#I want to make him untrustworthy

[yuri-draws]

Oler

Just created him and don't know much of anything about him yet.

[raticalshoez]

Was thinking of my post about dream teams and got really invested in whatever Unrequited Hate has going on

[buwheal]

Ask sketched out for wway later that i rlly like but you wont actually see any of the pose because its obscured by his desk. so. :-(

[itspileofgoodthings]

also while we’re here when Fanny is leaving some social event (can’t remember what) and Henry gets her shawl for her and he’s prompt and quick and dexterous and romantic and she’s just like “sigh. wish it was Edmund.”

[freakinator]

If you don’t mind, I’m gonna yap for a second.. I think another problem with Kab is how sudden the turn around was. Like in the first convo where Kab was acting “evil”, Zam fought back with the argument that she’s wasn’t really evil at all and I think he did believe that at least a little. And if Kab slowly began to turn her path around then he would be a bit more trusting cause he would have SEEN her actual emotional growth but the turn around was so fast, it feels like there was no emotional growth at all and that Kab is still the same as before, cause she basically is. She still wants Mane dead no matter the cost and she’s still, intentionally or not, trying to manipulate Zam, but she wants to be treated as if she’s had that whole long term emotional growth

yeah ii think this is where her majority experience with short-term smps really bit her in the ass, i think there are two main directions that other ppl take it tho: 1. is as what you speculate in that some ppl think that she hasnt had genuine growth and hasnt changed at all and 2. that she genuinely changes too quickly and is therefore unreliable regardless of if shes being honest or not

i think the reason zam was so receptive to her in silent scream was cause this has been a recurrent plot point for a couple streams now, kab trespassing zams base to yap while zam tries to decipher her wants and motivations until eventually she just let it all out and in that instance i think he did genuinely believed that she changed even if it was slowly/just a little bit

....but then die for you happened lol

ssee the thing about kab is that shes shes all-or-nothing, going from one extreme to the next after just a little bit of change in character which can be jarring to some ppl to say the least (unless you thought she was lying and therefore any character development shouldnt be believed i suppose) but is something that was a great asset in shorter and arena-based smps where you had to get as much advantage against your opponent as possible without having to worry about the long-term consequences of these actions ie them not trusting you while still having to interact often in mundane ways even after messing with them. while she Can be swayed this only really works with things she was already unsure of which while a great motivator and trait to keep her on track with her goals (again another great trait for short-term smps), can be really jarring and distressing for other ppl if the things she was absolutely sure about goes against their own perspective like for example her thinking that derapchu killing her constitutes zam getting payback for her as the protector of the server (The protector, not A protector like zam insists, The protector of the server)

i think shes far too used to the fast-paced instant acceptance of changed personality in arena smps that is a natural consequence of them being short-term and having a revolving door of members and teams which is why she expects ppl to accept her growth and efforts so quickly even if realistically nobody would hand over their trust that easily esp after essentially being harassed in their own home multiple times, like even in normal smps where theres a baseline amount of trust ppl still wouldnt trust you after doing that, what more in a server like lifesteal where general trust is low basically all the time?

[callilouv]

eugjghg........

[snekdood]

i think if people look back at all of this, the amount of people trying to suppress my voice, the amount of people Not believing a victim, the amount of people who want me to shut up about it- i dont think history is gonna look as kindly upon yall as you might hope.

[varchaiiart]

Relativity Falls age swap au w/ younger Bill!

soo I'm trying to think of a way to incorporate baby Bill into Relativity Falls in a way that makes sense (as someone with a mabel brain instead of a dipper brain so feel free to give me feedback if this is makes no sense!)

Lets say our realm and Euclydia exist on overlapping planes. Since Bill is still a child at this point, Euclydia isnt destroyed! But despite the realms overlapping, they exist outside of each other's reach, present but not visible or detectable by any means. However, within our favourite town of Gravity Falls, the distance between realms is significantly shorter (something to do with its attraction to Weirdness).

more under cut!

Enter Bill with his mutation. His eye allows him to see into our realm unlike the rest of his people. Everyone thinks he's insane/daydreams too much for seeing a whole other world (especially if, to others, it looks like he has no eye). He eventually figures out how to step out of Euclydia INTO the Gravity Falls since the space between realms is much shorter, appearing as a sort of incorporeal light projection!

He quickly becomes friends with Ford since they both have a mutation making them different, and eventually Stan too! Both of them healing his hurt and teaching him empathy/generally being best buds.

Either no portal incident would happen in this AU or perhaps another extra-dimensional being would take Bill's place in manipulating Dipper into building the portal. Perhaps the Axolotl (but evil edition)? And this could cause Dipper to be HIGHLY untrustworthy of beings from other dimensions forcing the a confrontation between him and the Stans as they try to protect their new best friend from their great uncle who's following a misguided attempt to protect them.

but mostly i just want to focus on cute interactions between bill and the stans lol

[morlock-holmes]

The Conspiratorial Mindset

So, I've always had a bit of an interest in scams and hokum, and what people call "Cults".

One of the common refrains when you talk about religious Cults is, "If you think about it all religions have beliefs that seem odd to outsiders" and this is true, but as I read more about cults I started to think,

"Wait, a lot of these groups aren't united just by having unusual religious or supernatural views; a lot of them also seem to have matching patterns of behaviors that have nothing to do with belief in psychic space aliens"

I'm talking about things like,

Having a leadership structure which is absolute, where the top leaders cannot be disciplined or even openly criticized by lower members;

Exerting tremendous control over the dress and behavior of adherents;

Telling adherents that outsiders are untrustworthy and that contact with outsiders should be strictly limited and heavily monitored by organizational leadership;

The extensive and common use of shunning and reprogramming in response to violation of any of the above rules.

In some groups, failing to adhere to the dress code and spending a lot of time with outsiders is, at worst, the subject of a few little jabs at family gatherings. In other groups, those same behaviors are treated as Defcon one crises and become the central issue of the adherent's relationship with everybody else in the organization until they can be bullied back into doing the organization's bidding.

It was gratifying to learn that other people have noticed these patterns (Some people prefer the term "High Control Group" to "Cult" because it highlights what the actual problem is)

I am starting to notice similar dynamics in what are commonly called "Conspiracy theories".

The thing about conspiracy theories is... Well, conspiracies exist, and sometimes groups of powerful people get together to do something in secret which would get them in big trouble if they were to do it openly.

But I am starting to notice a particular, I don't know, a particular way of conceptualizing the organization and purpose of conspiracies which is unique to some people and which characterizes the kind of conspiracy theorist who takes Alex Jones seriously.

I kind of think of it as a "Witch-Hunting mentality".

For certain people in more primitive times and places, if they, say, slipped off a ladder and hurt themselves, their first thought would be, "That must have happened because a witch cursed me. We need to find and punish the witch who cursed me."

And this isn't just the attribution of malice that characterizes this idea:

One malicious conspiracy that might make you fall off a ladder is a manufacturer who doesn't care about safety ratings. Imagine that the manufacturer is really deliberately malicious here. A subordinate comes to him and says, "Our ladders can't reliably hold the weight of a person and a lot of them will probably break and cause people to fall and hurt themselves." and he says, "I know that but who cares, by the time people figure it out it'll be too late to get their money back."

That's a malicious conspiracy, but, importantly, if Bob buys a faulty ladder and falls off, the conspiracy wasn't trying to hurt Bob; it merely didn't care whether Bob got hurt.

Now, this distinction doesn't take away the malice and hostility towards Bob, but if you go to the ladder manufacturer and say, "Hey boss, Bob bought one of our faulty ladders, but he's really skinny so the ladder didn't break" the manufacturer will go, "Who the fuck is Bob? And good, that's one less angry person."

Whereas imagine Bob's ladder has been cursed to break by a witch. The witch did it because she hates Bob, and wants him to fall, and if she finds out he didn't fall, she'll go, "Curses, I'll have to find some other way to hurt Bob."

Conspiracy theorists, it seems to me, are far more inclined to conceptualize conspiracies as acts of deliberate malice aimed at them rather than acts of negligent malice.

@loving-n0t-heyting posted this article from the New York Post which contains a good example of what I mean:

“I thought I was on the cutting edge of promoting rights for gay people,” Yang said. “But then I started looking deeper into where this was coming from and who was paying for it, and I started to get very disillusioned...

I assume the people paying for it are LGBT advocacy groups? Did you, uh, not know that the people you were working for were paying you to work for them?

“When you really dig down you can see how much of this comes from documents and plans at the United Nations,” Yang said, referring in part to the UN’s “Gender Equality” initiative. “It’s part of a global agenda to restructure society, re-structure our social norms and the economy,” Yang claimed. “They are undermining the sexually dimorphic nature of reality and breaking down the differences between the sexes to break down our identity. They are constructing identities for us and they want us to adopt them.”

Oh, I see.

This is exactly what I mean. LGBT rights efforts make Yang and others feel disoriented, like society is being restructured and that they are being left behind, like they aren't quite in control of social norms and that stable identity categories can't be relied on anymore.

Now, one kind of conservative might look at that and say, "These are bad second order effects of LGBT people trying to assert their lifestyle in public and that's why we should oppose them."

But another kind says, "These changes make me feel unstable. Therefore, the main purpose of the changes is to make me feel unstable. In order to understand these changes, I need to figure out who wants me to feel unstable and what they would gain from making me feel unstable."

The idea that Yang's feeling of instability is simply a side effect of a series of efforts mainly focused on LGBT rights is incomprehensible. Instead, she believes that there is a series of efforts focused mainly on making her feel unstable, with LGBT rights as a kind of side effect to the main goal of making her feel unstable.

This kind of thing is, to me, a big red flag that indicates that we are starting to float away from reasonable conspiracy thinking into crazy town.

I am particularly curious if folks can recommend any writers or researchers who have noticed this dynamic.

[gotham-daydreams]

Not Now (PT. 2)

[Platonic! Yandere! Neglectful Batfam × Gender Neutral! Sibling Reader]

[Warnings: Mentions of Neglect, Mild General Yandere(ish) Behavior, Arguing, Awkward Tension(?), No One is Having a Good Time, Angst, Implied Past Injuries (To Reader)]

(When I say arguing I do mean it this time. Might be a bit more OOC? Dick is living up to his nickname. This is longer than the first part, just fyi - and by a good 4k or so words. Again, take your time and remember to take breaks!)

Didn't tag anyone on this post since both this part and the first are posted back to back :] Regardless, enjoy!

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3 (PT. 1). [Series Masterlist]

๑۩۞۩๑————————————————————๑۩۞۩๑

"I… I just don't think it's a good idea. It doesn't feel right, and- and I…" You couldn't think of much else to say. All the reasons you had felt too personal, and you didn't feel comfortable telling Dick any of them. Not out here, and certainly not while he was in the suit. Though even if he wasn't, you weren't sure that it'd make you any more willing to tell him anything. 

After all, you wouldn't even share the date of your birthday if he asked now, with or without the suit.

"Yeah, but why? It doesn't make sense to not go to either place just because you have a ‘bad feeling’ or anything. Even then, you'll be safe, and that's what really matters." That didn't feel like it was the case. Your safety doesn't feel like a priority over him just being able to keep an eye on you, and being able to pull anything he wants to without any prying eyes.

Though it was with that thought, did you wonder when you began to see Dick as someone so untrustworthy that you considered him to be on the same level as a thug out on the streets. Just far more dangerous and capable.

"Look, I just-" You sigh harshly, looking back at Dick as the fire in your chest rose, building up as it poked at your ribs and flesh. Begging for more air, more room to grow. "I'm going to the park. If you're not coming then that's fine by me, and if you're not okay with that, then there's nothing I can do about it." You state, looking forward as you pick up your pace. 

Dick fumbles over his words before he hurriedly matches your pace, "Wait! Let's try and think this over-"

"Why? Even if we're out in the open, you're still a vigilante. If you can defend and look after an entire city, then surely you can protect one person, right? Not to mention that I can take care of myself." You huff, still keeping your eyes forward even as they narrow. You add, "Besides, again- not many people are out tonight. And if anything- seem to be rushing home, because of whatever is going on. We'll be fine."

"Sure. Yeah. I can handle it- but wouldn't it be smarter to just be inside anyway? That way it's less likely for anything to happen. You have to think rationally-" You swiftly cut Dick off again, really trying to put your foot down and stand your ground here.

"I am thinking rationally. You're a skilled vigilante that's been trained under Batman, and have only improved in skill and technique over the years. If anything goes wrong, and I can't handle it, you can. Not to mention that you have a way to contact the others if things really do go sideways, and you're in the suit. I didn't think I needed to say anything else." You sigh, lightly scratching the cup in your hands with your nail.

"Also, if you haven't noticed, even criminals and thugs are running home. It's like some kind of quarantine or lock down is going on. Some random person eavesdropping on us doesn't seem like it'll be a problem. Let alone with all of the noises that seem to be 'persuading' people to go home."

Dick could only sigh himself before saying, "Alright- okay. Fine. But like you said, I'm still in the suit."

"And?"

"And someone could see, and think that you're a close tie to me or something. You could be put in more danger."

"Are you actually worried about that now? You've been walking beside me this entire time when you didn't have to, and it's only now that you're worried about me being seen with you in the suit?"

"How else are we supposed to have this conversation? And I'm sorry for being worried about your safety, and well-being in the future for being seen with me." You could practically hear the eye-roll in Dick's voice despite knowing that he didn't actually do it. When did he get so sarcastic?

"That's not the issue, and you know that. We could've figured out some other way to have this talk, and you didn't have to walk beside me this entire time." You shot him a glance, causing Dick to sigh again.

"What if something happened while I was up top, and I couldn't react fast enough because I wasn't next to you? Someone could've tried something if I wasn't there, especially because you'd appear to be by yourself."

"So… remind me again, who's the paranoid one?"

"Y/n, I'm being serious." Dick states.

"I know. I'm being serious too, and I'm just saying that it's kind of ridiculous to be worrying about that now when it's already been a few minutes." You huff, "And I don't know what you expect me to do about it. I'm not the one in the suit, y'know. Why don't you just go and change somewhere?"

Dick rubs his nose bridge, getting annoyed but not trying to show it as he says, "Fine. I can do that, but at least come with me." He looks at you expectantly as his hand drops from his face. You couldn't help but raise a brow at his words.

"Why?"

"So that I can keep an eye on you…? And if anything happens while I'm changing- I'll be able to jump in and help much faster?" Dick said, confused. Talking as if he was stating the obvious, and maybe he was in a way, but you didn't see why he's so adamant about being close to you enough where he could easily protect you or reach you if needed.

"But wouldn't that kind of go against the point of you changing…?"

"What do you mean?"

"If I wait somewhere and Nightwing walks off, only for you-know-who to pop up after a little while, and we walk off together, wouldn't that be weird? Or at least hint at a certain something?" You point out, a little confused and surprised that you even had to explain this to Dick.

"C'mon, I won't be that obvious. And even then, no one will be able to figure it out."

"You say that like every other villain or wannabe in Gotham isn't some genius or anything. They're criminals and all that, but they aren't entirely stupid."

Dick sighs, though it came out more frustrated than he would’ve liked as he ran a hand through his hair once again, "Still, I'd just like for you to at least be close by. I don't want anything to happen to you, and I want to be able to help out as soon and as quickly as I can if anything does." He explains, getting a little closer to you.

"Please, Y/n. Just come with me."

You shake your head, your shoulders feeling far too heavy, and the flame in your chest was much too hot for you to even think about it. You knew Dick wasn't happy about it when he gave you a little room, but still kept close. As if hoping you'd change your mind, despite already knowing the answer.

"I'll just head to the park, and wait a few minutes. I'm not defenseless and can handle myself for a while, and it's not my fault that I could be in more potential danger because someone thought it was a good idea to come see me, and follow me around while in their suit. You can figure it out, and live without me for a few minutes." You huff harshly, adding, "If you aren't there after that time? I'm leaving. That's all." Once again, you pick up your pace, only to be stopped by Dick as he rushes in front of you.

"Wait- hold on. Are you sure about this? I don't think it's a good idea- and how long exactly will you be waiting? Where are you going if you leave? Are you going back to the apartment? Are you going home?" You don't like how hopeful Dick looked when he asked you that last question, but you push your discomfort to the side, and stand your ground.

"I'm an adult, and I'm a L/n. I'm sure about this. You can think whatever you want, and like I said- I'll be waiting a few minutes. If you're not there by then, I'm going to leave." You narrow your eyes at Dick, piercing him with your gaze as you said, "I've made my choice and I'm sticking to it. If you're not happy about it, or don't agree, then you can leave and I'll go on with my night. I'll wait at the park, and that's that." You state one final time before making your way around Dick, and continuing to walk forward. Luckily, he didn't try to stop you again, and if anything — seemed to stop following you entirely.

All you heard was a low scoff from behind you, and the rush of wind.

When you glance back, Dick was gone, and it was only then did you realize how heavy the air felt. Releasing the breath you didn't know you had been holding, you clutch your chest. Your heart aches, and yet you manage to push on.

Tonight wasn't exactly going well for you, but that almost tipped you over the edge.

You were beginning to hate many things about tonight, along with Dick. It almost made you think that maybe you were lucky back when he hardly ever noticed or talked to you. It made things easier, after all, and of course now that you've had your longest conversation with him — things were only getting harder.

Every word he said made him seem bigger, or pushed you down as an attempt to make you smaller. His reasoning could go from making complete sense, to being outright idiotic and paranoid. With each action of his being either too small or way too much. 

Dick, in that way, was too much.

You could chalk up some of your discomfort and nervousness to your lack of experience with Dick, and being around him. Of course some of his antics and habits would seem strange to you — since you were never able to see much of them, and those that you did notice were from a far, and never up close. You weren't able to experience them yourself, not until now. Though that almost made you grateful for all the times he turned you down or ignored you, seeing as now you could only see how much of a handful he is to deal with. 

Maybe that could've changed if you were more familiar with him, but it was too late for that now. Even if you did wonder how this whole thing would've gone if you did know him. If you were more familiar with how Dick acted, and had actually managed to spend time with him. If Dick was more familiar with you, and how that'd change this whole situation… but, again, it was much too late for that. If he really wanted to know you, he would've taken one of the chances you gave him over the years, and yet he didn't. No one did. No one except for Alfred…

You hope he's okay, at least.

Shaking your head, you push your thoughts to the side. There was no use thinking about 'what if's, not when such thoughts and possibilities kept you in the manor for so long. Not when your mind used them against you, and had you keep that pathetic hope you once desperately clung onto. You promised yourself you wouldn't do that anymore, and so you took a breath, and tried to stop them from coming in. They always slip by, but you try to ignore them. Especially since they caused you so much trouble that could have easily been avoided in the past.

You took a small sip of your coffee, only to pull it away and look at the cup strangely. 

It was… bitter. More so than you remember, and it immediately struck you as odd. Since, Jessica always managed to make your coffee the exact same way every time, and even if she did make some mistakes here and there, the change was never this significant or noticeable. Not like it was now, with the taste lingering on your tongue, almost trying to further stain your taste buds and remain there for as long as possible. As if trying to permanently ingrain itself in your mouth.

You couldn't help but cringe a bit. Maybe getting coffee really was a bad idea after all…

Sighing, you just continue on and brush the weird occurrence to the side. Whatever, you have enough things to deal with and worry about now. There wasn't much you could do about the coffee, and if anything, maybe that just went to further show how horrible your night is going thanks to Dick. 

Though, you wouldn't push it that far, even if your opinion of him was definitely souring by the minute, but the thought was pretty funny to think about, at least.

The night felt calm for once, and it’s only now, with you by yourself, do you realize how much you needed this.

Sure, Gotham was potentially going to hell, and you might see Dick again in a few minutes, but you don't have to worry about that right now. Just here, in the streets, did you have… normal problems. Problems unrelated to a family you no longer wanted to involve yourself with, that also just so happened to be made up of vigilantes. Problems that didn't involve your musical career, and how your rise to fame was becoming both an inconvenience, and a bit of an issue. Problems that… just about everyone has dealt with one way or another.

Your coffee didn't taste quite right, you felt exhausted despite having only walked a bit, and your social battery was just about to hit its limit. The air was just a tad too cold for the clothes you were wearing, you had a strong desire to crawl into bed and sleep like you had nothing else to worry about, and really — besides yourself and making a few dumb mistakes, the only thing you really had to worry about here was getting mugged. Maybe even jumped, at a push.

Yet, such things got a light, airy laugh out of you. You felt so at ease by yourself, and during the most dangerous hours of the night, no less. Despite everything, you couldn't help but find a bit of humor in it, and such a little thing even made you feel better. That uncomfortable heat in your chest dying down, and almost going away entirely as you cooled off.

As funny as it was, you felt safer and so much more at ease without the person that was so adamant about wanting to do all of these things, to protect you. How could you not laugh at the irony?

Suddenly, the bitter taste on your tongue didn't feel so bad anymore.

Walking along Gotham streets when it was so quiet still made you feel a bit uneasy, but for the time being you were able to find some small peace with it. After all, who knew when you'd get another breather like this? Especially with whatever business Dick had with you. Vigilante and hero work wasn't exactly known to be light and easy, after all. 

So, you took this moment as it is. Finding odd little details in the night that helped you relax as much as you could before things continued.

Honestly, you didn't think you were ready for whatever Dick was about to talk about or mention, but you doubt any of it could surprise you. After all, in a city where a villain breaking out of the local prison or asylum every now and again during the week was normal, it was hard to be surprised by things related to such occurrences. Since, it even felt like someone was trying to blow up the place at least twice a month, and robberies were so common that it was a wonder that anyone had any fortune left to protect at all.

Though it did still make you curious about what’s going on. 

Obviously, it couldn't be any good, but it just seems too… quiet to be anyone that Gotham had already seen before. Seeing as the usual villains and whatnot always made some kind of mess, or made things as extravagant and entertaining as possible. Almost like a certain clown that loved to try and run circles around a certain bat.

Regardless of that, however, you were still more curious about why Dick — or any of the others, really — had bothered to seek you out at all. Sure, the first thing that came to mind was that they need you for something, rather that be for help or something else entirely, but that's only because it made the most sense to you. Why else would they try to find out where you live? You couldn't think of another reason. Though, again, maybe that was because they had ignored you for so long? Even then, you can't think of anything else. 

Besides help and such, nothing else made any logical sense to you. There is no other reason. There couldn't be, and if there is — you couldn't think of it. They couldn't just be here for you. They almost weren't capable of it. You're sure, since they have made it very clear a long time ago. You were just too naive and blind to see it at first, but now you did, and you don't plan on becoming blind to that again…

Nevertheless, you continue on your little path.

Now that Dick wasn't with you, your journey to the park was short, and much more peaceful and quiet. It was almost calm in an odd way, but you appreciated it all the same.

The park held that strange feeling of abandonment and emptiness that most of Gotham seemed to have tonight — thanks to whatever was going on — but you manage to ignore it for the most part. Making your way around the park, your pace was slower and your breath was a bit heavier. You felt like you were prolonging the inevitable, and such a feeling spawned so much dread that you almost choked on it. However, you manage, and instead try to find a good place to sit and wait for the time being.

Sure, it would be easy to leave and just go on with your night, but you did want to stay true to your word even if only a little. It's the least you could do, since this would be the last thing you'd ever do for any of them, anyway. 

Besides, you were better than them in that way — following through with what you said, instead of saying a ‘maybe’ that'll never come, or a ‘next time’ that'll never arrive. Always stuck to a tomorrow that was always just out of reach.

Your words held meaning, unlike theirs.

Moving on, you eventually found a good spot. It was closer to the center of the park, and the moon could be seen as clearly as it could be with all of the clouds passing by, and building up. The air had an odd moist and damp feeling to it, and it made you think that it might rain after all, seeing as you remember hearing something about it earlier in the day. Yet, that just gave you all the more reason to hope that this whole thing would be wrapped up soon. Though whether that happened with Dick not showing up, or him making good time and keeping things short and simple, you didn't care.

Even if you did hope that he just wouldn't show. For both his sake, and your own.

Settling down on a park bench off to the side of the path, you took a big breath, before letting it all out. You still don't have a good feeling about this, but you'd take all the little victories you could. Since, you managed to avoid going to the manor and clock tower by some miracle, and even got Dick to leave you alone for a little while. Even if a small part of yourself did wish that you had pissed him off enough for him to leave you alone, you wouldn't count on it. He seemed oddly stubborn about sticking around, or to at least keep you around him, and though it made you feel uncomfortable, it unfortunately meant that there was a chance that he'd actually show up again.

You'd pray if you had any faith left, but you don't. Not at the moment, and certainly not with that possibility hanging over your head, just waiting to drop and crush you under its weight. Though for now, you'd try to not think about it as you look around, taking in the dark scenery instead.

The darkness of the night shaded over the park in an ominous, beautiful way. With the trees looming over you, and their leaves providing more shade than necessary. As if trying to protect you from the moon's stare as much as they could. The clouds slowly crawled over the sky, waiting for the perfect opportunity to drop all they were carrying — and leave the burden for Gotham to hold. They covered what could be made out of the blank, pitch black void that was the night sky, with the moon trying its hardest to shine through. To take a glimpse of the chaos below, and judge you in its silence.

A loose breeze drifts by, causing you to shiver thanks to its added chill over the night's natural coolness. The sounds of nature were hardly audible, as if even the insects have been silenced by whatever is going on, and the only thing you could hear was that constant, sickening snapping and cracking of broken bones, and that popping from joints getting dislocated. Even if such noises were much fainter now, thanks to the spot you've chosen, they still managed to reach you here, and dominate all other noises that tried to make themselves known, with its echo.

You could only sympathize with their desperation to be heard, to be noticed — only for the violence to cover all of their efforts. Maybe you'd even pity them, but you already felt foolish over your emotions, and feeling sympathy over noises was silly enough. You have already made enough humorous and dumb choices tonight, so you'd at least try to not make another. Even if you bothering to actually wait here, instead of leaving right away, is dumb enough.

You don't know if it was hilarious or sad how many stupid choices you’re making in one night, and all because of the people you are trying to leave behind. People you were so sure would never bother to look for you or even give you a single thought, and yet here you are now. Waiting for one of them to show up – only because suddenly he couldn't leave you alone. Almost like he couldn't afford to, and now you couldn't help but debate over the humor and sadness of that.

Of course it had to be now, it had to be tonight, that one of them showed up - but you don't know what exactly you're expecting. After all, if one of them were to try and show their face to you despite everything, it would be at the worst time possible. It felt fitting in an odd way, so maybe it was only right that things went down like this. That life throw one of the biggest ‘fuck you's it could at you, during a time where you are trying to recover. To heal. To get better.

Of course he just had to show his face when you were done with him — with them, and their whole family. It had to be now, when you're trying to move on, did an effort have to be made. It couldn't be while you were in the manor - when you were trying to do the same.

… Maybe you should've let him bust open the door to your apartment after all, and just ran away while you still had the chance. 

Yet, as if knowing you were thinking of walking away while he still wasn't around, Dick finally appeared and made himself known with a little whistle.

You turn your head and face him, his appearance almost making you laugh, but you didn't have it in you to do so. Much too exhausted and fatigued to even try, and your feelings were too mixed up to even consider the thought. Though you did have to admit, he did look a little funny.

Dick almost looked out of breath, but he still manages a smile when you turn to look at him. The clothes he wore looked strangely baggy, and you could've sworn that you saw the smallest glimpses of various price tags that were tucked away sloppily. Which made it look like he really was in a rush, and… well, you didn't know how to feel about that. Yet, in that same moment, you caught the tiniest bit of his suit right under the shirt he wore. Further ‘hinting’ at the fact that Dick had been in such a hurry that he didn't actually bother to change, and instead opted to cover up his suit.

His mask was off, at least, and for a moment you wondered where he put it until you noticed him subtly stuffing something in his pocket. Which is funny as it is concerning.

Dick wore an oversized coat that he left open, with a collar shirt underneath that had two of the buttons unbuttoned, along with sweatpants and shoes that didn't quite look his size. All in all, he looked like a mess, but Wayne's look good in everything for a reason, you suppose.

“Made it just in time! I told you I would, didn't I?” Dick chuckles, still holding onto the coffee you had given him earlier with one hand. The smile on his face quickly grew into a playful smirk, and you didn't know if you should find it weird or oddly scary how much closer he seems to be to the side of him you've only seen at a distance before. The side you have seen at galas or with his family, occasionally. A side you didn't have any personal experience with until now, and the dread you felt from before only grew at that.

“Um, no, you didn't-” You try to point out, only for him to cut you off.

“Well, it probably just slipped my mind, but I'm here now!” He muses, and you can’t help but find his tone off putting considering how things ended off a few minutes ago. He both looks and sounds way too happy for someone who was so annoyed with you before. 

“I didn't keep you waiting, did I?” Dick steps closer, making his way over to you casually. Not a single trace of his previous demeanor could be found.

You can't help but move a little further away, and bite your tongue. You hoped he would've, that he did, but unfortunately he did make good time. Since, from the moment you sat down, Dick appeared only a minute after, and had it not been for his messy outfit, you would've thought that he had planned this whole thing out — down to the very last second.

“No…” You drag on, looking away once again, trying to hide the disappointment in your voice.

Yet, despite the implications of it, Dick couldn't help but find it… cute, in an odd way. Causing him to exhale softly, his smirk dying back down into a smile. Blue hues shining as they look down at you.

He moves to sit down on the bench — noticing a spot next to you, but deciding to sit beside you instead. Still remaining close, but not getting in your space entirely, since he felt like you both weren't at that point just yet. There was an armrest between the both of you, and he felt as if that'd be enough for now. Even if he did want to move closer, he decides that this was the least he could do for having been ignoring your discomfort and clear nervousness thus far. 

While he still couldn’t fully bring himself to acknowledge or accept it — since he still doesn't want to think about it — he at least wants to try and do this small thing for you.

Though, the space between you and him would never be big enough for you to be comfortable. Since just knowing he was around, and that you were in his space, already made you feel a certain way, but he didn't have to know that. Not that you would tell him, anyway.

Dick took this little opportunity to take a slow, long sip of his coffee. The drink not quite to his liking, but he wouldn't complain since you seem to like that little diner, and the last thing he wants is for your opinion of him to get worse, so he kept his mouth shut. Besides, it wasn't even that bad anyway, especially knowing that it came from a place that you enjoy going to.

Silence was quick to fall over the both of you again. Yet, this time, Dick didn't exactly have a problem with it.

Even if you weren't looking at him, he could still see that little twinkle in your eyes that the faint bits of moonlight were able to show and make clear. How your hair matched you just right, and the way you did it and took care of it completed your look even more. Along with how even the little things on your person said so much, yet so little, about who you are now. About who you have become after all this time. 

A sense of endearment and sentimentality suddenly washes over Dick, and he can't help but feel as if it were just yesterday that you were introduced to the whole family. Though he still couldn't quite describe the look in your eyes then, as there was an unmistakable hint of excitement and unfounded joy that lingered when you first met them all. When you first met him. 

You were such a little thing back then, and you have grown so much since. Dick still can't help but think about it even as he finally pulls the cup away from his lips, and sighs, content.

You were so small, and little. Your face round and youthful, hands soft and delicate - just like everything about you at the time. The world and the people in it were still so new to you, and you looked just about ready to explore it all. To see every little thing you could, and learn about everything that you found. ‘Wonder’ was the first word he thought of when he saw you that day, and looked at your expression. It was full of that child wonderment. 

Yet… look at you now. Grown, and significantly taller than you were before. Face matured and settled, but still did have a youthful look to it. He notes how your hands did seem to be a bit rougher, and instead of delicacy, he found a gentleness that was always there — but is more prominent now. That look of wonder gone, and now replaced with something more. Something complicated and complex in nature, and yet simple all the same. There's a sense of turmoil but… he couldn't look much deeper than that. He can't bring himself to.

Point is, you have clearly changed. 

Sure, he noted how you looked different and everything before, but now that same conclusion felt different in a strange way. Though maybe that was because he wasn't only looking at you now, but seeing you as well.

Dick doesn't just see the change in your clothes, and how your voice has changed its tempo and volume, but some other things as well. Maybe that's because he's able to connect some things he's learned about you over the course of the entire day, back to you and how you showed yourself now. How those details presented themselves in your appearance and mannerisms.

It’s a lot to take in, sure, but in this moment of silence - Dick found himself slowly absorbing all of this information, taking it all in and finding ways to love you through it. Even if the changes made a particular fact all the more clear — despite the time he has missed, he did genuinely love the person you have become. He does now, at least. 

Despite everything he has done to you, or lack thereof, you have managed so much on your own. Despite him and the family not being around when they could've, when they should've, you managed to pave your own path and face all the challenges it brought by yourself - from what Dick could tell anyway. Even if he wasn't fully aware of all you have gone through in his absence, and he knew that as well – you’re still here. You're sitting beside him, looking at the scenery of the park, coffee cup in hand, and just… living in this moment with him.

Dick didn't know when such small things made him feel so happy or content, but in this moment, with you, it's like all he could feel was happy and put together, in a weird way. He doesn't know how to describe it, but now that he's here with you, in your space and presence, he feels… whole. Complete. Like all the missing pieces he didn't even notice were gone, all fell into place when you were around. With you here with him, he feels the happiest he's been in a long while, and he couldn't even begin to explain why.

He's only really known you for a day, but it already felt like he's spent a lifetime with you.

“Hey… Y/n?” He spoke up, breaking the silence between the both of you, looking back at the coffee cup in his hands. “I just want to say that… I'm happy you're here, and that you let me see you.” He begins, slowly looking back at you, an easy but pleasant smile on his face. It was easily the most natural one he's shown you tonight, and his clear unannounced happiness, no matter how light, made the pit in your stomach grow deeper and wider.

Why is he looking at you like that? And why did it hurt to see it now? Why did it relight the fire in your chest, and make it burn - the flames barely tickling your chest from the inside? Why did you feel like this? What did you do to cause him to wear such a smile?

Why now? What was going on?

“I know we haven't talked much, or really hung out, but this… this is nice for what it's worth, and I'm happy that I get the chance to spend this time with you despite everything.” The small bits of moonlight shined in his eyes, almost making Dick appear better than he was. More friendly, charming, and brighter than you saw him as. You couldn't stand the sight. Your dread growing much too big for you to keep looking at him.

So, you look away. Hoping that Dick would get whatever kind of message you were trying to send - and yet, even if he saw it, he didn't bother to decipher it. Words tumbling out of his mouth before he could think them over, too deep in his own feelings to see yours. Though he doesn't seem to mind as he said the words that began to fill his heart, and let them out into the open air. The wind whisking them away, and shoving them into your ears.

“You… mean a lot to me, and I know that, again, we haven’t really done much together, or really spent the most time together either, but- you matter to me. You’re important to me, and I’m sorry that was never made clear before.” He blurts out, heart aching and swelling at his own words, but Dick just couldn’t help himself. He feels like he needs to say something, to say this, and he doesn't want to have to wait any longer to say it. Even if you don’t like him or saw him a certain way, he wants to at least say this. To tell you his truth - his new truth. A truth that is becoming more clear to him as the seconds pass. Seconds he spent with you. “I know that I’ve messed up- a lot, and I know that it isn’t just me that made things turn out like this, but I at least want to let you know that I do care about you. I just…” Dick ran a hand through his hair, pausing for a moment as countless words he wanted to say float around in his head, but he just didn't know how to say them. Or even say them in a way that would get you to understand, or at least hear him out.

He looks away for a moment before looking back at you. Hand dropping and folding around his cup once again. “I’m sorry, for everything. For missing your concerts and performances, and just- everything. I should’ve been there, and even if I was busy, that isn’t an excuse. I should’ve made time for you, I could’ve, and yet it just always slipped my mind and… I should’ve never done that to you. You didn’t- you don’t deserve to go through that, you didn’t have to, and yet you did, and I’m just.. so sorry that now is the time that I’m realizing this. You… you deserve so much more than what we gave you, and I’m sorry if that made you feel any less than what you are- because you are amazing, and wonderful, and bright-!”

“You’re.. you’re a lot of things, and I really couldn’t list them all since I’m still slowly seeing it all for myself. Though even then, we’d be here for a while… wouldn’t we?” Dick chuckles lightly, a tinge of endearment in his tone, with a hint of a softness that was slowly becoming more and more apparent as he went on. His expression softened even more, and yet all you could feel was dread and anger that grew with each sentence that fell out of his mouth.

Was he messing with you? Was Dick trying to make himself feel better about everything, or just mess you up even more? Maybe both?

Why was he saying all of this now? Why tonight? Why now of all times? His words… they couldn’t be true. They can’t be. If they were, if they are – then why did he wait so long? How come he didn’t realize anything sooner? Why couldn’t he realize it sooner? Why now? Why right this minute, when you were almost ready to let go?

Why is he trying to give you hope over a future, a dream, a wish you never thought would come true? That they, indirectly or not, made you believe would never be made into a reality? No matter how much you did, and sacrificed for them behind the scenes? Was he trying to trick you? Did he really believe that you’d allow yourself to become blind again? That you could actually take the little words that he’s saying to you at face value, after all this time? After all of your wasted effort?

Did he really think that he could salvage what little remained of your nonexistent relationship with him, with just a few words and soft smiles? That you would just suddenly be willing to let him back into your life, after you spent the last year or so just trying to make it so that once you left, you’d never have to turn back? After everything he and the others put you through?

You understood that they were busy. That protecting Gotham and Bludhaven were more important to them than you’d ever be. That they care more about their work and their own lives than they never will about anything you’d try to say to them - you understood that well. It was almost impossible not too with how long you’ve had to deal with it, and come to terms with everything over the few months you’ve given yourself to truly soak everything in and reflect. The one time you gave yourself a breather to process all that's happened over the years you wasted on them, and think about how you are going to move forward in your life. How you’re going to deal with the family moving forward, or if you’d ever bother to deal with them at all. Though, you're still in that process, and had yet to really think about what you’d do moving forward.

Yet, Dick just had to show up while you were in that process. He just had to show his face after so long, and do this to you. Torment you with his words, and cause further conflict inside of you that you don’t need. Causing more heartache and pain that you didn’t want, and yet he just had to keep going, he had to keep talking. He couldn’t just walk away again like he had all of those other times when you were fighting to spend time with him, to just mean something to him. Dick just had to show up, and lie to your face about this. He just had to finally notice you, and hurt you more.

“I’m… I’m just really glad I got to see you is all I’m trying to say, I guess. And that I missed you too, in all honesty.”

So he keeps going, it seems. He just has to say that, like you’d believe him. Like you’d truly think that he cared about you more than the criminals in Gotham did. Like he wasn’t just lying to your face in an attempt to try and hurt you more. To crush what little part of your heart you still had given to them, and destroy it entirely. 

Honestly, now it was like he's trying to get you to hate him. To rid of the memories where you used to look up to him, and really tried to see him as your older brother until the reality of it all crushed you. Until reality forced your eyes open, and made you realize the little you had, and the little he cared.

Your own anger was beginning to blind you, and your hatred grew within you - though you hardly found a part of yourself that cared anymore. 

Even if Dick’s words are true to him, they aren't to you, and that’s all you cared about. Since, as far as you know, they were never true until he suddenly felt bad, and this whole thing started.

However, you still try to remain civil. Just taking in a breath, and sighing before looking back at Dick. Exhaustion becoming more evident, anger and hatred beginning to bloom – but you manage to tuck it away for now. No matter how frustrated Dick makes you, you could keep your composer. You could keep yourself together, and by God would you try no matter how much you want to just get up and leave. No matter how much you want to think that he wasn’t worth the time or energy. At least, not anymore.

“Dick, just tell me why you’re here.” You say, getting straight to the point and seemingly completely ignoring what he said before. Not taking his words to heart, no matter how much they sting and add fuel to the flame growing in your chest. 

Dick looks at you confused, a little taken aback by your response, but just pushes it to the side. Only raising a brow, managing to keep up his smile, “What do you mean? I told you already, silly.” He chuckles a bit, his words already pinching at your skin.

“I’m here to see you.”

‘Bullshit.’ You immediately thought, but don’t say out loud. Not yet, anyway.

“It’s obvious that something’s going on, I mean- do you hear the sounds echoing throughout Gotham? Or, hell, how quiet it is besides said noises?” You ask, tone shifting with every word that spilled out of your mouth, undertone unclear, but Dick didn’t like it. “You don’t have to explain what’s going on, but please, just tell me how or if I can help so that we can both go on with our nights? I know you don’t have time for this. Both of us don’t.” 

Dick can only furrow his brows in response, his confusion growing the more you spoke, but also worried about the tone you’re using with him. A tone that was growing increasingly harsh.

“What are you talking about? I never said I needed your help with anything, and didn’t I already mention that the others are handling the situation?” Dick said, genuinely confused, and yet that only seems to make the flame in your chest burn brighter.

“Then what are you doing here? Why are we even talking right now if you don’t need anything from me?” You ask, voice rising in volume a bit before you bring it back down. The little stings Dick’s words left on your skin turning into a grip around your heart. 

“I’ve already told you, Y/n…. I just wanted to see you.” Dick said again, growing a little more worried now.

“Yes, but why? What made you want to see me so badly that you even went out of your way to find out where I live?” You couldn’t help but ask, frustration growing but so did your desperation. Over what, you don’t know, but all you knew was that you want this to be over. You want to go home. You want to be away from Dick. From them.

Even if your home probably wouldn’t feel as safe anymore now that they knew where it is, and you knew that too, but couldn't find it in yourself to care. Anywhere that wasn't in the immediate vicinity of Dick felt better than being here, with him at arm's length.

“I need a reason to see my younger sibling now? I can’t just come visit them?” Dick asks, still worried and confused, yes, but an odd tone of sarcasm seemed to develop under his tongue.

“After months of no contact? After all that’s happened?” You say as a meaningless, humorless laugh escapes you before your voice drops and cements itself, “Yes. Yes you do, because you’ve never visited me before. You’ve never gone out of your way like this, not even to see me in my own room. So why now? Why tonight? Why come see me?”

Your words stung Dick, and you can tell with how he flinches a bit at your words, if only for a brief moment. He even cringes a little, as if they have physically hurt him, but you didn’t react much. You want to know why, because it made no sense to you, and by God did you deserve an answer.

There is no reason why he should’ve come to see you, none. You aren’t related to him, and even if you are by law, he’s never treated you like family in the past - just someone else who lives in the manor, but over time you began to believe that he started to forget that too, with how he’d grow increasingly surprised by seeing you in person when he'd occasionally visit.

You meant nothing to him, last you checked. So what was so important that he and the others needed to find out where you live, and seek you out like this? What was going on?

From how you look at Dick, he can tell you wanted to know. That you want a ‘real’ answer, one that you’d accept, anyway. Along with the fact that you aren’t going to take your words back, finding them to be nothing less than true, and even if they are, they don’t hurt any less. Especially considering how far he’s come today. How much he’s seen, and how his view is beginning to change. How you were growing on him without even knowing it, making him realize that some of it isn’t even you to begin with. Though there wasn’t much he could do about that, not right now. Not with you getting worked up like this, and not with how he's beginning to hurt too.

The truth hurt, it almost always did. Never sparing anyone, and almost acting as a sword rather than weight. A dagger than another page, but paper cuts did exist for a reason – he supposes.

“I.. I know that it might seem hard to believe, considering everything, but that really is all there is to it.” Dick says, trying to explain as he clutches onto the coffee cup in his hands, “I just want to see you because I was worried, and I… I just wanted to make sure you were okay. That’s all.”

“Then what about the others? Why find out where I live? What’s with all the noise?” Your desperation was becoming a little clearer as you spoke quickly, the questions falling out of your mouth as your heart began to squeeze tightly. The smoke that the fire in your chest was creating, started to reach and fill your lungs little by little with each passing second.

“The others are busy taking care of the city, and how else am I supposed to see you? You weren’t answering any of my or Tim’s calls or texts. We…” Dick drags on a little before just sighing, looking dejected, “I was worried about you- I am worried about you. I thought something happened, and I had to know if something did. Is that so wrong? Can I not check on my younger siblings anymore?”

“That's not what I meant, and you know that.” You point out straight away, but did falter the slightest bit when he mentions how you were ignoring them trying to contact you earlier. However, you didn't back down. “And both of you just started contacting me today. I didn't have any time to answer either of you before you showed up at my door.”

“Really? You had absolutely no time at all to pick up the phone? Not even send a quick message, or even read our texts?”

“I was busy? And was doing something else, so I couldn't get to the phone right away.”

“For several hours? Y/n, you've got to be kidding me.” Dick chuckles out, obviously not believing you, which ticks you off even more.

“What, so I can't do other things? I have to be at your every beck and call, now?” You scoff, rolling your eyes. “None of you have ever contacted me first, so I'm sorry that I didn't have any time to respond to whatever you both had to say. I have my own life to deal with, you do know that, right?”

“That's not what I-” Dick cuts himself off, just letting out a sigh before speaking again after thinking over how to reword what he wants to say, “Look, just- what was so important that made it so you couldn't answer the phone?” He asks instead, searching your expression for something, and furrowing his brows when he couldn't find it.

“... That's none of your business.” You answer instead, narrowing your eyes at him a little. Whatever you did in your life, he didn't have to know. He doesn't have the right to know, not anymore. You may have been willing to offer him this one chance to ask something from you to help with whatever is going on, but that was all, and where your generosity ended. It wasn't a chance to reconnect, or to rebuild what never was, and still isn't. 

If there's anything that this whole situation has told you, it's that you shouldn't have tried in the first place - and that maybe, just maybe, you should've left sooner. That was clear to you now. 

“...” It's like Dick could tell things were getting worse this way. He didn't know what was causing it or how, but he could feel it. Especially with how you were growing increasingly upset, and how he was as well. 

So, he tried to settle down a little and just took a breath. At this rate, he could only dread how things would get, and so he at least tried to change the direction of things a bit. Yet, he still couldn't help himself either. Maybe he didn't deserve to know, but he did want to ask. 

“Look, just-” he tries to find the words to say, to not make this whole thing worse than it already is, and settles on a simpler question. One he figures you can handle, one he hopes does what he wants it to do. “Can you at least tell me why you keep ignoring me when I say that I'm here to see you? Or at least why you just… brush it off?” Dick manages to say, eyes never once leaving you, but for a different reason this time.

He just wants you to open up, but how could you do that when he kept you out for so long? When he locked that door so long ago, and forgot where he left the key? Leaving him to never know of the chair you left right under the handle.

“... What do you-”

“You know what I'm talking about, Y/n, just… please.” Dick almost pleads, which makes you uncomfortable. Causing you to press your lips into a thin line once again, “I don't want this to…” he doesn't want to say it outloud. He couldn't bring himself to. Especially when he doesn't want it to be true. To be made into reality.

“I just want to know, Y/n. So please, just tell me? Because I don't understand why you keep avoiding it, or just don't acknowledge it at all.” Dick says instead, which causes you to grow quiet in the process. 

“...”

You couldn't think of anything to say, just being able to look at him before glancing away and taking in a breath of your own. You couldn't bring yourself to answer the question because - what were you supposed to say? What are you supposed to say? The truth? Or make up a lie? Though even if you picked one or the other, would it be for yourself? Or for Dick?

You didn't know, and a special kind of uncertainty came with that, jabbing your gut and making the flame within you crackle harshly. You hate this. You hate this more than what their inaction did to you, and almost as much as the realization that it's because of them that you're in this position to begin with.

“Why do you think?” You begin, emotions and thoughts swarming in your head and squeezing your heart. You want to not care, to brush it all off as you have before, but only find yourself hurting despite everything. Why does your chest hurt so much? Why did it feel like something was pressing against it, threatening to pierce it? “Why do you think that I'm ‘ignoring’ it or just… dismiss it?”

Dick hates how you look away, and the swirl of emotion he saw in your eyes when you looked at him before. Which only made his own emotions grow like a heavy weight, threatening to fall on him. To crush him, and only leave the tiniest parts of himself behind. Parts that still hung onto that false hope he made himself.

He knew, or at least had an idea, but he ignored it. Dick wants to hear it from you, even if he doesn't know what he's hoping for with that. He knows of his faults, and yet not the entirety of them - at least, that was the impression he was getting from all of this.

He isn't blind, but there are only so many things he could let himself see before the ugliness of it all rears its head at him, and snarls. Before the quiet part that he refuses to glance at, becomes loud.

“I… I don't know,” Dick manages to say after a moment, still looking at you as he searches for something, anything that will point things in a different direction. Something that will give the little hope he has anything to cling on to.

Something he doesn't find.

He takes in another breath, “Can you please just… tell me? I do want to know, I really do- so just, please. Tell me why you keep ignoring what I'm saying?”

“I'm not-” You cut yourself off, speaking before you could come up with a response, the words tumbling out of your mouth quickly before you caught yourself and take in a slow, uneven breath. “I'm not ignoring what you're saying. I'm not, but- just…” You drag on before finally letting out a sigh. Some of the tension freeing itself from your body, but not enough for it to let you truly calm down or relax. 

“What do you expect me to do? To say?” You finally manage to voice it outloud, to ask as you look back at Dick briefly. With the moon trying its hardest to peek through the clouds as they begin to fill and crowd the sky. “You haven't checked up on me in all the years I was in the manor, and, hell, I doubt you even know where my room is-”

“I know where it is.”

“- and even if you do, that doesn't change what happened. Or, really, what didn't.” You narrow your eyes at Dick's sudden words, but don't comment on them as you continue, voice wavering slightly, “You've… never checked up on me before, or even asked me if I was okay- we barely even greeted each other, and I didn't see you around all that often. I didn't get to. So I'm sorry if it's hard for me to believe that you just suddenly care, or want to check up on me after all this time.” You say, still biting your tongue and holding yourself back from sharing more than you should. From giving more than you already have.

“...” Dick's lips press into a thin line before he goes to speak again, “I understand that, but… why can't that change now? Why can't I care about you now?” 

“It isn't about what you can and can't do, Dick. Nor what can be changed now or not, it's…” A quick, small groan escapes you as you try to gather the words you want to say, and finally let them out when you do, “it's what I'm used to, Dick. That's just how it is.”

Finally, dread made its way into Dick’s heart as well, “So… that's it? You're just ‘used to it’? And I can't change that?”

“I don’t know, can you?” You asked sarcastically in a dead tone, already tired of all of this, and yet the fire in your chest continues to burn ever so brightly. “You haven’t really done a good job of that thus far, if that's what you’re trying to do. I’ll say that much.” Your words hurt, you could tell right away. The way he looked at you said everything, but you didn’t try to look deeper than what presented itself on the surface. 

“This isn’t some kind of…. ‘reconnecting session’, stuff like that doesn’t really matter. I thought something serious- something important was going on, or had happened, that’s why I bothered with… all of this.” You point out and explain, only watching as the expression on Dick’s face morphed into something else. Something you couldn’t decipher, but didn’t like looking at. A face that made your stomach twist, with dread pouring out of every crevasse it could manage.

“And why would you think that? I don’t remember saying anything that would hint at that, and even then I would’ve said it outright.”

“You suddenly appeared at my door in the suit, and at some point was banging on it. How could I not think something was going on? Or that you didn’t need something from me? That something serious wasn’t happening? Especially when I don’t remember telling any of you where I live-”

“Okay, okay. I… I get it,” He didn’t, at least maybe not to the extent one would hope he would, but he didn’t want to argue. Not here, and not with you. Especially not when he was really beginning to see you. “But still… I want to change that. I want to make it up to you and fix things. Is that so bad?”

“...” You had no response to that, but even if you did, what could you say? You had imagined countless instances like this, but those situations weren’t real — this one was. In those scenarios, you always had something to say, rather it be good or bad, and you always knew what to do. Yet here, now that it was actually happening, you had nothing. You didn’t know what to do or say, and even if you did have some things you wanted to just let spill out, you kept them in. You didn’t want things to get worse either, but the more Dick talked, the harder that became.

Why couldn’t he just be the person from your thoughts and dreams? The person you always saw him as until now?

“I just…” Dick tries to gather his thoughts, not exactly liking your silence but trying to push on anyway. He finally had a chance, and he’d be damned to not take it. “I want to make things right, and yeah, maybe it's late- really, um, late, but I still want to try.” He manages to say, taking a small, quick breath before he continues, an easy smile trying to settle on his face.

“You deserve better, and I want to be better for you. Things may not be the same, and sure, it might be a bit awkward-” He chuckles slightly in between his words, “-but I think that we can… work it out if you just give it a try. Give me a chance-”

“But I did.” You manage to say, cutting Dick off. He has to fight for his smile to not falter immediately, unaware of how your heart pounded harshly in your chest, the fire it held growing and clawing at the bars of its cage that was your ribs and flesh. Scorching your lungs, and the smoke causing your throat to close, making it harder to breathe.

“... What?” Dick said, partially confused but still trying to at least seem optimistic. A weight of its own beginning to press down on him.

“... What do you think I did all of this time?” You ask, looking away for a moment, glancing up at the covered moon before looking back at Dick, “What do you think I did all of those years I spent at the manor? Before I decided to move out, and be on my own?” 

“...” Dick didn’t have an answer, not one he said right away, anyway. Not one that wouldn’t make him look bad, but he didn’t know what was worse. Staying quiet when he knew a part of it, or saying the part he knew and risk being wrong, revealing how he still didn’t know the full picture despite everything. Despite getting a glance into a life he knew he wasn’t involved in, and feeling more guilty all the while.

However, you decide that his small bit of silence was enough of an answer, and just as Dick opened his mouth to say something, you spoke again. “Most of my time in the manor I’ve spent trying to give you chances- to give the others a chance. Trying to give opportunities to just do something, try anything, and… well,” You look away fully this time, caressing the coffee cup in your hand, it’s dying warm doing little to help you, causing you to draw your attention to the shaded greenery of the park instead.

“We both know how that turned out.”

If your words didn’t hurt him before, they definitely did now. Even as Dick fought to keep that smile of his up, it was pointless. You were right, and he knew that. Even if he didn’t know the true extent of your words, he was at least aware of the times where you’d try to get them to see you perform, to hear your songs and listen to your music that had gotten you this far. He knew that much, and yet he still couldn’t help but try. He wants to mean more to you, to do what he hasn’t done up until this point, to truly be your older brother, to be your family - despite how long he’s been unable to do that.

“I… I know, and I’m sorry.” Dick could only say that much, even if it did little in the long run, and a part of himself could tell that his words only made whatever you were feeling worse as you inched away from him, the sight of the small action breaking his heart even more.

“Maybe that doesn’t mean much, but it’s true. I’m just… sorry that things turned out this way. That we- that I never noticed how hard you were trying until now, and even if it is late, I want to be honest and say that I’m sorry.” He adds, finally managing to look away as well as he looked down at the cup in his hands, thoughts swarming and eating away at his heart. Even if they were going too fast for him to process them all, they hurt him all the same and caused his worry to grow. “I’m sorry for everything, for never noticing what was going on or the extent of it, or appreciating the effort you tried to put in for our attention, for just not… being around. You deserve better- and I want to give that. I want to give you want you deserve and finally be-”

“Stop.” You said under your breath, voice wavering as you take in a shaky breath. Yet, even as it falls upon deaf ears, and Dick couldn’t make out exactly what you said, he still pauses for a moment before speaking again.

“... I just want to fix things, Y/n.” Dick says instead, but it doesn’t make you feel any better, nothing does. 

“You mean a lot to me.” You just want him to stop. 

“And maybe that’s… weird to hear with everything that’s happened. But it is true, and I’m sorry I never made that clear before.” You want him to stop lying to you, to stop trying to make you feel better. You’ve been doing fine on your own without him, without them, and so the only thing you wanted now was for Dick to stop and leave. To act like he had before, and go back to ignoring you.

“So… let’s change that, okay? I… I want to spend more time with you.” You want him to shut up. You want it so bad that it hurts to hear him talk as he goes on and on. His voice ringing in your ears to a point you’re convinced that they’ll bleed if this continues on for any longer. If he continues to talk for any longer. 

“I’m being honest, I really want to try and be your-”

“Stop… please, just- just stop.” You manage to say, voice small and wavering as you try to take in another breath. You want to be unbothered, unhurt, painless, and numb, but you can’t and you don’t know why. You thought you had gotten used to this, and you had, but to hear that - to hear the words you’ve wanted to hear for so many years - that hurt more than anything else. The pain was indescribable, and its result only made that fire grow, the flames scratching at your chest even harder, and your heart bleeding as a result.

Suddenly, all the progress you’ve made over all the months you’ve been away feel useless now. Reduced to nothing in Dick’s presence as his words stripped down your walls in the most violent, volatile ways possible.

Once upon a time, you fought to have a single conversation with him that lasted more than just a few short exchanges, and now you’d do anything to have that back. For him to go back to the Dick you grew up with, the one you fought to even have to look at you for more than a few seconds.

“You can’t do this to me.” You said without thinking, voice weak and shaky as you scramble to keep yourself together, to hold back tears that you refuse to spill – refusing to shed any more over them. Refusing to let all of your progress go to waste just like that.

You were happy, you have been happy these past few months, and you refuse for that to be taken away from you.

“What? Y/n, what do you mean-” Dick tries to speak, but you don’t give him the luxury, not after this. Not after what he’s been doing to you.

“You can’t do this to me,” You repeat, trying to breathe and fight past the smoke building in your lungs, nearly gasping for air as your teeth begin to grind, “you can’t- you just can’t. So stop… please just..” You try to take in another breath, no matter how small it is or strangled it feels.

“Just. Stop.”

“...” It’s like no matter what Dick tries to do, things end up becoming worse, and he hates that he doesn’t know why. He can't understand why. 

Clearly he’s hurting you, he could see that no matter how much he doesn’t want to, but he doesn’t know what he’s saying that’s hurting you. He doesn’t know what he’s doing that’s causing you to become so upset. 

After all, don’t you want this? Don’t you want him to try? For your efforts to be reciprocated? Don’t you want to be family too? For him to try and be what he’s supposed to have been all of this time? Don’t you want him to try and be your big brother? 

You couldn’t have given up yet, right? There was no way you could have. You couldn’t have given up after all you have done, after all the awards and such he saw that you’ve earned over the years – awards that were still in your room. You couldn’t have given up. That's impossible, there’s no way. No one would throw all of that away, right? No one would do all that you have, only to just put it all behind them - not anyone that Dick could think of at the moment.

… He hated how he thought of it anyway. How the thought creeped into his mind, and remained there. Letting his dread and worry grow as reality began to sneak its way into his brain. 

Dick doesn’t want to think about it – let along consider the idea, but this isn’t about him. This isn’t about what he thinks or feels.

This is about you, and despite his words, he hates that he had forgotten that already.

“Y/n,” He calls out to you softly, really trying this time, and you hate that detail with all of your heart, “can you just please tell me what’s wrong?” Dick’s words make you physically pause, even causing your rushing thoughts to come to a halt. They repeat in your head once more, and you can only think one thing.

Is he seriously asking you that?

“I know that you’re upset, but I want to work through this with you. So, just tell me so I can help, okay-?”

“Stop- God, just please stop, Dick.” You manage to say, already getting slightly choked up before you manage to shakily exhale, trying your hardest to keep it together as your heart squeezes and your chest tightens. You can’t bring yourself to look at Dick, but your teeth grind as you scramble to keep the flames eating up your body from the inside, trapped and hidden away.

“You can’t do this to me,” You say more desperately than you wanted to, a few tears developing that you fight back violently to keep them from spilling, your own teeth getting crushed and feel as if they were beginning to chip and break with how hard they’re grinding against each other. “You can’t- you can’t-” You struggle to get the words out, nearly gasping for air as that sickening, thick smoke threatens to escape your lungs.

“You can’t do this to me, you can’t give me hope.” You finally say, voice straining as your breath trembles. When you finally do look at Dick, neither of your expressions are good ones. Both filled with mixes of emotions, but his was more deep and almost controlled, while yours was frantic and ever changing.

“... What?”

“After all of this time, after everything- everything I’ve been put through. Everything I’ve been trying to move on from-” You struggle to breathe momentarily, but manage to get yet another gasp of air before continuing, “you can’t just try and give me hope like that. You can’t. You just- can’t.”

Now it’s Dick’s turn to pause as he processes what you said, each word making the weight in his chest sink deeper and deeper until it reaches his stomach. The very thing he seems to dread is becoming more real with every minute that passes and he hates that more than anything. He wants to ignore it, to push past it, but how can he do that when it’s right in front of him? How can he do that when something worse could be laying underneath everything?

He doesn’t want to think about it, and so he doesn’t and tries to tuck it away as he goes on to say, “But… why? Why can’t I give that to you? Why can’t I try to help you?”

“Dick, please, for the love of god just-” You want to say it, you really do, but manage to hold yourself back with the little self control you have, and simply just take in the biggest breath you can manage, and sigh just as deeply. “Nevermind, and just- you know what? We’re… we’re done here.” You say instead. Placing your coffee cup on the bench, not even caring that you barely finished the drink, and move to stand up.

“What? Wait- what?” Dick asks, sitting up and tensing when you stand, but not making a move just yet, even if it was clear that he’d do something. What, you don’t know, but you didn’t notice anyway as you were too focused on yourself and getting out of this situation.

“We’re done here, what else do I have to say?” You don’t look back at Dick, instead continue to try and steady your breath. Trying to calm yourself down, and finally do something to quell the burning flames inside your chest, “This isn’t going anywhere, and we aren’t discussing anything important, so… let’s call it here. I’m leaving.” You say outright, being blunt this time as you make a move to step away-

Only to be stopped when Dick suddenly grabs your wrist, his grasp a touch too tight.

“Hold on- who said you get to decide that?” Dick asks, having sprung up to grab you as swiftly and quickly as he did, a flash of panic showing on his face before he pushed it aside and swallowed his nerves. He tries to manage another smile, even if it doesn’t reach his eyes yet again, “Let’s just talk about this, okay? There’s no need to overreact.”

“Overreact…?” You glance back at him, physically feeling as all of your previous progress to calm yourself was quickly diminishing, the fire only roaring to life at Dick’s words, and it’s like he could feel it too with how his smile faltered the smallest bit before he tried to pick it up again.

“Okay- maybe not overreact, but we can still talk about this… can’t we?” He says instead, as if realizing his mistake once you point it out. Scrambling for something, anything.

You don’t say anything right away, your chest only hurting even more, “And talk about what, exactly?” You ask, just barely being able to hear the clouds overhead groan in displeasure, “What is there to talk about? We have nothing to discuss, and so we should just end things here.”

An airy laugh escapes Dick, almost as he can’t believe what you’re saying, and yet he continues to stare at you. All he does is raise a brow, his heart pounding as that weight in his stomach drops further, “About… everything?” He says, as if a little unsure of how to word it, but keeps going anyway, “About the family, about us, about you- everything! What isn’t there to talk about?” He counters, furrowing his brows a little.

He knows you want to leave, but he can’t bring himself to let you go. Not when he doesn’t know when he’ll have this chance again. Not when he’s so close – but to what, he doesn’t know anymore. All he knows is that it deals with you, and that’s enough for him.

“... But there isn’t anything important to talk about.” You point out as if it was obvious, raising a brow of your own as you look back at Dick, ignoring how the longer Dick held onto your wrist, the heavier your dread became. Nearly making it impossible to breathe despite how you were trying to act now,  “Again, I even bothered to do any of this because I thought something was going on or that you needed something from me, and I turned out to be wrong, so there’s no other reason for me to be here.” You try to be logical, or seem that way, anyway. You try to give whatever bullshit reason you can, saying anything that you hope would just get Dick away from you and just let you go.

“...” Dick hated your words with a burning passion he didn’t even know he was capable of feeling, and the breathy laugh of disbelief that escaped him only furthered his own change of heart, “So I’m not important to you? Our family isn’t important to you? Because of everything that’s happened? So our effort to change everything isn’t important to you? It matters that little to you now that you’ve lived on your own for… what, a few months?”

“What are you talking about? You’re asking me that as if you know me, and- news flash, you don’t. So get a hold of yourself- and let me go already!” You yank your wrist away from Dick’s grasp, pulling it back towards you harshly.

The moment your wrist leaves his grasp, his hand twitches, but he manages to hold himself back and just let his hand fold into a fist as it falls back to his side. His eyes pinned on you once again, never leaving you, “Why can’t I get to know you now? Why can’t that change, Y/n?” He asks, his own tone changing without him noticing, making it sharper than he meant it to be, “Why can’t you just let me in?”

The visceral hatred those words spawn in you is hotter than words can describe, and felt as if it was burning right through your chest, melting your muscles and organs down to nothing. You not only struggled to breathe, but it hurt to even take in the smallest breath. “‘Why’…? You’re asking me, ‘why’?” A small, airy, pathetic laugh escapes you, a look of disbelief clear on your face.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s because of the years that have passed? That every attempt I’ve made to do what you’re asking me right now- was ignored until I didn’t try anymore? Until I go off and try to actually live my life, that you ask for me to let you in? For things to change?” You almost spat out, barely managing to take in a steady breath, “I don’t know, Dick. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Dick could barely pull himself together. Everything was falling apart, and even if he could see that, he could barely get a grasp on his own emotions that he was failing to calm down. He wants you to understand, and he wants to understand you too, but god was everything making it so hard. He just couldn’t understand why you were being so stubborn about this, and why you wouldn’t just hear him out. 

So, in the midst of his own frustration, he tsked and spoke without thinking.

“I haven’t done anything to you! Why are you acting like this?” The moment those words left Dick, his eyes widened and he scrambled to recover, “Wait, I didn’t mean-”

“Isn’t that the point?” You cut Dick off, the smoke finally escaping your lungs as you furrowed your brows, chest tightening as more unwanted tears began to build, “That you did nothing? That you- and everyone else didn’t do a goddamn thing?”

“You try to act like I owe you something. Like I owe you this. Like I owe you my time, but you know what? You really don’t, because back then? I clearly didn’t deserve yours. I wasn’t worth your time, and now, years later, you think that I owe you mine? That you can just say whatever the hell you want to my face, because I dared to try and be respectful and civil and do all of this shit for you?” There was no holding back anymore, not when Dick dared to say something like that to your face when you’ve been trying so hard to act calm and civil around him. To give him a chance to say his piece and leave.

The one time you tried to do something for them, for him, after months of being away from all of them, and he dared to say something like that to you?

“Then think again. Because unlike before, I have some god damn self respect and won’t stand for your bullshit anymore.” You spat out as the sky above growled even louder, “You don’t get to say that to me, Grayson.”

Yet, despite your words, a single measly tear manages to slip past your defenses and slowly, painstakingly roll down your cheek. The clouds above seem to have taken that as some sort of sign, as a few small drops of water fell from the sky and hit the pavement under your feet.

Dick pauses after that, if only for a moment as he looks over your expression before sighing. “Okay- fine, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that… but,” he took a short breath before saying, “that still doesn’t answer my question, Y/n.”

“...” All you could do was stare at him. Another pathetic, airy laugh escaping you all the while. He really was unbelievable.

“Which one? The one where you asked why things can’t change? Why I won’t ‘let you in’? Or why I’m ‘acting like this’?” Dick clenches his hands into fists, squeezing them before he lets go.

“Why can’t things change, why can’t the relationship between us change?” You hate the tone he used and how the look he gave you expressed and showed more than words could describe. A certain desperation in his eyes that you wish didn’t exist, that you didn’t notice.

“You never showed me that it could change. That it would always stay the same as it has for the past few years-”

“But why does back then matter? Why can’t we focus on now? On this?” He gestured between the two of you, “Can’t we just- I don’t know… move on from that?” You didn’t know if you wanted to laugh, or actually allow yourself to cry, especially when a few more raindrops fell from the sky. He couldn’t be serious, could he? Did Dick actually just say that, and to you of all people?

“Move on?” You say, a few more tears spilling despite your efforts to stop them, their touch burning your skin and sinking into it like acid, “You want me to move on from that? Move on from the years of my life that you weren’t a part of? To just forget all that’s happened?”

“You don’t have to forget… maybe just, push it aside so that we can work on this! On us…” Dick says, dragging on a little before he takes in another quick breath, “Is that so bad? Don’t you want to be family-?”

“You don’t get to say that to me.” You immediately cut him off the moment Dick even tries to mention family again, “You don’t get to say what I want or what I have to do- after everything I’ve done for you! For the others-! You don’t get to say that to me anymore!”

“Y/n, please, just calm down-”

“No! You don’t get to do this to me! To say all of this shit to my face-” You struggle to speak, your words catching in your throat and nearly choking you, but you manage to continue. To continue to say your part, and finally say the words your heart has been longing to say, to give yourself this much, to finally feel this out, “Do you even know how much I’ve done for you- all of you? How much time I spent doing all of these things I thought you guys liked just so that I had a chance to hold a conversation with any of you? To just mean something? To actually be part of the family, only for no one to show up-?”

“No one asked you to do those things! No one asked you to do anything!” Dick snaps, but immediately tries to reel it back, “I understand that things didn’t work out before, but I’m here now, aren’t I?”

Your brows furrow even more, and your teeth grind so hard that it feels like they’re chipping away, “No one had to ask! Hell- none of you ended up caring anyway! It was a waste!” You shout, voice raising the more you talked, tears mixing with the drizzling rain, “It was for you- I did everything I could think of to just talk to you, and now you want me to do more for you? After everything I’ve already done? After all the effort that was put to waste because of you?” At this rate, you knew you weren’t talking to just Dick anymore. Instead, he acted as an extension, in your mind. An extension to something bigger, something greater than himself. Something more than he was.

Dick falters, but just sighs again, “No one told you to do all of that,Y/n]. You didn’t have to do anything but just try to-”

“Try to what, Grayson? Try to what?” You cut him off, eyes swirling with untold emotion as your gaze pierces into him, “Go on, tell me what else I had to do. What I should’ve done.”

“...” Dick looks at you for a moment before speaking again with a small huff, “You could’ve tried a different approach, or maybe, talked to us?”

“...” You don’t know what you want to do more; try to strangle Dick, cry harder, or leave again after trying to kill him. “You did not just say that.” You manage to laugh out, but it’s broken and far from genuine. The humor in it long gone, and all that was left was a sickening, uncomfortable emptiness where it once remained. 

“Well, I’m just saying-”

“You did not just say that shit to me when you’ve been the one shooting down every conversation I’ve tried to have with you. You- the person who’s supposed to be the ‘family man’, and we’ve barely even talked. And let me tell you now, I’m not the one who hasn’t been trying to talk or avoiding it.” A pained smile crept up your face as you laughed breathlessly in between your words once more. Not even caring anymore as you let the fire burst from your chest, and have its ashes and smoke spill out of you.

Dick narrows his eyes and furrows his brows a bit, “‘Avoiding it’? What the hell are you talking about? I haven’t been avoiding you-”

“Then please explain where the hell you’ve been all of my life until now? Why you could never follow through with what you’d always tell me? Why you come to me now, when I gave you years to do or say anything?”

“I… I was busy, okay? You know that,” He tried to lighten his tone with a chuckle but it did little to help, and only showed his own strain, “I don’t always have time to come to Gotham-”

“But you make the time to do it anyway. You make time to visit, especially when it comes to Damian.” When Dick falls silent again for a moment, you take in a shaky breath and sniffle slightly, feeling awful in every sense of the word, “I guess I just wasn’t worth it, right? I wasn’t worthy of your oh so precious time, but everyone else was. Something else was.” Your expression darkens slightly as your strained smile drops completely.

“There’s always something else, right? Something else to do, someone else to see. You could make time, alright, but just couldn’t for me.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Y/n.”

“Then please, enlighten me, what are you saying, Grayson?” Dick hates every time you say that, every time you refer to him by his last name. It feels like there's a deeper meaning to it that he refuses to see, and just hearing you call him that instead of anything else only forces him to remember that. To remind him of his own faults, both past and present.

Maybe he'd wonder how he keeps messing things up or why he keeps saying everything besides what he actually wants to say, but he's too deep in his own feelings to even think about that. Even if the answer laid within the action itself.

“Saving the city- having to look after Bludhaven and Gotham sometimes, and even the world on occasion- doesn't really give anyone a lot of time to do certain things. You know I'm not over all the time, and that I'm not always… y'know.”

“Dick Grayson?”

“Yeah! And just…” he took a breath before sighing once again, “All I'm saying is that a different approach could've been taken.” You hate how every word he said only seemed to validate concerns you had in the past. Thoughts that still liked to linger every now and then when you caught yourself still thinking about what could've been, and if certain things happened, would that really change anything?

It's funny that only now were you truly beginning to think otherwise.

“So… what?” You say in a dry voice, “Are you saying that I should’ve been just like you? Just like the others- and give up my dream, what I wanted to do- give up my passion, because at least then I would be able to talk to you? Because I would have a higher chance of even seeing you?”

“That's not what I mean, Y/n, and you know that-”

“No. No I don't. I don't know that, and honestly? I have no idea what the hell you’re even trying to tell me right now besides that I should’ve tried harder. That I didn't do enough, because clearly- spending all of my time trying to do things for you, to accommodate for the whole fucking family that couldn't even stand for me to be in their presence for even a few seconds-” You took a shaky breath, more tears spilling out and escaping you, more falling than you would've liked, “that's not enough. Wasting my life away and trying to do everything I could to the point where it put my health at risk- that wasn't enough. I should’ve just dropped everything and followed everyone else instead of trying to find an alternative, because there was no alternative, right? Is that what you're trying to say?”

For once, Dick was speechless and had nothing to say, and his silence only made you hurt more. It's like you were waiting for what felt like the inevitable.

“What else am I supposed to do, huh? What else haven't I done? Is nothing else good enough for you? Is that really the only way I could've been with you? To see you, to actually talk with you and all the others? To be part of the family? Is that what it would've taken?” You're nearly gasping for air at this rate, with every word you say only carving deeper into your heart, and getting harder to say as you struggle to voice them aloud. Nearly choking on both your words and tears, and yet you push on.

“Did I really have to give up on my passion- my dreams to have a better chance to be something to you?”

“Y/n, that's not what I mean. Doing it wouldn't have gotten in the way-”

“You know that's bullshit! You act like the line of work you do doesn't take over your life! Like you don't think about it everyday- like you aren't constantly in danger!” At this point you're shouting and you barely even realize it, tears flowing freely now as they burn into your cheeks and crash down on the pavement below, “Is it so bad that I don't want that? That I don't want to put my life at risk? That I don't want to live your life?!”

“Maybe you enjoy that. Maybe you like that chaos and constantly putting your life on the line- but some people don't! Maybe you're made for that kind of life, but I'm not! I want to live my own life without having to be even more worried about my own well-being and safety!”

“Y/n, please- calm down! I don't want to fight, I-” Dick took a quick breath, his own heart squeezing as he tries to remain stable, to remain calm. Even if it felt like he was watching his whole world crumble before him, each tear you shed stabbing into him, and every word that spilled out just twisted the knives as they dug deeper into his chest and body. “I understand what you mean, but you have to realize-”

“Realize what? That everything I did was for nothing?” Thinking it was one thing, but saying it out loud was another. The words weighed heavy on your tongue, and the more you tried to say them the more choked up you became. “That all of my effort was in vain, and I should’ve given up while I was ahead? Because that's the impression I'm getting right now-”

“That's not what I meant, Y/n. I… I didn't mean it like that.”

“But how else could you have possibly meant it? How else am I supposed to interpret that?” You laughed again, but it was just as sad and pathetic as the last, “You can't expect me to just know these things, Grayson, especially considering everything and just-” You felt like you were going to tear your hair out, like you were going to collapse and truly break. Yet you managed to stand, and speak again no matter how weak your voice is.

“You were never there for me, none of you were.” Your hands are shaking and your face burns, voice cracking in every way possible, and you hate this feeling. Yet above all else, you hate how he made you feel like this, “I could show up at the manor, bloodied and bruised, and no one- no one would notice or bat an eye. I could be wearing a cast and have crutches, and yet not a single person besides Alfred would see it or comment on it. I could be at the hospital and no one would show up, not one of you-”

“Wait… what-?” Dick tried to speak, but you wouldn’t let him, you couldn’t.

“You were never there when I needed you. You never checked up on me, you barely even noticed me-” again, you suck in another breath, barely able to take it in, “do you know what I’ve had to deal with on my own? How much it cost me? How much it hurt me-?”

“Wait, wait- hold on! You’ve been hurt?” Dick managed to cut you off, “I… I never heard about this.”

“Of course you haven't!” You couldn't help but laugh, more tears spilling and leaving scars on your face with how badly they burned into your skin, “You hardly even noticed, how can you expect to hear about it?”

“You didn't tell me- you didn't tell anyone! How- how am I supposed to know about these things when you won't even tell anyone? When you won't tell me?” Dick can feel himself begin to tear up, but he keeps it all down. He was frustrated, and even if it wasn't directed towards you, he couldn't keep his big mouth shut. Even if by the looks of things - you couldn't either, even if that was for a different reason.

Maybe you both were one in the same, but different in some ways. Dick would feel stupid if he noticed it, but of course he couldn't — not at the moment. Not with how things are going.

If only he noticed that sooner. If only he had done a lot of things sooner – then both of you wouldn't be in this position. You wouldn't be in this position.

Yet, he couldn't help himself. Both of you couldn't, in a way.

“I can't read your mind, Y/n! I'm not even at the manor half the time- how am I supposed to notice? You can't just expect me to suddenly know-”

“But you visit enough for the others? For any one of them you'd come rushing over, especially if it was for Damian-”

“At least he tells me when he gets hurt!”

“Are we talking about the same kid right now? God, and here I thought that he was your favorite.”

“‘Favorite’?” Dick chuckled out humorlessly, feeling something in him break at your words. “I don't have any favorites-”

“That is such bullshit, Grayson, and you fucking know that.” You couldn't help but sneer, everything you tried to keep inside finally rearing its ugly head as the lid you tried to put on your emotions flew off, leaving you feeling nothing but unapologetic rage. “You play favorites all the time, but I wouldn't know that, would I? I'm probably your least-”

“Don't say that. You're not. You never were.”

“Right! Yeah, you're right. After all, I'm not even on the list, am I? How can I be the least when you barely even acknowledge me-?”

“I didn't-” Dick just cuts himself off, sighing before he continues, not being able to stop the scoff that slips past, “I didn't mean it like that. You're important to me, Y/n, how many times do I have to say that? It's like you're trying to put words in my mouth at this rate.”

“Well, excuse me for not believing you considering that, oh, I don't know, I've been ignored by you for years? That-”

“‘Ignored’? I haven’t been ignoring you, no one has-”

“Really? Are you really trying to say that now-?”

“I understand that you're frustrated, okay? That you have all the reason to be mad- but no one has ignored you. I haven't ignored you-”

“BULLSHIT! That is bull-SHIT!” You scream before you even notice the words had left your mouth in the first place, “You would have said that before it that was the case! And even then- how the hell do you explain this entire shit show? How do you even dare to try and explain where the fuck ANY of you have been?! Because people can only be so ignorant and stupid until others begin to think it's intentional and you're doing it on god-damn purpose-!” Broken, harsh chuckles escape you - slipping in between your piercing words, ones so rough and dry that it scratches your throat just to let them out. The disbelief was heavy in each and every one of them, utterly devoid of any humor, and yet they were so unbelievably empty simultaneously.

You could feel your heart breaking even more, but you weren't the only one. Not that it mattered, as with each piece that was chipped off, you could only register the little sounds of you coming apart. Everything else was muffled, and almost completely blocked out. With your only focus being on him, on them.

“Just because something looks a certain way, doesn't mean that it's really like that. I told you, it isn't that easy. Like I said before- I haven't been avoiding you, let alone ignoring you! I wasn't trying to do anything like that-”

“It doesn't matter what you tried! What you're trying to do! Don't you see? What matters is what it felt like to me-”

“But you won’t let me change that! You won't let me try and change things- it’s like you want it to remain the same-!”

“YOU DON'T GET TO SAY WHAT I WANT! NOT AFTER THIS- NOT AFTER EVERYTHING! You don’t get to say shit like that- you don't know me! You don't know what I've been through-! So stop talking like you understand me!”

“But you won't let me in! You won't give me the chance to understand! How can I expect to know anything when you're giving me nothing to work with?!”

“How about you take a fucking hint, Grayson. Can't you read the room?! You're a cop for crying out loud! And was trained by the best detective the world has to offer- so it's not my fault you're acting like you're stupid!”

“You're not another case, Y/n! You're family, you’re my sibling! Not something that needs to be solved! Is it really so hard to just tell me anything and not push me away when I'm right here?!”

Your words catch in your throat momentarily, but you try to push past that and force something out, not caring if it was made of broken glass or venom. Yet, just as you go to speak, and the first letter escapes your lips – Dick finally breaks too.

“SHUT UP! Just Shut. Up. And ACTUALLY listen to me for one second! Please! For the love of-” Dick can't help but scoff, running a hand down his face, and covering his mouth with it.  Looking away as he does so, brows furrowing. 

He wants to say something, think of anything that he wants you to hear and understand clearly - but nothing comes to mind. Nothing you'd truly hear him out on, anyway. Nothing he's already mentioned to you. Nothing that would make this better. Even as he goes to try and say something, all that comes out is a mess of half finished words that he can't make comprehensible, especially not in a way that'll have you listen to him where you won't try to bite at him again.

So, he falls silent. You both do.

Your eyes widening at the sudden shout, before your gaze hardens and you glare at Dick through your tears and agony. His silence makes you angrier, but his loud response does shut you up momentarily.

“Well– fine, if you want me to be quiet so badly, then I'm leaving.” You manage to say after a moment, voice wavering and becoming weaker — now spent thanks to how you've been using it up until this point.

Still, your words immediately snap Dick out of whatever trance he was in, and cause his head to snap back in your direction, with his eyes locking onto you once again – though they widen a little before he tries to calm down, and take in one last breath. He scrambles to say anything, especially as he sees you turn to leave, and see your words through.

“W-wait, hold on, I-” he presses his lips into a thin line, thinking briefly before continuing, “Can I at least walk you home? It isn't safe-”

You pause in your movements, “No. Just-” you don't look back, you can't bring yourself to, but you do just barely glance over your shoulder – though not enough to actually see him again. Dick can't see your eyes anymore, but he can still see the tears streaming down your face. “Just leave me alone. All of you.”

Dick tries to reach out, to stop you one last time – but he hesitates, and just lets his hand fall back to his side. Instead, opting to watch you leave while he stands there, left hurt and alone. His eyes eventually find and land on the coffee you had left behind on the bench, and he finds himself staring at that once you're out of sight.

He has to hold back from running after you, and following - if only to just make sure that you'd reach your apartment in one piece - but he manages. It's the least he could do, after all, and besides, he doubts he'd be able to do that without making you hate him even more. He's gathered as much from all of this, and really - from the looks of things, he had a lot more to consider than he had originally thought. All of them did.

… It's only as you walk away and the distance between you and Dick grows bigger, with both of your words beginning to settle - that you both notice the clouds once light cries have turned into ugly sobs, with each tear being shed heavier than the last, thunder roaring and echoing in the distance, lightning striking the earth with a deafening clap. It was only then that both of you even noticed that the light drizzle from before had turned into pouring rain, and that there was more than just the two of you in the world. Something that felt heavier than it should’ve, but felt appropriate at the same time.

Regardless, you continue to walk away, and once again, never look back as you commit to your decision no matter what may happen afterwards, or the consequences that may follow. Just like that one day back in the manor, you move on and go on with your choice, just knowing what you want in that moment and seeing no reason to deny yourself — especially when you want the same thing you wanted that night, when you just want to get away. You don’t know what happened tonight, but all you knew is that you didn’t want to be a part of it anymore, so you just left, and maybe you would’ve felt a little grateful that Dick let you go if you had noticed to begin with – since your mind was more focused on just putting as much distance between you and him as possible.

Your phone vibrates in your pocket, and it’s only then that you remember that you still had it on you – not that you knew why you’d leave it anywhere or forget it, but it’s something you noticed nonetheless. You fish it out of your pocket as you walk, and wipe some of your tears away with the back of your hand, sniffling lightly as you check the notification. Jessica had left you a voicemail – several, actually. You couldn’t imagine why, but you didn’t try very hard to think of a reason, and instead just opened your phone to listen to it.

[“Hey, hun’, it’s been a while, you okay? If you don’t call in the next twelve hours or so then I’m calling the police- even if most of them are useless as hell, I know more of them will look, since they know who you are and all that. But I swear if that asshole did anything to you then he’s got another thing coming, and I know you don’t like to fight, but please, for the love of god, just sucker punch that creep in the face if you have to. He looks like he could use one, and an extra hard one at that.” She takes a moment to sigh, clearly frustrated - which her tone made very clear - but you could sense a little worry, “But, seriously. Just get back to me when you can, and you better be safe, alright? Listen to my other voice message if you haven’t already, talk to you soon, bye.”]

Just hearing Jessica’s voice made you feel a bit better, and some of what she said got a little laugh out of you. She always tried to look after you, and with what just happened – you couldn’t be more grateful for it.

So, you did as told, and listened to the other voice message she had left you, curious as to what she had wanted you to know about.

[“Hey, it’s Jess, darlin’. I hope you’re not still with that guy, but if you are then just remember what I told you, okay? Well, anyway, Cece came by, and is waiting for you in the diner, and barely awake at that. So just come by and pick them up, since- well, I’d send ‘em home on their own but honestly I doubt they’d be able to make it there themselves. I’m a little surprised they were even able to reach this place- but you get the jist. Come by, but if you’re still with that guy? I can wait, just hurry up because a girl’s gotta get her beauty sleep. See you, bye.”]

… Oh, well, guess you had to make a stop on your way home, then. You wanted nothing more than to curl up in your bed and just sleep, but it’s not like the walk to the diner was long anyway, and besides, it was on the way back to your apartment, so you couldn’t really complain.

With that, you made a turn and headed towards the diner. Still processing and taking in everything as you do so — but when you feel more tears begin to well up, you push it to the side, and tell yourself that you’ll handle it later. No matter how short or long that interaction was, it drained you, and you desperately needed rest. Maybe it wasn’t the most healthy decision to make, but you couldn’t handle doing anything else right now, so it’d have to wait. Besides, with how tonight went, you definitely didn’t want to think about Dick and the others at the moment – they didn’t deserve it, anyway.

Thankfully, you reached the diner in no time, and it’s only when Jessica stops you at the door do you even realize that your soaked… which makes sense but you feel a little embarrassed when she points it out nonetheless, and says how she loves you but doesn’t want to have to clean the floor again when her shift has been over for about a half hour. Cece was sitting at the counter, and perks up when you enter, giving a sleepy smile before standing up and making their way over to you. Both of you thank Jessica as you take your leave – but not before you wish her a good night and say your usual goodbyes, even if she does make a point about how you and her will talk later. Hell, she even sneaks in how you almost looked like her after her breakup with Michael which… ouch, you can only imagine how awful you really look if that was the case – but it also only fully confirmed that you were talking to her about what happened no matter what.

Still, you were grateful that she left it at that, and didn’t pry anymore as she finally let you and Cece go home. The walk to the apartment – or, rather, the short run there – since you and Cece ended up sharing their jacket as cover from the rain, and they had a funny idea as you both held it over your heads, and… well, one thing led to another – and it's safe to say it turned out to be rather eventful. Ending with you and Cece laughing in front of your apartment building once you reached it, huddled in front of the small entrance – Cece ending up being partially soaked despite their best efforts, and of course, you’re beyond drenched.

Once you reach your shared home, Cece, despite barely being awake, basically shoves you into the shower once you're both a little more settled, and you just do as told – more than a little tired yourself in numerous ways, and definitely not in the mood to argue. When you’re clean and in a new set of clothes, you and Cece talk a little. They try to ask why you had been out, but you just say you ran into someone – though it wasn’t anyone important, and that it wasn’t something to worry about — with them just accepting that answer, much to your relief.

The rest of the evening becomes a bit of a blur after that, with you and Cece just talking some more here and there, sharing a few laughs that really helped brighten your mood and made you forget all about what had happened. The pain becomes dull, and that bright fire in your chest finally dies out - leaving behind a warmth that wasn’t burning or suffocating, but instead comforting and painless. One you welcomed graciously and with open arms as you felt yourself relax more and more.

Eventually, Cece turned in for the night, and as they headed back into their room, you did one last check of the apartment — making sure all the windows were not only locked, but that the curtains were closed. Going as far as to check the front door a few times just to make sure that it was really locked. Even if none of what you did would really stop any of them from getting in - it put your mind at ease a little, and really, that’s all you could hope for.

With that, you finally settled into bed, and fell asleep faster than you had in years.

For once, you hoped you’d never wake up as your worries and fears felt so far away, and reality was out of reach – even if it laid just beyond your closed eyelids. As much as you hoped for a better morning, more than anything, you hoped that you’d just sleep the week away if you could help it. God knows you needed the rest, or at least it felt like you did.

—----------

Dick had no such luxury.

The night became a blur after you had left, and he barely remembers even meeting up with the rest of the family once everything was said and done. He couldn’t tell how long he had been standing in that park all by himself, thinking of everything you had told him and looking at the little pieces of your existence that still remained behind.

All he knows is one thing led to another, and now he’s here – sitting on top of a roof with everyone else both simultaneously chastising him and trying to discuss what they should do now. Though Dick couldn’t bring himself to pay attention, since the events that had unfolded moments prior replayed in his mind like a broken record, torturing him slowly as his brain reminded him of all of the mistakes he’s made tonight. He can’t understand why he said half of what he did, especially because he didn’t mean it. He didn’t mean to blow up like he did – especially in front of you, and when you were clearly hurting and frustrated on top of that. The only thing Dick wanted to do in that moment was stop both of you from arguing, and it seems that his mouth ran off to do just that before he could think of a better way to do it. Now leaving him like this, and things worse off than they were before.

Point is, Dick felt like shit, and he knew he deserved it. Though the rest of the family definitely weren’t helping him out in that regard.

“How the hell did you even fuck this up, Dick?” Jason asks, his tone so heated it sounds like it could’ve come from the depths of hell itself – and all just to burn his older brother.

“I knew I should’ve gone instead, this would’ve never happened-” Tim can’t help but mumble to himself, arms crossed as he sighs, frustrated – but not completely at Dick. If there was a moment for him to really believe he should’ve kept your address and apartment number to himself, it was definitely now.

“Wait- so… what do we do now?” Stephanie asks, concerned over what happened, and that Dick hasn’t really said anything about it to them – even if all of them can tell it went poorly.

Damian just sighs, his arms crossed as well as he looks at Dick before looking to the others, “Take matters into our own hands, obviously.”

“While I agree that something should be done, is it really a good idea to act now?” Barbara pitches in, not entirely sure of what Damian was talking about, but not liking the implications of it all the same. Something about it just didn’t feel right to her, nor did the look he gave her.

“Of course. Now that they’re presumably heading to their apartment, we can just-” before Damian can finish what he was going to say, Cassandra covers his mouth, cutting him off swiftly which annoys the little Robin enough to shove her hand away and give her a scrutinizing look, “what?”

Cassandra just shakes her head, and instead begins to sign something, basically saying how they don’t know if you're even at your apartment, and by the time they find out where you actually are, it’ll probably be morning. Even mentioning how since you know that they know where you live, you probably wouldn’t even be there anymore. Which just causes Damian to huff in response. She had a point, and he knew it, but he wasn’t going to admit it out loud.

Still, despite that Jason spoke up again, “Actually, I agree with the little twerp. Now’s a good a time as any to get them home.”

“... You can't be serious, right?” Barbara asks, now getting a little concerned over what Jason meant as well, and the half-shrug he gave did little to reassure her or calm her nerves that were slowly beginning to rise.

“Why not? They’re still out there doing god knows what- who knows where in the dead of night,” he points out, giving Barbara a little glance, “it anything, I just see more of a reason to get them before anything else happens.”

“Jason, do you even hear yourself right now.”

“What? Is it a crime to be worried for my god damn family now?”

“Jason.” Bruce’s voice pierces through the air, cutting through the tension before anyone else can speak up or give their two cents. Almost as if just his voice alone was enough of a barrier between those who wanted to get you home, those that didn’t, and the few who didn’t know where they stood at the moment. 

Regardless, it’s enough for Jason to stand down, if only temporarily as Bruce turns to Dick – who’s still out of it, and staring at the ground just before his feet.

“Dick,” Bruce calls out, which only gets him a subtle glance, with Dick not even bothering to pick up his head – or maybe he just couldn’t, no one could tell except for the one person among them who was much too fluent in body language. “What do you think?” He asks simply, narrowing his eyes a little when his eldest son grows quieter somehow.

Dick fidgets with the coffee cup in his hands, its warmth long gone, and yet he still runs a finger or two along the side as if it was still there. He doesn’t know why he grabbed it, but now he almost couldn’t find it in himself to let it go. It was yours, after all, if only for a brief moment – and even if all it did was serve as a reminder of his faults, it reminded him of you, and right now? That’s all he could ask for. Dick can’t explain it, but it’s like by holding the cup and having it with him, he had a small part of you with him. Since, sure, while you had left it during your… ‘dispute’ with him, it had come from a place you liked and he could only assume that it was just how you liked your coffee. It was silly, but holding it made him feel close to you, and that’s all he wanted at the moment. To be close.

… It takes him a beat or two before he responds, and even then he seems unsure of himself – but remembering what had transpired minutes ago is enough to set his mind straight.

“I think… we should give them some time, and… a bit of space too for a while.” Dick manages to say hesitantly, tapping the cup lightly as he still holds onto it.

That seemed to quiet everyone down for a moment, until Stephanie eventually asks the question on everyone’s mind.

“Just how badly did things go, Dick?”

He couldn’t answer that, he didn’t want to, so he remained silent. However, Cassandra could tell, and found herself just as divided as she felt the moment she first saw him. She didn’t know what she wanted to do more – throw Dick off the roof, or go looking for you herself. Maybe she’d try to do both if Bruce wasn’t right there. 

“So, what? Do they hate us now or something?” Jason says sarcastically, but with how Dick tenses a little his tone turns harsher, “... You can’t be serious.”

“Dick- please tell me you didn’t screw things up that badly. Please tell me that you didn’t make things worse!” Tim almost begs, desperate to be wrong and hoping that his eldest brother hadn’t made things worse – that there was still a small chance.

Sure, they didn’t expect things to go great, but none of them really believed that they would go so horribly!

“Look, just-” Dick takes a short breath, looking at the cup in his hands in quiet defeat before glancing away, “I think we should give them some time to themself is all.”

Jason can only scoff as he crosses his arms, “I knew I should’ve gone instead, they would’ve been home right now.”

“I believe me and father would’ve handled the situation much better,” Damian states, as if it would lead to the only positive outcome should he and Bruce had gone instead.

“I knew I should’ve kept my mouth shut and just gone over by myself- stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” Tim curses under his breath, looking away as he continues to mumble to himself – expression growing increasingly darker and the air around him shifting into… something indescribable.

Cassandra seemed just about ready to rip something apart, and Stephanie was getting nervous from how the others seemed to be reacting, only able to stutter out a small, “G- guys? Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this right now-”

“I agree…” Barbara chips in, her own concerns only growing as she looks at the family, but tries to help Stephanie out nonetheless, “What’s done is done, and we should be trying to figure out what to do from here on out.”

Damian scoffs, “Right, like that will be easy with brother being silent about everything.” Dick could only look away in response, taking a small sip of the coffee in his hands, finding a little bit of comfort in its taste. It was cold, and wasn’t how he usually got his done – but it’s how you liked it, and that was enough from him to like it too.

A small argument seemed to spawn from that alone, with some now going back and forth yet again on what to do – Cassandra, Jason, and Damian pretty adamant about wanting to bring you home, with Barbara, Stephanie, and Dick more keen on waiting and giving you space — even if Dick was definitely more quiet about his stance, still thinking about… whatever was on his mind. Tim didn’t seem to engage much in the arguing either, and instead seemed to be dealing with his own thing as he kept mumbling to himself, leaving Bruce to be stuck listening to all of the nonsense until he finally got fed up with it.

“Quiet down, all of you.” He states firmly, voice cold and harsh as he shuts everyone up without even moving an inch. His eyes seemed to judge all of them as he looked at everything before sighing, and making the decision for everyone.

“We’ll give them time, and stand down for now.” He says, his tone alone indicating that there would be no arguing on this. What he said was final, and everyone would be smart to follow along with it, no matter where they stood. Still, he turned to look down at the city, and caught the faintest glimpse of your apartment building in the not-so-far distance. “but if anything happens, then we’ll act accordingly.”

[ceilidho]

fear of god

There's someone outside the spacecraft. You don't remember them being part of the crew. Part 10 masterlist

-

Only after incinerating the original samples do you second guess your actions.

Too late by then. By the time it occurs to you that it might’ve been smarter to keep the samples to reference later, they’re already in biohazard bins, autoclaved and in the process of being incinerated, flames dancing behind the glass. 

You can only watch dispassionately. Mistakes made in crisis; you keep yielding to the thin stretch of fear across the vanishing point of your paranoia and hoping you won’t make the same mistake again, only to repeat the same pattern. 

Over lunch in the mess, you bite back your anxiety and ask Gaz to come by the lab in the morning in order to draw another vial of blood. He spreads his legs under the table until his knees taps against yours.

There’s a glint in his eye when he smiles. “Something wrong with the one from yesterday?”

Stare and swallow your pride. “I…accidentally contaminated it. Can you come by?”

“Of course, doctor. Anything for you.”

You grit your teeth to avoid snapping at him in front of everyone else, the mess full for a change. Under the table, you press your knees together until your legs tremble. 

True to his word, Gaz comes by first thing in the morning, perky enough to rub you the wrong way. You slept poorly again though, so it’d be hard to rub you the right way. 

“You look tired, love,” Gaz observes quietly, the paper crinkling under him as he sits himself down on the exam table.

“I am tired.” Your voice is subdued, weary, but somehow the thought of being vulnerable in front of him doesn’t scare you the way it once did. Your dynamic these days is an interesting one. Two people in on the same secret. It makes you feel almost close to him in a way, a shared intimacy that doesn’t extend to the rest of the crew. 

“Didn’t get enough sleep?” he asks.

“No, I—” 

A man stands at the end of a long corridor, shrouded in darkness.

You are powerless to stop him unless he wants to be stopped.

He is coming for you. He is holding out his hand and waiting for you to take it.

You rub your forehead where it aches. “No. Not enough.”

Hadir follows not long after, the door sliding shut behind him as you prep the syringe. You don’t respond when he says good morning, not in the mood for pleasantries or conversation with everything else going on. It’s hard to feel up to being friendly when this whole situation feels like a thinly veiled attempt to monitor you, like you’re the untrustworthy one when two feet away, Gaz sits with a serene smile on his face and twiddles his thumbs. 

There’s a small pleasure in plunging a needle into his vein again, but you’re not cruel enough to try and make it hurt. You’re not even sure if you could. 

He doesn’t so much as wince. 

You’re much more efficient about it with Hadir hovering over your shoulder, immediately transferring Gaz’s blood into capillary tubes after drawing it from him and flitting to the other side of the room to place the tubes into the centrifuge. It’s not a long wait—ten minutes tops—but you spend it hunched over the centrifuge. On the other side of the room, Gaz and Hadir chit chat like nothing’s wrong. 

The second the centrifuge beeps, you pop the lid and remove the tubes. Perfectly separated; no different than the day before. You repeat the same steps as Hadir watches, pipetting the supernatant fluid into a new test tube and preparing the slides, shoulders tense the whole time. Waiting for him to stop and correct you. 

It never comes—as it shouldn’t. You may not be above question, but you’re good at your job. You wouldn’t have messed up something as simple as a blood test of all things.

Then, you sit down in front of the microscope. 

Something in your gut tells you what’s going to happen before it does. You slip the slide under the microscope and lean forward into the eyepiece only to find perfectly normal red blood cells. No strange wandering cells bending into confounding shapes. Just erythrocytes sitting peacefully on the blood smear slide, not overlapping and not too widely spread apart.

You look over at Gaz when Hadir takes your place, the man still sitting on the examination table as if waiting for your permission to leave. The smile on his face is as placid as ever, almost affectionate. You’d almost believe it too, if you didn’t know any better. 

Why are you doing this? You wish you could just ask him outright. It borders on the cruel. Like a humiliation ritual, the both of you knowing that the blood cells under the microscope aren’t what they seem. Why are you putting me through this?

His eyes twinkle. Because I can, they say. 

It doesn’t take Hadir very long to come to the same conclusion as you. 

“Looks all good to me,” Hadir pronounces, smiling brightly when he pulls away from the eyepiece. “See, doc? Yesterday’s must’ve been a fluke.”

You nod instead of answering. It seems trivial to respond with words; nothing you could say would express the deep well opening up inside of you, the ever widening gap between you and the reality you once took for granted. All you can do is sit there in silence as the two of them leave together.

That seemingly no one aside from you can seem to articulate or even comprehend the magnitude of the situation at hand is starting to get to you. 

Deep within every quiet corner of the universe lie the seeds of destruction; a throbbing, cancerous heart. There’s no epiphany there though, no revelation or moment of enlightenment to shock you to your core—you know that life and death are inextricably intertwined, an egg nesting within another egg. Supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies. Figs and wasps. Beginnings and endings.

Now one is knocking at your door, asking to come in.

The day severs itself into two when Farah finds you making a cup of tea in the galley. Your guard is already up when the door slides open and she marches in, so geared up to be scolded that you flinch at the sound of the door sliding shut. 

“We need to talk,” Farah says. Her tone brooks no argument. You’ve been dreading this confrontation, but you aren’t particularly shocked by its arrival. News travels fast in confined spaces; gossip faster. You knew from the second that you got Hadir involved after promising that you wouldn’t share your misgivings about Gaz with anyone other than Farah that this would be coming.

“Now?”

“If you’re not busy.”

You’re not and you know she knows that, so instead of arguing you just nod and pour your tea down the sink, following her out of the galley.

She steers you down a hallway away from the main corridor that leads towards the brig and several supply rooms. At the end of the hall, the brig just around the bend behind her, Farah stops and turns to face you, arms across her chest. Her face is set in a stern cast. 

“Why did you ask Hadir to help you with a blood test? He’s not the ship’s medic.”

That being her first question does come as a surprise. You’d assumed she’d immediately tear into you about involving Hadir in your arrangement, not interrogate you about leaning on another crew member for advice and support. 

“I didn’t ask him to. He volunteered.”

“Why did he volunteer?”

“I…thought there was something wrong with Gaz’s blood sample from the other day. I asked him if he could confirm if there was something wrong. I just needed a second pair of eyes.”

A terrible idea in retrospect. You should’ve anticipated Hadir’s reaction and the subsequent fallout. 

“He told me about what you said yesterday. About Gaz. Do I need to be concerned?”

“Well, I am concerned about Gaz. If you’d seen his blood the other day—”

“I mean concerned about you.”

You blink, floored. “Concerned about me?” you ask in bewilderment. “What did I do?” 

“You told Hadir that you didn’t think Gaz was human. How is anyone supposed to take that? You might not like him, but he's part of the crew now, and insinuating that about someone on the crew is—”

“Wait, wait—I’m sorry I got Hadir involved when I said I wouldn’t, but—I thought when you said you’d keep an eye on Gaz that it meant you…had similar suspicions.”

She looks at you strangely. “I never promised to keep an eye on Gaz. What are you talking about?”

Her response leaves you at a loss for words. Suddenly and acutely aware that you have been having two separate conversations—you assuming that Farah’s frustration stemmed from involving her brother when she previously asked you not to, and her assuming something entirely different. 

“Yes, we did,” you insist. “You told me the other day that you would as long as—”

Something moves in the shadows. 

Your eyes flick towards it instinctively. Then your body goes rigid.

A slender, dark eyed woman watches you from the end of the hall, her lips tilted up in an enigmatic grin. Half-shrouded in shadow, you notice her only because you catch her moving in your peripheral vision when she shifts her weight to one leg. You notice first the familiar stripped headscarf wrapped around her head. Then, the smaller details of her face—full eyebrows and aquiline nose, the soft rounded corners of her jaw pulled tight with her smile. 

“Doctor?” the Farah in front of you asks. Your tongue feels heavy in your mouth, blood pressure spiking. 

The other woman takes a step into the light. It’s Farah in shape and appearance, but there’s something off about it. Like you’re aware now of something intrinsically lesser about it when shown in opposition to the real thing. 

The Farah in front of you frowns, concerned at your sudden silence. You’re aware now of how much more solid she is, real as a gut punch. Real as grass beneath your feet back on Earth or the heat of the sun on your face, all dulled out in space.

“Did we talk the other day?” you ask. “The other day—after the navigation system was fixed?”

And her eyes say it before her lips do. 

“We haven’t spoken in days. I stayed back to help Alex after that meeting.”

Cold reality flashes briefly before you: hollow voices and replicas. What have your eyes been seeing? Reality laps against the smoothened rocks of your mind. Do you know what’s happening to you?

Can you trust what’s really in front of you?

The thing behind Farah wearing her face approaches without sound, coming closer and closer until it stands right beside her, mirroring her stance, its face screwing itself into a similarly serious expression. Double vision. Your vision is blurry around the edges, fear making you tremble something fierce. 

You keep waiting for Farah to notice it standing right beside her, for her to suddenly turn her head and see it there, but she doesn’t. She stares at you with mounting concern. 

And then you blink, the two versions blurring and then overlapping. 

Your throat makes a sound like a whimper. You take a step back, the metal clang of your boot against the floor jarring in the silence. 

“I have to go,” you whisper, the blood draining from your face, your lips almost numb.  

She calls after you when you turn around, hurrying back down the hall whence you came, but you don’t stop, breaking into a run when you hear Farah come after you.

Rat in a maze. Mouse in a trap. You scurry down corridors knowing that there’s no place to run to. At every point, there is a wall past which you cannot go. Hauntingly familiar twists and turns, everything saturated with the memory of itself, the same walls you’ve seen innumerable times. The ship fills with low creaks and hollow sounds, cramped quarters and over familiarity to the point of suffocation. 

And then the nothingness that waits for you right outside the ship. Billions upon billions of miles of dark emptiness surrounding you, only occasionally interrupted by pockets of cold clouds of gas, even more seldomly coming together in precisely the right way for a star or planet to be born. 

Set in contrast with the vast infinity just beyond your walls, the ship feels impossibly small. A tiny speck floating through the cosmos. 

You wish you could wrench a window open and climb out of it. 

You can feel it swell up in your chest at first, bigger and bigger, stretching you around its immensity. Suddenly unable to take in a full breath, your chest too tight for your lungs to fill. Your body is somewhere else behind you, on a ship drifting through space, no certainty that you’ll ever return home. Earth is so far away—tens of millions of miles away from you and no way to get back. 

There’s a hand on your nape suddenly. 

“Hey,” a low voice murmurs. “Are you alright, love?” 

You don’t answer, heaving for breath. Chest collapsing in on itself. A dying star; tiny, tiny light flickering in and out of existence. Hands sweating profusely. Heart hammering against your chest so hard it hurts. 

“I’m with you, love—I’m not going anywhere.”

The voice murmurs low in your ear again, susurrus but too far away for you to make out. Then, a hand on your low back guiding you away, tucking you into a soft, warm place. You go with it. Dark. No blinding artificial lights blinding you. 

“C’mon, breathe with me,” the voice guides you. “Deep breaths. In, out, in, out—”

You follow their instructions, taking in a shaky breath and holding before expelling it. 

“There you go—that’s good,” he praises softly.

The come down is rough. All that adrenaline dumping straight out of you, heart still lurching in your chest. You’ve never had a panic attack before, but you know what to expect in the aftermath and it doesn’t disappoint. You might as well have been hit by a truck for how much your body aches. 

When you finally have the wherewithal to look around and take stock of the situation, you notice that you’re in someone else’s quarters, the lights dimmed until only a sliver of light penetrates through the dark. It’s one of the smaller rooms, no porthole to gaze out through into the blackness of space—only a cot and a folding table mounted into the wall. 

Crouched in front of you, your limp hands held in his while his thumbs rub soothing circles on the backs of your hands, is Gaz. 

Your horror is a beast on the periphery of your consciousness. Too depleted for it to overwhelm you. But you feel it balloon in your chest even though it doesn’t have the strength to move you. 

“Love, listen—shh, no, no, no,” Gaz shushes you when you try to cry out. “No, enough, you need to calm down. Just let me speak, alright?” 

He shuffles closer to you until he looms over you, your knees spread wide to accommodate him. You get a better sense of his true size from this angle, the man composed of solid, compact muscle, his narrow waist deceptive, giving him a leaner appearance from afar than up close. You know now how much room he can take up when he wants to. 

“None of this is your fault,” he says. He shifts, releasing your hands to cup your elbows instead, smoothing his hands up your arms. “You’ve worked so hard to show them the truth, but they just don’t want to see.”

“It’s—they can’t see because of you—” you croak. 

Gaz shakes his head. “No, no. If they wanted to, they’d see through it. Like you have.”

“No—you’re doing something to me.” 

His lips flick up into a smile. “Doing something?”

“You’re making me see things that aren’t there,” you whisper, shrinking into yourself. “I don’t even know what’s fucking real anymore—you’re scaring me.”

Even this close, you smell nothing. No heat emanates from his body or breath puffs from his lungs. It’s like a monolith looms over you, staring down at you through eyes that you can see but cannot comprehend. For all intents and purposes, he looks like a man. But he is not; he is something altogether different. 

A habitation of otherness smiling down at your unraveling interiority.

“I can make them believe you. I can help them see it with their own eyes. Would you like that, love?”

He says it with so much tenderness, stroking the backs of his knuckles over your cheek. 

“What do you mean?” you ask.

He doesn’t answer at first. You’re stuck gazing into his eyes. 

“What I mean,” he says, leaning in until his words are all you can hear. “Is that I can take away every shadow of doubt from their minds until all that’s left is the cold clarity of certitude. Show them what I’ve shown you.”

Gaz cups your face in both hands, fingers spread wide over your cheeks and neck, drawing you in until your lips brush against his. Softer than you expected, with a touch of texture. You don’t know what to think of him anymore, whether it’s your lips touching his now or whether this is all happening in your head. 

Then your lips part and he sighs into your mouth. His lips glide over yours, tenderer than you expected. Soft and wet; silky. Warmth spreads across your chest, everything suddenly concentrated on his kiss. It deepens almost naturally, your hands lifting to fist in the collar of his shirt and drag him closer to you, exhaling harshly into his mouth when you pull back to breathe, only to fall back into him again. Mouth tasting of something you can’t put your finger on; almost ambrosial. 

Is this what he’s wanted this whole time? The thought vanishes as soon as it comes. You’re a ball on a tether swinging in circles, a small planet orbiting this sun. And you’re slowly, but surely, sinking into him, gravity pulling you so close that you can feel the heat of flames against your cheeks. 

He breaks the kiss and your eyes flutter open to find him staring back at you through half-lidded eyes. “Well?”

“Please.”

Gaz smiles against your lips.

[thessaralka]

Solas romance is basically:

Inquisitor: hey Solas:. …. Inky: I gotchu boo bear ❤️ Solas: choking th-thank you? Inky:… ;) you're not like other girls Solas: I - no I’m not. Thank u for noticing. Inky: ;;;) Solas: ur hot and I’m into u and I might plausibly want to test that theory Inky: choking Inky: so u have feelings for me? Solas: n-noo Inky: tests that theory Solas: fade tongue

Solas: moaning oh hehe this is a dream btw ~ Inky: wow. Hot. sooo. Wanna? Solas: there are....considerations. like mythal's geas over me which is heavily implied in the subcontext throughout my entire narrative arc. Inky:……. U don’t have to do this alone. I felt your tongue in my mouth. I said I gotchu.

Inky: I SAIDDDD I gotchu. Solas: choking vhenan ar lath ma I haven’t and will never forget that kiss smooching noises Inky: damn alright mf Solas: vhenan ❤️❤️❤️❤️ Solas: wow I love sex and parties reminds me of the good ol days let's dance babe Inky: ??? Solas: in the fade ofc. I don't party. Inky: o-okay Solas: mythal's temple…. It's all coming back…. Memories of my pa- the fade. you really cannot rely on friends at all. untrustworthy mfs Inky: ??? damn you're being negative as hell right now you tryina fuc Solas: no. Actually, Yes. Come with me vhenan. Solas: I have so much to tell you. Choking the truth. Your face. The Dalish are but simple fools - Inky: what the fuck Solas: kissing and grabbing ass, choking back tears we cannot. Your duty - I am but a distraction crying Vhenan: … I said whatever you're going thru you don't have to go thru alone. I meant that. Wyd? I love you. Don't leave me. Let's be worms together. Solas: choking and crying I'm such a piece of shit vhenan I can't Vhenan: 😭😭😭😭???????? Vhenan: 😡😡😡😡!!!!!!!!!!!

Solas: heartbroken and wracked with so much guilt on main Cole: all you have to do is tell her. she thinks it's her fault why don't you just tell her? Solas: I'm a piece of shit Cole please stop trying to help me I'm unlovable Vhenan: 💔💔💔???? Solas: harden your heart and use that pain against C-Corypheus. Solas: wh-what we had was real vhenan 😭😭💔💔😭 Solas: leaves Vhenan: 🚬😭 what the fuck even was that

Vhenan: Cullen wyd Vhenan: nevermind. Ew

Vhenan 2 years later: *putting on a clown nose* wdym Solas is an agent of Fen'Harel. Of course. He has been helping us all along ☝🏻😍 Everyone except Cole: you stupid bitch Cole: you see him ❤️ Vhenan: Solas idgaf that you're the dread wolf you should have trusted me. Solas: ….. I'm such a bastard. Solas: I'm going to tear down the veil and kill you and everyone you love. Vhenan: *in full clown makeup* let me help you Solas. You don't have to do his alone. I am literally just as crazy as you. Solas: choking I walk the din'anshiral vhenan I can't let you love me when I'm like this. Vhenan: you stupid mf. I will save you from yourself. Solas: choking and crying my love~ kissing sounds Solas: sobbing I will never forget you…. But you should forget me… I'm such a loser and horrible person. Bye Vhenan: this stupid mf. I will find his ass and make him see.

Solas for 8 years: writing vhenan unsent letters and reading smut and painting murals about it all emo Vhenan: wearing clown makeup this stupid mf. I love him still. Rook: damn okay. Vhenan: *putting on clown shoes* can we save him from himself at this point in time maybe? Morrigan: thinking with your pussy Inquisitor? Vhenan: I have literally never stopped thinking with my pussy from the moment I saw him

Vhenan: Solas, stop. Solas: choking vhenan what are you doing here? I am a peice of shit. Vhenan: Idgaf. You're my peice of shit. Solas: I cannot stop. I am under a geas by Mythal and the writers didn't want to extrapolate on that further even though it is the only thing that makes my character motivations make sense 💔 Mythal: I release you from my service btw. Solas: wow suddenly I am free to make descisions that align with my morals and values. Crazy. Rook: wack. I wanted to punch you. Solas: I will go and seek atonement. Vhenan: not alone you aren't. Solas: crying where I am going is terrible vhenan. Vhenan: I SAID I GOTCHU. WE GOING TO THE BLIGHTED ASS BLACK CITY TOGETHER TO BE WORMS ETERNAL. AND IT WILL BE FINE BECAUSE I SAID SO. Kissing noises Solas: 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 thanks for bringing my woman back to me Rook, serving your only narrative purpose ❤️. Rook: whatever. Vhenan: ;)))) ❤️

[gay-dorito-dust]

Would you be willing to write a Miguel x Spider!Reader oneshot where they’re arguing over something the reader did on a mission. And in the heat of an argument, Miguel yells “Because I love you!” at the perfectly wrong time, revealing why he cares about the reader’s safety.

‘What the hell was that back there. You could’ve jeopardised the whole mission with that reckless stunt you pulled back there!’ Miguel barked, ripping off mask the first moment moment he could; Hellfire were setting ablaze to his beautiful scarlet eyes that were zeroed in on you as the anger, the frustration upon his face became prominent the more he closed the distance between you.

‘When will you let this go, Miguel. When we became Spider-Man we knew the risks that we were running with-‘ ‘so you thought it’d be better to take a running head start by taking the leap and then diving headfirst into them?!’ Miguel cuts you off and with an indignant huff he adds, ‘you don’t get extra points for being reckless, this isn’t some little game that you can just come back to when you feel like it. No, what we do is a full time commitment with no room for last minute deviations just because you were feeling more heroic.’

You grit your teeth. You respected Miguel, you truly did and at one point in time you wanted to do right by his little rule book of how to be a great hero. However you soon learned that it’s better to play by your own rules rather then it was to play by those made by others and slowly but surly found a method that worked for you. For no two methods were the same when it came to protecting and saving people but if they both end in the same conclusion, then no one should be able to raise an issue with it. At the end of the day you and Miguel saved people from a much bigger problem if left unchecked; so why was it that all of a sudden he had an issue with your methods?

It never upset him this much before, so why now. Did he think you as incapable? As unreliable? As untrustworthy to fully let you handle a situation on your own? Whatever it was it only proved in pissing you off despite your semi-injured state; you didn’t care that you’ve gotten hurt, you’ve gotten hurt plenty of times before and he never once batted an eye or exemplified his emotions as he did as of right now. You could barely get a read on the guy as he stood mere feet away, chest heaving even though he wasn’t out of breath, eyes wide and his hair slightly disheveled from the way he had torn off his mask earlier.

And yet you couldn’t help but find him beautiful in his anger, for it was like witnessing the makings of a Greek tragedy; beautifully written, yet so heartbreakingly tragic.

‘Why does it matter?’ You spat, getting up, despite your injured leg’s desire to buckle beneath the weight of not only you but the situation at hand. You saw the briefest movements of Miguel’s arms almost stretch out to instinctively catch you but stopping midway through the motion before going slack at his sides once more; as though remembering why he was mad at you in the first place. ‘It never mattered before, so why does it matter now? You don’t hound the others for doing it so why is it me that’s getting shit on for doing the same when I ain’t the first to do so!’

‘Because I love you!’ Miguel exclaimed.

The silence afterwards was almost deafening. Miguel’s outburst quieted you quickly as a thousand and one thoughts raced in your head; how long? why now? Was this merely a ruse to silence you so he could badger on at you for your supposed mistake? You didn’t know what to make of anything anymore now that he said that. You didn’t want to believe it for starters on the basis that not once had he ever shown interest in you, if anything he made it apparent to push you away or avoid you entirely from any and all interaction, and even when he did it was comprised of short responses that left the attempts at conversation to die as an overwhelming awkwardness forced you into leaving him be.

‘What?’

‘I love you.’ Miguel repeated, softer this time.

‘I get that but why-‘ ‘haven’t I shown it until now? As stupid as it sounds but I didn’t want you to get hurt because of me and look where you are,’ he gestured to your injured state, ‘hurt because of me.’ He adds defeatedly. You were about to open your mouth when Miguel raised a hand, indicating that he wasn’t finished, ‘I know I haven’t given you any reason to believe me when I say that I love you. I avoid you like the plague and I push you away whenever I see you starting to get too close and respond in a clipped tone of voice so that you’d loose interest and move on to talk to someone else.’

He stopped talking to move in closer to you, grasping you by arms with a firm grip as all the anger in his face seemingly having been melted away. The raging hellfire that once consumed his scarlet eyes in their entirety had been diminished to that of dying ambers, unveiling his admiration, his worry, his guilt and most importantly, his love; the sneer now long gone was replaced by a softer more tender expression that didn’t hide away the worry lines that were deeply etched into his skin. ‘I don’t deserve you, I’m not worth having you because sooner or later you’ll see me the way I’ve always seen myself and I’d rather you be as far away as possible when that happens.’ Miguel said, making sure he was maintaining eye contact with you the entire time to prove that he was being wholeheartedly genuine, not wanting to lie to you about something as personal as his feelings; He’s done that for long enough, Miguel knew his breaking point was upon the incline and seeing you act the way you did during the mission only fast forward it.

‘Yet for some inexplicable reason I can’t stop myself for wanting to protect you, to make sure you’re safe, to make sure that you never come to harm. At first I thought it was because I was looking out for a teammate, making sure you didn’t slip up and cause more potential problems for the rest of us, making sure that you didn’t let a single perpetrator slip but soon I learnt it was far more then just simply looking after a teammate...’ Miguel paused to blink away the images regarding of the nightmares he’d get concerning you, which were few and far between but those times were enough to suffocate him with fear. ‘It was something more and I grew scared, I grew scared because I know what it’s like to loose it all but for some reason I also knew that loosing you would just be the nail in the coffin for me.’

Miguel admits as he presses his forehead against your own, his hands trailing from up your arms until they’re caressing the skin of either side of your neck between calloused thumbs. He closing his eyes and allows himself to breath you in, reminding himself that you were here and that he managed to get to you before anything else could, that he kept you safe, not from all harm but at least from some of it and that was good enough but he knew deep down that he needed the do better. ‘Don’t make me imagine a life without you,’ he whispers, pressing his forehead against yours just that tiny bit harder as his fingertips found their home where your pulse points were to remind him that you weren’t gone completely from his grasp, ‘for I don’t think I’m strong enough to withstand that reality.’

‘You don’t have to.’ You told him softly, lifting your hands to caresses the skin of his cheeks and feeling him effectively melt within your hold. ‘Not anymore.’

[somewhereincairparavel]

Annabeth Chase and Jason Grace - two sides of the same coin, an analysis post.

after a long wait, I've finally posted my analysis on jason/annabeth being similar, and mirroring eachother as rivals/potential sibling figures more than percy/jason's 'bro rivalry', based on this post of mine which has crossed over a THOUSAND notes in the last week alone, and I've been getting so many reblogs and comments asking me to expand on my tags in that post and do a full analysis. so here it is. I've been procrastinating this for quite a while now for some reason but I'm glad I'm over my writer's block and I got to articulate my post well enough.

annabeth and jason have had very minor interactions throughout hoo, but the parallels and similarities in their character is jarringly noticeable, which is why I hoped for a jason/annabeth rivalry and not a percy/jason rivalry. they've both been raised at their respective camps since they were literal kids, they were well versed in their respective fields of knowledge, and were well respected/intimidated in their camps.

let's start off with the lost hero

when jason first meets annabeth, he says that her eyes were really intimidating and fierce, so right off the bat, we have jason who's pretty put off by annabeth because she very obviously looked angry, especially since she was frustrated about jason's arrival instead of percy, and looked like she could kill jason to get percy back.

-----------------------------------------------

this parallels to a lot when hazel kept going on about how difficult it was to warm up to jason because his eyes were always calculating and cold, and he gave off an untrustworthy vibe, that he'd sacrifice anyone for the sake of the mission.

both annabeth and jason have a certain similar ‘look’ in their eyes, which have nothing to do with the color. they both have the tendency to make people nervous simply with their eyes, because they always look like they're thinking of new things every few seconds. Ironically, jason first perceived annabeth, the way everyone else perceived him. scary and intimidating with an icy glare and hardened eyes.

They were both said to be ‘studying’ each other in distrust many times throughout. A part of why they didn't trust each other, was, in my opinion, because they embodied their least favorite shared personality trait of each other, secretiveness and guardedness. which is why annabeth got on so well with percy, and jason with leo/piper.

they didn't admire the closed off-ish vibe that they gave eachother. they both needed people who were open and carefree.annabeth said that jason looked like he knew too much information, but chose to keep it all a secret, very similar to her own guardedness from time to time, keeping it a secret and wanting to deal with it silently.

we also know that annabeth and jason are extremely knowledgeable in greek/roman mythology, they both love debates and were quite passionate about history. they were both assigned architecture projects by the gods themselves as a mark of honor and favour.

moving on to the next most important point, they reminded eachother of the people they missed, causing them to feel resentful.

jason, barely met his sister after they reunited. he was bitter when thalia said he had to go look for percy to help out annabeth with the search. he was aware that thalia and annabeth were childhood friends, getting closer to eachother than jason and thalia ever did. she found a home in luke and annabeth, not even a few months after baby jason was thought to be ‘dead’, that knowledge would've weighed a lot on jason. annabeth became the sibling to thalia grace that jason could never be.

while annabeth? the only thing annabeth thought of, after jason had a face off with his mother's remnant in boo, was the fact that jason, who looks eerily similar to luke, could've experienced the exact same fate as him. luke was jason if he had more wrath and held grudges, jason was luke if he had less anger and resentment. annabeth could connect the dots so easily, and that was truly the moment where she gained immense respect for him.

and, when jason told annabeth that his sister was thalia? she had a very odd sort of expression on her face.

annabeth also quotes that looking at jason made her feel bitter, because he reminded her of heras exchange, and the fact that she lost percy for months. whenever she looked at jason, she would only see her two childhood friends, a found family that was broken, and a love that was challenged.

whenever jason looked at annabeth, he would be reminded that thalia had a closer contact to her than she did jason, and had to accept that he would never know thalia as much as annabeth does.

annabeth and jason also appear very confident and sure of themselves, but have second thoughts all the time. they had to put on a fake facade, to live up to their expectations and lineage.

they were both also sort of people pleasers, annabeth couldn't really say no to anyone who asked her for help with things, like carrying the sky for luke especially, because not only where they giving her a chance to execute her knowledge and skill, the thought of helping someone made her genuinely happy. jason also loved seeing people happy, always wanting to say the right thing to satisfy someone, even if it meant he had to sacrifice his own struggles to help them.

fatal flaws:

annabeth’s fatal flaw, is hubris. when you are confident and sure that you can do something, and have a sense of excessive self pride.

and jason's fatal flaw is the temptation to deliberate. hesitation and second guessing, to put it in simpler words.both fatal flaws are so different, yet so similar, and they have both flaws, just in a different viewpoint.

as a child of athena, annabeth appears super confident and even conceding at times because of her wisdom, but at the same time, annabeth had to make sure she was one step ahead of everyone. she had to rethink everything and had to have a plan in her mind all the time, fearing that things wouldn't go smoothly.

she had to hesitate and second guess herself alot, despite her knowledge, like she did when she knew she had to look for the mark of athena. piper and percy had to boost up her confidence with affirmations, to let her know she's on the right path and to just follow her gut. annabeth feels obligated to have a temptation to deliberate, because, as a child of athena, she has to be all knowing and wise, and most definitely cannot fail her mother.

and jason? despite having a very low sense of self esteem and hesitation, he was so used to leading the people who were considered slightly inferior to him in camp jupiter, and basically getting treated like a celebrity for 12 years of his life in camp jupiter, that often, he thought what he did was right, he had his own perception of what a hero should be, and I quote

[“No, no,” Jason said. “I made my choice. You’re not to blame. You don’t owe me anything except to remember what I said. Remember what’s important.” “You’re important,” I said. “Your life!”Jason tilted his head. “I mean… sure. But if a hero isn’t ready to lose everything for a greater cause, is that person really a hero?”He weighted the word person subtly, as if to stress it could mean a human, a faun, a dryad, a griffin, a pandos… even a god”- Tower of Nero]

which was normal, since he had everyone basically following his lead without question as a kid. he's expanded on this in his conversation with piper in mark of athena, where he said he felt weird to suddenly be around people who were either equal/or superior to him in power, and not being in the ‘lead’ particularly.

jason had hubris, but certainly not in a way that you would call it an ego or excessive pride. he was hardwired and brainwashed into having his own perception of what is right and what is wrong, that he thought he was always making good enough decisions, at least from a roman child soldier’s standpoint. [Like when he was okay with not saving nico because it might sabotage their mission, he genuinely didn't think what he said was insensitive until hazel called him out, because he was brought up that way. he thought he was doing the right thing, by prioritising the mission and the duty, first. Like the dutiful roman he was made to be].

both annabeth and jason, have hubris and a temptation to deliberate.

annabeth and jason, also had an extremely difficult time breaking free from the thoughts that their godly parents were always right. It took on alot of disappointments for both of them to stand up to their parents (and not just godly ones, mind you)

they've both had disappointing absent mortal and godly parents with a hostile stepmother involved and monitored with each and every one of their moves. annabeth has had to deal with her stepmother playing the ‘bad cop’ with her father not even coming to her defence, just the way hera came butting into jason's life and giving him terrible memories, taking him away from thalia, with zeus not even caring.

speaking of which, they are both the only demigods who have harboured the most amount of resentment for hera. just the sight of hera pisses them both off, as it hera, stripped off so much time away from annabeth and percy, and memories from jason, which he never permanently got back.

this is sort of irrelevant but I'll add this anyway, in boo, athena also immediately liked jason for calling out zeus's unfairness to apollo, saying something like 'the boy is right' and she gave him an approving/appreciative look for his wisdom, which is pretty rare for athena to say or do to literally any demigod ever. this makes me wonder if she ever saw jason as someone who had some sort of athena legacy in him, which is why she was so pleasantly surprised with him. ugh we could've so gotten jason and annabeth as potential sibling figures bc of how many parallels they have, too bad that the percy/jason rivalry narrative was pushed too hard.

I hope I've drawn enough parallels with their characters, as a lot of you have been looking forward to this post for a while, hopefully this analysis hasnt been underwhelming for you all to read!

@thevoidcaller @karmaajr @onestorytorulethemall @newlyfoundwren @thesummerstorms

[myfictionaldreams]

Accidents Happen // Mafia!Stucky x Fem!Reader

Summary: You were visiting a friend when you were accidentally hit in the face, leaving behind a cut across your cheekbone. How will Steve and Bucky react when they see their girl injured?

Requested by: @theatrelove3000​ (thank you so much for the message! I hope your eye is doing better and I hope you enjoy this fic)

Tags: 18+ readers only, smut, fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, hints of winter solider, minor injuries/reader is injured, protectiveness, possessive behaviour, anxiety, pool sex, butt plugs, anal/vaginal sex, double penetration, handjob, multiple orgasms, sir kink, praise kink, size kink, bucky needs a hug, mentions of murder, not beta read

Words: 6.4k

my masterlist 📚 AO3 Link 

Making friends whilst being in close connection with the mafia was both easy and difficult. Easy because you meet hundreds of new people every month and difficult because many of them were dangerous and untrustworthy. On the rare occasion, a friendship would be created and even though you were busy nearly every day for the gang, you still attempted to spend time with them.

Especially on special days such as your best friend’s baby's birthday. You’d met Laura Barton through her husband Clint, whom you’d met through Natasha. The two of you instantly bonded over having partners in dangerous jobs and if you ever needed a break, she’d always welcome you to her home with a hot drink ready and the kids running rampant which was a great distraction.

Today, it was her youngest, Nate’s 2nd birthday so you’d spent the afternoon celebrating with cakes and toys with the family. By early evening, you were the only one remaining, finally having time to cuddle with the toddler who was playing with the plastic toy train that you’d bought him as a present.

“What time are you and the boys leaving for the hotel?” Laura asked in between bites of vanilla cake. 

Your head flew back to avoid the wild swing of Nate’s tiny arm as he continued to play with the toy, making little noises with his mouth that made you smile. “Um, I think around 7, it’ll only take us half an hour to drive there but I can’t wait! Even though we are going for work, the hotel is stunning, and of course, Steve had to buy the best room, I think we’ve even got our own private pool”.

Laura’s eyebrows raised, letting out a low whistle, “They really do live a life of luxury. If they ever want to treat Clint and me to a weekend away any time soon I’d be forever in their debt”.

You laughed at your friend, “I’ll see what I can do”. Turning to look at Nate and poking the tip of his nose, “Do you think mommy deserves a trip away?” As you asked, you made the grave mistake of not watching his arm and there's one thing about toddlers, it was that they were surprisingly strong as he swung the train toy and accidentally smacked you in the face with it. “Oof, ok I’m taking that as a no”.

“Shit! Are you ok? Nate be careful”, Laura chastised to her son as she took him into her arms.

“It’s ok, he didn’t mean it, I’m fine”.

“You aren’t fine, you’re bleeding!” Laura was looking at you with wide eyes.

You were still slightly in shock, trying to remain calm to not scare Nate but you couldn’t deny it, your face was throbbing. Excusing yourself, you rushed to the bathroom and glanced into the mirror. “Shit, the boys are going to go crazy”. The toddler had managed to hit you right underneath your eye, the sharp corner had cut the skin and the surrounding area was already swelling and felt tender. Sighing to yourself, you cleaned the bleeding cut, thankfully it wasn’t deep enough for stitches and the bleeding had stopped already but with the location, you knew you’d probably end up with a black eye over the next day or so.

After you finished cleaning up, you spent a couple of minutes contemplating what the fuck you were going to say to Steve and Bucky. There wasn’t any way you’d be able to hide it with makeup and there wasn’t anything they hated more than seeing you hurt and you knew an overreaction was coming your way. Should you call them or tell them in person? At least in person, you could stop them from running off on a vengeance before you could even explain what had happened so decided you’d wait to tell them.

Leaving the bathroom, you found Laura waiting anxiously with the kids all playing in another room. She took one look at your face before mumbling, “Shit. Does this make me number one on the Rogers mafia hit list?” she joked but you knew she was also slightly serious.

Walking closer to your friend, you took her hands and grinned, even though the action hurt your cheek. “Not it doesn’t, it’s absolutely fine, the boys love Nate they’ll forgive him for anything. I should probably go through, face the music now rather than waiting around”.

You called Sam to pick you up and he text you once outside. Giving Laura and the kids a big hug, you reassured her once more that everything would be ok before leaving her house and walking down the path to the parked SUV with Sam in the driving seat. As you saw him, you waved happily, trying to appear as at ease as possible to keep the tension calm.

However, the moment you were close enough for him to notice the injury to your face, his smile dropped, eyebrows frowning as he hastily got out of the car, rushing to you. “Sam it’s fine-”.

“Who did this to you?” he asked urgently, hands cupping your jaw and tilting your face so he could examine your cut closely. Sam’s face was contorted into anger, something rarely displayed by your bodyguard and friend as he usually likes to be sarcastic and funny when around you.

Lifting your hands, you held onto his wrists, trying to pull him away but he held strong having not finished checking your injury. “Nate accidentally hit me with his toy train… A TODDLER hit me Sam so please relax”.

Thankfully he did. The tension in his shoulders eased as well as the frown on his face. Eyes still flicking across the cut, he instructed, “Tell me when it starts to hurt”. Carefully, he pressed his fingers across your face, inching towards the wound and you informed it where it began to be tender, so he knew just had big the injury was and how bruised it was beneath the swelling. It took a couple of minutes before he seemed somewhat at ease about the injury, finally looking away from the injury to look at the rest of your face before the corner of his lip turned up, “so a baby hurt you this much, huh?”

You couldn’t help but laugh, gently pushing against his shoulder, “Yes! He’s stronger than he looks and yes, I am very embarrassed so please never bring it up again”.

Sam laughed as well, placing his arm over your shoulder and turning the two of you back towards the car. “Oh, you know I’m going to bring it up at any opportunity right?”

Rolling your eyes, you climbed into the car, pulling your seatbelt across your front as he did the same in the driver’s seat. “I could just have Steve or Bucky demand you to never bring it up again”, you suggested unseriously.

Sam’s smile faltered as he began to drive the two of you to the office, “I’m assuming you’ve not told either of them yet? Feel like we need to call everyone in to try and keep them both calm, they’re going to go apeshit when they see you”.

Sighing heavily, you had to refrain from wiping your face. “I thought about calling them but I know they wouldn't listen to me after I’ve told them about it so decided it was better to tell them in person. I just hope that it doesn’t ruin our trip away, I mean, maybe they’ll be calm because it was a baby, there will be no need to go on a vengeance tour of Brooklyn”.

Sam looked towards you with an awkward smile and that’s all you needed to see to know that was most likely not going to happen today.

Arriving at the warehouse, you tried to ignore the glances from other gang members when they noticed the cut to your face, a tension quickly building in the atmosphere which only meant your anxiety increased. You tried to smile at everyone to ease the nerves but it didn’t seem to work. It was only as you and Sam walked into the elevator and it was just the two of you did you release a deep, aggravated groan.

“I’m screwed aren’t I”, you say, glancing at Sam as he rolled up his sleeves like he was preparing for a fight.

“You aren’t screwed, I think you’re the only one who is actually safe”, he reminded you as the doors opened to the corridor to Steve’s office. The two of you walked at a slow pace, your head hanging low so that you didn’t see Steve and Bucky’s bodyguard waiting outside of the closed office door.

“Who died?” Natasha joked, seeing the solemn reaction from you both. Your head snapped up to her, about to reassure her that everything was fine but the words floated away as her grin instantly dropped at seeing your cheek. “What happened?” she asked in an authoritative tone, closing the gap with a single step, hands gripping your face much like Sam had.

Trying to keep your voice as steady and as calm as possible, you explained, “Little Nate decided the toy train had better use on my face than in the normal way”.

It took Natasha longer than usual to believe you, only accepting it as she glanced towards Sam who nodded his head and let go of your face. “Well… we’re all in for a long night then”, she joked but this time there was a hint of warning in her tone.

“Don’t say that, you should have seen what it was like downstairs”. You took a deep breath before continuing, “It’s going to be absolutely fine. I’m going to walk in there, explain to them that a toddler hit me in the face, let them have a little freakout and then we are all going to remain calm and continue with our trip away and it’s all going to be fine”. Niehter Sam or Natasha seemed convinced so you sighed once more, chewing on your bottom lip with nerves. Shaking your head, you rolled your shoulders to try and look as unbothered as possible, “I need to get this over and done with. If either of them leaves, could you follow them please and make sure they don’t do anything stupid”.

“We can try our best, boss lady”, Sam responded for the two of them, walking towards the office door and holding it open for you.

Taking a deep breath, you walked into Steve’s office, seeing both of them sitting at the large oak desk that was positioned in the centre of the room, laptops in front of them, face set with concentration. As your mouth opened to announce your arrival and quickly explain what had happened before they could freak, Steve’s eyes had already glanced away from his screen.

“What the fuck!” he growled, standing with such force his seat toppled over as he stormed towards you. “Who did this to you? What happened?” Steve was in front of you within half a second, his hands cupping your face, eyes full of a whirlwind of seething anger, worry and concern.

“Please don’t freak out, it’s absolutely fine, it was just an accident”, you managed to say as your face was turned in different directions by Steve as if the size of the cut would change but it remained the same. As Steve finished his inspection, Bucky was right there over his shoulder, eyes full of fury as he too checked the cut but then continued further past just your face. 

“Accident or not, I’m fucking killing someone”, Bucky barked, lifting your arms and searching for any more injuries and it was only as he lifted the front of your shirt did you push his hands away and take a step back.

“Both of you just wait, please. Absolutely no killing is happening because it was done by a two-year-old” you emphasised, not sure if they were even listening as they crowded around you. Placing a hand on either of their chests, you tried not to concentrate on the pounding of both of their hearts beneath your palms as you explained. “I was sitting with Nate, he was playing with his toy train that he loves by the way. I happened to get too close and didn’t see him swinging the toy and it caught me across the face and let me tell you, that boy is strong!”

You grinned to show the humour, looking between Steve and Bucky, waiting for any sort of reaction from them. Both sets of ocean-blue eyes were flicking from your mouth to your injury and just as you were able to explain again to them, it was Steve who moved first by cupping your jaw with his hand, this time it felt more comforting rather than him assessing you.

“Right let me just make sure I’m understanding this, Nate hit you in the face with the toy that you bought him and caused this much damage?”, he tilted your chin as he finished his sentence to show off your injury more.

“Yes that is exactly what happened. You can check with Sam if you want. Nate is a lot stronger than you’d expect someone so small to be”.

Steve nodded whilst taking a deep breath to try and calm himself down but his heart was still pounding under your hand. Leaning down, he kissed your forehead, showing his understanding of the situation. “How does it feel? Does it hurt?” he questioned, his blonde eyebrows furrowing in concentration.

“It feels tender and bruised but only when I touch it and I can see the swelling out of the corner of my eye but otherwise it’s fine. I’ve had worse that’s for sure”, you tried to once again defuse the tension with a little joke but all it caused was Bucky’s jaw to tighten.

Steve noticed too and suggested, “Why don’t you go and wait by the car baby, we just need to wrap up everything here and we can start heading to the hotel

It was a simple idea but put you on edge with worry as Bucky had yet to say anything or snap out of the protective trance. Instead of arguing with Steve, you nodded, knowing that Steve could handle Bucky when he was like this and it was best to leave the two of them to it.

Stepping out of the office, you released a long heavy breath, now facing Natasha and Sam who were waiting in a stance like they were ready to tackle someone but relaxed seeing that it was you. Glancing over your shoulder, they were surprised when no one else followed after you. “Everything ok, Sugar?” Natasha questioned uncertainly.

“I’m not entirely sure. I think Steve’s ok but Bucky… he didn’t say a word to me. I think they’re having a talk so I’ve been sent to the car like a naughty child”. Sam chuckled, finally stepping forward and holding his elbow out for you to take.

“Well let then me escort you to the car m’lady”, he mocked and managed to pull a smile to your lips as you accepted.

It took nearly 45 minutes for them to finish whatever talk that needed to happen, and you’d hoped that Bucky would rush to the car but it was quite the opposite. He inclined for Sam to get out of the car and they spoke out of sight.

Sam wouldn’t be coming with you to the hotel, it was just supposed to be you and the boys so you waved to him in farewell as he climbed out of the car. Steve then slide in next to you, closing the gap in the middle so his body brushed against yours as you blinked up at him with a worried expression. Once again, his hand slide along your jaw as he kissed your temple. “You know I hate seeing you hurt”, he admitted against your skin before pulling back and looking at you with an apologetic gaze.

“I understand that, but that doesn’t mean you have to shut me out”, you countered, lifting your hand to stroke along his stubbled cheek.

“It doesn’t”, he contemplates. “But, I also don’t want you to see me in this state, the things going through my mind when I saw your face, I was just about ready to kill everyone in this building to find out what happened. No one hurts what’s mine”.

Your heart was thumping hard in your chest at his passionate declaration. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean you have to push me away. I know you don’t want to see me hurt but accidents happen and if there was something wrong, you know I would call you immediately”.

Steve’s eyes softened, “Yes I know that now but, it doesn’t stop the panic that I feel when I see you’re hurt”.

Shifting even closer so that you could kiss his cheek, you continued, “I’m sorry for scaring you, it’s hard to tell you when these things happen, I don’t know whether I should call to prewarn or wait to see you in person”.

Steve’s lips lowered to yours, giving you a quick kiss to your lips, “We’ll figure it out”.

“What about Bucky?” you asked nervously.

“Buck might need a little more time, he’s still struggling to process his emotions”.

This did little to ease your anxiety, especially as the said man got into the driver's seat and didn’t say a single word to you, only glancing at you from the rearview mirror for a moment before beginning the drive to the hotel.

Steve easily managed to fill the silence with natural conversations which did little to distract you from the nerves of Bucky not talking. Even when the three of you arrived at the hotel and were shown to the penthouse where you’d be staying, Bucky didn’t say a word. After a quick tour of the breathtakingly beautiful surroundings which included a kitchen, living room area and pool that overlooked the city, you decided to go and freshen up.

After returning in a flowing dress that felt more comfortable than the jeans and shirt, you looked for the boys but only found Steve who was leaning against the kitchen island, staring at a spot in deep thought. “Steve?” this snapped him out of his trance as he instantly looked at you, standing to his full height. “Where’s Bucky?” you continued to look around but didn’t see him and by the look on Steve’s face, you knew you wouldn’t find him. “Where is he?”

“He said he needed a moment so has gone to the bar a few floors below”. Your shoulders dropped hearing this, feeling awful that he was struggling so much. “He’ll be ok sweetheart, he just has his own demons that he’s trying to fight with at the moment, you know the sort of headspace he gets into when you’re hurt”.

“I know but I haven’t seen him like this for a while, I guess I thought that side of him was over”. Sometimes when Bucky was overtly stressed with work, or needed to protect someone, particularly with regards to work, it was almost like his mind would shut down and someone else would take over. It was hard for him to deal with especially as he tended to get his emotions out violently when like this but as he hasn’t had an outlet today, he felt the need to separate himself from everyone. You knew he would never hurt you, even when he was like this so you asked Steve, “What floor is the bar on?”

Steve walked down with you and you both found him sitting on a stool in front of the bar with a very large glass of dark liquor on the bar in front of him. Steve decided to stay back and let you talk to him considering his talk earlier seemed to have done nothing to help him but reassured if you needed anything just nod.

As you walked towards Bucky, you thought about what you were going to say but your mind seemed to be completely empty of thoughts as you were so anxious you felt nauseous. Stepping next to him, he made no move to look in your direction or acknowledge your arrival and continued to stare forward. Every single muscle in his body was tense, eyes blazing with a look that you hadn’t seen in eyes like he was figuring out a way to murder everybody in the room. Your eyes flicked over his face, noting his jaw was so tense it looked like it was going to break. Unsure whether to touch him or not when he was like this, you said the only words that sprung to mind: “I miss you”.

Bucky’s entire body shifted, all of the tension seemingly melting away like a reset button had been pressed, as his eyes softened their glare as he flicked them to finally look at you. Seeing the change in him and drawing his attention, you reached across him to grip his metal hand, lifting it up to your face and reeling in the recognisable coolness of the metal against your uninjured cheek.

Turning to kiss the metal palm, you repeated, “I miss you Bucky”. There was even further relief when the pad of his thumb stroked across your cheekbone. Your boyfriend doesn't say a word, he didn’t need to as he stood from the stool, towering over you as he wrapped both of his arms around your shoulders, pulling you flush against his chest, his face nuzzling into your neck, taking a deep breath against your skin which seemed to also calm him further.

You hugged him back just as fiercely, eyes squeezing tight as you clung to the back of his shirt, probably crinkling the expensive material but neither of you cared. After a couple of minutes, he finally began to pull back enough that your arms could wind around his neck, pulling him down so you could kiss him passionately, ignoring the ache in your injured cheek from the movement.

His hands clenched around your waist at the kiss until you pulled back but that was only so you could kiss his cheek repeatedly whilst whispering, “I’m so sorry I’ve scared you Bucky, everythings ok I promise but I need you to be here with me and Steve”.

Bucky didn’t say anything at first, his only response was a nod as his body continued to try and calm down from its heightened alertness. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity he said with as much passion as possible, “I’m sorry, I love you”.

“I know, it’s ok, I love you too Bucky, now let's go back upstairs and relax for the evening, ok?” he nodded his head in agreement, his hand clasped around yours as you pulled him towards Steve who smiled at the two of you.

In the elevator up to your floor, Steve turned to Bucky and placed a tender hand on the back of his head, pulling him roughly into his side, “It’ll be alright Buck”, he spoke tenderly into his ear before kissing him on the side of his head. The sight had your chest warming at the intimate show of support from the mafia leader but your thoughts didn’t dwell as the elevator dinged to indicate arrival to the penthouse.

The three of you opened a bottle of champagne and watched the sunset over the city before you decided that it was time for the pool and needed a moment to get ready. As you stood in the bathroom, you decided to continue with the plan that you’d had since you knew you were coming here. Of course, when travelling anywhere, especially somewhere this beautiful, you would want to be intimate with them both and you were hoping to take them both at the same time. So, you had decided to prep yourself a little bit with the use of your favourite butt plug and then when the three of you were ready, they could simply take it out and save the time of prepping.

It took a few minutes to work inside of you but you were happy to see the jewel gleaming from within your arse cheeks and then continued to dress into your swimsuit. You looked somewhat ridiculous with the stunning swimsuit and swollen cut to the face but it would have to do as you finally exited the bathroom.

Bucky turned to you first, hearing your footsteps as you approached the edge of the water but it was his raised eyebrow and deadpan expression that had you faltering. “What?” you asked, looking down at yourself and wondering what was out of place.

“Doll, seriously? We have our own private pool and you still think to change into a swimsuit?” Your cheeks warmed at the realisation that both Steve and Bucky were completely nude in the water and with a small smile, began to remove your own swimsuit which captivated Steve and Bucky’s attention, especially as you revealed your breasts.

As the material gathered at your waist, you turned on the spot so they were looking at your back, you bent forward to fully remove the outfit but it also gave them the perfect view of your arse with the butt plug on display.

“Fuck”, Steve cursed under his breath as he moved towards the stairs just as you began to walk over, holding out his hand for you to take and carefully descend into the water, being careful not to splash your face too much in the process. The water was the perfect warm temperature and it felt so relaxing to be almost weightless as Steve pulled you easily through the water you couldn’t reach the floor like he could, until you were near the edge, looking out over the city with Bucky on the other side of you.

The three of you huddled close together, your arms holding onto the edge of the pool, enjoying the ambience and serene moment of blissful quiet. However, Bucky couldn’t keep himself restrained for long as his hours of not seeing or touching you were beginning to get to him. Sliding behind you, his arms crowding you closer to the pool edge, his lips kissed delicately below your ear, moving south down your neck and to your shoulder. You tilted your head to the side to give him more room, releasing a soft breath at the tingling sensations his lips were causing, especially as his stubble brushed against your skin.

“You’re so beautiful”, Steve admired from beside you, his words making your cheeks flush with warmth at the compliment.

“Even with a black eye”, Bucky joked from where he was kissing the top of your back. You let out a shocked laugh, attempting to elbow him in the ribs but he easily held your arm away as he chuckled. The noise and joke were welcomed from him though to know he had calmed down enough from the initial shock of seeing you injured. “Could I make one request for tonight?” Bucky enquired, returning to kiss the pulse point on your neck.

“Yes?” you asked, already sounding a little breathless as you lazily moved your legs through the water, still holding your weight up by holding onto the edge.

“Don’t hold your noises in tonight, even though we are outside, I want this whole damn city to hear you”, Bucky grunted as he thrust his hips against your lower back, making you feel his considerably hard cock. Once again, your body warmed thoroughly at the thought of those a few floors below potentially hearing through their open windows but that also turned you on, knowing people could hear how much your boyfriends were making you feel good.

Nodding your head in answer, Bucky’s hands began to graze over your stomach under the water, stroking near your hip where you had a particularly sensitive spot that had you shivering and leaning further into him.

Steve’s hand cradled your chin, turning your face towards him where he began to kiss you desperately, his tongue immediately teasing the seam of your mouth to gain access that you granted instantly. You moaned as his warm muscle twisted with yours, loving the dominance of the kiss as he easily stood over you in the pool with his tall stature. 

Bucky’s metal fingers then began to do their own exploration as they travelled between your legs, first stroking over your pussy lips, giving you a little warning for his next movement before he pressed more firmly until he was rubbing your clit. He moved in slow circles, and your hips jerked at the action, more moans rumbling from the back of your throat and into Steve’s mouth.

The blonde man pulled back first, breathing heavily as he instructed, “What I want you to do is take Bucky and after you cum, we’re going to fuck you at the same time, understand?”

“Yes, sir”, you automatically responded, your arousal aching in your core.

“Good girl”, Bucky praised as he shifted his position but continued to play with your clit as he moved. His lower half moved further beneath you so your body was moved a little out of the water, revealing your breasts to the cool air as you balanced on his body. The tip of his cock nudged against his fingers at the apex of your thighs, and with a flick of his hips, it moved to your hole. Even though you were in the water, he still took his time, being careful to not move too quickly as he stretched your cunt. Each inch that moved in had you gasping and moaning, grabbing tightly onto Steve’s arm that shot out to support your body from toppling forward. “That’s it, you’re taking me so well, Doll”, Bucky continued to encourage you as soon his hips were flush against yours which meant that he subtly pressed against the plug in your arse which only added to the heightened pleasure.

“Feels so good Bucky”, you say, closing your eyes for a moment to try and savour the feelings but then they snapped open as Steve began to squeeze your nipples. Your back arched into the touch, loving the twists and pulls he was doing to them that sent shivers straight to your centre which only meant that you kept clenching around Bucky.

After what felt like an eternity, Bucky finally began to move, slowing his fingers at your clit to match the pace of his thrusting. Each snap of his hips would cause the plug to be pushed and even his cock within your pussy was brushing against it, you already felt so full and you only had one cock in you. The motions increased as Bucky nuzzled into the back of your neck, the water surrounding the three of you splashing over the edge.

As you got used to the position and pleasure that was being pounded throughout your body, you felt aware enough to reach into the water and grip Steve’s throbbing shaft. It floated in the water and you could feel it bob at your touch as well as Steve’s very audible gasp. He always did love it when you pleasured him so even though Bucky’s cock and fingers were very distracting, you attempted to try and also make Steve feel as good as you felt.

“Fuck, I love the feeling of your hands on me baby”, Steve grunted, thrusting into your palm as you squeezed harder, moving up and down the shaft in time with Bucky’s cock. Steve’s eyes closed, head tipping back as he fell into the pleasure, but his hands never stopped with both supporting your upper half and squeezing your breasts whilst tweaking the nipples.

Bucky moved faster now, feeling your pussy clenching harder around him, his fingers swiping back and forth in firm motions. You didn’t even need to tell him that you were going to cum, from the feeling around his cock and the sweet moans escaping your mouth, he knew you were close. He fucked you harder which meant your hand moved faster up Steve’s shaft.

“Oh-God, yes!”, you chanted, eyes closed as you squeezed Steve’s cock hard as the pleasure took over you, Bucky not stopping his thrusts as you came, extending the length of your orgasm as he continued. All until Steve quickly cursed and grabbed your wrists, pulling your hands away from him did your pussy stop fluttering as you looked at him in worry. “Did I hurt you?” you asked, realising that you were probably squeezing too hard.

Steve chuckled, a light pink shade tinging his cheeks as he shook his head, “No baby, you were going to make me cum if you carried on like that”.

“Oh”, was all you managed to say as you felt proud of yourself for making him nearly cum so quickly.

Bucky laughed under his breath at your reaction, kissing the back of your head before easing his cock out and wrapping his arm around your waist so he could move you further away from the wall, giving Steve room to move in front of you. Both of your hands moved to his muscular shoulders, holding on as Steve pulled both of your legs around his waist, the waterline now at your navel.

Bucky's warm hand massaged one of your arse cheeks as he instructed, “Relax for me,  Sweetheart”. You made sure to ease all of your muscles down as he gripped onto the butt plug and began to slowly pull it out. You gasped loudly at the feeling of your hole stretching around the toy before relief as it moved past the thickest part.

Bucky dropped the plug, declaring that he’d retrieve it from the bottom of the pool later and began lining up his cock at your asshole. You mewled into Steve’s shoulder as you felt the thick tip breaching your hole, the stretch was just as intense as the other hole but he moved slower this time, making sure not to hurt you.

“You’re so tight, shit”, Bucky groaned as you took his length, his hands flexing against your hips as you tried to adjust to him. After a long moment, you nodded your head against Steve and felt him moving his hips, the tip of his cock now penetrating your cunt, slowly but from the fucking by Bucky, it didn’t take you as long to adjust.

As they both were fully inserted into your holes, you let out a desperate moan, feeling so full it was nearly overwhelming. Your thighs were shaking in Steve’s grip around his waist and you wanted to speak to tell them how good it felt but your tongue felt heavy in your mouth so you told them through moans and mewling noises.

Steve moved first, pulling out a few inches before moving back in. Then Bucky copied his action. Both of your boyfriends fucked you, their thick cocks stroking against every single nerve and with the way your legs were wide and spread to be wrapped around Steve, your clit was brushing against his abdomen.

Your head dropped back against Bucky’s shoulder and you had to refrain from hissing as you accidentally brushed the injury of your face against his stubble. However, with the overwhelming pleasure that was being fucked into you, you didn’t vocalise the momentary discomfort and simply turned your face away so it didn’t happen again.

With how much you were being stimulated, it didn’t take you long to orgasm again, your body tightening like a coil around both of their cocks as waves of pleasure pulsed through you.

Bucky let out a deep groan and that was your only warning as he came suddenly, the feeling of your tight ass around his cock was too much for him and he was already so pent up from the day that he couldn’t hold it back anymore. His balls emptied everything within them into your ass, his teeth biting into the junction between your neck and shoulder as he grunted your name over and over until there was no more cum within his body.

You shivered as he pulled out, wishing you had a camera under the water to see the cum seeping out and clouding the water slightly. Bucky’s hands moved to under your thighs, taking them out of Steve’s grip as he took your weight instead so that Steve could fuck you without any restraint.

With your eyes half-lidded, you watched as Steve leaned forward, one hand on your waist and the other on Bucky’s shoulder, using the two of you to help ground him as he continued to fuck your pussy. With the more sturdy position, he was able to fuck you as hard as he could with the water adding some restraint so that he didn’t hurt you.

Your nails dug into his shoulders, leaving little crescent-shaped dents in the skin but he enjoyed the sparks of pain that came with it. “I want you to orgasm one more time for me baby, I know you can do it”.

You shouted out in pleasure at his words, hearing the desperation in his tone so you knew he was holding back from cumming because he wanted you to do it one more time. Steve fucked you, hard and fast, water splashing everywhere as Bucky continued to hold onto you tightly.

It didn’t take you long to cum again, especially as Steve dipped his head and began to suck on each of your sensitive nipples. By the time your pussy stopped pulsing around him and you were becoming entirely too overstimulated, Steve finally shouted and stilled his thrusting, his cock throbbing with each spurt of his cum as he filled you up.

The three of you took a couple of minutes to catch your breath and stretch your muscles from being in the squished position. “At least we’re in the water, don’t have as much of a clean up”, you joked as the cum mixed with the pool water. Bucky laughed before ducking into the water and returning with your butt plug.

“For you, hot mama”, he handed over the toy and kissed your cheek before helping you over to the stairs but swiftly picked you up with a steady hand at your back and under your knees. “Please tell me you two are hungry, once we’ve finished drying up, I’m ordering some room service”.

You groaned in a different sort of need from only a few minutes ago, your arms wrapping around his neck, “yes please, I’m starving after all of this activity!”

[aceof-stars]

One thing I love about Miles Edgeworth is how realistic and practical he is, more than he is moralistic. As much as Miles cares about justice and doing what he thinks is right, he’s not fueled by belief the same way, for example, Phoenix is. And this is one of the things I feel like gets ignored or brushed aside when Miles's character is softened too much.

Both pre and post redemption, Miles puts a lot of emphasis on reality and the bottom line of what people can do in a situation.

In Turnabout Goodbyes, the first thing Edgeworth says in response to Phoenix asking him why he became a prosecutor instead of a defense attorney is: "… I couldn't let myself deny reality like you."

He also doesn't truly believe that every defendant he prosecutes is guilty, contrary to popular belief. In Turnabout Sisters, he says this: ""Innocent"…? How can we know that? The guilty will always lie, to avoid being found out. There's no way to tell who is guilty and who is innocent! All that I can hope to do is get every defendant declared "guilty"! So I make that my policy." Miles is disillusioned with finding the truth and trusting people that he settles for doing all he can hope to do.

And when you think about it, his motivation of finding the truth is an extension of his realism. After all, the truth is quite literally the most objective, realistic thing ever. In 1-3, after helping Phoenix convict Dee Vasquez, he says: "Will Powers was innocent. That he should be found so is only natural… not a miracle." The truth as a motivation is probably a grounding force for him.

When Miles comes back in Farewell My Turnabout, he calls out Phoenix's flawed motivations for becoming a defense attorney by offering realism: "We aren't some sort of heroes. We're only human, you and I. You want to "save someone"? That's something easier said than done, wouldn't you say? You are a defense lawyer. You can't run away from that. You can only fight. That's all you can do." Miles isn't saying Phoenix can't "save someone". Miles is saying that Phoenix shouldn't be so focused on saving someone that he forgets that his job as a defense attorney is only to fight for them.

Side note, I love the way Miles comforts people, he isn't exactly "nice" but he's incredibly kind. His blunt honesty digs at the heart of the matter, and he gives them an extra push because he respects them enough.

And then there's, possibly, my favorite Miles Edgeworth line: "It doesn't matter how many underhanded tricks a person uses… The truth will always find a way to make itself known. The only thing we can do is to fight with the knowledge we hold and everything we have. Erasing the paradoxes one by one… It's never easy… We claw and scratch for every inch. But we will always eventually reach that one single truth. This I promise you." This directly parallels the line he says in 1-2, and it makes me emotional every time I think about it.

The fact that Miles Edgeworth never lost his unwavering realism, in both quotes he acknowledges how untrustworthy people can be, but gained a new purpose.