#also i read the land of the tender scenes this time. last time i skipped it because i had heard things about it but. i dont understand how | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

afewmarvelousthoughts · 5 years ago

Text

Only For A Moment Ch. 45

Master: @afewmarvelousthoughtsadmin

Pairing: Bucky X Reader

Summary: For most of your life you’d been able to keep your abilities a secret, that is until Hydra got wind of you. After years of being in their clutches, you break out when The Avengers expose SHIELD/Hydra. Since then, you’ve been on the run. Things are going as well as you could hope when you see a familiar face… Could the Winter Soldier really be in Bucharest too?

Warnings: Violence (combat), ALL THE EMOTIONS

A/N: WELL HERE WE ARE. Almost to the end of Part One of this journey. I always knew we’d end up here, I just didn’t know it would take 44 chapters and a little more than a year but I also can’t say I’m mad about it.

I hope you all enjoy this Civil War throwback and everything that’s to come.

THANK YOU FOR READING!

Tags are open!

“How about Vienna?” Bucky pipes up.

“Huh?” You ask, looking up from your sketch.

“Vienna. It’s a large city, not high on anyone’s radar.” His slight smile makes you long to kiss him. Walking over to his spot on the couch you lean down, pressing your lips to his. He tugs you into his lap, holding you close.

Without Mr. Goldstein, the city felt somehow colder even as winter melted into spring. Leaving was no longer just the logical choice, it was the easiest one, and of course, Bucky had been thinking of your next step this whole time.

“Vienna sounds lovely.” Honestly, you didn’t care where you both ended up, as long as you were together.

“Perfect,” he purrs.

Throughout the next two weeks, the two of you get ready yourselves to leave. Books that aren’t sentimental are donated, same with any home goods you can do without. Most other things are taken to the farmhouse, for safekeeping and future sorting. In no time the apartment feels barren--but somehow it’s good, a clean slate to leave from. Another new chapter… but this time you won’t be starting off alone.

The sun rises, brightening the paper-covered windows but you both linger in bed, wanting to hold onto this little slice of peace for just a bit longer. Wanting to revel in the peace and comfort of familiarity before heading into the unknown.

Tomorrow you’d head the farmhouse, staying there a few days before moving forward to Vienna. While you’re both ready, moving on was still bittersweet—this had been your home, after all, the place you found one another.

“So,” Bucky leans on his elbow, staring down at you, “I’ll go to the market and you’ll take care of laundry?” You groan dramatically and roll over onto your stomach.

“Come on,” he goads, “I did the laundry last time.” His lips press into the skin at the top of your spine and you shiver with pleasure. In response, he presses closer to you.

“Hmm. I mean fair point but…” You encase him in your power and pin him to the mattress on his back, sitting up to straddle his hips. He stares, a little awestruck at his sudden position change. “I think the market will still be there later.”

“And the laundry?” He asks with a wink grasping your hips and settling himself within you.

“Sure.” He moves inside you causing you to gasp. “Whatever, just keep doing that.”

Eventually, you both manage to get dressed, however reluctantly. He slips into that red henley that made his eyes look somehow bluer and your mouth actually waters.

“What?” He asks, catching your hungry stare.

“Nothin’,” you say hopping up from the couch passing by him to wait by the door.

“Liar,” he whispers into your ear as he grabs you, holding your back to his chest. You laugh, your head falling onto his shoulder.

“Maybe,” you kiss the rough stubble of his jaw. “Come on, doing things was your idea old man, chop-chop.”

In the entryway to the apartment building, he goes over the list as you shoulder the laundry bag.

“Anything else?” He tucks a loose curl behind your ear.

“Plums,” you smile kissing his cheek, “if they have any good ones.”

“Got it.” He tilts your face up before planting a tender kiss on your lips, his blue eyes making your heart skip. “I love you, Y/N.”

“I love all of you.” You playfully push the bill of his blue baseball cap down covering his eyes. “Don’t forget the plums.” He laughs and smacks your ass playfully as you turn to go.

As the laundry spins in the washer you crack open your now well-worn copy of Frankenstein. Though you hope on the familiar words will soothe the anxiety that change inevitably brings, you can’t seem to focus on them. Instead, you let your head fall back, focusing absently on the flickering muted screen of an old staticky TV in the corner.

At first, you think you imagine it because… that couldn’t be Bucky’s image. Just a blurry photo and your mind, distracted as it is, is just filling in the blanks. But then you see the words flashing on the screen.

Blinking hard you shoot up from your chair, unwilling to believe what your eyes are clearly seeing. His name. His fucking name. Wanted. For…

“Fuck,” you breathe out. Too fast to be even remotely perceived as normal, you push past the people by the door to the laundromat and run home, laundry forgotten.

Rounding the corner onto your block you barrel into a police officer trying to keep curious onlookers at a safe distance.

“Sorry, Miss. It’s not safe here. Please stay back.”

“You don’t understand,” you say, trying desperately to keep your voice even. “I live here. I live here.”

He only shakes his head, “You will need to just wait. I’m sorry.”

Unwilling to waste any more time you walk away, telling yourself over and over, Do not run. Do not run. Running would be suspicious and you need to look like just anyone else right now. Throwing a cautious look over your shoulder you duck down a nearby alley.

With trembling hands, you pull your phone out and stare at the word knew you’d see. The one word that brings everything crashing down around you:

Burned.

All those months ago the two of you had laid out plans, one for every conceivable horrible occurrence. Each one had it’s own code word and plan of action. Each one had been drilled over and over until the steps and stages of each came as easy to you as breathing.

You know what you’re supposed to do. You know you’re supposed to trash your phone. Head to the apartment for supplies if possible. If not cut and run to the farmhouse. From there a 48 hour window for the other party to arrive. If they didn’t… you disappear and hope to find one another again, hope that fate was kind once more. Hope…

There’s the sound of splintering glass and crunching metal parts as you crush your phone in your hands, both from duty and the rage that’s beginning to burn through you. Dropping it to the ground you bend down to pluck the sim card from the heap and crush it as well for good measure.

Step one done.

It’s the only step you intend to take.

Reaching into your bag you fish out your scarf and tie it around your face—best to not be recognizable. Strapping your backpack on, you focus and propel yourself onto the roof above you, and then drop to the back of your building.

A lone swat agent notices you and yells at you to stand back. You don’t hesitate to land a blow straight to his throat, rip off his helmet off, and slam his head into the wall rendering him unconscious. Every movement is fluid and measured. Not an ounce of energy wasted. Bucky would be proud.

You’re almost to the side entrance to your building when you hear something on the opposite roof. Moments later the thundering sound of a chopper cuts the air before bullets begin to rain down. Fear clenches your chest. They have to be shooting at him.

Without a thought for the chaos above you, you slide into the parking garage next-door where Bucky’s bike waits. You don’t have the key but it’s easy enough for you to use your ability to force the starter to turn. Wheels squealing you peal out just in time to see Bucky running, being pursued by a person in black and… Captain America himself.

Ignoring them you pull up next to Bucky.

“Buck!” You call out, hand extended.

He throws you a sidelong glance, eyes winding in fear and maybe a flash of anger before he reaches for you. Your power just barely latches onto him while helping you control the bike one-handed.

The person in black kicks the back wheel of the bike causing you to lose your hold on Bucky and sending you skidding into traffic. It takes all your concentration to not crash and keep a line of sight on Bucky as he drops down into the underpass.

“Goddamnit,” you growl, throwing the bike around to find a way into the fray.

Soon the noise of the bike echoes alongside the other cars as you swerve between them, desperately attempting to catch up. The squealing of tires up ahead pushing you forward.

You’re sure you’re close when some fucker with wings is pulled down by the person in black. Hope blooms for a moment before a blast sends part of the roof plummeting down ahead of you. Barely avoiding it you bring your bike up just outside the rubble. A few curious citizens exit their cars and creep closer, phones out, to get a view of the scene before them.

A small sound slips from you as you watch what could only be considered a firing squad draw on them all. No one else should have heard it but Bucky did. He turns, searching for you through the dust. Before you can call out to him you’re being driven back with the other civilians by the police.

No, you silently say to yourself. No.

Grabbing the bike you thunder out of the underpass and circle around, breaking every known traffic law, to get to the exit you know they’ll need to take in order to get out. You make it just in time to catch the end of the motorcade.

Hanging back enough to not lose them but to remain suspicion free you follow.

You haven’t the slightest idea as to what you’re going to do—but you’ve never been able to save anyone else you loved, no one was going to take him from you.

The containment unit they put him in was well insulated. The only sounds are his own ragged breath, hissing slightly when the electric current passes through his left arm sending pain reverberating through his body, and the gentle hum of the electricity itself. If it wasn’t for the movement of the truck Bucky wouldn’t be sure if they were transporting him still or if they’d arrived to whatever hell they deemed appropriate for him this time.

Two categories of thought run over and over through his head, only interrupted when he feels the sway of the vehicle cease from time to time.

There was Steve. Steve had come for him. Not to bring him in, not to take him to task for what he did, nothing like that. Steve had come to warn him, had come to help him even though there was no way for him to know for sure whether or not Bucky was innocent, he couldn’t help but grin a little at that.

And then there was you. Love and anger and fear all pulsed through him in equal measure when he envisioned you on the bike, reaching for his hand. He should have known you wouldn’t run, should have known you wouldn’t listen to reason, follow the plan.

Bucky supposes that he should be thankful you didn’t rush into the line of fire to stop his arrest, you had that much sense at least. It was little comfort because he knows without any doubt that you’re trying to find him now—he also knows the massive target that places on your back.

He thinks he wants to be mad about this. Thinks he wants to tell you that you’re being needlessly reckless. He thinks these things because they’re easier to focus on than the stabbing sense of pain and longing that overcomes him when he wonders if he’ll ever even see you again—ever hold you in his arms, feel your lips, hear your laugh.

His head thuds back into the seat he’s strapped in, gnawing at his bottom lip in an attempt to keep himself from screaming because… Because the fact is, before you he’d have accepted this, wouldn’t have fought back at all, just taken it and let whatever would happen come, now that isn’t an option.

He hears Mr. Goldstein’s voice in the back of his head talking about the good moments… Bucky focuses on all the good ones with you, all the little things that brought him peace and happiness.

There is a way out of anything. He will find it. Find you.

All he can do for now is wait. To break out now could be a greater risk to both you and Steve. And, despite Steve’s warning, they were indeed taking him in alive so that meant something had already changed from the intel Steve was provided. They wanted him alive…

The realization makes his blood run cold.

You’d been riding for almost 20 hours. It made the trek you’d undertaken after escaping from Hydra feel like a pleasant hike.

The constant vibrations from the bike had left your lower body numb and maybe a little raw while the rest of you was exhausted from lack of sleep, food, and an overload of stress. Each time you had to stop to refuel or pull farther back to avoid notice your body buzzed with panic, afraid that you’d lose the motorcade entirely.

You don’t though. Without fail you hone in on the backside of the motorcade, the flashing lights guiding you in the darkness.

When your tired mind realizes that you’ve entered Berlin a familiar sense of dread settles over you. This was where you’d come after Hydra, before Bucharest. This was where you’d thought you’d be safe. And this is where you learned that being free did not mean that your fight was over.

It seemed fitting that this road would lead you back here then. Back to this reminder. Because here you were—still fighting. A deeper sense of exhaustion washes through you as you wonder if the fight will actually ever stop.

The motorcade slows as it approaches what appears to be a government facility of some kind. You pull the bike down a side street ditching it without a backward glance and casually make your way toward the buildings.

There’s a flurry of activity, everyone scrambling now that the Winter Soldier was on the premises. Good.

The chaos allows you to slip through the crowd like a shadow—unsuspecting, unnoticed, unimportant—and tail a group in swat gear. They begin to disperse, each to their own assignments until you’re only on the heels of one.

He seems more nervous than the others, distracted, a telltale tick in his hands. He rounds a corner into a quiet corridor and you follow only a few steps behind, constantly checking for any signs of others.

Hydra taught you how to do this, how to send out your power like an extension of yourself, feeling for things and people in your area. But this power was not theirs—it never was—this is yours and you will use it. All the little tendrils of power you send out touch nothing that seems organic. Just the person before you, unaware of your silent steps behind them.

Using a key card the officer opens a door marked as ‘Exit.’ You send out a bolt of your power to hold the latch as the door closes behind him.

Silently you crouch by the door, assessing, your senses honed in on this individual. There’s the sound of steps down one flight and then they stop, a sigh, the click of something like a lighter. Pushing the door open just a bit you catch a whiff of cigarette smoke. Perfect.

You open the door casually. The man having a, no doubt, forbidden smoke frantically tries to hide his transgression rather than check if you’re someone who should be here. Too bad for him.

It takes maybe a minute. He was a strong man, you can feel that in his struggle, but you were stronger. With his head locked in your arm, you use your power to cut off his air and blood flow just enough to render him unconscious quickly. You carry him down one more flight of stairs to be far from any quick lines of sight and quickly strip him.

The clothes are slightly too big but it’s fine, you leave him his boots and don the helmet to better disguise your features. Curling him into a ball you cover him with your jacket and hide his face with your cap before heading out the door you’d entered—braking the lock to make his discovery, hopefully, take a little longer.

Of course, you know fuck all about this building but if you had to hold a super soldier, underground would be best. You stand casually by an elevator and punch a button. A blonde woman huffs up next to you, looking down at a file folder seeming more distraught than happy at what’s happening around you both. Curious, you think but try to not pay her too much mind.

You focus your attention on the door instead, crossing your arms as if annoyed at the time the elevator is taking. Finally the doors open and you both step in. She’s by the keys and presses her number, scanning a security badge.

You can feel shrewd eyes assess you before she speaks, “Are you assigned to Barnes?” Her German is perfect but clearly accented. Not a native.

Forcing down the lump in your throat you nod and answer in German, “Yes.” You make a scoffing sound, “Last minute assignment. Needed a woman to meet the diversity requirements.”

Her eyes roll and she shakes her head, “And let me guess the men left you to figure out where to go on your own?”

“Exactly.” You’ve never been more grateful for the patriarchy.

“Assholes,” the woman grumbles in English and punches another button.

“Thanks,” you point to what you assume is the floor you need.

“Gotta lookout, right?” She smiles. Before stepping out she looks back at you, “I don’t think he’s what they say he is. For what that’s worth. Make sure they aren’t too harsh.”

Words fail you and you only manage a nod. She gives you a sad smile and exits, leaving you alone.

Did she… know somehow? Your mind races to try and locate where you may have seen her before but you’re certain that you have never met. How could she know? Maybe she didn’t. Maybe there really were just people who could look past the bullshit.

You don’t have much more time to mull it over. Three floors away the power cuts sending the elevator to a shuddering halt. A cold foreboding settles across your shoulders but your heartbeat stays steady, thrumming in time with the red flashing light.

Every instinct screams that this is wrong. It was too convenient. Too perfect.

Your power confirms that the elevator has stalled between floors. Sliding it between the doors you use that and your strength to pry them open and shimmy out into a corridor filled with people scurrying like rats.

At first, there’s nothing but noise but you narrow in, catching bits of the frantic chatter.

“Breached containment.”

“Rampage.”

“The Winter Soldier is loose.”

Your mouth feels desert dry. You’d been heading for him before, knew roughly where to find him. Now…

“What the fuck are you doing officer?!” An angry, official-looking, man grabs your shoulders. “He’s heading up, now’s no time to freeze. Go!” He pushes you against the flow of bodies and you start to run.

They were running from him… Why…

You turn a few corners and head up a flight of stairs until the space opens up into a bright lobby. The beautiful day outside the windows is a stark contrast to the chaos unfolding before you.

Desperately you try to assess what’s going on, try to grasp it. He’s fighting off every person who comes at him with a cold ferocity.

Part of you screams to rush in but you know it’s best to read the room, the last thing you want is to get in his way. But as soon as you hear the gun go off, see him land a hard blow to who you suspect is Tony Stark--remembering seeing his face on magazine covers and gossip shows in the past--your feet move, unable to hold back any longer.

The woman from the elevator rushes Bucky. You catch her in your power and drag her back. She gasps in surprise, righting herself quickly. Throwing yourself between him and her you catch her kick, grabbing her leg and spinning her around sending her to the floor.

“What the hell!” She exclaims scrabbling to her feet.

“Sorry,” you shrug countering her next blow with your power before landing a right hook to her jaw and a lung crunching blow to her sternum. She stumbles back into a heap.

Bucky has Natasha Romanoff punned to a table, her throat in his metal grip. It only takes a second for you to realize that if he continues he will kill her.

“Bucky stop!” You grip his shoulder trying to pry him off of her.

He whirls on you. He just doesn’t realize, you tell yourself. Quickly you fling the helmet away before dodging a swing.

“Buck-” Metal knuckles graze your cheek, flashes of your first encounter searing through your mind, as you sway back to avoid the full blow.

Before you can recover he’s got you in his grip, lifting you from the ground. You use your power to keep your body weight from making the bad situation worse, trying to keep blood and air flowing from beneath his metal fingers when you understand with earth-shattering clarity… Bucky isn’t in control now.

No.

You know this is why the two of you trained so hard. This specific worst-case scenario. He wanted you to beat him back, hurt him so badly that he couldn’t hurt you worse. But… you just can’t.

“It’s me,” you croak, reaching your hand out to touch his face. “Bu-” there isn’t enough air in your lungs to finish his name. Through the growing haze, you see just a moment of horror flash across his face. Recognition. It’s enough.

You find yourself sailing through the air, body careening with Romanoff, who was heading for another volley. She grunts under you, rolling you over and pinning you beneath her.

“Who the fuck are you?!” She snarls.

“No one,” you snap, butting your forehead into her nose and tossing her aside as a man sprints up the stairs on Bucky’s heels.

He’s there, just beneath the surface, he’s trying. You just have to get to him.

Still gasping for air you pursue them. You try and fail to send your power out to the man but your head is reeling. Before you realize it’s happening you’re tangled in them as they tumble down a flight of stairs.

The three of you right yourselves and you place yourself between Bucky and this man. He has to be enhanced, his blows coming rapid and fluid. Bucky doesn’t seem to be viewing you as an enemy any longer, instead, you both move together, fighting like one unit, deflecting his strikes with almost beautiful precision.

He moves to attack you but Bucky catches it with his left arm. Impossibly the man holds him back. Head clear you push a blast of power between them. Bucky stumbles a bit before he jumps over the railing dropping down. As you move to follow the man lands a hard blow to the back of your skull.

Blackness envelops you and when your vision clears and they’re both gone.

Groaning you lift yourself up leaning against the wall—the weight of the last 30 hours thundering into you, threatening to suffocate you. The two of you should be at the farmhouse by now, curled together, getting ready for a new life. But no.

Focusing on that was going to get you nowhere. You’d promised to take care of one another…

Your eyes sting, “Mr. Goldstein,” you whisper to the eerily quiet air, “if you’re looking out… help me find him… Please.” Your voice cracks and you take a shaky breath before rising on trembling legs.

Unsure of where to go next you head out into the courtyard, teeming with nothing but panicked people. Well… almost.

A familiar-looking man hovers near the edge of the courtyard, a bastion of calm in the chaos, clearly observing everything happening around him. Finally, you place him, he’d been arrested along with Steve and Bucky in Bucharest. Even so, there is no telling if you can trust this man, but if he can get you to Bucky-

The crowd erupts in fresh screams as the sound of a crash echoes across the complex. Both of you rush to the edge of the river only to see the fractured pieces of a helicopter sink.

Every muscle in your body wants to jump in. He’s in there! Your heart screams—but your gut says, Wait.

Carefully, you slide your gaze over. The man doesn’t seem to have noticed you, but he seems to have seen something else. You glance back but don’t notice anything significant. He turns on his heel, walking purposefully from the courtyard. You cast a desperate glance back to the river before following him, your gut winning this fight.

You follow him on foot on a long, winding, route. Each step, each moment you think he’s come to his destination only to continue on, each time you narrowly escape his keen observations leaving you more and more exhausted.

You’re so close to breaking that when he finally enters a dilapidated building in an industrial complex and doesn’t exit you nearly weep—you may not know if Bucky is here but you do know your body cannot take much more.

Ignoring the chill rising up your spine as you hear helicopters overhead, you slip into the building silent as a shadow, only the tips of your boots touching the ground just enough to allow you to pivot if needed.

Steve and the man are in a room away from the main space judging by their raised voices. It was pure luck, there were few spaces to hide in the open building, had they been there you’d be seen. Still… If you’re going to wait them out you need a place to hide Thankfully, most people rarely, if ever, thought to look up.

Praying your power holds out you push yourself from the ground and perching above the doorway to the room they occupy, listening.

“He tried to kill us!” One of them bellows. “I get trying to repay some kind of old debt or something. But you pulled him out, I’d say you’re even.”

“I get it, Sam,” Steve says, voice low and thick with emotion.

“Do you?” The person you assume is Sam growls out.

“Yes. But I can’t just… He wouldn’t leave me behind, he’d never-”

“Steve…”

“I just need to know. I need to know if he…”

“The odds aren’t looking good man,” Sam sighs out. “You really think that’s gonna hold him when he comes to?”

When he comes to… Those words light a fire in your veins, chasing away the bone-crushing exhaustion from a moment before.

He is here. He’s right here. You almost rush down to him but sense wins—he was there, unconscious. Sure, you may be able to fight these two off but you couldn’t get you both to safety if he was dead weight. Plus… when he woke would he be himself…

You hear shuffling from the room. Panicked, you push yourself up a bit higher, using the old pipe as support, and guide yourself to a far corner, toes resting on the pipe, body curled against the rafters. And so you wait.

Sam and Steve make rounds of the building a few times, never thinking to look up just like you suspected. As you wait you see two different versions of Steve Rogers.

When Sam is around he’s solid, seemingly unshaken by what’s happened. Donning the mask of a leader without thought. The moment Sam goes into the other room though… the mask is gone. Steve looks smaller somehow, shoulders slumped, pace less measured. His fingers run through his hair over and over in a nervous tick. Just like Bucky, you think with a smile.

It feels like an age before Sam calls to Steve sending your heart into your throat. Steve sprints into the room, following Sam.

Silently you return to your place above the door. A small pained noise hits your ears causing your heart to seize. Bucky… Patience, you coach yourself to keep from doing something stupid.

“Steve,” he says in a huff.

“Which Bucky am I talkin’ to?” Steve’s voice is cold, the mask back on. There’s a pause and you don’t dare breathe.

“Your mom’s name was Sarah…” Your body tenses. “You used to wear newspapers in your shoes,” Bucky says, a soft laugh coloring his tone.

Tears sting your eyes and you feel yourself breath just a little easier. It’s him. He’s alive and in control and… he is yours. Steve may want answers, may even be willing to help, but you don’t know them and don’t trust them. You’re going to get the two of you out of here no matter what it takes.

Dropping down you fling Sam across the room, with a blast of power that surprises even you, before they even realize you’re there.

Steve, caught off guard rushes you—he doesn’t get far. You grab his ankles and with a flick of your wrist, you send him to the ground, his own momentum working against him. Sam was up again but you pin him easily enough as you slam a wall of force down on Steve to keep him down.

“Y/N!” Bucky gasps as you hurry to his side.

You can’t speak, scared that you’ll lose focus, already feeling the tingle of pain in your skull from using so much power. His arm is caught in a vice of some sort. Groaning you use your hands to pry it open just enough for him to get loose. Steve slips your hold and lunges but you manage to push him back.

“What the fuck is this?!” Rage rumbles in Sam’s words.

“Bucky?” Steve looks at Bucky behind you, eyes begging for answers.

“It’s ok,” Bucky says, voice steady behind you. His arms wrap around you, pulling your back tight against his chest. “It’s ok,” he says again, breath hot on your ear. “Let them go, Y/N.”

“No,” your voice steadier than you anticipated. “We need to go, we have to-”

“It’s ok, doll,” he coos, like you were waking from a bad dream. Steve’s eyes are on Bucky still, some silent communion taking place because Steve nods before Bucky says, “We can trust them, it’s ok.”

But it wasn’t. Nothing was ok… Pain cracks through your skull, your power recoiling as it thunders back, and you shudder. His grip loosens and the other two men don’t move as you turn in his arms.

“Bucky,” your voice cracks.

“It’s ok,” he repeats, his kind eyes studying your face, “I’ve got y-” Gentle metal fingers trace the bruise forming on your cheek and wander down to your throat. “Who…” Realization dawns with horror on his face as he pushes you away stumbling back.

“It wasn’t you,” your voice soft. It feels like the oxygen in the room has been replaced with tension. You place a hand on his arm and he pulls away, it hurts worse than any bruise.

“Wasn’t…” he shakes his head, tremors tearing him as he collapses onto the floor, back to the vice that held him a moment before. He turns desperate eyes to Steve, “What did I do?”

Steve looks at your own desperate expression, begging him to be kind. “Enough,” he says. Bucky��s eyes squeeze shut, his head hitting the metal behind him with a painful thud. You fall to his side, taking his face in your hands, trying to force him to look at you.

“You didn’t-”

“I knew this would happen,” it’s barely a whisper, his eyes refusing to meet yours. “It’s all still there, everything Hydra put in my head.”

“And you’re still there too. You. Bucky Barnes,” your voice is strong now, needing him to hear you. “You stopped yourself from killing people, from killing me. You fought-”

“I hurt you,” his eyes finally met yours, the pain there threatening to swallow you both.

“I’ve hurt you, remember?” Your hand rests on his abdomen where purple bruises once bloomed darkly after you lost control during a flashback.

“This disfunction is touching but who the hell are you?”

“Sam,” Steve says, warning in his tone. You glare at Sam over your shoulder before Bucky coaxes you to sit between his legs, clearly wanting you both to remain as non-threatening as possible.

“What?” He gestures at you and Bucky. “It’s a fair question considering both of them have thrown my ass across a room today.”

“He has a point,” Steve looks to Bucky.

You sigh, “Y/N. My name is, Y/N.” Silence hangs for a moment.

“Like Cher? Just the one name?” Sam crosses his arms and cocks a brow at you.

“Yeah,” you smirk up at him. “Just like, Cher.”

Bucky’s arms tighten around you, his focus on Steve, “She’s my girl.” You see Steve’s face soften.

“So the assassin has a girlfriend and I can’t even get a date?” Sam rolls his eyes shaking his head.

“Have you considered, or rather reconsidered, your winning personality?” You snipe back, watching Sam fight a smile.

“Are you both done?” Steve looks between you and Sam.

“For now,” Sam sighs, sitting on the floor as well, his back to the wall.

Steve runs a hand through his hair, “What did that guy want with you Buck? The doctor.”

“I… I don’t know.” A tremor runs through his body behind you and you give his forearm a comforting squeeze.

“I need you to try and remember. He attacked some of the most powerful people in the world for the opportunity to get 10 minutes alone with you. We need to know why.”

“He said he didn’t know,” you bristle.

Steve doesn’t acknowledge you, “Bucky…”

“He… He wanted to know about… Si-Siberia.” Bucky’s voice is strained, as though reaching for this information is painful. “Where I was kept…” You shift in his hold so your back is pressed against his inner thigh to be able to see his face.

“Why?” Your brows knit. Of all the things-

“Because… I’m not the only Winter Soldier,” he says, eyes glued to the middle distance, unable to meet anyone’s gaze.

Your body goes stiff, blood cold, as he lays out the story. Flashes fill your mind when he speaks on the serum they pumped into the agents—blue and burning and… running through your own veins. Without thinking your fingers wander to the track marks on your arms, tracing them over and over again while Bucky describes what these other soldiers are capable of.

Sam and Steve huddle together talking. Bucky’s warm fingers catch your hand, “It’s because of me. Like I said. They were able to do this to you because of me…”

“You were Hydra,” Steve turns on you both, voice dripping with venom.

“No,” Bucky says.

“You said those people were Hydra-” Sam starts.

“I’m not fucking Hydra,” your voice shakes. “I wasn’t one of them. They… they took me.”

“Why?” Steve’s expression is cold, distrusting.

Your jaw clenches as you send Steve stumbling back several paces. “That’s why,” you growl.

“You trust her?” Steve asks Bucky.

“With my life,” Bucky says. The certainty in his voice makes your heart sing.

“I think the question here is do you trust him?” Sam asks Steve, voice laced with disbelief.

“I do.”

“So some heartfelt sharing and just like that we’re supposed to be cool? That makes sense.”

Sighing heavily you run your hand over your face, feeling the weight of exhaustion beginning to press in once more. “I think a fucking Hydra death squad being let lose is a more pressing matter than who trusts who don’t you?”

“She’s right,” Steve says. He walks over to Sam, taking a seat beside him. “We need a plan.”

“You plan things now?” Bucky asks, a note of humor coloring his words. Sam issues a knowing scoff causing Steve to glare at them both.

“Whatever the plan we should sort it out in a better place than this.” You say, looking around the space. “Like maybe a place with a door that locks?”

“Open to suggestions,” Steve says.

“I think I noticed some shitty hotels not too far away.” You try to think of the buildings you passed on your way here.

“In case it slipped your notice we’re kind of being hunted,” Sam says.

You grin, “You guys are being hunted. I’m not.” Steve’s smile mirrors your own.

“Absolutely not,” Bucky’s tone is no-nonsense.

You spin on him, “Do you have a better idea?” His jaw flexes as you stare at him. “Didn’t think so. We need to get out of here to someplace where we can sort this shit out and I’m the only one here who’s face hasn’t been plastered across news channels around the whole damn world.”

His eyes narrow, “What exactly do you think we’re gonna sort out? You’re going to get the hell out of here and we-” he gestures to the other men-“will find a way to-”

“The hell you will!” You shoot to your feet, staring down at him in shock. “You just said some psycho is planning to unleash a bevy of Hydra fuckery onto the world and you actually think I’m going to run off like some damsel?!”

“Y/N-”

“Don’t. There isn’t anything to discuss. I’m in this. We are in this.”

“Oh I like her,” Sam says with a smile. Bucky gives him a murderous look but doesn’t argue further.

Despite Bucky’s protest you’re soon ditching the top of your stolen tactical gear in favor of Sam’s leather jacket and sneaking off into the growing afternoon shadows.

First thing you need is cash.

It feels like old times as you slide into a dim pub, already filling with patrons fresh off from work, and effortlessly slide a few wallets and money clips out and away from their owners. You ditch the wallets, cards, and IDs in the bathroom trash and move to head out before your reflection catches your attention in the mirror.

The circles under your eyes are practically purple in the light, your hair a tousled mess. You sigh heavily, resting your hands on the sink as your stomach roars. No time for that now. Instead, you drink from the faucet long and deep, splash some water on your face, and get back to the tasks at hand.

It’s full dark by the time you pull up to the warehouse.

When you see Bucky he looks like he’s about two minutes from razing Berlin to find you.

“What took so long?” He grumbles once you’re inside.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Could you steal cash, a car, get food, and find the most questionable hotel in Berlin faster? I’ll be sure to let you do it next time.” Behind you Sam snickers.

Bucky pulls you into his arms. “I’m just happy you’re ok.” You look up, giving him a weak smile before resting your head on his chest, your eyes begging to close.

“Are we clear?” Steve asks.

“Yeah.” You nod toward the exit and they follow, Bucky taking your hand in his.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sam says, gawking at the beat-up Beetle waiting for you all.

“It’s a classic,” you say over your shoulder. “Plus, no one is gonna look for two super soldiers and a… Bird… Guy, in this.”

“It’s Falcon,” Sam throws at you as he rounds the car to pry open the rusty passenger door. “Bird Guy,” he mutters under his breath, folding himself into the back seat. Steve chuckles a little as he somehow shoves himself in beside Sam.

Before Bucky releases your hand you sway a bit.

“Baby doll?” He steadies you, hands on your shoulders.

“Just tired,” you say, doing your best to sound nonchalant. His eyes brim with concern. “Seriously. I’m ok. I’ve got you.” You place your hand over the steady thrum of his heart.

He shakes his head, the corner of his mouth rising a bit, and lowers his lips to your forehead. A knocking on the small back window of the car hits your ears.

“Not to ruin the moment but…” Sam says. You both laugh a little before climbing into the car.

“You boys comfy back there?” You ask, looking back at them through the rearview mirror.

“Yeah-” Steve’s knees jam into the back of Bucky’s seat- “plenty of room to spread out.”

“Still a punk,” Bucky huffs pushing his seat back a little farther.

The three of you stand in the doorway to the hotel room, giving yourselves a moment to acclimate to the stale smell.

“Getting scabies is the perfect way to top off this shitty day,” Sam sighs out.

“It’s been more than a day,” Steve says dryly.

“Rogers. Shut up.” Sam shoulders past you all. “I’m taking a shower.” He’s in the bathroom for about thirty seconds before he exits.

“On second thought, dealing with my stink is the least you all owe me.” He immediately face plants on the nearest bed, the cry of old springs filling the room.

“Maybe the other bathroom is better,” you say opening the door to the adjoining room, Bucky silently trailing behind you. It’s equally musty but the bathroom doesn’t look like someone died in it recently. You’d certainly showered in worse.

“This one isn’t so bad, Sam,” you call out to him.

“Nope,” he says, voice muffled. “Too late.”

Steve shakes his head at Sam’s prone form as he sits on the edge of the other bed. Relief floods his features as he lifts the receiver on the old phone, it must actually work. His eyes run over you and Bucky, hovering by the door to the other room, then back to Sam.

“I’m gonna make some calls. You guys get some rest and I’ll get you when we’ve got enough intel to start putting together a plan.”

“You sure?” Bucky asks, wrapping an arm around your waist.

“Yeah,” Steve smiles. The two of you turn to leave. “And, Y/N…” You turn back to Steve. “Thank you.” His words are filled with sincerity and hold so much more than their simplicity would suggest.

“I think I owe you at least a few.” You glance up at Bucky. Steve pulled him from the river and likely did more that you didn’t know. Something tells you that you’d have lost Bucky today was it not for him.

“I’d say we’re even.” He sighs, “Rest up. We’re gonna need it.”

Bucky closes the door behind him and your legs finally give out as you collapse on the edge of the bed, your head held in your hands. Suddenly your breath is ragged, body trembling, you don’t have an ounce of will left in you to control either.

The sound of angry springs tells you he’s perched on the opposite bed.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says, his voice rough. You look up at him, his expression is bereft. “You don’t have to do any of this, Y/N. You don’t. This doesn’t have to be your fight.”

You’re too tired to be mad at him but you bristle all the same. “It is my fight.” His brows knit and you press on. “He came for you. That makes this my fight, even without Hydra being involved.” Venom drips from your next words, “And if I get my hands on him first. I swear I’ll break him in every way I know how.”

Bucky rises, kneeling on the ground in front of you, gathering your hands in his. It reminds you of when you first met, how he’d kept you from being crushed under the weight of your grief, even after you’d attacked him and tied him to a wall. Your eyes sting with tears and you try to swallow the lump in your throat.

“Y/N…” His thumbs run over the ridges of your knuckles before he lifts your hands to press a kiss on the back of each. “You’re my whole heart. The one good thing that’s come from the nightmare that the last 70 years has been… And I need you to promise me something.”

All you can do is nod, unwilling to say anything too committal.

“Promise me that if…” He swallows hard looking away for a moment before turning his focus back to you. “That no matter what happens to me… Promise you won’t give up.”

No matter what happens… The implications make your chest seize. You look away, trying to pull from his grip but he holds you tight.

“Y/N,” his voice is calm and steady, “look at me.” Begrudgingly you do. “We don’t know what may happen, we never did. But now…” Now the threat was more tangible. You close your eyes, trying to fight back the tears.

“I just need to know that you’ll keep going,” his voice cracks on the last word. You open your eyes—tears, breaching their banks, flow silently down your cheeks—and study the face of the man you love.

He was so beautiful. Those eyes that told his story often better than his perfect mouth ever could. The lips you loved to feel on your skin, hiding a smile that you knew could shame the sun. You pull your hand free from his and trace his strong brows, the crease between them that formed when he was worried or thinking too much. Your thumb dashes away a lone tear that sneaks out of the corner of his eye and take a deep, shaky, breath.

A part of you wants to give him what he wants—promise him that you’ll be fine, thrive even, no matter what. A part wishes you were that unbreakable… but you’re not. A world without him… It wasn’t unimaginable, you’d lost too many people to be that naive, but it was a nightmare to consider. You can’t promise him much but you can give him something.

“I promise I’ll try…”

His smile is soft, a little sad, as he pulls your hand from his face to press a kiss to your palm. “That’s enough.”

“You have to do the same though.” His eyes narrow, body tensing a bit. You knew he’d only seen one side of this, the one where he’s taken in or down—but he wasn’t the only one heading into this situation, there was enough risk to go around.

His jaw flexes and you think he’s going to protest but instead, he says, “I promise, Y/N.” You give a small nod, face contorting as you press down a sob, too scared to fall apart now.

Bucky takes your face in his hands, pressing his lips to yours with an intensity that takes your breath away. Your chest fills as though you haven’t truly taken a breath since you’d last tasted him. His fingers tangle in your hair, his tongue sliding between your teeth. A small sob finally breaks free from you, but he catches it and the pain it carries with his kiss.

A hurricane of love, fear, relief, and exhaustion rages through you. Rather than fight it, you let it come, let the tears flow, let him gather you in his arms and carry you into the tiny bathroom, setting you on the sink.

Your kisses taste like the sea as your hands clumsily tear at each other’s filthy clothes until they reach purchase on the flesh they crave. Everything slows then. Each touch becoming less desperate and more reverential, memorizing the dips and curves of each other because… Because maybe this is the last time.

You won’t give that thought any space to take root.

Bucky turns the water in the shower on, steaming hot before lifting you in his arms again. You wrap your legs around his waist feeling the length of him brush against you. Once in the enveloping warmth of the shower he slowly slides inside you.

For a few minutes, you remain connected like this, staring into each other’s eyes. You want to remember this, remember how he feels, how his eyes are always so blue when they’re wide with wanting.

Under the heat of the water the two of you make love as though there isn’t disaster dangling just beyond your line of sight—unhurried, sighing love between kisses, whispering it into ears, saying it with your bodies as you both come together, quietly.

You’d just slipped your teeshirt back on when a knock sounds quietly on the other side of the door between the rooms. Bucky answers, still roughly toweling his hair in only his jeans.

“Hey, sorry,” Steve says somewhat awkwardly. “I got through to some folks faster than I thought I would.”

“That’s great,” Bucky says. You come up behind him, handing him his white undershirt, as you both head to the other room.

Sam smirks at the two of you, “How’s the shower?”

Bucky makes a small noise and you laugh, “Passable.”

“Good.” Sam looks to Steve, “Lay it out, Rogers.”

Steve leans by the window, arms crossed. “Sharon is going to meet us an 0700. Thankfully she’s not one to hold grudges.”

Bucky’s face drops, “Did I-”

“Pretty blonde?” You ask taking a shot in the dark and cutting him off from falling into that guilt trip.

“Yeah,” Steve nods.

“No worries there babe, that one’s on me.” You pat his shoulder and sit on the empty bed. Bucky raises a brow before joining you.

Steve shakes his head, “She’s got mine and Sam’s gear and agreed to grab a few things for the two of you as well.”

“That’s generous,” Bucky says with suspicion.

“It wasn’t hard to convince her after I explained what was going on.”

“And Clint?” Sam asks.

“Yup. He’s on board and is gonna reach out to Wanda and get your guy, Lang.”

“Wouldn’t call him my guy,” Sam says, groaning as he sits up. “But if he can get the drop on me I say he’s a good addition.”

Steve looks at you, “Assuming you’re in too?”

“Absolutely.” Bucky takes your hand in his, holding tight. Steve nods in approval.

Steve gives you an approving nod, “Then we rendezvous at the airport. Clint is covering transpo. From there we head to Siberia and hope we can stop him before he topples whatever empire he’s aiming for.”

“Alright.” Sam stands to stretch. “You two cool with switching rooms? I need to shower.”

“Fine with me,” you look at Bucky and he nods in approval.

Once the guys leave you lay on top of the dingy comforter. It takes all of one minute for you to fall into a deep sleep.

Bucky counts your breaths, hoping they will lull him to sleep. Instead, he finds himself studying your face, the little sounds you make, the way your lashes just barely graze your cheeks.

He almost lost this.

Like a memory from a nightmare he recalls his left hand tight on your throat, the look of terror and determination in your eyes, your hand reaching out, calling his name. He can still feel the shock through his skull as your name thundered into his consciousness then. You had been enough to pull him back, even if only for a moment.

Just before dawn he’s restless, body humming with anxiety and anticipation.

Delicately he extricates himself from the bed, hovering for a moment to make sure you’re not awake. He heads out into the hall, propping the door open with the latch to make sure he’ll hear any sign of you waking.

“Had a feeling I’d see you out here eventually,” Steve says from his spot on the floor just down the hall. “You never could sleep the night before a mission.”

“Neither could you.” Bucky slides down the wall across from Steve.

Steve’s gaze is focused on his palms, forearms resting on his knees. He doesn’t look up when he says, “How much… How much do you really remember?”

Bucky sighs, “I…” His mouth goes dry suddenly, unsure of how to quantify this. Then he remembers the stories he shared with you, a smile rising to his face.

“I remember that one time we got caught sneaking into the pictures and hid out in a dumpster.” Steve laughs a little but still doesn’t look up. “I remember DumDum always challenging you to a drinking contest knowing he’d lose every time. And…” Bucky swallows hard, smile falling, “I remembered… I remembered what I said when your Ma passed.” This causes Steve to look up, eyes big and glassy.

“The end of the line,” Bucky says, voice thick with emotion. Quickly he dashes away tears threatening to fall, not wanting Steve to ever see him break. “I’m so sorry, Steve. I tried-” He doesn’t finish, cut off by Steve’s bone-crushing embrace.

It takes him a minute to realize that Steve keeps repeating, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” like a chant under his breath.

“Pal-” Bucky pats his back firmly- “you’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

“I do,” Steve barely manages as he pulls back, Adam’s apple bobbing hard in his throat. “I couldn’t save you. All the times you backed me up, saving my ass, again and again, our whole lives and… when it mattered-”

Bucky shakes his head, “You’re impossible.” Steve leans against the wall next to him, wiping his nose on his arm. “Did you forget pulling me, hell the lot of us, out of that facility? Thought I was the one with memory problems, man.”

Steve throws him one of his signature sidelong looks. Bucky grins, knowing that means he’s getting through.

“Do you remember it?” Steve takes a shaky breath, “The train?”

“No.”

Steve sniffs hard, nodding and clearing his throat.

“Y/N, must be somethin’.” There’s nothing false in the smile he throws Bucky’s way. “Don’t think I ever saw you look at a gal like that.”

Bucky huffs a small laugh, casting a quick glance at the cracked door. “I don’t think I ever did.”

“You deserve that, Buck.”

“Not sure about that. But I want to…”

Steve claps a hand on his shoulder, “You do, brother. I promise.” Bucky manages a half-smile.

“Steve…” He rubs his hands together, unsure if he has any right to ask this, but knowing he has to. “If anything happens to me…”

“I’ll have her back.” Bucky looks at him, a little slack-jawed. “You’re my family, Bucky. That makes her family too.”

“Thank you, Steve.”

“Don’t mention it.” He shoves his shoulder into Bucky’s. “But, let’s both try to make it out of this one.”

“Deal.” Bucky sighs, leaning his head back against the wall.

“I lost her… Peggy,” Steve says after several minutes. Bucky had figured as much but his chest tightens all the same. “They buried her two days ago.”

“Oh, Stevie…” The old nickname slips out and he cringes a bit, remembering Steve hated it. He’d assumed Peggy, everyone, had been gone for some time by now.

“It’s ok.” A sad smile fills Steve’s face, tears threatening. “You did say that I’d regret waiting. You were right.” Bucky doesn’t know what to say, he just rests what he hopes is a comforting hand on Steve’s knee.

“Don’t waste any time you have together, Buck.” Steve stands suddenly, shaking off the sadness like it was nothing. Bucky knows its bullshit, just a front Steve Rogers was good at putting up. He holds a hand out and pulls Bucky up.

“Get your ass back in there. We’ve got almost two hours until we leave.”

Bucky smiles tightly and nods before heading into the room.

You’re still asleep when he closes the door quietly behind him. He slides up next to you, pulling you tight to his chest, pressing kisses to your brow.

“Bucky,” you say in a groggy voice.

“Mhm,” he hums.

“Is everything ok?”

“Yup. We have a little while before we roll out.”

You nod, “Good.”

“Kiss me,” he says low. That’s all he wants to do until you run out of time. Kiss you, hold you. Pry one more good moment from this mess of a situation.

Tag List

@bluegirlusa1 @l0kisbitch @tazzi-baby @disagreetoagree @woodyandbuzz20-01 @mooniightbucky @saundrasays @breezy1415 @alyssaj23 @mywinterwolf @wonderlandmind4 @fairislesheets @anamcg317 @buckaroo-barnes @jazztherebel @peachthatdrinkslemonade @regulusirius @auskitty @babyimp1967 @katecolleen @handplucked @stevehesaidabadlanguageword @darkdragonphoenix @issanitydead @thestorydetective @buckysstar @wintersoldierswhore @greyeyedsmile14 @watchoutforfrostbite @for-the-love-of-the-fandom @jewelofwinter @siriuslycloudy2 @hardygal69 @marvelousmeggi @jdoenson @gamorazenn @wildmoonflower @cutie1365 @demonlover87 @winterboobearsworld @this-kitten-is-smitten

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x enhanced!reader #civil war #CACW #bucky feels #enhanced!reader

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thewritewolf · 5 years ago

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Adrien AUG-Reste Day 27: Dadrien

Chat Noir has to take care of Ladybug when she gets hit by an akuma's attack. Also, there is a scene in here based on this comic, which was most of my inspiration for this story.

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@adrienaugust

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3

Another day, another akuma so out of control they are even defying Hawkmoth.

Maybe that explains why they completely lost interest in Chat Noir after he dived after Ladybug. He still had no idea what the akuma’s ability was, but his partner had definitely been hit. Instinct took over after that, but it was only once he landed that he realized that his partner was a lot lighter than she normally was.

When he finally stopped to look for any injuries, his jaw fell open when he realized he was carrying a little girl, no more than three or four years old. A four year old in magical kwami-granted armor, pigtails, and the biggest, bluest eyes he ever saw. His heart melted even as worry gnawed at his gut. There was no way they could continue to fight like this - and he definitely wasn’t about to drop her off somewhere by herself while this wore off.

He bit his lower lip, bouncing up and down in place while cradling her in his arms. It had to be temporary, right? And he had no idea where the akuma went anyway. Maybe if he just… kept an eye on her for a while, she’d go back to normal? The day was still young - although not quite as young as Ladybug was at the moment. What were they going to do until then?

“Pway with kitty!” She reached forward, pawing at his ears that stayed just outside her reach.

“Hey! Young m'lady you can't just go pulling on a distinguished cat's ears!"

Her only response was an entertained giggle as she stubbornly continued her quest.

“Okay, maybe we can burn off some of this energy first,” he mumbled mostly to himself as he tightened his grip on her and leapt up onto the roof tops. There was a park he vaguely remembered from his childhood, one that his mom would take him to.

With the threat of an akuma hanging over people’s heads, the park was unsurprisingly empty. A perfect place for his little lady to exhaust herself while he waited for her to return to normal. However long that took. But he was more than up to the challenge. He was Chat Noir, after all. How hard could watching a four year old be?

The moment Adrien planted himself on a bench, his eyes widened as he watched her running around the open space, narrowly avoiding colliding with various hard, metal playsets as she weaved between them. He immediately sprung to his feet.

“Okay, technically, m’lady you are still in a super suit, but you still need to watch where you’re going!” He yelled after her, but she just laughed and kept doing what she was doing. Their time at the park only got more stressful from there.

He let out a very manly screech. "Young M'lady you get AWAY from the fountain!"

Without having anything to dry her with, both her and her kwami could get sick. Thankfully, she changed her course...

“No! You CANNOT play with the pigeons! They might carry you away!"

...right towards a flock of birds.

It went on like that for nearly an hour and by the end of it, Adrien was feeling more exhausted than little bug was looking. He already felt frazzled and she was still pulling him along by the hand, clearly trying to get… wherever she wanted to go to in a hurry. Which made it all the more jarring when she suddenly changed course to stop and look up at him.

"Kitty? Tummy's growly."

All his previous annoyance with her melted right along with his heart in the face of her pleading expression. It took him a minute to process what she was saying.

"Tummy's... oh! Right. Children need food. And the akuma battle was this morning so you probably didn't get a balanced breakfast."

"Fwench fwies!"

"Now,” he began as he put on his best Stern Parent impersonation, “I don't know who your parents are, but I don't think they'd appreciate- Don't look at me like that, LB. I…” He sighed in defeat. “Fine..."

“Yay!” She started skipping as they walked.

Was this how she was back then? Carefree and adorable? Or was that just part of the akuma magic? Not for the first time, his heart ached with how little he knew the love of his life. Maybe one day they could share their identities and he could find out all there was to know about her. He had to believe that.

Like the park, the fast food joint was mostly abandoned and the cashier was looking at her phone when Adrien walked in. She glanced up at him, only to do a triple take - once to realize a customer had just arrived and another when it hit her that it was Chat Noir. And baby bug.

Mustering as much charm as he could, he smiled warmly at the bewildered staff. “Hello! Can I get two fries and two drinks?”

“Um… yeah.” The cashier - Katia, if her nametag was accurate - said slowly. “That’ll be five euros.”

He reached in his pocket and thanked Plagg for magic as five euros from his normal wallet manifested in his hands. He was just about to hand them over when Ladybug pulled on his free arm.

“I wanna buy it!” She frowned in thought and whispered to him. “Pst! Can I pwease borrow some money?”

He shrugged apologetically to Katia and took back his five euros, handing them to Ladybug, who could only barely see over the counter. She clutched them in her tiny fist for a moment before nudging his elbow and holding the euros up to him. Fighting a smile, he took the euros and handed them to Katia, who was thoroughly bemused at this point.

“We’ll, uh, have them out to you two in… just a minute.” She disappeared behind the counter and Adrien took little bug over to one of the booths. He had her sit on the inside to keep her from getting into mischief.

Thankfully, it proved unnecessary since there was some paper and crayons at the table. She hummed to herself while doodling and he took the opportunity to browse the Ladyblog. Maybe Alya had spotted the akuma while he’d been busy taking care of Ladybug.

He hadn’t found anything by the time their food arrived. From the way her eyes lit up when her fries were put in front of her, it was just as much a treat for her as it was for him. Father would never approve of him having fast food, after all.

“Kitty, here! This for you!”

His attention floated back to her and his heart melted when he saw the crude crayon drawing of a him and a mini Ladybug at the park. They seemed to be having a lot of fun.

“Aww, thank you, little bug. I’ll love it forever!” He took one last tender look at it before carefully folding it up and staching it in his pocket.

They finished their meal and Adrien hoisted her up onto his shoulders once they were out of the restaurant. He wandered back through the park and could feel Ladybug getting antsy above him. That didn’t bother him too much until he heard her start to sniffle.

“Hey,” he said in as soothing a voice as he could, “what’s the hubbub about, bug? Aren’t you having fun?”

“I wanna go home!” She sniffled. “Wanna see papa a-and momma!”

He held her close, heart breaking. It was easy for him to forget that she had a family to go back to.

“I know, little lady, I know. But you have to be Ladybug until we can get you back to normal, okay?”

"Don't wanna be Wadybug anymore! I'm Mawinette!"

The world froze in time for one brief moment. There was a feeling of something shattering. Later, Adrien would assume that was him breaking through the enchantment on the miraculous. For now, he was too stunned to form a reply. Instead, he just held her close while she cried. Her tears pulled him out of his stupor before long and he tightened her hold on him.

“I’m sorry, Marinette…” He gave her a kiss on the top of her head.

He was startled again when she became enveloped in a flash of light. When he was done blinking the spots out of his eyes, he noticed that there were still a lot of spots in front of him - except these were the much more familiar black-on-red spots he was used to. The unexpected weight toppled him over and both him and a restored Ladybug tumbled to the ground.

“Geez, kitty, and I thought I was the clumsy one.” She disentangled herself from him and stood tall. Well, as tall as she usually stood. “What happened? Where did the akuma go?”

“You… don’t remember?” It was a struggle to get any words out, but he was doing his best.

“Well, I got hit by the akuma, you caught me, and you just fell…” She looked around and her brow furrowed. “Does the akuma have teleportation powers? Weird.” She waved him on. “Let’s go find them before they can cause any more harm, Chat Noir!”

She swung off, leaving Adrien to stare blankly after her.

How was he going to break the news to her?

#Miraculous Ladybug #AdrienAugust #AdrienAugreste #Chat Noir #Ladybug #ml fanfiction #my writing

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khiphop-stories · 6 years ago

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Jay Park - 25 Days of Christmas Part 2

December 4

“What are you doing?“ It was a question you already knew the answer to. Scanning the room with your eyes, the answer was more than obvious. His suitcase was lying on the floor, wide open, as Jay was throwing a couple of his clothes into it. You didn’t want to make him feel bad, but the disappointment was evident in your voice. You couldn’t even hide it.

Upon hearing your voice, he slowly turned around. His eyes trailed down onto his shoes ruefully. “I’m sorry, Babe. Roc Nation wants me at the headquarters to go over the details of my next album.“

“You just landed two days ago!“ It wasn’t your intention, but one couldn’t help but hear the silent reproach in your sentence and tone.

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just gonna be a couple of days. I’ll be back at the end of the week,“ he gave you a warm smile filled with tenderness in attempt to appease you.

“Whatever,“ you shrugged your shoulders and swirled around, about to leave the room. Jay quickly stepped next to you, gently holding you by your waist.

“I promise, I’ll make it up to you. When I’m back, I’m going to take you to your favorite restaurant,“ he whispered into your ear, earring a light chuckle from you. He knew exactly what to say in every situation. The way to your heart was through your stomach, you had always been weak for food, especially food from your favourite place.

With a brief sigh, you turned around to face him. The apologetic expression on his face, made you feel bad for making him feel bad. You weren’t even angry with him. You knew he didn’t have a choice and you knew what you had gotten yourself into, when you started dating him. His passion about music, his drive to work hard, and his devotion to the people around him was what you found so attractive about him in the first place. However, it would have been a lie to say that sometimes you didn’t wish he wasn’t celebrity. It would have been a lot easier if he was just a regular person with a regular line of work. You could have spent time with him like a normal couple. You could have had dinner with him every evening, go to bed with him every night, and wake up in his arms every morning.

“It’s not your fault. I’m not mad at you,“ you assured him with a gentle smile.

“Thank you for understanding.“ His eyes softened as he met your gaze. His head was angled slightly to the side and he moved in closer, slowly, before capturing your lips into a sweet kiss. He pulled away a few moments after, leaving you unable to open your eyes, craving for more. You glimpsed at him, taking a shaky, shallow breath. He saw the heat in your eyes. The moment your hand touched his neck, he felt a rush of emotions. That’s when he had lost it. He clutched your hips tighter, before pressing another kiss on your lips, devouring you.This kiss was hot and fiery. Your arms reached up and tangled around his neck. You made him walk backwards, until his legs came touched the side of the bed. Then you pushed him onto the bed, climbing on top of him. Your hands grabbed his belt, unbuckling them impatiently.

“Somebody’s horny today,“ he chuckled at you teasingly. Though it would have been a lie to say, he didn’t enjoy the scene playing right in front of his eyes.

“Oh shut up, Jay!“

~*~

“Your forgot that bag!“ You pointed to the brown paper bag that was casually sitting on the floor. It wasn’t yours and it wasn’t there this morning, so you figured it must have been something he needed on his travel.

“Oh, that’s not mine,“ he shook his head while the corner of his lips rose to a grin.

“It’s not? It’s not mine either,“ your furrowed your brows at him confused as you walked over to the bag. You picked it up from the floor and peeped inside the bag. There was a small box, about the size of a fist. It was wrapped in red paper and this time the number ‘4’ was written on top of it. Your head shot into his direction, giving him a questioning look. Was it what you thought it was?

Jay didn’t say anything, instead his smirk grew wider which gave it away anyway.

“Thank you,“ you mouthed with a huge grin on your face. You took the box into your possession, staring at it. The number 4 on it wasn’t a coincidence, was it? Over the last four days you had received little gifts from him, starting with the number ‘1’. As you were trying to make sense of it, it finally hit you. It all started on December 1 and today was the December 4. It all made sense. It was a self-made advent calendar.

You turned your eyes to him again, shaking your head at him in amazed. “You’re not gonna keep this up until Christmas, are you?“

“We’ll see.“

~*~

December 5

As Christmas holidays were nearing, things got even busier at the office. You had to work over time almost every day and the load of work just didn’t seem to get any less. There was too much to do before the year ended.

Today, as well, you had skipped your lunch break. You were in the middle of a telephone conversation with one of your clients, when your secretary walked into your office. She had a few files in her hands. You looked up at her questioningly and she told you those were new project proposals. You motioned her to leave it on your desk, on top of all the other documents that you had to review.

~*~

As you finished the conversation, you turned your attention to the new pile of files. You decided to go over it quickly before heading home. There was a sticky note on one of the folders, which said ‘Urgent!!!’

You took the folder in your hands and opened it. The first page was a blank white sheet of paper with only the number ‘5′ written in a black font. You had a premonition what this proposal might be about, but you weren’t certain, until you had read the next page.

”Proposal for Productivity Improvement

Situation: It has been scientifically proven that chronic stress can cause a variety of symptoms and affect one’s overall well-being. Constantly being subjected to stress and stress factors can dampen one’s productivity and creativity which can also negatively affect work ethics and motivation and as a result affect the company’s revenue.

Proposed Solutions: Reducing stress levels can protect your health long-term. One way to achieve that is to release stress and rest the mind. Therefore, Ms. _________ should treat herself to a day at the spa.

Steps Involved: 1. Take a day off. 2. Grab a taxi and go to the following address. 3. Redeem the voucher.

Benefits:

Stress Relief

Refreshed Mind

Improved Productivity“

As you read Jay’s proposal, a smile appeared on your lips. You turned the page and found a voucher to your favorite spa in Seoul.

Shaking your head at him in awe, you let out a brief chuckle. Just how did he do it? How could he melt your heart, even from miles away. How could he know exactly what you needed, before you yourself knew it?

Hey guys, I have a bad new and good news. Bad news: I won’t be able to finish this mini series before Christmas, but good news: there will be more than 4 parts haha. I hope you enjoyed this! Let me know what you think! :) Btw I didn’t forget December 3, it was mentioned briefly in the first part. She also received a gift on December 3 haha.

#jay park #jay park scenarios #aomg scenarios #khh scenarios #jay park scenario #jay park imagines #khh imagines #aomg imagines #khiphop scenarios #25 days of christmas

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searchingwardrobes · 6 years ago

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Christmas in Storybrooke: 8/11

Dang, did this story get way more angsty than I had anticipated! This is a rough chapter, I'll be honest, but at least it's short. This chapter also may have a lot of people pissed at me. Listen - this is a story about Henry, from Henry's point of view. Just think for a second all the crap he went through as a kid. Think about how he was treated at times. There's plenty of angry feelings to go around, and Henry unloads on almost every member of his family here (not to their faces mostly, but still). So if you're one of those people who sees your one beloved character through rose colored glasses, well, be prepared to be mad at me. Evil Regals, Ugly Ducklings, Hookers, and Dearies, you may all have reason to be upset after this one. Having said that, I'm hardest on Rumple, so Dearies may want to skip this. I’ve already been dumped on by a hard core Dearie, and I really don’t want to deal with that again, so don't say I didn't warn you.

Summary: My Hallmark Christmas movie fic in which flights get cancelled and Henry’s “best friend’ gets snowed in with him in his quirky hometown for Christmas. Only with magic and fairy tale characters.

Rating: M for suggestive scenes and adult situations, not smut

Trigger warnings: Henry is an adult. Read that again: Henry is an adult. Look at the picset: that’s Andrew J. West. If Henry actually behaving like an adult makes you feel icky, the don’t read this.

Can also be read on Ao3

Tagging @snowbellewells @kmomof4 @kday426 @bethacaciakay @snidgetsafan @teamhook @whimsicallyenchantedrose @delirious-latenight-laughs @winterbaby89 @jennjenn615 @yohoyohoafandomlifeforme @distant-rose @let-it-raines

Chapter Eight: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Henry could have easily caught up with Evie long before she got back to his parent’s house, but he first stood there in Granny’s patio like an idiot. Then he went back into the party, unsure what more he could say, what more he could do, if she was so set on leaving. But the more he tried to make small talk with half the town, the more irritation and anger rose up in him. He’d always been the town’s sweet, innocent, Henry. The wide-eyed boy who saw the best in everyone and had the heart of a true believer. In some ways, in their eyes, he would never grow up.

When one of the princesses – Aurora maybe? - clucked her tongue at him drinking a beer, wondering where the time went, he almost lost it completely. What did these people know about the passage of time? He was probably rude, slamming his beer down and mumbling about needing air, and he was pretty sure his Grandma admonished him on his way out the door, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about the cold or the snow or the slippery sidewalks. His mind was on one thing and one thing alone.

Evie startled when he burst into his attic bedroom, dropping a shirt she’d been folding into her open suitcase. She was still in her Christmas dress, though her ballet flats had been kicked off beside the bed. He strode across the room until he was invading her personal space to such a degree she turned and backed herself into the edge of the bed. He encroached further, and she plopped down on the mattress with a yelp. Her eyes were wide as she gazed up at him.

“You wanna know about being a normal kid in this messed up town? Do you? Do you have any idea what it’s like to be the only one who ages? The only kid who moves up a grade each year, and nobody but you seems to notice? I watched everyone in this damn town do the same damn thing day after day after day, and do you know what my mom said when I brought it up? She told me I was crazy. She put me in therapy. Therapy Evie.”

Evie’s lips trembled, but he didn’t stop.

“My mom used magic on me, sometimes against my will. You can’t comprehend how that can mess you up. She and Rumple almost killed my family numerous times. I would look into Rumple’s eyes, my own grandfather, and see rage and fear there. I wondered if he wanted me dead.”

“Henry,” Evie whispered, “I’m sorry, I -”

“I’m not finished. I was put under a sleeping curse that I’m still not completely over. Some nights I wake up in a burning room, and it’s not in my head. I’ve yanked out my own heart, been shut up in Pandora’s box, been chased by flying monkeys, been marked for the Underworld by the man I loved as a father. Then I watched my mom drive a sword through that same man’s heart.” He pointed at his forehead and tapped. “I’ve got a whole other life in here that feels real even though I know it isn’t where my birth mom raised me. Which always made me wonder, did she really give me up so I could have a better life? Or was it because she was afraid to keep me?”

Henry pressed his eyes together as tears gathered. He reached out and grasped Evie’s face and pressed his forehead to hers. “There’s so much,” he whispered brokenly, “that I don’t say because I don’t want to hurt my family. So much anger, if I’m honest.” He opened his eyes and saw her through a watery haze. “You think I need someone from the fairy tale world, but you’re wrong. I need someone who sees me as just Henry. Not as anyone’s son or grandson. Not as the author or the truest believer. I need you Evie.”

The words were barely out of his mouth when Evie captured his mouth in a desperate, hungry kiss. Henry responded in kind, hoisting her farther up onto the bed and sending her suitcase clattering to the floor. Where the night before had been slow and tender, this was frenzied and rough. Evie made love to him aggressively, as if she could force away all of his pain. And when it was over, and he struggled to catch his breath, he believed with all of his heart that she could do just that. So many nightmares plagued his dreams, but if he could just share the burden with the woman in his arms, he just might survive.

The next morning it was cold sheets and empty arms that awakened him instead of Evie’s movements. His eyes scanned the room as he whispered her name, but the bathroom door stood open and dark. Evie’s suitcase no longer lay upside down on the floor, its contents scattered. Her dress no longer dangled from the edge of the chair in the corner where she had tossed it the night before.

She was gone.

A note on his nightstand bore his name. He rubbed his eyes and read it:

Dear Henry,

I’m sorry. I know I’m being a coward, but I couldn’t bear to tell you goodbye. I watch you sleep as I write this, and you look so content. All the things you told me last night broke my heart. Sleeping with you again was probably a mistake, but I was weak. I’m sorry for hurting you, but out there somewhere is your true love. How can I keep you from that? Please have a Merry Christmas. For me.

-Evie

PS please give the other note to your parents.

Henry squeezed his eyes shut as the notes fell from his hand. Last night, he had felt so sure that Evie knew they belonged together, had thought the way she made love to him was her way of telling him she would be by his side. When all along she had only been telling him goodbye.

He turned his head to look at his cell phone lying on the nightstand. It was a quarter to six in the morning, and it was a two-hour drive to Portland from Storybrooke. There were no buses, taxis, or ubers in Storybrooke, so how did Evie get a ride to the airport? Henry grabbed his phone, anger pressing on his chest as he selected the contact he needed. As it rang, he struggled into his boxers, then paced the room agitatedly.

“Henry, my boy,” Rumple’s voice came over the line, “why the early call?”

“Cut the crap, Grandpa, I know she’s with you.”

“Who?”

Henry massaged his temple, the hand clenching the phone shaking with anger. “You know exactly who I’m talking about. Evie told me that you lectured her at the party with a bunch of crap about my destiny -”

“Crap you say? Funny, last time I checked, I’m able to see the future.”

Henry snorted. “Funny that your supposed gift has never helped any of us. At. All. So excuse me if I’m skeptical that you have any insight on my love life. Now put Evie on the damn phone.”

“Unfortunately, your Southern belle is already heading to her flight. I dropped her off at the curb fifteen minutes ago and am already heading back to Storybrooke.”

“Why the hell did you do that?”

“She wanted to be with her family for Christmas.”

Realization dawned. “It was you who told her about the flight.”

“Henry, I’m only trying to protect you and the rest of our family. The Land Without Magic has never brought anything but trouble. You living in New York is already distracting you from your destiny as the author, so I was eliminating another distraction. Be thankful I didn’t do so with my darker impulses.”

Henry pressed a trembling hand to his face as tears slipped down his cheeks. “I hate you,” was all he managed to get out before tossing his phone onto the mattress. “Merry Christmas,” he grumbled to the empty room.

#ouat fic #henry mills #henry-centric fic #with some cs #christmas fic #christmas in storybrooke #family angst

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chestnutbrumby · 7 years ago

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Okay you guys. This is, as best I recall it, a breakdown and some speculating and yes there's some ranting about the Scarlet Vision interactions during Infinity War.

I'm not claiming to have the world's best memory for this. I certainly didn't take any recordings or anything, this is all from my head which is probably why it's missing some details. Anyone feel free to jump in with additions, I'm cool with it as long as you're less of a dick than Tony would be about it.

There are spoilers.

SPOILERS.

FOR INFINITY WAR.

MAJOR ONES. ESSENTIALLY THE ENTIRE PLOT OF THE MOVIE gets mentioned here.

SPOILERS. SPOILERS. SPOILERS. SPOILERS.

Got it? Okay. Read on with forewarning.

We're in Edinborough, near the beginning of the movie. Vision opens the curtains of a hotel window and winces, touching his forehead and instantly catching Wanda's attention. From the bed, she looks up and calls him by his nickname Vis, already concerned. It's clear this isn't the first such episode.

Vision tells her the stone is trying to tell him something but he doesn't know what. She comes to him and places her hands on his face, and he turns his head and kisses her palm with every single bit of tenderness in the entire dimension. He asks her what she feels, and she summons a little hex as the mind stone glows beyond his human disguise.

"All I feel is you." They kiss, noting here since I've been asked this more than once that yes, Vision is in human form.

Walking down the street, Wanda suggests a later train so they have more time together, I think it's the 10:30 to Scotland. Vision asks what happens if he misses that train and Wanda tells him then there's an 11:30. Vision asks "What if I missed all the trains" and melts my heart and Wanda reminds him he gave his word to Tony, and she has people waiting on her too. They talk about how they've been doing this for two years, trying to see if it [their relationship] would work, and Vision goes all adorable nervous and stuttering trying to get it out. "Okay I'm just going to speak my mind, I think-" Wanda finishes that sentence. "I think that it works." Vision looks relieved. "It works." He agrees, this sequence may not be right but I feel like it's then Vision asks Wanda "Stay. Stay with me." Right before he notices her expression change and asks if he's overstepped, but Wanda notices the attack on New York playing on a TV set behind them and Vision says he has to go back. Wanda says going back might not be a good idea, and yes, and Corvus stabs Vis with that effing spear and I think he hit my soul while he was at it as well.

During that fight there's little dialogue but there is this memorable line: "I'm beginning to think we should have stayed in bed” -- WOAH Vision just made a joke from the Tony synapses anyone else pick this one? In Bed. BED. YOU GUYS, THEY WERE IN BED. I don't feel like I can emphasize it enough. BEEEED. Okay we need to move on before my head explodes.

Though right at the start of the battle, Vision gasps to Wanda something about the wound not allowing him to phase. She asks "Is that possible" and Vis replies "It isn't supposed to be." It's around this stage I believe Wanda uses her powers trying to heal the gaping wound where the spear pierced him.

They start getting thrown around a lot and I'm sorry already, because my memory for action is not as good as dialogue, but near the start Wanda sends Vision flying with her powers, trying to get them both to safety, they get hit midair, and she hits the ground first and ‘catches’ him with her powers and it's so amazing and super sweet.

While Wanda is off fighting Proxima, Corvus is stupid enough to threaten Wanda while he's trying to throttle Vision. Saying something like "She'll die first?" I have this thought that isn't right BUT it's something along the 'let's threatening this guy's woman' line. Vision gets pissed and fights back with a bit more spirit and blasts Corvus with a mind stone laser which... if I recall is the only time you see this during the movie?

I also couldn't quite tell after Proxima derailed their escape attempt who grabbed onto whom as they arced down towards the rooftops. I think it may have been a little of both, each trying to protect one another. After they crash at the train station (Memory is getting a little more fogged by this stage guys) Vision, realizing the lie of the land, begs Wanda to go. She places her hand on his cheek - she is clearly like any sensible woman not entertaining this idea even for a single second - and tells him that he asked her to stay and she's staying. Aka, no arguments, Toaster, you got her for life.

All right my memory is a lot more dodgy for their arrival at the Avengers Compound. There is an amusing bit when Bruce and Nat see each other for the first time and Sam, who is supporting Vision with Wanda on Vis's other side, murmurs "Well this is awkward" and you see Vision tilting his head a little, trying to figure out why. It's a nice little moment of our boy a bit more Civil War era when he was still figuring these weirdo humans out.

So, jump to when everybody is discussing what the hell to do about the giant genocidal purple manic headed their way. Wanda points out Thanos clearly knows where to find them and I'm thinking the mind stone is essentially a homing beacon by this stage.

Vision, leaning up against a column looking outside, turns back to the group. He says he's been giving a great deal of thought to the mind stone in his head and he believes that it could be destroyed with a power similar enough to it, and he and everybody looks significantly at Wanda.

She says - there may be a touch more dialogue before this part: "That's too high a price"

This may not the exact line but Vision replies "It isn't fair you should be the one to pay it." But he's asking her to anyway and she's clearly refusing. I recall a lot of face touching as they're talking, and at one stage when she's especially upset, Wanda turns away from Vision and leaves his hands still up where he was cupping her face. It's also noteworthy to me that Steve looks very deeply affected by the obvious tenderness between Wanda and Vision during this exchange. I don't know if he's remembering Peggy, or thinking about Sharon, or just LIKE THE REST OF US marveling (yeah I did that) at the obvious, transparent love between a mutant hex-wielding witch and a red and silver infinity-stone and Mjolnir-worthy android. But it might be all three.

Bruce points out that Vision is complex, that he's a mix of him, Tony, Ultron, Jarvis and the mind stone but essentially that if you took the last of them away there is a lot of Vision left, "maybe the best parts".

Side derailing note: THANK YOU BRUCE I'VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS. Not that Tony is one of the best parts of Vision, just that it is entirely possible that he can survive WITHOUT the mind stone. Bruce, I could kiss you for making this possibility canon, but I am way too scared Natasha would find me and end me.

Okay so they head to Wakanda and there's no Scarlet Vision dialogue I recall until they get there, just a shot of Vision slumped on his seat with Wanda at his side on the quinjet.

When they get to Wakanda, there's the scene we've all likely seen in the TV spot where Shuri scans Vision to start the process of getting the stone out of his head. Yes, the one where Shuri asks about... reprogramming synapses?? (Clearly I don't speak science this is why I leave that to Shuri, Bruce and Helen Cho). And Vision looks at her with his little head tilt like 'oh yeah, that does make sense, Bruce why didn't you do that?'

Annnnd before anything meaningful can happen, the attack crashlands - literally - on their doorstep and Steve orders Wanda to destroy the mind stone the instant it's out of Vision's head. I am horrified there was no more SV dialogue during the fight until it hits the forest, even though yes, it's a kind of critical point in the battle and you might not want to slow it down for romantic scenes but. BUT. Scarlet Vision.

So the trap is set and and Proxima waited to spot Wanda on the battlefield saving everybody from giant earth-ripping machines and told Corvus to go get the stone form Vision. Fuck my life, seriously. Vision winds up joining the group outside WHILE WASTING ALL THAT TIME EVERYONE WAS FIGHTING TO BUY SHURI TIME I'm not actually blaming anyone specific for this, I'm just ranting because we all know what's coming next.

Wanda joins Okoye and Natasha for a fight against Proxima and finally kill that bitch, blue blood and all. Vision saves Steve from Corvus and tells him "We don't trade lives, Captain". Vis learned form the best, the very best Steve. I hope you're proud Vis hasn't forgotten the time you spent leading and training this team.

Okay guys here it is, the part we all don't want to read. You can skip it, I won't mind. I certainly don't want to write it but I've started and I may as well commit.

Thanos arrives on earth. There's a slow-motion sequence of all our Avengers throwing themselves at him (HAVE YOU GUYS LEARNED NOTHING? A TEAM, YOU'RE A TEAM, WORK TOGETHER AND STOP TAKING TURNS) and none of them are able to stop him. Vision and Wanda both know what's happening. He begs her to do it. He says that half the universe will die when she says can't do it. Vision implores Wanda to destroy the stone. They both know there's no chance to get it out of his head by now. It needs to go bye-bye and it needs to happen now. Wanda starts to cry. "We are out of time."

Time. Yeah.

Vis tells Wanda some very, very Big Feelz as she begins. "You could never hurt me." "All I feel is you."

He says something quieter to her while she is working on destroying the mind stone, before he utters his last line which is of course "I love you" which I think... my hearing hasn't been good enough to quite catch this either time I saw the movie - I think Vis says 'it's all right' twice.

NO VISION. IT IS NOT ALL RIGHT. NONE OF THIS IS ALL RIGHT.

Okay, I'm still with you guys.

Wanda explodes the mind stone and Vision is just vaporized with it. Nothing left. Breathe with me, guys. Thanos tries to have a tender moment with Wanda, touching her head (get that purple meathook off of her before I break it off) and saying that he understands.

She looks at him, all venom. (Okay that one wasn't actually intentional). "You could never."

And then Thanos uses the time stone, reverses the moment, grabs Vision around the neck in a hauntingly familiar pose from the movie's beginning and rips the stone along with a chunk of Vision's forehead out. He falls to the ground while Thanos has a moment with the stones - I cannot help but feel there's some significance to the way he turns so colourless after Thanos drops him (yes, the second Vision death we've endured in a matter of as many minutes). He almost looks, dare I say this - white.

He's the short of it guys for me. Vision died. Twice. It was horrible both times. And I'm just in that mindset now of no matter WHAT happens in Infinity War part 2 - whoops I mean Avengers 4 - I don't want the MCU to exist without Vision. Or for that matter, Wanda. I don't want them to go back, and never make him, and Wanda never to meet him.

Because she'll always know. It doesn't matter if any new version of Wanda that gets saved from turning to ash (Can we all stop for a moment to observe how she didn't fight that, she let it happen. And she could have. She COULD HAVE FOUGHT IT.) has never known Vision.

Something in her powers, something in her heart and soul, will know that she's one half of a whole, that even though that half can live a life that seems normal on the surface - it isn't. She's missing something. She's missing someone. She's missing, in fact, the mot vital thing any of us are ever likely to experience, her soulmate, her true love.

And there's no fixing that. Trust me.

I am scared Vision was killed off twice and is going to stay dead, essentially, and for all that EVERY SINGLE PERSON TALKED ABOUT VISION DYING dammit seriously, I was not, NOT emotionally ready for it and probably never could be.

If this is what happens I'm pretty sure I'll be feeling these feels for life. Somebody fix me?

Anyway. I hope this was... well that it meant something to anyone who's read this far. Offer me any corrections and I can edit them in, let me know if you want credit for doing so.

Because we're in this together you guys. Until next May.

#Scarlet Vision #MCU #Spoilers #wanda maximoff #Vision #Infinity War #Too many feels #I will go down with this ship #Wanda x Vision

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juliastartoons · 6 years ago

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Nomad of Nowhere: Eagle Canyon Live-Blog:

Hey y’all! Since I’m not a Rooster Teeth first member, I can’t watch the series at the same pace the rest of you do, but! I’m still excited about it !! So I thought, what’s the harm in doing a live-blog of episode 7 before I do some scene redraws and whatnot!

I’m posting it down below so you can skip if you want, and if you’re on mobile, well, just scroll really fast or something. I dunno.

- Toth seems...Actually pretty nervous here. She’s generally hard to read, given that she’s usually either “angry” or “not angry,” but she does definitely seem worried here, which makes sense given where we saw her last time.

- Unfortunately, Don Paragon, same.

- God how did this twink get into power in the first place.

- Was probably born into it. Figures.

- To be honest, I love the rest of the Dandy-Lions. It feels like they’re in “The Office” or “Parks and Rec” while everybody else is in this high-stakes fantasy adventure. They’re just living their best life.

- Okay, I just remembered that Don Paragon founded the Oasis, which is why he has power, but still. Still.

- Gross, Red Manuel’s here. I remembered that at one point I referred to him as a ketchup bottle-looking brat in a fic and it still fits. So Well.

- For once, Don Paragon made an actually good decision.

- What a catch. I love Toth so much.

- even in the fictional land of the oasis....capitalism...still reigns...

- Wow. I can’t believe Don Paragon’s a furry.

- I can’t believe Don Paragon wants to be his fursona.

- Okay, but, I just love how he sounds like he’s on the verge of an aneurism. Like, same.

- PROZD!!!

- ProZD, thank you for calling out this man for being the twink he actually is.

- God, what is up with Don Paragon trying to sell his business to everyone who walks through the door?

- Also: killer-seum? That might be Relevant later.

- I don’t have anything to say here. Governor Toro is just so casual about everything. What does he have to worry about? Nothing. What a way to live.

- THANK YOU PROZD FOR SAYING WHAT NEEDS TO BE SAID. “How has no one beaten you to death and taken your place.”

- A body-count less than 30? How elitist.

- YIKES DON PARAGON I HATE YOU BUT YOU GOTTA COMMIT.

- Also: unrelated: where is my daughter. Where’s Skout.

- “God, you’re weird.” God is canon.

- Unrelated still, but, I love Toth.

- SKOUT!!! SHE’S HERE!! Still mortally wounded, but HERE!!!

- Oh yikes never mind. On one hand, I understand Toth has a lot riding on this deal with Don Paragon to save her people, and Skout getting wounded threw her off the path of that because she cares dearly about her friend, so it makes sense for her to be a bit harsh, but at the same time, I spent so much time characterizing soft Toth for what??

- But still, aww, poor baby.

- Here comes the Nomad!

- HE’S HERE!!

- I guess they call it “Eagle Canyon” for a reason.

- Aww, poor baby. Poor bird.

- Everything’s a baby if I say it is.

- Weird glowing nonsense, all right, all right.

- Oh no!! The egg! I am actually worried!!

- Cliff-hanger. Hanging from a cliff.

- I like the fact that one of the Dandy-Lions signaled Toth, which implies that they are actually pretty loyal to her, when it could’ve been so much easier just to shoot the arrow and bring the Nomad down then.

- How Toth inspires this loyalty however, that’s hard to guess. Probably fear? Or actual good leadership? Either or. Either way, Red Manuel doesn’t seem to stand for it.

- Mama bird shares the kindness. Her debt has been repaid.

- Yikes, Toth. I love you and all, but that is some timing.

- I like how she’s using this time to actually be dramatic and he genuinely has no clue what she’s doing or how long she’s been searching for him.

- I love how he’s just letting her do her monologue like, yeah, she’s earned it, but at the same time is still more worried about the egg than what she has to say.

- Oh, now she has his attention.

- I have no idea who Toth’s voice actress is, but she’s killing it with the “stoic badass with a chip on her shoulder” role.

- Oh no, he looks so sad. He’s worried about Skout?

- I love his imitation of Skout.

- I also like how Toth isn’t actually trying to be violent here, sure, she has the axe for intimidation, but she’s more or less verbally leveling with the Nomad to make her come with him. Was this always going to be her strategy, or did she figure that she needed a new one after some other incidents?

- I love the disbelief in her voice when she says “Skout?”

- Oh wow, I guess that was kind of answered, Toth really cares about Skout, but that does imply a conversation would still be happening.

- “No fights, no tricks...” Does this mean she was trying to be genuine? Is she really at the end of her rope here? Is this rock-bottom for her?

- Also he just JUMPED off that cliff saying he’d be back??? What???

- I love her so much.

- Well, so much for that talk, Toth.

- He’s so tiny, or is Toth just really tall??

- She stopped her axe! She was going to hit the egg/nomad, but she stopped the axe!!

- Toth’s really been having a day, huh.

- I legitimately laughed when she punched him in the face. I love you Nomad, but just the sheer annoyance she must be feeling just makes it hilarious.

- She’s mean but unfortunately, I love her.

- Was Toth actually going to have a fist-fight with that giant bird.

- Skout!!

- Whoa, Toth seems...Amazed/concerned? I dunno. It’s hard reading her. I already have a hard enough time reading people.

- Nope, definitely mad.

- Please don’t actually drop the egg.

- “Ohh, curse my tender heart!”

- Dang it Nomad!! But also, dang it mama bird for almost knocking Skout off a cliff.

- “I would throw almost anything over that cliff to get the job done.” “You didn’t throw me over...”

- Oh no! They’re actually fighting! This was like, the last thing I wanted to happen!!

- Toth, you’re going to make your girlfriend cry.

- SHE IS ACTUALLY CRYING NOO

- “I guess I was mistaken..” What did Skout think they were before, though? Friends? Partners? She never really put a word on it.

- I’m really actually sad about this, but at the same time, the miracle of life, I guess?

Conclusion: I love Toth, but I really hope she and Skout make up soon because I am legitimately sad about this, good on the Nomad for escaping again, I guess, and I want somebody in-universe to call Don Paragon a twink, but at the same time I don’t want to think about if this slang is actually a thing in this universe and I don’t actually want to know.

#not art #live blog tag #nomad of nowhere #should I do this again?

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adapted-batteries · 6 years ago

Text

Fairies Gone Rogue

Fandoms: The Librarians, Dresden Files

Rating: Teen, mostly sfw

Relationship: Jassekiel

Word Count: 6981

A continuation of the Land Pirates AU. The LiTs have a new case in Chicago, but they aren’t the only ones trying to figure out what’s behind the random accidents.

Also posted on my Ao3.

-----

The clippings book fluttered its pages incessantly, trying to alert the team that a new case had arisen. There were people in the main room. Their willfully ignoring the book was the problem. Rather than waste time when they weren't going to listen, the clippings book settled and reached out into the Annex, locating the trio currently very...occupied...behind one of the bookcases.

It knew what they were doing, of course. The clippings book knew everything by being a communication device for the Library. It knew that humans did this from time to time, and the act meant (generally) that the people involved were emotionally bonded. For the team to work well, it was important...but not nearly important to do so at the frequency the Library had been witnessing, which any number larger than one per relationship within a couple months was more than Library could stand, considering they did not live here. The LiTs were very much above that limit, and rightly so, the Library was annoyed. If the Librarian and Guardian were here more often, they wouldn't be so frisky. Such was the sacrifice the Library had to endure to save the world from Dulaque and whatever else might go wrong in the meantime.

Since pages alone wouldn't work, the clippings book sifted through the nearby shelves in search of the heaviest book that wasn't in a delicate state. It then relocated that book physically to the floor near the trio at a much faster speed than it would've achieved by gravity alone, producing the desired boom. If the clippings book could smile, it would at the shock and startled faces on the LiTs. Satisfied it had their attention now, the clippings book went back to fluttering on its stand.

“That wasn't very nice,” Cassandra mumbled, looking around to see if any other books were going to bombard them while she straightened her blouse.

“Sounds like a new case,” Stone grumbled. He glanced in the direction of the still fluttering pages as he smoothed his hair back into a less wild state.

Ezekiel didn't bother with fixing his appearance, as he didn't intend to stop what they had been doing. “It can wait a little while longer.”

Cassandra seemed torn between siding with Ezekiel or the clippings book. “I think the Library wants us to look, considering it did throw a book at us.”

“All it did was stop our fun,” Ezekiel replied to Cassandra, then tilted his head up to the Annex in general. “Not cool, mate.”

“It’s not like we haven't done this already,” Stone started, getting increasingly more unsettled. “Though if the Library knew where to throw the book, that means it was watchin’...which means it probably watched all those other times…”

“It’s not recent news the Library keeps tabs on what goes on inside it,” Ezekiel retorted.

“Let's go look at the case,” Cassandra butted in, trying to get Stone off his train of thought so he wouldn't be freaked out the rest of the day, and hopefully keeping Ezekiel from being grumpy until they could finish what they had started. “We haven't had one for a few days, it'll be fun.”

The boys reluctantly followed her to the desk where the clippings book was still impatiently fluttering pages, settling when they finally neared. They read the various newspaper clippings silently, perplexed with the case.

“Various accidents in Chicago doesn’t seem very magical to me,” Ezekiel said, not trying very hard to hide his disinterest.

Stone seemed a little more intrigued. “That’s what you said last time about all the clocks in that town in North Carolina skipping time, when it turned out the town itself was doing the time skipping.”

Cassandra gave Ezekiel a rather annoyed look. “You do get that things in the clippings book are there because it’s magic somehow, right?”

“I know,” Ezekiel said with a sigh, “but it’s nothing dire, it can wait…” he tried to lean towards Stone, but got shoved away by said cowboy.

“This is our job, Jones, we can’t just do it only when we want,” Stone said. “Besides, I think the Library was trying to send us a message with that book.”

“What, that it doesn’t want us to be happy?” Ezekiel said, most of that sentence directed up towards the ceiling. He waited, but the Library was not going to satisfy him with responding.

“Well, we aren’t really starved for...it...we did just do it a couple days ago in that reading room,” Stone added.

“You can say ‘sex’ Stone, we’ve already been over this,” Ezekiel tutted. “And if that’s the case, why didn’t it stop us then? Or Last week?”

“Maybe it was how much we were, not that we were,” Stone said, face tinged red with realization.

Ezekiel didn’t care for rational and reasonable opinions the Library had about that. “I think the Library is just jealous it can’t love like we can.”

Stone blinked at Ezekiel a few times in confusion. “....What.”

While they argued, Cassandra had been rereading the clippings. “Hey, are you two done yet? Because I think I have a lead already.” The boys focused and looked to where Cassandra was pointing. “In most of these, the people mentioned seeing a small flash of silver light sometime before the accident occurred.”

“You think someone might’ve been casting spells on them?” Stone suggested.

“More than likely,” Cassandra said. She pointed to another clippings. “This one just happened today, that would be the best one to start at.”

“Truck carrying paints explodes in a neighborhood, coating everything in unicorn vomit. I don’t envy whoever’s cleaning that up,” Ezekiel said.

“There haven’t been any injuries, at least nothing above minor ones. Even that truck driver came out only covered in blue paint,” Stone pointed out.

“That is weird,” Cassandra said. “I don’t know of any spell that causes bad luck but with protection from serious injuries. Too bad Jenkins had to go visit Nessie, he would know what spell this was.”

“Guess it’s time for some investigating,” Stone said. The group looked at each other in agreement, then Ezekiel went about setting the door to Chicago.

The scene of the paint explosion was just as weirdly awe-inducing as it sounded. All colors one might see on a house exterior, along with brighter primary and secondary colors, splattered everything within thirty or so feet. The road and the cars parked on either side of it got most of the paint, but the closest houses also got impromptu paint jobs, complete with paint free spots in the shapes of the cars in front of them. Cassandra was thankful the breeze was behind them because the colors all around were enough to make her head hurt.

The street was not void of people either. Most stayed outside the paint mess, but easily spotted shoe prints occasionally entered and left homes. The carcass of the truck trailer, exploded from within, still sat in the epicenter, the sides and top metal walls peeled back somehow instead of breaking completely. A road work crew at the other end of the street looked like they were figuring out how to best clean the mess, but hadn't started yet.

“So, what should we look for?” Ezekiel asked.

“Any sigils or runes, magical objects, well, I don’t really know what to look for,” Cassandra replied.

Just then, a silver light the size of a basketball zoomed past them, zipping into an alleyway two buildings behind them. Stone pointed in that direction. “Does that count?”

“That definitely counts,” Ezekiel answered for her, starting down the street after it. Stone and Cassandra followed him half a second later. Like the professionals they were, they each stuck a head around the edge of the building, specifically in the order of Ezekiel on bottom, Cassandra in the middle, and Stone on top.

A man in a black duster knelt in front of a chalk circle, waving his hands while the silver light zipped around, stuck inside an invisible forcefield it seemed. He was saying something, but it was too low to hear.

Stone pulled the two below him back around the edge of the building. “That has to be the wizard causing the accidents,” he whispered.

“Okay, so what are we going to do?” Ezekiel asked, arms folded in front of him. “Just walk up to him and be like ‘excuse me, but can you please stop doing magic?’ Because that will totally work.”

“We have to subdue him. If he gets away now, he may cause another accident somewhere else,” Cassandra said. She looked to Stone. “You could handle him...right?”

“Theoretically, yeah, but I have no clue what magic he’s capable of,” Stone said with a shrug. “We can’t just charge at him.”

“No...but Cassandra and I could distract him, then you give him a good knock to the head,” Ezekiel said.

“Alright. Give me a couple minutes to get around the block to the other end of the alley, then do whatever distracting you want,” Stone decided. He gave each of them a tender look. “Please be careful, okay?”

“We’ll be fine, mate, it’s you who needs to be careful,” Ezekiel added, playfully ruffling Stone’s hair, but there was concern in his eyes. “You were the one laid up with a broken leg two weeks ago.”

Stone took Ezekiel’s hand out of his hair and held it with both hands. “I told ya, I’m fine, Jenkins cleared me after healin’ me all the way. I’ll watch myself.” He let go and started walking, turning sideways. “Two minutes, okay?” They nodded in acknowledgement, and once Stone disappeared around the corner, they commenced to crafting their spectacular plan.

Like the professional thieves they were, Cassandra and Ezekiel strode up the alleyway like they owned it. “Oi, mate, what are you doing there?” Ezekiel said once they’d gotten within ten feet.

The man startled, looking at them more confused than spooked. He scuffed the circle on the ground, freeing the silver light (which definitely looked like a little person with wings wearing garbage for armor). Both Ezekiel and Cassandra got distracted by it, which the man took advantage of.

“There’s nothing going on here, whoever you are. You can just go ahead and walk back the way you came,” the man started, picking up a staff that had been laying on the ground out of their sight.

“You’ve been making quite a mess,” Cassandra said, trying to ignore the man now standing at his full almost seven feet, with his equally tall staff carved with runes slightly glowing. She also kept her eyes from darting behind the man, where Stone had started creeping into the alley.

“That truck out there was nothing. Chicago’s seen a lot worse, trust me,” the man said, and then realized how he sounded. “Hold on, I didn’t mean-” He didn’t get a chance to clarify as Stone took him down, football defensive lineman style.

Even though Stone was a foot shorter than the man, he had enough muscle to turn the wizard into a rug for the alleyway, complete with a not great sounding “oof” from the man. The man had surprisingly quick reflexes despite the tackle, but instead of smacking Stone with his staff, Stone caught it and used the momentum to pull it out of his hands, then clocked him with it, relieving the man of consciousness temporarily.

Stone stood next to him, looking a bit like a hobbit with the staff. “Good thing Baird wanted to train with bo staffs last month.”

Ezekiel started searching the man for anything dangerous. While there were things he figured were probably magical, he didn’t find anything warranting taking. “So, what are we going to do with him?” he asked, standing up.

“We could take him back to the Library,” Cassandra suggested.

“Why would we want to do that? It doesn’t sound very smart to take a wizard to the largest store of magical items,” Stone countered.

“If we keep him away from the artifacts, we should be okay,” Cassandra said, looking at the staff in Stone’s hand. “He might not do magic without this staff, look at all the runes in it. And he didn’t cast anything at us either.”

“If I restrain him, he won’t be moving much,” Ezekiel added. He glanced down at the body. “We should hurry, before he wakes up and laughs at us still planning.”

Stone didn’t look thrilled, but handed Cassandra the staff and started lifting the man by the armpits. “You better quit runnin’ your mouth then and grab his feet.”

Ezekiel tried to look saucy while he grabbed jean clad ankles. “Why don’t you make me?”

“Boys, now is not the time,” Cassandra barked, scowling particularly at Ezekiel. “Let’s go, the door isn’t that far away from here.”

Surprisingly, the LiTs managed to move an unconscious tree of a man in broad daylight without problem. They decided to tie him up in a chair in the sparring room, and waited until he woke up.

---

Harry had not been having a great couple of days. Something was wrong with the fairies, and they were making a mess all over Chicago. The first couple of times he couldn’t even summon Toot, and just when he managed it, some punks came and knocked him out. Stuff like this can make a guy feel pretty useless.

He came to in a room that looked like it belonged in a gentleman’s club from a century ago, or more. The wood paneled walls and floor looked old, and real, along with the antique-looking exercise equipment next to a modern exercise bike. The other weapons in the room though, they looked like something that came out of a larper’s wet dream. Staffs (including his own) and swords and shields and other weapons he recognized but couldn’t name sat in various racks. Wherever he was practically reeked of magic, the air practically vibrating with it. More importantly, he was tied in a chair, and the three attackers were watching him.

They hadn’t gagged him; their loss. “Look, I think there’s been a misunderstanding-”

The one who put him on the ground in the alley cut him off. “You were doing magic right at the scene of the latest accident, there’s not much to misunderstand,” he said, folding his arms. Harry figured he had to be from somewhere south.

“Okay, yeah, I was doing magic. But I was trying to figure out why the accidents are happening, not cause them,” Harry countered. None of them looked like they believed him; considering the situation, that was fair. “Why did you take me anyway? Who are you people?”

“We’re the Librarians,” the redhead said. When she did, there was distinct magic in her words, not enough to charm him like it probably did an average person, but enough to make him curious.

“What kind of name is that? Are you some by-the-book wizard vigilantes?” Harry asked. Apparently his response confused them based on their inter-looking. “You really should find out who the other magically inclined people in the area are before you go incapacitating them, and trying to charm them, because if you had, you’d know that I’ve got Chicago covered.”

“Who are you then?” the Asian one with the unexpected Australian accent said.

“If you had looked in a phone book before you went all vigilante, you would know. Probably don’t even know what a phone book is,” Harry mumbled, that last bit aimed at the Asian one since he looked younger than the other two. They all just looked more confused at that. “The name’s Harry Dresden, wizard for hire.”

“And what exactly do you get hired for?” the Asian one said. Despite his youth, the kid had an air about him that said he’d been through some shit. In fact, the woman had a similar air to her too; it was the southern fighter who seemed less weathered somehow, more on edge having someone tied up in a chair in front of him. Harry concluded the Asian and the redhead had some sketchy black market experience.

“Well, I’m a P. I., so anything a P. I. might be good for, and then there’s the things a wizard P. I. would be good for,” Harry replied. He could see the fighter thinking up a question, so he beat him to it. “No, I don’t do jobs that involve cursing and hexing and such. I’m an honorable wizard.”

“Then why were you there in the alley?” the fighter asked.

“Like I told you before, I was trying to figure out why the accidents were happening in the first place. Well, I know why, probably…” Harry tapered off. There was no reason to tell these people anything, for all he knew, they were the ones causing the problems with the fairies. “Why were you sneaking up on me?”

The three glanced at each other, having some eye conversation Harry interpreted as a “do we trust him” and “maybe he can help” and “but what if he’s actually bad” type of eye conversation, with both of the men ultimately deferring to the redhead. She walked up to him, not close, but enough to change her presence from aloof in thought to leader of the bunch with a calculating eye. “We keep magical items out of the wrong hands,” she said.

“So you run the magical equivalent of that warehouse in Indiana Jones,” Harry concluded. Maybe the White Council needed one of those.

“...sure. Except it sits in its own pocket dimension and also contains a copy of every book ever written,” she added.

“That explains the name then, and why this place leaks magic like no one’s business,” Harry said. Something told him these people probably weren’t evil, but there wasn’t any way to confirm, except maybe Sight, but who knows what he’d see in here. He used his Sight anyway, because Harry was pretty good at ignoring risks, and he was just plain curious.

The lady, since she was nearest, was the first thing he saw, once he adjusted to the near pure magic running through the walls and floor like electrical wiring. The amount of magic surrounding her was like looking into the sun. Magic she hadn’t used though; maybe she didn’t know, or didn’t want to, who knows. A faint black blob near her head leaked black smoke, but the wild magic disturbed it. Whatever that was, she was fighting it as much as her will could. Underneath all the magic he could see her, almost identical but in a white dress, eyes pure white like the magic around her.

Next he looked at the Asian man, and he audibly gasped. On his head was a gleaming winged helmet. His skin shimmered with the same divine energy. He had to be a demigod. However, compared to the lady, the intensity of magic was like night and day, his magic only barely seeping through his pores. He had some scars on his arms and head which faded into his hair; they looked old and fairly well healed.

Finally he looked at the fighter. Glowing MMA gloves adorned his hands, and he also had a glittering chainmail shirt. There were bruises, faded, but still noticeable, on his face. While he lacked magic in or around him, there was a little person standing next to him, head reaching his waist. The spirit was watching Harry with a curious expression, but it didn’t do anything else. Before he switched his Sight off, Harry noticed the light pink line connecting each of them by the heart. He had a pretty good guess what that meant.

It took a moment for Harry to adjust to the relative darkness of the room. The three were looking at him like he just spaced out, which essentially he did. “You okay there?” the fighter asked.

“Oh, yeah, just had a little think,” Harry said. “Something tells me you won’t leave Chicago if I asked you to, so instead I’m gonna let you help me.” That got narrowed eyes from the redhead. “I have a good idea why the accidents have been happening,” Harry paused for dramatic effect, “but first, you need to untie me.”

“Sure, and I’m just gonna be purple now,” the demigod replied sarcastically.

Harry rolled his eyes. “If we’re gonna work together, we need to have some mutual trust, and me being tied up doesn’t exactly convey that.” No one moved to untie him, so he thought up another reason to make them less wary. “I don’t hurt people unless I have to. I have no reason to hurt you, and I’m the only one in this room who has a personal connection to the problem.”

After yet another eye conversation, the Asian one untied him. Harry rubbed his wrists, then itched his nose, and then got to a more relaxed position in the chair now that his ankles weren’t tied to the legs. “First off, you know my name, but I don’t know yours. I’d rather have something to call you.” There was a quick glance at each other, which Harry kept from being another eye conversation by saying, “I can’t do anything to you if I don’t know your whole name, so just don’t tell me all of it and you’re fine.”

The redhead tilted her head up. “Cassandra.”

The Asian flicked his wrist. “Ezekiel.”

The fighter tilted his head down, like he lifted an imaginary stetson. “Stone.”

Harry nodded at them. “Okay, so you probably saw that silver light, yeah? Well, that was Toot-Toot...he’s a dew-drop fairy. Normally they don’t do stuff like this, but something’s gotten the fairies even more rowdy than they usually are.”

“Do you have any idea what’s made them like this?” Cassandra asked.

“My guess is some sort of magical drug. I haven’t found any charm or magical signature anywhere, and Toot seemed drugged when he finally came to me summoning him,” Harry answered. “And if it is that, I can whip up a general nullification potion, but I don’t have enough to treat all the fairies in Za-Lord’s Guard.”

“Za-Lord’s Guard?” Stone asked.

“Oh, that’s what they call themselves. They call me Za-Lord because I pay them in pizza. They get information when I need it, and they make a formidable guard,” Harry explained. “With my own supplies, I probably only have enough for half the guard, and it’d take time to get ingredients again.”

“Well,” Cassandra started, glancing at the others behind her, “we do have a lab, which also has potion brewing equipment, and maybe the ingredients you need.”

Stone leaned towards Cassandra. “Jenkins ain’t gonna be happy to know we let a stranger into his lab.”

“What Jenkins doesn’t know doesn’t hurt him,” Cassandra replied. Stone didn’t seem content with that, but he didn’t argue. Cassandra turned to Harry and started walking past him. “Follow me.”

“Sure thing, but first, I'd like my staff back,” Harry said. Stone immediately looked uneasily at Cassandra, who then looked warily at Harry. He wasn't going to get his staff back. “Fine. I don't need it for potions, but I want someone to at least bring it so it doesn't get left here.”

“I'll get it,” Ezekiel said, grabbing the staff before Harry could stop him. Comically, it was a good foot taller than him. Not so comically, the runes started glowing faintly in his grasp. Ezekiel looked at the staff wide-eyed. “Uh, is it supposed to do that?”

“You might want to let someone else hold it,” Harry started, clearing his throat to hide his concern about what Ezekiel just managed.

Stone took the staff, watching Ezekiel for a moment, then glaring at Harry. “Why’d it light up like that?”

“I don’t actually know. You aren’t a wizard, are you?” Harry asked Ezekiel, who shook his head, confused. “Well, just don’t hold it again. Now, let's go make us a potion.”

---

Cassandra had never seen a potion quite like the one Harry made. She had watched Jenkins make a few, but they were all very plant or nature based. Harry’s potion was much more physical based, calling for things Cassandra previously thought not edible like body wash for touch, the sound of flowing water, and a piece of clean white cloth.

Harry assured her it would work. Even more surprising was the fact that Harry was able to find all he needed to to make a full batch in Jenkins’s lab. She made a mental note to ask Jenkins about different potion brewing methods when he returned.

“Okay, easy part done. Now to round up fifteen or so fairies off their balls on magical drugs,” Harry announced once he poured the potion into an empty milk jug and screwed on the cap.

“How do we round up fairies?” Ezekiel asked. “That one that zipped past us was pretty fast.”

“If I can summon Toot again, he can help find the rest, hopefully,” Harry said, taking the pot he had used to the nearby sink to wash it. “Our problem now is that Toot won’t be at the paint explosion anymore. In order to find him, we have to wait until they cause another accident somewhere.”

“Can we predict where they might be next?” Stone asked.

“There's no rhyme or reason to the accidents. It’s like they just fly around and cause a mess when they see potential for one,” Harry replied, scrubbing the pot with a soapy sponge.

“Are you sure there’s not a pattern?” Cassandra asked, thoughts already rolling. “I don’t know Chicago well enough to catch if the incidents we know about have a pattern.” She turned to Ezekiel, who was tapping at his phone already. “Could you map them and sort by date, earliest to latest?”

“On it, Red,” Ezekiel chimed, typing for a second more, then grabbing Stone by the arm. “We’ll have it up on the projector in five minutes or so.” The two left, leaving Cassandra alone with Harry.

Cassandra busied herself with organizing some of the supplies while Harry scrubbed away, even though he did a pretty good job of cleaning up already.

“So, how long you been a, uh, a librarian?” Harry asked.

“Eight months,” Cassandra said. “How long have you been a wizard?”

“Oh, I've had magical inclinations since I was ten, but it took years of training to be what I am now.” He looked thoughtfully at the pot, deciding it was well scrubbed, and started rinsing it. “How come I've never heard of this place?”

“It is a secret magical library for a reason, and it works best if it stays that way too,” Cassandra said, a bit of threat under the words.

“Understandable,” Harry said with a nod. “Though from what I've seen, regular people tend to explain away magic as much as they can.”

Cassandra thought for a moment. Maybe this wizard might have some outside knowledge towards the Library’s overarching problem. “Have you heard anything about a Dulaque?”

The question was enough to get Harry to glance over his shoulder at her. “You mean like Lancelot Dulaque?”

“That's the one,” Cassandra said quite unenthused.

Harry seemed pretty confused. “Well, he was alive at one point, a night to King Arthur in Camelot, but that was over a millennium ago. Why, should I have heard more recent news?”

“Well, he’s certainly still alive,” Cassandra said.

He didn’t seem all that shocked to hear that. “That's news to me. The one I thought may be around still is Merlin, but I didn't think the knights were ever immortal.” He sat the now rinsed pot on the drying rack next to the sink, then turned to face Cassandra. “Should I be concerned about him? Or any other people from that time?”

“He’s attempting to boost the ley lines, but he's not managed to do it yet,” Cassandra said, noting the way Harry looked at her with mild horror. “It was enough to make Morgan Le Fay head to the feywild anyway.”

“So she’s around too, sort of,” Harry mused. “Well at least the courts are more than strong enough to handle her there if things went south.” He scratched the scruff on his chin in thought. “I'll keep an eye and ear out for Dulaque. If he got what he wanted, my job would be a lot harder.”

“Is Chicago a big city for magic?” Cassandra asked. They hadn't really had any cases take them there since they started.

“It’s certainly got more going on than you'd think,” Harry replied, grabbing his staff which Stone had left propped against a cabinet. “I think it's been five minutes.”

Cassandra knew six minutes and twenty seconds had past, but didn't say it. “It probably has,” she said, grabbing the jug of potion. “Hopefully I'll be able to find a pattern so we aren't sitting around all day waiting.”

Harry glanced at her as they walked into the hallway. “Your friend isn't the one figuring it out? He seemed like he was.”

“Oh, Ezekiel can map them for me, but I can do better than his algorithms generally,” Cassandra said casually. She could feel Harry’s shocked stare, which made her smile a little.

---

Ezekiel had already mapped the incidents as they showed up in the clippings book, or more accurately, the app he made that connected to the Library did that for him. All Ezekiel had to do was send that data to the computer and turn on the projector. It took Stone more time to get the white screen set up in front of the back door, and they still had two of the five minutes left.

“I’ll go get them,” Stone said. He started back towards the lab since Cassandra and Harry hadn’t left yet, but Ezekiel caught him by the hip.

“Or, we could make use of the little time we have alone,” Ezekiel purred, pressing himself against Stone.

“Zeke, we can’t, we got a mission to do,” Stone explained, but he couldn’t help but tilt his head close to the thief’s.

“Come on, just a little kiss then,” Ezekiel suggested, his nose barely brushing against Stone’s.

Stone knew if they started, it was likely they weren’t gonna stop, but Ezekiel was oh so good at making Stone ignore the logical part of himself. “...Just one,” Stone said, and pressed his lips against Ezekiel’s.

As predicted, the one kiss turned into a bunch, which turned into Ezekiel pressed against the nearest wall. They didn't have long though; Harry cleared his throat loudly as he and Cassandra walked into the annex’s main room. Ezekiel let out a frustrated noise as Stone stepped out of his space. The archaeologist looked a little embarrassed at being caught, and Ezekiel looked downright annoyed they got interrupted.

Cassandra rolled her eyes at both of them, then walked towards the screen. She studied it for a moment, then flicked her hands in front of her, processing the information via visual hallucination. The boys watched her casually since it was a fairly regular occurrence, and she'd gotten better with keeping it from overwhelming her. Harry watched with confusion and mild concern.

“There’s been fourteen incidents in the span of five days….not concentric or spiral, but there’s something net like...Zeke put on the leyline overlay, as fine of a resolution as you can...oh yes, that’s it, they’re following branches off the main leylines,” Cassandra concluded, swiping away her calculations. “Which means, the nearest branch intersection from the paint truck should be somewhere near here, and they’ll probably do something within the next couple of hours, based off the intervals.” She pointed to an intersection of the glowing blue lines just north of downtown Chicago.

“How did you figure that? And how do you get technology to work in here?” Harry asked.

“Synesthete with a mix of photographic memory,” Cassandra said, though she paused to think about his second question. “Why would it not work?”

“All the wizards I know can fry a phone just by standing near it. How that projector hasn’t started bugging out with me here I have no clue,” Harry explained.

“Must be you mate. Internet here is superb quality,” Ezekiel said.

“So we know where, but what’s the plan?” Stone asked.

“Ideally, I’ll summon Toots, douse him with the potion, then from there we do that for the rest of the fairies,” Harry said. “Unless you have a better idea.”

Cassandra looked to Stone. “Jenkins would know if we had something...do you have any literary suggestions that could lead us in the right direction?”

“I can certainly try,” Stone said. He went over to the card catalogue and started pulling drawers, looking at cards, eventually accumulating three cards after about five minutes (Ezekiel’s pet project of turning the card catalogue digital was still a long way from finished). “I’ve got a reference for a text on fairies and other fae creatures, what looks like potentially a spell book with ways to summon a few things, and someone’s diary kept while in the feywild.”

Harry glanced to Cassandra. “Any chance I can get a library card here?”

She gave him a sympathetic smile. “Sorry, strict no-loan policy,” then turned to the group in general, “those books may have something useful.” She looked over to Ezekiel. “How well does the searching the digital artifact inventory work?” (That project was technically complete, but Ezekiel let Jenkins do item tags and warnings for a lot of it since Jenkins was in charge of the physical inventory logs, which makes searching for something like “magic fairy catcher” turn up nothing)

“If Jenkins is the one searching, it works fine...but for anyone else except maybe Flynn it’s kind of hit or miss,” Ezekiel confessed, pulling up the program on the computer. “I’ll try my best, but no promises.”

Twenty minutes later, the team actually turned up something useful. Turned out the Library had an artifact that did just what they needed; a living wooden bowl of sorts that, once filled with water, would attract any fairy in a couple mile radius. With that tool in hand, a bottle of water to fill it with, and the jug of potion the trio and Harry set off to Cassandra’s prediction for where the fairies would strike next.

Harry walked with determination, like one who wants to appear like they know where they're going when in fact they don't know where they're going, stopping in a more discrete alleyway away from prying eyes. Whipping out a piece of chalk, he made a five foot wide circle on the concrete. “Okay, so once the bowl does its job, I'll activate the circle, keeping me and the fairies contained, and douse them,” Harry said. “And hopefully it works.”

“What should we do if it doesn't?” Cassandra asked.

“If it doesn't, I'll be trapped with a pack of now angry fairies, which I will try my best to get away from by breaking the circle. But we’ll hope it doesn't come to that,” Harry said, throwing a charming smile at the end. He knelt down next to the bowl in the middle of the circle, holding the water bottle above it. “Here goes nothing.” Once the water filled the bowl, flowers sprouted from the rim, lavender, marigold, honeysuckle and snapdragons. The water itself shimmered like someone dumped in blue food luster dust.

Nothing happened for thirty seconds...or a minute….or even two, but once three minutes passed, a whole bunch of little silver lights zipped to the bowl. Thirty or so foot tall humanoid creatures with various vibrant colored puff balls of hair stood around the edge or lounged in the water, taking in the flowers and chittering amongst themselves. Once they were all within the bounds of the circle, Harry quickly knelt down and touched the chalk, creating an invisible magical wall around himself. A few of the fairies noticed, but most of them were too occupied with the bowl to care. With haste he grabbed the potion jug and thoroughly drenched the fairies, the force of it knocking them all to the ground.

For a moment, nothing happened, then slowly the fairies righted themselves, fluttering their wings to dry them. One in particular, with a mane of magenta colored hair and wearing bottle caps hooked together as a sort of chainmail shirt, sat up and then flew over to Harry.

“Heya Toot, feeling better?” Harry asked.

The little fairy bobbed in flight. “Za-Lord! I feel great! I can think again.” The fairy’s voice sounded like someone did a comical pitch shift up a couple octaves.

Harry frowned. “What happened to you all?”

“There was a Tylwyth Teg that gave us a sweet. They told us it would taste even better than pizza, and it did, but then I couldn’t stop doing things that made me laugh,” Toot explained. The little fairy bowed his head. “Did we do something bad?”

“Well, you were trying your best to make a mess of Chicago,” Harry said. “Nothing that can’t be fixed eventually.”

“Oh, good,” Toot said, flying in a loop in relief.

“Next time, don’t take drugs from fey you don’t know...or any at all.” Harry glanced to the other fairies. “Make sure the rest are themselves, then you’re free to go.”

“Aye!” Toot saluted, then zipped down to the fairies, talking to each one. It took about a minute for Toot to conduct the survey of his personnel before he reported back to Harry. “Everyone’s is back to normal.”

“Good.” Harry scuffed the chalk, dispelling the magic circle. The fairies all stayed, looking expectantly at Toot, who was looking expectantly at Harry. “Be more careful next time, okay?”

“No drugs from strangers, even if they taste better than pizza,” Toot said, and without another word, he zipped off, with the rest of the guard following him.

Harry picked up the wooden bowl, dumping out the water. The flowers fizzled out in a puff of ash, and then the bowl looked just like a plain wooden mixing bowl. “Well that went considerably better than I thought it would,” he said to the LiTs who just watched the whole thing.

“It’s normally more involved on our end too,” Cassandra said. “I feel like we didn’t do a whole lot to solve this case.”

“You did more than you think,” Harry said, handing her the bowl. “It would’ve taken me a couple weeks to have enough ingredients, and then I would have to probably treat them all individually since I didn’t have that fancy bowl. You made my job a whole lot easier...even if you did knock me out and kidnap me.”

Stone ducked his head a little. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“No hard feelings,” Harry replied. He reached into his duster, pulling out a business card. “If you’re ever back in Chicago and need some magical help, just give me a call.” He handed it to Cassandra.

“We don’t have a business card, but if you’re ever in Portland, just knock on Saint John’s bridge,” Ezekiel said. Stone gave him a bit of a concerned look, but Ezekiel waved it off. “I took it upon myself to revamp the security system when we first got there, it’s fine.”

With the job done, the four stood awkwardly in the alley for a few moments. “Is there a way I could get a lift to my place with your fancy teleporting door? It’s a bit of a walk from here.”

Cassandra smiled at him. “I think we can manage that.”

After a quick hop to another street corner five miles away, the LiTs were once again alone in the Annex. It only took twenty seconds of silence and a few looks before Ezekiel scooted closer to Cassandra, giving a tentative kiss, which she intently returned. It certainly took no time at all for Stone to get in on the action too.

If only the phone in the Annex hadn’t started ringing.

“Seriously?!” Ezekiel groaned as Cassandra reluctantly left his embrace to answer it.

“Hello? Hi Jenkins...sure, one back door coming right up.” Cassandra hung up the phone and set the backdoor to the coordinates Jenkins had written down before he left. Within a few seconds the door glowed, and the caretaker entered.

“I see everything is still in order,” Jenkins said, taking off his overcoat and putting it on the rack next to the door.

“We just finished a case too,” Cassandra added. Jenkins looked at the LiTs for more information.

“Fairies on sketchy fey drugs in Chicago,” Ezekiel said, standing quite close to Stone.

Jenkins raised his eyebrows. “Interesting. Did you recover any of the drugs?”

“No, but the fairies are sober now,” Stone answered.

“Unfortunate. I’ll keep an eye on that. Fey substances are nothing to mess around with,” Jenkins said as he walked over to his desk. He pulled out a rather thick looking book and turned pages until he got to the entry he wanted. Jenkins started to grab a nearby pen, but he noticed the LiTs loitering. “Do you need something?”

“Oh, uh, no, we’re fine,” Cassandra said. She glanced to the two with her, then looked back to Jenkins. “You know, I think we’ll head off for the day, since we did close a case. Unless you need us for something…”

It was easy to see the LiTs clearly had somewhere else they wanted to be. “Unless you want to write my entry for Nessie in the magical creatures log, I think I will be quite fine if you retire for the day.”

“Thanks Jenkins,” she said. She hurried up to Jenkins, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek, then the LiTs made a hasty exit, finally ready to have some uninterrupted time to themselves.

-----

Post Notes: So, for those of you who haven’t read any of the Dresden Files, the character they meet is the protagonist from that series. He’s a wizard P. I. in Chicago, and basically Chicago’s de-facto defender from magical threats. For those that have read it, this is set sometime before Blood Rites for convenience of none of the events in Changes and later looming over Harry, and because I forgot to write in Mouse. For those who haven’t, I’ve explained the Sight and the potion he made in the next “chapter” on Ao3 because knowing how Sight works makes what Harry saw have a lot more meaning, and it’s a bit much to have in these notes.

#flynn writes #the librarians fic #librariansshipathon #jassekiel week #shipathon18 #the librarians shipathon #dresden files fic #the librarians #jassekiel

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thesethingsofours · 4 years ago

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Watchmen, Anchors & This Extraordinary Being

As anchor episodes go, what makes Watchmen’s This Extraordinary Being so… Extraordinary? Beside the rest, it’s a masterclass of meta.

In its entirety, HBO’s Watchmen is deserving of tremendous praise: “woke” without patronising, intellectual without pomposity, indulgent without narcissism, complex without confusing. Its best trick is to make the fanciful believable, laying on just enough familiarity and pseudo-science to imagine we really could be watching a parallel version of our own reality. Many of the ideas originated from its source material — Alan Moore’s seminal 1980s graphic novel of the same name. But successfully adapting, updating and elaborating on those ideas is no simple task, notwithstanding the presence of showrunner Damien Lindelof, and his history of intricate storytelling (Lost, The Leftovers, Prometheus, Tomorrowland).

The series follows Vietnam-born Angela Abar (Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk) as Sister Night — a highly-skilled police officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Masked vigilantes are outlawed, but several are now openly integrated into the police force. Ironically, all Tulsan police officers now wear masks to hide their identities — a reaction to a white supremacist terrorist attack on officers in their homes, several years earlier. The KKK-like “7th Cavalry” responsible for the attack were forced underground, but have re-emerged, threatening to re-boot their police-killing operation. Dr Manhattan, a blue, atomic, god-like super-human has long-since disappeared to reside on Mars, and (oh yeah) the world appears to be in occasional overlap with a portal to another, squid-filled dimension.

If you are familiar with previous iterations of Watchmen (either from the novel or Zack Snyder’s 2009 movie), you’ll recognise some of these elements and be unacquainted with others. Set 34 years after the novel, the surviving characters have evolved in tandem with their invented surroundings. Given George Floyd’s recent death and the recent focus on Tulsa (via Trump’s floppy rally and heightened awareness of Juneteenth), the intersection of the setting, white supremacy and policing makes this version unavoidably topical. Beyond that, the original thematic similarities are maintained — what if superheroes (with the notable, dick-swinging exception of Dr Manhattan) were just exceptional people, without supernatural powers, but with typical human flaws? What if there had been a different chain of presidents and major events in the latter 20th century? What if we better understood quantum physics and could put it to use?

Does Your Anchor Hold?

Every season of novelistic, modern TV has that episode, anchoring the entire show. In a typical 8–12-episode affair, it tends to appear around two-thirds of the way through. In a good show, it allows the other episodes to tread lightly on otherwise clunky exposition and foreshadowing, resolving unanswered questions from the first two acts, while constructing intrigue for the third. In a great show, it will go further, offering up an ambitious concept with cinematic exposition and efficient storytelling. It can virtually stand alone — a piece of poetry amidst a wealth of narrative, specifically memorable beyond the whole.

Often it is played out in a context outside the conventional environment or characters of the show. At its best, it can even make the finale seem underwhelming (which, despite our natural (perhaps biological) craving for a climax to signal a conclusion, is no bad thing). On the other hand, it can just as easily go underrated, without the major twists or revelations offered elsewhere.

It’s the cradle into which the show’s fundamental ideas are birthed. For everything to work, it’s the point the show needs to reach. The list is increasingly extensive, but a few examples, recent and historic, are listed at the end of this article.

Joining the anchor pantheon is Watchmen’s Episode 6 — This Extraordinary Being; a significant reason for the show’s recent 26 Emmy nominations. The episode itself is up for 8 categories: direction, writing, cinematography, original music, picture editing, sound editing, sound mixing AND supporting actor (Jovan Adepo; Fences, When They See Us). Wowzers.

WARNING: DEPENDING ON YOUR TOLLERANCE LEVELS, WHAT FOLLOWS POTENTIALLY CONTAINS (LIGHT) SPOILERS. YOU COULD PROBABLY READ IT ALL BEFORE WATCHING THE EPISODE WITHOUT ANY MAJOR HOO-HA, BUT IF YOU LIKE TO GO INTO EPISODES COMPLETELY BLIND — I FEEL YOU. JUST SKIP TO THE LAST PARAGRAGH, NO HARD FEELINGS. WHEN YOU’VE WATCHED THE SHOW, COME BACK AND GET FILLED IN.

This Extraordinary Episode

As anchors go, what makes This Extraordinary Being so… Extraordinary? Well, in addition to drawing the story threads together and answering a wealth of pent-up questions, it’s a masterclass of meta. A meta Beretta. A meta Matryoshka. A full meta jacket.

It opens with a big storyline reveal on “An American Hero” — a fake, popular TV show within Watchmen, which portrays a fictionalised (and inaccurate) version of the (also) fictional story we ourselves are watching unveil. Phew. Maybe read that again.

[Incidentally, this is just the self-referential rollercoaster making its initial ascent. Keep your hands and legs inside the episode at all times.]

It quickly progresses to depict one character’s experience of another’s memories; including memories within those memories; and the occasional reversion to the show’s reality. If that weren’t enough, among the fiction, chunks of your and my actual, human reality continue to land, in the form of real-life people, events and societal norms. Cleverly, the effect is to blur what is true versus what Angela, the other characters and we, the audience, perceive to be true. This not easily achieved (nor easily explained), but simply put, in This Extraordinary Being, it is seamless, sumptuous, and sensational.

The audacious concept of “Nostalgia” — a pill that contains a person’s harvested memories — drives the episode. Tremendously cinematic, it’s filmed in rich, crisp black and white noir, with flashes of colour emphasising critical moments to pertinently fuel the story. Constantly on the move, the camera switches between first and third person, accentuating the feeling of simultaneously experiencing several perspectives. There are very few gimmicks or effects — it’s traditional film-making, reliant on great camera work, acting, direction and editing. Hard cuts and smooth transitions are cleverly blended, with flashbacks quietly interspersed, allowing the story to move at pace. Beautiful pacing is one of the episode’s most impressive achievements.

Back to the action, which is precisely detailed. Playful, symbolic flourishes compliment heftier motifs, often subtly relating to previous episodes or our own cultural reference points. Note the lettuce in the grocery store, the (real-life) Bass Reeves, Will painting his eyes white (compared to Angela’s black), the piano playing in the (again traumatic) cinema, the comic book reader on the sidewalk, the Alt-Right “OK” gesture, the destructive and restorative functions of fire. All these pieces efficiently collude to inform the present story, as well as crafting Will’s personality and guiding his behaviour.

Adhering to it all is deeply affecting music. Its simplest impact is to aptly recall the early 20th century era in which the memory is set. But the romantic, haunting, crooning over both tender and violent moments consummately mirror the emotional state of the protagonist. In particular, I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire, by the Ink Spots (1941) — with lyrics variably ironic and literal — will infiltrate your dreams for some time afterwards. Between the ballads is the show’s thematic, dramatic, western movie piano music — a tormenting echo in Will’s psyche, recalling both his mother and his hero. Reminiscent of Birdman (dir. Alejandro G. Iñárritu, 2014), chaotic, thrilling solo jazz drums play whenever he escalates the power of his own agency.

With these ingredients blended, the scenes all underscore the internal and external conflicts of the characters: between blacks and whites; rage and serenity; integrity and corruption. The underlying messages of racism, history, and technology essential to this version of Watchmen are wonderfully extolled.

Notably, there are no plans for a second season of Watchmen. Rather than a question of HBO’s reticence to renew (I’m sure they’d love to), Lindelof himself has stated his intention for the show to end where it does — his exhaustive love-letter to the ever-extending Watchmen epic. As much as we have become accustomed to the fulfilment of our insatiable desire for sequels, we should be grateful that this symphonic limited series and Its Extraordinary Episode will exist in illustrious isolation. Like Nostalgia, some things are best consumed in small, perfectly measured doses.

Watchmen is available to stream on HBO Max (US), Amazon (UK, £11.49), HBO Go (elsewhere).

Other Anchor Episodes for Your Viewing Pleasure:

Sopranos Season 3, Episode 11 — Pine Barrens (HBO / Now TV) Mad Men Season 4, Episode 7 — The Suitcase (Netflix) Atlanta Season 2, Episode 6 — Teddy Perkins (Hulu / Amazon) Better Call Saul Season 2 Episode 7 — Inflatable (Netflix) The Wire Season 3, Episode 7 — Back Burners (HBO / Now TV) Bojack Horseman Season 5, Episode 11 — The Showstopper (Netflix) Westworld Season 2, Episode 8 — Kiksuya (HBO / Amazon) Succession Season 2, Episode 8 — Dundee (HBO / Now TV) The Marvelous Mrs Meisel Season 2, Episode 7 — Look, She Made a Hat (Amazon Prime)

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#watchmen #hbo #television #tv #tvshow #review #tv review #episode review

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andryushas · 7 years ago

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Great Comet Things

I got to see Great Comet on Sunday and it was absolutely amazing. The whole cast was amazing and the show is so artistic and surreal. Below is a bunch of things I noticed that were either very cool, unexpected or both. Warning, it’s very very long:

ACT I

The show doesn't actually start with Pierre singing. He comes out with his accordion then you hear Natasha yelp a really sad "No!" then run on stage with Andrei at her heals. They have a moment, and she looks really sad and he looks Very in Love and takes a necklace off his neck and puts it on her. She grasps at it and he runs out the door behind Pierre, representing the war

Prologue is actually really funny. Like it's sort of funny on the recording but the way people move and act w their faces makes it very comic.

Marya is a little terrifying. She plays "strict yet Kind" out to the audience like, "yes, I'm KiNd!!! Believe me, That's an order!!"

Anatole is actually really funny. I had totally been imagining him as this impossibly smooth figure and He Isn't. Like yes, he's very smooth at times but he is also totally used for comedy sometimes and is severely melodramatic.

Oak's Pierre is really dimensional. He's very subdued and gentle but there's also a roughness to his voice when he gets really disgusted in himself or in the world and he moves really smoothly and naturally between Pierre's gruffer, darker side, and the cute awkward warmness which he also does wonderfully.

Denée's Natasha reads really well as this young girl who has always been loved and appreciated and is now really struggling for the first time with her happiness and she's really bold and a little self absorbed and this really brings out the changes which I will get back to later

Courtney Bassett was wonderful as Mary!! She's plays her really sweet and shy but also clashes really well w Natasha.

Private and Intimate is really intense but can also get very funny. Nicholas Belton is hilarious but his Bolkonsky has a lot to him I guess? He moves really slowly and he does the fragile thing really well for a dude who is like Bolting down the aisles as Andrei. I'm very scared of old prince Bolkonsky.

The Lighting in No One Else oh my go d. The song is so beautiful but the visuals. The falling snow. It's heartrending. Ahhhh.

Marya Dmitrievna is the best ever. I love her.

The Opera is Funky as hell. Paul Pinto is a firecracker. What a cool dude.

I didn't expect Anatole to actually get that excited about Natasha. I sort of read it as pure manipulation (it's still manipulative don't get me wrong) but he really does adore her. He really cares about whether or not she likes him and he fawns over her.

The Duel is intense as fuck. Amber Gray walked passed me at some point (i can't remember if it was during the duel or not but) she is a goddess, damn it. I love her.

Nick Choksi plays the sociopathic Dolokhov you get in the book better in person than I would've guessed

Pierre does this thing when he gets shot where he ducks and stays ducking for a long time bc he thinks he's a dead man and there's a long silence. And then he looks up like “oh!” and Oak made the cutest face ever when he realized he won the duel.

Ok I didn't like dust and ashes when I heard it on the soundtrack and saw it at the Tony's but the way Oak does it is an absolute show stopper. It blew me away. I love it. It's now one of my favorite songs in the show. Pierre is sitting in his Hole or whatever. The sad hole. And he just. Opens himself up and it's great. There was at least a full minute of applause for him.

SUUUUUNDAY MORNING TIME FOR CHURCH

I love sunday morning but i do miss Sonya’s part from the off broadway soundtrack

When Helene comes in during Charming, Natasha is dressed in nothing but her corset and a tiny little underskirt and it makes her so vulnerable and frightened its an interesting dynamic. Amber Gray is a powerhouse of an actress and a singer and I love her. She has the coolest cloak too.

There’s this thing in Charming where Helene rips Natasha’s necklace from Andrei off and Natasha looks so guilty and upset about it. It really breaks the excitement from the yay, dresses part. She tosses it into Pierre’s depression hole and it landed in his book. Pierre picked it up and looked hilariously confused.

The ball is at least 80% same sex couples which was pretty cool. The ending is beautiful but it gets really chilling as the act draws to a close.

ACT II

Letters was bomb af. I’m gonna note again that I love Okieriete Onaodowan. After saying that he wrote the letter, Dolokhov crouches really malevolently watching what he orchestrated unfolds.

When they pass the love letter to Natasha, the audience has to pass it across the aisle but the girl didn’t know what to do when it got to the end, so Denee leaned really desperately with her arm reached out waving sweetly and asking for the letter until she got it

INGRID MICHAELSON IS A REALLY AMAZING ACTRESS AND SHE WRECKED ME

Preparations is a bop. Nick Choksi is a gift.

There’s a bit at the beginning where Anatole is carrying a big ol bag and he looks like he plans to walk up the stairs with it but then WHOOPS ANDREI IS SITTING ON SAID STAIRS. Anatole does absolutely nothing in acknowledging this- he simply sees he’ll need to take the other stairs and walk away.

I LOVE PAUL PINTO OK

There’s that one post about struggling to keep your sleeves rolled being gay culture and...Lucas Steele took a really long time to get his sleeves rolled up. I snorted.

I have very few words to describe the next few songs so i’ll sorta skip forward a little and just...trust me when I say they’re amazing

Seeing Pierre kick Anatole’s bitch ass is a ton of fun but its much less fun the way its staged because thats when natasha poisons herself and its painful

Natasha Very Ill was so tense and painful

One of the nice things Natasha sings about Andrei in act one becomes a letter to him which we see him open and read. He looks kind of lovestruck and then scared and he tucks the letter away, running off with the ribbon still in his hand. He comes on with this ribbon in his hand a bunch of times, and once, when he looks really beat up and scared, he has the ribbon tied around his gun. The last time he brings this ribbon on stage is in Pierre and Andrey, where its been returned around the parcel of Natasha’s letters.

GOD I love Nicholas Belton’ Andrei. There’s so much pain he’s trying to hide and it’s just being pressed down and hardening into rage. He’s really rough and a bit frightening but its so clearly from a place of sadness. His “No, I am well,” is almost pitifully unconvincing. The scene is so heavy. I could go on about this song forever. He does something on “never speak of that again” where he lashes out and sort of throws his hand out at Pierre’s chest and Pierre looks genuinely frightened by him. He’s really sympathetic even though he’s so cold. In three minutes he captures SO much of Andrei Bolkonsky

In Pierre and Natasha, Denee is completely transformed. She holds the railing and sways likes hse’s falling and walks like each step is over broken glass. Seeing her liveliness shatter is so utterly tragic. She’s brilliant.

Oak’s Pierre is so kind and good hearted. He was really crying during Pierre and Natasha, and it was so full of love. When he did the confession, he worked up so much courage to say it, and he was still sniffling from crying and there was such love in his voice that it richened and softened beautifully. It was so tender and beautiful.

THE ENSEMBLE SINGING IN THE FINALE. Their voices weave a whole sky of stars. Pierre coming to an understanding is illuminated by their soft moonlit voices. The whole moment is as clear as crystal and it is a perfectly executed awakening. It felt deeper and realer than I’d ever imagined.

I was crying a lot

Bonus: Stagedoor

Josh Canfield and Nicholas Belton came out first. I was very awkward but they were both Darlings. Josh photobombed my picture with nicholas belton and nicholas belton was like “oh looks like you’ve got a photobomber” and somehow I didn’t notice until like an hour later

A bunch of really cool ensemble members came out

Nick Choksi came over and he was still wearing his very heavy eyeliner. Someone said “you’re rocking the guyliner” and he looked quite pleased. I told him preparations is like the best song and he was like “hell yeah”

My friend (@levizoe) told Paul Pinto that his performance was really moving. He thought this was a reference to the show as a whole but I knew. I knew this was about him, Balaga, specifically

Everyone lost it when Oak came out. He had a Harry Potter t-shirt on and was carrying a skateboard. What a cool dude. He’s huge but not as tall as I anticipated. so many muscles. I gave him some are and he was like “Oh this is pretty cool.” then he looked at it and called it kind of amazing and I died. Then he went inside to put it away and all the people who he didn’t get to yet were giving me some serious side eye i felt bad (he came back tho ofc)

Ingrid Michaelson has very pretty eyes and is very nice. She looked so tired tho i felt bad.

IN CONCLUSION I AM DEAD. Sorry for the length of this post. Its such an amazing show. I love them all so much.

#natasha pierre and the great comet of 1812 #mine #long post

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miraimisu · 7 years ago

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These Stones We Skip | Cha̵̭̦̓͜pter̷̳͎̮͍̆ 1

◄ previous part ♣ next part ►

[Read at FF.net]

[Read at AO3.]

Summary: Uraraka, as a newcomer to the most powerful guild in this forsaken village, had not only one, two; but three responsibilities: grow stronger until she was able to pin the world down, untangle the mystery that her past was and survive under the eyes of a crowd that watched over her as night chased the sun’s tail, the charade going on and on until the thread… suddenly snaps.

Rating: T because of obvious reasons such as Bakugou and swearing children. And it’s an AU. Medieval AU.

Word count: it’s fucking long get over it ALREADYYYY

Author’s note: : I FEEL YOUR HEAAAAAAARTBEEEAAAT TO THE BEAT OF THE DRUMZ (8) Hi, y'all /kicked So sorry if this took so much but it's so damn hard to continue this story at a comfy pace with so much lore and stuff building up and having to construct some kacchako as well? I AM STRUGGLING? And a friend of mine told me this was novel-length like lmao she is right tho. I gotta reconsider my life choices. Fo now thanks to all kind people who leave reviews and stuff in this clusterfuck? I DON'T DESERVE IT? But omg thanks

Warnings: it’s long, it’s messy, OLD SCHOOL MIRAI :V It has them feels tho. Kinda. Tons of broshipping. And… some kacchako, finally?? maybe not idk

I’LL BE ALSO EDITING MINOR PLOTHOLES IF THERE ARE ANY HAHA SORRY LOVE YOU ALL BYE :D

“Mama?” the little chubby child tugged at the woman’s red jersey, pointing then across the little river. “Who are those people?”

The pink woman followed the child’s finger to the land on the other side, and squatted to secure an arm around the girl’s petite figure. “Those people are dangerous, honey.” the girl blinked at the older woman, doubt dancing in her big pristine pools. “Don’t you ever go near them, or they will do nasty things to your little cute body.”

The pink woman tickled her tummy for emphasis, which made the girl squirm in her hold. The laughter didn’t last for long. “But mama, I don’t understand! Why are they dangerous? They don’t look so menacing.”

She shook her head at the child and pointed at them. There were some adults working as guards across the river, meters away from the pair. “They don’t like us, and they want to invade our land, your land. They wish to destroy our home because they are greedy.”

“Gweedy?” a finger scratched her cheek, and the woman nodded. The little girl gasped, hands flying to her mouth. “They want to kill us? They want to kill this village?”

The elderly woman got up again, hands ruffling her hair with tenderness. “I don’t know, but just be careful. They are a dangerous species– they are humans, thirsty for blood and lands.”

“Humans?” the woman nodded above, and the brunette looked up. Sunshine covered the mother’s face, but the little girl knew those soft factions nonetheless. “But Harold and I… see?” she rose her hands, grinning toothily. “We have the same skin!”

The woman sighed. “I know, darling.”

“Then, why can’t we all be friends, mama?”

Mother looked far ahead, frown crowning her kind eyes as her hands grew frantic around her child’s head. “It’s more complicated than being friends or not, Nameless.” her finger shot to point at a boy working on the river. His hair was golden, reflecting the sunshine of a clear day, and it made the child’s eyes gleam in delight. “See that boy there? He is a beast, an assassin.”

“But Hawold and I–“

The woman’s hand slapped the child’s head in frustration, aware of the implications of such obvious fact as the skin color, the white of their eyes and the very same absence of horns. “I know, you are similar. But you will never be one of them, honey. You are not a monster like they are.”

The mother gave her hair a last ruffle before smiling softly at the girl under her, who was looking at the boy in wonder. “Why would he want to kill me?”

The mother sighed and started to walk away, throwing a glance behind her to check that the little girl was still in place. “Same skin color doesn’t determine one’s intentions, honey. Just stay there until your friends come here.”

Mother left the second afterwards, the little girl sitting on the muddy grass as the contemplated the thought. A whirlwind of newfound doubt, curiosity and wonder swam freely around her eyes, corseting her heart into a tight grip of anticipation and excitement. Her heart beat out of cadence, skyrocketing high above and exploding into a mixture of deep expectations, wondering how that boy’s voice would sound like, or how his skin would feel. Would his body be as warm as hers, or would his eyes float against hers like Harold’s did?

The girl got up, stumbled a little and brushed some dirt off her yellow dress. Gee boosted her energy and encouraged her to take a leap of faith and start running– running towards the land filled with warm golden night from the sun, bathed in blues and whites with silver creaking against her eyes like a jewel, and the boy’s pale skin coming to view the more she ran to him. Sounds of steel clanking against wood and iron twinkled around her, symphonies of sweat and grunts compassing the hush.

Her dainty feet reached the river, and the waters seemed darker than what they had looked like a minute ago. She tiptoed, human boy not noticing her presence as she smiled at him. There were some guards around that only acknowledged her presence inwardly and continued their game of minding their own business.

“Hi, excuse me?” the boy didn’t even flinch at her calling, focused on molding the iron. He couldn’t be much older than her, maybe 11 years old or so, but his hands were bruised as if he had been working for a century, marred in blisters and dry blood. “Hello, blonde boy!”

The boy grumpily turned to look across the border, expecting to find a brainless pink alien he would have to behead and seeing a waving stupid girl in its stead. “Oi, what is your problem, cheeks? I am busy!”

“Hello, blonde boy!” she waved even more excitedly, water crashing below her feet as her feet grew closer to the edge. He only huffed grumpily and went on working. “Excuse me! There is something I need to ask you!”

“What in the world is your problem?” his hands were constricted in fists, eyes shadowed by his untamed mane of golden streaks. He was somewhat pretty to her. “I am busy!”

“Well–!” she almost tripped and fell over, squealing for a second before recomposing herself while messing with her head, anxiety for this boy’s mood crippling under her skin. “There is something I need to ask you!”

“I don’t care about your stupid problems! Besides, you can’t cross and I can’t hear your girly voice from over here.” his voice was also pitched, but gave hints of growth and it would undoubtedly become rich and deep in the future. “Who in the world are you anyway?”

Nameless had a quick solution for that. The girl touched her shoulder and leaped over the edge, floating for a pair of meters before touching ground. Guards around her started to point their spears at her, startled by the careless display. The blonde boy was scared shitless, having scrambled off his stool and standing a good pair of meters away from the floating alien. The brunette started to flail her arms around, panicking as her mother’s words ringed again in her mind.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to cause such ruckus!” she took a tentative step towards the boy, only to have him recoiling. “I just didn’t think I would have made it across in a single jump, and skipping rocks would have been too slippery and risky–“

Golden boy pointed at her, words struggling to get out of his idle vocal chords. “You breaking your neck while crossing would have been much better than this witchcraft you have going on!”

The guards only pointed at her with more intensity, armors clanking and drawing the attention of other humans who looked at the scene with concern. “No, please! I don’t mean harm to this village! I just desired to ask this boy a question!”

“And why did you have to be so adamant about it, crazy girl?” the boy grit his teeth at her, fists clenched and his body rigid, tense, ready in case that witch decided to pick up a fight. “You are just another alien– but you guys are mutating fast so we can’t tell you apart and–“

“I am so sorry, I don’t mean to be an intruder here!” her hands clasped the hem of her little yellow dress, shining like sunflowers in pure bloom. “Please, allow me a second of this boy’s time, I’ll run away like the wind after that!”

People lost interest over seeing her so docile and carried on with their daily duties. Meanwhile, the boy snarled at her, shifting to grab his little shaping hammer in case she decided to get feisty and start throwing punches at him. “Be quick or I’ll smash your useless species to smithereens.”

His eyes flickered in fire against hers, a rush of trepidation washing over her as hell, blood and dangerous lights started shining through his bleeding eyes, pale skin contrasting with the dark intentions his impure heart held. Her question suddenly seemed useless seeing a human like this, so bare and bone think, but she still blurted it out.

“Are you–“ her eyes pounded against his very own bonfires, beaming with intention and silly curiosity. “Are you a monster, golden boy? Would you kill me if I were to hug you, ride you like I ride horsey Harold, or if we had fun bathing in the river?”

His brows wrinkled in disgust as such blunt, stupid question, but he was taken aback by how much honesty and sheer wonder she had poured in a short amount of time. To her credit, she had shoved a ton of bullshit in very little time. “Why in the world would I– no, why would I not kill an alien like you, cheeks? Get outta my sight before I shred you to pieces!”

“But–“

“You said you wouldn’t put a fight after this, we have pardoned you enough minutes.” he gripped the handle of his hammer harder this time, an alarming amount of teeth showing. Regardless, he didn’t step to behead her or even made a move to harm her, instead decided to start waving her off the land. “Do your sparkly stuff and leap over, I don’t care. Just leave this place.”

Nameless stared at the boy, heartbroken as he only stared back with a stern glare that warned her to leave before somebody saw her and decided to make the dirty job of torturing her in a dark chamber– somewhere even he knew she didn’t belong to. In a way, he was making her a favor. The doe-eyed girl nodded and turned around, activating her ability and jumping across, a fog of sadness clouding over her heart as the boy only stared in wonder, seeing her fly away so gloomy when she had come to him as a bright, beautiful flower. He decided to hammer those thoughts away, and the girl was soon forgotten.

When Uraraka came to, the smell of burning wood greeted her sleepy senses, heart swarming near her fingertips as the bonfire crippled upon the lodges of stacked wood, flickering and waving under the mercy of the night breezes. The little sorcerer fluttered her eyelids open as the flames greeted her unfocused eyes. Blurs of oranges, yellows and greens melted together and then sharpened to give shape to the forest, the bonfires and a very sleepy Kaminari struggling to keep his eyes awake.

The girl shifted underneath the spare blankets and, when she didn’t feel Asui’s body sleeping next to hers, an unsettling feeling came to open her eyes and slap her dazed mind awake. However, when she heard the rustle of leaves and clanking somewhere near her, those thoughts of alarm slowed her frantic sowing of irrationalities and she dared look up to see a little cauldron heating up something nasty, which prompted Uraraka to sit up.

“Good evening, Uraraka.” Asui peeked from behind the big pot to smile at her with kindness. “I see you have woken up. You sure have light sleep.”

The brunette rubbed her big gooey eyes to open, but they were tired and half lidded regardless her restless heart. “You can say that again.”

The sorcerer removed the blanket from her form and straightened her back, eliciting a pleased little moan from her sore throat. Uraraka had never really slept on the ground before– well, excepting that time she woke up mindless and brainless under a curtain of rain with a wound on her ribs, but it was a completely different kind of ground with some squishiness to it, wet and muddy. This ground was hard, dry, had stones sticking up from the sandy surface and there was always this irrational fear of ants tangling on her hair. Yes, that was petty, but she would have to get used to such hard conditions.

The girl glanced around swiftly, and found out that most people were asleep around the clearing. Iida and Tokoyami were asleep against a trunk between its big roots, swords resting right beside them. Kaminari was all alone though, making Uraraka kind of worry about where Bakugou could have scrambled off to.

“Bakugou is off for some herbs.” she continued stirring the mixture as if nothing, but the sorcerer still almost snapped her head to look at Asui. That girl was perceptive. “No need to worry so much. Don’t cry me a river.”

“Huh?” a weak grimace made her nose wrinkle in distaste, but she couldn’t deny that it was offsetting to see him off this late in the night. “I am not worried. I am just concerned. He is our leader and he’s gone so late in the night. What a freaking weirdo.”

Uraraka huffed in exasperation, eyes stealing a glance at the vacant place beside Kaminari. She didn’t let her mind wander any further and got up with weak limbs, hands dangling by her side– there was no way that stupid narcissistic sociopath would even burden her sleep with his absence, with the possibility of him being in danger.

Why the fuck would he even be in danger? He was perfectly able, be it in the dead of the night or in the middle of a maze. Her teeth grinded against each other, jaw clenched– because this petty tiny concern was useless, unneeded, unrequited, he would never hold her in any higher regard as she would possibly do– yet, a part of her seemed to hold some care for the boy. And it drove her off a damn cliff usually, because it was a tiring game of chasing in circles, never stopping.

Uraraka sighed tiredly, crumbles of sleep issuing from her throat. Despite the obvious fact that Bakugou would never get along with her, she found herself caring for his despicable self regardless– he was her leader, another peer that, she had been advised to stay far from. Yet, she couldn’t find the heart to give up on him to such extent. He had defended her back there at the village, had kind of had faith in her against Shinsou…

There was some hope for him…

Perhaps.

“You like sleeping, I see. I don’t like being woken up, either.” the herbalist made an attempt to change topics, which Uraraka was thankful for. She got up from the makeshift bed and walked to the pharmacist. “While the others sleep, I take time during nights to prepare the potions for the next day, while somebody stronger keeps guard.”

Uraraka eyed the girl tenderly, a little soft smile sketching itself on her face. She was not as familiar as she was with other people like Jack or Mina, but she was attracted to her regardless. “I don’t think you are that weak. You sure would put up a great fight, Asui.”

The water sorcerer looked at Uraraka, not impressed by the dash of fresh warm air the other carried with her, but still a little bit touched by her kindness. “It’s not like I undermine myself, but it’s just for safety measures. Don’t want an ambush coming to kick our healer’s ass– Bakugou’s words.”

Uraraka looked at the pot afterwards, glaring at the nasty looking brewage. “And what is this you are preparing?”

The colors inside the pot blended, bubbled and brewed in an aromatic mist that Uraraka couldn’t really identify, but it smelled like something akin to mind and chocolate mixed together. She tiptoed forward and smelled a little bit of the brewage. Again, it was minty, hot, and had that sweet undertone to it.

“It’s a dipping poison.” Asui stirred a bit faster this time, changing directions. The other girl looked at the water sorcerer and nodded with interest. Asui being there with her group would be a huge advantage, as Uraraka could learn lots from her and pharmacy was always a handy science to nurture from.

“Dipping?” nod, nod, and Uraraka only looked at the colorful mixture in even deeper wonder. A part of her wanted to put her finger in– but it looked scorching hot and her skin was easy to scar and blister. “Is this some kind of poison to use in food?”

The green-haired girl shook her head, not looking at Uraraka and instead rummaging through her bag. Her hands came out empty, so she signaled the other sorcerer to fetch her some spare ones in a flask on the ground. The frog girl couldn’t reach down for the items below the cauldron as she was quite small and she had to stand on an actual big stone to reach the top of the pot, so Uraraka would have to serve as a temporal assistant. When she had the herbs, Asui poured them contently into the mixture, and stirred slowly.

“You dip weapons here, and give temporary poisonous properties to them.” Uraraka nodded again, eyes glinting in curiosity and surprise. It was a pretty handy technique for making weapons be even more lethal than they already were, and it seemed like a very intelligent way of rendering any single threatening object as a needle useful and mortal. “Bakugou wanted me to give his sword a coat of poison in case we have a harsh encounter tomorrow.”

The girl frowned at the prospect. “I see.” she peeked over the edge of the iron container and gawked at how it was turning darker and darker the more Asui stirred. “You must know very well what you are doing when it comes it these things, yes?”

Asui removed the wooden spoon from the cauldron – it had big stains and it was broken in a few places, marred in scars of hurried preparations – and jumped off the stone. “It is a risky process. But it’s not that much of a difficult science.”

She then marched off to a bag she had near her and Uraraka’s blanket, getting some jars full of some kind of pebbles no one but Asui knew about, and threw a handful of them from below, not even caring to look in afterwards. When the alchemist left again, the brunette lifted her hands to fidget with her gloves, afraid of burdening Asui with her request.

“I was wondering…” Asui didn’t stop her task to even show a sign that she had listened, but the newcomer still talked. “if you could show me some advanced pharmacy when we reach our next stop, or maybe along the way?”

The girl did turn to her now, finger on her chin. “Yes, we did talk about this.” it seemed more like a murmur of ponderation and not a proper answer, so Uraraka waited with her fists clenched. She didn’t really have much idea on how to interact with some members of the guild, so she just would go with the flow most times. “I guess I can show you some techniques you can use at emergencies. I don’t have quality equipment here to show you much more.”

Uraraka showed a dashing smile, eyes twinkling in delight as Asui gathered their blanket and settled it on the ground. The other girl was quick to sit down on her knees, legs together with her fists resting on her lap, head slightly bowed– and the pharmacist was a bit taken aback by how willing and docile the sorcerer looked under her. A part of Asui believed that if she asked her to go to the end of the world for a single useless flower, Uraraka would go there if it meant making her happy.

God, how could have Bakugou mistaken her for a villain?

“No need to be so stiff, Uraraka.” the girl didn’t lessen the posture either way, and continued looking at her straightly and determined, serious and collected when she was squirming in excitement and gee for this little lesson. “It’s just a few tips to improve potions, curas and the like. I take it you can only prepare minimal brewages now.”

“Er, yes.” the brunette titled her head in defeat, a bit ashamed to admit that she knew very little for a being a sorcerer. “All potions I have with me were there when I woke up at the forest. Some were a bit more advanced if I recall… but most were basic.”

“It’s fine, you can learn a bit now.” Asui took out some leaves and little fruits. Some sterolias rolled off her little purse, and Uraraka reached out to fetch one. Indeed, it was as sweet as Mina had mentioned it to be. She accordingly spit it out again. It would never not repel her with such invasive sweetness. “Hold on while I sort this out. I didn’t have time to organize my tools properly.”

“It’s fine.” the sorcerer waved it off with a kind smile, and looked around for a bit. Everyone was sleeping soundly, tired from the journey and beaten up after having to put up with Bakugou grumping about how unhelpful Grinning Blade had been, and Uraraka could recall how guilt had been crippling inside of her as she shut up about the ordeal with that man, that guy who had looked at her so intensely and whispered such cruel, fateful words.

Her fingers tightened the fist. Death… they unclenched, relaxed, and the brunette looked at her bruised palms in deep concern and wonder. What did he mean with all that? And why had Shinsou… opened up so fast? What dark business did they have that somehow involved her, of all people?

Something foggy and dark was stirring in a corner of her mind, blending behind the broken shards of a frosted mirror, her future identity and all that carried behind that somehow bringing a chill down her spine– but she couldn’t touch it. The thought was bubbling, bruising, even. In the back of her mind, that man’s words had caused an unpredictable damage that wasn’t palpable, yet it was there, lurking behind the shadows she tried to look through, yet she couldn’t tell apart from mere paranoia and mild fear for what was to come.

A part of her wanted– needed to blame Bakugou for causing her such unnecessary ruckus inside her mind. The way he had spoken so highly and shaken about RampAge had her all kinds of shaken up. He was gone now, doing who knows what in who knows where, probably punching some butterflies off their caskets like the douchebag he was. Perhaps life was having a party on his body and he was being punished, hurt and that was why he hadn’t come back, and an unnoticeable spine run down her stomach and pushed down, down–

Her eyes darted across the clearing and stopped at the empty slot by Kaminari, wondering, again, why she was so uneasy at the thought of him being suspiciously gone so late in the night, why this care did actually exist. It could probably be because he had actually defended her from Shinsou and the whole village before this voyage had begun, but it was such a weird feeling to possess when he was all but kind to her. Why was she worrying so much when he was no more than some kind of vigilant for her?

What a nuisance, a little unneeded feeling. It sure would be a good riddance once she was out of this tired, critical state. A part of her wanted to get rid of it… yet another part of her knew there was no letting go.

“Tell me, Asui,” words fell off her mouth helplessly, not even thinking about what repercussion they’d have, or what Asui would think of her. It was a pretty bad habit of hers. Her eyes left the wrinkled blanket that was his red cape and looked at the one below their knees. “does Bakugou have that much trouble sleeping?”

It took a few seconds for Asui to answer. “It’s always been like this, really. I don’t see him much often, but Kirishima told me it’s been this way ever since he was a child. He can’t sleep until deep into the night. He runs on little sleep, though – tough guy, he is.”

Uraraka tasted those words wistfully, tapping her fingers on her lap. Bakugou didn’t really seem to have such problem, skin always pristine and devoid of rings or bags – but now that she recalled, he had mentioned he knew it took him too much time to sleep. Judging by his foul mood, he probably never got good sleep either. Was the bed too big for him? Or maybe he just got into heated arguments with the pillows? Apparently, the only way to ease this issue was going up the clock tower to either spend a peaceful night in solitude stargazing or being tortured with her presence.

Maybe he was gone for so long because he found that maybe solitude would prompt the so needed rest. It made her feel some pity for him in a sick, twisted way.

“Pay attention, Uraraka.” this snapped the sorcerer out of her reverie, blinking heavily. “Making a novice cura is easy, but making a successful extra one takes some practice. Making one mistake on the process is normal, and it won’t be a catastrophe to ruin the ingredients, but you can’t go relying on luck for further practices.”

Asui took a green, heart shaped leaf, and started to tear off its midrib with her teeth. “This is rough hand work, and if I had pincers, I would be much more classy and neat. One has to take the midrib off these leaves. These are called looibus, and are pretty cheap in an average shop. It’s always more economic to buy these instead of the prepared potions.”

Uraraka observed Asui remove the mid sections easily, and blinked in amazement. She had never seen such display in her life, her lips pinching the leaf and teeth tearing the section apart. “How can you do it so easily, though?”

“The veins of this species are especially thin at their starts.” she took a spotless specimen and pointed at the mid section, tracing it with her finger. She had a cut on a side of her index, Uraraka noticed. “See how the veins are almost unnoticeable? It makes the process much easier. I usually act precautious and use pincers and gloves, but this will suffice for the time being.”

Then, her fingers pinched the petiole of the leaf. “Good fetched herbs must always have their petioles, and if possible, a part of the branch they come from – just a minimal part, to extract the whole juice of the plant. How big the petiole is determines how much properties one can extract from it, therefore determines its final value.”

“Was that why you complimented Kaminari the only day?”

“Not really, ribbit.” she started to squeeze the petioles, also draining some from the midribs. Gooey, red liquids cascaded down into the flask. “The specimen he brought to me is special because of its spores. Those kinds of herbs have other value standards, and are hard to find. As for fruits, they depend on how squishy and intense they are in color.”

The sorcerer took a little sterolia from nearby and inspected it. She gave it a little squeeze, and the tiny fruit, not bigger than a raspberry, melded a bit. It was scarlet red, darker splashes coloring some parts. “Does that mean sterolias are sweeter, then? You never mentioned any property other than its taste.”

“Sterolias are used to dim the bitter taste of curas, but one can’t go around eating them like Mina does. They are horrifyingly sugary and can give one a bad stomach ache if eaten in grand amounts.”

Asui uncorked the green part of the little fruit and squeezed it. A teensy drop of yellow splashed on the other ointment. “May seem like a very small amount, but the potion won’t be very grand.” then, the sorcerer pointed at a jar near the cauldron, sitting next to Uraraka. “Pour some of that water in here. It’s fresh from a nearby river.”

Uraraka gingerly took the glass recipient and slowly put the water in. “Got’cha.” she was maybe a little bit too slow. The water made an agonizing dripping sound as it fell, and the other liquids started blending with the transparent water.

When the flask was full to a quarter, Asui put a hand on her shoulder. “There, that’s enough.” the brunette put the water away. “No need to be so delicate, though. You can be all harsh you wanna. Speed won’t affect the quality of the cura.”

The brunette scratched her rosy cheek with a bit of shame, grin trembling in shyness. She was trying to be as careful as ever, not wanting to let Asui see how nervous she really was about learning so many new things, and being a good pupil. “Right, sorry.”

“It’s ok. Now, stir this a little bit.” the sorcerer started mixing the liquids together until the red and transparent yellow blended and created thick, red substance. “As you see, you would need more leaves for a proper potion, but this will be enough for now. Looibus have high pigmented elements and nutrients, so very few leaves can do wonderful things.”

Uraraka took the little flask and did what human nature instructed her to: sniff the hell out of it. It smacked her nostrils with protruding sweetness and some acid undertones to it. If she had to guess, she’d say it would taste like cherries and lemon. “Smells rather nice. How much damage would this cover?”

Asui looked at the flask and then up to the awaiting girl, who held the potion with dainty hands and delicate touch, as if it was a treasure. “I’d say only minimal wounds, and not very fast. Kirishima told me you gave him and Tokoyami a pair of those during the battle with Pyrox.”

“Ah, I did.” the memory of Tokoyami and Kirishima sitting down in such bad state had Uraraka trembling for a second there. “I see it wasn’t that much of a big help.”

Asui sighed, shaking her head. “Not much, but it’s intention what counts. They could go home in a better state thanks to you.” this information made Uraraka’s heart swimming in pleasant warmth. “Either way, I will give you a little secret for better potions. It’s very silly… but it actually works.” she pointed at her bag as she drank a little bit of the point. “It’s part of what got me in this guild. Give me the little blue spines in a purple jar.”

The brunette undid the covering with deft fingers and ever so carefully took out a single needle. “There we go.” Uraraka was scared to the bone, chilled in goosebumps as Asui unfazed pinched her finger. Hard. “Don’t freak out, I’m not gonna die.”

“What the hell, Asui?” the water sorcerer licked a bit of the blood, nodded and dripped some of it on the potion below. Just some droplets. “Are you actually telling me–“

“I one day discovered that looibus has an actual toxin that stimulates blood creation in the blood stream. I once thought about what would happen if one added blood into the mixture, healthy blood.” Asui stirred the mixture languidly, and dedicated Uraraka a sideways glance. The aforementioned was busy having a seizure near the cauldron, shaking in utter despair. “What’s wrong? Are you really so peachy over seeing a bit of blood?”

“T-That’s not it at all!” then, the brunette pointed at her with an accusing finger that Asui paid no heed to. The brewage turned darker and darker. “It’s just insane to see you so content with bleeding and stuff for the sake of a little cura!”

“This isn’t a little one, you see.”

As a demonstration, the herbalist poured some of it on one of her many cuts of her hand, probably done during harvesting these very herbs. The cut started closing slowly, like a flower blooming inwards, and it was gone in a minute. “My blood is specially pure and healthy. Blood is thought to be replenishing for hard travels, a reason why most of us eat meat scarcely cooked.”

This had Uraraka even more afraid of the stoic herbalist, who was talking about drinking blood as if she was some kind of– “What the hell? Are you suggesting that even drinking human blood is alright?”

Asui looked at her with a slight exasperated glint in her eyes, but it didn’t show much. It seemed like that woman enjoyed keeping herself to herself in the weirdest of ways. “Sorry if it sounds weird, but it’s more of a little belief than solid science. It is true that blood boosts potions, though.”

Uraraka gazed at the still pouring blood, and saw it mix with the cura in little spurs of red claws, blending with the crimson red to make it powerful, an ingredient to save a life with the mere sacrifice of a droplet of human blood. A part of her heart trashed wildly inside her ribcage, the wise and troublesome words Asui had said so casually falling into a void of endless information, lore and extreme complications that would one day save her life– she just couldn’t see it right now, but Uraraka was sure she would find it useful one day.

She didn’t know why, but this lesson was extremely important to her. Yes, it was mildly creepy and offsetting, but she couldn’t help but feel thrilled to know a way to save someone’s life so easily, or at least prevent such occurrence. She entwined her fingers with an easy smile, watching the herbalist dump the potion into her bag. “I had a little stupid question.”

“What is it?”

“Well,” she looked at the ingredients spread on the blanket before the other girl started packing them into her bag. “I was wondering, would the effect be the same if one sucked the liquid straight from the loibuus if one can handle the bitter flavor?”

Asui bit her thumb in thought, and Uraraka had the urge to mirror her doubts by biting her knuckles or messing with her hair. Actually, it was feeling awkwardly itchy. She started to absentmindedly scratch her nape. “Now that you mention it, I had never thought about it. It sure would come in handy.”

“Well, don’t–“

“Are you fucking telling me that sucking on leaves can actually do your job?” the gruff voice made them turn around, and they watched Bakugou’s muscles flex as he held some logs on his shoulder. He unceremoniously threw them into the fire and it started licking the wood with passion, his blood irises brightening. “What do we have you for?”

That bold statement would have affected anybody who didn’t know him, but none of the sorcerers flinched at his brusque, rude words. Uraraka eyed Asui, who eyed her back for a second before looking up at their leader. “To make sure you guys have decent weaponry and not sticks like Hatsume would make to you. She can’t stand you.”

Bakugou shoved a bag with ingredients to the herbalist’s chest, who inspected the paper fixing in caution. “Fair enough, I guess.” condoned the messy blonde to the pharmacist, who ran happily back to the cauldron now that the fires were at their fullest. When she was safely up on her stone again, Uraraka started to fold the blanket.

The hunter watched the sorcerer scramble to sort out their sleeping arrangement, and started patting her pillow. She stretched her arms, her shirt lifting a bit and exposing some of her soft, pale skin. When her mouth fell shut after a little yawn and her eyes blinked soreness away, he finally understood what she was up to.

And when she limmped on the makeshift bed, all he could do was rage about her blatantly ignoring his presence. “Oi, Uraraka! What the fuck’re you doing!”

The sorcerer turned under the blanket and started stirring a bit, eyes blinking to focus on the heaving leader a meter away from her disgustingly tired face. “Do I seem to be killing rabbits?”

“Well, that would at least be useful to the situation, you dumb–“ he shook his head, because snapping on her wouldn’t do for the situation. He had tried to ignore this obvious feeling of hatred he had for her– but sometimes, just sometimes, she made it a bit too difficult being so casual with him. “Whatever, just what the fuck do you think you are doing?”

Uraraka turned under the thin blanket, her eyes facing the sky. Her words took some seconds to get out, his glare so focused on her that it was both amusing and somewhat intimidating, again, to see him so agitated. “I thought we had already stated that.”

Bakugou shook his head and proceeded to squat right next to her bed, hands gripping the fabric of his clay pants. Only now did Uraraka realize he wasn’t wearing his trademark cape and he suddenly looked so much more human and reachable like this.

“That’s not what I meant.” his contorted eyes landed on her stargazing ones, full of stars he would never even dare reach out for. It agitated him so much to see her so– just so pure and snarky at the same time. “Seeing the clusterfuck of problems we have around the problem, I can’t understand why you are trying to sleep it all off and not help somehow.”

That made her finally tear her relaxed gaze from the stars and finally pay attention to her fuming leader, who was seething over her and was either trying to scare the hell out of her or get her to move. None of them worked. “I was just taking some spare lessons from Asui for chemistry resources. Should I remind you of our encounter with Shinsou earlier today?”

Just out of nowhere, the working herbalist butted in. “Just so you guys know, the others are sleeping…”

Both warriors looked at her for a pair of seconds and dismissed her to continue bickering.

“Yeah, I do remember pretty damn well– and not because you did much anyway.”

It was now when the brunette squinted at him a little bit harder, eyes pointed in analysis as his posture was too scrunched, his cape forgotten in a bunch – something so odd from him, as she had taken him as a tidier individual – and his eyes racking around the embroiled ends of her blanket, his mind probably years and possibilities away from what mattered, from what was spinning around them as she stared intently at him. Her brow fell, and she found herself asking before she could bite it all back into place.

“What’s wrong?”

The blonde snapped from his trance immediately. His hands released the fabric of his pants and they slammed the dirt underneath, eyes widened in panic and accusation before she could even explain herself. “What the he–“

She clamped a hand over his mouth, and much to her surprise, he didn’t bite it off like he probably would have done before. Judging by his eyes though, he was probably dying to. “You are going to wake the others up, stop raging on me.” Uraraka hesitantly let her hand drop a little after she sensed he had calmed down, and he made her retreat with a hand to her wrist. He didn’t let go of it for security measures. “I am a member of Yuuei now. You have no other option but to regard me as such.”

She very sadly had the upper hand there. She could no longer be ignored or treated as the terrorist he was trying to believe she wasn’t, but the title was so fucking hard to get rid of after he had hung it on her for this long. Now that he noticed it, her looks weren’t those of a rogue criminal or a strong person altogether. Her cheeks were annoyingly rosy, eyes too big and hair too stupid. Again, she was so deceivingly naïve looking that it frustrated him and only added more to the fire.

He despised her. Bakugou couldn’t say he hated her anymore, because he was no fool and Uraraka wasn’t either. Her eyes weren’t those of a liar, but held kindness of an unbeaten person, slate clean purity in a brown splash of colors, gleaming to the fires of the camping. Her hands seemed to hold the keys to every untamed kingdom of his mind, yet he would never let her have the right locks to open all its rooms. His eyes shifted again, looking at his hands again.

Yeah – his hands clenched, admiring its scars, and closed it again with a grimace – he hated how he hadn’t been right about her being an impure bitch, but a part of him lay in joy seeing the investment would be worth it. The little titles of her head, the twinkle in her eyes, he would be there to see it all come true. It would take time for him to fully accept it, but he had to start taking steps.

It took him a little bit of resistance, but he ended up talking, shaky.

“There is a traitor in our midst.”

There was silence after that. Bakugou looked up to see her mouth agape, eyes big as saucers– but there was no trace of suspicion or anger, just shock and mild fear, or maybe curiosity? Her mind had toppled over the edge and fallen into an impossible abyss of mindless options, scattered pictures of her companions crowding her fall. The faces outnumbered her, scratched canvases of compatriots becoming traitors, and claws pulling her down where it was darker, faster.

Her body landed in solid reality, snapping back as the possibilities stopped spiraling around her– eyes settled on Bakugou, and this was the very first time that, underneath the soft stare of the stars and the moon, the leader had let anything akin to actual feelings show through that thick barrier of his, surrounded in spikes that not only separated people from him, but also the other way around.

He was a leader, another member, one that trusted his people with his stone, guarded heart. Knowing that there was a traitor in his surroundings must have him scared for once, feeling betrayed and having a knife pointed at his neck without knowing who the hand belonged to. The feeling was a bit alike with Uraraka, who regarded all her sleeping companions in a clouded scan.

It was then when the sorcerer realized that Asui had settled near her, and was tugging at the big blanket to cover herself as well. The girl gave the thingy up and shifted closer to Bakugou, who was sitting in front of her. This bad habit of being too near to people could get the best of her very easily, but this was the first time she intended to be a comforting presence to him.

After all, she had to take steps to normalization as well.

“How can you say this?”

The boy sighed, and rubbed his face with hardened hands. The brash leader was a far cry from this exhausted man, who was starting to see a mountain of problems coming to them with RampAge on the loose as well. Having a traitor among them, possibly in this very same camping where security was minimal– alarms were flaring inside of him, and it made him look ages older.

“Remember this afternoon, when we were almost ambushed by an archer?” the brunette nodded. Her hand had throbbed with intensity to protect the blonde in a primal instinct of sudden care, but the initial shake had very much worn off ever since. “The wood of the arrow was made with our guild’s material.”

This piece of data was incredibly accusatory, but the pieces were totally scrambled in Uraraka’s head. “But, maybe they simply use the very same types of–“

“No. Things ain’t that easy in our village.” the wood had burnt so nicely in his hands once he had been alone, so flammable and nice to combust. He knew the touch and feel of it very, very well. “Guilds have their own portion of forest to take resources for weapons from. Pillaging is a very different thing to this, but the Council would never let us have a whole forest for ourselves. Even I can tell that would be conceited and dumb as fuck.”

“So, you are saying that you know it because it’s wood from your forest?”

“Not exactly, as Grinning Blade has the very same kind of wood for their arrows and sticky blades.” of course he would talk about them as wimps when he had a fucking axe as playful toys to battle with. This man was gentle now, but he would have his claws out the moment this intimacy was torn apart. “Clock girl applies a material that helps the arrows burn fast, but that can preserve the arrow while burning, like a match. It’s a handy technique we use for ambushes at guild battles.”

Now that she thought about it, Mina’s hands did have ugly burns. She must be a really valued asset to their guild, as archers seemed awfully scarce as well. “Are you sure this is that much of a secret ointment?”

The ashen blonde nodded, a frown crowning his angular traits. He dragged his ass to a tree behind him and he rested his head on it, a bit far from the sorcerer now. Fire burnt not very much away, the clearing being small and the guild members resting far away from the other, yet close this time heart-wise.

“Frog girl there is who actually helped our blacksmith develop the resin.” oh, so he was talking about Hatsume, the overly excited girl at the support basement. Clock girl was… kind of a lame nickname for her, though. “I trust them enough to know they wouldn’t give this away, so I assume this fucker must have taken arrows from our headquarters.”

Rewinding back into daytime, it had been a shame sun had hidden this traitor in shadows, cloak and hands covered in blackness. Uraraka hadn’t thought much about this event in particular, had thought it was probably one of those illegal hunters making trouble again. Her hands started raking the back of her head, that thing she did all the time when she was nervous or anxious– yes, all the damn time, and everyone included Bakugou hated it.

“This is troublesome, then.” spoke she, matter o’ factly. Her eyes bore in his, worry shining through like water in a glass jar, so painfully obvious she cared for his guild that he snarled, feeling creeped out by her attachment. “If the traitor is with the others, they won’t be able to call us for help.”

He looked at her a bit more, then looked at the fires and secretly watched over his peers. The girl in front of him did the same. “I will be keeping guard in case somebody here decides to play hooky on my ass.” he spoke with such hate, burning ire and anxiety for his guild’s security rising into the air. “I won’t let that fucker get out of my eyes that easily.”

Uraraka observed him from the corner of her eyes, a sincere smile fighting its way into her tired cheeks. Her next words were as gentle as her smile, as her eyes. “You do care, after all.”

It was no more than a whisper, but he heard her anyway, ears trained to hear an ant jump from a leaf to another, and craned his eyes to her. Bakugou showed no sign of approval, but didn’t reject the statement, either. “I am a damn leader. It is my obligation to look after these wimps, because if I don’t, they will be rotten meat by the time we get to the village.”

That made her laugh, then do a double take and actually revise his pointed words. “It’s not like we can’t manage, you know. If you have won so many battles against Grinning Blade, you sure can be lethal. Jack’s words, not mine.”

The hunter turned to her, eyes indifferent but still tasting the pride in her words. In a sense, he was immensely proud of what they had all accomplished together, but his heart somehow didn’t want to take the conversation in that direction. “I never said you weren’t able– I sadly know you are perfectly able to fight anybody in your path.” she looked at him again, cautious for whatever he was going to spit now to ruin her. Surprisingly, he just didn’t. “Kaminari and Kirishima sure are, the same with Iida. I know you guys can actually fight back.”

Arched eyebrow at him. “So, you are actually complimenting us.”

Bakugou doomed her with that sadistic smile of his that sent her heart in a mad ride, but she couldn’t really explain why she still felt so intimidated while on the road to normalization. She would have to get rid of those petty fears if she wanted to meet his ground someday. “When I call you a terrorist, I mean it because you are a menace. It is an insult.”

Her eyes deadpanned in his, bored and waiting for him to go down the very same decaying road. “C’mon, finish me off.”

He squinted his eyes at her, head titled forward. The fires shadowed his eyes in an even harder glare. “What I mean is that now it seems like you can play the role we want you to. So you can try to see that as us knowing you are able.”

“So, you are admitting to me, right here and now, that you do aknowledge that I am strong.”

“Oi, don’t sass me, Uraraka.” the sorcerer giggled, and she crawled to rest against the tree by her makeshift bed right next to Bakugou, who only recoiled so she wouldn’t step over his boundaries. Her eyes climbed up to the starry ceiling above their heads, and found out that Bakugou was wistfully stargazing as well. “Relatively speaking, you are strong for a novice. But I can’t have you relying on brutal smacks that leave you as a leech right after. That will never do.”

Her voice was lost in the night sky, then closed her eyes to feel the dark breeze of the river neat them. “I guess you are right on that. I do wanna get stronger, you know.”

Bakugou looked at her with intensity. The orange lights of the fire lit up her eyes, but it wasn’t like she needed actual fire to shine, right? It was this weird feeling inside his chest of seeing something ever so scary inside of that petite body of hers, a feeling so enticing yet so mysterious as that face of hers seemed familiar– but it had terrified him and then made him leap to anger. She was the only one in this forsaken guild that could flip his switches.

And it threw them off even stronger when he saw that she never meant to trouble him, but she did anyway. Uraraka hadn’t meant to come across as a terrorist, as a menace, as his heart sworn enemy after Shinsou and Midoriya– yet, she hadn’t shrunk. She had sucked it all up and faced him in so many occasions, little by little, and had made her stand up against a fucking mob of people conspiring against her.

She hadn’t meant to step in here, but she had anyway and there she was, quiet as if her whole life hadn’t been turned upside down like his had been. Couldn’t she realize what a fucking nuisance she was, that he was bearing with a little too much to his liking?

Look at what she made him do, have to step out of his way to try and accept her. Disgusting. Yet he was doing it anyway, and it was starting to become easy not to hate her. And a part of him knew she was easier with it that she had once been. He didn’t really want to know what was going through her head, but he deemed it better to be like this.

But then her eyes drifted to his, and she grinned when he found him staring. Bakugou growled with disdain, making her giggle. Her eyes warmed slightly when he didn’t immediately threaten her like he would have, just swallowed it up. Yeah – both thought, eyes glancing up the stars – it was becoming easier to overcome such universal rules.

“How strong do you wanna get, though?” his words were hoarse in wonder, more spoken to himself than her, but it made her interrupt her internal schemes to regard him. His eyes moved to hers as well, red bleeding in pure chocolate. “I don’t know how ambitious you are power-wise, but I can assure you you ain’t becoming a professional powerhouse anytime soon.”

Uraraka hugged her knees, sighing. Her tone deflated slightly, her mind set off far ahead. “As much as I can. As much as I can take. As much as it requires so we can take down RampAge and fix the universe.” so there she went, speaking about such thing like it was a silly matter to the wind. “I will overcome myself, and never bow to an enemy again.”

Her eyebrow was knit in determination, no longer talking to Bakugou, but to herself. A part of him knew this was like some kind of mantra to her and that Uraraka had this tone that esteemed danger and threat in a thousand languages, but not a single cell of his body found the energy to complain despite this being a clear hazard to her. Honestly, at this stage, she could go throw herself off a cliff, he didn’t care much about it.

It may be because he was tired, but stepping from actively trying to kill her to simply not caring about it seemed like a great step to him. Better to not want her than want her dead, right? Irony would get him for that later on.

“Well, as long as you don’t cause me fucking trouble, it’s fine.” condemned the leader, but he had a feeling she wasn’t really listening. “Now go to sleep, it’s been enough talk for the night.”

“Mhm, agreed.” nodded she, still relishing in the glimmer of the fire near her, wood cracking under the moonlight. “We have stayed civil for too long, better to not drag any further.”

The blonde hunter growled at her after such remark, to which she could only laugh and sigh. She wasn’t stupid, and knew that deep inside, he was a bit afraid of moving on from that comfortable stage they had of hating each other recklessly and having swords drawn all the time– but she was starting to move on, which sadly didn’t mean he would move as fast as she would. The past was a long forgotten memory, but she could only wonder how much it’d take for him to let it go.

And the thought tired her so, so much.

Yeah – after a short glimpse at his eyes burning at the fires with passion and complexity, her head craned back to the fires too – she did care about him, after all.

“Papa, who are those people at the barrier?”

Nameless peaked from the border of the cauldron, pink hands coming to swat them away in fear she would burn herself. Bubbles floated from the recipient, pink hues delighting the girl before they burst in the air, and she laughed in senseless joy. “Ah, my child, no more than silly invaders.”

“Yes, that’s what mama told me… but I don’t understand. They seem docile and…” the face of the boy came into her mind, his rude and blonde behavior contrasting so much with those kind faces that had allowed her to cross the river, bland attitudes and some smiles thrown her way. “They even have the same skin as I and Harold do!”

“Harold?” she nodded, only to have her tutor crouch and ruffle her hair with his clawed hand. “Don’t you mean that red boy with the hard skin? Was it... Kirishima?” the girl’s eyes lit up, and her head bobbed again with a wide smile. “Well, yes. You do share some similarities, but the color of your skin doesn’t define who you are, darling.”

“But we are so similar!” Nameless outstretched her chubby hands, petite pads grazing his dad’s claws. “Look, papa, my hands are different! Yet, they are invasors and mama hates them? I don’t get it.”

The little brunette crossed her arms, cheeks puffed in disagreement. Whether they were invaders or not, they hadn’t tried to touch her despite being from another species, from another face of the incoming war– she was their enemy. But nobody had dared to touch her. Her dad could see a million thoughts running across her sensible mind, so he just shook his head in utter defeat.

“Some time ago, we took something from them– something very important.” that had her looking up, hands limp on her sides with the very same naïve look everyone knew her for. “Something that holds great power, something that belongs to us, and has always belonged to us. It’s the reason we are still alive now, they fear us. This land– this planet alone, it all belongs to us.”

Nameless continued looking up, brow knit in confusion. Her heart beat out of control, breath stale and staggering to keep her alive in the very same place she stood, and she wasn’t there anymore, backgrounds changing to a fuzzy rainy ghost town full of dead trees, where an orange house stood and a warm family lived. The drops of a far away rain hammered on her skin, and never left.

When her eyes looked up again, they were wet with tears. “Daddy, I don’t understand! Does that mean they want to really destroy our species? Because they are… greedy?”

Father looked at the girl sternly, but didn’t give her a response, stirring the brewage silently as Nameless wiped her eyes clean. In fact, her father would never give her an answer, but the fact that his eyes had stared at her so intently brought tears to her face every time.

A part of Uraraka had once found herself believing that travels like these were bound to be fun, used for bonding and mental training. As she had been packing all her stuff, the only thoughts that racked her head being images of her friends laughing, telling stories as they went or taking about everything and nothing at the same time.

Of course, she had been wrong.

Not too much. But still.

The group walked through the forest in a slow trudge, under the shelter of a blinding sunshine that never gave it a rest. Whilst they were walking just by a river – Iida had diligently explained to her that the Capital was located just by a river, so as long as they went in the right direction, they would never get lost – there was no breeze whatsoever, and Uraraka had to remind herself that using magic under such critical elements was not healthy.

There was this moment when Tokoyami came to her side and asked for some whips of air, as Asui had no knowledge of how to do them. The brunette had sighed in resignation. “It’s not wise to use elements you can’t actually bend in space. Bending elements consumes energy, but bending elements one has to actually create is an incredible waste of energy.”

Kaminari, who had been talking with her all the way, butted in shamelessly. “Whoa, those books that Yaoyorozu gave you must have paid off for sure. You sound so technical, Uraraka.”

The sorcerer smiled as contently as possible, sweat gleaming under the hat. “One tries her best. It has happened to me that when I try to light up a candle with no fire around, I feel a bit colder afterwards. So now, creating air out of nothing would possibly knock me into a heat stroke, and I doubt you guys would enjoy carrying me all the way to our next stop.”

She could already hear Bakugou scheming ways to convince her to help Tokoyami, and fumed at his back. He walked a few steps ahead of them, battle sword in hand just in case any nasty enemy came to crash the party. Bakugou looked behind him and instantly snapped when he found her staring at him with that stupidly fumming of hers. “What the hell are you gawking at me for, Uraraka?”

“Wow, Bakugou, moody much.” commented the other blonde, and it sounded like such an obvious statement, devoid of surprise and just too plain regular that nobody paid him any attention. “Sleepless again?”

This time, the hunter was the one to look back at her, but his eyes weren’t as loaded with hatred as one would expect them to be. “Yeah, talkative midgets won’t let one rest.”

Uraraka found herself very much offended when all eyes landed on her. “Hey, I am not that talkative! Stop– Asui, are you seriously laughing at me?”

Asui had only giggled a bit, which counted as a laughing fit for her. “Sorry, I am just kind of glad you two are already making nice. Kudos for putting up with Bakugou so far.”

The leader stopped in his tracks and leaped before Asui with a tapping finger on her arm. It had taken him way too long to snap at someone, which made Uraraka breathe out, finally. It was better to have him throwing a fit now than when they got to the village, tired and sore from skipping streams and getting boulders out of the way.

“Oi, who you calling hysterical, frog girl!?”

She only blinked at him, not as terrified as pale Kaminari was of him. It really seemed like most people from Yuuei had the beast under control, but even Uraraka herself who was kind of used to him – she had experienced him at his worst personally, there wasn’t much worse than that in store for her – would jump at his brashness sometimes. Asui, though, she was so collected and unbreakable.

Sometimes, she wondered if–

“FUCK!” Uraraka turned to see Tokoyami clutching his shoulder in pain, and with a little shift of his posture, she found a dagger stabbing his skin. “What the absolute–“

“My my, foreigners in our territory!”

The crew turned to their right, above the river and up to a mountain cliff. The leader of the group growled loudly and unconsciously walked to stand before his team, sword drawn at the unwanted presence that stood atop the cliff. They wore black cloaks and there was this one that stood in front of the group with some kind of scepter drawn out, black strands of hair blowing in the wind. Uraraka could even sense the wicked smirk that Bakugou sported so well under the capes.

“Hold on…” her eyes squinted at the cloaks, and recognized the beads at the pointed hoods. Her breath got stuck in her throat. “– t-those are…!”

“That fucker.” snarled Bakugou, cleaning some sweat from his jaw. “Where the hell did you guys come from?”

The female voice talked again, head lolled in mean intentions. “Nobody you will ever care about, soft boy.” she looked at one of her henchmen. “Wipe them out.”

This mercenary swung his hand to the right, and a thousand purple spears appeared in the air, pointing at them, and fell down faster than a lightning bolt to crush them dead, pierce their skulls and leave them bleeding on the ground, making the leader chuckle and lips her licks at the full display of flesh she’d have for her people, but–

“Look out!” Uraraka’s staff swung at the sky and a rampage of fire and lighting exploded the attack into smithereens as a ceiling of light rippled in the air, making the forest dance at the wave and the enemies’ cloaks float for a few seconds. The energy rippled onwards into the forest, and burnt some of the highest trees until they were no more than ash.

Uraraka stood straight again, forehead sweaty and weak knees. “That was close.”

Bakugou smacked her on the neck with a grimace, which she rubbed in pain. “No need to burn the fucking whole forest down though. We’re seriously gonna work on that.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at the awaiting group, dangerous lights flickering down in her glower. “Noisy children.” she tugged at her hoodie, and dug some dirt out of the cliff with her staff. “Be right back, guys. Don’t wait up.”

And the woman straight jumped off the cliff, staying in mid air for a few seconds to focus on a safe landing. The blonde leader tugged at Uraraka’s neckline and yanked her backwards so she could stay out of the damn way because she didn’t know how to do anything else but stand in his way. When he saw that that damn witch was going to land straight on him, he dug his blade on the dirt and held his wrist straight up.

“This is gonna hurt like a motherfu–“ and he fired, rippling explosions driving through his skin until they imploded and exploded into the air fifty meters above them, fire bubbling in the air as a gust of wind rushed into the ground and slammed on the dirt loudly, making Asui actually stumble and fall into Iida’s armored hands. Uraraka held onto life by driving her staff into the ground, Kaminari holding onto her as well.

This foe though, she was no commoner. Her body dived straight through the explosion with her cloak riding the air, and the hunter had to leap back with a shriek her her scepter slapped the ground and made the soil crack under her feet. Then, she was up, head titled in amusement as her voice cackled in disbelief. “Fun trick, kid. You sure don’t fool around.”

“You…” Tokoyami stepped forward as well, standing by Uraraka’s side. A hazard of a shadow lurked behind his eyes, oh she could tell so well, and his hands were clenched in crossed arms, pondering the potential of this enemy. “you are one of those illegal hunters, aren’t you? From the Jirou family.”

“Ne, such a blunt statement from a bird boy.” she wiped something from the corner of her mouth, and Uraraka came tumbling into the terrifying conclusion that is was red, crimson blood. “Why say it so spitfully, boy? It’s not like we are the plague. And please, don’t make me feel related with that bunch of scruffy criminals. I have more class than that.”

Kaminari stepped in front of Uraraka and Asui, who looked troubled at the sight of such shady woman. “Not like you made that evident, jumping off a high cliff to attack some kids.”

“Never said it wasn’t an adventurous kind of class, blondielocks.” her eyes bled in blue purity into Uraraka’s ones, speaking of horrible death penalties for the sorcerer in her head. “Ah, this child. You sure ruined my little show before, I can get why your village is so damn scared of you.”

Her other hand rested on top of a black whip, nails long, black and dirty. Her uniform was torn in several places, revealing bunches of scarred skin and blood caked on her hip. This woman – Uraraka shuddered under Bakugou’s glare, who was exceptionally aware of what she was thinking – was dangerous. In a kind worse than Bakugou, worse than Shinsou, or darker than that man’s chamber at the mountain crevasse.

She was terrifying, and the thought made her take a step back until she was met with silence from the black-haired woman. Something was telling her to step back, something deep inside those eyes made her world fall into a ditch of statics and bugs, nagging thoughts of nightmares and blood dripping down her hands, heads surrounding her and rain falling on her neck again–

A jolt of electricity made those thoughts disappear until they were no more than a stain in her mind. “She’s toying with you. Don’t look into her eyes or she–“

“My, such a talkative boy.” snarled the woman, flicking her hair over her shoulder under the cloak. “Let me introduce myself, even though I doubt it’s necessary, right? Judging by your faces, I doubt it’s necessary.”

Her hand fetched her hoodie and tossed it behind, revealing a sharp, pale face with black glasses and pointed factions. That face… – Uraraka screwed her eyes shut, biting her lip as she thought back in days when she had seen that face, that victory and those dead eyes of hers that– Uraraka gasped, and a mild rush of fear ran down her spine at seeing such a dangerous figure stand idle in front of them, in front of him.

“I go by the name of Midnight, referred as Hollow Despair by my peers and all those who survive me.” her voice was arrogant, but not in the way Bakugou’s was, again. She was in so many ways as mean as the leader was, yet it was easy to see he was just unreliant and brash. Yet, this woman… she was so much more than that. “Hey, brown eyes, see this staff? It’s way prettier than yours.”

Uraraka had the urge to spit on her and say it just wasn’t her cup of tea, because that scepter of hers held a deadly aura nobody liked. Black staff with bars surrounding a cracked skull, moss growing out of the ancient heirloom. It sprinkled some odd vibes off the scepter, smells like a cemetery, and the place is suddenly deadly silent for the moments to come, the voice of this mercenary filling the whole forest. “I am a necromancer, professional in the art of death and despair, and whoever who crosses paths with me is destined to receive a nightmare battle. No opponent of mine leaves unscarred. Nobody ever has.”

This makes Uraraka gulp, and hears the distant clinking of Bakugou’s sword being drawn out from the earth, and a chuckle. It is all so distant, why did she feel like this? Blood was plumping into her heart in a frenzy, rationality forgotten as her hands trembled on her staff’s hold. What the hell was going on?

“Necromancers are the antithesis of sorcerers.” mumbled Asui to her peer, who eyed the pharmacist with tired eyes. It looks like Asui was kind of exhausted as well. “Their energy naturally draws your energy and sucks it into their bloodstream. Our magic can’t do much against them.”

“Then, we are useless?” exclaimed she, frantic and desperate as the deafness only drew in closer. “We can’t do anything?”

“Pretty much.” Asui looked at the four warriors in front of them, and eyed Bakugou as he drew his blade in front of his guild mates loyally, which made Asui sigh in relief. “They won’t need us that badly. I wouldn’t worry much over it.”

The brunette had never felt this helpless in her whole life. This was the first time she remembered to have needed to lay down her weapons, nature too cruel and mean to allow her to fight. Her hands trembled in anxiety as the boys aimed for the woman, attempting to nuke her as hard as possible– but their attacks were futile against that agile woman who rejected their attacks with a swing of her damned scepter.

“What the hell, woman?” the leader held a hand up, explosions rippling, and slammed it to the ground as to make it tremble, knocking her back a few meters as it cracked and shook under Bakugou’s grasp. “You a look a lil’ shaken up! Why don’t you come and face us?”

His bravado was all but useful �� mused Uraraka solemnly, gripping her staff with strength. A little breeze blew from behind her in the middle of the battle, making her nape feel relieved and her life start beating anew, renewed limbs and decision etched in her thin veins. Asui looked at that dangerous glint of hers, and grew worried for her friend.

“Iida, protect Asui!” called the brunette, making the knight spin to meet her eyes. “I will serve as support for them!”

The brunette treaded towards the fighting blur of colors and smashed the ground with her foot, a column of spikes rippling from beneath and running towards the necromancer, who broke them with ease with a swing of her scepter. Ah, so much for being sneaky, and Bakugou looked at her with exasperation at her for pulling such bland move.

“Oh, we have a newcomer here.” Midnight tossed a strand of hair aside and pounded the ground with her weapon. Uraraka heard Bakugou and Kaminari grunt, and they were clutching their heads when she craned her head to meet them. Her eyes grew concerned, but didn’t think much of it. “It’s good to see a little mage playing with the world as well. We sure are the misunderstood profession, huh.”

Her heart was tugging ever so slowly as Midnight stared at her intently, and her stomach lurched as something akin to exhaustion and awkwardness stirred deep inside of her, her brain racking with various facts that suddenly made her feel nervous, anxiety crawling and gnawing from behind as it pulled, pulled, and suddenly impacted on her.

The brunette was almost brought to her knees as energy was drawn from her, replaced with all kinds of negative thoughts that had her mind screaming to stop, weak and fragile, slow and burning. “Disposable.” snapped the necromancer, and tugged her hand up to make the ground quake beneath her, sending Uraraka flying towards the depths of the forest.

Kaminari screamed for her name, but was interrupted halfway when her feet scraped the ground and created cushioning spikes of stone and stopped the push, landing on her knees with a hand on the ground, panting. Bakugou and Iida blinked at her, and watched her brush a bead of sweat off her jaw. She might have survived that, but that woman was drawing energy off her too fast.

“You can’t die, huh? Miracle girl I shall call you.” snarky, egocentric and the pure evil, that woman was. The little sorcerer was able to stand up, and Kaminari instantly came to shield her, whip drawn out and sparkling with bolts. Midnight licked her lips at the blonde boy, who was frowning in a threat at the mad woman. “Don’t stare at me so hard, boy.”

She dug her scepter a bit harder on the ground, her smirk tightening as Bakugou and Kaminari this time doubled over in pain. They groaned a few curses, but still managed to stand. Bakugou dug his hand into his head and Uraraka saw him tug– wow, he was trying hard. “What kind of game are you playing, damned witch?”

Uraraka’s eyes then drew to the staff on Midnight’s hand, and watched the skull. Blood rushed to her ears and deafened for a second, a wave of displeasant wind thundering across the small clearing. It sent Bakugou and Kaminari to their feet almost instantly, but Uraraka was quick to bend the current and drive it back to her, sending the mercenary flying meters behind again.

“Fucking shit,” mumbled the leader, struggling to stand again now that the other woman was a bit further away, trudging towards Uraraka. “what the fuck are you–“

“She may be a necromancer and…” her legs buckled underneath her, but Bakugou made no attempt to help her stand as in, as he expected, she was able to sustain the swoon and manage to grab her staff for support. “all that. But that doesn’t mean we can’t use brutal force against her.”

Bakugou stretched his fist with his other hand and rolled his neck a little. “I can handle her, but your magic will only nurture her if you use too much of it. It ain’t wise at all to go into battle, Uraraka.”

The girl eyed him warily, an eyebrow quirked as she finally properly stood up. Midnight was starting to stand up, brushing some dirt off her neck, and Kaminari stepped to his peers again. “She ain’t backing off easy, huh?”

“Ain’t happening.” the leader was still kind of scored on, his legs were quivering in the meanest of ways, and he held his head on his hand. Still, the grimace of a challenge still gung on his face. That made her smirk a little, and his sword hissed in front of her feet. “Not like we can’t take that bitch, right?”

Uraraka dug into the ground with a defiant, meancing glint in her eyes, and Kaminari stretched his fists as jolts shot out of them. Still, the girl wasn’t sure if they would hold up for much longer. They were panting, willing to fight but their bodies seemed to have other plans. She did hold onto hope despite the circumnstances, and watched the necromancer get to her feet with a horrifyingly pissed expression.

Her head snapped to the cliff she had come from. “What the fuck are you losers doing up there? Get these kids!”

Bakugou already had a plan in mind, and flashed a glare at the bird man. “Bir– Tokoyami, Iida!”

“Got you, master.” Tokoyami was gone in a flash of shadows, and a screech that Uraraka had to cover her ears from. Iida was gone with the boy, and had left Asui to stride to her companions.

The enemy was gripping her cloak when Uraraka looked up again, and this strange, bleak smile broke free when she had all their attention. Her brow was knit though, showing a contradictory set of emotions. The sad, angry and ravenous vibe never wore off, and only started to wear thin on everyone. The more they looked in her eyes, the more the darkness drew closer.

Bakugou stepped a little bit forward, standing in front of the group. The woman wanted to laugh. She did. “Oh my, such mighty group sending two boys after my mercenaries. I hope you bid them good farewells before this encounter.”

Kaminari put Asui behind him in basic instinct. Uraraka, instead of being content with the arrangement, stepped forward as well. “You should be worrying about your people more, old hag.”

“What do you–“

A collection of pained screams issued from somewhere in the forest, along with the very same screech they had heard before but double in intensity, as if moaning in misery. It was heartbreaking, yet immensely powerful. Midnight turned at them in disgust after narrowing her eyes at the source of sound. “What even–“

“That must be Tokoyami sorting out the trash, ribbit.”

“Tokoyami…?” now that Uraraka thought about it, she didn’t even know much about him. As far as she had seen, he didn’t even have weapons with him. What the hell was his profession or skill if he even had one? “Well, that’s not the thing now!”

Mignight growled at the people who she saw as children, a nuisance, and pounded the ground with her scepter. “Silence!”

“GAH!”

Kaminari and Bakugou let out a loud scream of pain before limping onto the ground, trembling and crawling on the ground for dear life. Kaminari was out of comission in a second, his trembling stopping altogether and his breath haltering. Uraraka gasped and stiffled in a scream as some blood started pooling around the boy’s head, white and statics covering her mind as screeches, blood and rain mixed in a metallic pang of worry and panicking.

And above all, red. The red of Bakugou’s eyes, squinting at the necromancer as he crawled to her. It was as if gravity was pulling him down and not up as usual, his voice wasn’t edgy nor his muscles were tensed in emotion. This was raw, desperate Bakugou, crawling as Uraraka stared from behind.

“Y-You… fucking bitch…”

Moments of void echos vibrated in the zone, and the leader fell out of consciousness, reality leaving his thoughts and movements and he fell, shattered and stopped breathing. When Uraraka and Asui saw the very same crimson blood start falling off Bakugou’s closed lids, something snapped in Uraraka. The image came in waves at her, something about it being so so vaguely familiar, yet so very distant and out of reach.

Showered in far away, metallic awry rain, she watched the blood spill from his head, and then looked up at Midnight in pure rage. “What the hell do you think you are doing to my people, witch!?”

“I can’t really see the diff–“

“Shut up!” Uraraka flung her staff in front of her, ruffles of fire cascading down onto the earth, with lighting, making Midnight jump to a side and avoid the fire crackers.

Her staff touched ground again, and as she crossed her hands, an ancient spirral of chaos and destruction shone under her feet, contained in a white seal of thunder and rocks. “Accept your fate, nothings!”

When she released the seal, a big thunder wave of wind and lighting slammed onto the ground, shook the gravel and sent the brunette flying meters behind, trashing trees at her wake as she flew across the air and landed on a bigger tree, which resisted her push yet made her head hit the trunk pretty bad, clothes scarred and torn with burns on her skin. The area was ruined with a long hallway of broken trees and dust, making Asui frown her eyes at the murderer.

Uraraka didn’t get up yet.

Midnight looked at Asui with disdain. She couldn’t feel any magic in her, and that… thing wasn’t even human. She was a mutant. “I don’t know what you are, little thing,” with a hard thrust on a crack, Asui was flying as a rock pillar sent her out of the ground from below. “but I don’t think these kids will need you anymore.”

Asui tried her best to flail her arms around for some movement, but Midnight ended discarding her at the river that flowed behind them, and Asui didn’t surface from the dark waters either. The necromancer chuckled at the rich collection of decaying bodies in front of her, and saw them writhe a little as she moved. Her scepter articulated a chain with a gripper, that attached itself to Bakugou’s neck. It gripped his throat tightly, and as Midnight tugged at the chain, she smirked. Delicious blood dripped down his jaw as his nose bled as well, and she kicked his shoulder as she clenched the chain with her fists.

“Pretty little boy.” the tugged at the chains harder, and tried to dislocate his shoulder with another kick from her heeled foot. “Such a disg–“

A explosion was heard in the distance, and Uraraka was sent flying after Midnight as fire rippled from her palm, screaming at the top of her lungs. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!” and her body impacted with Midnight’s in a deaf sound, movement stilling before the woman was sent straight into the cliff, a cavity created as the necromancer unceremonously landed on the wall.

Uraraka hissed in pain and waved her hand with a little blow. She couldn’t understand how Bakugou did that crime on a daily basis without being handicapped for a while, because her hand would bleed and bruise after such compression and explosion of energy. Magic wasn’t supposed to hurt her that much physically, but this trick of his was a fucking suicide bomb.

However, Midnight didn’t take much longer to be getting up again. Uraraka looked at the river, and alarms rung all over her head, an annoying beep in her ears as the crash left the whole place silent. “Asui!”

But a clap of thunder tore the ground beneath her apart, and a huge shadow kicked her on the back as Midnight slammed the scepter into the crevasse. Uraraka rolled dangerously near the river, and the necromancer jumped to this side, snarling. “Disposable little thing.” she gave her another kick, and Uraraka was sinking into the waters of the stream.

Her eyes tried to blink open in the dark waters, and could differ some streaks of light stemming into the low ground below her as she floated deeper and deeper. Her hair waved around her like a halo, her torn clothes heavy and caressing her burnt skin, caked in blood and savage intentions that had left her dizzy, confused, and she was almost touching ground now. Luckily for her, the river was particularly still now, but it still carried her onwards little by little.

Uraraka finally fluttered her eyes open, and silence greeted her surroundings aside from occasional bubbling. She tried to make out her surroundings in the muddy waters and found out that some wounds were stinging her like bees, so she gripped her hand for dear life. Her back was throbbing as well, which wasn’t very good either.

She grimaced. That nasty necromancer was for sure doing bad things to the bodies of her friends, and she had been so fired up at the thought of having to celebrate a burial in such nice day. Her eyes had lit up, teeth clenched as an avalanche of disarrayed emotions whirled through her– only to die here, at the hands of muddy water and a laughing sociopath.

She looked at her bruised hands, then at the surface, and tried to flail a bit a move. Nothing. She kicked her feet around, nothing. Not knowing how to actually swim only came to her mind now, and she would have cursed loudly if it hadn’t been for the water making its way into her esophagus, ice and fire fighting as it burned, scrorched, and she clenched her eyes in pain.

Then, something frail and lukewarm enveloped her in the muddy darkness, and she let herself be taken.

Midnight kicked Kaminari’s unconscious body a little, humming in approval. “He would make for good fodder. I can use him as a delicious container, though… heh, so many possibilities for my people, to–“

A loud splash of water rumbled behind Midnight, and she turned to witness Asui enveloped ina massive bubble of water, Uraraka tucked under her arm as one of her hands was shot forward– and the pair floated in the ball of tides before Asui unleashed the currents onto the unsuspecting Midnight. “River Enchanting: Dragon Slash!”

The bubble disappeared into the shape of a roaring transparent dragon that screeched and pushed Midnight deep across the forest, creating a streak of havoc that threw the enemy out of the clearing, devastated trees and created a little earthquake when it smashed the necromancer onto the ground, throwing her to the dirt below.

Asui left an almost unmoving Uraraka on the ground as she effortlessly strode a bit towards the streak of destruction, no signs of pride showing whatsoever the moment she saw the wrecked, shaking bodies of her peers on the ground. The other sorcerer made an attempt to lift her head, and started coughing out water like a sprinkled as soon as she was conscious enough.

As Asui stepped nearer, she glared at Midnight like she had never done. “Don’t underestimate a little girl like me, hunter.”

Midnight hissed dangerously at the herbalist, crouched and wiping some dirt and blood clean from her face. “Not worth the pain, fucking children.” she tucked her head under the hoodie of her cloak and fled out of the scene, letting Asui breathe in relief while rushing to Uraraka’s side.

The girl was trying to spit all water out of her lungs, clutching her chest while grunting and grimacing at her blisters and cuts. “Are you alright, Uraraka?”

Cough, cough. “Y-yeah, just–“ she closed and opened her bruised hand, sighing in relief when there was no open wound that could have been polluted by the water. “– kinda peachy. the others though…”

Uraraka scrambled to her feet and hurried over Bakugou to slap his cheeks a few times, then shook him. The fallen leader only breathed a little bit, blood falling down his nose and trailing on his cheek. Uraraka craddled him on her arms while Asui checked on Kaminari. She wasn’t even thinking, all she wanted now was for him to wake up, just wake up, jus–

“Uraraka, stop!” she couldn’t understand. Why was seeing Bakugou hurt hammering so hard on her? Her heart wasn’t beating that hard, she wasn’t breathing heavily– no signs of distress, yet, why was she clutching his head so tightly?

Metallic thunder and rain clapped in another place, falling down on them in another story, another world, another time. It was raining somewhere else.

“Mother…”

“We must hurry!” the brunette eased one of his arms around her neck carefully, and wrapped her own arm around his waist, getting up. “We need to take them to the nearest village, quickly!”

Asui obediently tucked her own arm around Kaminari, who almost toppled over and crushed her with his weight. “Couldn’t you use your ability, though? We could take them there faster.”

“Impossible.” and Uraraka regretted saying this, because if she had spent more time training her skills rather than chatting around, she would be able to take them flying somewhere safe. “My ability gives me terrible nausea if I overuse it. I haven’t had enough training to–“ she adjusted Bakugou’s body on her side with a grunt. “–to actually develop it properly. Damn it.”

“We should manage until we get to our next stop, but we will have to make it a race.” Asui looked around her, searching for the right path in the midst of the forestal havoc around them. “We will have to make Iida sprint to the village and tell the others to give us a hand. Yaoyorozu is our best hand to play here.”

Uraraka took a cautious step, shrugging his body closer– then another. She could manage. “This guy sure is heavy, but alright. I gotta… be strong, and push on.” this last bit was murmured more for herself, mentally lost in the middle of a clearing of confusion, worry and searing heat around them.

But Asui smiled anyway.

When Bakugou came to, he felt like wherever he was, it was the wrong place.

His fingertips scraped the soft thing underneath him, tilting his head a bit when he was met with a soft blanket, rough at the edges, but smooth all the same. His head was on something bland, and his neck, bandaged and kind of tight. It was stitchy. His arms felt sore as well, and his wrist was pained, swollen much probably.

His mind did the kind gesture of backtracking a bit, then heard noises out of the place he was in. He clenched his eyes close for a second as light started filtering it, hinges sounding, and steps trudged around him.

“Bakugou?”

The leader woke up with a start when he saw Asui staring at him right in the face, not more than a few inches away from his nose. “What the actual fuck, frog girl!”

“I was expecting you to remember my name or at least call me by it. Whatever.” the blonde boy supported himself on his elbows and looked at her go to a little table at the end of his brown, orange and white room. There were a lot of medical supplies there. “Try to rest. You weren’t easy to fix.”

His eyes trailed down his abdomen, but no bandages rested there. There was nothing in his arms, excepting his hands, and then he had one wrapped around his forehead, something heavy straped on it. Bakugou let out a big breath of exhaustion as the events from last–

“How long…” Asui came to remove the damp cloth from his head and nodded. “have I been here?”

“Two days.” answered the girl quickly, and dried the cloth on a nearby bucket. “Midnight did a number on you and Kaminari.”

–right, two days since that stupid witch, a spawn of the devil, came to play with him. He felt impossibly weak after being so beaten up, and undeniably weak and stupid. He wondered: what would had he looked like, laying half dead on the ground at the mercy of such a powerful enemy like that woman? The ground had cracked evenly beneath his muscles, pain rippling inside his mind– and suddenly, he was no more. The aftermath was rough, but so was the fall.

“Ribbit! Don’t burn the mattress, Bakugou!” smoke was steaming from his hands, and Asui had to slap them off before he had no bed to sleep on.

He frowned and attempted to sit on the bed. When Asui tapped his shoulder, he extended his arm obediently, stil fuming over his defeat. “I just can’t believe that bitch got me so damn good…” Asui quietly damped his neck and shoulder on oilments, and looked over his arm with critical eye. “Damn that Jirou clan… They are no good news.”

The girl gave his neck a final squeeze and retreated back a little to squeeze the water out of the cloth on a bucket. “She was overpowered, there was no hope for us to win. All Uraraka and I could do was knock her around a little bit. Thank god she got tired of us quickly.”

Bakugou frowned when that damn sorcerer’s name came into the topic, and hissed with deep hatred. She sure must have had the time of her life laughing at his decaying corpse while she nuked that necromancer. “Of course you were able to play with her.” he didn’t know who he was exactly referring to, but he was getting pretty mad at the image of him laying and Uraraka standing and fighting. “Fucking sure you could.”

“Sheesh, calm down.” Asui stared at Bakugou shredding the blankets again. Such a waste of bed clothing. “It’s fine. You don’t need to be the one stomping on others’ heads all the time. Does it really make you that mad we were the ones who got her to escape?”

“I don’t fucking care you were able to get her out of our tails. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you girls doing something.” his grimace got so drunken in rage and regret that he had to close his eyes and seethe in silence. “But I can’t get over that damn midget–“

“Oh, so this is about Uraraka, even after all this time.”

The leader craned his head slowly to glare at the herbalist, who clearly didn’t give a fuck about his little grudges with her. “Don’t sass me either, you damn–“

“No, really. I can understand what you mean.” condoned Asui, a finger to her mouth. Judging by Bakugou’s surprised face, frown squished in wonder, she had all his attention. “We are all aware of what Uraraka is capable of doing. There will come a moment when she will surpass our own expectations, and she will step over us in power.”

“Yes, damn straight.” agreed he, slamming a fist on the ruined blankets with a snarl. “Finally, someone sees my point–“

“However,” of course, she had to ruin the little communication they had. “that doesn’t mean she is a menace to us. All this time, she has proven to us that she had a good heart in many ocassions. Do I have to remind you of how she still tries to talk to you despite your foul personality?”

Bakugou almost jumped out of the bed and knocked her to a better life, but decided against it because, after all, she was the one curing him. “I am a damn delight!” he slumped on the wall, arms crossed and pouted, nose wrinkled in distaste. “And it’s not like she is trying. She just doesn’t get the damn hint I don’t wanna be her friend, and if it was up to me, I’d fucking have her head on a wall.”

“You still personally accepted into the guild, though.”

“When will you all stop rubbing that in my face!?” screamed he, but Asui still continued stirring some creams and treatments on a flask, herbs smashed on a little handkerchief. “Damn her, and fuck her cheeks, her staff, and her ass pity! I don’t need anything from her.”

“Stop sulking.” scolded the water sorcerer with a minimal scowl, disliking such childish displayal. “If you were an actual mature leader, you would have put this grudge of yours aside and looked at the situation with critical eye. I understand that you may not like her, but she has saved your ass many times now.”

“EXCU–“

“Listen,” she cut him off gently, like a little knife in fire cutting a solid cube of ice butter, her eyes soft and hands fidgeting beneath his eyes set aflame. “for starters, it was her who got up after a solid, killing blow and knocked Midnight out of the clearing. I was the one who ended up kicking her off, yes–“

“Again, it’s not like I don’t aknowledge her strength, but I don’t own her a–“

“–but she was the one who actually saved you” not Kaminari, not Asui, nobody else but him, and he could see that tint of insistance in the pharmacist’s eyes. “from probably getting necked off. When she saw you in such bad state, for some reason I can’t comprehend, she went berserk. Afterwards, she personally carried your ungrateful ass to the village, and helped me tend your severe wounds– wounds that, mind you, would have been worse if it weren’t for her.”

Such rush of information caught Bakugou off guard, and he actually flinched at the accusatory tone in Asui’s tired voice. Now that he noticed, she had bags under her eyes, her hair was unkempt, and her skin has several untreated wounds. Was Uraraka in such state as well? After saving his ass, after actually carrying him here, was she untreated and disarrayed like this snarky pharmacist was? The thought suddenly didn’t bode well with him, and something akin to shame panged at his heart. He swatted it away quickly though.

“Look, I know that you don’t like her, and you will probably never even be friends with her. Nobody is actually asking for such miracle.” Asui padded next to the leader, who glanced at her in thought. She had never seen so silent in her whole life. “But she doesn’t deserve this rage after going out of her way for you in these occassions. In the same way you think you don’t need to thank her, she doesn’t need to do anything for you – it’s not her obligation, it’s not necessary, but she still wants to help you out anyway.”

Out of the blue, his grudges were kept under the shadows and they just stopped nagging at him, stopped putting him on edge, and let him take control of the situation. It was true that the sorcerer was usually nice at him – well, apart from the times when she only went to him to pester and ask ridiculous questions, but that wasn’t the point. Uraraka was a threat, hell yes, she would always be one – but that didn’t really need to stay that way forever.

Up to now, all she had done was put his guild out of trouble when he was either too small or the situation was too big. She was undeniably powerful, had a strong will, and needed to bloom in so many ways. She was a sorcerer, a threat to humankind he needed to keep his eyes on– but things didn’t need to be that way. It was hard to stick to such beliefs, but now that he thought about it, it was more tiring to dislike her than just humor her.

He eyed Asui warily, giving up. He could try to be actively cooperative and stop taking steps back.

“And how am I supposed to be nice to her?”

The girl didn’t show any signs of relief or happiness, just nodded and flashed a little smile. “You could start by going to see her. She left a few hours ago, said something about studying, and scrambled off. Maybe thanking her would make her day a bit better after slaving herself for your sake.”

“Thanking her?” the concept seemed painfully foreign to him.

“Remember, Bakugou… she may one day tire of being nice to you. It may seem like a good riddance now, but trust me she is a keeper.” and he had been told about that a few times now. Kirishima and Kaminari had talked pretty well about her, and all he had done to condemn those opinions was accept her into the guild. He had felt like he had done enough with that, but it was seemingly too little of an action.

The blonde hunter sighed tiredly. In a way, her studying for their trainings, for his guild, after tending his wounds for being a wimp… it wasn’t really fair. He was a fair dude. He wanted justice in his guild. He could give her justice and try to make it all easier for them both– and his guild, remembered he with a grimace.

“Yeah, whatever. Just gonna get this over with so you guys stop giving me earfuls about her being a fucking miracle.” grunted an ugly breath of discontentment and dettached himself from the wall. “Can I walk, though?”

“Of course you can.” he sat on the edge of the bed, hands clasping the blankets with care. He would probably have to pay for those. “Your neck will feel sore for a while, and your wrist is kind of swollen too, but that should be gone in a day. For now, take it easy.”

Bakugou played a bit with both parts, twisting his wrist – it hurt – and craning his neck – that did, too, and he slammed a hand on it with a hiss. “Fine. Just give me some treatments so this nuisance is gone. Where is Uraraka at?”

“This is our room, but she didn’t want to be disturbed or disturb us, so she is taking an empty room for now.” seriously, who told her to be so goddamn nice? Bakugou growled a little. Was she trying to purposefully make him feel bad? He hadn’t given her a reason to do such things, just… “It’s the one at the end of the hallway, with the pot on its side. Try not to be too brash, alright? You just woke up.”

The leader brushed past her, fetched a simple shirt from the hanger by the door and hurried inside of it with enormous urges to get such mental burden out of the way. He had no time to deal with petty businesses like these: he needed to focus on RampAge, on the timeline, on saving it and saving his comrades. It seems like he would have to get Uraraka to feel like one to start with.

“I ain’t moody, frog-girl.” grunted he over his shoulder, biting back so many insults that, after some silent thinking, she didn’t deserve. “I’ll come back to get some painkillers. Pray for that brat’s safety.”

Asui was about to say something about it, but her voice died when the leader slammed the door close was left with heavy stride towards the damned door. He squinted and saw that the mentioned pot was red, giving him all kinds of bad vibes. Each step he took felt like a stab into his pride and all morals he had been building these years, like tearing a wall down brick by brick. She gave him that uneasy feeling of being defenseless in front of her straightforward attitude, how she was unaffected by his remarks.

He hat– no, he didn’t hate her. He didn’t want to kill her, either, he decided. She was worth keeping, but she didn’t need to make him feel bad about it. He hadn’t done anything to deserve such treatment. He didn’t owe her anything more than a simple thank you. He had already decided that she didn’t mean any evil by being so… like this, and all he could do was try to make it easier for her.

Bakugou just shut his critical part of his brain and acted as his fair heart wanted to. He couldn’t cut her off the picture anymore when she was so adamant on sticking by him. It annoyed him, yes, baceuase she felt like a liar, because he didn’t need it– but, apparently, his guild and him sometimes needed her. And for actually being there, she deserved the recognition. Even if she annoyed him.

Knocking on the door with obvious impatience, he have the pot a kick for the sake of keeping his personal tastes in check. He then knocked again, and again, but nobody answered. It came to him that the door was unlocked after a rather violent hit, and he opened it with uncanny precaution.

Bakugou groaned way too loud when he saw her slumped over the table, too many books and scrolls crowding the desk and her head tuked on her arms, on top of a book that seemed to be almost compeltely read– seems like exhaustion got the best of her and she had collapsed before reading the book and had, consequently, overworked herself to this extent.

Uraraka was too hard-working. It unnerved him for a reason, because she didn’t need to do this and instead she went on and did it. The world wouldn’t stop spinning if she took a rest after taking care of him, she didn’t need to make him see her worth so hard. Not like this after saving his ass. A small wave of new guilt came crashing on him, overwhelmed him for a second. The world faded, there was only her, books, bags on her eyes and wounds on her arms, blisters, burns.

She didn’t deserve this. The feeling overtook him before he whacked the chair she was on to silence his heart. “Yo, Uraraka, what the hell.”

The sorcerer didn’t even budge at his brash attempt, only snuggled deeper into her arms and mumbled something under her breath. The leader angrily kicked the table, which shook, but didn’t wake her at all. Talk about heavy sleepers. He gave her shoulder a little shake and silently seethed over how cold she was. Now that he thought about it, the room itself was abnormally cold.

“Damn it, Uraraka.” he tried to keep it in, but he never did good with unbehaving people. He slammed the table with his hand and made all materials quiver, including the sorcerer. “Fucking wake up already!”

Uraraka flung her head back with a start, almost hitting Bakugou on her side, and somehow resumed reading the book in front of her. “Sorry! Right, so, humankind tried to–“

He smacked her neck with a fist, angered at such careless attitude. “What in the world are you doing, Uraraka?”

The girl moaned and rubbed her neck with a pout, then yawned but stopped halfway, such gruff and hoarse voice so rich and vivid that she recognized it I a second too late. She turned her head to glance up at the livid leader, who had a hand on her chair. “Oh, Bakugou! It’s good to see you awake!”

The sorcerer blinked, some tears of sleepyness trailing down her cheeks, and yawned again. He grit his teeth and had this inhuman urge to close all her books and make her rest for a damn second. “What the fuck are you doing? Shouldn’t you be sleeping after being my nurse or something?”

He mentioned the issue so lightly that if she took it into consideration for more than a second, he didn’t notice. Uraraka turned to the books, then him. “Right! Well, I just had some spare time to finish off some books Yaoyorozu gave me, so I could go get some new volumes at the local library tomorrow, because you see, what I was given was kinda…”

She trailed off for a few seconds, holding Bakugou onto a line of broken dialogue, then she yawned and that was the last nail on the coffin for him. “I don’t give a fuck about it, go to sleep already. It won’t do any good for you to be limping around when we train.”

Bakugou then noticed that one of her hands was completely wrapped up in bandages, as was that very same arm. In fact, some medications laid around the room and he was starting to freak out over this woman. What kind of alien civilization educated her to be this crazy? All she was doing was straining herself. He didn’t give a fuck if she had a bad time while being rough on herself, he wouldn’t be crossing over that line anytime soon.

However, as much as he tried to stifle those thoughts, the excuse of this load of work being bad for the overall guild seemed kind of unfounded after all she had gone through because of him. She didn’t really deserve that, but again, he couldn’t bring himself to care that much. Still, he gave her another shake when she started dozing off on him. “Oi, at least hold up until I leave the room.”

“Oh! You are… right.” the brunette rubbed her eyes awake and looked at him from lidded eyes, peeking. Exhaustion swam all around her, she had this nasty ability to transfix feelings so damn easily. “What did you need, though? There is no way you would come to check on me without a reason.”

One of his eyes actually twitched after what sounded like an accusation, but he didn’t verbally express it because… nah, it wasn’t worth it. “Just go to sleep already. It ain’t worth it anymore.”

“Are you–“

Bakugou got a handful of her hair and smashed her head – slowly, though, as to not break the books – on the table. “Yes, I am sure. Just rest for a while. That’s…”

That was the least she deserved.

“Hm?” she didn’t even make an effort to get up, and only looked at him as he turned around to leave her. Her eyes were closing on their own, submerging her into a field of flickering blackness and swimming, scattered mumbling. “What is it?”

“Tch.” Bakugou shook his head and went for the knob, and before he knew it, she was breathing evenly again. He turned to her again, and was proven right when her eyes were closed, mouth parted and chest rising and falling under his irritated glare.

His head snapped to a blob of reds on a chair in a corner of the room, and a part of him wanted to walk the extra mile and get that blanket and suffocate her so she wouldn’t feel the coldness of the room. After a minute of glaring daggers into the fabric, he gave it a rest and turned heel again. He had done enough already, no need to overdo it.

Yet, right before leaving, his eyes trailed over her slomped form and sighed, vexation finding itself into him again and he closed the door, softly, muttering something about this being useless, her being irritating… but he still decided that he would be giving her the message he had intended to.

She always made him feel so many contradictory emotions. He wanted to respect her and be nice, but she made it so very difficult by being so unbearably… hardworking, determined. He didn’t like admitting that Asui may have been right in most parts of her version.

Still, he didn’t care. Uraraka could go and sleep around all corners and cut herself an arm as long as she didn’t bother him. And this didn’t bother him.

Not a single bit.

Uraraka hadn’t rested. Against Bakugou’s ever so gentle orders, her head hadn’t found a drop of rest in the pages of this massive book of history. When her eyes fluttered open, about half an hour after Bakugou’s departure, a load of other volumes presented themselves in front of her eyes.

She glared pointedly at them, and frowned. It was a miracle she had managed to swallow so much information on a sole go after the battle with Midnight, or dealing with a Bakucorpse and the aftermath of it all. After being warned that she needed to train her abilities more to avoid situations like these in the future, she had gotten as many books from her bag and read as much as possible. The rest… it had rolled off casually, really.

In a moment, she had found herself wrapping a blanket around herself and padding to Midoriya’s dorm, which stood right in the other hallway of the little residence, and she had been given a clear response on the matter before she had even completed her request.

“No.”

Uraraka puffed her cheeks at Midoriya, who balanced himself on a chair. Lots of documents rested on his desk, unopened envelopes and maps, and she couldn’t help feeling like an intruder in his room. “Are you kidding me? Why not?”

“For starters, I don’t know why you want more books after Yaoyorozu gave a pretty reasonable amount of them. I don’t understand why you have decided to finish them off so quickly either.”

“Well, I just wanted to get things out of the way! After Midnight gave us such scare, I can’t go on without some kind of training. I can’t train with Bakugou having RampAge on the loose, not in ideal condtions anyway.” the leader shook his head with a bashful smile that made her hold her breath. “What’s so good about the situation anyway?”

“You and Bakugou are so alike sometimes… such a shame he will never see you in that way.” he sighed, but there was this kind smile he always had on despite being serious. This man was levelheaded and calm, smiling and kind. It reminded her of Todoroki in some ways, but Midoriya was clearly more outspoken than the other boy would ever be. “Still, I don’t want you go to overworking yourself any longer. You have other things to worry about.”

Uraraka crossed her arms, folding her hands on her elbows and tapping relentlessly. “I won’t overwork myself. It’s not like the situation doesn’t require some–“ she had him frowning straight away, so she had to instantly cover it up. “but still! I know it’s not healthy for me either! And it will hit the guild if I falter.”

Since she was lying a little bit, she even used Bakugou’s words for reference. Turns out she was using Bakugou’s methods and awful lot lately. Uraraka couldn’t make anything good out of it. “Please, Midoriya! I won’t overwork myself.”

“Can’t take the risk, Uraraka. You are also straining yourself too much by even being here so late in the night.”

“The sun just set.”

“Still.”

Both sighed in dejection, as they wouldn’t reach a meeting point anytime soon. Midoriya wanted his guild mates to rest idle and easy, Bakugou as well. Then existed Uraraka as an oppositing force that would do anything to fight and become a fearsome professional on her own. She had the will, she had the strength, why not let her stretch the gum a little more?

“Doesn’t matter, I guess.” breathed the girl in a whisper the other didn’t hear. “I will just go have a walk around the village or something. I don’t think I’ll be able to have a brink of sleep after all this.”

Uraraka bowed a little with a small smile, and turned swiftly to leave. Just as Midoriya’s chair scraped to meet the table again and focus on the matters at hand, Uraraka faltered in her step. “I don’t wish to be too inquisitive, but…”

Midoriya turns a little to regard her, his eyes interested on whatever business she is about to say. Again, this boy had this strange ability to make her feel warm and kind inside, always listening to her requests and cheering on her. Her mind was always at ease when she was with him, his words well intended and his attitude collected and nice. She now wondered why, somehow, she had ended hanging around Bakugou instead of him.

Fate was not on the same wavelength as her, for sure.

“Why is Bakugou so… perpetually on edge with you?” this seemed to startle him, and maybe this wasn’t the right mood in which to ask so Uraraka stumbled to explain. “I know this is a sudden thing to ask but… it’s weird to see two leaders be so distant from each other. Don’t mind me if I’m being a gossip and stuff but I just–“

“Please, Uraraka, it’s fine.” cuts he in, waving her worry off with this little shine of his eyes that was so sweet to her and endearing. “It’s an old story, no need to even mention it. He is just…” he measures his words, rolls them around his tongue and them lets them fall off in a trail of sad thoughts. There is senseless regret there, too. “let’s say he just doesn’t like me much for… reasons, personal reasons. We are working it through.”

“But–“

“It’s fine, Uraraka. For now, just focus on resting. Wander around a bit if that will help you sleep.” the girl had so many words inside of her to still say, but she forcefully swallowed them and gulped, a hand outstretched in shock. “There will be several fairs around town we will be attending soon, maybe you can check some out now!”

And she blinked– blinked because Midoriya had been so quick to raise the shield and silently kick her out before she said too much, asked too much. If there was something she knew right now was that this wasn’t her place, so she gave it all up and sighed, shrugging. “Yes, I will do that.”

Surprisingly enough, she didn’t sound edgy at all there was this scratchy knot in her throat from both exhaustion and the feeling of having this unbreakable wall in front of her that separated her from the nice leader, and having been so blunt about it seemed like lack of respect for him. In a bow of silence, the girl turned and left with a little nod of her head, leaving the leader to sort his business, which sure weren’t small.

She found herself slowly trailing down the stairs of the building, her red blanket trailing behind her with the swoosh of the night breeze. The weather wasn’t humid, wasn’t dry either, just lukewarm and pleasant. Still, probably due to her tiresome schedule, something was off about it. There was a mild disturbance in the air, something about her stride was too fast, and people around her minded their own business when they felt so far away from her.

Right before leaving the small building, she noticed that the main door had no knob to open it with. She turned to a maid hurrying around the lobby. “Excuse me, miss! Ex– excuse me?”

The blonde woman halted her frantic race to look at Uraraka, a basket of dirty clothes to wash on her arms. “Is there anything you need?”

“Well, I wonder how… I know this may sound stupid but,” she signaled at the door behind her with a thumb, smile bashful and the other hand clutching the blanket around her. She also realized her hat was gone. “how do you open the front door? Do I have to push it open? I feared it would–“

The maid arched an eyebrow at her after looking behind her shoulder. “Miss, I’m afraid there must be a mistake.”

She pointed at the door, and Uraraka was met with a silver knob shinning teasingly under the lights of the candle chandelier above them. Her breath staggered in her mouth, swirled and got heavy like lead, falling down her stomach and crushing any sense of tranquility inside of her. Her thoughts, her little antics and whatever spark in her doe eyes faded to black, and her jaw trembled, shivered and cackled against her upper teeth.

The maid wasn’t there anymore, only the feeling of being forcefully scraped out of the world and everything felt even odder than before, drearier, and all she could wonder was how the situation had gotten to this point. It had to be the timeline being messed up again – concluded she, gulping a big bubble of thick realization, eyes wide as saucers. The walls crumbled, the paintings fell and the maid disintegrated to flesh and bones, no more a woman, but a corpse.

This situation was… wrong. It was wrong in so many levels.

The sorcerer slowly touched the doorknob and finally released a load of relief when it didn’t bite her, or burnt her skin. She twisted it and she didn’t even bother looking behind her to watch the maid leave, just high tailed it out and closed the door behind her.

The small village was soaring to life, apparently. There was this small bonfire near her, at the center of the village, and some stands of warm food and little silly games were put around her zone. Her eyes drank from the orange flicker of the torches, ears tingling when she heard childish laughter – a few children came running near her, and she had to step away before they crushed her, all with a smile. The moon was high in the horizon, stars covered by some clouds, but it was beautiful in every way.

Her orbs roamed, her body idle, and when her eyes landed on a little tent, she snapped and her heart jumped. Some building away from hers stood a little purple tent, beady with crystals and lacking a door, just a curtain to let curious wanderers in. If she was insistent enough, a small quantity of incense could be noticeable.

Her feet made the way to the tent without the sorcerer really realizing it, and Uraraka found herself peeking from the curtain. Inside, there was only a little table, two candles lit with blue fires, and a deck of cards. The small breeze made her hair sway with the gentleness of its caress. She tucked a strand behind her ear before speaking out.

“Hello? Good night… I am–“

“Welcome, dear.”

Uraraka was near to smacking a hinge off the fabric tent when the woman made an appearance in a cloud of mist, her head cocked to a side after seeing the little girl so shaken. Darkness embraced her like a second skin, the lights wrapping around her clothes in a mysterious, whimsical aura of obiquity and deep intentions, covered by a veil. All Uraraka could make out of her was her infinite trail of black hair, impolite porcelain skin and a black dress. And the thought of the woman unconsciously hiding her identity only made Uraraka feel further away from this world, tucked safely on this very small tent where incense fleeted on a thick cloud of dense air, hard to pin down but still offputting.

“I’m glad you came.” again, it was like a golden thread of smooth silk touching her, that voice. It was enticing and pleasant to hear. “Not much people entrust their lives with oracles these days. Your eyes though… seem troubled.” she took a break before saying these words. “And exhausted.”

Uraraka tangled her fingers on the back of her head and rubbed, rubbed, because those eyes of hers were echoing so hard into hers, and the air was again, too thick. She couldn’t see them move, yet she could feel her as if she was an inch away from her. “Ah, well, I didn’t have much sleep tonight, miss. I was walking around here and saw this little place.”

“Tell me, young girl.” she reached out and lifted Uraraka’s chin up, and she didn’t put much of a fight. “What is it that troubles you?”

The sorcerer shuddered under her touch, and felt some kind of void when the woman busied her hands in shuffling the tarot cards. Whoever this oracle was, she had this power to draw information from her ever so easily. Her voice was soft and sweet like honey, but intentions and movements sharp like a razor blade. Still, the incense tingled around her, calming these feelings down.

“Well, I have been having these… weird dreams, nightmares. It can be any of both, really, but they follow the same theme, the same story.” Uraraka crossed her arms, trying to remember vivid images of it all. But all she could see now was a smiling girl, sunflowers in her hands and bloodstains on her dress. “I don’t know who it is about… I see it all as a spectator, as an omnipotent force who can do nothing but stare.”

“Dreams and nightmares, a classic.” the woman laid the deck on the table, and folded her arms beneath her chest. “If you are having these occurrences, it means that something is calling out for you. Tell me, could they be something akin to lost memories?”

“I… I don’t believe that to be the case.” despite that being the only likely scenario, Uraraka found herself ending up denying the possibility. “I never woke up with any sense of recollection, or bonds for that matter. The feelings fade from the memory fast, but they leave scars. I can feel it all,” she raised her shaking hand to the light of a candle, black swallowing her palm, and then closed it. No sense of completion got to her, so she mourned in silence. “but it’s all like a far away feeling… I get this inkling it all may have to do with my dreams.”

The woman had listened obediently and nodded, it was her turn to play her role now. “I see, I can understand the trouble. Do you wish to make them disappear?”

Uraraka recalled having heard names from people she knew in those wild sets of dreams, adding fuel to the fire. “I’d want to find out what they mean, and then get rid of them, if it’s possible.”

The woman chuckled, but it wasn’t an evil kind of laugh. “It is possible, dear.” her hands disappeared from the table, and Uraraka’s breath was again dancing inside her lungs, stuck, when she drew out an ivory knife, golden handle and black dots on the back. “I will need a droplet of your blood.”

She took the sharp knife with dainty hands, testing its weight, and Asui’s lessons suddenly came to mind. “Do you plan to create some kind of potion with it?”

“Not exactly.” the oracle hit the deck to even all the cards, and tapped it twice. “These cards shall tell what those dreams mean, for which I will need to identify you. Your blood is all I need.”

Used to specific information, accurate data and loads of nearby facts, somebody being this vague struck hard in her, and she found herself feeling wrong in this place. The smell of incense and tightness was squeezing her heart in a vicious clap, all swirling around her madly as she stood in the eye of the hurricane. It was wrong, but at the same time, what could she do in this situation?

The girl sighed, dedicated a last look at the oracle, and cut the back of her palm with the knife. Rich, crimson blood started flowing out of it steadily, and when the oracle pushed the deck near to her, Uraraka tightened her palm into a fist and a newborn drop fell on the deck. As soon as the blood touched the deck, it vanished into a little puff of burnt paper, leaving only two cards on the table.

“These two will tell you all information you need to know.” condemned the oracle, her eyes swirling around Uraraka’s– and god, she could feel everything in this room sharpening, making her feel light-headed, and somewhere along the way her recollection of even entering this place left her. “We will lift the first card, now.”

Her nails scraped the table, then flipped the card. Uraraka recognized it, and the view left her speechless for a second, a shadow setting behind her eyes as fear and horror soaked her whole.

“The Hanged Man.” spoke the oracle, solemnly. When the sorcerer didn’t even ask about it, she lifted an eyebrow at her. “No need to alarm. There are no cards that are directly negative, but since this affects your dreams, I reckon you should be paying more attention to them.”

“What…” her heart shrunk in her ribcage, eyes staring in disbelief at the glaring image. Her hand fisted the blanket around her. Uraraka only knew that the oracle’s voice had turned somewhat colder, only lukewarm, and heartfelt. “what is this supposed to mean?”

“A crossroad.” she took the card with two hands and showed it to the shivering girl. The image boomed inside the girl’s dampening mind, drunken in incense and high on clashing emotions that had her heart near an arrest. The fires lit up against the card. “A road that will have you make a decision. There will come a moment in your life when you will have to make a decision– an important one.”

“A… decision.” whispered Uraraka, her brow knit but trembling in confusion as danger thrived in a far away place from this, a very different time and very different circumstances. Her eyes drifted to a corner to not let this compelling sentence crush her, and the oracle nodded curtly. “What does this have to do with my dreams?”

“Your dreams are trying to guide you through your decision. They are posing different the options you may not see now, but you which you will see in the future. Someday, you will have to face a choice. And it may not make you happy, or others for that matter.” murmured the oracle, yet her voice blared in the other’s ears.

So she shifted her hands on her lap and let it all sink in slowly, letting the thread leisurely snap inside of her, letting bleakness and obscure colors sneak up on her. “I… see.”

The oracle checked on her for a second, then flipped the next and last card when Uraraka nodded at her to proceed. The view afterwards pleased Uraraka to an extent, but the feeling dimmed quickly when the oracle only stared deep in thought. When the oracle caught the sorcerer shifting her eyes between her and the cards, a long sigh escaped her lips and fanned the veil.

“The Hierophant.” judging by her solemn tone, that wasn’t good news. However, she was now avoiding Uraraka’s inquisitive irises, which were searching for clues in the oracle’s hidden expression. There was a ghost of a grimace in her voice. “It comes to affirm all I have been told to this very moment.”

Uraraka tiptoed around the topic carefully, and doubted about what to say next. She found her ground a solid minute later. “What… does it mean?”

“It means making a choice. A good, correct choice.” responded the oracle, her tone dripping with grieving and sheer disgrace. Despite this card being shinier and overall more positive than the last one, she was talking about it as if it was a pure curse. Her presence loomed over Uraraka as darkness peeked again. “It means stopping for a second, breathing and rethinking about which is the good choice.”

“As in, backtracking?”

“Kind of.” agreed she. The black haired oracle stared at the cards, now set on the table, then back at Uraraka. She let out a loud grunt after a while, and if the sorcerer could tell with perfect certainty, she would swear teeth were glistening underneath the veil. “You will be confronted with a very tough decision, which may be why your dreams exist in the first place– to guide you to the right decision.”

“But…” her eyes were shadowed by a sad frown and a slight descent of her plump lips, her face a ghost of the cheery girl she always was as a grim foreshadowing hovered over her head and settled over her shoulders, responsibility breaking her heart. “what is the right decision?”

“I’d say that’s up to you to decide. If the cards insist this much on this decision, it must be a very important one.” theorized the oracle, tracing the hem of the cards carefully. Uraraka nodded intently, her eyes flickering in intensity under the blanket of incense. “The cards seem to sense a relationship between your dreams and your future, so they are building up until the day this decision comes. Again, if the cards are so adamant on this… the world could very well be resting on your shoulders.”

Those last words shook her and it felt like a little knife brushing her skin, tender and slow, up and down, as it loomed around her for a surprise strike. Danger was always so close to her, showing its claws in oh, so many ways… yet, it would never present her with the reality that so many pointed at her. Everything… it all just looked like a dream, or a nightmare– she couldn’t decide, but it seemed like all she could do now was wait for time to come to her.

Not like it helped the situation, knowing that a responsibility she didn’t understand hung on her shoulders an unknown number of days, weeks or months away. It was all so ambigue and uncertain it left Uraraka wondering if she should believe all this woman was saying, but decided to stick to it as a burning pole, blistering her skin and bruising her but serving as a flashlight in the darkness.

“I… see. Then, they are important, huh?” the oracle nodded, and Uraraka tried to wrap her mind around this fact, because they were nothing but a hassle that didn’t seem to have anything to do with her life. They weren’t really making that of an impact on her yet: just a little girl, a village, then another. What did she of all people have to do with that? “I still can’t see the relation between them… but I guess they will come in time, right?”

The oracle was too busy to actually listen to Uraraka, but she nodded anyway. Her hands fetched for a little flask under the table. She made the transparent liquid dance a little inside the doe-shaped recipient to test its volume, then handed it to the girl with… haste? Her hands had trembled when Uraraka had brushed them, and the oracle had been quick to wave her off. “Now, if you truly desire to erase those dreams from your mind, you must leave and drink that potion.”

The girl got up with newfound excitement, eyeing the colorless fluid in the flask. It was as like creamy water on a legendary bottle, and it felt so exciting to both have such recipient and the possibility to get rid of those nasty dreams. If there ever came a point that she needed to choose in an important matter, all she needed to do was listen to her heart. There was nothing her heart didn’t know, right?

“Thank you very much, miss!” she vowed gently as she always did, a smile dancing on her now energetic step. “I hope we can meet someday!”

Before Uraraka could head out the curtains, the oracle offered her the fateful cards. “Take them, so you can remember this time. Save them as reference, they may save your life one day.”

The sorcerer blinked at the weird request, and didn’t miss the shiver on the stoic woman’s arm. She leaped to the table again and took both cards under the fire of blue, quiet lights, purple fabric covering them as a quiet deal was stuck. “I will take them then, if you may.”

The brunette put them inside one of her uniform’s pockets and waved at the oracle again, smiling brilliantly now that her problems seemed to be stepping down from their stages, little by little. Her mind was a pure clean slate of purity, no spikes or cracks of imperfection clouding her mind aside from the invisible floating loom of responsibility, but she would put it aside for now.

“Thanks, miss! I hope we will cross paths again!”

Uraraka saw the oracle wave at her from behind, and she pushed the curtain aside and stepped out, stopping once she was outside to look at the recipient and uncork it. Her feet were visible from inside the tent.

“I will take this now then, before going to sleep.” her head turned to look at the fair at the center of the village, which was starting to swarm with people. She shook her head with a smile of contentment, but inwardly disappointed at having missed the fair when it was mildly tolerable. There were too much people around for her, so she just decided to call it a day, finally, and looked down at the recipient, which gleamed to a torch’s fire.

Uraraka giddily brought the liquid to her lips, feeling the cold potion fall down her throat slowly, making its way to–

The second one drop made its way into her stomach, her whole body quivered and started stinging, shaking uncontrollably as an insufferable pain shot out from her head to all parts of her body, hurt and acid scratching her mind with fire claws, drawing blood from her brain and making it fall down her nose as Uraraka stumbled, and gripped one of the poles of the tent for support.

Her eyes filled with tears as her vision blurred and blood pooled on her arms. Within a blink and a pained, moaned cough, Uraraka’s knees buckled and she fell to the ground as blood still flowed out of her and started staining her cheeks and hairs. Her eyes were open, seeing the building where she slept so in her reach yet, as she outstretched her hands and tried to crawl back to the beaten track, her strength faltered and she gave up the fight.

Her eyes closed, and her body stayed limp in front of the tent for two seconds before the oracle came out of her little place. She shook her head at the being laying on her doorstep and squatted down to her side.

She rummaged through her pockets to find one of the cards she had given her, and stared at it before looking at the people of the village, too far away to notice the crime. The oracle took the card and stood up again, giving Uraraka’s motionless body a kick. It wouldn’t take much time before somebody found the body.

The flailed the card a little bit and frowned at the unconscious girl. “Destruction girl,” she spat right by her. “disaster sorcerer.”

A few minutes later, the tent was out of sight, as was the tarot card with the image of the Hierophant, burnt to ashes in front of Uraraka’s right hand.

“Lie her on the bed, now!”

Todoroki and Mina quickly laid the little unconscious girl on the bed as the others ran to the threshold, where Midoriya tried to keep them at bay. When Jack was denied the entrance, she frowned at the leader and banged the door frame with her trembling fist. “What the hell, let us in! What’s wrong with her?”

The knight sighed and trembled, stood and gulped to keep himself in check against the agitated crowd of people. Only a few members had been admitted into the room so Asui’s work wouldn’t be haltered, and it seemed like it would take them a little bit more than words to actually understand that. “We… don’t know. Mina came across her body a few minutes ago and we haven’t given Asui enough time to check her conditions. Please, go to bed and we will sort this out overnight.”

“Midoriya, you can’t be serious!” the leader looked at Iida patronizingly. As time moved forward and people started to jam-pack the corridors, the boy grew more and more irritated– and it was such a rare thing to see in the leader, a flash of vexation at the unfair situations.

Nobody knew what had happened, really. When Mina had seen a body laying on the now empty area, her first initiative had been to try and shake the body awake, thinking that it could be a drunk little girl taking a reckless nap– but then the hair, the smell of her skin and the color of her gloves, it all dawned on her, and she had let out a horrifyingly terrified shriek that had called Todoroki and Kirishima over, and they hastily carried the decaying corpse to the nearest room.

She could be dead for all they knew, and a chill ran down everybody’s spines when the possibility came into mind. Her body was so light, her gasps for air so sharp and frantic, and her hands would tremble now and then, and the loll of her head into a tragic angle of uncertainty that had everyone at the edge of their seats. The critical situation had left everyone in a state of loss and worry that was only going on crescendo as Midoriya blocked the door.

“Only us few will remain as to not collapse the infirmary, but we are sure it’s nothing severe.” and yes, this was a big fat lie, as nobody could really go that far and confirm such madness so soon. He heard busy chatter around him, which prompted the boy to grasp the knob to close the door. “We will inform you all of the situation next morning. For now, rest assured we will do as much as possible to sort this out.”

With that, everyone dropped their shoulders and Midoriya took that as his cue to close the door, and he lay on it with a bead of sweat running down his temple. Who had told him to go and confront the crowd had no idea of how nervous the boy grew with these situations.

“You look troubled, Midoriya.” commented Todoroki, sitting on a chair right next to Uraraka. One of his hands rested on the mattress, close to Uraraka’s in case she had a crisis. Asui sorted the potions with hurry behind him. “Do you think they will manage to rest with this situation in their hands?”

“The thing is, it’s not something they can meddle with now.” Kirishima helped Asui with the arrangements, searching for something the girl had requested as he spoke. “It depends on Asui to identify what the fuck happened to our little lady.”

Asui, for the first time in years, actually frowned at the redhead and took a little syringe from her bag. “Ribbit, don’t put more responsibility on my shoulders than what I have already.” she strode to her body and, after a few little touches on her forehead and checking her eyes from underneath her lashes, she took one of her hands. “She has a cut here.”

Mina checked on the torn skin with curious eyes, as did Midoriya who was next to her. “What a weird place to have a cut. It’s so…”

“Precise.” intervened the leader with a growl. “Could somebody have used her own blood against her?”

Asui was already extracting some blood from Uraraka’s forearm – all thanks to Todoroki who rolled up her sleeve – critically fast. Just as the crimson liquid started to flood the syringe, the girl frowned again. “No, the wound is not the issue here, nor is her own blood.”

Asui hurried to her table on a side of the room, and arranged a little bent paper on a disk. The girl pushed on the syringe and, as the first droplet fell, she knew something was wrong. The liquid climbed fast through the filter paper, to the point in which there was no blood remaining on the disk, it had all gone through the paper. The sorcerer gave it a little shake, nibbled on the wet edges, and threw it to the disk again.

“Hot blood.” announced Asui hastily, pressing her hands to Uraraka’s pulse. It was slow, but throbbed against the girl’s sensitive skin. “Her heart is having problems carrying it around her system, it’s thickening.”

Mina, having been around her lessons with Kirishima, was quick to identify the source of this problem. “Poison.”

The mutant nodded. “And whoever who poisoned her wanted her dead on the spot.” she coaxed the brunette’s mouth open gripping her jaw, and passed a gloved finger along her tongue. There was something slimy glued to it, cold. Asui had a faint clue of what this could be, but she wouldn’t be sure of what poison it was until she tested the substance.

The water sorcerer dipped her glove on a disk with water and saw the disk be infested with bubbles and oh, that very familiar purple hue. “A nitoria posion. Brash enough for a murderer.”

“You are joking, right?” Mina stepped to the table and gasped when the disk started melting on the edges. “Please, don’t tell me–!”

A loud moan of pain was heard across the room which had everyone getting up from their seats and chairs falling, as Uraraka’s body arched off the bed and her chest started panting with hurtful intakes of toxic air, her head trashing on the pillow while her head darted from side to side. Her brows were drawn to a painful knitted grimace.

Bakugou, who stood looking out the window, craned his head to look at the ruckus, and frowned wordlessly.

Asui, however, seemed by far less alarmed than her crew. “Nitoria poisons have antidotes, and as this was made to be apparently healthy and hard to notice, its effects are dimmed by the quantity of additives in it.” nobody understood a word of what she said excepting antidote and healthy, and their faces were mirrors of this fact. “I can cure her, no worries. In the meantime, restrain her from making too harsh movements. Convulsions are fairly normal at this stage of the intoxication.”

As easy as that, everyone but Bakugou cooperated on the operation, gripping her arms and legs to the bed no matter how much she trashed or crumbled under their steel grasp. The pharmacist was rushed by the alarmingly loud gasps of Uraraka, how her peers were struggling to hold her tight no matter how hard they bit on their lips, or how they muttered words of encouragement under Uraraka’s piercing little screams of pain– all under her unconscious, yet seemingly only slumber state.

“She’s regaining consciousness, Asui!” warned Mina, her irises starting to move too much in their sockets as something started racketing in that jumping mind of hers. “We need to find an antidote before she wakes up! The nitoria–“

“Yes, yes, I know!” exclaimed the other stressfully. If Uraraka reached consciousness before the poison was diluted in her bloodstream, it would devastate her mind beyond humankind’s imagination– additives as boosters for side effects, decreasing the degree of lethality yet reaching and branching through the sorcerer’s darkest corners of her mind. “I just need a second!”

Asui was sweating bullets by now, her hands trembling in the middle of the night to find a cure for this madness. Her fingers deftly worked through samples, substance that could render the poison useless in minimum time. She stroked fruits, mashed leaves with the help of Kirishima’s hardened fists. The convulsions on the dying body were fading away little by little, making the straining easier while Bakugou only listened and fisted his hands, stroking the fabric of his pants to bite in swears of stress.

Once the yellowish substance on Asui’s flask stopped bubbling, the girl let out a little squeal of hurry and charged the syringe with the cure. “Got it, ribbit!” she wasted no second on carrying her feet as fast as possible to the bed, swatting hands away to roll the sorcerer’s sleeves up and plump in the needle.

As the liquid entered Uraraka’s bloodstream, the convulsions died to only minor shudders and eventual twitches, which also disappeared within seconds and only left a sleeping, tired girl at its wake. Her hands limped, fingers heaving down, and her breath grew sturdy and regular under everyone’s pendant eyes. These very relieved members fell on the nearest source of support they could find.

Kirishima decided to limp on the floor and start chuckling to himself in success, and then laughed under his breath as heat flared on his face, heated from the rush of danger. He watched Asui crawl on the edge of Uraraka’s bed, right next to a sitting Todoroki. “You are a pure legend, Asui!”

As the herbalist tried her best to push her pulsations to a normal beat, breath heaving in and out of her lungs. The dual knight gave her shoulder a proud shake, the feeling evident on his smile as the herbalist nodded back, smiling in sheer happiness and relief. “Well done, Asui.”

“My god! That was a nerve-wrecking operation.” the pink archer eyed Uraraka, exhausted, and hoisted her whole weight on Midoriya’s back. “Will she be alright now?”

Still breathing heavily, trying to ride off the hurry and letting the strings of time go back to their place, she placed a hand on Uraraka’s moist forehead. “She may get a mild fever as her body tries to digest the poison, but other than that, she will survive.”

Everyone in the room let out a general breath of final allevation, giddy smiles directed at the tired doctor who only tried to recover from the rush. As a tranquil pace of united heartbeats and collective silence floated on the thinning air of midnight, a little question remained in between them.

“I’d suggest somebody keeps guard on our sick lady here.” Kirishima placed a hand on the girl’s forehead, and brushed off the sweat on his pants. “She’s soaked in sweat, and will probably need some aid if she wakes up.”

Midoriya’s first option to offer was Asui– of course, it was always her. The herbalist had always been a dependable person when days grew grim, when situations like these were critic and someone was needed to take the wheel other than the very able leaders, who were at a loss of what to do. This was a new member they were talking about– an important one at that. Having her fall under a illness and be left unattended would probably make this situation drag for longer than necessary. And that, right now, was a hazard where one could see it.

“I am not going to offer Asui for the job, and I hope no one dares to– because she is further than exhausted.” which was a point everyone agreed on. She had had to look after Kaminari, Uraraka and Bakugou in the same day, one of them actually twice, and rest off the exhaustion from the fight against Midnight. “And I know all of us are exhausted, but I–“

“I will take care of it.”

The small voice came from the window, where a very tense Bakugou stood and, when he felt all eyes on his ample back, he turned with a grimace on his jaw, teeth clenched.

“What the fuck’re you all gawking at?”

“You wanna…” his hands pointed at Uraraka, to which the fierce leader nodded softly, getting the point in the angriest version of a bashful pout. “take care of her?”

Asui and Midoriya blinked at the blonde, who was looking at a side of the room with his usual wall of unaffected emotions, controlled feelings and cautioned actions, all his blinks and heartbeats measured to a minimum so

they wouldn’t betray his true thoughts. He then glared at everyone in the room, including the panting corpse on the bed– actually, he practically glowered at her, because he always found himself either depending from her porcelain hands or saving her ass, and he despised that cycle.

He was more than bothered with this situation of owing something to her when he actually felt like he didn’t, so he needed to get it over with.

He felt Asui’s softened eyes on him, and then his eyes trailed to the other leader. “I owe this to her.”

“What do you–“

“She has been looking after me after the fight with that fucking necromancer, and I never had to tell her even twice to care the slightest bit about me. If anything, I gave her reasons to hate my guts.”

Bakugou strode to the center of the room and kicked a stool into place, slamming his ass on the wooden seat right before Uraraka. Kirishima smiled at his best friend with a gentle spark of pride in his eyes, seeing the brash boy he knew start tearing the walls of his grudges down little by little, and trying to show that he could be kind when the situation forced him to. And even when it wasn’t really that way.

“She’s strong for putting up with me and saving my life, more than once.” commented the blonde, staring at the girl’s closed lids absent-mindedly. “And this is my way of thanking her.”

Asui propped her head up to gape at the once stubborn, pain in the ass leader and only saw a close to caring leader, and it caused her to smile a little at him in the darkness of the room.

“Little Nameless, this is something you must do for us.” assured a pink man by her. He didn’t squat – anymore, noted the little girl, as she had grown and she didn’t need those petty things anymore. They stood on the back of a room where a light breeze flew, sometimes toying with her cut strands. Light streamed down on her, sounds of people on their thrones waiting for her.

Chains sounded as well from within the tumult, which snapped her back into reality. “But papa, I don’t know that man!”

“Which is a miracle itself, considering what that man has done to our village with his knives and words.”

Shadows, shadows, creeping around the edges of her starlit eyes, galaxies dying on her heartstrung broken irises. Out of the edge of her mind, she was screaming to set these things back into rightness, but all she could do in such virginal state of ignorance was scream at the void like a fool, and feel something cracking at her fingertips. The whole world was swirling around her like a thunderwave, all spinning as voices mixed and chains clashed.

She was… so, so helpless. “Dad, why would you want me of all people to execute this order?”

The pink man did squat this time– probably to make her feel higher in the power scale, so she would feel mighty and confident enough to actually carry out this scarring task. “You are the only one who can do this, Nameless.” and she had heard this one time and another, plenty of times already. It was such a tiring charade. “You know this.”

“I…” she didn’t. “do.”

Because this power she had, it was all but normal. She herself was abnormal, kept as a treasure in her civilization but looked at as a monster from time to time, when the sun peaked in a corner of the sacred minds. Some would scream when her hands dig too deep into nature’s butter– others, they would let her be.

This time, they would not let her be, but encourage her to release the monster from the cage. “Then, go out there and face the court. You can do it, hon.”

The girl was given a little push, then taken steadily to the big room that was the court. The walls were crowded with staged seats, rampaging people pointing at the wonder girl as a man on the center of the room, staying on an ivory stage and tied with chains to a pole– he was screaming at a muffler on his mouth, then spitting on her from his silenced hell.

Her father stood near to her as the girl bunched the fabric on her shirt, nervousness crawling around her like the nasty monster she was. Words spiraled around her, something about her carrying out the right choice. Odd dots of pale colors– human colors, they splashed the room in bright diversity, yet she feared what this would do to the fragile bond between the races.

Her father tapped her shoulder, reality blurring around her as she tried to keep her thoughts at bay. This was like a band-aid, she knew, it was only a matter of tugging it off with enough force so it would hurt quick and short. Her hands were trembling when she rose her stretched fingers to the stranger, who screamed at her in pure agony.

“An…” Nameless panted, choked in disgust at what she was going to do, and withdrew her hand from the torture procedure. But, as sense of pride and duty flooded over her, she was able to call out the spell. Echo boomed from behind her, knocking some hats off their owners as she whispered the dreaded word. “Anihilation.”

Nameless twisted her hand with a pained grimace as the man twisted to her desire, his blood accordingly boiling and piercing his burning flesh as the humans on the room screeched at the display, hugging their families for dear life and hurrying out of the room along with some other people from her species, the smell of rotten skin and broken bones overwhelming her to a extent that the brunette gave into her knees, and fell to the ground in exhaustion.

“Good girl, Nameless…” he gripped her shoulder a bit stronger, her father, and ruffled her hair. She coughed a smile, nodding emotionlessly. “Good job.”

A blond, red-eyed boy watched from afar, eyes wide in terror as he stared at the broken girl with a shudder.

“Bakugou, Kacchan.”

The blonde leader snapped his head up with the gentle sound of Midoriya’s calling. He groaned in frustration as his head lolled back, and he let himself look a little bit vulnerable by scrubbing his eyes awake. He still played it off as if he hadn’t been dozing off. “What the hell, you scared the shit outta me.”

Midoriya, with an arm tucked around a big volume and a bashful smile on full display, rubbed his shoulder for some comfort and sat on the girl’s bed. “She’s still sleeping, huh?”

The green-haired knight removed an stray lock of hair off her reddened cheeks, his touch barely stronger than a caress. A small grow reverberated from deep within his chest. “Little witch here has been trashing around a little bit. She’s calmed down for now.”

“Well, if she’s getting better, that’s all that counts.” the boy realized the cloth around Uraraka’s forehead had been dampened, and Midoriya knew for a fact that nobody had come to switch guards yet that night. He smiled knowingly. “It’s good to see she’s in good hands.”

The knight gingerly took the cloth to cool if off, all while Bakugou stared at the girl’s closed eyes with a piercing glare of anger and frustration. “Better have her getting better soon so we can part, rather than me biting my own tail and being a dick to her. I am more responsible than that, bastard.”

Despite the insult, Midoriya chuckled from Asui’s medical table. The sloshing of the water was all that could be heard in the building, so late in the night. “Yeah, I know.” he turned his head a bit to watch Bakugou’s hunched position, and if he had to bet, he’d say he hadn’t gotten up from that chair ever since the last change. “Who was the last person who came to watch Uraraka?”

“Alien girl.” spat Bakugou, shifting on the chair to adopt a confident position: crossed arms, crossed legs, and his glare switching to the other leader. “And you ain’t gonna take the turn yet.”

“Shouldn’t you get up for a while and, I don’t know, sleep? If you don’t rest, you’ll miss the festivities tomorrow.” the hunter mentally swatted him away quickly, chuckling in denial while his bones ached for mercy. He was biting the insides of his cheeks for some comfort– the chair was uncomfortable, the situation worse and his body totally messed up. He hadn’t felt this mentally exhausted for a while. “Why take this business so far, Kacchan?”

“Don’t you fucking dare call me that again, loser.” moonlight filtered through the half closed curtains, bathing Bakugou in this light that was so enticingly perfect to fall asleep on the arms of the sick girl. He couldn’t lie: at the stage he was in, he could have fallen asleep on the mattress where she laid and not even think about later regrets. “I am her leader. And I owe this to her personally. I don’t really think none of you will take this serious other than me.”

“C’mon, that’s a blatant lie.”

Bakugou’s eyes burnt even brighter than before, his fangs gleaming. He would have gotten up if his legs were responsive enough– but they weren’t, and it was driving him up the fucking wall. This shitty girl was always troubling his daily life and he didn’t want to feel compromised with her, above all not in this way. He didn’t owe her anything, he had no reason to be there other than sheer responsibility.

“Don’t bark at me, it’s true.” Midoriya sighed, and turned to the leader to walk to them afterwards, his hands leaving the cloth on her forehead slowly. He stroked the blue fabric onto her forehead, eliciting a little groan from her. “You have never taken matters this far when it comes to any regular member, other than Kirishima.”

“She ain’t a regular member. Not in any way.”

“Not like you are trying to see her in any other way, Bakugou.”

This made the leader make an effort to stand up and go pound the living lights out of that nerd, but his knees buckled and he had to sit down again under Midoriya’s concerned gaze.

“I know what you are insinuating, and what everybody’s probably thinking, but I don’t give a fuck about her.” he forced his eyes on her, traced the curve of her little nose, and sighed grumpily. “Seriously, I don’t. But she has gone out of her way several times to actually care about me when I didn’t ask. I have said this before: I am thanking her for that.”

“But you still feel like you shouldn’t, right?” Bakugou glared at his peer from under his disarrayed spikes, night shadows crossing behind his eyes. It was silent warning. “Your voice is so strained, your back is probably aching. You don’t want to go through this, yet you are.”

The blonde allowed himself a sigh of tiredness, and blinked at him in unusual tranquility. Being so drained was doing unmerciful things on his mood, and it seems like Midoriya would take advantage of that until he snapped back into his aggressive old self. “I loathe feeling in debt for this bitch, because I shouldn’t. No one gave her the right to care about me, or put herself in danger. Now, I have to thank her, as a leader, and get her ass out of this trouble.”

“Is it really that? Just plain justice and the sake of being a leader?”

“Why am I talking about this with you of all people?”

“Because she has been like this for a whole day– more like two considering we are here past midnight.” his eyes found kindness in Uraraka’s relaxed figure, finally idle and breathing without coughs or heavy sweat. “You have tried to kill her, you have dismissed her– but you are here, Kac– Bakugou, watching after her. What changed from being a dick to her to now actively want to see her healthy?”

“For starters, my opinion about her remains unchanged at the root.” he was tired, he was letting Midoriya tug at the thread that got his thoughts stuck in a vicious cycle of autodestruction and doubt– but for a reason, he didn’t feel bad about it. Not a single bit. “I still think she is a threat, but it’s true she hasn’t moved against our currents yet, other than be stupid and overwork herself. Other than that, she can work in our favor, and even I can see that now.”

“So, you care about–“

“No.” snapped the blonde, red suns spiraling and changing under the pressure of this crashing tide. “I don’t think I can actively care about someone to this personal level. She benefits our guild, her being in good shape is good for the showdown against RampAge, and I owe to her. That’s all there is to it.”

“I still think you owe her much more than this, and that’s only for putting up with your remarks and stupidity when you feel like bullying her.” Midoriya would have been backed to a wall after such insult, but Bakugou was being silent, observing the girl with a clashing mixture of hatred and frustration. He was only listening to his companion unfocusedly, as he let all his petty feelings slowly sink in. “She has done nothing else but put up with your foul mood and actually fight you back. Really, she must be tired from resisting the urge to slap you on the face.”

“I don’t owe her any fucking thing in that regard.” snapped Bakugou, narrowing his eyes at the boy. “All she does is put me into trouble and try to be nice to me– I never asked for all that. She is attempting to–“

Midoriya bit on his knuckles as he stifled in a good earful on respect and kindness, something the leader could lack very often. “Stop seeing her kindness as a freaking attack, Kacchan. She just wants to be in this guild and be on good terms with you.”

“Stop it, it ain’t worth it to scream at me over this. Asui already has, in her way, and I am working on it. I am here, withstanding this hell so I don’t owe to her. I don’t owe her anything– I should never owe anything to a damn pest like her.” argued Bakugou, encasing himself in this bubble of hard ideals and a truth he couldn’t come to terms with, but it was there, in his hands. “I don’t wanna feel lied to anymore, I am working to fix this for the guild’s welfare.”

The anger in Midoriya’s eyes faded to a pale hue of surprise. “So, you want to try to trust her?”

Bakugou waited for a bit, rethinking his decisions with sharp eyes. Still, he had gone over it so many times already that the charade was getting tiring, and it was more worth it to actually try to be nice to her than find a reason to hate her after all she has done. She made his life so hard, sometimes.

He clutched the fabric of his shirt, right above his heart, where it ached worst. “I want to just get rid of this disgusting feeling of having to thank her for something I didn’t ask for. I wanna stop feeling this stupid, I shouldn’t even be here. She is a goddamn silly bitch who knows nothing else but trouble.”

The other boy blinked several times, staring at Bakugou’s tired shoulders and how his eyes would flicker ever so often at the girl in decreasing loathe, and more directed to worry for her wellbeing as a guild member he had acknowledged, someone he was starting to value as worth keeping. His hands could crawl their way out of his bruised heart, shadows casted on his lonely soul, but the rampage of thought and tranquility this girl had inflicted on him could be denied, but no longer ignored.

Midoriya could now understand why Uraraka shone so much. She was giving everyone an opportunity in the same one everyone was doing with her– and she never had a reason, either. She was embracing everyone’s threats, everyone’s glares, everyone’s doubts, and walking her way out of them with a loud parade. For that, he deserved the kind leader’s admiration, so a little smile was directed at her.

“I will taking my leave then, Kacchan. However,” he left the volume from before on her nightstand, gave it a pat of reassurance as he knew Uraraka would love seeing possibilities and barriers grow, and retreated to the door. His eyes shifted to the leaning leader, whose eyes were droopy and weaker than usual, but still held that passionate gaze into the devil’s eyes. It was so charming to see those fires dim for once, prompting these words. “you should know that she isn’t causing any trouble to you. She is the one willingly putting herself on danger’s way, receiving the throws, and getting into problems. That… shouldn’t affect you this much, Kacchan.”

And with that, Midoriya chuckled at Bakugou’s dumbstruck expression of ire and tiny realization, closing the door behind him while the other crashed his head on the mattress, right beside Uraraka’s twitching hand– because he was right, in a way, and it only dawned on him that his little slip may have made him look more sick and foolish than he already was.

He groaned into the blankets. “Fuuuuck.”

But he didn’t care. Not even a pinch.

“Nameless, there’s somebody I want you to meet!”

The brunette girl turned from the well, more like kicked a bit so she wouldn’t fall inside and then turned at Kirishima’s voice calling after her. His step was quick, his red falling spikes bouncing in his stride while a blur of blonde hairs and pale skin also neared her. It took her a little bit to recognize that face– that face, sharp at the edges and bland in anger at the center, drawn in red and all suddenly made sense.

“You…” the blonde boy stopped and gulped after her voice chirped in, but frowned regardless. “You are the golden boy from the river! What are you doing here?”

Kirishima slapped a hand on his shoulder and grinned again, showing her his shining pearly whites before the other boy slapped the hand away as soon as it touched him. “He jumped across the river and asked me to take him to the girl with magic hands!” the fact that he knew such fact about her had her gulping this time around. “So here we are!”

The girl with muddy eyes took a step back, taking her bucket of water to her chest. Once upon a time, she would have needed help to reach the well’s edge, but it had been so long since then. Her reflection shone on the water. “How… how do you know about my abilities?”

“My people gave me a description of someone they are looking for, from their nation, who was lost a long time ago. She was a… magician, as well.” explained the blonde boy, fixated on how her hands trembled around the bucket. “So I can recognize a magician when I see one. This.. town can do that, right? Magic, I mean.”

The redhead nodded hastily, and put his fists on his hips with pride. “Our race has vast knowledge about sorcery, right, Nameless?” she nodded curtly, eyeing her hands shortly. “That’s what differentiates us from you humans, we can do lots of stuff!”

While Kirishima boasted about the abilities of their race – a race they bitterly didn’t seem to belong to, at least physically speaking – the blonde newcomer took a step forward until he made the girl flinch, and outstretched a hand towards her without actually looking into her blown wide eyes.

“I saw you at the court a few days ago… and I knew I had seen your stupid face, a few months ago.” that made her stifle in a gasp of horror, as she had never wanted to be seen as such monster– but seeing how he was fighting back an excited grin, corners twitching, he was more than fine with her powers. “What’s your name?”

The girl left the bucket of water on the ground, and curled her fingers around her jersey for internal decision. The boy was… giving her his hand? Did he want her to take it or something? She was around twelve years old now, but she hadn’t been educated into these things. However, she remembered that her pink dad had done that stupid gesture sometimes, and she decided to give it a little shake.

“I don’t have a name. And if I do, I don’t remember it. I was born without it apparently, and never given one.” despite the inner tragedy and later irony of the situation, she smiled at him sweetly, eyes closed in bliss for making a new friend. “I go by Nameless. And he is Kirishima. My sister, Mina, is not around now, but she should make an appearance now. She has the regular looks for our species.”

The golden boy glanced around and was proven right about that. Everyone had pink skin, lighter hair, spotless black eyes with a golden ring, and high-pitched voices. Some of them had big claws on their hands, others didn’t. Looking at Nameless and Kirishima, it really looked like they were making leaps and twirls about developing camouflage strategies, as they could be mistaken by someone from his species without a doubt.

If he hadn’t seen her come from across the river, he would have thought she was a human, too.

“The name’s Katsuki.” replied the boy, grumpy as she gave his hand a shake. He reciprocated the gesture. “Please don’t blow me up.”

It took her a while, but she actually understood the little joke and giggled, her little fit then erupting into gross loud laughter. It had been a while since she did that.

It would as well be the last time, rain falling harder that day as blood bathed her knees, a figure looming above her and–

Uraraka’s back bounced off the bed with the start of a heart attack jumping from behind at her, claws sprouting from her brain and giving it another hard, lovingly scratch of welling tears that never fell, tension that never broke and images that never made sense, feelings and people that shouldn’t be there and, however, she felt heartless and boneless whenever she woke up.

The aftermath of these dreams, nightmares and all kinds of havoc left her scarred a little bit more violent the more time that passed– her breaths would grow more staggering, her hands would clutch her heart stronger and her eyes would dart more dizzily around the room. While the effects and emotions from the experience would wear off fast, faces and ideas sure didn’t.

The fact that she couldn’t see the face of that little girl monster clearly was so confusing as well for her, because she was probably the most important piece of the story. An innocent girl with a pure soul, yet terrifying sorcery used for ill intentions. Was this supposed to be a metaphor about her?

Also… why had, of all people, he been there with–

She heard heavy breathing near her, and when she was able to focus her sight on her surroundings, a mane of pale hair came into view, sleeping right by her stretched legs. His muscles, tense and tight, hair unkempt and light snoring vibrating in his ribcage. Her eyes almost fell out of their sockets when she realized who this was, thinking about pinching herself to wake up from this vision.

What was Bakugou… doing there? He was sitting on a chair, yet his whole body was leaning on the bed as his head rested nestled on his strong arms, probably already given up on her waking up. How long had he been there? And again, why was he, of all people, there with her? The first thing she thought was that he was probably taking advantage of his sleeping problems to take the night shift and watch her, but why would he accept taking it in the first place?

Her hand hesitated, hovered above his head until they took the monumental step of touching his hair– touching him, in a sense, and threaded his messy locks into place with a placid smile of tranquility. Her other hand wiped some sweat off her forehead as the moon gloriously washed over the dark room. While her fingers played with his hair and he slept calmly near her, brown eyes glanced out the window shortly.

There was ruckus outside – she thought, eyes aimlessly trying to see further from the bed – and she wanted to see more of it.

As to not wake her sleeping vigilant, Uraraka slowly shifted on the bed and placed her feet on the cold floor. Her toes relished at the feeling of the flashy temperature, because her body was overwhelmingly hot and she couldn’t wait to get a change of clothes. She didn’t even dare sniffing herself, she would sure be raking sweat.

As the sorcerer walked around the bed and brushed past Bakugou, she giggled a little to herself, but then concerned her eyes on the slumbering boy. Again, what business did he have with her? Why would he even bother come to check on her? It was sad to know somebody didn’t entertain your presence even while being on civil terms, and it irked her to think this way. Still, she had done enough already to make nice with him, the ball was on his court now.

Uraraka’s body was engulfed by the moonlight. Bells of consciousness rung the numbness to go away, and she was suddenly blinking openly to the moonlight that loomed over the big window of her room. The night stars were shy and sneaky compared to this big cheese, twinkling timidly as part-time companions of the white angel. A sweet feeling of a breeze escalating up her spine made her skin tingle in delight as some music blared from outside, fires going off as shows and fights occurred as part of the nighttime fair.

And Bakugou missed it… to watch after her? Her head craned a little to eye his sleeping form, frown knit in confusion. He disliked her – concluded Uraraka, looking at the moon and fair once again – he must have been pressured to stay.

It was then when Uraraka remembered what had gone down with the oracle, when she spotted the vacant space at the corner of the fair– she wanted to slap herself for being so naïve, illusional, for letting a stranger so shady like that woman trick her. She had been as foolish as to even tell her about her secrets, those hideous dreams and nightmares, when Todoroki had clearly advised her to be careful.

She cradled her face on her hands and rubbed, then rubbed some more. The feeling of weight on her pockets reminded her of the cards and the misty bottle, for which she rummaged. Her fingers came in contact with one of the cards, yet as much as she fiddled around, the other card was long lost. As she took the card of the Hanged Man out, to the moonlight’s shade, something strung wrong in her heart.

“Why this one… where is the other one?” she palmed her other pocket, and only felt the shape of the bottle, yet no other card was found. The hand holding the card trembled. “What in the world…”

“What are you doing up?”

Her hand hurried in a messy blur to keep the card inside her pockets, spinning to see Bakugou groggily making his way to her. Uraraka made quick work to hold the shield up and cross her arms, starting her usual defensive pose of unaffection towards the leader. Still, there was no hostility in her eyes, or in his for that matter. “I woke up and heard the music from the festival.”

“Then go to bed again, you still need the fucking rest.” grunted the leader, scrubbing his eyes again to wake up. “We gotta part soon and you aren’t helping.”

But the strained edge in his voice and the dryness of his throat gave one too many things away. “You aren’t in the best of shapes either, master.” mocked she with an arched eyebrow. At this, he growled with a sideways glare. Uraraka didn’t know why he got so angry at her for releasing the feelings he stirred on her– feelings of protection, shielding, holding her ground against this beast. “You can take the bed, I am not going to–“

Her legs unexpectedly gave up under her, but she swiftly grabbed for the frame of the window to hold her. Bakugou’s hands had flinched for this, and he had no fucking idea why when he had known she could take care of herself. Being tired had never been so infuriatingly difficult before. “You are going to sleep. If you don’t fucking take care of yourself there is no use in taking you with us.”

“I am another warrior from this guild, Bakugou.” attacked Uraraka with a frown of her own, facing him directly. “Why am I being scolded over doing an effort–“

“This ain’t a damn effort, it’s no more than a strain in your development.” he crossed his arms, his eyes glimmering beneath the moon’s cradle. His jaw was clenched, chin up, and he suddenly looked like he was going to say something, then kept it in for a little more. He shook his head. “You are constantly doing things that aren’t needed, and we– I don’t want none of it.”

The blonde had made it sound personal in a second and it worried her– so much that she actually asked.

“Is there… anything I may have done to upset you, Bakugou?”

A low growl scraped his throat and constricted his vocal strings painfully, his fists tight as he spoke ever so clearly and demanding, scary and resolute. “I don’t want anything from you, got it? I don’t need your protection, your business with being kind and the like– I don’t need it.”

The girl flinched under his sudden glower, but recovered from the blow hell fast. “What’s wrong with me taking care of you or actually looking after your protection?”

Uraraka asked it so patiently and kindly that his heart plummeted and left a soaring trace of hurt pride behind– and something dangerous, atrocity and violence, it all came in full force to his eyes as he turned to look at her, stepping close to her in a second. She shot up a little as well, their glares sparking bolts and daggers to each other while Bakugou jabbed her shoulder accusingly and she slapped his hands away from her.

She should have known that her kindness would backfire, and stepped back from it when she still had time, back at the campfire. But she had given in to her generalized personality and now this happened.

“I don’t wanna owe anything to you, got it? I don’t give a fuck about you, I don’t need you in my life, your magic or your goddamn glitter that chases me everywhere I go.” barked he, not observing how her posture suddenly softened and her eyes widened the tiniest way. Since only a few inches separated them, he really should have. “I don’t owe you anything– I have watched over your sick ass for more than enough, I have changed your cloth and haven’t complained! This is my way of saying thank you from before and–“

“You sure can mumble and mumble like Midoriya when you are riddled, Bakugou.” commented she with this shocked face he detested on her because she knew better– she always knew better and he was suddenly feeling lied to again when he didn’t want it.

“That’s not the damn point!” yelled he. His hands mindlessly searched for his sword on his waist. “Just stop being like this. Stop giving me unwanted attention, stop trying to protect me, I don’t need it.” Bakugou took a deep breath to calm himself down, too quick to anger when he was this tired, and sighed with exasperation. “I don’t want it.”

When she didn’t strike him with a quick comeback the very same moment he shut up and stopped spluttering so much bullshit, he dared to look at her. Those bubbling eyes of hers somehow remained unchanged, looking at him as if he hadn’t said anything, her skin still sweaty and her smell still gross– he loathed that about her. No matter how much shit he tried to throw at her to keep her away, she was resilient and either fought back or ignored the attack.

He needed her to stay away. He didn’t need her in his life, he didn’t need a terrorist in his life to taunt his sanity. Uraraka was stupid, careless, naïve, sarcastic and too sassy to his liking. And yet, she was there. And he didn’t want it.

After a little silence, she spoke up again. “Such a shame, Bakugou, that you feel this way.” he thought she would finally give in and leave him alone. “I sadly won’t let up, though.”

But she didn’t. When he focused on her again, her irises were shining under the moon’s gleam and her skin was clean, yet damp and ferverish. She herself was a damn illness he would never recover from, a maniac with the hands of a fairy that was supposed to be proving his inner fears rights and destroying the world– not there, alone with him and sticking to his thorny side.

The brunette stung his pride with a little smile of hers, that shaky one that held no emotion other than mockery for him. “Why can’t you understand? I know you don’t really give a damn about me– and not gonna lie, it sucks that the feeling is unilateral.” hell yes, she at least got that right. “Still, you are another of my peers, and I will watch after your protection. No matter how much you push me away…”

Her head turned to his, eyes closed in tranquility and spoke as this was a universal statement. He was speechless for the first time in his life, words stuck as moonlight bathed her. “… I will care about you, dumbass. Even if you want me not to. You gave me a place to belong, and for that, I will always be kind to you all. Even if you don’t deserve my kindness, I still owe it to you.”

The echo of her words oozed into his bloodstream– but it didn’t make his skin boil, his heart hammer with anger or anxiety for this situation. Instead, his whole body stood there, calmly, as her words sunk in deeper and deeper than a mermaid lost in the labyrinth that the sea was, swimming into the darker abyss that was his heart as his shouts, curses and violence were reduced to shock and utter silence. His eyebrows were knit in confusion, yet a line of heartbreaking realization and surprise was there– and it made Uraraka smile a bit higher.

“Why do you do… this?” his words literally fell off, low and whispered in almost fear for what stupidity she would come up with.

“Care doesn’t have an actual reason, it’s just a feeling.” answered Uraraka, eyes closed in peaceful contemplation. “You have protected me as well from Shinsou, defended me against the village. And even without all that, with given time, I would have grown to care about you a little, as I do now.”

“But I don’t, and I am sick of feeling like I owe the world to you when I didn’t–“

“Ask for it?” finished she for him, and he nodded with something alike to desperation crossing his irises, tranquil like a shooting star but fading away fast, like a broken light. “Nobody asks to be cared for, you just receive it. I can take care of myself, so I don’t mind if you, of all people, don’t give a crap. It’s not like I expected you to.”

She was saying it as if it was fine, but a part of him just knew it wasn’t fine. All she had done all along was protect his guild his peers, him from danger no matter how much it hurt her to do so. Then why had she been so preoccupied about him when he couldn’t do that for her, when all he had done had been ridiculous compared to her feats? Why, in the end, was he the one being affected by her feelings and not her by his lack of them?

It was wrong. She was wrong. She couldn’t care, it had to be a good joke or a big performance lie. He shouldn’t have to feel this– that throb of having done enough, yet feeling like there was much more to do. He didn’t like it, he hated it! Bakugou wanted to throw his heart out of the window or give it to her so she could just devour it and give it back ugly, but fixed.

She… was a sorcerer. It was fucking wrong for him to feel even debited towards her.

He… he couldn’t say it anymore. He couldn’t hate her after all she had done for him. And that’s why he hated her despite not really doing so– she had given him a reason not to hate her. She was giving him reasons not to hold back anymore… to embrace her. Uraraka had barged in, cared for him when no one asked, and pushed all his hatred back to pin him down and, suddenly, he wasn’t himself anymore.

He wasn’t full of hatred for her anymore. In its stead, there was this confusing set of annoying feelings, all contradictory and messy that he didn’t even want to touch, screaming his name in a tangled sea of names and tags he didn’t… he just couldn’t touch.

Bakugou stared at her a little moment. So, he didn’t.

That way, he didn’t care now.

Not that much.

“Guys, did you hear that?”

Jack had ran to a side of the road, whip in her hand as a menacing thunderstorm rumbled from high above, near a hill and by the river they were passing by. Uraraka stopped in her tracks to listen closely, but nothing could be heard aside from faraway thunder rolling at the end of the canyon. The guild was currently walking through a very narrow path encored on the rocky cliff, the river flowing deep below them in direction to the forests ahead, then the capital.

Mina stared a bit ahead as well, her eyes finding nothing else but the dark rocks of the cliffs in the night and the waters running crystal black under the moon’s blurry embrace, covered by the thick clouds of incoming storm. She shook her head and held her torch a bit higher. “I can’t see shit in the darkness, above all with the wind from up here. What did it sound like?”

Kaminari, who was at the head of the crew at the moment, stopped them all as he held his arm and sword. Even Bakugou stopped his match when he saw how serious the blonde had turned. “No, I heard that too. It came from a bit under us.”

Everyone peeked from the edge of the thin way, some squatting to not lose balance and topple over. Yaoyorozu shook her head, struggling to see anything else but some dry plants and bubbling water. “There are a few platforms of discontinued paths and the river. I can see some little hills as the canyon ends, but nothing suspicious.”

Bakugou lowered Kaminari’s arm, but knew better than to let his guard down. He let his axe out of his back and walked forward clutching it tightly. “Then, let’s going. A storm is coming and rain in the darkness ain’t pretty. Above all in the canyon.”

Everyone nodded in unison and took a few steps forward to hear the very same noise Jack had heard– except this time, it rung much clearer and louder than before, the screech reaching Uraraka’s ears so terrifyingly well, as if the monster was right–

A crash and a blow were heard and the walls that held the path clear started to crack, tremble, and a horrifying scream of agitation echoed across the whole canyon while a dark green monster with scales and claws started to surface from the depths of the river and crawled up the walls to the path, his eyes locking with Uraraka’s scared ones and letting out another piercing yell of territorial menace, his metal hands making the ground beneath the guild shake and start crumbling.

A panicked, petrified shaky intake of breath broke the confidence for a tranquil path, and Uraraka was suddenly frightened to death for this monster she couldn’t clearly see in the middle of the darkness– but the menace was there, its tail illuminated by the dim moonlight and she could feel him climbing closer, faster, his body making the canyon give in to its weight.

One of Asui’s feet gave in to the cracks, and she would have fallen down if Todoroki hadn’t caught her. “The path widens into an esplanade a few meters ahead where the canyon curves! We must hurry and take it down there, we can’t fight like this!”

Unable to find a better plan, the guild struggled to break from the shock and fear and ran forward through the path as it started giving up behind them and falling into the river. The river creature let out another screech and dived into the waters again, chasing them down while hitting the walls a little while beneath the canyon.

Once they reached the esplanade, Uraraka was ordered by Yaoyorozu to ensure a path out of it before the whole canyon gave up. The sorcerer nodded and pounded a crack of the canyon with her staff, spikes of rocks and solid minerals surfacing through the cracks on the path ahead and holding them in place. Still, the solution wasn’t permanent. “The path is a little fixer-upper, but this won’t last for long if whatever that is shakes it!”

Bakugou flung his war axe on his shoulder and immediately hissed after. His body hadn’t rested enough for a battle of this caliber, not after looking after Uraraka and having to part afterwards. He was tired, aching– but his mind was ready for any challenge like this, for he smirked. “Let’s take this little thing do–“

The beast surfaced again from the side of the big esplanade, making Mina and Midoriya leap backwards as the river monster blocked the way out of the portion of land, and swatted Uraraka’s work off to the river. As it crawled nearer to them, it let out another high pitched wail of anger as it frowned on them, its scales brightening after a flash of thunder and revealing a dragon with green scales, colossal tail and sharp claws, his teeth wet with blood and sweet water.

“It’s a legendary beast from the river!” screamed Midoriya into the night, to his comrades, as wind started howling them off the esplanade. “We can’t possibly kill it, all we must do is paralyze him before he moves too much!”

Even before the leader had finished his orders, Kaminari was completely involved in lightning and sparks as an uncanny smirk of pride wicked his skin. “Ah, then that’s sparky’s field of battle!”

He charged a handful of bolts into his palms, liting up the land around them before smashing the currents and sending it through the minerals of the canyon, running deep into the canyon through the cracks and zipping the monster that lay before them– but the monster never stopped shifting nearer to them. Uraraka took a hesitant step near to the edge of the cliff, and only stopped when the waters were heard too clearly.

“What the fuck is this thing!?” exclaimed Kaminari before charging his sword and adopting a fighting pose, breath heavy from the stamina consumption. “That thing is huge! How are we going to immobilize him with such fat weight?”

Uraraka would have done something about it if it hadn’t been for thunder clapping right beside her, the beast smashing his claw closer to her people and creating a crack across the esplanade. She let out a whimper of fright, yet stayed focused on the beast before them. She could have summoned a meteorite, called in a tsunami to wash the thing away, make the ground beneath him crack and fall, or warp him in a tornado of havoc and destruction.

Yet, she held herself in and charged up. The ground they shared was fragile, at the verge of destruction if the monster took another step as she could hear rocks fall to the river behind her, the surface giving in if the beast made it shake too much. And as everyone was being extra careful, she knew she wasn’t the only one aware of this limitation.

Todoroki wrapped his left side in flames and swung his arm straight at the beast from near Uraraka, flames shooting up and striking right on the beast’s eyes. While the monster shook at the violent blinding, Bakugou was able to charge at him with his axe and jump upwards, hunching and then spinning to strike at the beast and slice a part of his skin. Blood dripped from the monster and it tried to slap the leader off, him unraveled from his attack and scraping the ground with his boots as he was pushed off.

Big stains of blood covered his naked chest, which he wiped clean as fangs relished on the thought of eating that huge motherfucker for dinner. Jack was next to him, swinging her whip around the beast’s neck and extending it so it would choke his grand, whole body, but the monster easily wiggled and broke her weapon, throwing her off with his claw.

Jack landed on her back dangerously near to the edge, but Uraraka had no space to focus on her, but pushed her away from there before running forward, rain starting to fall on her as she dodged members from her guild. Her staff crossed the thin air before a big jump, a seal appearing beneath her feat and shining before bigger thunder and lights flashed closely above, her form petite and high off the cliff as she had altered her gravity.

Then, lights and electricity came crashing on the creature as the girl dove through the air, driving the thunder right into the beast as she summoned her cast. “Divine Lighting Carriage!”

And the monster did shriek even higher from this as smoke radiated off his body, and his claws pierced the ground as Uraraka landed with scraping boots and her knees brushing the ground as she hissed, pushed away from the beast as well. She realized that the beast was poking holes too deep into the surface– claws digging into the solid rock like butter and creating fractures too deep into the canyon, and then, a big deaf sound beneath.

Half of the ground of the esplanade gave in and started crashing down into the river fast, the members that stayed at the last line started to fall down, crumble with the broken debris and precipitating themselves into the dark waters, meeting their soon to be demise. Mina stumbled and almost fell, but was able to grab onto the edge of the broken esplanade and quickly caught Uraraka when the sorcerer screamed and almost fell as well.

“Are you alright, sis?” her right hand was tightly clasped around Uraraka’s, yet her left one was slipping, and fast.

And the brunette, even in her state of agitation and unfathomable fear, could see this– she could see her hand so clearly. So many things were happening around her: the monster was still wailing at the guild, somebody had fallen into the river, and she could feel some more people struggling to hold onto the falling esplanade. She could see more rocks crumbling beneath her and crashing in the waters.

The portion to which Mina was holding onto would give up soon. And she would fall with Uraraka if the sorcerer didn’t do something about it. “Mina, let me go!”

“What?” wind made things difficult to be heard, but the archer still held her tight in the middle of the chaos. “No way I am–“

Another deaf crash vibrated nearby, and more rocks crashed. Sooner or later, Uraraka would fall into the river, meters and meters and meters of void fall pivoting her future tragedy. “Please, Mina! If you don’t let me fall, both of us will!”

“Uraraka,” one of her fingers slipped, and the pair was tugged a bit down. The sorcerer held her breath in, eyes widening. But Mina’s hold on her never lessened. “don’t be a pain!”

If she could, she would float the way up, but in this state of agitation and exhaustion from the run and the fight, there was no way she would be able to go up there again and stand straight. There was a loud gruff curse, a scream, and somebody else had fallen again. “Mina, you must trust me on this!”

This made the pink girl look under her, grimace at the pain this was supposing, and started pondering the thought. She was quick to shake it away. She would never let a comrade fall, not in her wildest dreams! If Uraraka fell down to the river, she would probably die from both the crash and the rocks that laid below them. Thunder clapped, rain started falling, wind howling in the middle of the thunderstorm, and Uraraka felt both of them giving up on their stone hold–

“Forgive me for this, Mina!”

Uraraka used her last resort to summon a little flame that burnt Mina’s hand scarcely, making the archer let go for a moment in deep pain– but then, Uraraka was falling down, her hands reaching out for her friend again as air was knocked out of her lungs, a scream of hers piercing through the storm as she fell down across the canyon, compassing the raindrops and nearer and nearer to the wild waters inching closer to her.

Suddenly, there was no feeling of ground anymore. Her stomach was sinking into her, her organs lurched as she desperately tried to hold onto something, anything in her way, not knowing where solid ground was but only aware of the music of crash and rumble, quake and death climbing up to her as her body only fell down faster and faster, away from the stars and moonlight she had once soared under.

In a second, her body splashed and there was nothing around her anymore. Silence surrounded her as rocks and debris crumbled into the water with deaf bursts of rock meeting ground, foam forming at her fingertips and strands as her body plummeted down, almost touching the deep ground before the current starts pulling her away– and she let herself be taken as the fall sunk into her and all pain and sudden notion of having stopped numbed her.

Consciousness and pain mixed, narrowing down to something sharp and full of grim colors she couldn’t see in the darkness, the only feeling that kept her alive actually trying to kill her. Water ran down her throat as she tried to breathe unconsciously, and all sensations crackled down to numbness and pain, all taking her down the trashing river.

Until, suddenly, something soft and nice enveloped her in the night, an insane cycle of destruction and agony stopping. Feet below the surface where it was darker, muskier and wetter, with a heartbeat where silence was all that bubbled around her again, and the warmth made her feel safe, like a child in a lost home of gray hues where a family once lived, where a child once lived.

And the last thought she had was... that is was so warm down there, in the dark, deep in muddy water, with him. It was so… nice. This place, she couldn’t feel scared here.

The image of a scattered young, blonde boy crossed her mind like s hooting star, crossed in between the strings of times and lost galaxies, fluttering out of space.

“Katsuki…”

#kacchako #kacchako fanfiction #fanfiction #bnha #this is the only time this fic qualifies as kacchako tho /snicker #also like THIS TOOK SO GODDAMN LONG BUT IT'S DONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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