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biffhofosho · 2 months ago

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What's Wrong with Director Ortega? | Part One

Fandom: Monsta X

Genre: Smut, natch

Word Count: uh, 18k this part

Pairing: OT7 x OC

Synopsis: In the tallest tower in the city of Seoul, there is a corporate kingdom whose empire stretches around the world. It is ruled by seven vice chairmen, all of whom lord over their own little departmental fiefdoms. With so many different ruling styles, they don’t have much in common save for the one director they can’t live without. Unfortunately for Director Ortega, heavy is the head who wears that crown. Seven demanding bosses and no time for herself forces her to reconsider what she wants out of life, which may just be the thing to force the self-proclaimed Kings of Seoul to reconsider what they want from her…

The Vibe: Reverse harem, ultra-competitive, CEOs, rich and spoiled men, monstas at odds, professional-to-a-fault and overworked and overextended OC who finally decides it’s time to put herself first, you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone, harsh awakenings, noraebang, goldilocks implications, atypical biffhofosho ending :D

A/N: OH MY GOD THE EDITING TOOK ME SOOOO MUCH LONGER THAN I ANTICIPATED. First of all, I realized only on edit that the first part is 808974893759874 times longer than the other parts, but there's just so much that needed to be set up... Also, low key I had so much fun writing it. But it's FINE. I can post on this most holy of days! HAPPY FREEDOM DAY, BABY WONHO. THANK YOU FOR COMING HOME TO US.

Obviously inspired by What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim?, but reverse harem and smutty af. Also inspired by the business tycoon playboy Fatal Love photoshoot because holy fuck, did that bring me to my knees. Though I’ve been a mbb since 2016, Fatal Love was the first album I actually bought (because I’d finally figured out how to buy overseas by then lol), and when I opened version 3, this was the FIRST thing that got lodged in my mind. Like a popcorn kernel, it had to be worked out slowly, over time, but after months of watching cheesy, soapy Chinese minidramas, I got the swift kick in the butt to finish my CEO smutfest. Enjoy!

Special thank you shout-out to my love, @starlightfantasy, without whom this chapter wouldn't have been nearly so lively or authentic.

Cvr | 01 |

“As always, Director Ortega, impeccable work. You may go.”

“Very good, sir,” came her customary reply. “Don’t forget that you have dinner with Chairman Matsuda of Aeon tonight at the Phoenix. I have already prepared a gift and left it with Secretary Kwon. Be sure to take it when you leave today.”

“You won’t be joining?”

She lowered her eyes, her breath gathering in her chest. “No, sir. I will leave things in your capable hands.”

“You always join.”

“I know, sir, but not this time.”

“Chairman Matsuda expects it.”

“Don’t worry, sir. I’ve already cleared it with him.”

The vice chairman said nothing, simply twirled his pen between his fingers like a baton.

Finally, she gathered her notepad and stowed her pen behind her ear. She offered a polite bow at his dismissal, but just before she reached the door, she stopped.

She pulled herself up as tall as her petite frame could muster and turned back to the wide mahogany desk in front of the sweeping windows. Beyond the stiff-backed silhouette crowning the complementary stiff-backed desk chair unfurled a smoggy Seoul morning. Dirty clouds filtered the wan light throughout the corner office.

She wet her lips and swallowed. “Excuse me, Vice Chairman Son, but there is one more matter we have left to discuss…”

The corporate auditorium was packed full of employees from every department in the Xtra Mile conglomerate. The thrum of chatter draped overhead like a heavy tarp as coworkers filed into their seats and caught up with people they hadn’t seen since the last company in-service.

As the Purchasing Department filled their rows, they met the Human Resources Department halfway. Normally, the two sides had very little to do with one another, so this gave everyone an excuse to greet each other and gossip.

But just like that, the room fell perfectly silent as a stream of seven very handsome and undeniably powerful men strolled onto the stage at the head of the auditorium. Their figures were projected onto the large screen above their heads so that even those seated in the back could appreciate the clean lines of their expensive haircuts and their even more expensive suits. Each man occupied his own podium across the breadth of the stage, so far apart that it almost looked as though they couldn’t stand breathing the same bubble of air.

At the center of the stage, spotlighted and stone-faced, one of the tallest and broadest men loomed over the employees. Without so much as an attention-grabbing throat clear, he spoke.

“Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for your attendance today as well as everything you do to further the mission of the Xtra Mile Corporation.”

“Without you,” boomed an elegant and lively blonde-haired executive from halfway down the stage, “we wouldn’t be a Fortune 500 Global company.”

The room erupted in polite applause as smiles abounded.

The man in the middle’s jaw flexed slightly, and this time he did clear his throat before regaining control of the room. “Without further delay, let us commence this year’s Xtra Mile Company Vision Showcase. I’ll turn things over to our Chief Financial Officer, Vice Chairman Yoo…”

The man in the center turned to the shorter, black-haired executive on his right whose face, despite its prominent cheekbones, looked like it hadn’t seen a genuine smile in half a decade. Right away, Vice Chairman Yoo began his overview of their mission statements and goals while the audience jotted notes and nodded along, save for one row toward the back of the room.

“Who is that?” whispered a young purchaser with expressive eyebrows over starry pecan eyes. He gazed up at the stage where a woman with perfect posture and her own expensive power suit waited at the edge, looking as much like a high-end mannequin as a real person. The waves in her espresso bob curled sweetly around her small ears and accentuated a round face with dumpling cheeks. Dark fox eyes looked even more alert against her honey skin, and they didn’t miss a single silent cue from any of the vice chairmen as her stiletto heels prowled click-clack-click-clack along the back of the stage, setting up each and every transition without a word.

One of the nearby HR managers, an older man with a five o’clock shadow and a soft face, followed the young fellow’s eyes. “Ah, that one. She’s a sad case. A face that doesn’t age, legs that never stop moving, and eyes that won’t look at you unless you’re paying her.”

The young intern’s ears reddened. “A pro- pro- prostit—”

Another older man, this one a fellow purchaser, clamped a hand over the intern’s mouth and hissed, “Aigoo! Are you daft? Intern Wong, don’t finish that sentence if you don’t want to be tossed out on your ear!”

“Forgive him,” apologized one of the young ladies also on the Purchasing team, “he’s new.”

“And stupid if he thinks a major corporation keeps a company call-girl on payroll,” snapped the older purchaser with a flick to his intern’s ear.

The HR manager stifled a grin. “That is Director Ortega. She is one of the most revered employees at this company. If you ever have the occasion to work with her, you will understand why. She knows absolutely everything that goes on in every department better than any of the vice chairmen. Nothing escapes her notice, which is why she’s so heavily relied upon.”

“Which department is hers?” Intern Wong wondered.

“Which department isn’t,” laughed the HR manager. “Director Ortega has a hand in everything because she has to, especially considering to whom she reports, but her actual title is Director of Facilitation. She oversees all administration here, top to bottom, but more than that, for all intents and purposes, she oversees the vice chairmen.”

“Ah, yes!” said a satisfied voice as its owner swiveled to scope out the sunny panorama through his office window. “It turned out to be another fine day, Director Ortega. We should be out there exploring, not cooped up in here, don’t you agree?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Will you stay for lunch then? We can go out? I remember you liked that barbecue place in Jongno. Call Taeyong and have him bring the car around, and we’ll go somewhere with tables outside.”

“You know that I can’t, sir, even if I wanted to.”

“They’re always overriding my good ideas,” he grumbled.

“I’m sure it feels that way, sir. Still, being that we are on a tight schedule, I wonder if I can borrow a moment of your time,” she said hesitantly. “An urgent issue has come up, and I’m afraid it can’t wait any longer…”

---

“She has been here 14 years, longer than any of the men up on stage, longer than even I have,” continued the older company man. “The old Chairman himself hired her when he was on a business trip to the United States.”

“She’s American?”

“Yes, and half-Korean, actually. She speaks four languages as well, and, over the past couple years, she’s been learning two more.”

“She’s a wonder,” Intern Wong marveled.

“She would have to be to impress Chairman Choi. Director Ortega was the Chairman’s personal secretary for ten years before he retired and handed the company over to his seven grandsons.”

“Fourteen years seems like too long for such a young woman,” the fledgling purchaser mused, eyes still fixed to the director on stage.

The HR manager sniffed a laugh. “I told you she has a face that doesn’t age. She’s older than you think.”

“Much too sophisticated for a freshman like you,” teased Intern Wong’s female coworker. “Keep your head in your station.”

“This will be the only glimpse of her you get, young buck,” added the senior purchaser. “She rarely comes down to Purchasing, maybe a few times a year, and when she does, she speaks only with Director Kim Doyoung. I’ve never seen her in our office for more than five minutes.”

The woman smirked. “What Mr. Moon is trying to say, very politely I might add, is that she’s out of your league.”

“And more importantly,” the HR manager chimed in again, “off limits.”

“Employees date each other here,” the intern protested.

But Mr. Moon shook his head. “Yeah, but they don’t date Director Ortega, understand?”

“Aigoo… This is my least favorite time of day, you know that? All the fun ends and you leave, and I’m left with all the work.”

“You will be fine, sir, as always, but remember to please trust your secretary with any help you may need. Secretary Ahn tells me you haven’t been using her to her full potential these days.”

He sighed and chambered his chin on his hand as his smiled at her. “Why would I? All I ever need is you, Director Ortega.”

She cleared her throat softly. “About that, sir…”

“I didn’t even suggest anything, geez,” the intern pouted.

Mr. Moon stared at the young man knowingly. “I’ve seen that look in a lot of men’s eyes over the past decade. I say this as a friend: if you want to be promoted to purchaser full-time, Intern Wong, I suggest you look only on the Director with admiration.”

“I do,” the young man muttered and immediately steered the conversation somewhere gentler. “Director Ortega must know everything there is to know about this place if she’s been here that long and that high up.”

“Exactly!” agreed Mr. Moon. “She’s so important that all seven vice chairmen share her.”

The intern and a few other nearby newer employees leaned in, both interested and confused.

“Now, how can seven executives share one assistant?” wondered the female purchaser.

Mr. Moon looked on the rapt row of coworkers like a librarian leading a storytelling session. “Director Ortega is the only connection those men have beside a grandfather.”

“They’re really related?” Intern Wong asked.

The older man nodded. “Brothers, half-brothers or cousins, right, Manager Cho?”

The HR manager shrugged his mouth sternly. “No one resents that fact more than they do. Were it not for Director Ortega, they’d have nothing to do with each other. You’d think they live on seven different continents if they didn’t share one atrium on the 28th floor.”

Intern Wong’s brow furrowed. “But how exactly does one woman bridge all those continents daily?”

“Every day,” Mr. Moon explained, “the Director spends one hour with each vice chairman, and when his hour is up, she moves on down the hall.”

“Are you serious?” blurted the female purchaser.

“I am.”

“Don’t they each have their own secretary?” asked the intern. “I’m sure they have way too much work for one hour.”

This time, a middle-aged manager from Employee Relations further down the row answered, “Of course! But Director Ortega is in charge of all of their executive assistants, too. The last hour of her day is spent with them, ensuring the day’s work is properly circulated and delegated. Still, she is the only one the vice chairmen trust with their most important business matters, and she’s the only assistant they will bring with them to important meetings. Needless to say, she’s part orchestra conductor. She must follow this rigorous schedule each day to keep the vice chairmen satisfied, which is even more challenging considering how much each of them likes to demand from her.”

“I thought you were leaving,” he said.

“In a moment,” she replied.

She placed a thermos at the edge of his desk and bowed.

Incisive eyes jolted to the container as he finally looked up from his crowded blotter. “What is it?”

“Coffee, sir. Don’t stay too late tonight though. The merger with Aeon should conclude next week, and I know you’ll want fresh eyes before you final review everything of the numbers.”

A finger of black hair stubbornly broke from his clean-combed hairline and dangled in front of his sharp eyes as he switched from appraising the thermos to appraising the woman on the other side of his desk. “I should say the same to you, Director Ortega.”

She smiled as she lowered her chin. “Ah, well, to that end, I think it’s time to break old habits, sir. Before I do, I have something to confess…”

“Doesn’t leave a lot of time to herself,” mused the older purchaser as he considered the woman’s words.

Intern Wong cocked his head as he considered this new information. “But isn’t it a good thing to be so in demand at your company?”

“Aish,” chimed in an older lady on the other side of the group of busybodies, this one from the Accounting department who wore a thick pair of glasses to match her role, “it would be if you’re not a woman. Director Ortega is 38 and, as far as anybody has heard, never dated.”

“There’s no way a woman like her hasn’t dated!” the intern protested as his eyes returned to the serious beauty on stage.

“Even if she wanted to,” continued the accountant, “she would have to turn down any suitor. The vice chairmen keep her way too busy to even think about dating someone.”

“You don’t know that, Miss Lee,” said the employee relations manager.

“The hell I don’t, Manager Kwon,” the accountant scoffed, causing a few other uninterested coworkers to pivot toward them before everyone whispered apologies except the accountant. At least, she bothered to lower her voice enough that the rest of the row leaned in. “I process Director Ortega’s overtime. I’m telling you, there’s no way that woman has a life outside of this company or those seven men. It’s downright outrageous. They should be ashamed.”

“I told you,” said Manager Cho, “she’s a sad case. I heard Director Ortega had to fly back from her sister’s wedding in Mexico because Vice Chairman Chae needed a translator, and she’s the only one he trusts to give him an unbiased translation.”

“That’s too harsh,” objected Intern Wong.

Miss Lee hung her head. “Director Ortega will never find a match. Ah! It’s too sad to see a woman of her caliber give up her whole life like that.”

“I’ll leave the initial scouting reports in your inbox for your review, sir. After you’ve made your notes, please trust Secretary Lee with their transcription.”

“Could you stay a few extra minutes to finish that? Only you know how I like things organized.”

“Secretary Lee is more than capable if you just explain your preferences to him, sir. Forgive me, but he should know that after a full year.”

The vice chairman huffed, his broad shoulders slumping, too. “Yes, of course, but he isn’t— Of course, Director Ortega. You are correct.”

“I will sit with him tomorrow and show him personally, sir, so there is no confusion.”

“That’s not necessary!” He reached toward the director across the desk but pulled his hand back quickly. “I should handle it myself.”

“I am happy to hear it, sir. On that note…”

“But isn’t there something admirable about that?” Intern Wong mused as he looked up at the dark-haired director waiting at the edge of the stage, hands folded in front of her hips. “To be so loyal and dedicated to your company that you are trusted by everyone?”

A big-eyed girl in front of them whirled around in her seat and clamped her hands over the back of it to stare at the group. With wide eyes full of shock instead of innocence, she said, “I can’t believe none of you know.”

“Know?”

“Know what!”

“Tell us instantly, Secretary Heo!” urged Manager Kwon, and the whole row shifted forward.

The secretary puckered her thin lips and lowered her voice to a whisper just loud enough to catch over the drone through the sound system of Vice Chairman Im’s speech on streamlining database growth.

“Director Ortega handed in her resignation yesterday.”

“Sir, please don’t make that face,” she said.

Yet the vice chairman sat there with his cheeks in his hands, his bottom lip jutting out. “What do you expect me to do? I hate knowing where you’re headed next.”

“I do this every day, sir,” she reminded.

“And I hate it every day. He always gets more of your time than we do.”

“You know that isn’t true, sir.”

“It is!” he complained. “Wouldn’t it be so nice to have one desk in one office and report to only one person?”

She closed her eyes and steadied her breath. “I think I may have a solution to this problem. If I may have one more moment please…”

“Impossible,” Mr. Moon scoffed. “She’s been here fourteen years!”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” scolded the female purchaser.

“I’m not,” insisted Secretary Heo. “Secretary Ahn told me yesterday at lunch. She’s Vice Chairman Lee Minhyuk’s personal secretary. If anybody would know, it would be her. She’s not a gossip.”

“Like you,” retorted the accountant.

“Game recognizes game, Miss Lee, but in this case, it’s just fact. We all need to be prepared for the trickle-down. Even if we don’t work personally with the vice chairmen, without Director Ortega as our shield, we’re sure to feel the brunt of things.”

“Now that you mention it, look how dull the vice chairmen look,” said the other young woman as she stared sadly at the stage where the tallest vice chairman now spoke. Her eyes darted down to the straw-haired executive at the far end, and she shook her head. “Even Vice Chairman Lee Jooheon looks flat. He never looks so flat! Oh, this is terrible. I love his smiles.”

Intern Wong elbowed his coworker and retorted, “Keep your head in your station, Miss Kim.”

She rolled her eyes though the bespectacled accountant nodded. “And Vice Chairman Lee Hoseok looks much smaller than usual, don’t you think? Normally, you can see his shoulders from space.”

“I’m telling you,” reiterated Secretary Heo, “Director Ortega put in a month’s notice. She’s definitely leaving.”

“Have you heard this?” asked Mr. Moon to Miss Lee. “You process her overtime, you said.”

The older woman shook her head. “I’m not in HR. Isn’t that your department, Manager Cho?”

Everyone glanced down the row to the HR manager who had grown progressively quieter. “It is, but I don’t work in Executive Resources. But…”

Everyone leaned toward him like plants straining for sunlight.

“It is possible,” Manager Cho said guardedly. “I can’t outright refute it.”

Jaws dropped right and left, and a few hands fell over hearts.

“Why would she resign now?” asked Intern Wong when no one picked up the conversation.

“Is she not being compensated well enough?” asked Miss Kim.

“I have worked here through Chairman Choi’s reign, and I can tell you for a fact that her salary would make you blush, especially when she works for holiday pay. Plus, I have heard from Director Jeong that Director Ortega receives a bonus from each Vice Chairman at Seollal,” Miss Lee said vehemently. “No, no. But money matters less when you have no time to spend it and no one to spend it on. I told you. Director Ortega is 38. Aish, she must have realized that if she wants to marry and have a family, she has a very small window left.”

“Hwaiting, sunbaenim!” Miss Kim said a little too loudly, and a few more rows turned back toward them.

“No, that’s not it,” persisted Secretary Heo. “Secretary Ahn said Director Ortega already has a man, and she’s quitting to marry him.”

“Is there anything else, sir?” she said, head cocked to the side.

“There is not.”

The usual silence filled the space between them. After several years, at least it was no longer startling.

“If you’re sure, sir.”

She bowed, and also as usual, he blurted, “One final thing, Director Ortega.”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

“I need five extra minutes of your time today.”

“I’m sorry, but not today, sir.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You never say that.”

“I know,” she agreed. “It turns out that’s because I need a minute of your time instead…”

The older employees broke into quiet laughter.

“There is zero chance of that,” Miss Lee assured.

“If you knew her workload…” agreed Mr. Moon.

Secretary Heo scowled and jabbed a finger at the seniors. “Secretary Ahn was sure.”

“I don’t buy it,” asserted Miss Lee. “Look, there’s no ring!”

All eyes turned to the jumbo screen, to the bare, slender fingers of the director.

One of the other purchasers whisper-shouted from farther down the row, “Do you think they’ll post for her position internally first?”

“How can you be so insensitive, Assistant Lee Yubin!” chastised Miss Kim. “The vice chairmen look miserable. They’d never fill her role with such a vulture.”

The assistant rolled her sleepy-looking eyes as she informed, “You don’t get to that position without being an opportunist.”

“No one’s asking the most important question,” interjected Intern Wong, his bright puppy eyes still fixed on the glowing silhouette of the director. “If she’s no longer going to be an employee—and she’s not engaged—do you think she’s on the market?”

Both Manager Cho and Mr. Moon sighed and exchanged hopeless glances, but now, a few more men down the line swiveled from the intern up toward the stage. The whole group grew silent as Vice Chairman Lee Minhyuk took over on the mic, but nobody was really listening to his outline of new product roll-outs for the upcoming quarter. They were mounting strategies of their very own.

“Why are we meeting here?” a surly Jooheon griped as he plopped down onto a couch in the center of the round atrium that connected all seven vice chairmen's offices. “Shouldn't we go somewhere more private?”

“This is easier,” Jackson replied as he took a seat into an armchair across from his friend. The president was known for looking as cool as his voice sounded, so when he cocked his head and crossed his legs, he looked more a boss than the vice chairman. “How are you doing?”

Jooheon hissed and launched forward, though he managed to stay seated. “How am I doing? I’m upside down, man! I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“I don’t—” The vice chairman ran his hands through his hair and rolled his neck. After a steadying breath, he said, “I don’t understand why she’d leave?”

“Director Ortega?”

“Of course, Director Ortega. Who the hell else did you think I brought you here to talk about?”

Jackson raised an eyebrow. “Well, I don’t know what you want me to do about it. You guys wouldn’t let me near her.”

“You can’t be trusted.”

“A fine thing to say to your President of Operations,” Jackson laughed, and it was clear he didn’t take an ounce of the vice chairman’s insults seriously.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

The president kept laughing and nodded. “I do.”

“But I have always trusted your vision. You see bigger pictures than I do. Since we were teenagers, you’ve always been a barometer of the people, and at least I trust your insights,” Jooheon began as professionally as he could sitting in front of one of his best friends. “Plus, you’re a busybody.”

“I’ve been accused of worse,” the president said with a grin.

“I know. I was the one who accused you.”

Jackson shrugged. “So, what do you need?”

“What have you heard about Director Ortega’s threat of quitting?”

“Is it a threat?” the president asked with a brow raise. “Because it sounded pretty damn certain to this busybody’s ears.”

“Don’t get coy, Jackson. I’m not in the mood.”

The grin dropped from the president’s face, and he leaned across the coffee table. “Everyone’s talking about it, of course. Rumors abound. Some say she’s getting married.”

Jooheon scowled and shook his head.

“Some say she’s pregnant.”

This time, the vice chairman gasped, unable to feign his usual confidence.

“But most people are saying she’s dating or wants to date, so she wants to make more time to do those other things.”

“That’s stupid,” Jooheon fired off. “Director Ortega has plenty of time to do that now. She could be married already if she wanted to be, but she’s not.”

Jackson just glowered at his friend.

“Fine,” Jooheon conceded, “we keep her pretty busy, but it’s never bothered her before.”

“Are you sure? Did you ever ask?”

“Why would I ask that!” the vice chairman shouted indignantly. “It’s not workplace appropriate.”

“Then it sounds to me like you’re talking out of your ass,” and a beat later, Jackson added cheekily, “sir.”

Jooheon studied his fingernails as he asked carefully, “So… which one did she say it is?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does for sure. Director Ortega is the most professional person in this whole damn company. You lot should know best. What did she say when she resigned?”

“She didn’t resign,” Jooheon said tersely. “She just threatened to.”

“Oh, is that what ‘Please accept my letter of resignation’ means?”

The vice chairman sighed. “Why the hell did I put any faith in you.”

“C’mon, man, I’m ribbing you. The truth is I think you know everything, but you just don’t want to acknowledge it. What did she say exactly? Not what did Vice Chairman Lee Jooheon hear?”

The straw-haired man sank back into the couch, his hands spread across the cushions as he stared up through the glass ceiling to the obnoxiously blue sky above. “She said, ‘After fourteen wonderful years at Xtra Mile, I have decided I need to step back from my position as Director of Facilitation and spend some time on myself. I know this may be rather surprising, but it's something I’ve been considering for a while. It has been an absolute pleasure working for you…’

“From there, pretty much all I heard was static. I was too in shock.”

Jackson hummed. “Doesn’t give me a ton to work with. What did her resignation letter say?”

“Don’t know. Didn’t read it yet.”

At this, Jackson let out a groan. “You didn’t read it? What the hell kind of boss are you?”

“A blindsided one! What do you expect me to do after the rug was pulled out from under me?”

“Man up and fix it. I figured Xtra Mile’s Chief Marketing Officer would already be mounting a campaign to court back his most valuable employee. Instead, you’re whining in your ivory tower.”

“How am I supposed to do that when I don’t even understand why she’s leaving me?”

“Read the damn letter, man,” Jackson scolded. “Maybe it’s as simple as she took another job.”

“You think?” the dimpled vice chairman asked eagerly.

“No, unless she sparing your feelings.”

“This is all their fault,” Jooheon griped, only too happy to shift the blame. He waved his arm around the atrium at the six other mahogany office doors. “They're driving her away. She's always happy when she's with me.”

“Is that what you really think?”

The vice chairman narrowed his eyes at his president. “Obviously.”

“Just remember I've known you long before you were a head honcho…” Jackson said ominously. He braced his elbows on his knees and leaned across the coffee table. His hand rose, middle finger tucked beneath his thumb, and swiftly and unexpectedly, he flicked the forehead of his friend.

Jooheon yelped and cursed as he bounced in his seat. When he dropped a hand to point angrily at the man across from him, a big red mark lingered like a bullseye in the center of his forehead. “You're fired!”

“Fine, fine, I’ll clean out my desk tomorrow,” the president said without an ounce of concern. “But did I knock some sense into you?”

“You pissed me off is what you did.”

Jackson rolled his eyes. “I think you’re better off worrying about that mammoth bruise to your ego than a little welt on your forehead. The second Aeon gets wind of her leaving, they’re going to wonder about the merger.”

Though he was still babying the bump on his head, Jooheon shook it. “Director Ortega said she’d build in more than the month in case things run long with Aeon. She doesn’t want to jeopardize the project.”

“Leave it to a woman of her caliber to be acutely aware of that. She’s been in all of the merger meetings, hasn’t she?”

“She personally brought Chaiman Matsuda on board. Yeah, the Aeon merger is probably more her baby than any of ours.”

“Good. That’s good then.”

“Why?” Jooheon asked.

Jackson shrugged a shoulder. “It means she’s not running off to elope at least.”

“Elope!” At this, the vice chairman finally leapt back up.

“Calm down. I said she’s not eloping. Probably also means there’s no fiancé either yet.”

“Yet?” Jooheon deflated completely back down to the couch.

Again, the president shrugged. “I’m just puzzling out the fifty different rumors I heard today. Seems like those are the least likely now that I know more.”

“Terrific…”

“But now that I know what she said when she resigned, I think the most likely theory is that you all have zapped her personal life completely. Sucked her dry like a swarm of mosquitos.”

Jooheon sighed. “You really like to rub salt in a wound, man.”

“Hey, I call ‘em like I see ‘em. Unless she’s already married? Maybe she’s leaving to spend more time with her husband. Work on building a family.”

“She doesn’t have a husband,” the vice chairman snapped.

Jackson let out a chuckle. “I imagine you seven have seen to that, huh? Thought you were all the men she needed, I’ll bet. Guess today was your wake-up.”

“Is she dating?” Jooheon’s voice creeped up uncomfortably high, and he cleared his throat to correct it.

“How should I know? You barely let me talk to the woman. You keep her locked up like Rapunzel with you and your dysfunctional family.”

The vice chairman narrowed his already narrow eyes. “That smacks of bitterness.”

“Maybe it is. She’s a beautiful woman, and I’m a good-looking guy.”

Jooehon unleashed a wicked snarl at the corner of his lips. “You’re not just a busybody but a playboy, Jackson. I was right to keep her away from you.”

It was Jackson’s turn to narrow his eyes. “I knew it.”

Jooheon waved a hand dismissively. “I don’t need you distracting my executive team.”

“I didn’t hear you balk when I asked out Secretary Guk, and she’s at your full disposal all day, every day.”

At this, the vice chairman grumbled, “Well, you just said it. I can call on her whenever I need her. I only get an hour with Director Ortega. I can’t have her distracted for a minute of it.”

“Don’t you think that’s part of her reasoning, Honey?” Jackson said, testing the boundaries of their decades-long friendship. “Every second of her day is monopolized by a tycoon. How do you expect her to just be a woman?”

“If you’re saying this just to make a window for yourself to her, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“Look, man, it doesn’t even matter at this point. Her dance card is already so long, I’d need to take a number.”

“What do you mean?”

Jackson pursed his lips. “Exactly what I said. As soon as news of her resignation trickled down all 28 floors, guys were brushing up their marriageable resumes and dating profiles.”

“She’s not a sweepstakes,” Jooheon barked. “You don’t just try your chance to get lucky.”

“Hey, I agree with you, but you don’t speak for the vast majority of guys. Everyone has always assumed she’s unmarried, but no one’s risked courting her for fear of their careers. But if she doesn’t work for you anymore—”

Jooheon growled. “That doesn’t matter. They’re still risking their careers.”

Jackson leaned back in his chair, mouth screwed up to one side and eyebrow popped.

“For your own good, Honey, I really think you should ask yourself why that is.” A little louder, he proclaimed, “You all should.”

Almost as if scripted, six silhouettes stepped out of the shadows of six separate doorways.

Jackson swept his hand in a circle and smiled smugly at his friend. “See? Told you this was easier. Now I don't have to repeat myself six more times.”

“Jackson,” said a burly platinum blonde in a three-piece suit so tightly tailored that it looked more like an American football uniform, “do you really think Director Ortega will be that much of a target?”

Jackson scoffed that faded into a wry smile. “She's gorgeous, driven, charming, whip-smart, and well-off. A woman like Director Ortega is in a class of her own. Yes, Hoseok, she’s a catch. The only people who are going to care she's 38 are the ones she would have never entertained anyway. Hell, just between the horn dogs and the sugar babies, she's going to have her plate full, never mind her long-term secret admirers. You'll see. You won't even have to wait a day, I promise.”

“I don’t love that,” Minhyuk said as he took a chair beside the president.

“Yeah, but what are any of you going to do about it?”

The seven vice chairmen traded appraisals, but none spoke.

Jackson chuckled. “Can’t see the forest for the trees… Director Ortega really has been carrying all of you.”

“Watch it,” Jooheon growled, yet his subordinate waved him off.

“Since you’re all in one room for a change, let me pose a question that’s been eating at the back of my mind for years. I may never get another chance to ask it in case one of you actually decides to fire me after half a decade of playful threats, but why do each of you insist on sharing one assistant when you can have as many as you want?”

This time, none of the vice chairmen risked a glance at each other. Instead, they thumbed their ten-thousand-dollar watches or fiddled with the cuffs of their bespoke suits.

Sharp-jawed and sharp-tongued, Kihyun jutted his chin out as his neck twitched. He sucked in a breath through his teeth as he answered evenly, “Director Ortega is an invaluable—”

“Director Ortega is indeed invaluable,” Jackson interrupted. “No one would dare challenge that for fear of their life. But that doesn’t really answer my question, and you know it. As formidable an assistant as she is, you’re each only capable of utilizing her skill set for a maximum of an eighth of her day. Now, imagine, if you will, how much work you could accomplish if you each trusted one other person as much as you trust her. Don’t all of you have your own secretaries as it is? You can’t rely on them to mastermind your days? Or…”

The way the president said the word had seven sets of eyes snapping to him. Jackson’s handsome face hovered just on the professional side of a smirk.

“…is it that you just don’t want to?”

“Get to the point, President Wang,” snapped the most restless of the chairmen, Minhyuk.

Jackson’s palms turned up. “That is the point. This company is full of fresh young upstarts looking to make a name for themselves. They’re all more than eager to work overtime and make an impression, yet you all continuously come back to your Director.”

“Exactly,” Jooheon said as if it proved some other point, but judging from the smile creeping onto the president’s face, it may not have worked as intended.

“Exactly.” Jackson hummed as he tapped his smart watch screen and checked the time. “You know, I’ve been accused of playing with words before—”

“You’re a regular Loki,” Kihyun corrected.

“Mm, maybe. Or maybe it’s to provoke a thought. It’s served me well closing deals for you all these years. Word choice is everything. Say the right word, and you plant a seed, and the next thing you know? Boom! We’ve got a seven-figure sale. The customer thinks it’s all their idea—always has been. They leave feeling clever, and I leave knowing I’ve orchestrated one hell of a victory for the company.”

“Just say it, Jackson,” mumbled the feline-eyed youngest chairman, Changkyun, from his lean in his door frame.

The president waggled his fingers like the conductor he described, and a chill descended upon the room.

“I just did. Consider my words carefully. I don’t use them lightly.”

Jooheon rolled his eyes. “Yes, you do.”

With a sigh, Jackson raised both brows. “Fine. I’ll be blunter then. If there ever was a thing to unite the seven kingdoms under one banner, I think the whole of Xtra Mile would place their bets on the same banner. Maybe losing Director Ortega is the kick in the pants you all need.”

“Watch it,” Kihyun warned.

Jackson shrugged. “You asked what I thought—”

“We didn’t,” said the tallest, Hyungwon.

“He did,” finished Minhyuk with a glance at Jooheon.

“What a family you are,” Jackson laughed. “I honestly can't tell who among you is delusional, who's in denial, and who's been harboring secrets they've been way too afraid to voice.”

The seven other men exchanged wary scrutiny while the president rose and knocked the wrinkles from his slacks. “Well, look, you've got a month to figure it out, probably way less if I'm honest. The way I see it? You better speak now or forever hold your peace. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I've got a brush up my dating profile.”

With that, Jackson bowed to his bosses and walked out of the chairman’s wing with one insufferable hand in his pocket and one even more insufferable hand waving over his shoulder.

“Remind me to fire him,” huffed Minhyuk.

“Not before I clobber him,” growled Jooheon.

But without Jackson there to stir the pot, it left the seven vice chairmen staring at their feet or the wall. For all the silence, it felt very loud, and it was no surprise to anyone that the first to speak again was Minhyuk.

“What are we going to do?”

Hoseok laughed bitterly. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard us use the word ‘we’.”

A few of the men hummed as the truth of that statement hit.

“Do you think Jackson’s right?” said Changkyun hesitantly. “Do you think she’s leaving because of us?”

Hyunwoo stacked his arms across his thick chest and nodded, eyes fixed on a scuff on the marble floors. “I read her resignation letter. I don’t see how it could be anything else.”

“I read it, too,” interjected Hoseok, “but she said it was about her, right?”

This time, it was Hyungwon who sighed. “Isn’t that the thing you say to spare the other’s feelings during a breakup? ‘It’s not you, it’s me’?”

More silence, this one infinitely darker and deeper.

“So it is us…” conceded Minhyuk.

“Looks that way,” said Hyunwoo.

“I still don’t get it,” Jooheon said. “I’m a great boss. I’m not the one who made her miss her sister’s wedding.”

Hyungwon narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t make her do that. She chose to come back.”

Kihyun tilted his head as he squared off with his half-brother. "Everybody here knows that you’re passive aggressive if you don’t get your way. ‘Kihyun, are you sure you want to use the gochujang? The recipe calls for doenjang. Don’t mind me, I’m just getting a pitcher of water for the table.’”

“What are you talking about? Passive aggression is your MO,” Hyungwon retorted. “And being hyper-critical.”

“You both are,” Changkyun groaned.

“Yeah, well, I’m not,” swore Jooheon. “I praise her work every day. I ask her about her day.”

Minhyuk let out a puff of air. “Yeah, to see if you can steal some of her time from the rest of us. No one’s more of a gatekeeper than you, Jooheon."

"Am not."

“Are too. You throw a fit if anyone asks for five more minutes of her time, and if they do, you demand a makeup the next day.”

“Enough,” Hyunwoo said brusquely.

“We can’t let her resign,” Hoseok agreed.

“Obviously,” Jooheon snapped.

“Can we just refuse her resignation?” asked Minhyuk.

Changkyun shook his head. “I would never test Director Ortega’s commitment. She’ll just quit on the spot, and then where will we be.”

As brains churned, tensions mounted. It was always tense when the seven men gathered together, but for once, desperation was something all seven shared, and instead of retreating to their offices, they remained at their posts—far enough away to still make boundaries clear yet approachable.

“We should apologize,” Hyungwon volunteered.

“If apologies made a difference, would we be where we are?” challenged Kihyun.

“Well, they can’t fucking hurt.”

“It’s a starting point,” Hyunwoo asserted, “which is more than we had a minute ago.”

“What if we switch up her schedule?” Changkyun suggested. “Routine can be crushing.”

Hoseok nodded. “And she could use more vacation.”

“We can throw more money at her,” Kihyun added.

A moment passed. Hyunwoo typed something into his phone. In the gathering silence, Minhyuk and Jooheon rattled the vase in the center of the coffee table with their opposing jackhammering legs.

“What, no snide remarks? No backhanded critiques from any of you?” Kihyun said with a pointed gaze finally landing on Hyungwon.

But the tall man simply scoffed as he pushed up from his lean against the wall and moved toward his office door. “Who has time for that? You heard what Jackson said. We don’t even have a month to undo our screw-up.”

“We run a sixty-billion-dollar company,” said Minhyuk. “There’s no reason we can’t strategize a way to undo our biggest ever loss.”

“Let’s just throw everything at her tomorrow and see what sticks,” Hyungwon suggested.

“Not much of a strategy,” Minhyuk observed.

“I don’t care as long as it keeps her here with us.”

“What do you say, Hyunwoo?” asked Changkyun.

The resident senior raised both eyebrows when he discovered six sets of eyes looking at him simultaneously. “You’re asking for my opinion?”

“Yeah,” Jooheon agreed.

“I’ll get some breakfast tomorrow and think on it.”

The other six sets of eyes switched between rolls and furrows, between disheartened and annoyed, but the vice chairmen settled on meeting again in the morning—after their COO had a full belly.

Just before Hoseok could enter the cafeteria, something caught the corner of his eye, and when he turned, he found his cousin, Hyunwoo, lurking like a houseplant behind a banner announcing the upcoming Xtra Mile company picnic.

“What the hell are you doing?” asked the Chief Security Officer.

“Eating,” answered Hyunwoo.

Hoseok popped an eyebrow. “In a corner? Behind a sign?”

“Evidently, our employees are very surprised to see me. It was too much attention eating at a table.”

“You’re the COO. Attention comes with the title.”

“I don’t need it right now,” the older man replied evenly.

Hoseok had both brows raised now as he took in the rigid figure of the COO who was usually considered the face of the company, yet here Hyunwoo was, literally lurking, eyes staring blankly across the early morning company cafeteria.

Slowly, the COO shifted his attention to his cousin. His face remained as placid as ever, though his tone deepened as he asked, “What are you doing here, Hoseok?”

“I protein up here every day after my workout.”

“You’re later than usual,” Hyunwoo observed.

“How would you know? I’ve never seen you here.” At this, his cousin turned to look at him and Hoseok sniffed. “What? I can't keep track of your schedule too?”

“Hey! I was here first!”

The vice chairmen looked at each other before they realized neither of them had said it. Instead, there were three suited men clustered at the other side of the dining hall with scowls and furrowed brows. They jostled shoulder-to-shoulder as a few other employees tightened around the action.

It was clear there was a line forming, and evidently, somebody had cut it, but it wasn’t for the register.

Director Ortega sat at a table clotted with flowers and gifts and cards as men and women alike waited for their turn to speak with a figure more mythical than a phoenix.

Hoseok soured, first at the sight of the long line but further when he looked back at the burly man hovering behind the signage. “You're not here to eat. You're here to observe the Director.”

The COO presented a sandwich and took a bite, and through a mouthful, he said, “I can do both.”

With a sigh, Hoseok shoved the other vice chairman over and hunkered beside him, eyes peeking around the banner.

Director Ortega greeted each of her admirers warmly but professionally, with the same gentle but sincere office smile they’d seen every day for four years. She accepted all the cards, rejected most of the presents, and divvied up the flowers with the other ladies hovering nearby. One overzealous fellow waited in her orbit, phone out, hoping to get her Kakaotalk information, though she was steadfast that she’d had enough networking to last her a lifetime.

Hoseok puckered his lips, but just before the CSO could escort the insistent prick from the building, Hyunwoo clamped a hand on his shoulder. He looked at the meaty paw and then to its owner and back again.

“She’s got it,” Hyunwoo assured.

Hoseok shrugged his shoulder and the hand fell away. “How did you know she would be here?”

“Director Ortega often brings me a sandwich from here in the morning.”

“You make her bring you breakfast?” Hoseok said sternly.

“I don't make her do anything. She just does it.”

“She doesn't bring me anything,” his cousin pouted.

Hyunwoo didn't respond. He just took another massive bite and kept his eyes on the director.

“Seems like everyone is excited for her to leave,” observed the platinum blonde, but Hyunwoo shook his head.

“Before it got so noisy, I could hear better. I think it’s more that they’re proud of her.”

“For leaving us?” Hoseok exclaimed, and his cousin silenced him with a grave scowl. Quieter now, the CSO continued, “We need to tell the others. I’m not sure our plan of attack will be effective if she’s being showered with gifts to quit.”

This time, at least, his cousin nodded. Hyunwoo stuffed his mouth with another bite.

They lingered until the clock neared the company start time, when the last person in line finally made it to the director’s table. She was standing now, mulling over how to cart a table full of unexpected gifts elsewhere, as the young, black-haired prince with a white smile offered to help.

“Why is she smiling so much?” Hoseok said. “Is she—is she laughing?”

Hyunwoo narrowed his already thin eyes.

“Did she just give him her business card?” the younger chairman gawked.

Director Ortega bowed and thanked the young man as he helped gather her offerings into a box he’d somehow manufactured out of thin air.

Hyunwoo chucked the last bite of his sandwich in the garbage, and it made Hoseok jump.

The blonde started, “You never waste—”

“Time to go, Hoseok,” said the COO, and his cousin jumped again. “We need to talk to the others immediately.”

No sooner had the pair made it up the chairmen’s elevator to their floor than they caught some of their secretaries gabbing in the atrium.

“—vowed to get Maria plastered tonight—oh my god, sirs!”

Secretary Ahn spluttered the instant she saw the two chairmen enter the atrium. Immediately, her mouth shut, and she bowed her head. Secretary Guk was less respectful and more deer-in-headlights, with her round eyes fully white and her small mouth popped open round as a bottle cap.

“Hello, sirs,” Secretary Ahn added and then elbowed her coworker until the other woman managed the same greeting. Neither of the men said anything, so she asked, “Is everything all right, Vice Chairman Son?”

“Why wouldn't it be?” he returned flatly.

Secretary Ahn’s eyes darted to the other vice chairman and then back to him and then back to the other vice chairman again as though he should understand the singularity of the moment of the two men side-by-side.

“Is there a meeting we don't know about, sirs?” she said gingerly.

“I should ask you the same.”

Both women paled until they were nearly transparent. They looked at each other again, but this time, Secretary Ahn couldn’t seem to find her polite words, which left Secretary Guk scrambling to pick up the slack.

“Oh, not at all! We were just discussing Director Ortega's going away party tonight.”

Secretary Ahn elbowed her coworker again, this time nearly hard enough to knock the other woman out of her kitten heels.

“Her going away party?” repeated Hyunwoo. “I was unaware that she’s going anywhere.”

Secretary Guk outright shivered, and when she spoke again, her voice was shaking, too. “The secretaries organized it, but… But it would mean so much if all of the vice chairmen could join us.”

The other secretary looked frantically at her, but there was nothing to be done.

“It’s just dinner, drinks, and noraebang after work, but the more, the merrier.”

Hoseok glanced up at his cousin with urgent eyes and whispered, “President Wang said we should show sincerity. This is the perfect way.”

Again, the secretaries exchanged looks, which only amplified when Vice Chairman Son said, “Secretary Guk, please email the time and place to all the vice chairmen as soon as you can.”

“Yes, sir.”

The secretaries bowed to the vice chairmen as they headed toward their respective offices, and when Secretary Ahn rose, she scowled and slapped her friend on the arm. “Maria is going to kill you!”

“Please,” said Secretary Guk as she sat down in front of her keyboard and began to type. “The vice chairmen will never show up. When have they ever showed up for anything, let alone together? Maria’s ready to leave Xtra Mile, but I’m not. What was I supposed to do?”

“Just keep your mouth shut,” her coworker hissed.

“It’s fine. You’ll see. Maria will agree with me.”

“Aigoo, Aera!” Secretary Ahn growled as she tapped her coworker on her arm again. “Have you learned nothing? Keep your mouth shut.”

“No way. You think I want Maria grinding me to a pulp?”

“Look, you said yourself they’ll never show anyway, so why say anything? We’ve worked so hard to organize this thing. I’m not going to be the one to tell everyone it’s off when she invariably cancels it. You are.”

“I didn’t think about that…”

Secretary Ahn rolled her eyes. “Of course you didn’t. You’re not the one who’d clean up the mess.”

“Okay, but if something does go wrong—”

But Secretary Guk didn’t get to finish that thought before the work day officially started and the phones began to ring.

“Oh my god, I didn’t know Maria was capable of getting tipsy, but wow,” laughed Secretary Kwon. “She is gone.”

“Yeah,” agreed Secretary Guk, “color me shocked. I always figured her for the straight life.”

Secretary Kim rolled her eyes. “All these years at seven typhoons’ beck and call will force sobriety on you. I have a hard enough time convincing myself I can have a drink on the weekend. Can’t imagine what Maria’s dry spell’s been like. She must be making up for lost time.”

The women traded laughs and then another round of shots as Director Ortega scream-shouted her noraebang lines into the microphone and they had to hurry to cover their ears.

"Holy. Shit."

It wasn’t just the sudden appearance of the English curse or that it came from the Secretary Lee in his overly dramatic alto that made all the other secretaries pivot sharply. It was the way everything else fell silent except a drunken Maria caterwauling to George Michael’s “Freedom” on stage.

“They actually showed up,” Secretary Ahn gasped.

“Who?” said Secretary Kim.

“Who do you think?”

“What!” exclaimed Secretary Guk. “Which ones?”

“Uh…” Vice Chairman Yoo’s secretary, Song Jiyoo, squinted into the foggy shadows at the entryway as more silhouettes parted the club haze. “Oh my god, it looks like all of them.”

“No way,” said Secretary Kwon. “You're plastered, One. You have to be.”

“I am not. Turn around, Haeun!” Secretary Song grabbed her pocket-sized coworker by the shoulders and swiveled her like the rest of their mob of meerkats.

“I don’t believe it...”

“We’re dead,” said the second Secretary Song Jiyoo, Vice Chairman Im’s assistant, whom the entire department simply called Two.

Secretaries Ahn and Guk looked at each other with crinkled brows. Together, they murmured, “Maria is going to kill us.”

Bumbling through the speakers, they could make out their director wailing louder than she had all night.

“All we have to see is that I don’t belong to you and you don’t belong to me. Freedom! Freedom!”

Secretary Lee looked at the two wide-eyed women, his tongue poking the inside of his cheek. “So. What do you two want on your urns?”

“Secretary Guk!” came the dreaded call no one had expected to hear from her boss, Vice Chairman Lee Jooheon, tonight.

“Sir,” she stammered as she stepped forward, her hands rushing to her cheeks to hide the alcohol coloring them. She looked frantically at her superior before she realized he was flanked by his seven fellow vice chairmen, every last one in their requisite three piece suits and ties, every hand stuffed in their pockets. She may as well have been coming face-to-face with a firing squad. “Sirs, you came?”

“We said we would,” he replied.

"Yes. Yes, you did…”

Vice Chairman Lee Jooheon took a look around, his bottom lip protruding. “We’re late?”

“No, sir,” Secretary Guk was quick to jump in. “You are right on time, of course. A bunch of us simply got here early to pre-game.”

“Is that what kids call dinner these days?” said Kihyun with a popped eyebrow.

“Ah…”

“You didn’t include the dinner in the invitation?” Secretary Ahn hissed into her colleague’s ear.

Secretary Guk simply stood there with her mouth open.

Secretary Ahn elbowed her friend, but the other secretary just looked at her helplessly. Jooheon narrowed his already thin eyes as he assessed his assistant like a lie detector, but he didn’t say anything further.

“There are a lot of people here,” mused Hoseok to Hyungwon.

Men and women clustered around tables—and soju—many with their drinks stilled in hand as they spied their bosses’ bosses. There were faces the vice chairmen recognized from their various departments, but there were just as many they didn’t, lower level managers and assistants too far down the totem pole for them to have met. No doubt Director Ortega knew them all by name.

Past the honeycomb of booths, at the head of the room, there was a packed dance floor, though once again, the revelry seemed frozen as though by a curse. Everyone watched the seven overlords.

As distracting as it all was, it couldn’t distract from the party’s crown jewel.

Dressed in an oversized buttondown and a denim skirt, Director Ortega bounced from toe to toe in a pair of blindingly white sneakers. Her waves were full-blown curls tonight, bouncing with the beat pulsing through the speakers. Mic in hand, she belted out her third encore, a booze-saturated, warbling rendition of the chorus of Cher’s “I Got You, Babe.”

And she wasn’t alone.

On the mic next to her was a young, effervescent man who seemed to be the only one in the room who didn’t have eyes fixed anywhere other than the woman next to him on stage.

Hyunwoo hummed as he glared. “I know him…”

“Hey,” interjected Hoseok with a nudge to his elder cousin’s shoulder, “isn’t that the guy from breakfast? Mr. Helpshimself.”

The COO’s eye twitched.

“Secretary Lee!” barked Hyungwon to his assistant. “Who’s that with the Director?”

“Uh, on stage?” echoed the younger man. “Mm, I don’t know.”

“Secretary Guk,” Jooheon pressed, “do you know that man?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, sir, I don’t. Maria invited him.”

The vice chairman glowered, and the secretary crumbled.

“Er, Director Ortega invited him, but I can find out?”

“Immediately,” he insisted.

Secretary Guk scampered away toward one of the HR managers who hadn’t moved so much as a muscle since the vice chairmen had strolled in, but if the paralyzed look in his eyes was any indication, he wanted nothing to do with her.

Meanwhile, Kihyun huffed. “A man nobody seems to know is dueting with Director Ortega?”

The secretaries shifted uncomfortably even as two voices, one rich in bass and the other ripe with alcohol, stampeded through the silence like a pair of frolicking elephants. Secretaries One and Two cast worried glances back at their director, who was beaming lopsidedly at the handsome fellow who was hamming it up on his knees now, hand reaching up toward Maria.

“Now, Secretary Guk!” Jooheon called back.

His assistant scurried back with her head bowed and said, “Manager Cho believes his name is Intern Wong Kunhang.”

Secretary One hummed. “Oh, that’s Intern Wong? I think I heard he was brought on to the Purchasing Department from our Macau division a month or two ago.”

“Hm,” hummed Changkyun. “What’s an intern doing at a senior level director’s going-away party?”

Secretary Guk’s head dipped a little lower. “Apparently, I had heard correctly. The Director invited him personally. He wasn’t on our executives list, sir.”

As the vice chairmen stared green-eyed at the stage, the director and her partner finished the last lines of the song with breathless laughs.

Maria bent back into a light stretch as she caught her breath, and when she straightened, she squinted out into the eerily calm party room. Gone was the soju-greased dance party, noisy conversation and uproarious laughter, replaced instead by an ambient background soundtrack and muffled parties in nearby rooms.

“Why is nobody dancing?” Maria complained as she looked around the crowded club of stricken guests.

“Hey, no worries. I can fix that. I have a song that will get them going,” assured Kunhang. He shuffled through the playlist for a minute as he added over his shoulder, “What do you think about—”

Just then though, the young man was yanked by his wrist toward the edge of the stage where his direct supervisor, Supervisor Qian glared at him with imploring eyes. “No more encores, Intern Wong.”

“Ah, come on! It's the Director's big day. If she wants another song—”

But the supervisor shook his head vehemently. “I'm doing this for your own good, Intern Wong. Hurry up off the stage now, come on. I’ll give you money for a cab. Go home early and safely.”

“Are you nuts? I’m not leaving yet. Maria invited me personally.”

Supervisor Qian slapped his hand over the intern’s mouth and hissed, “Do you want to lose your job the same month you got it? Stop talking for once, Intern Wong, and go!”

The supervisor yanked his subordinate down the steps, leaving Maria squinting alone into the haze ahead of her.

“Hyeongseo!” she shouted into the hushed crowd. “Hyeongseoie! Where are you?”

Secretary Kim, Vice Chairman Lee Hoseok’s personal assistant and Maria's best friend in the company, turned to Secretary Ahn and hissed, “Fix this, Minha!”

She raced to her friend’s aid on stage, leaving Vice Chairman Lee Minhyuk’s assistant gasping like a fish in front of the heads of the whole company.

“Uh,” Secretary Ahn began hesitantly, “sirs, maybe you would like to meet us later for some barbecue across the street? Everyone will be more presentable in a half hour, especially with some food in their bellies.”

“Why?” asked Hoseok. “We’re already here.”

Minhyuk cocked his head to the side, his warm blonde hair feathering across his forehead as he did. “It seems Secretary Ahn is trying to get rid of us.”

“Not at all, sir!” she squealed as she waved her hands. “It’s just that maybe noraebang is a little noisy and chaotic for leaders of your caliber who are used to quiet offices and boardrooms.”

“She means you’re bringing down the vibe,” came a voice from behind Jooheon followed by a pair of hands clapping on his shoulders.

“Jackson!” said the startled vice chairman. “What are you doing here?”

“Maria invited me,” he said with a cheeky smile that got even cheekier the more flustered the rest of vice chairmen grew. “I’m surprise she invited you.”

Kihyun sucked his teeth as assessed the president, who downed the shot in his hand with a grin on his face. “Having a good time I take it, President Wang?”

“It was a party, so I was.”

“Was a party?” questioned Hoseok.

“Until seven wet blankets dampened the mood.”

Kihyun pursed his lips now. “The soju seems to have loosened your lips.”

With a nod to the stage, Jackson replied, “It does have that reputation, yeah. If I were you, I’d by worried about the number one consumer of soju here tonight. When she sees you, you’re done…”

“How the hell did they find me!”

Though there was no mistaking the clear outrage, the seven vice chairmen had a hard time believing the voice was that of their esteemed, reliable, punctual, efficient, unwavering Director Ortega.

And yet one glance to the stage, where the director stood, arms flung wide and eyes blasted open as she challenged Secretary Kim, left no doubt it was the legend herself.

“Hm,” said Jackson, “I’m going to need a beer and a front row seat for this. Good luck, sirs.”

With that, the President of Operations disappeared into the crowd of fish faces all watching and waiting for what came next.

They didn’t have to wait long.

The director took the stairs remarkably well considering the booze counteracting her anger, but then purpose had always driven every move Maria Ortega had ever made. She headed straight for her seven moving targets. Several of the vice chairmen took a step back, huddling ever so slightly behind the wall of Hyunwoo and Hoseok.

They barely recognized the woman they’d seen nearly every day for years. Though her fine spray of freckles still dusted her face and neck, it was harder to make out under her heavy rose flush. Her ever-alert eyes were hard and narrow, and even though she was swaying as she planted her feet wide, her hands found a brand new home on her hips, giving her small stature the hulk of a professional wrestler.

“Director—” began Hyunwoo, but she waved him off instantly.

“Apologies, your highnesses, I know I’ve given you four years of contradictory evidence, but this is my night off,” she declared briskly. “Your offices are two streets down and around the corner.”

“Director Ortega—” tried Hoseok now, but she cut him off, too, with a shake of her head.

There was no sign of their perennial diplomatic as she ordered, “You should go. All of you.”

“But why?” said Jooheon in a blatant whine.

“We just got here,” insisted Hyungwon.

Maria scoffed. “Oh, I know. You’ve flatlined the mood.”

“I’ve never been accused of such a thing,” Minhyuk swore.

“Look!” she said and swung her arm toward the door, where a pair of coworkers were slinking out until her voice immobilized them in the doorway. “People are already leaving because they don’t want seven spoiled brats lording over their good time.”

“Brats?” said Hyungwon.

“Spoiled?” Kihyun balked, too. “We’re not spoiled.”

Another scoff. Maria scowled as she said, “I’ve never seen silver spoons lodged farther down throats. And now no one is going to want to have a good time with me because they don’t want you brats to fire them.”

“Somehow President Wang still has his job,” Jooheon shouted to Jackson, who was sitting cross-legged at one of the nearby booths, beer in hand.

With a sigh this time, Maria said resignedly, “What are you even doing here?”

“We’re here to celebrate you,” said Changkyun.

“Because we care about you,” Hyungwon added.

Maria’s eyes shifted to the Chief Sustainability Officer. Her face fixed on an expression too foreign for her face.

A beat passed. Then another.

Her lips parted. Before she could respond though, the puppy-eyed intern appeared at the director’s side, a tail practically wagging behind him. He rested his fingertips on her forearm, and her attention shifted to the young man.

“Sorry about that, Maria. Supervisor Qian thought I was too drunk to stay or something, but considering he's already six shots in, I figured he wasn't one to judge. Oh, hey!” The intern pivoted on his foot and smiled at the seven stone-faced men across from him. “You must be the vice chairmen. It's nice to meet you, Your Excellencies.”

Kunhang bowed and rose with two high eyebrows and a toothy grin.

“Your Excellencies?” Hyungwon said flatly.

The intern nodded. “I hear you're the seven princes of Xtra Mile, at least, that’s what everyone in the office says.”

“And we hear that you’re from our Macau office,” said Hoseok.

“Yes, sir.”

Hyunwoo’s jaw flexed. “Do you miss Macau, Intern Wong?”

Maria narrowed her eyes, but Kunhang simply shrugged his shoulders and his mouth. “I did at first, but I’ve gotten pretty used to things here now. I really love Seoul so far.”

“That’s no reason to stay,” Jooheon added quickly.

“Internships run their course,” agreed Hyungwon.

With a tilt of his head, the intern smiled brightly. “I’ve got a good feeling about this one.”

“You shouldn’t. Maybe you should head out before your job—” grumbled Kihyun before Maria stepped between the factions, her back to the vice chairmen.

“Kunhang, Secretary Lee needs a drink. Why don’t you two have one together for now?” she suggested as she spun the younger man back toward the stage.

“Okay, but we’re still doing another song to wake up these zombies, right?”

Maria nodded and sent him off, and when she swiveled back to her bosses, albeit teetering slightly, gone was her gentle smile.

“I invited Kunhang,” she asserted, “and I want him to stay. You have no authority to order my guests to leave.”

“Actually, we own 51 percent of this—”

Hyunwoo gave a discreet punch to Minhyuk’s side to shut him up, but it had about as much impact as a car accident. While the blonde cradled his gut, Maria glared.

“You're not the bosses of my party! In fact, you're not even my bosses anymore.”

“We are for the next month,” Kihyun reminded.

“Hey, Two!” the director shouted over her shoulder. “Clear that back booth for me please. I’m putting these seven children in time-out until they can learn to play well with others.”

An audible gasp circulated through the room along with one very inebriated giggle somewhere in the back that was quickly silenced. The vice chairmen stood there dumbfounded as their secretaries nervously followed their director’s instructions and shooed away partygoers from the back corner where a C-shaped booth lurked in the neon shadows. The table cleared, and Maria thrust her arm forward and instructed, “Sit.”

They did.

Another pair of guests seized the distraction and made a break for the exit, but the director trumpeted, “Nobody leaves until everyone’s had a good time!”

“Woohoo!” Kunhang cheered from halfway across the room. He was the only respondent though the escapees did retreat back to their tables.

“Can’t we talk about this?” Hyunwoo said in his usual steady tone.

Maria shook her head. “Your lordships talk to much as it is. Sit here and be quiet for once.”

Kihyun hummed. “Director Ortega, I think you’ve had a bit to drink. Maybe—”

“Psh, I’m not nearly drunk enough for this conversation.”

Jooheon let out a resentful sigh as he scrunched his nose and challenged, “We really did come to support you.”

But Maria swept her pointer finger from end to end of the rainbow of vice chairmen and barked, “Pinches egoístas! Todo lo que hacen en tomar y tomar! ¿Y que obtengo a cambio? ¡Solo molestias! Y ni siquiera me pueden dejar en paz. Hijos de puta.”

“That didn’t sound great,” Hoseok said with a grimace at Minhyuk.

Hyunwoo cleared his throat and started, “Director—”

“Nn-nn, no. No, no. I'm so sick of that name. That's the only name I've heard for the last 762 years.” Kihyun and Hyungwon exchanged looks at her embellishment, but the woman didn’t notice as she continued, “I have a real name, a person name not a job name. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Minhyuk with a lopsided smile.

“It's Maria. It's a pretty name. It was my mother’s name and my great-grandmother's name. Isn't it pretty? Maria. Say it.”

“Maria,” said Hyungwon slowly, testing it out.

But she surprised him when she launched across the table, both of her hands clamping over his thick lips. “Shh! Not you! Shh!”

“Why not me?” he grumbled behind her fingers, but she shook her head vehemently.

“Why are you so loud?”

“Loud?” Kihyun chuckled with a furrowed brow as he turned toward his half-brother. “You’re not loud. I can barely decipher half the mumblings that come out of your mouth. Maria, do you mean the music’s loud?”

“Not loud enough!” she shouted.

“Maria,” repeated Hyungwon, softer this time, but she plugged her ears then and shook her head.

“I said it's too loud. Shh! You call me Director Ortega.”

The silver-haired vice chairman scowled at his half-brother as he folded his arms across his broad chest. “Why can’t I say it… He just did.”

The director narrowed her eyes at the vice chairmen and said, “I’m going back to get drunk like I deserve for the first time in ages, and you are not ruining that yet again, got it? Hopefully I’ll forget you were even here.”

“How long do we have to sit here?” Jooheon griped.

Maria folded her arms. “You act like children, I treat you like children. You stay here until you learn your lesson.”

Changkyun laid a hand on his dimpled cousin’s shoulder before took the lead and said, “We came here to talk to you, Maria.”

“Well, I came here to party because it’s my party, and I’m not talking. I’m partying.”

She turned around, but before she could take three steps, Hoseok blurted, “What are we supposed to do?”

Over her shoulder, she answered, “You’re in timeout. You don’t do anything… unless you decide to leave. You want to reconsider?”

None of the men moved, save Kihyun and Hyungwon crossing their arms in unison in an unexpected reminder that they shared some genes.

Maria huffed. “Fine. The only way you’re getting up from this table is if you leave or you join in.”

“What does that mean?” asked Minhyuk.

“Seriously? You drink and you sing duets or you get out. There's no way I'm letting you stone sober tyrants hold anything over my secretaries after I'm gone. ¿Te quedó claro? Drink and sing or get out.”

“Is that all? I can do that,” the Chief Product Officer said with a smile and presented his hand. “Will you do me the honors of singing with me?”

Maria cackled, and all seven men froze at the unfamiliar sound. “With you, Mr. Lee Minhyuk? Oh, no way.”

“You’ll sing with an intern but not with us?” Hyungwon pointed out tightly.

“That’s the easy way out,” she countered, “and I've spent way too much of my life by each of your sides already. No, you have to sing with each other.”

“With each other?” they exclaimed as a united front for once.

Maria cocked an eyebrow and a hip and stared them down. “If you've got the guts. If not, there’s the door.”

With that, Maria returned to her party, stole a snack from a nearby table, and bellowed out a war cry for the party to continue. With the help of Intern Wong’s impromptu DJing and the out-of-sight, out-of-mind vice chairmen, most guests were swaying and drinking again, this time with much more moderation.

That is until everyone got the surprise of their lives.

Just as Manager Gong of the marketing department finished her off-key solo performance of XG’s “New Dance,” two sharp silhouettes climbed the stairs to the stage, and once they’d selected their song, they turned around and stepped into the lights.

Minhyuk and Kihyun each grabbed a mic and waited to catch up to the beat of TVXQ’s “Spellbound”. At the first notes out of their mouths, a couple shot glasses fell to the floor, but it was nothing to the number of jaws that followed.

“My god,” murmured Secretary One, “they could be idols. How did I not know Vice Chairmen Yoo could sing like this? I see him all day every day!”

“I didn’t know they could sing either!” said Secretary Kwon. “Did you, Maria?”

A rice cake now sagging in her hand, the director couldn’t even find the strength to shake her head as her two bosses prowled the stage looking like they’d always belonged up there. They’d shed their suit jackets in favor of their dress shirts, each having rolled their sleeves up to their forearms, which was more skin than Maria had ever seen them show in all their years together. As they glided across the floor, their buttons winked in the spotlights, taunting the woman who’d been so confident up to that very moment that she’d known everything about them.

“This feels like a concert!” one of the managers screamed over the music.

“I can’t believe we get to see this for free!” shouted another.

“Why do they have to be good at everything they do?” bemoaned yet another.

“Feels like they’re singing to you, Maria,” whispered Hyeongseo into her friend’s ear.

“Hush,” the director said because it was all she could manage.

She was too caught up in the two men, ever at odds with one another, harmonizing so effortlessly over the effervescent melody. Minhyuk was definitely the bigger ham of the two, swaying back and forth like a jazz cat with equal cool. Kihyun, on the other hand, had a way of stroking the mic that was so dizzying, it left Maria wondering how much of the room’s spinning was just the alcohol coursing through her now-racing blood.

“They’re even dancing in sync? They have moves?” Secretary Lee exclaimed at their little dance break, eyes bugging out of his skull.

Their performance ended all too quickly, and once again, the club room was silent. The two vice chairmen stood on stage, chests heaving, sweat beading on their brows, expressions tight.

Nobody bothered to hit the artificial applause since the real thing erupted from every corner, including whoops and hollers and chants for an encore. Their bosses merely bowed and made their escape from the limelight toward their mandated timeout, but not before taking a very particular route past their dumbstruck director.

As he blew past her, Kihyun lifted both brows in a challenge, and then the pair was gone… only to be replaced on stage by Hyunwoo and Hoseok.

“There’s more?” said one guest.

“Are they all going to perform? Oh my god,” exclaimed another.

The two largest members of Xtra Mile’s boardroom hiked the stairs to the stage as the applause finally dwindled for the last performance. Maria barely had time enough to process what had just happened in when the first percussive notes of Shinee’s “1 of 1” began.

Hoseok took the lead in the song, his voice sweet and melodic and his lisp clinging to the lyrics, before his cousin picked up the retro beats and flavored them with his own surprisingly lustrous RnB tone.

“These song choices, oh my god,” gasped Secretary Ahn.

“How am I going to go back to work on Monday?” Secretary Kwon lamented as she watched her boss reach his hand out toward them, his voice straining with a high note. Dreamily, she reached back, and Secretary Kim swatted her arm down.

“You’re embarrassing yourself, Haeun!”

“Probably,” Secretary Kwon whimpered, entranced.

“Is it just me,” said Secretary Lee, “or are all these about Maria?”

“I told you,” Hyeongseo sing-songed.

Abruptly, each of the secretaries turned toward the director, who waved them off. “You gossip just as much as ever, Yujun, which always adds fuel to Hyeongseo’s fire. Cut it out, both of you. They’re just showing off. When do they not? Pack of jerks, trying to make me feel bad about having a good time.”

Only then, as the weight of her bosses’ gazes bore down on her from the stage, did Maria realize she hadn’t had a drink since the vice chairmen had stormed in, and, resentfully, she grabbed for a shot glass. But the second she brought it to her lips, it stilled, and nothing she could do could tip it back.

“Damn them,” she cursed under her breath as she slammed the glass back down. “Can’t even get drunk anymore even though I don’t work here anymore.”

But with every cell she sobered up, Maria was more and more aware of how smooth her bosses were on stage, how natural and comfortable they looked under a spotlight, and how enticingly they sang into a mic. It wasn’t fair, and it just amplified her resentment.

“Hey, girl, you all right?” Hyeongseo asked her friend.

“Pack of jerks,” Maria muttered even as Hoseok stared straight into her soul with sparkling eyes.

Finally, the duo finished their serenade, bowed to the crowd and again to their director, and then hurried off stage to make way for Hyungwon, Jooheon, and Changkyun.

“Not again,” the director groaned and Hyeongseo rubbed her back.

“Worried they’re going to be as impressive as the first two duets?”

“I thought they’d leave. I didn’t expect them to take me up on it. Why didn’t I make them leave?”

Vice Chairman Yoo’s secretary quirked a finely plucked brow. “Seems like they’re figuring out what it means to lose you. I wonder what they’d say if they knew the real reason you’re leaving.”

Maria hissed, “I’ll throw you out, too, One!”

“Aera! Hey, Aera!” whispered Secretary Lee to Secretary Guk, who could barely tear her eyes from her boss, Jooheon, as the dimpled man centered himself behind a mic. “Aera, other than a boardroom, have you ever seen the three of them together?”

“Vice Chairman Lee looks so handsome…” she murmured with dimples that matched her superior’s. Her colleague swatted his hand in front of her face, and she blinked and snapped, “What do you want, Yujun?”

“I asked you a question!”

“Shh!” she said, ignoring him. “We’re witnessing history, and I’m not missing a second of it.”

Secretary Lee rolled his eyes, but his fellow assistant was right. The whole room could feel it, even the transfixed director.

“They can't possibly be a skilled as the other vice chairmen, can they?” asked Secretary Two.

A familiar throwback beat bumped out of the speakers, and Hyeongseo’s eyes glided to the director as Shinhwa’s “Perfect Man” emphatically kickstarted.

“Don’t,” Maria warned her friend.

Hyeongseo grinned as cartoonishly as an emoji.

Hyungwon took control of the opening lines with his raspy vocals, which melted right into Changkyun’s chocolate murmuring and, finally, Jooheon’s power serenading. Before anyone knew it, the latter two were trading some of the fastest, smoothest rap lines anyone in the company had ever heard.

“They can rap?” squealed Secretary Ahn as she pressed harder against the edge of the stage. “I take back what I said. Thank god your big mouth invited them, Aera.”

If Secretary Guk heard the praise, it took a backseat to the tidal wave of senses bearing down on them from the stage as the three men harmonized in ways not a soul in Xtra Mile could have ever anticipated. They shared lines just as easily as they shared the spotlight, and when they joined voices in the chorus, hearts stopped.

“They're not treating this like noraebang,” marveled Hyeongseo. “They're acting like they're on Music Bank.”

“What a pity they hate each other,” shouted Secretary Kwon over the music. “Imagine if they cut a record together.”

Secretary Lee wrapped one arm around the director and another around Hyeongseo as he muscled in between for a better look of his boss on stage. “I am never letting Vice Chairman Chae live this done. Never. And here I always thought Maria would be the one to bring them together. Who knew it would be music?”

“Who said it isn’t Maria?” said Jackson, who appeared at the director’s other shoulder. His mouth hovered by her ear as he added, “You did tell them to perform after all.”

“‘Cause you are the one!” came the line from the three performers, this time borderline shouted down on the crowd—maybe, more specifically, one President of Operations.

Maria looked up and away from Jackson, though not with stars in her eyes as the rest of the crowd did, but rather with crossed arms and a hard expression.

Hyeongseo shook her friend’s bicep. “Not even a smile? They’re singing right to you, babe. Damn, Maria, I really underestimated how pissed you are at them.”

But the director wasn't pissed. She was in shock.

She looked around at her colleagues, now flush with the stage, hands reaching up, cheering and squealing, all hoping for a crumb of attention from men Maria had only ever seen drink coffee, read reports, and micromanage every second of her day.

Now they were commanding a stage like they owned that, too.

So maybe she was more than a little angry after all.

They had it in them all along to get along, so why the hell had she been stretched thinner than watercolor on an oversized canvas all these years?

The trio’s performance wound down, and the men left the stage the same as the others—abruptly and with little attention for the fanfare that was being ladled on them from the audience. They retreated to their timeout and sat in the same order that they’d been assigned when Maria had sent them there.

“How am I going to go back to the office on Monday knowing what I know...” Secretary Guk said as she stared back heart-eyed at her boss.

“You’d better stay in your lane, Guk Aera,” admonished Secretary Two. “Remember what happened to Secretary Lee Gahyun? She asked out Vice Chairman Im one time, and she was gone the next day. You have to stay as professional as Director Ortega or you’ll be on the job market in no time.”

“I know! I’m just saying it’s going to be so hard. A girl could get lost in Vice Chairman Lee’s dimples…”

“Great,” said Secretary One, “we’re going to be filling two positions this week.”

“A lot to think about, Director Ortega,” Jackson began with a playful look to the woman beside him. “Seems our esteemed Vice Chairmen set out to make an impression. I wonder if it worked.”

Maria gritted her teeth, shook off the two men’s arms around her, and stormed toward the back of the club, every guest’s attention once again pressing down on them. She threw her hands back on her hips and thundered, “Are you happy?”

“Are you?” asked Kihyun.

“We did it for you,” added Hoseok.

“Did you like our performances?” Jooheon wondered. “How did I do specifically?”

Maria sighed. “What was the point of all that, huh? Did you think it would make me stay?”

“No,” said Hyunwoo.

“Yes,” said Minhyuk.

All at once, the director stood there, her shoulders unusually slumped and her round face fallen. “Thank you for coming to my going away party, sirs. You’ve certainly made it unforgettable.”

“Maria!” Kihyun said. “Wait.”

But Minhyuk shook his head. “She’s right, guys.”

With that, the CPO clambered over his relatives’ laps to get out of the booth, breezed past the director, and hurried to the stage which was still empty since they’d had yet to find anyone brave enough to follow the vice chairmen’s acts.

“All right, everyone,” declared Minhyuk into the mic. “Did you enjoy the performances?”

“Yes, sir!” came the universal cheer.

“Great, and did you have fun?”

“Yes!”

“Wonderful, wonderful. Should we add noraebang to our company picnic this year?” he asked.

The cheers were even more forceful now. “Yes, yes!”

“Ah, perfect. That’s great news. Now for the bad news.” Minhyuk smiled down at his employees, bowing and nodding and making his typical spectacle of himself.

Boos that could only come with the conviction of alcohol bubbled up around the room as every last guest waited for the other shoe to drop.

“That’s a wrap on this incredible party, I’m afraid,” said the vice chairman, “but don’t worry. Your vice chairmen will work hard to ensure more things like this in the future. For now, thank you all for supporting our dear Director and making her night unforgettable.”

“Hey, wait, no—” Maria protested, but when she swiveled about the room to address her guests, she found Hoseok and Changkyun holding open the doors to the hallway and waiting like bouncers.

“As you are all still representing Xtra Mile right now, we want to ensure your night ends well,” boomed Vice Chairman Son now from the back of the room. “To that end, we have a fleet of drivers waiting at the ready out there who will take you all home safely.”

“All of us?” shouted someone in the crowd.

“All of you,” Kihyun promised.

“Except you,” Hyungwon said solemnly.

Everyone followed his hard gaze back to Intern Wong, who looked at his boss’s boss’s boss with wide eyes over the lip of his shot glass.

“You walk home,” Jooheon agreed.

“Ah, ah,” corrected Minhyuk from the stage. “My brother is joking. There’s a seat for you in my car. Have a safe trip home, Intern Wong.”

“Why would you—” Jooheon barked before Minhyuk cut him off with a smile and a knowing look.

“As we all know, Maria wants us to see all her guests home well, especially the ones she personally invited…”

Their attention slid over to the director, who was watching her superior just as carefully.

Jooheon looked back at the bewildered intern and said begrudgingly, “Get home safely, Intern Wong.”

“Aw, is the party really over?” asked Manager Cho.

“It is if the Vice Chairmen say it is,” Supervisor Qian answered and picked up his intern by the collar.

“Hey, wait!” Kunghang objected, feet skidding beneath him as he was compelled forward. “I wanted to say goodnight to the Director!”

“I’m sure you did. Come on, our free ride is waiting, Intern Wong.”

Kunhang’s puppy eyes pleaded forgiveness of Maria as he waved and shouted goodnights even as his supervisor dragged him bodily out of the room. Over his shoulder, he shouted, “Don’t forget to text me when you get home so I know you got there safely!”

Hyungwon and Jooheon rolled their eyes as the rest of the guests began to leave while the secretaries started reining in the wake of chaos in the room. For her part, Maria cleaned up one of the bottles of soju by downing it straight from the mouth. No booze had ever tasted more satisfying.

“I can’t believe you threw out all my guests,” she said bitterly.

Minhyuk shrugged. “I just followed your lead, Maria. You were the one who said the night was over.”

The director grunted and thumped the empty bottle back on the table. “I was throwing you out, not them.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time we misunderstood something.”

Maria narrowed her eyes. “Yes, but I get the feeling that was intentional rather than accidental.”

“Feelings are not enough for a court of law,” Kihyun interjected with a hooked grin, and she sighed.

“There are forty-some people here. How are you going to get them all home?”

Jooheon beamed at her. “Limos seat eight. It’ll be fine.”

“You brought seven limos to a noraebang?” she exclaimed.

“Well, we weren’t going to ride together,” Hyungwon informed matter-of-factly.

The director sighed and collapsed onto a couch, her head lolling back as she closed her eyes. “You have no idea how much I miss your grandfather. He was mature. He was respectful. He was grateful.”

“We’re not grateful?” Hoseok said with a protruding bottom lip.

“No! You’re none of those things.”

“I resent that,” said Kihyun.

“I don’t care. What else am I supposed to think? You’re the same people made me leave family events half a world away to wait on you.”

“That was Hyungwon!”

The silver-haired vice chairman went to bite back, but the director did it for him. She squared up to Kihyun and, tongue loosened by alcohol, blurted, “You’re better? Really? I was seconds away from getting laid for the first time since the Ice Age when you texted me, what was it, 17 times? The guy thought I was married and bolted.”

A bottle clattered to the floor, and everyone turned to find President Wang standing there sheepishly with eyes big as marbles just as the rest of the secretaries were.

“Jackson? I thought we kicked you out, too,” growled Jooheon. “You are definitely walking home.”

“Aw, come on, man. You owe me for—”

“Out!” the CMO snapped.

The president hurried out with all seven secretaries in tow, each one giving Maria their own version of an embarrassed grimace, and once the procession of mortification was gone, she was left to stew in the horror of her last admission. She had to divert attention immediately.

“There’s no point in asking me to stay, sirs,” she said as assertively and professionally as her tipsy state would allow.

“You already took another job?” Hoseok said, the disappointment in his voice clear as glass.

Maria shook her head. “No. No, I need time away from an office. I need somewhere to clear my head.”

Hyunwoo raised both eyebrows. “You're taking a vacation?”

The director remained silent.

Kihyun pressed his sharply bowed lips together as he narrowed his eyes. “You're moving back home?”

More silence.

“To America!” The other six shouted in unison.

“You can’t,” Hoseok insisted.

“Of course I can. You don’t own me, contrary to what you seven seem to believe.”

“That’s not it!” protested Jooheon. “Give us a chance to prove it to you. We’ll lighten your workload. We’ll give you more time off. We won’t spring meetings on you. Just don’t leave, please.”

“Dios mío, dame fuerzas! Listen, sirs, it’s nice of you to come and show your sincerity, I mean it, and I appreciate your generosity, I really do, but my resignation is about so much more than that.” Maria took a deep breath then said, “Working for your family, I’ve accomplished more than most in my life, and I’m proud of that, but there’s one thing that my career has kept me from accomplishing, and that’s become absurdly clear since my sister’s wedding.”

“The wedding Hyungwon kept you from enjoying?” Kihyun needled, but before Hyungwon could volley back, Maria slapped her hands down on the booth as effectively as across their faces.

“Why can’t you boys just get along? It would have made my job so much easier if I didn’t have to spend as much time translating foreign languages for you as I did translating messages between you. Some days, it’s more like running a daycare than it is a multibillion-dollar company.”

“Ouch,” mumbled Hoseok.

“On that trip… What did you learn, Maria?” Hyunwoo redirected gently.

Her head lolled to the side. “What’s the point of explaining? You’re all just going to argue and lob blame at one another. I’d rather we just end it here, sirs, and you can all blame each other without me having to embarrass myself.”

“We can’t fix things if we don’t know what the problem is,” the COO insisted.

“You can’t fix them even if you do.”

“You don’t know that,” said Changkyun softly.

The director shook her head. “I do, sir. This isn’t something that can be fixed by seven executives.”

“We have resources,” Minhyuk insisted, his finger stabbing a table with every word. “We have a whole company at your disposal. There’s nothing that we can’t get you.”

“You can’t get me a husband, and you sure as hell can’t get me laid.”

Maria covered her mouth, but it was too late. The damage was done, and this time, there was no one there to distract from it.

“So it’s true…” murmured Hyungwon.

“No! Oh no… See! I knew it!” she bellowed and covered her face with her hands. “Everyone in the company knows the sad fate of poor, pathetic Maria Ortega. How humiliating. Over a decade of professionalism, and I’ve cannonballed it in a few days.”

“That's not true,” Kihyun reassured.

“Obviously it is. No wonder everyone was so eager to congratulate me on quitting. Maria Ortega, the cautionary tale for career driven women. She thought success was enough, but the moment she finds out she has no one to share it with, she realizes that the world now cruelly thinks she’s too old for love.”

“Horseshit,” Hyunwoo bit with uncharacteristic ferocity.

The director slumped over, forearms on her knees. “It doesn’t matter if it is or it isn’t. Spinster is still a word in people’s vocabulary. I’ve aged out of most of my prospects. Men aren’t looking to start a life with a woman at 38.”

“I saw that line of admirers this morning,” the honey-haired COO reminded. “You were turning down offers right and left.”

“It’s not at all what you think, sir.”

“It was,” Hoseok asserted. “Those hopeful, lovestruck looks are unmistakable.”

She closed her eyes and grimaced as she flashed back through the last couple years of disasters. “You all should know better than anyone that a salesman knows just what to do to close a deal before he moves to the next more profitable town.”

“That can’t be true,” insisted Minhyuk. “No one could say no to you.”

Maria belted out a bitter laugh, then another, until it suddenly became a strand of ironic giggles over the persistent hum of the speaker static. “Are you kidding me? It’s your favorite word for me and my personal life. You are the seven kings of the word. It’s the only other thing you have in common.”

“Impossible,” asserted Kihyun.

“When have I ever told you no?” Minhyuk challenged.

“That’s not—” began Hyungwon, but he was cut off by Maria.

“‘Vice Chairman Yoo, please keep me off the schedule Friday evening.’” In a gravelly voice, she continued, “‘Director Ortega, you know I need you to assist me with all acquisitions. It’s expected. We’re finalizing the Usagi Electronics deal. This is the most vital time. It can’t be completed without you.’”

“Hey—” said Kihyun, but again, she cut him off.

“‘Vice Chairman Im, I have important plans this Saturday, so please—'

“‘Director Ortega, please take this job more seriously. You know this morning we were invited to dine with President Park. You don’t say no to President Park.’

In a deeper mimic, she continued, “‘See you on Sunday, Director Ortega.’

“‘But, Vice Chairman Son, I told you I have—'

“‘See you Sunday.’” She closed her little play with Hyunwoo’s trademark tight-lipped, cheeky bear smile before she returned to herself with an exhausted sigh. “You have no idea how difficult it is to live a real life when you have seven superiors who demand your full attention all the time. In all the years I’ve served you, I’ve never seen Gyeongbokgung Palace, I haven’t visited the top of N Seoul Tower, I haven’t hiked Inwangsan. Hell, I haven’t seen a movie since your grandfather retired! Do you know how much I love movies? Now, I can’t even watch them at home because I pass out before they reach the halfway point. You tell me if that’s fair, sirs.”

“We didn’t think of it like that,” mumbled Hyungwon.

“I know. You didn’t think of me at all. It’s always the job first—the title first—and that goes for me, too. My career was the most important thing to me for the longest time. Now that I’ve gotten everything I’ve ever wanted for myself, I found I’m missing more than I realized. And I can’t even make it to one measly blind date.”

“What’s so great about a blind date anyway?” Hoseok challenged. “They’re all out-of-shape bald guys who make you pay for your own coffee.”

Despite herself, Maria couldn’t stifle her chuckle. “What’s wrong with bald guys? You keep bleaching your hair platinum, and you might be bald soon, too, sir.”

The Chief Security Officer groped his own head as he floundered, “Back me up, guys.”

Though he’d been quiet most of the evening, save for his devastating performance on stage, Changkyun propped both elbows on the table, leaned forward, his sly eyes hiding innumerable secrets, and said, “Maybe it’s time to consider alternative avenues.”

“What do you mean…” she asked warily.

“The shortest distance between two points. Have you ever considered that, while you may not know what you’re walking into on a blind date, you do know each of us… Better than anyone, I imagine..”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, so this is how you pitch me to keep my job?”

Changkyun shook his head. “Not at all. My suggestion is simple. Why don’t you date us instead?”

Everyone’s heads whipped toward the youngest vice chairman along with a chorus of “What!”

It didn’t seem to faze him.

“Forgive my brother, Maria,” Jooheon bumbled as he nudged the chocolate-haired vice chairman hard in the ribs. “He uses his status as youngest too liberally.”

“That’s not it,” Changkyun insisted. “I’m serious.”

The director’s hands raced through her rapidly frizzing bob as her eyes searched the shadows for spot to steady her mental tailspin. “Okay. Okay, so it’s just Vice Chairman Im who’s clearly wasted then.”

“Well…” Hyunwoo said slowly. “Maybe my youngest cousin has a point.”

Maria threw her hands up. “Vice Chairman Son, too?”

“Ugh,” groused Jooheon, “you’ve asked us to drop the honorifics but you won’t? Since we’re not coworkers anymore, it’s not necessary.”

“It feels weird not to,” she said.

“Just because it feels weird doesn’t mean it is,” Changkyun countered.

Something in the youngest’s tone warned her not to trust the dark cast in his eyes.

Hyungwon caught her gaze next, and Maria froze, feeling every bit the startled rabbit she imagined she looked to be. The man always had the unique ability to stun her despite how often he managed to look like a person five minutes shy of a cozy nap. He dipped his head down, his lips jutting with his chin, as he asked, “You've never once thought about what it would be like to be with us?”

Maria scrambled to find her bearings, but it was pointless, especially with all the liquor still burning holes in her defenses. As assertively as she could, she said, “It wouldn't matter even if I had.”

“Does that mean you have?” Jooheon said, shooting forward.

The director frantically waved him back. She longed for another shot, but like so much else in her life, it seemed out of reach. She mumbled, “Did you all plan this blindside?”

“I swear to you this is the first we’re hearing it,” said Kihyun with his hand up, “but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been thinking it for a long time.”

The director shook her head. “Not possible. You have to have an angle. You’re businessmen; you always do. You think I'm so desperate and hopeless that I need to date my bosses?”

“Yes?” wondered Minhyuk.

“No!” interjected Changkyun while he glared at his cousin as his other cousin, Hoseok, whacked the blonde on the back of the head. “I’m not suggesting you stay and work for us. I’m suggesting you give us each a chance to prove to you that we’re all like you. We’re all struggling to catch up to our feelings.”

“Feelings?” she said incredulously. “You can’t have feelings for a hammer or a wrench.”

Suddenly, Hyungwon reached across the table and grasped her fingers. Her eyes shot to the often solemn man and found his just as steady and serious as she found them in a boardroom. His thick lips were pressed together into a hard line as his brow furrowed. “You’ve never once—not ever—been a tool in our eyes, Maria, and I’m sorry if we’ve made you feel that way.”

The director yanked her hand away and stared at her skin as though it were burning. All these years, and she’d never touched them save for a jolt in a shared limo or straightening a tie. Maybe it wouldn’t have felt so momentous if they hadn’t all just proposed to date her.

She cradled her hand as she said, “There's not enough soju in this world to make me accept pity dates as severance from my company.”

“You've got it all wrong,” said Hoseok. “You would be the one taking pity on us.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve filled our lives with so many distractions that it’s distracted us from something we've known all along.”

“And what's that?” she asked, and she realized she was holding her breath.

Now it was Hyunwoo who studied the director with an intensity she’d never seen from him. Normally, he gave the appearance of constant wonder or surprise, almost like he wasn’t taking things seriously, but usually that was a ruse to throw his professional opponent off-balance. But here, Maria was practically on the floor from tonight’s whiplash, yet there were no hints of that trickery. He was looking at her with everything he had.

His eyes hooded. His voice dropped another octave. “You don't find it odd that seven men who haven't been able to agree on anything in thirty years can all agree that we can't be without you?”

“I do! Exactly,” Maria agreed wholeheartedly. “I do find that odd. But I think the conclusion I've drawn is a lot different than the one you have. Honestly, sirs, I really think you're confusing two separate issues. You don't want the person who's been doing everything for you—short of actually spoon-feeding you—to leave, but need doesn't equal love.”

Hyunwoo’s intensity didn’t let up, even at the barb. Voice as even as ever, he continued, “And I think you're afraid of the possibility that your future has always been with us.”

“Or maybe,” she said, keenly aware of how much her own voice was now shaking, “I'm afraid of the far more likely possibility that this is all some game you seven have concocted to trick me into staying. For a bunch of guys who said they didn’t plan this, with all these pretty things to say, you sure sound rehearsed.”

Kihyun, who’d been sitting closest to her, leaned in, his voice unusually deep. “Maybe that’s because we’ve each been rehearsing this for longer than you think.”

To fight the shiver racing down her spine, Maria chewed her lip aggressively.

“At least let us have the chance to prove we’re serious,” said Jooheon.

“And how do you propose to do that?”

“For starters,” Changkyun answered, “we respect your resignation. We won't pressure you to stay on as our director anymore. We’ll start interviewing candidates as soon as you find them.”

Maria popped an eyebrow. “What if I want to recommend Secretary Kim for the position?”

They all looked to Hoseok. Worry flashed across the CSO’s face for a second before he nodded slowly. “She’s an excellent assistant. I’m sure she’d be up to it.”

“She would,” Maria agreed, a relieved smile brightening her face for the first time since they’d arrived. “If she says yes, I can start training her on Monday.”

The vice chairmen couldn’t hide their shock and hesitation, but nobody dared argue it.

Again, the director found her lip between her teeth, this time coupling it with a worrying of her top button. “So, um, how would this all work? I mean, if I believed you for one second…”

“Well,” Jooheon said as she scooted a little closer on her other side, “if you believed us, we’d each like a chance to take you out.”

“There won't be any work involved,” Hoseok promised. “We're talking about dates, so we’ll keep everything out of the office.”

“You, I’m not worried about,” Maria admitted. “I can barely keep you at your desk as it is. But a few of you…”

She glared at Minhyuk, Kihyun, and Changkyun before the first butted in, “Not this time. And you won't have to plan a thing. We'll be responsible for you for a change.”

“Despite what you may think, we’ve managed to pick up a few things over the years,” Hyungwon said.

She glared sternly at them. “I’m 38. I don’t have time for boys.”

“Director Ortega—Maria,” Kihyun corrected, “we run a multibillion-dollar company. We’re not children anymore.”

“Didn’t I just put you all in time-out?” she recapped. They pouted across the board, seven undeniably handsome faces as defeated as the director had ever seen, and Maria let out a sigh. “Ugh, this conversation is making me feel uncomfortably sober. How serious are you all planning to take this charade?”

“At least as serious as you do,” said Minhyuk.

“As serious as we’ve ever taken anything,” amended Changkyun.

Maria groaned and said, “There’s no way you can play nicely with each other. How am I supposed to come out alive from this?”

“If there’s one thing to convince us to get along, it’s you, Maria,” said Hyungwon. She clutched her temples at this sound of her name in his gravelly rumble and winced.

“This is such a bad idea. What happens when it doesn’t work out with any of you? Or worse, it does work? What happens if it works really well with one of you? You can’t get along as is. Something like this… it could makes things irreconcilable.”

Minhyuk shrugged. “If you’re leaving anyway, at least you won’t have to stay for the fallout.”

“I still care,” she insisted, hands gripping the table edge. “I love Xtra Mile. I don’t want to be the reason something happens to it. You can’t promise that you’ll be okay with this.”

“You’re right,” said Hyunwoo, “we can’t, but if it isn’t already clear, we’ll do just about anything for you.”

“Even act like family,” Jooheon said with a clap on his little brother’s back beside him.

Maria glanced between her bosses, finding a thousand different reasons why this was a stupid, terrible idea, yet she found herself resisting all of those. Time stretched between the group. One minute morphed into two and then five, but it didn’t make a difference. It wasn’t changing her fate or her answer.

She chewed her lip again, but finally, she said, “I don’t know…”

“Jackson said we needed to show you our sincerity,” said Kihyun. “Please, Maria, let us.”

“You spoke to President Wang about this?” she shouted, her whole body darkening a shade. “Oh god, I can’t show my face back at the office ever again.”

“We didn’t talk to him about this!” Jooheon was quick to swear. “No one knows about this but us.”

“Hell,” said Minhyuk, “we didn’t even know before right now.”

Maria whimpered. “You better pray no one finds out or I won’t be putting you in timeout. I’ll be putting you in prison.”

The vice chairmen shared a laugh and a nod, which was more than they’d really ever shared, and the director relented to them as she had for years. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do considering where that bad habit had led her, but curiosity—and so much more—had gotten the better of her.

Come Monday, with the booze burned out of her system and her power suit back on, maybe her misgivings would get the better of her, but as Hyunwoo’s limo driver returned from dropping off the last of her guests and offered to take them all home, she didn’t refuse.

And she didn’t refuse when they insisted on piling out on her sidewalk to see her safely into her building.

She didn’t refuse when they promised to make the next month all about her.

With one final look through the glass entryway at the seven troublesome men who’d strategically commandeered her whole life for the past five years, she muttered to herself once more, “Dios mío, dame fuerzas…”

#monsta x smut #shownu smut #wonho smut #minhyuk smut #kihyun smut #hyungwon smut #jooheon smut #changkyun smut #wwwdo #reverse harem #miniseries #original character #ot7 #coworkers to lovers

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multiisketch · 2 months ago

Text

Multi's Ramblings: Sonic 3 and Robot Lackeys

Every version of Eggman likes to have his own lackeys. SATAM had Snively for a time. Sonic Underground had Sleet and Dingo. TAoStH gave us Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts. Sonic X gave us Decoe, Bocoe, and Bokkun. Sonic Unleashed and Colors gave us Orbot and Cubot (my personal favorites). Last but not least, the Sonic Movies gave us Agent Stone.

The stand-outs from this list are, of course, Orbot and Cubot. Since their formal establishment in Colors they've basically been beside every version of Eggman since. They even got to appear in Sonic Prime! Which is great! I love these funky robots. They'd fit right in at Aperture Science when you think about it. That's how funky and personable they are. They're dynamic with Eggman is especially great. Devious and apathetic to a fault unless a fire is lit under them. Truly a corporate boss/employee relationship.

Side note: Scratch and Grounder used to have this gag in TAoStH where Scratch say something like, "I dunno, Dr. Robotnik he's being pretty disingenuous." And then Grounder would go, "Yeah! And he's not telling you the truth, either!" Orbot and Cubot do this, too! And I don't think it's far-off to say Orbot's design was inspired by Decoe and Bocoe. Perhaps even Orbot's sassy attitude was taken from Snively?

Anyhoo, my point is these guys are great. They have all the best bits of previous lackeys in orb and cube form. Which is also why I think I've really missed having them in the movie franchise...

Now, Stone is great, too, don't get me wrong. His dedication to Dr. Robotnik reminds me a lot of Dr. Starline from the IDW comics. His attitude and style there-in as well. He obviously actually likes Robotnik unlike other lackeys and I don't see him pulling a betrayal anytime soon--no matter how poorly Robotnik treats him. He's in too deep. If anything, he might grow jaded with time. Perhaps become a bit more sassy in his responses, lazy, and--

Hey, wait a minute.

That... That kind of sounds like Orbot...

NOW HEAR ME OUT--

Robotnik loves robots. He loves them more than people. He's said so--directly to Stone--in the first movie. And, you know, with Sonic 3 raising the stakes and everything; Robotnik reconnecting with Gerald, his FAMILY, maybe he might begin to see the value in a certain lackey he's been mistreating so much.

Maybe a certain lackey might sacrifice himself for the good old Doc-Nik.

MAYBE a certain Eggheaded mad-scientist realizes, oh in the very last seconds--reaching out desperately for some vaguely pebble-shaped piece to hold onto--that he can't live without said lackey. But now that lackey is gone. For good.

So... what is this Eggheaded mad-scientist to do?

Well... what he does best.

He builds a robot.

He won't call it "Stone", no. He won't admit that he cared. It's just a robot, after all.

But he'll give it his voice and his mannerism. He'll make sure it knows how to brew coffee and take belittlement with a not-at-all chipper, but satisfied, "Yessir." Maybe he'll even build it a buddy so it won't follow him around like a lost puppy all the time. Someone to be a better friend to him than Robotnik could ever be. And this other robot has to be stupid because that way he can know what it's like to have his own puppy.

And, oh yes, he'll blame Sonic for everything. It's Sonic's fault, somehow, that all this happened. He wouldn't have gotten attached to him if it wasn't for Sonic. GUN wouldn't have been poking their noses where it didn't belong if it wasn't for Sonic. He wouldn't have... well, Sonic will pay soon enough.

Forget blood family, forget men, forget hedgehogs. More robots... that's what he needs.

They're better than people after all.

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic #sth #ramblings #sonic movie 3 #sonic 3 #dr eggman #eggman #dr. robotnik #agent stone #ivo robotnik #orbot and cubot #sonic orbot #sonic cubot #God I hope we get the plot of Sonic Heroes next #Not to think too far ahead but like #Metal Sonic #My boi

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thswrtchdthng · 7 months ago

Note

your first mistake was giving me the green light on rambling about ultrakill

THE LORE OF ULTRAKILL HEAVILY SUMMARIZED:

mankind is dead. blood is fuel. hell is full.

THE LORE OF ULTRAKILL ONLY SLIGHTLY LESS SUMMARIZED (still very summarized and i might get some things wrong):

during ww1, various countries involved began developing machines that ran on blood. each new machine created was meant to be stronger than the last one. in the end, this led to the creation of the earthmover by japan, which was an absolutely giant machine. so large that people started living on top of them. before the war ended, only one machine was created, though it never got a chance to fulfill its purpose of defeating the earthmover: this machine was called v1, and its unique ability was to heal upon contact with blood from any source. when the war was over, a different version of v1, named v2, was created for the purpose of keeping peace. these are v1 and v2.

now, eventually, humanity discovered an entrence to hell. don't question it. also hell is a living organism.

then, somehow, humanity died. all of it. everyone was dead. and all that remained were the machines they'd created.

in ultrakill, a first-person shooter video game, you play as v1, and your goal is simple: blood. you just want more blood. and you are in hell. so you start ultrakilling everybody. it's also based on dante's inferno, so that's fun.

in the post i made, i said alice is like v2 to me. this is mostly because v2 is an important character, but not a very powerful boss fight, and alice is a very lore-relevant character, but not very high up on the corporate ladder. but also because v2's purpose was to maintain peace and order, but she didn't get to fulfill that purpose. everyone died. v2 is, even though she never admits or acknowledges it, very possibly the only machine with the capacity to truly miss humanity. idk why, but that reminds me a lot of alice dyer. make of that what you will.

now. the other character i mentioned is THE FERRYMAN. THIS GIRL->

basically ferrymen are sinners from the layer of wrath deemed worthy of redemption by heaven. they're tasked with carrying passengers through the afterlife. another fun bit of ferryman lore is that they all tear their skin off from shame, but heaven grants them a holy cloth to cover their faces. pretty simple, yeah? but this one looks a bit bored. probably because she was promised she could go to heaven if she carried enough passengers, but...no more passengers are coming through. because humanity is dead.

the ferryman is considered a slightly more difficult boss fight, or maybe just one slightly later in the game than both v2 fights (you fight v2 twice), but you can actually literally just. pay her to leave. toss some coins at her and you can literally just skip the fight.

i can't articulate why she reminds me of lena but. she does.

so anyways all of this and i haven't even gotten to gabriel. there is so much lore. there's an excellent video explaining all of it that i can send a link to if i've caught ur interest with this.

oh also a lot of people ship v2 and the ferryman.

oh also neither of them canonically go by she/her pronouns but it's a very very common headcanon, and i'm pretty sure hakita (the developer) gave a shout out to the she/her v2 headcanon specifically at some point.

I LOVE ULTRAKILL I THINK ULTRAKILL IS REALLY COOL!!!!!

okokok. several thoughts.

this seems so fucking cool????????? to the point that I might play it when I can get it

thoughts on shipping v1 and v2? cause from what you've said they sound quite shippable to me

if hell is a living organism, is it like,,,,consenting?? to be entered????? does it have a personality?????? that might just be my conceptum tendencies but,,,,,is hell like a character in itself (sort of)?? (the question here is can I romance hell or not, and does hell enjoy being entered)

if it's based on Dante's Inferno I already know I'm going to like it

v2 sounds extremely huggable. can I hug her?

and you're right that 'being the only one with the ability to miss humanity' gives Alice vibes for some reason

ferrymen sound so sad to me. can I hug them? and give them a little skincare?

the ferryman concretely is hot. is that alright to say? she sounds very interesting to talk to (do ferrymen talk? does anyone here talk?)

well everyone you've mentioned so far is hot to me tbh

who's gabriel? please please please send me that link I wanna know about them now. I've always had a complicated relationship with every archangel gabriel based thing/character (I have very passionate feelings towards biblical gabriel for some reason) so I'll probably love them

but yeah ultrakill sounds pretty cool! I'll probably look more into it in the future

#ask #💭👁️‍🗨️#ultrakill

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dumbass-tumbler-cryptid · 3 months ago

Note

Are you planning on writing more for the Military Brat series? I love it

Oh thank you 💞

I do plan on writing more I just don’t know when. I’ve got my fics in a rotation for when I write them and currently Military Brat isn’t in the rotation but now that I’m thinking about it I’ll write some one shot ideas I have for this A.U after the next chapter of Visited on the Son.

I was asked to write a sequel to bring your kid to work day where Spider is actually a little terror making work really hard for his father. My idea is that Spider (who’s only 2 in this one shot) couldn’t sleep the night before because he was missing his mom and crying all night also keeping Quaritch up. So they’re both just exhausted and sad with Spider acting out as a result and Quaritch doing his best.

The other one shot I have that I already started a while back centers around the team Deja blue, specifically Lyle, taking care of Spider while Quaritch is gone. My idea for that one is Lyle taking Spider to the park and losing him there. He then has to enlist the help of his whole squad to help him ( spoiler alert: they find him with the Sully kids who are at the park with their grandma Mo’at)

I never finished this one because I kept getting writers block on it. I might have the plot figured out but that doesn’t always mean getting from point A to point B is easy. So I put it aside to work on other things that weren’t giving me writers block but I would really like to finish it.

Just for fun though here’s everything I have written for the one shot. This isn’t the final version but it’s what I have so far so enjoy!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Lyle, I need y’a to watch Junior while I’m in a meetin’,” said the Colonel. The child in question’ big brown eyes stared back at him through the bars of his playpen.

“Boss…” the Colonel gave him that look but Lyle pressed on, “this is why little Miles needs to be in nursery school. I’m not a nanny!”

“Welp, today y’a are.” He rose from his chair, scooped up his son who giggled as he was plopped into Lyle’s unexpecting arms, “I need to be at the Pentagon at noon. Should be back by two. Junior should be ready for a nap around one. Just give him some lunch, keep him entertained, then put him to bed.”

Little hands patted Lyle’s face. He tried to avoid them as he said, “Sir, I’ve got my own work to do. How am I supposed to watch a kid all day?”

The father rolled his eyes, “I do it every day Lyle. You’ll be fine. Junior’s an easy kid.”

The Colonel started walking towards the door, leaving the corporal flabbergasted. “You're leaving now!”

“Yeah Lyle. It’s lunch time. Traffic’ll be a mess. I got to go.” He ruffled his son’s hair, eyes lighting with love when the little boy giggled, “I’ll be back. Be good for uncle Lyle, baby boy. I love you.” With that he left.

Lyle stood in the middle of the room in a state of shock, the toddler in his arms squirming for release. He had watched over his nephew plenty of times, but that had been at his bosses house, not on base while he was actively working! I can’t do this.

With little Miles balanced on his hip, Lyle walked out of the office in search of any of his squad to help him. The first member he found was Z-dog and he immediately rushed towards the woman, calling “Z. Z. Z. Zeeeeee.” She turned to him annoyed. Lyle held out little Miles, his tiny feet swinging in the air. “Take the baby.”

Her face twisted up in confusion, “Why do you have the baby.”

Lyle sighed, “the Colonel had a meeting so he dropped the kid on me but I don’t know what to do with him!”

“And I do!”

“Well yeah! You're a…”

“Don’t say it.” Z said in disgust.

“Come on Z. I know you have to be better at this than me.”

Z scoffed, “yeah because I have more than half a brain cell.” Lyle continued to plead, help me with his eyes. Z sighed, “how long is the colonel going to be gone.”

“Till two.”

“So three hours of babysitting.”

“More like two. Boss said to put the little guy down for a nap at one.”

Z looked absolutely exasperated with him, “Jesus Chris, you're freaking out over two hours!”

Lyle shrugged, “I got shit to do.”

Z groaned, “oh my god. Just go on your lunch break early, take the baby to the park, tire him out, feed him, then put him to bed. If you're lucky he’ll sleep till the boss comes back.”

Lyle grinned, “your so smart Z.”

She rolled her eyes, “yeah I know.”

Lyle attempted to set up little Miles’ stroller but failed spectacularly. The toddler giggled as he watched him struggle. Lyle sighed, “I give up.” He scooped up the little boy and started the twenty minute walk to the closest park. Little Miles quickly tired of being held squirming for release. Lyle groaned in frustration, setting the child down to hold his hand while he toddled at his uncle’s side.

After ten minutes Lyle started to become annoyed with the slow pace, surprising the content toddler by picking him up again. Little Miles yelped. He pushed against Lyle’s chest crying, “no, no,no! Down! Down!” Lyle’s panic spiked as he fought to contain the thrashing boy.

He felt the judging eyes of passerby, making his stomach twist. “Come on M.J.” Lyle pleaded, bouncing the boy. Little Miles continued screaming and crying. Lyle sighed, “fine you win.” He set him on his feet. Miles instantly quieted. He smiled as Lyle took his hand again, peacefully continuing on their way.

Finally they made it to the park. It was fairly unpopulated with only a handful of retirees sprinkled throughout the area, a few of them with their grandchildren in tow. Lyle spotted a play area built for younger kids and made a beeline towards it, plopping the little boy on to the cushiony rubber turfing. “Alright bud, what do you want to do?” M.J’s wide curious eyes roved over all the equipment from the swings, to slides, monkey bars, rocking horses, a marry go round, and a sand pit. The toddler silently pointed to the monkey bars. “I think you're too little for that one kid.” The little boy’s brow furrowed in a way that made him look just like his father when angry. He insistently pointed at the monkey bars. Lyle grinned trying and failing to not laugh. “Alright, come here. Let’s try this.” Lyle held little Miles up to the bars. The boy grabbed them one by one, Lyle walking him across, keeping a somewhat lax grip on the toddler so he could think he was actually pulling himself across the monkey bars.

M.J giggled when they reached the end, “again!”

#spider socorro #miles spider socorro #miles quaritch #colonel miles quaritch #lyle wainfleet #avatar fanfiction #my fanfic

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somethinglikelife · 2 years ago

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What not to do when running a company

Okay, I don't run a company, I don't think I ever will, only because I really don't want that kind of responsibility. But here are a few things I noticed with my last job that made me feel uncomfortable there. It wasn't my co-workers, honestly they were great. It was the owners.

First time I met the boss's boss, I'm going to call her Karen, she was was ripping into me and another new hire for 'wasting her money'. Mind you we both had only been there about three days, and were still learning the ropes. She also insisted putting the introvert right smack in the front of the store (yeah that so went over well, I fought panic attacks the rest of the first few weeks I was there).

The beauty of it was, neither of us at that point were actually trained on the register just yet, so how could we be wasting 'her money'.

The second thing that would be a no go, would be if you're putting an employee's name into the computer, please put it in correctly. My full name happens to be the feminized version of a male name, most people spell it without an H in it, but, mine has the H. I asked them the first time I had to clock in on the computer to change it, but the IT guy (apparently the only guy who could do it in the company) was on vacation. Though when he got back, I mentioned it to him, and again to my manager, and the issue still wasn't fixed. I know that it seems like such a small thing, but with my name incorrect, it does tend to mess things up a little when you know you're filling out taxes.

I worked this job about a month and a half, and if I was lucky I got 30 hours in a pay period, mind you that was every 2 weeks, and the pay wasn't enough to cover both rent and bills. Yet both owners would come in gloating about going overseas for vacations, and drove expensive cars. I had to walk an hour to get there, because if I caught the bus it was an hour and a half until I got there. And when it was only 4 hour shifts, I wasn't going to risk my health (I had to cross two busy highways) for 12 an hour and the feeling I was just there because they needed a body to man a computer. Granted, I did learn some skills for shipping, but the headaches the owners gave, wasn't worth it.

So, yeah, if I actually (I'm not holding my breathe) ever own a company, I have found better business models that I would borrow from to run it.

First thing, I would make sure that everyone has the name that they use in the computer, and that means spelled correctly. Another would be the pay, I would make sure that my staff is able to make a decent wage (meaning I would give them the hours that they need to make it worth their time and not tell them one thing and barely pay them anyway) . In fact I would make sure that we're all paid equally, even though I'm the boss, I would make sure to not be one of those owners that are making three hundred times more than their staff. Yes, I'm looking at you multi-billion dollar corporations, and the whole 1%.

I may be a jaded American, but I've been around my whole life and seriously, I've noticed that if to make ends meet you have to work two to three jobs and have a few side hustles, you're no longer living, you're just a corporate slave. I'm pretty sure that slavery for the most part was outlawed in America, so I'm leaving you with this question. Why are we, as a collective, Americans willing to allow this to go on?

#Observations of a GenXer #Business #rant

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spxlledinks · 3 years ago

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𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐎𝐍: who’s going to stop me? - aka. the day silje got revenge and liberated herself all before lunch

𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: alta, norway; march 2017

❛ Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who while he was chill was harmless; but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison. ❜

THE GUN WAS STILL WARM IN HER HAND when Silje strode into the office, head held high. If all went to plan, she would be halfway to America by sunrise.

She had been meticulous, evading the watchful eye of the surveillance cameras and timing the gunshot to the moment the quarry unloaded its latest shipment of heavy machinery. It would be impressive were it not precisely what she was trained to do.

❛ I’m leaving. ❜

❛ Good to see you too, Silje. ❜ Her handler was a tall man with long black hair, the roots of which were speckled grey. His arms were covered in tattoos, and there was one on his neck that peaked out above his collar. Mihael was scrupulous that way, always taking care to conceal the designs before engaging in fieldwork: ‘The second they identify you, you’re dead.’ He sat across from her, behind a desk piled high with assignment reports. She could tell from the black case in the corner that he was freshly returned from a hit. Looks like he took the SSX303. A stealth mission, then.

Brown eyes dropped to the weapon at her side, something akin to a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. ❛ I should tell the boss you’re back from Kildare– ❜

❛ Don’t bother, ❜ she interrupted, tossing a silver signet ring onto the desk. A valknut encircled with vines, the very ring that had once sat atop her father’s finger. ❛ He knows. ❜

The man clucked his approval, ❛ The fallen snøhoggorm reclaims her father’s throne. ❜

❛ By your rules, that makes me the boss. ❜ Or that was how it worked when you assassinated my family. ❛ But I don’t want it. ❜

The revelation must have surprised Mihael, and he remained silent as if waiting for her to continue. It had been over a decade since any attempts were made to claim control of Norway’s underground monopoly. The last time resulted in the death of Karl Erykssen at the hands of Ivar Kolstad’s firing squad.

❛ You were next in line with Kolstad, and I’ll honor that, on one condition. ❜ He tipped forward ever so slightly, the aloof facade cracking just enough. She had his attention. ❛ I want out. No one follows me, no price on my head — I don’t care who asks, for all you know, I died in a car fire. ❜

The decision came without a second thought; New York would become the home she never had. Her brother was there, along with an apartment that had her name on the lease —her real one, not a cover identity— and she refused to risk any chance of damaging their fragile burgeoning relationship. Maintaining ties with the gang, even as freelance work, was dangerous. One slip of a gun and any semblance of normalcy would be lost, forcing her to start over from scratch without her brother. Her father had mixed business with pleasure once, settled himself between two worlds, and was foolish enough to let them overlap. She would not make the same mistake.

Silje needed a clean break, and this was the only way she saw to get it.

She left an encoded version of a burner phone number with those she trusted, namely her latest partner, a girl no more than fifteen named Tajra who had risked her life for the blonde, and Salvador. Sal was her lifeline on hits, more so than her handler, providing her with any and everything she asked of him. When she arrived on assignment battered from another corporal punishment, it was Sal who would mend her wounds and provide her with enough Tylenol to take the edge off.

❛ I mean it, I’m done. ❜

❛ Simple as that? ❜ he asked, leaning back in his chair while he regarded her. How many times had he fixed her with that look during training? A silent observer with the power to request a more rigorous drill with the mere snap of a finger. The question wasn’t bred from curiosity, it was a test.

One she’d spent all her life studying for. ❛ Who’s going to stop me? ❜

❛ And if I say no? ❜

She didn’t hesitate to slide the hammer back, tilting her head as the chamber clicked into place, ❛ You won’t be the first man I’ve killed. ❜

He nodded, a look of pride seeping into his eyes. ❛ Fair enough, ❜ as he spoke, the man rose from his desk, moving around it to tower over her. She, in turn, uncocked her pistol. ❛ Is that all, lille slange? ❜ The name was a relic from her second year in Alta when she first met Mihael. She was deemed more difficult than the other children, specifically for the way she would strike out at anyone who came too close with a miniature bowie knife — a gift from her parents. He likened the approach to a snake and, when she failed to grow past his shoulders, the nickname stuck. ❛ Any more demands? ❜

He had trained her too well for her to reveal her loyalties so, naturally, she refrained from mentioning her associates. They would be fine on their own, better even, if they remained unattached to the usurper who axed their boss. Instead, her lips quirked into a smirk. ❛ I want access to my cut. All of it. And don’t bullshit me, I know someone around here has been keeping track. ❜ Given the resources afforded for even their most basic assignments, she knew they were good for it. And after ten years of assignments, the payout would be plenty to help establish her new life.

❛ Done. The wire transfer should be in your account within the hour, and I’ll have the accountant erase your information from the system. ❜ He reached out a hand, resting it on her head as he had when she was a child. ❛ Don’t spend it all in one place. ❜

❛ You know I will. ❜

The relationship between handler and protégé was a delicate balancing act. If love was measured in pain, Mihael loved her more than anyone else ever had. He watched her fall and taught her the skills she needed to get back up fiercer than before. A father who wasn’t unlike the one she’d lost, albeit there were no attempts to coddle her as there were with Karl. No, he raised her to be someone he could respect on credentials alone, a woman capable of taking down one seasoned crime boss and crowning a new one all in an afternoon. For that, she was grateful.

❛ Be safe, Silje. ❜

❛ Am I ever not? ❜

❛ Notoriously. ❜

❛ Guess you’ll just have to trust me, then. ❜

His laughter filled the room, ❛ Afraid we’re in the wrong business for that. ❜ Mihel ruffled her hair before she could duck out of reach, watching as she started towards the door. ❛ Don’t forget that, yeah? ❜

Silje didn’t bother hiding her smile, nor did she stop herself from quipping, ❛ Be paranoid and trust no one ever. Got it, ❜ just as the door fell shut.

norsk translations: snøhoggorm - snow viper (hoggorm = viper, snø = snow); lille slange - little snake (lille = little, slange = snake)

#iii. penned up 𝒃 𝒆 𝒕 𝒘 𝒆 𝒆 𝒏 the sea and✧ ˢᵃᵈⁿᵉˢˢ – musings #child abuse mention tw #death mention tw #violence mention tw #queue.#//tune in tomorrow to find out what new and exciting way i discover to procrastinate studying for my finals :))#and yes joe manganiello is her handler

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lem-cup-rev · 2 years ago

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Going Under (2020)

⭐️⭐️⭐️

God damn the gamefeel and difficulty were terrible! I loved everything else.

And of course, when I say that, I only mean my subjective experience, because clearly the devs must have been able to play through and enjoy their own creation and others will too.

It’s a top-down action game in enclosed spaces with goofy, bouncy 3D graphics, and for me it achieved a nightmarish level of stiff, mushy, confusing clunkiness. I could definitely have fun and enjoy the madcap chases and satisfying weapons when it was easy, but at a certain difficulty I felt like I hit an absolute ceiling where I had no real control and no way to do better whatsoever. Wanting to see the rest of the game, I juiced the accessibility options up to max and shoved my way through, but even that didn’t make the final final final boss fight easy, so I gave up.

I also would have LOVED if the gameplay actually focused on scrambling around the office throwing any and all of the fully interactable objects at your enemies, but this is made entirely useless compared to the stronger weapons provided.

The gameplay problems had to work hard to overcome my affection for the aesthetic, humor, story, characters, themes, and cute gameplay ideas.

It’s an extremely charming, quirky, acidic, cartoonish modern-fantasy parody of startup culture, and I was so into it even without any connection to the subject. The entire game is portrayed in a version of the “corporate art style”, the mild, pleasant, stiff and noodly colorful figures that populate advertising material and web services. All of the gameplay mechanics are ciphered through corporatespeak – power-ups are skills on your resume, doing quests for characters is gaining mentorship, your score for a dungeon run is a performance review.

The game’s structure and narrative cuts deep and lampoons the over-intimate small team corporate nightmare world in extremely clever and cohesive ways. The dungeons you fight through – they’re previous failed startups that yours is literally built on top of, their workers cursed to become monsters in endless shitty jobs! And there are so many more layers from there. After what I fully believed was the final boss fight, a second half of the game opened up revealing not only the hard modes of the dungeons, but an exquisitely weird thematic change undergone by every single character.

The characters have really distinct, striking designs and distinct, funny personalities, each representing a different facet of the startup ecosystem, and all of them are a joy to talk to every time you get the chance. I especially like the two women, a stocky pessimistic programmer and a pretty people-pleasing marketer who are initially at each other’s throats.

Every little element is laden with weird, ghoulish, creative humor, from the gig worker goblins crashing rideshare cars around the levels to the amazon drones delivering purchased items in ‘2-5 business encounters’ to the cans of your own soda product in bizarre flavors used as explosive area weapons, etc etc etc. There are so many over-the-top gameplay ideas meant to add irreverent, thrilling chaos to the adventure.

Honestly, probably the majority of the fun I had was from exploring all the creative, funny stuff they fit in every aspect of the experience, more than from the gameplay itself. It sucked so hard to end up wanting to quit playing this game because it wasn't fun! Se la vie.

#review #no spoilers #3⭐️#going under game #videogame

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norathecobbler · 3 years ago

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Now that I have completed the main story of the Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt DLC I have finished the main 4 story DLCs for Borderlands 2, and now I want to talk about my thoughts. In this essay I will...

Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate’s Booty: Pirate stories are fun to me and this isn’t an exception. The game goes pretty all in with the sand pirates. The sand skiff controls were a little clunky, but that’s kind of to be expected from the Borderlands series and it doesn’t detract from the enjoyment. You get pirates, buried treasure, and swash buckling.

The NPCs added in this DLC are fun ones. I was unsure how I would feel about Shade at first. Knowing these games, I half-expected him to snap and try to backstab me. But he turned out to be deeper than expected and I could really feel his pain when I found the secret spring under Oasis. Now, while captain Scarlett wasn’t an entirely larger than life figure, she was a fun character to act as a quest giver and eventual foe (also, tall lady). I didn’t feel bad about needing to fight her, nor was I angered/in pain over her inevitable betrayal. This was a grand adventure and she was my worthy foe before acquiring the treasure. Now if Gearbox would bring her back. I also love the offscreen quest giver NPCs, the apathetic Aubrey and the fearsome Captain Blade.

For the enemies, the game goes hard on the pirate end for the humanoid enemies. Anchormen were probably my least favorite, but they became easier by considering them puzzles rather than actual enemies. The sand worms at their worst were speed bumps and at their best were ffyl fuel. No real opinion there. But the Leviathan is horrifying (affectionate) and I feel there should be a few more bosses that need their specific weak spots to be destroyed. Also, Roscoe the rakk hive is a good throwback to a boss from the original game.

One thing the DLC could have done better: we should have fought an even bigger bullymong named Grendel’s mother.

Favorite side quest: The Message in a Bottle quests. The loot wasn’t that good (though my Gaige loved the shotgun) but the story of Captain Blade always had me itching for more. And what pirate adventure wouldn’t have X marking treasure?

Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage: THIS DLC WAS F*CKING BADASS! It was short and sweet, like any good tournament arc. It gave us the return of old characters and a new mainstay side character. Deducting a point for the anti-romani line though.

Mister Torgue Flexington is the boisterous character that fits right in with the Borderlands universe. He just wants explosions and good television. While he isn’t that deep in this DLC, I always like hearing him talk to me. The return of Moxxi and Tiny Tina are also welcome here. Moxxi is our favorite deathmatch runner and it would have been a crime to not have the explosive loving teen interact with the president of the explosion corporation. Piston, our antagonist, was honestly the weakest point of the DLC. He was just an angry cheater who didn’t like admitting it. He’s not bad, just not the reason I play the DLC.

The Torgue Loader enemies were a welcome higher difficulty version of the Hyperion Loaders. Their crit spots are hard to get to, but they also aren’t that much of a problem if you have corrosive weapons or a good shotgun. Pyro Pete and Motor Mamma don’t have much presence outside of their boss fights, but still make for some enjoyable fights. I don’t think Zer0 or Gaige would make a good sandwich though. The badassasaurus though. It is a massive bullet sponge that fires big rockets. It makes lore sense for the cheater, but it being resistant to nearly everything and lacking in ffyl opportunities makes it kind of an unfun boss. Piston himself is much easier to fight.

Something the DLC could have done better: There should have been more interaction between the player and Piston. Maybe have a moment before the boss fight where we try to assassinate him, but he has an invincible shield we have to later disable before the final fight.

Favorite side quest: Honestly hunting the rakks for Hammerlock was fun because of the rare instance of talking to him and Scooter of all people. Totally makes sense that Scooter would be a conspiracy theorist.

Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt: This DLC was not fun. It was very colonialist and was just a slog to get through. I ended up just doing the main story for the achievement and I have no desire to go back until I’m max level and can steamroll everything.

NPCs. Nakayama was a funny NPC that I feel I couldn’t appreciate due to everything else about the DLC. I liked watching him fall down the stairs. Having his health bar drop with each bounce made it the right amount of over the top. Why is Claptrap here? I like the funky little robot, but he didn’t even pull a C3PO so he just seemed pointless.

Enemies. The enemies in this DLC were not fun, especially the witch doctors. They were nearly impossible for me to crit, they made every enemy heal and evolve, and some of them provided slowness debuffs that I really don’t like in games. Also, starting the DLC at level 36, technically on level, made the foes so hard. I was dying at least 3 times before I could get the swamp boat, and then left until I became level 39. The best enemy was Jackenstein, because of the sort of unique boss mechanic.

Things to change: Take out the racist theme of the enemies. Either make the DLC mostly about hunting beasties or make the human foes mutated Jack clones while Nakayama is trying to get the perfect one.

Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon’s Keep: As someone who plays TTRPG’s, the only thing that could make the vibes go even harder is if every PC was gay (though honestly with all the headcanons…). I think the game does really well at exploring Tina’s psychological state after the death of one of the closest figures in her life. And it holds a special place in my heart. I lost my dog of around 15 years a couple weeks before playing the DLC for the first time. Seeing Bloodwing swoop in to save Roland made me need to pause the game and cry for a few minutes. This game made me feel deeper than most do.

The out of game dialogue between the characters was great. We got the return of Torgue! Though Lilith being a boomer gamer wasn’t something I expected, but she went through more character development than a lot of Borderlands characters. The game managed to capture the vibe of Tina roleplaying as other characters very well. Though who let the child eat nothing but crumpets? No wonder she’s “Tiny” Tina. Though Gaige isn’t much taller than her.

In terms of enemies, a lot of them were honestly annoying. Armored skeletons were a pain. Skeletaurs should give you a second wind when downed. The spiders blurring my screen sucked. But the rest of the vibe kept it from bringing me down too far. Killing Angel again hurt, but seeing her as a demonic drider was cool. I got Jack’s mask from the Sorcerer and I had no idea that could happen.

Thing that could have been done better: Stop the spiders from blurring my vision please.

Favorite side quest: Loot Ninjas. It may not be the longest quest or gives the best loot, seeing that mimic eat Gallows was so much fun.

Rating Time:

1. Dragon’s Keep

2. Captain Scarlett

3. Torgue

4. Hammerlock.

#borderlands #borderlands 2 #my thoughts #ill put out the heaadhunters once ive run through wam bam island

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thevindicativevordan · 3 years ago

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You did one for Hulk (incredible btw). Got any thoughts on Spider-Man?

He used to be one of my favorites.

It's easy to see why Spidey took off as Marvel's premiere character, and competitor with Batman for the most popular superhero ever. If you'll indulge my DC bias, Spider-Man sits at the intersection between Superman and Batman. Like Superman, Spider-Man never knew his birth parents, and was instead adopted and raised by an elderly couple. Uncle Ben and Aunt May are the people Peter thinks of as his mom and dad, and it's their lives that help shape Peter. Both Superman and Spider-Man wear colorful red and blue costumes, both have iconic jobs working for newspapers with cantankerous bosses, and both have a lot of Jewish DNA in them because of their creators. Like Batman however, Spider-Man has a tragic parental figure's death to motivate him, he has a very poor reputation with the public, they both style themselves on animals, and both have strong roots in the cities they protect. That Peter's greatest foe, the Green Goblin, also stands at the intersection between Lex Luthor and the Joker makes for a great parallel. Add in that Spider-Man has the second best Rogues Gallery in comics, and it's clear Peter drew on the best attributes from his predecessors as a foundation.

What separates Peter from them though is that he was the first hero with real problems. Neither Superman or Batman had to worry about paying rent regularly like Peter did. Both stood apart from their peers by choice, while Peter wanted to make friends but wasn't able to do it. Krypton and the Waynes died through no fault of Supes or Bats, but Uncle Ben's death was something Peter was at fault for if indirectly. Then you had Gwen Stacy killed as a direct result of Peter's superhero career, introducing the idea of heroes who could fail. Spider-Man was pitched as the flawed hero, the human hero, the guy you could think of yourself as being if you got superpowers. You would screw up and make mistakes, but you'd try your best regardless. Of course the readers would be drawn to, and identify with him, and that's both the secret to his success and what keeps fucking him over. A lot of guys see Peter as their self-insert, so they keep trying to return to their youth through him which keeps derailing him as a character. My entry into Spider-Man fandom came during one of the brief lulls from Marvel trying to reset him to what they see as his "roots".

I remember seeing the Rami Spider-Man movies in the theater and being utterly entranced. I played the first Spider-Man movie tie-in game pretty religiously as a kid (fuck that level where you infiltrate OsCorp, those robots were insane), as well as other Spider-Man games such as Web of Shadows. Can still hear the theme song of the 90s animated Spider-Man show in my head, that show's versions of Green Goblin and Venom are still my favorite takes. All this is a rambling way of saying that "my" Spider-Man was formed during a period where Marvel seemed ok with Peter being more adult, something they've been trying to roll back ever since.

Peter was a college student in the 90s cartoon, the comics had him and MJ married (my first Spidey comic was vol. 1 of JMS' Amazing Spider-Man run, so Peter and MJ being married is the "default" for me), the video games were set in the Ramiverse so he was a college student there as well. It's such a weird era to look back on in retrospect given what's to come and what came before. Peter had problems and was flawed, but he was also so much more mature and thoughtful, intelligent in a way beyond just being a science whiz. He and MJ had a great dynamic as a couple under JMS. They were so clearly in love and also utterly unwilling to take each others shit that it was just a joy to read. That relationship really was something I dearly loved, and of course I took it poorly when Marvel broke the two of them up. Making it a plot where not!Satan comes down and takes their marriage away only rubbed salt in the wound.

Suddenly Peter was a lot more immature and stupid, and Marvel was insisting that this was "how he should be". Marvel was claiming that Spider-Man was all about youth, thus he needed to remain young and marriage free in order to work, which flew in the face of the character as I understood him. To me, Spidey was a character about the opposite, he was about growing up.

More than any other character in the MU, Peter was the guy who embodied character development. In his early years under Lee and Dikto, Peter was an asshole with a chip on his shoulder. Far from being the martyr figure everyone sees him as today, Peter initially just kept trying to make money with his powers. He was constantly moaning and bewailing his lot, because he was a fucking teenager! EVERY teenager treats ANY setback like it's the end of the world. Yet over a period of years, both in universe and out, Peter grew into the great hero everybody sees him as today. He became kinder, more charitable, and made friends with his peers. He acquired a steady stream of super hot girlfriends, ultimately marrying MJ. Peter married MJ before Clark Kent married Lois Lane, that's a huge freaking accomplishment! Totally makes sense that Peter would get married first because while Superman was more or less frozen in place like all DC heroes, Spider-Man was the one who embodied the Marvel trait of growth and change. The world kept throwing shit at him and Peter dealt with it as best he could, and that gave me hope because if he could overcome the forces arrayed against him to find some degree of happiness, so could I.

One More Day completely obliterated all of that. I didn't recognize this character anymore, I didn't care about the shallow relationships they teased him entering, relationships we all knew didn't matter. If Peter couldn't stay married to MJ, he wasn't going to last in a relationship with Carlie Cooper or any of the girls Slott set him up with. Peter being immature worked great when he was actually in high school and college, but Marvel wanted to write him as a high schooler without actually deaging him. The contrast between how he was characterized before and after OMD was just too jarring for me.

Ultimately I left for a while. I read Superior and Spider-Verse, but I was no longer religiously following Amazing Spider-Man any more. Checked out Ultimate Spider-Man which I had never read, and I enjoyed it, but I also held a grudge against it's success. Clearly this was the series that enshrined high school Spider-Man as the "ideal" status quo for a lot of people, and I couldn't help but blame the series for Quesada's successful torching of a more mature Peter Parker. I also read Spider-Girl which took place in an alternate continuity where Peter was still married and he had a daughter with MJ named Mayday. I loved that series a lot, and Mayday became my favorite Marvel superheroine. Eventually I came back to ASM with Spencer because a few of my fellows told me he reminded them of JMS, and I've enjoyed his characterization of Peter. Doubt the marriage will be coming back any time soon but it's nice to read a more adult Peter after how he was characterized under Slott.

Hard to say what the future holds for Peter. Tough to say for certain but with the end of high school Peter in the MCU approaching, it feels like we're on the edge of another shift in status quo for Spider-Man. May be that the creation of Miles is allowing Peter to finally start to mature again since Miles can be the corporate wet dream of an eternally young "diverse" Spidey. The insistence on putting Miles into more and more of Peter's stuff, with Peter mentoring him, makes me hope that Marvel is becoming more ok with Peter growing up. The Insomniac Spider-Man is a college graduate, he feels the closest in tone and character to the Spider-Man I grew up with under JMS and Rami. They even got to kill Aunt May off, something Marvel is still terrified to do in the comics, and the relationship between Peter and MJ is portrayed as crucial to both (as it should), even if MJ is a little too Lois Lane lite for my liking.

Hopefully Spider-Man can shake off Quesada's lingering influence and start being what he was created to be: the guy who moves forward rather than running in place.

#spider man #peter parker #marvel

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amazonswin · 3 years ago

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Saudade: Chapter 2

Pairing: Duncan/Courtney (Total drama)

Word count: 1k

A/n: Hey guys! Sorry this took me so long, but I do plan on continuing this fic! My inbox is always open for any questions or comments!

___

The coffee shop was nearly silent, aside from the low buzz of the machines. The evening crowd consisted mainly of students dying for any burst of energy caffeine could provide. Duncan wasn’t the biggest fan of coffee. He’d have a cup here and there when he had an early shift or a bad hangover, but it definitely wasn’t a daily thing. But a coffee shop was the only neutral ground he could think of, a no pressure place to talk. At least, that's what he said to finally convince Courtney to meet him.

She sat across from him staring into her cup, occasionally using a spoon to give it a quick stir. Neither were sure of how to break the tension. There was so much to be said, but no real way to say it. Duncan had waited for this moment for years. He’d planned out an apology and spent countless hours thinking of things he wished he could tell her. Though, at this moment, it all felt wrong. Duncan had gotten into plenty of trouble before, only this time a halfhearted ‘I’m sorry’ wouldn’t fix it.

“We should probably talk, otherwise I have other things to attend to..” Courtney was the one to break the silence.

“Probably..” He agreed. God, why was this more awkward than sleeping in an overcrowded cell.

“How long have you been out of jail?” Her tone sounded more lawyer than old friend. Duncan couldn’t help but laugh. He remembered many things about Courtney; the way the sunlight hit her hair, the way she scrunched up her nose when focused, how easy it was to make her laugh. But her abruptness was something he was more than happy to forget.

“It’s been years. Don’t get me wrong, I had some issues here and there but I don’t plan on going back to jail. I’m a changed man.”

“Somehow I find that hard to believe,'' Courtney teased. She really wanted to believe him, but where would she be without her doubts? Getting hurt again wasn’t something she was just going to let happen. A lot had changed since she was a 16 year old kid. “So if you're no longer a delinquent, what have you been up to?”

There was so much he wanted to tell her that he had no idea where to begin. Surely he’d stay clear of criminal offenses and failed relationships. Duncan had never been one to hide his past mistakes, but bringing those up now would definitely scare her away. He decided just to stick to the major events, short and simple.

“Well after the total drama hell and my jail sentence, I got my GED. Despite my plan to never go back to the slammer, for the first few years I got in trouble with the law.” Duncan shrugged, “What’s a man to do? That's all I knew.”

Courtney raised an eyebrow, she struggled to see the humor in a criminal record.

Duncan smirked, continuing on. How he never really thought about being an artist, the whole idea sounding lame. Then after several tattoo sessions where duncan sketched the ideas himself, the owner insisted on taking him on as an apprentice. He had even offered to pay for all the certifications. It's a great gig that he really enjoys. Plus the discounted tattoos serve some appeal. On the side he worked on fixing motorcycles. A skill he picked up in childhood, but really polished off while on parole. It came in handy when his own bike occasionally gave out on him.

“It's nothing grand, but hey I'm not complaining.”

“No, Duncan, That's great. I always knew that you could do something great, if you’d actually put your mind to it.”

“And what about you princess? You a corporate lawyer?” He joked.

“Well…yes.”

Duncan posed the question as a joke, desperately wanting some glance of her life. Though, she was rather hesitant to let him.

“After total drama made me look totally crazy, which I was completely justified for after all, I knew I was going to need to clean up my reputation. Luckily, many people liked my ambition so I was able to get recruited to this amazing academic program. I guess from there I just kept climbing. I had to.” Courtney glanced away as she continued. How she then went on to a top university, and then a top law program. She persistently assisted, and somewhat annoyed, a professor until he finally offered her an internship at his firm. After constant overstepping and taking control of her bosses' cases, they knew they had to hire her. She’d be too big of a competitor otherwise. It was clear from the beginning that she was on a fast track to making partner.

“And you have a kid?”

“Yes, I do.” Courtney coughed to clear her throat, “I’m assuming you have more tattoos then?” She looked at his tattoo covered arm, trying to shift the conversation.

“To see the rest you’d at least have to buy me a drink first” Duncan winked, “So a kid? When did that happen?”

“A while ago..”

“What are they like? A mini version of you?”

“No, not at all” She smiles, “I have a daughter, Maelie. She’s so smart, but finds it mean to be a show off about it. And she’s funny, she’ll make you laugh at anything and everything.”

He had rarely seen this side of Courtney before. She had gone on many rants, but her eyes only sparkled like this when she was truly passionate about something. There was no doubt that Maelie was the most important thing in her life. Duncan loved this side of her.

The sudden cell phone ping snapped him from his daze. Barely skimming over the message, Courtney knew she had to leave. It took barely a second for her to collect her things.

“I’m sorry, I have to go. The babysitter has to go, and I have work in the morning anyway…”

“No, it’s okay. I’ve waited 8 years to talk princess, I can wait more.” He winked, though he desperately wanted her to stay. “Hey, how old is your kid anyway?”

Courtney stayed silent before slowly exhaling.

“She’s seven.”

It took Duncan only a few seconds to realize, but by then she was gone. He quickly ran outside to try and catch her, with no luck. Courtney was gone, and he had a daughter.

#total drama #td #td courtney #td duncan #td duncney #duncney #total drama island #td fanfic #fic #total drama world tour #total drama fanfic #duncney fic

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pallasperilous · 4 years ago

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Occursus

Castiel/Dean Winchester Gen/Teen, 4341 words 15x20 coda AO3 version “The natural environment of the human soul is a human body,” Cas says. “Humans have yet to meet a foreign substrate that they don’t immediately attempt to colonize. My form in Hell was not an exception.”

Then he shuts his mouth very deliberately and gestures back to Dean like his mic is going live in three, two. “Or the bit where my soul gave you some kind of STD?” Dean finishes. “It was a poor analogy. I apologize.” “So what’s a better one?” Castiel drums his fingers for a second. “It’s more like…the way a parasitic jewel wasp injects a cockroach with venom, and transforms it into a willing host for wasp larvae.” “Holy shit are you ever bad at this,” Dean says, with that signature brand of fond horror he special-orders just for Castiel, Angel of the Gourd.

It’s half past midnight by the time Dean gets another run at Cas.

Granted, what the fuck does half past midnight even mean here, where time is as free as tap water? Why does anybody even bother? For all it matters, Dean could set his watch to eleventy minutes past twenty o’ nope and still never miss last call.

Then again, somebody felt it necessary to invent the idea of Tuesday in the first place, and Dean’s not gonna volunteer himself for the task of replacing it with something better. What’s important is that he’s survived (or rather, he hasn’t survived) a battery of poignant moments and tearful reunions. He and Sam hugged out burdens registering in the triple digits. They even had a little fight, pretty much for the fun of it, while Ellen fucking Harvelle watched them over the bar with her eyes shining. She still charged them, though.

Right at the beginning of the party Dean and Castiel had their eyes-across-the-room thing, followed by the same magnetic, exhausted embrace they’ve shared on just about every plane of reality now. Dean supposes he could ask Cas for a nickel tour of the Empty just so they could hit for the cycle, but he’d really rather not. Sam let them eke out a few gruff, tear-choked monosyllables before diving in, sweeping Cas up in a bear hug and laughing like a fucking kid. Dean doesn’t push it, because it’s been longer for Sam, after all. Or something.

And now it’s quiet, just the jukebox and the clink of glasses back in the kitchen, a few folks murmuring in booths. It might be dark outside, it might not; it’s waiting on Dean’s opinion before it commits to anything. And so is Cas, who is standing in the warm glow of the jukebox, hands in his pockets.

Dean walks up, leans against it, bottle still dangling from one hand.

“C’mon, sunshine. I’ll show you yours, you show me mine.”

Cas looks up and into Dean’s eyes with the wary, elegant patience of a deer. “What is it that you would be showing me, Dean?”

Dean gives him a long, languid blink and bites his lip, and Castiel lags for half a second before rolling his own eyes. “I see death hasn’t refined your sense of humor.”

“Nope. Guess the billionth time aint the charm.”

Cas remains stonefaced, which means a corresponding you dumbass blush starts crawling up the sides of Dean’s neck. The jukebox switches records like it’s making a suggestion.

“I’m gonna sit down outside,” Dean says. “C’mon and sit down with me. There’s a patio somewhere, right? Ellen was always talking about adding one out back. No way she hasn’t bossed somebody into buildin’ it.”

“There’s a patio,” Cas says, taking his hands out of his pockets.

Heaven’s patio is pretty nice; twenty square feet, some scattered picnic tables, fences covered in ivy and string lights. It still smells like fresh pine boards. There’s even a fire pit, which seems kinda bougie for the Roadhouse, but hell with it, it’s warm and pretty, and since when did pretentious people get to lay claim to “a hole with a fire in it”? There’s no moon overhead, and so the Milky Way is giving them the full monty — the runnelled spine of it, the ribcage packed with galaxies.

“Are they all alive?” Dean asks. The warmth from inside leaks out of his collar, wisps away.

“Who?”

Dean points up. “The stars. They always make a big deal about how most of the stars you can see from Earth have been dead for millions of years by the time we get the light from ‘em. That still true here? Or is everything on auto-renewal?”

“That’s a very complicated question,” Cas says, not looking up, only at Dean. He does that a lot, Dean knows, but it turns out to mean something different than what Dean had always assumed, which was ironically pretty similar to what it actually meant, but was reassuringly unactionable and therefore unfuckupable.

“I’m a very complicated guy,” Dean says.

Castiel smiles at that. “I don’t actually know the answer,” he admits. “And it would take an extremely long time to investigate. There are some other things I’d rather do first.”

“What, you can’t just call the kid for directory assistance?”

Castiel lets a good-humored sigh. “Like many young people these days, Jack prefers to avoid the phone.”

This is a solid riff, and Dean respects it. He picks the table closest to the fire and takes a bench and Cas sits next to him, instead of opposite. Dean thought he managed to break him of this habit a few years ago, but here all things are made whole again.

“So what,” Cas says, without a single molecule of playfulness or seduction, “is it that you want us to show each other?”

“Yeah, I was…it was a dumb joke. But I mean it, just not in a ‘playing doctor’ way.”

Castiel frowns, tightens his lips; the firelight throws a fluttering shadow across his face.

“I mean…Christ.” Dean takes a medicinal slug of his dwindling beer. “I don’t really look like this anymore either, right?” And he gestures at his usual shitshow personal presentation, which death has also noticeably failed to refine.

Castiel frowns, smoothes his hand across the surface of the table. “This is a corporeal world, Dean. It operates on a different set of rules, but your body here is no more of an illusion than it was on earth.”

“Seriously?” Dean ponders a second, squints through the dim light at his fingernails, at the high-resolution grime contained therein. “Jesus, that sounds like a lot of work. At least compared to Holodeck Heaven.”

“It is. But we didn’t build this place to be a...a…doorprize. It’s a real world,” Castiel enthuses, looming forward. “It’s the one that should have been created for all of you in the first place.” He pauses, glances down. “For all of us.”

Dean shrugs. “Okay, so no holograms. I’ll keep all that in mind next time Charlie tries to convince me to go skydiving.”

Castiel snorts, but not in pure aggravation, so Dean feels like he’s finally got a point on the board. “What I’m sayin’ is…physical or not, this place has different rules, right? So could I look at you without my eyeballs exploding? The…you know, the angel parts of you. Not just your vessel,” and Dean fwippies his hand at Cas to indicate that true beauty is contained within and Dean is completely indifferent to the fact this dork-ass alien managed to bodysnatch a guy who’s never dipped below an 8.5.

“It isn’t a vessel anymore. We can create our own bodies, now.”

“Peachy,” Dean clips, because that shit is a little late coming off the line.

Castiel sighs. “You could see me in that form without coming to harm. But you should know that I don’t consider it any more a reflection who I am than this form. Not anymore.”

Dean rolls the bottle towards him, nudges a knuckle. “You’re a real boy now, huh?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Castiel says, and smiles a smile so small that Dean would need a microscope to figure out if it’s pleased or pained.

So Dean thwacks the bottle down on the totally-real table and claps his totally-real hands. “Well then let’s go. Hit me with that angel weirdness. If we’re gonna do this, I gotta taste all thirty-one flavors.”

Castiel smiles a little more convincingly, but it still doesn’t reach his eyes. “There are really only the two,” he says, and holds his palms out to the warmth of the fire.

“Great, then we’ll be done in time to catch Letterman. Then if you’re good maybe you can help me shimmy out of this thing.”

Cas cocks his head. “Out of which thing?”

“This super real heavenly meat-suit, dude. It’s not fair if only one of us gets naked. Peep show has to go both ways. I see your angel-face, you see my soul.”

Cas looks stricken, like Dean is asking to suck on his toes next to a playground. “I mean, unless that’d fuck you up,” Dean adds.

“No,” Castiel replies, a little absently. “It wouldn’t fuck me up. But it…wouldn’t really accomplish anything, either.”

“What, no soul kink? That’s bullshit and you know it. You love this crap.”

Castiel replies, “Your soul is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” with the easy confidence of a regular latte order. With the same uncanny, 2 Blessed 2 B Stressed face he had when Dean plowed Ruby’s knife hilt-deep into Jimmy Novak’s sternum, that he had when the Empty collapsed him like a carcass in an acid bath.

That face shuts Dean right the fuck up, because it sends him skipping backwards into that fucking basement, where his phone is buzzing and the gritty concrete chill of the floor is seeping through his jeans into the useless meat of his legs and leeching into the hot, wet channels of his piece of shit heart.

Turns out you can work up a good little panic attack in heaven, which seems like a significant oversight.

From a million miles away he feels Cas’s warm, dry palm slide over the back of his hand –– there’s a ring there now that Dean lost down a motel sink drain ages ago, is nobody spotting continuity errors here?—then Cas’s hand tightens on his and it feels like a Xanax kicking in. (The good kind, direct from the hot nurse with the little paper cup, not the kind you get in a from a shady burnout at a truckstop, that’s been ground up with baking soda or benadryl and carefully remolded, as if you could possibly give that much of a shit when you’re freaking out bad enough to buy Xanax at a truckstop.)

Point being, he calms the fuck down.

Cas has good hands. They can do a lot of impressive shit, and they look nice doing it. They don’t look like –– they’ve never looked like –– they belong to somebody whose main job is destroying people, places, or things. They’re hands that how to play the cello, or make tables from reclaimed wood, or give soapy, encompassing handjobs in the shower on cold evenings.

“It’s been years, though,” Dean rasps, not looking up yet. “I was a kid when you got me out of Hell, Cas. I’ve done a lot of shit since then. Maybe souls get stretch marks.”

Castiel’s hand tightens on his, clamps it down on the table. “I’ve always been able to see it.”

“Okay,” Dean mumbles, but Cas keeps on going –

“The only time I couldn’t see any part of your soul was when I was without grace, and I promise you that was one of the greatest deprivations imaginable.”

Dean snorts, looks away, but his hand is still on lockdown. “Worse than going hungry, huh?”

“Much.”

“Hey, what about Sam? Or, hell, fucking Donatello. They both were both walking around minus their creamy filling, and you didn’t say boo.”

Cas shrugs. “I can’t see their souls under ordinary circumstances.”

“So what, mine’s just extra loud, or day-glo, or what?”

“It’s both of those things, but that isn’t why,” Cas answers, and the boy is downright wry.

Dean tugs his hand out, raps his knuckles against the wood. “Okay, so stop bein’ coy and tell me before I get a complex. And if you say it’s because of love or some shit, I’m bailing to Rowena’s.”

“You infected me,” Cas says.

“Uh,” says Dean.

The fire pops and a log shifts; Cas glances over at the kerfuffle, absently lifts his fingers to his chin like he’s looking for an old scar. “In Hell, when I retrieved you…I had to grip your raw soul. I was meant to wear a gauntlet, so I wouldn’t be burned.”

Dean snickers. “You’re telling me you were supposed to be wearing a soul condom. What happened, you get too excited and forget to suit up? It’s okay, I know I’m a lot to take in.”

Castiel purses his lips. “No, I was properly armored. But my arm was torn off in combat shortly before I reached you.”

“Ouch.”

“Ouch,” Cas agrees. “I didn’t have time to retrieve the arm or its protection from the pit, so I had to grow a new one very quickly.”

Dean really should’ve switched to whiskey before starting this. “What, you didn’t pack a spare?” He wheezes.

“Ordinarily, yes, I would have had the resources, but I was equipped very lightly for that mission. It was a raid, not a siege. You understand the difference.”

“Sure, yeah, you left your emergency arms in the trunk. So you just popped out a new one. No big.”

“It was a big. Your soul was close enough that it forced me to grow a human arm, instead of a much quicker and more powerful extensor.”

“Okay, uh,” Dean pinches at the bridge of his nose, “there’s a lot to unpack there.”

“What part of it confuses you?”

“I dunno, the bit where apparently angels are I guess heavenly octopuses,”

“The plural in the Greek is octopodes,” Cas interjects, not without pleasure.

Dean glowers. “Or the part where you can apparently swap in different drill bits,” Dean continues,

“Mm,” Cas notes, careful not to open his mouth,

“Or that I, like, accidentally bullied you into growing a person arm,” and Dean pauses for breath here, which Cas evidently takes as permission to dive in with more Planet Earth commentary.

“The natural environment of the human soul is a human body,” he says. “Humans have yet to meet a foreign substrate that they don’t immediately attempt to colonize. My form in Hell was not an exception.” Then he shuts his mouth very deliberately and gestures back to Dean like his mic is going live in three, two.

“Or the bit where my soul gave you some kind of STD?” Dean finishes.

“It was a poor analogy. I apologize.”

“So what’s a better one?”

Castiel drums his fingers for a second, listens to the fire pop in its little cage. “It’s more like…the way a parasitic jewel wasp injects a cockroach with venom, and transforms it into a willing host for wasp larvae.”

“Holy shit are you ever bad at this,” Dean says, with that signature brand of fond horror he special-orders just for Castiel, Angel of the Gourd.

“What I’m trying to avoid saying,” Castiel sighs, “is that you rubbed off on me.”

Dean nods. “Yeah. That’s fair. I wouldn’t be dumb enough to say that around me, either.” He lays a couple little pats on Cas’s hand. “Lookit you, though, seeing around that corner. I’m proud of you, man. That would’ve totally flipped your breaker back in the day.”

“Just one of the many ways you have reshaped me, Dean,” Cas says, with warm sarcasm.

“Alright, so you rawdogged me, I whammied you. Chocolate, peanut butter, peanut butter, chocolate.”

Cas’s forehead wrinkles in skepticism. “I still prefer the cockroach. But some part of your soul injected itself into one of my more exposed frequencies. Under different circumstances, I would’ve stopped and excised the affected area before it spread, but. I was being pursued, and the mission had taken much longer than any of us anticipated.”

“Us? Thought it was just you down there.”

Cas looks vaguely offended, straightens and folds his arms like he just remembered he’s giving a deposition. “No, of course not. Michael assigned sixty-six angels in eleven groups of six, each escorted to the field by a seraph. We struck simultaneously at six different areas in perdition. From there we dispersed to individual targets –– to cause as much chaos as possible in order to help obscure the object of our mission, and to increase the odds that one of us would actually find you.”

“And you were the lucky winner.” Dean pushes down a touch of sick shame at the thought of it — he’d been coiled up like a snake around somebody else’s torment, anesthetized by it. It was one of the random rags of infernal time where his own pain decreased in proportion to how much he dealt out, and that was the closest thing Hell had to a Friday night.

“I was,” Castiel nods. “I took some liberties with my assignment,” he adds, squinting. “I flattered myself that I shared a special affinity with The Righteous Man.”

“That guy always sounded like kind of a cunt to me,” Dean notes. “You know, not withstanding the fact that I’m him.”

Castiel shrugs. “I found you, and I did what was necessary to save you, and my siblings did what was necessary to save me.” A little falter enters his voice. “Only twelve of us returned from that mission.” Cas looks up, out, away. A dove coos somewhere nearby of the Roadhouse; did it have a run-in with the windshield of an eighteen wheeler one day and show up here, Dean wonders, or does heaven make its own birds from scratch? That’s gotta be a softball compared to whether Betelgeuse is still open for business.

Castiel waits until the bird shuts up, then says, “Of those twelve surviving angels, I personally murdered nine, in everything that followed.”

After a moment Dean says “Yeah,” with practiced neutrality. He’s got some similar tallies, written in Sharpie on the back of his eyelids.

Cas sighs and his attention comes back down to the table. “By the time I received the authority to restore your soul to your body, the infection had spread almost past the point of containment. That’s why I resisted taking a vessel at first. I worried that occupying a human form would speed up the process.”

“Hey now. I thought you showed up naked because you thought I’d be one of those special people,” Dean quips, “Who can handle angel stuff without going all kibbles ’n bits.”

“That was only a partial truth.”

Dean tips the beer bottle in salute. “You’re a real special flavor of asshole, Cas.”

“So I’ve been told. I was right, though. When I took Jimmy as a vessel, I contracted — condensed — myself very severely. The infection had a much shorter distance to travel to reach all of my extremities, and a human form was the most hospitable environment possible.”

“You got a raging case of the Deans.”

Cas’s head kicks back in a laugh that kinda surprises them both. “Yes,” he says, grinning. “I did. I was very displeased, and very concerned I’d be found out and judged unfit for duty. And I very much was. Unfit, that is. Though I was not found out.”

“C’mon, never? You went rogue on the company.”

“Uriel suspected. Naomi certainly detected it later, as did Metatron. But in the moment, no. The Host’s attention was focused on the Apocalypse ahead, not on debriefing a mission that was considered a success. After the Cage was closed, I had too much influence to come under that level of scrutiny.”

“Hmh.” Dean realizes he’s been systematically picking down the label on the beer bottle, so he sets it on the ground before he gets sticky little shreds everywhere. “So I gotta ask. My little souvenir, the handprint. That’s where you grabbed me, with your lil…Mister Potato Head human arm?”

“It is.”

“If I’m the one who infected you, how come I’m the one who got burned?”

“My hand didn’t burn you.”

“Well, it ain’t fingerpaint.”

“Your own soul burned it, as it flowed out of your flesh and into mine. It burned until the moment when I finally released you from my grip. My hand healed itself; your arm did not.” Castiel gives a thin scoff. “I hadn’t planned to leave you interred.”

“Oh, no? Well that’s nice to hear, you know, a decade after the fact. I still have nightmares about that shit.”

Castiel winces. “It’s no excuse, but I was in a great deal of…the equivalent of pain. It took an immense effort to break off the inflow of your soul, and when I did manage it, I was thrown quite a ways by the recoil. By the time I recovered enough to return, you were already looting a gas station,” He finishes, dryly.

“Yeah, well, Dad didn’t think much of leisure as a virtue. Also I was thirsty, because I’d just crawled out of my own grave.”

“And I was distracted, because I’d just fought my way out of the inferno while being digested by a demented human soul.”

“You wanna call it even?”

Cas lifts his brows. “If you don’t mind.”

There is a long, dark breath, during which their little smiles fade.

“So, all that,” Dean says, because he’s a fucking coward.

“All that,” says Cas, because he isn’t.

Dean clears his throat. “That means you can see my soul-stuff 24/7, huh?”

Castiel slides one leg up onto the bench, shifts to sit astride it, like he’s maybe about to deliver an after-school PSA on the Real Deal About Drugs. “I can always see myself, and extensions of my self. And since your soul made itself into an integral part of me…I can see you.”

“I take it that’s not exactly in the manual.”

“No. I didn’t entirely understand it at first — for a long time, I convinced myself it was because you were designed to be a celestial vessel, and that I had been destined to save you from Hell.”

That thin, acidic feelings starts to rise up in Dean’s chest again. “Do you…” A dry swallow reflex grabs his throat. “Hm. Fuck.”

“What?” Cas asks, scooting forward. An angel. Scooting. What a world. “You can ask me anything, Dean. I hope we’re both past being offended.”

“Have you ever thought that. This whole deal. Our…thing.” Dean lets out a breath. “The way you feel about me. The way I feel about you.”

“Do I worry that its only basis is our shared material?”

Dean licks his lips, works a jaw muscle, forces out a nod.

Cas frowns, sets one elbow up against the table, then lets his head tip to the side. “Why do you love Sam?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I get it, he’s my brother. We got shared material, too. But we’re not talking genetics.”

“Genes were the initial basis of your love for Sam. But you share half as much material with Adam. Do you love him fifty percent as much as you do Sam?”

“One, love doesn’t work that way and you know it, and two, fucking of course not. I barely know the guy, and what I’ve seen didn’t exactly blow me away.” Not that the poor dumb kid ever really had a chance. “Sam’s Sam, he’s earned it a million times over just by bein’ him.”

“Then you understand.”

“But Cas, man…I…” Dean laughs, which is an abbreviated form of screaming, “I treated you like shit.”

Cas nods. “You did.”

“Okay, the rules say you’re not supposed to agree with me.”

“But the balance remains in your favor. Dean, are you genuinely afraid that you — care for me…” and Dean can hear the FCC live-bleep in that one, like does his total cowardice have a special color Cas can see with his soul-o-vision? “Only out of some compulsion?”

“No,” Dean says, to the great surprise of his frontal cortex, which was busy kicking the shit out of itself. “No,” he says again, just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, that that answer actually came out of him and entered the living air between them.

Then the wave is rolling towards him and he enters that slim moment of body-physics where you either take a lungful and commit to diving under the break, or you kick out against the undertow, arch your back to meet the blow, and let yourself be flown all the way up to the waiting shore––

“No,” Dean says, “I love you.” And he chokes up a little, first at the release of saying it, then at how much of exactly jack-shit it changes anything so what was he even scared of, and then at the look on Cas’s face: how he’s frozen. Like that dog from that video, the one that loved tennis balls so goddamn much that his owner bought him a thousand fucking tennis balls and dumps them out all at once and the dog absolutely stalls the fuck out, just seconds on end of underspecced dog-brain hang time before he finally snaps back to reality and loses his absolute shit scrabbling all over the porch.

Castiel comes back online with a little choking noise of his own, and a kind of awkward scrabble for Dean’s hand.

“I have for a long time,” Dean continues, because apparently he’s continuing, “I’ve loved you for fucking ages, Cas. In people years, anyway, I’m sure that mean’s fuckall to somebody who’s a zillion––”

“I don’t,” Cas says thickly, “really give a damn about the age difference, Dean,” and cracks into a chuckle.

“So how come you never knew it?” Dean asks, feeling freedom turn into a hunger or something like vertigo. “If you can see my soul, how could you not know?”

Cas shrugs, a bit helplessly.

“Seriously,” Dean laughs, “how did I manage to hide that shit so well? Sammy found every nudie mag I ever shoplifted.”

Cas shakes his head. “You’ve never actually been able to hide anything from me.”

Dean scoffs. “C’mon, man. I snowed you plenty, or else we woulda had this conversation dirtside a long time ago.”

“Whatever I missed, Dean…it wasn’t because you succeeded at hiding it,” Castiel says, softly. He takes a slow, shaky breath, and meets Dean’s eyes with a smile. He lifts a hand to Dean’s face, bone and flesh on flesh and bone. “I just loved you enough to look away.”

It’s a long time before they go back inside. By any measure. {AO3}

#spn fanfiction #spn 15x20 #destiel #deancas #dean winchester #castiel #bless you all for your sexy and angsty coda fics please enjoy this massive wodge of angel lore wankery dating back 11 seasons

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longitudinalwaveme · 3 years ago

Text

Longitudinalwaveme Reviews Some More Old Comics (and One New One), Part 2

Batman #321, “Dreadful Birthday, Dear Joker...!”

The story opens with Commissioner Gordon receiving an invitation to the Joker’s birthday party. “Black tie optional, funny hats mandatory”. A few seconds later, everyone in police headquarters doubles over laughing, the victims of Joker’s, well, Joker gas.

Batman is on the scene only a few seconds later, and starts punching out Joker’s goons. Unfortunately, by the time he’s finished doing this, both Joker and Commissioner Gordon have disappeared.

Eminently Quotable Joker: “Ah---the Batman! What an expected surprise! And what a waste of a perfectly good window! Couldn’t you have used the door?”

As Joker leaves in his Jokermobile, the police officers tell Batman that the Joker also captured Robin earlier that day (by pretending to be a woman with car problems!)

Meanwhile, Selina Kyle, Lucius Fox, and Alfred are talking when the Joker bursts in and kidnaps them as well. Notably, Selina mentions that she’s been having terrible headaches.

Selina Kyle wakes up in a room with Batman; the other kidnapees wake up in the Joker’s “Ha-Hacienda” on his “victim-go-round”.

Eminently Quotable Joker: “Tomorrow is my birthday, and by way of celebration, I intend to eliminate all you who’ve crossed me, while all of Gotham watches! It’s not exactly the catcher’s mitt I really wanted...but it’s a pretty fair second place! HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Hawkman stars in a Hostess cupcake ad!

The Joker murders one of his own henchman with his “BANG!” flag gun for not laughing at his joke.

Eminently Quotable Joker (in response to Robin saying “You’re out of your mind!”): “Gloriously so! Isn’t it wonderful?”

In order to get his audience, the Joker put an ad in the newspaper that states that the “Harlequin Baking Company” will be inviting all of Gotham to sample its wares at the Seaside Coliseum. AND IT WORKS, because everyone in Gotham has the IQ of turnips. A bazillion people come to the Coliseum to get free food.

Joker dramatically reveals himself to everyone and explains that he’s going to blow up all the people he hates with a giant cake bomb. Then Batman arrives and offers himself in exchange for the other hostages. This goes exactly how you’d expect it to go, but Batman manages Batman his way out of the trap, saving both himself and all of his friends.

Joker runs away and jumps into a boat. Batman follows him, they fight for a bit, and then the Joker apparently blows himself up. But he’s not dead, because nothing can kill the Joker. Batman even says so.

This would’ve made a great episode of B:TAS.

Batman #322, “Chaos--Coming and Going!”

And now for something completely different!

Catwoman looks at a bunch of old newspaper clippings of herself, as the comic hints fairly subtly that she might be unwell (just as her headaches last issue did).

Meanwhile, a van is delivering issues of the tabloid The Gotham Guardian...when a thrown bundle of newspapers is intercepted by a boomerang! Captain Boomerang is in Gotham City!

The two men in the van react by promptly trying to run Digger over....only for him to slice their van in half with a boomerang!

Digger yells at them to tell their boss that this was only a warning: the mysterious boss owes him a million dollars, and he wants it in 24 hours or else.

Then Batman shows up out of nowhere and he and Boomerang get into a fight. Digger distracts Batman by using his exploding boomerang to damage a nearby building. This causes some rubble to fall on one of the drivers. Batman goes to rescue him, and Digger vanishes.

Green Arrow stars in a Hostess fruit pie ad!

Batman talks to Alfred about Captain Boomerang, telling him to ask Lucius Fox to find out who owns the Guardian, since he’s probably Boomerang’s next target. He also refuses to call the Flash in for help. “The night I can’t handle a punk like Boomerang is the night I hang up my cowl!”

Catwoman goes to a doctor and it’s confirmed that she is, in fact, dying. She has less than a month to live and the only cure is some Egyptian herbs that have been lost to time.

Meanwhile, Captain Boomerang lets us know that he hates Gotham. “Lor’, but I hate this cronky town! I never would’ve come her from Central City if it wasn’t for my million quid!”

Apparently, Captain Boomerang set up a retirment fund for himself and is ticked off that has money was subsequently stolen.

“It’s really rum--downright ironic! The one time I play the game by their rules--and it’s me who gets taken for a sucker! Well, nobody crosses “Digger” Harkness--and gets away with it intact!” That’s our Digger!

Also, he has a giant boomerang hidden under a tarp.

Catwoman goes to the museum to see a display about cats...and conveniently, some ancient Egyptian medicinal herbs are there. Catwoman determines to take them so she can save herself.

Batman asks the most Irish Irishman to ever walk the pages of the comic book about where he might be able to find Captain Boomerang, but he hasn’t heard anything. Then Alfred calls Batman and tells him that Lucius has discovered that the Gotham Guardian is owned by a corporation which serves as a front for a guy named Gregorian Falstaff.

The man in question is eating dinner at a hotel when he is rudely interrupted by Captain Boomerang, who knocks out Falstaff’s bodyguard and demands his money. Falstaff plays dumb, claiming that the whole thing was an unfortunate accident and offering to write him a check. Boomerang insists that it’s cash or nothing (since he doesn’t trust Falstaff). Then Batman shows up, and Digger throws a smoke bomb boomerang that distracts Batman long enough for him to knock him out with another boomerang.

“You gave it a fair dinkum try, cobber-but fair ain’t enough when you’re dealin’ with the likes of me!’” Didgeridoo! Crikey! Steve Irwin! Can you tell I’m Australian yet?

Selina Kyle tries to call Bruce but can’t get ahold of him, so she decides to take matters into her own hands and pulls out her Catwoman costume.

When Batman comes to, he’s been tied to the giant boomerang.

“Nothin’ permanent, mate--you’re simply tied to my giant rocket-powered boomerang! Only Flash’s super-speed saved him from the original--and without super-powers you’ll never escape this improved version!” So...which one of the giant boomerangs you used to launch the Flash into space are we talking about here, Digger? Because there’ve been at least four at this point.

Boomerang launches the boomerang into the air and it explodes. Digger is naturally convinced that he’s killed Batman, only for Batman to promptly prove him wrong by showing up alive and well. “Nobody could possibly survive a flight on my Doomerang!” Oh, Digger...

Batman explains that he survived by “maneuvering my bonds toward the Doomerang’s rocket-jets--and the ignition-flames freed me! Then I simply slipped away under the cover of all that smoke before the Doomerang took off!” I love that Batman also calls the thing a Doomerang (with a totally straight face, mind you.)

Then Digger throws a boomerang at Batman at the same time Batman throws a Batarang at him. But because Batman is Batman, he wins the boomerang duel and knocks Digger out. Way to take away Digger’s only accomplishment there, Batman. It’s like if Superman won any of his races against the Flash.

Batman decides to investigate Falstaff.

Meanwhile, at the museum, someone who looks like Catwoman is stealing one of the exhibits....

Flash #286, “The Color Schemes of the Rainbow Raider”

This issue introduces the greatest villain of all time...the dreaded Rainbow Raider!

After a long day at work, Barry Allen is heading home...only for an alarm to go off at the Centrex Art Museum! Barry has to promptly go into action as the Flash as Barry thinks about how tired he is. Apparently, his new police chief, Darryl Frye, has made him work overtime three times in one week alone.

Suddenly, a rainbow appears, bewildering Barry, as it hasn’t rained for the past week. Barry runs inside the museum to find the guards crying inexplicably. Barry deduces that the thief has been altering their emotions and realizes that this is probably not one of his established Rogues.

Sure enough, he soon comes face-to-face with the Rainbow Raider!

“Welcome, Flash! I didn’t think you and I would be meeting so soon...but sooner or later we were bound to clash! Allow me to introduce myself! I am the Rainbow Raider---the most colorful criminal this city’s ever seen!” Oh, Roy. You’re so amazingly silly, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Roy shoots a beam of blue light at Barry, who somehow deduces that this was what enabled him to mess with the emotions of the guards. Barry dodges the blast of blue light, but it hit and knocked out by a blast of black light.

The police are suitably baffled by the Rainbow Raider, who, incidentally, signed his crime scene with “The Rainbow Raider was here!” That’s amazing.

Meanwhile, the Flash runs home, for the Rainbow Raider has...uh....sucked all of the color out of his body! Somehow! Wha?

Meanwhile, in a mobile trailer, Roy is gloating to himself. “Now I know I’m ready for the big leagues--on a par with seasoned criminals like Captain Cold and Mirror Master!” Uh...sure, Roy.

Batman and Catman star in a Hostess cupcake ad!

“Roy G. Bivolo is compelled by higher motivations--like art appreciation!”

Roy reveals that he suffers from achromotopsia, a rare form of colorblindness that means he sees the world entirely in greyscale. This fact apparently scuppered his burgeoning artistic career, because the art critics of Central City have never heard of black-and-white artwork even though it totally exists.

Also, Roy’s dad was apparently a, quote, “leading world-renowned optometrist”, and he tried to create goggles that would allow Roy to see color. He passed away shortly after Roy turned 21; having finished the googles just days before.

When Roy tested them a few weeks later, he found that they hadn’t cured his colorblindness...but that they could shoot out “bands of multi-colored solid light particles that I could literally “ride” through the sky”. Roy then uses his father’s notes to unlock even more abilities with his goggles. Eventually, his mother also passed away, and Roy decided to turn to crime.

“Since I was robbed of a brilliant art career as a painter--I think it’s only fitting that I rob others....rob them of the pleasure they’ve derived all these years from priceless works of art I myself have never been able to enjoy! If I can’t see them in all their glory---then neither will anyone else!” Roy...that’s insane.

Barry Allen fails in his attempt to flirt with Fiona Webb, then exposits about pseudoscience. “The color black appears black because it absorbs the light waves of all other colors...without reflecting them! Those black beams the Rainbow Raider enveloped me with must’ve had a similar effect--saturating my body with radiation that prevents me from reflecting any and all light-waves...leaving me totally colorless!” SCIENCE!

Barry uses makeup and hair day to make himself look normal. As a result, he’s 20 minutes late to work and gets chewed out by his boss.

Also: “The unnatural inner-vibrations from this color drain are steadily sapping more and more energy from my molecules by the minute!” More SCIENCE!

Barry is about to get to work when he hears about the opening of the Skytop Art Gallery. Assuming that this would be an ideal target for the Rainbow Raider, he goes into action as the Flash.

Roy has created a distraction by using his emotional manipulation powers to get all of the art patrons to fight each other while he escapes. Barry runs up a building and onto Rainbow Raider’s rainbow...whereupon Raider shoots a blinding light at him, causin him to slip off the rainbow and almost fall to his doom. Luckily, his ability to vibrate through anything saves his life, as he manages to vibrate through a green car he was about to land on.

Barry then finds that he’s turned totally green. ‘I must’ve been vibrating on the precise wavelength of the color green when I passed through this heap--somehow allowing me to regain my capacity to absorb green light-waves!” SCIENCE! He then starts running through vehicles of other colors to regain his capacity to absorb those light-waves, too. Since Raider is colorblind, he can’t figure out what the Flash is up to.

When Raider takes one last blast at the Flash, the effects restore him to normal, and Flash is able to make quick work of the Rainbow Raider.

I love the Rainbow Raider so much.

#flash comics #batman comics #dc comics

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chris-evans-indian-fanfic · 4 years ago

Text

Merchant of Death

One-Shot

Description: Mob!Thanos is a collector of the most precious things in the world. But what happens when his eyes upon you?

Warning - Mentions of violence and beheading

Words- 5400~

This one-shot is my entry for @sweater-daddiesdumbdork 's writing challenge. I used the following image prompt. Check out this link to participate in the challenge!

My Main Masterlist

I don’t consent to have any of my work published or featured on any third party app, website or translated. If you are seeing this fanfiction anywhere but Tumblr, it has been reposted without my permission. In that case, please do share the link and let me know.

…

Nobody knew his real name. Nobody cared. Named after the Greek God of death himself, Thanos was modern day's omen of slaughter. Being the leader of one of the oldest mob families in New York, Thanos commanded a certain level of respect amongst his peers. It wasn't just that his heritage was daunting. His towering height, broad shoulders, vast expanse of muscled torso and legs were enough to intimidate even the toughest of the fighters. Always dressed in an impeccably crisp suit, his bald head, sharp eyes and a strong, set jaw easily gave the impression that he was the owner of a multi-billionaire corporation.

It wouldn't be wrong to call his drugs and weapons empire a well-oiled corporation. His 10 fingers were dipped in blood in multiple countries throughout the seven continents, yes even in Antarctica.

Thanos was a well-known figure. Everybody knew who he was, knew what he did, but nobody, not even the law authorities, could ever connect him with any illegal activity, be it harbouring and selling of illegal guns and drugs, or smuggling goods to his centres across the globe.

For all his wrongdoings, Thanos did donate 10% of his revenue to the poor, the homeless, the downtrodden. Almost like a twisted version of Robinhood, where he ripped off the rich with highly priced drugs and paid a part of the amount to the poor.

For this reason, there were two sides of him which were portrayed in the media, those who earned his favour called him Messiah of the Poor, while the others who had witnessed his ire addressed him as the Merchant of Death. But in both the iterations, it had been made ample clear that nobody could make Thanos bleed.

That's why it came as a shock when the Chief of Police, Steve Rogers, had managed to shoot Thanos in an encounter. Looking at their leader fall to the ground, Thanos' men commenced their feral attack on the protectors of the law, driving them back.

The bullet had pierced his left forearm, but hopefully hadn't made it far into his body, thanks to the bulletproof vest sewn into the jacket.

His men rushed him to the nearest hospital as he put pressure on the wound.

...

Being the night of 31st December, the ER was more crowded than usual, with drunk idiots involved in car accidents, accidental weapon discharges, or some even sustaining injuries by bursting fire crackers at a close range.

You silently cursed yourself. Yeah saving lives was noble and all, but spending the entire New Year's Eve in the hospital, surrounded by blood and equally bloody cries of their families and friends really got on your nerves at times.

You steeled yourself as you entered the operation theatre (OT) for another surgery. This moron's druggie friend had shot him in the chest because he thought he was someone else. This would be a complicated surgery, as the bullet was deep inside the muscle, almost touching the heart. One miscalculation could result in more complications.

Halfway through the surgery, you heard a commotion outside the OT. Furrowing your head, you tried to concentrate, but the noise grew louder. You focused your mind on removing the bullet. As if choreographed, your instrument touched the bullet just as a gun was fired right outside your door.

Your colleagues jumped, but you set your concentration on removing the piece of metal from this man's body.

The doors to the OT were kicked open as a tall, thin man entered weilding a gun, asking for you. Your staff promptly pointed at your bent figure.

You were still focused on extracting the bullet when the gun cocked next to your ear, "C'mon out Doctor, we need you to treat our boss," Maw commanded you.

Ignoring him, you carefully pulled the metal upwards, looking at the live scan feed on the screen for direction.

"I don't think you heard me Doctor. Leave this man and come with me. Our boss needs you. I will not repeat myself," warned Maw, his venomous voice laced with concern for his boss.

You did not move.

When he pressed the gun to your forehead, your staff gasped in terror, but you refused to budge.

As soon as the damned bullet was out, you dropped it onto a tray along with your gloves, instructed your staff to stitch up the wound, and wordlessly looked at the greasy-haired Maw.

He beckoned you to follow him into Thanos' room where he was being prepped for surgery. You saw Dr Yellowstone tending to him as you approached. "I am sorry Doctor, I told them that you were in a surgery but..." you brushed him off, asking to see the preliminary reports. Dr Yellowstone explained that the bullet wound wasn't deep, and that a simple surgery headed by him would have sufficed, but they were insistent to get you to do the surgery.

"Of course," Maw's sickeningly smooth voice was back in your ear, "We wanted someone who's the best for our boss. And you are the best surgeon in the entire state, aren't you Doctor?" he asked with a sneer.

You continued to ignore him, coordinating with your staff. As Thanos was put in a wheelchair, Maw pulled out his gun again, cocking it near your forehead, "Our boss better be able to move that hand again miss, or tonight will be the last time you use both your hands."

That threat pushed you over the edge. All evening and night of dealing with insensitive jerks like this guy over here had finally made you snap.

You turned towards him, looked at the barrel of his gun and slapped him right across his cheek.

Whether it was the force of your slap, or the fact that your assault had been completely unexpected, nobody could tell, but Maw staggered backwards, his free hand resting on his long reddening cheek where you had struck him.

Thanos jerked in attention at your action. His pain seemed forgotten as he looked at you. Your plump figure stood tall as you glared at Maw.

"Put that gun away or there's more where that came from," you warned him spitefully.

"Nurse, take him to the OT. Dr Yellowstone, coordinate with the blood bank, we might need extra blood. I will see to it that the anesthesia is ready to administer," you left the room after instructing your team. As if you were going to wait around to witness the reaction of Thanos's right-hand man.

In the OT, you saw Thanos' large figure laid on the bed. You approached him with the anesthesia, but he held your hand with his uninjured arm. "Don't," he spoke in his thick voice. "It will hurt. The pain might lead to further complications," you explained. "No. I want to feel your touch," he said simply.

You rolled your eyes and cringed on the inside.

As the surgery began, Thanos kept his dark eyes on you. Neither once did he wince with pain, or avert his gaze. Ignoring him, you set about to remove the bullet from his arm, a quick procedure.

"Dr Yellowstone," you said from behind your mask, "stitch the wound and dress it."

"Where are you going?" Thanos asked you plainly, as if you both were sitting in a coffee shop. You ignored him and removed your gloves as Dr Yellowstone approached the patient.

Thanos moved his arm, "No. You will not. She will," he nodded towards you.

Audibly groaning, your assistant helped you in wearing a new pair of gloves.

Finally, with the wound stitched and dressed, you left the OT to tell Maw the good news.

…

3 hours after the surgery, Thanos looked at your file while resting on his bed. Compiled by Maw, this file had every detail of your life, no matter how minute. You had captured his attention unlike anything else, anyone else. He flipped through the pages, learning more about your family, friends, hobby, and profession.

His member twitched when he saw your images from social media. Beneath the doctor's coat, you were plump, curvy and thick, just the way he liked his women. He paused, drinking in your appearance in a swimsuit. Placing a finger on your face, he slowly traced your outline, his finger respecting every bump, every bend till he reached your covered mound. He pressed it, as if hoping to see you react, but you kept on smiling in the image.

Eyes heavy with sleep, he looked around his room. His quiet quarters screamed with opulence. Decorated with the world's most expensive marble, motifs covered in 24k gold, diamond chandelier and Persian rugs, his room paid homage to some of the priceless wonders of the planet. But looking at them now, Thanos realised that none held a candle next to you.

As he settled in to sleep, he smirked. You would make a nice addition to his room.

…

A week later, Thanos surprised his men by driving himself to your hospital. He had taken an appointment, afterall, his wound needed to be checked.

He knocked on your cabin door, entering only when you said to. He smiled warmly at your startled expression, standing patiently next to the chairs across your desk.

"Dione," he interrupted you, "Please call me Dione."

You gathered yourself quickly, "Mr Thanos I-"

He smiled cheekily, he knew he had struck at the right place, at the right time. Extending his arm, he reached out for your palm, holding it gently in his. "Please come in. You must be tired," he said, leading you into your own house.

You squinted your eyes. You remembered reading the strange name on your list of appointments today. "What can I help you with Mr Dione?"

Thanos smiled. He liked the way his name rolled off your lips. "May I take a seat?" You nodded.

Thanos barely fit in the chair, his vast thighs almost bulging out from the sides of the chair. "I think my wound needs to be redressed."

"I thought Maw said he had the best doctors at your beck and call," you spat at him.

"I owe you an apology," he said slowly, "Maw's behaviour that night was appalling, to say the least. I have never hurt or intended to hurt healthcare workers. I regret his actions. Please accept my sincere apologies."

Thanos or Dione, surprised you for the second time that day. His acknowledgement of his staff's misbehaviour left you dumbfounded.

He cleared his throat, "As I was saying, I think my wound needs to be redressed." He turned to his side as much as he could, and displayed the bloodied bandage on his arm.

You asked him to sit on the patient's examining bed in your office and unwrapped his bandage.

"Does it bleed everyday?" you asked.

"No, it started bleeding today. As soon as it did I thought I should visit you."

Thanos looked at you closely. He studied every contour of your face. His right hand fought the urge to cup your cheek and pull you closer to him.

You traced the wound on his left arm and straightened your back, fully aware of his intense gaze on you.

"Mr Thanos…,"

"Mr Dione, please," he interrupted you.

"Mr Thanos," you asserted, "This wound has been reopened by a knife. And judging by the angle of the cut, I think it was you who did it," you stared at his eyes.

He whispered your name, "I just wanted to see you again."

"It's Dr (Y/N) for you," you spoke sharply, "I will fix this wound now. But if you inflict harm upon yourself again, then I will not be able to help you."

Thanos saw you grab your kit and come near him, "I think we got off on the wrong foot."

"I don't think there was any foot involved, Mr Thanos. The only things that were involved were a gun and my palm on Maw's cheek."

He chuckled softly at the memory. He loved the fire burning in your eyes. He wanted to see what would you look like burning up on his bed, riding waves of pleasure with him.

"Let me make it very clear, because people like you need to get everything spelled out for them," the venom dripping from your words brought his attention back to you, "I do not want to be involved with you Mr Thanos. I have no intention of being a mobster's trophy girlfriend. If you are really thankful for what I did, then you will leave me alone and never set a foot in this hospital again. Have I made myself clear?" you stared at his hungry eyes as you finished bandaging him.

Nobody on the entire planet, not even the President himself, dared to speak with Thanos in that tone. And here you were, staring him down as if he was worthless. It only made him hungrier, knowing that claiming you would be the sweetest reward he can give himself.

…

The rest of the week was thankfully uneventful for you. On Saturday night, you slowly climbed the stairs to your floor, feeling relieved. At least you had the whole of tomorrow to relax.

Reaching your apartment, you found the door unlocked. You stepped backwards, deciding to call the police from your building's security office.

Just then, your door swung open and a smiling Thanos cheerfully greeted you, "Welcome home doctor! Dinner is almost ready. Why don't you take a relaxing hot bath? I have already filled your tub with warm water."

After the exhausting week you had, you had never expected to find Thanos in your home, cooking dinner and preparing a bath. All you could do was stare at him with your mouth open, his black pants draping his thighs perfectly, the blue shirt hugging his muscled arms and torso as if second skin and to top it all, he was wearing your apron, the one with the cute pandas on it. The apron didn't even cover the distance between what you guessed were his nipples.

"I am not Thanos. I am Dione," he voice sounded sincere, "You asked Thanos to leave you alone, not Dione."

You barely felt his touch as he held your palm, again astonished at how gentle this huge beast of a man can be.

He locked the door behind you, took your purse and coat and knelt to untie your shoelaces. You jumped back at that gesture, finally coming to your senses. "What… what are you doing?" you managed to ask.

He looked up at you, "Wouldn't you be more comfortable if your shoes were removed?"

"No."

"No?" Thanos asked.

"Yes, I mean no. No, I meant what…"

Thanos shook his head, amused as he reached down to untie your shoes, ignoring your protests. He got up slowly, his body a mere inch away from yours. He held your eyes with his as he reached behind your head, unclipping your hair. He stood mesmerized as your hair fell down your shoulders, his hand massaging the spot where they were bunched up on your scalp.

You purred at his ministrations, your eyes suddenly widening as you heard the sound escape your lips. He let you move back as you held his gaze. Why did he have to be so goddamn attractive?!

You closed your eyes. No he's a mobster. You cannot be involved with him. No. No. No. Control yourself.

After that evening, you saw Thanos, (or Dione, you didn't really care) everyday in your home. You saw him first thing in the morning as he cooked you a hearty breakfast, and the last person for the day when he made dinner and tucked you in your bed.

You opened your eyes. You can do this. "Thanos and Dione are the same person. I don't want to be involved with you. Leave. Right now," you half-heartedly snarled, reaching for the door. But he put a hand on the lock first, stopping you.

"They aren't the same person. Thanos would never cook for anyone, even for himself. He wouldn't tolerate your disrespectful tone and arrogance. But I am. I want to-"

"Excuse me? Arrogance?" you cocked an eyebrow, "Do you realise the amount of shit I have had to go through after I operated on you? The FBI, CBI, Police and God knows what came pounding down my doors, accusing me of harbouring and aiding a criminal."

"I am well aware," he admitted tersely, "I have made sure that you will not be bothered again."

Your eyes widened as his words sunk in, "Did you kill them?" you whispered, your hands immediately flying to your mouth.

"I didn't," he stated.

A frown formed on your face as you tried to unpack his confession. "Did Thanos get them killed?" you asked with purpose.

Just then, the oven's timer chimed. "Ahh, dinner is ready. I made your favourite lasagna. There's also garlic bread and a cucumber mint salad. Do you still want to take a bath before dinner?" he asked casually as if he hadn't murdered a squad of officers.

Sensing your hesitation, he came over to you, and stepped in your space, "Give me a chance," he urged, "I am not the monster they paint me to be. Allow me to show you who Dione is. Let me cherish you. I promise, as long as I am with you, I will not indulge in any criminal activity. Please. Give us a chance," he finished earnestly, taking both your palms in his hands.

You slowly raised your eyes to meet his, breathing in his luscious, musky scent. His hand caressed your cheek, weaving through your hair as he pulled you closer, delicately. His soft exhale on your lips weakened your knees. But he stopped. The handsome bastard was waiting for you to come closer.

"I will walk a 1000 steps to reach you," he whispered quietly, "if you just take one towards me."

His other hand started a torturous journey up your arm, his touch feather light. His thumb slowly traced the outline of your bottom lip, coming to rest behind your head.

For a second, you were lost in his ministrations. For a second, you wanted to give in to the stillness of the night.

But a loud crash, and a woman's blood-curdling scream interrupted your peace. You jumped, looking in the direction of the noise. Thanos followed your gaze and smiled. He hummed with satisfaction, "Where were we?"

You shook out of his gentle grip and headed towards the direction of the commotion. As you peered down your window, you let out a scream. Down on the road, the body of a SWAT agent was sprawled on top of an indented car. It seemed as if he had fallen off the top of your neighbouring building.

Coming up behind you, Thanos vowed, "I would never engage in illegal activities when I am with you. But Thanos will destroy the world if that's what it takes to protect you."

…

Breakfast in Milan, luncheons in Athens and late night hot chocolate in Paris was enough to sway even the most heartless of the human beings. But you were still on your toes, waiting for this dream to turn into an ugly nightmare.

That wasn't all. He started buying you groceries, and even basic amenities like toothpaste and hairbrush. Your eyes nearly bulged out of your head when you saw that he had even replenished your tampons.

For all his drawbacks, you couldn't ignore the fact that he never touched you without your consent. He treated you with respect, and cared for you as if you were made with glass. Some nights, when you came home unbelievably late, he was ready to massage your aching feet, while patiently listening to you rant about your day.

The time you spent with him almost felt domesticated. But you knew it was borrowed. Time went by and you started accompanying him on his trips as he refused to let you stay behind. You saw very little of Maw on these trips. Instead his other henchwoman, Proxima, was assigned to you.

"What is holding you back?" he asked you one day, as he brought dinner to your room in Venice, overlooking the city. "I have expressed my love for you in as many ways as I could," his eyes roamed over your body, "I think I have managed to strike the perfect balance between Thanos and Dione. I have done good on my promise to make sure you never see the ugly side of my business. Then why do you still refuse to come to me?"

You looked at him with a frown, "What makes you think I do not see the ugly side of your business? Do you know the amount of drug overdose cases we get in a day?"

Thanos looked out the window, "All those people are aware of the ill-effects of drugs. If they still choose to take it, then how does that make me the villain? Somebody else will sell the drugs if I don't."

"Really? That's your justification? So you owe nothing to the people whose lives are destroyed by your drugs and guns? What about the poor? The young who are addicted to your substance?" you argued in an accusing tone.

"I donate 10% of my earnings to them. But I can't help everyone," he justified.

Thanos chewed in silence as he considered your words, "Will you give yourself to me if I donate half of my wealth?" he looked at you after a few moments.

"10% is not even a dip in your ocean of riches Dione. You want to talk about striking a balance? Then donate 50% of your wealth to those who actually need the money. Auction off your antiques, your collectibles. Build schools, donate to NGOs, be good and help the people, the portion of the society who needs you the most," you tried to convince him.

You softly pushed your plate away, "No amount of charity can justify the killings Dione."

As Thanos gripped his fork tighter at your words, you swore you saw the metal bend. "I have to do what needs to be done to protect you. Even if it means spilling the blood of a few agents of the law. Do you think they will protect you from me? You are nothing but a source of information for them. As soon as they are done with you they will toss you aside like useless garbage. Your identity, your entire life will be erased from the record. You don't want me to protect you like that? Okay. Then what would you have me do?" he demanded an answer.

You met his gaze, your silence filling the conversation with words.

"I cannot just quit. I have spent my whole life building this empire and I am not about to give it up," he claimed through gritted teeth.

"But what did it cost you?" It was your turn to surprise him with your question.

"Everything," he admitted, "and more. But this was all I have ever had. There was no reason for me to leave this-"

"You do have a reason now," you interrupted him.

You dragged your chair towards Thanos and sat beside him. Placing a hand on his heart, you kept your eyes on him. "You have a reason now," you repeated in a whisper.

You saw a myriad of emotions cross his eyes. Taking advantage of his astonishment, you kissed his shoulder and rested your forehead on it. You felt his heart beating faster.

Thanos was glad your head was on his shoulder, as he didn't want you to see the tears in his eyes. This was the first time you had initiated any form of affection towards him. He held your hand, the one on his heart, and kissed it with a promise.

…

Officer Natasha Romanoff hurried towards Steve Rogers' office. She entered without knocking.

"Hey there! Knock before you-" Tony Stark, the Weapons Contacter tried to speak before Natasha cut him short.

"Steve, you need to hear this," Natasha looked at him.

In the last few months, thanks to Steve's bravery in the shoot-out with Thanos's men, he had been promoted to the highest ranking covert field agent at the FBI.

Steve nodded, requesting Tony to reschedule the meeting. As soon as they had the privacy, Natasha filled him in on the news. "Thanos is donating 50% of his wealth to charities and NGOs across the country. He's moving with his girl to Mauritius."

"He's building a new base there?" Steve cocked an eyebrow.

"No, he's retiring. If he gets on that plane then we will lose him forever."

"Hmmm," he considered her words, "I have a plan."

…

Thanos had advised you against going back to your apartment, arguing that all of your stuff was already packed and on the way to the flight. But you were relentless. You had to go back to retrieve a piece of your legacy which you were sure his men must have missed.

He watched in amazement as you removed the photo frame from your wall and tore the wallpaper, revealing a cavity inside.

You retrieved a box, wiping the dust off of it. Walking towards Thanos, you opened the box to reveal 6 rings. "These belonged to my grandfather. He always believed that there are six traits that make a man. He gave me these rings on his deathbed, and asked me to pass it on to the man who I deemed worthy." Pointing to the ring with the purple stone, you recited your grandfather's words, "Be with a man who commands Power," yellow stone- "But make sure he has a kind Soul," orange stone- "He should be able to read your Mind," green stone- "However, he must know the value of Time," red stone- "He should be able to accept his Reality," and lastly, the blue stone- "But, he should give you the world, the galaxy, the entire Space, if need be."

Holding out the box for him, you presented him with the rings. You smiled indulgently as you wiped his tears. He took your hand in his, kissing your fingers, your palm, your wrist. You laughed as he hugged your hand, "This is the second most precious gift I have ever been given."

You tilted your head, puzzled, "What is the most precious gift?"

"You."

…

Steve saw you and Thanos exit the building, hand in hand like two lovestruck teenagers. "Team Alpha, if you have a clear shot take it. But do not fatally wound him. We need him alive. I repeat, we need him alive. Team Omega, standby for the extraction. Team Beta, grab the First Aid Kit as soon as the Patient is hit" he commanded into the walkie-talkie using their codewords for you and Thanos.

"You still haven't told me where are we going," you pouted slightly as you walked towards the car. "Patience love, all in good time," Thanos smiled down at you. "This is White Wolf Team Alpha, firing in 3...2...," Bucky spoke in his earpiece.

"Wherever we are going, I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you," you spoke. "...1." You suddenly turned to face Thanos, and started walking backwards, your hand still in his.

The bullet pierced the space above your heart, before colliding with Thanos's bulletproof vest. Gunshots reduced to dull thuds around you as you collapsed in Thanos's arms, your blood staining his shirt.

You didn't notice when he carried you to the car. You didn't notice the speeding car coming to a halt. All you could hear was his panicked voice, and feel his pounding heart.

"Maw why are we stopping?" Thanos screamed at his henchman.

"Sire, there is a traffic jam ahead. We can't take any other route. There are rows of cars behind us. We are trapped," he said regretfully.

"I don't care! Kill them all, clear the road with explosives. She needs to get to a hospital NOW!" Thanos's voice boomed as panic gripped his heart.

"Sire we can't use explosives, the road might cave in. Proxima is arranging for a mobile hospital as we speak. They should be here soon," Maw spoke with hope.

Cradling you in his arms, Thanos pushed your hair back from your face, "Stay with me. Please stay with me. Don't leave me now. Please… no…"

"Hey," you managed to say in a cracked voice as tears escaped his eyes, "Dione," he looked at you, "I will... always be with you... my love," you struggled to caress his cheek as he held your arm.

"Please please please no," he pleaded.

You gasped as a new jolt of pain ran through your body, "I… I love you… Di… Dione," you smiled.

A heart-wrenching scream escaped Thanos as he held your lifeless body. His anguish lost in the traffic of vehicles blaring their horns.

…

"Sire," Maw's voice broke Thanos from his reverie. He turned to look at the box in Maw's hand. In the dim light of his room, he opened the lid to see the severed head of James Buchanan Barnes.

"Steve Rogers has gone underground sire, but we will soon find him," Maw promised.

"He is not the real problem Maw," Thanos turned back to the window, "Do you remember what the doctor had said? If we would have gotten her to the hospital in time, she would have been alive today."

He paused, looking down the crowded city before him, "She died because we couldn't get her to the hospital earlier. What had caused the traffic jam?"

"Two cars had gotten into an accident, which caused a pile up on the road," Maw explained.

"That pile up wouldn't have occurred 10 years ago. In the last 2 decades, there has been a population boom which has ended up putting a strain on resources. Governments across the world are refusing to tackle this problem and in fact, are boastful of the increase in their population." As if on cue, he saw large groups of people fill up the sidewalk as hundreds of cars poured onto the road, everybody eager to reach home after their workday.

"What do you mean sire?"

"The scales of the world have been tipped unevenly, Maw. Balance needs to be restored to the order of the planet. The rich can't have an endless supply of luxury while the poor scramble for basic sustenance. She was right, we need to help the poor, but we can't wipe out those in power completely."

Thanos looked at the setting sun with determination, "It is time to kill half of humanity."

Maw inhaled sharply, "Sire! How would we manage-"

"The drugs," said Thanos simply, "50% of our cargo will contain lethal drugs till we achieve our target. Distribute it randomly throughout our supply chain for the next 6 months."

Maw paused for a moment. The severity of this crime left him dumbstruck. "Sire," he spoke at last, "She wouldn't have wanted this."

Thanos looked at the 6 rings on his fingers. "She wanted to live Maw. But she couldn't. She always tried to help people as much as she could. This is the only way we can fulfill her wish, by helping people across the globe."

"By killing people across the globe," Maw meekly argued.

"You kill everyday for a living Maw. Why has this idea turned your silver tongue into a knot?"

He could only gulp in response.

"The world needs correction Maw. Now more than ever. The lethal drugs should be shipped from tomorrow onwards. I would find it unpleasant to feed your body to our dogs, if you fail your duty," Thanos' thinly veiled threat hung in the air like a sword.

Maw bowed down, "As my sire wishes," and left the room in quite a hurry.

Thanos walked towards your painting on the wall opposite to his bed, the only ornamentation in his otherwise desolate room.

"You will see my love," he cooed, "we will see the sun rise on a grateful world together."

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