on security systems and self-defense lessons? Why are you doing this? It’s… it’s pretty strange, and you must have more important things to do."

A shadow crossed Romanoff's eyes. Gone was the steady, polished indifference. She looked… lost and young and tired and so much like Jessica the night she’d turned up at the door and collapsed into her arms. So much like… like what she once saw in her own eyes when she looked in the mirror, what she still sometimes saw when she let her guard down and stopped pretending it was all okay. It quickly passed, however, a moment so fleeting Trish almost thought she’d imagined it. But even though she wasn't a spy, when it came to acting, she was as much a professional as Romanoff.

Placid expression restored, Agent Romanoff said, "I used to watch your show."

Trish’s eyes widened in surprise. That… what? That was not what she was expecting. And she didn't see what it had to do with anything. Couldn’t the agent just give her a straightforward answer for once? Why did she have to be so enigmatic? Secretive superspy or not, Romanoff broke into her apartment and decided to offer up unsolicited advice, and she owed Trish a proper explanation for it.

What she did offer up didn’t even make sense. When and how and why had the Black Widow watched It’s Patsy? They were about the same age, but from what was publicly available about her background, the Black Widow started young, trained in spywork by an underground government organization in Russia. There was no way the grown Romanoff spent her free time sat on her ass watching old American tween programming, as hilarious a visual as it was.

Though… maybe it wasn’t completely outlandish to imagine foreign spies being exposed to American culture for their training. They had to learn about it somehow. But using It’s Patsy? Of all things? That was just… it couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. It was ridiculous. Insane.

It was insane, but now that her brain had latched on to the idea, it wouldn't let go. It did make a twisted kind of sense. If you were using little girls to do your dirty work, you’d want them to seem like regular little girls, right? To blend in so they could lie and kill with more ease? So why wouldn’t they watch the same thing little American girls watched? Why wouldn’t they learn to act like the perfect All-American girl next door Patsy Walker, squeaky clean and sunshine bright with her green eyes and red hair and utterly mundane problems?

Of course, Patsy Walker wasn’t real. There was no actual little girl like her, American or Russian or otherwise. Trying to be Patsy, it had nearly ruined her life, but she’d never imagined it doing the same to other girls, certainly not in this manner. It made her sick to think of it being used to literally brainwash children, to mold them into better killers. But it made her even sicker to realize that she… that she almost felt less alone thinking that damn show might've made another girl suffer as much as she did. God, what was wrong with her? Was she really so selfish and warped?

Agent Romanoff half smiled, a little corner of her lip tilting up. There was no joy in it, just sadness, and that felt like the closest thing to a confirmation of her wild impossible theory she would ever get. Romanoff added in a slightly strained voice, “I hated it."

Trish almost laughed. "Yeah?” She smiled back, and it was probably an ugly thing, twisted and bitter. Her mother would've jabbed her in the ribs for a smile like that. But her mother wasn't here, and maybe, just maybe it was all right to be ugly and sick and wrong sometimes. To be imperfect in the ways Patsy was never allowed to be. “Me too."

They stood for a minute in companionable silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Two women who had nothing and everything in common stopping long enough for a shared ghost to catch up with them. But neither were the type to linger for long, and it was time to bury Patsy Walker again.

Trish cleared her throat. “So, these self-defense lessons you recommend? How long will it take before I’m flipping people around with my thighs?”

Romanoff chuckled, throaty and full. “For you?” She looked her up and down appraisingly, raising an eyebrow. Then her lips twisted into a smirk, and she winked. “Not long.”

Oh. The Black Widow was flirting with her. This night was a rollercoaster of emotions. Before she could really process that, Romanoff began making motions to leave. Trish didn't want to keep her, but she knew she couldn't let a secret agent walk away without doing one last thing.

"Hey, before you go, I'd like to ask you a favor," she said. "I have a friend. She went through something... horrible, and I was helping her, but then she left, just went off the radar. Could you... I'd like to find out where she is. I just want to know if she's okay.”

It would've been easier to be angry at Jessica. It would've distracted from the worry, the loneliness, the ache in her heart. She wasn't used to being alone anymore, not when it had been them against the world for so long, and she felt like she'd been abandoned, and it wasn't fair, for either of them. But she couldn't be mad at Jess, never truly and not over something like this. She only wished she could do for Jessica what Jessica had done for her, the way she'd looked at a broken, abused, drug addled mess of a girl and saw something worth loving anyway. Jessica had saved her. She wanted to return the favor. Return the love.

But it wasn't for Trish to decide what Jessica needed now. If distance is what it took for her to heal, then Trish would give it to her. Even so, she just couldn't go on knowing nothing. God, maybe it did make her like her mother to be that way, but it came from a place of caring, and that did make a difference. Jess was strong, and she could take care of herself, but she wasn't invincible. All Trish needed to know was if she was alive and as okay as she could be. She could find a way to breathe with that.

Agent Romanoff nodded in understanding. “I’d be happy to assist, Ms. Walker. Send me her details.”

Trish smiled. There'd been enough self-pitying introspection tonight. Jessica wasn't another ghost, and it was time to stop treating her like one. “Thank you, Agent Romanoff. And please, call me Trish.” She stuck out a hand. Romanoff took it, and Trish could feel calluses and scars across the otherwise soft skin. It was a small hand, but strong.

“I'll call you Trish if you call me Natasha. You know, I’m actually not an agent anymore. Anyway, you should change out of those clothes, and I really need to...” she trailed off, knocking her head to the side.

Trish nodded, letting go of her hand. “Sure, of course. Innocents to protect and vast government conspiracies to uncover, right?”

Natasha smiled, a real one this time. It was lovely. “Something like that.”

As Trish made a move toward the door, Natasha instead walked towards the balcony. Trish quickly noticed, rolling her eyes. “Should’ve known superheroes don’t use doors,” she muttered under her breath, changing course after Natasha. It had stopped raining, but the brick was still slick, and Trish eyed it wearily. It would be just her luck for the Black Widow to die in a freak accident on her terrace.

Strolling out into the open air, Natasha glanced back with a chuckle and mischief in her eyes. “You know, Trish, I hope this is the start of a beautiful friendship. Because I—”

“No.” Trish shook her head, eyes widening in horrified realization. “Don’t do it. Don’t—”

“—really wanna be your friend,” Natasha finished.

“Goddammit,” Trish grumbled. “Not you too.”

Natasha was practically grinning at this point, utterly satisfied with herself. It was annoying and endearing at the same time. She’d been so professional and distant at first, and then so sad, it was a joy to see her lighter, happier... telling unacceptably obnoxious jokes. It was also a comfort. If someone that went through the things Natasha went through could still be like this, it gave her hope that Jessica would make it to that place one day too.

Trish sighed in exasperation, but grinned back. “Usually making that joke is a one way ticket to my shit list, though I suppose I could make an exception for my biggest fan. But if I hear one joke about me not being a natural redhead...” she trailed off, waving a fist threateningly.

She wouldn’t say it out loud, at least not in the words of that ridiculous catchphrase, but she really wanted to be Natasha’s friend too.

#trish walker #natasha romanoff #black widow #marvel's jessica jones #mcu #it's patsy #jessica is absolutely there in spirit #so is dorothy *barf*#the red room using it's patsy headcanon is genius #and i couldn't resist having my fave mcu ladies interact #(did i mention my main blog is practically a black widow fan blog?)#relationship: the stuff that'll last forever #fic

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prose-byanyothername · 7 years

Text

Cloud Nine (Chapter Five)

Fandom: Mystic Messenger Pairing: Jumin/MC (you) Rating: Fluff Summary: The RFA members say that MC was trapped, but how could anyone claim to be trapped when she said so herself that she was in heaven? Retells the events of MC visiting Jumin in his pent-house. Set between days 7-11 in Jumin’s route. (* spoiler alert!)

[Chapter Four] | [Chapter Six]

Chapter Five: So Close

MC anxiously felt herself clutching tightly on to her phone. Jumin’s penthouse was short two occupants and she felt an emptiness creep into her heart and mind. More than anything, however, a wave of concern came to her as she thought about what Jumin was doing and where he was at that very moment.

She sat along the front porch, her eyes sparkling at the sunlight as it followed the rushing vehicles on the busy city street and the tall skyscrapers whose magnificent structures held many worlds of their own.

In the midst of her taking in this beautiful weather, she was checking emails from prospective guests for the RFA party that she didn’t quite get to from last night. While she was doing this, her phone buzzed, and she noticed that there was somebody online.

[ZEN has entered the chatroom]

[MC has entered the chatroom]

ZEN: What a lovely morning!

ZEN: Hey, MC! Haha.

ZEN: It’s a good day, isn’t it?

MC sighed at Zen and his narcissism. She tolerated his behavior most of the time, but in a dire situation like this, she clearly wasn’t beating around the bush.

“That’s not important! Elizabeth is missing!” She sighed, interrupting the revelry he continued to have with himself about his looks.

ZEN: What?

ZEN: That furball?

[Jumin Han has entered the chatroom]

MC felt her heart rate accelerate as he quickly entered the room and proceeded to tell them: “If you see Elizabeth the 3rd anywhere near you, please contact me asap.”

ZEN: I heard from MC. What happened?

Jumin Han: Elizabeth escaped the penthouse

ZEN: How?!

Jumin Han: I was introducing MC to the Chief of Security and she just ran out

Jumin Han: The timing was bad. Damn…!

ZEN: Wait…

ZEN: She escaped on her own?!?

Jumin Han: She must have been frustrated inside the cage,

Jumin Han: Or hateful towards me…

Jumin Han: How can I know?

Jumin Han: She’s a cat.

“It was simply a mistake, Jumin.” MC reassured him, feeling his pain from behind the screen. “I’m sure it’s not because she hates you.”

ZEN: What MC says is true

ZEN: This might sound funny, but even a cat can see how sincere you are.

Jumin Han: This isn’t the time for this… I have to go find her

ZEN: Yes, go!

Jumin Han: Anyway, tell me if any one of you find her

Jumin Han: MC… You’re at the penthouse, right?

Jumin Han: Don’t worry too much and just stay… please.

“Okay, Jumin! You’ll find her. I know you will.” MC felt the words come so easily when it came to Jumin. She couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but something about him just made it so simple to come to his aid and trust in him.

Jumin Han: Yes, I hope you’re right

Jumin Han: I’m sorry to keep saying this, but please don’t leave the penthouse.

Jumin Han: Don’t. Ever.

And there it was again. She felt a deep gasp escape from her lips, unsure of what was becoming of Jumin. At that point, MC didn’t know if she should feel special, or just flat-out scared. Maybe both?

ZEN: What the hell is happening… God...

Jumin Han: I don’t care who it is

Jumin Han: If anyone sees Elizabeth the 3rd, please tell me

Jumin Han: Right away

Jumin Han: Bye

[Jumin Han has left the chatroom]

MC deflated as he took an abrupt leave. She wished more than anything that she could read his mind right now, or at the very least, be by his side while they looked for Elizabeth together.

ZEN: I doubt I’ll find her

ZEN: But I just can’t believe what’s going on;;

MC: I’m shocked too… I’m really worried about Jumin.

But it was much more than him trying to find Elizabeth. In her heart, she felt there was something more. There was a tight knot somewhere in Jumin’s mind and he was trying to unravel it on his own. Unfortunately, this brought up rather destructive and chaotic results.

In between her thoughts trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces, Zen brought up that he had a strange dream the day before where Elizabeth was at a mysterious house by the mountains. And although he was sure that there was no way she could have gotten that far, he did admit that a lot of what he perceives in his mind are usually a sign of foresight. Still, neither of them were sure of what could come out of such a bizarre vision.

“He’s making a huge fuss but he’ll find her soon, I’m sure.” Zen then mentioned in the chat. And for once in those ten or so minutes that he and MC spoke, the bickering against Jumin was laid to rest when he admitted that his competence in finding her would probably help him find her sooner than later — and he was right about that. He talked about how he had so many bodyguards, closed circuit television in every corner of the building, and there was absolutely no doubt that Jumin had the means and capabilities to exhaust the search for Elizabeth. MC agreed, and ultimately, thanked him for putting his ego away for a moment to help make sense out of a bad situation.

Zen then discussed that he had a very important meeting with a director from Hollywood, and therefore couldn’t exactly take time out of his day to postpone just to actively search for the cat — as much as he wasn’t exactly jumping at the chance to do so. MC discovered quickly he was a prestigious actor that they could invite to the party, and he made a promise that he would do his best to have him get in touch with her.

“Good luck with the meeting.” She told him sincerely, but couldn’t help but still feel anxious about what was happening. “Oh… I hope Jumin finds Elizabeth soon.”

ZEN: Good luck! Tell me if he finds her

ZEN: Then I’ll get going.

[ZEN has left the chatroom]

[MC has left the chatroom]

After going back in and closing the patio door, she paced around the empty house, trying to think of what to do in a place that wasn’t exactly hers. Even at Rika’s apartment, she didn’t quite feel comfortable, and so she found herself exploring outside of her place more often than not these days.

And so, she decided that she would at least make time to look around the building before he came back. Surely, he didn’t mean that she couldn’t leave the penthouse itself if she stayed within its perimeter, right?

MC swept her bangs to the side, placing her shoes on her feet once more as she opened the door and prepared to make her leave.

“Excuse me, miss.” The nearest guard to the door halted her at once.

Crap... She sighed, for she didn’t even get herself completely out of the door before being interrupted.

He walked over to her, bowing his head once in affirmation. “Mr. Han said that you’re not allowed to leave.”

“Not even to go around and look at what’s inside the building?” Her voice almost sounded like a whine, for she was itching to go somewhere to help pass the time.

“My apologies, ma’am. The premises is under complete surveillance while the rest of the team looks for Elizabeth, and he wishes not to have us simultaneously monitor your movements while such a large search is happening. Mr. Han’s orders.” The security guard said, completely straight-faced.

“Duly noted.” MC politely complied, sighing. “Thank you anyway…”

And with that, she closed the door behind her again as she stepped back inside. Unsure of what to do, she took a seat on his sofa and found herself aimlessly playing games on her phone.

Some time had passed, although it didn’t go quickly enough for MC. She found herself frequently looking up at the clock to see how long it had been, but she had run out of things to do. She was staring ahead when she suddenly felt a buzzing noise from her hand, her ringtone following immediately after.

Her heart skipped a beat when she saw Jumin’s name and picture appear on her phone screen. She nearly dropped it trying to answer so quickly.

“Hello…?” She quietly said.

“Hello, MC.” His voice just as soft, but also, dejected. “It’s me. I hope everything’s okay? Please, just… remember to stay where you are… no matter what happens. If you need anything, just tell the Chief of Security. I’ve told him to send you everything you need. But also, even though I am busy, you can still ask me also. I’ll do anything for you.”

“…Could you just, promise me you’ll stay there?” Jumin added, repeating this same request to her.

MC stared ahead at the world outside of his penthouse windows, a bit sadly but mostly with understanding. “Of course, don’t worry.”

“I feel safe now…” He heaved a deep sigh of relief. “I mean, you won’t be able to leave even if you want to, but I feel better knowing that you’ve chosen to stay there.”

“W-What did you just say?” She froze, attempting to digest what he told her. For as much as she was willing to be there for him, she also couldn’t help but feel that maybe she was being trapped, in a sense? She just hoped it was his instability enabling him to say and do such odd things.

“…I should end things there.” He said after the long pause. “I hope you weren’t too flustered about what happened earlier this morning. It might be a good idea to take care of yourself in a quiet place.”

But I’ve been in a quiet place for almost a week now. She wanted to tell him. She wanted so badly to ask him for a bit more freedom. At the same time, though, there was also so much more that she wanted to say, but she decided to just let him do the talking for the meantime.

“Oh, right, and if you hear something going on outside, don’t mind it. I’ve told the guards not to let anyone in.” He continued. “If someone still insists on going inside, it might be those women.”

“I’m more worried about you.” She admitted sheepishly. After all, it’s what she’d been doing all day.

“You don’t have to worry about me… I am quite flustered, myself, but I can still be rational about everything.” Jumin told her. “I can get through this because of you. Thanks for staying at my home.”

“No worries at all. You don’t need to thank me.” The brunette practically felt like she wasn’t deserving of any form of gratitude when she was just sitting around waiting for him.

“Oh, speaking of which, there’s that big cage inside the house, so if you’re bored, why don’t you try going inside?” The tone of his voice suddenly growing dark.

“Wait… wh—?” MC bit her lip, glancing at the steel bars nervously.

“Shhh, that was a joke.” He chuckled loudly. “I just wanted to make you laugh.”

“Yeah… hahaha… a joke… right.” She nervously laughed, rubbing a hand at the back of her head. God, what a strange sense of humor. She thought to herself. Although the sound of his laugh did take a bit of her worrying away, so she went with it.

“I’ll call you later.” Jumin sounded rather excited at the thought of doing so. “Rest up.”

“I’ll be here, Jumin. Let me know if anything happens.” MC smiled, waiting for him to hang up the call.

After he did so, she slumped back on his couch, going back to scrolling through her phone once again. Thankfully, her boredom was quickly ceased by a notification in the RFA app of Jaehee being online. She then decided that it might be appropriate to open up a chatroom with her.

As per usual, Jaehee stressed about her troubles, particularly of her excessive workload. She expressed the concern she genuinely had of Elizabeth going missing, however, she admitted that most of the staff was placed in a search party for her and she was falling behind even more on her work. MC told Jaehee that she wished that she was at least partaking in the active search for Elizabeth, and she feared for her safety but also that of Jumin’s.

“My original plan was to send you to Mr. Han and hope that Mr. Han would come to work, but is it just me or is everything just getting worse…?” The secretary told her sadly.

MC apologized about not being much of help to the situation, even going as far as asking if there was anything that she could to.

“No need, MC. Thank you. I do not wish to burden my boss’s guest with work of my own that I should be doing.” Jaehee said, though extending her deepest appreciation for her. “Anyway, I’m thankful enough that you took the time and trouble to go there.”

“But, MC…” She continued. “If you stay at Mr. Han’s place any longer, you might get involved in more trouble.”

“I think I should stay until Jumin feels better…” She immediately replied with this.

Jaehee expressed that she understood full well that MC was worried, but that she was even more concerned about staying there too long. More than that, however, she was also running in circles trying to figure out how to make sense of anything, and everything. “How did this happen? Elizabeth gets all the love in the world and she ran away… I really cannot believe this… I sincerely do want to know why she ran away from home.”

“She must have just been curious about the outside world.” She told her, explaining to her what happened that morning. “I didn’t really see her escape. All of a sudden, she was just gone.”

MC told her that she felt guilty for expressing her concerns for Jumin while his secretary had more to worry about and had much more on her plate. Jaehee reassured her that none of this was her doing. She even went on, saying that it was actually rather nice to have another girl in the RFA, for a change. And she didn’t blame her, even gushing to her how great it would be later down the road to bond more with each other once everything finally settles.

With Jaehee eventually coming to her senses, however, she reluctantly took her leave in order to get even more work finished. “Don’t worry too much. I’ll try to come back with good news.” She said to her. “Then I’ll get going.”

MC exited the chat and clicked her phone locked as she laid back, trying to figure out what to do next. It was so early in the day, and yet, it felt like he had been gone for longer than the few hours that passed between the time he left. She went into her belongings to retrieve a half-read novel that she hadn’t gotten through a lot of yet, letting herself get lost in the story in hopes that this would make the day seem quicker.

After a good moment of silence and more time had gone by, the sound of keys echoed through the hall and Jumin made his entrance into his penthouse. MC had become so engrossed in the book she brought with her that she hardly even noticed the door had opened.

“MC…?” He surveyed his surroundings, trying to look for his guest.

“Jumin…” She closed her book shut and walked over to him, to which he immediately took her into his arms and in a tight embrace without even thinking. She felt his warmth, but also his distress, and they stayed that way for a moment before he pulled away to glance at her.

He sighed, biting his lip. “I’m sorry for coming home so late… But I’m glad that you’re safe.”

“What about Elizabeth?” MC asked, hoping for any kind of news from all the time he had spent out.

“…I couldn’t find her. I can’t believe this…” Jumin said despondently. “I can’t believe that I still haven’t found her. She’s definitely left the building, it seems. Cats can get around places that people can’t see, so she must have found a way. She even avoided the thermal cameras... Do you think she ran that fast? I honestly have never seen her move so quickly.”

He paused for a moment as MC motioned him to take a seat on the couch, for he was probably all over the place and needed a moment to rest.

“Jumin…” She couldn’t even find the words to say.

“She always used to stretch leisurely at home. Over there… on the center of that very sofa across from us… She’d meow every morning looking at my bed. I… can’t believe that she’s not here… I wish this were a dream.” He buried his face in his hands.

“Please… Don’t be so sad. She’ll be found and we’ll get her back home soon.” MC felt herself unhesitatingly reach a hand out to gently rub him on his back.

“Yes, we will. Alive or not… We’ll find her.” Jumin said this painfully. “But more than that…. I can’t accept the fact that she tried to run away from me. I feel like all the love I’ve given her for years have gone to waste. How do I express how I’m feeling right now…?”

MC watched his expression carefully, trying to read between the lines. She wanted to reassure him that she didn’t mind listening and that she desired more than anything to figure out how to help him through his pain. But for now, she knew that all he needed was an open ear.

“I feel as if I’ve been betrayed… This bitter sadness that eats away a part of my heart. Why am I like this? It’s very unlike me…” He felt like an abomination, an alien of his own senses.

“You haven’t really had a chance to express your feelings this way.” The brunette nodded in acknowledgement. “It’s not that you never had emotions. You’re just feeling so much now that it’s probably overwhelming you.”

“MC, I know that I was going to bring you back home soon, but can’t you stay a bit longer with me?” He breathed, the need in his eyes deeper than ever as he suddenly asked her this.

She nodded without even thinking twice. She knew at that moment she would do absolutely anything for him. “I’ll be here until you feel better, Jumin. You can trust me.”

“I already know that I can trust you. But thank you, MC… It hasn’t been long since we met, and I don’t want to burden you…” He inhaled sharply, looking like he was about ready to hit himself at any moment now. “Damn… It’s hard to control my emotions. I’m really sorry that I can’t be peaceful. I hate when I’m like this… It’s the first time I feel like I’m really hitting rock bottom.”

A sudden, loud knock at his front door interrupted MC before she could even say anything to him.

“Oh, it must be the body guard.” He stood up quickly, the brunette following close behind. “Maybe they have some news?”

Opening the door only slightly, he noticed that it was the Chief of Security. “Mr. Han, Miss Sarah has come for you.”

“The worst woman at the worst timing…” His hand over his forehead, feeling like a headache was already coming on.

“She appears to know something about Elizabeth the 3rd.” He stated.

Jumin’s eyes squinted in skepticism. “What does she know?”

“Er… She won’t say.” The Chief of Security shrugged. “She simply told me that she must tell you face to face.”

“I don’t want to let that woman in and I’m sure that what she has to say is probably a lie anyway.” Jumin could feel his blood boiling, but then turning around to his guest. “But, well, what do you think, MC?”

“Well, nothing bad will come out of hearing some information. And from there, you can judge whether what she says is truthful or not.” She was clearly feeling just about as uneasy as he was.

“Thank you for believing in me. And for thinking a lot like me, may I add?” A small smirk creeped its way onto the side of his face for a brief moment. “I mean, it’s highly likely that she thinks of this situation as an opportunity… If I think that the information she provides is useless, then that will give me a reason to never see her face again.”

“God… I wish that woman would just say ‘I have Elizabeth, just give me the money’ like the coward she is…” His fists clenched suddenly at the thought.

“It’s okay, Jumin… Just calm down. We’ll see what she has to say.” She reassured him, a hand on his shoulder before retreating quickly.

“Let’s hope for the best, I suppose.” He said this as he motioned for him to allow her to come near the entrance.

The door opened slightly as he walked outside to inform her that they were considering on letting her in. He felt an instant sense of displeasure as he made eye-contact with the redhead, before closing it a bit more between them so that he wouldn’t see anymore of her.

“Jumin! Oh! Oh my! You look so tired. But no need to worry! I’m here! So everything will be solved!” A muffled, yet shrieking sound came from behind the creaked door. “Oh please, just let me in!”

“First.” Jumin said adamantly. “Let me hear what you have to say.”

“You’re just going to keep me standing here outside your door? That’s mean! Even with the depressing situation! All the security guards are watching! I want to talk to you. Alone!” They could feel her make a hard eye roll from behind the door. “And! If someone has taken the trouble to visit you, shouldn’t you at least say hello? I’m feeling quite upset at you, my future husband!”

“Yes, hello to you too.” Jumin sighed, making eye contact with MC as they both seemed to be done with her already, though eventually allowing her to enter. “I highly admire your tenacity.”

“Tenacity…?” She said it slowly, as if though the word itself was difficult for her to digest. “Oh, whatever! Jumin!!”

MC immediately retreated to the other side of the room as a pair of flailing arms flung over to him. Jumin, however, immediately swatted her away and even backed up quite a distance to send the message.

“I’m not a stranger, you know! I just want to enter my fiancé’s house! What’s the fuss all about anyway?” Sarah crossed her arms as she went further inside, then looking at the moving figure at the corner of her eye. “What? But who is that woman?”

MC copied her motion as they made eye-contact, to which the brunette simply gave her a daunting look. Jumin noticed this, sighing louder than he usually would in hopes it would prove yet another point. “Show me the photo.”

“Is that a hidden lover?” She ignored him.

“It’s nothing like that. Just show us the photo of Elizabeth.” MC didn’t hesitate nor change her expression as she walked back over to where they both stood.

“Oh my! Look at that girl lying through her teeth!” Sarah extended a hand to point at her face. “What the hell are you doing in my fiancé’s house in the middle of the day?”

“Who is whose fiancé, exactly?” Jumin asked, having continually cringed at the sound of her calling him that.

“Jumin, no need to be shy. I know everything. I’m sure she’s just a hook-up.” She glared over at MC, whose mouth gaped at her attempt at such a horrible insult. She frowned back at her as she continued to ramble again. “I’m not a woman who makes fusses about these things. You work in the big league. I’m sure this is nothing, it’s fine! Marriage is a much more scared bond than some meaningless desire. I’m old enough to know everything.”

MC clenched her fists as she tried to keep everything in her to not swing a punch at this annoying woman, with Jumin returning the same look without even thinking to mirror each other’s expressions. Sarah felt this, and defensively raised her hands up above her head. “Alright, alright! Don’t look at me like that! You’ll feel better if I show you this photo. Now, here! This is her, right?”

Jumin snatched the photo directly from her hands as his eyes squinted to examine it. MC, having also looked over out of curiosity, immediately shook her head in disbelief.

“It’s Elizabeth!” The redhead screeched.

“Unfortunately it is not.” He handed it back to her, his expression as stone-cold as ever.

“What? Look closer! All cats kind of look alike! White fur and blue eyes! This is her!” Sarah said in a very demanding voice. “What do you mean it’s not her?”

“Don’t mistake me for a fool, Sarah. I know what my cat looks like and this isn’t her.” Jumin turned away, not even wanting to see her face.

“You have no idea how hard it was for me to find a similar looking cat in such a short amount of time, Jumin! Are you really going to be this rude to me?” She whined.

“I’m afraid I cannot see you off… I will call someone to escort you.” He already had his phone in his hand as he said this.

“You should at least offer your fiancée a cup of tea, mister!”

“That is not going to happen, actually. And I hope we do not see each other ever again. I will tell father about what happened today.”

“E-Ever again?” Sarah acted insulted. “What!? Are you breaking up with me?”

Jumin had a look that clearly read ‘are you really being serious right now?’ and even added an eye roll simply for the effect. “Break up? How strange of you to say such a thing when we have never even been together. If you really thought for a second that exchanging a few words was ‘being together,’ then you must be quite delusional. In addition, that ‘photo’ of that cat can be easily found online. You must be very confident of my father’s support to shamelessly walk into my house with false information and believe that that is considered help.”

“I… I must have been tricked!” It was very clear that she was trying to think on the spot for being called out on her lie.

“Will you please just leave? I do not wish to further waste my time, as I need to find my cat.” Jumin had a hint of rage forming and it was quite obvious in his tone of voice, yet somehow, he was able to keep his composure at the same time. “As I said to you, I will tell father that you clearly brought a fake photo of my cat in attempts to win over my affection and that if he has any real sense left in him at all, he will stop talking about marriage.”

“Wait, Jumin! Don’t try to call off the marriage on your own! Is it because of that woman?” She pointed again. “I’m going to tell Mr. Han first!! That you are with another woman!”

Jumin was slightly taken aback, to which MC had to look over at him and see if he was still there. Why did he hesitate? She thought.

“What… Wait a second, are you two in love or something? That assistant didn’t mention anything like that!” Sarah had a look that appeared almost as if she were offended, then looking over at MC. “Hey! If you think that you’re going to get expensive stuff by being with him, then make sure I don’t catch you! I don’t know where you came from and what you’re trying to do, but rich families have a reputation that they need to keep up! So don’t even think about doing anything funny to my Jumin!”

“Your Jumin?” MC broke the silence, even taking a step closer to her. “Besides, Sarah, I’m just a friend of Jumin’s. Watch what you say before you blurt out information that you don’t even know is true.”

“Friend? A friend that’s alone with him at his house at this hour?” She cackled before pointing at the unmade bed and the belongings she had in a bag on the couch. MC sighed as her attempt to keep the drama and attention away from them both being together in the same house evidently failed. “And it even looks like you spent the night here! And… what are those pancakes over there!? It’s so obvious!”

“Oh, I forgot to clean the plates this morning. Pardon my manners, MC. I should have called a maid.” Jumin stood in front of her, fixing the cuffs on his sleeves as he continued to motion Sarah closer to the door. At that instant, he knew that he wanted to defend her.

“Are you pretending that you can’t see me now? Jumin! How could you do this to me!? Mr. Han loves you so much… How could you be so rude to me when he picked me to marry you! I can’t just leave like this!” She insistently placed a hand on his chest to move him back.

“You’re really hurting my ears… Seriously, why did my father bring in this woman?” He scowled as he turned to MC again.

“I’m hurting your ears? Then listen to me!” She stomped on the floor in a similar fashion as that of a five-year-old throwing a temper tantrum.

“I wanted to end this quickly since MC is watching.” He didn’t even want to look at her as he spoke, a hand on his chin. “But this reminds me of an episode in a soap opera.”

“Wh-what are you saying?” She frowned.

Jumin snickered. “This has just become unnecessarily troublesome, but I’ll do it for my father. Your fake tears… your timid threats… It’s all so cliché that I can’t help but laugh.”

“I mean it! I’m really going to tell Mr. Han! No use in stopping me now!” Sarah said with a huff.

“I can guarantee you that your threats are as pointless as you are to me. I’ve gone through this multiple times in my life. You should just use your energy on something else in life… But no matter, for giving you advice will only prove to be a further waste of my time, so let’s get down to the point…”

“What are you talking about!? Anyways, you’re mad at me right now, right!? Just be honest!”

“Not yet.” He emphasized on that point, then beginning to pace as MC and Sarah both watched him speak. “I do not get angry very often. But you’ve annoyed me enough to make me talk, and I can’t say anything about that. I know very well from experience that people like you will do whatever it takes to get what you want. You have the right skills and even the spontaneity it takes to do it… But people like you easily fall into nihilism once you’ve acquired that wealth you’ve so coveted. I… feel pity for you, in a way. A life with pointlessness. But I suppose that’s the life you want?”

Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Wha—”

“I had all the wealth in the world ever since I was born.” He unhesitatingly cut her off, then shrugging. “Do you, perhaps, want some? A couple million, is that what you’d really like?”

“Jumin, don’t…” MC reached a hand out to him, to which he shushed her silently — for in his eyes it appeared that he knew what he was doing.

Sarah was taken aback, even pointing at herself to make sure that he was still referring to her.

“Tell me.” He raised a furrowed brow back at her. “If you ask me for it, I might even give it to you. You need money after all, is that not right? After all, it means nothing to me.”

“I think you need to sit down for a second, Jumin. This isn’t like you. Are you okay?” MC attempted to meet his eyes.

“I’m fine, MC.” He smirked slightly at her.

“You-you’re being too harsh! Can’t you just write me a check right now?” Sarah appeared to be digging at her purse.

“I do not like talking about impossible things.” Jumin crossed his arms, his expression unchanged from the straight face he maintained through the entirety of her visit.

“So you mean it?” She continually switched her glance between him and MC multiple times as she made attempts to read the situation correctly. “Th-then… how about three million? Then I’ll say no to the marriage. With the condition that I’ll put it nicely to Mr. Han. This will be better for us, I suppose. It’s a win-win thing.”

“…Got you.” He chuckled lightly, looking down as he said so.

“Wait… w-why are you smiling?” Sarah asked, confused.

“I just repeated some lines from a soap opera I watched recently. It’s funny that you’re almost replaying that scene back for me so perfectly, too.” His smile was so big that it was borderline concerning. “Apparently, it’s a very popular television show these days.”

“What!? You were messing with me!?” She stepped back in shock.

“Precisely.” Jumin smiled as he glanced over at MC, who bore the same expression although her was coupled also with a sigh of relief.

“God…! Who the hell do you think you are!?”

“Unfortunately, I will be charged with embezzlement if I use company assets for a measly personal check. I’m not keen on being behind iron bars for somebody who is worth nothing to me.”

“Are you out of your mind?!”

“Yes, in fact, I am. Thank you for asking. You’ve managed to come here with a fake photo of a cat that you found online and you insulted my dear MC. My joke is only fair, don’t you think?”

MC could hardly believe that she was hearing her name and “my dear” being used in the same sentence.

“I never insulted her! And the photo! I… I was tricked, too! Don’t you see!?” Sarah scoffed. “And isn’t it rude that you let another woman in your house when you’re engaged?! And at that, such an average looking girl!”

“MC is not an average girl. What you see isn’t everything, but clearly you won’t understand even if I explain it to you.” Jumin made it clear that he wanted what he said to be heard by both parties. “It seems we have no more left to talk about. Why don’t I show you the door?”

“No! I can’t leave like this! This isn’t fair! No!” The redhead fumed.

“I don’t know what in the situation is not fair, Sarah. But if you do not wish to leave, I will use you to do what I want.” Jumin chuckled.

“What are you talking about?” She frowned, a hand having shot to her chest.

“There was something that I’ve wanted to do… but I just couldn’t come up with a proper excuse…” He stared at the ceiling as he said this, twining his fingers together. “But this seemed to happen often in those soap operas I’ve been telling you about.”

“What’s with these stupid soap operas? God, you’re so childish!”

“MC, I’m sorry. It seems you’ll have to excuse me. I had no other way to let her out…” He turned over to her before looking away again briefly. “Yes, let’s… put it that.”

The brunette’s eyes widened, unsure of what his next move was. “Jumin, w-what—”

“And, well, I was going to do it soon anyway…” Jumin grinned widely, staring right into her eyes before facing himself directly in front of her.

Then, as quick as the moment passed, he closed the distance between them with a kiss.

She gasped as she felt his lips meet hers. She froze in place, not exactly knowing what to do. Her eyes widened as she felt him get closer to her. Surely, she must have been dreaming.

“AHHHH!! What are you…!?” Sarah screamed as if she was in the middle of a horror movie.

MC had to gently push him away from her to stop him for a moment. She met his eyes and wanted so desperately to figure out what was happening, because she could hardly believe any of this was even real. “J-Jumin!? What…?”

“Shhh…” Jumin chuckled, his hands finding her waist to bring her more towards him. “You’re blushing… Just close your eyes and focus on your senses.”

Every time MC wanted to open her mouth to speak, he continually shushed her by kissing her again, and again. She wasn’t quite sure how to kiss back — or if she should — but it appeared that she didn’t exactly have to with him constantly coming back to her.

“Ewww! I’m going to tell Ms. Choi!” Sarah shielded her eyes with her hands.

“Yes, having an audience for our first kiss takes off the tension.” Jumin kissed her on her cheeks, now. “Your lips… are so soft and warm… And I think I smell a bit of pancake? Ah, you’re so cute, MC.”

“How…! Ugh! I’ve never been so insulted!” Sarah clutched her purse tightly and harshly turned the knob to his front door. “You won’t hear the end of me, Jumin Han!”

“God… She’s finally leaving.” He muttered softly as they pulled apart.

The door slammed shut as the sound of loud, running footsteps could be heard. In the middle of a sudden wave of relief, there was some silence for that very moment.

“MC…?” Jumin looked down at her.

“…Y-Yes?” She muttered, nervously.

He paused for a moment, and after having trouble finding the words to say, he shook his head. “Oh, the hell with it.”

And just as before, Jumin took her completely by surprise and pulled her into another kiss. But this time, he felt himself deepening it without thinking twice. Her eyes closed as she focused on the feeling of him all over her.

MC then felt herself being pinned against the wall, her back contouring along it as she felt the pressure of his body pressing up onto her. At first, he held her by the wrists to keep her down, although it was obvious he wasn’t even sure where he wanted to put his hands anymore, because he couldn’t stop moving them. From her face, to her shoulders, her sides, and her back. He wanted so badly to feel all of her.

Jumin couldn’t seem to help himself in that moment as he continually came back for more than just another kiss — but for more of her, of everything she was. MC quietly complied with this, though at the same time, hoping that she wouldn’t reveal much of her inexperience in the process.

He finally settled for her waist, bringing her closer into a tight squeeze towards him and a bit away from the wall. He brought one hand over and rested it on her cheek, angling himself in a way that would pull her even deeper into his kiss.

Her breathing shallowed, and she shyly found herself reaching both of her arms behind his neck until her fingers found his hair. Jumin returned this by squeezing his hands at her sides, his hot breath on her mouth as his tongue found its way in.

MC gasped, trying to follow his movements as best she could. It seemed he wasn’t having any problems, for he was returning with more force, and more desire than before.

She then let out a noise that sounded, surprised? She wasn’t quite sure. But she felt him grin onto her lips as they held the kiss once more. Jumin pulled away for a moment as he reached for her neck, hovering his lips over it in such an agonizingly slow way, leaving kisses along her skin. She couldn’t help but let out a soft moan, though very obviously holding back the sound she made due to her own insecurity.

MC bit her lip to further quiet herself. But her eyes squeezed shut as she then felt his breath grazing her earlobe, feeling a soft tug as she exhaled sharply. She squirmed helplessly in place, whimpering softly at his touch. She couldn’t take it anymore. Her legs were going to give out any second, and she couldn’t even tell where she was at that point.

As she began to lose balance, his tight grip pulled her back onto him. And then, he stopped altogether, and he carefully examined her after pulling away.

“No, I can’t…” Jumin said to himself with a bit of a breathy laugh as he simply pulled her back into his arms, laying her on his chest for a moment. “Not tonight…”

She felt as if the room was spinning, wanting to ask what he meant by his words, but she literally couldn’t even feel the lower half of her body. A hand held her head, as if she had just gotten off a roller coaster. She panted loudly, wanting so badly to hide away in her own feeling of humiliation.

“MC, breathe…” He laughed lightly as his hands rested on her shoulders, in as much disbelief at what just happened as she was.

“God… Wow…” She softly said, still out of breath. She looked down as she attempted to bring herself back to Earth, as she tried to make sense of what was reality. “Did that just…?”

“Yes.” Jumin completed her sentence for her. “It did…”

MC glanced away from him, unsure of how he felt about that heated moment. “S-Sorry if I…”

As if reading her mind once more, he looked over at her with reassurance. “MC, don’t be embarrassed. In fact, I… almost couldn’t even stop myself. God…”

“Jumin, can we… really do this, though?” MC could feel a million different thoughts race in her mind at that very moment.

“To be honest, I’ve wanted to kiss you from the first moment I saw you.” He told her as he played with her hair. “I’m sorry if that was so sudden. I know we haven’t known each other long and I wanted you to be comfortable here, but perhaps, I’ve merely bothered you.”

“No…” She looked up at him, still trying to hide her blush but feeling her heart twist slightly at his fear. “You haven’t been. Please don’t worry… It’s just…”

“I don’t regret what I did.” Jumin felt himself effortlessly smiling back at her. “I know exactly how I feel about you.”

“Is this… appropriate, though… when Elizabeth is missing?” MC realized, a hand over her arm as she rubbed at it nervously. For as much as she enjoyed Jumin being so caring and also close to her, there was still an important situation that needed to be taken care of.

“This…” His nose brushed hers as he felt him stay close to her. “…has nothing to do with that. It’s my emotions. And Elizabeth isn’t here, but you are.” He poked a finger at the tip of her nose.

She giggled lightly as she felt him kiss her some more on her cheek. She couldn’t help but feel so happy with him, and yet there was so much she was still so unsure about when it came to unstable, perplexing Jumin Han.

“Oh… And, you know what.” His fingers lightly brushed loose strands from her face behind her ear, the two still holding their embrace. “I just realized something after our kiss… That you are, indeed, different from Elizabeth the 3rd. That special person who can truly understand me… who I can touch, and kiss, and understand what I’m saying… I’ve known this for a while now, that I needed someone like you, and not a cat. Seeing you here, right in front of my eyes… I feel like I’ve finally gotten what I’ve wanted.”

He sighed happily, kissing her on the forehead. “I don’t want to be a fool who loses what he wants, and needs. Elizabeth the 3rd… even if I find her again, she’s… just a cat. But you, MC… You’re different. You soak in all of my emotions. You give me light in my darkest hour. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman. You’re… mine. And that just makes me so happy.”

“Jumin…” MC could feel her heart wanting jump out of her chest, a combination of happiness but also concern for his ever-changing emotions. “I understand what you’re feeling, and… I feel it, too… I really, really do… But, you were just worried about Elizabeth a minute ago, and I’m worried about you and I’m worried about her, too.”

“I’ve never been so sure of my feelings. Now that Elizabeth isn’t here, it’s actually rather ironic that I’m so happy. And now I’ve realized that, without her here, I know what I truly want. I want you. And I want you to want me too. I mean it.” Jumin breathed, feeling like an open book for once in his life.

“I do too, Jumin. More than anything in the world.” MC admitted, not being able to quite meet his eyes as she said this to him, but still meeting eyes with him to show her attentiveness. “It’s just… I think any relationship needs time… Let’s take a bit to think about it. But first, we need to find Elizabeth before we do so.”

“I can understand if you need time. Just… don’t leave my side right now… Please… I’m begging you with everything I have… I’ll try my best to be the man who can do anything for you… That’s… That’s what everyone expected from me ever since I was little.”

She felt a tug at her heart strings, realizing that there was more to Jumin than his stone-cold, straight-faced nature. In her mind, she opened an entirely new world to him that probably nobody else has ever seen, and wanting more than ever to explore all of it.

“I’m so sorry, Jumin.” She referred to the latter statement.

“MC… I’ll save that talk for another time, but, even if it takes you time, I want to have everything you are… I will wait to the end of the Earth for you, and only you, to be mine. So just, stay here with me.”

The brunette looked up expectantly at him, his smoldering eyes holding both need and desire to its deepest extent. She smiled at him, her eyes closing for a moment. “Yes… of course I will, Jumin…”

#mystic messenger #mystic messenger fan fiction #mystic messenger fanfiction #mysme #mysme jumin #jumin han #mystic messenger jumin #jumin #mm jumin #jumin x mc #mc x jumin #mysme fanfic #mystic messenger fan fic

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kari-izumi · 7 years

Text

Mokuba’s Reason Why Not: Chapter One

Or, “Hey, Kari is Finally Gonna Post That 5+1 Fic She’s Been Dropping Hints About Since Forever”

So, finally…finally, I have something I can live with for this prologue. This was originally 900 words, and now it’s over three times as long. And I don’t think I’ve ever edited a story this many times as I have this one chapter. I’m still not 100 percent, but I need to feel like I’ve made some progress in any part of my crumbling life, so here it is.

I haven’t posted on AO3 yet just in case anyone here has any suggestions to make it stronger before going live (it’s not beta'ed since I’ve been outta fandom for years and I’ve lost contact with most of the folks I used to talk with…but given the pairing, it may have been a hard sell anyway…or not, given the response that this postgot).

So, the premise began with me wanting to write a whole different idea entirely. Actually, two–I tried writing this scenario from several viewpoints but it was far too angsty for my liking. To get into the second idea would be to spoil future chapters. But doing a 5+1 story could incorporate a whole bunch of ideas and characters I wanted to write for as well as to subvert that teen playboy and the prudish nerd girl trope because seriously, did anyone watch seasons four and five and notice how forward Rebecca was towards Yuugi?

Okay, those seasons suck ass, but you know what I mean XD

On that tangent, fair warning: lots of making out in this chapter. I struggled a lot with how um…detailed to make this. Namely to keep as little as possible. And honestly, all the “writing about children having sex at any point in their lives, even years after canon as teens/adults makes you a pedo” bullshit on this site made me nervous about posting this at all. I don’t have a problem with blocking anyone who will ship bash. Don’t like; don’t read applies here. But there won’t be any sex depicted in future chapters.

Beyond that, any comments and critiques are more than welcomed in my inbox.

Title:Mokuba’s Reason Why Not Pairing:Kiddyshipping, with a couple surprise pairings on the side Chapters:1/7 Summary: “Losing his virginity isn’t something he’s planned on in this busy week, but when an intelligent, awesome girl like Rebecca admits to having the hots for him, Seto is out of town and no one else is going to stop them, the question isn’t why he should do it, but why not?

If any two fifteen years old have ability to tell if this is a good idea, it’s them.”

Or, the five times Mokuba thinks he's got this sex thing figured out and the one time he knows for sure what it is he wants.

—

Fifteen year olds doing homework with their friends happens every afternoon. Normally, it’s for a trig class or Japanese literature or focusing on the college entrance exam.

Fifteen year olds working after class to have a bit of spending money is also common. They have a delivery route or know a family friend in need of a help at the local restaurant.

A fifteen year old girl researching historic artifacts for her university master thesis, five thousand miles away from home is rare. A fifteen year old boy who holds the Vice Presidency of a major gaming corporation whose spending money is more than what most take home in their entire lives is even less seldomly seen.

“We really do have crazy busy lives,” Rebecca remarks on one such afternoon. She holds a textbook open with one hand while writing notes into a tablet with the other. “It’s almost like we’re not even kids anymore.”

From the other side of the desk in his corporate office, Mokuba glances through his own stack of papers; some are contracts to be reviewed, others mundane reports. He’s been at this all day, and if he’s honest, it’s all starting to run together.

It’s not like he has much time to think about stuff like that, least of all these past two weeks. There are times that he wants a bit more normalcy–being able to attend after school clubs or blow off work for a party. But for all that is unusual about his life, he’s content for what it is. He’s got an awesome brother, a set future, plenty of friends–and Rebecca, sitting across from his desk, who understands the pressure of high expectations better than anyone else his age.

Blinking his eyes as he looks over at her, Mokuba says with a wiry grin, “Yeah, but I’ve gotten used to it. I can’t imagine any other way of life. Could you?”

“Eh?” She looks up from her tablet, tapping the pen at her mouth the way she always does when she’s got something she’s contemplating. “I guess I can’t. Even if I wasn’t a prodigy, I think being in high school for four years and gossiping about clothes and boys would have gotten pretty boring anyway. I’m pretty glad for my life and I enjoy all the friends I’ve made in the pro dueling circuit. Like you.“

He sits up even straighter in his seat.

“Its nice having someone my age who isn’t intimidated by me being smart.”

Mokuba feels the room, which is already soundproofed to block outside noise, grow even more quiet as a certain warm, ecstatic feeling comes over him at her words. Intimidated? Her intelligence was his favorite thing about her! “You broke through Nii-sama’s security and helped us get the company back. I guess people might get freaked out, but I think that’s awesome.”

It’s not the first time they’ve discussed DOMA or her crazy hacking skills. But Rebecca usually brags that she could teach him a few new skills and not lower her eyes as her cheeks grow pink.

Letting out a cough, Rebecca asks hurriedly as she resumes scanning through her book, “Speaking of him, when does Kaiba come back from Hong Kong, anyway?”

“Monday afternoon,” he replies. He goes back to his own stack of papers, pretending as he always does that he doesn’t notice or care how much he truly likes having her around. And sure, she’s gotten hot over the past year, objectively speaking; but more than that, her boundless enthusiasm for gaming and school and everything is hard not to get suck into.

Rebecca speaks again. “You looked like you were spacing out for a moment.”

“It’s fine,” Mokuba says automatically as he picks up a new report to glance over.

“Bullshit! Have you even slept in the past few days?”

“Work’s gotta get done. Not like I’m going to school tomorrow.”

“That’s no answer!”

Rebecca reaches over for his free hand, and not even the clearly angry, frustrated scowl on her face negates the sudden jolt of electricity that shoots up through his arm.

“Look, I know a thing or two about all-nighters, and it doesn’t do you or your project any good to burn yourself out. If you work yourself to death like you tell me Kaiba does, how can you help him?”

Realizing that she still is holding his hand–and that somehow, their pinkies have become entwined–they both turn away from each other, but neither moves. Mokuba doesn’t blush that easily with his completion but he does feel his ears burn. “I mean…you’re right about that. I haven’t slept much, but…I’ll try.”

Sighing she says. “No, I shouldn’t bring it up. I know you’re working to keep up the company for your brother. But I can’t help it to bring up a better way of doing things a when I see it.” Rebecca laughs as she adds, quietly, “You probably think I’m too outspoken.”

“What? Not at all! There’s nothing wrong with passion and speaking up. And if other people have a problem with that, that’s their issue, not yours.” He believes this firmly, and looks her square in the eye as he says this. “And I like that you’re direct. You’re like the most honest person I know.”

Rebecca looks like she wants to say something, but closes her mouth. Her expression changes to one of resolve–Mokuba’s noticed the same look appear during her duels when she’s deciding on the best play against her opponent; beyond that he isn’t sure what else to read into it. Maybe he’s said too much, he wonders as she removes her hand from his to close her tablet and textbook, placing them into the bag on the floor. It’s only the training he’s gotten from Seto on how to school his face and emotions when he needs to that keeps him from showing any emotion of his own, as he realizes how nervous he is.

Mokuba watches her stand up out of her seat…

…and walks around the desk, stopping right at his chair, spinning it towards her. His heart nearly stops when Rebecca leans over and places a hand on either shoulder, rolling one thumb on the collar of the blue dress shirt he wore that day.

“How about I show you what I’m feeling?”

Her eyes really more like emeralds when her face is this close, brilliant and clear and reflecting the afternoon sun.

Mokuba has thought about this and thinks of his best line to respond:

“Um…wait, what?”

Rebecca doesn’t seem to mind or care that his brain has short circuited as she coos in a voice that’s far quieter than he thinks she is capable of. “Shut up, Mokuba.”

It happens so quickly that Mokuba doesn’t have time to close his eyes or to move his hands off the armrests. Her lips feel so soft along his and a current shoots through him from the sensation.

Rebecca jumps away suddenly, covering her mouth with her hands. Her eyes are wide in shock.

“Did you feel that…that spark?!” she squeaks.

“Wow…yeah.” He definitely felt that, placing two fingers on his own mouth, which is still a bit tingly. “But I liked it, though.”

He really did…and thinks it could be better. Mokuba stands up and pulls Rebecca close, his arms wrapping around her shoulders as her hands reach for his neck.

“You’re so tall,” she notes, looking up at him with a rapt expression, her voice so quiet.

With his own goofy grin Mokuba tilts her chin up to kiss her again, and hell yeah, this is a whole lot better indeed, being able to hold her close, catching the glimpse of a smile each time they break apart. The air grows still and the light gets slightly brighter through the window and he entirely forgets the rest of the world. So maybe he wouldn’t have picked his office for their first kiss; but then nothing in their lives follows the typical teenage script anyway.

As if by some primal urge that he doesn’t fully understand, Mokuba soon finds himself guiding Rebecca onto the top of the desk. She looks down, being careful not to knock over the forgotten stack of papers before leaning back, propping herself on her elbows.

Rebecca lets out an excited giggle. “You have a chair, you know!”

“Yeah,” he says, resting one hand along her hip and gripping her cheek with the other. “But it’s more fun like this.”

Mokuba becomes very aware of the way her thighs squeeze his hips, pulling them even closer. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

He hasn’t planned any of this, but being a Kaiba, he’s long since learned to roll with the unexpected and wield it to his advantage…and from the muffled sounds Rebecca makes as their mouths connect, she’s enjoying this a lot. And he enjoys that she’s enjoying this as the languid, chaste kisses soon give way to deeper, more intense ones each time they separate for air. Their tongues meet, tentatively at first, then more often; their hands begin roaming along backs and hips and twisting into one another’s hair as the silence in the room is filled with increasingly louder, heavier, more ragged breathing.

“…Mokuba?”

“Mmmm…?”

Rebecca pulls away, her cheeks a dark red, looking down briefly as she asks. “…that’s not your cell phone, is it?”

He freezes immediately, feeling his face growing heated and his mouth goes dry. “Umm…no,” he whispers.

It comes back to him right now–that conversation that he had with Seto a few months ago about biological urges taking over rational thought in the heat of a passionate moment and promise me you’ll take a minute to think it over, Mokuba–or rather, that Seto insisted on having with him over breakfast, the morning after the last tournament. Next the actual sex talk two years ago, it was easily the most awkward and out-of-the-blue conservations Mokuba could remember, and he still hasn’t figured out what exactly prompted him to bring it up when he did.

Maybe Seto realized somehow that this exact situation was going to happen, sooner rather than later.

Rebecca–rather than being bashful by…well, him–is grinning wickedly. “I’m glad.”

Mokuba can barely register her implication as she rolls her hips against his, hooks her legs even tighter and sucks down on a spot right behind his ear and that–that entirely throws his rational thought away so thoroughly that if he wasn’t so entirely turned on, it might have scared him to think he could lose control of himself this quickly–to grab a tight hold of her hair as he lays her back into the smooth wooden surface, being urged on by the noises as he kisses her neck, and desiring to grab her hips to test out how truly soundproof this office really is–

“Mokuba-sama,” he hears.

They both freeze, and the temperature in the room plummets instantly as everything comes crashing back into focus. Mokuba snaps up straight as his eyes instantly focus towards the door that he’s sure he didn’t lock to find it still firmly shut.

“It’s just the intercom,” he tells her, sighing in relief.

“I guess you have to get that soon…” says Rebecca. Her smile is unusually relaxed, even for her.

Mokuba gives her a slight grin in return.“If I don’t pick up, he’ll worry and call Nii-sama.”

“Hmmm.”

“Mokuba-sama, are you there? I have the tournament scheduling you asked for.”

Taking a moment to steady his breathing again, Mokuba reaches out for the intercom button, trying desperately to keep his voice flat and neutral. “Yeah, I’m here, just…can you leave it by the door?”

There’s a slight pause before Isono replies, “Yes, Mokuba-sama.”

Apart from the shock of nearly getting caught, a part of Mokuba is thankful for the interruption. What the hell was that?! He rubs at his face, feeling as though he’s coming back into his body as he remembers the other part of Seto’s talk: a list of all condom brands available in every country Kaiba Corporation did business in.

“Damn, that was too close,” he says, after a pause, low under his breath.

“I’ll say. I don’t what Isono would have done if he’d saw us like this,” Rebecca says with a sly smile and a wink.

Mokuba decides against any clarification on that as he pulls her up, helping her off the desk before pulling her into a chaste hug. His cheek rests against the top of Rebecca’s head, taking in the comforting scents of bright yuzu lemon and sweet jasmine in her hair.

“I’m sorry,“ he says.

“For what?”

“Because I didn’t even think about using…um…when we were about to…”

Rebecca catches his meaning and the smile is beaming as she kisses his cheek. “You silly. It’s sweet you were worried, but I’ve taken the pill for awhile anyway…just in case.”

“Oh.”

Oh.

The thought that Rebecca has been thinking about this…with him…for a while is a huge ego boost and flattered is too weak a word to describe the feeling that comes over him. But then, she’s one of the smartest people he knows.

She continues, not meeting his eyes as her face goes from a slight pink to deep red. “You’re the first guy that I’ve really felt like I wanted to…um, I mean…well, you know.”

“Me, too,” he replies. Maybe he hasn’t given nearly as much planning, but this afternoon…damn. Mokuba doesn’t remember a time when he’s smiled this much or felt so alive. “That was so crazy intense. I felt like…wow.”

“I know.”

There’s a look in her eyes, Mokuba notices–the one Rebecca gets when she’s got a plan or an idea that, he knows from experience, she won’t let go of. But there’s something else behind it this time, and realizes she had a similar look right before they were interrupted–

“I think we should do it.”

Her arms tighten around his back, clinging onto his shirt, her eyes oddly serious.

Mokuba isn’t sure how far his jaw has dropped. Rebecca has never exactly been shy about going for what she wants; she certainly wasn’t earlier. But stating it so plainly just makes it all so real.

“What’s with that look?” Rebecca’s smile doesn’t quite look as natural as usual. “Didn’t you want to do it earlier?”

“Well, yeah,” Mokuba says and squeezes her shoulders more tightly, and he’s never been so aware of his own heartbeat. “But this is moving a little fast, isn’t it?”

“Eh?” Rebecca snaps her head up, scanning the office with a look of disbelief. “Look at where we are! Our whole lives have been moving fast for as long as either of us can remember. At least this is our decision.”

“Shouldn’t we go on a date first?!”

“Well obviously, we’d go out to dinner first. I have standards.”

“That’s not what I mean!” he sighs, closing his eyes. “I mean, I really want to…you know…but we just figured out that we like each other like that. Why rush?”

“Is this any more crazy than you missing class to run a company or me having yet another degree before I can legally drive here or back home? Kids our age are doing it anyway–”

“Did you really just–?”

She places a finger to his lips. “–and we obviously click. Why would we wait?”

Mokuba opens his mouth to counter, but nothing comes out. Rebecca isn’t wrong; he knows all the reasons kids their age are told to wait, but the biggest one–ruining your future–would hardly apply to them. He’s already lived through things that would have entirely broken many others. In nearly every other way that matters, they might as well be adults already.

Even if Mokuba isn’t exactly sure he’s ready for that step right now, there isn’t anyone else he would even consider sharing this with…so does it really matter if they do this now or in a few months anyway? The newly awakened part of his mind reminds him of the excitement of wanting to melt into one another, hearing her cry out in pure bliss at his touch; the images quickly crush the nagging voice that says slow down because you want more than just sex.

“Not like anyone would stop us anyway,” Mokuba points out. Arthur Hawkins still resides in San Francisco in between his archeological digs, Isono he’s sure wouldn’t breathe a word of it to anyone as long as he comes home before Seto gets back–

Shit.

As far as he knows, Mokuba officially has more first hand knowledge of this subject than Seto does at twenty years old. How would he even begin to approach this subject with him? Would Seto even understand? Or try to stop him?

“You said Kaiba won’t be back till Monday?” Rebecca asks as though she could read his mind.

Mokuba blinks a few times as the realization kicks in. “Yeah…”

Maybe just this once, Seto doesn’t have to know anything about this at all.

Rebecca strokes behind his ear, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “So, Saturday works?”

Losing his virginity isn’t something he’s planned on in this busy week, but when an intelligent, awesome girl like Rebecca admits to having the hots for him, Seto is out of town and no one else is going to stop them, the question isn’t why he should do it, but why not?

If any two fifteen years old have ability to tell if this is a good idea, it’s them.

He reaches for her neck to bring her in for a quick kiss on the forehead as he says, “Let’s do it.”

I bet I can totally feel her up now.

He goes for it, slipping one hand into the opening of her shirt.

–and gets his hand slapped hard.

“Ow!”

Rebecca cheerfully waves a finger at his nose. “Nuh-uh!”

“But–!”

“Nope!”

“Weren’t we gonna do it earlier?!”

“Yeah, but it’ll be way more exciting to wait, won’t it?” She giggles as she pulls away and claims her backpack. “Besides, it’s only two days. I’m sure you can wait that long.”

Mokuba honestly doesn’t know how he’s managed to live this long without it!

“Can’t I feel over the shirt?”

“Hmmm…” Rebecca pretends to think on it, tapping a finger against her chin. “No, that’d be way too distracting when I get home. Sorry!”

“Distracting how?”

Rebecca doesn’t respond as she heads towards the door, only giggles. “You’re way more innocent than I thought…oh…”

The tournament schedule that Isono left, he remembers. He walks towards the door and reaches down for the folder.

“Oooh, I wanna see who I’m up against!”

“Sorry, Rebecca,” he says. “You know I can’t show anyone that.”

“Awww! Not even a hint?”

He pretends not to notice the hand that reaches his arm as he taps the folder lightly on the top of her head. He’s grinning as he replies, “Won’t it be more fun to wait?”

They lock eyes; a second later they’ve pulled each other into another searing kiss, but Mokuba breaks it off before either can get carried away again.

“Saturday,” he tells her.

Rebecca blinks, her hand lingering on his chest for a second before taking a step back and heads out the door. “Yeah…see ya.”

Mokuba takes his folder back to his desk, but sets down without opening its contents. There’s no way he can go back to his work now or even go to sleep with thoughts about Rebecca–

Distraction.

…oh.

He suddenly feels a bit distracted himself at the thought, regretting the decision to have this suit tailored so snug to his lithe frame. Mokuba growls, running both hands in his hair.

It’s going to be a long two days.

#mokuba kaiba #rebecca hawkins #kiddyshipping #yugioh #yu-gi-oh!#fanfiction #5+1 fic #finally fucking done #i have outlines of future chapters so no danger of this being abandoned #mokuba's reason why not #lots of making out #doesnt cross lines but it uses it as a jump rope #rated t/pg 13

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healthandfitnessrecipes-blog · 6 years

Text

Massy Arias: Rise Above

https://healthandfitnessrecipes.com/?p=9183

Authentic, ambitious and altruistic, cover girl Massy Arias — aka Mankofit — is on a mission to change the world, one social post at a time.

An estimated 350 million people worldwide suffer from depression, according to the World Health Organization. But despite its pervasiveness, there is still an unambiguous stigma attached to depression that makes it an unmentionable subject of conversation, no matter your race, creed, country or age. In fact, more than 50 percent of Americans don’t seek treatment for the condition, and even fewer admit to having a mental health issue at all for fear of judgment, shame and discrimination.

“Mental health is taboo everywhere, and in my country, we never talk about these things — people just get labeled as crazy, even if they are only depressed,” says the Dominican-born Massy Arias. “But I think we should be open about it, and depression should be treated the same as any other health condition.”

Exercise as Medicine

Arias is the voice of experience. She suffered from severe depression for years, hiding away in her room, sleeping for avoidance and even losing her hair. She tried everything short of prescription medication to assuage her condition, including meditation, hypnosis, herbs and cognitive therapy. Nothing worked until a friend suggested exercise. Arias had never played sports or been to a gym, but she was willing to give anything a try. Within six months, she was a new person.

“When I say fitness saved my life, I mean it,” she avows. “Movement puts you in a very positive hormonal state, changing the chemistry within your body and your brain. I was also occupying my mind with new challenges and was meeting people who were holding me accountable and making me feel good about myself. I had something to look forward to, and my life completely transformed.”

However, feeling those feels was a temporary condition, and within hours of leaving the gym, Arias would come back to earth — hard. “I ended up overtraining because I started craving that feeling of happiness — a feeling which I only felt during exercise or right afterward,” she says. “But once I started building a routine and collected a team of people and friends who helped me over that hump, things got easier. I got certified as a trainer and started teaching group classes, and everything fell into place.”

Sharing and Caring

Wanting to share her experience, Arias opened an Instagram account — a new platform at the time — and regularly posted raw and personal accounts of her struggles, failures and successes in her journey toward wellness.

“When I started exercising, I couldn’t do a lot of things, and people saw that process on Instagram and watched me go from not being able to do a push-up to doing clapping push-ups, not being able to run a full block to running a 5K,” she says. “My social media is not a bunch of curated pictures that look pretty; I don’t sell dreams — I sell reality — and you will find inspiration to keep on moving forward in everything I do.”

Providing a refreshing break from the typical narcissistic and vapid content of social media, Arias’ vulnerable authenticity garnered her rapid popularity, and she soon amassed a global following of millions, helped in no small part by her bilingual posts.

But depression was still lurking within, and after having her daughter, Indie, in 2017, Arias experienced postpartum depression, which renewed her advocacy of exercise as a defensible and valid prescription. “It was tough, but I used the same approach to help treat it as I did before — using movement and healthy food as medicine,” she says. “As long as I continue moving and eating well, I will continue to rise above my depression.”

Using this all-natural prescription, Arias once again prevailed, and a year later, she is beyond thrilled to be a mother. “Being a mom is tiring and it’s hard, but it has also made me an overall better person — a little more regimented, a little softer, more compassionate,” she says. “It also made me a better trainer and a better motivator because I can relate to so many more women who have kids. Now I have an understanding as to what women all around the world have experienced and what struggles they face with health and exercise and family.”

Exercise Rx

There are hundreds of studies supporting exercise as a valid prescription for depression. Here are just a few notable findings:

According to Harvard Medical School, exercise causes a series of internal changes that reverse the symptoms of depression, such as the release of endorphins, which actually help block physical and emotional pain.

Continued practice of exercise triggers the release of specific proteins that cause nerve cells to grow and make new connections, most notably in the hippocampus — the region of the brain that dictates mood — ultimately improving mental health and well-being.

A study published in ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal determined that even modest amounts of exercise alleviate depressive symptoms on a level comparable to pharmacological drugs, and another study showed that exercise reduced depressive symptoms in patients who failed to respond to antidepressant medication. How much is a modest amount? Just one hour per week, according to research published in The American Journal of Psychiatry.

Postpartum women who participated in exercise programs showed a significantly lower incidence of depression, and those at high probability for the condition had a reduced risk of 50 percent! This is especially good news for breast-feeding mothers who are worried about the effects medication can have on their newborn.

On the Horizon

Today, Arias juggles several sponsorships, and she is kept busy making appearances for companies such as Target, C9 Champion and CoverGirl. In fact, at the time of this writing, Arias was en route to Dallas to do an engagement in the inner city hosting workshops, an exercise class and a meet-and-greet. This sort of athletic philanthropy is her current MO, and Arias is ardent about reaching out to those with little access to exercise and healthy living.

“I never played any sports growing up, but I strongly believe that if I would have started at a young age doing what I am doing now, I probably would have been a great athlete,” she says. “That is why I am passionate about a project I am working on in the Dominican Republic: I am teaming up with a retired Olympic hurdler — a gold medalist — to build an athletic academy for performance training and nutrition. Hopefully, we can also integrate the Olympic committee and the government to be part of this initiative to help inner-city kids who don’t have the resources they need to play sports.”

She also continues to be an Instagram inspiration by living her fitness truth for the world to see, continuing to set and break goals. “Right now, I am working more on building strength and endurance, trying to be a beast!” Arias says. “I want to be able to jump higher, lift more, be more explosive and beat all the guys I train with. Be a ninja. I want to live my life in a way that changes lives positively every day. If my story can give people the confidence and reassurance that they can reach whatever goal they have or overcome any obstacle in front of them, then I’m fulfilling my purpose in this journey.”

Circuit 1

Kettlebell Pickup (30 seconds each side) Banded Football Squat Banded Jumping Jack

Kettlebell Pickup

Stand behind a kettlebell with your feet shoulder-width apart. Keep your back straight and your core engaged as you hinge from your hips and fold forward, reaching down with your right hand as you simultaneously lift your left leg behind you. When your torso and leg are parallel to the floor, grab the kettlebell handle and stand back up. Reverse the move to lower the kettlebell back down to the floor, release it and stand back up to complete one rep. Do all reps on one side, then switch.

Banded Football Squat

Secure a band loop around your thighs just above your knees and stand with your feet hip-width apart so there is tension in the band. Jump your feet apart and squat down quickly with a flat back to touch your left fingertips to the floor. Explode upward, jump your feet together underneath you, then jump them apart again, touching your right hand to the floor. Continue, alternating sides.

Banded Jumping Jack

Secure a band loop around your legs just above your ankles and stand with your feet hip-width apart so there is tension in the band. Jump your feet apart and raise your arms overhead, then jump your arms and legs back together as with a normal jumping jack.

Circuit 2

Kettlebell Stiff-Legged Deadlift to Kettlebell Squat Banded Side Shuffle Banded Square Bear Crawl

Kettlebell Stiff-Legged Deadlift to Kettlebell Squat

Hold a kettlebell with both hands in front of you, arms straight, and stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Keeping your back straight, your knees soft and your head neutral, push your glutes back as you hinge forward, lowering the kettlebell toward the floor as low as you can, or until your back begins to round. Return to the start, then explosively pull the kettlebell upward in an upright row motion, catch it on the sides of the handle, and hold it at your chest as you kick your hips back and lower into a deep squat. Continue, alternating moves.

Banded Side Shuffle

Secure a resistance-band loop around your thighs just above your knees and stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Kick your hips back and lower into an athletic “ready” position, core tight, posterior chain activated. Hold here as you quickly drive your right leg to the side, swinging your left arm forward and across your body. Step your feet together and repeat. Continue, taking five steps one way, then five steps the other way for the duration of your time.

Banded Square Bear Crawl

Secure a band loop around your thighs just above your knees and get onto all fours with your hands underneath your shoulders and your knees underneath your hips, back straight and head neutral. Turn your toes under and lift your knees off the floor to get into the bear position, then using opposing limbs, take four slow steps forward. Then use your same-side arm and leg to take four steps to the right. Use your opposing arm and leg to take four steps backward, then same-side arm and leg to move laterally to the left and complete the square. Repeat in the opposite direction.

Circuit 3

Kettlebell Step-Out With Knee Drive Squat With Opposite Arm and Leg Crunch Banded Plank Step-Out and Leg Lift

Kettlebell Step-Out With Knee Drive

Hold a kettlebell with both hands at your chest, elbows down, feet shoulder-width apart. Lift your knee to hip height, then squat down on your left leg as low as you can. Stay in this low squat position as you slowly step to the right, shifting your weight to your right foot. Balance on your right foot as you lift your left foot off the floor, then extend your right leg to stand, lifting your left knee to hip height. Continue, alternating directions.

Squat With Opposite Arm and Leg Crunch

Secure a resistance-band loop around both arches of both shoes and place your hands lightly behind your head, elbows flared. Keep your chest lifted as you kick your hips back and squat down, then stand and simultaneously lift your right knee as you twist to the right, aiming to touch your left elbow to your right knee. Replace your foot, perform another squat and continue, alternating sides.

Banded Plank Step-Out and Leg Lift

Secure a resistance band around both legs just above your ankles and get into a forearm plank with your elbows underneath your shoulders and your head, hips and heels aligned. Hold your upper body in position as you open your right leg out to the side, touching your toes down briefly to the floor, then return to plank. Then keep your right leg straight as you lift it upward as high as you can. Continue, alternating legs.

The Short Circuit Workout

“This program is something I would do myself,” says Arias, who created this workout exclusively for Oxygen. “Because I hate all cardio except doing stairs or sprinting, I like to do circuit training for my strength work, which allows me to get in both my aerobic and anaerobic training at the same time.”

This workout contains three circuits of three moves apiece. Do the moves in order for 30 seconds each with no rest in between, and rest up to a minute in between circuits. Do three to four rounds of each circuit, depending on how much time you have.

“Use a resistance loop or weight that challenges you for each move, and try to hit your max reps with each set,” Arias advises, noting that you should use a lighter weight band loop when placing it around your ankles and a heavier one around your thighs. “And make sure you can move that weight effectively in a controlled manner.”

Why a band loop? “It’s for the booty,” says Arias, laughing, who admits she has a hard time engaging her glutes. “I had muscular imbalances and my glutes didn’t activate properly. The muscles that were tight would turn on right away, preventing the glutes from engaging. But these bands ensure those glutes will fire!”

Full name: Massy Arias Birth date: November 23, 1988 Hometown: Dominican Republic Current residence: Glendale, California Height: 5’8” Sponsors: Target, C9 Champion, CoverGirl Instagram: massy.arias Facebook and Twitter: mankofit Favorite saying: “But did you die?”

Follow along with Massy as she demos her workout here.

https://healthandfitnessrecipes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Massy-Arias-Rise-Above.jpg Credits: Original Content Source

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