#GOOD BECAUSE I REFUSE TO SHORTEN IT TOO

[chuthulhu-plays]

I generally watch LPs of horror games bc I'm too anxious to actually play them but a lot of them have FANTASTIC stories, so sometimes I just binge-watch KrinxTV for background noise. Been watching a lot of playthroughs of Still Wakes The Deep because it's such a delight to hear Scottish voice actors get work and I thought I'd address some questions I keep seeing Let's Players ask:

--Adair is a member of the National Front as you can find out from posters in his cabin, a Neo-Fascist British political party that’s been going since the sixties. While it often preaches British ethnic unity, in practice that often means “everybody in the UK should be exactly like East End Londerners” and features plentiful disdain for Scottish, Irish, and Welsh folk, alongside those perceived as “not British”. No wonder the wanker eats alone in the canteen.

--Neeps and Tatties=turnips and potatoes, mashed, drenched in butter or sauce. Fills your belly, keeps you warm, probably makes you sink like a stone because it’s so heavy.

--Cranachan=a dessert made of raspberries, honey, cream and oats, absolutely delicious

--Rennick calls Caz a “wee ned prick”. Ned is apocryphally said to stand for “non-educated delinquent” and is basically just a way of calling someone an uneducated, lower-class criminal

--A lot of things said by and about Roy indicate that he’s a teetotaller who went through AA and specifically became Catholic and is making an effort at converting Caz.

--I think it’s entertaining how Scottish nicknames often follow a pattern of shortening/rejiggering that I also see a lot with Australian nicknames—Cameron becomes Caz, Rafferty becomes Raffs, etc. Trots is an unusual one but is almost certainly a reference to him being a communist, presumably a Trotskyist. Gibbo is also an unusual one in that it’s just very silly. There’s a kind of indignity implied in being killed by a guy called Gibbo.

--A few times on the radio you hear the Shipping Forecast, a type of weather report aimed at specifically reporting weather conditions out on the ocean, and is also famous for the report being read in such a calm, soothing tone that some folk use it as a sleep aid.

--All the yellow paint for interactable things is very video gamey, yes, but is also in line with old British health and safety standards, and yellow paint on things like emergency ladders or on the edges of stairs that are trip hazards is a thing ou can still see in some older buildings.

--Caz keeps saying he’s “good with the leccy”; leccy=electricity. Caz is implied to be quite a wee guy who can get through a lot of tight spaces, and my uncle swears blind that electricians used to refuse to take on apprentices over a certain size because they only wanted to train wee guys who could get up into the tight spaces that a lot of older buildings are full of. On that note, “wee man” is a term of endearment, generally, and isn’t exclusively applied to short guys.

--Finlay saying of Gibbo that “he’s no right” is INCREDIBLY OMINOUS. It sounds mild but “he’s no right, that boy” is what older folk say about a child who’s been found disembowelling cats for fun or someone they strongly suspect is a pedophile. It’s not something you’d say about a friend who’s just acting a bit unusually.

– “Great minds united over a Buckie”--Buckfast, or Buckie, is a caffienated tonic wine that’s cheap, widely accessible, and is a bit like rocket fuel for bad decisions.

– “Ya roaster” tbh I don’t really know where it comes from, calling someone a roaster, but I’ve always felt like it has a vibe of telling them they’re huffing their own farts.

--Scunnert/scunnered--buggered, screwed, utterly fucked, etc

– “You’re the jammiest bastart on this rig” Someone who is jammy is someone who has incredible luck that is implied to be related to their sheer confidence or willingness to engage in risky behaviour. Walking along the street and finding a pound coin isn’t jammy; crossing the road confident that the cars won’t hit you and stopping in the middle to pick up a pound coin before making it unscathed to the other side is jammy as all hell.

--Barlinnie is the biggest prison in Scotland, and largely hosts violent offenders—it’s where Caz would definitely go for hospitalizing a man.

--Weans are children (contraction of wee yins/wee ones). I thought this one was contextually obvious but apparently not.

SPOILERS BELOW

--”One spark and the whole thing’ll go up”—this is referring to the wee spark of flame in the lighter used to blow up the rig, but is also kind of a pun because electricians are often called sparks or sparkies, and in the end it’s Caz who blows up the rig.

[reader-wandering18]

Yuu Professor

In the staff room, Yuu leaned back in his chair as he sighed deeply.

—I see you’re too tired, Professor Yuu.

— Professor Trein.

— He’s the youngest of us all, try not to intimidate him, Professor Trein.

— What are you trying to say, Professor Crewel?

Yuu felt like he was in the middle of a clash between two mountains. He was afraid his life would end before he even started at that school.

— Come on, get along, we have to make a good impression on the new teacher!

Professor Vargas had arrived, grabbing Yuu by the collar of his shirt and pulling him into a tight hug as if they were old classmates. Although with his large muscles, Yuu felt suffocated.

— If you need anything, you’re more than welcome to come to the Mystery Shop. We have great promotions this year.

Sam handed him a business card.

Professor Crewel was right when he said he was younger than all of them, he was only 27 years old and to top it off… he had no experience in being a teacher.

“It was all because of that incident”

While he was undercover due to his previous job, he was caught in the crossfire between two strangers. Both of them were apparently killed and to top it off, one of them was the new teacher at Night Raven College that year who was mistaken for him.

He had no intention of entering that school and taking that teacher’s place.

When he was ready to escape, he found himself in the school surrounded by a magical field with no way out unless he asked the headmaster for permission.

If he speaks now, he would get into big trouble and have charges like identity theft, possible murder (when he didn’t) and if they were to investigate further…

“Two years, my contract period is only for two years”

Nothing bad could happen.

He would like to kill his past self.

— RIDDLE!

A case of Blot had appeared in front of him.

And soon, a series of them in that prestigious school.

“What the hell have I gotten myself into?!”

Yuu activated a magic shield to protect himself and the students.

Riddle’s blows were fierce, clearly aggravating his anger at the moment, causing the earth to tremble… But the shield showed no signs of breaking.

“That damn crow had said he would bring more teachers, but he hasn’t returned for a while now!”

All the students had evacuated, except for four stubborn young men.

— WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? Get out of the dorm immediately!

— I can’t do it, Professor. I can’t leave Riddle as he is now.

— I refuse, he still hasn’t apologized to me!

“These damn proud brats.”

— Worrying about you shortens my life,— he said in a whisper.

— Don’t leave the shield or I will punish you!

— Professor!

Yuu stepped forward, holding his staff firmly, the wood looked ancient, there was also a design made of pure silver with complicated runes, the magic gem was on top with an exquisite crimson hue.

The moment he stepped out of the magic shield, air bullets pierced the rose bushes leaving nothing but small pieces resembling toothpicks.

It had all happened in the blink of an eye.

Riddle was shocked by the speed at which the master had released the magic. He hadn’t uttered a single word or seemed to have hesitated when it came to making projectiles with the air element!

The strength of the magic power they released could be compared to the cannons of a warship.

— It’s incredible.

Yuu walked towards Riddle with his head held high and only one thought in his head.

“ You are too young to waste your life”

Riddle came back to his senses, thanks to Professor Yuu's intervention. He was taken to the school infirmary after waking up and talking to everyone.

Though Ace, seeing him cry, could only behave as Ace would.

Seeing that moment of conviviality between students, Yuu decided to take a step back and leave that dorm. His rush to flee was also to avoid cleaning Heartslabyul's dorm, which had practically been left in ruins because of him.

"I'm really tired, let the students take care of it."

After a week, in a lonely classroom, Yuu found himself grading his students' homework.

"How can this guy be in charge of teaching him at three years old?!"

The identity he had accidentally taken was not only that of a teacher, but also that of a high-level magician. If anyone else who hadn't studied magic as exhaustively as he had, they would be in serious trouble.

But this coincidence sent shivers down his spine.

That guy, despite being a high-level magician, has no family or friends who can get him into trouble if they see him. Also his age and appearance.

It was as if the role was made for him.

Knock knock

Yuu was startled but didn't show it, his eyes went to the classroom door where he found three students from Heartslabyul. One of them was holding a strawberry cake.

— Teacher, may I come in?

— Clover, Diamond, and Rosehearts. Come in.

With magic, Yuu arranged all his documents and before he could ask the reason for his visit, Riddle put that strawberry cake in its place.

— This is a thank you for helping me.

Seeing the shiny cake in front of him, Yuu couldn't speak for a moment.

— As an educator, I must take care of my students. You don't need to give me a strawberry cake.

— Come on, teacher, the dorm leader made it with so much effort for you!

— Carter!

Riddle scolded the blonde haired boy, though seeing the blush on his face was not something he could hide.

—This is a cake I made as an apology for the trouble I caused. Before the no unbirthday party, I want you to be the first to taste the cake.

Hearing those words, Yuu couldn’t help but look at Riddle tenderly. The overstain is caused by the negative feelings of wizards. It’s something that simply can’t be controlled and he was burdened by his past.

“I still feel a little uneasy knowing that I was able to see his past. It’s really strange.”

He cut the first piece of cake and as he brought it to his mouth.

“This is really salty!”

Hahahaha here I leave you another part of Master Yuu living with heartslabyul, there will be more interactions with the other students, I hope it is to your liking.

PD information: In order not to make Riddle feel bad, Yuu did not tell him that his strawberry cake was too salty. So that was how Ace along with Deuce, Trey and Carter ate the other cakes that he had made beforehand. Yuu couldn't throw away the cake so he endured having to eat it.

One more thing, I probably won't upload anything in the next few weeks, more than anything unfortunately I'm a student so right now I'm full of projects. I already have the two chapters of Darkness ready as well as more ideas of Yuu from other worlds but honestly they don't convince me so I haven't been able to upload them and I also don't have time to edit them but in my free time I plan to move forward.

Slowly but surely.

[kyokutsu-sama]

Headcanons| They protecting you from someone who's messing with you

Characthers: Sanemi, Kyojuro, Tengen, Hotaru, Akaza

A/n: I remember making one of these for the Bleach characters and I decided to make one for KNY too. How to be loved by a protective man like them😮‍💨

Tw: a lot of swearing, violence

🔸️⚜️🔸️⚜️🔸️⚜️🔸️⚜️🔸️⚜️🔸️⚜️🔸️⚜️🔸️⚜️🔸️⚜️🔸️⚜️🔸️

Sanemi :

I think it's no surprise that he's overprotective and jealous. And when it comes to you, he can't help but show this side of him. When he goes somewhere with you, his hand is always on your waist. He also likes to put his arm around your shoulders. Sanemi just wants to make it clear to everyone there that you're not alone. One time you were walking to his house when you crossed paths with Maeda (the pervert who was, unfortunately, in charge of sewing the uniforms). And also the one that Sanemi made him piss his pants out of fear. "Y/n, it's really nice to see you. I'm glad I saw you, I wanted to ask if you wouldn't like to wear a new uniform?" He suggested but you already knew what he used to do and you just shook your head "No, mine is still good. Besides, I already have someone to sew my uniforms." "But seriously, I can make you a wonderful one." He took a few steps towards you trying to shorten the distance and you shivered a little, feeling insecure around him. "You just need to give me the one you have and I'll make you a new model." "I already said no, I don't want it and now get out of the way, I need to go because I have things to do." You tried to get out of there but he stood in front of you, preventing you from passing "But why didn't you just--" He was about to finish his sentence when a loud, authoritative voice appeared and pushed him to the ground "What the fuck is your problem, you freak?! Are you fucking deaf or something, huh? Didn't you hear what she said? She said a fucking no, don't you understand or do you want me to explain it to you better with my punches?" Sanemi said, with clenched fists ready to beat the shit out of him and you looked at him, surprised that he had appeared so suddenly The kakushi turned to see the hashira's mad face, his bulging veins and his bangs slightly disheveled. He was really scary when he was out of his mind. "Nemi, please, there's no need for this. I think he already got it." You held his arms, trying to calm him down, but he insisted on giving him one last warning "I've already warned you once about this shit, but now I'm going to warn you for the second and last time." He left your side and lifted him off the ground, holding him by the collar with just one hand. Maeda was shaking in his boots in fear of Sanemi. "If you ever mess with my girlfriend or another girl again, I'll cut your head off like I do to demons, you understood, you piece of shit?" Sanemi yelled at him "Yes, yes please, I do. Don't kill me, please!" The man begged and Sanemi threw him to the ground again, watching him cower in fear "Get the fuck out of my sight." The hashira ordered, and the man disappeared in seconds You looked at Sanemi, and he turned to you, with a softer look now. He didn't want you to be afraid of him for acting so aggressively. He did not want to be like his father in any way. "Did he do something to you?" "No, he was just saying he wanted to make me a uniform, but I refused. I know what he was going to do." "Good, I don't want to see that stupid pervert near my girl." Sanemi said, hugging you that made you feel safer and calmer now "You scare me more than the demons when your mad, you know?" You joked and he pulled away to look at your face "I'm just protecting what's mine. I didn't want to scare you, but you know that guy gets on my nerves." "I know, I know, my love." You hugged him

Kyojuro:

Our beloved Kyojuro is a cinnamon roll for everyone, but he is also fair and protective of everyone around him. Especially you, his wife. He's not the jealous type, but when he sees someone crossing the line, he can intervene without having to make a scene. One time, you were going out to dinner, since this man is always hungry because his stomach has no bottom. Once inside the restaurant, you two were talking when you started to notice a man at the next table behind Kyojuro, was staring at you. At first, it didn't bother you, but it only got worse when he started making suggestive expressions at you and even signs, which made your blood boil. Kyojuro only realized it when he got up to go to the bathroom but you held his hand, stopping him. "Is everything okay, honey?" He asked, sitting down again, seeing you with an uncomfortable look "Kyo, that guy in the back is staring at me and it's making me uncomfortable with some of the gestures he's making." You explained and he changed his expression to a more serious one, which was unusual for a man full of joy like him He was a very good person, but messing with the people he loves. That's crossing his boundaries. Kyojuro looked back and saw the man turn his face away, pretending he wasn't doing anything. "Don't worry, my dear. I'll take care of it." Kyojuro held your hand and smiled at you before getting up The flame Hashira went to the table of the man who was alone and placed both hands on the table, bringing his face closer to the man who had been caught off guard by Kyojuro's intimidating presence. Kyojuro was not at all happy with his disgusting attitude. "My friend, my wife didn't like your disgusting attitude and neither did I, so I'm going to be direct with my words. Either you stop looking and making those gestures now or I'm going to have to take action and put an end to this in a way that neither you nor I will like, do you understand?" He warned with his eyes wide open in the man's direction, showing that he had no problem ending it right then The man was so flustered by the warning and by his nerves due to the intense gaze of the Flame Hashira that he almost fainted on the spot. He really regretted doing that in that moment. "I-l'm sorry, p-please, I don't even know what went through my head. I apologize to your girlfriend and to you for this. I'm leaving now, I won't cause any more problems. Please, I'm so sorry for this." The guy said completely shaking in fear and with his hands raised in surrender "Well, I also think you should leave, you've already ruined our night enough." Kyojuro said and the man ended up leaving the place You were sitting and smiling at your man's courage for protecting you and for having dealt so well with that idiot without having to make a scene. "See? It's already settled. He left and won't mess with you anymore, my dear." Kyojuro said, approaching the table and smiling at you "I really appreciate that. You're amazing, love." "Anything for you." He winked. "Well, I'm going to the bathroom, but you know, if anyone else here messes with you, scream and I'll come running." He warned and you laughed "You're an idiot, Kyo." "Your idiot."

Tengen:

As flashy as ever, Tengen is always ready to protect his wives. And any idiot who messes with them will have to deal with him. He would never share his wives with anyone, much less with someone who has no extravagance whatsoever. One night, you, Tengen and the other three wives were going out to the club to enjoy his night off. It wasn't every day that this man had days off, so they had to be well spent, and here you were. There were a lot of people together having fun too. Some were drinking, others were dancing, you and Makio decided to go to the dance floor after getting some drinks while the Suma and Hinatsuru stayed with Tengen by the drinks counter. But the sound hashira always kept his eyes on the two of you, even from afar. You and Makio were having fun when an idiot came up to you two (probably already drunk) and started wanting to dance with you, but you both frowned at him like🤨 "So, how about I join in and dance with you, beautiful girls?" He said laughing. "With bodies like that, it would be a waste to just watch." "And with a dirty, shit-filled mouth like yours, it would be a waste to just watch without wanting to punch it" Makio bite back, before throwing the drink in his face. "Get a life, you pervert!" "Bitch, you're going to pay for---" Just as the man was going to raise his hand to her, Tengen appeared with the other two and grabbed his wrist, scaring the man just by his presence since the Hashira was much taller than him "Messing with other people's wives isn't flashy, you know? Besides, I doubt they'd want anything to do with a jerk like you and so you know, those four girls you see here are all mine, so get lost." Tengen pushed the man away and laughed at him, mockingly "Well, it looks like the mood has been ruined now." Makio crossed her arms "Yeah." You agreed "Don't worry, girls. There's no shortage of clubs on this street out there. Why not go to another one? The night is just beginning." Tengen suggested "And what if another crazy guy messes with us?" You asked, and he gave you a little smile "Don't worry, my dear, I'll make sure they know their proper places. I always promise to watch your back, that's what I'm doing, right?" He kissed your forehead and caressed your cheek. "Okay, let's go have fun somewhere else, my dear wives."

Akaza:

Our Akaza is the true protector of ladies (he has my respect for that.) If he sees someone messing with you or trying something, heads will roll and blood will flow. He broke Douma's jaw many times and even ripped off his limbs just because he simply mentioned your name. "Akaza-dono, why are you always so violent?" Douma smiled at him even after he had ripped off one of his arms "Say her name again and I'll rip your head off." Akaza threatened with a dark look That threat applied not only to the demons around him but also to the humans on the surface you walked on. Anyone who laid a finger on you could be considered a dead man. One time you were walking home late and as a precaution you looked back and saw a man chasing you who seemed suspicious. "Don't you think it's too late to be out here alone, girl?" The man said and you stopped for a moment, turning to him. "You know that a lot of bad things could happen to you on your way home." The man said with a scary smile, he seemed to be drunk by the way he slowly staggered towards you

You took a few steps back until you decided to run away from him. The man managed to grab your wrist and you looked back scared of the individual.

"Let me go now!" You pulled your wrist and pushed him back but it didn't stopped him "Don't you understand yet? I'm not going to let you run a--"The guy didn't have a chance to finish his sentence when a strong, calloused fist passed through him and separated his head from his neck. A fist that worked like a knife so sharp that it cut just by looking at it. You screamed when you saw the agonizing scene of the man's head on the ground and his neck forming a pool of blood. You were shaking so much and so scared that you didn't even realize it was Akaza who was there. For a moment he felt guilty for having used so much violence in front of you but there was no other choice. He would never let anyone hurt you. He couldn't contain himself, that bloodthirst and anger at seeing you in danger consumed him and he wouldn't let it go unnoticed. He couldn't let someone smile at the expense of your suffering. He came closer and knelt down next to you, who were sitting on the floor and curled up. His hand passed over your head, stroking your hair, and you shivered when you felt that touch. A touch as soft as velvet, it didn't even seem like those hands could kill so quickly and in such a bloodthirsty way. You looked up slightly and saw his golden eyes meeting yours. Eyes that were only generous to you. "Y/n? It's me, you don't need to be afraid, it's okay, I'm right here." He said as he lightly held your forearms and extended them to wrap them around him, trying to pull you into a hug and you gave in. "He didn't hurt you, did he?" "Akaza, I was so scared..." You cried and sobbed, hugging him tightly, feeling your heart slowly slow down on his strong arms. "He didn't hurt me thanks to you. You showed up at the right time, my love." You smiled, kissing his cheek and he gave a little smile "I'll always be on time to protect you, always." He said, hugging you tightly."No one will mess with you as long as I live."

Hotaru:

Hotaru is our boy with anger issues and I can only imagine him forging an entire sword from scratch just to stab the guy who messed with you. Hotaru, the man you are... He may even be a brute most of the time but deep down you know that he has a little warmth in his heart that he only shows to you. You were walking through the swordsmiths village and ended up passing by a group of blacksmiths who were talking but whose eyes flew to you when you passed. One of them who was there had been following you for a few days, sending you a few flirtations or even winking at you when he saw you and he was also the same one who at that moment saw an opportunity to go and talk to you once again. Wrong choice... "Hey cutie, how are you?" He said and you rolled your eyes seeing his idiotic look "It would be better if you stopped showing up in my way and let me move on."You crossed your arms, looking at him "Why are you so cold? come on, be nicer." He said, putting a hand on your shoulder and you slapped him that made him back away "Get out of my way." You ordered but the idiot just laughed "Oh you have attitude, let's see if--" As soon as he approached you again, a strong hand grabbed his shoulder and he looked back finding a man taller and stronger than him. And he wasn't happy at all, which you could see even under the mask. "My sword broke during the process..." Hotaru began by saying. "Then, when I tried to make a new one, it didn't turn out as I expected and I had to start over from scratch." He continued. "My hands hurt and my sweat is still dripping, it's unbearably hot inside the forge because of the fire, my calluses are getting worse, my blades aren't sharp enough and when I tried to sharpen them, I cut myself a few times..." There were small cuts on his fingers and hands that were still open, which emphasized his speech. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows showing his strong forearms and the veins wanting to pop out as his voice got deeper and angrier due to the fact that his work day had been a mess and for seeing him messing with you. "And now, as if that wasn't enough, I come across an idiot like you messing with what's mine. I'm definitely going to kill you." Hotaru declared, taking out several knives at the same time and scaring the man, making him run far away Anyone would run from a very angry Haganezuka. But you just laughed at the scene of him scaring the man and even his friends far away from you. After the scene, he came back and went to you, who was still in the same place waiting for him. He took off his mask and you could see a slight embarrassed look. That was always how he looked when he took it off and had to look at you. He became more vulnerable. "You did a good job scaring them away. That guy was like a stubborn mosquito that's been messing with me for the past few days." You said, holding his injured hands. "But now I think we should see those hands, don't you think? Those calluses and wounds need to be treated."

"Only after I make my swor--." He objected but you put a finger on his lips, silencing him "You're going to come home with me now and I'll take care of this, understand?" You said and he narrowed his eyes at you, wanting to slice you up at that moment for making him give in "Fine, let's go then, you annoying thing."

"But you love the annoying thing here, don't you? Otherwise you wouldn't have done all that, right?" You joked and he turned his face away, feeling his own blush "I only did it because... You are..." " 'You are...' ?" "You are my love and I can't let other guys mess with you." He confessed and you couldn't help but find it cute of him "Wow, you're getting better with words every day. At least you are not being rude like always." "Shut up." "Okay, I shouldn't have said anything." You laughed

[aimedis]

milo & sweetheart headcanons 🐺🫥

"i'm ever at your service, baby.."

milo definitely gives sweetheart princess treatment (gender neutral)

milo likes resting his head on sweetheart’s stomach in between their legs

they're the only ones who can reign each other in from being the assholes they are

when sweetheart is overheated, they get really mean and milo has to apologize to everyone for them

in general, sweetheart's attitude to everyone they're close to is just mean. they get mad pissy with milo too but he gives them shit back

they're the takes himself too seriously x doesn't take themself seriously trope

they wear each other’s clothes all the time and have the audacity to get mad at the other for it

“is that mine? take it off.” "whose hoodie is that, huh?" "..." "exactly"

they play fight so often it's not even funny, even around other people

sometimes sweetheart tells milo “don’t touch me i have a mate” when he tries to kiss them. milo threatens to beat him (the mate) up 

sweetheart calls milo "aggro's handsome dad"

they both speak spanish fairly fluently and they use it whenever they're arguing in front of others or talking shit about people

sweetheart is kind of the therapist friend and tries to be the support system for all of their loved ones even if it burns them out. milo is their support system for when it gets to be too much

milo worries about sweetheart constantly over-working and burning themself out but he knows he can't stop them. so he just remains as the person they can fall back on when they can't do it anymore

they have fake arguments about literally nothing for fun

when sweetheart got to take milo home after the inversion, they kept their hand on his chest as often as possible to remind themself that he was still alive

they will argue about literally everything and anything

it only gets super bad when they're both stressed out and only then does it make them say things they don't really mean. but they're both pretty good at accepting blame and communicating afterwards

arguments always end in cuddles and movie nights with warm blankets

there was a time when an argument was entirely milo's fault and he refused to apologize so sweetheart put him on a physical contact ban. no touching, kissing, hugging, cuddling, hair ruffles, no nothing for a whole two days

milo was so distraught after he got home on the second day and they were practically ignoring him so he started compulsively apologizing

sweetheart made him beg for forgiveness on his knees for 10 minutes before they let him touch them again

darlin flirts with sweetheart sometimes and it makes milo crazy jealous

sweetheart is constantly looking at and touching milo's chest

milo slaps sweetheart's ass every chance he gets

they're insanely competitive with each other and milo's a sore loser (“…milo I don’t know what you want me say cause if I say anything it feels like I’m gloating” “because you’re a cheater!”)

milo always has an arm around sweetheart's shoulder/on the back of their chair

their song is ho hey by the lumineers

milo gets really cold on the summer solstice and sweetheart gets really hot. milo clings onto sweetheart the whole day and sweetheart let’s him no matter how sweaty and agitated they are

sweetheart and milo make playlists together as quality time (they 88 playlists with extremely specific moods and titles)

in serious situations, they cannot look at each other without laugh at absolutely nothing

sweetheart went to the same empowered high school the wolf bois did (they never crossed paths, it was a really big school) and when they told milo he flipped his shit

sweetheart is constantly bothering and harassing milo and he thinks it's the most amusing thing in the world

they have matching necklaces with the other's name on

milo definetly has a nickname for sweetheart that's based on their actual name (shortened version of it, elongated version, a rhyme, etc.)

they're the couple that, after being together for so long, have basically turned into the same person (adopting the other’s speech patterns, clothing styles and acting the same way, acting in sync)

milo is an absolute baby when sick, sweetheart babies him the entire time until he's 100% healthy again

sweetheart likes to pretend they're not sick until they collapse which is why milo is always cautiously watching them once he notices (because they have fainted before)

milo and sweetheart love playing the chapstick challenge because sweetheart has an egregious amount of chapsticks and lip balms and it’s an excuse to kiss each other

milo and sweetheart sometimes recite (love) song lyrics with a completely straight face and not singing it. they think it’s the funniest thing ever

they will also just randomly start singing out loud together from a phrase that happens to be in a song

they do each other's hair whenever they have the extra time in the morning because it takes so much longer (it's the extended make-outs)

milo is sweetheart's alarm clock because he wakes up at the same time every day and he cannot, for the life of him, leave bed quietly (sweetheart is also a light sleeper)

whenever sweetheart is extra tired and doesn't feel like doing their whole after-work care routine when they get home, milo does it for them

if sweetheart wears makeup, milo loves watching them put it on

occasionally, sweetheart makes tiktoks (thirst traps) to their favourite/trending songs and posts them on their private socials (only the pack/close friends are on there)

milo is always first in their comments, spamming at least 20 interactions before he texts them letting them know he saw it

they also do tiktok dances (the old actually cool ones not the garbage ones bitches do these days) and milo goes crazy for those

sweetheart's parents were very neglectful so having marie in their life means a lot. milo reminds them often that she's their mother now as well (fuck you colm)

sweetheart paints whenever they need to calm down or stop thinking and they always add a little bit of milo to their paintings (his favourite flowers, a shirt he owns, adding his freckles onto every one of their characters, etc.) ((they also paint aggro all the time))

milo has definetly threatened to kill someone for sweetheart

sweetheart didn't think milo was an overly possessive boyfriend at first because he really doesn't show it that often but they mentioned a coworker flirting with them and he straight up growled

milo gets more jealous than sweetheart does because wolf shifters are generally more possessive than others but sweetheart can also get crazy jealous

they're both really possessive in a "touch my mate and you're dead" way

sweetheart hates throwing up (it's kind of a fear but not quite a phobia) so whenever they do, milo is always sitting next to them to hold them and he dotes on them until they feel better

they both worry over each other all the time over everything

neither of them know how to be subtle or how to keep their hands off of each other

milo loves telling sweetheart they’re gorgeous every damn chance he gets 

sweetheart slides their cold hands up milo's shirt just to make him flinch

[nectardaddy]

OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN. . . single dad! meian + f!reader

✮⋆˙ notes/CWs - brief mention of parental death, heavy underlying emotions, meian's a flirt when he wants to be, typos probably

It was all too early for the man that morning, the sun barely even breaking the horizon when his alarm went off. He rubbed at tired eyes the whole morning, fighting off the urge to do nothing more than get back in bed. But he couldn't do that, even if he had the chance - he had more than just himself to take care of. 

His daughter, Himawari, always, without fail, fought him on waking up; and now that it was earlier than normal, it was a complete lost cause. She fought against waking up, fought against getting ready, and fought against going outside because she refused to wear a jacket. But the chill outside turned her off to the idea of going to school all together. Stubborn, and moody from the change of schedule, he had to all but drag her to get in the car - she fought against that too.

They had to get to her school earlier than normal, his schedule clashed with all other times to meet with her teacher - a prerequisite, of sorts, to meet all new families at the beginning of the year - and he finally bit the bullet and asked for a time before school. Thank god her teacher agreed; despite the coaxing and near begging the man had to do to get his daughter in the building to begin with. 

She walked beside him, arms crossed over her chest with a scowl; a rather adorable sight at how small she was and the Hello Kitty bookbag she adorned. (But Meian told anyone who would listen to not let her fool them, she was as devilish as they came.) He shortened his strides whenever he walked with his daughter, he was tall enough that one stride was about three of hers; so he opted for picking her up with a groan. “Come here, you're killing me.” 

She fought against being picked up as well, “put me down!” A loud whine that nearly echoed in the empty hallway, “I don't wanna’ be held right now!” He only sighed as she squirmed against him, but eventually gave up once she realized she was no match. 

“It's not my fault you walk slow,” he groaned, but the smallest of smiles peaked at his lips once he cut his eyes over to her. She pouted, huffed, and did anything she could to make him feel bad; but it didn't work. 

“Maybe you just walk too fast.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Hima.” 

The hallway was long, almost liminal as the doors seemed to never end. Each decorated, or not, which showed the personality of who occupied it. The school was basically empty, besides the few staff members who got to work early on their own free will, and quiet. Quiet enough to hear the small sigh of defeat from his daughter, and she now rested her head on his shoulder. “Dad, I'm tired.” 

“I know.” Good god did he know. “Maybe if you went to bed on time you wouldn't be so sleepy.” 

“But I can't sleep when you're not there,” she sighed again. He felt his heart drop at her words, even though he knew them all too well. Every babysitter he ever had loved the girl, but every single one had never gotten her to fall asleep. The girl refused every time; and if she didn't, she laid in bed until she heard the front door open and shut, and the familiar voice of her father. She would drive herself to sleep deprivation all because Meian wasn't there. “I miss you too much to go to sleep.” 

“I know,” he repeated, much more softly than the latter. Filled with care, and hinted with regret, though he knew he had no other choice but to not be home. Games were important, not like the stray practices he would miss here and there; and the games that were later in the day he unfortunately couldn't bring her to. “I miss you too.” There was a small moment of silence, not knowing what to say as he felt his daughter fidget with the sleeve of his shirt.

The man prided himself with his encouragement skills and wise words, but more often than not he couldn't find them for himself. There was a missing piece to his mind it seemed, gaping and dreary as he wished nothing more than to be a good father - but to him, he always fell short. There were times he wasn't home, important events like school plays and concerts missed from commitments to his team, he couldn't help her with her homework as he wasn't home when she got back because of practice, and the period of time away for nationals felt like a stake through the heart every time it rolled around. 

An optimist with others, but a pessimist with himself. Always falling just shy of what he thought a good parent should be and what a good parent should do. It was utterly exhausting.

Despite his aching heart and rattling mind, he gave her a small smile and desperately tried to change the subject - more for himself rather than her. “Why don't you tell me about your teacher?” 

He heard the girl hum before she lifted her head to look at him with tired eyes. “I think you'll like her,” a tone that finally seemed to melt away the prior attitude. “She's really nice, not like my teacher last year, and she makes crafts with us.” She smiled, the first time that entire morning, “yesterday we read about bunnies and we made plates that looked like bunnies.”

“I know, you brought it home.” He smiled at the reminiscent thought; he came home just after she did, and she all but knocked him down running to show him the plate with construction paper and pom poms glued to it. “I'm actually pretty jealous, ‘sounds fun making bunny plates.” He chuckled, “you think the guys would want to make them?” Hima was well aware of the team he played for, moreover his teammates. She often saw them at the handful of practices and games that he took her to, but more so knew of them through the stories he shared.

She laughed at his question, and he took a silent sigh of relief. “Mr. Hinata might,” she giggled, “but I know Mr. Bokuto would!” The child picked favorites, most definitely; however, her favorite, out of all of them, was Sakusa - and he still had no unearthly reason why other than the dry humor he offered. Every practice he ever brought her to was always met with Hima hanging off of the man, annoying him, and pressing every button Sakusa had - and Meian let her, a silent act of revenge for the consistent arguments he started with Atsumu.

“You're right, he would.” Bokuto was just as childish as she, if not more - he would probably beg the man to make one if given the chance. “Do you want to show him yours later today?” While he didn't plan to take the girl to practice, the sentiment of longing still lingered in the back of his mind; twisted and turned until he felt sick. The awful feeling of thinking he spent too much time away from her returned; and he hoped bringing her with him might mend how he felt, and maybe make her tired enough she would, for once, go to sleep on time. 

“Really?” She asked excitedly. The girl cheered just before continuing on with her child like rambles. Himawari could go on for hours, days really, if he let her (which he more often than not did). She enjoyed talking about just about anything, and would find side story after side story as she went on through her rants. But the man never minded, he found it endearing that the girl had picked up his outgoing attitude. 

He smiled as she continued on, rounding a corner to the hallway that her classroom was on. The school was quite big, a primary school that housed kindergarten through sixth, so every grade level was split into smaller hallways. The man surprised himself that he could remember where to go, as the only other time he went was when she was in first grade. 

“She's really pretty, y'know?” Meian cut his eyes towards the girl, still holding her within his arms, and scrunched his brows.

“Who?” The word laced with confusion as his daughter only giggled again.

“My teacher.” He couldn't help but let a small breath pass his lips, and fought against rolling his eyes entirely. Himawari was prone to talking up the people within her life; which was an admirable trait to have, he was happy the girl wasn't a bully. But she was apt to make the older women around her larger than life - to play matchmaker. The girl couldn't remember her birth mother, she had passed when she was only a year old, but Meian made it a point to consistently remind the girl of her. Consistently reminded her, and himself, they were never abandoned. 

That never stopped Hima from yearning for another woman's presence though. Didn't stop her from the small smiles she would give her father when talking about women much older than she, his age, with an err of playfulness that made him roll his eyes. So to her latter statement he only hummed, “and what do you say about me then, huh?” 

“That you're old.” 

“Ouch-” he rolled his eyes at her nonchalant attitude, “I'm not even that old, Hima.”

“Yeah, ok.” Her sarcastic tone made him sigh, and he thought to himself that maybe he allowed her to hang about Sakusa all too much - his blunt choice of words rubbed off on her in ways he couldn’t imagine. Never rude, but curt replies that never failed to make him groan. But he kept his mouth shut on the topic as he continued walking, and thanked the stars he was almost to his destination. 

“Put me down, put me down!” The girl began to squirm in his arms, desperately trying to escape him to go to her teacher’s room that finally came within their view. The man quickly caved, picking his battles wisely with his daughter’s already flighty mood, and figured it wasn’t all that bad for her to be excited for school - quite the opposite really. 

He watched as his daughter ran through the doorway of the open classroom, and heard a cheery voice greet her from the other side. The voice was light and airy, joy mingling amongst syllables with every word spoken. There was an intent behind it that felt sound, secure - a voice that most definitely belonged to a second grade teacher. 

“Dad said I can bring my bunny plate to his practice and show his friends!” 

“Really? That's so cool, I bet they'll love it.” A small smile peaked on his lips at the woman’s words; although he couldn’t see it just yet, he could practically hear the smile she wore. “Did you get to show your dad yet?” 

Yet. 

The word alone made his steps slow just before he reached the door, letting his pace taper off before completely stopping and he let out a silent breath. It was her job to care, to provide comfort and joy, to create a sense of security and structure - but Himawara had no structure in her life. And it was all his fault, or so he thought. The girl, frankly, never knew her father’s schedule, as it always dialed and changed according to the needs of the team. He desperately tried, at any given opportunity, to cling to time with her - and while he cherished every second, it was never enough. 

He couldn’t help her as much as he liked with homework - yet. He couldn’t pick her up from school most days - yet. And he couldn’t find it within the chasms of his mind to give himself grace - yet. 

“I did! He put it on the fridge!” He wished he could be more like his daughter - happy and unknowing in the reality of real life. A childlike sense of certainty that everything was fine, that one could find joy in everything if they looked hard enough, and an unwavering belief that her father did everything under the sun for her. He couldn’t help but smile softly at the thought, and allowed the burden of ‘yet’ to pass him. 

“Now that's where real masterpieces go,” she mused. “Did you tell him the book we read?” 

“Not the title at least,” he chuckled as he rounded the doorway. “Everything else about it? Absolutely. I could probably quote it to you at this point.” A joke that landed fairly well, as he heard the woman laugh in response, but the comedic energy the man once held was quickly replaced with awe as he leaned against the doorway.

Himawari was wrong, utterly wrong. Her teacher wasn't pretty - she was beautiful.

He felt his stomach lurch to his throat, a brief sensation but one that made him cough. The realization that the woman was his daughter's teacher made him feel rather small, stupid even, and wildly out of his element. He woke up that morning and simply got ready for practice - a slam packed schedule as the practice started just after this meeting would be over - and now he deeply regretted it. 

“‘Morning, Mr. Meian.” He felt like a puddle of the man he once was only seconds ago, before she said his name. A subtle code switch that he picked up on from her - a voice for talking to children, and a voice for adults. He felt his mind go blank and nearly asked her to talk to him as if he were a child, maybe then he wouldn't have been so enamored. 

He couldn't help but linger in the doorway to the classroom, the exposed skin of his arm leaning against the cool wood of the frame. Hands shoved into the pockets of track pants as he watched the woman retrieve papers from her desk. Only then did she meet his eyes and his breath hitched in his throat. She paused for a fraction of a second, her pace stuttering just before forcing her eyes to the ground and continuing on. 

This was terrible. 

“You can come in,” her voice was softer in comparison to her latter statement, nervous even. It made him second guess why he was here in the first place, despite the flicker of his daughter playing with a puzzle on the floor nearby.

“How are you?” He asked, trying to fight against the heat that wanted to surge to his face. He felt silly making small talk, the man always fell flat on his face when it came to it, but felt even sillier if he had said nothing at all. 

“Tired,” she spoke through a chuckle, and he could tell. Behind a, semi, forced smile was tired eyes and a look of exhaustion. It was only Wednesday, and he suddenly felt bad for making the meeting in the first place. “But I'm here. How about yourself?” 

“About the same as you,” he smiled. “Sorry again for wanting this meeting so early, it's the only time that worked.” An apology didn’t seem like it should be enough now that he looked at the woman. Albite pretty, she looked weary, burnt out, and he sensed a twinge of discontent - like she didn’t want to be there in the first place. Groveling may have been a better thing to do, but it wasn’t as if he had a choice in the time he chose. He exhausted all other options from a meticulous schedule that was downright impossible to change.

“Don't worry about it,” she shrugged, “I'm just glad you didn't want it way after school.” 

“Feels like a crime to make you stay that long.” 

“It should be.” She met his eyes again and smiled, one that seemed genuine rather than forced this time. And he watched her eyes flicker to the other side of the room after a moment. “We can sit back there,” she motioned towards a semi circle table in the back of the room. “It's a little cluttered, but it's better than sitting at a desk made for a second grader.” The table didn't seem cluttered in the slightest; occupied with stacks of papers and different containers, each having a different color that he only guessed was for ease of organization. 

She sat down, he followed, and began shifting the papers and containers over, now lining the edges with organized chaos than the latter neat piles. “Sorry,” she chuckled. “They come back here to work with me, so keeping everything neat is almost unheard-of.” 

He let a laugh pass his lips just before he cut his eyes to his daughter, then promptly returned his gaze to her. “Trust me, I know. She'll pull out everything and decide she doesn't even want to play anymore.” 

He felt his heart squeeze when she laughed in response, it was a laugh he could easily get used to, a laugh he wanted to hear more often than just at school. It was gentle, lighthearted, and voluntary - it didn’t feel like a laugh she had to force, as he suspected she did often. His mind kept circling back to the sound as she spoke; he didn’t even realize she had formally started the meeting just minutes ago. His thoughts were the furthest from where they should have been, as he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of her. 

Dazed, seemingly on cloud nine, he didn’t register that she spoke of grades, behavior, and reading level. He simply nodded along as he tried to memorize every detail of the woman in front of him: her eyes were dark and tired, she had smile lines on the sides of her lips, of which he guessed were from years of doing nothing but, her clothes were casual but nice despite the knowledge that children were frankly disgusting, and the side of her dominant hand was stained with multicolored marker, which he only imagined was the set up of a craft for later today. 

“Do you have any questions?” The sentiment jerked him back to the present, and his fuzzy mind cleared quickly once he realized he didn’t register a single thing she spoke about. “Anything you want to add, maybe?”

“When's the next time you're doing these meetings?” The only query that made headway in his mind left his lips at the same time; speaking without thinking, and noticing too late what managed to tumble from his tongue. 

“Conferences?” There was a sense of confusion riddled in her voice; if he were listening, he would have known that his daughter was doing just fine - excelling even. 

“Yeah,” he nodded. And despite his better judgment, he doubled down on the sentiment entirely. “When's the next time I can talk to you?” He watched the woman’s eyes widen, and for a moment he felt like an idiot until he noticed a barely there, bitten back smile. 

“You could always email me?” It was a subtle change in conversation, but one that both picked up on quickly. He was convinced the woman was trying to make his heart stop when she locked eyes with him, a cheekiness to the once serious discussion now diminished. “I respond pretty quickly actually.”

“Do you, now?” He leaned forward slightly, enough to rest his elbows against the table. At first the distance between the two was vast, professional, but he closed the door to professionality and locked it when he leaned in closer to her. She bit the inside of her cheek, still fighting the smile that desperately wanted to bloom on her lips. “That's good to know. But, I feel like I get a million emails every day. I'd never live it down if I missed one from you.” 

“Things happen,” she shrugged with a gentle chuckle. “Did you have a better alternative though?” It was then he realized she wasn’t talking to him like a teacher anymore; instead, the tone had shifted again. This was actually her - not a teacher, not a professional - her. A coy change in the color of her voice that made his heart do flips, but played upon regardless. 

“Getting your number was one.” 

The battle between her and her ever growing smile ultimately ended in defeat at his proposition. Her lips pulled upward in an inviting smile and she cast her eyes to the table, a sheepishness washing over her at the man’s boldness - but she couldn’t deny that she liked it. “It's not every day I give a parent my personal number.” 

“We don't need to talk about school.”

“Then what exactly would we talk about?” 

“If you're free this weekend, or any weekend really?” The question left his lips with ease, despite the nerves that overflowed him when he first entered. He saw her eyes flicker back up to meet his own, catching his gaze once more, to which his heart hammered in his chest. 

“What did you have in mind, Mr. Meian?” 

“We don't have to decide that now,” a cheeky reply as he flashed her a smile. “We have until Saturday to figure that out.”

“I guess we do.” She looked down again, biting at the inside of her cheek, before reaching next to her at a stack of sticky notes. “You better not use this to ask me questions about second grade math,” she teased as she wrote the number down. Her handwriting was pretty and neat, a whimsy to it that matched her job to a tee. Once done, she took it off the stack and handed it to him, their fingers briefly touching as he took it from her. There was a pause when their fingers met; her fingers were cold against his own and it sent a shockwave through him. He could die happy if he was able to feel that again. 

“That sucks. Because I've been really struggling with adding and subtracting.” He broke the brief silence with a boldness, one that looked all too good on him, and he smiled again. She rolled her eyes and laughed at his statement, “I’ll text you later today.”

“I hope you do.”

taglist (open, send an ask)

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@knightofwands-upright

[d34dlysinner]

This has been on my mind so.. WHB Kings (+ Sitri, Leraye) reaction to MC forgetting their own name due to being called "Solomon" or "Solomon's child" so much, that the MC asks the guys "What was my name again?"

MINORS DNI

The demon needed something from you and called out a shortened or nickname version of your name that he rarely uses. He noticed that you didn't respond and this time said your full name to catch your attention.

"I just called for you... Are you awake?", he says as he sees you snap out of your train of thought.

You opened your mouth: "Huh?... What is my name again?"

Satan stood there as his eyebrows raised in sync with his eyes widening.

"What do you mean-... Your name is MC.", he says as he watches how you snapped your fingers.

"Ah... right!", you said as if you suddenly understood something.

To say that Satan was shocked at you for forgetting your name was kind of an understatement. Then he remembered all the times he hears others call you "Solomon" or "Child of Solomon", and he understood why it became hard to remember your name.

After that he made sure to watch over you for a while and kick anyone in Gehenna that never calls you by your name.

Mammon needed a second to register your question.

"Your name is MC.", he says to answer your question. He didn't understand how you forgot your own name. It's something that he could not even own and even he knows many names.

"You should write your name down. It's one thing that others shouldn't be able to take from you. It's also something you shouldn't forget.", he says as he becomes worried at how easily you forgot your name.

After that scene he would atleast call you by your name 3 times a day.

Leviathan frowned as he said: "MC... How could you forget your own name?"

He definitely didn't understand how so he kind of blamed it on you being a human.

"Maybe humans forget things too easily...", he says to himself as he stood up and walked towards you.

"What's your name?", he asked as he expected you to say the name he used on you a few second ago.

"... MC...", You said. The way he looks at you while waiting for an answer sort of feels as if you were being scolded for making a dumb mistake, but that feeling disappeared the moment his frown vanished.

"Good. So, you do know your name. Now you should remember it forever."

Beelzebub thought you were joking at first.

"You're messing with me.", he said before he saw your expression turn into a confused frown.

"Wait... You're really asking what your name is?", he asked. He questioned if you hit your head or something.

He was about to say your name until he had an idea. "Hmm... Well, if you want to know your name you have to get it out of me.", he purred into your ear. He gave you a relaxed smile, a smile you knew all to well.

"You can't just tell me... You really want me to get it out you by teasing or?", you asked. Your answer was confirmed the moment he shone you a bright smile. He wouldn't keep your name secret forever if you don't want to do it. In fact, he'll just call you boring and say your name if you refuse.

Sitri was confused for a moment. He thought that you were joking as he said "Solomon?" again. You were also confused as you knew that it wasn't your name, but your ancestors name. Sitri does know your name but would refuse to say it. It was only when you 'threatened' to leave him there that he spoke up. "MC. MC is your name."

He does call you Solomon most of the times. Solely because this is how he copes with the reality of Solomon being dead, but he also didn't want you to leave too just because you were going to ask around for your name.

"Your name is MC. If you allow it... Please let me call you Solomon for a little while more."

Leraye was shocked. "Wait... MC?... You forgot that your name was MC?", he asked as he just used your name as usual.

Leraye didn't want to call you or compare you to Solomon. It's cheating to him. And on top of that he loved your name so he was confused on how you would forget something as simple as your name.

"I will call you by your name everytime we meet, everytime we say goodbye and every time I'd think of you. That way you won't ever forget who you are!"

[bon2bonn]

Flowers to you

Words count : 1.6k

*First life update!🌷 with little Mari, the firstborn of the Leclerc-Sainz clan .

The Small grunts made Carlos smile in amusement, slowing his steps a bit for his determined daughter to catch up with . her steady pace was due to the big bouquet she was holding onto for dear life , refusing to let anyone else hold it or even come close to touch it , a special gift for her Mama , insisting on each colour , type and even made sure to ask politely if they could wrap it in blue wrapping papers .

That's why now she's carefully making her way up to the front door supporting her precious flowers , pausing every now and then to adjust her small hands around it and huffing dramatically as she tried to and failed to blow away strands of hair that stubbornly fell over her face but that won't hinder her from doing what she planned to.

Carlos chuckled at her struggling form , asking softly " you want some help there Mari? " , she shook her head or at least tried , answering confidently " non papa , I got it! " he hummed unlocking the door to let her get in first before he did the same , both taking off their shoes before heading to the kitchen when they took notice of the quiet house, making sure to not make too much noise in order to maintain the peace. Both washed their hands and made their way to the counter, where she stood on on her stall , a set of steps for her to reach the counter, the sink ....etc , patiently waiting for her father to get one of her favourite vases down for them to work on.

" So , miss Mari what do we do first ?" Carlos asked with his hands on his hips, feigning confusion making her shake her head dramatically, pointing at the vase then at the counter " the vase , papa! Did you forget already ? " His face broke into a grin as he set the vase on the counter where she leaned over to inspect the inside and nodded in approval, then he turned again to grab his wife's clippers , waiting as little Mari carefully unwrap the flowers and untangle the secure knots at the stems, taking out one at a time to hand over to him to clip out the excess leaves , shorten the stems before taking them back to arrange into the vase to her liking.

She hummed a tone as she took one from his hand delicately adding it to the rest before picking another from the pile, nodding at her work with a focused look on her face , her brows creasing as she took out one that she didn't like and put it aside before proceeding, and once she's done she took out the blue ribbon out of her pocket , the lady on the counter was kind to give her a one to match with the wrapping , saying it was for good luck , so she now took it and wrapped it around the vase , asking with frown for her Papa's help when she couldn't make the knot as neet as she wanted, then she leaned back a bit to give it a final inspection, Carlos crossed his arms over the counter where he leaned on it after putting everything away and cleaned the remains of leaves and wrapping paper " so , what do you think miss Mari ? You think Mama would like them ? " She nods confidently her small hands on the counter " Mama will love them , they're her favourite and , we made it with love because, we love Mama , so she'll love them " he propped his head on his hands with his elbows still on the counter and asked in amusement " and how much do we love Mama ? " She gave him a wide grin answering " as much as I love papa " making him ask again " and how much do you love papa? " She held out her hands giving an exaggerated measure "as much as there is stars on the whole whole universe" he placed his hand over his heart Groaning dramatically " too sweet , ugh ! My Mariposa is too sweet what should I do !" He then scooped her up spinning around the counter , emitting a loud laugh out of her as her hair fell all over her face " papa! My hair! " He placed her down and sighed in content " alright how about we wash our hands and go show Mama what we made ? " Her face lit up and she hurriedly made her way to wash her hands, dried them and waited for him to do the same , he teased her by doing so slowly making her groan impatiently and throw her head back , just like her mother .

He then picked her with one arm and grabbed the vase with the other on their way out , heading up the stairs for the master bedroom where they left her resting before going out .

Her second pregnancy was a difficult one to say the least , suffering from long restless nights accompanied with back pains up to high blood pressure overall it was a complicated one , and on her latest appointment her doctor finally declared she needs to be on bed rest for the remaining period of the pregnancy, strongly advising them to change the birth plans to surgical option, to avoid any complications or risks as she put it, trying not to alarm the already stressed couple, but precautions are a must with her condition , specially through the last stages of it .

The moment they stepped into the room their daughter exclaimed at the sight of her reading peacefully with raised arms " Mama! " Making her look up , a smile lit up her face as she was greeted with them standing before her, with little Mari barley containing her excitement as Carlos set her down on the bed , leaning over to greet her with a kiss " hi" she smiled at the kiss , greeting back a quiet " hey " then leaned back to open her arms for a big hug from little Mari who crawled her way up to wrap her arms around her neck, leaving a kiss on her Mama's cheek and cuddled into her arms humming as she asked her " how was your trip ? ", both parents grins in amusement as she perked up in a burst of excitement pointing at the bedside table where Carlos put the vase earlier " look mama , we got your favourite " , she admired the blooming flowers along with the baby blue ribbon around it , appreciating the effort they put into it and turned to her " I love them baby " leaning to kiss her on the cheek " and the blue ribbon too " Mari's smile widened at that as she gently patted her Mama's belly " it's for Mateo " then she leaned down to leave a kiss on the side of it, speaking quietly to the baby " hi Mateo , we brought you and mama flowers today , I'm sure you're gonna like them when you're here , Mama liked them and I did too so I'll get some for you too , okay? " she promised unaware of the knowing look shared between her parents , they didn't reveal the baby's gender yet , but , Mari decided long ago that it's going to be a boy , even declaring his name to be Mateo just like she remembered from the dream she had , stubbornly refusing to settle on anything else .

Carlos then gave a sound of protest " what about me !? where's my kiss? , I did help! " his wife looked at her daughter in question , who in turn gave her a wide grin " he did Mama " making Carlos look at her pointedly, she then opened her arms for him , and he didn't waste time leaning over to receive a kiss on his cheek, then he turned his head to steal one from her lips , before leaning down to place another on her belly, before moving to the end of the bed to take her feet into his lap , massaging them to relieve some of the aches .

Meanwhile Mari leaned over to not so quietly whisper to her Mama with a frown on her face " Mama " receiving a humm before she proceeded in a serious manner making her mother frown in turn " what's wrong baby ?" Making her answer with a solemn look as she recalled her conversation with her uncle " I think thuthu is right " her mother then asked curiously, knowing her youngest brother's antics " really? And what did he say this time ? " She answered with a pout " papa is forgetting things , he didn't know what to do earlier !! , and thuthu said that means papa is getting old " that made Carlos snap his head their way , his smile fell and a frown on his face , his eye twitched as he called out in denial over his wife's loud snickers " AY ! I'm not old ! , he's lying! " He then glared at his wife who was cackling when their daughter innocently answered back with a sympathetic nod " he said old people say that too " .

[nerdranttheories]

Watching Two Heroes again reminded me of something I haven’t really seen talked about a lot, but

All Might Keeping Secrets and Self-Isolating Led to His Downfall

Obviously, right? Everyone and their mother’s said this, and it’s clearly meant by the story. But I think David Shield is the best example of this, and I haven’t really seen the Two Heroes movie mentioned when having this conversation. This is my explanation of this movie being the epitome of this idea, and the time where I believe All Might learns from his mistake — even if it’s too late for him to change the course of his narrative.

The movie clearly indicates early on, by All Might himself, that David Shield, his “best friend” and sidekick from his college days has not been informed of One for All, and All Might intends to keep it that way. Deku, ever the audience lens character for the world of My Hero, questions it, to which All Might answers it’s to keep his friend safe.

This is shown to not be the case. In fact, by not telling his friend about One for All, David, someone who is good and concerned about his friend, turns to villainy out of desperation to save him. If All Might had simply told him about how his power works, and that he’s passed the torch on to Deku, then David wouldn’t have had as much need to worry. And this is something that All Might had several opportunities to reveal, even over the course of the movie itself. Most especially when David’s checking Toshinori’s vitals and his quirk levels. (Which, I have no idea how you would even trace something like that, but I digress.)

Then, to add salt to the wound, All for One targets David regardless of his knowledge of One for All. Just his connection to All Might as a former sidekick was enough to put him in the line of fire. All Might’s secret-keeping didn’t protect him from anything, and instead turned an already bad situation worse. In the end, presumably David Shield is put away in prison, because when we see Iron Might in the manga, only Melissa is pictured, not her father, and if David had been available I refuse to believe that he wouldn’t have had a hand in the suit’s creation. All Might’s time limit in his muscle form is also shortened once again.

Ultimately I believe this specific situation is what led to him eventually urging Deku to not make the same mistake he did, in not telling anyone about One for All.

Also, the specificity of Wolfram being drawn this way after being defeated, gaunt and steaming, paralleling someone else we all know and love, felt very intentional. I don’t have more to say about it at the moment, I just thought it was interesting and that I’d point it out.

[youcouldmakealife]

SOTM: Gabe/Stephen; a low-key occasion (pt I)

For the prompt: Stephen Petersen, Bridezilla

It quickly became quite clear that this prompt would refuse to settle into a one-parter, so here is the first of at least two. Next one should come within the week.

“I don’t know what they’re talking about,” Stephen says

It isn’t always a bad sign when Stephen starts right in the middle of a conversation he neglected to invite Gabe to — sometimes Stephen genuinely forgets that ‘I should tell Gabe’ isn’t the same as ‘I have told Gabe’. But lately? Lately it’s been a very bad sign indeed.

But then, everything’s a bad sign lately. Stephen says ‘good morning’? Bad sign. Stephen doesn’t say ‘good morning’? Bad sign. Stephen shortens it to ‘morning’? Absolutely terrible sign.

It’s only been getting worse as the wedding date approaches. Gabe thought they’d be above stressing over their wedding, but in hindsight, he’s not sure why. Stephen stresses about everything, and special occasions are no exception. If anything, they’re the exemplar.

“I don’t know what they’re talking about either,” Gabe says, since Stephen’s giving him an expectant look.

Stephen squints. “You don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“No idea,” Gabe says. “You forgot to tell me.”

Stephen huffs.

“Who are they, and what are they talking about?” Gabe says. “I know you said you don’t know, but you sort of said it in a way that implies you do know, you just think that they’re—“

“Full of shit?” Stephen says.

That one, yes.

“You still haven’t told me who ‘they’ is referring to,” Gabe tells him.

Gabe knows Stephen’s trying to get him to agree, but he refuses to do that until he knows who Stephen’s talking about. What if he’s talking about his parents? Or Gabe’s? Gabe is way too big a mama’s boy to ever say his mother is full of shit. And if he did, he’s positive his mom would know. Even if he and Stephen never mentioned it again, even to each other: she’d know.

Stephen huffs at him again. “Them,” he says, gesturing expansively around the room, though Gabe doesn’t think he’s talking about their living room furniture. “Everyone.”

“Okay,” Gabe says. He thinks if he asks what everyone’s saying he’ll get a third huff, and if he gets a third huff, he’s probably going to start agreeing with ‘them’ just on principle, because, whatever it is that 'they' said, Stephen probably deserved it.

“Do you know what Jared called me today?” Stephen says.

Ah. Math. Gabe should have known it was Math, because he manages to get under Stephen’s skin like no one else. Stephen’s sole consolation is that it’s mutual.

Unfortunately, that’s the opposite of consolation for Gabe, who has to listen to both of them bitching about each other afterwards. Well, Dima often has to hear both sides of the bitching too, but he enjoys it.

“Something mean?” Gabe ventures.

“He called me high-maintenance,” Stephen says.

Gabe presses his lips together.

“Him,” Stephen says. “Jared Matheson. Who does not drink beer because he thinks it’s ‘yucky’.”

“You’re not the biggest fan of beer yourself,” Gabe says. He thinks Jared would take umbrage to the ‘yucky’ bit, claim he was too mature for to ever use that word, but he also saw Math’s face when he accidentally took a sip of Bryce’s beer, and ‘this is yucky’ is a pretty good description of the expression he made.

“But I drink it,” Stephen says. “Do you know why?”

Gabe knows exactly what he’ll say the reason is, and he refuses to participate on principle.

“Because I’m not high-maintenance,” Stephen says.

See? He doesn’t need Gabe for this at all. Doesn’t need him for conversations, or wedding planning, or —

“Can you believe that?” Stephen says, then gives Gabe a look that tells him it isn’t a rhetorical question.

Gabe makes a noise. It could be taken as support, if Stephen would like to take it that way. Commiseration, even. But it isn’t.

Because yes. Gabe can believe that.

In fact, messenger aside — no one who has ever met Jared Matheson would describe him as low-maintenance, except probably him, and maybe Bryce if he’s feeling particularly blinded by adoration that day — Gabe can’t do anything but agree.

[wolfiesmoon]

The wrong guy

teacher!Nanami x teacher!reader

so i started watching the kdrama "a good day to be a dog" recently and the ml makes me think of nanami so much it's not even funny. this fic is based on the plot!!

Warnings: drinking (but its wholesome dw), gojo

It's been about 5 months since your last breakup. You didn't really care for that ex, if you're honest. He immediately dumped you after you told him that kissing is off the table.

You could say that you are a bit unlucky when it comes to relationships and that's mostly because of that dastardly curse.

For as long as you can remember, your mom has been warning you to never ever let someone kiss you and to never kiss anyone, ever.

Otherwise you would end up like your cousin, doomed to live as a dog for the rest of his now shortened life.

It's his fault he got drunk and kissed a random girl, couldn't track her down in 100 days and didn't break the curse. But it was a pretty scary reminder of your family's curse.

Life moves on without waiting for you and there's no time to worry about your unfortunate love life in this society.

Today is another completely normal day at work. You walk to the school, greeting students along the way. The kids look awfully excited to go to school when it isn't exam season.

Youth must be fun. Especially sneaking around with your high school sweetheart.

While walking to your classroom, you run into your favourite co-worker, Gojo Satoru.

"Good morning!" He greets you smoothly, flashing you that perfect smile of his. You greet him back, always excited to see him.

"Are you free tonight? Because me and some other teachers are going drinking. Wanna come?" He asked you, and you nodded immediately. Of course you're going drinking with Gojo (and company). You could never refuse!

"Great! I'll send you the adress!" He waved you bye with a cheeky smile, going in his classroom to do homeroom.

Oh, right, you should probably be getting to that too. You can't set a bad example for your class by being late to homeroom.

You walk past the classroom where Nanami teaches and you have no idea why, but you stopped in your tracks to look at him a little.

You're not sure why, but he doesn't seem to like you at all. He always seems a bit distant and uncomfortable around you.

It kind of makes you sad. And it doesn't help at all that you constantly have to read notes about how hot he is after you confiscate them from your students.

What is up with this school and attractive teachers, anyways? Your students just barely got over Gojo and now they're thirsting over Nanami. Not that you can blame them.

You continue on, opening the door to your classroom. "Good morning!"

"Good morning, teacher!" The students shout back.

.

When you get to the meeting spot, Shoko is already waiting there. She greets you calmly.

"Hi. Uhhh..." you don't know where to go from here. It's kind of awkward just standing around and waiting for the others to arrive.

"You like Satoru, don't you?" Shoko asks suddenly, smiling at you.

"Huh?! How did you know?!"

"It's... obvious. But today's your chance. He's in a good mood when he gets drunk, you could attempt something." Shoko raised her brows.

Well, there isn't much to attempt if you can't kiss. Will a kiss-less confession work?

"Hello~" Gojo interrupted you just as you were about to answer Shoko and you jumped a little in surprise.

Nanami was standing next to him. Oh, so he invited him, too... You have a feeling this is going to get a little awkward.

While the lot of you headed to the bar, Shoko walked next to Gojo, talking to him about various things you didn't really care about.

That meant you were walking next to Nanami... in painfully awkward silence. Yikes.

"How was your day?" You asked with a painfully forced smile.

"It was fine." He answered simply, not even trying to continue the conversation. Right, you should just be quiet.

There's no use in getting buddy buddy with Nanami.

.

"Let's dig in!" Gojo grabbed the meat happily while Shoko and Nanami both immediately grabbed the bottle.

Eager to drink, aren't they...

Shoko nudged you gently. "Just wait till he gets drunk and then go in for the kiss. He likes them bold." She whispered.

You smiled and nodded awkwardly, unable to tell her why that's impossible for you.

You had loads of fun from there on out and all of you got atleast a little drunk. Turns out Shoko is more of a party animal than she lets on. Maybe you were wrong, this little get-together isn't awkward at all!

"I need some air, excuse me." Nanami bowed slightly, getting up and walking outside. Still as monotone and polite as ever when drunk, you suppose.

After about 10 minutes, Gojo's phone rang and he drunkenly excused himself to answer the call. If you weren't drunk as hell too, you would be worried about how the call will go. I mean, I doubt a professional call can go well when the other person keeps giggling and talking nonsense.

"Just goooo for itttt~" Shoko encouraged you after Gojo left your fields of vision, drunk out of her mind. To be fair, you weren't any less drunk right now, so you weren't thinking straight at all. You got up and ran off after Gojo. Who cares about a stupid phone call, you've got a man to kiss!

And there he is, on the corner behind the bar! You'd recognise that greyish blue jacket from a mile away! You cling onto him, giggling happily and he seems to call out to you.

"I love youuuu...." you slurred out, squinting your eyes at his face. Man, it's hard to see his face in the dark and with blurry vision to boot. No matter, you still know the general area of the lips.

"I wanna date youuuu.... and you should be my boyfriendddd..." you grabbed his cheeks and faintly heard his voice again. You can't make out anything he's saying right now. It's like a weird trance that your drunken determination put you in.

You pressed your lips to his, sighing. It's a weird feeling for sure, but not all that bad! Ahhh, this all feels like a dream! After a long long time, you finally got to kiss someone. And it's Gojo Satoru no less!

"What the f.... Nanamin?!"

Wait.

A shiver ran all the way from your toes to the top of your head. You looked at the direction of the voice. It's.... Gojo?! That's definitely Gojo, standing to your right and looking really surprised. But, then...

You looked back at the person who's cheeks you're currently holding to find... brown eyes staring at you. No way.

Now that you think about it, both Gojo and Nanami are wearing a greyish blue jacket. Oh no... Oh no no no no.

You sobered up almost instantly which was an out of body experience, one that you've never experienced before. Not only did you kiss the wrong guy in your drunken state, the curse also completely slipped your mind. Is it almost midnight already?! How are you going to explain this tommorow?! Why did it have to be Nanami?!

There's no time to panic, you have to get OUT OF HERE. STAT.

"I am so so so sorry!" you gently push Nanami away, running off and accidentally pushing Gojo slightly which made him stumble.

"Wait, why are you leaving already?!" Gojo called out after you but you ignored him. You have to get home to your family. Then you're safe. All you have to do is make it there before midnight or you'll turn into a dog.

Oh jeez... this innocent night which was supposed to go your way ended up becoming a nightmare.

Now you have to get Nanami of all people to kiss you while you're a freaking dog.

Still, kissing him didn't feel all that bad...

[laurasimonsdaughter]

What if Disney adapted The White Cat?

It'd look like this:

Although in a lot of the old illustrations for The White Cat, the cat princess is fully clothed in dramatic courtly fashion. So Disney could go full Robin Hood with this and have the prince be the only human at a full anthro cat court.

Silly photoshop aside, I think Madame d'Aulnoy's The White Cat could actually be a great candidate for an animated fairy tale movie, but to make it fully Disney I think I'd shorten it a bit and borrow a pinch of Disney's Aladdin

The ending needs the most changes. The prince will no longer have any brothers to compete with, he's an only child. And instead of a father afraid that his son(s) will steal the throne from him, the kind old king is under the influence of an Evil Advisor who is convincing him that his son is not fit to take the throne. The advisor persuades the king that the prince must prove his worthiness by fulfilling impossible impossible tasks:

To find a dog so small it can jump through a ring.

To find a fabric fine enough to be drawn through the eye of a needle.

And finally, to find a bride wise enough, kind enough and noble enough that her esteem alone would prove his worthiness.

The prince sets out on his first quest and gets hopelessly lost in the woods, stumbling into a magical castle full of talking cats, ruled by a white cat who is addressed by all the others as their princess. She helps him complete the first task and he returns to her for the second one.

Now, to make this more Disney, I will borrow from d'Aulnoy's Beauty and the Beast and let the prince have dreams in which the white cat, who grows fonder of every minute, turns into a human. So they can have a romantic song and dance together before he wakes up with a start.

When the last challenge is given the prince is dejected. He goes back to the white cat and explains he does not want to complete this quest, because he does not want a bride. He wants to stay with her. He begs her to turn him into a cat so he can stay with her. But the white cat tells him she can make sure he can complete the challenge and gain his happiness besides, if only he will do as she says.

Now this is a difficult point in the story to adapt. Because in the original the white cat asks the prince to cut her head off. This is a folklore motif with great pedigree, but a little grisly for Disney. (Not because of the level of violence, but because it's two good characters doing it to each other.) I'm not sure what to replace it with though. The best thing I can think of right now is the cat asking him to throw her into the river, so she can emerge as a beautiful dripping wet princess.

Either way the prince does as she asks and the cat turns into the human woman from his dream. The princess explains that she was cursed by the Evil Advisor (gasp) for refusing to marry him and that the curse could only be broken by someone who trusted her completely. (I am leaving out d'Aulnoy's dramatic fairy backstory, sorry Marie-Catherine, it's great but it's too much.)

Her entire court of cats also transforms back into human courtiers and servants (who still have comical cat-like behaviours) and the prince and princess travel back to the prince's court amidst a glorious procession.

The Evil Advisor is exposed and dealt with (drop him off a convenient cliff, you know the drill), the king comes to his sense, praises his son, consents to the marriage, adores his daugher-in-law, and everyone is sure to live happily ever after.

The prince scratches the princess behind her ear before kissing her at the wedding.

~The End~

[monstersdownthepath]

Herald of Shelyn: The Spirit of Adoration

CR 15

Neutral Good Large Outsider

Inner Sea Gods, pg. 308

This gorgeous gal is said to be the incarnate of Shelyn's hope and love, born directly from the emotions of the Goddess of Love, and it shows. The Spirit of Adoration (who's title I will be shortening to 'the Spirit' or SOA from now on) is one of the rarest of the Heralds to ever see, as she spends the majority of her time in Nirvana, frolicking among the gardens of her mistress and creator. For vast swaths of her existence, the Spirit does little but entertain and interact with people coming and going from Blossomheart, the divine domain of Shelyn, putting her +22 to Perform and her Bardic talents to use. The only times she leaves are on diplomatic relationship missions with other planes... and as the occasional muse for a mortal in dire need of some beauty in their life.

Able to take the shape of any Small or Medium Humanoid, the Spirit masquerades as a bright and beautiful Bard when cavorting among mortals. She exists to lift spirits, dispel darkness, bolster love, inspire art, and preserve beauty, all things she excels at. Not over is she an incredible marriage councilor, but a phenomenal wingman, standing by the side of someone hopelessly in love but unable to pursue it, either because they physically cannot or simply don't know how; in either case, the Spirit provides answers and guidance.

Whether it's helping a budding relationship or helping an artist hone their skills, the Spirit can hand hand out upwards to six tokens of Inspiration, which often take the form of jewelry. So long as someone carries the token, they're blessed with a +4 insight bonus to Will saves, as well as Craft and Perform checks. Any Bard holding onto the token also gains +6 rounds of Bardic Performance per day regardless of their level, and the Spirit always knows the condition and emotional state of a token holder, arriving to their aid if they ever begin slipping... and if they put the token down for too long, she will know that it's because her job is done and they no longer need her blessing, letting her free up the slot for the next soul in need.

The Spirit is a noncombatant for the majority of her life, a far cry from most Heralds and very fitting for the servant of a goddess who holds out hope for even the most vile of souls. Even when pushed into battle, the Spirit seeks to end it as quickly as possible via diplomacy, charm, and calm explanations, saving violence only for creatures which cannot be reasoned with--namely, mindless Constructs and Undead--but even then preferring to fight only until they pose no danger to an innocent, going so far as to knock out and imprison the likes of daemons rather than dispatching them. While some may see her all-loving nature as foolish in such a universe, like her goddess she maintains that redemption, beauty, and love can be found in anything and given to anyone.

Remember that she's a merciful being as I explain to you just what could happen if that mercy ever stopped.

It takes a while to get there, mind. The Spirit's entire kit is devoted to keeping fighting to a minimum, to the extent that she has a Charming Aura that causes any creature within 30ft of her that fails a DC 24 Will save to be charmed for a day if they fail. A power like that would certainly be useful in the hands of a nefarious fiend, but the Spirit only uses it to get on everyone's good side to make them more amenable to her attempts at Diplomacy (which she has a +17 in).

She's also got Calm Emotions at-will for the same reason, and her aforementioned 40 rounds of Bardic Performance to distract or fascinate hostile crowds long enough for her to try and talk them down from their rampage. Should that fail, she has Good Hope and Inspire Courage +4 to aid any nearby allies in efforts to pacify the opposing force. She will refuse to kill any thinking being and will hesitate to harm even unthinking ones beyond the point of healing, using her at-will Cure Moderate Wounds to spare both ally and enemy from death in the hopes that her enemies will see the folly of their actions and begin walking the road to redemption.

While 40 rounds is usually enough to last her an entire day, there is the small but amusing interaction with her Inspiration power, in that she's not restricted from giving herself her own token, granting herself a +4 to Will saves and Craft/Perform checks, as well as +6 rounds of Performance if for whatever reason 40 isn't enough. If the DM allows her to do that, it's important to note that the stat enhancement is an insight bonus, meaning it STACKS with her own Unearthly Grace, which adds her Cha mod to her AC and all her saves; this means her saves go from an already impressive +17/+20/+24 to +17/+20/+28. She doesn't have immunity to mind-affecting effects, but between her 26 SR and a +28, she may as well; foes of a similar level to her simply can't affect her with anything that targets her Will unless she rolls a 1.

Her DR 10 is bypassed by Evil weapons like most celestial Outsiders, but she's immune to the common Fire and the typically-reliable Sonic, and has 30 Resistance to Acid and Electricity. She's not just sturdy, but she's also fast, moving 40ft a round on the ground and a 60ft fly speed with a proper +17 to Fly, allowing her to make impressive and often beautiful aerial maneuvers. Even beyond that, if she can see you she can just be there because she's got Teleport at-will, letting her appear directly next to anyone who's posing a threat to her or her charge. She's got a 10ft space and 10ft reach... but her statblock is a little ambiguous as to whether her 10ft reach is because of her weapon, a +2 Dancing Glaive, or in addition to it (which would make her reach 20ft). The downside that the glaive can't be used to attack creatures directly adjacent to her, but that's mitigated by the fact it's a Dancing weapon, allowing it to fight entirely on its own even when she moves, and leaving her hands free to cast spells, go full-defense, or open-palm slap someone for 5 nonlethal damage.

Whether she's wielding it herself or letting it dance around her, the glaive can attack up to four times a round for 2d8+8 damage, tripled on a critical hit. While she tends to go for nonlethal, the real use of her weapon is to disarm her foes; she's got Improved Sunder and a weapon strong enough to make that hurt, smashing apart her foes' weapons and armor if she just doesn't reach over and take them once she has them calmed, charmed, fascinated, or stunned.

"Stunned?" Oh yes. At will as a standard action, the Spirit can make a Stunning Ray ranged attack at anything within 180ft, blasting a target with a dazzling beam of light that deals 1d8 untyped and irresistible damage. Any creature impacted by the beam must make a DC 24 Will save or be stunned for 1d6 rounds, time the Spirit uses to rid them of their gear whenever she can... and, as the book states, time she uses to talk to them. Yes, for the entire duration of your stun, a 10ft tall beautiful woman will be trying to talk you out of continuing the battle. If you say "no, I'm going to keep fighting," guess what? There's no 24-hour immunity on her ray, so she may just blast you again... and again, and again, and again, and again, all the while relieving you of your equipment and perhaps even breaking it in front of you, until you either succeed the save (only to fail it again next round) or finally break down and surrender.

I don't know about you, but I think if I was some nameless soldier ready to kick some schmuck's teeth in, and the incarnate of resolute love and beauty descended from the heavens specifically to tell me to knock it off, I might begin questioning 'are we the baddies?'

And you know what? I've said all this without revealing the Spirit's nuclear option: Bardic Magic. 3/day, the Spirit can cast any Bard spell of any level. Do you know what most Heralds lack? Level 7+ spells. Do you know what the Spirit of Adoration has? 3 castings of any level 8+ equivalent spell in the game. Besides simple and silly utility options, the Spirit of Adoration can simply end any fight by casting oh, say, Overwhelming Presence, Waves of Ecstasy, or Hymn of Peace. And that's just defensive; offensive it's even worse, because Bards have access to spells including Shadow Evocation, Shadow Enchantment, and Shadow Transmutation, effectively meaning the Spirit of Adoration's spell list is "all of them." Bardic Magic is basically 3 castings of Limited Wish, except even stronger since the Bard's lower spell levels allow some sneaky power houses like Irresistible Dance, Mass Suggestion, Brilliant Inspiration, and Greater Shout, which are normally outside the power of Limited Wish. The DM is essentially encouraged to let the Spirit pull out whatever insane nonsense she needs to at a whim... but note that Bardic Magic is actually casting a spell, NOT using a spell-like ability! She has to provide components, if any are needed!

It's still a powerful option, and it makes her considerably more versatile than she already appears to be, in AND out of combat, and makes her just as dangerous as any Bard can be while surrounded by allies with fewer qualms about using lethal force. If you think she's dangerous on her own, just imagine how obnoxious Stunning Ray will be when there's a hasted Barbarian bearing down on you...

You can read more about her here.

[chaifootsteps]

Okay sorry I was talking with my mother

1) I hate sir Pentious’s new character. Sure, he’s fun. But oh my gosh, I miss his old character. The way that’s he’s not at all remorseful and just purely wants destruction  and to rule over the pentagram city. But now he’s too goody goody(I haven’t seen the new episode, pls don’t spoil it), and turned WAYYYY to easily over to Charlie’s anti-Christ ass, and wanting to be redeemed. He should have stayed a spy for longer and I would’ve loved to see his dynamic grow with the Vees(especially Vox) and how he worked for them as a spy. His rape scene wasp so uncomfortable and unnecessary, and speaking of that his and cherris relationship should of never of even been thought about. It’s such an awkward thing, as they’re rivals and Cherri has destroyed things that he’s made and insults him.

2) speaking of Cherri, she offered Angel drugs(which seems like it’s a normal thing for them as she’s so causal about it) when she knew he was there at the hotel that’s for redemption, but also she was so rude to Angel when he was trying to get Nifty out of the cleaning closet??? She’s a much better friend in the pilot and in the addict music video. She’s showing actual friendship and concern for Angel, nothing like she does now.

3) Alastor. Sure, I like his moments, but he’s so painfully edgy it’s not that good. His radio sound effects are good, I miss the old effects that he had in the pilot and his old voice actor, but of course viv is a “it’s my way or the high-way” gal and she dumped all of the previous cast. He’s nearly completely different now, claiming that Charlie is like his daughter(I swear to god he better be manipulative to her in that moment), when in the pilot he openly mocked her and what she was trying to do. He seems way to open about his emotions and wanting r help Charlie, using a TV(???) and playing along when what she wants to do. He also seems to much like an attention whore, which could be a good character trait if he wasn’t the way he is now. Also he’s too touchy touchy with everyone, especially Charlie.

4) Angel dust is not as interesting now as he was to me in the pilot. Now he’s just a porn star who gets raped and abused and is going to be redeemed. I’d love to see his old character traits(from before the pilot and during, such as mafia, insane, violent, ect), rather than just “oh he’s a gay sex spider who sometimes does violence but he’s such a good person now for finding love and refusing drugs!!!! :3”.

5) Husk’s new voice. I see the appeal of his new one, but his old voice actor just hit different. Make that skinny 1970s gambler man sound like he smokes 5 packs a day. Also I can’t stop thinking about the cat from Coraline.

6) almost everything about vaggie. Her design, her actions, and her backstory. It’s cool that she’s a fallen Angel but oh my gosh!! Don’t reveal that in the first season!! Slow burn that shit!! And why did she do quickly realize that he’s murdering ‘innocent souls’?? They’re in hell for a reason, she didn’t have to think that just because it was a kid it was innocent of any crimes it did. They revealed it too soon, it would have been a good twist for season 2.

7) vivziepop seemingly mocks Christianity and I had to look up how Saint Peter looked like, AND SHE WHITE-WASHED HIM SO BAD. HE LOOKS NOTHING LIKE HE SHOULD, AND HES SUCH A COMPLEX PEROSN FROM THE BIBLE AND AND SHORTENED HIS CHARACTER SO BADLY.

Anyways, my TED talk is over. Thank you

Thanks for your TED Talk, Anon. It was an excellent talk.

[subwaytostardew]

▽ Subway to Stardew - Emmet 8-Heart Event ▽

This plays after getting at least 8 hearts with Emmet and entering the Railroad between 9AM - 4PM on a Thursday after viewing his 7 heart event.

You recieve this letter when you reach 8 hearts with Emmet!

Commentary and progress under the readmore.

▷ Station Steward Thylak

I DID NOT REALIZE THAT THIS EVENT WOULD BE THAT LONG... I could have sworn it was around 14 minutes max! I was worried that the battle stuff went by too quickly! It's almost 30 minutes long! And that's with me clicking away faster! Emmet really meant it when he said he wanted to spend all the livelong day together...

I thought it was going to be roughly 18 minutes. NOPE. WOOPS. This what happens when you write possibly too much.

We are bad at making short events. Vanilla events are around 1-3 minutes long. A day in Stardew lasts 14 minutes and 10 seconds. I would not recommend trying to play this mod spoiler free on multiplayer because time does not freeze and you will die if you don't skip the events. I wouldn't want to shorten the events either... Cutting down their infodumps would just be wrong.

We had a few requests to have a battle event which made me 😅 because I personally couldn't imagine that going well (truth over ideals...). This event was partially made to shut that idea down. The whole tunnel scene is mostly me trying to write an in-story reason as to why there won't be a battle with the farmer against Ingo... Emmet is competitive! This is not just limited to battles but extends to being your best friend! Behind the scenes... I'm just too tired to write out more battles. I actually really dislike single battle format. I'm not making an Ingo battle event. You already have three games to battle him in. I refuse to make more battle events for the time being.

I say that but there's another half-finished double battle event between submas that I switched tracks from to work on Emmet's 8 heart event... I'll finish that eventually.

Anyways... the creation process did not go by quickly at all either. I sure do have a lot to say on that matter. I do all my coding in google docs (terrible, I know) and so far we have had to make 3 seperate documents becuase things start to break at around 40 pages. The document before Emmet's 8 heart event made it to 64 pages before I abandoned it for a new document.

The longest document we have is around 80 pages along. Which usually contain the draft scripts of multiple events. code documents however take up a lot more since it's basically a giant wall of text. So when Emmet's 8 heart event started to slow down the current code document (the third iteration). We had to give the event its own space.

Emmet's 8 heart event ended up being 36 pages long alone! Also if you didn't know, Stardew's event format doesn't allow for line breaks so I have been staring at a 36 page wall of text for weeks. I plan to upload a video compiling all the different options later because I feel like all of the "good" options for battle... don't quite make sense in the context of the rest of the story. The farmer is supposed to not be good at battle and lose because they got overwhelmed with information. As the one writing out all the battle options though, I can't bring myself to act like I'm bad at battling. The winning options are extra silly just to justify a loss and because I couldn't bring myself to lie about Wild Charge not being a guaranteed OHKO on Archeops either. Especially since Emmet brings out damage calculations in a few of the options.

On that topic, all of the battle options play out accurately in a real double battle! I tested. Every. Single. Path. In Pokemon Showdown between the halves of Emmet's team.

I had nightmares of reliving this same battle over and over because that's all I did when I was awake. Make it stopppppp 😭

The lines about them practicing were references to me actually simulating everything in Showdown! Emmet's frustration is also based on how making this event took over my brain so now I struggle to comprehend how someone who doesn't know what to do in this battle would feel... Thank you Kade for helping me with that part ^^;;;

Your welcome =3

I actually enjoyed the Pokémon Showdown part - when it comes to Pokémon Battles, I have dabbled a little bit into the competitive side of things. Or at least the massive game of 4D Chess... trying to predict your opponent etc. Bait them into making a mistake, etc. There was a good time where we did nothing but Pokémon Battles for a night. And it was fun.

I am in no way good at competitive side of things - (I lose lot but that's okay.) especially in the double battle format. Single Battles I could do. (Though once again, I'm average at best) However I think the most memorable battle I ever had was back in Pokémon X and Y, where I managed to chip away and stall a Mega Aggron with a Umbreon.. And I think Umbreon was my last Pokémon but I kept using Moonlight to keep my health up. My kid self was super surprised and ecstatic that I beaten the odds... but whenever I do Pokémon Showdown I'm either testing battle stuff or making teams. I'm addicted to team compositions and doing a combination of different Pokémon even if it's not the competitive Meta....

I have the choices sorted into good/bad routes in my mind so in most of the routes, Emmet criticizes the player's decisions based on type advantage, STAB, and target. I was torn between the best and worst options for this recording but thanks to Kade's input, you get to see Durant ramming into Emmet instead of him getting mad at you for conducting Shadow Claw on Galvantula.

Battling Emmet as a first time trainer is not going to go well! Not only is he too competitive and he refuses to let you win (unlike Ingo), he pretty much sets you up for failiure. I'm sorry Emmet but Galvantula's stats are not intended for making her a physical attacker (emphasis on the Egg Move at what cost...).

Not to mention... Emmet is a Battle Facility Head. And you don't get to battle the Subway Bosses in the mainline games unless you have a somewhat decent team halfway through the game. Even still! They can both wipe the floor with you if you're not aware that they are using battle items...

Though I interpret Emmet not going easy on someone as him challenging them to push themselves and exceed expectations. Both Ingo and Emmet as characters encourage others in their own way, Ingo through words and Emmet I believe through his actions. Though he also can say some encouraging things.

Not the most encouraging if you compare their quotes pages... Customer service and communication isn't exactly his forte... But Emmet wants you to do your best and win against him! He likes seeing serious battlers like him! He just won't let you win unless if you push yourself to do your best. You'll have to. He doesn't really have the most beginner-friendly approach...

Considering you the Farmer, have no idea what a Pokémon even is. (You're practically learning everything from Ingo, Emmet, Elesa etc.) The fact you get challenged to a Battle because Emmet wants to share his interests with you - to have you better understand Pokémon.

He just struggles with the fact that, he is essentially challenging someone with no real battle experience and it's a Double Battle at that. Controlling two Pokémon at once?! Think about the effort it takes to command one Pokémon. We all seen the Anime and how trainers struggle to connect with their partners because they're new. They're just starting. They aren't going to be Battle Facility levels of skill.

Not to mention that Emmet is a little deprived in the valley and hasn't really battled any other new passengers in quite some time. At most, he battled Iris once when she came to visit, Ingo (who's Pokemon are optimized for countering/pissing him off), and himself (I had the mental image of him sitting in the field practicing for this event like an old man playing chess against himself in a park). He's a little too far gone to fully understand what a beginner would think in this situation other than mayyyybe it would take a moment to catch them up to speed. (I would know... I swear those option paths rewired my brain...)

After inputting all of their data into Showdown, I had actually forgotten that Galvantula and Durant are Emmet's Doubles Line team while Eelektross and Archeops are the Super Doubles Line team when deciding the matchups. (Been a while since they were in the Battle Subway huh...) Story-wise, I was thinking that Emmet should be with his ace and that he wouldn't really trust anyone else with Archeops since... he has higher support needs (depression bird 💔). Eelektross and Archeops are paired up because of Gastro Acid and Defeatist. I was thinking that Galvantula and Durant are a bit more beginner-friendly; they can take a loss a bit more easilly (a little less so in Galvantula's case... she's a hater). The farmer had already met Durant earlier in the 4-heart event so he'd volunteer to return the favor of fighting for you. Once you win his trust, he's more than happy to help. As for Galvantula... She's testing to see if she can trust her clingy child with you.

I'm excited to dive into the Pokémon NPC stories... Durant and Excadrill especially.

Durant was originally going to have Choice Scarf instead of Quick Claw to help narrow down the options. It was a pain reorganizing my notes and options all over again to lump not only move choices but turn order in mind. My notes were a mess.

Durant and Galvantula are a very luck-based combination so it was ultimately easier to write the different option paths with that in mind since Stardew's event format is verrrrrrrrrrrry linear. All of the options need to merge back into the same event (well... besides the option to refuse his friendship/battle which ends the event in the tunnel). Durant has lowered accuracy while Galvantula has higher critical hit ratios, I could write the battles based on their luck which is great because I wanted to force a loss.

I thought it would be a little too... reductive (it sure would reduce the amount of content >.>) and unrealistic for the player to impress Emmet with a victory on their first battle. Emmet sees this battle as a test on if you can follow his train of thought and be a good match for him because he's a little bit dependent on you for emotional regulation. He kind of expects you as his favorite passenger to have twin telepathy like Ingo since that's his standard operating procedure. You won't. Because you're not Ingo. You're just some weird farmer he got attached to. With the setup of a battle, I wanted this event to develop the farmer and Emmet's relationship to show that they aren't exactly perfect for each other (and Will say things that can be wrongly misinterpreted) but ultimately they will put in the effort to communicate and make things work. They won't have the best communication! But it's there.

While Ingo has a proper library confession, this event doubles as Emmet's "confession" of sorts. Emmet is already pretty openly affectionate by this point and I wanted to make it somewhat ambiguous as to whether or not his attachment to you is romantic or strictly platonic. To him, it doesn't really matter, but he does want you all to himself. He's not fond of sharing!

But... While Emmet's event may be more platonic in intent, you can still reject him. It's a lot harsher than Ingo's because refusing to even let him try to be a better friend for you is pretty harsh in itself. Ingo's is mostly the choice of whether or not you want to send him back to 6 hearts for more dialogue variety (it's really easy to miss dialogue when you try to max out their hearts as soon as possible! We're making lines for every day, season, and heart level.) Rejecting Emmet sends you back to 2 hearts and overrides his daily dialogue for the day with him asking if you're still friends, apologizing, and then getting too upset to say anything more.

Anyways!

From the start, I wanted Emmet to be like Nemona; awkward in their attachment, somewhat intimidating in their obsession/competitiveness, and thinks of the player as their savior from loneliness. He wants to be the best friend you have because you're the best friend he has. It's only fair. Best rival for life, favorite passenger, same thing.

The mountain pass events were actually made because Emmet's original schedule included him waiting around near the bushes there like Nemona stalking the player on their gym journey. NPCs actually can't path there so when he did, he was just deleted from the save!

I also stumbled across a bug back when I made the very first introduction event where a question loops unless if you pick a certain option. I kept that with Emmet forcing you to keep battling with him in mind as a slight reference to how Nemona doesn't let you say no to being her "best rival for life". This question also makes SMAPI hate you!

Gotta love Pokémon's false sense of 'Sure you have a choice. Your choice is always YES.'

There's probably a more fitting flower for Emmet outside of poppies. I just looked up every flower in Stardew (some of them aren't real...) and their meanings in flower language to come to the conclusion of poppies. The meanings in Emmet's event refer to the white poppy in particular. White. Rest. Oblivion. It fits. Good enough. It was a bit difficult to find more on the flower language of poppies in English (particularly the "Oblivion" part) so I resorted to Japanese sites for more information.

In English, the meaning of "Rest" seems to precede every other meaning. Poppies are used in death memorials. Emmet and the farmer did accidentally develop a shared theme of dying (overwork exhaustion, slimes, the mines, etc... Emmet can't get a break. I'm sorry.) but I wasn't sure if Kade was okay with the theme of death being emphasized. With that in mind, I was stunned when I that saw that her first battle map draft included a graveyard. The implication that Emmet picked flowers from a memorial site...

In my mind - the area is an old train stop in between the desert area and the forest/mountains that lead into Pelican Town. Also figured there would be an abandon farm - considering how Pelican Town is struggling it makes sense that potentially other places are not in best of shape either.

The graveyard is possibly dead relatives of whatever family or farmer made their life near the rails. Of course a lot of time has passed... So much so that nature has taken back what was theirs in the first place.

I always make up stories when having a location in mind and this area parallels with the tunnel Ingo takes you through to stargaze around 10 hearts. That area being an abandon coal mining operation.... Coal, Wood, etc. was used to powered steam trains so makes sense for there to be a source for it. I'm not the best when it comes to filling up Tiled Maps with decor - but I at least put down enough for Thylak to come in and make it more fitting for Stardew

The battlefield underwent quite a few revisions, one was having the battle area be more centered, and changing the old warehouse/worker area to be more like a train repair station with a water stop. I wanted it to feel like a place where Emmet goes to keep himself busy when he's told to take a break from working on the station.

Here's the final map! The battle area had to be shrunken down to fit in an event. More grass was added because I kept losing track of Joltik in the dirt. There's more flowers for Emmet to observe the quality of and pick tge best ones as gifts that he's too nervous to give the farmer until they wilt and dry. Poppies by the gravestones, of course!

I also did attempt to make a proper scrapbook sprite for when I eventually have Emmet give you his gift, but I never got around to implementing it properly since... I'm not familliar with adding custom items and its implementation changes in the 1.6 update.

Despite having access to the modding alpha, I've been procrastinating on migrating to 1.6 since HD Portraits isn't supported yet (I know... 1.6 releases in 3 weeks...).

WOO 1.6 WE ARE NO WHERE NEAR READY FOR ALL THE STUFF THAT POSSIBLY GOING TO BREAK. LOL.

Until next time! Thank you for reading!

[kitcat992]

Identity Within︱Moments That Matter: Chapter 13, Unlikely Alliance

As Identity Within progresses, I'm finding that each chapter gets more dense and packed with fanficy goodness; and at this point there's not an single soul in the world who can tell me I need brevity in my writing — because for years this saga has played out in my head like movies without a screen to watch them on. And I refuse to shorten things now for the sake of brevity.

That said, with the wild ride that life is taking me on — and with my lack of free time to write killing my speed for updates, I understand there can be a bit of a memory gap for the average reader who doesn't spend every waking moment of her day thinking about this fic like I do 😅

So I decided that as I go about writing, it'd be fun to refer back moments that matter in the next chapter to come.

This story finally has its foundation to stand on, and getting to develop all the plots that were planted as seeds many chapters ago brings me so much excitement. I wanted to share that excitement with you as I write the most recent chapter, "Unlikely Alliance."

#Brevity is for the weak.

───────

Identity Theft︱Chapter 15: Parker Luck

───────

Peter ran — fast and hard. He took two turns before finally deciding on entering a room.

When he slammed the door shut, he allowed himself a second to catch his breath, chest heaving as he rested his forehead against the cold metal.

His chest burned and his legs trembled, threatening to give out and collapse beneath him. ‘Can’t stop now. Gotta keep going. Gotta get out of here.’

Adrenaline sent energy coursing through his body, but it didn’t provide him the answers on how to escape. His sweat-drenched suit trapped the chill to his skin. The place felt colder than New York in the winter time, no hallway or room free of the frigid air that hurt his lungs.

‘Things gets colder the further in the ocean you go...and this entire building is underwater. Really deep underwater.'

Peter's face crumbled with the sickening realization that he was truly, actually, totally under the sea.

There was no walking out of this building.

And there was no changing that fact.

Frantically looking around, Peter was desperate to find anything that would help him. His focus came at a struggle; fear making his heart beat ten times too fast. Definitely putting him at risk for a juvenile heart attack.

‘If this place is in the ocean, that means they needed a way to get down here, right?’ Peter began to feel his way around the room. It was too dark for him to see anything aside from outlines of lab equipment. The only light he had to work off of was the large tank across the way, glowing eerily green with the substance still inside. ‘Maybe they have diving suits laying around or something.’

One step at a time, he began to walk down a flight of stairs. The metal creaked beneath him, making his shoulders jolt from paranoia with every step. Slowly, carefully, Peter explored the room with a tiny bit of interest that rapidly morphed into growing alarm.

He was right in assuming the place had been abandoned, but for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why so much tech was left behind.

“I wonder if anyone even knows this place exists...” he murmured under his breath.

Peter looked to the corner of the room, walking towards the large tank that reached from ceiling to floor. He quickly determined that whatever the substance was – a thick eerie goop floating inside– it couldn’t be safe. The glowing was almost nauseating to see. The green reminded him a lot of Adrian Toomes.

Peter shook the thought away. He really didn't want to deal with that right now.

And that’s when Peter saw it. Engraved on the cement portion of the tank, illuminated over the green glow and clear as day was the company logo OsCorp.

‘Crap.’ Peter's breath halted in his chest. ‘OsCorp. That’s not good. Not good at all.’

The walls groaned under pressure.

KkkkrrrrreeeAAAAKKK!

Peter spun around with his fist out in defense. Chains suddenly rattled loudly from above, echoing everywhere, drawing nearer and nearer. His mouth dried, the fog made it impossible to see five feet ahead of him.

‘Shit, shit, shit! Where—’

The harsh kick to his chest sent him flying into the nearest wall.

───────

Identity Theft︱Chapter 17: Smoke and Mirorrs

───────

They had made slow progress after Strange ditched them. Every room they searched was a bust, most just being dinky offices or small labs that would hold three, four men tops. It was dark, disconcertingly quiet, and dust notably filled the air in competition with the fog, thick and of the abundance.

Clint vocalized a theory that Tony wasn’t fond of — between the deserted rooms and the ominous flickering lights no longer in their path — their perimeters had gone untouched for months. Which meant Peter wouldn’t be found anywhere here.

Luckily, they finally caught a break. The next room they had entered was huge — at least compared to the ones they had come across so far. It was a laboratory of sorts, that much was obvious.

But this one held higher importance.

The light from Tony’s helmet landed across computers, incubators, tanks — equipment that they hadn’t seen anywhere else in the bunker.

“Jesus Christ," Clint murmured, pushing the door shut behind them. "It’s like a scientist’s playground."

Tony couldn’t disagree. They were getting closer to the interesting stuff, for sure. That was a good sign.

Plus, no one had emerged from the shadows to attack them yet — which meant they still held the element of surprise. The muscles in Tony's throat constricted at the very thought. Exactly how long would they be blessed with that small feat?

Tony hurriedly jogged down the metal stairs leading to a lower floor, the metal creaking with each hasty step he took. He spun around, rapidly taking in everything he saw. While the multitude of equipment had him nervous, he felt relief that most were covered by dirty white sheets or completely untouched altogether. It was just another area the freaks hadn’t utilized.

OsCorp had, obviously. That thought still made him grimace. But at least Dmitri and Klum hadn’t.

Making his way across the room, heavy chains from the ceiling caught his attention. He looked above; they swung slightly, back and forth on their own accord. Tony determined that at one point, more than likely, they held up the disturbingly large tanks surrounding them. All but the one that caught his attention — built into the wall, reaching from floor to ceiling.

The substance inside gave enough light to see at least five feet around the room. It glowed that brightly. It was disgustingly green; a luminous, sickening chemical he didn’t want to mess with.

Clint approached him, standing right at his side. “What do you think it is?”

The eerie green glow reflected against both their faces.

Tony stiffly shook his head. “I think it's not good.”

It was either a very good thing or very bad thing that OsCorp left it behind in their abandonment of the facility. Tony wasn’t sure which would make the most sense.

Nothing this company was doing made sense to him anymore. And Osborn himself? He was just a can of worms waiting to be opened.

───────

Identity Theft︱Chapter 29: Breaking the Cycle of Shame

───────

Rhodey and Tony looked to their left, Natasha taking long strides in her walk with the entire group hot on her tail, even Steve having rejoined. They converged together towards the room’s entrance in a clearly unconspicuous way.

Steve shot a look into the kitchen, eyebrows dipping in worry. Though Wanda seemed to be doing a decent job at distracting Peter, he knew the whole enhanced-hearing deal made it difficult for private conversations. Plus, even he could feel the strung-out, high electricity tension building between them all.

Peter was a smart kid, there was no keeping him in the dark for long.

“Guys, we should discuss this at a later time,” Steve pressed.

“You’re right,” Tony said, arms crossed over his chest. “You’re absolutely right, we should definitely discuss the nitty gritty details at a later time. But for now — and please pardon my impatience building on the anticipation of the United States Air Force weapons procurement liaison division filing a subpoena against OsCorp industries so that they could explain, on the record, how their increasingly dangerous experiments are justified under research standards — I’d like to hear what the court had to say.”

Rhodey bit back his response, all the eyes staring his way putting him at a brief loss. Even Bruce was seemingly curious for an answer.

Though he wanted to say something about Tony expending all the air that inflated his ego down to his lungs for such a ramble, Rhodey instead let out a long, drawn-out sigh.

“The case was thrown out. It’s in their favor.”

Tony physically balked, his body practically jolting forward. “What do you mean it’s in their favor?”

“That’s messed up,” Clint muttered.

Tony shook his head. “You’re telling me I get grade-a shit for building the Iron Man armor and yet these ass-wipes are free to create sentient beings like the damn rock android, no repercussions whatsoever? Not to mention SHIELD knew they were performing highly illegal experimentation’s like Klum’s teleportation abilities and the flying Chitauri heads. How —”

Rhodey held two hands in the air. “The judge declared that the indictment we sought out doesn’t have grounds for reason. OsCorp claims they’ve reconstructed their projects into a more educational stand-point.”

Bruce scoffed. “Gotta give them points for thinking on their feet,” he said, removing his glasses to clean the lenses with the bottom hem of his shirt.

“That’s horse shit,” Tony hissed. “You can’t just slap an ‘educational’ sticker on something and call it a day.”

Rhodey nodded. “I don’t disagree. But they have a valid point, we don’t have ground to stand on. Everything we have against them is mostly hearsay, those documents you found are word of mouth. No solid evidence.”

“Tony has a point,” Natasha chimed in, ignoring Tony’s exaggerated look of shock towards her agreement. “What about the rock android nearly destroying the Collar City Bridge, or the reassembled Chitauri heads that blew a hole near Main Street Park? That should be enough cause for concern.”

Clint winced, half-shrugging. “Think about it, though. The most damage those freaky flying Chitauri heads managed to do was blow up St. Annes, which was already an abandoned building.”

“Yeah, thanks to us,” Sam reminded them, his tone indignant. “We contained that catastrophe before it blew up all of Brooklyn Heights.”

Bruce slid his glasses back onto his face. “And OsCorp proceeded to pay the damages and fines caused by Awesome Android. Not to mention, SHIELD still hasn’t come out and said one way or the other who stole and reassembled the Chitauri heads.”

“Rhodey and Bruce are right.” Steve sighed, his chin low to his chest. “According to Doctor Strange, Francis Klum was sent to another dimension. And we all know what happened to Dmitri. They’re getting away with this on the same grounds we got away with lying to SHIELD about the undersea bunker rescue mission. There’s no proof.”

Rhodey pessimistically nodded, no happier than the others at what he had to say. “Scientific research. That’s what they’re calling it. Nothing they’re doing right now can be deemed illegal.”

“But risky,” Peter spoke up.

Everyone turned to look at him, all seemingly at once.

Peter had stepped forward, Wanda not far behind. Her expression fell guilty, silently speaking an apology to Tony for not being able to hold him back.

Even if he wanted to, Tony didn’t have time to berate her. Steve was already crossing the path to the kitchen, failing stupendously at acting nonchalant.

“Hey, champ, why don’t you —”

“My class went on a field trip there. To OsCorp.” Peter came closer to the threshold, fingers fidgeting together. “They uh, they are actually...pretty educational. Showed us a whole bunch of stuff. Regenerative cloning of animal limbs, unlimited solar energy, bio-cable mechanisms…radioactive spiders.”

Tony shot his head over fast enough to give himself whiplash.

Steve froze in his steps, head cocking to the side at the realization. “That’s how you got your abilities.”

Peter nodded, the small movement timid and jerky. “One of them got loose. Bit me.”

Tony’s jaw clenched painfully tight, the words giving him pause.

“OsCorp gave you these powers?”

The unwelcome bitter edge that coated his question had Peter suddenly feeling uncomfortable. Even from the distance they stood, Tony’s barely contained anger emitted a heat only matched by his sharp glare.

Peter knew he wasn’t directly mad at him, yet he couldn’t help but feel guilty nonetheless.

“The spider they were experimenting on did, anyway,” he explained shyly, head down low. “It’s uh...it’s dead now.”

The conversation died out briefly, a blanket of tense silence piercing through the room.

Clint brought his festive, colorfully fringed party horn to his mouth, a second away from blowing into the toy. Natasha smacked his hand down before he could.

To Tony’s credit, he managed to suppress the increasing urge that wanted him to focus only on the new and very unsettling information he had just heard. His subconscious told him to wait, or perhaps that was Rhodey harshly whispering his name — he could never tell the difference, they both sounded alike.

“Trust me, we’re going to discuss that later, in excruciating detail.” Tony turned away from Peter and back towards Rhodey. “Did you at least get any more information on the Oz Formula I told you about?”

Tony turned away from Peter and back towards Rhodey. “Did you at least get any more information on the Oz Formula I told you about?”

Sam’s brow wrinkled with confusion. “Oz Formula?”

“Barton,” Tony snapped his fingers twice at Clint, “you remember that green glowing tank we came across?”

“I know what you’re talking about!” Peter excitedly spoke up before anyone else could.

They turned to look at him, baffled.

He shrunk a little under their gaze.

“The..tank, anyway. Came across it. Didn’t know what was in it.” Peter kicked his shoe against the floor, his voice low as he murmured, “Fun times.”

Rhodey went from side-eyeing Peter to looking directly at Tony.

“They were willing to tell us that it’s something originating from their epidemiology department. In fact, most of their funding has gone into this project since the beginning of the year. They call it ‘the next cure for any human malignancy or ailment modern medicine has yet to come across.’ You ask me though?” Rhodey shifted on his feet. “Sounds like a humble way of dodging how dangerously close they are to reaching Strucker levels of science.”

“Why do you say that?” Natasha asked, frowning.

Rhodey turned to look at her. “Because the way they proceeded to explain it — ‘man would become immune to even the destruction of his own molecular structure’ — they made it seem like they’re out to create the next Captain America.”

“You think they’re trying to recreate the super soldier serum that I received?” Steve stiffened, paling at the mere possibility.

Rhodey shrugged. “Hard to say without more information.”

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose, warding off the migraine threatening to sneak up towards the back of his skull. With a rattled sigh, his hand moved into his hair as he managed quite well at keeping his breathing even and calm. It was a feat for him, considering how his insides felt like they were being ripped apart organ by organ, slowly consumed by the monster that was his anxiety.

He had known for weeks now that they were approaching a troublesome juncture with OsCorp, long before Peter’s kidnapping, around the same time he witnessed the Hulk take on a sentiment rock being that the twisted corporation had birthed to life. This only intensified the feeling in his gut that screamed a crisis would soon culminate.

And if there was one lesson he valued the most in his life, it was to trust his gut when something seemed wrong.

Tony took a deep inhale, back ramrod straight as he said, “Looks like we have our work cut out for his, ladies and gentlemen.”

“You sure about this, Tony?” Steve took a step towards him, hesitate to get too close. “We could be starting a war here.”

Tony turned on his heels to face him, brow creased, lips pressed in a firm line. He fixed his gaze squarely to the blue eyes reflecting back at him.

“Possibly. But whatever Norman Osborn is up to, it can’t be good. The depravity is clear as day and proof or not, we’ve come across enough evidence to know that he’s heading down a path of destruction. It’s time somebody puts a stop to his mad scientist game before more people get hurt.”

The pause that followed came with heavy contemplation. The team surrounding the two glanced between both men, awaiting a response.

Finally, Steve nodded, outstretching his hand to bridge the gap between them.

“Okay, you’re right,” he acquiesced. “We’ll follow you on this one.”

Despite the bubbling anger that still sat deep underneath his skin, Tony gripped firmly onto Steve’s hand, giving it a hard shake.

───────

Identity Crisis︱Chapter 15: Slithered Here From Hell

───────

Speaking of the devil — in more ways than one — Tony locked eyes on the man of the hour, at his desk against the far end of the room.

Norman didn’t bother to lift his head, focused intently on the tablet in his hands.

“Stark,” he dryly greeted, no louder than the sound Natasha’s heels made as she entered the office. The glow from the tablet’s screen highlighted the wrinkles and stress lines engraved deep into his skin, an unflattering light in an otherwise dark room. “Should I invite you to take a seat, or do you think this meeting will be brief?”

Tony turned his back to the desk, stuffing his hands deep into his blazer pockets, casually strolling in without further invitation. He occupied himself by taking in the smaller details of the office — the floor to ceiling bookcases, the collection of fountain pens put neatly on display; he held the tip of his finger against antique globe nearby and spun it for amusement.

Anything to keep his eyes off Osborn.

“Should let some sunshine in here,” Tony mentioned in lieu of answering, looking towards the large yet covered windows of the room. Heavy, vintage curtains were drawn on them on, barely a creak of light sneaking in through the corners. “Vitamin D is good for your mood.”

Natasha hummed low in her throat, taking a place quietly against the door frame of the office. Her hands were clasped in front of herself, no doubt already having thought of five different ways to discreetly rid a body and any fingerprints left behind.

It was a disturbing comfort for Tony, knowing she held the same disdain for the man as he did. That if given the chance, they’d both serve him the punishment that was long overdue for the hell he’d put them through.

At the same time, he knew — and so did she — that they had one opportunity for this. One chance to get it right.

Tony wasn’t about to blow that in favor of giving Osborn the black eye he deserved.

“I’m not sure if my assistant made you aware,” Norman failed to hold back a sigh, the sound mixed with the opening of a drawer to his desk where he put the tablet away, “but I do have other meetings planned in my agenda today. Ones that were booked properly, with advance notice.”

Tony barely paid him any mind, peaking through the weighted curtains to catch a glimpse of the Manhattan skyline from outside.

“Mhm. A beaut.” Tony offered him a brief glance, drawing the curtain closed but pointing a finger towards it at the same time. “You just don’t get that view upstate. One of a kind, this city is. Nothing like it.”

Norman kept his gaze straight-on, never looking Tony’s way, going so far as to intentionally clear his throat with growing impatience. “My time today is limited, so if there’s something you’d like to discuss with me —”

The shrill ring of a cell phone interrupted him, catching him off guard. Even Tony had to admit that the noise was humorously loud, especially contained in such a small space.

Norman placed two firm fingers to his temple, eyes squeezing shut as the sound blasted through his office. Tony knew that look from a hundred miles away — a migraine. A pretty bad one, from how it appeared.

“I...as you say, apologize.” Natasha clumsily reached into her purse, finding and clutching onto her cell phone with a blooming tint of pink covering her cheeks. “I must take this call.”

Noticeably aggravated, Norman waved a hand in her direction, keeping his head low as he rubbed gingerly at his forehead.

“That’s not a problem, thank you.” The words didn’t seem to match his gruff tone, his fist gripping tighter with each click her heels made leading out of the office.

Tony watched discreetly from his place at the window, his fingers playing idly with the tassels of the curtain. Natasha closed the door on her way out — Natalie, he should say. The guards followed her out, leaving just the two men in the room.

Clucking his tongue, Tony made his way to the bookcases lining the walls, unable to deny the fact that the open decanter of scotch was smelling better by the second. The edge he felt was getting sharper, and from the look of it, the feeling was mutual.

Now he was starting to remember just how unpleasant those brief meetings at conventions always were, the forced handshakes and fake smiles for the cameras. Osborn had always been scum to him, long before these inhumane experiments ever came to the surface. 

Scanning the bookcases, Tony plucked out the first title that caught his eye, grabbing the book by its spine and pulling it out from its cramped spot in-between numerous other collections.

“The Art of War.” Tony flipped the book over to its back cover, his index finger trailing down the printed design. It was a limited copy edition, cloth-bound with a dust-jacket, kept in pristine condition. “Hm. Have a lot of memories with this one.”

Leaning over his desk, Norman poured himself a modest glass of amber-tinted scotch, barely managing a passing glance to Tony as he did. Norman's disinterest didn’t keep Tony at bay; rather, he found himself walking closer to the desk Norman sat at. His eyes never wandered from the book in hand.

“Not long after the folks passed, Obie made it mandatory to read this puppy front and back, five times over.” Tony cracked the book open, shuffling through it without much thought. The smell of old ink and dry, dated pages was more potent than the cedar and leather encompassing the office. “Had me studying it before I could even consider dipping my toes in the corporate world. Pretty sure I can still quote parts in my sleep.”

As quickly as he opened the book, he closed it shut.

“Let’s see…” Tony’s fingers tapped ceaselessly on the hardcover, his eyes looking far-off in thought. “The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy, so that he cannot fathom our real intent. Only once knowing both your strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of your adversary, can you begin to form a strategic plan.”

Norman moved to take a sip from the mountain glass in his hand, eyes meeting Tony’s squarely, green irises shrouded in the dim light.

“If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. Momentum is the life force of any conflict. When momentum is on your side, you have the advantage.” Norman set the glass down on the surface of the desk, condensation leaking onto the mahogany wood. “Sun Tzu was a wise man, a military strategist ahead of his time.”

Tony shrugged, chucking the book onto Norman’s desk, taking a seat in the empty chair on his opposite end.

“I tossed my copy,” he flippantly said, brushing some non-existent lint from his suit jacket. “Got tired of looking at it.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Norman drawled out, managing the slightest shake to his head. He placed both hands in his lap, casually and loosely folding them together. “Are you aware that your significant other paid your way in to see me today, Stark?”

Tony was sure the verbal reminder had been said with a sting, some kind of subdued implication for him to feel embarrassed by — going so far as to reach for emasculation. He refused to let it crawl underneath his skin, opting instead to simply nod his head.

“So I have been informed, yes.”

Norman met his gaze with a straight face, unamused and impassive.

“What do you want?”

Tony could have laughed; had honesty been something he intended to rely on, there still wouldn’t be enough time in his day to go down that road. Not even the riches in both their bank accounts could buy what he wanted, their pockets deep in stocks and market exchanges not nearing close enough to provide the peace of mind and security he desperately fought for.

Leaning back casually in the chair, Tony lifted both his hands in an open gesture, plastering a press-winning smile over his face.

“A lot of things,” he started. “World peace would be a great. End to all poverty. No kid hungry, no kid left behind, that sorta thing.” Tony’s face fell flat, the facade beginning to weaken at the fringes. “A tête-à-tête works, too. Heart-to-heart, one-on-one. You, me — none of those pesky lawyers we keep overpaying to do our dirty work. Just a good old conversation between like minded individual’s.”

Norman arched an eyebrow high into his hairline, his hardened gaze unwavering on the man sitting across from him.

The beat that followed felt toxic, inundated with palpable tension. If Tony didn’t know better, he’d say the air in the room had gone stale, stiff and thick from the negative energy stemming between them.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss ongoing lawsuits with you,” Norman finally responded, every bit as calm as Tony expected. “If that’s the only reason you came here, I hate to disappoint.”

“No lawsuits, last I checked,” Tony countered innocently. “No convictions that I’m even aware of. I mean, hell, you know how the Senate Armed Services Committee can be — always keeping themselves busy, soaking up those taxpayer dollars. They go after my Iron Man suits, they go after you with those experiments —”

“This isn’t about my experiments,” Norman cut in, professionally laced tone sharper than a knife. “It’s about your ridiculous claims, ones that you keep taking my company to court for. And you’ll have to pardon my forbearance when it comes to accusations that I can’t entertain. I have much more important things to do in my day than defend myself against such absurd allegations.”

Tony gave an exaggerated shrug. “Are they absurd, though? Can anything be considered absurd now that aliens have attacked New York and Gods have roamed the streets of New Mexico?”

Norman cocked his head to the side, failing to emulate the same grin that twitched at Tony’s mouth.

“Your case on OsCorp continues to be dismissed by the courts based on the grounds that you don’t have proof. It will never be upheld by a judge based solely on your conspiracy theories.” His words were seamless, practiced. Downright methodical. “Quite frankly, the longer you extend this feud, the sooner the public will begin to speculate that OsCorp is a threat to Stark Industries. Is that really a look you want for your company?”

“I have proof,” Tony forced through his teeth. The sting that he’d been keeping at bay started to burn in his chest, germinating with each passing second. “I just can’t use it.”

“Then that isn’t proof,” Norman rebutted, managing to pull of the most contrite look Tony had possibly ever seen. It didn’t look well on him, stretching the crows-feet over his eyes and adding years to his face. “It’s heresay.”

Tony shouldn’t have been surprised by his blatant denial. In a way, he wasn’t. But it didn’t stop his jaw from tightening, or his hand from clenching tightly into a fist.

Despite everything, Tony hadn’t been prepared for just how difficult it’d be to bench the searing hate that congealed in his veins. How challenging it was to sit quietly, play dumb despite all he knew. All he experienced first-hand.

“You know,” he cleared his throat, feigning casual conversation. “There’s a lot about the inner workings of my career you could never familiarize yourself with. SHIELD, the company I'm contracted out to work for —”

“Work for?” Norman tsked, reclining against his plush chair and staring over the expanse of the mahogany desk at Tony. “Is that what you call your vigilantism?”

Tony chose to ignore that statement.

“They have strict security clearance,” he continued on as if uninterrupted. “Information I know doesn’t get shared with the public, not unless I want to wake up in bed with a horses head next to my pillow. Doesn’t mean I don’t know things. Who they’ve gone after, who they’ve shut down in the past…”

As Norman reclined back, Tony leaned forward, his elbows pressing firmly on his knees.

“What sort of...surreptitious buildings floated in the Atlantic ocean…”

An uninvited friction washed across the room, belligerent in spite of the silence that fell between the two.

Tony savored the whisper of surprise that crossed over Norman’s face. It was almost nonexistent — a twitch of his cheekbones, a look in his eyes — blink and it was gone.

But Tony saw it.

He relished in it.

“Six months ago one of your experiments got loose and nearly destroyed the Collar City Bridge,” Tony reminded him. He mimicked Norman’s position, leaning back in his chair, flexing and then folding his hands into his lap. “You paid the city hush money to pretend it never happened. I know it did. I was there, I cleaned up your mess. And I know you’ve been doing worse than that rock android.”

As much as it pained him to admit, Tony and Norman had one thing in common — they were born in the corporate world, taught how to bullshit the same day they were taught how to walk.

So it was no surprise to see Norman appear indifferent, turning a blind eye as if he knew nothing more.

“How so?” he casually asked, reaching for his glass of whiskey.

A mirthless laugh almost broke free of Tony’s throat, managing instead to stay tightly restricted between two pursed lips — clamped shut with brewing anger. He watched wordlessly as Norman took a sip of the amber drink, his eyes never leaving Tony’s, not even as the glass returned to the surface of his desk.

Tony popped his lips, the sound echoing throughout the office. “No one finds it coincidental that a teleporting magician appeared in the same week?”

Norman smirked. Just a little. Just enough.

“And gone the next,” he regarded Tony evenly. “There were no ties with that incident and OsCorp.”

It was the tone of deceptive innocence that got to Tony, so immaculately perfected that it could fool anyone’s ears — surely pass any lie detector, win over any judge. Tony imagined that had it not been for the hell they’d been through earlier in the year, Norman’s act of virtue might have even instilled some doubt in his accusations.

But there weren’t accusations to have. Not anymore. They knew the truth — Tony knew the truth. The truth was nightmares that woke him up at three a.m. Panic attacks he could barely stave off at the smell of salt water and ocean life. The endless reminders of sleepless nights in his compound’s medical bay, praying relentlessly to a God he didn’t believe in at the bedside of a kid too young to experience the trauma he’d been put through.

He didn’t need to hear the truth directly from the fool’s mouth to feel vindicated.

He just needed to buy the time until they had their proof.

“Hm. So you claim,” Tony said, his voice still calm, still leveled. They could both play the game of bullshitting some professional nonsense. “Just as you claimed that your numerous east-coast research facilities were all up to code and legally abiding. Yet the case of one Max Dillon, circa 2008, might see things differently.”

Norman hadn’t looked away from Tony, not even as his fingers began to dance across the plush leather armrest of his chair.

Tony stared right back into his eyes, refusing to be intimidated.

“Remember him?” Tony flippantly waved a hand, dismissing a response. “Of course you don't. He was just another college student, Montclair State University, too desperate for a couple bucks to know what participating in your underpaid studies would do to him.”

Tony leaned in, just an inch, the soft tapping of Norman’s fingers audible in the quiet space between them.

“Amazing how an incident that put a nineteen-year-old boy into a coma brought on by high-voltage electrical shock could just be...tossed out of court like some suburban soccer mom suing their neighbor for leaving Christmas decorations up past New Years.” Tony's voice grew harder, his need to remain reserved slipping between the cracks where his emotion began to surface. “But you claimed — sorry, let me rephrase that — you ‘claimed’ that your study participants were subjected to the highest level of care and consideration in your faculties. Just as you claim now that you’ve had nothing to do with the Collar City Bridge incident. Or the magician in Times Square. Or the revived, modified Chitarui remains that attacked Brooklyn.”

Tony said nothing for a moment; he wasn’t sure if it was to add suspense to his lingering words, or to control the growing pit that started to claw its way into his throat. He could feel his lip twitch, the memories all too vivid, too personal. Close enough to his chest that he was sure each hammering beat of his heart kept them alive and present in his mind.

Norman stared at him, face so expressionless it was as if he knew nothing of the pain he’d cause Tony.

Or worse, simply didn’t care.

“Among other events I can’t list, of course,” Tony finally added, managing a nonchalant shrug that took more effort than it appeared. “But like I said...security clearance. Not sure if I’d be able to get horses blood out of Egyptian Cotton bedsheets. And I would rather not have to try.”

The false image of calm and collected pervading every fiber of Norman’s persona hadn’t taken a hit. His fingers finally stopped moving across the armrest, his hands settling on the smooth surface of his desk not far from where the mountain glass sat, condensation still leaking onto the wood below it.

“And it would be ill-advised to discuss anything further without a lawyer present,” Norman pressed. “That is, so long as you continue to throw subpoenas on my desk every other week.”

A full blown grin pulled tightly at Tony’s cheeks, the phony act coming back just as quickly as it left.

“Hey, it’d stop if I got my answers.”

───────

Identity Theft︱Chapter 19: When The Bad Things Happen

───────

Steve spared a quick glance to Clint, who leaned back into the sofa with an exasperated sigh. He knew the man was more upset at the situation than he was at Helen, they all were.

Though it was a twisted thought, he was glad they didn’t have to be there when this happened to Peter.

Fists hitting skin, bones breaking, gasping and choking on water — he already found himself constantly fighting the sounds out of his head. He couldn’t take more.

“His wrists?” Steve quietly asked. “They...Tony and I saw...”

“They’ll be okay. Hairline fractures,” Helen told him. “The orthopedic department here has been making vast enhancements in 3D printed technology to utilize for limb immobility situations such as this. Unfortunately, they haven’t advanced to the point where it would benefit his leg, but it’s working well on his hands. Barely noticeable, doesn’t even wrap around his forearm, simply a band around the wrists.”

She demonstrated with the smallest smile her mouth could manage, a visible strain that Steve didn’t have the energy to match. He curtly nodded, acknowledging her response.

Sitting next to him, Natasha had locked her gaze on Bruce, never taking her eyes off him throughout the discussion. If she hadn’t been looking directly at him, she would have sworn that she heard the man talk.

‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ rang in her ears, words that he never actually spoke, a personality normally so predictable faded underneath the stress of the situation.

It disturbed her how quiet Bruce had been. It disturbed them all. He was usually one to pitch in with giddy enthusiasm about how this type of technology functioned, proceeding to bore the team with details that they never asked for and could never understand.

Instead, he sat quietly, chin in the palm of his hands and elbows on his knees.

Natasha’s brows pulled together, concerned. “Bruce?”

His head snapped up, as if he now suddenly remembered where he was. Bruce looked at her, the deep lines across his face echoing her exhaustion.

Almost immediately he bowed his head again, taking his glasses off and pinching the bridge of his nose tightly.

“I’m sorry, it’s just...” Bruce heavily sighed, “this is bad.”

Wanda leaned forward, wrapping the blanket tighter around herself. “How bad?”

“His blood is...well, it’s mutated,” Bruce said. “Beyond what’s compatible with any other cross-match. On the surface he still has a normal B positive blood type, but beneath that it...it’s more. The antigens and protein markers have been so abnormally altered by that spider bite that he’s...he’s essentially developed an ABO incompatibility.”

Sam was the first to catch on. “He can’t receive blood.”

Bruce nodded. Clint audibly cursed under his breath, and Rhodey scoffed, shaking his head in disbelief.

“It’s...incredibly unfortunate in the current situation, but yes. We had to stop transfusing the universal O negative to prevent a hemolytic reaction,” Bruce explained.

Natasha stayed neutral. “So what now?”

Steve sat up a little straighter. “Doesn’t he have accelerated healing?”

“Yes,” Helen simply answered. “And that healing factor has certainly kept him alive this long.”

“Where’s the but?” Clint asked, arms crossed and all but rolling his eyes.

Bruce didn’t seem to have the willpower to answer the question. The tension grew twice as thick between them, and Steve was silently appreciative when Helen finally took over.

“He can only regenerate so fast. With his injuries, with the hypovolemia...he spent days dehydrated, malnourished — his body needs twice as much intake as that of a normal individual, and consequently he loses it twice as fast,” she explained. “It’s not as if he’s been stripped of his healing factor. It’s that his body is simply too weak and injured to utilize it.”

Rhodey leaned into the side of the couch, his temple resting between two fingers that rubbed at his forehead. He appeared to be able to keep up with the medical details up until now. It was typically the case for him though, superpowers always had a tendency to complicate things.

“So what does all that mean?” he asked.

Bruce put his glasses back on. “Think of it like a muscle. It takes energy to use. The hematology department has a theory — one I’m inclined to agree with — Peter used a lot of strength in just trying to stay alive. It’s not a...pleasant thing to think about, but his body more than likely went into hypovolemic shock multiple times. A normal person loses a certain amount of blood, they go into shock and if not treated, their heart gives out. Peter's body lost a certain amount of blood, fell into shock and began to regenerate the blood that was lost, until it couldn’t anymore. And then the process repeated.”

His hands spun and twisted around each other, mimicking a moving wheel.

Natasha frowned. “Until now.”

Steve didn’t need to see Bruce nodding to know the answer. He felt the cushions of the sofa lighten as Natasha stood up, her only response being that she walked away from the group. By the time Steve looked up, she was standing across the room and over the stairway banister.

They all knew her well enough to leave her be.

“I would like to reiterate what I said before,” Helen cut in. “By all accounts, he should be dead. He’s hanging on by the skin of his teeth but...he’s hanging on.”

Steve really didn’t know what to say to that. Of course the kid was hanging on. He was a hell of a fighter, a soldier beyond what they could have ever expected.

He was also just a kid.

“We’re not soldiers,” Tony had once told him, the words resonating in his ears. 

Steve was starting to agree with that sentiment.

───────

Identity Theft︱Chapter 29: Breaking the Cycle of Shame

───────

Tony sighed, subconsciously clenching the box harder underneath his arm.

“Scoot,” he demanded, waiting until Peter wiggled to the side before plopping down on the couch next to him. “You were never officially or legally dead, kiddo. Stick to the Paris story.”

Peter nodded enough times that Tony was sure his head would roll off his shoulders.

“Right, right...”

They sat side-by-side, Peter with an open textbook in his lap, Tony with a square wrapped box settled near the sofa’s armrest. For longer than he knew could have been comfortable, Tony stared ahead with unfocused eyes, his only movement the jittery tapping from his foot to the floor.

It got to the point where Peter tried to figure out what was so interesting about the stairway banister he was looking at, curiously craning his neck forward to get a better view.

Just when he opened his mouth to speak, Tony swiftly and wordlessly swapped out his textbook for the gift box, tossing the offensive World History textbook on the coffee table.

“What’s this?” Peter frowned, hands hovering over the box.

“I believe they call this a birthday present,” Tony said wryly, resisting the urge to roll his eyes by instead running his hand through his goatee.

Peter’s eyes widened with shock. “Mr. Stark, you didn’t have to —”

“Kid, keep it up and you’re going to give me an aneurysm. I can feel the blood vessels in my brain weakening as we speak.” Tony turned to face him, pointing his hand towards the red box. “Open it.”

Despite the instructions, Peter didn’t move to unwrap the gift. His hands hovered over it tentatively like it was porcelain glass, afraid it would break.

Only after Tony once again gestured to the gift with eyebrows raised high did Peter begin to unwrap it, and Jesus, was this kid saving the wrapping paper to sell on E-bay? He unfolded each edge with an annoyingly slow precision that had Tony’s blood pressure skyrocketing through the roof.

By the time Peter had folded the glossy red wrapping paper in a neat little square and set it aside, Tony had popped the lid off the box for him. God only knew how long that would have taken him otherwise.

Peter stared down below at his lap with an expression that made it look like he had stepped straight into Narnia.

“Holy sh—”

“Don’t curse in front of Rogers, he’s got a thing about bad language.”

The joke fell flat, especially considering how little Steve had been present throughout most the evening. Tony did a quick glance around; the soldier seemed to have stepped outside, again.

Tony couldn’t help the twinge of guilt that settled in his stomach, knowing he was the reason why.

He turned his attention back to Peter, willing himself to stay in the moment.

“Mr. Stark, this is — I can’t accept this,” Peter stammered, in true Parker nature. “This is — I can’t — this cost — this is —”

“The Canon EOS-1DX Mark II?” Tony interrupted airily, nodding. “Yep, that’s what it is. It’s yours now, treat it well.”

Peter kept shaking his head, to the point where Tony worried he might rattle his skull loose.

“I can’t. Take it back.” Peter pushed the box towards him, refusing to look at it. “Please, take it back.”

“Mhmm, no can do.” Tony swiped his thumb across his nose, giving a hard sniff as he refused to take the box Peter held out for him. “You see, I sorta have this thing about people handing me stuff so..it’s all yours now.”

He was sure to follow his words up with a smile, all charm.

Peter looked to be one second away from screaming or passing out, Tony wasn’t sure which. The last time he saw the kid so excited had to be the day he revealed the Iron Spider suit to him.

There was no denying how much he loved that look, the sparkle in his eyes, the struggle to speak a single coherent sentence. It felt even greater knowing he was the reason for it.

Peter kept shaking his head, his brown locks falling right in front of his eyes. “Mr. Stark —”

“Pete, please,” Tony said, finally taking the box from him only to plop it right back down into Peter's lap again. “Don’t think I haven’t seen you snapping pictures all the time with that dingy little thing you call a phone. You have a knack for photography, not to mention an interest in it. And you know me — I have an irresistible urge to nurture potential. Take the camera, take some damn photos with it, have fun. It’s honest to God the least you could do for me.”

Peter gulped hard, looking down at the box and back up at Tony once more. He still seemed timid as he grabbed the camera into his hands, acting as if its weight was too heavy for even his spider super-strength. Holding the object seemed to perk him up a little though, and he finally let his shoulders relax with a bit more delight.

“You’re the best, Mr. Stark.” Peter grinned, his words laced with an airiness normally reserved for when he had been hopped up on Cho’s good drugs.

Tony chuckled – even sober this kid acted like anything he did for him was extraordinarily superior.

“That’s debatable,” he muttered, leaning back into the sofa with a shake of his head.

“Can I...” Peter lifted the camera shyly, sitting forward a bit further on the couch. “For my first picture?”

Tony shook his head, deadpanned, looking straight ahead as he answered, “I don’t do selfies.”

“Oh, uhm...” Peter lowered the camera slowly, eyes glued to the floor. “Right, sorry, that’s stupid —”

“I’m kidding,” Tony said with a little more firmness than necessary. “Christ, you’re like a kicked puppy. Come here, bring it in.”

All traces of offense vanished from Peter’s face as soon as they had come, his smile widening each time Tony motioned for him to scoot closer. He fiddled with the camera for a brief moment, setting up a timer and proper ISO before holding the device out in front of them both.

Tony wrapped his hand around his back, pulling him in. It was too late for Peter to notice he had taken the opportunity to throw up bunny ears behind his head of hair; the camera flashed and the moment the photo popped up on the display, Tony was snickering like a mad man.

Peter wasn’t insulted, if anything he grinned wider. Besides, there would be plenty of opportunities to get him back.

“Awesome!” Peter looked satisfied as he reviewed the display of the DSLR camera. “You know, I’ve been thinking about taking some candid photos of Spidey, maybe selling some to the Daily Bugle for some extra cash—”

“Alright, hand it back over,” Tony waved his hands in a ‘give me’ motion, “it’s mine again.”

Peter broke out with surprising laughter, even as Tony relentlessly stared him on.

“Okay, okay! Jeeze,” he chuckled, setting the camera aside on the coffee table, bending over to place the box underneath.

“Hold up.” Tony stopped him, his hand outstretched before he could go any further. “You might want to look a little further in that box first.”

Bent over with the box between both hands, Peter craned his head up at Tony, his brows furrowed. Tony had gone back to staring at the stairway banister, the attempt at managing his discomfort more than obvious.

Slowly and cautiously, Peter sat up straight, letting the box rest against his thighs. The two lapsed into silence as he rummaged around the bundles of red and blue tissue paper, his fingers scraping the bottom of the cardboard. He froze when he finally gripped onto the additional item inside, carefully and slowly bringing it out to see.

It was a sleek, thin black watch — or at least, it looked that way. But there was no case to the band, no circular or even square window where a clock could be displayed and time could be shown.

Peter tilted his head to the side, turning the bracelet over in his hands. “What's this?”

Tony cleared his throat, sniffed his nose in a way that sounded painful, drummed his fingers against the armrest of the sofa — all the things he normally did when uncomfortable. He even went to push up the sunglasses he hadn’t been wearing, his hand smoothing back his hair to cover for the mistake.

“I was inspired by that little Starkbits illusion you had going on,” he eventually explained.

Peter frowned, glancing up at Tony before looking back down at the thin, metal bracelet. He vaguely recalled the memory, most of the details having come second-hand from sources like Mr. Stark and Bruce, the two sharing the story with a hearty chuckle.

Still, those had been high-tech casts for his broken wrists. Bone stabilizing devices, Tony had called them. What could this possibly be —?

“It’s a panic watch, directly connected to me,” Tony answered, as if reading his thoughts. He lifted his arm, showing off the same sleek, black bracelet strapped around his wrist. “So if anything happens to you — earth, wind, rain or shine, you can reach out to me.”

The information floored Peter, his throat tightening in a way that made it hard to speak.

“Wow, this is...I-I don’t know what to say...” his voice cracked, forcing him to swallow hard before looking up at Tony. “Why?”

“Why?” Tony echoed.

Peter quickly shook his head.

“Not that I’m not flattered! Or-or appreciative, ‘cause I am. Like, this is awesome, really. I’m just...confused,” his tone swirled in the same pattern that his head spun. “You can monitor the suit, right? Or is this about that nanite mist in the base? Would this even work with that nanite mist? Or is this —”

Tony held a hand in the air, desperate to stop the rapid-fire onslaught of words.

“I’m going to give this to you straight, Pete. No chaser. You good, you able to handle that?” Tony didn’t even let the kid respond before jumping right back in. “Good, that’s what I thought.”

With one fluid motion, he lifted his arm in the air again, his other hand tapping on his own wrist bracelet.

“This works both ways,” he diligently explained. “It’s not just about me keeping tabs on you — you hit a dead ringer, we got the suit for that. This is for non-Spider-Man business. If you’re in trouble, it reaches out to me. And if I’m in trouble, it’ll reach out to you. I want you to feel a part of the team, to feel safe. And I don’t mean that solely to the physical concern.”

The recognition seemed to hit Peter long before Tony had finished, his eyes clouding over in a way Tony could really only describe as shame. He almost wanted to hit the metaphorical back button, undo what he had said and go back to laughing at stupid bunny ear photos.

And yet Wilson, the naggy little shit he was, pestered relentlessness in his ear that this needed to be done, these things needed to be said.

Peter seemed to take it a like a champ, and exactly how Tony expected him to — by deflecting.

“Oh! That’s — I’m-I’m good, Mr. Stark,” he insisted, still twirling the bracelet in his hands. “I’m fine, really. Everyone’s been, ya know...checkin’ up on me. I’m fine, really.”

Tony nodded, firmly. He pretended not to notice the bob in Peter’s throat, or the way he fidgeted with the bracelet as he fidgeted with anything else he could get his hands on during times of high anxiety.

There was no point in calling him out on it right now — it was his birthday, or so they celebrated the day as such.

Wilson was right, the kid needed to go at this on his own pace. Tony searched Peter’s eyes, those wide, absurdly trusting eyes that stared back at him as if he could solve all the problems in the world.

“That’s okay, that’s great. If you’re fine today, that’s great. But on the days you’re not, I’m here to help. We all are.” Tony dipped his chin low, hand braced against Peter’s arm to gain his attention. “And I’m not the best listener, Peter. But I’m here. I understand.”

The words came out with more ease than Tony ever could have anticipated, much smoother than the numerous practice talks he had with FRIDAY in his lab. He distantly wondered if it was premature to declare how natural this felt for him now, this whole mentor nonsense he took on finally gaining the right trajectory it had needed.

For the sake of not jinxing things, Tony decided to push the thought away. He was just happy the bout of nerves he'd initially felt when beginning the conversation seemed to vanish, or at the very most transfer over to Peter.

The kid nodded with a sense of insecurity pouring through every fiber of his begin.

───────

Identity Crisis︱Chapter 8: Infected

───────

With much reluctance, Peter finally looked up, lips as thin as ever as he forced out,

“I need a new backpack.”

Tony blinked. “What?”

“I...” Peter forced eye contact as sheepishly admitted, “I need a new backpack.”

“How?” Tony asked, pulling a face. “I just bought you one before school started.”

The exact conversation Peter was dreading to have landed straight in his lap faster than Mr. Delmar’s cat would do the same. Rubbing the back of his neck, he shrugged, and shrugged, and — jeeze, if he didn’t say something soon, his arms were going to fall right off.

“Yeah, it, um...there was this —”

“Can it.” Tony held a hand in the air, his eyes closed as if he was willing the patience to continue. “It’ll be on your doorstep in the morning.”

Peter sighed in relief. Oh. Well, that was easier than he thou —

“C’mon!” Tony exclaimed, slapping down a hand onto the armrest of his chair. “I just saved you from having to spew out some weak, poorly thought excuse of how you saved a kitten from a tree in Brooklyn and ripped a brand new backpack on the climb down. I deserve a little something for that, don’t I?”

“Huh?” Peter stammered, knitting his eyebrows tightly together. “It wasn’t a cat — I mean, that’s...actually a pretty good story, but it wasn’t —”

“You’re never this quiet, kid.” Tony’s admission was soft, softer than Peter had heard him talk all week, heck, all month it seemed. 

For Mr. Stark to sound...well, like that — it never meant anything good.

“I’ve just been busy with school,” Peter insisted. “I’m getting some tutoring in history class, that’s all.”

Hey, it wasn’t a total lie. Between patrolling, after school activities, and now tutoring, he had been incredibly busy. But the fact that Peter had to tell himself it wasn’t a lie — that was a little concerning.

“Right,” Tony nodded, huffing a hefty amount of air through his cheeks. “Wouldn’t happen to be Osborn’s kid helping you out, would it?”

The question blew through the room like a bomb.

Peter snapped his neck up, his stomach doing a back-flip strong enough to make the nine slices of pizza he ate earlier creep up into his throat.

“How’d you know that?” he asked, his voice thinning out at the end.

Tony sniffed, hard, and flicked his thumb across his nose.

“I try and make it a point to stay up to date on things happening with your school. Lunch menus, funding getting cut in the visual arts curriculum — which let’s be honest makes sense. It’s a STEM school, not Juilliard.” Tony sat a little straighter in his chair, his brows furrowed tightly together. “And a billionaires son of a questionable company joining your class right as the semester starts. Kinda makes my list.”

Peter swallowed past the digested pizza that began creep into his mouth. He wasn’t sure why his heart was pounding, or why his palms had gotten slick with sweat — there was nothing to be nervous about.

Well, aside from Mr. Stark’s stare, eyes so narrowed and stern that Peter finally had to look away.

“Yeah, he’s...he’s helping me,” Peter explained, clearing his throat quietly. “What’s the big deal?”

The sound of wheels rolling against the ground flooded Peter’s ears. He didn’t need to look up to see Mr. Stark had moved closer towards him; he could practically feel the man’s body heat against his forearms.

“Oh, I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me,” Tony’s casual tone failed to match the energy he put out. “Because it feels like the story doesn’t end there.”

Peter spared him a glance before shaking his head. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s something,” Tony insisted. “My gut’s telling me that.”

Peter shrugged, unable to look Tony head-on as he argued, “Well, you can’t always trust your gut.”

Even that felt like a lie, spoken straight through his teeth.

Tony rolled his chair back a few feet, squinting his eye slightly as he gave them a bit more breathing room. Wordlessly, he watched Peter organize a couple of nails into the pile meant for screws. A beat passed by before he realized the kid hadn’t even recognized the mistake.

“Then prove me wrong.”

Peter raked his fingers through his hair, twisting his mouth in an odd way that any other time, Mr. Stark would have made some sarcastic joke about.

He didn’t know why this was so difficult for him to answer, it wasn’t like he was in trouble. All he needed was to muster up a little bit of confidence so he could admit the truth — which again, wasn’t a problem. He just had to keep telling himself that he wasn’t doing anything wrong.

And ignore Mr. Stark’s stare, which made him believe otherwise.

“Harry and I go back a little bit,” Peter mentioned, a little too quiet for his faux confidence to take hold of.

For a suspended moment, Tony stared at him, quiet and unmoving.

“You what?” he finally balked, confusion getting the best of him. “You’re sixteen. Going ‘back a little bit’ would mean you were a fetus in the womb.”

Peter’s ears reddened. “C’mon on, Mr. Stark —”

“You friends with this guy or something?” Tony rushed to ask, working his jaw.

Peter took notice, scrunching up his face at whatever attitude Mr. Stark was throwing his way. What was his deal? Whatever hostility he had going on was making him anxious, and that was just completely uncool. Lab nights and workshop hangouts were supposed to be fun, chill.

This was so not chill.

“We grew up together,” Peter tried to play off the fact like it was nothing. “Went to the same elementary school, went to middle school together. We were friends. He got transferred freshman year and we...drifted apart.”

“Drifted apart?” Tony echoed back, a line forming between his eyebrows. “That’s...as many years as I have fingers on one hand. That’s not drifting apart — by law of time, babies are not able to drift apart.”

Peter rolled his eyes, electing to ignore the latter half of Tony’s comment. “Maybe. I don’t know. He seems like he wants to be friends again, so...we’re hanging out. No big deal.”

There was something about Mr. Stark that Peter had come to figure out not long after they started spending time together — real time together, the kind that May would joke about, saying it made her jealous. The man had an aura; he spoke with his demeanor, with the energy that poured out of him. With or without intention.

So with that in mind, it didn’t take long for Peter to notice the thick, suffocating blanket of tension that began to whirl around them. It was swift, a tornado that wrecked everything in its place.

Peter knew long before ever looking up that the eye of the storm had originated from Tony.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Pete?” he asked, concern etched deep into the contours of his face.

Peter chewed roughly on his bottom lip, the twinge of pain enough to ground him. It was stuff like this that made him feel like he was in trouble.

“I...didn’t feel like I needed too.” Peter shrugged for what felt like the millionth time.

“Yeah, you did,” Tony argued, a strict boom of authority lacing his tone. “With everything going on with OsCorp —”

“What! What’s going on with OsCorp!?” Peter spun around in his stool, so quickly that the wheels beneath him jostled the workbench. “I don’t know, you don’t tell me these things!”

A look of realization fell over Tony. His face dropped almost as quickly as the handful of screws that fell to the floor. They chimed against the concrete ground, one after another, all while he clearly worked his brain for a response.

“It’s nothing you need to get involved in,” he finally managed, after a pause too long.

“Why?" Peter didn’t let even a millisecond go by without pushing the issue. “What’s the big deal?”

Tony huffed in exasperation. “Listen to me, Pete —”

“You’ve kept everything secret from me, and I don’t even know what’s going on!” Peter was breathless, agitated impatience leeching into his every word. “If things are such a big deal that you don’t want me being friends with Harry all because of OsCorp, shouldn’t I get to know why!”

“You do know why, kid,” Tony bit back sharply, addressing Peter with stern eyes. He stood up from his chair, letting it wheel away from him without a second thought. “Sentient rock androids? A maniac running around wearing a fishbowl on his head? An entire bunker built under the sea? Radioactive spiders? Any of this ring a bell?”

The room went quiet, if only for a second. Peter seemed to shrink down in his stool, unintentionally hunching over to make himself look smaller.

“I just thought—”

“No, that’s the problem, you didn’t think,” Tony’s knee-jerk anger dissipated almost as quickly as it came, his entire body softening a mere moment after his retort. He sighed loudly, running a grease-stained hand down along his face. “Because you didn’t have to. This isn’t your battle. The Avengers will deal with OsCorp and whatever shit they’re spewing out of their ass. But you? You need to stay on the ground, that’s where you belong. That’s where we need you.”

“But I’m able to help!” Peter perked right back up, unable to keep containing the frustrated eagerness he had been suppressing for months now. A part of him knew he should be approaching this in a much different way, that he should be acting more calm and patient. But finally talking about all these things had him way too excited.

And Tony could tell. He pinched tightly at the bridge of his nose. “Christ, kid —”

“I can be a part of this, I can do things for you guys!” Peter stood up from his stool, the wheels pushing it far behind him. He didn’t care, approaching Tony with wildly excited hands. “Especially if I’m friends with Harry! That’s like, an inside source, right?”

Tony looked him straight on. “Reel it in, kiddo —”

“I can get access to places!” His arm gestured to nothing particular. “Like OsCorp, I’ve already been inside OsCorp!”

“Yeah, I know.” Tony marched wide steps to close the distance between them, more intimidating now than he ever could be with the Iron Man armor on. “And that’s not happening again.”

Peter’s brain shuddered to a halt.

His arms dropped down to his sides with a smack, confusion coloring his face so brightly that he could feel the heat reddening his cheeks.

“You....” he cocked his head to the side, as if it would better assist in gauging Mr. Stark’s expression. There was something noticeable in it, as if the man realized a second too late what he had said. Like he had blurted out a secret not meant for Peter to know.

Peter didn’t like how that made him feel.

“How do you know these things — are you spying on me?”

Tony sighed, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at the accusation. He looked away, noticeably debating on a response, shaking his head tightly.

After a short, heated glare directed at the walls, Tony lifted his arm in the air. Immediately after, he used the other to point his finger sharply at his wrist, and the watch strapped around it.

The same watch that Peter wore.

Looking down at his own hand, Peter furrowed his brows, eyeing the nanite technology wrapped tightly around his skin. It took a second, but once the realization sunk in —

“This thing tracks me!?”

If Tony wasn’t pissed off with the accusation before, he definitely was now.

“No,” he curtly rebutted. “Not until it’s removed.”

Stumbling a bit on the uptake, Peter made a face, mentally re-tracing his steps. Now it just felt like they were both accusing each other of things — Peter never took the watch off. Hell, most of the time he forgot he had it on. It was like a second skin, nanites so advanced he only noticed it when someone pointed it out.

When someone pointed it —

Of course.

He closed his eyes and held them shut, cursing inwardly.

“I took it off for security,” Peter mumbled, the realization pummeling down on him, hard.

“It’s a panic watch.” Tony’s jaw clicked as he crossed his arms, his weight shifting from one foot to the other. “What did you think was going to happen if you took it off?”

Peter should have known better. He should have known better, he should have known better, he should have —

Damn it, what was he thinking?

───────

Identity Crisis︱Chapter 14: Correlation vs. Causation

───────

The sound of his disapproval was drowned out by the glass doors of the workshop sliding open, though not loud enough to overtake the continuous clicking of Tony’s mouse. While Rhodey turned his head to greet the newcomers, Tony didn’t budge an inch. His attention on the screen was laser-sharp, problematically hysteric.

Not even the stomping footsteps from behind could break his focus.

“Didn’t you say you were going to back off Peter for a bit?” Clint’s accusation tore through the room, a frustrated edge to his voice bouncing off the walls.

“Yeah, about that,” Tony dryly cut in, eyes unwavering from the monitor, “that’s not a thing anymore.”

Steve was less than two feet behind him, heavy exhaustion wearing on his face. “Clint, we went over this —”

“That’s Peter’s camera.” Clint froze in place, jaw unhinged. His eyes bounced from the computer monitor to the camera sitting on the desk where Tony sat, the plastic of the expensive model reflecting under the workshops overhead lights. “You get permission to take that?”

Rhodey gave a slight shake of his head. “Clint, man, don’t —”

“Yeah, about that,” Tony stressed again, his clicks becoming faster. “Don’t you know me by now? I don’t do well with needing permission.”

Rhodey rubbed aggressively at his temple, and Steve leveled Clint a look, practically imploring the man not to start a fight.

Clint didn’t back down. “What, you don’t know how to handle some off-the-wall behavior from a teenager — so now you’re just going to spy on him?”

“He already thinks I’m spying on him!” Tony spun his chair around, arms thrown in the air as he faced the group for the first time. 

Clint stomped ahead. “So you’re going to prove him right?”

Steve turned away, looking up to the ceiling as he mentally forced himself the patience needed to approach the situation. Meanwhile, Rhodey hadn’t let go of his forehead, close to scrubbing the skin away with the pressure of his fingertips.

Tony eyed Clint intently, staring him down for a second that felt too long. Finally, he spun back around in his chair back, the glow of the computer screen highlighting the stress lines on his face.

“No,” he curtly threw back. “I’m going to figure out what the hell is going on with him.”

Rhodey sighed. “Devils advocate here —”

“The devil can’t help you now.”

Natasha’s voice was an unexpected sound that caught them all off guard, though Tony had little interest in her sudden presence. The remaining three turned around, watching as the glass doors slid shut on their own accord —the noise of them opening over was never heard over their bickering.

Though knowing Natasha, she’d find a way to sneak in even if they’d been dead silent.

Clint turned to face her, hand outstretched with frustration. “Nat, this is ridiculous! You can’t seriously believe —”

“I meant what I told you,” she insisted, her voice low, edged with coldness. “I meant every word of it. Regardless of who believes me.”

As quickly as she turned to face him, Natasha turned to Steve, who leaned his backside against the nearest desk. His khakis wrinkled against the metal table, and the button-down shirt he wore ruffled when his arms crossed over his chest. His exhaustion didn’t deter him from the situation at hand. He locked eyes with Natasha as she stared him down.

“I know when to trust my instincts.” Natasha took a deep breath in, eyes flickering back to Clint only for a brief second. “And I know better than not to.”

The unspoken didn’t need vocalized. Steve nodded back to her, his belief and support steadfast and solid.

Clint, however, shook his head, aggressively fast. “You guys are full of shit!”

Rhodey dropped his hand down to his side. “Clint, man —!”

“You train this kid to fight like, what, an assassin like you, Natasha? A soldier like you, Steve?” Clint grabbed the back of Tony’s computer chair, forcing him to spin and face them. The look he received in return was hot enough to burn. “You took a teenager and put him in a war-zone. You wanted him trained for combat, trained like SHIELD operatives, and the moment he starts behaving like us, you lose your shit on him. You’re a hypocrite.”

Tony looked up at him from where he sat, the shadowy bags underneath his eyes somehow darkening underneath the overhead lights.

“You done yet?” he dryly asked.

“I’m just getting started,” Clint sneered in return.

“Stop it.”

Steve’s command was far from robust, exhaustion sinking its teeth deep into his words. Slowly, and one by one, they turned to look at him. He didn’t meet their gaze, his head bowed low to his chest, his eyes locked intently on the floor.

He chewed on his thoughts before speaking again.

“This isn’t the time for disagreements. Whether we all believe it or not, one of our own may be in trouble. If there’s even a one percent chance that something could be wrong with Peter, it’s in our best interest — and his — that we act on it.” Steve straightened his back, lifting his head while managing to lock eyes with everyone at once. The determination behind the blue irises was prominent. “Though I don’t agree with Tony’s methods, I think he’s right to take action. Especially after what happened last night.”

A soft sheet of confusion seemed to wash over Clint, one that visibly took him aback. He released his grip on Tony’s chair, his head bouncing between the group slowly but surely.

“No one told me anything about last night.” A beat passed as Clint unknitted the tight crease to his brow. “Is that why we left D.C in a rush? What happened?”

Natasha pulled her jacket closer around her waist, barely looking Clint in the eye when she turned towards him. “We felt it was only right if Tony told you himself.”

Clint narrowed his eyes as Tony rolled his.

“Of course,” Tony drawled out, immediately turning back to his computer screen. “Because I haven’t dealt with enough in the past forty-eight hours.”

The clicking of a mouse resumed, though not nearly at the same pace as before. Tony fiddled on the computer, the flat-screen monitor pulling up a different array of screens, some minimized, some enlarged — all keeping him intently focused on the task at hand.

Clint’s impatience grew by the second. “Are you going to tell me or —?”

“Hold your horses, Barton.” The lack of any snark or humor in Tony’s tone was enough to create a thick, suffocating course of tension.

Even Rhodey seemed concerned, his head cocking slightly to the side as he examined Tony.

A few moments later, and Tony pushed his chair away from the screen, giving full access to the others for viewing.

“Five months ago, I designed this device specifically for Peter. It’s an emergency signal — a panic button. It’s tied directly to the one I wear. If he’s ever in trouble, he knows to activate it. I get the alert, and I respond.” Tony showcased the black bracelet strapped around his wrist, eyeing it himself before dropping his hand back into his lap. “It’s a no questions asked kind of deal. I don’t care what trouble he’s in. Burning building, hostage under the sea, or upset that he bombed a math quiz. He’s got a way to seek help. At all times.”

The raw, almost breakable crack in Tony’s voice was enough to shake the room. The confidence he usually carried on his back had been rattled, and it was obvious.

Clint noticed. His demeanor took on a change, softening around the corners as he stuffed his hands into his jean pockets.

“Didn’t know that,” he settled on saying, briefly clearing his throat. “No questions asked...that’s a good way to go about things with teenagers. Smart thinkin’.”

Tony gave him a look, though the heat behind it was halfhearted at best. “I may not be Farmer Joe raising six kids on the prairie, but I was a teenager once. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know how they act.”

Clint made a face. “I don’t have six kids —”

“He activated the panic alarm last night.”

Clint’s eyes grew wide, and he did a double-take to the others to make sure he had heard things correctly. Their lack of surprise was instead filled with a distressed confirmation. Clint turned back to Tony, who seemed equally as upset.

“Oh shit,” he mumbled. “Is...you know, is he okay?”

Tony didn’t hesitate to shake of his head. “No.”

Clint arched an eyebrow high.

“He told you he wasn’t okay?”

Tony stopped shaking his head, opting to turn back to the computer instead.

“No.”

“For the love of —” Clint made a noise that stayed locked in his mouth. “Tony, is there any possibility Peter activated the alarm by accident?”

Craning his head over his shoulder, Tony bluntly — and curtly — stressed, “No.”

The blueprints of the design began to flicker away, one by one, as Tony closed them out and resumed his search through the SD card slotted in the console. 3D outlines of the device were instead replaced with candid pictures, each scrolling along faster than anyone could keep track of.

───────

Identity Crisis︱Chapter 16: Web of Lies and Deceit

───────

“So what’s the plan?” Sam was quick to ask, his bold tone ripping right through the room.

Steve whirled his head around, just as Sam crossed the threshold of the workshop with Natasha closely following at his side. Despite their entrance, Tony didn’t budge an inch. His taps on the keyboard were starting to severely endanger the structural integrity of even his own devices.

“Nothing that requires an overly mechanical Big Bird,” he said without looking away from his screen. “Do us all a favor — go meet up with Elmo back down at Sesame Street.”

Sam stopped dead in his tracks. Natasha quickly walked pasted him, never once letting up her pace.

“Excuse me, Tin-Man?” Sam looked to Steve, his face questioning if what he heard was actually — legitimately — what he had heard. The apologetic look Steve offered said enough.

Before Sam could rebut, Natasha held a hand in the air. It was her only free hand, the other tightly clutching a folder by her hip.

“Don’t take it personally,” she pressed, her voice uncharacteristically clipped. “Tony’s pissed at me and has decided to take it out on everyone else instead.”

After a few moments, Sam’s huff of disbelief became the only source of sound in the room — other than Tony’s vicious keystrokes.

“What, because you didn’t want him marching into some high-school and manhandling a student right after he nearly killed the principal?” Sam took the silence as an answer, his eyes somehow widening even further. “C’mon, Stark, no way could you have possibly thought that would’ve ended well!”

Tony rubbed his temples, his stock of patience quickly depleting.

“Up until an hour ago, the damn kid went off the grid,” he said, his attention falling back to his screen. “If Romanoff hadn’t dictated our destination when we clearly should have gone straight to Peter —”

“I talked some sense into you,” Natasha objected. “A superhero billionaire showing up to high-school right after a paranormal assault —”

“He’d be here.” Tony pursed his lips tightly. “Under our watch.”

“And you and him both would be prime suspect number one,” Natasha admonished.

“Yeah, okay, that —” Sam pointed a wagging finger in Natasha’s direction before quickly turning back to Tony, despite the man having his back to them all. “That mostly, but also — how’d he go off the grid if you’ve got a tracker in that panic watch of his?”

A growing headache had definitely bloomed into a full blown migraine, and this time, Tony couldn’t resist the eye roll that followed.

“It’s not a tracker unless he activates it.”

Steve’s response was instant. And firm.

“We know Peter’s home now.” With a deep breath, he adjusted his stance into a parade rest, hands locked tightly and securely behind his back. “We’re getting May Parker somewhere safe — he’ll be alone, we won’t have to worry about anyone else getting hurt. And until we figure out a plan, Clint’s got an eye on him. This is lining up to be in our favor. Like Tony said...we just have to act, and fast.”

The tension in the room didn’t ease. If anything, it grew.

───────

Identity Crisis︱Chapter 29: Rebirth

───────

Peter let out an exhale so hard, he swore it was part of the breeze that blew the curtain forward.

“Holy...cow.” It was the most he could manage. Words weren’t wording, and if he didn’t get his shit together in time for Decathlon, MJ was going to have his head.

Which she could do. Because it was over.

They could go back home. He could go back to Decathlon, go back to school, go back to his life —

Peter looked away as fast as he could, hiding the quiver the worked the muscles of his chin before Tony could see.

It was finally over.

“It’s been a while since you were...up and about,” Tony began saying, his head noticeably tilting to the side. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

Peter cleared his throat — again and again, discretely rubbing at his eye and hoping the shine of liquid against his fingers wasn’t too noticeable. The question was an easy one, and yet he found himself thinking far longer than he expected — to the point he was chewing on his bottom lip, gnawing away at the skin.

His memories weren’t coherent, weren’t linear. They were scrambled in a way that put May’s morning hash browns to shame. He mostly remembered bits and pieces, but they were covered in a hazy fog.

Some were recent, like rushing to the Quinjet to leave the compound before SHIELD caught on to what was happening.

Some were old, like hearing Mr. Stark’s voice all the way back at his birthday party, months ago now. Playing in his head like they were just spoken.

He mostly remembered feeling safe, hearing those voices. They had echoed through his ears in a way that stifled the fear he felt, bringing a sense of protective calm where he needed it most.

Tony cleared his throat and Peter realized he had yet to answer the question.

“You, uh...you said you had to go back to New York for a little while,” Peter finally spoke up, clearing his own throat along the way. “I woke up and...and you weren’t back yet. I think…”

The longer he thought about it, the thicker the fog got.

Peter shook his head. “I don’t remember anything after that.”

Tony nodded like he expected the answer from the get-go. He took a pause, allowing himself a deep breath in before exhaling with a hard sigh.

“You wouldn’t,” he explained, lifting slightly from his chair as his good arm dug into his back pocket. He rummaged around the pocket as he spoke. “That night, you escaped the Citadel. The symbiote began full possession of your brain by then. It...took over. Like we were warned it would do. But something in you was still around.”

A muted grunt sounded from Tony’s throat as he re-positioned himself in the chair, sitting back down with an item clutched tightly in his hand.

He looked down at his closed fist before unraveling his fingers.

“I wasn’t able to get to it right away. Went back into the jungle a few days ago — found a couple of anacondas playing with it,” Tony said, lifting the sleek device where Peter could see it; dangling between his thumb and forefinger. “But there was enough of you left in that big brain of yours that you knew...you knew what to do.”

The moment Peter saw the watch, he immediately looked down at both his hands. It was the first time he realized he’d been missing the device, always so seamlessly sealed against his skin that he forgot he was wearing it.

As quickly as he looked down, he looked back up at Tony and the watch dangling between his fingers.

“I took it off.” Peter gave a ghost of a smile. “It activated the tracker.”

Tony didn’t nod. Only smiled in return, closing his hand once again and sealing the device away.

“I’ll hold onto it,” he mentioned, gesturing the closed fist in Peter’s direction. “You’ve been onto something — I’ve been hovering on you a bit much, been a bit too overbearing —”

“No, I —” Peter reached out, suddenly, his hand reaching for Tony’s before he’d even realized it. “I’d – I’d like it back. Please?”

Tony’s expression softened, and he nodded, handing over the watch without restraint.

Peter let the sleek device sit idly in the center of his palm, eyeing it no different than the first time it’d been handed to him. It didn’t have a single dent, clean as a whistle — looking exactly the same as he last remembered.

But at the same time, it didn’t. The story it held altered its appearance — not on the outside, no, the nanotech hadn’t been altered in the slightest bit. Not even a scratch — or bite marks — Peter’s eyes went slightly wide when he realized Mr. Stark said anacondas. All things considered, the device looked untouched.

───────

Identity Crisis︱Chapter 10: Something Wicked This Way Comes

───────

“What is it?” Steve asked, leaning forward with interest.

Rhodey folded his arms across his chest, stuffing his hands deep into his armpits. “A few months back — after the courts tossed out the subpoena that the Air Force Weapons Procurement Liaison Department submitted against OsCorp industries — Natasha and myself created an algorithm. It took a while to perfect, but we eventually snuck it into their systems.”

“We wanted to latch onto any words, codes, cryptography — anything that may possibly lead us to where they’ve been hiding their experiments since SHIELD shut down the clandestine bunker in the Bermuda Triangle,” Natasha added, wrapping an arm tightly around the leg pulled high to her chest.

“What did it find?” Bruce looked around the room, as if asking anyone nearby. “The program, what – what did it find?”

Steve squeezed the fold on his hands, watching with intent interest as Tony’s technology lit up the kitchen with an artificial glow. The once marble stone of the table was now a display case for translucent screens.

“Not much.” Natasha shrugged. “Rhodey and I were starting to wonder if they’ve given up the game, gone straight after a good scare from Director Hill and her team.”

“You don’t think Fury was involved in all that in any way?” Sam brushed cookie crumbles away from his shirt, swallowing hard as his demeanor fell serious. “Shutting them down and all?”

Natasha shook her head, barely glancing his way. “I don’t know what Fury is up to these days, aside from lurking in the shadows where he sees fit.”

“It’s the man’s favorite past time,” Tony muttered, not once looking away from the multiple screens that he waved and flicked around in the air, a conductor of intangible images only made touchable by his technology. “And you’re spewing fairy-tales and folklore, Romanoff. There’s no way they’d stop cold turkey, not this far into their game. They’ve gone too deep.”

“Pun intended?” Rhodey dryly joked, a tight smile creeping across his face.

Tony gave him the side-eye and nothing more.

“You’re right,” Natasha remarked, nodding towards the holograms ahead. “Something else has taken precedence.”

Tony tapped twice on the table, the glowing imagery beaming as it lifted upwards. His fingers pinched tightly together until the tips of his nails made contact. With one smooth move, he spread his arms wide apart, enlarging the document with ease.

It rotated, spinning around to show those facing the other way. Tony walked the length of the kitchen island to keep up with it, eyeing it with a line deepening between his brow.

“What the hell is this?” Sam asked, adjusting himself on the stool to get a better look.

The images littering the document weren’t hard to distinguish — scans of the human brain, detailing the different matter and components, looking like pictures straight out of an antonym book. With it were diagrams of DNA strands and cell structure, each moving in animation, trial and error to a hypothesis that detailed alongside the report.

“A formula,” Tony stated, finding conclusion faster than anyone else. The look in his eyes said one thing; he was studying it, absorbing the information in ways no one else could even consider doing.

Rhodey’s eyes drifted over his friend, watching as he kept up with the spinning hologram, the reflection mirroring directly onto his face.

“The Oz Formula, to be exact," Rhodey said.

Tony came to a screeching halt. He snapped his head over to Rhodey, his eyes wide, the whites shining blue from the image gleaming in the air.

“Well, stone the crows and strike me pink…I’ll be damned.” He pointed to the document, his finger shaking multiple times, practically wagging at it with excitement. “Rhodey —”

“I know,” Rhodey immediately cut in, calm and cool, collected despite Tony’s heightening emotion threatening to overtake the room. “I told you...I believed you.”

To all the others, it looked as if Tony’s mind had short-circuited. As if the information was too heavy to handle, too much to process.

For Tony, it was his brain running a mile a millisecond, only having stopped wagging his finger to tap it endlessly against his chin. The thoughts came too fast to keep up with, a head-rush of realization opening a gate of closed-off questions that he hadn’t let himself ask until now.

Months of searching, months of digging — finally they had something.

OsCorp could pay their employed scum the worlds worth in money to keep their mouths shut. It didn’t stop the Avengers from finding out the truth.

It wouldn’t stop the Avengers from finding out the truth.

“It came through on the algorithm a few days ago,” Natasha spoke up, addressing the team. “I back-traced it within the servers to a Doctor Lucas Murphy, a scientist employed at Oscorp for over three decades. Multiple PhD’s, doctorates — holds more degrees in biochemistry than anyone in this entire facility.”

“And he’s working for OsCorp?” Sam scoffed, incredulous disbelief lacing his tone. “They must have some amazing pension plans there.”

“So this Doctor Murphy is the one creating the formula?” Steve looked to Tony for an answer, only to see the man had immediately returned to swiping through screens and pulling up new ones. He instead cranned his head behind him. “Rhodey, didn’t you say they claimed it was a cure for any human sickness?”

Rhodey nodded curtly. “Immune to the destruction of one’s own molecular structure and some additional bullshit verbiage, yeah. It sounded too Strucker-ish for me. Like they wanted to create the next super-soldier serum, or something damn close to it.”

The screech of a chair against tile floor cut through the room.

“That’s not this,” Bruce said in one breath, standing from his seat and slowly walking over to where the document floated in the middle of the kitchen table. It was his turn to wag his finger at the screen. “That’s not this at all.”

Natasha straightened up in her stool. “Use your big boy words, Bruce.”

“He doesn’t have to,” Tony cut in. “FRIDAY just analyzed the entire document. While you all were sorting the puzzle pieces, she put the puzzle together.”

Tony took a step back, further away from the table than anyone else. As he did, an array of different screens began flickering to life, one by one, each brighter than the last.

“It’s an artificial biogenic mutagen,” he stated. “They didn’t lie about one thing, It’s definitely being designed to augment the cell structure of the human body.”

The animation in the reports played in a seamless loop, 3D designs pivoting with smooth agility.

Steve realized not long after silence had taken their conversation that the funky-looking DNA strands had circled a total of five times.

“How?” he finally asked.

Bruce pointed a stern, straight finger to the hologram. “This here? It’s a string of different chemical compounds and nucleotides. Adenine, thymine, phosphate-dexyribose — uh, that there is guanine, and cyosine. There’s an entire study here on ribonucleic acid and it’s connection to cytoplasm —”

“It’s the CRISPR technique,” Tony interrupted, offering Bruce an unapologetic smile. “Sorry, Brucey, you were going to put them to sleep.”

There was a pause as the others struggled to understand the information. Natasha tilted her head to the side, pressing her chin against her knee with an attentive look. Steve, Sam, and Rhodey waited for further explanation, eyeing the two men that stood at the head of the table with tense impatience.

“I’ve never...I’ve never seen anything like this,” Bruce awed.

“What’s this?” Steve all but demanded. “What are we looking at?”

“Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats,” Tony smoothly explained, not a stutter in his words. “Otherwise known as the molecular biology’s version of copy and paste.”

“It’s fascinating,” Bruce drawled on. “It’s based on how bacteria protect themselves from foreign viruses. When viral DNA is detected, the bacteria sends out two single strands of RNA — a nucleic acid present in all living cells. It then uses a protein called Cas9, which locates the section of that DNA with the same code. The RNA then locks onto that piece and cuts it there, disabling it.”

Bruce carefully removed his glasses, cleaning the lenses with the hem of his shirt as he continued. “The same process can be used to add or delete information from any organism, including humans. The CRISPR technique can edit genomes — it can deactivate some gene, but at the same time it could also cut DNA and provide another copy. A mutated copy of that gene to change the way its expressed. It can completely alter someone’s cell structure, create a whole new strand of DNA in the process. A whole new person.”

The only immediate response was a mildly disconcerting silence, tense and stifling in the air.

Sam leaned back in his chair, blinking more than once. “That didn’t put me to sleep...but it sure as hell confused me.”

“I think I get it,” Natasha bemused, setting down her leg to lean closer towards the hologram. “You’re saying that this formula will target sections of DNA and replace it with a completely different strand?”

Bruce nodded a few more times than necessary. “Essentially.”

───────

Identity Crisis︱Chapter 31: In a Quiet Lagoon, Devils Dwell

───────

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Norman didn’t hear the doctor’s apology. For once, though, it wasn’t due to the raging pain that had found permanent occupancy in his head. It wasn’t even in fault to the pain that coursed through his body, a disease beyond his control long since taking his flesh and bone hostage to its corruption.

“Get out,” Norman sneered, the words slipping through the cracks of his teeth — his jaw clenched so tight his molars were at risk of grinding to dust. “Now.”

Only a few footsteps sounded, his eyes clenched too tight to see their departure. It wasn’t enough, not for a lab filled to the brim with scientists. He could still feel the heat of their bodies surrounding him; one body in particular drawing closer, until a hand touched down on his arm.

“Perhaps we can try —”

“I said get out!” Norman shouted — his eyes ripping open, bugling with rage. No sooner did after he throw his arm out, gesturing wildly around him. “All of you! Out! Now!”

He was still yelling when the men and women scampered to the exit, all but pushing one another out of the way to clear the room. Their footsteps were like wild animals running in fear; prey that ran from their predator.

It left just Norman. Standing in the middle of the lab, center to his work. His chest heaving with the exhaustion of his anger — exhaustion of his failure.

And one lone scientist at his side; his hand no longer making contact, but still close enough that he could return the touch if desired.

He didn’t, of course. Norman didn’t need to protest the act of sympathy for him to know better.

“Norman…” Doctor Frye began to say. His voice got lost halfway into saying the man’s name, and he allowed the departure, letting silence take the place of anything he may have spoken.

For a long moment, neither said anything. Norman’s heavy breathing was the only thing to sound between them, with a strikingly noticeable wheeze inside each inhale from his lungs.

Finally, Doctor Frye returned his touch. “How long did Adler give you?”

It wasn’t a question asked with compassion. Barely any condolence laced the otherwise clinical tone of the scientist. And yet something migrated into his voice that Norman noticed. Something that had his jaw twisting to work through clenched muscles keeping his response at bay.

Something akin to pity.

Norman had to clear his throat before he answered.

“The cancer has migrated into every red blood cell of my body,” he said, taking the towel from beside him and smearing the cooling gel across his hand. “Treatments have been ineffective for weeks. Chemo and radiation were never on the table to begin with, not with how aggressively the cells mutate.”

From his peripheral vision, Norman could see Doctor Frye’s eyebrows practically touch the high ceilings of the laboratory.

“You have weeks, then?” he asked, barely stepping aside in time when Norman tossed the wet towel his way. It landed somewhere far off to the side, disregarded as Norman began to head for the exit.

“I had weeks, Doctor Frye.” Norman didn’t give the scientist so much a second glance on his way out. Each pounding step of his retreat bounced off the sleek floors with an echo that reached all four corners of the room, speaking the anger that he kept tightly concealed.

The glass doors had just slid open when a voice stopped him cold in his tracks.

“We restructured the formula.”

Norman froze, lingering for so long that the doors slid shut once more. Though he didn’t turn around, he did cock his head ever-so-slightly to the side. Giving his ear a better chance at hearing the man speak.

Doctor Frye took timid steps forward as he re-approached Norman.

“Doctor Murphy and I. We...we went back to formula,” he explained — cautiously. As if each word he spoke was a threat to his well being. “We stripped the Oz serum of its need for the spider DNA — completely restructured it without Arachnid Number 00.” Doctor Frye swallowed, hard, before saying, “It’s finished.”

A beat.

Followed by two more.

Norman turned around, twisting at his hip and spinning on the balls of his feet. His eyes found Doctor Frye’s and didn’t let up — and yet he didn’t say a word.

The expression on his face said enough.

“Adler didn’t want me telling you.” Doctor Frye stopped walking towards him, suddenly, leaving enough length that it took time for his words to reach Norman.

When they did, Norman wasn’t hesitant on breaking that distance with three large strides.

“Doctor Adler strictly told me that the Oz formula was my last chance,” he reiterated, each line engraved in his face deepening with the same aggression that coated his tone.

For every step he took forward, Doctor Frye took one back.

“She insists…” Doctor Frye stumbled on his own tongue, and tripped over his own feet. “She insists it’s not suitable for trial.”

Norman came to a halt — and just in time. If Doctor Frye had taken any more steps back, he’d have collided with the wall behind him.

For a second that stretched on into many, the only sound between them was the blast of the air conditioning from above. The vents were high up in the ceiling, but low enough that the blast of cold air ruffled the frazzled hair on-top of Doctor Frye’s head.

“This isn’t a trial, Doctor Frye…” Norman started to say. His chin tilted low and his eyes narrowed, staring intently at the man in front of him. “This is my life.”

Doctor Frye’s only response was a swallow that shook his throat. Hard enough to quiver the nodule in the middle.

Norman tilted his head to the side. “You agree with her?”

It wasn’t so much a question as it was a statement. A realization.

Doctor Frye didn’t let himself blink, barely taking in a breath of air when it was needed. The tension in the lab only grew without a direct answer to the question.

“The initial trials weren’t...the most promising, sir,” Doctor Frye sounded hesitant to explain, slow to talk, with each word being carefully chosen. “Without using the birth host of Arachnid Number 00, you were beginning to show onset signs of schizophrenia, of – of dissociative identity disorder. Split personalities.”

Norman kept his gaze; his shoulders pulling back tautly and his chest puffing out slightly. Underneath the harsh laboratory lights, the impression of aging skin looked all the more crude.

And a face that normally held little to no emotion suddenly grew thick with building, simmering animus.

Doctor Frye took the moment of silence as permission to continue speaking.

“The formula…” he cleared his throat, multiple times, until coming to terms with the fact that the words would need to be forced out. “The formula, as it stands...could very well come at the cost of your sanity.”

If Norman was the least bit bothered by the disclosure, he didn’t let it show.

“You have the qualitative reports?” he was quick to ask.

Doctor Frye gave one short, sharp nod.

Norman arched an eyebrow. “The tentative analysis?”

Again — one nod, concise.

Norman arched his other eyebrow. “The quantitative data, the conditional studies?”

Doctor Frye hesitated. But nodded, nonetheless.

Norman paused.

“You have the formula.”

Doctor Frye took those final steps back, colliding into the wall behind him and pressing himself there as if it could hide him away. His hands, pocketed deep in his lab coat, dug deeper — any further and his fingers would’ve touched the floor.

“Norman, listen,” Doctor Frye began, forcing his voice to stay firm. “I’m inclined to believe her —”

Norman closed the distance between them. “And yet you taunt a dying man with his means to live.”

The fabric of Doctor Frye’s lab coat pulled tightly as he sunk his hands deep inside the pockets, noticeably clenching the white material on his left side.

Norman immediately shot his head down towards it, eyeing the hand hidden inside the pocket, clenched so tightly into a fist it began to tremble. The longer Norman stared, the more he swore he could see the tight lines around the man’s knuckles, surely the same color as the lab coat he wore.

With his head still low, Norman peered his eyes up.

“You wouldn’t bring the formula here if you didn’t have an inkling of a notion to passing it off,” he stated, the animosity in his tone gone — colored instead with something vivacious in its nature. “Why?”

Doctor Frye didn’t let the change in Norman’s voice have any effect on his expression. But his hand did squeeze tighter, threatening the structure of the lab coat pocket and risking every seam that had been sowed neatly together.

“It’ll do what it’s intended to do,” Doctor Frye evaded a direct response for a more clinical approach. “In all trials, damaged cells were repaired to incredible strength. Mimicking the original super-soldier serum created by Abraham Erskine, almost identical to its properties.”

The excitement in his answer, as slender as it was, didn’t get far with Norman.

“Where’s your hesitations stem from, Frye?”

The question was as tight as the scientists grip inside his pocket.

A second turned into a minute. And for a moment, both men wondered if the conversation had any fuel to keep going. The only thing colder than Norman’s stare was the A.C that blasted from above.

Doctor Frye’s minuscule hope that the topic would be dropped was destroyed with the time that passed — and the growing expression on Norman’s face. Morphing his otherwise detached, emotionless, controlled features into something completely unrecognizable.

Desperation.

“Your cells are beyond mutation from the cancer, sir,” he tried to explain. Norman’s stare didn’t let up, and he looked elsewhere in an attempt to get away from the choleric gaze. “It could repair them. Or it could…”

Doctor Frye didn’t just swallow — he gulped.

Norman grounded his teeth, accompanied by two more steps forward. Easily, and seamlessly, breaching any personal space the doctor may have had.

“I’m listening.”

There was an unspoken behind his words. Doctor Frye had been working alongside him long enough to hear what he didn’t outright say. It wasn’t just that his ears were willing to take on the information. It was that he demanded to be told.

And if there was one thing they knew about the man — all of them. From the scientists down to the janitorial staff — it was that when Norman Osborn wanted something, he got his way.

“Rats with cancer used in the clinical trials turned into...into mutated creatures.” Doctor Frye returned his gaze to Norman, and locked on hard. “They turned into beasts.”

If it were at all possible, Doctor Frye’s emphasis on his final word took over even the blast of A.C from the ceiling vents. It was the only word he spoke that had any firmness to it, steady and stiff with every syllable that crossed his lips.

There was just barely a flicker of uncertainty that crossed Norman’s face. Gone no sooner than it passed by.

“You’re telling me…” he slowly started, a frown deepening the line between his brows. “That your hesitation for...for possibly the cure to any mortal illness,” Norman let that linger for a second, “all has roots in a few sick rats and an overly cautious oncologist?”

A grimace pulled harshly at Doctor Frye’s mouth, twisting his lips into a mess that couldn’t be undone. There wasn’t any space for him to get away from Norman, not with him inches to where the man stood. He could smell the cologne on him no different than the smell of lidocaine gel coating the burns on his hand.

“Adler’s right,” Doctor Frye insisted. “Between the initial signs of schizophrenia shown before your cancer progressed, and what the trials showed us with cancerous rats and their mutated cells turning them into...into…”

Doctor Frye shook his head — just once, but hard enough to rattle his vision.

“It could do the exact same to you.”

The cold air from above poured down on them both in heavy drafts, but it did nothing to take the hot air away from the breath that parted through Norman’s lips. Each puff struck directly against Doctor Frye’s face; the moisture it left behind was just added to the dampness of sweat that started to layer ontop of his skin.

Norman paid it no mind. His eyes fixated staunchly on the arm that Doctor Frye pocketed away — and the clenched fist concealed inside the pocket.

“My life is not in your hands, doctor.” Norman outstretched his arm, open palmed — ready to take what was given to him. “It’s in my own.”

The air conditioning from above shut off, leaving the laboratory to bathe in utter silence.

Slowly, Doctor Frye unclenched his fist.

───────

Identity Within︱Chapter 3: R.S.V.P

───────

“Oh my, my, yes, it’s been…it’s been quite the few months, for sure. A lot of preparation has gone into this, many things occurring behind the scenes — and now that OsCorp has reached the point of publicizing this announcement, well…I won’t lie, it’s a bit of a burden off the back.”

As Peter threw open the front door to the apartment, the first thing he heard was the distant voices coming from the living room television. It was at a volume that told him May wasn’t really paying attention, just using it for background noise. Yet it was loud enough that it reached over her struggle with pots and pans all the way inside the kitchen, and certainly quick to grab his attention.

Anything OsCorp related had a tendency to do that these days.

Peter hadn’t even crossed the threshold of the front door to living room when he looked over at the TV, frowning deeply.

“But of course, things are just beginning. We have a long future to look forward to, one that’ll far exceed my time on this earth.” The voice of the man sounded professional, each word said with a sharp precision and clarity to his statements. “It’s all about legacy, after all. And the Osborn dynasty has yet to untap their full potential in what lays ahead. I’m excited to be apart of these unfolding developments with them.”

Whatever channel was playing, Peter quickly deduced it was a news station. Something where someone was being interviewed — an old man, that much was obvious. He wore a business suit that Peter was sure cost five times May’s rent, and his grayish white hair matched perfectly with the deep wrinkles that dug harsh lines into his skin.

And yet, despite talking about OsCorp, the man was most definitely not Norman Osborn. Peter wasn’t sure he’d actually ever seen him before. Granted, he never paid much attention to these things until recently, but still.

He approached the back of the sofa, watching the TV and moving almost in a trance. So much so that he completely forgot his laundry detergent soaked socks were still gripped in his hand, and his bare feet still sticky with the residue they’d encountered.

“You sound quite optimistic about the longevity in OsCorp’s future, Mr. Symthe,” the interviewer said, his tone as serious and straitlaced as the much older man sitting across from him. “Does this mean you’re not worried about the dissolution of partnership with Bio-Labs? Their upstate, New York facility alone brought in OsCorp over thirty percent of their shares and profits last year.”

The man being interviewed gave a light chuckle — Spencer Symthe, Peter discovered, right as the lower third graphic appeared on the screen, displaying his name in whole.

It also gave him a title. Peter furrowed his brows as he quickly read it. Right next to his full name were the words, Co-chairman.

The man may have not been Norman, but there was no doubt that he was right up there in hierarchy.

“Last year is behind us, OsCorp looks only to the future,” Spencer simply answered, as smoothly as the words that came before him. “Bio-Labs served us well in the past, but OsCorp is moving forward with their endeavors in other ways. We have something quite exciting happening here very soon. I’m not at liberty to discuss the details just yet, but our separation with Bio-Labs has made way for something far better. Both for us and for mankind.”

The interviewer looked down at his lap and the sleek notepad in his hands. “Is it true OsCorp purchased that facility from Bio-Labs?” he read off his notes.

“We did, yes,” Spencer answered so quickly, the camera didn’t cut to him until mid-sentence. “We came to an agreement with Bio-Labs on a price, and OsCorp is hoping to utilize the facility for further expanding their research studies across the east coast.”

Peter suddenly looked left and right, and then down to the sofa — finding the TV remote stuck in-between the armrest of the cushions. Discarding his socks, he grabbed the remote and hit the first button his thumb could get a hold of. It displayed the title of the show over the screen — ‘Executive Insights with Mark Mitchell.’

“There’s been…quite the controversy regarding those research facilities, Mr. Symthe,” Mark Mitchell, Peter correctly assumed, went on to say. “I’m sure you’re more than aware of the legal trial that took place this afternoon — any comment?”

Slowly, Peter dropped the remote down onto the end table next to the couch. All the while, he never looked away from the TV.

“Ridiculous claims made by ridiculous people.” Spencer waved his hand right alongside his answer. “Despite his rank in the air force, I assure you that Colonel Rhodes has no interest in the safety of this country. He sides with his interest and his team alone — that is, the Avengers. The only people we seem to allow to live above the law.” For a man who had kept his tone even and unwavering, there was a slight hitch in words that heated them up, something Peter couldn’t ignore. He suddenly sounded frustrated, angry. To the point where a pause followed, and he noticeably cleared his throat. “These claims made by him and subsequently, the team he participates with, are as foolish as they are deranged.”

Mark simply nodded. “It’s been no secret that Stark Industries very own Tony Stark has been pushing this case, advocating for the entire revocation of OsCorp’s funding and participation with the Institutional Review Board. He states that compliance with regulatory requirements have been, in his words, the biggest disgrace to not only the field of science but to humanity as a whole.”

“And yet Judge Whittaker has made it very clear today that he disagrees with those claims,” Spencer answered the question that had yet to be asked. “Tony Stark’s efforts to shut down OsCorp have been nothing but a blip on our radar. The court system sided with us on that today, making it very clear that there’s no grounds to the absurd accusations put forth by rumors and heresay.”

Mark cocked his eyebrow high, and so did Peter. Both of them for different reasons. “Is that your way of saying OsCorp’s research studies haven ’t been neglecting proper codes and regulations, and remain to demonstrate due diligence in maintaining public safety standards for both their participate and employees? ”

“By all means, yes,” Spencer easily answered. So easily, Peter went to fold both arms over his chest, the look that pulled at his face causing lines he was far too young to be dealt with. “If all goes well, the former Bio-Labs facility will be up and running within a few months, once converted into one of OsCorp’s technological facilities. And it’ll foster not only the community and development of science careers, but also expand the boundaries of research to pave the way for a brighter tomorrow.”

“Oh, gosh!”

May's shout reached over the low volume of the TV, and her frantic footsteps out of the kitchen did just the same. Peter twisted at the hips to see her waving and flapping a dishtowel at the open door of the stove.

“I cannot get that smoke out of here!” May chuckled with a bit of a cough, roughly clearing the smoke out of her throat as she turned around to Peter and asked, “Did you get the mail?”

Peter suddenly frowned. “The mail — huh?”

“The mail,” she repeated, throwing the dishtowel right over her shoulder. When Peter didn’t respond, May let one hand rest firmly on the bone of her hip. “I asked you to get the mail on the way up.”

With a smile so tight that it practically thinned his lips out to nothing, Peter sheepishly admitted, “My phone died.”

The look he got in return was the exact look he expected to receive.

───────

Identity Theft︱Chapter 9: Down Came The Rain

───────

"Don’t forget," Rhodey started to say. "We've still got OsCorp tech on the loose.”

Bruce immediately shot his head towards Rhodey.

“Awesome Android? Wasn't that just one incident?” Bruce furrowed his brows with confusion. “Or...has there been...more I don’t know about?”

Tony shook his head.

"Nope, just the rock head." Reaching into the front blazer of his pocket, Tony pulled out his cell phone, swiping down on the touchscreen with a single finger. "But over the weekend, I had FRIDAY do some digging on good 'ol OzzyCorp."

With a hard shake directed at the empty space in front of them, he brought to life a large holographic image.

“Turns out, they’ve been working on technological dampeners for the past three years.”

The hologram spread out in the empty space of the lounge, pages among pages of detailed project data so extensive that not even Tony could keep up with it.

Bruce leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his whole body practically oozing with a sense of fascination. Any other day and Tony may tossed in a joke or two about it.

While Banner worked mainly with biochemistry experiments, and Stark Industries focused on mechanical technology, OsCorp Industries was a research corporation. And a sketchy one at that.

So, skimming through the documents, none of them weren’t surprised to see an array of under-the-table experimentation programs funded by OsCorp themselves, a handful already shut down by higher government officials.

Tony said it before and wouldn't hesitate to say it again — he wouldn’t trust OsCorp if his life depended on it.  

Rhodey's hum cut right through the silence.

"Technological dampeners..." he mused aloud. “The security feed shut off the night the chameleon helmet was stolen."

Tony immediately noticed that Rhodey didn't ask the question — he made it a statement. Fitting the puzzles together no differently than Tony had.

“And," Tony raised a finger, "Times Square went dark the night before."

Bruce looked between them both — and then again, before setting his sights on Tony.

“My-mysterio?" Bruce creased his forehead with confusion. "You think it’s the crazy magician?”

Tony tapped his fingers in a drumming pattern against the armrest of the sofa, his eyes looking somewhere far beyond the holographic display in front of them. Though he couldn't see it, he could feel Rhodey's stare on him — the kind that warned him not to jump to conclusions without any proof.

Unfortunately for Rhodey, Tony already made that jump a while ago.

“He lets out this smoke. A fog, almost,” Tony explained, idly, thinking out loud more than anything else. “Times Square hasn't been dark since 2003. No way is that a coincidence. Everything that had a chip, a battery, an LED screen — the moment that fog came out, everything shut down like a bad play on Broadway."

“That — that doesn’t make any sense," Bruce insisted, the shake of his head almost hard enough to knock off his glasses. "Fog is vapor water. Tiny liquid droplets suspended in the air — there’s no way it could interfere with technology like that.”

Scientifically speaking, Tony knew Bruce was right. His fingers moved from the armrest of the couch up to his chest, tapping against his sternum and clucking his tongue in thought.

It didn't make sense, and yet...

A beat of silence passed before Tony straightened his back and snatched the scrap piece of paper off the table.

“Could be a way," Tony began to say. "Could always be a way. Never doubt science, am I right, Brucey?"

Bruce watched him pocket away the paper with a frown. "Tony —"

"Nanotech," Tony seamlessly cut in, adjusting his jacket after shoving the scrap piece of paper inside his inner pocket. “The chameleon helmet — that’s nanorobots. Every little nanoguy working on a molecular surface-bound level, nanotechnology at its finest. I even have a new suit in the works. Mark 37, pure nanites, head to toe. Haven't gotten it off the ground yet, but the goal is for nano-machines to create a second layer of artificial muscle — Iron Man armor, purely nanotech.”

Rhodey briefly rubbed at his temple before looking towards Tony.

“What’s your point, Tones?”

Tony met his gaze straight on.

"Think about it," he started. "Technological dampeners? If there’s any trace of nanites in that fog Disappear-O the Magnificent uses, even trace element of nanites — and if those nanites contain technological dampeners —”

A shrill alarm blared through the compound, stealing Tony's words right out of his mouth.

───────

Identity Theft︱Chapter 13: Man Behind The Mask

───────

Down the hall and a few corners to the left, the double doors to Tony's workshop automatically opened for him.

“FRIDAY?” Tony hadn’t even reached the nearest computer console before he was speaking to his AI.

“Yes, boss?”

He collapsed into the nearest chair, the wheels sending him rolling across the floor until he reached his U-shaped steel table.

“Mark 37— tell me, what are the statistics, where do we stand with it?”

Tony was quick to rattle off demands. Luckily for him, he built his AI to respond even faster.

“The project is currently 87% percent complete. Would you like me to bring up journal data to review the remaining requirements that will need to be completed before the suit can become functional?”

"No need, FRI." Tony shook his head, already at work on the holographic keyboard beneath his hands. "Take the project and copy it to a new hard-drive, and bring up the schematics and blueprints for the original design. We’re going to be tweaking it around a little bit.”

He watched as the blue holographic screens appeared in front of him, one at a time.

“Project data copied. Would you like to rename the original file folder?”

Tony pursed his lips to the side. “What ideas was I throwing around?”

A pause gave way. Long enough that Tony could hear the hum of his own technology; wires embedded into the walls taking the silence from the workshop. Even the brief second that passed without any noise was too much for him. He was at risk of falling into his own thoughts if he didn't keep his hands, and mind, busy.

"Multiple names have been found," FRIDAY finally answered. “Extremis 2.0, Badassium Nanosuit, Bleeding Edge —”

“That one.” Tony snapped his fingers. And then again, desperate to keep the silence at bay. “Bleeding Edge. I like it. Keep it.”

“And the copy?” FRIDAY asked. “Would you like to name it as well?”

The question had Tony scrubbing at his face, hard enough to shave off the extra growth on his beard that needed a trim. It wasn't the only thing he needed; coffee. Tony needed a lot of coffee to pursue this project tonight.

───────

Identity Theft︱Chapter 26: Building Blocks

───────

Peter laughed and Tony couldn’t help but chuckle with him, the moment carefree and void of the suffocating stress he had been consumed with over the past couple of weeks.

It was nice, a little breather from the pressures of the real world he had been struggling to deal with.

Even as he went on to explain the finer details of their rescue mission, the room lacked any tension. It helped greatly that Peter wasn’t immune to the pure star-struck wonderment at hearing Tony’s stories, listening intently to how they had increased the tensile strength on his web fluid, how a magical wizard got them in and out of the place, and most of all —

“You finished the nano-suit!?” he exclaimed, nearly jumping out of bed with excitement. “Can I see it!?”

“Sorry, bud.” Tony gave a small shake of his head, his finger lazily pointing down to Peter’s leg. “It’s on you.”

Peter frowned, looking down at his leg before back up at Tony. “What?”

“What was left of it — used it for that sock you’re wearing,” Tony explained. “It’s a nanite cast, designed to promote bone healing. I’m sure Bruce will be thrilled to show you the x-rays of how mangled your leg was. He said it was in eight pieces or something, shattered like a stale piece of peanut brittle.”

Peter didn’t seem to be paying attention. As Tony rambled on, he removed the blanket that covered his leg to better stare at the thick black and silver device that he wore around his calf. It was every sense of the word futuristic, conforming around his leg from the knee down, fitting snugly like his suit. 

“No way,” Peter lamented, looking over at Tony sadly. “But you put so much work into that!”

Despite Peter’s protest and remorse for the forsaken project, Tony couldn’t muster up a will to care.

“Well, you’re more important,” he answered honestly. “Besides, I can make another suit. I can’t make another Peter Parker.”

───────

Identity Within︱Chapter 1: Prolouge

───────

“FRIDAY!” Tony clapped his hands twice as he all but leaped across the workshop, sparing no ounce of energy along the way. “Let’s go, sweetheart, it’s hardware time!”

It was nothing short of a miracle that FRIDAY heard him, what with the way music thundered from every corner of the room. Which was appropriate for the song currently blasting through the surround sound, AC/DC’s Thunder Struck echoing against the walls with enough volume to rip the compound in half.

“Alright, neural network installed and running at full capacity,” Tony rattled off, speaking aloud for his own benefit — though if he could even hear his own voice was up for debate. “Multimodal augmentations at slight field variance. Nanometers passed every algorithmic calculation — because of course they did, my math is never wrong.”

Tony eagerly hopped onto the circular platform stationed center of his workshop, plating both feet firmly in place once there.

“I’d say you’re long overdue for a test trial, my dear.” With both hands interlaced, Tony pushed his arms outward and crackled his knuckles — the music, once again, stealing the noise away.

Disentangling those same hands, he pulled his elbows back in, tapping his fingers against the housing unit sealed onto his chest.

It was hard to tell what caused the tingling vibrations running through his toes, into his calves, and across his kneecaps. It could’ve very well been the blasting bass from the music overhead, casting into the walls and rumbling onto the floors of his workshop. Or for all he knew it was his giddy schoolboy excitement, building into a crescendo that had him jittery with anticipation.

Whatever the cause, Tony didn’t let it lessen his smile.

“Come on, baby, you got this!” Tony watched enthusiastically as the arc reactor lit to light, filling the workshop with a blue glow that grew brighter with time. “Come on, come on…come on!”

It took a beat, and what Tony swore was a few missed beats of his heart along with it, but there was no mistaking when the housing unit released the nanites. Within seconds they poured out, all at once, tiny particulars working in tandem to form over the structure of his body.

The spark from each microscopic piece of red and gold shimmered underneath the workshop lights, coalescing around him with an animation only outmatched by Tony’s exhilaration.

“Yes!” The nanites hadn’t even reach past Tony’s hips when he cheered — and he didn’t stop with just one shout. He kept going. “Yes, YES, that’s what I’m talking about!”

The air crackled with energy as the nanobots worked at lightning speed, and Tony’s body was surrounded by a glowing aura of light as the suit began to take shape; sleek and streamlined, with glowing repulsor beams in the palms of his gauntlets.

His laugh easily reached over the music.

“Tony!”

And so did that.

Tony shot his head up, his grin so large his back molars caught the ceiling lights. It didn’t fade, not even as Pepper came storming into the workshop, bursting through the automatic doors before they’d fully parted for her.

“Oh my god!” Pepper practically screamed against the blaring music, immediately smothering both palms against her ears to protect her hearing. “Tony, what are you doing!?”

Tony threw Pepper a bewildered look.

“What does it look like I’m doing!” he shouted right back, the nanites still building around the length of his legs as he gestured enthusiastically to himself. “I’m re-building the nanosuit!”

For once, not even the usual sound of Pepper’s high-heels clicking against the floor could be heard. She stormed forward with enough frustration in her step that it should’ve rattled the whole earth, but each stomp was muted underneath the bass of the music.

“You’re what!?”

Tony gestured even more enthusiastically to himself.

“The nanosuit!” He paused. “Bleeding Edge?” Another pause, and Tony made a face. “I told you about this, we talked about this! It’s nanotech! Each piece works on a molecular surface-bound level — check this out!”

Tony turned at the hips, and then again on the other side, motioning to the nanites that covered his body with a polished shine. His grin blew wide open as he admired his work.

“It’s taken some time to reconstruct all the nanites from scratch, but since I made sure to copy the blueprints after dismantling Mark 37 for complete magnetic use when Ivan the Terrible forced us to —”

“What!?” Pepper interrupted him with a shout that was more of a scream than anything else.

Tony shot his head up, frowning.

“What part of that didn’t you understand?” Tony guessed the answer based off Pepper’s expression. “The nanosuit? The one I took apart to get Parker back from — did you hear anything I said?”

“I can’t hear you!” Pepper shook her head so vigorously that her ponytail came loose. “I can’t — Tony, turn down the —!”

“FRIDAY, turn down volume.”

Dutiful as ever, his AI complied at the request immediately, lowering the soundtrack of rock music to a near-muted volume.

It became so quiet, so suddenly, that the sound of Pepper’s frustration was audible with each huff of air that blew right through her flared nostrils.

Tony hopped off the platform, pointing a lax finger towards her.

“You looked stressed.” Even as Tony walked towards her, the nanites kept building around his body, already creeping up along the edges of his neck. “You stressed?”

Pepper gaped, staring him down with a look that he tried often not to be on the receiving end of.

“Am I — yes, Tony, I’m stressed!” Despite the lack of blaring music, Pepper still yelled. “The wedding is in two weeks! And you’re down here being...being…” As Tony closed in on Pepper, she brushed right past him, physically jostling his shoulder and sparking a light against the nanites still forming against his arm. “Well...you!”

───────

Identity Crisis︱Chapter 10: Something Wicked This Way Comes

───────

“Back to the, uh, the original point...” Bruce said, one single digit raised in the air. “I’d make sure Pete doesn’t have anymore interaction with...well, anyone related to the Osborn’s. If Norman is the brains to all this...who knows how dangerous he could be.”

Sam furrowed his brows. “I don’t think a high-schooler could do much damage, regardless of their namesake.”

“No, maybe not...” Natasha trailed off, contemplative in a way she normally didn’t share with the group. “But being close Norman Osborn’s son is being one step closer to Norman himself.”

“Is it really fair to assume the kid is trouble because of his bloodline?” Sam was quick to rebut.

Natasha threw him a cold look. “People judged me based off my bloodline, and they were smart to do so.”

“Bruce is right,” Steve needlessly stated, putting an end to the dispute. “Peter’s already been a target before, we don’t want that happening again. Until we can get a grasp on this situation, he needs to keep his head low, stay far away from this.”

“Trust me, I’ve been trying.” Tony massaged the bridge of his nose, disdain coating his tongue, leaking deep into his words. “It’s like pulling teeth with the kid, he doesn’t want to do anything he’s told. I might as well be talking to a deaf monkey.”

The frustration Tony emitted was palpable, visible despite the sunglasses he used to hide his face. What once was a jab at his overly-strict parenting had quickly turned somber.

No one dared to make a joke now.

Despite his berating, no one had forgotten about what occurred only a handful of months ago. When a young, naive kid showed up at their door playing super-hero. Tony may have been the one to buy the casket, but they were all involved in one way or another.

It would be impossible to forget; it was a lesson learned that they all took to heart.

Possibly going through that again — it was a vast precipice to wrap their minds around.

“We’ll make sure that we do our part on this end,” Steve assured, looking Tony straight on. “We took Peter under our wing, we took on that responsibility. It’s our job to make sure he’s safe, make sure we protect him. Whatever happens here, whether he gets involved or not, he’ll be protected.”

Something clenched deep in Tony’s stomach as his gaze latched onto Steve’s, his doubt ebbing into a fierce fury of determination.

Steve reflected that determination right back at him.

“We will protect him, Tony.”

Tony nodded.

He had nothing more to add.

[koorinokujira]

Logs from the OC Database: Sunrise ( TF IDW1)

(Finally decided to make a little introduction post for my main Transformers OC, Sunrise. This will most likely get updated often as I keep reading the IDW comics and learn new information).

The lovely art below is made by the amazing @the-prince-of-vos, aka Akkalis! Thank you again for bringing him to life!

"No matter how far I travel from it, Earth will always be my first and only home. After all, home is where the spark is, eh?"

Bright, loud, cheerful, and so energetic that it causes concern; those are just a few ways that the Autobots have described one of their newest additions to the faction. This friendly, large mech is sure to steal your attention with his cheeky personality, unapologetic love for the things and people he's fond of, along with the desire to do good, no matter how impossible it gets. A skilled fighter with a fondness for learning new things, Sunrise is definitely someone you call when you need a helping hand, or just a friend to talk to.

Names, Nicknames, Designations...

"Sunrise is the name, and brightening up your day is my game!"

Sunrise was a name chosen by himself, shortly after his unceremonious crashlanding to Earth. While it was mostly the natural phenomenon itself along with the color of his frame that inspired the designation, it is also a reference to his late predecessor and doctor, Sunset, and the small sliver of hope he felt that he refused to lose. It holds great significance to him, and he is more than determined to live up to it.

In the past, he was referred to as Aeroflare, or simply "Patient Zero", as he was the first (and only) documented case of a condition simply referred to as an "Acute Partial Spark Disconnect". While he doesn't actively use either of these (the second one for very obvious reasons), some Cybertronians know him as such thanks to the aformentioned Sunset and his Conjunx, Cloudwave, who took care of the unresponsive Sunrise. The name "Aeroflare" was created so they'd have a better way of referring to him.

As for nicknames, those tend to be either shortened or slightly altered versions of his name (Sun, Sunny, etc.). However, some humans have also likened his appearance to that of a moth because of his headshape, finials and the way he folds his wings. Variations of nicknames that include the insect aren't too uncommon thanks to that.

Important Physical Attributes

"You know... I worry about the humans sometimes. I'm pretty good at moving around them, but... what if I step on one on accident?"

Discounting his finials, Sunrise is around 36 feet (10.97 meters) tall. While his exact weight is unknown, he seems to be on the heavier side, despite being a jet. His bulkier, sturdier build easily supports his weight. The main color of his frame is a warm orange, with red, black, and sometimes even yellow/gold as his secondary colors. His face is mainly a lighter, metallic grey, with the sides being a grey-ish white. His optics seem to have a color somewhere between yellow and orange, and are particularly bright in comparison to some other Cybertronians.

Sunrise's alternate mode is based on a Canadair CL-415 plane, which is designed for aerial firefighting. Of course, his altmode is quite a bit smaller than the regular plane (which has the length of rougly 65 ft/19.81 m and a wingspan of rougly 94 ft/28.65 m), so the length of his altmode is almost 36 feet with a wingspan of around 52 ft (15.84 m). So, not as big, but forest fires still cower before him!

As for his weaponry, he prefers to get up close and personal, which tends to mean a blade or two. He eventually gets an inset blade in his right arm. But his firepower is nothing to scoff at, either, as his most used weapons are two massive energy cannons. Those are separate from his body unless he is in his altmode, however. In that case, they tend to take up some space in the compartment where the plane stores water. More often than not, his servos are also an effective weapon because of his large size.

Sunrise's spark is of a bright orange color, which occasionally seems to fade into red or blue.

His holoform is that of a young, tall man with freckled skin and wavy, fiery red hair. His eyes have a very light brown, almost orange color. His physique is nothing short of impressive, and even appears to have some tattoos and scars. Sunglasses are an often used accesorry.

Oddities and Anomalies

"Me? Oh, c'mon! I'm just a regular guy. Or mech? Ah, doesn't matter. Just don't treat me like I'm something special or awesome. Others deserve that more than me."

While Sunrise seems like a fairly regular (albeit tall) mech, many of his fellow Autobots very quickly found out that he's anything but ordinary. After some time of debating, Ratchet eventually classified him as an outlier. Everyone, including Sunrise himself, is still struggling to make sense of how his abilities make sense and come together. Most of them seem to have to do something with the spark itself. These are anomalies that have been verified to happen at least once:

Extreme stamina: While he is not that much stronger than his comrades, everyone will tell you that he can do everything for much longer than anyone else. He does need to refuel more often, but his body seems to distribute it with almost concerning effectiveness. His recharges are short and rare. And as any medic in his vicinity quickly finds out, he doesn't seem to realize when he's tired, either, which tends to result in him collapsing every few days (and sometimes even longer than that) in the middle of whatever he's doing. It has been debated whether this is an actual outlier ability, or some strange side effect of the Acute Spark Disconnect, or the current lack thereof.

Spark-hearing: Sunrise's hearing is already extremely good (purely through meddling with his audials and processors), but this ability is something completely different. It is a type of hearing focused purely on sparks; as he himself puts it, every spark has its own unique rhythm that can tell you a few things about its owner, and he insists he can hear it even without the use of any external tools. This was already a bit strange, but it got all the stranger when he admitted that from Optimus' Prime he not only hears a beat, but a melody as well. A short experiment proved that even when he was deprived of regular hearing, he could still hear sparkbeats of others around him with incredible accuracy. He never really divulges what exactly the rhythm tells him, but he has been known to be more perceptive to the moods of others, and many internal ailments have also been discovered when he noticed that someone's spark beats "wrong".

Spark-meld: So far, there has (luckily) only been one instance of this happening. An occassion where Sunrise's spark completely melded with two others despite a ridiculous distance between them. This essentially allowed him to "be" those other two mechs, as he heard, saw and felt all they did, and he even had access to their memories. It was, of course, an overwhelming and traumatizing affair that he had zero control over, and whenever he speaks about it, he insists that he wouldn't wish it on his worst enemy.

Faction and Role

"Mhm, I'm a proud Autobot! Whatever that means..."

Sunrise is an Autobot, though he could have been counted as neutral for a few years. He takes loyalty to his allies incredibly seriously, but he doesn't mind extending a friendly hand to a Decepticon that wishes to redeem themselves. He's quite disconnected from the entire conflict, and has been known to abide by a certain moral and honor code (such as not killing an opponent who cannot fight back).

As for his role in the faction, he is somewhat of a universal helper. He doesn't mind doing menial tasks if it means everything runs smoothly, and often goes around asking others whether they need help with something. He's an avid learner, so he slowly becomes a jack of all trades over the years, with a bit more focus on medical support as Ratchet teaches him how to help others. He's also unanimously considered to be a morale booster, as he's a great listener and his positivity is infectious to most.

Personality

"Well 'course I'm all happy and smiley! I'm not named after the Sun for nothing!"

On the outside, Sunrise is a bright, happy-go-lucky mech that often acts before he thinks. Boisterous and sometimes even a bit mischievous, he unapologetically goes through life doing whatever makes him the happiest. He's a friendly chatterbox, and every room is full of him once he enters. While he is a tad annoying to some, most don't say anything, as he's too endearing to interrupt while he speaks. However, this also often has the effect of some thinking he's a mech of the... simpler variety, and that he's very naive, which he most certainly isn't.

However, this bright exterior hides many complexeties, many of which aren't exactly happy ones. He often feels disconnected from his fellow Cybertronians and the entirety of their conflicts, leaving him feeling left out and lonely. Thanks to his previous ailments, he has missed much, and so he struggles to keep up with his peers. He rarely shows it, but his self-esteem is quite low and he tends to put others miles above himself. His ability to express negative emotions is also not the greatest, which he usually resolves by walking out of the conflict and losing himself in one physical activity or another. As more and more fellow Autobots come to him with their troubles, he feels trapped and a need to constantly appear strong, until he finally reaches a breaking point.

Some traumas have left him with some underlying feelings of paranoia, and he often needs guidance because he feels lost. Anger issues have been a problem in the past, not so much now.

Interests

"Did you know-"

If you ask Sunrise about what he likes the most, he'll probably pretend he's thinking for a few seconds, before he excitedly yells out "Earth!" or "Humans"! If it's related to our dear blue planet, he'll adore it, or at least be interested. He finds humans to be extremely adorable, even after years of living among them, and will talk your audial (or ear, if you have those) off about this or that human culture, or express his admiration for their inventiveness.

But his interests don't just stop with humans, as he's really into learning about nature, particularly animals. Nature documentaries are his favorite genre of film, and Sir David Attenborough may as well be a saint to him. His favorite books are sappy romances and he mostly likes upbeat, energetic music genres. The only exception are chansons, which have a calming effect on him.

He's also always interested in learning more about the home planet he never really got to know, and talking with older Cybertronians about what they've seen.

Tinkering with whatever he gets his hands on is therapeutic to him. It only becomes concerning when he learns more of Cybertronian anatomy and tries to give himself strange upgrades...

Relationships

"Hi there! No need to be scared, I'm harmless, just really big! Wanna be friends?"

The jet makes a point to always start out friendly and respectful when meeting someone, and to not judge a book by its cover. He considers all Autobots to be his friends, and tries to give a chance even to some Decepticons when they seem harmless.

He has a talent for awakening something akin to paternal instincts in most older mechs, which often causes humorous misunderstandings and someone always being there to try to teach him about this and that. This effect was always particularly strong with Ironhide, Kup, and even Ratchet to some extent, as he feels responsible for his wellbeing.

Sunrise is quite close with Optimus Prime and Ratchet and trusts them with everything. Hot Rod and Jazz are always welcome company to him, and he later also becomes good friends with Drift, with an extended friendliness and respect to the other Wreckers.

His relationship with Ultra Magnus is cordial, though it can't be said they're the best of friends considering Sunrise's ignorance of most laws and tendency for harmless mischief.

The only Autobot Sunrise has a fairly bad relationship with is Prowl. At the start, the both genuinely despise each other, until Sunrise lets it go and is satisfied with driving Prowl up to wall with his antics and witty banter. No one really knows where they stand in their relationship currently, and everyone is too afraid to ask.

An important part of Sunrise's inner circle is also a very unlikely friend; a troubled Decepticon seeker named Dustbite, with whom he forms an unlikely friendship based on them both sparing each other's lives. With mutual respect and understanding, their bond eventually becomes so deep that they become each other's Amica Endurae.

As for who he cares more than just a friend... well, only time will tell.

Other Fun Facts

When it comes to the chansons, Sunrise's favorite singer is Jacques Brel.

He himself is a fairly talented singer, though he mostly just hums to himself.

Sunrise's Cybertronian somehow has a vaguely Canadian accent.

He speaks Hand very fluently and uses it to express himself when speaking is difficult.

Even though he seems very innocent, the mech swears like a sailor when he can, even making horrible amalgamation of human and Cybertronian swear words and insults.

He dislikes Primus, blaming him for his previous illness.

Later on, he becomes a good friend and "calming agent" to Fortress Maximus.

He uses his (usual) enhanced hearing to check malfunctions in all sorts of machinery, including cables running through walls. However, he still struggles to find an appropriate way to announce it. "I hear it in the walls" is not something he should say to alert someone of a fried cable, he's been told.

His optics can get blindingly bright when he's very happy. On the other hand, they grow dim when he's feeling under the weather.

His voice claim is Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds.

Story/Story Involvement

(Empty for now... but some short scenes and chapters from his life will hopefully come soon).