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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 1 year ago

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Lollipops

Timari January Day 1: Lollipop

By @maribat-calendar-events

Listen, when Marinette Dupain-Cheng opened up a clinic, she had been expecting a lot of things.

Children, since she was officially in pediatric care. You know, the branch devoted to treating children.

Eventually, she expanded to consider her patients might include henchmen, as well. And she had been mentally prepared, perhaps, to possibly meet their bosses, if they wanted to thank her for their services in person, though she had doubted this.

She had not, however, been expecting to look a vigilante dead in the eyes (domino mask, it didn’t matter)... or, at least, not like this. She had been expecting to get approximately one glimpse of their usual suits and then have a fist obscure most of her vision. Not to see him hunched over in one of her chairs, hugging the knife buried in his side.

“... hi,” she said, glancing behind herself at the Scarecrow goon she had been about to lead out the door. “I can get to you in a minute.”

The vigilante didn’t say ‘okay’, but he didn’t say ‘no’, either. From what she had been told, this wasn’t uncommon. Introverts, the lot of them.

She quietly closed the door and pointed the goon towards the exit, and waited a few minutes with her ear against the door to make sure he hadn’t gotten immediately jumped by a second, secret vigilante. Once she was reasonably sure that the henchman had gotten away to safety, she went back to the vigilante who was, apparently, in her care.

He was… still in that chair. Stab wounds will do that to you, she supposed.

She hesitated as she eyed him up and down.

This was Red Robin, she was pretty sure, though he could have been Robin or Red Hood or really just any other male vigilante in Gotham… they all looked the same. She wasn’t going to say it aloud, though, she didn’t want to risk being wrong. Embarrassing.

Also, she was pretty sure she was on thin ice right now. Getting his name wrong might just screw her over.

Thankfully, he was aware of her presence immediately, and she didn’t have to call his name to get his attention.

She sent him a slightly nervous smile. “You do know this is pediatric care, don’t you? I was trained to treat children.”

“The guy before me wasn’t a child.”

“He has a kid,” she said. Technically, this was true.

“Was the kid here?”

“I plead the fifth. And the fourth. And any other applicable laws that might help me right now.”

He snorted. “I’m not a cop.”

“You still get people arrested, I’m not going to risk it.”

He lifted his hands in a kind of ‘I surrender’ gesture, only to wince. He quickly went back to applying pressure to his wound, which was probably for the best.

Marinette shook her head to herself, sighing. “I’ll bring my equipment over here. I’d rather not have to carry you.”

“I can still walk,” he said.

He moved as if to stand. She grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him back down, giving him a cold look.

“Don’t do that. Christ.”

He groaned and slumped back in his chair, pouting like the child that she was supposed to actually be getting. How had her life come to this?

You say ‘ohmygod why are you bleeding on my doorstep oh my FUCKING GET INSIDE’ to a henchman one time and suddenly it just becomes your thing.

She sighed internally as she went about collecting her things and then sighed externally when her eyes flicked to the security footage. She had put a camera next to the door a while back, when she had first started taking henchmen. She didn’t use it often, she really just had it to make people at least hesitate before trying to steal things.

Anyways, the point is, Red Robin was not in the chair she had left him in.

She made sure her next footstep was audible, before feigning a pause to make sure she had everything she needed.

By the time she stepped out, he was back in his chair, looking for all the world as if he had never left.

Marinette hated life.

She was quick in stitching him up. Perhaps quicker than was strictly medically advisable, but whatever. This wasn’t meant to be permanent or anything, this was just to last him until Batman could, like, magically fix it. Or whatever that cryptid of a man did. Marinette, frankly, preferred not knowing.

She pulled back, wiping bloody hands on the towel around her neck.

“Normally, I’d say to take things easy for the next few weeks, minimum, but considering…” she shrugged. “I dunno. Just try not to pop those.”

He tilted his head to the side consideringly for just a moment.

And then he laughed. “No promises.”

“It was worth a shot.”

He jumped to his feet, and she cringed just slightly. But it wasn’t like she could stop him if that was what he wanted to do. She could only mumble a few curses under her breath and move to leave so she could close up shop.

Red Robin lingered for just a few seconds longer than she expected him to.

Marinette narrowed her eyes at him briefly. She figured it was probably best to just ask him outright whether or not he needed to go through some files. He was going to do it regardless of her wishes, and she liked pretending to have free will.

“So, is my clinic up to par with your standards?”

Red Robin didn’t bother denying that he had had ulterior motives for visiting.

Instead, he held up a candy he had grabbed from the jar on her desk.

“For sure. You guys have lollipops.”

#maribat #timari #timinette #timmari #shutterbug #tim drake #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #red robin #new year new me :)

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bjfinn · 11 months ago

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SHUTTERBUG

"Hey, Lydia," Beej said. "I got a question -- why do you go around taking pictures of everything?"

Lydia shrugged. "I don't know -- it's fun," she told him. "It ... relaxes me. And it's important to have a record of the way things are now, because you never know when things'll change."

"Okaaay," Beej replied, not quite understanding.

"It's like with my mom -- I have lots of photos of her, so I can look at them and see how she changed over the years as she got older. And now that she's gone, they help me remember the things we did together."

Beej nodded -- he was beginning to get it.

"And I take pictures of other things because they'll change, too. Everything changes, so it's nice to have something to remember how things were."

"Well, I don't change -- I'm a demon. So why take pictures of me?"

"Because you're my friend," Lydia told him. "One day I'll be dead, and I want people to be able to look at those photos of you and know that I cared about you. I want them to know that we had fun together -- that you're somebody worth knowing."

Beej frowned, his eyes tearing up.

"What's wrong?"

"I ... I don't like thinking about you being dead," he said. "I mean, I know it's gonna happen someday -- and I know that we'll still be friends after, but I don't want you to become a ghost."

She threw her arms around him. "I think that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. But it'll be a long time before that happens -- I promise!"

The demon shook his head. "You can't promise that," he said. "Nobody can. You could get hit by a car tomorrow, or some guy could rob a store next week while you're there and you could catch a bullet, or you could die in a plane crash next year, or get eaten by sharks, or --"

Okay," she said, "I get it -- there are a million ways to die, and nobody knows when their number's gonna be up. You're right, Beej -- I can't promise. But I can promise that I'll do everything I can to live as long as I can, okay?"

He smiled. "Okay, that's good enough. Can you show me how to take pictures? I wanna have some photos of you, so I can remember you being alive ... when you're dead."

*****

"I found one of my old cameras," Lydia said. "It's a little beat up, kinda like you ... but it still works." She handed it to him.

"I can use it?" Beej asked, turning it over in his hands.

"You can have it -- it's yours now."

"Really?" His face lit up. "You're giving it to me? For my very own?" He grabbed her in a fierce bearhug. "You're the best friend a demon could ever have!"

"Beej!" Lydia gasped. "I ... I can't breathe!"

He quickly released her. "Sorry," he said, brushing imaginary dust off her. "I just got a little excited -- I never had a camera of my very own before."

"Well, you do now."

"I do now," he echoed, grinning. He held it up, the way he'd seen Lydia use hers.

"You're holding it backwards," she told him, smiling. "If you took a picture with it like that, you'd get a close-up of your nose." She held up a small black object that looked like a pill-bottle. "Besides, we have to put film in it first."

Lydia took the camera from Beej and showed him how to load it.

"Now you have to wind it until the number one shows in this little window -- like this," she told him. "And now the camera is ready to go." She handed it back to him.

"Wow," he said. "Now I can really take pictures?"

"Uh-huh."

"What should I take a picture of?" Beej asked.

"Anything you want," Lydia replied.

He pointed his camera at her, and she struck a pose like a 1920s flapper -- left leg raised in a back kick, right hand lifted in a nonchalant, devil-may-care gesture. He pressed the button, and the flash went off. "My first photo!" he exclaimed.

"Congratulations," she said.

"I wanna see it!"

"You can't -- not yet. It has to be developed first -- after you finish the roll."

"What??? " he fumed, his hair turning magenta. "You mean I can't even see if it's any good? What if it's crap?"

Lydia laughed. "That's part of the fun," she told him. "The anticipation."

"Well, that sucks!" Beej pouted.

She put a hand on his shoulder. "I promise you it's worth the wait. Now, the sooner you finish the roll, the sooner we can get it developed."

*****

Beej spent the next few days taking photos. Charles, Delia, Adam and Barbara, the fireplace, the kitchen table, the couch, the walls, floors and ceiling -- nothing and no one was spared from his newest hobby.

"He's becoming a pest with that camera," Charles said. "He took a picture of me coming out of the bathroom -- right as I was zipping up my trousers!"

"Well, I think it's a good thing," Delia replied. "BJ needs hobbies -- otherwise he gets bored. And a bored demon is a destructive demon."

"But does he always have to photograph the most inopportune moments?"

"I have to agree with Delia," Adam said. "He hasn't been coming on to Barbara and I quite as ... aggressively as usual -- it's a bit of a relief."

Charles harrumphed. But he had to concede the point -- a few embarrassing photos was a small price to pay, given the alternative.

"And it's another step in his ... socialisation," Lydia added. "I'll talk to him about choosing more ... appropriate times to take photos, Daddy -- I promise." She kissed him on the cheek.

"Thank you, pumpkin," Charles said. "That's all I ask."

*****

"Now comes the really fun part," Lydia said, taking the film cassette out of Beej's camera. "Now we develop the film, and we get to see the photos." She opened the door to her darkroom and beckoned the demon.

"Your darkroom?" Beej asked, surprised. "You're letting me go in? I thought I wasn't allowed in there. Ever."

Lydia smiled. "That was before you became a photographer," she told him. "If you want to develop the photos, you have to learn how -- right? But," she added sternly, "you're still not allowed in unless I'm with you, get it?"

"Got it," he replied, nodding.

"Good."

He followed her inside. Lydia closed the door and turned on the overhead light, and began gathering her equipment.

The demon looked around at the set-up, trying to figure out what everything was for. "Looks complicated," he said.

"It's not -- there's a lot of steps, but it's not really that hard to do," she replied. "Shall we get started?"

Beej nodded, and Lydia switched off the light, plunging the room into pitch blackness. Beej, who could see in the dark as well as if it were full daylight, watched his friend open the cassette, pull out the film and cut off the reel.

"Now we have to load it onto the reel," she told him. "You find the slit on the edge of the reel and slide the film into it -- like this -- and then you wind it up like this, until there's no more film sticking out. Got it?"

Beej nodded, and then he remembered that Lydia couldn't see him. "Yeah," he said. "I got it -- no more film sticking out."

"Now we put it in the tank," she told him. She reached into the cylindrical film tank and pulled out the spindle, and then inserted it into the central hole of the reel.

"How many times do you do that?"

"Just once," she replied, slightly confused by the question.

"Only once? Wouldn't it be more fun to keep doing it over and over again? You know, like ..." and he held up a loose fist and began moving it up and down, making a low, rhythmic moaning sound.

Because it was pitch black in the darkroom, it took Lydia a moment to realise what he was doing. "Not everything is about sex, you perve!" Lydia laughed, smacking him lightly on the shoulder. "Now," she continued, "we put it back in the tank like this, so the reel is flat on the bottom, and then the lid goes on. It's important to tighten the lid, so no light gets in to ruin the film, okay?"

"Okay," he said. "Now what?"

"Now we have to wait until tomorrow," she told him, switching the light back on. "The film needs time to ripen."

"What??? " Beej railed, his hair a mix of red and magenta with streaks of purple.

Lydia laughed. "I'm just kidding," she told him. "You're too easy, pal!"

He grimaced comically at her. "Grrr," he said, his hair returning to its usual green.

"Now we fill this tank," she told him. "Equal parts water and film developer."

"Equal parts."

She nodded and held up the bottle of developing fluid. "This is four hundred and seventy millilitres --" she opened the bottle and poured the contents into the tank -- "so we need the same amount of water." She handed him the measuring cup. "Fill it up to this line, please."

Beej, smiling goofily, went over to the sink and did as Lydia asked.

"Good," she said. "Now pour it into the tank, and then we can measure the temperature -- that's what decides how long the film needs to develop for."

Beej bit his lip. "I knew this was complicated."

Once that was done, she pulled off the outer plastic lid of the film tank.

"I thought you said that the light'd ruin the film!" Beej exclaimed.

"It's okay," she replied. "There're two lids, see? This one's okay to take off -- it's the inner one that has to stay on. Now, take the mixture and pour it into the hole in the lid. Good -- now we put this lid back on and set the timer."

Once the timer had been set to fifteen minutes, Lydia picked up the film tank. "Now we need to agitate it," she told him.

"I'm the one who's getting agitated," Beej said.

"Like this -- thirty seconds." She turned the tank end over end, counting down the seconds, and then set it back down on the table and counted to twenty. She picked it up again and agitated it for ten seconds before setting it back down. After a count of fifty, she agitated the tank for ten seconds, saying, "We keep doing this -- rest for fifty seconds, agitate for ten, until the timer goes off."

Beej's lip curled impatiently. "Why?"

"It's important to make sure that the film is bathed properly for the whole fifteen minutes. Okay, pick it up and agitate it like I showed you. Ten ... nine ... eight ... seven ..."

Finally the timer went off.

"Now do I get to see my photos?"

"Not yet -- there's still a lot to do before that."

Beej grunted in frustration.

Lydia removed the top lid and poured the developer down the sink, and then filled the tank with the stop bath. "Now we agitate it for thirty seconds."

"More fuckin' agitation!" Beej grumbled.

Again Lydia poured the liquid in the tank down the drain. "Now for the fixer," she said, filling the tank a third time.

The demon groaned.

"Now we agitate it just like with the developer," Lydia explained, handing the film tank to him. "Same schedule -- but just for five minutes this time."

Beej sighed loudly and began turning the tank over and over in his hands as Lydia counted off the seconds.

"This is a lotta work, you know," he said. "These photos better be worth it!"

When the five minutes had passed, Lydia took the tank from her friend and poured out the liquid. Then she pulled out the spindle with the reel of film, turned on the faucet and rinsed the film under the water for several minutes.

"It looks the same as it did before!"

"That's 'cause this is the negative film," Lydia told him. "Once we're done, we'll still have to print the photos."

"Fuck me," Beej said, thoroughly annoyed.

She put the film in the larger tank, which she'd filled with wetting agent.

"It's already wet," Beej said.

"This stuff helps the film dry easier -- without it, you could get streaks."

After thirty seconds Lydia took the reel out of the tank and unrolled the film. "Now we hang it in the dryer," she said.

"How long does that take?"

"About twenty minutes," she replied. "Just long enough for some milk and cookies."

Beej grinned happily. "I think I like this part the best!" he said.

*****

"You know," Beej said, taking a bite of the oatmeal cookie in his hand, "I've seen other people takin' pictures with their phones -- and they get to look at 'em right away. Why go through all this trouble?"

"There's something special about taking pictures the old-fashioned way -- it's more artistic," Lydia explained. "Doing all this, going through all this trouble, makes the photos more special. You appreciate them more when you realise how much work is involved.

"It's like ... it's like Barbara with her pottery, or Delia with her painting -- they could buy that kind of thing in the store, but then it wouldn't really mean anything. A store-bought jug is just a jug -- it's only worth what you paid for it. But a jug that you made yourself is worth all the time and effort you put into it. And you get to say 'I made this myself'.

"Remember the Christmas presents you gave everyone? How happy they made us? It didn't matter if they weren't perfect -- you made them. For us. And that's why we loved them. And do you remember how it made you feel?"

"It felt pretty good," Beej said, smiling.

"That's because you knew how much work -- how much love -- you put into each of them.

"These photos will mean everything to you, because you did all this work."

*****

When the twenty minutes were up, Beej followed Lydia back down to the basement and into her darkroom.

She took the film out of the dryer and laid it flat on the table. "Now we check for any streaks -- the wetting agent should prevent it, but it's best to be sure. And I like to use film cleaner anyway, in case I miss something."

She took a paper towel and wet it with the cleaning fluid, and then wiped the film. "There!" she said. "Now we just cut it into strips -- like so -- and then we can print the photos whenever we want."

"Let's do it now!"

Lydia looked at her watch. "How about after lunch?" she suggested.

Beej's stomach growled loudly.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'," Lydia said. She slid the strips into plastic film sleeves, and the two of them headed back upstairs.

*****

Back in the darkroom, Beej helped Lydia set up the equipment they would need. Once everything was in place and the chemicals measured out, Lydia placed one of the negative strips in the enlarger carrier and adjusted the height, focussing it as she did so. She turned on the enlarger and began adjusting the aperture ring of the lens, focussing the image on the masking frame.

"It needs to be two stops darker than the lens' maximum aperture," she said.

"Okaaay," Beej replied. "Sure -- whatever you say."

Lydia smiled, chuckling. She used the focus finder to check the sharpness of the image, and then turned off the enlarger.

"Now we have to make a test strip," she said.

Lydia turned on the red light and switched off the overhead light.

"Why do we need a red light?"

"Photographic paper is sensitive to regular white light," Lydia replied. "But red light is okay." She opened the box of paper and took out a sheet. "We don't need to do this every single time," she said, "but I want you to understand the process."

"Okay," Beej said. He watched as Lydia cut the paper into ten 10x5cm pieces. She placed a filter into the enlarger, and then laid one of the pieces of paper on the masking frame, exposing it for five seconds. Then she placed a card along one edge of the paper, covering it to a depth of a half-inch, and exposed it for another five seconds.

Next she used the card to cover the paper to an inch, and exposed it for five seconds again. She continued covering more and more of the paper, exposing it each time, until the process was completed.

"Now it goes into the developer tray," Lydia said, placing the paper in the nearest of the three trays that had been set out and filled with the necessary chemicals. "It needs to be rocked gently," she told him, demonstrating, "so that the paper gets completely covered. You don't wanna use the tongs -- that'll leave marks on the print."

"How long do you need to do that for?"

"It only takes a minute or so."

She removed the paper and let it drain briefly, and then she placed it in the next tray. "This is the stop bath," she said. "It stops the image from developing any further."

"I wish I could stop baths," Beej said.

"Cute," she said with a grin. "This one gets rocked for ten seconds."

She pulled it out and let it drain, and then she slid it into the last tray. "This is the fixer -- it makes the image permanent. We rock this one, too -- ten seconds for test strips, but one minute for prints."

"Whole lotta rockin' goin' on," Beej noted. "Dewey should be here."

Lydia laughed at that, and Beej grinned happily.

"Okay," she said, removing the test paper. "Now we can check to see which exposure is the best."

After making sure that the box of photographic paper was securely closed, she switched on the overhead light and turned the red light off. "Looks like the middle one is the best," she said, holding the paper with tongs. "All right -- we've got the right exposure and contrast grade."

"Great!" Beej said. "I was really worried about that contrast grade thing."

Lydia looked at him, appreciating the sarcasm.

"What that means, Mr Smarty Pants, is that now we can print the photo."

Beej's eyes lit up. "Well, what're we waitin' for? Let's do it!"

*****

Beej looked appreciatively at the photos that were hanging up to dry. They weren't perfect -- some were out of focus, others were off-kilter, and more than a couple were washed out -- but they were his photos, that he'd taken.

He was thankful that his very first photo -- that of Lydia in the flapper pose -- had turned out the best. She was his BFFFF, after all.

"I think you did a pretty good job," Lydia said, "considering this was your first time."

"I like taking pictures," he told her. "But developing 'em is ... too much work."

She laughed gently. "Okay, well ... how about I do the developing? At least for now."

"You got yourself a deal!" Then he looked down at his feet. "Thank you for giving me your camera and teaching me how to use it."

In reply, Lydia kissed him on the cheek. "My pleasure, big bro," she said.

He grinned and bit his lip, his hair bright green.

#beetlejuice #beetlejuice the musical #beetlejuice musical #beetlejuice the broadway musical #beetlejuice broadway #bjtmtmtm #bjtm #lydia deetz #not ship #bffffs forever #shutterbug #bjfinn writing

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