#a career vigilante....perhaps....

[ragedagainst]

just fyi in any verse where jyn's a bounty hunter or mercenary-type character, she's not accepting contracts on the everyday, run-of-the-mill criminals, even when she's desperate for money. in her post-ot sw verse, she's hunting imperials in the new republic. in any other verse, it's the Big Criminals, the people who are actively hurting others, not someone who's stealing to eat because she's been that person and always will be

[nelkcats]

Immortal Nanny

Bruce Wayne had never been a father. He knew what it was like to be a good father, and he knew what good fathers should be like, but adopting Richard was an impulse, a moment when he decided to give a child the comfort he needed, as he himself had needed in the past.

But just because he knew and understood didn't mean he could do it, or that he could become a good father instantly. Alfred would be a great help, of course, but it was he who had to raise the boy, Alfie was too old to start raising another child.

So, it was only natural that he forgot all about his busy life as "Brucie Wayne", adopting Dick hadn't stopped the million interviews or meetings, and while Alfred was extremely capable, Bruce still decided to hire a nanny.

Daniel Nightingale was a bit of an outsider (in a good way), he was studying at Gotham U, and was doing very well in his chosen career; though his records were strangely empty, Bruce knew he could trust him. His tired look and the shy smile he gave him upon arriving at the mansion was enough to calm his concerns.

Perhaps it was because he was just starting out as Batman at the time that he didn't investigate further.

Anyway, Dick loved Danny, from that first day, he used to tell Bruce about his "adventures" and how much fun he had. On one occasion he even told him they had a snowball fight (which confused him, because it was July but he was too tired to question the excited kid).

So, Danny became Dick's, and later Jason's, official nanny. He never complained and always smiled. The boy got along quite well with Alfred and would attend to any emergency, although he was never involved in the vigilante business.

It was only after Jason's death, when Tim arrived, that someone began to question Danny. Tim wasn't sure about Danny, there were a lot of things...that just didn't fit, and if the old photos of the mansion were any indication, the nanny wasn't getting any older.

Dick wasn't ten anymore and that was pretty obvious, but Danny looked exactly the same. Tim frowned, puzzled as to how no one had investigated such an oddity before. Alfred simply looked at him with an amused smile. He wondered how long it would take for the family to notice the (rather obvious) secrets of the elusive nanny.

Alfred couldn't blame the boy, the easiest way to hide something was in plain sight. And he knew the halfa would never hurt his family.

[itstheghostofmypast]

Loyalties

Kim HongJoong x (f) Detective Reader

Summary: He held her itty bitty heart in his bloody palm and she knew that, but did she love him enough to let him win his little game everytime? Did he love her enough to risk her safety?

Genre: Hurt/Comfort Fluff

Warnings: Joong's a perv (Idk okay), mention of gunshots, strong language.

Word Count: 2.5K

Read Time: 12 min

Rating: nc-17

Networks: @cromernet @k-labels

She hated him, no she despised him, no she loathed that disgusting, horrid, weasel of a man. She despised his cheap ass fur coat, his unnecessary bling and those pants! Her blood would boil at the mere name of that demonic, immature moron, she despised every little detail about him; his angular face, his sharp eyes that would glimmer like the stars swirling with pure mischief, his light chuckle that would ring in her ears like the voice of an angel, oh and she really, really, abhorred the way he'd look at her, with the warmth of pure love - NO!

Mentally slapping herself she cleared her throat, rehearsing the first stanza of hatred that ran hot in her veins for the infamous leader of MATZ. Technically it was just two men, boys who were usually called in for petty crimes turned into men who were now challenging the system- a knock-off of any vigilante out there. Batman, Daredevil, even the Punisher, see these men had class and style- MATZ, well, they had style...but perhaps the fact that explaining how her once high school friends are now notorious criminals or wannabe Robinhood would be a bit difficult. Perhaps this little fact only added to her current presiding problem, one she had mentioned to her lover, explicitly mentioning her concerns; for the safety of his life and her professional career. Once again, that bastard let his deflated ego in the way, her words bouncing off it without ever reaching his useless, dysfunctional brain.

So, here she stood, in front of her captain, watching him go on and on about the need for order and justice, the need for law and police work, and more importantly the need for loyalty. Loyalty, a trait that was of importance, though her's was being questioned.

"Where do your loyalties lie detective?"

"With the force, Sir" With a salute she looked dead ahead, not at him, no, through him, trying to figure out the answer to this very question. Where did her loyalties lie?

"Then how is it, you've been leading the task force to capture MATZ for three years and each time you are close they miraculously slip away!" his large, meaty hands slammed on the table, her partner beside her flinching, though not a jerk left her bones. Instead, her eyes flickered to his face, instantly scanning his form, this man looked like anything but eh definition of justice, safety and security - if anything, he looked more like a criminal than that moron of hers.

"I assure you, Sergeant, my loyalties lie where my heart has ever since I was a little girl. My friendship with Joong- " pausing she cleared her throat, ignoring the way he raised a brow at he before glancing at her partner as if hinting at something "MATZ, both Kim Hongjoong and Park Seonghwa ended as soon as they started this life of crime."

"I don't trust you an ounce detective, not one bit." slumping back in his seat he stared up at her, "But the Captain trusts ya for some reason, believes you a good egg- I just think you're a cracked egg, too far gone for anything else- so I'll tell you this, I'm on to ya, I'll be watching you, listening to you, from the moment you step into his precinct ill be watching your every move."

.

"Well, that was something." Jongho muttered, closing the door behind him, "Do you...want to grab a bite or something?"

"I'm good." giving him a small smile she sat back at her desk, sifting through the papers, not a word written processing in her already occupied mind. The traffic of thoughts only stopped when a hand rested on hers, "I may be younger than you, but we're partners, and my mentor has always told to me trust my partner. "

His soft words, followed by his cute smile had her sigh in defeat, sitting back down and nodding, "Some mentor you have, huh?"

"She's the best of the best." Puffing up his chest with pride he placed his hands on her desk, "Now, what can I do, to make my mentor feel better."

"Nothing, really Jong, I- " her words caught up as she noticed something. Her eyes caught the way her system was on, the screen lit up, the mouse icon moving on its own, she was being - shit. Instantly reaching for the cable, she pulled the plug on the CPU.

"Um...did you see what I just saw?"

"Jongho, get Yunho and tell him to track whatever the hell that was."

"Yes, Ma'am."

.

The door slammed shut, the darkness just adding to her anger, of course, he wouldn't turn on the lights, no lamp or bulb, choosing to sit on the small balcony - maybe she should just push him off, the idea extremely tempting at this point.

Placing her badge and gun on the table she made her way to the small balcony at the other end of the living room, making sure to turn on a lamp on the way out. Sliding the door open she sighed, the cool breeze prickling her warm skin, a shiver running down her spine as she stepped out completely, barely missing the small table as she made her way to the seat her boyfriend was currently sprawled on, limbs extending like the roots of the potted plants behind him. His head lay against the cushioned headrest, turning his head to face her, an easy smile making its way to his face, the warm glow of the fairy lights from the wall beside him only adding onto his beautiful face, making him appear oh so soft and lovable.

"Hey babe." his words barely above a whisper.

"Joong~" she sang, slowly getting on top of him, making herself comfortable until she was fully straddling him, his hands automatically finding their place on her back, holding onto her tight, her arms loosely hanging around his neck, "Did you miss me?"

"You bet your pretty ass, I did," he mumbled, eying the way she moved closer, her chest pressed against his, fingers playing with the hair at the base of his head.

"Aw~ baby" she pouted before gripping onto the ends of his hair and tugging hard, his head tilting back as a whimper escaped him, damn, his girl was in the mood- or so he thought.

"I didn't you f*cker." her grip tightened, tilting his head further back with another tug, his own fingers digging into her sides, trying to keep some form of control.

"Why~" whining with his eyes closed, he treasured the burning sensation, his princess knew how to play and he liked it so very much.

"Did you get Youngie to tap into my system? Do you want me to get fired? Or do you want me to shoot you in the d*ck?"

"Aw baby~ it's just work." his eyes finally snapped open, standing up without warning as a high-pitched squeak left her lips, arms instantly locking around his neck, much like her legs around his waist, staring up at him wide-eyed.

A chuckle echoed in the dark of the night as his hands finally gripped her close, "Don't worry doll, I'd never let ya fall." Walking them into the apartment he looked down at her frowning, "Did someone piss off my princess ?"

"Joong, " sighing she glanced away, letting him carry her around like she weighed nothing, like she was a mere muse he was addicted to, clinging onto him, onto his fur coat- wait God, he was wearing the orange one, she hated it.

"Yes, love?" slowly setting her down on the bed he shrugged off his jacket, going to the cupboard to hang it, his precious baby wasn't cheap!

"I can only protect you if you trust me, but if you hack into my system or pull shit like that and they fire me, who knows what- I- I just can't lose you" her words clogging up in her throat, the burning sensation all too evident behind her eyes, " what I mean is" sighing she paused to rephrase, his casual attitude just adding to the frustration as he walked towards her, swaying like a cat, stopping right in front of her sitting form, "Hongjoong, I'm serious, with me, it is just a game of cat and mouse but if I get replaced, if its someone else, it'll be serious and they might even-"

"Shhh..." placing a finger on her lips he hushed her, his hand caressing her cheek, admiring how she nuzzled into his palm, "You know love, " he whispered leaning closer till their noses touched, "I am a very dangerous man, I am more than just your lover."

"But-"

"I'll lay off your system," brushing his lips against hers, "Detective." Pulling back he smiled down at her, admiring how she looked up at him with teary eyes filled with nothing but love and worry, letting his intrusive thoughts win and squishing her cheeks with one hand, laughing at her whining in protest.

His other hand pulled out something from his back, showing her the shiny metal toy of his, "If it were someone else, other than you, that f*cker would already be dead, you're the only reason why I haven't torn this system down to shreds." with one last kiss to the forehead, her lovable idiot of a man once again promised to stay out of her way, at least for a while.

.

"This is team two, The ground floor is clear."

He did it again, he must've done it again, no way in hell did he not do it.

"Team three reporting from floor 1, all clear."

"Boss" Jongho mumbled beside her, turning off his comm, "Did you tell him?"

Sighing she adjusted her bulletproof west as the two walked into the basement, "Yes, I told that bastard, my system wasn't tapped, I double-checked." Of course, her junior knew about her little relationship, she did teach him that a mentor and mentee should have no secrets, even ones like these. It didn't take him long to accept it either, saying something along the lines of, "Is he really that bad if he's fighting against a system that has failed us?"

"Because Yunho just texted me saying your phone was tapped instead. "

"I hate him."

"Team two reporting, roof's all clear boss."

"This doesn't look good," he mumbled, trailing hot on her heels as the two entered the basement, a parking lot with two entrances. They were going to split up, "We can't go empty-handed, we need something at least."

"I know. Let's split up, and be on your guard."

With that the two parted ways, her footsteps echoing across the empty parking lot, the scraping of her boots muffling the jingle of her gun, one that was aimed and ready to shoot. A low chuckle caught her ear.

"STOP RIGHT THERE." She yelled, turning to aim at the fool, his smirk pissing her off even more, "Don't.Move."

"Hey doll." the deep voice from beside her alerting her senses, "You should go check up on your partner, baby bear's knocked out like Goldilocks." Seonghwa chuckled, making his way to stand next to Hongjoong who had his hands up for a show, the smug look never leaving his face.

"Aw, come on detective, just let us go and we can call it a night."

A loud bang, followed by a series of bangs, resonated across the entire parking lot.

"ALL UNITS TO THE BASEMENT, NOW!"

.

"You okay?" she asked, pressing the icepack against the bump on his head, "Told you to wear the helmet."

"Are YOU okay?" he asked, others around them looking at their head's bulletproof jacket, staring at the four shots right across it. Though that's not what he meant, he was definitely asking about something else.

"Yeah, great actually." Patting her head she turned around when someone called her name, eying the office who handed her a phone, "It's the sergeant, detective." rolling her eyes she pressed it against her ear, "Hello?"

"Detective. I heard about the encounter but didn't think you had it in ya to shoot him. Glad the bulletproof vest worked though, you're a good agent, we can't risk losing. I take it back, you have my trust and support. Get home safe."

.

Slamming the door shut she sighed in relief, kicking off her shoes she made her way into the living room, oh? The lights were on, what a pleasant surprise, wonder what happened?

"Hey honey how was work?" she smirked, leaning against the wall, arms crossed as she watched her shirtless boyfriend glare back at her, both ignoring the other man in the room who was tending to the gunshot wound.

Raising a brow, he scoffed, "Oh great love I got shot today by a bitch-"

"I'm still holding my gun Joong, don't test me"

Slamming his hand on his thigh he yelled "YOU SHOT ME- you SHOT ME IN THE SHOULDER!" hissing in pain as Seonghwa clicked his tongue, mumbling a stay still as he patched up the hole. This was all he could do before Yeosang could come over and have a proper look at it.

"YOU TAPPED MY PHONE"

"WELL YOUR SERGEANT WAS GETTING TOO COZY WITH YA- man's a perv, I know it" he spat back, shoving Seonghwa out of the way with his free hand, earning a curse in return.

"HONGJOONG, HE WAS DOUBTING MY LOYALTIES!" she explained and pointed at herself, "AND YOU SHOT ME TOO!"

A dramatic gasp echoed across the room followed by a hand placed on his chest - his heart, mind you-, causing Seonghwa to roll his eyes, here we go again, he should've never befriended these two in high school. Mumbling to himself about their idiocy he walked out to the balcony, deciding to smoke instead of listening to these idiots.

"First of all, YOU shot ME first and" he yelled and turned to point at the balcony, "That motherf*cker shot you, not me! I agree four times was a bit excessive but hey you were the one who kept going on and on about us being too soft on ya." Turning to her with raised brows, "And loyalties? Babe, come on, I mean, you and I- like we like- I've been in you multiple times, day or night and-"

"CAN YOU NOT!" she screamed, gesturing at the open door of the balcony.

'I don't care, pretend I'm not here, that's what I'm pretending too!' was all they could hear from the balcony, causing her face to resemble a tomato, though her shameless boyfriend was as nonchalant as ever, continuing his little speech, half naked in the living room.

"All I'm saying is, I don't question your loyalties because I know you've got the hots for me like I completely get it, I'd wanna sleep with me too, but your creep of a boss knows his soggy sausage aint worth your time and-"

"I should've aimed for your d*ck"

"Would you really though? Cause I know you loyal to my d-"

"And this conversation is over." with that she stomped away, speed walking when she heard the loud cackles of Seonghwa followed by the laughter of her own idiot of a man. No, boys, they were still the same shameless teenage boys, she accidentally had the unfortunate fate of meeting in school, when she was nothing but a victim of loneliness, turning her grey dull days into chaotic, colourful ones pulled out of the ass of the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland.

[childotkw]

okay but imagine the grindelwald! harry au mixed with that ybtm(ibty) au where it's actually harry that goes to nathan's world. i would assume that dumbledore wouldn't allow those rumors to spread if harry came to him first, but if harry had built up a reputation beforehand... it's technically not allowed/ taboo to discuss the rumor (not like the school can place a ban on it), but the whole student body knows it by the time harry is there and assisting dumbledore. dumbledore can't even claim harry as his son or relative at this point because it would just end in even more disaster. harry is super adverse to the rumor but his refusal just kinda stokes the flames higher and at this point even grindelwald is aware that his supposed son is hanging out with dumbledore at hogwarts. and wouldn't that be rejection of the highest order again? or perhaps he wouldn't really even believe the rumor but that power that harry effortlessly wields, that's something to see. i feel like nathan would believe harry when he said that he wasn't grindelwald's son, but orion would do the real plotting when he connects nathan's attackers to grindelwald, like, the amount of drama orion lives for is RIGHT THERE orion would prob be disappointed when he doesn't see results tho lol, but he has plenty of other entertainment. like harry and his everything. and tom too, but he sees tom more than harry, and tom likes to hide everything, so. anyways this idea has consumed me so i'm sorry about the word vomit lmao your aus are very plot-bunny inducing

A spin off of Dark Side of the Moon where Harry side-stepped Dumbledore and Hogwarts completely, and became some vigilante-esque figure in the Wizarding underworld because his saving people thing was alive and well even if he's a grumpy boy.

His actions - stepping in and defending others regardless of status or species, breaking up the more destructive and illegal rings in Knockturn and making things a little safer for those living there, dodging the aurors with all the skill of a career criminal, etc. - drew attention.

Because of course they did.

And people loved to gossip about him.

Because of course they did.

Harry was focussed on trying to get home (he has yet to chat with Death), and unintentionally kicked off some of those rumours himself. Rumours that, for some reason, had people thinking he was Grindelwald’s son?

(It was absolutely because of the Deathly Hallows tattoo on his hip - don’t ask how it got there, don’t ask how the group of hags spotted it, Harry purged that memory from his brain, it did not happen).

Anyway.

Harry was strolling around Knockturn on Halloween and stepped in to chase off the men attacking Nathan, safely whisked the boy back to his family and let them know that Grindelwald’s men were on the prowl. Benedict took that warning seriously, and Cynthia proposed Harry stop by one afternoon for tea as a thank you.

And one gossipy vampire who witnessed Harry curb-stomp Grindelwald’s men spread the word that the Dark Lord’s apparent son was ‘on the outs’ with his father because why else would he attack a group of Acolytes unless there was trouble in paradise?

Long, long story short - Harry eventually ended up at Hogwarts as some weird teacher assistant / in protective custody / a God (people are too scared to ask at this point). He just chilled in the school, occasionally disappearing without a word to dismantle an illegal poaching organisation or bulldoze through some of Grindelwald’s men.

It was only after a few months that Harry even heard the rumour that people think he’s Grindelwald’s disgruntled, long-lost son. He tried denying it at first but by this point the rumour is so pervasive and wide-spread that he couldn’t change it. So Harry just rolled with it.

“Why yes, I am Gellert’s son. Yes, I think his political agenda is stupid. No, he’s not all powerful, he’s actually a moron and I’m going to break his nose when I next see him.”

People are lowkey terrified. Nathan has his pseudo-older brother who is training him to be a badass. Orion is frothing at the mouth and Tom is vibrating at a frequency that could propel himself into the sun.

Gellert just wants to know why anyone would look at him and think he’d ever sleep with a woman. Then he claims the magically-powerful-possible-god-man-thing as his son because why not?

[ficthots]

Tracking

A/N: Wow, just yeah. I know it's been a long while since I posted for Peter, but like I promised, I was working on things for him and here it is! Now, I'll crawl back into my cave until my next writing is ready. As always let me know what you guys think and enjoy!

Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence

Word Count: 6.4K+

Time is a fucking thief. Really, it is. Waking up with the rising of the sun, getting ready to go to a job you despised, remaining in a windowless cubicle for eight hours, making dinner, then time to sleep again. Watching the clock as each passing minute was taken from you over and over again. Now when you throw being a superhero into the mix, it makes it even worse.

Holding down relationships, careers, any and all of the important things in life were always seemingly snatched away when it came to the personal life of crime fighting vigilante Spider-Man. That’s why when you entered his life it was like getting another opportunity to engage with time he had never experienced before.

Looking forward to coming home and eating dinner, stopping by on patrol nights to give you a goodnight kiss no matter what, to Peter Parker, he would do everything in his power to devote as much time as he possibly could to you.

Perhaps you were the time thief in his life now. Either way he didn’t mind when it came to you.

Were there times when it just simply wasn’t possible to shovel all of his waking energy towards you? Of course! The problems came when it had been that way for months. Yeah, you read that right.

In the span of four months, Peter had become so ravaged with his other entities responsibilities that his time with you was drastically rescinded. Unanswered text messages for days, not a peep from him for a week at a time, no more windowsill kisses. It was like he had vanished into thin air.

You understood at first. Hell, you had been dating the man for three years! What was happening, though, was unlike anything he had ever dealt with before. A group of men, identities undisclosed, were wreaking havoc throughout New York City. For months on end, like clockwork, every other week a crime would occur.

Each more gruesome than the last.

Peter had never really been on a deadline like this. Knowing that with each ticking second it was growing closer to the next attack. Spending all nights on the streets, trying to spot whoever could be responsible for this.

The worst part was that he had no leads. A few locations that were all pointless distractions. No semblance of an inkling as to who was committing all of these atrocities. In the span of time since their starting, over eight lives had been taken. A mind boggling number for such a short span of time.

Police were just as useless and he had decided to not take up any more time than necessary with them in tow simply because they weren’t taking this as seriously as they should have been. Instead of confronting the public, reminding them to be careful and not to wander alone past sunset, they were sweeping it under the rug.

Not wanting to cause a public disturbance. No need to fear monger they had told Spider-Man. Assuring him that all of those victims were tied to a gang in one way or another and it was criminal activity work. Something that he shouldn’t spend too much time dwelling on.

That was not a good enough answer for Peter. He didn’t believe them. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure it was a group behind all of this. It could have been a serial killer that was on one hell of a spree.

There was no pattern with their victims either. Randomly selected from the streets. What you didn’t understand was why Peter was involved with all of this. Of course, you knew he wanted to do all in his power to save as many lives as he could, but you warned him to be careful after the initial police warning.

Sticking his nose in places it didn’t belong was not going to end well. It had been the first time you two had argued to that extent. Shouting at the top of your lungs you weren’t ready to lose him and that’s what you were afraid was in the works.

He called you silly for thinking such things. That you needed to have more faith in him than you were giving. It still didn’t answer why he was so invested in this. You knew there were details he was purposely not giving you. Maybe he didn’t want to frighten you or maybe he thought you wouldn’t be able to handle it, but to you, you were a partnership, a pair.

All you wanted was to have Peter back around. Who knows, you might be able to actually help him if he came to you and showed you what he did and did not have. Instead, he hid it from you. Becoming cold and aloof. Distant and consumed.

If there was something you knew about Peter it was that he did not like being bested. Truly holding himself to a standard that was near impossible. Knowing he was above average intelligence, to put it lightly, when people tried outsmarting him, it was always a humorous effort. No one bested Spider-Man.

This time, they were.

Following that night of your monstrous bickering, you hadn’t seen or heard from Peter in over a week. Honestly, you weren’t making much of an effort yourself. Having no interest in being around him when he was in a head space like this. Knowing that there really was no way to help him if he presented nothing to you.

Peter on the other hand was not okay with you going dark on him. Despite knowing that the clock was dwindling down before their next attack, it was the first time in weeks you had been at the forefront of his mind. The little voice in the back of his head was telling him he needed to smooth this over with you or he would regret it.

Which is why he was climbing into your living room window with a bouquet of your favorite flowers, opting to take the night off even though it could be a crucial turning point. He ended up convincing himself it would be alright because if he didn’t have a direction to go in an hour before arriving at your apartment, then hunting tonight was pointless.

He didn’t have a direction.

Even though you hadn’t spoken to Peter, your thoughts were consumed by him as well. What was the bit of information he wasn’t giving you? Was there even anything he was leaving out? There could be the slim possibility he had actually divulged all he knew to you. But you knew better than that. Peter was hiding something, you just couldn’t figure out what it was.

The notes.

Discovered next to each of the victims he had come across. Given he was the only individual to find them and when he tried bringing it to the attention of the police, they had shrugged him off. They were trying to get to him.

Sheets of white printer paper, the typical horror movie fashion of assembly. Varying letters from magazines, newspapers, old letters, all taped and pasted on the paper in a note. Each one was different, but told in a fashion of a word problem. Some were like riddles.

Either way, with each new victim that appeared, so did a new note. It was one of the things he dreaded the most. Seeing what possibly innocent person had been selected in order to deliver the paper to him. His stomach turned just at the thought of it.

Tonight was not for that, though. Instead he chose to bury it in the back of his brain and spend some much needed time with you. So why weren’t you home?

If there was one thing Peter knew and loved about you was that you were a schedule person. Totally type-a, your day planned to perfection and given it was just after six o’clock that evening, you should’ve been in the kitchen plating your dinner.

Except, there was no you in the kitchen, there was no music or television playing in the background, it looked as though nothing had been touched all day. Until he stepped further into the kitchen.

When his eyes darted over to the corner of your counter, partly covered by your fridge, he froze. There it sat. An uneaten bowl of cereal. The milk on the counter next to it, the cereal box still opened and there.

As he approached it, observing the contents, you hadn’t even gotten a spoon out yet. It was filled to the brim, more so than you would’ve liked, but given it hadn’t been touched some of the cereal had inflated from the milk.

“Bug?” His voice, calm and collected echoed out into the quiet flat. Finally prying his eyes away from the alarming sight he had just seen, he was stumped. Everything else in the living room and kitchen was exactly as it should have been.

Maybe you were running late this morning and didn’t realize until after you had made your breakfast. Yes, of course! That’s exactly what it was.

Peeking into your bedroom, his heart rate decreased, a sense of relief and ease settling over him at the entirely bogus reasoning he had used to calm himself down. Until the most unusual sight of all was spotted.

Your phone sitting soundly on your nightstand, still connected to the charger. His hand rubbed at his closed eyes, trying to will his breathing to return to a normal rate. Tapping the screen, it lit up with dozens of texts. Some from Peter, some from coworkers, a few missed calls from work.

Never would you ever forget your phone. Never would you ever not put the cereal back in its place. Something was wrong.

His trembling hands removed his own phone from his pocket, before entirely losing any semblance of sanity, he dialed your boss’s number. It picked up on the third ring and Peter did his best to sound as normal as he could.

“Hey, Guy! It’s Peter Parker,” he was instantly cut off by his chipper voice on the other end. “Peter! How the heck are you?” He sighed, a shaky laugh escaping him. “Great, great. I just have a quick question for you,” as Peter asked if you had made it into work today, Guy responded fast.

“No, actually she didn’t today or yesterday. Didn’t even call. It’s not like her at all. I think a few of her team members tried texting her and didn’t hear from her either. Everything okay?” It was the worst thing he could have been told at that moment.

Clearing his throat, he tried to remain calm. “Mhm, yeah, yes. She’s just, uh, very sick. It might be a few days before she’s well enough to get back to the office. I didn’t call earlier because I wasn’t sure if she had or not.”

Guy’s laugh of relief was palpable. “Whew, thank goodness! Okay, well tell her to rest up and we’ll see her when she’s all better.” Thanking him and quickly ending the call, Peter tore your apartment upside down.

Any clues he could think of, any sign of forced entry, anything at all. But there was nothing. It was all still in the pristine condition it had been left in. Not a single thing out of the ordinary despite the two big red flags. Even going through every app on your phone, just in case, but it was fruitless.

Alarm bells were chiming in his head, he knew something was wrong. He knew you were in some sort of danger. He collapsed on your couch, wracking his brain for anything that could have given him something to work with.

Then he saw it. Out of the corner of his eye. A small piece of white paper stuck to the tongue of a running shoe you never wore. Turned on its side. He couldn’t remember if he had knocked it over during his rushed search of your apartment, but as he picked it up, his blood turned to ice.

Taped to the shoe were the letters he dreaded seeing. Had been haunting him in his sleep for weeks. When he could sleep that was. Unlike the others, it was almost a clue as to where to go next. His eyes quickly saw the time and knew they were going to strike again soon. Far too soon.

One step forward, three steps back, find her quick before she’s the next attack

It was an anger unlike anything he had ever felt before. Not when his parents had died, not when uncle Ben died, it was so overpowering, Peter truly didn’t know how to control it. Darting out of your window, knowing he was on limited time, he began his search.

A near pointless search. A pill that was hard to swallow. Knowing the chances of actually finding you were so slim. He had the list in the back of his mind, places he had scouted previously that he knew they had used at one point or another.

That was the only thing he could think to do. Which is exactly what he did. Searching one by one individually, spending no more than thirty seconds to one minute at each location before going down the list. Did he destroy some of those places during his searches? Absolutely.

He only grew angrier with each location he arrived at that you weren’t in. His hope was running out. Knowing he was at the last two possible places you could be at that he knew about. It was an abandoned warehouse by the river. The first place he had ever tracked them to, but it was far too late when he made his discovery. They had been out of there for over a week by the time he found it.

They were always just a few steps ahead of him and it drove him mad. His masked face searched the premises from what he could see. Through one of the partly shattered windows, there appeared to be a figure on the far end of the building.

A single light shining on them, their back facing where Peter stood. Sitting in a chair, only a wisp of a shadow, no identifying features to be made out. Assuming it was going to be a fight he was about to step into, Peter broke the remainder of the window and launched himself in.

Eerily silent. No noise in the entire building apart from the howling wind outside. It was beginning to become mid-fall in the city and it was always your favorite time of year. No one was enjoying the crisp autumn air that evening.

It was unbearably stuffy in there. No fresh air had swept through the place in years. The stale scents made that abundantly clear. Peter hesitantly approached the figure, the lighting just so he couldn’t make anything out until only a few hundred yards away.

The minute he saw the tied hands behind the back of the chair, his heart soared. “Bu-bug!” His voice shouted, relief flowing off of him in waves, but they came crashing down just as fast.

He wasn’t even sure if it was you. Incredibly deformed from obvious beatings, your face was swollen, bruised, and bloody like he had never seen before. The zip tie around your wrists had cut into the skin, pieces of flesh hanging from it.

As he looked down, the sticky floor was a deep crimson, continuing to pool from your countless open wounds. No shoes were on your feet, they too were cut and dangling from your seated position, totally limp.

He wasn’t entirely sure what was in your mouth as a makeshift gag, but whatever it was had been there so long, your skin was raw and bruised around it. It was the first thing he removed and as he did, your chipped teeth entered his view.

A blanket was draped over you that was covered in things Peter did not even want to begin to imagine. It was the next thing he went to remove, but he halted the moment it was off your body.

There, stapled to your bare chest, was his next note. The same haunting letters, covered in either your own or someone else’s blood. Based on the missing fingernails, he assumed it was a fight you had given which made him silently pray it was someone else’s, yours already spilled too much.

It took him a second longer than he realized to see that your toes were mainly all facing the wrong way. Your arms bruised from newly broken bones, legs in the same condition.

His trembling voice was the first thing you heard as he cut the tie from your hands, whimpers and choked cries trying to escape your hoarse throat. Immediately going limp, Peter caught you. Your body was convulsing in ways he had never seen, unable to open your eyes and see that Peter had found you.

His tears made heavy tracts on his sweat riddled skin. His gloved hands smoothed over the inflamed sections of your face. “I’m-I’m here bug, I got you. I found you, baby. I got you, okay? It’s okay now, baby.” Despite knowing how difficult and incredibly painful his next actions were going to be, he had to get you out of there.

Medical attention was the only way you were going to be able to survive. That meant Peter was going to have to carry you to the hospital. No possibility of emergency services being able to get to you before it was too late.

He was right. Had he waited for emergency services you would have died. You had been in the hospital for three weeks now. Finally in a state where you were fully conscious, despite the pain that never subsided, you were doing better than everyone thought.

It was unclear how long you had been in their “care” before Peter had found you. Based on the little memory you had from the snatching, it was assumed you had been with them for at least forty-eight hours, possibly more.

Peter hadn’t left your side since. Growing tired of hearing the nurses and doctors praise Spider-Man for having found you and saving you when he did. Hardly. He had hardly saved you.

In fact, this was his fault. It was the conclusion he had made. His careless and reckless behaviors had led them straight to you. He hadn’t spoken to you in a week and look what they had done. They thought they had killed you. There hadn’t been another attack yet. It meant nothing though.

No, the note left for him said otherwise. You’ve made it three steps back, how long until the grand final act?

Peter was frightening you. Since you had been awake and aware of what was happening, he had hardly spoken to you. The deep purple bags under his eyes were only growing worse, skin a sickly gray you had never witnessed in a human before, face hollowing out from lack of rest and food.

All he did was write in his notebook.

Curled up in a chair, he stared at the pages for hours on end. Occasionally writing and scribbling in it. His eyes never rested, constantly darting around the pages. It had been weeks of this. Total silence from him, not sure how to talk to him when he was like…this.

It was another late night in the hospital, having drifted in and out of painful sleep all day. Based on the lack of staff and visitors present, you assumed it was the middle of the night. The hospital floor just outside your door was quiet. An easy night for the staff, you thought.

Trying to figure out how to eat a pudding cup, one of the only things you could keep down, was your current task at hand. The tv playing with hardly any sound, it being the only main light in there, Peter silently re-reading whatever was in that book. That was the current mood of your room.

Eating was difficult. Only having three working fingers on your non-dominant hand, luckily one being your thumb, you struggled to pick up the spoon, also knowing you couldn’t move your arm to bring the spoon to you or bend over to get closer to consume anything. Just trying to move to secure the spoon in your mangled fingers had you on the verge of tears, losing your breath along the way.

You could do nothing without help. Not wanting to ask Peter for any assistance because of how poor his mood was. That was where you two currently sat with one another. Scared to speak to him more than absolutely necessary. Hardly speaking since being here.

His eyes briefly glanced at you before realizing what you were trying to do, throwing his notebook onto the side table. “Hey, hey, hey! What are you even trying to do, bug?” His voice was soft, a slight laugh in his voice, exhaustion evident with each word spoken. Taking the spoon from your hand, he pulled his chair closer to the bed, beginning to bring it to your lips.

It was silent until your eyes darted back at the book, deciding to take a leap. “Whatcha writing?” Your cracked, gravelly, and weak voice echoed through the silent room.

It made him want to revert to a blind rage attack. Your voice that was usually so full of life and excitement. Strong and loud that could command an entire room with only a few words. Now, he could hardly hear you, understand you, look at you. Jaw clenching at the question, his teeth grinded together.

When he closed his eyes, he saw visions of you beaten in that warehouse, left for dead. The immense pain you had been suffering through ever since then. Scars that would never fade, both physically and mentally meant he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. Not until he found them.

Your face was doing better, still black and blue, but healing. Able to open your eyes and look at him despite the popped blood vessels. Bandages littered every inch of your skin, wrists tightly wrapped with special medicine for the skin loss.

“Notes,” he murmured, eyes darkening as you asked your question, obviously not wanting to speak about it more. Changing the topic as your pudding came to an end, his hand brushed through your hair, knuckles lightly brushing against your cheek. “What do you need? Anything?”

It was silly. A simple question to see if you really did need anything. It didn’t stop the tears from hurriedly falling down your face. “Yo-you, Peter. I need you. I don’t know where you’ve been, but it hasn’t been here with me. I feel like I’m healing on my own. Like you’re not even here. You sit in that chair, staring at that notebook for days on end. You’ve hardly looked at me, spoken to me, listened to me. Please, just come back to me. Please, Pete.” It was borderline begging, but months of pent up frustration had broken the dam.

Peter’s heart continued to crack with each additional word you said. Realization of what he was doing to you, slamming into him all at once. He nodded, chin resting on one of the side rails, sniffling himself. “I’m here, bug. Whatever you need. I’m so sorry.”

Your only non-fully broken hand you extended towards him, wincing in pain from the movement. Scared to touch you, he only placed your hand back down, removing the side rail to get as close as possible to you.

The rest of the night, you two sat chatting ,watching whatever movies you wanted. It was a glimpse at the man you had seemingly lost all those months ago. Peter was back.

You were released from the hospital just shy of a week later. Peter’s plan to nurse you back to health was his moving in with you. While it was just supposed to be while you recovered, you two ended up enjoying it so much, he was now permanently living there.

It felt like your relationship was shooting by leaps and bounds, spending time together like you had never experienced before. Him being there when you went to bed at night and his face being the first thing you spotted when your eyes opened was a treat you didn’t know you needed.

Feeling content, cared for, respected, and loved like never before. Peter admitted, with your confession to him in the hospital about how distant he had become, tore him apart. He had never seen you moved to tears in such a way, especially over him.

He didn’t realize how deep he had been sucked in until that moment. From then on, Peter swore to keep his other persona on the sidelines for a bit whilst you healed and needed him. Did that mean he was going to stop being Spider-Man in the meantime?

Of course not. It meant that side of him was reserved for the span of time from when you fell asleep to about forty minutes before you would wake up in the morning. Absolutely clueless as to the fact that he had been out all night.

Hunting. Stalking. Tracking.

It was the first night in which you didn’t need him to help lay you down in bed. Peter knew his sleep schedule was already fucked, each time his eyes would drift shut all he could see was you strapped to that chair, nearing death.

And the fact that he hadn’t caught them.

Keeping him up at night, when he could sleep it was plagued by nightmares. Peter knew that there was no opportunity for him to rest while these scumbags were still wandering the streets, looking for another prey to select for their sick games.

Which is why he was doing this without you knowing. Not wanting to worry you and cause you further stress. No, Peter could do this. Would do this. Had to do this. He had made amazing moves. Truly spectacular given the place he had been stuck in before.

They had no idea he had found them, watched their every move, plotted what he was going to do to them. Honestly, when he first spotted one of the three he had discovered had been involved in your…incident, it took every ounce of strength he had to not murder the man right then.

He had to remind himself that all he had to do was provide some patience and the reward would be unlike anything he imagined. And imagine he did.

It was what plagued his thoughts every single day as he watched you hobble around such short distances that only offered pain and tiredness from. His eyes would drift over your still bruised skin as he helped you bathe and it was like witnessing it all over again.

Your hand would tip his chin up, forcing him to lock eyes with you. It was nearly impossible to not see the sadness and hurt in his eyes. Disappointed in himself for letting this happen to you. It didn’t matter because what had happened was now in the past and all you were looking forward to was healing.

The emotional and traumatic scars left on you were not easy to mask. Perhaps that was another reason why Peter was so furious as well. If he moved too quickly behind you, you jumped and a small scream would follow. Trembling for upwards of an hour before settling down. Peter would have to tell you small things to gather your thoughts.

Feel my hand? I`m right here, bug. Here, I want you to use the remote and put on whatever you want. You feel the couch under you? You’re home, baby. You’re safe.

If it weren’t for Peter, you weren’t sure what you would do. He was your rock, your other half, offering reason for unreasonable thoughts. He was your Peter.

The rain was pattering against the window, a sort of white noise you weren’t expecting tonight, but were grateful for it nonetheless. It helped you drift off to a dreamless sleep, exhaustion from trying to do some basic things today taking too much out of you.

Peter was already out of the house before he knew you were soundly asleep. He couldn’t risk being late. Tonight was the night.

Weeks of following them, understanding and breaking their odd patterns, he watched as they went according to plan perfectly. A construction sight for a new high rise. This was their new rendezvous sight for the next attack.

There wouldn’t be another attack.

Counting silently in his head, as he saw a flicker of a small light near the top floor, his count was perfect. They entered exactly on schedule. Crawling down the side of the building and using the thunderstorm to his advantage, he shattered a window a few floors up.

There was no other way that he knew of other than how they had entered and that was far too risky as they had all other doors blocked. As he slowly descended the staircase to scout the floor and determine which room they were in, his hair stood on end as a voice hit his ear.

Three of them. All there. The monsters who were behind your attack. Simply waiting for him.

Except, they didn’t know they were waiting for him. No, tonight was a setup night. Preparation for the coming days of their next plan. Peter had determined fairly early on it was not going to be their final act like they had claimed.

The door was kept slightly ajar with a cinder block, no handles on them yet meaning if it closed, there was no way out for them. Which was their plan for their next victim. Leave the poor soul trapped here with no means of getting out alive.

Peter’s skin was crawling, every instinct shouting at him to just do it. End them now. It would be so easy. He shook off those thoughts, knowing his plan was the correct one.

He dropped to the floor behind them, one of them catching him out of the corner of their eye, a smirk taking over his face. “Spidey boy finally found us, boss.” The thick accent made him hard to understand. Peter kept silent. Very silent.

The other two turned to face him, matching looks on their hideous faces. “How’s your girl? You otta be more careful next time or she could get seriously hurt.” A chuckle escaped them. Peter still didn’t move, watching them from a few paces away.

Quickly deciding they weren’t a fan of the silent treatment, the largest man in the center who Peter knew to be their ringleader drew his gun. In the blink of an eye, web flew towards the gunman, pinning the weapon to the wall behind him.

“Come on now, you didn’t think I knew what you have on you? Just like how I know tweedledee over here is about to throw a knife at me,” Peter ducked out of the way as the blade hurdled towards him. “Now how about we all play nice and introduce ourselves?”

An over exaggerated sigh escaped Peter’s lips as the three men darted towards him, but he acted quickly, webbing them to the surrounding walls, letting one approach him to fight him. “Guess not. Okay, then. I guess I’ll be the one making the rules tonight then.”

Peter grabbed the three chairs from one of the corners of the room before leisurely strolling towards the door and pushing the cinder block from the opening. He whistled a made up tune as he removed them one by one, webbing them to the seats to the point of them not being able to move an inch.

“You know, it’s such a shame sometimes that I wear this mask because I would love you guys to see how big of a smile I have right now. Scouts honor, I am overjoyed that we finally get to do this!” He took his own seat directly across from them.

His head scanned them before pointing at the one on the right. “Let’s start with you bumblebee. What’s your name?” His black and yellow striped shirt was what appointed him his nickname. “You think we’re going to talk? I have nothing to say.”

Peter nodded at his words before looking at the other two. “Same goes for you two then, I assume?” When they didn’t respond, instead only seeing spit hurl towards him, he dropped his head, shaking it. “Such a shame. Alright, last chance. Just give me a name.”

Silence.

A shrug. “It brings me no joy to resort to this, fellas. I’m truly not a violent person. I pride myself on being as gentle as I can be. " He began pacing around, his chair discarded behind him now. “Igor, Viktor, Sasha.” He pointed at each of them individually as he divulged their names.

He gave himself a small satisfactory pump into the air at his success. He could tell he was correct by the little one on the lefts eyes growing slightly wider. It was just the start. As Peter continued on, he got tiny tidbits of information. Only when he presented to them what he knew. Which at this point was everything.

Names, date of births, addresses, spouses, children, education records, dental records, you name it, Peter had it. It still wasn’t enough to get them talking like how he wanted. Instead, Peter fell into the second part of his plan earlier than he had expected.

With seven toes, five fingers, three teeth, many beatings, and an ear, they were beginning to squeal. The leader, Igor, was suspended from the ceiling by his bound hands submerged in webbing. He was entirely nude, body cut up in ways that had blood spilling from him ferociously.

Viktor was webbed entirely to the floor, his entire body covered in fluid despite only one singular nostril. He was the one who cracked first which Peter expected after his reaction to his grandmothers home address in his tiny village in his home country. It was quickly discovered that he was mainly an action man, simply doing what he was told, not a mastermind of any sort.

The other one, Sasha, was who most of the beatings had gone towards once Viktor had divulged it was him who had mainly been the culprit in your beating. Webbed to the wall with no chance of escape, Peter mimicked all the injuries you had sustained on him and then some. Just missing a few fingers and toes now as well.

As the night drew to a close, Peter admired the work he had done. He wiped his gloved hands in a motion to signify he was wrapping up. They were hardly conscious enough at this point to understand what was happening to them. To understand the fate they had drawn themselves to.

There was just one final thing he needed to do. Grabbing the needle and thread he brought with him for tonight and tonight only, he walked slowly towards the nude man. “Did you know that I sew all of my suits? Crazy right! How in the world does he have the time to do this, you might ask. It’s a valid question, but you know what, if I took it to lets say a seamstress, I would be unbelievably broke. Not to mention, how does one drop off the Spider-Man suit without drawing suspicion. First world problems, am I right?” 

The man didn’t respond, but as Peter pierced the needle into his skin, his yelp rang in Peter’s ears. “Ah, ah, ah, don’t be moving around now, you’ll make my stitches go all out of wack here.” Peter took his time, but as he finished he admired the handy work.

Sewn into the man chest was a letter of his own. Crafted just for them. A message curated specifically for their enjoyment.

“How time flies, boys. Suns coming up here shortly. Time for me to be heading out.” He smashed a window, ready to crawl out, but he remembered one final thing he needed to do. Walking back over to Igor, he pulled his head back by the hair on his scalp, making him look into the bug eyed mask.

The whimper that fell from the grown man was laughable to Peter. “If you or your dogs come near anyone I love again, our next visit will not be as enjoyable as this one. If you get out of here, I mean.” Tears fell from the corner of his eyes as Peter released his head to fall back into its resting position.

“See you later, guys! Make better choices!” He called out behind himself as he crawled out the window, webbing it shut behind him before making his way home to you.

It was the first time in months that Peter felt like he could breathe. Taking in the fresh morning air, just minutes before the sun began to peak on the horizon, signaling the arrival of a new day. His lungs expanded with the deep breath of air, wanting to sob at the weight removed from his shoulders.

As he made his way back into the apartment, he spotted you in bed. Still curled up in the comforter, sound asleep, none the wiser of his whereabouts the night before. The brusing getting less and less noticeable by the day.

When he crawled into bed next to you, he refused to fall asleep, not tired in the least. No, instead as the sun began to shine through the curtains, he watched you. Watched as your chest rose and fell with each breath, grateful you were taking those breaths.

Because Peter knew that it wasn’t long ago where those breaths weren’t guaranteed. Now, he counted each one, to make sure you were okay. Of course you were okay now. Peter just needed to make sure.

It wasn’t too long after when you began stirring, eyes blinking open to see his golden eyes staring down at you with the softest gaze Peter had ever had. “Morning,” you mumbled, he whispered it back to you.

“You sleep okay?” He asked, to which you nodded, asking him the same. “Of course I did.” You smiled, getting up and ready to start your day.

You just needed to pretended you didn’t see the bruises adorning his knuckles. “What’s for breakfast?”

[damedechance]

seek&destroy

read pt1 on ao3 || listen to the playlist

You're telling me I got to talk with @foundress0fnothing for the past few weeks (my favorite person) and write about Gwynriel (my two favorite idiots)? I have seriously enjoyed getting to know my precious giftee a little bit more during this event and I am so so so excited to finally share part of what I've been working on!!! Em, I hope you know how cherished you are in this little fandom community, and I hope this fic can bring you even just the littlest spark of joy! Love you endlessly, Santa 🌟

Pairing: Gwynriel

Parts: 1 of 5

Rating: Explicit (for eventual smut)

Summary: Those with a link to a realm long gone now live in secret, and Gwyneth Berdara is one of them. After a horrific tragedy rends her life apart, Gwyn finds herself in good company with her fellow Valkyries, a group of vigilantes who work to restore the forgotten relics of a land called 'Prythian.' When Gwyn's work brings her to an illustrious museum, her own world collides with that of the mysterious Shadowsinger--an encounter that leads to her vowing to bring him to his untimely end. [[FOR @acotargiftexchange]]

Read below for all of Chapter One:

CHAPTER ONE

Too. Many. Legs.

There were just too many legs, Gwyn thought, as she stared in open-mouthed horror at the projector screen. Just as she swallowed down a gag at the sight of the ghastly images before her, the presenter gestured passionately towards the slides, his tall frame and abhorrent posture giving the illusion of the rounded shell of a beetle. So uncanny was his resemblance to the subject of his own presentation, the species he’d apparently devoted his entire career to–the cerambycid beetle. Gwyn fought back a shiver. Or a scream of terror.

Not that she wasn’t sympathetic to his cause. A glance at the pamphlet in front of her revealed that he held a PhD in entomology–a degree she knew from personal experience was all but impossible if you didn’t feel truly dedicated to your work. He was probably a sweet old man, she struggled to convince herself. Someone like her, a person so entirely enamored with their subject of study that the less attractive facets of the field were of no consequence. In fact, she admired that sort of devotion. 

Still, the clearly impassioned man wasn’t exactly persuading her to actually take up an interest in the study of insects. Gwyn suspected that the sight of those beetles was the primary driving force in that decision. Especially since she still couldn’t keep her eyes open for more than five minutes at a time, and was currently squeezing them shut as she counted out her deep, steadying breaths. Just a few moments of relief from the images on the screen was all she needed.

When she opened her eyes again, the presenter had switched to the next slide, which revealed a close-up view of the beetle’s segmented underbelly. Heaving, Gwyn bit down on her tongue as she felt the blood drain from her face. To distract herself from the urge to evacuate the contents of her  stomach, Gwyn allowed her eyes to drift aimlessly about the room.

For not the first time, she was grateful that she’d been able to secure a seat for herself in the back of the auditorium. The badge hanging from the bright red lanyard across her neck proclaimed her a professor of entomology at the Dunmere College of Arts and Sciences, but she imagined that if any of the other conference attendees saw how green her face was, that title would prove itself somewhat implausible.

If nothing else, Gwyn needed to be sure that her act was flawless tonight. By the end of the Annual Entomology Society Conference, she wanted to have every single person in this room reasonably convinced that she was an ardent scholar of…bugs. Or, at the very least, she needed to not raise anyone’s suspicions to the contrary.

Perhaps if she simply kept sitting in the back, then.

Sighing quietly, Gwyn shifted down in her seat and allowed her legs to spread out in front of her. If she were to be stuck here, listening to the keynote speaker for the next–she checked the clock hanging above the door–five minutes, she should at least get comfortable. She crossed her arms over her chest, fingers tapping impatiently across her biceps, and stared unseeingly at the screen.

The minutes passed excruciatingly slowly. More legs, more antennae, more larvae, and by the end of the time Gwyn was biting on the insides of her cheeks to prevent herself from screaming in abject horror at each new, impossibly grotesque image. Until finally, the presenter reached the end of his slides, and only a blank screen appeared above his head.

“Right,” the bug doctor said. He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose, and began shuffling his papers over the podium. “Thank you all for such a thrilling discussion of cerambycid communities and their impact as an invasive species.”

Thrilling. Gwyn snorted to herself, and when more than a few heads turned in her direction, she quickly masked it as a sneeze.

“I will be available for a Q&A session later this afternoon,” the presenter continued, his finger prodding one of the papers on the top of his stack, as if pointing to a time. “Until then, I suggest perusing the rest of the museum for the insect nursery, where I am told some cerambycid beetle larvae are on display. Do take note of the well-progressed sclerotisation of the mouth parts, and if you find yourself peckish, I hear the cafe has an excellent gelato stand.”

That the presenter could possibly utter the words sclerotisation and gelato in the same sentence only served to confirm for Gwyn that she needed to get out of that room as soon as possible. Eagerly standing up, she shoved her notebook full of fake notes into her bag, and began to walk down the auditorium steps with the rest of the meager audience. Entomology was not a popular field apparently, and Gwyn could hazard a guess as to why.

As she approached the stage where the bug doctor still stood at the podium, politely accepting words of praise from some of the other attendees, Gwyn thought she hear the words antennal sockets and low tubercles, and immediately quickened her pace, slipping past others to ensure that she was towards the middle of the pack, instead of at the very end.

Sighing in relief as soon as she stepped out of the auditorium and into one of the connecting halls outside of the exhibits, Gwyn followed the flow of the crowd. She slipped her phone out of her pocket, pretending to be texting so that none of the bug enthusiasts would attempt to engage her in some conversation about pupation. Only looking up occasionally from her notes app where she just repeatedly typed the words ew ew ew, Gwyn nearly yelped when she heard a voice in her ear. 

“You missed your turn,” Emerie said, her voice slightly crackling through the earpiece hidden behind Gwyn’s hair.

She cleared her notes app, quickly typing the words, I know. And Sorry.

A tinny sigh in her ear. “That’s okay, just don’t attract attention. Pretend to look interested in the exhibit.”

Gwyn locked her phone, slipping it back into her bag as she lifted her head. Immediately regretting the action, once she came face to face with hundred of wiggling, nasty looking larvae.

This time, Gwyn couldn’t hold back her yelp, though she did manage to close her mouth in time to capture the sound, so that it didn’t disrupt the group of people that had gathered to marvel at the nasty little things. Pointing out some fascinating detail of another, as they crowded around the glass window into the bug nursery. In hindsight, Gwyn really should have expected that following the crowd of conference attendees would have led her here.

Carefully controlling her breathing rate so that she wouldn’t alert the others, Gwyn took several steps backwards from the case before turning and walking in the direction of the entrance to the next exhibit. One glance around the room revealed to her that the rest of the entomologists were already deeply engrossed with the contents of the many cases around them, and so Gwyn was able to easily slip out of the room without attracting notice.

The adjoining exhibit, a hall of various bones and skeletons, was relatively less crowded, and Gwyn was just as easily able to weave her way in and out of the gathered bodies. She allowed her head to swivel around, if only to appear as any other mildly interested patron, but stayed resolute in her path towards the exhibit that she’d originally missed.

“Slow down,” Emerie hissed in her ear. “Or at least pretend to be looking for the bathroom.”

Gwyn huffed, shoulders sagging as she forced herself to slow down somewhere in the middle of the ocean exhibit. Above her, the lights illuminated the room in slowly shifting shades of blue, casting the impression of walking along the ocean floor. She ran a hand over her face, and continued walking at a much more deliberate pace.

Admittedly, the museum was rather impressive and on any other day, Gwyn would have been among all of the other patrons, staring wide-eyed at the displays and devotedly reading each and every plaque. 

But she wasn’t here to admire the museum. The entomology conference had only been an excuse for Gwyn to come to the Helion Museum of Natural History. If she had simply attended as a regular patron, without a purpose for ambling through the halls other than pure entertainment, she wouldn’t have been granted a keycard that allowed her access to some of the more restricted sections of the museum.

She’d already taken advantage of that privilege the previous day, when she and the other conference attendees took a tour of the research wings, where the archivists and conservationists worked. Their guide had taken them through room upon room of lovingly organized samples stacked in neat rows upon the shelves or spread across tables as researchers gently worked to clean and preserve them. The ultimate purpose of the tour had been to view the yet unveiling showing of moths as the archivists carefully pinned and labeled them, but Gwyn had conveniently slipped out under the guise of a bathroom break before that ever happened. That night, she returned home to Nesta and Emerie with a neatly drawn map of nearly the entire research wing.

Now, as Gwyn ambled through the ocean exhibit, the brilliant displays of coral and skeletons of various sea creatures rose up around her. She walked slowly, arms crossed over her badge so that anyone passing her wouldn’t note that she’d wandered off from the rest of the entomologists. Emerie gently murmured her approval in Gwyn’s ear, just as she crossed the threshold into the next exhibit, a sign above it advertising the Space and Astronomy hall.

The entrance was a long, dark tunnel with white swirling lights on the rounded ceilings and walls. Not resembling stars, but instead pulsing from one end to another like a portal. Gwyn was the only one walking through it, and belatedly she realized that this was a relatively slow day and hour for the museum. She hadn’t seen many other patrons, except for the rest of the bug crew, and as she walked out of the tunnel and into the dimly lit chamber that was the space exhibit, she realized that she was the only one there, save for the security guard currently leaning against a wall and staring at the toe of his boot.

Gwyn adjusted her glasses, slowly winding around case after case of space memorabilia. Some artifacts collected from the surface of the moon, and hundreds of chunks of rock from meteorites that had crashed to earth. She paused at a few signs for good measure, but her gaze was drawn to the ceiling above, which was a careful recreation of the constellations in the night sky.

As she made her way to the end of the hall, Gwyn nearly tripped over a small pedestal that appeared to rise up out of nowhere. She stumbled back, staring dumbfounded at the small, square case that shone more brightly than any of the others in the entire museum thus far. 

Just a small, glass box atop a narrow pedestal at the center of the corridor, right before the entrance to the next exhibit. And she was so close, Emerie was murmuring in her ear a list of reminders of what to take note of as soon as she entered the next room–but Gwyn couldn’t resist. That one lone box, that felt like it had been waiting for her.

Slowly, she approached, carefully leaning over the glass case to observe the contents, only to see that it was a single glass tube, stoppered at the end with a metal cap.

Gwyn sucked in a sharp breath, holding it as if letting it out would disturb the little granules safely behind several layers of glass. She admired it, this fine powdery substance within the tube that almost looked like glitter, it was so reflective. She didn’t know what it was, only that it was beautiful, catching the light in this oddly mesmerizing way, and there was so little of it. A pinch, really.

Her eyes flashed to the small sign below the display, and read the label: Presolar Grains.

Lips parted in awe, Gwyn looked back to the small tube, and recognized the particles inside as actual stardust. The dust from stars formed billions of years ago, before the sun even existed. She reached out, her five fingers spread across the glass as she crouched to get on eye level with it.

How something so outstanding could be kept in a place as unassuming  as this–just perched on a small pedestal in a vacant section of the museum–was a wonder to her. There should have been hundreds of people crowding around this very case, craning their necks for a chance to see it, this evidence that something had existed before the sun.

“What is it?”

Gwyn jumped as soon as the voice sounded behind her, whirling around with her arm out in front of her with the impulse to shove the person away. With Emerie berating her in her ear, Gwyn managed to suppress her instincts just in time, her eyes widening as they trailed up a man’s chest to his face.

She was met with easily the most gorgeous eyes she’d ever seen. Like molten bronze, these fluent pools of amber and hints of green, and she staggered back, catching herself with a hand atop the case behind her.

“Careful,” the man said, a hint of amusement in his voice as he took half a step forward. Either to catch her, or peel her hand off the case, she couldn’t tell. “The guards might think you’re trying to steal something.”

Gwyn tore her hand off the case as if she’d been burned, hastily stepping aside to put as much distance between herself and the display as she could. She had the strangest feeling, that his eyes had tunneled straight through her, and could somehow see her true intentions as if they’d been written out just as plainly as any other sign in the museum–there was no other reason. He knew why she was there.

But as her heart hammered in her chest at the prospect of her cover being blown, the man only gave her a small smile, really just a fleeting jump at the corner of his mouth, before stepping forward and leaning over the case.

“What are you doing?” Emerie was screeching in her ear. “Leave, geology is in the next room.”

But so perplexed was Gwyn by the man in front of her, that she felt rooted to the spot. Her head cocked slightly to the side as she studied him. How he silently mouthed the words as he read them on the sign, how the slight hook of his nose caught the light emanating from the case, sending an elongated shadow across his face, carving out his cheekbone. Those eyes that were framed by long arching eyelashes and hair that was so dark it seemed to absorb and devour all of the light.

Something about him bothered her.

Suddenly, his head turned, an amused smile already melting over his face as he looked at her. Gwyn jumped, eyes going wide as she pretended like she’d been doing anything other than assessing him. But the man straightened, stepping away from the case to stand slightly in front of her.

“What’s your name?” he asked, his eyes slowly traveling down to the badge around her neck before she could answer.

Gwyn hurried to cover it with a hand, some deeply ingrained instinct of self preservation telling her that she couldn’t trust him despite his friendly smile or Emerie’s pleas for her to just act normal. 

He lifted a brow at her, his gaze snapping back to her face.

“Is it a secret?” he said.

“Diana,” she blurted, forcing her hand to lift away from the badge. “Diana Bishop.”

He simply stared at her for a moment, before letting out a short, caustic laugh.

“Okay.”

Gwyn narrowed her eyes, her hands turning into fists as she studied him. Gorgeous face aside, he looked absolutely normal. Black shirt tucked into immaculately pressed and tailored trousers. Stylish, attractive even–but decidedly normal.

Why, then, couldn’t she smother the feeling that he knew all of her deepest and darkest secrets?

“What was that?” she asked, flinching slightly when her voice came out slightly more accusatory than she supposed it should have. She could at least keep up the appearance that she didn’t suspect him of anything.

“Just let it go,” Emerie hissed in her ear. “Apologize and walk away.”

Apologize. For being her best friend, Emerie apparently didn’t know her at all, because instead of walking out, Gwyn took a step forward, invading the man’s space, crossing her arms over her chest so that they bumped against him. And when she looked up to his face, where she expected to see reproach, instead she saw eagerness.

“Nothing,” he practically purred. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Diana.”

Gwyn frowned, her eyes roving over his face for any sort of tell. Reason told her that he couldn’t have been like her. He was tall, and built like a damn soldier with those broad shoulders and muscles pulling the fabric of his shirt taut over his chest, but there was no way he was dangerous. He had to be normal.

And then there was that gut feeling. Like electricity arcing over her skin, sirens blaring in her ears. He had come out of nowhere.

“And what’s your name?” Gwyn said derisively.

“Fine,” Emerie sighed, resigned, into her ear. “If you won’t listen to me, fine, but when Nesta comes back–”

Irritated, Gwyn jerkily tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, hooking her finger into the clear cord of her earpiece and tucking the entire thing into her palm in one movement so that he couldn’t see.

“Azriel,” he said, reaching his hand out. She noticed scars running up the lengths of his fingers towards his wrist, and she stared at the nearly mesmerizing patterns for far too long before she realized that she was meant to shake it, and she still had the earpiece in her palm.

“I have to go,” Gwyn said slowly, backing away and angling her body towards the entrance to the next exhibit.

She put Azriel at her back as she paced towards the short corridor leading to the gems and minerals exhibit, her steps quickening as she passed by the security guard she’d spotted earlier.

Azriel wouldn’t follow her, she assured herself as she crossed into the gems and minerals exhibit, where there were countless glittering gems winking at her beneath the lights. He wouldn’t follow her, because she had been so off putting and strange, he wouldn’t deem her worthy of the effort.

Placated for now, Gwyn adjusted her glasses over her nose, and swiveled her head about the room so that the camera hidden in the frames could capture the overall layout of the exhibit. It was a rushed job, not nearly as meticulous as it would have been if she wasn’t so paranoid that Azriel would jump out of nowhere with twenty armed guards ready to escort her to some secret dungeon in an underground government bunker.

Been there, done that.

She considered popping her earpiece back in, but just as she rounded the first display case at the center of the hall, a mother and child came bounding down the aisle, stopping right next to her to admire a row of amethyst.

She backed up, allowing the little boy some space, and was about to continue her walk around the rest of the room, when she ran into something hard, all of the air whooshing out of her lungs.

“Ugh,” Gwyn grunted, as hands wrapped around her upper arms and steadied her.

“Sorry,” the same voice from before said, helping her to turn around. Of course he’d followed her. She’d been off putting and strange, and he was definitely not normal.

Gwyn glared up at him, all pretenses of being some bookish bug enthusiast easily forgotten. He had found her out, she was sure of it, and she now dedicated all of her efforts towards thinking of a way to get rid of him. Collecting footage of the display cases so Emerie could catalog the contents for later was secondary, because clearly he was a threat to the mission.

Belatedly, she wished she hadn’t taken out the earpiece.

“What do you want?” Gwyn said, a hushed whisper so that the family behind her wouldn’t pick up on the thinly veiled hostility.

Azriel furrowed his brows. So he was going to pretend to be confused, then.

“You left in a hurry,” he explained. “I thought you might be in some sort of trouble, so I came to ask if you needed help. I didn’t mean to run into you.”

Gwyn scoffed. “Yeah, sure. Look, I really should be getting back.”

He hummed thoughtfully, his eyes drifting down to her badge again.

“To the… bugs?”

“Screw you,” Gwyn blurted.

She whirled away, stalking down the aisle as the mother gasped and clapped her hands over her son’s ears. Gwyn didn’t even bother with trying to capture more footage. Her cover was blown, and all she needed to do now was lose her tail without attracting anymore attention.

Unfortunately, that also meant it was rather easy for her pursuer to catch up to her. 

She supposed she could kill him, if it came down to it.

“Did I insult your profession somehow?” He asked, jogging up beside her. “Was I not supposed to call them bugs?”

He came in front of her, trying to capture her gaze, which forced her to halt right beside a large tower of some type of quartz. She knew, not because she bothered to look at it, but because the reflection of it glimmered in his eyes.

“Get out of the way,” Gwyn said through her teeth as she rolled the earpiece within her palm. She glanced around him, eyes noting the camera wedged up against the ceiling. Murder was out, then.

He only smirked down at her, and just the sight of that gentle arch of his mouth was enough to convince her that he was privy to her homicidal intent, somehow. Any normal person would have walked away by now. He was staring her down like an adversary.

“Sure,” he said easily, stepping out of her way, and then waiting. Like he expected her to walk with him. “Maybe you could show me around? I had a bug phase as a kid, you know.”

Gwyn pushed ahead for the exit, struggling to ignore him as he easily matched her pace. If she could just lead him into an empty stairwell, she would be able to lose him. Knock him unconscious, and then leave him there for some poor museum employee to find. She could do it.

She tried to ignore him, and failed because then he started rambling about egg sacs, and Gwyn couldn’t take it anymore.

“Shut up,” she said. On an impulse, she grabbed his arm and pulled him with her towards a door marked Staff Only in a secluded vestibule off of the gem and mineral exhibit.

As the door clicked shut behind them, Gwyn immediately regretted her decision. Chest heaving, she looked around to see that she’d brought them into a storage room. Small, but not as tight as a closet, even with the towering stacks of clearly labeled bins around them. There were no windows, and the only lights were the strips of LEDs along the floor marking the narrow aisles.

“Diana,” Azriel said slowly, letting out a low breath as he glanced around the room. “This is all very flattering, but are you sure you want to do this here?”

“What?” Gwyn shrieked, her hands balling into fists. She backed up towards the door, where she thought she saw a broom, and considered using it to knock him out.

He was crowding her, slowly walking into her until her shoulders pressed against the door. She had been so sure, before bringing him in here, that he wanted to capture her, and with each vanishing inch between them, her mind was thrown into further disarray.

She had to get rid of him.

“I’ll admit,” he said, “There’s clearly something between us.”

Gwyn shook her head, trying to order her thoughts before she looked back up at him. “What are you talking about?”

“But don’t you think it’s a bit too soon for clandestine meetings in dark rooms?” he said.

His hands came up on either side of her head to cage her in. He leaned down, leveling her stare with one of his own, and she watched as his gaze drifted to her mouth.  

“What were you thinking we would do?” he murmured. “When you led me in here?”

“Don’t play with me,” Gwyn said, her pulse thrumming in her ears. She reached out a hand, groping for the door handle.

“No?” he said, face angling to the side. Like he might try to kiss her, and the thought of it was no more terrifying than her realization that she wouldn’t have minded it.

And again, like he could hear every one of his thoughts, his mouth curved into a smile.

“Then what should I do with you?” he asked.

“Look,” Gwyn said, her fingers finally landing on the handle. She pressed herself flush against the door as he stepped closer, so that his chest wouldn’t brush against hers. “Just let me go, and I promise–”

“Let you go?” Azriel murmured, smirking at her.

“Yes,” Gwyn said flatly. She stared resolutely back at him, unwilling to allow him to see even a shred of nervousness. She could do this. She could knock him down right now, if she wanted.

So why wasn’t she?

“Let you go,” he repeated, humming as if he was turning the idea over in his mind. Considering it. His face dipped to the side, his lips somewhere near her ear when he whispered, “Why? Have you done something you shouldn’t have?”

Gwyn’s mouth fell open, her eyes roving restlessly up and down the side of his face as she tried to reconcile the part of her that desperately wanted to see him lying across the floor as she smacked him repeatedly with the broom handle–with the part of her that wanted to see him lying across the floor as she crawled over him and pressed her tongue to his neck.

Her fingers slipped off of the door handle, and were reaching for his shirt collar to do something, when the door suddenly opened behind her, knocking her into his arms. She scrambled for a moment, her hands peeling his off of her waist as he tried to steady her.

Above them, the overhead light flashed on, and she squinted against the harsh light as she turned to face the person who had walked in.

“What are you doing in here?” one of the security guards frowned at them.

Gwyn’s mouth opened and closed, struggling to come up with a reasonable excuse as Azriel scrubbed his hand over his mouth beside her, trying to hide a grin. She had just landed on I got lost, when the security guard groaned, stepping to the side to let them pass.

“They don’t pay me enough to deal with this,” he muttered to himself. He looked up at the ceiling, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’d think adults would behave with some decency.”

Gwyn glared at the security guard, brushing past him and out the door. She expected Azriel to be right behind her, but once she’d gotten over her indignation at having someone assume she’d been doing indecent things with him in public, she turned to look behind her.

Only to see the back of his head.

He was going in the opposite direction.

Stunned, Gwyn tore the lanyard off over her head and chucked it into the nearest trash can. She headed straight for the main staircase at the end of the vestibule, where she knew she could reach the museum atrium and eventually the exit. She needed to get out of there, needed to get lost in a crowd so she could rid herself of the feeling of being watched.

He had let her go.

It didn’t make sense, Gwyn thought as she hurried down the steps. He’d clearly been onto her, had clearly recognized that she was up to something. Any reasonable person wouldn’t have let her go, especially not if she had been his target in the first place. Gwyn wouldn’t have let him go, if the roles were reversed, and if she wasn’t so concerned with getting out of the damn building, she would have been right on his heels.

There was something wrong, Gwyn knew. And she would have to head back to Emerie and Nesta and tell them.

Tell them they needed to call this mission off.

[gloomysoup]

okay i know i really only post about steddie but i also have so many other ships and i had an idea while driving to work this morning (it may or may not have been slightly inspired by me blasting vigilante shit by taylor swift)

-

i'm imagining a famous au buckingham fic (with a side of steddie perhaps) wherein chrissy was a child star at the hand of her parents. it started with acting, but switched over to a pop artist career when she was 15/16. she's never allowed to write her own music, except on very rare occasions. her parents approve EVERYTHING. chrissy has no power over her own life whatsoever. she still acts from time to time, but most of the focus is on her music career. she's selling out stadiums full of young girls by the time she's 17.

nothing about chrissy cunningham's life is real. it's all just a show her parents force her to put on for the sake of money and reputation. not that she sees much of that money anyway. chrissy has money. she's actually considered rich to most. however, she should have more than she does. her parents squirrel away most of it with insistence that it's going into a savings account for her to access when she turns 21.

chrissy meets Corroded Coffin frontman Eddie Munson when she is 18, at the after party of some awards show. it had been his band's first award nomination. they hit it off instantly (platonically of course) and remain close friends from then on out. eddie is chrissy's rock. she tells him everything. eddie wishes he could do something useful to help her, but she promises that just having a real friend who isn't paid off by her parents is help enough.

into her 20s, chrissy is ready to grow up. she's ready to make the music she wants to make and stop portraying herself as a child. she wants to be the adult she is. eddie suggests getting out from under her parents first, bc they both know they won't approve of chrissy's desires. stuff happens, and chrissy learns that her parents had lied about the savings account. all the money they had promised she would get back was gone. they had kept it for themselves.

i haven't yet figured out exactly how robin and steve fit into this. maybe they're an actor duo who has so much on-screen (platonic) chemistry that they just keep getting roles in the same films, or maybe they're an up and coming indie duo trying to make their way into the scene. either way, they eventually meet and become friends (or enemies, who knows 🤷‍♀️)

something something chrissy eventually gets out from under her parents with the help of eddie, robin, and steve. she makes two albums of her own under the same label, because they made promises that she could finally be herself. when she realizes that isn't the case, she leaves the label and finds someone else. she has an entirely new team, she's figuring out her life with robin, everything is going well. and then maybe she finds out her old team at the previous label sold her masters to her parents (their plan all along). so now, she's not getting any money from any of her music. everything from when she was a young, naive teenager, all the way to the first albums she ever made solely as herself, is gone. her parents get all of it. she doesn't see a single penny.

that's all i've really come up with so far. idk it may be something, it may not be.

[upperstories]

Developing an original story from an old idea!

It’s about a bunch of magical girls who save the world, but then grow up and deal with the trials of adulthood after their done being magical girls.

Character descriptions under cut!

Ellove (she/her, they/them) = a former antagonist who is half dark entity, half human. After the magical girls defeat the Darkness and graduate from high school, Ellove stays in town and opens a book shop as a front to establish a secret base, where she attempts to heal the Dark Forces and bring them back into power. After nearly 15 years with no success, Ellove learns to accept that perhaps she was on the wrong side of history, and gives up on taking over the world again and instead goes native as the town’s bookshop owner.

Bellamie (she/her) = Ellove’s former enemy, returns to her hometown after struggling to establish a career to move back in with her aging parents, shocked to find that Ellove has reformed herself. Eventually they start dating. Struggles to find her. Purpose after saving the world.

Tristian (he/him) = Bellamie’s twin. Transmasc, formally discharged from the army. Struggles to reconnect with his sister. Prefers to put magical girl life behind him due to dysmorphia affiliations.

Oleander (they/them) = moves to Arizona to attend a forensics graduate program. Joins law enforcement, using their magical girl powers to fight local crime, but eventually leaves the force and becomes a private investigator. Somewhat a vigilante/bounty hunter.

Morgana (she/her) = Formerly the leader of the magical girls. She became an accomplished business woman who runs a very successful spa chain and publishes a self-help book. Secretly an adrenaline junkie, struggles to keep her thrill sneaking at bay and misses the danger and excitement she faced in high school.

Kayleighe (she/her) = Becomes a pop star sensation practically immediately after high school. Uses her magical girl powers and transformation as a gimmick. Valley Girl. Insufferably sugar sweet movie star. Demi Lovato Vibes.

Sariah (and Jay Jay) = married to her wife Johanna, stay at home mom. Works as a fitness instructor on Tuesdays and Thursdays, records a lot of exercise routines at home and holds classes both in person and over zoom. Mama Bear.

[boyfridged]

i have so many feelings and thoughts about robin jay and i have not expressed even half of them like oughh the things his storyline could be if not for classism (and his death). i think he could pull away from bruce in an opposite direction than dick did; dick wanted to go deeper into vigilantism than bruce wished him for. on the other hand, jason's background created such a setup for him to become more critical of vigilantism and realise that perhaps it has deprived him of a part of life that he doesn't know how to connect to anymore. it all comes together when you read annual 11 followed by 12, jason's attitude toward criminals AND his isolation as robin... this child is not coming out of his career as a sidekick with the same faith in batman he entered it.

[offscreendeath]

I finally watched Across the Spiderverse after months of putting it off and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

There's few movies, in my opinion, that live up to their hype and this is one of them. I'm not going to bother comparing it to the first in the series -- there's already plenty of that going on. But beyond the appealing art direction, score, humor and easter eggs, one of the things that really stuck out in my mind was the theme of "acceptance", in so many words.

In the film, we are treated to the classic Spider-Man themes of great power = great responsibility, having to balance home life and a superhero career, yadda yadda, we know the drill, been there, done that, nothing we haven't seen before.

What I didn't expect was to see this theme turned on its head. Sometimes that responsibility is incredibly unfair, and we often don't have enough power to deal with it on our own, at least through conventional, socially acceptable means.

The big speech Rio gives Miles isn't like the rest of the other speeches we've seen various Spider-Men being given. Rio affirms that Miles is loved and cherished, that he belongs where he is, that his presence isn't, as Miguel later states, "a mistake". This resonated with me, as I'm sure it did other people, particularly younger black kids. I'll explain why.

Miles is from New York City, Brooklyn to be exact -- an area that has rapidly become gentrified over the course of a generation, but particularly in the last few decades.

This means, among other things, higher prices for housing and other necessities, displacement of historic residents of the community and homeless populations, as well as a cultural clash between wealthy yuppies and natives.

None of this is explicitly explored in the film, which takes place in a fictional version of NYC, but it is relevant context nonetheless. Black youth are routinely criminalized, brutalized, surveilled and killed by law enforcement, and made scapegoats for "crime" by racist "concerned citizens" and vigilantes.

When everything from hostile urban infrastructure and officers from abusive, corrupt institutions (and ninja vampire spider-men) are telling you that you "don't belong", someone telling you that you're accepted and matter, can make a huge difference and go a long way in helping to build your self-esteem. It's this expression of unconditional love that, I believe, gives Miles the confidence to finally confess and reveal his hidden identity to (a version of) Rio towards the movie's finale, regardless of the warnings Gwen gave prior to this happening.

The difference between Miles & Gwen is that Gwen's father discovered her secret totally by accident. She was forced to reveal her identity rather than voluntarily offering that information. Before she had a chance to explain her motivations for keeping this hidden life to herself, it was too late. Miles, on the other hand, at least has a chance to come clean -- though it remains to be seen whether The Spot will interfere with this.

The Spot also craves acceptance, in his own way -- feeling that he's a joke, he's desperate to gain enough power to prove that he's a formidable opponent. His conditions has left him unable to easily re-assimilate into society -- permanently disfigured and incapable of living a "normal" life, he doesn't have the family that Miles has, nor a society of others with similar experiences to provide mentorship or community. He is totally alone, angry, sad, and probably scared.

Like Miles, Spot was in the wrong place at the right time. The accident leading to Spot's new body only granted him great power -- but no responsibility except to himself. It's hard to not feel sympathetic to Spot. Like most villains on Spider-Man's roster, his story is a tragic one. Perhaps if there were someone in his life like Rio, who could've told him that he's not a "mistake", he wouldn't feel so rejected and alone. Also like Miles, Spot is himself a scientist, not lacking in any brilliance -- only healthy, loving relationships and the respect that comes with it.

Miles is also actively undergoing puberty, a process that involves physical change as much as social and psychological ones. It is an awkward time for most, and with the additional stress of having to go to school and be the city's only Spider-Man, the struggle is definitely real and palpable.

Dealing with the weight of his parent's expectations, and the expectations of a city in need, as well as a whole multiverse of other Spider-People, it makes sense that Miles would feel constantly out of place, outclassed and overwhelmed by the many changes in his life, desperately attempting to spin multiple plates at once. Rio's words offer comfort and reassurance, but it is Gwen, Hobie, and Peter whose actions ultimately prove that he doesn't have to endure this struggle alone.

Managing to outwit and evade the entirety of Spider-Society with no outside help, Miles has proven he has the technical skill and experience to be Spider-Man. He's far from an amateur, regardless of Miguel's scathing, callous criticism. Miguel's insults are brushed off as Miles once again slips through his fingers and defies his orders to merely stand by as his father dies.

It is perhaps true, though, that Miles is naive to the threat of the canon being broken, that he is ignorant of the scale of the problem and that the risk is simply too high to alter the timeline, but it is not in his character to refuse a call to action, especially when it is someone he loves who is in danger.

Miguel seems to be using Miles' existence as a scapegoat for his internalized anger and grief regarding his own mistake in breaking the canon and its consequences. Losing everyone he once loved, as well as condemning the rest of the universe to erasure in the process, Miguel isn't wrong to worry about what Miles' actions could mean for everyone unless he is stopped. Rather than work with Miles to find a solution, he instead opts to prevent him from having even the opportunity to explore solutions to the problem.

Even with amazing futuristic technology and an entire veritable army of superpowered beings (mostly, with the exception of Hobie,) at his command, I think it's bizarre that Miguel isn't even willing to hear out Miles' concerns and desires. Instead, his first instinct is to capture him while his father dies alone, in an entirely different dimension than his own.

Perhaps Miguel is like Spot -- desperately needing someone to reassure him that his mistake was honest in nature, albeit a bit selfish, but that doesn't mean he should suffer with the resulting trauma and mental anguish indefinitely for it.

Everyone, save for a few, seem scared of Miguel, and for good reason. He has great power, for certain, but perhaps bears too much responsibility, which has warped his morals and led to him becoming a dogmatic quasi-authoritarian -- or, in Hobie's words, a "self-mythologizing, narcissistic autocrat!" Miguel is fully aware that he isn't the only Spider-Man who has dealt with the pain of losing loved ones, but he has made it his duty to lead a team dedicated to making sure that this collective trauma unfolds without a hitch. Though this doesn't make him a villain, necessarily, he is certainly an antagonist.

Upon my first of many viewings, I was certain that Gwen's father, Ex-Captain Stacy, would become another antagonist. Willing to draw a gun on and consider arresting his own daughter, I didn't have much faith in his development as a character, until it was revealed that he quit -- choosing his relationship with Gwen above his responsibilities as a cop. Perhaps Miguel could learn something from him, specifically that our futures are perhaps not written in stone, or at least that we have some degree of control over our fates, even if it isn't total control.

Finally accepted and free of the burden of concealing her secret, Gwen's relationship with her father is restored. Though initially hostile and obviously shaken by the realization, Gwen's father proves that parents and other authority figures still have an opportunity to grow, learning to accept others for who they are, provided they have enough time and self-reflection, and perhaps a few well-crafted persuasive words.

Ex-Captain Stacy is not alone. Earlier in the film, Jeff questions his merit as a father and worries about his changing relationship with Miles, fearing that he's become too distant or has somehow failed Miles in a crucial way. Perhaps Jeff has his own expectations he must grapple with.

Miles and Jeff don't have much in the way of a heartfelt speech together. Miles misses Jeff's speech at the party celebrating his promotion. The talk they do have together happens without Jeff's knowledge, though his respect for Spider-Man obviously has an impression on him, with Jeff suggesting to Rio later in the film that they should take his advice in dealing with Miles (aka, himself), giving him more space and trust as he matures into a young adult.

Though I want to work out how Hobie's character fits into this theme, this post has already gotten too lengthy and he deserves a post of his own -- not to mention we don't really get much of a serious exploration into his background or character to draw many conclusions from.

Suffice it to say, however, Hobie's ethos and actions would suggest that it's not only possible, but desirable and good to carve a niche for yourself, and seeming out of place or being underestimated can actually work to our advantage. Throughout the film Hobie constantly questions the actions and motivations of others, particularly Miles. This isn't done to make Miles insecure, only to encourage him to act on his own authority and be a free thinker, an essential component to being Spider-Man, not to mention an adult.

Well true believers, that's it for now. Thanks for reading. Until next time.

To be continued...

(By the way, why is "marvel mcu" a hashtag? the "M" stands for Marvel! You wouldn't say "DC Comics".

[legendary-guest]

https://www.tumblr.com/burningexeter/755283859212517376/heres-the-new-details-that-i-can-give-on-shego-in?source=share

I want to do a potential Kim Possible reboot called Global Justice and here's the details of Shego in it.

What are your thoughts on it?

As you have only sent this post discussing Shego's role in your reboot, I will do my best to just stick to discussing Shego. It's within the original nature of the show to have impossibly hypercompetent heroes and other good guys. Canon Shego fits this bill. Shifting it to this level and making it darker by giving her a kill count risks making it too unbelievable and silly. Especially if there isn't a level of self-awareness added to it that is in-line with the original show, where parody and Rule of Cool is the name of the game. It's small details, the humour and little, human elements of characterisation that elevate the show from being just nice to watch to actually engaging. Nothing wrong with a more serious, darker, edgier adaptation, either! So long as you can pull it off in writing. Having Shego's real/civilian identity be Ann Possible is unusual. I am aware that this is a very old fan theory, but putting it into place here changes Shego's established backstory a lot, and Shego's backstory/relationships with others informs her character. She defected to villainy after her leaving her family-based superhero team Team Go with her brothers, and after a potential solo/normal career as a teacher. Do her brothers exist within the reboot? Are they also a part of Global Justice? Did Team Go ever exist? Why or why not? Why did Shego turn out to be the best amongst them, especially with useful, exploitable abilities such as super strength and cloning? (Sorry Mego, GJ agents are working overtime to figure out how useful shrinking can be in missions that you would also be willing to do). It's also weird that, as a mother to Kim, she'd want to consistently try to 'kill' her. It'd mess with Kim's psyche big time and turn her into some sort of weird sociopath, potentially hell-bent on ruling the world. Or perhaps just a dysfunctional adult. Kim wouldn't really learn anything, other than her own mother cannot be trusted and that her relationship with her is based on a lie. Who is real? Shego or Ann Possible? Is this a split personality? Is it something akin to Jekyll and Hyde? Is the 'Ann Possible' identity a guise for Shego trying to integrate back into regular society whilst avoiding being on the radar of various branches of law enforcement? Does her treading back into 'good' start here, by starting a family? What does it say about the Shego's mental state to swing from good, to evil and back to good again? Especially with two separate identities? Is this a part of, as you have put it, Shego's sadistic side? Is Kim also prey to her? Did carrying Kim for nine months and going through labour and giving birth to her mean nothing? How does Ann Possible's established character within the show fit into Shego's established character within the show? Or is Ann just a 'shell' for Shego in this reboot? And what about James Possible? What about Jim and Tim? Does this mean that Shego is married to James Possible? Does James know of his wife moonlighting as a literal crazy woman, has a kill count and regularly puts their daughter in physical danger? James cares deeply about Kim within the show, he isn't a neglectful father. Does Shego intend to do the same thing to the Tweebs, given their naturally high intellect, trying turn them into great scientists (by also almost killing them on a regular basis) who will also help the world? Kim's family is her support network. They don't force her into the vigilante hero lifestyle, it's something she does on her own time, through her own choices, with encouragement from Ron. Her family is there to listen to her about her school troubles, and occasionally her problems with criminals and villains.

Why pick Shego to be Kim's enemy and her own mother? What dimension is given to Shego's character by making her Kim's mother? Canon Shego already has a background where nurturing or teamwork is part of her career/life. Her life with her brothers as a member of Team Go and her education and career as a teacher. Within the show itself, Shego being something like Kim's sister is alluded to once in Blush by Drakken, and explored in Stop Team Go. Why change the sisterly relationship to a mother-daughter relationship, especially if carrying and birthing Kim and waiting for her to grow into teenhood is what finally turns Shego from villain to anti-hero - not to mention, in-between that time, she also had twins! And, what about Drakken? Ron? You can easily shift the 'main characters' to being just about Kim and Shego, but Drakken and Ron are important supports for both of them in canon, and their relationships to them are significant. What can Shego do for Kim that Ron can't? What can Kim do for Shego that Drakken can't? Most importantly - How can you do this in a convincing and in-character way?

What elements of canon will you have to use to convince the reader that this is Kim and this is Shego? There's a fanfic out there called S Plus D Equals K by Neo the Saiyan Angel.

I have not read it, but the general consensus seems to be that it is enjoyed by some of the fandom. It explores the idea that Shego and Drakken are Kim Possible's real parents. I am not interested in this concept, but maybe this idea might interest you, and might provide some ideas as to how you could tackle the concept of Shego being KP's mother.

Most of my thoughts on the concept you've proposed are a bunch of questions. I will be honest, this is not an idea that I am interested in. I prefer Kim and Shego to be at odds, even post-canon.

Best of luck to you with your idea, I hope some of these questions help you out in building your AU/reboot.

[captainai-47]

The Agency and Isa's Career (๑ १д१)

Finally explaining this. Forgive how crappy I give explanations huhu.

Big thanks to these two for giving me a basis with their questions ❤❤

WARNING: Contains some sensitive topics

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The Agency

Description & Purpose

The Agency is an undercover, vigilante-military-like organization with only 3 specific goals in mind. Peace, Order & Balance. As humanity progressed with their technology through time, so too did the imbalance and corruption. There is so much conflict, seen by the public eye or not; The Agency is in charge to produce prodigious agents who can uphold and maintain these 3 objectives and keep them afloat.

But despite these ambitions, it's not like the Agency itself is free from injustice, cruelty and misconduct.

Before Isabella became the reigning Branch Master, the Agency used to take in runaways or abandoned children. Sometimes, even taking them from poor orphanages. Children are easy to manipulate, influence and exploit. The child wouldn't be immediately exposed to the harsh reality as they are still given time to grow before starting 'training.'

Captains, Wing Leaders and people from Main teams are the results of these children. Cloudunes are easy to recruit so they don't usually come from this background.

Do they run with the government?

No one knows. This is to the knowledge of the higherups alone. Although they seem to have justified goals, as I explained, the Agency is cruel. They have committed crimes against human rights in order to produce these Agents. Yet these said Agents do missions in order to keep everything in control.

Thanks to Isabella, alot of these rules were bent and changed but even so, there are limits to even her reign in the Agency.

Ranks

Branch Masters: The highest, singular position of a Section. Each Branch Master is in charge of their given Section Number. They're the captains, the head, the leader of their teams. They deal with the more rigorous missions handed out by the higherups.

Wing Leaders: The Vice Captain of a Section. It is optional to have more than one Wing Leader if the Branch Master sees it fit, but mostly, there is only need of one. They are the right hand of the Captain and offers extra support

Cloudunes: Perhaps the most safest and numbered rank in the Agency. They consist from below all the way up to hundreds of 'seemingly' normal workers. Although of the lowest rank, this is what a Section is mostly made out of. They are the info brokers and serve as the eyes and ears of their Section as they actively work in the public eye more compared to the first two mentioned.

Higherups: They're the only ones above the Branch Masters. They oversee all Sections. Each Branch Master reports to one or two higherup. They are extremely low profiled that most Cloudunes and Wing Leaders don't even know who're their designated higherups are. It is only their Captains that have personally met these people but even then, encounters are rather rare.

Terms

Section: A section is basically the term referring to the general team of a Branch Master. That includes the Captain all the way to EVERY Cloudune under them.

Main Team: A Branch Master's main team consists of themselves, their Wing Leaders, and a handful of Cloudunes that can handle the battlefield. This is basically a Branch Master's personal squad to aid them during a mission.

Specialty: This is how a Section will be percieved in the public. This all depends on the Branch Master and the higherup assigned.

(Ex: Since Isabella's specialties are Wildlife and Criminal Investigatory, her Cloudunes' jobs and most of her minor missions fall under anything related to this category. However, a Branch Master's position is far more flexible than this and missions can go outside of their specialties.)

The Vanguard: Basically the council of the Agency. This just consists of the top 5 Branch Masters along with their respective Higherups. Not much to note about except that they mostly hold meetings together (Usually the Branch Masters meet separately as I mentioned that the higherups are quite elusive).

Territory/ies: Depending on a Section's man power is how wide their territories are. A Branch Master has ONE main territory and other smaller branches spread out globally (usually under another Branch Master.) In their main territory is where their main base and hq are located in.

Selection: This is basically just another word to say recruitment for the Cloudunes. If a person was recruited means they were personally cherry picked by a higherup. They will then be introduced to the Branch Master (or the Wing Leader if they're unavailable), and will be decided if they get in their section or not. They'll be given time if they believe their Specialty doesn't fit in a Section and they allow choices of other Branch Masters to oversee you.

Section Ranks: This is the way to identify how powerful your section is. The higher the Section Rank, the more respect the section practically commands.

Rank Duels: There are two ways to move a section higher in the ranks. One of them is this. This is basically a Coup d'état between two Branch Masters. A fight for a position to be higher in the rankings as a Captain and as a Section.

Credit Rate: Doesn't really have the same meaning as usually percieved in business. Credit Rate is basically how much your Section contributes to the agency. The more missions your Branch Master and their Main Team accomplishes and the more Cloudunes flourish in their given jobs will help a Section go up the ranks. This is basically how they calculate a Section's man power to begin with.

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Welp, this is the best I can explain their keypoints. English isn't my first language so I apologize for any screw ups 😭

Up next is Isabella lore 👀👀👀.

If you have questions, feel free to ask on my inbox and I'll put them on the trivia in my Masterlist 🤗.

[revenant-ao3]

The Hounds of Fate - Ch: 3

Read on Ao3: Here

Since he ran away, Shoto grew amiable to the idea that fate was fucking with him around the third time he encountered a random mugging while just walking down the street.

Now he’s positive there’s some higher being pulling the strings to give him a headache. Only, this time it’s not because he walked into an on-going turf war or anything of such nature. Rather, he hasn’t seen a single illegal act since leaving his hideout. No shady drug dealers trying to peddle to middle schoolers. No tweaked-out carjackers. Not even a jaywalker. (Not that he’d do anything about that particular crime. If he called Eraserhead over for that, he’s pretty sure the hero would arrest him on the spot purely on principle.)

For once, he’s looking for crime.

For once, he can’t find any.

He’d say it’s fate’s fickle whims, but he’s pretty sure fate just wants to see him suffer in whatever mild and unobtrusive way it can.

In theory, it was a simple idea. He'll walk around downtown Shinjuku and wait for one of the criminals that like honing in on him like heat-seeking missiles to find him. Then, he'll radio over to Eraserhead that he has a situation on his hands. The pro will show up. The trash will be taken out. Then, he can corner the hero and make his absolutely insane request. An easy night of non-work.

In practice? Well, that's an entirely different story.

The veritable conga line of crooks that felt like testing themselves against his skill has all but vanished tonight. It's a little frustrating. He's pretty sure he hasn't knocked the crime rate down to zero around here. Must be a slow night, he supposes. Of all times, this is perhaps the most inconvenient. Appropriate, given his luck.

Twilight stretches closer and closer to dawn as he prowls across blackened rooftops. He stopped actively looking for crime just after midnight and instead took to the high ground in search of the hero. Far easier said than done. Eraserhead chose wisely with his uniform as spotting him from a distance in the dark is nigh impossible without the help of gadgets or enhanced vision. He feels like he’s playing hide-and-seek with a shadow.

Shoto leans wearily against a large neon sign that’s barely hanging on to life. It advertises a pawn shop that looks more suited for money laundering than any legitimate business, but maybe Shoto's just judgmental. He hadn't spent much time outside of Musutafu's upper-end district. Living in Shinjuku's equivalent of a slum has been eye-opening. A sigh escapes his lips as he gazes fruitlessly across the horizon again, hoping for a glimpse of the lithe hero but knowing he’d sooner see a shooting star through all the smog and light pollution.

Maybe this is a sign. Some divine intervention.

The odds of Eraserhead agreeing to this proposal are so astronomically low that Shoto should consider checking himself into the same hospital his mother’s in for even thinking it might work. Insanity is the only plausible reason he finds himself now sitting on that roof, looking for the hero who threatened to arrest him for vigilantism. Asking said hero for help furthering his not-vigilante career? Absolutely crazy.

And yet, here he is.

Maybe he well and truly cracked from those minor displays of human decency, like the inverse of his mom. Maybe it’s genetic. If he looks into the Himura medical history, he wonders if he'll find a predisposition to lapses in sanity or psychiatric concerns. It'd certainly explain a lot. He finds himself touching the mask where his scar is hidden. With an annoyed sigh, he lets his head fall heavily back against the sign. That momentary burst of inspiration and starry-eyed belief wanes.

“Why am I even here?” he muses aloud to the night sky. Predictably, there is no answer.

I should leave. Go back to the store and mind my own business.

It’d be the smart thing to do; the safe thing. But dissatisfaction curdles his blood at the idea. It reeks of cowardice.

How many other Ishikawa’s are out there, crying for help? How many people can he be saving? How many kids could he protect? If the number is even one, then he has to keep pushing forward regardless of the risk. Becoming sedentary and hiding like a frightened little rat for the rest of his miserable life isn’t an option. When he looks into the future and sees that, he sees someone so pathetic, so worthless that he might as well have never left home.

He’ll just have to be smart about this. Somehow. He’s still ironing out the finer details of his plan, but he’ll need help first.

Help from a hero. Shoto doesn’t even try to contain the derisive scoff. He’d been so confident earlier, but as time ticked by and the night stretched on, he felt less and less certain. Eraserhead has been the exception to the rule so far, but how far does the exception reach? How much faith can he reasonably put in the man before he gets hurt?

The only way to find that out, unfortunately, is to keep testing his luck.

He gets to his feet with a huff and tries to stop overthinking. What he needs is action, not introspection. He has plenty of time to deal with his complicated feelings later.

---

Much to his mounting frustration and uncertainty, he can’t find a convenient reason to call Eraserhead to him. To make things more complicated he doesn’t actually know Eraserhead’s patrol route well enough to find him himself, either. Though, he's also not certain the hero would appreciate him popping up on him uninvited. It feels a bit like crossing an unspoken line, like entering into someone's house uninvited. So, he figures he’ll do the next best thing: Sit in a very obvious location and wait.

It’s not his greatest plan, he admits, but it’s what he’s going with. 

He ends up on the same rooftop they met last time. This is the most logical method he can think of to find the man, not counting just calling him on the earpiece, but he doesn’t want to annoy the hero if he’s busy for something trivial. The comm is for emergencies and he’ll respect that. If Eraserhead showed up here the night he fought those goons, then odds are this is in his path. It's unlikely anyone had reported that initial fight, otherwise authorities would have arrived sooner. Or, rather, he hopes that's the case. The more time he spends doing their job for them, the less certain he is about the police's efficiency. Given that he had minimal expectations of them to begin with, they miraculously still managed to limbo under that bar.

Shoto paces atop the roof, eyes darting across the bleak horizon like he'll suddenly develop the ability to see in the dark. The night remains quiet, almost eerily so. He's grown accustomed to falling into near-nightly brawls and listening to the city's raucous residents. They have a degree of life and vigor he's unused to. Music blares from cars with enough bass to rattle the windows of the buildings they pass. People out at all hours, boisterous and chatty. It's so unlike the suburb he comes from. Everything there is neat and quiet and pointedly tame, especially with the hero Endeavor around. Shoto wonders fleetingly if their neighborhood associations are just as exuberant. His own family never bothered to take part. Endeavor hadn't seen a point. All of that's moot now, he guesses. It's not like he'd be able to join even if he wanted to. His residency isn't exactly fixed and he certainly couldn't afford the fee.

He wants to groan, long and loud, at his trailing thoughts. They're useless musings. He should be fine-tuning his talking points that he hopes will convince Eraserhead of the value of his plan. But, it seems like whenever he tries to focus on it, his mind wanders again, too busy looking into the distance for a sign of life to hold on to any actually important thoughts.

There’s still no sign of the hero. Shoto, much to his own surprise and chagrin, is a little worried. It’s ridiculous, he knows. Eraserhead is plenty skilled and experienced. The man took him down with barely a scratch on him. The odds of the crooks in this city besting him are quite low. He’s likely busy or they might be moving parallel to each other. Shinjuku is large enough for Shoto to skate its entire length and never see the hero. 

All those reassurances can’t keep a pit from forming in his gut.

For a moment, he bounces on his toes and shakes out his hands to release some of the nervous tension brewing in his chest. Then, he resumes his stride.

Three laps across the roof later and there’s still no sign of Eraserhead. Shoto sighs and settles against the access door, sliding down to sit on the gravelly roof. He hopes the hero shows up soon. 

Shoto really would prefer not to be stuck on this roof all night. That’d be an unfortunate use of his time when he could be spending it with Soba or finding a secluded place to practice his quirk. A very secluded, very private, very far-from-Endeavor place. The little bits of training he’s done pale in comparison to what he’s used to. It makes him feel stagnant; like he’s weakening. But, he doesn’t have much choice until he finds said place. It’s not like he can make a glacier in the middle of the city. That’d be a little conspicuous.

Hopefully, Eraserhead will be kind enough to point me in the right direction.

He’s not confident in that, but it’s worth a shot. It’s one reason he wants to speak to the hero. If anyone would know of such a location, it’d be the man who patrols the city for a living.

While he waits, he starts to count the stars. Maybe he’ll find his lucky one.

---

Shoto startles severely when a boot nudges him.

He hadn't even realized he had fallen asleep waiting on that roof until a pressure taps on his calf, jolting him like a bolt of lightning. Being stuck somewhere in the liminal space of dreaming and wakefulness turns him into a creature of pure instinct. For a moment, he doesn't remember where he is or what's going on. All he knows is that he's vulnerable and someone is over him. Like an animal backed into a corner, he lashes out.

He rolls out of the way and smashes a hand against the gravel to throw up a burst of piercing ice.

Nothing comes.

Panic slams into his chest before his sleep-heavy eyes land on the slouching figure before him. Eraserhead’s hair is on end, but his hands are in his pockets. He looks entirely unbothered, as if this is a normal occurrence for him.

Right. Eraserhead.

Shoto breathes heavily for a moment to get his heartbeat under control. Somewhere, in the further reaches of his mind, it occurs to him how very odd it is that he should relax so quickly in the presence of the hero. That goes against his very nature. Like a feral dog being weened into domesticity, repeated and pleasant exposure has been turning him docile. Shoto isn't sure if he's happy about that. It makes him feel exposed. Unsafe. A thought to chew on, he supposes.

Then, once he sludges past that odd tangent and through his sleep-addled fog, it hits him that Eraserhead is here.

He jumps to his feet with fresh determination and takes two steps closer to the hero.

“Train me,” he says, blunt as a brick to the head.

The hero’s hair falls back into place. From the way his goggles shift, Shoto’s pretty sure he raised his eyebrows.

“Hello to you too,” the hero says archly.

Ah, right.

“Hello.” Shoto gives a polite little bow as he speaks. It’s entirely unnecessary and just this side of over-the-top as neither has been formal so far. It gets a snort from the hero. When he straightens up, he speaks in a voice just as demanding as before. “Train me.”

Eraserhead stares at him with a flat look. Shoto stares back, blank mask doing well in depicting his own non-expression. Silence stretches on. If it had been any other duo, Shoto imagines someone would have started feeling awkward at this point. Between them, however, he wouldn’t be surprised if they stood here for hours. Awkward silences didn’t exactly work on either party.

He starts to think that maybe something is wrong when realization hits him.

Right. Manners.

“Please,” he finally adds on. It sounds less like a request and more like a command. Too late to fix his tone, he just grimaces and hopes the hero won't be affronted. There might be weight to some of those passing remarks on his spoiled nature after all. It's something he'd thought was beneath him, but now he's not so sure.

Somehow, that 'request' still prompts Eraserhead into action. The hero just sighs and rolls his shoulder.

“And why would I do that?”

As lackluster as the question comes out, there’s just a mild hint of curiosity lying underneath. Shoto hopes that’s a promising sign. He latches onto it like a lifeline.

One thing he’s noticed about the hero is his concise and brusque disposition. So far, in their interactions, there’s been no social padding or meager attempts at small talk. Every conversation has been practical exchanges, save a few bits of snark. It’s something that Shoto appreciates, as he’s of a similar nature. Though, his side can potentially be attributed to his stunted social life. Regardless of the origin, he likes that he can speak plainly with the hero and not be chided for his lack of awareness. So, he thinks the hero will appreciate his succinct explanations and reasoning.

“Well, it would be the most efficient way for me to get better,” he starts, posture mirroring the other’s easy stance. Old habits keep his spine straight, like his former etiquette teacher is hiding somewhere nearby with a ruler, ready to reprimand him. “You excel in close-quarters combat in a way that I lack. You can also help me deal with my over-reliance on my quirk.”

After he finishes he stares expectantly at the pro. It's always like biting into lemon when he has to ask for help or confront his imperfect nature. Admitting his shortcomings is like taking a direct jab to his pride, but that’s something he can get over. Growth is more important.

Eraserhead tilts his head a little, expression impassive. It’d make Shoto nervous if he weren’t well accustomed to hiding his own thoughts behind a vacant expression. (That’s a lie, he’s still a little on edge.)

“You seem to have been doing just fine without your quirk,” Eraserhead points out, breezing by the other particulars and request.

The hero isn’t wrong by any stretch. Shoto’s been handling himself admirably, given the situation, but he still isn’t satisfied. Anyone with half-decent reflexes and a good enough right hook could have done what he has. After a lifetime of expectations, he can’t let them go so easily. It’s like when he flew from his cage, he dragged it along right behind him.

That's not even to mention that encounter with that group of well-organized thugs that had him on the ropes and a breath away from using his quirk. He wasn’t ready for them or how much better they were than the rest of the rabble he's dealt with. It unnerved him to even think about it. How long can he keep going at this pace before his skills are dulled to blunt edges?

“I’d rather not let myself become complacent,” he says tersely.

Eraserhead examines him for another stretch before huffing.

“You’ve given reasons why you want me to train you. You still haven’t answered why I should.”

That, Shoto fears, is a much harder question to answer. He’s spent scarce enough time around the pro to come up with a concise and compelling argument. The truth of the matter is that he doesn't have a particularly good reason, not one worth the risk to Eraserhead's career. It's a blatantly self-serving proposal. The best he can do is appeal to the man's better nature, whatever that may be. As stated, he knows the man prefers curt answers and direct information. Beyond that, there’s little else he can conjure. The man likes cats and he keeps his word. Not exactly a riveting amount of information to go on. He’s also shown to be more sarcastic than Shoto expected. 

While he isn't exactly a paragon of social grace, he knows he's capable of his own brand of sarcasm. It's something that's gotten him into plenty of trouble before. And isn't it common for others to bond over wit and similar senses of humor? Hmm...

“...Because you’re a kind and benevolent hero.”

It comes out so uninspired that it almost impresses Shoto himself. He can’t tell if it amused Eraserhead like he was aiming for, but the man tucks his face further in his scarf for a moment before pushing his goggles up to his forehead and shooting him a look. It's hard to decipher, as most expressions on the hero are. Somewhere between exasperated and just barely homicidal. Shoto is not what one can call an 'Eraserhead Whisperer' but he thinks that might mean Eraserhead found it a little amusing. It's like the man gets annoyed at his own funny bone when it gets hit.

“I’m going to push you off this roof.”

Shoto remains still, relatively certain this is one of those sarcastic moments he was just pondering about.

“That would be illegal,” Shoto says, managing to make the monotone phrase still sound a little cheeky.

That gets him a withering glare.

Shoto is slightly less convinced this is sarcasm now.

“Do you know what else is illegal?” Eraserhead asks. He slows his speech so each word is pulled out and pointed like a knife aiming at the vigilante.

Is this a trick question? 

“Murder…?” he states more like a question, as if he's uncertain that murder is really illegal. The look he gets for his less-than-stellar answer has him shuffling a step away from the hero.

“Vigilantism.”

Oh, that again. Shoto rolls his eyes. He is starting to have trouble seeing what the deal is. It’s not like he’s causing any harm. To his knowledge, all those criminals he put down made fine recoveries. Being pushed off a three-story roof seems like the more egregious offense, in his opinion. Heroes and their hypocrisies, he thinks with no real heat. Eraserhead gets a pass this time because Shoto is self-aware enough to know he's being intentionally annoying now.

“...Murder is also illegal,” he says and it comes out both utterly bland and blatantly petulant at the same time. 

The man’s eye twitches just a little. He holds up his hand and pinches his fingers together.

“This close. This. Close.”

Shoto squints and leans forward a little to inspect the hand, like he can see his expected lifespan threaded between those calloused fingertips. He frowns.

“...Your fingers are touching, though?”

Eraserhead stares with bloodshot eyes like he can’t believe his absolute misfortune to be stuck in this conversation. He drops his head in his hand and groans. If Shoto listens closely enough, he can almost hear the man grumbling to himself.

Must’ve been a long night. Weird, I thought it was calm.

“Are you still on patrol?” Shoto asks, voice back to politely flat. He's willing to step back from his unfortunate attempts at teasing. The hero doesn't look really up for it at the moment, not that he ever does. His head tilts in concern.

Eraserhead glances up, looking nothing short of haggard. Perhaps he's been assigned a rough case or had a grotesque amount of paperwork to do.

“Shift already ended,” he says roughly.

Then, he does something so unexpected, that Shoto can do nothing but stare in silence.

He sits down.

Eraserhead sits on the roof, leaning against the access door like he had done earlier, and relaxes. It’s a show of trust that has Shoto’s stomach flipping. No hero, especially one as vigilant as Eraserhead, would ever put himself in such a disadvantageous position unless they were sure they're safe. He trusts that Shoto wouldn’t hurt him. Not that he couldn’t, that he wouldn’t. Something warm and kind unfurls in his chest.

“So, you’re interested in heroics now,” Eraserhead finally asks, tilting his head back to look up at Shoto.

The vulnerability of the position makes Shoto almost as uncomfortable as the question. Feeling like he has a station of power over the other makes his skin crawl for some odd reason. So, he sits down too.

He thinks over the inquiry for a moment and frowns a little. It wouldn’t be wrong to assume he does have a renewed interest in heroics, but the truth of the matter is far too complicated for a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Yes, he wants to help others and be a hero. No, he doesn’t want to be a licensed pro. Something more like a— 

Shoto cuts off that train of thought and mentally groans. Eraserhead is going to give me so much shit for this.

“In a manner of speaking,” he says instead because finding the right words is difficult.

Eraserhead just stares at him, dissecting him as well as he can.

“Clarify,” he commands. It’s calm but forceful. He needs an appropriate response before he’s willing to even consider Shoto’s request.

Words and reasons roll around like loose marbles in Shoto’s head. He struggles to catch them all and place them in order. It’d be so nice if he could look at heroics with the pure, untainted enthusiasm that most civilians have. If he didn’t have memories wrapped in barbed wire strangling each interaction with the profession, things would be so much easier. He tips his head back and looks at the sky as he thinks it over.

“I don’t like the hero commission or how it’s run,” he starts conversationally. “I don’t like most aspects of current hero society, to be quite frank.”

His attention is momentarily caught by the huff that comes from Eraserhead. He tilts his head a bit to look at the hero. There’s no judgment on the man’s face. In fact, he seems to have a sliver of understanding. Somehow, Shoto figured he would. Eraserhead didn’t seem like a conventional hero, avoiding the spotlight and peacocking that most get into the profession for.

“Admittedly, I never gave a fair, unbiased thought to underground heroics.” And isn’t that embarrassing? All his life, Shoto’s been surrounded by nothing but heroics. His entire birth and life revolves around the concept. He’s been taught what it takes to get his license and run an agency. But, in all his years, the very concept of going underground just slipped right by him. The brilliant blaze of Endeavor blinded him and burned the idea of ‘heroes’ into ash for the teen. To see someone new, someone who challenges his entire life’s perspective, is greatly humbling.

“It seems...different. Better,” he decides after a moment of thought.

The him from years ago would balk at the idea of ever admitting that any type of professional heroism is anything but vile. It’s a concept he’s still struggling with, but a small weight drops off his shoulders as he finally speaks his belief into existence.

Eraserhead is quiet as he examines Shoto, sleepy eyes far sharper than they have any right to be.

“Didn’t expect to hear that from you,” he says without any heat. 

Shoto hums and looks back at the man who’s given him a reason to start believing that good might still exist in these dreadful times. It's almost unfathomable to acknowledge, but he concedes that maybe, just maybe, the path of heroes isn't beyond saving. It has a long, hard road to go until it's back on track, but Shoto doesn't think the nuclear option is the only option anymore. Just...mostly. Hope is a rare commodity he barely ever got to experience but it seemed to crop up in bundles when he talks to Eraserhead.

“I’ve been given a reason to reconsider my stance as of late,” he says. Then, because he doesn’t want to give the hero too much expectation on how far his perceptions have changed, he tacks on a curt, “At least a little.”

He'd hate for Eraserhead to think that Shoto is suddenly okay with the concept of hero society as a whole or the atrocious way the HPSC is run. That's a can of worms he isn't going to bother touching just yet. It's doubtful the hero wants to hear his particularly sharp take on all of that.

Eraserhead just stares for a moment longer before grunting and looking away. It takes a second but Shoto quickly realizes he never really answered his question.

“What I mean is that, despite my hangups, I want to help people. Properly.” His voice is strong, unwavering. This is a point he isn’t willing to back down from. If Eraserhead declines, he'll be more than disappointed. It'll actually hurt in that softening part of him, but it certainly won't stop him. He'll just have to be craftier. It could be another form of training to get around the erasure hero. If he fails, then he'll know for certain he isn't good enough. But, he isn't going to give up the ghost yet. He isn't down and out until they drag him away.

Shoto didn’t want to be a hero, not since he was a toddler. He didn’t want to follow Endeavor’s plan and give in to that monster. Every little appeasement and concession felt like he was crawling further and further under Endeavor's boot. He’s been so blinded by his hate and hurt that he’s missed the smaller, less-trodden path. The one that can lead him to helping like he wants without giving in to his father’s demands.

“You already know something of agency work. How much do you know about the actual process of getting licensed?” Eraserhead asks, following his train of thought.

The question sends him back to his home where he’d have to sit for droning lessons on the procedures involved with entering the workforce. It's one of his earliest and most oft repeated lessons. He sighs deeply.

“One must obtain a provisional license and graduate from an accredited heroics school with a minimum number of work-study hours completed to be eligible to enter into the profession,” he states blandly as if reading off of a script. This has been drilled into his head so many times he could likely recite the process in his sleep. He stares off into the distance as he drones on, “After both steps are completed, two exams are given: a physical one to test the abilities of the aspiring hero, and a written one to test their knowledge of foundational laws and procedure. A score of eighty-five percent is necessary to pass and obtain an official hero license.”

He finishes and looks back at Eraserhead with an empty expression – not that the hero can see it, but Shoto feels it might be a bit obvious from the absolutely unenthusiastic recount.

The hero stares at him, somewhere between tired and barely impressed.

“I see you’ve done your homework.”

Shoto snorts indelicately. That’s one way of putting it.

“I take it you don’t have a provisional license,” Eraserhead says once it’s clear Shoto isn’t going to say anything.

“No.” Then, after a pause, he continues, “I didn’t go to heroics school either.”

That gets a visibly surprised face from Eraserhead. The hero’s brows climb to his hairline as he looks at Shoto.

“Really?” he asks, not even bothering to mask his disbelief.

It’s understandable, Shoto supposes. He hasn’t exactly given the hero any reason not to think he’s had a formal education in the subject. It's not everyday a random civilian can recite the tenets of procedural justice off the top of their head. (Not that Shoto showed him that particular trick yet, but it can be inferred.)

“Yes,” he confirms.

Eraserhead hums then looks off to the skyline, scratching his chin in thought.

“You can take the equivalency test and get a diploma that way. The test is long, though. About five hundred questions.” The hero grimaces as he finishes, no doubt thinking over how obnoxiously large the test packet must be. 

Shoto stares at him for a moment, utterly confused. He’d have to be at least eighteen to take the equivalency test or have an approved age waiver, and even then he’d have to wait until he’s sixteen. Why...

Then, it dawns on him.

Eraserhead thinks I’m older than I am. Oh. Oh, no.

He feels bad, like he’s been purposefully lying to the hero this whole time. Would the hero treat him differently if he knew the truth? The thought makes him grimace and a sick feeling starts roiling inside him. The deception wasn't intentional, honestly. Now that he realizes it, though, he'll have to keep up the ruse. It's the only thing that'll keep him safe. If the hero knew his age - his identity - then Shoto is almost positive the man would turn him over, if not for clout then because it's the 'right thing to do' since he's a minor. He doesn't like lying. He isn't good at lying. If he's lucky, and history shows he's not, then he can just keep on acting the same and Eraserhead simply won't catch on. If there comes a moment where he's compromised, he'll have to make a run for it. Go to another prefecture. Maybe Toyama, there doesn't appear to be any super high-profile or particularly threatening heroes there.

Oh, he hopes it doesn't come to that. Odd as it is to admit, he's grown sort of attached to this shithole of an area. The whole of Shinjuku is quite nice, but Shoto settled into a rather ugly side. He found it has its charms. It'd be a shame to abandon it now. 

What is he going to do? Eraserhead thinks he wants to get a license. That...is a safe assumption to have made, given the progress of the conversation, but Shoto can’t for several reasons he would prefer not to divulge. That small weight that fell away is replaced by an overpowering guilt. He tilts his head down, the largest admission of discontent he's willing to give, and thinks. 

What the hell do I do?

He doesn’t want to fuck up whatever tentative truce the two have. Eraserhead, Shoto is abashed to say, has become someone he’s started to look up to. There has to be a solution. I just need enough time. A few years and I'll be free of Endeavor. Perhaps I can give him reason enough to believe I can't take the test. I can’t tell him the whole truth but maybe just a little? Just enough.

And so, Shoto, with all the verbal grace and tact bestowed upon him by his father, starts to talk.

“I’m the product of a eugenics project meant to create the perfect quirk,” he says apropos of nothing.

Eraserhead does a violent double-take that’d be funny in any other context. The conversation whiplash hits the hero like several fully loaded freight trains. How it went from a chat about the licensing process to that is well beyond his understanding.

“What?”

It's as articulate as he can manage at the moment. The contrast between his bewildered tone and Shoto's underwhelming inflection is stark.

“My father bought my mother for her quirk. He wanted to create the ultimate quirk; one with no downsides and great power,” he says as if talking about the weather. There's a low undercurrent of anger that bites at the end. Subtlety isn’t a learned skill of his, so he lays his trauma across the table like a losing hand.

The hero opens his mouth and closes it. His brows pinch in thought. Somehow, he looks significantly more tired and yet more awake than moments ago. The reality of this situation finally seems to set in as he sighs heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“There is a lot to unpack here." 

Shoto gives him a moment to gather himself. Eraserhead huffs and sits up properly. He’d been tired enough to slide down, nearly laying on the roof, but this info dump straightened him into an alert posture.

“Why did he do that?” he asks, his focus entirely on Shoto.

He can imagine this is what Eraserhead looks like when starting a new case file; intense and completely engaged. This new scrutiny is nearly overwhelming. Shoto imagines the next answer will be sufficiently surprising.

“To beat All Might,” he says, still as indifferent as if making idle smalltalk.

Eraserhead stares at him with an expression so vacant it’s a little worrying. Shoto remains silent and watches as the hero clicks the pieces of his past into place.

“You were created to beat All Might?” he asks incredulously.

Shoto sighs but nods. “That sums it up, yes.”

The hero rubs his hand down his face before looking properly at Shoto, as if trying to see just what it is about him that can possibly compete with the number one hero. He is left severely wanting.

“That is easily one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard,” Eraserhead says with exactly zero delicacy. Shoto would laugh if his life weren't so shit because of it, because he agrees. It is. It's the most idiotic, harebrained scheme his father could have cooked up. He would have had better luck trying to create the future president.

“Tell me about it,” he grouses. The idea that anyone can even touch the hero’s legacy let alone beat him is absurd. He’s more myth than man, at this point. “I’ve spent my entire life being trained for it because I’m ‘the Masterpiece.’”

He spits the title out like it's a piece of rancid meat. If Eraserhead could see his face, he’d see it twisted into absolute contempt. Shoto can't even enjoy a damn museum trip - not that he's allowed to go on them - because just hearing that phrase in the context of a painting triggers a deep-seated anger response. No part of his life was his until he ran away. It was all for Endeavor. All for his goal to surpass All Might. He was nothing more than an object, a means to an end, to the man that should have been his father. But Endeavor didn’t want a son, he wanted a tool. The thought hurt so deeply when it first came to him, that he doubted he’d ever fully recover from it. Being raised as a thing instead of a child ruined him in ways he isn’t sure he can fix.

“I never wanted to be a weapon for him,” he says spitefully, desperately, like he's trying to convince Eraserhead. His fingers claw at the gravel on the roof and his limbs quake with the urge to let his anger and pain explode out in a torrent of ice. “Once I realized that I’d lose my humanity if I stayed, I left.”

He had to. He had to. If he stayed, who knows what would have become of him? How much more dehumanization could he take? How much longer could he handle being a vessel for another man’s dreams before there’s nothing left of himself? Or would he end up just another photo on their shrine? Another broken, failed arts-and-crafts project.

Once he started, it’s like he can’t stop. All this has been building in him, like water against a failing dam. Just a tiny crack and it comes rushing out. His grievances hit the air and it's less about explaining his motives now. He needs understanding.

“My brother died and my mother was driven insane for his ambition,” he says. It comes out angry and flat but there’s a wetness in his eyes that he can do nothing about. He takes a deep breath and forces away that urge.

Eraserhead is silent as a the grave now. His expression is empty but his eyes hold such intensity, they seem but a moment away from glowing. Shoto can't meet that look. He stares at fixed point in the distance, well beyond reality and down the halls of history. The doors there are battered and closed off with police tape.

“I resent him. I resent him and his ego and this damn quirk he gave me. It’s all I am in his eyes,” he finishes, hands shaking in anger and hurt. It's sickly thick, leaving him nearly breathless. The gravel in his right hand is stuck together from the thin layer of ice he accidentally coated them with.

Shoto hates him. He hates him so fucking much that it burns away any good he feels. It’s like an inferno that he can’t escape. He shouldn’t have brought this up because now all he can think of is his father and those hateful blue eyes that look through him like he’s not real. He thinks of his mother and the tears she couldn’t stop shedding. The sobs and screams. The scalding water. He has to pace his breathing before he begins to hyperventilate.

“Is that why you wear that mask everywhere, so he can’t find you?” Eraserhead finally asks. He’d been so quiet that Shoto nearly forgot he was there, too stuck in his thorny thoughts.

Shoto blinks at him, takes a deep breath, counts to four, and lets it out. He slowly unclenches his aching fists, relishing in the slight sting of pain echoing from his abused joints. It helps ground him in the moment.

“Yes,” he says, far calmer sounding than he feels. “I’d rather die than end up back in his clutches. If I have to live in this mask to be free, then I will.”

And he means it. Oh, does he mean it. Suicidal ideation isn't a new concept to him. The thought of what it must be like to die, how pleasant it would be. How he wouldn't mind a beam in the house falling, bringing the roof down on his head. How he sometimes thinks about crossing the rode without looking and hoping. It's always there, in the back of his mind, like a pervasive demon on his shoulder. Even miles and miles away from the hell, it's still there, urging him toward the edges of roofs and giving into l'appel du vide. It isn't rational nor is it healthy, he understands. It's the only thing that kept him from acting on these wretched impulses. Logic dictates that he is suffering from some type of mental disturbance. Therefore, he will not entertain these thoughts, even if every impulse in his body demands otherwise.

He is thankful once more for his mask and disturbingly monotonous voice, because he would rather if Eraserhead didn't realize the depths of that statement. Becoming intimately familiar with the process of involuntary hospitalization isn't on his bucket list. Having a secondhand experience was more than enough for him.

Eraserhead stares at him, searching for something, face still pointedly blank. If he's frustrated at not being able to read Shoto, then he does well in hiding it. He looks away after a moment and rubs his tired eyes.

“Why tell me?” he asks. His voice sounds rough around the edges, worn in a way that goes beyond sleep deprivation.

He looks away, not wanting to see if the hero is disappointed by this admission.

“So you understand why I can’t take that test or get my license,” he says.

There is no response. Shoto isn't sure if that's good or bad yet.

“I...I used to want to be a hero. It was my dream,” he admits softly. It hurts to confront that childish fantasy of his and see where he is now, homeless and on the run with an anger in him that he can't suffocate. “If I take that test, my identity will be revealed and it’ll only be a matter of time until he comes for me.”

He stares into the horizon and tries not to get swallowed by the ghosts of his past. Maybe Eraserhead would reconsider shoving him off the roof. That seems preferable to dealing with all of this. He thinks of asking, maybe phrasing it as a joke, but eventually decides against it. It likely wouldn't be well received.

“And I take it you won’t tell me who your father is?” Eraserhead asks, even though he knows the answer. Shoto just shakes his head. The hero sighs.

“So, you want me to train you so you can continue vigilante-ing.”

Shoto looks at him from the corner of his eye and sees the hero watching him carefully. And here it is.

“That’s not a word,” Shoto points out.

The hero very maturily throws a piece of gravel at him. Shoto dodges and huffs, chest feeling a little less like it’s getting stepped on by an elephant. He isn't sure if that was the planned effect, but he appreciates that casualness regardless. Big emotions and big responses never really sat right with him. “And I’m not—”

“—A vigilante. So you’ve mentioned,” Eraserhead cuts him off with a glance that gave the distinct impression he was rolling his eyes without actually doing so. Shoto takes the opportunity to fling a piece of gravel back at the hero, who catches it without batting an eye. “But you want to become one.”

If it weren’t for the multiple bombshells Shoto just dropped on him, he imagines that the hero would look obnoxiously smug right now. Unfortunately for him, Shoto excels in exceeding social expectations in the most awkward and inconvenient ways possible. It’s hard to say, ‘I was right,’ to the guy who just revealed his horrific childhood trauma to you.

“Possibly,” Shoto reluctantly concedes, because he does not want to give the hero the satisfaction of a full ‘yes’.

Eraserhead still manages a scoff, smirk tucked away behind his scarf.

“Still illegal,” he points out.

Shoto flicks another piece of gravel at him childishly. Eraserhead catches it without even looking.

“So is aiding and abetting an alleged vigilante,” he says, stressing the word to annoy the hero. It’s his turn to catch the gravel that gets flung at his face.

“Don’t you have a random crime to stumble into?” Eraserhead asks, sounding much less serious than he’d like his grumpy face to convey. Definitely sarcasm.

“If you did your job today, then no, I don’t,” Shoto retorts nonchalantly.

It's impressive just how much emotion the hero is capable of putting into the tiniest shifts of his features. With just the slightest slant of his brows and narrowing of his eyes, he levels Shoto with a look that can rival Endeavor's most venomous of glares.

"Don't think I can't strangle you from this distance," Eraserhead says as he lifts his scarf.

Blessed with a brief moment of wisdom, Shoto decides it's time to stop prodding the exhausted man. He raises his hands in surrender like some sort of white flag. As much as he trusts Eraserhead - and that is strange enough for him to admit, trusting a pro - he doesn't want to push his luck too far and genuinely anger the man. Based on their previous encounters, Shoto believes pride isn't a sore point of his, but there are only so many friendly jabs one can take before that spot gets sensitive. The idea of pissing the man off is frightening for several reasons, only some he can equate to Endeavor.

They lapse into familiar silence. Shoto sits for a few moments longer, just enjoying the cool morning air. It's not something he'd ever really been able to do before: stop and smell the roses, so to speak. His life had been scheduled all the way down to what he was allowed to eat. Sitting around and doing nothing is a bizarre luxury, one he thinks many people take for granted. It's...nice. He's still getting used to it, the lack of responsibilities and expectations. There's still a small, waspish voice in the back of his mind that tells him he should be doing something. Time is precious and should not be wasted lazing about. It's gotten easier to quiet that voice, but after a few minutes, he can't keep the anxiety at bay any longer. 

He's had his downtime, now he can go do...something. Clean his hideout, maybe. Keep scouting training locations. Exercise. He'd passed some cinderblocks behind a decrepit garage before that he could use as makeshift weights.

With a sigh, he gets up and pats down his clothes. Another habit he hasn't quite broken yet, presentability is fundamental to establishing a strong first impression. As if there's anyone around who'd care that my pants are wrinkled.

As if that were some cue, Eraserhead gets up as well. He's slower to rise, pressing a hand on his knee as he stands up with a grunt, clearly still tired from his shift. Shoto feels bad keeping him here so long when he could be sleeping.

They look at each other for a moment, neither particularly inclined to pleasantries but they've reached the point where it feels a little odd not to at least acknowledge one another upon arrival or departure. Or, it could just be the awkward bonding moment Shoto foisted upon the poor, socially drained man.

“Think it over,” he says as a way of a goodbye. “Please.”

Eraserhead grunts ambiguously, which doesn't raise Shoto's hopes too high. Then something over Shoto’s shoulder catches his attention. His brows knit in concentration.

Shoto turns to look behind him. Nothing is obvious until he looks down. On the sidewalk, just in view of them, is a woman staring up at them. Her expression is hard to make out but it’s very clear she’s looking at them. When she realizes they're looking directly at her, she startles, attention bouncing between the two like a ping pong ball. She seems drawn back to Shoto over and over, like a moth to a light, but glances nervously back at Eraserhead every few moments. A man is beside her, gesturing, but his back is to them so Shoto can’t even begin to guess what he’s saying.

“What?” he asks as he watches the two. Her behavior is odd, yes, but not entirely unexpected from a civilian looking at a hero – even an underground one - and spotting a supposed vigilante is a rare spectacle. It could explain the staring. But, it still rubs Shoto the wrong way. Has he seen her before? He feels like he has.

“I recognize her,” Eraserhead says. From his tone, it’s not entirely good. The fact he hasn’t descended to apprehend her means she isn’t a villain on the loose, but something is still off.

What is it?

“From where?”

Eraserhead grimaces and fixes his goggles into place. Gone is his relaxed slouch and abrasively amicable expression. He's shifted back into 'on duty' mode. It's an almost surprising contrast as Shoto hadn't initially noticed a change in his demeanor until this very moment. “I saved her from a mugging the other day.”

That weird feeling clicks into place.

Wide, amazed eyes flash in his memories.

“That’s why she looks familiar,” he says to himself.

Eraserhead tilts his head questioningly at him.

“I also saved her,” he explains. “A purse snatcher targeted her.”

He remembers how odd it was that she seemed so awed by his simple act, like there was something decidedly divine about him. Thinking back on it now and seeing the way she's staring at him like a hawk makes his skin crawl. The fact that they both saved her doesn’t sit right with him, especially now that she’s here.

“Odd coincidence,” he says in a way that makes it clear he doesn’t think it’s a coincidence at all.

Eraserhead snorts. Shoto gets that familiar feeling the man is judging him again.

“I want to say you’re the last person who should be talking about ‘odd coincidences’, but I agree this time,” he says, almost begrudgingly.

He'd like to defend himself from the toothless jab, but there isn't much he can feasibly say in his defense, so he focuses on the more important part of the situation.

“Think it was a setup?” Shoto asks.

That notion makes him grimace. If it's true then there's something dangerous at play here. It'd be one thing if it only happened to Shoto, but Eraserhead is a pro hero. Involving him adds so many different layers and stakes to the situation that it nearly gives him a headache just thinking about it.

The hero hums in thought.

“Potentially,” Eraserhead says, not wanting to commit to the answer but believing it’s the most likely option.

“But what’s the goal? To get close to us? She isn’t exactly hiding now,” Shoto muses aloud. It doesn’t make sense. If she has an ulterior motive, why end up here? Why risk being seen?

“She do anything to hint at her quirk when you encountered her?” Eraserhead asks, formulating his own theories.

Shoto recounts the moment. She’d been enthusiastic, yes, but that’s it. He hasn’t felt any lingering effects from any type of quirk. There have been no odd symptoms he can recall. Usually, there'd be some sort of sign that he's been affected by a quirk by now. It's been days since their encounter.

“No. She just thanked me,” he finally says after running through the mental checklist of potential signs.

Eraserhead hums, lips downturned in a slight grimace.

“I’ll be back,” he says and launches himself from the roof to swing down in front of her.

Shoto watches from the edge of the building on high alert. That man she’d been talking to is gone. He’d left while they were theorizing, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t hiding just out of sight, waiting to ambush them. If she tries anything, I'll turn her into an ice cube, warrant be damned. Granted, he knows Eraserhead doesn't exactly need the backup for one target, but he'd rather be safe than sorry in this unknown situation.

From his angle, it looks like a simple conversation. The woman is wringing her hands and her attention keeps darting up to Shoto. It’s making him exceptionally uneasy. There’s something about her that lights a warning sign in the back of his mind. What does she want with me? And he's certain there's something she wants. He can't imagine she'd be eyeing him up so fervently if there wasn't.

As quickly as the conversation started, it ends and Eraserhead is back on the roof. His expression is grim, displeased with whatever they spoke about.

“She said she noticed us here and wanted to thank us for helping her,” he says blandly, not believing it for a second.

Shoto raises a brow at that. How very convenient that she just so happened to spot them on this roof.

“I’m not very good at reading emotions,” he starts tentatively, “but she seems especially nervous for someone so thankful.”

“Yeah, she does,” Eraserhead says as he eyes the direction the woman hurried off in. Any trace of exhaustion that weighed the pro down evaporated the moment he noticed her. Then, he looks back at Shoto. “I didn’t get a good look at who she was talking to, but I think I can identify her later.”

Either he has a fantastic memory or... Shoto looks more closely at Eraserhead, namely his gear. Does he have cameras in his goggles? 

“Those aren’t basic goggles, are they?”

A sly smirk pulls at the hero's lips.

“Wouldn’t be very effective at night if they were.”

Very true. He isn’t sure what sort of support gear he has, especially since his quirk leaves him little in the way of offensive or defensive capabilities. He imagines there must be even more supplementary tools on him.

“Keep your comm on. If you encounter her again, let me know,” Eraserhead says, turning on his heel and heading toward the edge of the roof. This new mystery has lit a fire under him, it seems. Shoto wishes he could help him investigate, but there isn’t much he can offer that wouldn’t hinder the hero’s progress. He'd only just started shadowing his father and begin learning about investigative procedures when he ran away. He'd be about as useful as a wet-nosed intern.

“Alright,” he says, already fitting the piece into his ear. “Stay safe.”

Eraserhead just raises a hand in an unspoken, You too. Then, he’s off.

Shoto turns and starts on his way back to his hideout. It feels like eyes are following him, so he takes a convoluted route that stretches his path out half an hour past his usual time. A little disappointing since he wasn't able to grab those cinderblocks. Ah well, next time, he thinks dryly as he dodges into a crowded street market. It isn't until he slips into a particularly dirty konbini and darts out the employee exit in the back that the feeling of being watched disappears. His hands buzz with nerves.

He checks again to make sure the comm is on, just in case. 

[swifterthancivility]

You're Losing Me is soooo devastating in the context of Midnights as an album and I don't know if everyone is seeing what I'm seeing. It honestly shook me to my core.

Here's my analysis of the album as it is. We start with Lavender Haze which is this dreamy romantic song but you see some problems "you don't ever say too much" and the bridge "get it off your chest, get it off my desk" going unaddressed. The speaker is so lost in the love that she's letting their potential problems go unaddressed.

Then Maroon is reminiscing about a former love that ended. The speaker remembers the good and the bad but also the fundamental problems "carnations you had thought were roses, that's us" so a relationship they thought was real and special but was actually cheap and easy to get.

Then we get to Anti-hero where the speaker is blaming themselves for the problems they have in their life. Perhaps unwilling to step out of the Lavender Haze and look at their current relationship critically and blaming themselves for the maroon relationship ending.

Snow on the beach is another moment of the speaker reminiscing perhaps or maybe just a sweet moment in the relationship that reaffirms how the speaker feels. That moment of realizing you are in love and marvelling at it can still happen when other things have gone wrong.

You're on your own kid has the speaker remembering everything she has struggled with and regaining some self-worth after the insecurity of Anti-hero. It's a little resigned a little sad but ultimately accepting that though she hurt people, she has also built something "cause there were pages turned with bridges burned everything you lose is a step you take." Actually indicates a start to accepting that the speaker might lose her relationship. It's echoed in "yeah you can face this, you're on you're own kid, you always have been." This Really speaks to the kind of grim acceptance that the speaker is about to lose something very important to her.

We get to midnight rain and it seems like the speaker is ready to end the relationship. She seems to accept solitude as a price for their career. She attributes her inability to connect to the reason things are ending. I think this could also be interpreted as the speaker again reminiscing about and ended relationship and this time putting the blame totally on herself.

We get to question and the speaker is again reviewing a past relationship that went wrong. This time, however she doesn't have any answers. She reviews all the good things, but also this disconnection, this inability to listen or communicate. The speaker and the former partner have moved on but she's still wondering about it. I also see this being interpreted as the speaker questioning someone who just ended a relationship and trying to figure out if she should end her own.

Vigilante Shit maybe encourages that interpretation because it centers a relationship the speaker helped end. She's thinking about the ways in which she has power.

When we get bejeweled the speaker is taking joy in the idea of ending the relationship. She's ready to enjoy the attention and independence of being single. "I'll miss you, but I miss sparkling" kind of connects to the idea that she gave things up to be in the relationship that she could return to if she left. She begins to connect to what she wants outside of her partner.

Labyrinth is where things finally shift. She is ready to leave. But somehow, she falls in love again. She'd convinced herself that the relationship was over but then finds something to come back to. However, she is still attributing the problems only to herself. This song isn't about a couple working through things, it's about the speaker's feelings shifting.

When she gets to Karma she is ready to face the world and this time she's taking joy in her relationship. She's looking at the people who wronged her and celebrating her relationship as the reward for her goodness and kindness.

Sweet Nothing is another celebration of the relationship, especially the small moments that makes her love her partner. Again, the issues have not been addressed but she realizes (maybe in contrast to others) that her partner genuinely cares for her and that the connection they have is real.

Finally we get to mastermind where the speaker admits to what she considers a huge flaw. She wonders if this will ruin her partner's image of her but instead is accepted completely. After attributing all the relationship's problems to her personal flaws she is able to be accepted and loved for those flaws.

The 3AM tracks fit into this framework as well, but not in the linear way the album does. The great war, for example would fit in somewhere around Bejeweled and Labyrinth but I think musically would be such a shift that she probably didn't want to place it there. Bigger than the whole sky and Would've Could've Should've are not necessarily about the relationship but give insight into why the speaker struggles so much with her mental health. Paris fits in with Snow on the Beach, focusing on the good times in the speaker's relationship and what went right. High infidelity is another moment of reminiscing on an ended relationship and what went wrong. Glitch I think fits around mastermind. She's questioning the happiest she has in the relationship, wondering if she really had any control at all. Dear Reader I think fits around Anti-hero or you're on your own kid. It's about mistakes and the lessons She's tried to learn but ultimately concludes that she's learned very little and her "advice" cannot help her. The other track associated with the album: hits different fits again with snow on the beach. It's reminiscing about the beginning of the relationship which was tumultuous and maybe a bit messy.

Finally, back to "you're losing me." This song completely changes the album for me because it's the only song that doesn't blame the speaker for the relationship problems. It's a candid look at the state of things, and it puts a lot of blame on the speaker's partner for not taking accountability for their inaction. Finally, the issues are addressed, and they're not only too significant to face. They aren't all things the speaker can fix herself. Without this song, the album is about a healthy relationship with a partner whose mental health and personal insecurity makes her consider leaving. With this song, it is about someone struggling in an unhealthy relationship where the speaker blames herself for everything that's going wrong. It's so devastating because it takes even the nice moments and makes you wonder what is real.

[arachnidiots-a]

can we hear more abt piper pretty please

!!!!! absolutely !!!!! i’ll probably make a more expansive post later for piper along the lines of what martin and emmett have with their mini wikis but …

piper is a former classmate of liam’s from university. the two shared a lot of environmental science classes together, but never were really more than the occasional buddies and homework helpers. they were the kinds of acquaintances you get when you sit next to someone on the first day and then just text when you have a question about class. through undergrad there really isn’t much going on, liam does really want to be friends but they don’t know how to quite make the jump from acquaintance to friend.

life then gets in the way for liam— in main verse this would be liam going on their multiverse tour for a hot bit and then dropping out of college when they return. in other verses it’s either sports or crazy life altering accidents that occupy liam’s mind a bit more than any college lecture. in music verse liam just focuses on their music here because they’re kinda gaining traction! actually in tl verse, piper’s timeline gets switched around a bit and she’s a bigger part of college liam’s life. that and pjo piper is also pretty different but that’s because it’s pjo

the two reconnect some years down the road, piper’s pursuing a phd in physics and liam is doing all sorts of stuff on their own (building the web network, touring, firefighting, vigilante-ing). piper’s committed and steadfast to her work and her career, research is kind of everything. she doesn’t take to workplace shenanigans all too well, but where liam is concerned… piper finds herself bending some rules. for someone in a research and patience based field, piper is known to be a little impatient. she’ll go check on stuff, take over the action, or simply triple email if she doesn’t get what she’s looking for too quickly. there’s a pretty high level of confidence to her (she’s earned it!) and she wears it quite well. there’s hardly a maybe, perhaps, or don’t know in her day to day vocabulary.

piper is however a tragic and doomed character. she’s fated to die in the arms of liam who will not be able to save her no matter the circumstance. she’s a little bit of a gwen in that way for liam— not intentionally, piper just happens to be an npc and liam happens to have quite a few verses on here where i keep adapting the main story towards other verses. there’s definitely worlds out there where piper doesn’t die, and both of them get to live but those worlds are tragic in their own ways. there’s probably a world or two where they do end up together, or even break up but it’s not because of any fate or destiny.

i could go on and on about main piper and the various different alt verse pipers but it is also apparently one am so!! if you want to know anything specific feel free to send more asks!!

[elshells]

Happy Storyteller Saturday!!!

What are the things that you would say make your character's skin crawl?

If you had to describe that one moment in your characters' past that changed everything for them - for better or for worse - in a few words and without spoiling anything, what would it be?

Tell me: what are the best things in your characters' life and what is their general view of the world around them?

Happy STS! All good questions, and I figure I'll focus on one character for each!

What are the things that you would say make your character's skin crawl?

This is a good question for Janus. He's not easily rattled, and can play a pretty good act to disguise his true feelings, but on the inside, he's haunted by the memories of his past. Or perhaps the lack thereof? Either way, anything that even vaguely reminds him of his childhood makes him extremely uncomfortable.

If you had to describe that one moment in your characters' past that changed everything for them - for better or for worse - in a few words and without spoiling anything, what would it be?

Sophia, it's your turn! Her career changed forever after losing her mentor in a mission gone wrong, which she barely walked away from. Knowing that her mistake is what caused his death, she turned her back on her Guardian lifestyle to become a Watch agent, and vowed to never make another misfire.

What are the best things in your characters' life and what is their general view of the world around them?

I'll answer this one for Max. The best thing in his life is, hands down, his family. It's just him and his parents, and all of them are incredibly loving and caring towards one another—perhaps for reasons he's never known.

Generally, Max views the world through the lens of a realist, but that doesn't mean he's pessimistic, either. While he never wants to be solely responsible for the city's welfare, he can see the cracks in society and wants to fix them in whatever way he can. For this reason, he's decided to pursue degrees in law and political science. At least, until the vigilantes of Harmont decided they had other plans for him.