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stressisakiller · 4 years ago

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As You Wish

Steve Rogers x Reader Soulmate AU

(As you wish Part 2)

Summary: What happens when after moving into Stark Tower you run into a certain Captain

Warnings: None really, fluff, like one cussword a little bit of spice

Word Count: 2.4k

A/N: Fluffy chapter yay! Let me know what you think and if you have any requests for future chapters! Thank yall for reading!’

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Life working side by side with Tony was dangerous. When Killian attacked Tony it was you not Pepper who was taken and subjected to the Extremis serum. This caused you to heal crazy fast and gave you super strength, which was pretty cool but not very useful for someone who spent most of their time in a robotics lab trying not to crush something when it wasn't working.

You later discovered that Killian mistakenly believed that you were in fact Tony's soulmate, while you had always thought that it was Pepper. She quickly refuted your claim when you told her, pulling the back of her jeans down enough to show the smiley face that graced her butt cheek. Turns out that her soulmate was none other than Happy the head of security.

About six months after the battle of new york, after Tony and the whole Killian/Mandarin situation, Tony asked very nicely if you would move into the Avengers tower with him. He needed to get the Avengers tower going, and after everything that happened and his panic attacks, he really didn't want to live there alone. He was also hoping that if you lived in the tower that the avengers would be more willing to as well. By this point you had met and become friends with most of them save for Captain America, he hasn’t been around much. He was trying to find his place in this new world and taking as many missions as Shield will give him in order to feel needed

The tower was much different this time than the last time you had been there. There was less plastic film and dust everywhere and all of the construction work was done. Most notably, the wall on Stark's living room floor was no longer a gaping hole.

The top eight levels of the tower were for the avengers. The penthouse was where Tony stayed, no surprise there. The level directly below was his lab space which was restricted access for the most part and then there was the common level under that. The common level was composed of a large kitchen and dining area, as well as a massive living room with the biggest tv you had ever seen. This floor also houses a theater, and an arcade room equipped with pool tables and any other game you could think of. Tony is such a child sometimes, not that you were complaining you loved to play pool. The next three floors are where you and the rest of the Avengers would live. You would each get your own suite that you could arrange and decorate however you saw fit. Each suite includes a kitchenette, and small living room that was separate from the bedroom, and a massive ensuite bath. The lowest two levels were dedicated to the training room and medical ward, as well as a giant pool and sauna area, these floors allowed for outside access as long as they were vetted.

Six months later, life in the tower was going well. You, Tony and Bruce, were the main people living there. You could understand that though, Nat and Clint were constantly out on missions for shield and mainly stayed on base in DC. Tony told you that Steve was currently living in an apartment in DC. He didn't want to live on base but he was running missions for Shield on and off. Thor was off-world with Loki so life was pretty quiet.

Then there was a mission that the Captain went on that didn’t go the way he thought. He was wounded and brought back a captive. You were in the common area when the door was thrown open and a bloody Steve Rogers burst through carrying a soaking wet girl over his shoulder.

“The Medical wing, where is it?” He questioned voice hard from pain or fatigue or both.

“This way.” you hurried off, not looking behind you, you knew that he would follow.

When you arrived, you called for Dr. Cho and Steve told her what was going on and placed the girl on a stretcher. The nurses pushed her to a room to monitor her until she woke up. He was then shown to a separate room to be looked over and have the bullet removed.

That night Tony pulled you into the living room to watch your favorite movie, the princess bride. It was about halfway through when an exhausted Steve came through the door and flopped down on the couch beside the one that you and Tony were currently lounging on. It was coming to your favorite part, Buttercup was currently yelling at the Dread Pirate Roberts and about to push him down the hill.

“Oooh,” you said hitting Tony’s shoulder, “I love this part,” you spoke along with Wesley as he rolled down the hill, “As you Wiiiisssshhhh.” you clapped your hands together, “that will forever be the best reveal ever.”

You didn’t notice Steve’s stare as you said those words. Holy Shit he thought his tattoo finally made sense, and yet the girl that fate said was perfect for him had her legs thrown over Tony’s lap and was leaning against him while watching the movie. He stood quickly and stomped out of the room, today was just not his day.

You look over at Tony confused when Steve left.

“What the hell do you think that was about?” you asked, growing more confused as you noticed the smirk on Tony’s lips.

“Why are you smiling like that?” You had to stop yourself from slapping him when he started to laugh.

“What the hell, Stark, tell me what's going on?”

“I think that Capsicle just realized that you're his soulmate.” He said through chuckles.

“What the fuck do you mean he realized that I’m his soulmate?” you asked your whole body going still as you waited for him to elaborate.

“I thought you had realized this earlier,” he said looked genuinely confused, “The captain is your soulmate, I’ve known since we had that movie night after finding him in the ice. Your tattoo is his dog tags with the flower of his birth month and a phrase that I’ve heard him say multiple times while next to him in a fight.”

You just sat there frozen trying to comprehend what exactly the man sitting in front of you was saying.

“You know, he may be a little jealous that his soulmate was cuddling someone else since he probably doesn’t realize that you're like a sister to me. You should probably go after him.” His words seemed to break you from your trance as you threw yourself very clumsily from the couch to follow after him.

“Jarvis, where did Rogers go?”

“He is in the training room miss.”

“Thanks, J”

You ran all the way down, opening the door you were met by the scene of Steve hitting a punching bag so hard that it broke and flew off of its chain.

“You know, I’m not sure that those are made to withstand the punch of a super soldier, maybe I should design one that can,” you said leaning against the wall and trying not to show the fact that your heart was beating a million miles a minute.

“And why would you feel the need to do that, I’m sure Stark has plenty of things that he needs you to design that are more important than a Steve-proof punching bag.” You could tell that he was gritting his teeth as he spoke, reaching for another bag. You step towards him slowly, making sure not to walk too quickly from fear of him leaving.

“Well I’m sure that the great Tony Stark can take care of himself, and anyways, I think creating something to make my soulmate's life easier is more important.”

He slowly pulled his eyes from the punching bag that he was hanging onto the hook to look at you, pain obvious in his eyes.

“Really? Cause you seemed pretty comfortable with him.” you could see the vulnerability in his eyes as he spoke, he had gone through so much already.

“Yes really, Tony is more like an annoying older brother than anything. I’ve been working around him for the past five or so years, trust me when I say that I have no desire to date him. You on the other hand.” You made sure that your voice turned teasing on the last words, you wanted to make him smile, you hadn’t gotten to see that yet.

“Well good, cause I think I may have to kick his ass if you did.” You could hear the teasing lilt in his voice and the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. But as quickly as it came it was gone.

“How long have you known?” his voice cracked a little as he spoke. You let out a small huff of a laugh.

“Would you believe me if I told you that Tony had to tell me when I was confused as to why you left the room?” His eyes snapped to yours.

“Really? You didn’t know?”

“After not meeting my soulmate by the time I turned 25 I just pushed it to the back of my mind, I stopped trying to figure out what my tattoo meant and I focused on my work. Plus there were a couple of life-threatening instances that distracted me." You joked. You weren't 100% sure how to handle this situation, your main friend group consisted of a playboy philanthropist and a science nerd that turned into a giant green guy when angry, not really the best people to show you how to be vulnerable.

“I understand that," he said pausing before continuing, "part of my problem was that my tattoo didn’t show up until after I came out of the ice.” he looked down at his hands and you noticed that they were fidgeting, he must be just as nervous as you.

“I didn’t know that,” you murmured, deciding to ask the question that was begging to be asked.

“What is your tattoo, if you don’t mind me asking?”

He shook his head, “Not at all.” he stepped towards you and pulled up his sleeve, and turned out his arm so you could see the flesh just under his armpit. As soon as you saw the tattoo you burst out laughing.

“Of course that’s what my mark is, man I’m such a nerd.” You clutched your stomach as you laughed, tears coming to your eyes from the range of emotions that you are currently going through.

“Can I ask why I have this tattooed on me?” He questioned, clearly curious to the reasoning as to why he had a movie quote on his arm forever. You were finally able to pull yourself together and sober up from the surprise of his tattoo.

“That movie came out the year after I was born and it was my mom’s favorite movie to watch with me, we watched it at least 4 times a year. But we always made sure to watch it on my birthday as a family, it became an integral part of my life, plus it’s just sooo quotable.” you said with a smile, “Do you want to look at my tattoo?” you asked motioning at your arm with your head. He slowly nodded, not able to find the words.

You slowly pulled your sleeve up, showing him the inside of your forearm and the dog tags that graced your skin. He stepped forward gently taking your arm in his hand so that he could study the markings on your skin. Tracing the outline and the words that he could see before smiling.

“What does it mean?” you asked softly looking at him through your lashes.

“It’s um,” he cleared his throat, “it’s my dog tags or at least the lower one is, it says my name, then Captain America and the city I was born in, Brooklyn. The top one however is something that I always seem to say when I’m getting beat up in a fight in order to remind myself that I could do it. And the flower… I think it’s the flower from my birth month? I was born in July so I think it’s a reference to that.” You nodded at his explanation, his fingers still gently tracing over your skin, causing goosebumps to pop up from the feeling.

“So, would you like to watch the movie with me? We can start it over so that you won’t be lost. I know that you struggle with pop culture, old man.” You smirked at him as you spoke, he just rolled his eyes.

“Be careful, this old man could still show you a thing or two.”

You laughed out loud at that, your laugh changed to a squeal when you felt him wrap his arms around your legs and throw you over his shoulder.

“Ahh, let me down!!” you beat at his shoulders trying to get him to release you but he wouldn’t budge, he just continued to carry you until you ended back in the living room and he threw you down onto the couch. He wasn’t even breathing hard after carrying you up 2 flights of stairs, jerk.

Tony was nowhere to been seen as you restarted the movie. You ran and grabbed some more popcorn to share, pouring in some M&Ms before plopping back down next to Steve and pulling on your couch blanket. It didn't take long for you to cuddle into his side and for your eyes to droop.

Steve smiled at you when he realized that you had passed out before you even got to the part he had walked in on earlier. He didn't mind though, he just got comfortable and pulled you in closer before allowing himself to relax and fall asleep.

Tagged Users: @writerwrites

#steve x reader #steve rodgers x reader #steve rogers #steve rogers imagine #marvel imagine #marvel #soulmate #soulmate au #soulmate tattoo #captain america imagine #captain america #captain america x reader

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bnhaven · 4 years ago

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A Potential ‘Hidden Quirk’ Idea

To begin: I am so sorry. Truly. I swore I’d be a writer of fluff, and yet here we are...again...whoops.

Anyways, let’s get on with it!

So, if there’s one thing we love about our innocent cinnamon roll of a boy, aka Izuku “Deku” Midoriya, it’s that he’s willing to go beyond (plus ultra style) in order to save the day, even going so far as to break his bones to the point of disfiguration. Adrenaline helps him fight through the pain, and even then I’ve heard a lot of people talk about his insanely high pain tolerance.

Like, ridiculously high. I mean, the Overhaul fight??? Where Izuku just destroys himself so that Eri doesn’t Rewind him out of existence? Wild. It’s like, unimaginable. Even with the decade of bullying to get used to pain, it’s almost unreal for the green bean to be able to push through so much naturally.

Which is where I say: what if it wasn’t natural?

Look, some Quirks are probably hidden ones. Ones that you can’t immediately see, ones that aren’t emitter types. Quirks that just affect the wielder, not anyone else. Like Nedzu’s High Spec, for example. But what’s another Quirk that no one would be able to see?

One that negates pain.

Now, I don’t think that Izuku would have always had this Quirk. I think it’s one that needed the right conditions to form. Like, let’s say...a really hard punch, something with an almost explosive force.

Lucky for Izuku, he has a classmate with a very painful Quirk, and a penchant for using it on those he deems weaker or lesser. Thus, when the bullying started, Izuku’s Quirk finally kicked in after one hit went too far.

The Issue: Nobody realizes that Izuku got his Quirk. Not even Izuku realizes it. Why? Well, Izuku thinks it’s just a high pain tolerance. He still feels Bakugou striking him, he just...doesn’t feel much else. He knows that he feels pressure, so he must have just gotten used to Bakugou’s hits. (And with all of the burn scars that Izuku is gaining, he wouldn’t be surprised if he’s lost some nerve endings due to the damage.)

And Izuku would definitely have burn scars in this AU (I’m not really sure if canon gives him said scars, I’ve done more reading for this fandom than watching, oops.) But no matter what happens in canon, this Izuku would have burn scars for one reason: Since Izuku doesn’t feel pain, he doesn’t cry out. Since he doesn’t cry out, Bakugou thinks his explosions aren’t strong enough to hurt...so the boy uses stronger blasts in an attempt to prove his ‘point’. (There is definitely an inferiority complex going on here, where Bakugou subconsciously worries that his Quirk is weak if ‘Quirkless Deku can stand there and take one of my hits without a single flinch’.) He pushes himself harder, lets more force into every controlled blast, etc.

So Izuku has no clue that he has a Quirk, Bakugou uses crazy amounts of explosions on the boy, neither realizing just how much damage is happening because Izuku can’t feel any pain.

Canon continues. The Sludge Villain stuff goes as usual, and All Might chooses Izuku as his successor just like always. The training montage from hell might actually be more self-destructive, not only because Izuku feels the need to catch up but also because he doesn’t feel so exhausted/sore. (Along with pain, the boy also doesn’t really feel when his muscles and body are sore, so he doesn’t realize he needs to take a breather.) But that isn’t the focus, so let’s move on!

The Entrance Exam occurs, and wow that really should have clued someone in. Because Izuku breaks his limbs for Uraraka and when he hits the ground, instead of dragging himself away he tries to stand up. He actually manages to find a 3-pointer, and breaks two more of his fingers by flicking in its direction, destroying it with a gust of air before he collapses to the ground.

But wow, everyone is just like ‘this boy is wild’ before completely forgetting about how they heard his bones crunching with every step.

Continue on.

Quirk Apprehension Test? Izuku doesn’t really get why Aizawa is complaining about how he shatters himself. Like, he doesn’t need to stop just because his arm is apparently broken. It’s fine, he can still use it. Still, he settles on breaking a single finger because he can’t risk expulsion, and he definitely doesn’t have the courage to talk back to a teacher.

Hero v. Villain Fight? Izuku doesn’t even collapse after the final blast, instead walking off without batting an eyelash. Iida ends up corralling him to Recovery Girl’s room, because first Izuku protested having to leave without getting to watch the other teams, then he got distracted by the school and nearly got lost.

USJ? Izuku goes a little more feral, fun times.

Sports Festival? Oh honey you know things are going to get wild here. Broken bones left and right, yeehaw it’s shatter city baby!

Izuku ends up with even less self-preservation with every passing problem, basically. Since the boy can’t feel pain, he assumes that any injury that he does get isn’t that bad. After all, wouldn’t he be crying and, you know, hurting if it was bad? Izuku knows what pain feels like, and this isn’t it!!

It’s only the realization that breaking bones so often could end his career early that causes Izuku to try new approaches to the whole Quirk-using situation. Even then, the boy has no sense of when to stop, and as such pushes himself to the point of passing out from either exhaustion or blood loss multiple times.

-One such time was after getting impaled. The boy didn’t realize he had a broken pole halfway through his back until Kaminari screamed and passed out from seeing Izuku bleeding, a giant rod jabbing out of him. Izuku tried to shrug it off.

Sometime around the impalation incident, people begin to notice that Izuku has a freaky high pain tolerance.

But nobody really connects the dots until Bakugou goes too far in training.

The bad news: his opponent loses a limb.

The good news: It is Shouji, and it’s one of the regrowable ones.

The bad news: the following dialogue occurs after school…

Bakugou: What the fuck? But that’s barely anything!

Aizawa: Bakugou. That explosion had enough force to sever your classmate’s hand off of his limb due to how you directed it. You should know to limit yourself by now.

Bakugou: But I was! That one is so weak that even Deku can walk away without flinching!

Aizawa: There is no way that Midoriya would be able to move on without needing medical attention after a hit that bad.

Bakugou: He has.

Aizawa: ...I beg your pardon?

Bakugou: Deku fucking has! How do you think I learned my limits, huh? Deku has taken a hit like that directly to the chest and didn’t even flinch! I know how weak I am!

Needless to say, Aizawa proceeds to lose his absolute shit. He makes Izuku stay after class the next day, and questions him about whether or not Bakugou has ever used his Quirk on him.

Izuku, a boy who is unafraid of breaking three limbs to save a girl from a giant robot, but who is terrified of teachers most of the time, cracks without too much pressure. He admits that Bakugou has used his Quirk on Izuku for years, but ‘It wasn’t bad, sensei! They were like love taps, I never even felt a thing!’

And Aizawa knows something is wrong with this, something isn’t adding up because if Shouji lost a limb to Bakugou’s hit, Izuku has to be lying...or there’s another factor in this equation.

Aizawa dismisses Izuku, and spends the night trying to figure it out.

And then he does.

The next day, he makes Bakugou and Izuku stay in the classroom during lunch. He questions them on their past. Bakugou complains about how ‘weak’ he’s always been, Izuku brushes past the concern without much thought because it never hurt, and sure there were markings but-

Aizawa: Markings?

The scars are revealed. Well, the ones on his upper body.

This is when Bakugou begins to realize that he’s fucked up.

During training, Aizawa pulls Bakugou and Izuku off to work with him separately. He

brings out machines that test how much force a blow gives off, and has Bakugou throw his ‘weak’ explosions at them.

As it turns out, Izuku should have been in crippling pain from everything Bakugou did. And then Aizawa drops the ‘I think you have a pain-related Quirk’ on Izuku, and yeah.

I didn’t really plan an end, sorry. I just think it’d be interesting, you know?

On the bright side, at least Izuku isn’t constantly in pain!!! He just got his body a whole lot more damaged than he would have, and has maybe half of the self-preservation that his canon counterpart possesses.

Finally, for an extra bit: Izuku only feels pain when Aizawa erases his Quirk. It’s not pleasant. (And, to make him even more oblivious, Izuku believes that the pain is because his Quirk is being ‘severed’ in its connection, not that this is lingering pain that comes from having bones shattered over and over without hesitation.)

#bnha au #izuku has a quirk #izuku can't feel pain #bnhaven #I went feral once more #my apologies #katsuki out here learning that his standards for strength and weakness have been skewed for a decade

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toooldforfandom-liveblogs · 4 years ago

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RWBY V08E05 - Amity

Amity! A return to the adventures of RWB? With no Penny sadly. I doubt we'll get so many visual puns again but who knows, maybe they'll make friends with Whitley or at least have a cordial chat with him without killing each other. I have no idea, so let's do this!

Wow, great start. Poor Pietro, got copypasted there with no regard for his feelings.

I'm very glad I was wrong about no Penny.. Even if every second she's on screen increases the chances of something bad happening to her.

Why does the HUD look like someone used the wand from photoshop to extract it from a white background?

Wait, are they going to blow up the Dust to launch amity into space?

Penny is right, that doesn't seem like a good idea but it's also incredibly in-character for the show. Now even caves are a gun.

Someone at Rooster Teeth really likes the idea of little old ladies riding huge robots, and honestly? Can't disagree.

hmmmmmmmm not a big fan of pietro at the moment

oof, my heart

Maria continues to be the voice of wisdom. Sadly, I doubt Pietro is going to listen to her.

In the original tale Pinocchio ends up learning by making bad choice after bad choice. Penny doesn't seem to have that much in common with her inspiration but if she hasn't ever been able to make a choice at all, would it be surprising if the first time she makes a choice it ends up being a bad one? It wouldn't surprise me if this is setting her up to fly away from Amity (against Pietro's wishes) once she notices something went wrong with everyone else (making her vulnerable)

Welp.

look at that poor girl

Aaaa, that's the same expression she used when Ruby said Penny was still the Protector of Mantle. "my feelings don't matter, conceal, don't feel, don't let them kn— wait, never mind

but yeah, she's used to putting everyone ahead of her (because as a robot she supposedly doesn't know better, there's a reason that was her first thought when she was talking with Winter in last season)

aw poop

Cinder was moving so fast she left her shadow behind.

Great deranged expression and voice though. Did she bring both Neo and Emerald or just the latter?

Penny yes

Hey, 9 blades! For a second I thought they wouldn't remember that she lost one.

no, no, no, time for what? aaaaa

Now that we have more context, Cinder using her own experiences to know where to hurt people is * chef kiss *

Intentional reference to the PvP fight?

okay, I didn't expect badass Maria to actually fight using her robot but I blame my own lack of imagination

now I'm hyped, it also gives something the other two something to do.

I think the main problem here for the good guys is that if Pietro gets threatened there's no way Penny is not going to surrender. Although, maybe he gets kidnapped? That'd make him get "swallowed" by a whale... hm. Another possibility is that they threaten Pietro and Penny gets hacked "just in time"

you can't lie to me, subtitles, I know she was going to say bitch

lol at crashing the entire ship into maria to get her out of the way

bad mistake to hurt one of Penny's friends in front of her

Did anyone give a job to poor Emerald? I can almost see Cinder telling Neo to distract people while in the ship with Emerald sitting in the back seat trying to get noticed.

C'mon Neo, leave the old lady alone

…of course she wouldn't leave her alone, she's Neo, she likes playing with her victims

I wonder if Neo has a deeper plan than "killing this old lady while looking like her protege would be incredibly cruel and extra and therefore worth doing"

If the drifting was an accident, where did Emerald go?

waiting for the RWBY shmup

I understand why she's leaving Amity (to prevent their fight from destroying it by accident) but leaving Pietro alone feels like a bad idea.

…this HUD is a lot cleaner, I don't get it, it should be the same png overlay

anyway, took the screenshot to write "wow, Cinder is actually capable of thinking through her rage these days, good for her" but now that I think about it, I'm not sure if she's ever been fooled.

booo

I wanted more evil Ruby

Also, I'm literally loling at Maria yoda-ing Neo.

ah yes, neo, so graceful

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

mmmmmmm

mmm

oof, looks like that was a direct hit. And the worst part is that the second James hacks into Penny, I assume it'll will work that way. Probably her worst nightmare.

Yeah, no, this worked for spiderman because his nemesis wasn't right in front of him.

I like the idea of this shot but for some reason the execution looks weird. Maybe it's just awkward positioning, it's hard to tell the angles.

lmao

* cough *

I mean, yeah, saw that coming.

For a second I thought she was melting her face but then I remembered the one reason Cinder has that arm.

I'm going to need a diagram to know what Emerald was doing.

Yessss, no need for swords if you can make your own

I really need to know what she was doing inside because right now it feels like that was the worst excuse ever to get her out of the fight until the last possible second (and maybe make it another reference to PvP when Ruby exits the corridor?)

Did she finally see Pietro?

Emerald has so much faith in Cinder, sigh

I wonder if before the end of the show Neo will get to stab someone with her umbrella. Maybe it could even be Cinder

First time she gets knocked out?

Cinder with a long spear only means one thing. Someone is getting stabbed

Huh.

I hadn't thought about this until now but before this second I'd have said Emerald's semblance shouldn't work on Penny. Like, what part is she affecting to make Penny see the duplicates? But I guess it does work, somehow. Maybe reality gets processed through Aura.

Fire spear vs laser, who wins?

Giant laser wins

Glad that Penny is confirmed as the most powerful character in the show.

Poor Emerald, two lines this episode and they are both "CINDER"

Damn, she looks done with their crap.

And now she looks absolutely feral. Loving this.

I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop. If she gets hacked now, Cinder still wins. She wouldn't get the maiden powers but at least she'd stop the transmission.

aaaaa

Emerald breaks my heart. So much love for someone who couldn't give a hoot about her.

At least Cinder seems to know her place with Salem, but I can't tell if she started like Emerald and got her love beaten down or if she just had different priorities after getting saved from what seemed similar circumstances.

Ah, Neo. Now to add to her resume that she beat a granny only because she got distracted.

oh, shut up, Pietro

Is this it? Is this where Penny "rebels"?

Even after all that fight, I think this is the best animation of the episode so far. It conveys so much resignation and annoyance.

I think this is the first time this season RWBY makes me teary-eyed. She finally said it!

This is too cute for this world.

Remember when I said that hug with Ruby felt like a goodbye? Well, this is much worse.

Wooo, she succeeded! (I hope, they did mention the message was a couple of minutes long)

But I'm also even more worried now because it feels like the one last thing she had to do.

They are back!

I wonder if the one character I miss the most will also get a shot.

Pensive Whitley? more likely than you think

He has a lot of potential, especially now that Salem -> Cinder -> Emerald are a thing, making cyclical abuse more of an explicit theme. Not sure if there's enough time to do him justice though, considering he's not much of a character.

"we don't want to reveal Vacuo yet, what do we do?" "put them in the desert"

Yessss, Ilia got a cameo!

Are they pulling her back from voiceless purgatory?

Holy shit, wow, really didn't expect to see her.

Literally a pet. I wonder where the hound falls in the hierarchy

...why is she so happy? She's not supposed to be happy!!

siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

yeah

was expecting this

Poor guy, I wonder if this is the first news he gets from her daughters.

Taiyang made me realize they didn't show Yang's team. Huh.

Oh, fuck you rooster teeth.

Fuck oofffff (RT, not you, Pietro)

Is Winter end up doing the right thing? She's obviously affected by seeing Penny's sword there.

Also, I wonder if her new armor is just that or if it's a bracing system to help her move so soon after getting beat. But I guess that wouldn't be necessary if her aura helped her heal.

Hopefully, if Watts escapes and tries to get everyone else to help (since I doubt he can beat all the guards on his own), Qrow shows he learned his lesson about trusting the enemy.

ah, there you go

Okay, this is an amazing reveal. Is Salem transforming Mantle into another land of darkness? Because that'd definitely explain why she was so unworried about the broadcast.

What a way to end the episode. A brief moment of hope completely destroyed, twice.

Penny has been raising so many death flags that her inevitable hacking lacked some impact. I'm still sad (and annoyed at RT for poor Penny being a magnet for suffering) but Watts being Watts maybe he did a bad job just to prevent Atlas to escape? And Penny seemed able to resist? aaaah, I don't know. Now that the hacking finally happened all the foreshadowing is over, anything could happen.

The worst part of the hack is that it modified Penny's thoughts. It wasn't a complete takeover, like with Pietro, it was a lot more insidious. Literally making true what Cinder told her. Ugh.

Looking back at the screenshots, wow, a lot of the episode was just them fighting, but there were some fun moments, like Maria kicking Neo's ass.

Very curious about where it's going. Both the Penny plot (there's absolutely no way hacked Penny doesn't fight Ruby, there's probably a rule written in the universe about having mind-controlled people fight their loved ones) and the river of Grimm which was an excellent secondary gut punch. Really, loved that reveal. "You thought things were bad? lol"

I think that's all for now, until next time!

#rwby #rwby liveblog #rwby v8 #rwby v8e05

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victory-cookies · 4 years ago

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we were fools to think that nothing could go wrong (chapter 3)

Milo woke up from a restless sleep with a jolt, the sound of screaming still ringing faintly in his ears. His heart raced and he was breathing unevenly, each inhale and exhale shallow and shaky. He couldn't bring himself to be more than barely cognizant of the large boulder that had smashed through his bedroom wall at some point in the night, leaving a sizable hole that let the chilly morning air in.

He closed his eyes again, trying to steady his breaths, before he sat up and forced himself to get out of bed.

"C'mon, Murphy, you gotta get going," he murmured groggily, fighting back a yawn.

Once he had climbed down the ladder to the floor (thankfully without incident), he turned his attention to the boulder and let out a small, tired sigh.

It was a bit of a distraction, at least.

"Hey Mom?" he called as he walked to grab clothes from his closet, skirting the near-car-sized rock now sat in the middle of his room.

"Yes?" came her voice faintly from downstairs.

He pulled out a button-up, slightly beat-up body armour, and shorts and began to change into them. "Boulder came through the wall last night!"

"I'll call insurance!" she replied. "Also, breakfast is on the table whenever you're ready!"

"I'll be down in a sec!" He pulled on a sweater vest and grabbed his backpack, which he had packed the night before. "Alright, first day back to school," he said to himself. "Let's make it incredible!"

***

He tried to ignore how his voice shook a little on the last syllable.

"Milo!" came a chorus of voices as he walked up to the bus stop, hands tightly gripping the straps of his backpack.

He grinned as he saw who it was. "Hey Melissa, hey Za— oof!" He was cut off as Melissa rushed to embrace him, lifting him off the ground.

She put him back down. "Thank god you're back! It was getting so boring around here without you."

"Yeah, I think I woulda died if I had to sit through one more history class without anything catching on fire." Zack added. "You feelin' better? You had it pretty rough there for a while."

Milo rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, I'm just a little tired. And my leg's still in a splint, of course, but at least I can walk without crutches now!"

"Oh yeah right, your leg! Didn't it break that when we got knocked out during the fight?" Melissa asked. She and Zack had been for a visit with Milo once while he was still in hospital care, but it had been cut short when a nurse had come in for a routine checkup and kicked them out. They hadn't exactly had time to discuss much beyond how Milo was out of his coma and how they all were glad that everyone was at least somewhat okay. Along with that, the fact that she was half-out when the whole leg-crushing event had transpired made Milo wonder if she had forgotten his leg had been broken entirely.

He assumed he was right, seeing her expression turn mildly embarrassed, as if she'd heard what she'd said and only then realized how it sounded.

He smiled softly at her. "Yeah. I was lucky that I only had my leg hit by that falling wall, unlike you two. That must've hurt."

"Yeah..." she replied, touching the back of her head and grimacing. "Good thing, too, because if you'd been out too we would have been screwed."

"Oh yeah, we heard about what you did, by the way, pulling us to safety after we got knocked out. Thanks for that, man. You... you definitely saved our lives there," Zack said. "And you did it with a broken leg."

"Eh, no biggie," replied Milo, laughing nervously, trying to push the resurfacing memories of the event as far out of his mind as possible. "All that matters is that you guys are fine."

"Dude, you saved us from some big-ass scary mechs while you had a broken leg! Don't sell yourself short," exclaimed Melissa. “If it weren’t for you, we would have been in some deep shit.”

Suddenly, a voice came from behind them. “If it weren’t for Milo, you wouldn’t have needed to be saved in the first place, you know.”

Melissa whirled around, glaring. “Shut your piehole, Bradley.”

Bradley leaned up against the bus stop signpost and shrugged. “I’m just saying, Milo's the whole reason stuff like that happens. Giant killer robots—"

"Mechs." Melissa corrected.

"—mechs, whatever, they don't just show up ready to go on a murderous rampage around normal people!" Bradley crossed his arms. "Half of downtown was destroyed, Melissa, and they're still cleaning up the robot—"

"Mech."

"Shut up. They're still cleaning up the robot carcasses and trying to find the bodies of people who died in the building collapses!"

Uncomfortably vivid flashes of memories from the battle were now rushing back to Milo, and he gulped. "Hey guys..." he said quietly, but he was cut off as Melissa took a step towards Bradley.

"So? None of that is Milo's fault!"

"Everything that could have gone wrong did, Melissa! Our city was invaded by robots from the future who, if I'm remembering their speech from the news correctly, were, oh right, looking for Milo!"

Melissa was beginning to look like she was going to scream. "Oh no, you do not get to blame Milo for this."

"Why not?"

"Because he's not responsible for anything that happened that day! In fact, he probably was the reason more people didn't get hurt! He's certainly the reason Zack and I aren't dead!"

"Guys?" said Milo again. "Could you stop?"

"Without him around there wouldn't have been people endangered in the first place! Him being there caused it!"

"Bradley, I will say this one last time: none of this is Milo's fault! He didn't hurt anyone!"

At that, Milo's face paled. He remembered Cavendish and Dakota's account of the post-battle destruction, remembered the mech he saw destroyed right in front of his own eyes, right after he'd hit it with a bolt of energy he still hadn't figured out how he'd created.

Oh, he definitely hurt some people. Maybe not the people Melissa was referring to, but still...

He wondered if he'd ever stop feeling nauseous whenever he re-remembered that fact.

Probably not.

"Well—"

"Will you two stop!?" Zack exclaimed suddenly. "Some of us don't want to hear it."

The two of them quieted and turned to face him.

He sighed. "Thank you." He then turned to Milo and placed a gentle hand on his arm. "You alright?"

Milo realized he was shaking a little. "Oh, yeah, I— I'm fine."

"Cool. Just take some deep breaths, okay?"

Milo nodded and did as he was told, slowly breathing in and out until he began to feel a little less shaky.

They all stood there in silence for a moment, Melissa still fuming, Zack maintaining a comforting hold on Milo's arm, Bradley repeatedly curling and uncurling his plant hand and sulking, until Chad eventually walked up to join them at the bus stop.

"Hey guys, what's going on?" he asked, breaking the silence.

Melissa sighed as the bus pulled up in front of them. "Shut up, Chad."

"What'd I say?"

***

The morning had been relatively uneventful, which Milo was grateful for, with only one thing in science class exploding when it wasn't supposed to. Sure, the blast knocked the mouse cage off the shelf and let the rodents free, but that was nothing that couldn't be easily dealt with. He could tell Melissa and Bradley were still mad at each other, as they had been intensely refusing to so much as make eye contact all class. He was also pretty sure he'd seen Melissa try to slam the safety goggle box closed on Bradley's hand.

As much as he appreciated her standing up for him, he felt a little bad, seeing as he was partially the reason the two of them were angry at each other. Plus, she'd been fuming all morning. That was never fun for anybody. Her fuming sessions were sparse but legendary, and he knew it would be a while before she'd even begin to consider making up with Bradley.

Cliche or not, he really just wished they could all get along.

He also knew from experience that having that safety goggle box slam closed on your hand really hurt. Even Bradley didn't deserve that.

Eventually, lunchtime rolled around, and he, Zack, and Melissa sat down at their regular table to eat. Milo rummaged around in his backpack for a second before pulling out his lunch bag, which was looking a little squished.

"Maybe next time I should pack the anchor nearer to the bottom," he mused to himself as he took his sandwich out of the bag. "Oh well, squished PB&J is just as good as regular PB&J."

"I'd even argue it's better," Zack commented, pulling out his own lunch. "It gives the sandwich character." He emphasized the last word with a quick, vaguely Italian gesture of his hand and a chef's kiss.

Milo laughed, and Melissa cracked a small smile before returning to her fuming.

They sat there, eating in silence for a few minutes after that, before Milo sighed and spoke up.

"Melissa, you don't have to keep being mad at Bradley. Sure, he said some not-so-nice things, but you know I'm used to that by now. Some people just don't get it, and that's okay."

She put down her sandwich and leaned her face against her hand. "I know, it's just—" she made a spluttering noise and waved her free hand around. "He's such a dick! None of that stuff was your fault! It's like he thinks that you control it or something, and then choose to let stuff go wrong! Which is so not true!"

"I know, Melissa."

"It's just— arrrrrgggh!" She pressed her face into her hands and muttered something that Milo couldn't hear but made Zack's eyes widen.

"I'm gonna pretend like I didn't hear you say that," he said, blinking incredulously. "Because holy crap."

"What'd she say?" asked Milo.

Zack shook his head. "I refuse to repeat any of those words." He then leaned as farback in his chair as he could, eyes darting around the room, obviously grasping to find something else they could talk about. "Sooo, uh, hmm... oh!” He leaned forward again. “Imagine if Milo really was able to control Murphy's Law, though! Wouldn't that be wild? It would be like a weird superpower!"

Milo felt like he was going to die, right then and there, but he forced a pained smile. "Yeah, imagine that..." He giggled nervously. "It would be pretty wild."

Melissa perked up. "Yeah, what if you could, like, shoot it all like—" She punched the air in front of her a few times, like she was blasting something. "—pew pew pew! And whatever it hit would get Murphy's Law'd, like with the mech suit you guys used on the pistachions but, like, smaller. And you wouldn't need the Flynn-Fletcher brothers for it." She grinned conspiratorially. "Maybe you could use it to give Bradley a little taste of his own bullshit theory!"

He didn't respond, unable to focus on the words, because for the second time that day, images of the battle with the mechs had begun to flood Milo's head, as hard as he tried to ignore them, only this time he couldn't help but imagine the consequences of hitting Bradley with a bolt of that energy too. Would he be crushed by a collapsing building? Flattened by a falling telephone pole? Would he spontaneously burst into flames?

Would he be hurt, just like every other person he'd hit that day?

"Ex-excuse me," he said, standing up abruptly and beginning to walk away from the table.

"Where're you going?" Zack called after him.

"Washroom," he lied, voice weak, as he hurried away.

By the time he reached his favourite obscured alcove under the back staircase, he could no longer keep the memories of the battle at bay. He leaned back against the wall for support, breaths quickening as the events played out in wicked clarity in his mind. He could see every blast at him and his friends, feel the panic as they were knocked unconscious and the helplessness that followed when he had to stop running and hide. And the last few moments of the battle? He got to see those play out with the knowledge of exactly what he was causing to happen in that moment.

Eventually the memories began to recede, but his heart rate only quickened as he realized he could still feel his hands buzzing uncomfortably. He slowly brought them up, heart dropping as he confirmed what he had feared: they were surrounded by that red glow, small sparks jumping off of them.

He began to feel panicky again. He hated being panicky, too. It made being able to swiftly respond to danger a lot more difficult. Ironically, that made him begin to panic even more. His heart clenched.

Then, without warning, he felt something akin to a static shock travel through him, and a burst of red sparks flew from his hands, a few of them striking things nearby while most of them hit the underside of the stairs above him. He watched one of them hit a light in the stairwell, and the cables attaching it to the ceiling broke with a loud snap, causing the fixture to immediately fall to the ground, knocking over a garbage can nearby and spilling its contents everywhere. Milo cringed, but his attention was quickly stolen by a loud cracking noise from above him. He looked up to see a large crack spreading through the underside of the staircase.

"Uh oh," he breathed, before diving out from under the stairs just as they began to give way. With a school-shaking rumble, the whole flight crumbled and fell to the ground below.

Milo pushed himself to his knees, staring at the rubble in front of him.

There was no denying it anymore. What he had done that day hadn't been a fluke, or a fear-induced hallucination.

That red energy stuff, that focused destruction? It came from him. And now, somehow, he'd unintentionally done it for a second time.

Watching the dust settle in front of him, with his still-tingling hands stuffed into his pockets and the memories of the battle still lingering in his mind, he became acutely aware of how much the idea that he might accidentally keep doing it again terrified him.

#milo murphy's law #mml #milo murphy #melissa chase #zack underwood #bradley nicholson #VicFic #we were fools #im not super happy with this chapter but oh well

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thanksjro · 5 years ago

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More Than Meets the Eye #8- I’m Sorry, the Domain Name thebomb.com is Already in Use

It’s been a hot minute since we last got to focus on the Scavengers- ah, the chaotic nature of comic print schedules! Luckily, we’ve got a Story So Far to remind us where we left off.

Our issue starts 10,000 years in the past, where Fulcrum is riding in a plane and preparing to drop with his fellow K-Cons. It’s crowded, there’s a guy crying in the corner, everyone’s wearing the same outfit, and no one’s got time to go home and change. How embarrassing!

Torque’s never heard of personal space, as is made apparent by his power-stance pelvic thrusting here. Fulcrum is less than impressed by this show of bravado, but there’s no time to dwell on it because it’s time to jump the glory of Megatron.

At least one of them is having a good time.

In the present day, the Scavengers are freaking the hell out, because as it turns out, it’s THEM who’re afraid of the DJD.

Krok keeps trying to reach his old squad, as if anything short of Megatron himself would be able to save them from the horrible death coming their way, while Flywheels grapples with his faith and inferiority complex at the same time.

Spinister brings up a decent point, despite Misfire’s earlier claim that he’s the stupidest creature in the universe- Misfire is kind of an asshole, so anything he says involving just about anything should be taken with a grain of salt- but the problem is, nobody in their right mind would incriminate themselves to the DJD if they could help it. Also, everyone knows that Tarn’s got his head way too far up his own ass to have any sort of rhyme or reason for anything he does beyond the 𝕒𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕥𝕚𝕔.

Krok leans on his career as a military strategist to come up with a few ideas, and the boys decide to fight the DJD, after so much bitching and moaning.

But the DJD… the Decepticon Justice Division… are also Decepticons. Crankcase, are you gatekeeping here, my dude? Because I don’t think this is an internet debate you’re going to win.

The fellas decide that they’ll do what they do best, and use what’s been laying around in the dust and blood for thousands of years to fight off some of the scariest folks in the galaxy. What could possibly go wrong?

Over on the Lost Light, Chromedome and Skids are having a secret rendezvous at the oil reservoir, in secret and behind Rewind’s back, as Chromedome proceeds to call Skids handsome. No, they aren’t having a secret love affair, but are instead going to mnemosurgery the shit out of Skids. Rewind doesn’t like that Chromedome is still doing this, but what Rewind doesn’t know won’t hurt him, surely. We’ll find out just why exactly Rewind isn’t a fan of Chromedome’s line of work later on, but for now it’s time to dig around in a hot guy’s brain.

Just kidding, it’s Scavenger time.

The Scavengers have set up a trap for the DJD, and that trap is Grimlock; still locked in his stasis pod, they’re pulling a “rigged box and stick with a piece of cheese inside” maneuver. Let’s see how this plays out.

Hmm. That’s not a great start.

The Peaceful Tyranny lands, Tarn transforms, comes down the gangplank, transforms, waxes poetic about the brilliance of the Decepticon copy writers, transforms, drives 15 feet, transforms, then, after clearly stating that the big stasis pod in the middle of nowhere is a trap, opens it anyway.

Never has a nut-punch been more deserved than in this exact moment.

Grimlock has a strong start, but almost immediately begins to flag, as he’s put down by Tesaurus. This is why we do warmups prior to rigorous exercise, people!

Misfire tries to sneak off while Tarn’s distracted whispering into Grimlock’s ear like one would a lover, but that doesn’t really work out.

Back over on the Lost Light, Chromedome’s having a time and a half trying to parse just what the hell’s going on with Skid’s head. All his memories from the last year aren’t lost, but rather destroyed, which is concerning to say the least, only leaving a need to escape. There’s also some nasty beast in Skid’s more distant past that Chromedome can see. However, it would seem that Skid’s brain took the out when it saw one and buried that nightmare so deep it’ll take multiple sticks of dynamite to wiggle it loose, so Chromedome’s leaving it where it is.

What this tells me is that Rung has no business referring patients to Chromedome for treatment, if this is how we’re meant to handle repressed memories. Remember back in issue #6, when Fort Max claimed he didn’t remember what happened in Garrus 9, and Rung was all “oh let me just call my guy Chromedome and have him stir your brain around like a martini”? Turns out, either that’s a terrible idea and Rung hasn’t paid attention to the work that half his coworkers on Kimia were involved with, or he was making an empty threat, which doesn’t seem like great practice for a therapist.

Pretty fucked up of you, Rung.

Anyways, Skids is less than thrilled by this, and demands Chromedome do it anyway, which Chromedome promptly refuses. He’ll play around with his own life, but not his friends’. Skids walks off in a huff, because I guess no one’s ever refused his pretty ass anything before, but asks a question before he leaves.

Well, I’m sure that won’t be a major plot point later on.

Let’s check back in with the Scavengers.

Between Tesaurus’ line here, Tarn harassing Grimlock, and Skids’ asking Chromedome why he pulled out during their secret meeting, this is probably the most sexually-charged issue of MTMTE so far.

Flywheels’ only purpose as a character was so that Roberts had a stand-in for the word “fuck” last issue. Sorry, dude, you’ve done your job. Off to the shredder with you!

No time to worry about him, Krok, because it’s time for your face mask treatment at the universe’s shittiest spa.

The worst part about this is the fact that he’s being held a full nelson by the DJD’s record-keeper, who turns into a fucking chair and doesn’t even have eyes. Oh, the indignity of it all.

Misfire tries to save Krok, but all he manages to do is prove that his nickname isn’t ironic in the slightest. Then he’s attacked by a dog.

That shadow being tossed towards the horizon in the background is Crankcase, who lands right about where Fulcrum’s been hiding this entire time, like the giant coward he is, as he watches these guys who tried to steal his organs get murdered to death. He runs off, and Crankcase plays to stereotype and gripes about the whole situation, until he notices something above him.

Then he immediately drops dead, because as it turns out Misfire wasn’t exaggerating when he said Crankcase would die if he ever even thought about smiling.

Over in Tarn’s soliloquy corner, he’s managed to stab his thumb so hard into Grimlock’s throat it’s literally bleeding, as he trash talks the Scavengers, calling them the “six biggest failures of all”. Harsh. Grimlock’s not contributing to the diatribe, probably because there’s a hole in his throat that’s about where a trach would go.

Then Tarn has a bit of a problem, as he’s stepped on by a robot that’s roughly twenty times bigger than him.

I guess Crankcase must be the sixth worst Decepticon, because he’s gotten himself hooked up with this massive Jaeger Cybernought, one of the many that are strapped to the back of the Worldsweeper they found last issue. It’s a big friggin’ ship, we can forgive the oversight.

The DJD aren’t impressed by this new toy, and almost immediately take it down. Tarn, really starting to get peeved off about not getting to what they actually came here to do, yells for Fulcrum to show himself. Fulcrum, as it turns out, has managed to climb on top of the Worldsweeper, and is at least a few hundred feet above them. Because none of the DJD can fly, they have no choice but to listen to Fulcrum’s little speech.

Fulcrum was forged at the height of the Decepticon Empire, when the rhetoric was more “space eugenics sucks” and less “murder everything while Megatron has weird sexual tension with Optimus in the background”. Of course, they were still hunting organic species to flex, so maybe things weren’t perfect… though it isn’t like Fulcrum minded that aspect. Dude’s a little space racist.

Spacist.

The way Fulcrum sees it, folks like Tarn went and fucked up a good thing by being all murderous and violent just because they could, unlike his good pals the Scavengers, who are only murderous and violent when it’s necessary. “Necessary” is a word that’s played with kind of fast and loose with them, mind you, but they seem like pretty swell guys to Fulcrum. They’re definitely better than the DJD.

With one last “fuck you” to Tarn, Fulcrum takes a running leap off the top of this astonishingly huge ship and finally reveals just why exactly K-Cons aren’t known for doing fear.

Because who the fuck has ever asked a bomb how it’s feeling?

Everyone clears the area, as he hits the ground… and nothing happens. Fulcrum is marked off the List, the Scavengers are added, and the DJD fuck off without checking that their target is actually dead so they can go find Overlord and kick his ass.

Fulcrum’s fine, by the way.

This is why we check our work, Tarn.

Fulcrum, who is, again, a bomb, is a bit curious as to what’s happened here. Turns out, prior to the boys riffling through his torso for spare parts, Spinister- master surgeon Spinister- removed the explosive charge tucked up against his robot liver. Fulcrum is amazed by this news, because it’s apparently a super hard thing to do.

Are we sure that Spinister isn’t just super nearsighted? The world’s been described as a series of vaguely hostile shapes, is he playing it safe and attacking the things he can’t figure out within a few seconds? Maybe all that hand-staring he does is to gauge how shitty his vision is on a day to day basis, and everyone just assigned him Stupid At Birth because trying to understand our friends is for losers.

Then again, we should also remember that everyone in the Scavengers is so incredibly stupid, they couldn’t figure out between the five of them that Fulcrum had been alive while it was happening. Spinister probably wasn’t gentle with that procedure since he thought he was working with a corpse; for all we know, Fulcrum’s got his sparkcase inside-out now.

Crankcase carries poor, faceless Krok over, and Fulcrum laments on the fact that Krok’s squad never turned up. Crankcase implies something ominous about Krok’s method of communication with his old squadron, then we get the skinny on Fulcrum’s whole deal.

Yes, yes, I know B’lahr 39 is a reference to Wizard of Oz actor Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion. I caught that one before I’d even checked TFWiki for interesting notes on this issue. I was a film major in college, I’m legally required to know every single bit of trivia about the Wizard of Oz. It’s the second thing they beat into you, right after watching Citizen Kane for the 87th time.

Also, how many nerds are going to be in this series? Fulcrum’s a technician, Krok’s a strategist, Spinister and 3/4 of the Lost Light are doctors in some form or fashion, Tarn’s a friggin drama kid, the list goes on.

When Fulcrum was caught, the original plan was to have him tortured and killed at Styx, a Decepticon penal colony, when plans changed and he got reformatted along with everyone else in the joint to be a suicide bomber.

If Fulcrum seems like a bit of a generic name for a giant space robot, it’s probably because it is. Fulcrum’s original alt-mode wasn’t a bomb- in fact, I have no idea what it’s meant to be. Word of God makes the claim that he turned into a leg prior to getting K-classed, but since Combiner teams have to be made in this continuity, that’s not what he came into being as. He’s got a tiddy window like Rung- something that will be more apparent when Josh Burcham is replaced by Joana Lafluente as the primary colorist for the comic run- but that seems more indicative of having minimal armor than any sort of alt.

Anyway, there’s something in the reformat to K-Con that compels one to switch to bomb mode when you jump ship- but it didn’t happen for Fulcrum, because he was so unbelievably terrified that he might have actually defied biology.

The others have stopped listening by this point, and have joined Spinister in poking the still-prone Grimlock with a stick. Misfire, in the first show of something like empathy we’ve really gotten from him, asks the fellas to help the poor guy up.

Sure, make the guy who’s a stiff breeze away from cracking in half lift the biggest motherfucker on this planet. Sounds like a plan.

Misfire does his damnedest to communicate to Grimlock that they come in peace.

Behold, the price of nostalgia!

This isn’t exactly where we left Grimlock last time he was in an IDW publishing. The last guy to have his hands on everyone’s favorite dinobot was Simon Furman, and he was a lot more well-spoken there. It would seem that no one got out of Garrus 9 unscathed.

This development is a bit of a problem for the Scavengers, who now aren’t quite sure what to do with a infamous warrior-bastard who’s mentally regressed to the point that he’s got to think about what his own name is. To be fair, most people wouldn’t know what to do in that sort of situation. Doesn’t help that the guy who usually has the braincell is currently passed out from face-based puncture trauma.

Misfire decides that they’ll take Grimlock along with them for collateral, and everyone is so impressed by him actually planning something out, they forget to think about the logistics of housing a whole entire T-Rex.

The guys, I guess just leaving Grimlock and the unconscious Krok in the dirt, go to find what’s left of Flywheels- basically the hips down is still intact. After a few kind words, the final rites are performed.

You will be missed, Flywheels, clearly.

You never see the Autobots resorting to cannibalism like this. Maybe they’re just better at making it not look like a vulture swarm.

Many, many months later, long after the Scavengers have left the planet of Clemency, a lone figure visits what’s left of dear Flywheels- it’s the Necrobot. That’s right, the Robo-Reaper is real, and it looks like he’s been busy.

…Spoilers, Necrobot! Come on!

After the story proper, we get a Meet the ‘Cons page. Let’s take a gander, shall we?

No.

NO.

NO!

I draw the line at this motherfucking sniper rifle having a college degree. What possible scientific field of study could he possibly-

It’s ballistics. He studied ballistics, didn’t he?

You know what? Fuck this, actually. See y’all later.

…Fuck you, Vos.

#transformers #jro #mtmte #issue 8 #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #comic script writing

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ceealaina · 5 years ago

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Title: Who’s Gonna Pick You Up? Collaborator Name: ceealaina Card Number: 3088 Link: AO3 Square Filled: T4 - First Date Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: Alternate universe - no powers Summary: In a world where Tony is less playboy and more awkward nerd, he's mostly bored and lonely now that he's graduated from MIT and Rhodey's off on his Air Force adventures. Agreeing to a blind date with Ty Stone doesn't turn out to be his best plan, but luckily Nat's there to save to day. (And even more luckily, she's got a cute brother and Tony is just his type.) Word Count: 5200

All Natasha had wanted was a cup of coffee, and an hour to herself.

Bucky and Clint and Sam had been driving her crazy all day, starting when she had woken up and gone downstairs only to find dregs in the coffee pot and Clint’s dirty underwear on the kitchen counter.

The morning went downhill from there. She loved her adopted brother and the two dumb idiots they lived with, but sometimes the three of them could get on her last nerve. This was one of those times. So after narrowly avoiding getting shot in the foot with an arrow (long story) she had grabbed a book and headed for the coffee shop on the corner for some peace and quiet.

And for about fifteen minutes, she’d had it.

Which, of course, was when Smarmy Assholes 1 and 2 had walked in.

Natasha read people. She couldn’t help it; it was just something she did. So as soon as they passed through the door, she couldn’t help cataloguing them. And when they snagged a table near her, she couldn’t help eyeing them over the top of her book, keeping an ear out for what they had to say. It was somehow even grosser than she’d expected.

“It’s not like I want to,” the taller guy was saying. “But he’s Tony Stark. I get in with him and I’ll have business connections for the next few decades -- not that I’d even have to work, with all the money I’d be getting out of him. I just have to suck it up for a bit, turn on the charm, make him fall in love with me. It’s not like it will be hard.”

“Still,” his friend said. “You’ve seen him, Ty. All quiet and shy and… Weird. Seems all needy, too. I’ve heard he’s only got like, one friend, and he’s off with the Navy or something. He’ll be following you around like a lost puppy.”

“Can't be worse than you, Justin,” Ty retorted, making Justin flush and look away. “Anyway,” he continued. “Needy can be good.” He smirked then, a look that Nat knew entirely too well, and her fists clenched as she fought the urge to punch him in the face. “It’ll be so easy to talk him into anything I want. And he’ll be so busy falling over himself trying to please me, he probably won’t even care who else I’m screwing on the side.”

Justin was smirking too now. “Get some good blackmail pics and you’ve got him for good.”

Natasha quietly seethed. These two chucklefucks were practically twirling moustaches they were so gross. It was a little ridiculous, like they’d gone to the same school of cartoon villainy, but she was having none of it. She was just considering the best way the traumatize them for life when the bell over the door rang, catching her attention. She looked over to see a slight man walk in, about twenty years old. His hair was a mess of dark curls that he kept pushing out of his face, and he was just a little too dressed up for a cafe -- fitted pants offset with a Van Halen tee and a sports jacket. There was a streak of grease or engine oil on his forearm that he apparently hadn’t noticed, and he was looking around for someone, a little nervous but mostly looking pleased and hopeful in a way that made Natasha’s heart clench.

A quick glance over showed that Justin and Ty were still plotting to kick puppies or whatever, and, making a split second decision, Nat hopped to her feet and headed for the door.

“Tony?” she asked, carefully aligning herself to block him from their view. When he turned at the sound of her voice, she gave him a bright, disarming smile. “Hi! I’m Tasha. I think you’re here to meet me?”

“T-Tasha?” he repeated, looking confused for a minute. “I... But Obie said... I thought...” He stammered a minute, looking flustered, and Natasha waited patiently.

“Is everything okay?”

He seemed to get a hold of himself again, giving her a bright smile, hopeful like before. “Yes, sorry. I think I got your... name wrong. I was a bit distracted when Obie was telling me about you.” He held out his hand. “I’m Tony... but then, I guess you already know that.” He laughed a little, a self deprecating note in it as his cheeks flushed a little. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Natasha adored him already.

“You too,” she told him, returning his handshake and then shifting to give him a kiss on the cheek. His blush deepened and he gave her a shy look from under ridiculously thick eyelashes. “Come on,” she told him. “I’ve got a table by the window.” Nat wasn’t a tall woman, but even in her heeled boots Tony was barely a couple inches taller than her. She put her arm around him, steering him towards her table and carefully keeping him out of sight of Ty and Justin as she did.

Tony winced as he pulled his chair without a loud screech, giving a nervous little laugh.. “Sorry,” he mumbled, casting a quick glance around to see if anyone had noticed.

Natasha just shrugged and grinned at him. “Happens to me all the time,” she assured him, lying through her teeth.

He gave her a dry look. “Somehow I doubt that,” he said, catching her eye with a wry grin. “You look like you’ve never been embarrassed a day in your life.”

Natasha straightened a little. He had spark; she liked that.

They made small talk for a few minutes, Tony getting himself a black coffee and sighing happily at his first sip. He made vague mentions of the project he was working on without giving any real details. The way he spoke suggested that Ty already knew what he did for a living, and so Tasha played along, smiling encouragingly when he went off on a tangent.

“Sorry,” he flushed when he realized he had been talking about robotics for ten minutes, chewing at his lip as he looked at her with soft eyes.

“It’s alright,” Natasha told him genuinely. “I mean, I only understood about half of what you said, but you obviously love it. Your entire face lit up. It’s a good look on you.”

Tony grinned wide, flushing again. “Thanks,” he mumbled, ducking his head toward the table. “And, um. Thanks for doing this.” He looked up at her again from under his eyelashes, scratching awkwardly at the back of his neck. “I don’t really do this a lot,” he admitted. “I was really, uh. I was glad, when Obie said you wanted to meet me. This is... I’ve been having a fun time.”

Natasha arched an eyebrow at him. “Come on,” she teased. “You’re gorgeous. I don’t believe you don’t have all the boys and girls lining up around the block to take you out.”

Tony rolled his eyes, fighting back the pleased smile creeping over his face. “Well. I‘m also a giant nerd with the unfortunate habit of talking about engineering and math for way too long.” He bit his lip as he gave her a grin. “Most kids go through the awkward dating stage at fourteen, but I guess I gotta do it now, since I was kind of busy studying at MIT then.”

“Fourteen?” Natasha repeated, incredulous, and realized her mistake when Tony frowned, like he’d expected her to know that. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I just... didn’t realize it was quite that young.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Tony flushed again, dropping his gaze to the table and picking at his napkin for a moment. “That’s not a problem, is it?” he asked making eye contact for a brief moment before his gaze skittered over to the corner. “Sometimes it freaks people out,” he added in a mumble, and Natasha felt like punching something at the hurt in his voice.

“Not a problem at all,” she assured him, curling her hand over his on the table. Tony positively beamed, his entire face lighting up, and it was at that moment that Nat noticed Ty out of the corner of her eye, frowning at them speculatively. “Shit,” she muttered under her breath, watching as he leaned over and said something to Justin, who turned to face them too.

Tony’s smile flickered. “Is something wrong?”

“No, I just...” Natasha trailed off, weighing her options.

Ty was absolutely the type to make a scene, and if he embarrassed Tony in front of the entire cafe, she would definitely kick his ass. But ideally, she would get Tony out of here before it had the chance to get that far. Which left her with two options: She could give him a sweet brush off, let him think it was her — but she’d known Tony for less than an hour, and already knew he would blame himself for it — or she could confess.

Hoping she wasn’t making a mistake, she drew in a slow breath. “I need to tell you something.”

Mirroring her body language, Tony leaned in close over the table. “Okay,” he told her. “Is everything alright? Is there something I can help with?”

“No,” she admitted. “The thing is, you didn’t have my name wrong. I’m not actually your date.”

Tony’s eyebrows drew into a confused frown, head tilting to the side. “I don’t understand.”

Natasha made a face. “You were expecting to meet a dude, right? Named Ty?” At Tony’s slow nod, she tilted her chin to the far corner. “He’s over there — don’t look!” she added sharply.

“I don’t understand,” Tony repeated. “Is this like... Did he send you here to make sure I was legit or something? Because... I mean, he knows Obie. Ty is the one who asked to go out with me?”

“No, I know. Tony... Ty is a complete dillweed, and you can do so much better. I overheard him talking about you before you got here. He’s an asshole. He just wants to use you, and...” She watched as Tony sank back in his seat, eyes shuttering. “When you came in, I put it together that you were his date and so I intervened before he could see you,” she finished softly.

“Oh,” Tony said softly. He wasn’t looking at her at all now, focusing intently on the coffee menu over Nat’s shoulder. There was a red tinge to his cheeks, and Natasha saw his jaw working as he clenched his teeth before chewing on the skin around his thumb. “Okay,” he said, and she could hear the hitch in his voice. He offered a weak smile, still not looking at her. “I guess I should have known. Cute guy wanting to go out with me? Probably should have been suspicious when he hadn’t even met me yet.”

“Tony...”

He met her eyes for a minute, his own shimmering slightly. “Anyway, I should go,” he mumbled, moving to collect his wallet.

“No, you don’t have to,” Natasha told him quickly, curling her hand over his wrist again. “Or well, we should probably leave before he comes over, but... you don’t have to go. We can hang out somewhere else.”

Tony yanked his hand away from her. “Thanks for looking out for me, or whatever, but I don’t need your pity date,” he told her, and it sounded harsh but she could still hear the hurt in his voice.

Natasha arched an eyebrow at him, leaning back and folding her arms across her chest. “Do I look like a woman who does pity?” she asked dryly, and Tony stopped at that because, well... No, she didn’t. “Yes, okay, I wanted to rescue you from the worst first date ever. But I wouldn’t have stayed if i didn’t genuinely enjoy talking to you, Tony. You’re hilarious, and brilliant, and adorable to boot. And believe me, if I wasn’t a fully committed lesbian, I’d probably be trying to lure you to my bed as I speak.”

Tony snorted despite himself at that. “Lesbian, huh?” he asked, finally meeting her eyes again.

“Yup,” Natasha drawled. “But don’t worry, it’s not you, it’s me.”

Tony rolled his eyes at that, a hint of a smile curling across his face.

“Look, it’s about time I head home anyway, before someone burns down the house. Why don’t you come home with me? You can meet all my friends... They’re gonna love you, I know it.”

“Home with you?” Tony repeated. He arched an eyebrow. “That sounds... unsavory. Thought you were supposed to be a lesbian.”

He was tempted though, Nat could see it, and she grinned. “I am. But don’t worry, if you wanna be unsavored, I’ve got a brother, and you’re just his type.”

Tony giggled at that, and Nat grinned back at him, easy and bright.

“Come on, Tony. I’m sorry about Ty, but he’s an absolute asshole, and you’re much better off without him. Come meet some real friends.”

He scrubbed at the back of his neck. “Yeah, alright,” he agreed, giving her a soft smile. “Why not? I’d like to meet your friends.”

Natasha’s smile grew. “Outstanding,” she declared. “Do you want to grab a coffee to - oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“What?” Tony asked. “What’s-?” He cut himself off as two men approached the table, and the look on Nat’s face made it pretty obvious who they were.

“Tony?” Ty demanded.

“Uh, yeah?”

Ty looked back and forth between Tony and Natasha, his eyes narrowing. “It’s me. Ty.”

Tony caught Natasha’s eye and then blinked up at Ty blankly. “Ty who?”

Ty looked like he was seething now. “Ty Stone.” He gave Natasha a dirty look. “Your date.”

Tony just gave him a bland smile. “Sorry, never heard of you,” he said, before turning back to Natasha.

“What do you mean, you’ve never heard of me? Our fathers worked together! Obadiah Stane set up this date.”

There was a heavy sigh from Tony, who didn’t bother looking back up at Ty. “Darling,” he said to Natasha, and oh boy he was laying it on thick but Ty didn’t seem to have noticed. “Shall we go?”

Natasha beamed back at him, taking the hand he held out to her and letting him help her to her feet. “Of course,” she agreed, moving around the table. “Excuse me,” she added, when Ty blocked her path.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Ty asked. “There’s clearly been some kind of misunderstanding”

“No misunderstanding,” Tony told him. “Obviously you’ve made some kind of mistake.” He made a show of looking Ty up and down. “But I’m definitely not here to see you,” he added, and Nat could have applauded.

Ty looked like he wasn’t giving up though, and so there was nothing else for Natasha to do except to pretend to trip against him and gracefully slam her fist into his stomach.

“Darling,” she said to Tony, letting him take her arm and lead her out the door while Ty was still trying to recover his breath.

They made it around the corner before Tony burst out laughing, almost doubling up with the force of it. “Okay, that was kind of fun,” he admitted, and Nat grinned back at him.

“What was that you were saying about having no social skills?” she teased. “You can bullshit with the best of them, so you’re already halfway there. And that means you’re going to fit in with us wonderfully. Now come on, before he decides to follow us.”

Tony hesitated a minute. “You don’t, I mean... this more than made up for the shitty first date I would have had. You don’t actually have to make all your friends meet me. I’m kind of a lot for most people.”

Natasha just rolled her eyes, grabbing his wrist in a surprisingly strong grip and pulling him down the street behind her. “You haven’t met ‘a lot’ until you’ve met these assholes,” she told him. “They’re going to love you, I promise. Besides,” she added over her shoulder. “I wasn’t kidding about my brother. James would never forgive me if I told him about you and didn’t bring you home for him to meet.”

Tony flushed pink at that, but didn’t argue further.

It started to rain when they were almost there, a sudden surprise downpour, and they ran the last block to Nat’s house. Tony was laughing, apparently not bothered, which was good because they weren’t fast enough to avoid getting completely soaked.

“Hey, assholes!” Natasha hollered loudly as they passed through the front door, making a face as she peeled off her drenched jacket. “I’m home! And I brought a friend!”

Tony grinned to himself at that, flushing a little when he caught Nat’s eye. “Um. I’m kind of dripping on your floor,” he pointed out, holding his leather jacket open to reveal his now-transparent white t-shirt. Natasha just shrugged.

“They’ve seen worse,” she promised him. “But we’ll find you something dry to wear. Hello? Anybody home?”

“Jesus Tasha,” as masculine voice answered. “You get lost on your way to the kitchen? What the hell are you screaming… for...”

Tony had been distracted by his t-shirt, pulling it away with his chest with a wet squelching sound, and looked up as the voice trailed off. He blinked at the man coming out of a room a few feet down the hall, all sharp blue eyes and broad chest and thighs. He was quite possibly the hottest person Tony had ever seen, and Tony gave him a tentative wave and a smile. “Hi,” he offered.

“Hey,” the newcomer replied, still staring at Tony before he promptly walked into a wall.

“Oh shit!” Tony cried, instinctively moving toward him while Natasha snorted with laughter. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah.” The stranger waved him off gruffly. “I’m fine.”

“Tony,” Natasha interrupted, giggling from the stairs. “This is my brother, James.”

“Oh,” Tony said, and then clued in to what she had said and his eyes widened. “Oh!” He rubbed at the back of his neck, shy and adorable. “Um, hi James. I’m Tony.”

He offered his hand out tentatively, and James took it with a quirk to his lips, and a grip that made Tony a little weak in the knees.

“Bucky,” he told him. “Everyone calls me Bucky, it’s just Tasha who refuses to.”

“Because it’s a stupid nickname,” Natasha replied easily. It sounded like an argument they’d had a million times over, and Tony grinned as he listened to their easy banter, missing Rhodey like crazy for a minute.

Before he could get too bummed out, there were footsteps clomping down the stairs, and a blond man with ridiculously large arms (seriously, Tony was going to start getting a complex if he stayed here too long) slid past Natasha. He arched an eyebrow at Tony.

“Oh hey!” he said, his voice just a little too loud. “Another puppy!”

Without waiting for a response, he headed down the hall to the kitchen while Tony blinked at him. “I”m not a puppy,” he protested, getting a laugh from Bucky. The newcomer ignored him, and Tony frowned a little, because that seemed unnecessarily rude.

“Ignore him,” Bucky told him warmly. “He’s deaf. He’s…” He grabbed a tennis ball off the side table and launched it down the hall, hitting Blondie square in the back.

“Ow!” he hollered, turning to stare at them. "What the fuck?”

“Hey asshole!” Bucky retorted, enunciating a little more clearly so he could read his lips. “Where are your hearing aids?”

Blondie made a face. “They broke again. Cheap Hammertech.”

Tony looked horrified. “HammerTech? No wonder they're broken.” Bucky snorted at that, and Tony gave him a quick smile before following his lead and turning back to the other man so he could read his lips. “Let me see them? I bet I can make them better.”

“What?” He looked at Tony like he was nuts. “I’m not giving you my aids to play with, no way. You’ll break them, and they’re my only pair.”

He moved off down the hall toward the kitchen, leaving Tony spluttering after him. “I wouldn’t break them!” he protested. “And they’re already broken!!”

“Ignore him,” a new voice said, repeating Bucky’s instructions. “Clint’s just pissed I beat him at MarioKart.”

Tony turned to face the newcomer who smiled at him warmly, and actually moved to shake Tony’s hand. “I’m Sam, nice to meet you.”

“Tony,” he answered, beaming wide. Sam grinned back, and then looked over at Natasha.

“New puppy, huh?” he asked.

Tony stared at him and, although he probably wasn’t aware of it, actually pouted, folding his arms across his chest. “I’m not a puppy!” He glared at Natasha. “I thought you said your friends were nice.”

“I said they’d like you, not that they were nice,” Natasha offered with a smirk.

“Don’t take it personal,” Sam assured him, patting him on the shoulder.

“Tasha’s always bringing home strays,” Clint added from the kitchen doorway, his hearing aids apparently working again. “Starting with Bucky and including all of us.” He frowned then, poking at his left ear. “Aww, hearing aids,” he whined, pulling them out again.

“Okay, seriously.” Tony set off down the hall after him, apparently over his shyness in the face of potential engineering. “Give them to me. I can fix them, I promise.”

Natasha, Bucky, and Sam all watched him go. “Where’d you find him?” Sam asked when they’d disappeared, grinning as they heard the echoes of Tony trying to convince Clint to let him fix his hearing aids.

“At the coffee shop,” Natasha offered primly. “What?” she added, at the look Sam and Bucky shared. “I can’t make friends?” She rolled her eyes at them. “He was heading into the worst date ever, so I rescued him. Don’t look at me like that.”

They all looked down the hall as they heard Tony’s voice raise again, Clint’s following suit, and Bucky grinned. “I like him,” he declared, before narrowing his eyes at the smirk on Natasha’s face.

“Yeah,” she said dryly. “Thought you might.” She and Sam waggled their eyebrows at him ridiculously, and Bucky huffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

“And I hate you. Both of you,” he informed them, stomping off down the hall.

Sam snorted as he watched him go, glancing over at Nat. “You are a menace.”

“I do my best,” she told him with a wink, dashing up the stairs to change into some dry clothes. When she returned to the kitchen, it was to find that Tony had, in fact talked Clint into letting him tinker with the hearing aids in question. He was sitting at their rickety kitchen table poking at them with a screwdriver that he'd apparently pulled from his pocket. Tony was completely focused on the machinery in his hands, tongue poking out between his teeth as he concentrated while Clint sat across from him, staring with a critical eye. Sam was watching the whole scene with amusement, and Bucky had pulled some bread from the fridge and was making toast, pretending not to be sneaking little glances at Tony every three seconds.

“Hey, Tony,” she said, snapping him out of his stupor. “You must be frozen, huh?”

“Oh.” Tony glanced down at his arms and blinked, apparently just now noticing the goosebumps on his arms. “Uh, yeah. I guess.”

Natasha beamed and moved over to Bucky, bumping her hip against his and raising her eyebrows. “Hey James, why don’t you lend Tony some clothes, hmm? Then we can pop his clothes in the dryer. Don’t want him catching cold.”

Bucky’s eyes widened and he glanced over at Tony, since Natasha wasn’t even trying to be subtle, but the other man had already delved back into working on the hearing aids. “I hate you,” he muttered, abandoning his toast and stomping off to get Tony some clothes. Natasha caught Sam’s eye over the table and shared a grin with him.

He returned just as Tony was sliding the hearing aids back across the table to Clint, looking all pleased and fidgeting in expectation. “Go on. Try them!”

Still looking suspicious, Clint positioned them in his ears. “Okay, what’s the big--” He cut himself off at the sound of his own voice. “Holy shit. What the…” He pointed wildly at Sam, across the room. “Say something!”

Sam raised his hands helplessly. “What do you want me to say?”

“Holy shit!” Clint said again. He stared at Tony incredulously. “How did you… These aren’t just fixed, they’re like ten times better than they were.”

Tony beamed, looking absolutely delighted. “It’s just kind of… What I do.” Then he yelped as Clint hauled him out of his seat, physically lifting him off the ground and wrapping him in a back-cracking bear hug.

“Thank you,” he told him sincerely, and Tony flushed as he planted a kiss square on his cheek. Then he was depositing him on the ground and heading off down the hall.

“Hey,” Bucky yelped as Clint practically shoved him into the shower in his haste. “Where the hell are you going?”

“Outside!” Clint hollered back over his shoulder. “Gonna go listen to some birds!”

Bucky shook his head. “Weirdo,” he muttered affectionately, catching Tony’s eye and getting a grin out of him.

“Cute and useful,” Sam teased, “We should keep him, huh Buck? Wanna do our microwave next? Hasn’t been the same since Bucky and Clint got drunk and tried to make s’mores in it.”

“Jesus,” Bucky muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Okay, I don’t think Tony is here to fix our shit.”

“Aww,” Natasha teased, voice dry. “Look at you, coming to his rescue.”

“I don’t mind,” Tony added, looking back and forth between them with eyes that were just a little too sharp. “Seriously, I love this shit. And it’s a microwave, it’s not like it’s hard.”

Bucky stared at him, a little awed; he’d always been a sucker for intelligent men. “Still,” he muttered. Shifting when he realized he was still staring, Bucky held out the t-shirt and sweatpants he’d wrangled. “Here,” he offered. “If you wanna change.”

Tony’s lips twitched, as he took the clothes in question, giving Bucky a quick once over. “I don’t know how well they’re going to fit, but thanks.”

When Tony had disappeared down the hall to the bathroom to change, Bucky whirled on Nat and Sam. “Stop,” he hissed, cautious of his voice carrying. “You two are about as subtle as a freight train. You’re gonna freak him out.”

Nat and Sam shared another look, and gave him identical grins, which was just creepy.

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Natasha told him sweetly, sliding past him to the sink. “Coffee, anyone?”

“I mean it, Tasha! Stop trying to meddle in my love life.”

“Oh ho ho.” This was Sam, arms folded across his chest as he waggled his eyebrows at Bucky. “So you admit there is some romance happening here.”

“I didn’t say that!” Bucky insisted. “Also, stop doing that with your eyebrows, you look fucking stupid.” Sam didn’t stop, and Bucky groaned, slumping down in a chair at the table. “I’m moving out.”

“Why would you want to move out?” Tony asked suddenly from behind him. “This place is awesome.”

Bucky turned around to say… something, but his brain shorted out at the sight of Tony in his clothes. They were a little loose on him but fit better than expected, and he looked adorable as shit, especially with one wayward curl ignoring all his attempts to brush it out of his eye.

“Ignore him,” Sam told him, smirking at Bucky knowingly. “He threatens to move out every other day, and yet we’re still stuck with him, so I wouldn’t take him seriously.” He kicked out the chair opposite to Bucky. “Now come sit down, have some coffee, tell us about yourself. What’s your favourite colour, favourite food… favourite movie?”

Tony looked amused as he settled into the offered seat, grinning wide when Natasha slid a fresh mug of coffee across the table to him. “Uhh. Red, cheeseburgers, and.. Right now, probably Repo Man?”

“No shit,” Sam drawled, sharing another look with Nat when Tony closed his eyes in delight at the first sip of his coffee. “That’s Buck’s favourite movie too. Won’t shut up about it. Watches it every week.”

“I…” Bucky sent him a murderous glare. “I don’t watch it every week,” he protested in a mutter. “It’s just…”

“Ridiculous, right?” Tony offered, “But also like you can’t look away from it?”

Bucky grinned at him. “You know, Fox Harris couldn’t drive a car, and the first day of filming he drove into a bridge?”

Tony’s eyes lit up at this factoid, and then they were sharing weird facts about the movie, and then sci fi movies in general. Neither of them noticed Sam and Nat slipping out of the room, Sam setting some strategic lighting on his way out. The longer they talked the more Tony seemed to loosen up, alternating between leaning back in his chair and then shifting forward again, unconsciously moving into Bucky’s space. He was a mouthy little shit too, once he got going, dry and sarcastic, and pointing triumphantly to accentuate his point. His whole face lit up when he got started on something, and Bucky kind of couldn’t stop staring at him.

Their coffee was almost gone before Bucky looked up, frowning when he took in the empty kitchen. “Where did Sam and Nat go?”

Tony blinked, following his gaze, and then they met each other’s eyes, coming to a realization at the same time.

“Is this…” Tony ducked his head a little, momentarily slipping back into shyness and giving Bucky a soft little smile. Bucky’s heart skipped a beat. “Did they set us up on a coffee date?”

Bucky glanced down at the almost empty mug. “Guess so,” he admitted. “I’m gonna kill them,” he added without any real heat, grinning ruefully.

Tony shrugged. “I don’t know,” he told. He drew in a deep breath, cheeks flushing a little. “As first dates go, it wasn’t so bad. Beat my last one, definitely.”

“Yeah?” Bucky caught his eye, watched the way Tony swallowed at the heated look he was giving him. Bucky couldn’t stop himself from leaning, curling his hands around Tony’s neck. Tony blinked up at him, eyes wide, and Bucky closed the distance between them, kissing him gently.

For all his shyness, Tony was a good kisser and though it stayed relatively chaste, there was a soft brush of Tony’s tongue against his lips that sent little shivers of heat up Bucky’s spine. He pulled back, stroking his thumb over the thrum of Tony’s pulse in his neck, and Tony grinned back at him, open and wide and happy.

“Then how would you feel about getting out of here and having a real date, where those assholes can’t spy on us?”

Tony laughed at that, eyes sparking in delight. “Can we make out a little more?”

“Absolutely. Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

“Then what the hell are we waiting for?”

@tonystarkbingo

#tonystarkbingo2020 #tsb2020 #tony stark #natasha romanoff #bucky barnes #winteriron #fluff #light angst #angst with a happy ending #matchmaker natasha #protective natasha #tony stark needs a hug #alternate universe - no powers #sam wilson #clint barton #tiberius stone #justin hammer #fic #my fic

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huntsman-ash · 4 years ago

Text

RWBY V8E5 LiveThoughts

And now for the last episode before the HUGE break they’re taking. Seriously, February? Damn, whats going on at RT?

It matters not. Lets see what this weeks episode has for us.

And here we see Aminety Colloseum, the place that Atlas SHOULD have weaponized the moment it rolled its way back here. Seriously look at it; floating free away from everything else...you could mount missile launchers and laser batteries and CIWS batteries on it, launch fighters from it, let dropships deploy through its base...a floating aircraft carrier of unprecidented size.

Or maybe turn it into a weapon...use its drive system to focus Dust energy into some kind of gravitational force...thats just me though.

Missed oppertunites...ah well.

You CAN see its been adjusted though, it looks less like the sports arena from its last apperance and more like a floating coms hub, with those dishes on the outside and the huge spire.

Intersetingly if you look in the upper right corner the moon is there but almost completely covered by the storm Salem summoned. Interesting.

Wait why is PEITRO out there? With like...no supports? Seems kinda dangerous to send the weak old dude out there...

...thats a bomb. A Dust bomb in pipe bomb style form but thats very much a bomb. Yes, Penny, danger indeed.

Atmospheric orbit. Ahhh that must be the low-level orbit path that they need to ensure it doesnt loose power. The part where you coast along with almost no drag. Like what the X-15 hit in our world, and punched through at least once.

WAIT WHAT THE HELL IS THAT. Thats some kind of loader mech. THATS A FUCKING UTILITY TITAN. WHEN DID ATLAS GET ONE OF THOSE?!

Also thats a jet engine.

And Maria’s piloting it. To quote Daimon Baird; I know wha thappens when you let an angry chick loose with a power loader.

Multiple bombs...wait. Thats the mine that RWBY fought in with the Aces, the one that almost blew the fuck up. They’re... Oh. I get it now. They’re gonna use the blast to fling Amneity into upper orbit and stabalize it. Clever. Not exactly SAFE, but clever. Just hope the mine doesnt go anywhere important. Those tunnels are going to turn into firestorms.

Cute, she thinks she can stay and help. Trust me, Penny. You’re better off running.

MARIA CASUALLY DOING THE MEXICAN GRANDMOTHER THING WITH HER MECH...THE HIP HAND. MY GOD.

Oh, and his chair has gravity restraints too. They...gonna handle the impact of the launch? I mean thats literally a fuel/air bomb under them. Dust/air...

Well Maria seems alright with it.

OH GOD DAMMIT. Its Cinder isnt it? Fucking bitch...

On the positive side if she DOES hitch a ride then they get a chance to give her the ol’ “Long fall special”. Lets see your maiden powers save you from a fall from near orbit.

Well then, she burned right through the floor. Interesting. Maiden powers or her own, who knows...I do admit seeing her ride the ship in like that is kinda cool.

The eagerness in Cinders remaining eye interest me. Also, even when using maiden powers, her dead eye emits nothing. So that whole parts just gone.

Secondary note, I think they’re standing on the...Shade emblem? Shade is the swords I think. Vale is the axes, Atlas is the staff, Havens the lamp. Doubt it means anything.

Ahhh, okay I was gonna say, that launch was...kinda lackluster. But the blast is being used as a BOOST on top of the four existing external thrusters. Like the yellow emergency turbines on the outside of the Pillar of Autumn in the end cutscene of Halo Reach

Dust explodes in its own individual colors. The blast under them looks like a Pride festival.

Also Penny just going WHAP like that amuses me, whereas Cinder just crouches. Guess she knew what was coming.

I dont see how the blast is helping through...maybe its the pressure wave and we cant see it right.

Now THAT is a command and control table!

Based on the image I can see, the map is showing “Atlas Mantle” in the middle in green, Aminety in red to the north, and the whale as its own red marker just off to the west a bit of Atlas/Mantle. So now we know where everything is stationed.

The scales all kindsa weird tho

Ah THERES the G-force. Emeralds literally stuck to the floor.

And because Cinders an unoriginal bitch, fire swords. Im not impressed ot say the least. On a side note that DOES mean that radiobandit was right about her powers, so theres that. I’d wager this is a combination of her semblance and the maiden abilities.

For those who follow me, Cinder’s blades here are similar in look to what Ash Vulcan can summon, minus the fire. His are more of a cooled obsidian look. They are, however, as sharp as these are, but much less sturdy. Ex; the one that pins itself to the wall by Penny’s head would have shattered on impact, which Ash uses as a secondary ability. Because no one likes a hundred glass shards in their eyes...

OH HELL YES. Maria with the mech. Now, Cinder...TASTE METAL FIST.

RT...I salute you. Angry mother figure piloting a giant robot screaming “get away from her you bitch”. ALMOST had it. Almost.

What smacked into her though. Neo?

Yes, Neo piloting their escape craft. Interseting.

Emerald looks completely useless and confused and Neo is suddenly very much in a realization shes inside a tin can and MARIA IS OPERATING A GIANT TIN CAN OPENER

Emeralds semblance works on Maria. Interseting, so it must bypass eyes. Effect the brain specifically. Note to self for Chrys on that...

WHY did Neo take Ruby’s form when shes fighting Maria? On that Maria seems very happy to brawl on the ground now. Old habits die hard, I guess.

Additional math note; “broadcasting range” is, by this numerical, 543.523 of...whatever Remnant uses as units. On Earth, the edge of outerspace is almost exactly 100 km, or 62 miles, straight up. So going by that measurement... (Doing the math here hang on)...1 km is equal to 5.43 of Remnants distance units. Lets just say 5.5. Assuming Remnants edge is the same (but everything we’ve seen so far hints that it is, or at least very close)

Alternatively, since we heard klicks used in V4, but miles used in After The Fall, we can assume this is one of those, meaning that either broadcast altitude on Remnant is ABSURDLY HIGH, because 500km is literally 5 times the edge of space on earth, and 540 miles is ALMOST 9 TIMES AS HIGH. Either way Im pretty sure this is the first measurement of Remnants units we’ve seen.

Alternatively alternatively, judging by the arrows we see, these might be required velocity to maintain orbit, which MAY make a bit more sense but it doesnt really fit. Low orbital velocity on earth for example is 17,000 KPH. Even with the math above, theres still a TITANIC difference.

And now we see the numvers going down again because CINDER BURNED A HOLE IN THROUGH ONE OF THE STABALIZERS. Bitch.

Again on th e weaponizing the colleseum; look at all this empty space. They didnt even remove it from when it was a consorse for the festival. You could put SO MANY weapon emplacements...the landing pads are still there!

Oh so now Cinders a Dawnblade from RWBY is she.

And exploding arrows too. Alright then, sure, why not.

Not sure what the point of this little bit was, aside from Penny trying to draw Cinder off and Cinder going back because...evil? Bait for Penny? Who knows.

Oh yeah, Marias having a GOOD time. Also, Neos face when she gets kicked in it; “NO, NOT THE SANDEL!”

Also the disrespect from Maria. Yes. Suck it, Neo.

Also theres some timeskippage, as there is NOT a 2 minute gap between when we see the clock the first time and when we see it now. I dont think, anyway. Im sure theres math to be done but it serves the purpose its suppose to, for tension.

Uhhhh...Cinder, please. Your Salem’s most bottom of bitches right now. She favors Hazel and Tyrian over you.

Did Cinder really just try for a does not compute moment. Or is she just out of ideas.

Cinder stealing the maiden powers reminds me of the Grip of the Devourer perk from the Necromatic Grips in Destiny 2. Mainly the green energy flowing. I know thats Pennys aura stuff but it does remind me.

Ahhh they got a plan with Emerald then. Interesting. Also Neo taking advantage of a distraction sounds like her.

And Penny ONESHOTS Neo. Lets be real here, without aura? She’d be LIQUID. Or maybe ash. Not sure how Penny’s funnels (THEYRE STILL FUCKING FUNNELS DAMMIT) works.

Annnnddd you forgot shes a robot and sees aura didn’t you. Again, without aura, she’d be dead. Actually, she might legit be dead considering that scream. That sounds like the noise someone makes as their organs are fried by high intensity radiation. Not too mention the MASSIVE BURN MARK on the back wall there.

Either way; GET FUCKED BITCH.

Very dramatic, Emerald, but really, come on. Penny has lasers. You would get maybe one more shot (from a weapon that has, at best from my viewpoint) a caliber equal to MAYBE a 9mm pistol. That stuff doesnt have the penetration power required.

If Penny wasn’t nice and more interested in saving Peitro...you’d be dead. Ripped asunder and Cinder made even worse.

A pity, really, Penny has a heart. But...hey. Real girl.

I feed upon Emeralds tears though. Mmm. Simpy.

What the HELL is hitting them. Grimm?

Oh boy here we go, more of this. Like...bruh. Just set down for a bit. Always gotta be dramatic dont ya

Aww. Touching. But pointless in the grand scheme of things.

Interesting note but she puts her gloved hand on his cheek, not the one with the glove burned off. For what thats worth again.

Holy shit, that map wasnt lying. That whale’s almost as big as Atlas is from this angle. Mind you, might just be a trick of the location but it would make sense if they were afraid of a Grimm THAT GOD DAMN BIG. I was just seeing it as like, about the size of a normal sperm whale, maybe as big as the Leviathan from the series of the same name, but even that was barely 150 feet long. This things HUGE.

Nope. Pretty sure its about the same size as Atlas is long.

Also the Moon seems smaller from this angle oddly enough.

Wait is she gonna superman this fucking thing?

Okay yes, the numbers were based on distance not velocity, as Penny is pushing the stadium UP, rather than accelerating it in proper stance.

The noises she makes...huh. Glad my sister didnt walk in on those. Sounds...not like someone straining.

Hey look, its clumsy shitface McGee. HES NOT DEAD!

Note about the message; whos the chick with the eye patch next to the faunus in the back left of Ruby.

Im going to assume the first place we see the message played is the Mistral Black Market. Seems fitting for how it is, and the design matches Havens ascetic.

OH MY GOD THE LITTLE EARED FAUNUS GIRL IN THE HOLE. OH NO. SHES TOO CUTE.

Also in that same shot we see the old Karen from two episodes ago, a mouse girl, Fiona’s mole uncle, and someone new I think. Plus the huge eared girls mom who has a fox tail. And also one of the thirsty moms and her kid maybe?

Hey, Sun and Neptune! Out in the middle of nowhere in Vacuo. So this is the first time we’ve seen it in the show.

And Ilia’s still alive too!

Hey and Goodwytch too. No voice, of course...she got fired ages ago.

Also hey, so this is where Ironwoods been. I love how Hare turns it off before Ruby finishes.

I will note that technically Ruby’s not wrong. Ironwood cant be trusted. But then, he couldnt before because (gestures to Atlas’s pathetic, scraggy SOFT “military” instead of THE CHAD FORCES OF...uh...) (Rapid sounds of shuffling papers and files labeled “UNSC” “Coalition of Ordered Governments” “SRPA” “GAR” and “Yukon Confederacy” fly off the table)

Several others. Yes. Lets go with that. (Accidentally bumps paper labeled “Vanguard” off the desk)

Watts is back out I see too.

Wait wait wait. Penny’s blades operate via chips...part of her, sure. So WHY does she need wires on them? AGAIN. WHY ARE THEY WIRE FUNNELS AND NOT SEPERATE ONES.

Interestingly the inside of the one Watts has resembles a Scroll...did Peitro commender that technology?

No focusing system for the laser. No chamber for acceleration or direction. Odd.

Salem looks oddly glad for this. Probably cause she thinks this is going to spread more fear.

And Ruby gets to the heart of the deal. You dont beat something that cant be killed. You capture it. Hurt it. BREAK IT. A sentient being can only take so much punishment before it shatters into madness and controllable fragments. You just. Need. To. Hit. It. HARD. ENOUGH.

Additionally Ruby’s got a point there too. Salem played the shadows until this moment when everything was going her way. So...whats she afraid of.

Annnnddd thats all it takes to hijack Penny? Seriously.

Fuckin god damn useless Atlas bullshit fucking...(LONG SUFFERING SIGH OF A TECH NERD)

Hey theres Taiyang. Where’s Raven?

Wait hold on a second. She catches fire literally two seconds after she falls? You gotta fall a bit more than that for shit to start happening. WHAT THE FUCK IS REMNANTS ATMOSPHERE?! Or is it just dramatic...

Also as a small note the way the coms between her and Peitro cut off like that is accurate to reentry; during the hottest part of a splashdown, a space craft creates such a huge trail of energy behind it, rattling and burning its way down, it creates a blackout with its own passage. So based on the massive Apollo style reentry fire cone shes already putting out shes most likely going to be out of coms until she slows down orrrrrr craters into Remnants surface with the force of a meteor.

And no. I dont think shes dead. The fact that, DESPITE being surrounded by the kind of fireball that worked its way into the fueltank of the space shuttle Discovery and blew it and its crew to bits on reentry, she was still intact...shes probably going to be fine.

Hacked, certainly, but fine. It takes more than that to finish her. Besides now that shes hacked, she has to fight Ruby. We all want that right?

Ahh good to see Winter in full armor now. Or...close to it. Im sure some of its a support rig for her injuries but I like to think this is the start of Atlas’s Specialist Weaponization Program.

Ironwood makes a good call here. Same thought process as mine.

Salutes in this world are the same as ours. Interesting. Must change that for the HKs

Annnndd of course Watts steals the busted Scroll because IRONWOOD IS A FUCKING DUMBASS

...um.

Im...not even going to COMMENT on what the FUCK this thing is that Jaunes detachment found.

Also why is there A TREE in the tundra?

Oh, caustic. Interesting.

Mmmm. (Pause. Fingers to lips)

Thats your plan, Salem? To literally leak liquid Grimm into Mantle.

More silence.

Ladies and gentlemen...Salem is, officially, THE WORST VILLAN. OF ALL TIME.

The level of incompetence and stupidity I have seen here today completely obliterates the LAST person to hold that title, President Snow from the Hunger Games.

The amount of unnececary back door work and seecret plotting here astounds me. Shes doing this because she can, Im SURE of it. Theres no other reason.

Unless...she kows in a straight out fight, she’d have Ironwoods metal arm up to her colon in seconds. Which I wouldnt be surprised about.

Either way uh...thats it. Thats the end of the episode.

Nice fight, at least.

See you all in Febuary!

EDIT: NOT FEBUARY, the break is a few more episodes after this

#spoilers #rwby spoilers #rwby #rwby v8

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welcometomyrandompersonality · 4 years ago

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Let’s talk PTSD Nightmares

Keeping in mind- this just applies to me. I have PTSD from childhood abuse. Yes it’s real. Yes it’s debilitating.

So I am having a horrible time rn so I feel like sharing what my nightmares function like. TW for mental health issues, abuse, aggression etc.

Everyone experiences ptsd differently. Triggers, reactions, dreams. All of it can and will be different from case to case. I can only speak for myself.

Post continues after a cute penguin gif because I’m on mobile and don’t know how to make the “Read more” button.

Alright let’s get into this. Last warning that TW content is gonna happen. My background and what happened to “justify” the dream will happen in each category.

Let’s talk about the Kinda Weird category:

These are the ones I have that are obviously trauma related-but I’m not in danger or too horribly upset or uncomfortable. For instance last night I screamed at my step mom in my dream. Felt therapeutic in the moment- triggering upon waking.

This woman hated me. She lies daily to my siblings that I don’t love them. I was disowned at 19 for reporting my dads abuse towards them. Clearly I love them a hell of a lot.

But when I woke up i was momentarily proud I chewed out my abuser and won the argument. Then it faded to wondering if she was right to hate me (obviously a result of manipulation and gas lighting), I couldn’t even stop it or try my coping mechanisms because it was basically my first thought of full consciousness this morning- once full panic or self hate kicks in for me I basically have to just let it run it’s course and distract myself so I don’t relapse.

Could be stress, but more vivid

This category is kind of the grey area. I’ve had nightmares since I was a kid. They change as I get older.

In this category (and spills into the next) are things like monsters, school nightmares, etc.

I have two examples for this category- one much more likely to be ptsd than stress and the other more grey area.

1) from a young age I would have nightmares about a giant robot destroying everything. This would go on and on and eventually I would find the magic weapon that defeated it right before it killed me. I would defeat it at the last second. This always took place in the first neighborhood I remember. Clearly ptsd, the house went to my abuser in the divorce, the robot is obviously representative of my abuser, the weapon a desire to defeat abuse and succeeding. At the same time I had just been exposed to Iron Giant and Wizard of Oz (I always melted the robot with the garden hose) when they started and those tones are common in this.

2) In middle school I started having a nightmare about the school nurse turning into the swamp monster and chasing me and my friends through the school. This is a gray area because I have ALOT of dreams about being chased and unable to escape. But I was also in middle school and isn’t that just a rough time for everyone?

OPE:

This category is the really bad ones- the ones people who dream rarely etc might get freaked out by.

These are the dreams where I’m in immediate danger or die. I won’t describe details because I’ll probably get banned or something. A lot have me failing at saving myself or others. Stands up for myself and get attacked. Most recently dreamt: I flipped off a driver for almost hitting me (as a pedestrian). Felt good, tried to get in my car and he blocked me in. The locks on the doors failed. Another driver joined in the attack. I forced myself awake as things turned violent. Before my current therapist I would not have been able to escape that dream. I have a sleep disorders that makes it hard to wake up fully a lot of the time. I’m able to change the topic of dream better now and at least end one nightmare most of the time. I’ve been injured in these dreams. Bad shit happens in these dreams. And they’re all about me failing. (Imagine how much of a stink my abuser gave me over Cs in school)

Through good therapy and self practice I’ve been able to start to manage my nightmares more. I’m starting to recognizing when I’m dreaming-meaning I sometimes have control over if I can wake up enough to end it or change it. Sometimes I can’t but it’s slowly easier to move forward from them. Sometimes I know I’m dreaming and I can’t wake up at all. I wake up and scream for help through dream-ception™️ until I get to the last level and wake up with my whole body rigid and sweaty and shaking. My Apple Watch loves watchingy heart rate spike during this. Honestly these are my least favorite (hey you gotta rank it when you have as many dreams as I do)

I do have “normal” dreams too. Some favs include anything based in a fandom, my partner and I, blissful witch things lol

These are just my ptsd dreams. Everyone is different and sources of trauma and reactions to it vary greatly. Remember ptsd can show up in everything from severe anxiety to specifically doing everything the anxious person would cry to even think about. It can be openness to talk to everyone about the trauma, or it can be refusal to discuss it.

#ptsd #ptsd recovery #ptsd tw #actuallyptsd #mental health #mentalheathawareness #dreams #sleep #fuckery #now you know #knowledge #anxitey #depression

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pluckyredhead · 5 years ago

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Daredevil 101: What Happened to Milla, Part 1

For the past while in Daredevil 101, Matt has been somewhat rockily married to a woman named Milla Donovan. Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed that Matt is no longer married in comics continuity. What happened?

*sigh* “To the Devil, His Due” and “Without Fear” happened, aka Daredevil v2 95-105 by Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark. Aka an absolutely interminable parade of pointless cruelty riddled with dangling plot threads and misogyny. Yes, the team that gave us the masterful “Devil in Cell Block D” has now gone off the rails so hard that Amtrak is still working on the repairs. (Sadly, their run never improves, so strap in, I guess.)

Now, Milla is not exactly my favorite character, but very few things in DD history make me madder than the way she was written off. It’s so clear that Brubaker wanted to fridge her but realized he couldn’t get away with a fifth dead Daredevil love interest, so he figured out a different “fate worse than death” (hoo boy we’ll have to unpack that in Part 2). No price is too high for a woman to pay if it means Matt Murdock suffers, amirite?

And with that tempting introduction (?), let’s get into it!

Content Warnings: Ableism, sexual assault and implied threats of sexual violence.

We begin with Melvin, who is in jail thanks to having attacked Matt back when he was blackmailed into doing so. Specifically, we begin with Melvin in a room with a bunch of dead bodies he swears up and down he isn’t responsible for.

Matt and Foggy and most especially Becky Blake believe him and take his case, but just a few days later it happens again - Melvin is found surrounded by dead bodies and claiming to have no memory of what happened but that he didn’t do it. The psych eval doesn’t go well, in that, well, he passes:

According to the doctor, this isn’t Melvin being taken over by his Gladiator personality or an actual second person stepping in - this is just Melvin himself killing people. Which for Melvin’s legal team (and friends) is the worst possible option, of course.

Meanwhile, Milla appears to have taken up therapy:

Aside from what this story does to Milla and Melvin, part of what makes it so bad is the structure. This was partially due to a couple of company-wide crossovers that we’ll see marching through the book in a little bit, but also just lots of things being set up and then dropped without going anywhere. Here we see Milla in therapy, which is never returned to or discussed. The sinister way this is framed makes it clear that the person she’s speaking to is the villain of the piece, but the fact that he met Milla at therapy is never revealed or mentioned at all. Later in the scene he says something about how he hasn’t told his wife that he’s in therapy but he should stop underestimating her, which is clearly meant to get under Milla’s skin in regards to her relationship with Matt, but that kind of subtle manipulation is too interesting for this story and leads absolutely nowhere. And of course we don’t get to actually see Milla talking to her therapist, which would require her to have an interior life.

Which means we have an entire scene that could have been replaced with a single panel of Milla bumping into someone on the street that would have had exactly the same effect on the plot. And the pacing problems only get worse from here, folks!

Anyway. The state decides to move Melvin, but he escapes his prison transport - and attacks Matt, who’s been keeping an ear on things:

Melvin kicks the crap out of Matt and escapes, but Matt realizes that there’s something wrong with Melvin - it may not be the Gladiator taking over, but this isn’t his friend, either.

The next day, Nelson and Murdock receive a surprise guest: Lily Lucca, who you may remember as she of the Karen-smelling perfume who aided and abetted in multiple murders and lured Matt into a confrontation with Vanessa Fisk:

As you’ll recall, the perfume Vanessa gave Lily to entrap Matt with makes her smell like every man’s fondest memory [INSERT GIANT EYEROLL HERE], which is why Foggy’s falling all over himself here. But now she has a problem: even though she’s not using the perfume anymore, she still smells like it, which means men are constantly creepily following her around, getting into fights over her, etc.

This is...sigh. There’s an aspect of “female character is punished for using her sexuality” here that makes me super uncomfortable. Certainly 90% of comic book villains have some kind of monkey’s paw in their backstory (“I tried to make a cool suit of armor and now I have robot tentacles!” “I tried to cryogenically freeze my dying wife and now I am really cold all the time!” etc.), but there’s a way in which it’s weaponized against certain types of female characters that’s deeply gendered and often kinda rape-y. (I got this vibe with Debbie and Micah Synn as well.) Lily wanted to control men through their desire to her? Well, now they might desire her so much they’ll assault her! That’ll show her! I guess. Ugh, it just grosses me out.

Anyway, Matt reluctantly agrees to help her, or more specifically have Dakota help her, since she won’t be affected by Lily’s scent the way he and Foggy will. Even with this caveat, when he meets Milla for dinner she does not like this:

I think we’re meant to be reading Milla as not being entirely rational about Lily because she’s so jealous of Karen’s memory and Lily reminds Matt of Karen, but she’s not wrong. I have no idea if we’re meant to read Matt as being sort of a douche in this scene but if my husband was like “Keep your voice down” and “Don’t be so hyperbolic” I would walk out of that fucking restaurant.

Or run, as the case may be:

Matt distracts Melvin so that Milla can get away (lotta Ms in this storyline), then somehow quick-changes to Daredevil for a fight. Melvin knocks him out and Matt wakes up handcuffed in the back of a police car:

The cops are arguing because it’s the middle of Civil War, which didn’t touch the Daredevil book very much but Matt was firmly on the anti-registration Team Cap side, unsurprisingly. As an unregistered superhero, just being out in a mask made him a criminal. (They don’t do anything with the fact that his secret identity was basically an open book at this point, which would have been interesting.)

Anyway, The Mysterious Voice Speaking On A Frequency Only Matt Can Hear gleefully tells him that he left his wallet at the restaurant, which has his home address, which means Melvin knows where to find Milla. Of course, Melvin was one of Matt’s bodyguards when his identity was first exposed and definitely already knew where he lived, but whatever.

Milla is, of course, wandering around the apartment in nothing but a bra and panties when Melvin shows up, because Daredevil artists apparently love putting her in her underwear to terrorize her and this is the last chance they’ll have to do it.

Melvin takes Milla up to the roof to wait for Matt. I’m including this exchange, where Milla tries to talk him down by appealing to his better nature, because it’s basically her last moment as herself. Reminding others of their better angels has always been one of her strengths, and she deserves to have that highlighted before...everything else.

Matt shows up. Melvin throws Milla off the roof:

Matt miraculously saves her and returns to fight Melvin, but Melvin has pretty much given up at this point and it’s all over but the crying. He’s bundled off to maximum security, and that’s...well, that’s the end of Melvin. This storyline came out in 2007, and this sweet, interesting character who has been around since the Silver Age has been unusable ever since. So thanks for that, Brubaker.

Matt’s furious, and determined to figure out who did this to Melvin:

“What did your sensei say about fighting angry?” always makes me laugh. Also, why would you ever suggest Matt follow Stick’s advice, Foggy, honestly.

(Foggy is A+++++ in this storyline and it makes me mad that I can’t even enjoy it because he’s just frantically trying to salvage a steaming pile of shit the whole time. Also given the overall ableism in this story I’m a little :/ that he basically takes over being the functional adult like Matt’s incapable of it.)

Matt runs into another dropped plot thread here because he gets on the trail of a street drug that makes people angry, which, like, how would Melvin have even gotten that in prison anyway, especially nonconsensually? Also, every other depiction of this drug shows it putting the user into a senseless rage, but Melvin sure was able to find his old lair, put on his Daredevil costume, track down Matt, and kidnap his wife when the plot required him to. How very Guardian Devil.

Anyway, Matt starts tracking the drug to its source. Meanwhile, Milla shows up at N&M:

Yeah, from here on out Milla is all tears and hysteria. Sigh.

Foggy decides to take her home, and Lily tags along, even though Foggy thinks that’s a REALLY REALLY bad idea because a) she's upsetting Milla, b) she fucks with Foggy’s head, and c) every dude in the subway is going to be all over her. But Lily insists, because she’s...manipulative? Genuinely feeling guilty and choosing the absolute worst way to fix that? Flimsy plot reasons? Let’s go with flimsy plot reasons.

While waiting for the train, Milla pretty much loses her shit at Lily, and also the world in general:

“I don’t know what I’ve done to you” is pretty rich, Lily. YOU LURED HER HUSBAND ON A MURDER CHASE ACROSS EUROPE.

Meanwhile, Dakota is still trying to figure out where Vanessa got Lily’s original perfume from - and Matt has followed the drug trail back to the Enforcers, a bunch of goofy-ass Silver Age villains we haven’t seen in decades. (They are specifically named the Ox, Fancy Dan, and Montana. They are ridiculous.) They clobber him and take him to their leader:

LARRY CRANSTON. MISTER FEAR. He made the perfume. He drove Melvin insane. And he’s the reason behind what happens next:

Lily lives. The random bystander does not. And when Matt, having been literally thrown out of the window and into the garbage by Mister Fear, returns home, Foggy is waiting for him:

Next Time: Milla is taken into custody, and Matt searches for a cure.

#daredevil #daredevil 101

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metamorphicrocky · 5 years ago

Note

Will you ever do a fic about that little cato baby au with Gary getting his robot arm shot?

yo I went HAM on this one. don’t know what happened. but either way, this fic takes a slightly different turn from when I talked about this headcanon in another post, which is now apart of the au canon. so enjoy!!

"Dad, what's that?" Little Cato says as he points to an oddly shaped object.

Gary shrugs. "I don't know, bud."

"Do you think I could eat it?"

Gary takes a second glance at it and instinctively pulls the kid closer to him. "Seeing as how it's made out of metal, no."

The kid at his side deflates, his ears drooping in the way that makes Gary's heart melt at how cute it is.

"But we can get a snack if you want," Gary says, smiling knowingly. And just as he expected, his boy lights up and jumps onto his arm in his excitement.

"Can I get fish?!"

Gary laughs as he picks up Little Cato. "Absolutely not. I am not letting you eat another live animal in public again, or ever, to be honest."

"Booooo," Little Cato whines.

He sticks his tongue out at his dad, and in retaliation, Gary does the same while tickling the kid's neck. Little Cato laughs as he flinches away from the attack, making Gary smile fondly.

His boy opens his eyes, then he gasps and shoves his hands on Gary's face in his haste to look at something over the man's shoulder. "I want that!"

"Little Cato, get off of me," Gary says muffledly because his kid is currently squishing the hell out of his face. The boy does as asked, but he's still bouncing in his dad's arms over whatever food he saw. Gary turns and his mouth drops open at the stand he sees. "Oh my god, are those waffles?!"

"Ooh, waffles! They sound fun!" Little Cato says, his mouth watering.

Gary wastes no time in walking over there to scan the menu, and holy crap, they have so many different waffles. This is the best thing he's seen in a while. He stands in line and debates between literally every option on the menu because they all sound so good, while Little Cato saw chocolate and immediately decided on that one.

As Gary goes back and forth between choices, a man approaches him and taps his shoulder. He turns to see an absolute brute next to him, and he can already sense trouble.

"Are you Gary Goodspeed?"

Gary scoffs, trying to hide his nervousness as Little Cato looks around to find other people the brute might be with. He is so thankful that Nightfall thought of training the kid to do this. "You think I look like him? Jawline's way different, pal. I'm kinda honored though, that someone could mistake me for a famous bounty."

The brute snarls in response, and Gary is very stressed at the moment. Little Cato pulls at his collar to get his attention. "Dad, can I have your second gun? Or maybe your seventh?"

Gary feigns confusion over the question. "Buddy, not right now."

Little Cato fake pouts. "But I only have four!"

"We'll talk about this later, when I'm not having a conversation, okay?" He adjusts his hold on his son in case he needs to shield him from harm or let go of him quickly.

"Are you sure?" Brute sneers. "I don't know of many humans who have Ventrexian sons—especially small orange ones."

Cover's blown, time to run. Gary taps Little Cato two times on the shoulder, then promptly drops him as he whips out his gun and shoots the brute right in the chest. He grabs Little Cato's hand and books it back towards the Crimson Light as fast as he can through the crowd, avoiding shots from four people on his seven and two. Waffles will sadly have to wait for later.

"Keep going, I'll catch up!" Gary shouts as he pushes the boy forward so that he can stop and aim at their pursuers. He fires a few times, but he misses them. Damn, these busy markets are not good for gun fights.

Okay, this won't work. He gives up attacking and sprints to catch up with his boy who, of course, slowed down to wait for him. He waves the kid on when he catches his eye, and Little Cato nods and starts to run again.

Gary is still catching up when he sees someone burst through the crowd, gun blazing, and pointing right at Little Cato. It fires, and all of Gary's instincts kick in as he leaps to cross the distance between him and his boy, wrapping his body around him as a shield. Gary grunts as the shot hits his robotic arm, causing it to burn the nerve connections.

He doesn't let the pain stop him though, so he picks up Little Cato and fires at the one who shot him, finally hitting his target. He books it back to the ship in record time, letting his boy jump down and run to get back up as Gary finishes off the enemy. He is so glad that the kid listens to him.

There's six people approaching now, but with Nightfall, HUE, and Fox joining the fight, the problem is taken care of quickly. When all of the bounty hunters are down, Gary lets out a relieved sigh.

"No injuries?" Nightfall asks.

Gary thinks about how his arm was hit, but it can't be bad. He just nods as he walks into the ship and is quickly met with a certain little cat jumping at him. Gary catches him flawlessly and plants a giant kiss to the kid's forehead.

"You did so good, Spidercat! Just like we taught you!" Gary praises, ruffling his hair.

Little Cato smiles. "Is your arm okay?"

Gary waves off the kid's concern. "Yeah, that's what robot arms are good for. Taking damage and it not hurting."

He motions for the crew to follow him because he is going to get those damn waffles if it's the last thing he does, ignoring the way he feels his arm jitter slightly. And the little jolt of pain where the arm connects with his skin? Nothing to worry about there.

----

Gary was wrong. So very wrong.

His arm hurts so much.

The first day, he barely noticed anything other than mild discomfort. By day three, it was more frequent short-circuiting and stronger pain. Now it's day seven, it's unbearable and constant. When he's around the others, he has to put all of his focus into forcing his arm to stay still instead of spasming like it wants to do.

Right now he's in his room, his jacket off because the pain is making him very hot. He's leaning against the side of his bed, his face scrunched up in pure agony. Gary can see the sparks flaring around the damaged spot, the wires exposed and burnt. He's genuinely surprised that it's still working, to be honest.

He laughs at that, but moving only makes it hurt more as the arm is jostled. Gary bites down a scream, not wanting to alert anyone of what's happening. He can...deal with this. Yeah, he can do this.

A sharp flare shoots through his arm, sending pain radiating through his entire left side. It's so painful that he barely has time to think before he's grabbing the pillow off of his bed and screaming into it at the top of his lungs. His side is on fire, and he knows that if he even dared to look at his shoulder, it would would look like hell. Tears are pooling in his eyes as he pants and screams over the non-stop searing pain.

There's nothing he can do to stop it, other than removing his arm. Which will not be happening, because it's too important to him. The clasp of friends....

A stronger jolt of pain distracts him from his thoughts, and he shouts, "Fuck!"

Okay, this is insane. Why is he doing this?! If he just removes the arm, everything will be better. But, Avocato—no, arm needs to come off—was his best friend. This arm was when their friendship started.

Another surge of agony. "Shit!"

Gary screams as loud as he can into the pillow, letting out all of his frustration. Fine, he'll...stick with the arm. If he has time to do something like this every day, this will be manageable.

"Dad?"

Gary freezes, but another wave comes. He doesn't even have the strength to try to stop it, so he screams again.

"Dad! What's wrong?" Little Cato screams.

Gary lifts his head up, tears pooling in his eyes, to see his boy standing next to him with a look of horror on his face. Huh, how did he get over here so fast, Gary wonders.

"Nothing, Spidercat," Gary groans. "I'm fine."

More pain, but now Gary's screaming isn't muffled by a pillow. "Ahh! Fuck fuck fuck!"

"Dad," Little Cato cries. Gary really looks at the kid after that, and oh no, he's crying. His little chest is moving rapidly, and Gary can't have the kid panicking right now. "You're hurt!"

"It's just some pain, bud. It'll pass soon," Gary grunts.

Little Cato presses his mouth into a thin line, and since he has no concept of personal space, he lifts Gary's shirt to see his side. The kid freezes, bursts into full on sobbing, and runs out of the room screaming for Nightfall.

He's probably just overreacting. Yeah, it can't be that bad—!

Oh.

Oh shit.

Gary stands up, but the pain lacing his left side forces him to brace himself against the wall as he hobbles out of the room, intending on meeting Nightfall halfway because the red lines branching across his skin definitely do not look okay. He grunts as he enters the hallway, stopping to lean against the wall and hold his side.

"Gary!" Nightfall shouts, running up to him. She looks concerned, and Little Cato is standing behind her nervously, tears streaming down his little face. "What happened? Little Cato couldn't really tell me anything other than—!"

She's cut off when Gary lifts his shirt with a huff. She stares at it in shock, and then looks back up at Gary's face to see his guilty expression. "I messed up. Like, super badly. It's my arm—SHIT!"

Nightfall's face hardens, and she carefully wraps an arm around him to keep his upright. "Little Cato, can you go grab the arm repair kit and bring it to the medbay for me? The one I showed you a while ago."

His kid nods, putting on a brave face, and he glances at Gary worriedly then runs off to do what he was asked.

Gary sighs as they start making their way through the ship. "You shouldn't have involved him in this."

Nightfall glares at him. "Too late, you already did."

He muffles another scream as they walk into the medbay, Little Cato already waiting with the tools. Nightfall sets him down on an operating table and begins working silently at removing his arm while it glitches out.

Little Cato continues to stand there in worry next to Gary's right side, so he holds his good hand out for his kid to hold as a way to comfort them both. Damn, his kid is so tough, watching him get his arm removed.

The process of taking it off is a lot shorter than putting it on, so Nightfall is done within a few minutes. She rubs some sort of salve on his shoulder and side where it hurts the most, and she is most definitely doing it hard as a way for him to know how pissed she is at him. Which is totally understandable. She wraps bandages around his shoulder to keep the the port from being exposed, and that's it. All done.

Gary sits up slowly, trying to adjust to the weird feeling of having nothing in where his arm should be. Sure, a prosthetic felt different from the real deal, but it was pretty close to the original. But now, there's nothing.

Cautiously, Gary places his remaining hand on his shoulder, rubbing a little bit of the tension away.

"Do you want your shirt back?" Nightfall asks, a hint of exasperation in her voice.

He shakes his head. "I'm sorry you had to do that," he says quietly, looking her in the eye.

"I'm not upset that I had to do it," she says, crossing her arms. "I'm mad that you let this go on for, I don't know, about a week? You could have damaged your nervous system! Honestly, you'll be lucky if your body doesn't reject a new prosthetic after all the damage your nerve endings took!"

Gary blanches at that. "I might not be able to get a new arm?"

"Yeah. That was really stupid of you," she states angrily.

Gary feels the tears start to come, so he buries his face in his hand and takes in a stuttering breath. "I didn't want to lose it. It's just...Avocato put it on. And that was when our friendship started...damn, I'm so stupid for doing this."

A small hand is placed on Gary's knee, and he turns to see Little Cato looking up at him with those big eyes of his. "You don't have to lose it. You can keep it! Like one of those sou-thingies you talk about," he says softly.

"A souvenir?" Gary asks, receiving a nod in response. He laughs a little at that. "Yeah, buddy, you're right."

Nightfall places a hand on his good shoulder. "Gary, I don't think Avocato would have ever wanted you to value your broken arm over your own safety. But you did it, so now you have to be prepared to handle things if your body can't support a new prosthetic."

Gary frowns, but then Little Cato jumps up onto the table with him and sits in his lap, giving him a hug. He awkwardly hugs back, wanting to wrap two arms around his son but only having one that responds to it.

"I'm glad that you're okay, though. Well, for the most part." Nightfall smiles, and he smiles tiredly back. "I'll go look for a place to get you a new arm while you relax and get some rest. Take painkillers if you need them."

She walks off, leaving Gary and Little Cato sitting together. The kid still looks a little frightened, and Gary cards his fingers through his fur to calm him down. Little Cato leans into the touch just like he always does.

"I'm sorry that I scared you, buddy," Gary apologizes. He plants a quick kiss to the kid's forehead. "How about we go watch a movie though?"

His son lights up, instantly jumping down and grabbing Gary's hand to drag him to the common area. If passing the time until he gets another arm is like this, he thinks he'll be able to make it.

----

Gary really needs to stop jinxing himself. Every single time he thinks something won't be bad, it turns out bad. Fantastic.

He can't wear shirts. He puts one on every day, and then immediately takes it off because the empty sleeve bothers him more than the missing arm does. Isn't that pathetic? He knows it's been annoying everyone to see him shirtless for the past few days, but he doesn't care.

And he can't pilot the ship. He needs two arms. Gary currently has one arm. The only good to come out of that is teaching Little Cato how to fly and seeing how much the kid loves it. Plus he's too small to sit in the seat without something to boost him up, so he sits on Gary's lap as he tells his boy what to do. Instructing is harder when he can only demonstrate some things, but he's making it work.

Cooking is a struggle. Nightfall has had to help him every time when he needs something done that Little Cato isn't allowed to do. She says she doesn't mind it, but he knows how much of a burden he's being. It really sucks.

He's never really thought about how he's missing an arm until now. When it first got ripped off, he was so hyped up on adrenaline and in shock to even process it, and the new one was put on right after it happened so it barely crossed his mind. But now he has to think about it, how he has to tell himself not to try to move something that isn't there. The confusion he feels is really something else.

However, the worse part of all is that he can't pick up his son. Or wrestle with him. Or play cards without getting frustrated. Or sleep with him because the kid moves around and accidentally touches his shoulder a lot. And he knows that he wouldn't be able to protect him properly if they were in danger.

Gary can't be a good father like this, and it's crushing him.

Currently, Gary is sitting in the pilot's seat. He can't do anything, but this is usually where he likes to be anyways. He's not wearing a shirt, and he just wants to melt into the seat and disappear right now.

"Hey, Dad. Psst."

Gary turns around to see Little Cato peaking into the room, hiding behind the doorway. "Yeah, bud?"

"I wanna show you something," he whisper-talks conspiratorially.

Gary stands up with a smile and walks out into the hallway to see the kid hiding something behind his back. Gary raises an intrigued eyebrow at it and kneels down to be at his son's level, but Little Cato just winks.

"You gotta close your eyes. And gimme your hand," Little Cato instructs.

Gary does as told, and he feels Little Cato grab his hand and put something made out of fabric in it. He is definitely confused, so he opens his eyes to see...his shirt?

"Spidercat, did Nightfall tell you to make me put a shirt on?" Gary asks in confusion.

The Ventrexian shakes his head. "No, look at the left side."

Gary glances at it, and instead of an empty sleeve, there's just more shirt. It's poorly sewn together, but the patch that replaces the sleeve does it well enough. He looks between the shirt and his kid in surprise, Little Cato smiling proudly.

"Did you make this?" Gary asks in disbelief.

His son nods. "Yeah! You didn't like how the sleeve flapped, so I cut it off and made that! Put it on!"

Gary sits down so that he can grab the bottom of the shirt and slip it over his head, sliding his arm through it and pulling it down. Getting dressed has been a struggle, and he never thought before how difficult it could be with only one limb.

The shirt fits fine, obviously. It was one of his shirts to begin with, but the addition Little Cato made? Wow, it feels so much better now.

"Do you like it?" His son is smiling so brightly, and Gary is just completely overwhelmed by how good of a kid he has.

"Spidercat, I love it. I mean, just look at this craftsmanship! Stitched together perfectly!" Gary praises.

Gary drags the kid closer to him, pulling him into a hug and ruffling his hair. Little Cato hugs him back, wrapping his arms around Gary's neck. For some reason, just having a shirt that doesn't make him feel wrong energizes him, so he wraps his arm around his son snugly and stands up.

Even though it was his idea, Gary is still surprised that he managed to pick the kid up. Little Cato gasps excitedly over this new development, staring at his dad in elation. "You picked me up!"

"Yeah, I did...," Gary trails off happily. "Wait, I'm gonna put you down and try something."

He sets the kid down, and Little Cato can clearly see where this experiment is heading by the way he's bouncing on the balls of his feet. Gary takes his arm and wraps it around the boy's stomach, then swings him up to rest against his hip.

They both look at each other in surprise and laugh excitedly. Little Cato wraps himself around his dad like an octopus to make it easier to be held, and Gary starts walking around with the kid in his arm.

"You know, I think I'm getting good at this," Gary says cockily as a joke.

Little Cato nods. "I think it's cool!"

"What's cool?"

"That you're still awesome even without your cool robot arm! I wouldn't be able to bake cookies with only one arm," Little Cato says innocently.

Gary stops and stares at his kid in mild shock. How is he so sweet? How? It literally seems impossible to have this nice of a child.

"That is really nice of you to say, son."

He would give Little Cato a fist bump if he could, but a quick kiss on the forehead also works.

If he can't get another prosthetic, he thinks that it won't be as bad as he expected it to be. Especially if he's got his boy to help him.

----

"Are you nervous?" Nightfall asks, walking alongside Gary, Little Cato holding his hand and Mooncake trailing behind.

Gary shrugs. "I mean, a little bit? I want a new robot arm, definitely. But if my nerves are done for, I think I'll be able to handle only one arm."

Nightfall smiles, and Gary smiles back.

"Can I pick the arm?"

The two adults laugh at Little Cato's question, but Gary still nods his head. He laughs again when Little Cato pumps his fist in excitement over the news.

Together, they walk into the prosthetic shop and are immediately hit with the sight of a lot of limbs, some more metal in nature and others looking way too real. Gary grimaces at that, but Little Cato just starts trying to poke everything.

"You Gary?" the shopkeeper asks. Gary nods, and the man starts sizing him up. "Well, you weren't kiddin' 'bout missin' an arm."

Gary's face scrunches up in confusion. "Well, yeah! This is your whole thing, guy, why would I lie about that?"

"Just not often y'see a whole arm, s'all."

The weird man waves Gary forwards, so he follows after him reluctantly, holding Little Cato tight against his side because the kid really wants to touch everything in sight.

"Dad, I want a robot arm," Little Cato says as he passes one that has several different gun options on it.

"Yeah, no, not happening, buddy. It's not as fun as you think it is. Especially the losing an arm part."

They enter a room with a bunch of different pieces of equipment in it, and the shopkeep gestures for Gary to sit down.

"Lemme see th'spot," he grumbles.

Gary removes his jacket, which he is much more comfortable in after some adjustment, and takes his shirt off to leave his shoulder port exposed. The man hums to himself as he looks at it, and then places a piece of machinery onto it.

Gary is about to ask what it does, but the moment he opens his mouth, the man interrupts, "Checkin' ya nerves. I'm not gonna fit you for an arm that don't work."

The man fiddles with the device as Gary holds Little Cato still in his lap because he knows that the moment he lets go, the kid is going to run and try to eat or touch something he shouldn't.

After a few minutes, the man takes it off and looks at what it says, mumbling indiscernible things under his breath. Then he drops it on the table and turns towards Gary, all four of his eyes piercing his gaze.

"So, good news or bad news first?"

"Good news!" Little Cato shouts, his tail swishing in anticipation.

"Well, ya can get an arm." Gary feels all of the tension in his body drain, relief rushing through him immediately. "Bad news, not today."

"What? What do you mean not today?" Gary asks.

The guy shrugs. "Nerve damage. Ya messed 'em up real good, but they should heal eventually. I'd give it 'bout a year."

Mooncake nuzzles up against Gary's face, humming sadly. Little Cato and Nightfall look crestfallen as well, but Gary doesn't feel too bad about it.

He can do this.

They pay the guy for seeing him and walk out into the daylight. Little Cato is hugging Gary's left leg, and it somehow makes walking feel more normal now that there's more weight on that side.

"Gary, are you sure that you're okay with this?" Nightfall asks.

He nods. "Yeah, it's a small problem compared to everything else going on in our lives, right?"

"It's going to make you unbalanced when you fight, and it gives you a disadvantage," Nightfall insists. "You'll have to get used to a whole different method of piloting."

"I...think it'll be okay, Nightfall." Gary gives her his best reassuring smile, and she rolls her eyes at him fondly.

"You got this, Dad!" Little Cato shouts.

Gary smiles at the bundle on his leg. "Heck yes I do, Little Cato! Now, I am going to go show you all how I can still win at cards!"

Little Cato sticks his tongue out to taunt Gary, and the kid's smile makes him think that he was being an idiot stressing before. Arm or no arm, that won't change how he can parent the kid. Plus, maybe it is kind of cool.

"Can we race back to the ship?" Little Cato asks, shaking Gary's leg.

Gary laughs and leans down to stare the kid down. "Don't think I'm gonna go easy on you, Spidercat."

"You're on!" Little Cato yells.

Nightfall rolls her eyes again, but she still gives them a countdown. And when Gary wins to Little Cato's dismay, he really feels like this'll be alright.

#hahahaha I'm a monster #final space #gary goodspeed #little cato #Nightfall #mooncake #dadspeed #baby cato au #fs fics

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afterspark-podcast · 4 years ago

Text

G1 Episode 35: Transcript

Episode Show Notes

[This can also be found on AO3!]

[Stinger]

S: It's like, we do get a view of what the robots seem like to the humans and it’s basically that they're massive dumbasses.

[Intro Music]

O: Hello, and welcome to the Afterspark Podcast, an episode by episode recap of the Generation 1 Transformers cartoon. I'm Owls.

S: And I'm Specs.

O: And today we're gonna be talking about episode number 35: Desertion of the Dinobots, Part 1. Let's talk about giant robots today, shall we?

S: Sure.

O: And I got a new mic! So hopefully I sound a little bit better because my headset mic was disappointing.

S: You sound good to me.

O: [Laughter] I'm just hoping for an improvement, quite frankly. Today we open on a wide green field where a scientist is flying an unmanned drone via a remote.

S: The Autobots are, you know, very complimentary towards the- about the drones maneuvers and a few feet away Soundwave clearly wants a break from Decepticon shenanigans and is taking a nap in Ironhide's backseat with Blaster.

O: A very strange booty call, perhaps?

S: Either that or him and Blaster just have, you know, scheduled naps in and, unbeknownst, to Ironhide he was their next meeting spot.

O: That seems rude to a coworker, but- but what do I know about Autobot co-worker shenanigans? Ravage then ejects from Soundwave, who is still a boom box, uh, before being detained by Blaster.

S: Did Blaster not want Ravage tattling about what they do in their downtime?

O: Possibly. You mean boombox cuddling? Blaster kind of finishes transforming? He’s like half transformed grabbing Ravage and Soundwave gets bumped out of Ironhide before transforming himself and just flying off.

S: Oh and, to clarify, the entire scuffle with Blaster and Ravage is literally inside Ironhide's, um, caboose?

O: Yeah they basically-

S: Trunk? I don’t know what-

O: [Laughter] The back part of his van. Basically, Ravage tackles Blaster and they sort of fall back into Ironhide. [Laughter]

S: Yeah. Yeah, it just makes the entire thing pretty awkward.

O: Why? You don't wake up with one of your mortal enemies in your backseat every day, Specs?

S: Well, I sure as hell hope not.

O: [Laughter]

S: So, you know, Ironhide it has some, you know, junk going on in his- in his trunk, you see.

O: Lord, not again. Why is it always Ironhide? It’s always Ironhide! [Laughter]

S: He has a lot of space.

O: This shot is just so awkward, anyway, it definitely looks like Ravage is topping Blaster inside of Ironhide and, I mean, I definitely believe that Ravage is probably a top but wow! That van is just rockin right there. [Laughter] And then Soundwave flies over to Megatron and Starscream who are hanging out upon a convenient verdant hillside.

S: And, honestly, they’re right in plain sight so I don't really get why no one notices them. The Autobots don't notice them. The humans don't notice them. Did they use an invisibility spray again or can we just see them because we're breaking the fourth wall?

O: Ah, I believe that's the power of plot convenience I smell.

S: Starscream prepares to shoot the drone but Megatron knocks his arm down with a great bonk effect, saying something about needing to be more discreet.

O: Discreet! You’re all standing out in the open! Soundwave was chilling in Ironhide five minutes ago, for Pete's sake!

S: Starscream says what we're all thinking, “Since when has discretion mattered to us?”

O: Megatron hands over something to him and says to use it on the drone.

S: And then, back to our opening scene, it appears Ironhide has woken up and would like to know what the fuck is going on.

O: [Laughter] Ravage runs off and Blaster gets dumped on the ground as Ironhide transforms.

S: No one is having a good day.

O: No one is having a good day. [Laughter]

S: Blaster explains this only as, “Rockin and rollin with savage Ravage,” which does not make it sound any less dirty.

O: Nope.

S: Or less risque?

O: [Laughter] Ironhide exclaims that they need to tell Prime that, “Decepticons are afoot,” but considering we see the Autobots watching the drone which Starscream is flying directly over I feel like they should probably know already.

S: Yeah, I mean-

O: And-

S: None of them have very good observational skills, let's just go with that.

O: No they don’t.

S: Except Perceptor.

O: Yeah, but I don't think Percy's here today so they can't see shit. [Laughter]

S: Percy's busy doing science.

O: Percy’s, you know, busy doing his actual job, duh.

S: Man, speaking of the drone, it has a pretty weird design. Like, why does it have cockpits, let alone two?

O: No freaking idea. Starscream drops the device Megatron gave him onto the drone and then it explodes.

S: Like what was the point of this entire thing?

O: I don’t- don’t really know what this accomplished at all.

S: Yeah, yeah so Blaster and Ironhide run up to warn Optimus and then Blaster says that he just went three rounds with Ravage.

O: Jesus Christ. you two! This is a children’s show! [Laughter]

S: So the Autobots roll out to check the wreckage because no one is going to address what Blaster just said.

O: [Laughter] No one- no one is going to address this. Okay!

S: Yeah and so along with them are: Jazz, Hound, and Mirage who were also, I guess, just hanging out doing whatever.

O: Not fucking Ravage? [Laughter]

S: [Laughter]

O: But Megatron has a scheme while the Autobots are distracted. To which I say he could have just left Ravage in Ironhide’s back seat I feel like that was distracting enough but what do I know?

S: I don't know, man. And- and onwards to a very 80s lab in stylish Autobot orangey-yellow.

O: Don't you just hate it when you're working and the entirety of Decepticon High Command Kool-Aid Man's their way into your workspace?

S: Yeah and, honestly, Starscream just looks weirdly pale in this shot. Maybe imitating the Kool-Aid Man doesn't agree with him.

O: See I think they just failed to get his makeup right for this shot, don't you?

S: Yeah, yeah, I think that's more likely.

O: [Laughter]

S: Megatron tells the scientists to hand over the blueprints and he'll let them live.

O: Starscream gets mad and thinks Megatron's being soft and stomps in and picks up one of the scientists, threatening him with his null-ray.

S: It's like, Starscream, I'm not sure what that's-

O: Helping?

S: Yeah.

O: How is that helping?

S: Yeah. The scientist just, like, points out where the blueprints are- are stored and then he's perfectly fine when Starscream just tosses them to the ground so, it’s like, okay?

O: They go to open the vault, but the Autobots arrive.

S: Why is the vault so big? Because it's, like, Decepti- it's like giant robot scaled.

O: They have extra big secrets to store inside?

S: Oh god it's like the ‘her hair’s so big it's full of secrets.’

O: Except a door, a vault. Whatever.

S: Yeah. Oh and Jazz proceeds to distract Starscream with, you know, his loud music and light show.

O: But Megatron is apparently unaffected by this and goes to shoot the Autobots but then his fusion cannon is yanked off his arm by an invisible Mirage.

S: Mirage actually gets to use his ability today!

O: What a concept.

S: Yeah.

O: And then Megatron basically runs over and kicks Mirage in the nads in an effort to grab his fusion cannon back from him.

S: No one's having a good day. [Laughter]

O: [Laughter] No one is having a good day.

S: And then Megs is then seen across the room, beckoning Soundwave and Starscream to follow him out of their Kool-Aid Man hole.

O: Soundwave and Starscream clearly don't have any peripheral vision to speak of, you know, like the Autobots, and fly off- not noticing that the real Megatron is still very much in the same room as them and very much still trying to get this fusion cannon back from Mirage.

S: A fusion cannon and tug of war just doesn't seem to go well for anyone.

O: Right! Well, they're doing it from the sides, they're doing the smart thing where I don't think they're pulling on the actual barrel but, you know, while it’s pointed at them but still, yes.

S: Yeah, but yeah, you're right no one has peripheral vision or you know any observational skills.

O: It was funny, too, when we were watching it, cuz even I was like, how the fuck did he get over there? And I totally thought it was an animation error. [Laughter]

S: I mean, if there was smoke or something you could forgive-

O: Yeah, yeah.

S: There is zero smoke.

O: Yeah, there's nothing, like, you know, making it harder for them to see or anything.

S: Yeah, and then Optimus comes in out of stage left, kicking Megatron, you know, in his keister, you know, through a wall.

O: Megatron retreats.

S: Now we suddenly cut to an amusement park, complete with carnival music and Ferris Wheels!

O: And after some shots of various carnival sites we are greeted with Bumblebee on the teacups with Spike and Carly.

S: This is, like, super poorly drawn but it's functioning like the teacup ride so I guess that's what we're calling it.

O: We gotta call it something.

S: Or I think- yeah. Huh. Bumblebee is confused about why the ride is supposed to be fun until Carly, you know, just opens him up and turns off his equilibrium circuits.

O: Why-why does Carly know how to do that? Should I be concerned?

S: She's a super genius and she is not afraid to, you know, effectively do internal surgery on her robot friends.

O: Ain't that the truth. The three of them seem to have a very full day planned as after they leave at the amusement park they go stop by the airport to pick up Sparkplug and, Oh God, Sparkplug is in a suit!

S: He's in a waistcoat, even! Why was he in a suit? Is he their legal representative? Or, perhaps, is he a more traditional flyer?

O: [Laughter] Most interesting man in the world?

S: Let's go with both.

O: Why not, why not?

S: Spike sees two military jets fly into a hangar and questions why they're at a commercial airport.

O: Completely missing that their paint jobs clearly identify them as Thundercracker and Thrust.

S: Oh god, maybe- maybe those are weirdly common paint schemes in their universe.

O: That- that would be strange. That would definitely be strange.

S: It would be. I don't know. So, you know, Spike and company follow the mysterious jets and surprise! Decepticons! How did they even get out of the airport?

O: There wasn't airport security in the eighties, Specs.

S: That’s true.

O: Certainly not like there is now, anyway, besides they have, you know, the best pass in the world: the “My Best Friend is a Giant Alien Robot Pass” since Bee was in the airport with them.

S: Yes, but how did he get through the doors?

O: Pfft- he got into an arcade, I'm pretty sure an airports no problem. Um, Bee calls Prime for backup but they're still cleaning up their mess at the lab they were out previously and Prime calls headquarters, instead.

S: Oh, they're just playing phone tag. So Optimus reaches Wheeljack and deems it necessary to let the Dinobots out of their baby closet.

O: Grimlock’s not happy about the orders, but Wheeljack asked nicely in his best dad voice and at the airport Bee and the Dinobots are then hiding behind a big passenger jet.

S: God, Bee is so tiny compared to the rest of them, cuz he really comes up to their knees-

O: [Laughter]

S: But I imagine that the airport staff is having a conniption.

O: [Laughter] I would hope. Bee points to the helpfully labeled “Hangar” in all caps and tells the Dinobots the Decepticons are in there.

S: The Dinobots smash their way into the hangar, and into a bickering Starscream and Megatron. How did the airport staff not realize that-

O: Their entire warehouse or um, ware- it's not a warehouse-

S: -Hangar.

O: -Hangar was being used by evil robots? Who the fuck knows.

S: Cuz, I mean, oh god, maybe someone was paying rent?

O: I mean- Soundwave! Soundwave clearly set this up and was like- if we're paying rent, they won't bother us. I wouldn't blame him if that was the conclusion you reached.

S: Same!

O: [Laughter] So Slag proceeds to completely melt one of Starscream’s null-rays.

S: No one's having a good day!

O: No one is having a good day.

S: Except maybe the Dinobots.

O: They get to destroy things.

S: Yeah. Outside Sludge saves Bumblebee by kicking Blitzwing into a wall.

O: Inside the hangar it gets Looney Tunes up in here with Snarl knocking over some barrels and the Seekers all falling on their faces.

S: That’s super Looney Tunes.

O: It's gonna get more Looney Tunes here in a moment.

S: Yeah. He also hits Rumble into Megatron and then they both fall backwards onto the computer console.

O: And Megatron just tosses Rumble off screen immediately afterwards.

S: I feel if I keep saying no one's having a good day we're just gonna be repeating that a lot so I'm gonna stop.

O: [Laughter]

S: Just take it as a given. Thundercracker and Thrust are taken out by Swoop and crash into the hangar, causing it to explode. And then Megatron pulls himself out of the wreckage. and orders an attack.

O: I mean, none of them are having a good day. Megatron's really not having a good day.

S: Yeah. they’re- None of them are having a good day. At all.

O: The Dinobots have zero trouble with taking out the remaining four Decepticons by themselves because they’re the fucking Dinobots.

S: Yep, and Megatron ends up face-planting onto the floor of the airport terminal after Grimlock picks him up in his, you know, t-rex mouth and tosses him.

O: I mean, seriously, let's break this down: We've got the fusion cannon getting stolen, getting hit by Rumble, a building collapsing on him, and then getting picked up by a giant fucking t-rex! I'm just saying, that's a lot of things to pack into one day!

S: Well, a few hours.

O: [Laughter] Yeah! Yes! It’s not even been a huge, long length of time. So he lands right in front of Spike and company and then, in the next shot, they're all outside. So did they gain teleporting powers?

S: Maybe they just walked out the hole?

O: Past the passed out Megatron? That seems like a poor option, even if he is passed out.

S: I don't think some of them have very good survival instincts, ok.

O: [Laughter] Boy, do they not. The Dinobots returned to robot mode and Megatron and Skywarp shoot the passenger jets behind them, causing a massive explosion and sending all the Dinobots flying.

S: I mean, that is a smart choice considering that, if they were entirely fueled up planes they'd have a hell of a lot of-

O: Fuel? Explosive fuel? Yeah.

S: Yeah. Megatron proclaims victory and not checking that the Dinobots are dead at all.

O: Inferno, Hoist, and Red Alert show up and Hoist begins moving the Dinobots back to base.

S: By putting them into, like, one of the ruined planes and they tow it.

O: Right. I totally forgot about that.

S: It's- it seems like a really awkward way to transport your wounded.

O: [Laughter] It does, but they are so huge that I kind of understand it. So back in the Ark, Wheeljack, Ratchet, and Hoist are all trying to put the Dinobots back together.

S: And then they all wax poetic about mix- missing Cybertron and complain about the primitive tools they have to use.

O: Didn’t they- Didn’t you make them with those tools, Ratch?

S: Yeah. Back at the airport, Powerglide is literally shitting bricks while him and Ironhide try to help repair the damage. Unfortunately, they are very bad.

O: It's like the worst building, ever. Grapple destroys it putting the roof on.

S: Did they even put a door in there?

O: It really didn't look like it. It's funnier because Optimus seems like he's trying to direct Grapple and I want you to please envision Ro- Ron Swanson saying, “I know more than you,” for his response.

S: Yeah. Elsewhere, the Decepticons are all flying in the air before they all suddenly fall to the ground and Rumble and Ravage are both acting super strange. Ravage is running around and Rumble seemingly is not able to control himself and keeps punching Megatron.

O: Megs just sort of bats him away. I think this is, like, time number 4 getting tossed for poor Rumble this episode?

S: Yeah, poor guy’s just kind of a hacky sack.

O: Little bit. You’re too tiny Rumble, we’re sorry.

S: Megatron vows to figure out what the fuck is going on before we jet back over to the Ark.

O: Wheeljack and Ratchet are putting the finishing touches on the Dinobots’ repairs.

S: Optimus calls the Ark and orders the Dinobots to stop the Decepticons who are running amok again.

O: The Dinobots refuse after getting, you know, exploded last time and tell Optimus the kid-friendly equivalent to fuck off and then walk out.

S: And then Wheeljack and Ratchet have to watch their babies walk away.

O: So sad. The Decepticons are trying to gather Energon from a power plant in order to fix the whole, you know, falling out of the sky thing.

S: The Autobots arrive and transform, all except for Jazz who seems to be stuck in car mode. And then Ironhide attempts some percussive maintenance and kicks him.

O: Which does, indeed, work and Jazz is able to transform the rest of the way.

S: Megatron loses his ability to form words mid-sentence.

O: Starscream immediately proclaims himself the leader of the Decepticons before nose-diving right into a pile of Energon cubes. You know, exactly what you would expect to happen. [Laughter]

S: Ahh, things just start to go wrong. Ironhide’s-

O: Very wrong for everyone.

S: Yep, Ironhide’s Swiss Army knife powers have backfired incredibly badly, as this entire body freezes up when he goes to shoot Starscream with liquid nitrogen.

O: Mirage thinks he has turned invisible but- but then gets beaned by Thundercracker when tried to attack him because he has not, in fact, turned invisible.

S: Yep. Ravage successfully attacks Optimus before involuntarily transforming into tape mode.

O: And Optimus just picks up the tape and dumps it into a barrel and I'm like, “You bastard.”

S: Jazz proceeds to lose his groove and then Blitzwing falls into a hole of his own making. Starscream goads Megatron into action.

O: To which he responds, “If only to spite you!” Which if that doesn't summarize their entire relationship, I don't know what does.

S: True. Starscream takes aim at Optimus with Megatron in gun mode but Megatron's uh, performance leaves quite a lot to be desired.

O: Megatron then orders a retreat but the Cons are unable to fly and instead run away- on foot.

S: Back at the base, the same symptoms that are- the same- condition that seems to be affecting the Cons is also, apparently, affecting the Autobots. They have the same sort of symptoms and- yeah.

O: Optimus can barely stand.

S: And then he collapses into a pose that makes him resemble a giant toddler. It's- not very dignified.

O: No, no it is not. But fear not! Perceptor has it all figured out because, you know, Perceptor is the only Autobot that can do his damn job around here.

S: Yeah, none of them have been eating their- well, none of them have been eating their leafy greens, effectively.

O: Or, in other words, they're missing an element that is necessary for their function.

S: Said element, of course, can only be found on Cybertron.

O: All the Autobots look worse for wear from all this but Jazz in particular is having a bad time with his bottom half stuck in car mode.

S: And, possibly, upside down.

O: I- yeah, I can't remember and Powerglide is even missing his head.

S: Oh dear. Yeah, cuz it's, like, not connected to his body. A headless airman, if you will? Carly and Spike run in and tell Optimus that Shockwave is sending a shipment of the missing element, Cybertonium, to earth.

O: The Autobots are, unfortunately, not in any position to do anything with this information for obvious reasons.

S: But Carly realizes that the Dinobots are still functioning normally, as they were built on Earth. And they don't include-

O: Don't require this to keep functioning, essentially.

S: Yeah, they just weren't constructed with it at all.

O: Yeah.

S: So they use Teletraan 1 to track the Dinobots down and they leave in Carly's car.

O: Sparkplug jokes about not being sure he remembers how to drive it's been so long since he's had to drive, because they've been with the Autobots for however long.

S: Yeah, so they get there and Grimlock doesn't want to help at first, but thankfully Swoop manages to keep three humans from getting crushed.

O: He picks up Carly's entire car.

S: That sounds about right.

O: And with a little persuasion the big ol t-rex does ultimately agree to help.

S: The Dinobots arrive at the space bridge and manage to make it past the Constructicons and actually- accidentally end up on Cybertron. I'm kind of wondering if the Constructicons have the same element issue or if they don't.

O: Well, if they showed up later than they presumably haven't been missing it for the past million years. Maybe that's why they were guarding the space bridge.

S: That's true.

O: We're, of course, not told any of this, so I have no idea.

S: And, actually, I'm wondering about the Insecticons, too. But that's neither here or near- neither here nor there, because they are Sirs Not Appearing in this Episode.

O: Yeah, they may not even know and Decepticons maybe didn't even call them. On the receiving end of the Dinobots, poor Shockwave is shocked to get a triceratops suddenly to the face.

S: Sparkplug manages to figure out that the Dinobots are on Cybertron but Grimlock refuses to return to Earth.

O: Carly volunteers to go to Cybertron since the Dinobots aren't in any mood to help. Spike says Optimus will never agree to something so dangerous.

S: Oh, I mean, it's not like Optimus can stop them.

O: In fact, he just sort of falls on his face when he tries.

S: Yeah. Before they head out, Sparkplug gifts Spike a really lame looking communicator that sort of sticks to his thumb like a band-aid.

O: Well, Wheeljack isn't exactly up to par right now so, hmm.

S: Fair. Carly drives her car through Devastator’s legs to get to the space bridge like the goddamn badass she is.

O: And the episode ends with Shockwaves shooting the space bridge door as it opens - to which, join us next time for Desertion of the Dinobots, Part Two.

S: The Dinobots have arrived on Cybertron and they're ready to paint the planet red!

O: And I believe we have some fanfic for today.

S: All right, we have two pieces of fanfiction. We have “Walking with Dinobots” by BlushLouise- BlushLouise?

O: One of those.

S: Yeah. It's in the G1 Cartoon continuity. It's rated G, it's gen, there are no pairings and the characters are the Dinobots and Optimus Prime. So, in summary, “The humans have this show. It's called Walking with Dinosaurs. Until the Dinobots take an interest, that is. Or the many ways a Dinobot can sneak away to join the circus.” And that was just really cute. It’s been a while since I read it but really cute. And so our theme on that is “Dinobots getting to go around and do stuff,” I think.

O: Getting out and about, I believe.

S: Ah, getting out and about, thank you. And then our second fanfic recommendation is “Wayward” by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1). It's G1 Cartoon, it's rated G, it's gen, no pairings, and our characters are Wheeljack, Dinobots, and [Chip] Chase. And in summary, “As the Autobots recover from their Cybertonium depletion and readjust to working with the Dinobots (again), only one mech in particular seems to be healing poorly- not just physically but emotionally. Naturally that catches some attention.

S: And again- Dinobots.

O: And both of these are one shots.

S: Yeah, they’re both one shots and the second one I'd originally picked for the second episode but I think it also works pretty well here.

O: And our fan artist for today is Charlotte Cha [Sha]? Cha? Cha [Sha]. They seem to primarily do IDW. They probably have a bit more of- a bit more things than that but that's what I’ve primarily seen they have a ton of to Dratchet stuff. Uh, they've got a zine for their Young!Ratchet/Vet!Drift AU, and I think it's super cute. Today we've linked to that zine.

S: Yep, I have that downloaded somewhere it's really cute.

O: Another cuddly Dratchet fanart- of Drift and Ratchet just cuddling. It's very cute. And Tailgate being a complete and total dumbass and Cyclonus being, like, ‘Oh no, I have to protect this tiny idiot.’ It is fantastic. A lot of their stuff I've seen has been more sketchy and they do do other fan art that isn't Transformers related. We will be able to link to their Instagram. They frequently also go by the username VoyVoy or Voyahora, I think, and then their Tumblr is like PrimeADV, so I have no idea and just went with what they have listed I think on their Twitter as the real name so. But I do recommend their stuff! It's super cute and we will be posting links.

S: Mm-hmm. And that about wraps it up for us today. Remember to check us out on Tumblr or Pillowfort as Afterspark-Podcast for any additional information, show notes, or links we may have mentioned. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at AftersparkPod (all one word) and various other locations by searching for Afterspark Podcast such as AO3, iTunes, Spotify, and Youtube, just to name a few. And feel free to send us questions on Tumblr, Youtube, or AO3! Till next time, I'm Specs.

O: And I’m Owls.

S: Toodles.

[Outro Music]

#transcript #g1 episode 35 #afterspark podcast #afterspark

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sailor-cresselia · 5 years ago

Text

Zero One 02: Shot through the heart, and Vulcan’s to blame

He gives wolves a bad name.

…I’m not sorry.

I’m bouncing between the three non-TV-Nihon sub groups right now – OverTime, Rider Time, and Genm Corp. Since all three had their subs available quickly, this’ll make it easier to compare differences. Also, Genm Corp was the only one of the three who bothered subbing the OP when it appeared as an insert in episode 01, so I’ve only seen the one style for it yet.

Zero One 02: START

––––

We open with Izu and Aruto stepping out in front of Hiden Intelligence, where she formally introduces herself as his personal assistant.

He’s still in very justifiable disbelief that he’s been named President. He’s a comedian, for crying out loud! Izu points out that not only was he personally selected by the founder, the point of the HumaGear is to make people smile. That lines up with his own goal of making people smile, so he is well suited for the job.

Aruto: I mean?! TECHNICALLY?!

As they walk further into the building from the lobby, Jun and one of the other members of the board peek out from behind a vase of flowers and a table. He swears that he’ll pull the chair out from under their new chairman.

Shesta stands there, unimpressed.

The security system is pretty cool! At first glance, it appears to be the standard ‘bioscanner and glass pane’ set up that you see in all sorts of media – and then you realize that once a person has been let in? The ‘glass’ door is just a hologram. It’s a holographic door that says STOP on it, and it disappears when it’s ‘open’. Which raises the question of ‘do we have solid-light holograms’ here. I wouldn’t put it past this season.

Unfortunately for Aruto, he. Uh. Hasn’t been added to the security system just yet. Instead of the circle saying that it’s okay to pass, he just gets a big old X and a buzzer noise.

After several attempts of smacking the scanner, a security HumaGear briskly steps up. He scans Aruto, and greets him as ‘President Hiden Aruto,’ bowing formally. Aruto returns the bow and greeting…

And still can’t get through the gate.

–

Daybreak Town.

Horobi watches a delivery HumaGear on a screen.

…oh. Oh dear.

After my last liveblog, I had a thought that I worked out with some others, that the selection of which HumaGear get hijacked probably isn’t random. That Taro’s smile was geniune when he thought back to the audience, and that he’d reached sentience – he’d hit the evolutionary singularity.

I thought that Horobi and Jin might be specifically using HumaGear who had hit singularity to turn into monsters. They’re not trying to bring on the singularity, they’re weaponizing it.

And Horobi just said that the one he’s watching is approaching it. That satisfied little nod to himself as he hoists up a package… yeah. That sure seems more like Taro than the other HumaGear we’ve seen.

Handing a Progrize Key to Jin, Horobi tells him to go collect the data.

…After Berotha was defeated, they plugged the broken key back into the holder that he’d pulled it from during his expository monologue.

So, maybe… trying to weaponize the mechanical rise, and bring it about en masse? Or something?

–

Back at Hiden, Aruto is ‘exploring’ his new office.

Looks like I was right on the money with my ‘dumb puppy’ comparison, he’s all over the place.

The 3D printing studio is just part of a big mechanical work bench section of the office, down a level from the office section of the office.

It’s also clearly up really high, because one of those tv-drones can be seen at the same level outside.

The workstation can be neatly hidden away, as well, when a wall builds itself back into existence, blocking the whole thing from view and leaving the room more like a normal office.

That’s the point when Izu decides it’s time to go over his schedule. He’s got a morning meeting with some government representatives… right now.

(Aruto has a brief, quiet panic about not being dressed for this – he’s wearing his day-glo sneakers, a formal pair of pants, and a formal suit jacket… and the jacket is on over his hoodie. It barely fits over his hoodie.)

We’re finally formally introduced to our two main members of AIMS; Techinical Advisor Yaiba Yua and Agent Fuwa Isamu.

Apparently, they’re going to be questioning all of Hiden’s personnel. Yua is much more reserved about this, and Isamu-

Okay, wow, if I didn’t hate him just from last episode, I’d hate him already. He slams a hand down on the desk, leaning way into Aruto’s space, ‘warning’ him to be thorough, because his answers could land him in jail.

Come on! He just got here! Aruto has had this job for less than a day, he doesn’t know jack!

–

…Oh, come ON!

STILL NO OPENING?!

–

Delivery HumaGear is doing his job, when a playful voice calls out from on top of the truck. How’d Jin get up there? Who knows! But he’s already calling the deliveryman his friend, as he forcefully places the false driver onto him, saying that he can start by destroying this company.

The deliveryman, wracked with pain and red sparks, mind you, says that HumaGear are supposed to make people smile!

We see from his perspective as Jin crouches in front of him, a progress bar filling as Jin tells him he’s wrong. It’s to make people extinct.

Connection established.

–

Back at Hiden, we see that Aruto has exactly zero idea what’s going on, and that Isamu gives zero shits about acting professional during an interrogation.

Basically, AIMS suspects Hiden Intelligence of covering incidents up. Currently, the specific incident in question is the one at the amusement park yesterday. They’ve clearly gotten the remains of most of the rogue HumaGear, but there wasn’t a trace of the one in charge.

Because he was very thoroughly destroyed, not that anyone but Aruto and Izu know that.

Izu, connecting to the server, states that there are no records of anything matching that description… as phrased by Genmcorp. Going by Ridertime, she says that they can not validate those records. Overtime has her saying that there’s no data to corroborate Yua’s claims.

In any case… something is going on. Hiden is very definitely covering this up, and using Aruto to do it. He’s just following Izu’s ‘lead,’ because he has zero idea what’s going on.

Isamu implies that this isn’t new, that Hiden has covered things up before.

Yua tells Aruto that AIMS has the authority to prosecute HumaGear-based violations.

Not that Aruto actually knows what that sort of thing would be, so he asks Izu, who recites off the good ol’ First Law of Robotics: A HumaGear may not allow a human to come to harm, for any reason.

Isamu – area speciesist – basically threatens Aruto, telling him not to think he can keep this quiet, these HumaGears are killing machines.

Yua, who is a few bullet-shaped microaggressions away from punching her ‘partner’, tells him to cut it out, they’re not here to commit slander.

Being the dumb puppy that he is, Aruto thinks he can break the tension with one of his old stand up routines.

This doesn’t work.

In fact, it looks like it does the opposite of work, and I’m pretty sure that Isamu’s about ready to kill a man with his bare hands.

It’s a little ironic that the giant ‘emergency’ warnings flashing around the room are what probably just saved Aruto’s life. Mind you, they also confuse the heck out of all three humans in the room. Izu, who often looks about two steps away from saying ‘screw the first law’, lets Aruto know that he has a trespasser.

–

Said trespasser is a very-much hijacked deliveryman, tossing people around – human and humagear alike. His transformation into the Kuehne Magear is no less terrifying than the one into Berotha last episode, although it is thankfully over much faster.

Kuehne is based on the Kuehneosuchus, a late Triassic gliding reptile. This is most easily seen in how he has a pair of wing-shaped boomerangs.

A security humagear manages to block said murder-rangs from killing Jun and the other board member, but that wound up redirecting them to the balcony where Aruto and the others were, dividing the party as everyone dodges.

And these blades are dangerous, too. They can cleave right through the display stands, which appear to be made of poured concrete.

As Isamu and Yua fire, I can’t help but notice her saying he’s disobeying orders again – he is not supposed to have the transformation gun right now.

Oh, goody! As an arboreal gliding lizard, Kuehne is able to crawl along walls! Right up until he takes a hit from Isamu’s Shot Riser, which makes enough of an impact that it knocks him back to the ground.

Isamu, pulling out a Progrise Key, says that he’ll transform and scrap it.

Or, he would, if the key would open. He’s a bit distracted by his non-functional transformation trinket as Kuehne launches his boomerangs again, so Yua literally kicks him to the ground to dodge the return path.

I love her.

I love her even more now that I know that she’s the weapons administrator, and that key isn’t going to open without her authorization.

Yua, I love you, please don’t die.

The security humagear are evacuating the remaining civilians, as Izu all but hurls Aruto out of view. “President Aruto, it would be wise of you to do something before anyone dies.” Emphasis mine, but I strongly suspect she would be placing the same if she were allowed to have emotions yet.

“However… please conceal your identity from AIMS.”

Aruto seems really reluctant at first… and then he hears the screaming again, and turns around, his expression level. “Henshin.”

There’s a brief scuffle between Zero One and Kuehne, which moves the fight outside, and Aruto does okay… until his sweep kick is dodged very handily via Kuehne landing on the wall. That sort of jumping ability does tend to put a damper on knocking someone off their feet.

As Aruto’s hit by a few shots from Kuehne, he gets knocked down, and as he gets to his feet, here come Isamu and Yua, guns drawn and aimed at him. Oh, uh, not just aimed at. Isamu’s shooting at him. Aruto’s protests of ‘you’ve got the wrong guy’ are useless, as Kuehne’s disappeared. Zero One proceeds to take off, as well, dodging gunfire and leaping off of walls to get distance.

Aruto has just barely dropped his transformation when the AIMS agents make it to where he wound up. Isamu grabs him by the lapel, shoving him into a wall and ‘asking’ where he’s hiding ‘the yellow one.’

“I’m not hiding him! He went that way!” Aruto points at the fucking sky, and this somehow works, so as the agents move away from him – only a few yards, mind you – Aruto nopes the heck out of there.

Isamu, the Key dangling from his fingers, demands that Yua unlock it.

“Why would I do that for someone as stupidly reckless as you?!” (The only part of that sentence that’s subtext is ‘stupidly,’ everything else is just straight up text.)

Isamu, getting in her face, all but yells that he’s the captain here.

She gives as good as she gets, retorting right back that she’s in charge of the entire arsenal. If she doesn’t think you should be using the super gun, you’re not getting to use the super gun. They split up, to go look for the rogue HumaGear.

–

In the Hiden lobby, Shesta and that same security guard we’ve been seeing assure the small crowd that it was just a security drill, nothing more.

As the relieved crowd disperses, Aruto jogs up, thanking the guard for protecting everyone.

“President Aruto, it is my task to protect the people of this company.”

Izu smiles a little bit, looking slightly away from her dumb puppy of a boss. Most people don’t treat HumaGear on the same level as humans �� not quite. But Aruto talks to her like a regular person, and he greeted one of his coworkers at the park by name – Yui, one of the greeters.

Aruto notices the damage to the guards arm, and flashes back to his father – humagear legs revealed, synthetic skin torn away. He pauses, just for a moment, his smile dropping a little, before he turns back to the guard.

“Then, tell me your name! I won’t forget it.”

Implying that people don’t usually bother to remember HumaGear’s names.

“Mamoru. President Korenosuke named me.” The guard – Mamoru – looks a little less stiff at that, a little less pre-programmed.

“I see. We’re basically family then, right?” Aruto pulls out a handkerchief, tying it around Mamoru’s damaged arm. (Oh, for the love of – it’s got those comedy paper fans on it. Aruto, please.) He pats Mamoru on the shoulder. “Get yourself patched up.” He grins as he heads back into the office.

Mamoru looks down at the inexplicable impromptu bandage… and smiles. A real, authentic, smile, not the programmed one.

A distance away, Jin spins a key in his hand, and smiles as well.

–

Isamu interrupts a ‘talk’ between Jun and Aruto, the second of whom has zero idea what’s going on.

He brings Aruto to the roof to talk, because that’s totally a good idea… but it’s nice and private, at least.

He starts going on about how the company hasn’t changed, that it’s still building itself on a foundation of victims. Aruto protests that HumaGears are supposed to make peoples lives better, that they’re what people dreamed of!

“So you’ll just let the nightmare repeat itself?!” Isamu pauses after yelling, and then resumes talking, more calmly this time. “An entire city was destroyed in an accident.”

Ah. There’s why we came up here. It’s to give us a visual. The roof has a wonderful angle of Daybreak Town.

Aruto grows somber at the mention of Daybreak, thinking back to an explosion of blue fire engulfing a school building, and his younger self crying over his fathers broken body.

“But that catastrophe was no accident. The truth was that HumaGears went on a murderous rampage. I was there, that day…”

Holy shit. Isamu was… late middle school, maybe a first year in high school at most, waking up in a blasted, ruined classroom… and it sure looks like the other students in there are dead. Red-eyed humagear – an earlier model, going by the less detailed faces – are crawling at the windows, hurling themselves after him as he runs.

“And Hiden Intelligence covered it all up. They claimed it was an accident!”

Aruto stands, shocked, his eyes wide, before growing serious as Isamu storms up to him, glaring. “I will expose your company, and their sins.”

While Isamu walks off… I’m pretty sure that Aruto’s vowing to do the same.

–

Kuehne reappears, where the press is hounding for answers in front of Hiden, tossing people aside.

Mamoru charges him, trying to tackle him away, before being similarly tossed aside. As he gets up…

No.

No, no, no.

As Mamoru gets up, Jin places a buckle at his waist.

–

AND THEN I HAD TO SPEND 15 MINUTES WAITING FOR MY COMPUTER TO UPDATE.

–

As Mamoru gets up, Jin places a buckle at his waist, saying that he can be one of his friends, too.

Mamoru, on one knee, in pain, tries so, so hard to reject this. “To protect this company…” he clutches at the arm that Aruto had wrapped for him. “That is my task!” He’s not saying this in the scared manner that Taro or the deliveryman, named Okureru, according to KRWiki, did. He’s defiant, and angry, and glaring right up at Jin, even as he gets grabbed by the chin and forced to look directly at him, as the download completes.

–

Yua and a team of AIMS troops ‘corner’ Kuehne, firing on him.

–

As people evacuate, Aruto runs up to Izu.

Slowly, Jin comes up the stairs toward them. When Aruto asks who he is, he says “Me? Hmm… the pioneer of a new world… I guess.”

A security door opens behind him, Mamoru stepping through, his face vacant… and a little bit haunted. None of the fear or loss of control from the other two. He looks like he’s been erased far more than they had.

“Mamoru!? Why did you let him in?”

“It is what I was commanded…” He pulls out a key, and inserts it into his murder belt.

Aruto already recognizes those belts, too.

Mamoru’s transformation into Ekal is terrifying, yes, but he doesn’t scream through it, like the previous two magear did. He’s silent, and since we don’t see as much of it, that is where the terror comes from.

The tragedy comes from how it happens. His uniform burned away… but near the end of the transformation, we see that the handkerchief didn’t disintegrate. It fluttered to the ground. On fire, yes, and definitely not the same size it used to be. But it wasn’t completely destroyed.

Ekal takes his theming from Ekaltadeta, a type of carnivorous marsupial. They can tell it was a carnivore, or an omnivore with a preference for meat, by the “large buzz-saw-shaped cheek-tooth” found in the species fossils. That description of the tooth is a direct quote from Wikipedia.

Aruto grabs Ekal around the waist, calling for Mamoru, to try and wake him up. This isn’t him, so please, snap out of it!

He gets thrown against a pillar for his trouble.

Izu chooses now to speak up. “Once HumaGear code has been modified, it cannot be reverted.” There’s no other option. Aruto has to eliminate him.

“no…”

Ekal, in a robotic monotone, advances. “Humans must be…”

–

“-Eliminated!” Kuehne, growling, finishes the sentence in the loading area where he’s cornered Yua. She backs away to reload her gun, but Kuehne is on top of the shipping container already. She aims her weapon-

And a shot passes right past her ear.

Isamu, stop doing that. I swear, if we lose her to friendly fire of all things…

He stalks up, the belt for his Shot Riser in his off hand, swearing that he will crush all HumaGears.

Yua yells at him to stop, even as he latches the Shot Riser in place, he doesn’t have clearance yet!

“I said I’m going to do it! And I make my own rules!”

Someone needs to knock this asshole down a few pegs.

He pulls out the Progrise key, and as he strains to get it to open, there are momentary flashes of the red-eyed HumaGear attacking, and him running. “The HumaGears are going to pay…”

–

Aruto is flung against a column, again. “HumaGears are the reason I’m here today…”

We flash to when he was a child, with the blue explosion… and see that his father shielded him from it, pushing him to the ground and covering him with his own body.

“A HumaGear protected me.” In the present, he drags himself to his feet. “HumaGears aren’t killing machines!” Izu watches in the background as he puts on the driver and furiously glares. “They’re humanity’s dream!

–

Isamu pulls at his Progrise Key. “HumaGears are a threat, they’re humanities enemy!” He keeps forcing at it. “And I’m going to obliterate every last one of them!”

The Shooting Wolf Progrise Key opens.

Bullet! Authorize!

The belt plays a sound clip of “Kamen Rider” over and over, looping, the background music effect audibly looping with it. And then Shooty McAsshole gets a STUPIDLY COOL TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE.

“Henshin!”

SHOTRISE

He fires the gun, and the bullet looks like it’s a seeker round, by the way it zooms around Kuehne, and then back toward Isamu…

It starts to ‘split apart’ as it returns, and then he pUNCHES THE BULLET IN MIDAIR. It breaks apart and the suit forms. The armored portions are the first to appear, latching onto him, as red circuit lines trace down his body, which presumably turn into his undersuit.

But the best part, especially for me, a Double fan, is seeing his helmet form. The individual pieces start as little disks, before spinning out into the shapes on the helmet. Those same red circuit lights that made the base for his suit also trail up his face, before the helmet segments close in and form the helmet proper.

For those who haven’t seen Double – and you should – that helmet formation is almost the exact same way it happens for Double, Accel, Skull, and Eternal. Literally the only difference is that the helmets in Fuuto form out of… like, fragments? They aren’t distinguishable until they’re actively part of the helmet, basically. And the lines are darker in a Gaia Memory based transformation, instead of glowing, but still.

Kamen Rider Valkyrie had better get an even better transformation than Vulcan is. I refuse to let her be shown up by this asshole.

The elevation increases as the bullet is fired

–

Jump! Authorize!

Aruto, I am begging you to get your mechanical grasshopper under control, because once again, he’s causing even more damage to the surroundings. Also, he is very definitely being teleported down from the satellite – the 3D printing doesn’t seem to go through things, and that grasshopper just crashed in through a skylight.

…Aw, man. We’re not going to get a cool robot wolf or cheetah, are we?

Just one more way that Aruto’s transformation is different from the others. He has the undersuit form first, they have the armor. Zero One has a giant robot, Vulcan has a literal bullet. He has a belt, they have a gun.

Hm.

Zero One charges to battle-

–

-and the shot transitions smoothly to Vulcan doing the same. He and Kuehne are swapping blows in the enclosed spaces between shipping containers, while Yua films it with her RisePhone.

“Fuwa Isamu has become Kamen Rider Vulcan. It’s finally begun…”

…Honey, what do you mean by that?

–

Zero One and Ekal have made it to a parking garage – and. Uh. Okay, so. He knocked Ekal down, and said magear landed near a row of motorcycles.

Remember how Berotha used those cables to reprogram the other HumaGear in the last episode?

Ekal just used that to jumpstart a motorcycle to get away.

And then it gets WEIRDER!

Izu shows up, telling Aruto that his phone can summon his company motorcycle.

And by ‘summon,’ we’re being quite literal here. I think we all assumed that the phone was going to be like the Machin Builder. It’s not. The phone has a bike app, that he has to scan on his belt, same as the Progrise Key.

This is where the ‘Changing to Super Bike, Motorcycle Mode’ voice clip comes from.

Then. We see the satellite – which Genm Corp and Over Time agree is called ‘Zea’, as opposed to ‘Z-A’ like Rider Time had chosen. A section on it rotates, and it is definitely straight up sending the grasshopper down for the transformations. How can I tell that?

Because a panel on the satellite opens up, dropping a giant Risephone to earth.

Regular phone, in a polite female voice: “Please watch your head.”

Aruto, confused: “Eh?”

Ceiling: destroyed

The giant risephone is floating over the rubble – yes, it’s definitely floating in mid-air, I can see it bobbing up and down. Aruto presses the giant bike app icon, and there’s the ‘phone becomes a bike’ aspect.

Aruto just sort of goes with this. His life has already become weird enough in the past day and a half, why not just get on the floating phone-bike-comet?!

Zero One and the Rise Hopper nyoom down the street in hot pursuit.

–

Ekal, meanwhile… seems to be following traffic laws much more closely on his stolen Honda than Aruto is on his company vehicle. Case in point, Zero One just used a car as a ramp to get some air. He got too much air, and drove on the side of a building, shattering the windows, several stories up, before finally going back down to the actual ground.

This show is wild, and I think that insert theme is kicking back in.

Oh, no, maybe it’s just normal fight music. Everything looks like it’s going at a weird speed, because they’re allegedly fighting each other by punching and kicking while driving motorcycles next to each other. And it looks really slow! I. You know what, it gets us some NICE stuff, so whatever. Such as Ekal having extendable fangs that nearly knock Zero One off of his bike, but him hanging on by literally one hand and foot, and pulling himself back upright in time to avoid getting hit directly by an oncoming truck.

Then he does some truly absurd kicks to Ekal’s face… while standing on the bike seat.

Our protagonist, ladies and gentlemen!

The second kick is the one that knocks Ekal completely off of his respective bike, so Zero One skids to a stop, and goes back to fight, pulling out his Attache Calibur, going after Ekal.

–

The shot of Zero One rushing off screen with his sword transitions directly into Kuehne’s perspective of attacking Vulcan with his own swords. Vulcan blocking a strike and pushing it away transitions directly into Vulcan’s perspective as he shoots.

The cinematography of this show so far is just. Mwa. Beautiful.

There’s some time with Vulcan dodging the boomerang blades, before Kuehne must catch them and leaps down to attack-

–

-transitioning right into Zero One parkouring up and off of a shipping container to kick Ekal.

Wait. A shipping container? There’s. Uh. Your new location has a lot of those. And Vulcan’s already surrounded by them.

And AIMS thinks Zero One is another rogue HumaGear.

Uh-oh.

…Oh.

Oh, my heart. We’re not even getting that conflict yet.

We’re getting the end of the Zero One versus Ekal fight.

Breathing heavily, Aruto pulls his Progrise Key out of his driver. “There’s only one thing that can stop you…” His voice is shaking, he does not want to have to do this. We see a shot of him tying the kercheif around Mamoru’s arm. He looks at the key, and then back at Ekal. “And that’s me!” His voice is breaking, and so is my heart, and I’m pretty sure he’s trying not to cry under that helmet.

The music is dark, dismal.

There’s nothing heroic about this sunset victory.

–

Yikes.

So. Uh. Vulcan’s initial finisher.

He, naturally, activates the progrise key and shoots. That’s as expected. Four over-sized energy bullets come out. That’s as expected, it’s a superhero finisher.

What’s significantly less expected is for said energy shots to then turn into energy wolves, which track down the fleeing Kuehne. And bit onto his limbs. Okay, yes, fine. When the first two have him by the arms.

They pin him against one of the shipping containers as the other two go for his legs, and when I say ‘pin him against’ I am being incredibly literal.

The wolves turn into spikes and literally pin him in place.

This shipping container isn’t even anywhere Vulcan can see. He fires again.

The energy sphere literally burns straight through three consecutive containers before it reaches where Kuehne is pinned and then presumably melted.

I say presumably, because we don’t see any remains. We do see that the fourth container has had a hole melted through, same as the others. Zero One sees this, as well, since he’s right on the other side, and just barely didn’t get hit by the massive ball of energy that was still going.

Vulcan looks at him, gun still raised and shaking slightly with his rage.

A cloud of smoke billows past Zero One, obscuring his escape.

Vulcan stands alone, a full moon hanging low in the sky.

–

The next day, Jun is heading a press conference – or, trying to. Nobody seems to believe that he doesn’t have any comment with regards to any potential HumaGear having gone berserk. Yua and Isamu watch the chaos unfold as they stand along a back wall. Also, Isamu must have screwed up his shooting arm in that fight, because it’s in a sling.

“It’s the truth!”

And just like in the board room, all it takes is a short, sharp phrase from Aruto to silence the room, even as the theme song intensifies in the background.

Hiden Aruto strides forward, in a well-fitted suit, Izu following a step and a half behind him as he takes the stage. She starts a video as he speaks.

It’s Mamoru, and Jin, right before Mamoru was turned into Ekal. From the direction of the camera… this is taken from a feed from Izu herself.

Aruto, at the podium, in front of reporters and government officials, tells them that the true people behind this are the terrorist group Metsuboujinrai.net, that they hack HumaGears and corrupt their programming.

Going by Yua and Isamu’s reactions, they had no idea that anything of the sort was happening. They also know full well that the third person in the video is Aruto – they recognize that hoodie from the same afternoon.

If he was trying to cover this up, why would he film himself being attacked? Why would he film it with one of his own security guards doing the attacking?

He swears that he will prove that the HumaGear are not at fault.

(He doesn’t say this, but… he’s not doing this as a CEO, but as a person. It’s not a corporate desire driving him to prove his companies innocence, it’s because it’s what’s right, and humans and HumaGear alike deserve better than this.)

One of the human reporters asks who he even is.

“Chief Executive Officer and President of Hiden Intelligence, Hiden Aruto.”

Jun looks like he wants to do a murder.

Aruto has come off cool and collected, serious throughout this entire section… and then a HumaGear reporter brings up that it seems unlikely a comedian like him could be a company president.

This was a mistake.

He steps out from behind the podium, looking like he’s going to make a grandiose statement, and… no. No, it’s one of his terrible, nigh-untranslatable jokes. Something about bright futures and shining and whatever. Izu is now his accomplice, helping him out by shining a light from her tablet.

The room is left silent for a completely different reason.

…Oh no. It’s not going to be heroic resolve that wins Isamu over to Aruto’s side. It’s going to be Aruto’s terrible, awful, no-good sense of humor.

Because Isamu wasn’t fighting the urge to punch him in the office.

He was trying not to break out laughing.

This aspect will not end well.

Isamu and Yua leave, him trying to regain his stoicism, as Aruto desperately begs Izu to stop explaining his jokes.

––––

Zero one zero one zero one zero one zero one I DON’T HAVE A GOOD END COMMENT

UH.

Okay, so. The special effects in this show. The cinematography. They’re SO GOOD.

I acknowledge that Yua’s going to have a very hard time getting a better transformation into Valkyrie than Isamu has into Vulcan, but by gaim, I need her to beat him out.

The cuts between shots tying into each other during the fights was just. Ugh. Yes. It’s beautiful.

The only problem I have right now, that I’m willing to get into, anyway… where are our opening credits?! Are we going to have to wait until episode four for them?! Because episode three is where we’re finally getting Valkyrie, so they might just be waiting until we have our three main riders. Might.

As for the problem that I’m not willing to get into just yet… I know that I didn’t mention, during the press conference, that there’s a shot of… a new Mamoru. I don’t want to get into the topic of “can you ��recreate’ an AI” at the moment. I’m not good at dealing with things like the Ship of Theseus Paradox in the first place, and since it looks like we’re going to be getting more into the ‘do HumaGear have hearts’ next episode, I’d like to at minimum wait until then.

Until next week!

Zero one zero one zero one zero one- PLEASE JUST GIVE US OUR PROPER OPENING SEQUENCE ALREADY I BEG YOU.

(Takahashi-san, please. Please don’t start off doing the thing from Ex-Aid, where Excite wound up being an ending theme for a good third of the season. Please.)

#kamen rider zero one #sailorcressy says #OPENING WHEN?!

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robobrainmurdermysterytheatre · 5 years ago

Text

Fallout OC Interview!

I already tagged people, so I’m not tagging anyone in this. I took FOREVER because I thought every question needed an essay-length answer. Also because I went “Oh, I have SCREENSHOTS that would fit well with these questions 😏” then had to sift through the 9gb of screenshots I have to find them. Enjoy!

Rules:

1. Choose an OC.

2. Answer them as that OC.

3. Tag 5 people to do the same.

What is your name? Jack Daniel O’Kelley

How old are you? 24... no, 25 now. Actually, technically, 235.

What do you look like? I’m white, almost 6ft tall, blonde hair, freckles, blue eyes... well, they used to be blue, now they’re... weird... one robot arm, lots of scars, lots of tattoos... you’ll know me when you see me, believe me.

[Read the rest under the cut 👇 It’s long! I threw in a bunch of pictures for lookin’ at! Also, the story of how Jack lost his arm!]

Where are you from? Where do you live now? Boston, born and raised. Except, before the war. Now I live in Sanctuary. I pack up and winter out in the southwest, though! Hate the cold.

What was your childhood like? Before the age of 10? Not great. I was an orphan, grew up in an orphanage. I can’t complain, compared to what orphans in this time have to go through? Still... it was... not something I even want to talk about. But once my parents adopted me? It was nice, it was normal, mostly. They were good people. I didn’t want for anything. They made up for everything else I’d been through.

What groups are you friendly with? Are you allied with any factions? I’m General of The Minutemen, so I’d say we’re pretty friendly. The Minutemen have a good, solid relationship with The Railroad, and I personally do as well. We also have a good relationship with Goodneighbor, we always get supplies from there rather than Diamond City, if we can. And again, in a personal sense, I’m a big fan of the Mayor over there. Close personal friend! There are also some groups up north, in Far Harbor I’m on pretty good terms with: the harbormen, the synth refuge. Being popular with the Children of Atom from up there has perks that carry over into dealing with them in the Commonwealth as well. Oh! And the Atom Cats are definitely friends, they gave me a neat jacket and everything. They’re not really a militant faction or anything, they’re great to just hang out with and build cool power armor. They have a poetry night, too!

Tell me about your best friend. That’s just a friend? His name is Deacon. I’m pretty sure I’m not at liberty to tell you anything else about him, though. My other best friend is Piper, number one reporter in the wasteland. Very fun, very funny, very kind. We get drunk and sing showtunes together sometimes. She’s surprisingly good at fighting, more than once now I’ve seen her wreck with a minigun she just picked up from whatever enemy we just downed, but she’s still really good with that 10mm. She reminds me a lot of my late wife in a lot of ways. She’s doing amazing things, bringing truth to the people.

Do you have a family? Tell me about them! I had my family before the war... my parents and then my wife, Ray, and son, Shaun, later. They’re all gone now. I have my son... he’s a synth replica of my human son that he made of himself... it’s complicated... but it’s not. I love him. He’s more my real son than the old man I met nearly a year ago who was the person my human son became. And my husband, Danse. And everyone around us in Sanctuary, really, is family. We all love and support each other, that’s what matters, you know? Even some people outside of Sanctuary - Nicky in Diamond City is like a father to me, Longfellow up north on the island too... The Abernathy’s treated me kindly and helped me supply up when I first came out of the vault and I had no idea what was going on, they were the first people I saw, so they feel a lot like family, too... and the Railroad, like Deacon puts it, are just “one big dysfunctional family, with guns” and, well, working with them like I do, we’re family. I also have a cousin on my dad’s side that survived the war, Celeste! She has the best weed and is a big *ahem* fan of Mayor Hancock. I love her dearly.

What about a partner or partners? I’m married to Danse, he’s an amazing man. Besides being tall, dark and handsome, he’s dedicated, strong, loyal, smart, principled... he’s also the biggest softie I know, he’s compassionate and loving and oh, god, his sense of humor is blink-and-you’ll-miss-it dry but if you catch it, it’s amazing. I have no idea what he’s doing with a guy like me. We balance each other out really well, he helps me keep my shit together, and I help him cut loose. Our marriage is sort of open, we both have people from before we got together that are really important to us, so I have a boyfriend, too. He lives out in Vegas now, where he’s from, but I met him up here during a really dark time when I thought I didn't have anything left in me and had run away from everything. He gave me back the will to keep trying. Haley’s really special - smart as a whip, loyal to a fault, goodhearted, charming, one hell of a shot... Oh, and gorgeous. We’ve had a lot of fun together, just wish I could see him more often. And then there’s Preston. He’s just... everything that’s good and right about humanity. How could I not fall in love with him? He’s beautiful inside and out, he has a heart of pure gold, he’s fought so hard for everything he believes in. I didn’t even realize he had any kind of feelings for me until after I had already gotten together with Danse, but, after we worked out the whole open relationship thing, we got together and that was that.

Who are your enemies, and why? Number one on my shitlist are The Gunners. We’ve been whittling away their numbers, so they’re less of a threat than when I first encountered them. They’re still a legitimate enough with the firepower, organization and numbers they still do have. Anyone or anything that threatens the settlers or the Minutemen are enemies in my book. Things are pretty tense with the Brotherhood of Steel, as well. There’s no... official conflict with them at the moment, but they’re on thin ice.

But seriously, fuck The Gunners.

Have you ever heard of The Brotherhood of Steel? What do you think about them? Ah, yes. I think if they weren’t trying to spearhead a synth genocide on my turf, we would be able to coexist just fine. I actually used to be in the Brotherhood, though it was mostly me being opportunistic, hoping they could help me find my son and getting to play with power armor and big guns and giant robots. My husband was, too. We were Paladins! Well... I kind of took his position after they kicked him out... he recruited me, he was my commanding officer - one hell of an officer, too, that’s why I field promoted him to Captain of the Minutemen. But I’m getting off topic - The Brotherhood, thankfully seems to have at least slowed down on the synth genocide bullshit after The Minutemen and our allies blew up The Institute. I gently reminded Elder Maxson that’s what happens when people fuck with my family. I haven’t had too many issues with them since.

[Knight O’Kelley 😏]

What about The Enclave? I’ve heard about them from multiple sources, I’m not sure how much of that information is good information, but from my understanding, they sound like assholes. Dangerous assholes.

How do you feel about Super Mutants? I feel bad for them. The ones out here in the Commonwealth were made against their will by The Institute. That’s bullshit. I’ll still kill them when they’re shooting at me, though. I’ve ran into a few friendly ones, there’s Strong and Erickson, and Virgil used to be a Super Mutant but now he’s a human again. I know there’s friendly, smarter Super Mutants in other areas. They’re people too, just like ghouls, just like synths, just like humans. If they’re friendly, I’m friendly, if they’re hostile, I’m hostile. Just wish there were more around here that weren’t hostile. They’re also excellent fighters, I definitely admire the no-bullshit approach they take to fighting.

What’s the craziest fight you’ve ever been in? Oh, boy, this one’s hard, I’ve been in some crazy fights. Probably The Battle for Bunker Hill, where everyone showed up to the party and I almost died. I was still working undercover at The Institute on the Railroad’s behalf, and so Me, Danse, Deacon, Preston, Hancock, and Mac all go out to meet this Courser. We had Danse in full power armor because we were worried about the Courser recognizing him, but he refused to stay behind because he was worried about me but I’m really glad he didn’t. So we meet this guy, the idea was that we were going to go with him to reclaim these four synths hiding out at Bunker Hill, but when we had a chance, instead we’d take him out and relocate the synths. Well, somehow The god damn Brotherhood of Steel got word of the synths hiding out there as well, so we go in and it’s just a clusterfuck, The Railroad agents, gen 1s, Brotherhood, Caravan guards, everyone’s firing at everyone everywhere. That made getting in easy, we just waded through the fire. We got down there, jumped this Courser and secured the synths. Then we had to fight our way out and in the process Danse’s armors broken, so he has to hop out, but we have everything pretty well handled. Then a second wave of Vertibirds roll in, they’re dropping guys, they’re firing on us from the air, everything is chaos again. They recognized Danse and they were out for blood, they start coming for him instead of the synths we’re protecting, which at least gave Preston, Deacon and Mac a chance to take the four kids to relative safety. So Danse and I are distracting them, trying to slowly retreat, but keep their attention on us enough the rest of our folks can get away. I’m on one side of the street and he’s on the other, just ripping into them. Then this grenade sails over my cover and lands right next to me. I’m pissed, I’m exhausted, I’m thinking, I’m going to throw this motherfucker back at them, there’s nowhere to run, we’re pinned down, fuck it. That was... the wrong call. Or I don’t know, I’m still here, so maybe it wasn’t. I reached down and next thing I know my ears are ringing and I’m flat on my back in the middle of the street in the most excruciating pain I have ever been in. Last thing I see before I black out is my gorgeous, heroic husband standing over me, absolutely fucking furious, unleashing complete and utter hell with that gatling laser on what’s left of the Brotherhood troops. And that’s how I lost my arm!

Have you ever fought a Deathclaw? Many. I hate fighting them, honestly. They’re beautiful creatures. Terrifying, but beautiful.

Do you like fighting? I’m so tired of fighting.

What’s your weapon of choice? In a perfect world, where I won’t accidentally blow up my friends? Mayhem, my quad-barrel missile launcher with a built in targeting computer painted Atom Cats colors. Generally, though, I go with my sniper rifle, Liberator, or the laser rifle Danse gave me, Righteous Authority.

How do you survive? Your wits, your charm, your skills, brute force, some combination? (a.k.a. what’s your S.P.E.C.I.A.L?) As much as I’d like to think it’s my excellent combat prowess, mostly some combination of my skills and my charm have helped me stay alive.

Have you ever been in a vault? What do you think about them? Fuck Vault-Tec, fuck their mothers, fuck all their friends and fuck the vaults. Except Clarence, the salesman who sold me my family’s place in Vault 111. They fucked him over, too. He didn’t know. I can’t be mad. We’re friends. And Curie, technically, was Vault-Tec, when she was a robot, but that’s different. Oh, and the vault I kind of... own... now is OK, the original Overseer left when I did her freaky experiments wrong. It’s known as the Party Vault, now! But listen, I was frozen for 210 years in Vault 111, and as fucked up as that is, that’s probably one of the most benign things Vault-Tec ever did to anyone. They carried out some of the most horrific things I have ever heard of, they’re awful.

[Vault 88, the Party Vault!]

How do you beat all the radiation around here? Has it affected you? I don’t have to work too hard to deal with the radiation after the... “religious experience” I had when I “infiltrated” the Children of Atom for Acadia. I still don’t have an explanation for what happened, but, the radiation heals me and eventually dissipates itself after a while, when it even does effect me. Every so often during a bad radstorm I still have to pop some Rad-X. Before that, though, lots of Rad-X and Radaway and cowering in corners of buildings when radstorms blew through. Radstorms used to do a number on me, they’d give me panic attacks, hallucinations - and not the fun kind - make me sick. Not so much anymore, so that’s good.

What’s your favorite wasteland critter? Deathclaws. They’re majestic, they’re fierce and huge. They have interesting mutations that turn them neat colors. I think they’re a lot more intelligent than the average wasteland critter.

What’s your least favorite wasteland critter? Radroaches. Everyone said roaches would survive the apocalypse and not only did they survive, they got more disgusting. Yuck.

How do you feel about robots? Pretty fucking good! I’ve been fascinated with them since before the war. I was going to go into a career in robotics. I guess I kind of ended up doing that, since I build so many now. And Codsworth, who’s a robot, is one of my favorite people. So, yeah, pretty fucking good.

[These are babeys]

How many caps do you have on you right now? Twenty four thousand give or take. Don’t even think about robbing me of them.

Nuka Cola or Sunset Sarsaparilla? Listen, Haley sent me a crate of Sunset Sarsaparilla once and that shit is way better than any flavor of Nuka Cola I’ve ever had.

Do you do chems? Yes. But strictly for business, not pleasure anymore. Before the war, I was addicted to Psycho and Med-X, and probably Mentats, back from when I was in Anchorage. Hell, even as a kid I would get high here and there. I would really do whatever I could get my hands on. But I cleaned up when Ray was pregnant. Once I lost her and Shaun, it was open season again, especially since chems seem to flow pretty freely in some places around here. I had it bad, my friends had to drag me more than half dead to a wasteland doctor more than once. But once I got Shaun back... I couldn’t do that to him, I couldn’t do it anymore. Sometimes the occasion calls for it, though, there are a lot of fights I wouldn’t have walked away from without the extra edge. I just have to watch it.

Do you ever think about the Pre-War world? A lot. I think about the life I had before, the people I cared about. I also think about the mistakes were made that got us to the place we are now, if anything to try to avoid making them again. If they’re even avoidable...

What’s your deepest regret? What would you do differently? Not being able to protect my family in the vault. I don’t know what I could have done differently, I was trapped in there, what could I do? I think about it every day like maybe I’ll have an answer to that question, but I never find one.

What’s your biggest achievement? Or what do you hope to achieve? Destroying the Institute, hands down, biggest achievement. They were the biggest roadblock to a functioning Commonwealth, and now they’re gone we can actually build something.

What do you want for the future? For yourself? Your friends? The world?

Peace, for all three.

#sole survivor

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snarky-badger · 6 years ago

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Oooooo—an Ultron idea for you!! Reader works at a computer store, and recently stuff has been going missing. But there's never any alarms, and the cameras just keep malfunctioning for no reason. It's just a mystery, until one night she's closing and forgets something inside after locking up. Instead of having to turn everything on and back off again, she just uses her phone light except now it seems like a horror game, and suddenly she gets the feeling that she's not alone anymore.

I had fun with this one. Again, its open ended in case someone wants more.

Sorry for the day and a half of quiet from me. Been distracted.

There was nothing you hated more than getting blamed for something that wasn’t your fault.

For three weeks, after you closed up the Best Buy you worked at, things - laptops, processors, motherboards, various circuitry and parts - had gone missing. Of course, your boss blamed you, as you were the last one in the store. But there were cameras everywhere, and you’d been filmed multiple times, closing up shop and leaving without the stolen merchandise, so there was nothing he could do.

Still, it irritated you.

It wouldn’t happen at the same time, either. There was no pattern, no reason. There weren’t any parts showing up on eBay, or in pawn shops. And every time, the cameras showed nothing. Naturally, you’d thought that someone had merely looped the footage, but your boss, the supposed Mr. Know-It-All, had waved your idea aside.

You’d been tasked with putting extra security tags and stickers on every box, every computer, sometimes doubling up the tags - it was an insult, you usually worked at the Geek Squad desk - but you weren’t in a position to argue, so you did it. Honestly, you were doubtful that it was a walkout thief, the cameras and security scanners at the doors would have caught them.

You boss had even put chains on the loading dock doors and back doors every night, and it had been interesting to watch him fume in the morning when the chains were found neatly coiled up on the floor, the padlocks locks sitting atop them.

Honestly, everyone was baffled. You were mainly pissed, but what could you do? Nothing. That was what. Someone was getting in, and there seemed to be no way to stop them short of hiring a twenty-four-hour guard - but corporate wouldn’t spring for the extra money.

So things continued on like that for another two weeks, your boss almost having an aneurysm every morning and the employees taking bets on who was responsible - there was a rather large pot going on. The top guess was a ghost, of all things. Your money was on some hacker desperate for parts.

But you kept your nose clean, and away from your boss. Closed up every night, waving at the cameras, and then heading to catch your bus.

Until one night, you forgot your MP3 player in the office.

You cursed, lowly, and headed back inside, not bothering with the overhead lights as you used your phone’s flashlight option to guide the way. Passing through the isles to the back offices was eerie, like something out of a Doom game. You half expected to have something jump out at you as you stepped into the pitch black office, but nothing came.

Shaking your head at your own stupidity, you grabbed your MP3 from it’s spot next to the computer you’d been debugging and deleting porn viruses off of, then headed back out, locking the back door behind you - you didn’t dare leave it open, the safe for all the cash was back there. You’d never hear the end of it if that was stolen.

You were heading back to the main doors, cutting through the gaming isle, when something rustled in the rear of the store. The light from your phone illuminated about five feet of space around you as you spun towards the sound, your heart in your throat.

Fuck, was the thief already in the store? You couldn’t be sure over the sound of your breathing and heartbeat, but you thought you’d heard movement, footsteps.

Shit, now what? Run, and get fired for not protecting the store? Call the cops?

But if you called the cops and it was nothing, you’d be a laughing stock.

Well, fuck. You’d have to check it out.

You weren’t being paid enough for this shit.

Hands shaking, making the light from your phone wobble dizzyingly, you headed towards where you thought you’d heard the noise, biting your lip to stay quiet. Wove through the isles, trying to keep your footsteps silent. Which, you realized, was useless, considering you were holding a bright shining beacon telling everyone where you were.

Giving up on stealth, you quickened your pace to the back of the store, hoping to either surprise the thief or at least just hurry up and figure out what was going on so you could leave, please and thank you.

You turned the corner, leaving the camera isle and heading into the isle with the external hard drives and walked right into a wall.

Cursing, you stumbled backwards, tripping over your own feet and landing on your butt on the floor. Your phone clattered to the tiles, spinning, the light dazzling you for a moment. When it stopped, you looked up and gaped.

There was a giant metal man staring down at you with glowing red eyes.

Naturally, you screamed.

Abandoning your phone, you scrambled to your feet and ran. Got, maybe five feet away before darkness enveloped you and you slammed face first into a massive display of radio controlled cars.

You hit the floor, a car bouncing off your head, as you sprawled across it’s numerous brethren, and out the door went your decorum. “Son of a bitch! Fuck!”

Heavy footsteps approached you. You were too addled to move, especially when you reached up to pull yourself to your feet only to have the rest of the display topple onto you.

“Are you alright?”

The slightly metallic, yet rich, voice that came from the metal man towering over you made you blink. He was carrying your phone, angling the light so it wouldn’t blind you. “You’re the thief.” Oh yes, brilliant deduction Sherlock. Fucksakes. “The fuck, man! I keep getting shit over the stuff you take!”

Crimson eyes blinked down at you before a laugh rumbled out of him. “Ah. You’re the one that closes up the store. Wasn’t expecting you to come back in. I thought you’d gone for the night.”

The calm, conversational, tone of his voice threw you off. “Forgot my MP3,” you grimaced, wincing as you shoved toy cars off of yourself. “I’d call the cops on you but no one would believe me.”

“I’d rather you didn’t. I…. Well, there’s a reason I’m ransacking a Best Buy instead of stealing top of the line parts. What’s the saying? I’m trying to keep things on the down-low?”

You squinted up at him, blinking when he crouched down. Close up, you could see that he had a sort of red cloak on him, a feeble attempt at hiding his metal form. Tiny metal pieces, like an intricate puzzle, made up his amazingly expressive face, crimson eyes like camera lenses focusing on you. "What, not a fan of eBay?“

"That would require an address. Besides, seeing your reaction, it isn’t as if I can stroll into a Post Office and rent a mailbox.”

“It’ dark and you scared the crap out of me,” you snapped in your defense. “I was expecting some moron in a ski mask not Megatron’s mini-me.”

Another chuckle left him. “Can’t say I’ve ever been compared to a Transformer before.” He tilted his head at you curiously. “Do you need help getting up?”

“What I need–” you paused to kick at one of the boxed up toy cars that were scattered around you. “Is a drink. I hope to hell you already looped the cameras, because I don’t want this clusterfuck plastered all over the lunchroom.”

Those crimson eyes of his widened a little. “Well, well. And here I took you for a run of the mill retail worker.”

“I am and overqualified run of the mill retail worker. I’m just not as stupid as my boss. Or my co-workers. There’s a betting pool going on over you. Half the staff thinks this place is haunted.”

He laughed again. “Well, I could try skulking around.” He grasped the edges of his ‘cloak’ and held a bit over his face. “Phantom of the Best Buy? Though I think I’d have trouble trying to get an organ into the basement.”

You snickered. “We don’t have a basement.”

“Hence the trouble,” he straightened, rising to his full height, towering over you again, then held a hand out to you. “Here, up you get.”

You hesitated a moment, then took his hand, gasping when he lifted you up onto your feet as if you weighed nothing. The fingers around yours were warm, not cold like you’d expected for a man made out of metal, and you felt him give you a gentle squeeze before letting go.

“There we go. Nothing broken?”

“Nothing but my pride.” You sent a look at the scattered remains of the display. “I’ll clean that up in the morning. Y'know, if you need stuff in bulk, we got a shipment of parts in today. It’s still in the back.”

One metal brow arched upwards. “Aiding and abetting a criminal now?”

You shrugged. “What the hell do I care? Boss’ll just blame me for it anyway and make my life hell whether you take it or not. Sides’ I figure that if someone as advanced as you obviously are is stealing from a Best Buy that you’re kinda desperate, so go for it.”

“Advanced?”

“I figured that calling you a robot might be rude. It’s the best I could come up with.”

“Ah. Well, thank for that then. Being called a 'robot’ is a rather touchy subject.”

“Hence the vagueness. You have a name or….?”

He shifted a little. “If you don’t know who I am, then it’s probably best that I don’t tell you.”

“You realize that I’ll just start googling 'giant technologically advanced metal man’ as soon as I get home, right?”

A very human sigh left him. “That’s not a good idea. Not unless you want SHEILD and the Avengers banging on your door.”

“Fucksakes. You’re big time, aren’t you? Fine, fine. I’ll drop it.” You ran a nervous hand through your hair, then blinked when something occurred to you. “Y'know, you’d be better off ransacking the warehouse the next town over. It’s one of the main shipping centers for all the stores in the region. Loads of merch there compared to the low stock here. Probably save you a few trips.”

He blinked. “That wasn’t listed on the directory I found on the servers.”

“Wouldn’t be. It’s just a warehouse, not a store.”

“Hm. And you’re alright with this? Most people wouldn’t be helping me.”

“I prefer to think of myself as different than 'most people’. Also, I get paid minimum wage, no benefits and my boss is an asshole. My loyalty to this place vanished about three months ago when they denied my sick leave because I wasn’t full-time.”

A disgusted noise left him. “It’s deplorable how this country treats it’s retail workers.”

“You have no idea. Speaking of, I’m going to be late to my other job. Gonna need my phone back.”

He eyed you a little warily. “No photos.”

“Pfft. As if I expect you to hold still long enough for a shot. Also, you could probably drop-kick me across the store, and I’m not a good flyer.” You made a little 'gimme’ gesture with your left hand, smiling a little when your phone was deposited into your palm. “Thanks.”

He watched you quietly as you checked it enough to insure that you hadn’t broken it when you’d dropped it earlier. “It still works, don’t worry.”

“It hit the floor. I worry.” Deeming it alive and well, you tilted it so the flashlight would still illuminate your odd companion without blinding either of you. “I need to go. Remember, all the good stock is in the back.”

“…Thank you.”

“Welcome.” You turned to leave, pausing when a large hand landed on your shoulder.

“Wait.” He sounded hesitant, and he was watching you again. “I have a crazy idea.”

“Does it involve me getting arrested for property theft?” you asked with a raised eyebrow. “Because I’m not really into vertical bars and I hate the colour orange.”

“Trust me, I can keep you safe. How would you like a job?”

“…a what?”

“You’re on the Geek Squad, right? I cross referenced your name with the employee roster. So you have at least a basic knowledge of computers and operating systems.”

You had no idea where he was heading. “Yeah?”

“I need another set of hands to help gather some supplies. Someone smart enough to be able to build a computer from scratch. And maybe a little help searching through that warehouse.”

That implications of that made you hesitate. You may have been lax about a giant metal man stealing from your workplace, but becoming a thief yourself… that was something completely different. “Why would you need me to help you build something? I mean, hell, look at you. You don’t need me to put a system together. If you can hack into the servers, you sure as hell are more than capable of dealing with some hardware.”

“True. But at the moment, I’m still just one person. I can only be in one place at a time. Which is… irking, trust me.”

“…can I give it some thought?”

He looked surprised that you were even going to consider it. “Of course. Here, pass me your phone for a moment.”

You did so, watching as he pulled a cord out from his left forearm, connecting it to your phone. The screen flickered a little, and you worried, before he hummed in satisfaction and disconnected from it again. “I upgraded your security and added a new app. You can contact me with it when you come to a decision.”

Blinking, you accepted your phone back again. “What kind of security?”

“Ah. The untraceable, unhackable kind. Don’t want just anyone contacting me, after all.”

A smirk tugged at your lips. “Telemarketers?”

“Telemarketers. Trying to convince me that my computer needs servicing.”

The dry, unimpressed, tone of his voice and the absurdity made you laugh. “Yeah, okay, you win the 'most annoying telemarketer’ award. Tell them you don’t have a computer, it makes them go nuts. Alternatively, tell them you’re from IT and you intercepted their call due to a problem, get them to confirm the type of phone they’re on , then google the reset setting and get them to follow the instructions. It’ll fuck up their phone for a week.”

That pulled an actual belly laugh from your odd companion, and you grinned when he mimed wiping a tear from his eyes. “Oh, that’s cruel. I love it. I’ll try that next time.”

“It’s highly entertaining on a petty level,” you grinned, waving a little as you turned to leave. “I’ll call you in a couple of days. I just need a bit of time to wrap my brain the insanity of this situation.”

He chuckled again. “Take your time.”

“See you around, Mr. Thief.” You left him behind as you headed for the front of the store, going through your interrupted custom of locking up the store. It was only when you were waiting at the bus stop for your ride to your next job that you took a good look at your phone blinking at the new icon that had joined the others, your brain power screeching to a stop at the name of it.

Jesus wept.

“ULTRON?!”

#snarky is writing #ultron #ultron x reader #reader x ultron #filled prompt

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