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tomtenadia · 3 years

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Island Dreams - Chapter 30

Welcome to chapter 30. It's moving time and Rowan and Aelin finally enjoy their new house. This chapter also has a lot of domestic fluff. :)

There are two chapters left in the story and the epilogue and this adventure is almost over.

Enjoy.

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Summer had decided to linger a bit longer that year and Rowan was happy that the sun was shining. It was moving day and they needed good weather. Lysandra and Aedion had offered to help and now the two men were unloading the van that they had finished preparing the night before. Rowan had no idea of how much stuff they had until they had started loading the van. “Well, I guess I won’t need the gym for a while,” joked Aedion carrying another box in the house. “We’ll have a nice dinner tonight to recharge.” “A nice juicy stake.” Rowan flinched “No can do. Aelin can’t stand beef at the moment. She can tolerate chicken if cooked in a certain way, not good with turkey and pork depends on days. But for some reason fish is not an issue. So I am very limited in what I can cook.” “I’ll be happy with anything.” Aedion shrugged.

Then Rowan turned his gaze to Aelin and Lysandra, sitting on the grass drinking iced tea and probably gossiping. Aedion joined him “I would have died of an heart attack if anything like that had happened to Lys.” Rowan sighed “I had a panic attack at the hospital. Never had one in my life. I had one when I saw her unconscious in bed.” Rowan looked at her. The cuts were now just pink lines on her body and were healing nicely and the bruises had finally gone. The cut on her head was healing as well and the stitched had finally come off but the horrible scar was still visible until her hair around the wound would grow back, so Aelin had started wearing bandanas for when there were other people around. He had bought her a few colourful ones so she could chose according to her mood. “Lys, you are not pregnant. You could help.” Shouted Aedion. “I am helping by making sure Aelin is fine.” “Skiver.” Commented Aedion. “She is right, I need a lot of support” chimed in Aelin. The two women laughed and the men went back to their jobs. They had removed their t-shirts and now both Lys and Aelin were staring at them in appreciation. “I am glad we are in the middle of nowhere because I would be very upset to share such vision with someone else.”muttered Aelin and Lysandra laughed “me too. And now that Aedion got some tan on him…” Aelin laughed back. They stared at their men a bit longer then Lysandra stood “I am making lunch. They need sustenance.” She walked to them “Are you guys hungry?” Aedion cleared some sweat from the forehead with his arm “Starving.” “In the kitchen there is a bag on the table that has stuff I brought from the old house that needs to be used. There are cherry tomatoes and salmon flakes. I usually make a pasta condiment with them, Aelin loves it.” “Good.” She winked at them. “Thank, Lys.” Said Rowan to the woman. “It’s the least I can do. Those muscles need fuel.” And she left them with a laugh. Forty minutes later Lysandra called from the kitchen window that the food was ready. Rowan stopped working and went to her followed by Aedion. Together they brought the food out in the garden where Aelin was camped. Rowan brought a plate to Aelin and kissed her head “extra portion for you.” “It smells amazing.” Once everything was out and on the table cloth Rowan had placed on the ground, they all finally sat down for lunch. “This is actually quite amazing. Aedion and I have been having loads of meals outside since we moved her. It’s so nice. Definitely not something we could do in London.” Aelin placed the plate on the bump and Lysandra laughed “that’s handy.” “It is when you are so big that even leaning forward to eat can be a chore.” “How does it feel being stuck at home?” Aelin sighed “Is not that I have any other choice. Yrene has noticed some sign of placental abruption and sit and rest is all I am allowed to do until our girls are out.” And while she said that she took Rowan’s hand. He was with her at her last checkup when Yrene had given them the bad news. She saw terror in his eyes and she was willing to listen and stay put in order to avoid seeing that stare on him once again. Since her accident he had been far more protective and she had let him. Yrene had told her about his panic attack and her heart almost shattered at the image of him broken on the floor. “Well, Evalin is coming soon so you should be okay.” “Yeah, mum is coming in a week.” Aelin smiled. She was actually looking forward to seeing her mother again. It had been over a year and she realised she missed her. Rowan stood “Anyone wants seconds?” Aelin and Aedion passed him their plates. Lysandra stood as well “I am helping you.” She followed him in the kitchen and noticed his dark stare “Rowan, are you okay?” “Yeah,” his tone was flat while he filled the plates with more pasta. “Wanna talk about it?” “I almost lost her, them, Lys.�� He let out, placing the spoon on the counter “If it hadn’t been for the belt she, they…” and he could not finish the sentence “I have never been more terrified in my life. I can’t leave her alone because I now have this irrational fear that something might happen. I am glad her mother is coming. It will allow me to go back to work and relax when I am not with her.” Lysandra saw his hands shake and she placed her on his “She is my best friend. I love her like a sister and when I got your call explaining what happened I cried for half an hour and I am glad I had no customers in the shop. Until I saw her I felt like I could not breathe.” He turned to her “don’t tell her any of this, please. She has enough to worry about without adding me.” “She knows, Ro. She knows you are worried and she probably noticed you are fussing more than usual and she is letting you because she knows it means a lot to you.” Rowan sighed “Thank you for being here today.” “Now let’s go back outside, we have to starving partners waiting for us, and Aedion gets grumpy when he is hungry.” They left the kitchen and went back to the garden “we bring more food for our bottomless pits.” “Hey, even Rowan is taking seconds today.” Aelin joked while grabbing her plate. “I am working, Fireheart, I need sustenance.” “We don’t want your nice muscle to suffer…” she kissed him tenderly.

It was late in the evening and after dinner when Aedion and Lysandra left and Rowan and Aelin stood in the mess that was their new house. “I guess that once we clear up all the boxes it will look much better.” Said Rowan, sitting on the sofa beside her and staring at the wall of boxes in front of them. “At least we have a kitchen, the bedroom and the bathroom. Our priorities are right.” “We’ll tackle one problem at a time.” He said placing a hand on her knee “I am wiped. We should go and enjoy our first night in our new house.” “I wish we could break in the new bedroom with some crazy sex but I guess it will have to wait.” He leaned forward to kiss her “it has to. Yrene said absolutely no sex.” “Spoilsport.” Rowan stood and offered his hands to her “come on, let’s get you three in bed.” “You really know how to woo a woman.” Rowan laughed and slowly they both walked upstairs. In their new home. Another tassel in their adventure together.

***

Rowan came back from the shop a bit later than usual. He had been teaching extra stuff to Lysandra. The woman was still helping him in the shop. Her job had been cancelled altogether and there were no openings at the hospital at the moment so she was more than happy to work in the bookshop and earn some money. “Aelin?” He walked around the ground floor but could not see her “Aelin?” Then he heard a thump and ran upstairs. He found her in the twins room, surrounded by pieces of wood and toys. “What are you doing?” His voice sounded panicked. That was the complete opposite of resting. “We have been so busy unpacking the house that we ignored the nursery. There is nothing ready and the girls will be here in four weeks. Aelin had been nesting for a few days now. She had become obsessed with tidying up the house, clean and get everything ready for the twins. All things she was not allowed to do as she was meant to be on bed rest. He sat down beside her “I can do it in a couple of days.” He pulled her to him. “We need to paint the walls, make sure we have all the clothes and all the stuff we need.” She rambled on listing all the jobs that need doing but Rowan was his usual calm self. “The nursery will be ready before they arrive, I promise.” “I tried…” and she started crying “I wanted to build the crib but with my big fat belly I can’t do much. I wanted to help.” Aelin leaned against his chest and kept sobbing. “Let me get changed into house clothes and I can start painting the room.” Aelin brushed her tears away with the back of her hand. “Do you want to use the pastel green we choose?” Aelin nodded. “Good.” He kissed her and left the room. Aelin gathered one of the stuffed toys on the floor and hugged it to her chest and then talked to her daughters “dad will make you a lovely room.” She looked around the empty nursery “nice and welcoming.” Rowan came back ten minutes later in shorts and a t-shirt “Ok, now you let me work in peace okay?” He passed her a box full of clothes “you can sort and organise the baby clothes. It’s an easy job and you can sit down for it.” She looked up at him “I love you.” He must have been exhausted. He had been unpacking the whole house by himself and gone to work as well and now he was painting the babies’ room. She started sorting through the clothes but then she stopped “we can’t use these.” Rowan turned “why?” “They are new. They have been in a bag since we bought them and then in a box. They are not clean. We have to wash them first.” Rowan sighed “put the clothes in a pile and I’ll wash them.” “I can do that.” Rowan got off the ladder and joined her “no you can’t. The laundry room is in the basement and you are not going there.” “I feel useless,” she started crying “you are doing everything. And you are working as well. All I do is sit and sleep.” He kneeled in front of her “That’s what Yrene needs you to do. Stay in bed, sit down, relax. Please.” Then he went to get a box “you can assemble the mobile for the crib. It’s easy.” “Yes.” She opened the box and gasped as she noticed the figurines “Rowan…” “I had it custom made. I found this amazing wood carver and I asked him to do this for me.” The figurines were all hand carved and beautifully painted. He had elves, a buzzard, a female figurine she was positive it was her and a knight with silver hair as well. It was something beautiful “Ro, this…” she had no words “this is gorgeous.” “I wanted them to have something original. I am no a fan of the plastic stuff you get in regular stores.” “I love it so much…”

It was two hours later when Rowan announced the room was done. Aelin had been keeping an eye but now that it was finished she was stunned. He had painted the pastel green they had decided and he had added stencil images of trees and clouds. The room looked amazing. He sat down beside her and Aelin laughed when she noticed the smudges of paint on his face and on his hair “launching a new style?” She ruffled his hair and kissed him. “Do you like it?” “It’s perfect.” She looked around the room then placed a hand on the bump “you have an amazing room, girls. Dad made sure of it.” Rowan eventually stood “Let’s go downstairs, I’ll make dinner.” Aelin shook her head “let’s order in. You have worked all day and then came home and did all this,” she motioned to the room “you are not cooking as well,” she shook her head again “you need to rest too.” “Can I at least phone the restaurant, place the order and collect it?” Aelin smiled wickedly “I am not sure you are qualified enough.” Rowan kneeled in front of her and kissed her “what, you think you are better than me at ordering food?” Aelin nodded, pulling him to her “I have a master and a PhD in it. I am a pro.” Rowan laughed and kissed her “Let’s go downstairs, the room needs to air.” He offered her a hand and helped her stand and slowly they made their way to the living room which had started to look a bit less like a mess. Rowan had been unpacking all of the boxes and together they decided which book place on the bookshelves in the living room. The library was still empty as they were waiting for the bookcases to be delivered. Right now it only had boxes in the middle of it waiting to be emptied. Between the two of them they had so many books that they could open a public library. Rowan was not worried. That job was not a priority. They would have to decide an order for shelving and they had to sort the books first. Aelin plopped heavily on the sofa and Rowan joined, then she grabbed her phone “Shall we have Chinese?” He leaned back on the sofa exhausted and nodded at Aelin and she noticed it and leaned over to kiss him. Then she phoned their favourite Chinese restaurant and convinced them to deliver to their address outside town. She was happy to pay extra and tip the driver as well. “They are happy to deliver.” “I could have gone to pick it up.” He added. “No.” He hand brushed his hair “Ro, you are exhausted. I don’t want you to drive all the way to Stornoway and back at night when you are seconds from falling asleep.” “Now, who is the one who is fussing?” He turned his head and gave her a wicked smile. “Fine. I am fussing but I am not letting you drive when you are this tired.” Rowan leaned forward begging for a kiss that she in the end gave him “I told Lys I am taking the day off tomorrow.” Aelin’s face lit up in delight “Good.” She flicked his nose “But we are sleeping in, then you can work all you want. But for once I don’t want you to get out of bed before ten.” “Nine.” “Ten.” She pushed, knowing full well that Rowan was an early riser and eight was the longest she ever managed to keep him in bed and now she couldn’t even use sex as an excuse. He sighed “you win. I’ll stay in bed with you until ten. But you stay in bed, rest and let me work. Do we have an agreement?” She huffed and yielded “fine, we have an agreement.” In that instant the doorbell rang and Rowan ran to get their food. He came back with all the containers and five minutes later they were tucking in in their food both ravenous and Rowan didn’t even complain when he realised all the choices Aelin made had little or no veggies. “I was thinking about options for our wedding.” She started, while biting on a spring roll “What about Mabon?’ Rowan looked at her in surprise and love. She had slowly embraced his beliefs without him ever pushing her. She had been curious from the beginning. She had explained him that she had never had any kind of beliefs and had been quite curious about his pagan side. She had been reading about it and asked him all sorts of questions. And now she had impressed him again “what do you know about Mabon?” She put her smug face on, one that Rowan adored “well, I know it’s the second of the three pagan harvest festivals, also I know it’s more modern pagan but I read about the wheel of the year and read about Mabon.” She started explaining “it’s a way to say thank you for the fruits that the Earth bore for us and get a blessing from the Gods.” She continued and noticed he was listening carefully “I know we planned to get married at Beltaine, which had a better symbolism and all,” she pointed at her bump “but that did not happen. So it seems Mabon is the best option, or we can wait till Samhain but I thought it was a bad idea.” Rowan dropped his food container on the table, grabbed the back of Aelin’s head and pulled her in for a fierce kiss “I’ll marry you any time of the year. As long as I get to call you my wife.” He kissed her again “but I love the idea of Mabon. The twins will be here so I am happy.” Aelin smiled “Are you sure?” He nodded vigorously “whatever makes you happy.” Aelin ate another spring roll “Then it’s settled. We are going for Mabon.” And all of a sudden she became alive and Rowan felt as if he could fall in love with her all over again. She grabbed a notepad she had abandoned on the table and a pen and started making notes “Wedding guests. Very small ceremony at Callanish. Intimate but I need to have Malcolm.” Rowan nodded. After what the man had did for Aelin after the accident he owed him, but he also really liked the man. “Then we can have a big ceilidh at Lews castle. Hopefully they are available on that day. And we need to find a ceilidh band. How does that work?” “Leave that to me.” “Good.” Then she started scribbling a bit more “I don’t want a big hoopla but I want some flowers a lovely cake and food for the party. But I want all local businesses.” She scribbled a bit more “your aunt. I’ll ask her. And I need to go back to that amazing seamstress who did my Summer solstice gown. She was amazing.” Rowan took her pen “You don’t have to do all of it tonight. You are on bed rest. You have plenty of time and wedding planning will keep you busy and out of boredom.” She smiled at him. “But I love all you said so far.” “Who is going to celebrate a pagan wedding. Is there a druid catalogue we can choose from?” Rowan roared with laughter “No, Fireheart. But I know a person who will be happy to marry us. She is a friend.” “Was she…” she was afraid to ask “Was she going to marry you an Lyria as well?” He shook his head “No.” His arm went around her shoulder and tucked her in close to him “she wanted the big hoopla. She was going for the full blown wedding in a church, with a lot of guests, a super fancy dress, expensive food and all the trimmings.” “Looks like you saved a lot of money.” She heard Rowan chuckle. Rowan kissed her head and realised Aelin was the only person with whom he could actually joke about what happened with Lyria. With other people he would usually shut down and avoid the topic. “Oh yes, she wanted the whole town to know she had bagged the most eligible bachelor. At least this before the accident.” She squeezed his hand. “Did you empty Chaol’s savings for your wedding?” “I actually wanted a small thing. Small and meaningful. Few friends, a private ceremony and few close friends for the party. I splurged on the wedding dress because I wanted to look awesome.” She explained “but he said he planned to get married only once and convinced me into having a big party. And I mean massive, Ro.” Rowan scoffed. “The man would have gotten married inside Westminster if he could.” She grabbed Rowan’s hand and placed it on the bump, the girls were active again “We almost had the whole of Scotland Yard, and a lot of my work colleagues, friends and family. It was overwhelming and it took ages to prepare. By the end of it I was ready to get married just to finally be free of all the wedding planning.” “I assume fancy honeymoon as well?” Aelin snorted “Maldives. He booked the honeymoon without consulting me as a surprise.” She groaned “I hated it. The whole two weeks.” “I thought you loved beaches.” “I do. But two weeks of nothing but sitting on our arses on a beach and do fuck all?” Rowan laughed “Some people would call that paradise.” “Well I don’t. I wanted to do Europe. Visit some capitals, soak in the history, visit museums, see Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Italy…” “We can do that. You and I.” “How? I can’t leave the twins on their own as newborns. They need me.” Rowan kissed her again “Once you are not nursing anymore. When they will start eating solid food, we’ll take two weeks off. I am sure your mom and my aunt will be happy to babysit for us.” “Are you sure?” His hand brushed her long blond hair and moved a wild strand behind her ear “Positive. When the time is right we’ll have a lovely honeymoon on the continent. I have been to Prague but not the rest and I’d make me very happy to discover it with you.” “Where ave you been all my life?” Her head leaned back against his chest, their hands still joined on the bump, enjoying their daughters’ movements. “Hiding in a bookstore on an island in the west of Scotland.” Then Aelin stood “come on, most eligible bachelor, let’s go to bed.” Rowan stood and started to clear the mess from their dinner but Aelin stopped him. “It’s late. Let’s go to bed. We can clean up tomorrow.” He gave up and followed her. “Did you have fans? Girls coming to see you compete and having the hots for you?” Rowan coughed “Actually yes. It was so annoying.” “Oh poor baby,” Aelin patted his cheek in a mocking tone once they reached the landing at the top of the stairs “must have bee horrible to be famous.” He kissed her “really horrible when you are an introvert and hate the spotlight.” They both got ready and Aelin climbed in bed and Rowan followed soon after “Did you do interviews and such?” “I did. After I kept winning I started to attract the attention. Then when my name was added to the list of people who would travel to Edinburgh and get the chance to become the Scottish swimmer to be part of the national team the town went ballistic. I was the only guy from Lewis. So I let you imagine.” “You were a celebrity,” she snuggled closed to him while laying on her left side and Rowan was in front of her. “Do you ever wonder how your life would have been if you had gone to the Olympics? Perhaps won a gold medal? Married Lyria?” Rowan sighed, grabbed her hand and placed it on his heart “Probably not as happy as I am now.” And he turned and lay on his back, his face staring at the ceiling and her hand still on his heart “most likely divorced as well.” He turned his head to her “I have a gut feeling that my marriage with Lyria would not have lasted long. I don’t know why.” He explained “I loved her. And when I proposed I did it out of love but later, much later when I finally started to accept that she had left me and did not love me anymore I started to think about our relationship and realised that my friends had been right all long. I was fooling myself and she actually never really loved me.” Aelin stared at him. He had closed his eyes and with the back of her hand she traced the lines of his face and saw a thin smile appear on his face. “I love you.” Whispered Aelin while her hand brushed a strand of hair away from his face “Even when this world is a forgotten whisper of dust between the stars, I will love you.” His face blossomed in a bigger smile, and his green eyes were now fixed on her “are you quoting our favourite book?” “You are mine.” She added, kissing him. He propped himself up on his elbow and looked at her “Is leatsa mi.” He repeated in Gaelic as his mouth trailed soft kisses on her neck. “Girls, dad is a sappy romantic.” She told the twins and heard Rowan scoff. “You started it.” “I know Whitethorn, but I am pregnant and hormonal. You are just sappy.” He grabbed the blanket and buried her underneath it “sleep or I will leave the bed at six tomorrow.” Aelin switched off the light on the nightstand and grabbed his hand, placing it on the bump with hers “night.” “Oidhche mhath, mo chridhe.” He felt a kick from his daughters and slowly fell asleep as well.

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@rowaelinismyotp

#rowaelin #rowan whitethorn #rowan x aelin #aelin galythinius #aedion x lysandra #fanfic #Throne of Glass series #domestic fluff

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johnsbleu · 4 years

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Hold My Hand: John Wick x Reader Chapter 83

warnings: nsfw, sorry. HMH masterlist

Tess has had two false labors this past week, and she’s starting to really get aggravated. The good thing is that their basement is finally fixed and they moved back home just in time. The bad thing is you’ve been on pins and needles every day since Tess moved back home since she’s not under your watchful eye anymore. She reassured you that she’d be fine, and the moment her water breaks, she’ll call you and let you know.

Your mom flew out late last night, and Jimmy picked her up from the airport and brought her back to their house. Since Tess will be having Finn soon, your mom will be staying with them to help out. She’s planning on staying for at least two weeks, which is nice for Tess because she’s going to need a lot of rest so she can heal.

Jimmy has already taken off a few weeks from work, and he’s more than excited to finally hold his baby in his arms. It’s so cute to see how excited he is to be a dad, and it warms your heart to know that Tess married a really good guy.

Since the shop will be open next week, John has called in all of the employees for a quick little meeting to get them familiar with the new look of the store and to give them their new schedules. They’re all sitting around the counter when you walk in, and you see Grace perk up a little.

Grace reaches out and hugs you, then she moves to look at Tess’ belly when she walks in. The two start to talk, so you walk over to John and lean up to kiss him.

“How’s it going? Mom asking too many questions?”

You laugh and hug him again, “No, but she has been asking a few questions about the wedding. I haven’t told her anything yet.”

John looks up as your mom looks around the shop, then he looks down at you again, “You better tell her.”

You shrug playfully, “Yeah, I will eventually.”

John places a kiss on the top of your head, then he takes a deep breath, “Gotta make a speech or something.”

“You’ll do great.” you pat his shoulder, then you walk over and stand by your mom.

John clears his throat to get everyone’s attention, and they all walk over to listen to him. He’s their boss now, and it’s funny how they’re looking at him: so wide eyed and curious. You never even thought about it, but they really don’t know John. They only know him from being your boyfriend, and now your fiance.

John is shuffling in place a little since he’s growing a bit nervous, and you smile at him encouragingly when he looks over at you for reassurance.

“So, I’m John.” he says, laughing a little, “I worked with Bernard a lot, I would bind books for him to sell to certain clients, and he’d even put some out on the shelves.”

Tess raises her hand, and John looks at her, “Yes, hi, uh, do we have to work this week? I uh, might be a little busy.”

“No, the shop doesn’t open until next week, but I wanted you all to be the first to see it, and I wanted to introduce myself. So, again, I’m John.” he says, then he looks over at you and smiles, “Uh, you might also know that I am engaged to Y/N, which brings me to the next thing I wanted to talk about. We own this shop now, if you need to talk to one of us, we’re willing to listen. You can come to either of us with any concerns that you have. She’s just as much an owner as I am. Come here, baby.”

You walk over to John as he reaches out for your hand, then he wraps his right arm around your waist. You let out a small laugh and look up at everyone as your cheeks turn red.

“Hi, everyone. I don’t want you to think any differently of me now that I own the shop. I’m still me, and we can still gossip about the mean old shop owner.” you say, gesturing to John.

Tess laughs, then jokingly wipes her brow, “Thank god!”

You look up at John and smile, “As for now, there are only 6 of us that work here, which is fine since the shop is quite small and it’s not that busy, but in these next few weeks, we’re going to be hiring more people. Tess is obviously pregnant, and she’s going to be taking some time off so she can spend it with her husband and her baby. And as for John and I, we’re going to be getting married this fall and we’re going to be starting a family. So, my point is, there might be a lot of work, but hopefully we can hire a few more people to take some of the work off your shoulders.”

“We work in a book shop, I think it’s a pretty chill atmosphere.” Tess laughs.

You give Tess a disapproving look that makes her laugh, then you shake your head a little, “I know, but I just don’t want anyone to unhappy here. If you’re unhappy with your job, we would really like to hear from you.”

“I think you’ll all be happy to know that you’ll all be getting a raise as well.” John says, and they all begin to smile. “It’s not much, but it’s something for now.”

You watch as they look around at each other, then Grace looks at you and smiles. Grace claps her hands, then squeals a little, “You’re getting married!”

“I am.” you laugh, holding up your hand as Grace runs over to look at your ring.

John pats your hip as he walks over to talk to a few of the employees to give them their schedules, then he heads up the stairs to show them the new upper level that will be open. You don’t really know the newer employees, but they all seem nice so far.

Tony is one of the newer employees, and you can tell that he already thinks John is the coolest guy he’s ever met. He’s much quieter than everyone else, and he almost never speaks up when he has an issue -- something you’re definitely going to work on with him.

Natalie has worked here for a few months before John bought the shop and she’s not your favorite person, but she does what’s she told to do. She constantly stares at John, which is a little annoying, but you can’t blame her. She also has a bit of an attitude, and you hope she’ll keep it in check since she knows that you can easily fire her now.

Grace has worked here almost as long as you. She’s younger than you, but she’s great to work with since she’s always full of dramatic stories, but unfortunately sometimes it spills into her work and she’ll get too distracted and forget that she’s working. Her boyfriend has also been kicked out of the shop a few times already by you and Tess.

Then there’s Tess. One of the better employees, but of course you’re biased. She’s a great employee, and she’s so good with customers since she’s always so friendly. She’s going to be on maternity leave for the first few weeks that the shop is open, but you know Tess, and you know she’ll end up coming in, even if it’s just to sit with you.

You’ll definitely need to hire a few more people since you and John won’t be working as much, but until then, John has offered to work your shifts since he knows that you want to help Tess.

Your mom taps on your shoulder, and you turn around to look at her, “Your shop is lovely. I love this little nook back here.”

“Yeah, it’s not completely done yet, but we can’t keep the shop closed for much longer.” you smile and look up to see John leaning over the railing to wave at you, “Hi, baby.”

“It looks nice up here. Come up here.” he says, then he looks at Tess, “Not you, you can’t come up here.”

“Well now, that’s just rude.” she says, crossing her arms.

“You’re 40 weeks pregnant.” you gesture to the stairs, “You think you could make it?”

Tess laughs, “Oh, absolutely not.”

You let out a small laugh, then you quickly run up the stairs to John’s side. You’ve never even been up here before, and it’s a lot nicer and bigger than you thought. There’s a few tables for people to sit and read at, and there’s a nice chair in the corner for people to also sit in. The shelves are so nice and new, and they’re packed with books.

“This looks really nice.” you turn around and look down at your mom and Tess talking. “Whoa, this is a lot higher than I thought.”

John laughs and leans against the railing with you, “So, you think it looks good?”

“I think it looks great.” you nod, looking at John, “You did a great job, Jonathan. I’m proud of you, and I can’t wait for what our little kid’s corner downstairs will look like when you’re finished with that.”

“Yeah, about that, did you know that Amanda paints?” he says, and you shrug, “Yeah, she paints. I asked if she’d paint the walls down there. She said yeah, so she’s going to come in this weekend and get a look at it so she can get some ideas. I told her some princesses and stuff would be good, and some dragons or something.”

“No, I did not know that she paints, but that’s a great idea. I hope she brings Harper with her. I miss that little chunk.”

“I saw her the other day when I was at Aurelio’s shop. She’s getting so big.” he says, then you start your way back down the stairs when you see everyone getting ready to leave.

John hands everyone their schedules, then he makes sure to point out that his number is at the bottom and that they can call at anytime if they have any concerns. Natalie smirks a little more, and you and Tess both look at each other and roll your eyes.

Since John is closing up the shop and locking it up, you walk with your mom and Tess to her car and lean against the door as you talk to them.

“What are your plans for tonight?”

Tess shrugs, “Probably just making sure I have the last of my things ready. They induce me if I don’t go into labor by the end of the week, so…yikes. What about you?”

“Wedding planning.” you say, and your mom perks up, “We decided to get married this fall. September 5th. Mark your calendar.”

“Well,” your mom crosses her arms, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“We just decided it last month, and I knew I’d see you soon so I decided to wait and tell you in person.” you jokingly roll your eyes, “You’re so ungrateful.”

Your mom playfully pats your shoulder and pulls on her seat belt, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

You lean back in the car and point at Tess’ belly, “The moment it breaks, you call me.”

Tess laughs, “Yeah, yeah.”

You’ve been showing John all the ideas that you have come across in the wedding magazines you’ve been buying. There’s three stacked up on the table, one in the kitchen, and one next to your bed. They’re everywhere. You’ve caught John looking at them a few times, and he’s even folded over a page or two for you to look at later.

You stretch out on the couch, laying across John’s lap as you yawn, “We should head upstairs, it’s nearly 3 AM.”

“I’m not tired, but I’ll watch some TV while you sleep.” he says, then he tucks one arm under your legs and the other around your back to carry you upstairs. “I shouldn’t have had a cup of coffee when I got home this afternoon.”

John lays you down on the bed, then he lays down on top of you as he kisses you. You part your lips as he slides his tongue into your mouth, and you scoot back on the bed so you can wrap your legs around his waist.

You watch your finger as you trail it along John’s jawline, then you look up to meet his gaze. He’s watching your every move, and you smile a little more when he licks his lips.

John’s hands are everywhere on your body, but he keeps his lips connected to yours as you pull up your shirt a little. You grab John’s waist to pull him closer to you, and you bite your lip a little when you feel John hard in his pants. He rubs himself against you teasingly, then he smiles when he looks at you.

“Want it?”

You nod your head, “Yes, please.”

“Good girl.” he whispers against your lips, then he leans down to kiss you before he pulls your pajama shorts off. “Let me see her, let me see her!”

You laugh loudly and shake your head, “You’re so funny.”

He closes his eyes and bites his bottom lip when he sees you’re not wearing underwear, and he leans down to kiss your thighs. He slowly slides his fingers into your pussy, then he pulls them out, “Mmm, look how wet I make you.”

You look up at John as he slowly rubs your clit, then he stands up to pull off his pants. He kicks them to the side as he pulls his shirt over his head, and you sit up to pull your shirt off.

Reaching out for John, you whimper a little, wanting him more and more, but damn, he’s teasing you. He strokes his cock in his hand, and you crawl to the end of the bed and immediately take him into your mouth. You’re nearly choking yourself on his cock, but he tastes and feels so good that you don’t even care.

“Fuck, yes.” John whispers, looking down at you, “Look at you devouring me.”

You sit back on the bed and spread your legs, “Fuck me.”

John smiles as he crawls on the bed, and you hold his gaze as he slowly slides between your legs. He pushes himself in further as you moan, and your eyes roll shut and teeth chatter from the pleasure.

Just as John begins to move his hips at a lazy pace, your phone rings and he stops. You wave it off and pull John down, moaning loudly as he slides deeper between your legs. He slowly bucks his hips, then he immediately begins to pick up speed. You’re breathing heavily and moaning loudly as John continues his thrusts, and your phone begins to ring again.

“Fuck.” you look at John and smile, “Don’t you dare stop fucking me.”

John smiles, “Yes, ma’am.”

You lean over to grab your phone and see Tess is calling, “Hello?”

“Uh, what are you doing?”

You bite your lip as you try to hold in a moan when John rotates his hips, and you press your hand to your mouth when John begins to rub circles on your clit and kiss your neck.

“Goose?”

“I’m fine.” you say, holding your breath. “What’s up?”

“Are you serious right now? Is he…is he…” Tess laughs, then she whispers, “Are you having sex?”

You grab onto the sheets and squeeze your phone so hard in your hand that you think you just might crush it, and you look up at John as he smiles smugly. He bites his lip as he jerks his hips, and he reaches down to cover your mouth as you moan.

“What do you want, Tess?” you finally manage to choke out.

“Oh, uh, nothing big. Just wanted to let you know that my water broke at 2:58.” she says, and you put your hand on John’s chest to stop him.

“What? Are you going to the hospital?” you ask, and John sits up a little.

Tess laughs quietly, “Well, I’m currently sitting in the car while mom and Jimmy run around frantically. Keep having sex though. Don’t mind me, I’m just going to shove a baby out of my vagina in a few hours.”

“Tess, I’ll be right there. I’ll get dressed and I’ll be down there in 5 minutes.” you say, then you grab John to stop him when he starts to get off of you. “Okay, babe? I’ll be right there.”

Tess sniffles a little, “I’m really scared.”

“I know, and I’m coming.” you say, and the line goes silent for a moment, “I…I didn’t mean it like that, but…”

Tess laughs hysterically, “Oh, sweet Jesus. Just finish up and get down here so I can tease you in person.”

You toss your phone onto the floor, then you grabs John’s biceps and wrap your legs around him tighter as he begins to rock his hips faster. Both of you were trying your hardest to hold it off, and now that you’re going to meet Tess in 5 minutes, you’re ready to finally have that orgasm that’s been building this whole time.

John puts your right leg over his shoulder, then he takes deep and long thrusts as he rubs your clit, and you grab at his arms and whimper as your body tenses up. Letting out a string of moans, you moan John’s name loudly as he beams with pride, then he grunts as he thrusts so deep that you swear he’s going to tear you in half.

“I’m coming,” you whine, tilting your head back, “Fuck, you’re making me come!”

John lays down on top of you to kiss you as he bucks his hips every few seconds and spills inside of you, his warmth filling your core. You lay there for a moment before John pulls out, then you immediately get up and run into the bathroom to clean yourself up.

You head back into the room and grab a sports bra from your drawer, then you pull on the first pair of leggings you can find. John is getting dressed as well, and the two of you move around each other quickly. You spot yourself in the mirror and notice your hair looks like a mess, but you don’t have time to fix it so you just pull it into a bun on the top of your head.

“Ready?” you ask as you zip up your hoodie.

John nods, hopping on one foot as he puts his shoe on, “Yup.”

You grab your bag by the door, then you hop in the car and wait for John to lock the house. He gets in the car and starts it, then he backs out of the driveway. Tess’ car is gone, so you assume that they’re already on their way to the hospital.

“I’m so nervous.” you say, reaching over for John’s hand, “She’s really scared, and as much as I love Jimmy, I just don’t know how he’s going to react to this, so I need to be there.”

“I’ll get you there, baby.” he says, then he presses on the gas a little more, “We’ll be right behind them.”

Tess is already in her room when you walk in, and you sigh a breath of relief when you see she’s smiling and laughing. Jimmy is sitting in the chair next to the bed, and he’s holding her hand as the nurse talks to them. You quietly slip in and gesture to the couch for John to sit down, and you wait for the nurse to leave before you walk over to Tess. She smiles at you, then she lays back and closes her eyes.

“Epidural?”

She smiles, “Yup, and I feel pretty dang good. It hurt like a bitch, but whatever, I feel fantastic. How are you?”

You look around the room, then point at yourself, “Me? I’m fine. I just wanted to be here with you, I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”

Tess looks over at John and smiles, “I don’t blame you.”

John’s cheeks turn red, and he takes his phone out of his pocket to look at it to avoid Tess’ gaze on him. You look back at her and shake your head disapprovingly.

“At 3 AM? Really?”

Your mom furrows her brow and stands up, “What about 3 AM?”

“Tess, I swear to god.” you warn, but Tess just laughs loudly as your cheeks begin to burn.

“I called her to tell her that my water broke, and when she answered…” she laughs, and your mom looks at you, squinting her eyes playfully.

You look at your mom and shrug, “What?! We’re trying to get pregnant, okay?”

You walk over and sit down next to John who is still looking at his phone, and he winks when he glances at you. You smile when you see him commenting on a picture that Amanda has posted of Benji, and you lean your head against his shoulder as he continues scrolling through his phone. He shows you the picture that he posted of you from earlier that day, and you roll your eyes when you read the caption.

“Cheesy. I always love your cheesy captions.” you whisper as he looks over at you, “I didn’t even see that you posted that. I haven’t looked at my phone all day.”

John looks at the picture on his phone and smiles proudly, “I just like to show you off.”

“And I love that.” you say, leaning over to kiss him.

John smiles as he leans over to kiss you, then he looks up when the nurse comes back in. He widens his eyes and looks over at you to give Tess some privacy when they lift the sheet to check out how she’s doing.

“I don’t think I should be in here.” he whispers, and you look up at him, “I don’t think I should be in here when she’s giving birth. I mean, she’s like my little sister. I don’t really want to see that.”

“I’m not going to be in here. It’ll just be Jimmy and my mom. We can sit outside when she’s ready to push.”

“Wait, really?” Tess sits up on the bed and looks at the nurse, and you look over at her. “Like right now?”

“Like right now.” the nurse nods, “You ready to meet your baby?”

Tess looks around as she begins to grow nervous, “I mean, yeah, but…”

“Tess, you’re going to do great.” you say as you get up and sit down next to her, “You’re going to see your baby, and he’s going to be perfect.”

“What if I die?” she asks, and Jimmy starts to laugh.

“You’re not going to die, babe. It’s gonna be fine.” he stands up and helps her get in the right position as more nurses enter the room.

You look over your shoulder as John slips out of the room, then you look back at Tess, “John and I will just be outside the room. If you need me…”

She nods, “Just yell, yeah, I will.”

You hug Tess tight, then you lean down to kiss her belly, “I’ll see you soon, Finny.”

As you back out of the room, you look at Jimmy as he holds tight to Tess’ hand and he presses a kiss to her forehead. There’s no need to be worried about Jimmy, he’s going to do great. Your mom already has tears in her eyes as she stands on the other side of Tess and holds her hand. You would have been more than happy to be in the room with Tess, but with all the nurses, it’s just too crowded. The people who need to be there are there: your mom and Jimmy.

John is leaning against the wall when you walk out into the hallway, then he nods his head towards the cafeteria, “Let’s go get something to eat.”

You intertwine your fingers with John’s and look up at him, “Felt a little weird to just leave earlier.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like…we just had sex and I got up right after.” you shrug as you get on the elevator, “We usually lay together and talk after.”

John laughs and leans back against the wall, “Well, yeah, but we didn’t have time.”

“I would be terrible as a one night stand. I would want to sit and talk to them, and they’d be like, internally screaming because this girl will not get out of their bed.” you say, and John laughs again. “Was I like that the first time we had sex?”

“The first time we ever had sex, we took a shower right after and you fell asleep. I was the one talking.” he laughs, reaching for your hand when the elevator dings, “So, no, you weren’t like that.”

“Oh, yeah…” you smile as you lean up to kiss John, “That was the night you told me that you were in love with me.”

You and John are sitting outside of Tess’ room as she cusses loudly, and you’re both trying to keep yourself composed, but it’s really fucking hard.

“Jesus Christ, why does this hurt so fucking much?!”

“You’re almost there, babe.” Jimmy says, and you peek into her room to see Tess struggling to push.

It’s so hard to not run in and be with her, but you can’t, so you sit back down next to John and pick at your nails. John puts his hand on top of yours and gives you a reassuring smile when you look at him.

“I know this is hard for you.” he says, then he winces when he hears Tess grunting.

“Where is she?!” Tess finally yells, and you smile proudly when she calls your name. You walk into the room and stand at her side as she cries, “Fuck, this is hard. I can’t feel anything down there.”

“It’s okay, Tess.” you wipe her hair away from her face and smile, “You’re doing great.”

Jimmy looks between her legs and smiles wide, “Baby, he’s coming, I can see him.”

Tess’ face is pure determination and focus as she gives one big push. She exhales loudly and sits back to gain her strength to do it again.

“You’re doing great, Tess.” you whisper, and she looks over at you, “One more push!”

“Everyone keeps saying that, but it’s not one more push, it’s like five.” she whines, nearly in tears.

You grip her hand tighter and look at her, “You can do this, Tess.”

Tess pushes several more times as you all encourage her, then she finally sits back when she hears Finn crying. You back away so the doctors can help clean him and Tess up, and you walk back into the hallway to find John. You fall into his lap and lean your head against his shoulder.

“Wow, she did great.”

John smiles, “I heard. You should be a mid-wife.”

You laugh loudly, “It’s really nice to have a fiance who thinks I’m good at everything. I frost a cake, you think I should be a baker. I put a band aid on your cuts, you think I should be a doctor.”

“Because I believe in you, and I know you’d be great at all of these things.”

Rolling your eyes, you lean down to kiss John, then you look up when the doctors and nurses start to leave the room. There’s still a nurse or two coming in and out of the room to help Tess, so you don’t know whether or not the two of you should head in to see Finn.

“Did you see him?”

You shake your head, “No, but man, he’s got a set of lungs on him. He’s definitely Tess’ baby.”

You and John are still waiting outside of Tess’ room since she’s being tended to, and you’re playing a fun little game of ‘I spy’ to pass the time. John has won almost every round so far since you gave up after he picked things that were way too hard to guess.

Jimmy finally pokes his head into the hallway and waves at you and John, “Come meet him.”

Holding hands with John, you walk in and see Tess holding Finn in her arms and pressing a kiss to the top of his head. He has a little hat on to keep him warm, and you nearly die when you see the tiny little diaper he’s wearing.

“Congratulations, man.” John says, hugging Jimmy, then he walks over and kisses Tess’ cheek as he sets the vase of flowers he bought on the side table, “Good job, Tess. He’s beautiful.”

“He’s so tiny!” you frown dramatically, then you rub your finger against his cheek, “He’s so cute! Hi, Finn. Oh wait, you named him Finn, right? You didn’t decide at the last minute to name him something random like Rexford or…Tobin?”

Jimmy laughs as he looks at you, “Nope, Finn James Hendricks. You can keep calling him Finny James.”

“Though I did go back and forth between Finley and Finn, but we settled on Finn.” Tess hugs him a little and lets out a small laugh as she wipes away the tear on her cheek. She looks up at Jimmy and frowns, “Sorry if I was mean to you.”

Jimmy waves it off, “No problem, babe.”

“I feel bad.” she says, and she starts to cry. “I feel so bad for being mean to you my whole pregnancy, and now I’m really emotional.”

“Aw.” Jimmy walks over and sits down next to Tess as your mom takes Finn from her so the two can have a moment.

Your mom stands in front of John on the couch and smiles, “Would you like to hold him?”

“Oh, uh,” John wipes his palms on his jeans and looks at you, “Uh, yeah, I’ll hold him. Will you help me?”

“Of course.” you laugh, and you smile as Finn is placed in John’s arms.

“Hey, buddy.” John whispers and smiles, “He’s so tiny.”

Finn looks so tiny in John’s arms, and he wiggles in his place a little as John gets comfortable. He’s wiggling around pretty wildly, and you’re a little surprised to see him looking around as much as he is. He has Tess’ blue eyes, but he’s a good mix of the two.

Finn scrunches up his face, and John looks at you with concern, “Did I do something?”

“No,” you shake your head and lean closer, “He’s fine. I mean, realistically, he’s probably pooping right now.”

John begins to bounce Finn in his arms a little, and you look over at your mom and smile proudly. John has always been such a natural when it comes to kids, he just hasn’t realized it yet.

“He’s really cute.” John says, looking up at Jimmy and Tess.

“Yeah,” Jimmy puffs his chest, “He got his looks from…well, no, he definitely got his looks from his mom.”

“He definitely looks like the two of you.” your mom says as she packs her bag.

Tess laughs loudly and shakes her head, “He looks like a potato right now, and I can say that, I’m his mom. Oh, my god. I’m a mom.”

Finn lets out a loud cry, and John immediately leans over to hand him to you. You take him from John and rock him in your arms as he falls back asleep.

“Hi, Finny James. You just don’t know who this guy is, do you? He’s just not used to your voice, John.” you look at him and bump his shoulder, then you look at Finn, “That’s your uncle! He’s a big softie, and I bet you’re going to love him so much when you’re older. He tells really bad jokes, but it’s okay because he’s just so sweet. He’s gonna love you unconditionally, and you’re gonna be so grateful to have him as your uncle.”

John laughs, “Thanks.”

“It’s true. And eventually, you’re going to have a cousin, and they’re going to be your best friend. The two of you are going to be inseparable.” you lean down and press several kisses to Finn’s soft cheek, then you look up, “Tess and Jimmy, he’s beautiful. I’m really happy for the two of you.”

You try to hold back the tears as you hand Finn to Jimmy, but John can see you struggling. He wraps his arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer and pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

It’s so nice to see Tess and Jimmy so happy, and you’re beyond excited that Tess is finally able to hold her baby. The two of them can’t stop smiling and kissing each other and Finn. You have to admit, it does make you a little sad that it’s not you in this position instead. You’ll get there eventually, but it’s okay to be sad.

Tess is getting tired from all the work that she did, and Jimmy is pretty tired as well, so you figure it’s probably time to leave.

“We better get out of here and let you two -- oh, nope, you three get some rest.” you say as you walk over to them. You reach out and give Jimmy a big hug, and Tess smiles as she watches you two. You kiss him on the cheek, then you lean over to hug Tess, “Are you staying here all day tomorrow?”

“They said I need to be here for at least 24 hours to monitor me and Finn, so, yeah, basically. Jimmy’s parents will probably come up here in a few hours too.” she says, and you nod your head. “I’ll probably be home Wednesday morning.”

Your mom is talking with John and Jimmy, so you look back at Tess again to continue talking to her, “You did a great job, Tess. Your mom and dad would be so proud of you, and they’d be so happy for you.”

Tess immediately tears up and looks away from you as she starts to cry, “Thank you.”

“I’m so sorry that they couldn’t be here for this, but mom and I are so proud of you, and I am beyond happy for you. The way your life has turned out, I don’t know anyone who deserves it more.” you grab a tissue and wipe away the tears on your cheek, “You have an amazing husband, and now you have the most beautiful little boy.”

Tess is still crying, but she nods her head and looks up at you. You lean your forehead against Tess’, and you both let out a small laugh.

“If you need anything, let me know.” you press a kiss to Finn’s head, then you stand up and walk over to John when he reaches for your hand. “Mom, are you staying here?”

Your mom wrings her hands and shrugs, “I’m not sure.”

Tess nods, “Yeah, stay here with us. Just in case.”

“Well, I guess I’m staying here.” she says, then she reaches out to hug both you and John.

Tess sits up a little and looks at you,“Oh, wait, can you get Sadie? I hate that she’s home alone. Garfield will be fine, but Sadie is probably wondering where we are.”

John nods his head as he walks over to Tess, “Yeah, of course. We’ll get her once we get back home.”

Looking back at Tess, you smile wide as Jimmy scoots onto the bed to sit with her. They look like such a cute little family, and your heart couldn’t possibly handle more, but when John leans down and kisses the top of Finn’s head, you nearly pass out.

“Okay, well, that just about killed me. Get that baby away from him!” you laugh, tugging John’s arm. You look at Tess again and wave, “I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll come visit you obviously.”

“Bye.” she smiles, then she looks down at Finn and gives Jimmy a kiss as you slowly close the door.

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emachinescat · 4 years

Text

Murdoc + Ithika + Mac

A MacGyver Fan-Fiction

by @emachinescat

@febuwhump day 14 - “I didn’t mean it”

Summary: As an artist, Murdoc prides himself in taking his time with his work - he never loses control. Except one time, with his favorite boy genius. He always imagined that when he finally made MacGyver cry, it would be his finest moment. Now, he’s not so sure.

Characters: Murdoc, Mac, Jack

Words: 3,454

TW: torture, broken bones, Murdoc being his creepy little self

Note: Happy Valentine's Day – the store was all out of chocolate, so I got you Mac whump! ;) The allusions to Ithika are from Homer's epic by the same name, but even more so from the incredible poem by C.P. Cavafy. The muse mentioned, Melpomene, is the Muse of Tragedy.

Keep reading here, or on AO3!

If you enjoy, please consider liking, commenting, or re-blogging, and you can follow me for more content like this!

Ithika gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn't have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

- From “Ithika” by C. P. Cavafy

Murdoc enjoyed taking his time.

He was an artist, after all, and artists didn’t slap together a masterpiece in an afternoon – not the ones worth anything, at least. Most spent days studying their subjects, becoming intimately familiar with every line and curve and element – the shading, the lighting, the vibrancy of the colors. The very best didn’t even consider touching brush to canvas until they had developed a personal relationship with their subject – for how can a true artist paint that which he does not know deeply? Why bother recreating that landscape or tea kettle or sad-eyed little girl or bowl of fruit if it could be any landscape, tea kettle, little girl, or bowl of fruit? Why would someone paint something that wasn’t theirs?

Murdoc knew his subject very well. He, like a true artist, had studied it in a variety of settings. He’d watched and learned, dug deep into the core of its being, drawn out every secret and motivation and loss and love. He understood what made his subject tick. He’d even done some brief sketches, practicing each brushstroke with care, waiting patiently for the day he could at last, intricately, evoke that muse sought by the Romantics, that evasive Melpomene, and breathe his masterpiece to life. Or, more accurately, to death.

And now, after years of watching, interacting, teasing, sketching, his time had finally come. Months of planning had been sunk into this particular endeavor. And now, unlike the first time he’d been introduced to his subject, he hadn’t been commissioned by anyone. This portrait was personal, deeply personal. He finally had his subject right where he wanted it. The canvas was bare and waiting for the artist’s touch. Murdoc had chosen his palette, mixed the colors – it might be cliche, but he was a sucker for red, black, and blue.

Now that his moment had finally arrived, however, it didn’t mean that he could rush through the actual creation process. The act of studying one’s subject matter was slow and deliberate. So must be the painting.

***

Murdoc studied his canvas slowly, methodically, unsurprised that it wasn’t exactly blank. MacGyver stood, hands chained above his head, attached to a grate above. His bare toes just reached the cold concrete below. His jacket and Henley had been removed – he shivered slightly from the chill of the basement. Murdoc liked to think it was from fear.

“Oooh, this one’s fun, MacGyver!” Murdoc crooned as the blonde boy wonder eyed him scornfully. It was quite entertaining how expressive his prey’s pretty blue eyes could be. Murdoc briefly brushed the tip of his little finger against the scar of a bullet wound on MacGyver’s chest. MacGyver jerked back from the touch, though his expression remained stoic.

“Jealous that you weren’t the one who did it, Murdoc?” He sounded confident enough, but Murdoc knew his subject quite well by now. MacGyver was shaken. For once, he had no control, nothing to work with, no way to escape. He was at his captor’s mercy – Murdoc could do whatever he wanted, and MacGyver knew that.

“Oh, it’s nothing compared with what I’ve got planned for you, Angus,” Murdoc simpered sweetly, circling his catch of the day, dark eyes darting across more scars and recent cuts and bruises. He pressed directly into the dark center of a boot-tip bruise on MacGyver’s side, relishing the sharp intake of breath it elicited. “Someone on your last mission in Volgograd left their mark, I see.”

He circled back around to face his victim, who did a subpar job of hiding his surprise at the observation. “That was highly classified. How did you–”

“I’ve been watching you for a very long time, MacGyver. But you had to have known I would. After all, you’re my closest friend, and I know where you live. It’s kind of silly that you never moved, but maybe you just figured I’d find you even if you did. I wonder – have you always tossed and turned in your sleep or is that a more recent development?”

True horror flashed momentarily in blue eyes, tugging Murdoc’s lips up into a satisfied smile. “Oh, yes, your nightmares are very entertaining. I do hope the majority of them are about me. Oh, oh, oh! And I especially love it when they’re so bad you have to call your watch dog to calm you down. I wonder how Dalton’s taking your disappearance, by the way? I’m sure he’s in for some nightmares of his own.”

“He’ll find me, if I don’t escape first.” MacGyver’s bravado was both highly endearing and incredibly tiresome. Same old, same old.

“Doubtful,” Murdoc purred. “I mean, I know you well enough not to make stupid mistakes, my friend.”

“I escaped from the sewers, and you’d drugged me.”

“I intended for you to escape that day. I needed to draw your friends in, to focus their attention on finding you while I attended to other business. But this time – you’re mine.” At the fervor in his words, a shudder entirely unrelated to cold clinked the chains restraining his victim. Murdoc smiled, then continued.

“But now, there is no ulterior motive. I grabbed you for no other reason than because I wanted to. You are hidden away quite well, even more securely than last time, I’m afraid. And you will not be left alone, not even for a second. There may be things in this room you could use to escape, but they’re useless to you in your position. And I am not going to take my eyes off of you. You won’t have a chance to wriggle your way out of this one, MacGyver. Ooooh, is that fear I see on your face? No? We really must change that.” He tutted. “Defiance and bravado really are your bread and butter, aren’t they, Angus? What are you, an action hero from a cheesy 1980s TV show?” Silence, though the fiery glare spoke more loudly than words.

Murdoc clapped his hands together. “Well, there’s no time like the present. What do you say, MacGyver? Let’s get started.”

***

Three hours later, Murdoc admired his work. It was a slow process. He painted with precision and care, layering the colors just so, balancing the strokes, the lights and darks and brights. His brushes were many – laid out on the table before him were knives and pliers and blow torches and hammers and whips and cattle prods and other more specialized tools that he liked to work up to. He also had an oversized meat tenderizer, made of steel. He rarely used it – too garish for his refined tastes – but it did look nice and scary looming over the other instruments.

So far, he’d only used his knives and the cattle prod. The masterpiece was starting to come together, but it was hardly complete. He prowled around his artwork. MacGyver’s trembling had increased. He gasped for breath as Murdoc appraised his work – burns and cuts, some deeper than others – made a nice foundation. The drip of blood across bare flesh outshone any Pollock painting. He’d practiced his blending techniques, jabbing the cattle prod directly into the center of the lovely bruise he’d noticed earlier. MacGyver hadn’t been able to hold in his yell of pain.

Music.

“Are you enjoying our time together?” Murdoc asked.

MacGyver uttered a creative string of curse words that made Murdoc proud. He whistled appreciatively. “Who knew the boy scout had that in him? I’m almost impressed.”

“Yeah, well,” MacGyver said, hissing as he shifted and pulled at his many wounds. “Almost is about all you’ll ever be, Murdoc.”

Murdoc had been reaching for his trusty pair of pliers (those toenails could sure use a trim!). He paused, his back partially to his captive, fingers hovering over the tool. He was used to MacGyver’s sass, but what he’d just said hit a sour note that the hit man couldn’t shake. He didn’t know if it was the tone or the words themselves. “Excuse me?” He tried to sound amused, but his voice was tight, as if it had been squeezed out of him.

A clink of the chains, a grunt of pain that didn’t lighten Murdoc’s mood as it should have. Then, MacGyver elaborated. His voice was clipped in pain, breathless, but conviction lined every syllable. “You are doomed to live a life of almost, Murdoc. Nothing is ever going to be enough for you. Why do you think you take so long to get anything done? Why do you spend so much time talking and taunting and watching and waiting?”

Murdoc didn’t move, his hand still inches away from his delicate instrument that caused pain but did no lasting damage. “I’m an artist.”

“You’re afraid.”

“I fear nothing.”

“You fear winning.”

Murdoc laughed, a forced, uncomfortable sound that he’d never heard come from his own mouth. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, Angus. Are you sure the pain isn’t getting to your head?”

MacGyver pressed on relentlessly. “You crave attention. You need a challenge. That’s why you picked me. And you’re afraid of what happens if you beat me. If I die, there’s always that possibility that you won’t find another playmate.”

Still, Murdoc didn’t move. His words, despite their teasing jaunt, had a forced quality to them. “Awfully full of ourselves, aren’t we, MacGyver?”

He could hear the triumphant smile in his adversary’s voice. “I’m just stating the truth, Murdoc. You might torture me, you might have your fun. But at the end of the day, you’re going to slip up somehow. It’s your way of making sure the game goes on. Without that challenge, what are you? Just an angry voice screaming at the sky, no purpose, no point. You say you’ve studied me, Murdoc. You’ve watched me and know me. Well, in doing so, you’ve shown me yourself, too. You’re not going to kill me today. You’re never going to kill me.

“I don’t know what exactly I’ve done to deserve this… honor,” he continued, placing particular derision on the last word, “but you’ve become obsessed with me, Murdoc. Believe me, I don’t like saying this any more than you like hearing it. But it’s how I know I’m going to walk away from this. If I’m gone, so is your fun.”

Murdoc prided himself on maintaining control over his emotions. An artist, though he might express the inner workings of his soul on canvas, could not let his feelings control the brush, control him. Look what had happened to Van Gogh – sure, beautiful work, but his emotions controlled him, destroyed him in the end. Murdoc didn’t make mistakes like that. He waited. He didn’t lash out in anger. It wasn’t because he wanted MacGyver to live, oh no. His fondest dream was to see the blonde boy cry, to watch him squirm and beg for mercy, and then, finally, only when he’d really begged for it, to send him to his death. MacGyver had no idea what he was talking about.

It wasn’t even MacGyver’s words, his cocky belief that he was important enough to his torturer to keep alive, that sent Murdoc over the edge. It was the tiny little voice, way back in the darkest, most depraved corner of his already dark and depraved mind, the one that spoke not in the voice of Murdoc, but one that sounded more like Dennis, the first casualty of Murdoc’s career – himself. The voice said, plainly, without emotion, You know he’s right.

And that was the catalyst for the tsunami of rage that crashed into Murdoc, pummeling his well-practiced and unshakable resolve to take his time. That was what spurred his frozen body into movement, curled his fingers around the handle of the meat tenderizer, that brash, archaic tool, rather than the pliers. That was what spit his next words out of his mouth as if they were poison, words that finally – beautifully – caused Angus MacGyver’s eyes to widen in real fear: “You are going to walk out of here?” A sadistic, mad giggle. “My dear Angus, it will be a miracle if you ever walk again.”

He hefted the heavy steel implement in his hand, pulled back, and lunged. MacGyver tried to back away, the chains around his wrists cackling and clicking against one another in his desperation. They held firm, and the meat tenderizer slammed full force into MacGyver’s left kneecap. Murdoc felt the crunch of bones. He heard the bestial howl, the scream of anguish, the body-jerking, breath stealing cry of a man in so much pain he lost himself. He watched MacGyver’s face drain of color, recognized the moment when the pain became too much, and saw the tear-streaked face go slack, the chin thud against the battered chest and stay there.

For a moment, Murdoc experienced the euphoria one could only find in hurting that special someone in such a catastrophic way. He relished in that moment the scream, the agony, the writhing and loss of control.

Then the moment ended – and far too soon.

Immediately after, the weapon dropped out of Murdoc’s limp fingers. It smashed into the floor below, with the jarring clang that only metal on concrete can produce. He looked at the limp, hanging form before him, and something twisted inside of him – a feeling he’d never known. It wasn’t guilt, nor revulsion.

It was, however, regret.

He didn’t understand it. He should be overjoyed. MacGyver was completely at his mercy. Murdoc could kill him now. Carve that bleeding heart out like a villain in a fairy tale would. But then, he realized, MacGyver would be gone. Forever. Even now, his kneecap had been crushed, shattered into tiny fragments of bone and cartilage, and unless he got treatment of the highest quality, and soon, he’d almost certainly be crippled. Even if he had extensive reconstructive surgery, his career as a Phoenix agent could still be over.

Wasn’t that what Murdoc had wanted? To end MacGyver’s pesky existence, to win at this game of cat and mouse? To create his most spectacular masterpiece with his greatest enemy? That’s what he had dreamed of for years now, what he’d studied and practiced and yearned for. And yet –

What was it that hoity toity Greek poet had written? Murdoc had read “Ithika” long ago, a random page in a poetry book of a man he’d killed. For some reason, the poem had attached itself to his mind and never let go. He could remember it even now:

Keep Ithika always in your mind. Arriving there is what you’re destined for. But don’t hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you’re old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way, not expecting Ithika to make you rich. Ithika gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you wouldn’t have set out. She has nothing to give you now.

And he understood. The poem was supposed to be inspirational, for fools so focused on their goals that they missed the journey of life along the way – a mundane, silly sentiment. But now Murdoc could see – MacGyver’s destruction was his Ithika. Perhaps Cavafy had a point – maybe he had been a bit of an artist himself. And MacGyver had been right about some things, wrong about others.

He was right in that Murdoc wasn’t ready to end the game just yet. But it wasn't fear that held him back, that urged him to take his time. It was joy. Joy of the journey. The little pleasures of life that are so often passed by in the grand scheme of things – the poet had been speaking of knowledge, of friendship, of love, of experiences. Murdoc’s little pleasures were things like fear, drawn-out suffering, playing with his food and watching it squirm. He relished that joy. He wanted more of it, and if MacGyver died, or was out of commission as a spy, that joy would diminish. Even if MacGyver lived, it wouldn’t be the same if he couldn’t fight back, couldn’t play along.

Murdoc made his decision.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a burner phone. He dialed a number he’d memorized long ago, put the phone to his ear.

A fierce Texas twang answered before the first ring had run its course. “Murdoc, you son of a bitch–”

“Temper, Jack,” Murdoc drawled. He shivered in excitement at the mental picture of the inferno in Dalton’s eyes. “You just assumed it was me – imagine if it were your mother on the other line.”

“I can scent the devil from a mile away.” Murdoc heard muffled voices in the background, knew the call was being traced.

“Don’t waste your time running a trace, you grumpy old hound dog.” His words were light, yet he allowed the slightest hint of urgency to infect them. “I’ve had my fun for today. I’ll text you the address.” He paused. “Oh, and bring one of those fancy whirly-birds you like to use for medical emergencies. I might have been a little… over zealous this time.”

He closed his eyes, gorging on the incalculable levels of hatred in Jack Dalton’s next words. “If you hurt him–”

Appreciation turned to irritation. Murdoc rolled his coal eyes to the ceiling. “Weren’t you listening, you brute? Obviously, I hurt him. Quite a bit actually. You should have heard him scream.”

A short silence. Then – “You didn’t let me finish, you overgrown sewer rat. If you hurt him, I am going to tear you limb from limb. I don’t need any of your fancy tools.”

“Hmm, that was almost intimidating,” Murdoc teased in his most good-natured tone. “But you’ll have to find me first.” He let the words linger for just a moment, then continued: “Anyway, ta-ta for now. I’ll text you the address. I’ll be long gone by the time you get here, but feel free to bring all your little friends for a game of hide and seek. Though I have a feeling that you’re going to be more focused on sweet Angus.”

He hung up, texted the address, then turned to a feebly stirring MacGyver. Pity he was waking up right as Murdoc had to leave. Whimpers that would have torn the very soul out of Jack Dalton erupted unbidden from MacGyver’s lips. Glazed blue eyes cracked open, regarding Murdoc with a mixture of terror and acceptance. Though he had regained consciousness, MacGyver still hung limply from the chains, too weak and in pain to move.

Murdoc stepped forward, eliciting the tiniest of flinches Even that motion made MacGyver cry out. But Murdoc didn’t hurt him again. Instead, he said, “Your friends are on their way.”

MacGyver’s voice rasped in the aftermath of his screams. “You’re letting … me go… Why?”

“Got bored, I suppose.” No way was Murdoc going to let MacGyver know he’d been right, even if only a little bit.

MacGyver didn’t respond – maybe he didn’t know how to respond; more likely, he could barely form coherent thoughts, let alone words, amidst the torrent of pain.

Murdoc started to step away, then turned back, studying his latest draft of the elusive masterpiece that he would continue to dream about and that would fuel his passion and creativity for years to come. He pulled off one black glove, placed his hand on a pale, cold cheek. MacGyver jerked back feebly from the touch, grunting at the pain it produced. Slowly, Murdoc wiped one of the fresher tears away with his thumb. It might have been a power play. It might have been a show of comfort. Even the hit man didn’t know. He glanced down at the shattered knee, swollen and misshapen, a grotesque monster straining to break free from the unrelenting fabric of the khakis.

“For what it’s worth,” he said quietly, moving his gaze up from the deformed knee to lock his black eyes with fearful, anguished blue ones, “I didn’t mean it.”

He walked away, casting one final look over his shoulder before he left his art behind for the coming Phoenix agents to admire. “Until next time, MacGyver.”

And despite the extensive search conducted by Phoenix once MacGyver had been loaded onto the chopper, on his way to the best orthopaedic surgeons in the country, Murdoc had once more disappeared, like a ghost.

That night he dreamed about his Ithika, and this time, it was enough.

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inkribbon796 · 4 years

Text

Invisible Blue

Summary: Ethan finds something a bit bigger while he’s spying on Damien. Much bigger than he planned on finding.

A/N: This is a hell of a long post, but I didn’t know how to cut it so here it is. This also contains two different asks from some anons. Hope you guys enjoy.

Ethan was honestly getting a little fatigued. Normally day to day, it was alright, he exchanged with Chase to keep an eye on Damien so that Ethan could get a break. He did simple patrol routes for the simple reason that Ethan had to make sure he was seen in costume so no one would think he was spying on the Mayor.

Marvin and Chase didn’t report that Damien was acting different or suspicious.

Ethan was really ready to stop watching Damien today because the mayor just worked, took a lunch break, and worked way too much, leaving often with his work with him when he went home.

If he was guilty of anything it was being a workaholic with barely a social life.

Today, Ethan considered leaving early, just because it was a slow day and he was already having a bad day. So while Damien was out to lunch, Ethan rushed out to grab a sandwich and was sitting in his chair in the corner just eating it and occasionally glancing at his phone. He had his brain halfway into whatever reddit post he was reading, and half concentrating on not choking to death on the burger in his mouth when he heard the doorknob being angrily turned as Damien stormed in.

Ethan’s reflexes were the only thing stopping him from being instantly found out, as he threw his own power over him and his stuff to make him invisible.

Damien was angry, he was clearly pissed and screaming into his phone, “What is wrong with you?”

Ethan was carefully taking his burger out of mouth and trying to keep his movements slow and eventually as still as possible so he could save the energy to keep the invisibility up as long as possible.

“Well, why did you call me now, are you somehow dying? You know I’m at work!” Damien shouted into the phone.

Whatever response he got, he clearly didn’t like it, because he still looked pissed and Ethan didn’t think he had ever seen Damien even close to this level of anger.

Damien glared at his phone, and Ethan could hear what he thought was a phone ringing somewhere in the distance. But Damien pulled the phone away from his ear to take a breath. “You have the five seconds it takes for me to walk up and close my door, to get Illy.”

The Mayor took an audibly deep breath, “If I see you in my office, I will put an axe through your chest and carve your heart out, am I understood?”

He didn’t even wait for the answer, almost dropping his black phone on the desk and stomping over to the door, muttering under his breath. Ethan only caught part of as Damien stomped past, “Dammit, William, I can’t leave you alone for five minutes.”

Damien paused at the door, looking a bit pained, he took a deep breath and ran his hands over his face, taking his time to close the door and walk back to his desk. After settling back into his seat, he picked up the phone, “Yes.”

Relief seemed to flood over his body, “Finally, how bad is it?

As Damien was talking as Ethan slowly started to clean up, trying to be as slow as possible to avoid making noise.

“How much damage are we talking? His usual amount?” Damien asked as Ethan was finishing up his burger and pocketing the trash from it.

“I’m supposed to going to a benefit gala tonight in my tux, I can drop by briefly and calm him down, but I need you to take care of Bim and make sure he doesn’t break anything either.”

At Bim’s name, the name of the lead suspect in a series of suspicious disappearances of co-eds and transients, just stunned and terrified Ethan. The invisible hero had been trying to quietly fold up the wrapper his burger had come with, and after years of working quietly to where Jackie had to concentrate to pick him up he was more than confident that he was quiet. But heard that name made his hand reflexively clench and a loud and clear crinkling sound quietly punctuated Damien’s sentence.

Damien froze, eyes darting around, he looked in the corner Ethan was in several times, and one of those times he seemed to be staring directly into Ethan’s eyes two seconds too long to be comfortable.

Finally Damien said, “I’ll have to call you back, there’s something in my office.”

Damien hung up the instant he finished the last word and looked around the room, standing up. He didn’t call out and Ethan felt unnerved and wondered if he should just come out of hiding and try and pass his nervous shock off.

After about a minute Damien straightened up his desk a bit, and then left the room. Ethan was quick to try and follow him to the parking lot but only got to the parking lot before in record time he lost Damien, rounding the corner and someone else almost slammed into Ethan and he had to duck out of the way and he heard the door front open and close and Ethan could see him after that.

Ethan made a quick call to Logan but he didn’t pick up so he had to step out and call Jackie who promised to get someone to the gala. They made sure to have a set of ear pieces they could use to communicate with each other.

Then he quickly finished cleaning up and just didn’t come back, not wanting to tip Damien off again.

Ethan and Roman arrived at the museum where they were hosting the gala in costume, early to help with the security detail.

“Be still my heart, what wonders of Apollo and the Muses above!” Roman gasped at one of the paintings.

The museum director walked out of his office, smiling but looking a bit nervous, “Always so great to have our city’s finest here for the gala. I take it you both are patrons of the arts?”

“Of course, Prince Creativity at your service,” Roman gestured to himself, then gestured to Ethan, “This is my esteemed colleague: Blank.”

“We would have come without the masks but no one would have recognized us,” Ethan tried to joke.

The man let out a little fake laugh, “Pardon me, I have one of the museum backers in a meeting, I’ll have to talk with the two of you after the event starts.”

“Oh, don’t let us keep you,” Roman insisted, “we’re just here to admire the artwork, I may walk off with something if my friends don’t stop me.”

“Thought that was Logic’s job?” Ethan smiled even though it couldn’t be seen very well under his mask. “Well don’t let us keep you, we’ll just walk around until the gala starts.”

He smiled and left and nothing too important happened, the gala began and they soon found Damien amongst the crowd. Their evening up until that point had been filled with talking with people and Roman geeking out with other artists over their sculptures, paintings; and Roman was quite excited about a woman who had sculptured what looked like a handbag out of clay that looked so realistic Ethan thought someone had just left on a pedestal. During the conversation, Roman noticed Damien. The mayor was standing talking to another woman but during the conversation he noticed Roman and Ethan standing there.

She walked off, and Ethan thought he might be imagining it, but Damien seemed to be watching them a little more closely. He smiled as they walked over, “Well, what a pleasant surprise.”

“As if I would miss such a fantastic venue,” Roman smiled. “I was made for this scene.”

“I suppose I should have expected to see you then,” Damien apologized.

Ethan was looking around the room, mostly out of habit, Mark and Jack had drilled it into Ethan’s head to survey the room to see if a villain was sneaking in or if there was anyone causing trouble, and after what had happened to Robbie it was insisted that he find a way out to get out of a dangerous situation.

So he was looking around and watched the direction heading towards the stairwell. Ethan wouldn’t have paid any extra attention but the direction was frequently talking to a person following close behind and the man looked scared, nervously glancing back at the man following him.

Quickly turning to Roman, Ethan signaled to him, acting like he was itching his ear. “Be back, guys.”

“If you fight ninjas, call for backup,” Roman told him. “I don’t want to be left out of the fun.”

Ethan headed off in the direction of the bathrooms, and the instant he was out of sight, he turned invisible and headed back to the direction he’d seen the director sped walked off into. By luck or just because of how fast he’d reacted, Ethan was able to catch up to the director and his guest, and something about the person, and after watching this strangely familiar person for a while he was following the two down into the first basement of the museum.

“I do hope this will be a short walk,” the familiar stranger said.

“The service elevator will take you all the way down to the service elevator,” the man promised, turning the key into a slot on the elevator panel. “No stops, no interruptions.

Ethan watched the situation for a bit, it was all kinds of shifty and he didn’t like it, but Ethan and Roman were here to spy on Damien. But something didn’t sit right with him about this. And either way he was going to get chewed out. He could almost see Amy’s face when he would have to give his report of this mission. Maybe he could give it to J.J or Patton, they usually weren’t so tight fisted on what he did.

Quietly Ethan weighed his options, lamenting that regardless of the fact he’d more than earned his right as an official hero, most of the team tended to baby him. Hell it seemed like the whole city wanted to baby him.

While he thought about what to do, the elevator finally arrived and opened. The director said, “Give Dark my regards.”

Ethan moved without thinking, slipping into the large service elevator, once he was inside he crammed himself to the back and whispered into his earpiece, “Hey, Princey, keep your eyes on the Mayor, I’m following a network member.”

“Ill advised,” the enforcer dismissed coldly, looking down at his watch, getting into the elevator. He was getting more and more familiar to Ethan, his sharp and angular features and dark black square glasses. “It would be a waste of his time and mine. Remember your payment, I’d like to be able to have this month’s ledgers done on time.”

“What?” Roman’s voice crackled over the earpiece and Ethan huddled further away from the enforcer. “On your own? You’re not supposed to do that.”

The elevator closed and slowly began to descend.

“I’m not an apprentice anymore, I know what I’m doing,” Ethan whispered and his eyes seemed to focus in and see through whatever illusion was around him and finally caught why the enforcer looked so familiar.

“Logan?” Ethan asked in surprise, much louder than he should have. Ethan covered his mouth and froze as Logan snapped his head to look at Ethan’s direction and the invisible hero kept absolutely still, making sure he stayed invisible.

Logan was looking around, suspicious, and clearly not believing he’d just hallucinated his own name being called out in an almost empty elevator.

He was slowly lifting his hands up to his lapel of his immaculate suit coat when the elevator grinded to a sudden halt and the lights began to flash, all the buttons lighting up as laughter began echo off the metal walls.

“Hello Four Eyes,” a scratchy voice echoed off the walls.

Ethan’s invisibility almost flickered a bit in surprise but braced himself for a fight. Logan seemed to calm down significantly. He just watched as a mass of tentacles and spikes shot out at him. Logan had been standing almost a foot-and-a-half from the elevator door and didn’t even flinch as he was attacked.

The invisible hero almost jumped in to save him but realized that Logan wasn’t being touched and he was just staring at the creature as if it was throwing feathers at him.

“Ah, greetings Anti, how has your day been?” Logan adjusted his glasses.

“Oh, cone on, I had yeh!” Anti materialized out of the button panels, coming out of the tentacles.

Logan was scanning over his suit again, “I do have to admit, I was a little perturbed when you called my name, I was not aware Dark had confided it to you.”

“That horsearse don’t tell me shite,” Anti spat. “It was probably Wil fishing in waters he’s not welcome. I thought he knew yer Aro ass was off the market.”

“No, I would recognize his voice,” Logan answered, looking away as he murmured to himself, finger resting against his lips and his brow furrowed in concentration. “It was probably Dark, he is the only person I can think of who would know my name. I must talk to him about using it in public, it’s quite dangerous and risky. He must be in a good mood today.”

Then Logan looked at Anti again and nonchalantly asked, “Do you mind removing yourself from the panel, I have a meeting to get to and Dark will not continue to be in a good mood if I am late.”

Anti had just been staring at Logan and at his request the glitch demon just started laughing. He did, however, pull himself out of the elevator and punched it before it continued its descent. He laughed as if Logan was the funniest thing in the world. “Do yeh think if I bugged Dark enough he’d let me pick yah apart and watch yeh break. I bet even yeh have a point where yah fookin’ fall apart.”

Logan only blinked, as if the glitch demon wasn’t threatening him. He adjusted his glasses in the Logan-like way Ethan had always seen him do. There was something in Logan’s eyes that looked inhuman. As if the person Ethan had known for years wasn’t there and Logan’s body was being piloted around by some demon.

Which wasn’t completely unlikely given the crazy, messed up world Ethan lived in.

“While highly improbable,” Logan answered while Ethan was having a crisis, “the likelihood is not 0.”

Anti was quiet for a second before cackling again, still floating in midair. “Wonder if I could clone you and get the same person.”

“Impossible,” Logan answered, reaching a wooden door, “you cannot perfectly duplicate another person.”

“Shame,” Anti commented, still smiling and the elevator door opened, Ethan followed them out into a room with a couple boxes all with serial numbers and labels. There was what looked like a large office on the other side of the room.

“Hey if you wanted to get a guy you like to annoy a birthday gift, what would it be?” Anti asked.

“I don’t think I am the one you should outsource gift ideas to,” Logan cautioned.

Anti kicked open the door the instant Logan had it open enough not to destroy the frame. “We’re home.”

Inside Ed Edgar had been napping in a chair leaned up against the wall and grunting in panic when the door was kicked open, pulling his gun out and almost shooting Anti before recognizing who it was and lowering it.

“Hey Eddy boy,” Anti grinned. “Guess who got an invite.”

“Hey dipshit,” Ed Edgar spat out at Anti before tipping his hat at Logan. “Howdy, Sanders, I see yah haven’t died yet?”

Their argument and the fact Anti had kicked the door open when Logan probably would have closed it behind him, made it easy for Ethan to sneak in.

Logan walked off to the side of the room, three ledgers stacked up on a small desk.“If you were commenting on my state of existence, I don’t know how I could have given you the impression my life was at stake.”

Ed stared at him, pointing at him, “Yer smart mouth is gonna get yer teeth kicked in, an’ that’s what worries me.”

“Your concern is noted,” Logan not even looking up from the books. “Hopefully Dark will be in a better mood than he has been in the past few weeks, otherwise this will only be more bad news.”

“The only news is good news,” Wil patted Logan’s shoulder, suddenly appearing at his side.

“Statistically untrue,” Logan corrected, pointedly staring at Wilford’s hand and when he was slow to move it, Logan brushed it off.

“Someone seems to be in a sour-dour mood of their own,” Wilford gave a full, toothy smile.

“I merely do not appreciate you putting your hand on my person,” Logan reminded. “You historically have very promiscuous behavior and rarely understand someone turning you down. I am not interested in earning my employer’s ire because of a misunderstanding.”

Wilford laughed, “I knew you’d be fun.”

To Logan’s mounting ire, Wil roughly patted him on the back, “I’m glad Darky hasn’t run you off.”

“I am paid far too much, and leaving now would end in a rather painful and drawn out death,” Logan huffed out, looking Wilford dead in the eye.

The madman let out a booming laugh, “What a card that Dark.”

Wilford’s smile got wider as he sat on the desk, ignoring Logan’s glare. “Why there was this time down in Florence where there was this lovely Parisian magician I was seeing and Dark threatened to cut his fingers off.”

“That was because I caught you two having sex on my desk.”

The voice that spoke wasn’t Dark’s usual scratchy, deep tenor. It was higher pitched and sounded feminine. The echoey ringing was the same though.

Logan almost jumped out of his chair, and Ethan saw someone in short black hair, Dark’s red echo around her and in an immaculate suit.

“Celine,” Wil uttered, saying her name like it enchanted and enraptured him.

She sighed and sat down in the chair. Ethan got his first good look at Celine. He was surprised at how much she looked like Damien . . . and even scarier how much she looked like Dark.

“Ma’am,” Edgar stood up and took off his hat, bowing his head slightly. “Nice of you to join us.”

“Great,” Anti rolled his eyes. “The fun police is here.”

“Nice to see you too Anti,” she replied in an equally barbed tone. “Are you going to be useful here or just a waste of my time?”

“Ugh,” Anti groaned. “I’ll see myself out a’fore ye get even less fun. Tell yer other half he’s a dipshit.”

“Tell him yourself,” the woman replied. “As you can see, I’m a bit busy.”

“Yeah, making Wil suck ye off,” Anti muttered under his breath.

“What was that?” She barked.

“Ye heard me!” Anti tore a hole into the Void and vanished, he flipped her off as he left.

“Now you can’t talk to a lady like that,” Wilford snapped at Anti as he left, even leaning into the Void to finish berating him.

“Leave it Wil,” Celine told him and Wil pouted as he watched the Void close.

She snapped her fingers and a chair appeared from the Void, jolting into place beside her, a bright pink and yellow wood chair with a large mustache carved at the top of the backboard.

Then the door closed and Ethan distinctively claustrophobic while he was trying to keep his mind clear of thoughts Wil could read.

Wil flopped down in the chair. Celine patted him on the arm, saying, “Don’t worry he’s just upset I don’t let him walk all over me like he does with my brother.”

“How is the old bean?” Wil asked, “haven’t seen him in ages.”

“He’s fine dear, he’s just keeping a couple stiff shirts upstairs,” Celine dismissed. Then she turned to Logan and she smiled. “Well, well, you have turned into quite the useful little bookworm. So do you know who I am?”

It was Logan’s turn to smile, “Yes, I would recognize you anywhere. Do you have a specific name you wish to go by, Ma’am?”

She hummed, ignoring Wil who was inching towards her and clearly salty about not being the center of attention, but she gave that sticky sweet smile reminding Ethan of Dark when he was being especially sadistic. “I think for you, Madam Celine will work just fine, you rarely see the outside of your office and I am planning a new debut of sorts.”

Logan nodded, “Very well, Madam, I took the liberty of checking over the books again, and regrettably there is bad news.”

“When is there very good news these days?” She groaned, she leaned her hand over to trace around Wil’s face. “Sweetie, if you can’t be patient and behave, I’m going to kick you out of the room.”

Wil smiled, “Oh I can behave.”

“After,” She pushed him away, “Ed, Logan, reports, I don’t have all night to play charades.”

“Well the feds have been doing a lot more snooping about the old Downwich orphanage for one, and they’re getting nosy,” Ed began, “it’s just taken them a couple months to make any progress.”

Celine thought for a bit, Wil just shrugged and commented, “None of the kids are minors anyways.”

She glared at Wil, grabbing him by the collar, “Did you forget the heroes have someone who can control time on their side?”

“They do?” Wil smiled. “That’s a neat trick.”

Celine’s eye began to twitch and the fierce ringing that usually accompanied Dark pitched up. “Wil, if I lose them because you chose to play games instead of taking this seriously, I will carve out your heart and feed it to you.”

Wil kept quiet at that.

“Ma’am, if you would allow me to make a suggestion,” Logan spoke up and Celine looked over at him.

“We should cut all ties with these sites,” Logan proposed. “They are becoming too dangerous to manage.”

“That’d cut mah supply at the ankles,” Ed snapped,

“If it puts the whole network at risk then your supply should be disallowed,” Logan commented in a dry but firm tone.

“What do you know about risk?” Edgar threatened, “you stay in an office all day.”

“Edgar, you strike him, and I’ll start removing fingers,” Celine threatened. “Logan has a point, distance has to be put between us and the sites, immediately. I want all their records destroyed. They never existed.”

“We can do that,” Ed promised, “how do you want me to handle Yanc’s paperwork, he’s already in a hot mess.”

“I don’t care,” she spat angry, “take care of it.”

“I can run a cost analysis for how to handle the situation without creating too much suspicion,” Logan offered, adjusting his glasses again. “It wouldn’t do to act without an informed decision.”

“That would be best,” Celine agreed.

“I can have those reports on your desk by the end of the week,” Logan promised. “The sooner we can make a decision, the better we can prepare for the consequences.”

“Another thing,” Celine added. “I don’t think I was clear to you in our last conversation. I want Brody moved up. He has top priority.”

Ethan got an uncomfortable tightening in his chest at hearing Chase’s name so casually thrown around.

Logan let out a frustrated sigh, “Might I ask why?”

“His unpredictable bravery mixed with his gift has the ability to turn the tide of a fight,” Celine corrected firmly. “Even if he is more than a little dim.”

Logan was quiet for a little bit, straightening his glasses, “If you are this certain about the threat he poses, then I will make him a priority target.”

“Oh no,” Celine smiled. “Not that list, the other one. The same one I put the others onto.”

Logan paused, sounding confused, “Very well.”

The office door opened and Illinois in a nice tweed suit and glasses walked in, he was carrying his hat, under his arm was a package. Celine smiled at him and Ethan took his change to escape, slowly heading for the door. He made it to the other side and hid behind the wall.

“Hello sweetie, how’s the gala?” Celine to him.

“Oh it’s going great,” Illinois announced as Ethan began to make his way slowly and carefully back to the elevator, Logan seemed to be in more than friendly company and anything else he learned wasn’t important if he was dead. Once he was at the elevator, he sighed in relief when he saw it had a button to go back up and didn’t need a key.

“Charming,” Ethan whispered into his ear piece.

“Sweet Aunt Jemima,” Roman sounded panicked. “I have been trying to find you everywhere.”

“Coming back up,” Ethan promised, and hit the button.

“Back up,” Roman repeated in confusion, “where are you?”

The elevator dinged as it opened and Ethan froze, looking back at the room as he backed up into the elevator and hit the third floor to avoid being on the same floor as the elevator had first come down from. When it closed without investigation, Ethan made a sigh of relief but didn’t turn visible yet, he was tired but not out of trouble yet.

“Do you still have eyes on the Mayor?” Ethan asked.

“Yeah, he’s been fine, talking, laughing,” Roman answered.

The elevator opened and Ethan stepped out, ducking into a room that didn’t have people inside, so he turned tangible. “Coming down from the third floor, where are you right now because we need to leave and fast.”

“Wait a second, what about Logan?” Roman asked as Ethan began to head for the first exit he could find. “You said his name and then went radio dark. Shoot, I lost him.”

“The Mayor?” Ethan stopped on the stairs. “Leave Logic, he’ll fine.”

“Just get out, we’ll talk, late—” Ethan kept going, and stopped when he rounded a corner in the twisting staircase and saw Damien at the bottom of the staircase, hands resting on the pommel of his cane and a smile on his face. Ethan immediately pressed a button on his wrist watch and sent a silent alarm for back up to his location. “Mr. Mayor, how are you?”

Damien smiled. “Oh, I’m doing well, I just was a little worried, you walked off and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of you for the last half-hour.”

“Has it been that long?” Ethan let out a nervous chuckle. “Lost track of time, I guess.”

Damien’s eyes narrowed, and he gave a smile that reminded Ethan of Celine. “You were in my office.”

“Depends on the day, I’ve been to your office before loads of times,” Ethan said.

The Mayor took one step up the stairs and Ethan took a matching one back up, “Then let me clarify: this afternoon you were spying on me in my office, I caught you around lunch time and you didn’t come back when I tore the room apart later.”

Another step up, another retreating one from Ethan.

“Why?” Damien asked, his smile growing into something else as they took another step. “Am I under investigation for something?”

“Uh,” Ethan stalled, forced to take another step.

“Crank!” Roman yelled and Ethan felt relief as Roman stood at the bottom of the stairs. Damien looked back at Roman.

“Stay out of my office or bring smarter back up,” Damien threatened and headed up the stairs, moving past Ethan without laying a finger on him.

“Are you—” Roman began but Ethan thudded down the stairs and ran for the exit.

“No, come on,” Ethan didn’t let up until he was outside and saw Jackie heading towards the door.

“Anyone hurt?” Jackie demanded.

“No, we need to get back to base, we’re being watched,” Ethan told him.

Despite Ethan’s warning, they weren’t attacked and there was no sign of being followed. Mark and Iplier were waiting for them, Mark looking relieved when Ethan came in looking unharmed.

“What happened?” Mark demanded.

“The Mayor and his sister are working with Dark,” Ethan accused, “they might even be his hosts. I saw Celine acting like she was Dark and no one even seemed to blink at that.”

“At the museum?” Mark demanded.

“No it was in some underground office underneath the museum, it looked like it was a place they shipped stuff out from,” Ethan explained. “Worse of all Logan was there talking to him and Wilford, he wasn’t in a mask and he was in this really nice suit.”

“Why would Logan be working with those shifty shadlings?” Roman huffed, insulted. “Maybe it was an illusion?”

“We’ll deal with the Logan problem when he comes into the base tomorrow,” Mark sidelined. “You said you two saw Dark possessing Celine? How? Dark’s never taken a Host before.”

“That’d make him no longer the exception ta the rule,” Jackie cut in. “Every other demon we’ve fought with has either worked with a host before or is using one.”

“It’s only two demons,” Mark reminded.

“No, remember that time Marv got possessed by an undead witch, she was technically a demon,” Jack corrected.

“In any definition, the heroes have it wrong,” the host announced himself, walking into the room.

“Really?” Mark asked. “Which part, the fact we have to replace another mayor or the fact Dark is taking hosts?”

“The Host doesn’t see the city’s current mayor leaving his post for the foreseeable future,” the Host denied, whispering into his cupped hand as a lack piece of paper folded itself into existence and it looked like a spindly paper person. “As for the Entity, he is not what he or she seems.”

“Who cares what he is?” Mark reminded sharply. “Dark has the keys to the city.”

Jackie drew his hand over his face, “Shit, how many identities does that asshole know?”

“Chase’s, Celine, or Dark, she mentioned him as “a priority target” or something,” Ethan said. “I’ve never told him mine.”

“Chase goes over ta talk wit’ the mayor e’ery week,” Jack groaned. “I’ll talk wit’ him. Mark let’s see if that asshole is anymore arrestable if he looks human.”

Jackie ran off and Mark turned to Ethan, “You are never to go off like that alone again.”

Ethan glared at Mark, “I am twenty-three, I’m not a baby. You go up against Dark and a group of his goons alone all the time.”

“I can be slammed against a wall at sixty miles an hour and not get hurt,” Mark reminded. “I don’t want to attend another funeral, especially if it’s for someone else who went into Dark’s territory with no back up and then got themselves thrown into a blender.”

“My powers are perfect for spying and you’re not letting me use it,” Ethan felt frustrated, taking his mask off. “Come on, I’m not an apprentice anymore.”

Mark took a deep breath, clearly not liking the situation, but he turned to the Host, “Hey Host.”

“Yes,” Host answered prematurely. “It would be the Host’s honor.”

Mark pointed at Ethan, “I want you to get so good I can’t find you when you start pulling pranks.”

“Oh don’t worry,” Ethan smiled, excited, he started to slink out, turning invisible halfway through his sentence. “I’ll be so stealthy that no one will see me.”

Mark rolled his eyes, “You can’t be a good spy if you keep running your mouth.”

“I was never here,” Ethan said to him, next to Mark’s shoulder.

“You’re not making me feel good about this,” Mark told him.

“Where am I?” Ethan asked, making his voice sound ghostly.

“A mistake was made,” Mark just shook his head smiling, “clearly.”

Ethan joked around for a bit before he and Mark eventually went home, Roman already off trying to track Logan down.

#Superhero AU #Masks and Maladies #Crankgameplays #Markiplier #Thomas Sanders #Darkiplier #Roman Sanders #Logan Sanders #Wilford Warfstache #Ed Edgar #Darkstache #Wilford x Celine #what is their ship name cause I can't figure it #spying secret identity #heroes are a bit overprotective of Ethan #but they have a good reason and Ethan's not making it easy for them

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jokertrap-ran · 4 years

Photo

[Gakuen K] Kusanagi Izumo Route: Date? Translation

*Translator’s note : MC’s name shall remain as my normal (水嶋ラン) *Gakuen K Masterlist *Spoiler FREE : Translations under cut !

Ran: Sorry to keep you waiting, Kusanagi-san!

Izumo: No worries. It’s a guy’s job to wait for the girl after all.

Izumo: Rather than that, are you really okay with this? Going out shoppin’ with me even though it’s one of your precious day-offs?

Ran: Of course. It’s my way of saying thank you for the Hot Milk you made me the other day.

Ran: And I could say the same for you too; is shopping alone really okay?

Izumo: ‘Course. I’m as happy as they come. It’s just like a date, don’t ‘cha think?

Ran: A d-date…

Izumo: Haha, I’m just joking so you can just pretend I never said that. I’ve come here pretty early, so how about I guide you around the places here after we’re done shoppin’?

Ran: Eh? But then this wouldn’t be fitting as a way to thank you for what you’ve do-

Izumo: Stooop right there. I told you didn’t I? I’m already plenty happy about it.

Ran: R-Right…

Izumo: You’re already one of us so you don’t have to pay it too much heed; don’t worry ‘bout it so much.

Izumo: I say that and all, but I’m an OB (Alumni). Although, the fact that we’re friends still doesn’t change.

Ran: Alright then. I’ll be in your care for today.

Izumo: Yeah. Do tell if you’ve got some place you wanna’ go or somethin’ you wanna’ eat since we’re out, ‘kay?

Ran: Okay!

»» ━━━━━━━ ∘◦♔◦∘ ━━━━━━━ ««

Ran: Whoa, this is...a lot of people.

Izumo: Well, it is a weekend after all.

Ran: I’ve always thought this place to be pretty deserted until now...Now that I’ve actually come here.

Izumo: ‘Cause this is an Island?

Ran: Yes. There are boats and ports here too, so I was thinking the streets to be a little more...closer to the forest-ish side

Izumo: Ohh? So you had the impression that this place was like a countryside area, just like the ones found in paintings…

Ran: This place is actually way more advanced than where I came from.

Izumo: What kinda place were you livin’ at?

Ran: A quiet town off the ways from the Main City. It’s lively in front of the Train Station, though. And there’s also a Convenience Store not too far down the station.

Ran: I used to frequent the shops in front of the Station with my friends before we all headed home for the day.

Ran: (It’s not been long since I moved here, but recalling all of this now makes me feel really nostalgic...)

Izumo: Heh~ I bet it’s a great place.

Ran: Yes, absolutely.

Izumo: Then, bring me there once things settle down here, yeah? I wanna’ see the town you grew up in at least once in my life.

Ran: But...I don’t think I’m ever going back there. Plus, I gave them such a hassle too…

Izumo: I personally think that things like that are a one-off. Unless you’ve got a problem with it yourself, but that’s a problem for another day. So I think that’s not the case at all.

Izumo: Although, it’s not like I don’t understand how they feel. Seeing somethin’ they’ve never seen before must have had scared them, so it showed in their words and actions. It’s natural human instinct.

Izumo: That’s how it is, so I think everyone will still worry about you if you finally decide to go back there.

Ran: Is that so…

Izumo: ‘Course, ‘course! Take me there one day, will ‘ya? Someday, when you’ve comfortably settled down here and feel like takin’ a lil’ trip back home.

Ran: ...Okay. One day, some day, for sure.

Izumo: Now then...Sorry that our conversation suddenly turned all serious like that. As a change of pace…

Izumo: I’m actually here today to purchase some expandable items for the Bar.

Ran: Expandable items? You mean things like Wet Towels and Coasters?

Izumo: Those too, but well...many others among those? There’s a Speciality Shop ‘round here that carries all of those kinda’ stuff.

Izumo: There are lots of interestin’ things in that store, so I think you’ll enjoy looking around too while we’re at it.

Ran: Really? I can’t wait!

Izumo: That bein’ said however, there are lots of glassware and tableware ‘round the place so you’ve gotta be careful.

Ran: Alright, I’ll keep an eye out for those.

Izumo: Yes, that’s a great response. And we’ve reached the place while talkin’.

Ran: Is it located at the basement of this place?

Izumo: Yeah. It’s a lil’ dark in here so watch your step.

Ran: Right.

»» ━━━━━━━ ∘◦♔◦∘ ━━━━━━━ ««

Izumo: It’s gotten pretty dark out. I’ve made you wait quite a while, didn’t I? Sorry ‘bout that, do forgive me.

Ran: Not at all, I don’t mind. It was really fun looking around the store, just like you said.

Ran: ...Hm? Wait, you’re not holding much.

Izumo: Yeah. They’re going to be deliverin’ the bulk of the items I bought directly to the Bar itself.

Izumo: That’s how it is, so I’ve only got some of the drinks with me. Oh, and this too.

Ran: ? What is it?

Izumo: It’s a pretty bottle, ain’t it? It’s mineral water from some fat-off country.

Izumo: An apology for makin’ you wait.

⊳Choice: Thank you so much

Ran: That’s a really fancy bottle. Thank you so much, I’ll treasure it.

Izumo: That’s fine and all, but do make sure to drink the water inside it at least

Ran: Hehe, understood.

Izumo: Well, I’m startin’ to feel hungry now so how about we go grab a bite?

Ran: Okay!

⊳Choice: I can’t accept this

Ran: I can’t accept something like that. I came along with you in the first place as a way of thanking you for the Hot Milk, and yet…

Ran: Besides, I was thinking of helping you with your shopping bags too.

Izumo: I told ‘ya it’s an apology for makin’ you wait, didn’t I? ‘Sides, I’ve already received your thanks in kind.

Ran: But…

Izumo: It’s fine so just accept it already, won’t ‘cha?

Ran: ...Okay, fine. Thank you.

Izumo: Not at all. There’s still some time left before we have to head back. Wanna’ go eat somethin’? I’m starvin’!

Ran: Oh, yes please! I’m actually hungry too…

Izumo: Alright then! Let’s hurry and get ourselves some food.

Ran: --Thank you so much for today! It was really fun.

Ran: And you treated me to dinner too in the end so, really, thank you so much.

Ran: Did I really manage to repay my debt to you today…?

Izumo: Accompanyin’ me for an entire day? I think that’s plenty; your thanks has been accepted in kind. Actually, it’s more than enough! Thanks for comin’ with me

Izumo: Come with me again someday? Only if you feel like it, of course.

Ran: ...Sure!

Ran: Those drinks you’ve been carrying around are alcoholic drinks, aren’t they? Are you going to be selling those at the Bar?

Izumo: Well, of course. Kinda. The alcoholic things won’t be listed on the menu though.

Izumo: But it’ll only be served to special guests.

Ran: Special guests…?

Izumo: I’ll tell ‘ya more ‘bout it when ‘ya become an adult. Although, you might become one of those “Special Customers” yourself when that time comes.

Ran: I’ll work hard to get there!

Izumo: Haha, I look forward to seeing that. See ya’ then, till tomorrow.

Ran: Goodbye!

Ran: (It was really fun going out together with him. I hope we can do this again!)

»» ━━━━━━━ ∘◦♔◦∘ ━━━━━━━ ««

Next Scene: Club’s off-day

#Gakuen K #Gakuen K: Wonderful School Days K project #Otome #Translations #Kusanagi Izumo #Sakurai Takahiro #Gakuen K Izumo Route

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winterromanov · 5 years

Text

keeping all the promises (we made years ago) - a romanogers fic

Peter’s mixing a bad gin and tonic when Natasha and Steve finally come into the back. Her tiny frame guides him through the throngs of people as a The 1975 song plays in the background, crooning about skinny jeans and spare time and she’s got a boyfriend anyway. They disappear down the basement steps and Natasha must be a little drunk, he reckons, because the door is barely shut when they start kissing. And this—this, he realises, is the only narrative of the two of them that matters. (rock band au. chaos, man.)

/one

It’s Uncle Tony that gets him the job. Well—perhaps gets isn’t quite the right word, because get implies a bit of shuffling behind the scenes and handshakes when in reality Uncle Tony can get whatever he wants whenever he wants. He’s not even his biological uncle. Sometimes, Peter wonders if Uncle Tony just fancied having a nephew and saw him in kindergarten and thought, hey, he’s the one. May’s never told him how Tony ended up being his sort-of guardian, usually financially but sometimes otherwise. He’s just…always been there.

The always been there feels a little more literal now, ever since Peter mentioned that he might not want to go to college after all. Yeah, sure, the Princeton physical sciences program is like, the best in the country, but is that really all there is? He likes music and evening walks and the shitty little apartment he shares with May in the city. He likes the familiarity and the way it covers him like a safety blanket.

It wouldn’t be an understatement to say that Uncle Tony was pretty fucking pissed at the idea. Of, you know, not making the most of the thousands of dollars he’s invested in Peter’s education and not going to an Ivy. Nevertheless, there’s not much he can do about it. Even Tony Stark can’t force him to go to college, even if he looks at him with that disapproving glare every single goddamn day for the rest of his life.

(Uncle Tony’s disapproving glare is one of the scariest things Peter has ever seen, period. And Ned once made him watch all The Exorcist films in one sitting back in freshman year. Took him a good few weeks (months) to shake the paranoia and realise that, realistically, he probably wasn’t going to get possessed by some angry old spirit anytime soon.)

But Uncle Tony can ask him what he’s doing instead of going to college, and Peter quickly discovers that a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders is not an adequate response. He thought that maybe Tony would get him some sort of starter position in his company, but Tony isn’t the kind of guy who gives out jobs to anyone (even if they’re his sort-of nephew). No, if Peter ever wants a job at Stark Industries he needs a college degree first, and a good one at that.

“You need a taste of the real world, kid,” Tony had said, Peter idly spinning on the office chair in front of his desk. “And then you might think twice about giving Princeton the boot.”

And that’s how he ends up in front of Endgame.

Peter knows a hell of a lot about Uncle Tony, but also absolutely nothing at all. There are things he deliberately keeps hidden and Peter knows better than to ask about but he’s also ridiculously open, especially about how fucking rich and clever and sexy he is. May says it’s a confidence thing—that he must be hollow under all that blithe arrogance, but Peter has never met anyone more solid. He thinks. Tony cannot be anything other than whole, because he’s sure helped keep Peter’s foundations stable all these years.

He knows that Tony’s business is his life. That he’s a bit more…forward, with women than he should be, but it’s all talk because Pepper wouldn’t stick around if it wasn’t. He knows he prefers Turkish food over everything else and that he cares more than he lets on, always.

But he absolutely didn’t know that Uncle Tony kind-of owns a nightclub in the city; the super cool kind that has live bands and plays British indie rock and a menu with over fifty different kinds of cocktail on it. It makes so much sense, when he thinks about it. It’s exactly the kind of place he imagines Tony heading to after a day working non-stop at the tower.

It’s only three in the afternoon but the place is unlocked, Tony pushing open the double doors at the front with his shoulder. Inside, there’s a jarringly bright room with a bar and a stage that feels wrong not swathed in darkness or the muted glow from overhead lighting. A woman with long, brunette hair that falls down her back is mopping the floor off to the side. She looks up when she sees them enter.

“Wanda,” Tony greets, pushing Peter forward. The girl smiles bemusedly, shoving the mop back in a red plastic bucket. “Working hard?”

“As always, Mr Stark.” Her accent is soft, European. Peter likes the twinkle in her eyes. “You’ve just missed Nat, but Clint is still in the basement, if you’re looking for them.”

“Barton. Perfect.” He tugs on Peter’s arm, and Peter vaguely feels like some naughty kid being dragged around by their dad. This must be what that feels like, he muses, not that he knows much about the whole parent thing. “Come on, Peter.”

Peter rolls his eyes. Wanda catches him, and she laughs a little, returning back to the mop.

Tony drags him through a hallway lined with black-and-white checked squares and down a set of stairs labelled staff only, the walls covered in aggressive-looking graffiti which he assumes are song lyrics he’s never heard of. He likes music, but he’s the soft-spoken acoustic type. Not the mosh-pit type.

(Alongside Tony Stark’s disapproving glare and horror movies, he’s also kind of terrified of being swallowed by crowds. He doesn’t like the feeling of being lost or untethered. He likes being anchored to something. Someone. It’s kind of ironic, really, considering.)

Tony opens a door at the bottom of the stairs that leads onto what he assumes is some sort of staff common room, the walls all exposed brick and lined with tattered leather sofas probably pulled from a garage sale. Band posters either hang loosely with blue thumb tacks or, in some cases, in black frames—some scribbled with messy signatures. A makeshift bar stands in front of a small kitchen, lined with more liquor bottles than he cares to count. A coffee table is littered with vinyl cases and sloppily written notes, a wire charging an iPhone trailing all the way from the door. A man with brown hair and a strong jawline sits on the sofa nearest the back wall, Doc Martens kicked up on the table, scrolling through his phone. His eyes barely flicker when they enter the room, like he’s waiting for Tony to talk first.

“Welcoming as always,” Tony remarks, urging Peter to walk further into the room. The other man snorts.

“If you want a fucking parade every time you enter a room, Stark, you should stick to those dumb expo things you still insist on doing.” He’s still scrolling through his phone. “Who’s the kid?”

“I’m not a kid,” Peter can’t help but say, because he’s eighteen and a high school graduate, for God’s sake. Both Tony and the man raise an eyebrow, in that patronising way Peter is all too used to. Like, you’re basically just fresh out the womb, boy.

“You’re a kid until you stop thinking like one,” Tony says, and it looks like Peter is still going to be getting a lot of that. He gestures towards the man and back again. “Clint Barton, Peter Parker. Peter, Barton. He’s your new boss.”

“Half-boss,” Clint quickly corrects, “Nat would probably slit your throat if she heard you say that. Also…” Clint pauses, finally putting his phone down. He seems to examine Peter carefully, eyes flicking up and down. He feels oddly exposed. “Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, be doing AP Literature homework or something?”

Peter sighs, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I’m not in high school. I graduated high school.”

“I refuse to believe that. How old are you? Fourteen?”

“I’m eighteen!”

Clint narrows his eyes. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I know my own age.”

Clint hums. He shifts his feet from the coffee table and to the floor, leaning forwards. “Don’t get me wrong, Peter, but are you sure you want to work here? Aren’t you better suited to…like, a computer science major? You just don’t look like the kind of guy we’d usually hire.”

Peter takes that to mean you look like a massive fucking nerd, moron. Well, Clint’s not wrong, but it’s always a bit jarring to hear someone say it actually out loud. He’s not the kind of person who works in a cool bar with cool people who wear Doc Martens and listen to the Arctic Monkeys.

“He’s hired because I say he’s hired,” Tony interjects, pressing his hands on Peter’s shoulders. “And because this little punk thinks that he doesn’t want to go get a STEM major.”

Clint smirks a little at that, like he’s gone from zero to just a touch of respect for him. “Teenage rebellion, huh?”

“No,” Peter replies, not that convincingly. “I just don’t want to go to college, alright?”

“Not right now, but a few weeks of working with these absolute head-cases will have you handing in your transcripts before you can say Ivy League,” Tony states and Clint chuckles, “You will be begging for the sweet release of the Princeton marching band and that compulsory calculus class.”

Peter looks over at Clint, who merely nods in a faux serious manner. “We’re special here, Parker. Absolutely one-of-a-kind.”

“Who’s one of a kind?” Another voice rings out behind them, clearly feminine but surprisingly low and sultry in tone. When Peter turns, he sees a petite woman with red hair that scuffs her shoulders, skinny jeans hugging her legs and a leather jacket over her shoulders. She clutches a shopping bag in her left hand, her nails painted the same shade as her hair. Her Converse sneakers are black and streaked with dirt, but like they were made that way, like it’s all staged.

He has to actively fight his jaw from dropping open. Because, Jesus—he isn’t blind. She’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen…and there’s something about her, a familiar quality he can’t quite place, like he’s seen her before in another time or place. She smirks when she finds him staring. Peter flushes, looking away, and thinks idly about beautiful gardens and being tempted in by a Devil.

“You are,” Clint replies effortlessly and, like that, Peter realises that there must have fucked at some point. Her eyes glint as she drops her bag on the counter.

“I assume you’re here for a reason, Stark,” she says, “If this is your new intern, I’m dying for a coffee.”

“Funny,” Tony shoves his hands in his pockets. “And as I was just telling Barton, this is your new employee.”

“As of when?”

“As of right now.”

When this woman assesses him, it feels more scathing than it did with Clint. Her eyes are slower, her expression less readable. Clint was clear in his uncertainty. It’s impossible to tell with her. Eventually, she halts, lips pursed. “Huh.”

“My sentiments exactly,” Clint responds. He’s back on the coffee table, like he’s bored by the whole situation.

Tony stands back, folding his arms. “You have an opening now the other Maximoff has moved on, and this moron needs a reality check. You lot are probably the worst people I could think of to give it to him.”

The redhead blinks slowly. She rests her chin in one hand, her elbow on the bar. She’s looking straight at Peter, green eyes blazing like exotic jewels. “You have any bar experience?”

“Uh…” Peter scratches his head sheepishly, “No?”

“You train him, Nat,” Tony says when Nat looks skeptical, “You train the hell out of him. Or get him to do the 4am bathroom cleaning shift. Your choice.”

“We have Clint for that,” she says, and Clint throws a scatter cushion at her. She catches it with ridiculously quick reflexes and dumps it on a bar stool before hopping onto it. Her shopping bag is exclusively filled with grapefruits. “Although, we do need a new bartender now Pietro has fucked off.” She pulls a knife from seemingly nowhere and points it in Peter’s direction, which gives off a threatening air that Nat looks all too comfortable with. Worryingly. “But no doing homework at the bar. It’ll ruin our image.”

“I’m not…” Peter starts, but Nat’s smirking again. So. He’s just going to have to accept the fact this is going to be a running joke, right? Anything that gets Tony off his back.

“You’re kind of adorable,” Nat says, looking over at Clint. “Steve will love him.”

“Steve will try and adopt him.”

“Steve will try and adopt anything that looks vaguely pained and puppy-like,” She chops a grapefruit in half, then into quarters. “It’s taking everything I have to convince him we don’t need a golden retriever right now. It’s exhausting.”

(At this point, he stands gormlessly and watches both Clint and Nat bicker back and forwards about this Steve, this guy that Nat must be dating, and nothing clicks. Nothing clicks yet. He feels like a bit of an idiot when he eventually does, though, because of course. That’s why Nat looks so familiar.)

“Well,” Tony interrupts in a tiny pocket of silence where Clint and Nat aren’t snarking at each other, “Consider Peter your anniversary gift. He’s every bit as charming as a golden retriever without having to pick up the shit. I think he’s already potty-trained. I think.”

Peter shakes his head out of disbelief. Not biological, but every single bit as embarrassing as a blood relative in front of anyone cool. Nat doesn’t take her eyes off the grapefruits.

“Our anniversary was last month, asshole, and all you gave us was a fucking star named after us. You know, one of those dumb certificates you buy online for about ten dollars.”

Tony clutches his heart dramatically. “It’s romantic, not that I’d expect you to understand. Imagine looking up at the night sky and knowing a little piece of you and Steve is up there, glimmering just for you, courtesy of me. That’s special, Nat. Money can’t buy that feeling.”

“Money can buy that feeling. You bought it for ten dollars. Fortunately for you, Steve is a gullible and the sappiest son-of-a-bitch we know so at least someone enjoyed the sentiment.” Natasha pauses for a moment, resting the knife down on the counter. “Now. You—Peter—how much, exactly, do you know about cocktails?”

There are things he learns incredibly quickly when working with Nat—facts, logistics, statements. Both Clint and Nat have known Uncle Tony for a while, but he’s not sure why or how. Tony helped Clint and Nat buy Endgame and he continues to invest in the business, taking a share of the profits. It’s been open five years, but Clint and Nat have known each other way longer than that. He’s not sure why or how. Actually; he’s sure why, because Clint and Nat are pieces of the same puzzle, irrevocably interlocked. The way they look at each other is haunted by years and years of shared history. You’d have to be blind not to see that.

Also—Nat mixes drinks with a speed and precision that is impossible to replicate. He watches hopelessly as she grabs spirits off a rack on the wall from memory, barely glancing at the labels. Wanda occasionally brushes past and Peter can see the amused look in her eyes, like she’s in on a joke he doesn’t know about.

She’s trying to teach him how to mix a basic mojito—not their most popular drink, but one of the easiest—when the front doors swing open and a man walks in, tall and broad-shouldered, blonde hair mussed from the motorcycle helmet that hangs in his right hand. His shirt is way too tight for his torso and arms but he looks so good anyway, in a way that Peter could only ever replicate in his dreams.

It takes Peter a moment to realise, when the man smiles at Natasha like she’s every good dream he’s ever had, that this must be Steve. And then it takes another moment once he gets a decent look at his face, that this isn’t just any Steve. This is Steve fucking Rogers. And Nat… Nat is Natasha Romanoff.

“You certainly took your time,” Nat says coyly as Steve sidles over to the bar. He reaches over and takes her face in his hands, kissing her gently and casually on the lips. It’s like Peter isn’t even here. It’s nothing too intimate, though; Nat seems aware of her privacy and what she wants other people to see. She seems to have a strict code on showing and telling. Peter isn’t part of her exclusive inner sanctum (yet).

(Clint struts in, then promptly struts out again, muttering something about letting someone else be the third wheel for a change.)

“Meeting overran,” he confesses, still curved over the bar, “Honestly, I keep telling them I’m retired.”

“Show them your birth certificate. Can’t possibly expect a man in his nineties to record another album.”

Steve laughs, and honestly, it’s like watching a scene out of a romantic movie. “For some reason, they just won’t believe me. They might believe you, though. You have a way of getting people to do what you want.”

Natasha pats his cheek gently. “Absolutely. Oh—and this is Peter, by the way. Anniversary gift from Stark.”

Steve’s eyes settle on him for the first time since he arrived, because it’s very clear that he’s the kind of guy who tunes out the rest of the world when his girlfriend is in the room. “I thought Stark got us a star for our anniversary. I love that star.”

“Of course you do,” Nat titters, “And Peter is filling in for Pietro.”

Steve offers Peter his hand, and he shakes it tentatively, because this is still Steve fucking Rogers. “Great to meet you, kid.”

“Oh,” Nat lowers her voice, “He’s not a kid. He just graduated high school.” When Peter’s mouth opens, she grins. “This is Steve. He hangs about here sometimes. Can’t seem to get rid of him. I have tried, believe me.”

“You’re Steve Rogers,” Peter breathes, dumbstruck, and it’s only when Nat and Steve share a bemused look that he breaks out of his stupor, cheeks flushed. He nervously looks at his feet. “Sorry—it’s just I’m a big fan.”

There isn’t anybody who hasn’t heard of Steve Rogers, as far as Peter is aware. He’s got all his albums on CD stacked on the shelves of his bedroom and he listens when he’s feeling particularly nostalgic, pressing them into the portable player May got him a lifetime ago and lying back on his bed. Steve is the Golden Boy of America’s pop music scene, his songs soulful and sad with a quiet, yet constant, lingering optimism. It’s the kind of music that reminds him of leaves in the fall and sitting alone on the subway. The kind of voice you could get lost in, but not in the unknown, terrifying kind of the way. It’s like he’s trying to guide you home.

Steve and Nat share a look and Peter fears that he’s made a bit of an idiot of himself. Again.

“Whatever you do, don’t ask for his autograph,” Natasha scrunches her nose, glancing up at her boyfriend. Steve looks mildly entertained. Like he’s used to it. “His ego is big enough as it is.”

Steve shakes his head. His hand reaches across the bar and squeezes Natasha’s shoulder. She softly runs her hand over his knuckles—it feels weird, to use the word soft to describe Natasha, because from what Peter has seen (in his admittedly limited experience) she’s never anything but razor sharp. “You’ll come to realise, Peter, that this woman never has a day off.”

Natasha’s smile is wistful, longing. “I don’t have time for days off.”

The room suddenly feels heavy and Peter can feel something lurking under the surface of their dialogue, something that’s not being said while he’s there watching. Steve looks away, smiling at the ground. Look—he’s not that into tabloids or dumb E! News twitter threads where their pictures are plastered about like incriminating photo albums, but he’s not totally unaware of it either. He knows Nat’s surname because he’s seen her red hair on the cover of magazines at the drugstore countless times, on May’s coffee table. Some of them have been holding Steve’s hand. Some of them are just Steve. Some of them are Steve with other women.

He’s got enough knowledge to know that this relationship mustn’t be…easy. Or conventional, at the very least. Not that he knows much about that. He knows about as much about romantic love as he does parental.

(Aka, not much at all.)

Wanda is the one who breaks the moment. “Nat, Clint is asking—oh, hi Steve!”

Steve smiles and the two share a quick embrace, because Steve definitely seems like the hugging type. Meanwhile, Natasha walks round the bar and beside him—Steve slings an arm casually round her shoulder, and it’s so comfortable and natural that Peter feels something shift in his chest. Wanda lets them know that Clint needs to run over the inventory before opening in a couple of hours, so Nat leaves Peter in Wanda’s capable hands while her and Steve head down to the basement together. Peter can’t seem to drag his eyes away from them.

“You too, huh?” Wanda remarks, one eyebrow raised. Peter blinks, not sure what she means. “They’re magnetic, right? And not just because they’re both ridiculously attractive.”

Peter flushes—for what seems like the millionth time since he arrived—and covers his hands with his sleeve. “I don’t—“

“We’ve all thought it, one time or another. There isn’t anybody else like them.” Wanda smiles softly. “They haven’t had it easy but they’re happy now, so. Every cloud, yes?”

Peter nods hesitantly. “What do you mean…haven’t had it easy?”

Wanda’s smile is still gentle, but there’s an unwavering nature to it. She seems to float past him, like she’s not quite real, an ethereal ghost. “That’s not for me to tell. But I can tell you how to make more than just a mojito, if that’s adequate?”

Peter feels himself relaxing, the tension vanishing from his shoulders. Wanda is a little less terrifying than Natasha. Her eyes are big and touched with melancholy, but there’s no bitterness there. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be really adequate, thanks.”

His first shift—well, his first shift is insane, and he completely and totally understands why Tony thought this place would cure his college related existential crisis. The bar is packed from the moment the door opens because even though there’s no live music tonight, Clint and Nat’s sick playlists seem to reel in people from all over the city and further out. A bearded guy in a Led Zep shirt drunkenly tells Peter that he’s come all the way from Toronto to listen to Hawkeye and Black Widow, and he’s really not sure what that means.

There are also people who are here when they realise Steve is about, from Twitter or whatever. He’s not exactly under the radar as he seems to spend a lot of his free time in Endgame (for obvious reasons) but as soon as the customers start coming in, he edges away, disappearing off into the basement while Nat, Clint and the rest of them work. Other than Wanda, there’s only one more employee who turns up—a tall, buff British guy called Thor who wanders in about fifteen minutes before opening time with hair off a Herbal Essences commercial. He slaps Peter on the arm and almost knocks the wind out of him.

By the time closing time hits Peter feels battered, bruised and a little like he’s fallen out of a top floor window, his shirt covered in shit tons of unnameable alcoholic combinations and his head beating like a bass drum. Clint, Nat, Wanda and Thor weave between people and the bar like it’s ingrained in them, grinning and laughing and seemingly knowing everybody. As the cool, 2am air of August hits his face like a slap round the face, Peter wonders if he’d actually been holding his breath the whole time, waiting for the storm to be over.

He almost throws up on the stairs. Almost. He kind of wants to go home, go to bed, and never come back here again. Everything—it just happens a lot, always. Maybe he is just a kid. Maybe he’s not ready for a life outside of education, like Tony had said.

He feels a hand curl round his shoulder and he starts, but when he turns he sees Steve, oddly reassuring and stable in this new world that makes no sense whatsoever.

“You alright, Peter?” he asks, warm and empathetic, “Maybe you should sit down.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, instead sitting on the damp, stone steps that lead up to the entrance. Peter sighs heavily, goosebumps bristling up and down his arms. Cautiously, he eases down next to him. Wonders how his life got to this.

“It can get pretty intense in there, huh?” Steve nudges him with his shoulder. “I thought that when I first started singing in public, like my heart was just going to rip out my chest. But it gets easier. Maybe you’ll even enjoy it.”

Peter laughs a little at that. There’s a scab on his left thumb and he picks at it out of habit. “I think Clint was right. I’m not the kind of guy they like here.”

“God, don’t let him hear you say that. Clint can’t ever be right. The universe would implode.”

Natasha appears at the front door from nowhere, as is the pattern, and it’s the first time Peter’s seen her all evening properly—she’s wearing a black lace camisole and leather pants that leave very little to the imagination, but Peter knows better (and is better) to let his eyes hover for too long. Her lipstick matches the color of her hair. She’s absolutely breath-taking, like a rebellious Hollywood starlet. It’s the first time he’s seen her tattoos, too; she has a spider on her left shoulder, an arrow on the other and there’s the smooth curve of a circle that peaks out of the waistband of her trousers. She hands Peter a paper cup filled with water. Come to think of it, not drinking anything all night was probably a bad idea, adding dehydration to a general sense of, you know, existential dread.

“It’s just your first day, buddy,” Steve says, “It’s new. That’s all.”

“I think you did pretty well for someone with no experience,” interjects Nat. Steve gives her an exaggerated look of shock. “Hey. I said pretty well. He’s still got a lot to learn.”

“Praise indeed! You should be proud, kid. Took her over a year for her to say anything remotely nice about me.”

“That, and also I’d take every opportunity to prove Tony Stark wrong about something.” Nat smirks. “You just got to get into the music, then you won’t be able to fucking wait to come back.”

“Yeah,” Steve smiles, looking up at her, “She’s pretty exceptional at making mixtapes.”

He’s entering yet another moment that feels like an intrusion just being there, another conversation without words. He’s been the third-wheel before—countless awkward dates at the Cheesecake Factory—but this feels like a whole other level of it, because the worst kind of couple to tag along with are the ones that use silence like it’s not silence at all.

“Am I…alright to go?” Peter asks quietly, folding the cup in his hands. He’s not sure how all this works.

Nat nods. “Yeah, seeing as it’s your first day. But tomorrow you’re helping with the clean-up.”

“How are you getting back?” Steve is already sifting through dollars in his wallet, “Get a cab on me.”

“Oh—Mr Rogers, I couldn’t possibly…”

“It’s Steve, and you absolutely can.” He hands him twenty, and Nat audibly sighs from behind him. “What? What is it?”

Natasha looks totally unsurprised. “Clint was right about something. You’re totally adopting our new bartender. He’s only been here a day!”

Peter has to admit, having Steve Rogers look out for him is hardly the most disastrous thing to come out of this shift. He half-smiles, mostly to himself, unfurling the twenty between his fingers. Steve just shoots Nat a withering, long-suffering look, because this is what Steve calls being nice.

“Thank you, Steve,” Peter says, standing up, “And thanks for the water.”

Steve salutes a goodbye and Nat walks down the stairs, filling the space Peter leaves. As he saunters down the sidewalk, he picks up snippets of their conversation:

“Which star do you think is ours? You know. The one Stark bought us.”

“Oh, shut up about that goddamn star. Stark will really try and buy anything, won’t he? Even bits of the universe. You’re supposed to—I think you should just leave the cosmos the hell alone. We don’t have to understand everything.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” A pause. “The science is neither here nor there for me. And Stark’s capitalist consumerist ideology aside…I just like to think the stars all come out for you.”

(He thinks about that all the way home, in the slow hum of the cab, the buzzing tinnitus in his ears. He thinks about loving someone so much you want the whole universe to exist just for them.)

The first thing he does when he gets home is Google them. He can’t help himself. He just—he has to know more. But as soon as he types in their names, and a ton of unsavoury articles mentioning other women and possibilities about Natasha’s past come up, he feels disgusted with himself. This isn’t the truth. This is just hearsay and shady sources and the edges of facts cobbled together with hyperbolic adjectives and PVA glue. This feels voyeuristic and weird, like he’s doing something explicitly wrong, like he’s listening to high school gossip.

He turns to Instagram instead. Natasha’s—predictably—is on private and he’s too awkward to send a request, and the blur of red on the icon might not even be her. Steve’s is a lot easier to find. He’s got almost three million followers and a blue tick, his photo an outtake from some shoot where he’s laughing like a maniac. His most recent picture isn’t even of him. It’s Natasha, caught off guard in the basement of Endgame, looking through the stack of records he’d seen on the coffee table. When he swipes along there’s another where she’s using a Bon Iver vinyl to cover her face, looking beneath her eyelashes at the camera. The caption reads though she be but little, she is fierce.

And this—this, he realises, is the only narrative of the two of them that matters.

The next day he wakes with a thumping headache. When he asks May if there’s any aspirin, she looks at him with a mix of disappointment and muted shock.

“Yes, I agreed with Tony when he said getting a job would be good for you, but really Peter?” she tuts, to Peter’s confusion, popping two tablets out of the tray and into his hands. “What was it, then? Beer? Rum? Vodka?”

Oh. Oh. She thinks… “Relax, May. I didn’t do anything. The music was just loud, that’s all.”

May doesn’t look entirely convinced, her eyes slightly narrowed, but it admittedly isn’t in Peter’s character to engage with any underage drinking (even though that’s what he’d probably do in college, if he was still going). Clint had slid him across a jack and coke with a wink at some point after midnight, but he’d let it go warm on the counter. The only time he’d ever really drunk was at Liz Allan’s New Year’s party at the end of junior year, and that was only to prove to that dumbass Flash Thompson that he wasn’t a pussy. His puke tasted like beer and then that just made him puke more.

“I just worry about you. I’ve never pictured you working in a place like that.” May sits at the kitchen counter, watching him as he swallows back the pills. “Couldn’t you send your resume to a bookstore or something? Bryony from Pilates says she’s looking for a new waiter at her place. Maybe that’s more your… thing.”

It’s quite likely that’s more his thing, but the told you so that would come out of Tony’s mouth is persuasion enough to keep on at it. Yeah, he feels like death and another night like yesterday is not going to make that any better, but surely he’ll get used to it. Right?

“I’m not quitting already. It wasn’t so bad. Plus, I got to meet Steve Rogers.”

May’s eyes almost bulge out of her head. “Excuse me? Steve Rogers as in…?”

“Yep,” Peter pops the ‘p’, grin tugging at his lips. His aunt isn’t exempt in the nationwide crush everybody has on Steve Rogers. “The manager—well, one of the managers—is his girlfriend. You know Nat Romanoff?”

“Oh, so she’s Nat Romanoff to you,” May chides, “Didn’t realise you two had got so close already.”

“Shut up. She’s kind of terrifying. So is the other guy who runs the place. But there’s a girl there—Wanda. She’s pretty awesome.”

May purses her lips, studying his expression. “Is she pretty pretty too?”

“No!” Peter replies a little too quickly, to May’s delight, “No—she’s… nice, but she’s a bit older than me. Anyway, I’ve told you before. I’m not looking for anything like that.”

(It’s been almost a year since Liz Allan tore his heart to pieces and he’s still not over it. It’s kind of pathetic, really. They were never really dating to begin with, but it all felt so real anyway.)

“Alright,” May hums, “Just…be careful, okay? I heard you come back late last night and I hate thinking about you walking about on your own.”

He wants to say that he’s eighteen and basically an adult and that New York City at 3am doesn’t scare him, but him and May have been so close his whole life and it must be difficult, her watching the little boy dropped abruptly on her doorstep all those years ago growing up and moving on. Other than Uncle Tony, who walks in and out of his life when it suits him, May is all he has. And she’s only got him. There’s a lifeline there that holds them indefinitely together and she hates watching it stretch, fray.

“Steve got me a cab,” he says gently, “And I’ll bring my bike tonight. I’m totally fine. I promise.”

She gets up, kisses him on the top of his head, between the curls that are still damp from the shower. It makes him feel like a kid, but not in the restrictive, controlling way Tony does when he’s pissed at him. It makes him feel nostalgic for the time where May would kiss his scraped knees better when he tripped on the sidewalk and make him peanut butter sandwiches with the crusts cut off for his lunch box.

“I love you more than anything,” May says, her mantra. You don’t have a lot, but you do have me.

Peter smiles. Blinks slowly. “I love you too, May.”

Just before he leaves the apartment for another round, a notification lights up his phone. He doesn’t recognise the number, but he opens the text anyway, and it’s a link to a Spotify page ran by username blackwidow. The playlist is titled for peter.

“You’ve looked them both up on Instagram, right?”

Wanda says this as she drops on the sofa next to him, propping her feet on the coffee table. Clint and Nat are bickering in the office adjoined to the kitchen and occasionally he can see one of them through the window—he’s almost certain at one point Nat had Clint by the throat, but Thor looks at him, shaking his head. You just gotta let them ride this one out.

“Uh…what?” Peter absent-mindedly replies, dragging his eyes away from the pot of pens that has just collided with the window. Wanda doesn’t react. It must be normal.

“Steve and Natasha,” Wanda elaborates, “I did. It’s the first thing I did, after I met them. You wanna know about someone’s life, you find their social media. Or lack of it.”

Peter sighs. Well, at least it’s not just him. “Yeah, I did.”

“I’m assuming you haven’t sent Natasha a request.”

“Nope.”

Wanda grins. “She’s meticulous. Natasha. Obsessed with privacy and who gets to see what. I’m surprised she has social media at all. I mean…it’s not illogical, considering, but she does not reveal her soul to just anybody. Steve, on the other hand, is an open book. Not very good at hiding anything. Which is usually a good thing, sometimes not.”

Peter tilts his head, taking Wanda in. She’s wearing makeup today, black smudged round her eyes. May’s right, she is pretty pretty. “You seem to know quite a lot about them.”

“I’ve worked with them for a while now. And anyway. They’re interesting. You see it, too. Sometimes it’s hard to look away when they’re together.” Wanda doesn’t flinch when another crash comes from the office. “You wonder how they work, because they seem so very different.”

Peter shrugs. She’s not wrong, obviously, but he doesn’t want to look too interested, like the creepy fans that leave leery comments on Steve’s pictures. “People do say that opposites attract.”

“People are stupid. And vague. What even are opposites?” Wanda’s laugh is low and sort of croaky. “I am just glad they found their way back to each other.”

“How did they even meet?”

Wanda’s smile is the same one he saw yesterday, like he’s encountered a dead end and she knows it. This is not her story to tell, like so many others. “I am sure you will find out eventually.”

Clint bursts out of the office, then, dabbing at a cut on his cheek with a napkin. He looks kind of like he’s been dragged through a hedge backwards, flustered and breathing hard. His eyebrows lift when he sees Peter sitting there, offering the two of them a quick greeting.

“Oh, and Clint!” Natasha calls out, appearing from behind the door, “Could you get me an iced latte?”

Clint considers for a second, before nodding. She throws him her reusable mug and he catches it with one hand before turning to leave.

“Don’t even try and get me to explain that relationship,” Wanda says, “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

Peter laughs under his breath. It’s like Nat said, in the conversation he shouldn’t have heard. We don’t have to understand everything.

At about 11pm that night he joins Wanda for a cigarette out the back fire door and for the first time, he feels kind of cool, watching as the end burns a tiny amber dot, ripping a hole in the black. He’d never smoke one himself—the fact that May is horrified by him consuming alcohol is bad enough—but he likes watching her, how oddly and decadently beautiful the smoke unfurling from her lips is.

At the bottom of the alley, a motorbike pulls up and a man that looks vaguely Steve-shaped jumps off of it. Wanda glances at him with a smirk, stubbing out the cigarette with the toe of her boot. His arms fold out, and a woman runs into them, their laughter echoing down the street. They obviously don’t know that him and Wanda are watching; it feels like a private glimpse that they’re not supposed to see, a privilege. Natasha’s legs wrap round his waist. They hold each other for what feels like minutes, hours.

He can’t take his eyes away the whole time.

“I told you,” Wanda elbows him, brushing past to get to the door. “They’re magnetic. You’re pulled into their orbit.”

“I just…I don’t know why,” Peter says, dumbfounded, “Maybe it’s the way they look at each other? Like the whole world could burn to ashes and they’d just…stand, in the afterglow.”

“You’re poetic, Parker,” Wanda muses, “But you’re not wrong, either.”

They’re pulled back into the heat of the club when Clint realises they’re not working, grabbing them both by the shoulders and violently shoving them back onto the bar. He’s not paying them to gossip about snapchat and heelies, or whatever the kids are into these days, apparently. And Thor can only handle so much attention before his ego combusts.

He’s mixing a bad gin and tonic when Natasha and Steve finally come into the back. Her tiny frame guides him through the throngs of people as a The 1975 song plays in the background, crooning about skinny jeans and spare time and she’s got a boyfriend anyway. They disappear down the basement steps and Natasha must be a little drunk, he reckons, because the door is barely shut when they start kissing.

It takes about two and a half weeks, give or take, for things to start to feel normal. The hours fuck up any semblance of a sleeping pattern, but he’s no longer waking up with a thudding in his skull like a second heartbeat and Wanda’s tip about earplugs help a ton. He arrives at about three, sometimes earlier, sometimes later. He’s usually off again by two unless Nat or Clint are feeling generous about clean-up. The bar is shut every Sunday and the freedom is near divine. He doesn’t get up until midday and spends the rest of the day in his pajamas, eating pancakes and watching shitty reality television about people who are paid to sing badly or hate each other.

Steve is in the bar most nights and whilst he doesn’t always talk to Peter, he begins to miss him when he’s not there. He’s usually got a motivational speech or two in his back pocket, and it feels pretty fucking awesome that Steve Rogers seems to care a little about his wellbeing.

He hasn’t had the nerve to ask about how they met, yet. Wanda is still tight-lipped and Clint is borderline psychotic anyway, so each of them feel like a dead-end. He’s stuck with assumptions and watching them from his peripheral.

“You know, he wrote his last album about her,” Clint says in a rare moment of honesty, while they’re preparing for opening. Steve and Nat are tucked in a booth by the door, her knees brought to her chest, speaking impossibly close together. “It’s abhorrently adorable. Almost puked when I heard it.”

“What?” Peter says skeptically, “You mean the whole of See You In a Minute is about Natasha?”

“The whole goddamn thing. Sickening, isn’t it? I think the title is some sort of private joke between them.”

Peter doesn’t mention that Steve’s last album is his favorite, because he doesn’t need more excuses for Clint to bully him. Plus, he needs to push on. He needs to know more. “Have they always been like that? You know. Close.”

Clint pauses. He’s polishing glasses, but lays the cloth on the counter, looking over at him. “I’ve known Nat a long time. Long enough to know that it takes…a lot, to impress her. To pull her in. Even with me—and with Steve—it took her months to realise there was a mutual trust there.” He grins a little, showing the softer side to all that strident energy. “If you tell her this, I will violently murder you, but I love that girl to bits and I wouldn’t accept just anybody taking her away from me. But I accepted Steve immediately. So take from that what you will.”

It doesn’t really answer his question, but he supposes it answers a bunch of other unasked ones.

There’s a moment of silence. And then—

“Have you and Nat ever…?”

The look Clint gives him makes him realise he knows better than to finish that sentence.

(He brings up See You in a Minute on Spotify the moment he has time alone before opening, back on the leather couch in the basement. He figures the songs might have a new meaning now he knows who they’re about. His thumb taps the titular song—a slow, atmospheric ballad that sits in the recesses of his heart as soon as he hears the opening piano chords.

I have one last dance all saved up for you

He really wishes he wasn’t crying, but he just can’t help it.)

A band is playing that night called The Guardians who everyone but Peter seems to know well. They’re a six-piece retro rock band that the crowd goes wild for—they all have crazy hair colors and equally crazy names, apart from the lead singer, who’s messy brown hair is barely brushed and is weirdly also called Peter. They stay for a while after their set has finished, building up a substantial bar tab that Clint’s on their ass about. Peter Quill and his girlfriend Gamora (the other singer and guitar player of the band, her hair bright green and her lips painted black) sit on the stools and tease Peter (who they call Little P, hilarious) until closing time.

“Are you even allowed to serve alcohol?” Quill jibes, sipping a beer, “Isn’t there a rule against children being anywhere near liquor in public?”

Gamora pokes his shoulder. “Maybe it’s some sort of psychology project. He’s studying us for a paper.”

Peter can’t even be bothered to argue at this point. He still gets this same genre of comedy from Clint on a daily basis so what’s a couple more age-related jokes? He just smiles, mixing a cosmo for Gamora’s scary looking sister who silently glares at him from the stool next to her.

“You know what would be a fun psychology project,” Quill points a finger in Peter’s direction, “Nat Romanoff.”

Peter pauses for a second. “What makes you say that?”

Quill’s limbs are loose from all the drink he’s been downing before, during and after his performance, so his movements are all exaggerated and floppy. “Don’t tell me you’re not interested. Clint too. They both have shit in their pasts they don’t want us to know about.”

Gamora is decidedly more composed. She shakes her head, looking at Peter seriously. “All conjecture, of course. And none of our business.”

“I heard she was a spy for the Russian government,” Nebula casually mentions, her tone completely void of inflection. “She can slit someone’s neck with an envelope.”

All three of them look at Nebula, slightly aghast, but Nebula’s expression is so stoic and emotionless Peter can’t tell if she’s joking or not. Even Quill blinks heavily, knocked speechless.

“That’s…not what I meant,” Quill slurs, leaning in closer, “But there’s something there.” He taps the side of his nose. “Mark my words.”

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Gamora says, “Having a past you want to remain in the past is hardly rare.”

Peter’s beginning to notice a pattern with his colleagues. They all guard their memories under heavily armored doors and it’s only in occasional moments of softness or weakness where anything is ever revealed, and rarely by the person themselves. Clint let’s something slip about Natasha, Wanda about Clint. None of them really know anything about him.

“How long have you guys known Nat and Clint?” Peter asks, before tentatively adding, “And Steve?”

Quill and Gamora smile knowingly, like maybe this is a question that’s been asked before. Gamora presses a hand down on Quill’s shoulder. Peter hides the urge to sigh at another dead end. “We’ve been performing here since they opened, but if you actually want to know anything about them we’re probably the worst people to ask.”

Quill nods. “They don’t talk. If you ever find anything out, though, feel free to let us know.”

Peter laughs disbelievingly. “As if they’ll ever tell me anything.”

“Have you asked them?” Gamora replies, and Peter’s expression answers her question. “Little P, if they didn’t think they could trust you, they wouldn’t have hired you. They don’t let just anybody into their inner circle.”

“My uncle got me the job—he’s like, an investor, or something. Trust had nothing to do with it. Probably the opposite.”

Gamora’s lip curve, unconvinced. “I think you know it’s never quite that simple.”

“I don’t…I don’t even know why I’m so interested.”

“That’s what everybody says,” Gamora says wistfully, sliding him a tip across the counter. “And we should probably leave before he makes a fool of himself.”

(The he in question is Quill, who has since disappeared to join the dancing crowds with his shirt off. Nebula’s eye roll is mechanical, like the rest of her. Peter wonders if Quill and Gamora are her Steve and Nat; two wildly different individuals that seem joined together by something no-one else can see, that no-one quite understands. She downs the rest of her cocktail and makes her way towards the couple, who have since started kissing in the middle of the dancefloor.)

Gamora kind of reminds him of Michelle. Clever, beautiful, existing on a plane that floats way above everybody else. He swallows hard. He’s not sure where that thought came from.

By coincidence, MJ actually messages him about a week later. He’s been so busy either sleeping or working that all his friendships outside Endgame have taken a bit of a back-burner, texts stacking in his inbox that he’s been too tired to respond to. Besides, the only person he really keeps in contact with from high school is Ned and he’s spending the vacation before he goes to college with his family in Hawaii—he’s kept updated with sunkissed snapchats from the beach, exotic flowers and drinks in coconut shells. He’s hovered over Michelle’s name a few times over the past few weeks, but she isn’t always the kind to message back. She flies off grid as soon as school is out. There’s no point in tormenting himself over her lack of read receipts.

But when she messages, asking if they want to meet at the mall, he types sure before he can properly think about it. It’s a Sunday, after all, and he’s been thinking an awful lot about the limited relationships he has lately. What he wants them to be.

(That’s definitely a bi-product of Nat and Steve. He can’t put it down to anything else.)

MJ is sat by the fountain in the middle of the shopping complex reading a copy of Marx’s The Communist Manifesto, making notes with a tiny wooden Ikea pencil. Her dark hair is long and loose and she’s wearing a plaid shirt with sneakers, casually beautiful in the way she’s always been. It takes her a minute to look up and actually see him standing in front of her and when she does, her mouth opens a little, curved in a bemused grin.

“Woah, Peter,” she says, closing her book, “Didn’t realise you were edgy now.”

(She’s talking about his new Doc Martens that Wanda helped pick out. They’re shiny black leather and extremely uncomfortable, but you know, he’s getting down with the culture.)

“I’m…not,” Peter says. MJ laughs at his awkwardness. “You should see the people I work with.”

“This your new job, huh?” MJ eases back into the bench, crossing her legs. “Now you’ve decided to fuck college. Is this the beginning of a crisis? I’m getting vibes, here. Smart kids who screw college to work in a nightclub are definitely going on some sort of downward psychological spiral.”

Peter shrugs, smiling. Trust MJ to be brutally honest about his life choices. “Do you wanna grab coffee?”

“Yeah, as long as it’s not Starbucks. I’m not using my limited finances to fund their crooked corporate empire.”

They trail around for a bit before they find a cripplingly expensive but decidedly independent coffee house, filled with mismatched vintage furniture and hipster-types crowding the front windows with their moleskin notebooks. Peter feels out of place but Michelle fills the space like she owns it, lounging in an armchair angled away from the counter. She closes her eyes and asks for a chamomile tea and a blueberry muffin which he—he just gets for her.

He returns with an Americano for himself, because for some reason he wants MJ to think he’s the kind of person who drinks black coffee now, when in reality he’d prefer something fruity and sugary that has him flying off the walls.

“So…” Michelle starts as he falls into the sofa opposite, “You’re definitely not going to Princeton?”

Peter folds his legs. Tries to get comfortable. “I’m definitely not going to Princeton.”

“Interesting. Even though Tony Stark will probably fund, like, all your tuition fees?”

Peter rolls his eyes. He hates her insistence on bringing up the fact he has Tony in his life, a handy billionaire safety-blanket, like he can’t complain about anything ever. Yeah, sure, Tony would probably fund his way through college—but he wonders how much of that is guilt money, the dollars his mom and dad would have scraped together if they were still alive. Not everything is about money. Tony Stark is the kind of person MJ hates with every fibre of her being, but… Peter still loves him, and not just because he’s rich as shit. Even when he’s being super annoying.

Michelle smiles sadly when he doesn’t reply. “I’m sorry, Peter. It’s just hard for me to get my head around, you know? I would commit homicide for someone to fund my way through college. Maybe I already have.”

Peter chuckles. Has a sip of his god-awful coffee. “Where are you even going for college? I don’t think you’ve ever said. In-state?”

“It’s what I’ve been meaning to tell you, actually,” MJ admits, “It’s a bit further out than in-state.”

“Oh. Right. Pennsylvania?”

“Bit further than that.”

“…California?”

“Not exactly.”

“MJ, are you going to make me run through every college I know about? Tony’s shoved just about every prospectus in my direction so we might be here a while.”

“I got accepted onto a philosophy program,” MJ starts, bringing her teacup to her lips. “At University College London.”

Peter almost spits his coffee out everywhere.

“I honestly didn’t think anything would come of it. The whole admissions process in England is completely whack, and they don’t have SATs and stuff over there so I didn’t think I had a chance. But—I don’t know. Something happened, and I got in. So I guess I’m moving to London.”

He’s not completely sure what she’s saying, just watching her mouth move and nothing but blurred, incoherent noise reaching her. She said London. MJ is moving to London, and that’s a hell of a long way from anywhere.

“You’re moving to London?” he just about manages to squeak.

“Yep. Totally aced it, dude. Time to live my English dream. You know. Try and abolish the class system they have over there and stage a revolution against their monarchy.”

A vacuum opens in his stomach, like he’s just now realising that he doesn’t really want to live in a country that isn’t the same as MJ’s. But she looks so happy. He doesn’t want to be, but he can’t help it. He can’t not be happy for someone who is about to do everything they’ve ever wanted.

Nevertheless, it’s an inconvenient epiphany. Wanting to hold onto someone as soon as they tell you they’re going to leave.

“Congratulations,” he says, hoping there isn’t a crack in his voice. “That’s…incredible, MJ. You’re awesome.”

“I know! And now you’re earning a proper wage like an adult, you can totally come and visit me over there. We can eat scones and laugh at how ridiculous British accents are.” She kicks him gently, grinning. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Peter says quietly. “Yeah, of course I will.”

“Cool. Now we’ve got that out the way…” MJ reaches into her bag, bringing out her little black copy of The Communist Manifesto. “Can I interest you in a dialogue with my new BFF, Karl?”

He sinks back into his chair, feels his whole body bleed between the fabric and through the floorboards.

He walks into work the next day and finds Steve and Natasha sitting in one of the booths. Steve has an acoustic guitar and he’s strumming chords while Nat is nodding along, pointing at something on a scrap of notebook paper in front of him. Occasionally, he’ll grab a marker and cross something out or scribble something down. When the door shuts behind him, the two of them look over. God. He’s got a running habit of ruining moments.

“Hey Peter!” Steve calls out in his usual, friendly way, “What’s up?”

He’s about to reply, but Natasha edges in first. “Come over here. Let’s talk.”

There’s something ominous in her tone but Natasha is impossible to predict, so a vague sense of anxiety haunts him as he sidles over to the booth and sits slowly in the space Nat has made for him. He wonders if she’s firing him but Steve looks chipper—surely he wouldn’t look that happy if he was about to lose his job, right? Maybe his not so discrete interest in their relationship has…got back to them? He’s already imagining the look on Tony’s face. I said you needed a reality check.

“Am I in trouble?”

Nat laughs. Even that is low and sultry, somehow sexy. Steve laughs too. “Peter—I know we tease you about it, but you do realise you’re not in school, right? And…calm, measured conversation isn’t usually how we deal with things here.”

He recalls the argument in the office a few weeks prior. Yeah, sounds about right.

“We just want to know about you,” Nat continues, “Because—I know a lot about the people I work with. But I don’t know anything about you, other than what Stark has said. And I trust his judgement about as much as I trust Steve’s.”

“Hey!” Steve says with a pout, “My judgement is perfect, thank you very much.”

“It’s the opposite of perfect, but okay, Mr I-trust-everybody-I’ve-met-ever.”

Steve shakes his head at him. “This is what I get for not being openly hostile all the time.”

“It’s got me and Clint this far. Anyway, I digress.” She nudges Peter gently. “Tell us something about you.”

Peter is mildly suspicious about the whole thing and doesn’t know what to say, so just stares vacantly at the two of them.

“Okay…well, at least we know you’re not a talker,” Nat murmurs, “So how about I ask you a question. Who was the girl you were with at the mall yesterday?” Peter’s jaw swings open like a door on a loose hinge. Nat half-smiles. “I saw you when I was coming out the Urban Outfitters. I’m curious.”

Steve glowers at her. “Peter, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to. She’s insatiable.”

“Oh, yeah. But if you don’t answer it you’ll be kind of answering it, if you get what I mean.”

Peter’s taken aback. For someone who is so private about everything, she’s appears to have no qualms investigating his private life. He coughs on nothing and shifts in his seat awkwardly. “Just a friend. From school. It isn’t—she isn’t…”

Nat laughs under her breath, looking over at Steve. “He’s right. It’s none of my business. But you two looked good together. That’s always a good start.”

“Is it?” Steve asks, and she sighs.

“I think so,” Nat splays her hands out on the table. He notices her fingernails are painted electric blue. “But, sure. It isn’t everything.”

“What is everything?”

The question catches both of them off guard and Peter instantly regrets asking, wishing he could catch his words back in a butterfly net and shove them back inside of him. The two of them are…they’re untouchable, Wanda and Clint have both made that equally clear. It’s something you find out, not something you’re told. But it’s too late now. Steve and Nat look at each other in a minute of an intense, burning eye contact and not for the first time Peter imagines being swallowed up by the seat whole.

“I guess…” Steve begins but trails off. Peter watches as his fingers inch closer to Natasha’s on a table, like they’re playing a complex game wherein they discover where their boundaries are, how far they can go while he’s still there. “I guess everything is when you’re sat in a room, and there could be just one person it or thousands, but it doesn’t matter because none of those faces are the one you want it to be. The only perfect room, the only one you’ll ever be happy in, is the one they inhabit with you. To leave it…or for them to leave, feels like you’re constantly just gasping for air.”

Natasha looks away. Somehow, Steve manages to drag his eyes away from her, after saying all that, and back to Peter.

“But sometimes everything is just knowing the favorite brand of ice cream they like to eat when everything is awful or the setting they prefer their washing machine on. It’s all about striking a balance.” He half-smiles. “Sometimes it takes a while to find it.”

Peter frowns. He likes Michelle, likes her more than he’d ever let on if the uncontrollable reaction his body had after she said she was leaving is anything to go by, but how can he know if it’s everything? What Steve is saying sounds suspiciously like soulmates, if they exist. That not being with them feels like dying. What he feels for MJ is blurry, inconstant; but it’s there all the same. He’s not sure if that flame is supposed to become anything more. Not that it matters.

“Michelle is moving to London for college,” Peter says desolately, then rolls his shoulders. “She’ll be living a whole other life over there. I can’t expect her to fit me into it, even if she liked me back.”

“Hey, Peter?” Nat says with a sympathetic smile, “Distance sucks, but you know what sucks more? Waiting too long. We know a thing or two about it, and I’d recommend quite heavily against it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Steve adds his two cents, “I’d give it a one star review on Amazon for being the worst ever. Not what I ordered, arrived broken, the lot.”

Clint enters and asks if they need a witness to sign the adoption papers and Nat throws a dirty washcloth at him, everything returning to normal. But there’s a warm feeling in Peter’s chest, because this is the closest he’s ever got. Maybe Gamora was right.

He sends Michelle a text that night, asking if they could maybe meet up again. She doesn’t reply. Maybe she never will, because that happens. But he’s not waiting too long. It’s not what he ordered.

They have an evening off a couple of weeks later because it’s Nat’s birthday. Apparently it’s tradition that whenever her or Clint turn a year older they fuck potential profit for a day and spend the night drinking whatever they can get their hands on. Instead, Peter’s invited to a small party that is hosted at Clint’s apartment across town—he’s still dragged to the bar a couple of hours before, however, to roll kegs of beer and various bottles of multi-colored spirits from the storeroom to Clint’s car for the occasion. He vanishes back home to shower and change before returning, May hastily shoving a bottle of wine into his hands as a gift as he leaves. He’s pretty sure he’s never seen Nat drink white at all, but hey. He’s only little. He doesn’t know much about liquor.

Clint buzzes him in and he follows the drum beat in the corridor to his top-floor apartment; the door is open so he just walks in, but is surprised when he sees nobody about. The speaker is blasting music into an empty room and if it wasn’t for Wanda entering the kitchen, he’d assume he’d come to the wrong house.

“Peter!” she says excitedly, squeezing him into a tight hug. Her dark hair is loose across her shoulders and she’s wearing a burgundy dress that floats above her knees. He can’t help but smile at her. “So glad you could make it!”

He leans out of the embrace, putting the wine on the counter. Glasses are spread out without any clear design, interspersed with opened bottles of various drinks. As far as he can see, there’s no non-alcoholic alternatives—May would probably freak out. “Where is everybody?”

“Did Clint not tell you? We’re on the roof. I’m just off to the bathroom but if you go through the door off the kitchen and up the fire escape you won’t miss it.”

She bounds away so he slowly makes his way up as per Wanda’s instructions. As soon as he opens the door he can hear chatter and laughter, and upon reaching the top he finds an area covered in strings of white fairy lights and odd chairs from jarring furniture sets. A bar runs along the edge near the wall where Clint is mixing drinks, rows of glasses filled with a very generous amount of vodka and garnished with olives. There are people he recognises—Steve and Natasha are tucked into a loveseat, finally comfortable with the eyes on them, with Thor perched on the edge—but mostly people he doesn’t. A man with white hair sits comfortably with a brunette woman, while two unknown men stand deep in conversation off to the side. Nobody notices him straightaway and he feels little odd, the youngest there, but Clint dramatically fist-pumps the air.

“Parker!” he exclaims, walking over and clapping him ferociously on the shoulder. He wonders just how long the drinking has been going before he arrived as he tries not to cough up his lungs. “No extra-curriculars tonight? Lacrosse, maybe?”

“Leave him alone, Clint!” Natasha says, to Peter’s surprise, but then— “He’s way too little for lacrosse. I think he’s more of a mathlete.”

“Who’s kid brother is this, then?” One of the men he clocked earlier calls out before heading over, “Could be Rogers, I suppose. You both have that needy white boy look about you.”

Peter sighs, stretching out his arms. “Should we just get all the insults out the way now? Then we can move on with our lives.”

Needless to say, the insults don’t decrease with time—if anything they continue to spike as more vodka is consumed and less fucks are given, which are outstandingly little to begin with. Sam—a friend of Steve’s from his touring days—is by far the most scathing, not letting him rest for a second. Peter kind of likes it, though. It’s the way a lot of them show affection for each other, brutally kicking the shit at every opportunity. Steve’s other friend is Bucky, someone from childhood, and the white-haired guy is Wanda’s brother Pietro who left Endgame for music management somewhere. Maria and Phil work in legal and know Clint and Nat from wherever they were before Endgame. A good-natured yet authoritative man called Rhodey turns up later, who Peter recognises from Tony’s offices but has never actually met. Maybe Tony and Pepper will turn up at some point. Maybe they won’t.

Clint offers him one of Nat’s Special Birthday Martinis. He’s on the edge of turning it down, but everybody is laughing and he kind of feels part of this, so why not. The taste is bitter and awful and Clint laughs at him for a very long time, until his eyes water and he has to go and sit down. He talks to Wanda and Pietro, about their life in Sokovia before civil war ripped it to pieces, and Steve mentions how he took Nat out for Chinese food and champagne.

Steve brings in Natasha’s cake and Nat flushes—just a little—as she sees the candles flicker in the relative darkness, like Steve is holding a fire in his hands. Her eyes flutter closed as she blows out the candles and Peter muses on what she wished for, or if she wished at all. The alcohol makes his stomach feel warm, and the people make him feel warm, and he thinks this little party in this pocket of New York City may be one of the happiest moments of his life.

As the hours lull into the coolness of the morning, guests in various states of drunkenness either leave or continue on into Clint’s apartment. Peter takes a minute to steady himself, his heady heart and clouded head. He clings onto the metal railings until his knuckles turn white, staring out over the city. His city. He can’t go to college because he can’t leave here, all the lights and the heat and the music. New York is him and he is New York. This is something that cannot be ever taken away from him.

He hears footsteps and instead of you know, staying, like a normal person, Peter’s instinct is to duck behind the bar. He’s not ready for anyone to see him yet. He just wants a couple more moments alone with the world—plus he feels a little drunk, and being drunk is the best right here.

The footsteps come to a halt barely feet away from him. He’s not trying to listen as this is weird enough as it is, but it’s difficult not to. It’s Steve and Natasha.

“Another year, another one of Clint’s illegal martinis.” Steve’s voice. “Or two. Or several.”

Nat laughs lightly. “I’m going to go with several. I better not be holding your hair back while you puke tonight, boy. It’s my birthday.”

“Well—technically it stopped being your birthday a few hours ago, Nat, but I’ll let it slide because I love you.”

“You love me, huh? That’s certainly a new development.”

“Nah, it isn’t. Loved you the moment I saw you.”

“You fall in love with everybody.”

“Not in the way I love you. God, Nat. Do you actually realise what you do to me? Every time I look at you—you rip all the air out of my lungs.”

“That sounds pretty painful.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s agony. But it’s worth every second because…because you’re you. After everything. You’re you.”

There’s a few seconds of quiet. Peter wishes he’d just gone because as much as he wanted to know about them, to feel closer to them, this isn’t…this isn’t it. This is too private. Maybe if he edges along, he could sneak…

“Marry me.” Steve’s voice hangs in the night, like one of his songs. Poignant. “Marry me, Natasha.”

Nat is quieter than Peter’s ever heard it. It’s quiet, and it cracks in the middle. “Is that Clint’s martinis talking?”

“No. No. This is me talking. Marry me. You know—you know I’d be happy, forever, with what we have now. But I want to. I really, really want to.”

“Steve…” her voice is barely a whisper. Peter’s hand balls into fists. He’s here and yeah, he shouldn’t be, but he’s goddamn invested at this point. “I’ve been told that I can be pretty hard to deal with, sometimes. I’m reluctant to inflict that on somebody forever.”

“For you to inflict your inconstant, confusing, ridiculous self on me forever would be a privilege, Romanoff.”

“You really do have an answer for anything, don’t you? Insufferable asshole.”

“I’m your insufferable asshole.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up.”

At that moment Peter’s leg just…involuntarily spasms. His foot collides with a nearby chair and it shifts across the concrete loudly, his cover completely blown. Shit. There’s no hiding now, so he peeks round the edge of the bar, finding Steve and Natasha stood with their arms around each other.

“Hello,” Peter says sheepishly, pointing towards the door, “I was just—“

“Parker, you’re not going anywhere.” Nat grabs him by his shirt and pulls him up, but there’s no malice on her face. Instead of violently throwing him off the top of this very high building for perving on their proposal, she drops him on one of the sofas. Steve hands him a nearby martini, amused by the whole situation if anything.

“You’re sitting there, and I’m telling you everything you want to know.”

#marvel cinematic universe #mcu #avengers #captain america #black widow #steve rogers #natasha romanoff #natasha romanov #stevenat #steve x natasha #peter parker #mcu fic #fanfic #romanogers fic

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calebthomas93 · 5 years

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Plot Summary and Analysis of Parasite

To me, Parasite is a devastating, brilliant story about the dehumanizing effects and consequences of Capitalism gone to the max. If you have not seen it, I cannot recommend doing so highly enough, and please stop reading here until you do because everything else will be spoilers.

The Plot Parasite begins by introducing an impoverished family in Seoul – two parents, Mr. and Mrs. Kim, crossing middle-age, and a boy and a girl, Ki-woo and Ki-jung, each about in their early 20’s. The film shows the family scrambling to stay alive by folding thousands of cardboard pizza boxes, and struggling to stay, for lack of a better term, modern, by attempting to find spots in their basement apartment where they can siphon wi-fi from neighboring businesses. Right away, this action creates an interesting effect – the kids’ desperate need to be internet-connected plays to a common stereotype of young people being phone-obsessed and spoiled by the excesses of the web, yet they do live, undeniably, in harsh poverty: hunger is a constant concern; their home is a small basement frequently pissed-on by drunken passers-by; their toilet is crammed in an elevated corner where one needs to crouch to use it even while seated; they leave the windows open during street fumigation to get free pest-extermination, despite breathing the rancid gas themselves. The mother too has an almost childish compulsion to check WeChat. It immediately creates in the film an ambiguity, a set of complications that is never resolved – are we supposed to laugh at these people? Cry for them? Root for them? It seems like all three and certainly the third, though they’re far from the type of Hallmark-perfect poor family one encounters in many dramas. The opening scenes also draw attention without straining in the slightest to show just how essential technology and access to it is for the survival of people living in poverty. The mother reveals that she wanted to check WeChat because she thought the pizza company was going to message her about folding the boxes for a small amount of money. Though no one says it outright, it seems clear that the pizza box job is extremely important for this family, and that if the kids hadn’t found a source of free wi-fi and gotten the WeChat message, the job would’ve slipped right on by to another just-as-desperate family. The event that begins the plot of the film is that Ki-Woo’s friend, Min, a college student, comes by before a semester abroad with two gifts: an encyclopedia-sized, jagged rock that is said to bring material wealth to the family in possession of it, and an opportunity for Ki-woo to take over for Min as the English tutor for the high school sophomore daughter of an extremely rich family in the city. Min says that he wants to one day marry the girl, Park Da-hye, and knows that one of his frat-boy college friends would salivate all over her if they were her tutor, but that he knows he can trust Ki-woo. Min also says that the mother is young, beautiful, and naïve – it seems like he is implying that Ki-woo might be able to seduce her, though it’s not stated explicitly. It isn’t ever made clear why Min thinks he can trust Kim-woo not to make a move on Da-hye, the daughter, and indeed he successfully does so almost immediately, but my personal suspicion is that even Min believes there is some intractable divide between the true poor and the true rich, such that even if Ki-woo is pretending to be a middle-class college boy, as he must to get the tutoring job, there is still no real possibility of romantic connection between him and Da-hye. Of course, maybe Min and Ki-woo just have a friendship built on deep trust, but the film does nothing to establish that if it is the case. With the prospect of a high-paying tutoring job from Min and some forged documents from his technologically gifted and artistically inclined sister, Ki-jung, Ki-woo goes to the rich neighborhood of the Park family for an interview and trial tutoring session. He is greeted through a gate-intercom by the Park’s housekeeper, who opens the gate for him where he sees that there are about a dozen sprinklers in the front yard, designed to make sure every inch of grass receives a perfect sprinkling whenever needed for a perfect lush lawn. The housekeeper comes out and leads Ki-woo through an incredibly opulent and stylish home designed by a fictional architect called “the great Namgoong,” who seems to be the Korean equivalent of Frank Lloyd Wright. The housekeeper has to wake up Mrs. Park, who is dozing in the sunlit yard. Mrs. Park then interviews Kim-woo in the house, saying she doesn’t really care about the documents (expertly forged by Ki-jung) that he’d brought, but puts stock in Min’s recommendation. She notes, however, that if Ki-woo isn’t up to par with Min, he won’t be able to keep the job, and she insists on observing him for his first tutoring session with her daughter. The stakes are thus laid out clearly as Mrs. Park leads Ki-woo upstairs for the session, and as an audience member, I was pulling hard for him: the elegance of the Park home contrasted with the squalor of the Kim basement makes it understood that even a six-hour a week job with the rich family would be life-changing for Ki-woo. It is one of the most exciting and triumphant releases of the film when Ki-woo absolutely crushes the first tutoring session, providing Da-hye with a new, aggressive test-taking philosophy that establishes him as an authority to be respected by both the mother and daughter – so much so that Mrs. Park voluntarily pays him even more than she was paying Min, whom she spoke so highly of that one wonders if he had a romantic relationship with the mother as well. The exhilarating and comedic rush of Ki-woo’s first tutoring session continues for the next 40 minutes or so of the film as the Kim family unleashes a plot to get all four of themselves on the Park payroll. Immediately after the first tutoring session, Mrs. Park shows Ki-woo some crayon drawings which she calls “paintings” made by her son, Da-song, who’s about nine years old. She expresses an absolute belief, groan-inducing for the audience, that her son is an expressive genius. Ki-woo humors her masterfully and suggests that, with a bit of training, Da-song could become a generational artist. Mrs. Park latches onto the idea, and Ki-woo has an epiphany when he remembers that he has a cousin who went to art school with a girl who had a true gift for cultivating artists, which excites Mrs. Park very much. Ki-jung, Ki-woo’s sister, is, of course, this gifted artist and teacher who studied in the US. She memorizes some biographical information that Ki-woo made up for her, does a bit of research into “art therapy,” and ad libs the rest. Her vibe is quite different from Ki-woo’s when she enters the home. Whereas he was polite and deferential until the tutoring session began, Ki-jung is aloof and commanding right away, giving off an aura of self-confident control. Though Mrs. Park attempts to demand to observe Ki-jung’s first tutoring session with the son, Da-song, Ki-jung shuts her down and says she never tutors in front of parents. Mrs. Park obeys but is obviously unsure if she wants to stick with this new girl. She gets the housekeeper to go up to Da-song’s room to see how things are going – the housekeeper isn’t a parent, after all – but Ki-jung is already done, sitting quietly at a table with the usually wild and unruly Da-song. She then totally convinces Mrs. Park of her genius by asking if something happened to Da-song when he was in first grade, saying she gathered that he’d suffered trauma by a mark in the lower right corner of his drawing, which is where most artists store their trauma. It’s a funny moment for the audience, knowing Ki-jung is just ad-libbing, when Mrs. Park breaks down crying. She says something did indeed happen to Da-song, but doesn’t say what, and agrees to pay Ki-jung whatever she wants to keep leading her son through art therapy. Ki-jung then sets a trap to get Mr. Park’s driver fired, and she too is waiting with a recommendation for a new hire – who is, unbeknownst to the Park’s, her father. Mr. Kim goes to a luxury car dealership to learn some of the features of such vehicles, meets Mr. Park, and immediately sets to work flattering him. Mr. Kim drives well, garnering a compliment from Mr. Park on his “cornering,” and earns the rich man’s respect by stating that he’s been working as a driver for 30 years – Mr. Park says that he admires a man who sticks to one thing for that length of time, indicating a sort of socio-economic conservatism: Mr. Park likes people to remain in their place, and of course he does, because his own place is so incredibly high. The last person the Kim family sets out to replace, and the most difficult, is the housekeeper. She was at the house before the Park family even lived there, and does an excellent job – the only complaint is that Mr. Park says she “eats enough for two people,” but a few dollars a day of food is nothing to him. But with impressive ingenuity, the Kim’s manage to convince Mrs. Park that the housekeeper is infected with tuberculosis and must be replaced for the sake of the children’s safety. And sure enough, Mr. Kim knows about an excellent agency that hires out maids and nannies and drivers, and within a few days Mrs. Kim is the Parks’ new live-in housekeeper. The sequence is funny but still disturbing and tense – at any moment, with any slip-up, it could go wrong and the Kim’s could be back to total poverty, and if everything goes right it still results in the driver and housekeeper being fired by no fault of their own. It’s something the Kim’s wrestle with in a following scene, sitting together, having a celebratory drink in the Park’s living room while the rich family goes away for a weekend camping trip to celebrate Da-song’s birthday. They note that the driver is young and has “a good build” so he will be fine, but they all seem a bit uncomfortable when thinking about the housekeeper, an older woman who’d been working at the house for decades. They quickly pass that by and continue trying to enjoy themselves. They talk about Ki-woo’s relationship with Da-hye, how much she adores him, and the Kim parents get very excited at the prospect of Ki-woo marrying the rich girl. No one seems to care that they would then have to live the rest of their lives in a constant lie – it would be worth it to have real and permanent access to such wealth. They even discuss hiring actors to play Ki-woo’s parents at the wedding. Ki-woo notes that it’s Ki-jung who really seems to belong in the upper class – the way she luxuriates in the bathtub being his strongest source of data, seemingly observing that the most important trait of the rich is fully and composedly enjoying their riches. The Kim children then note how kind Mrs. Park is. Mrs. Kim, in one of the few explicit acknowledgements of the way wealth influences behavior in the film by its characters, scoffs and says that she’d be nice too if she had that much money – that it’s much easier to be nice when you don’t have to worry about keeping a family fed and housed. The scene in the living room gets momentarily heated when the family disparages Mr. Kim in comparison to the successful Mr. Park. Mr. Kim throws the liquor glasses off the table and acts as if he’s about to hit his wife for her insult, then bursts out laughing. The whole family laughs, and the audience is relieved, not wanting the family to start fragmenting just as they’ve all made it to a place of seeming stability, with four tethers to the Park family and all the money and comfort they represent. And then there is a ring at the gate-intercom. Mrs. Kim gets up to answer it, as the only person who should still be in the house at that time. It’s the old housekeeper, saying she really needs to get something out of the basement of the house. Mrs. Kim, in an apparent act of pity towards the older woman, lets her in. The housekeeper looks beat up, aside from being soaked by the pouring rain that becomes an important plot point as the night wears on – already stricken physically by the roughness of joblessness in a harshly capitalistic society. Mrs. Kim follows the housekeeper into the basement, where the housekeeper is attempting to move a heavy cabinet. With Mrs. Kim’s help, they reveal a secret passageway that the housekeeper says the Park family doesn’t know about – that the architect had built in case of emergency. It’s here that some audience members, who expected a horror movie, asked, “is this where the horror part starts?” The housekeeper and Mrs. Kim go down multiple flights of stairs to a creepy secret room with a man living in it. The housekeeper embraces him and starts feeding him from a bottle, which he suckles hungrily, having been trapped down there since the housekeeper was fired. It turns out that he is the housekeeper’s husband, and he lives down there because he’s hunted by loan sharks – he attempted to stake out his own living with a “King Castella” cake shop, a food craze that swept Korea and led to a huge glut of shops before the bubble burst and left thousands of hopeful business-owners in massive debt. The man in the basement, Geun-sae, says that even after over four years in that secret room the loan sharks will still try to find him, and will kill him if he doesn’t have their money. So he stays down below, waiting for his wife to bring him food (the reason she “eats for two,” from Mr. Park’s perspective), and thanking Mr. Park with devout reverence for his provisions via Morse code communicated across lamps that wire down to the room, representative of the admiration the poor have for the rich, cultivated largely by a society that makes the poor’s existence contingent on the decisions of the upper class. It’s revealed that the trauma Da-song had suffered in first grade had been “seeing a ghost,” which had been Geun-sae coming upstairs in the middle of the night to get some food. Mrs. Kim is just preparing to call the police, completely unsympathetic to Geun-sae’s predicament if it’s going to threaten her own newfound security, when the rest of the Kim family, who had been spying on the scene from the secret stairway, tumbles into the scene. The housekeeper quickly gathers that they’re a family and deftly records a video of the four and has it ready to send to Mr. Park – all she has to do is press send, and the entire ruse will be up. Using the phone like a gun, she leads everyone upstairs, and she and Geun-sae take the couch that the Kim family had just been seated at, forcing them to kneel on the floor as they consider their next move and enjoy some of the Park family’s food. The housekeeper loses focus for just a second, and Ki-woo rushes her, knocking the phone from her hands. All six characters begin fighting each other for the phone, Ki-jung even dumps a bag of peaches on the housekeeper, who is fiercely allergic to them – all possible regard for each other stripped away by the stakes of access to the Park family wealth. As the Kim family gets control of the situation, the gate-intercom rings again. Mrs. Kim answers it, and it’s Mrs. Park calling from their car – she says they called off the camping trip because the rain had flooded the campsite, and would be home in eight minutes so could Mrs. Kim please make some Ram-Dan. In the ensuing chaos, the Kim family attempting to pull off a herculean feat of cooking, cleaning, and brutal suppression of two other people to keep their place in the home, the kids and Mr. Kim wrestle the housekeeper and her husband back down into the basement and sweep the mess that had been made before and during the fight under furniture while Mrs. Kim whips up “Ram-Dan,” a meal she’d never heard of. Just as the Park’s are coming inside, the housekeeper, her feet tied up, comes hopping up the stairs to the kitchen, and Mrs. Kim kicks her down the stairs and shuts the door. The housekeeper falls backwards down the stairs and her head slams against concrete with a sickening thud. The scene cuts back to Mrs. Park sitting down to enjoy the Ram-Dan. It’s only here that it really feels like things have gone too far, that the Kim family has truly allowed greed to overtake them as opposed to simply operating selfishly by necessity. Before Mrs. Kim kicked the housekeeper down the stairs, there was a sense of scrambling “all’s fair in love and war (and late-stage capitalism)” improvisation, stressful but basically justified, a family trying to survive with guts and guile. But despite this sudden sense of change, one is still left without a clear feeling of how and when to have pulled out of the lie – should Mrs. Kim, and would you, audience-member, have allowed the housekeeper to come up into the kitchen? It would have destroyed everything. The Kims would have likely been arrested, in an even worse position than before. Or would you, too, have swiftly and almost mindlessly placed your foot in the chest of the bound woman on the stairs, not even thinking twice about her life to preserve yourself? There had been a sign before Mrs. Kim kicked the housekeeper down the stairs that something was becoming warped in the Kim family. All four family-members on the Park payroll, they’d been in their basement apartment. Mr. Kim toasted Mr. Park, the family thanking him for his success which allowed them to be so prosperous in turn, never considering that the type of lavish prosperity Mr. Park enjoyed might just be the reason that the norm for so many in their country was desolate poverty. The same drunken man from the beginning of the film starts pissing on their house and the family groans. Instead of just watching, as they had before until Min came along and told the guy off, Ki-woo grabs the rock that Min had given them and starts to go outside. The audience barely has time to wonder if he’s going to scare the guy with the heavy, jagged rock or actually hit him with it, likely killing him, before Mr. Kim gives his son a bottle of water to use instead, diffusing the tension again. But when Mrs. Kim kicks the housekeeper down the stairs, it becomes clear that the struggle to attain comfort and stability in the harshly unequal society has demanded of the Kims not just cleverness and a certain disregard for others well-being, but also a ruthlessness, a brutality towards life itself, and it’s hardened them, this greed that’s come into their lives, symbolized by the rock and encouraged by capitalistic structures. The Kim’s have to continue to hide in the Park home until the family goes to sleep, but before they do, they hear Mr. and Mrs. Park disparaging the smell of Mr. Kim, comparing it to an odor of boiled rags. It harkens back to another earlier scene, a tense moment when Da-song says that all four of his family’s new workers smell the same. The observation gets laughed off, and later, back at home, Mr. Kim says they need to start using different soap when they shower. Ki-jung says it isn’t the soap that makes them smell the same – it’s living in a shitty basement apartment. The smell that Mr. Kim apparently carries most heavily, the smell the Parks laugh at and make fun of him for and sometimes plug their noses from, is the smell of poverty. When the Parks go to sleep, Mr. Kim and his kids sneak out of the home and into the still-pouring rain. It’s clear that it must be deep into the a.m. hours by this point, and the sequence from celebrating their infiltration of the Park payroll to the housekeeper’s revelations to successfully maintaining their ruse and escaping the house had been so tense and long that you feel exhausted for the family, these three that didn’t just possibly kill the housekeeper, hoping that they can get home and get some sleep. However, as they get closer and closer to their poor neighborhood, the streets become more flooded. By the time they get near home, they are wading through sewer water, flooding the impoverished. People are using buckets to desperately and fruitlessly try to throw water outside. The Kim’s home is completely flooded, water up to their chests in a claustrophobic scene in which they go inside trying to save a few precious items. Ki-woo grabs the rock Min had given them. Ki-jung gets the envelope in which they’d been keeping their cash earnings, but it’s soaked through. She sits on the toilet, the only thing in the apartment fully above water, sewage belching up against the seat and spilling over, and weeps. It’s a striking image – this girl who just a few scenes previously had been luxuriating in the Park’s jacuzzi tub watching a flat screen television now crying on a shit-covered toilet gurgling over in a flooded basement apartment – and it makes one wonder what exactly the film is trying to say. That lies and greed cannot be kept down, that they will explode to the surface, impossible to salvage or scrub clean – a moral message to apply to the individual? Or that the ills of a nation cannot remain buried, that they are beginning to boil-over, that the horrors of poverty that many wish to forget, including those who have been a part of it, still exist and cannot be ridden of by merely hiding from view – an indictment of society, an illumination of the most horrifically oppressed and ignored? While the Kim’s salvage a few things from their flooding home, the housekeeper regains consciousness and hops weakly to her husband in the secret room in the Park house. She unties him and repeats Mrs. Kim’s first name, telling him that she is about to die, but wanting him to enact revenge for her. She then fades and dies, the hideous concussion she’d sustained in the fall overtaking her. In the morning, Mr. Kim and his children are awakening in a cartoonishly crowded gymnasium filled with thousands left homeless by the flood, an image that reminds Americans of Hurricane Katrina news coverage. They all get texts from Mrs. Park about a party that afternoon at the house for Da-song in lieu of the camping trip. Mr. Kim has to go help her buy food and party favors, and Mrs. Park talks about how the rain was irritating but afterwards it’s always nice – how it clears the air of pollution. It’s apparent that Mr. Kim can barely hold back his anger at her privilege: that the rain was just an annoyance to her, when thousands were utterly ruined by it; the cramped homes and few possessions they did have destroyed by the sewage water, by a city that is designed to drain through the poor neighborhoods. Ki-woo goes to the house and up to Da-hye’s room, where they continue their love affair and afterwards, he looks out over the lawn at all the party guests, how well-dressed and nice and elegant and perfect they seem, and he asks Da-hye if she thinks he could fit in with them. It seems then that Ki-woo’s self-image is running against his dream of breaking, fully, into the upper class. He expresses genuine doubt that he could ever really belong, wondering if his class is something deeper than chance and situation but something immutable, emblazoned on the soul. With everything set up, Mr. Kim waiting in the bushes with Mr. Park to stage a little skit with Ki-jung when she comes out to the yard with Da-song’s cake, Mrs. Kim finishing the food, Ki-woo heads down to the secret room to, it’s implied, kill the housekeeper and her husband, Geun-sae, with the rock Min gave him. When he gets down there, he sees that the housekeeper is already dead, and then he is ambushed from behind by Geun-sae. Ki-woo nearly escapes up the stairs but Geun-sae catches him in the kitchen and bashes him in the head with the rock. It’s assumed that Ki-woo is dead, killed by the rock that represents material wealth, while everyone else at the party is out in the yard. Geun-sae wanders outside, the first time in over four years, face bloody, dead-eyed, holding a knife he grabbed from the kitchen, in back of the crowd of clean and smiling rich people, the brutalized lower class emerging into the sunlight to wreak havoc. He sees the daughter carrying the cake and stabs her in the chest in front of everyone, momentarily frozen by confusion – is this the skit? – and then stricken with fear. Da-song has a seizure, seeing the “ghost” again. Geun-sae finds Mrs. Kim, after seeing Mr. Park and yelling, “Respect!”, and attempts to take vengeance for his wife, while Mr. Kim rushes to his daughter, trying to stem the blood. Mr. Park screams at Mr. Kim to drive him and Da-song to the hospital, not caring about Ki-jung, and then screams for Mr. Kim to just throw him the car keys. Mr. Kim does this, but the keys fall short. Mr. Kim sees his son being dragged out of the house by a hysterical Da-hye, a huge gash in his head. His daughter is dying in his arms. His wife has been slashed by Geun-sae before she’d stabbed him with a meat-skewer sword. The keys end up under Geun-sae. Amidst this horror, Mr. Park comes forward to grab the keys on the grass and gags at Geun-sae’s smell, getting too close to that indelible smell of poverty that is so apparently pungent on Mr. Kim as well. The pain of such indignity and callousness, in all this horror and violence, Mr. Park still has the nerve to be disgusted by the smell. It drives Mr. Kim over the edge and he grabs the knife that Geun-sae had used to kill Ki-jung to stab Mr. Park in the chest. The rich guests don’t do anything, they just stand there in absolute horror, paralyzed, having never experienced life-or-death crisis before on any level. Mr. Kim simply walks by and leaves the property. Mr. Kim’s reaction to Mr. Park’s gag is a curious moment. Just moments earlier, Mr. Park had been quite nice to him – acknowledging that dressing up as a Native American for Da-song’s skit was demeaning but pointing out that he was being paid overtime for it. Geun-sae, of course, has just murdered Mr. Kim’s daughter and, unbeknownst to him, his son, and had attempted to kill his wife. But when Mr. Park expresses his uncontrollable disgust at the smell of the man who had been hidden in the secret room beneath the house, the man who had looked up to Mr. Park with devout reverence, who had said “thank you” to him in Morse Code every night through the light system, the utter disregard by Mr. Park of Geun-sae’s humanity awakens a rage in Mr. Kim. Perhaps what is awakened is a rage of class solidarity. Acknowledging Geun-sae as a brother in a struggle much vaster than any of them had previously recognized, even though on the surface he should hate the basement ghost with his whole being, negating Mrs. Kim’s previous refutation when the housekeeper called her “sister.” The denouement is narrated by Ki-woo, who survived the blow to his head after an extended coma. When he wakes up, he can’t stop laughing, despite the fact that he and his mother are back to poverty, his father is missing, and his sister is dead. One of the most heartbreaking parts of the entire movie is seeing Ki-jung’s grave – a cubby, like one might have had in grade-school, amongst thousands of others in a cramped basement, with a picture of her and a few small personal belongings: even in death, the poor get the bare minimum amount of space, just enough for the rest of society to be able to say, “here you go, now shut up.” The only time Ki-woo doesn’t laugh is when he watches news coverage of the murder of Mr. Park and the disappearance of the killer. The only time he can’t laugh is when he sees the events sucked into a larger narrative – the innocent rich, slaughtered by the evil, jealous poor. Ki-woo goes up on the hill over the Parks’ old home, now housing a German family who didn’t know about the murders that occurred there. He sees the light flickering, the light that Geun-sae had used to thank Mr. Park in Morse code. Ki-woo writes down the sequence of dashes and dots and translates the message – it turns out, his father had went right back inside the Park house after killing the patriarch, down into hiding in the secret room. Ki-woo vows to get rich – he daydreams about overcoming his class, making it all on his own, earning enough money to buy the house – his father walking upstairs and embracing him, going out in the yard, parents and son, triumphant and freed, into the sunlight. Then the scene cuts back to Ki-woo’s reality – back in the basement apartment, in the poverty where the movie began, and ends.

Class and Self-Image The thing that struck me most about Parasite was the distortive effects that the intensely capitalistic society presented has on people’s perception of themselves and of others. One of the most obvious examples is when Ki-woo doubts he could ever belong in the upper class, standing in Da-hye’s room overlooking the assembling party in the yard. This doubt comes after weeks or months of lies and the previous night’s fight with the housekeeper and Geun-sae, after wading through sewage water in his flooded home and spending the morning in an overcrowded gymnasium full of refugees, after hearing his father’s resigned speech about the futility of making plans – a striking comment on the sense of instability and impermanency that suffuses the lives of the working poor. Ki-woo seems to see himself as a stained person, in comparison to the rich visitors to the party. Just the night prior, he had observed how nice Mrs. Park is. Of course, and as his mother pointed out, the wealthy people don’t need to scratch and claw for every bit of comfort in their lives. They are never faced with the choices and situations that have constantly come up in the Kim family’s lives – between being ruthless or being broke, between being duplicitous and violent or being hungry and homeless. When such choices and situations are a part of one’s life, virtually everyone will become stained in the same way Ki-woo seems to see himself; they’ll get the smell on them like Mr. Kim; they’ll have to do things that the higher society would say are immoral, but that the higher society can avoid at far lower stakes. When morality and decency are divorced from consciousness of a society that makes adherence to individual values infinitely more difficult for the lower class, the people within that society will view it as a series of individual failures rather than a systemic failure when people in the lower class are systematically more likely to fall short of those values than those in the upper class. This distortion comes from both the rich and the poor – from Ki-woo wondering if the rich are simply, immutably, better than he is, and from Mr. and Mrs. Park having no awareness that the smell of Mr. Kim might be due to anything other than his own individual grossness. It’s part of the same distortion that leads to the Kim family and Geun-sae repeatedly thanking Mr. Park for amassing such great wealth that they can siphon a tiny piece from it to support themselves, never considering that the fact of his ability to have such inordinate wealth might be the reason they need to siphon in the first place. Early in the film, when Min comes by and stops the drunken man from peeing on the Kim household, Mr. Kim states that college students have “vigor,” apparently unpossessed by the less educated. Perhaps this too is a product of distortion, a sense put into the minds of the more privileged that a home is not something to be pissed on, but a sense withheld from the impoverished, because their place and their comfort and their recognition is always contingent upon what is most convenient for the more powerful classes (take Ki-jung’s grave-cubby as an example), and the society doesn’t want to give them any sense of entitlement whatsoever, even if it’s just entitlement to a home not covered in bodily waste; everything must be demanded, fought for – even charity isn’t possible when the would-be recipients are rendered invisible. In this society which both favors the upper class, allowing them to be divorced from the material concerns of the rest of the population – for instance, the rain which flooded the poor neighborhoods but only posed a minor annoyance for the Parks – and leads to the distorted view that the rich are inherently better than the poor, lower-class fragmentation is an inevitable result. The fight between the Kim family and the housekeeper and her husband is a fight for who gets to have a spot on the Park payroll – which of these poor families is more worthy to have a piece of what the Parks, in both families’ minds, rightfully own? It is the poor who are each other’s enemies, by necessity. From the very start, the film shows that there is little room for empathy within the lower class and the hard-scrabble lives they are forced to lead. The girl who runs the pizza van that the Kim family folds boxes for probably has barely more wiggle room than they do, and so she must be tough on them, unsympathetic, dock their pay for a sub-par job. The Kim family gives little consideration to the driver and housekeeper they replace and Mrs. Kim, when she finds out about Geun-sae in the basement, was going to call the police – the Kim’s recognize empathy towards the other working poor as a threat to the stable income they are fighting for. The housekeeper even calls Mrs. Kim “sister,” appealing to solidarity, to common understanding of what it’s like to struggle, but Mrs. Kim, so nascently a part of the middle class, refuses this gesture. Attempting solidarity with the rich is more immediately profitable than solidarity with the other poor, and the situation of the poor is dire. It is their situation that systematically forces the lower class to unscrupulousness, and the effects of this near-necessary behavior are felt by others in the lower class. The effect is that the offenses people in the lower class recognize most directly are the ones enacted by each other, while the much larger oppressions carried out anonymously by the rich are diffuse and imperceptible. It is like war: soldiers see the ones shooting at them as their enemies, because they are the immediate and visceral threat; they do not recognize that those people shooting at them don’t want to be shooting any more than they do, don’t have any more stake in it than they do; they don’t recognize that the people with a real interest in the outcome, who can profit by it, are nowhere nearby; that we see our enemies across from us when we should be looking up. The distortive effects of class – the way wretched lives lead to wretched self-image, and good lives lead to the self- and external-perception of goodness, that all are getting what they deserve, is also brought to light through the very fact that the Kim family, especially Ki-woo and Ki-jung, have to lie about their credentials. Ki-woo, who aspires to go to college one day if he can save enough money, is a legitimately good English tutor – the fact that he isn’t actually a college student has no bearing on that. Ki-jung, posing as “Jessica,” a Korean-native who studied art and art therapy in Chicago, is extremely talented with art and digital media and is also the only character in the movie who appears able to control the unruly and bratty Da-song, despite being, really, an untrained girl from a poor family. Both know that the Park’s would never give them a job if they knew the truth of where they came from, regardless of their actual abilities, of their actual merit. Just as the movie presents the way that class distorts peoples’ perception of themselves and what they deserve, it also shows the harsh truth that for those below a certain station, there is little opportunity to demonstrate any higher level of deservedness. They feel shame about where they come from and want to earn their way out, but to do that they have to lie, hid their true lives, which makes them feel shame as well. There is a harsh paradox just on the edge of formation here – that for the poor to prove their worth, they will have to do things that will make them feel unworthy, or at least as though they are not living honestly. The parents too are good at their jobs. Mrs. Kim is an able housekeeper and an excellent cook. When Mrs. Park calls and asks her to make “Ram-Dam,” a dish she’d never heard of, she makes a bowl in just eight minutes that Mrs. Park eats with satisfaction. Mr. Kim gets a compliment from Mr. Park for his “cornering” as a driver (though he turns his whole body to look at the person he is driving in the backseat). Throughout the film we see evidence like this that the station of the poor is not explainable by lack of ability or intelligence. This comes in comparison to the portrayal of the Park family. Da-hye seems like an ordinary, angsty teen; Da-song seems like a pretty ordinary young boy – his parents’ absolute belief in his brilliance is used as a joke, but what that joke might represent is that misguided, even delusional belief in one’s exceptionality can be used to justify one’s place. Mrs. Park is beautiful and sweet but brings little else to the table, as all characters seem to recognize, including her. Mr. Park is authoritative but we never really get any indication whether he is actually good at his job, value-producing as a CEO, or is simply in control of capital and must therefore be bowed to. To sum, the movie effectively portrays a situation in which, if there is actually a difference in ability between the rich family and the poor one, that difference is dwarfed by that of their comparative wealth, refuting perhaps the most pernicious myth of capitalist ideology: that our station in life is reflective of our deservedness; that the way things fall in “the market” are just and unquestionable. That’s prosperity-gospel bullshit, and Parasite puts it right in the forefront how that ideology justifies the position of the wealthy and the poor, and how it convinces people in both groups to believe it.

Crossing the Line Another compliment Mr. Park, speaking to his wife, gives Mr. Kim is that he never “crosses the line,” though he sometimes comes close. We are never told exactly what crossing the line means, but there is one scene while Mr. Kim is driving Mr. Park which provides insight: Mr. Park says something about his wife, and Mr. Kim says, “but you love her, of course” (paraphrasing – I can’t remember the exact line). Mr. Park’s mood darkens a bit and he narrows his eyes at his driver’s head before he allows the moment to pass. Adding this scene to Mr. Park’s statement that Mr. Kim’s smell does cross the line, and we can build a hypothesis about what “crossing the line” is: things that threaten the illusion; that call into question the flawlessness of Mr. Park’s life or offend his taste; that, consciously or inadvertently or without any control on Mr. Kim’s part whatsoever, draw attention to any of the many realities constantly concealed by his wealth: that the Park’s marriage might be based more on money and beauty than love; that underneath that money and beauty might be emptiness; that poverty and suffering and death and that awful smell exist while Mr. Park lives in a massive and immaculate hilltop home and feeds his dogs Japanese crab meat. The theme of suppressing poverty, hiding it from the rest of society, is a constant and powerful one in Parasite. When Ki-jung first gets her job tutoring Da-song, Mr. Park has his driver take her home. The audience understands that he mustn’t see where she lives or the ruse will be up – he’ll tell Mr. Park she isn’t actually a successful art teacher. Geun-sae is hiding in the basement of the rich family, and though he is no imposition on them down there, he still must be kept a secret – the housekeeper knows they would want him gone if they knew he was there. Mrs. Park appears completely unaware of the thousands left homeless by the flooding when she comments on how the rain is nice because it clears up pollution – indicating that the media chooses not to bother its wealthier patronage with bad news about the poor. The suppressed emerging from below is foreshadowed by the image of Ki-jung sitting on the toilet as sewage spills out into her flooded home. The following day at the Park house, Geun-sae comes out of the basement to have his revenge – but his revenge, of course, is not on the loan sharks that forced him into hiding or the capitalist system that led him to invest his life in the “King Castella” cake market bubble. How could it be? Enemies within this society become more abstract and diffuse and unfightable as they become more powerful and consequential. But the Kim family, the matriarch of which killed his wife in a flash-panic mindless kick of self-preservation, is flesh and blood and right there. And Geun-sae walks out into the sunlight, face wretched with his own dried blood, eyes betraying his madness, and kills Ki-jung in front of the horrified partygoers. Da-song has a seizure at the sight of Geun-sae, the ghost that had appeared to him a few years before. I don’t think it’s a stretch to see this as a comment on the fragility of the upper class’s sensibilities, the way they are protected, by their own class’s design, from knowledge of the reality of the impoverished, the suppressed, the buried. Da-song, this spoiled boy, adored to the point of near-worship by his rich parents, was traumatized by the mere sight of this person that lives in the shadows of his home. When he sees Geun-sae in the full light of day, he immediately begins convulsing. As Ki-jung is dying in her father’s arms after Geun-sae stabbed her, Mr. Park commands Mr. Kim to drive Da-song to the hospital. Even at the doorstep of death, the expectation is that the needs and demands of the rich will trump over those of everyone else. Mr. Kim is driven into a rage by the immediately following indignity of Mr. Park gagging when he smells Geun-sae: at this climax, Ki-jung taking her dying breaths, Ki-woo appearing already dead as Da-hye and others carry him past, Mr. Park still had the nerve to express his disgust of this unwashable attribute of poverty. Even if Mr. Park didn’t mean to gag, Geun-sae doesn’t mean to have the smell, and neither does Mr. Kim, and Mr. Park had joked about it earlier, quite on purpose and unnecessarily. In this moment of terror, the poor men still didn’t have the privilege of just being people; they had to be, Mr. Park had to let him know they were, also, poor, old, disgusting. To see Mr. Park gagging at the offense of his own sensibilities in this most humanity-shattering of moments – believing his children to both be dead or dying – was too much for Mr. Kim, and he lashed out, killing Mr. Park – and the news would say, nobody knew why. Mr. Kim goes back underground, taking Geun-sae’s place in the basement of the next rich family. The symbolism is direct: for such wealth to exist as that in the immaculate home, there must be something below, struggling to survive, on the verge of starvation, miserable, unseen. I think Mr. Kim recognizes this symbolism. It’s why he goes down there. He killed Mr. Park in a moment that seems like it could be one of sudden and complete class solidarity gone violent. Recognizing a solidarity with the lower class, something his son misses, Mr. Kim takes position down below to wait – probably for the rest of his life.

The Delusion We conclude with Ki-woo’s promise to become rich and buy the house and free his father. The scene illustrates the perniciousness of capitalist dogma. Ki-woo has hope that he can make it in the system – and likely, that hope is misplaced, and he will work himself to the bone to the profit of those above him. But perhaps he will become rich. Perhaps he will make it – some always do. Because just as Geun-sae is replaced in the secret basement with Mr. Kim, so the Park family is replaced by the German family: in capitalism, there must always be capitalists; there must always be haves and have-nots, and there’s always the chance (or at least the illusion of one) of becoming one who has, otherwise the system would collapse in the blink of an eye. But it’s that very hope that prevents so many of the have nots from collectivizing their power, recognizing that their holistic interest is in changing the power structure rather than participating in the rat race which will reward a tiny few of them but many many more of those that come into the society from a place of high privilege, as Da-hye and Da-song will. Perhaps even more sinister is the side of the dogma that says that success will come to those who work hard enough – if you end up poor, hungry, with unstable shelter and no opportunities, it’s because you didn’t work hard enough, and that’s proven by the fact that there are likely to be some people who succeed who came from a similar station. If Ki-woo succeeds in his plan, he will become justification for the continuation of the same societal structure which led to his sister’s death, to his father’s imprisonment, to his own and his mother’s destitution, to the desperation that plagued the family throughout the film. If he fails, it’s because he just didn’t work hard enough or didn’t have The Right Stuff ™. Ki-woo’s plan and the daydream of it succeeding comes shortly after his father telling him that making plans is pointless. Mr. Kim, who so many times throughout the film beforehand had advocated for having a plan, is psychologically broken – or, one might argue, realizes the basic truth – after the flood. He comes to believe that with poverty comes powerlessness, and plans only have value if one has some power to enact them and reap from their reward. He does not. His family does not. The lower class does not. Ki-woo seems to feel bad for his father when he says this – Ki-woo still believes, still has hope. Even after his sister is dead and his father is locked away, Ki-woo still has hope. Perhaps it’s simply youth. Mr. Kim has suffered through poverty for much, much longer – tried to escape it many times fruitlessly. And with this latest horror – the money they’d saved and their home being destroyed by flooding – he finally accepts that poverty is inescapable. And in a sense, he is right – within capitalism, at least as it is practiced in the film and arguably most of the modern world, poverty is essential to the system – scarcity drives demand, drives profit, and just as wealth concentrates in a few, so does scarcity concentrate in a significant minority, defining their lives, their health, even their deaths. Maybe it’s Mr. Kim’s acceptance of this fact that makes his smell grow stronger – at least, the Parks seem to react to his smell more strongly after he comes to this belief. It’s a belief rancid to those who would seek to justify and embrace the ideology of capitalism. Or maybe the smell is worse because he spent the night wading through chest-deep shit-water. Who’s to say? I think Ki-woo doesn’t come to his father’s understanding even after the horrors he’s gone through by the end of the movie because of his head injury, the physical trauma that leaves him laughing at virtually everything. It was a deliberate choice by the filmmakers to end with a shot of Ki-woo’s reality, sitting in his family’s half-basement, in the same cyclical poverty where he was introduced, rather than in the triumphantly hopeful scene at the Park house, hugging his emergent father in the sunlight. It’s a hammering home of reality – Ki-woo will NOT escape his poverty. Not because he is dumb or inept or lazy, clearly, based on the events of the film thus far, but because he IS poor in a steeply hierarchical, late-stage capitalist society. He’s fucked. And even if (God, the perniciousness of hope) he does somehow make it out of the struggle and instability, most like him will not, they cannot, it is impossible for them to do so because of the structure of the society. The stomach-drop moment of the film is not the shot of Ki-woo back in his basement, a statement that he will almost certainly fail; it’s Ki-woo sharing his dream of becoming rich. That is the end of real hope. We see then that Ki-woo is dead; we all saw it: we all saw the jagged rock smash against his head; Ki-woo was murdered by the rock, murdered by materialism: what’s left is a puppet, a parasite in his body. Ki-woo’s dream shows that he is looking right past the systemic inequities all around him at the golden image of utter prosperity beyond. He is looking right past all the others like him, all the other Kim families subjugated and oppressed and hidden, and if he gets a lick of power and wealth he will do nothing to attempt to bring justice to the system; he will give no regard to those in the position he came from; just as his mother rebuffed the housekeeper’s plea for solidarity in calling her “sister,” Ki-woo sees himself as a man on an individual’s journey, divorced from broader consciousness. He’s brain-damaged, socket-blown, delusional, completely sold on the ideology of inequity, of the dream and the hope that keeps moving capitalism towards complete domination by the few over the many until the many actually join together and demand change. There was hope until Ki-woo shared his dream. Hope that the horrors he’s seen caused by wealth disparity would light a fire in him to fight to shrink it. But no, he wants to live above, in full knowledge that there will have to be others hidden, starving, suffering below. If he makes it, he will abandon the overwhelming majority of the poor like him. But he won’t make it, because he is poor.

The Parasite As I’ve already noted, I think the film’s title could refer to Ki-woo’s state at the end: animated by the hollow spirit of materialist dreams and pseudo self-elevation, the base of the ideology that keeps capitalism, as it is practiced in the film, alive. Parasite could also most obviously refer to the Kim family, leeching off of Mr. Park’s wealth. But that doesn’t seem quite right – the Kim’s are good at their jobs. They haven’t caused any harm to the Park’s, other than perhaps Da-song’s art lessons being semi-fraudulent (though Ki-jung at least gets him to behave). The Kim’s only caused harm to the Park family’s former driver and housekeeper, but that doesn’t seem a parasitical relationship, rather, a traitorous one. Parasite could refer to Geun-sae, and then Mr. Kim, living in the basement off another family’s food. That seems like a decent interpretation – they’re not doing any work for the Parks when they’re down there, and they’re eating some of their food (a lot of there/their/they’re in that sentence – very risky). But really, what’s a few pieces of fruit or whatever to the Parks? It’s nothing. So if that is the Parasite, it’s not really a danger to its host. The Parasite could also be the rich. It could be the Park family. They own huge homes that are pieces of art (and the housekeeper says they don’t even appreciate it) built by renowned architects while many of the essential workers of the city live in tiny half-basements; they have a dozen sprinklers watering their lawn; they demand the time and obedience of those of a lesser station; they feed their dogs Japanese crab meat while many others in the city struggle to afford decent food themselves. And what did they do to deserve so exponentially much more than those others? What will Da-hye and Da-song have done to deserve it? The Park’s live luxuriously and spaciously atop a hill overlooking the rest of Seoul, where the people essential to the creation of their wealth and the material goods they buy with it live below, many in near-squalor, in unstable conditions, the little they earn with their work subject to the whims of the forces around them. When the rainstorm comes, to the Parks, it clears the air – to the poor, it destroys their homes and all they had saved. The comfort of the rich comes upon the backs and toil of the essential millions beneath them. When Mr. Kim stabs Mr. Park, perhaps that was a moment of the host lashing out against its leech. “Parasite” could be a description of a system in which advantage is perpetually increased, more blood continually taken, until the host takes notice and claws at it; demands restructuring, revolution.

Conclusion Walking out of the theater, one of the people I watched the movie with commented, “It just kept getting worse and worse for them (the Kim family). It made me want to grab everyone and scream, ‘can we just stoppp?!’” I think that’s exactly right, exactly what the film should do. From the high point of the Kims’ position, sitting in the Park living room at the start of what should have been a weekend celebrating their new life, to the end, things just keep getting worse and worse. And it all makes sense: it all goes so terribly, logically wrong, and believably so. Of course the Kim family doesn’t get to keep having money; of course they fall even farther than they began; of course they are met with violence and death and despair; of course the family is ripped apart; of course Ki-woo doesn’t even take the right message from all of it, meaning the cycle will continue. When it’s laid out as clearly and poignantly as it is in Parasite, you do want to dive into the screen and make everyone stop hurting each other, killing each other, letting each other be hungry and homeless, lying and keeping secrets, recoiling at Mr. Kim’s smell, beg them to, beg them to just treat each other as goddamn human beings, is that so fucking much? You really want it all to just stop, and you see how inequality is a runaway train towards destruction, compared to when you’re in it it’s made to just seem like the status quo. The question is, can we make that impulse last? Can we keep that consciousness, that vision, that empathy? Can it survive the daily toil of our own lives, now that we’ve watched Ki-woo get shattered by the jagged rock? Can we avoid letting ourselves and our own perceptions be warped by class? Can our humanity survive when the jagged rocks are everywhere, all around us, being thrown at our heads by so many who benefit from what it represents? In the hours and days after watching Parasite, it seems clear what we must do. We must denounce greed, denounce the myth that, in a wealthy society, poverty is justified by worth; we must come to Mr. Kim’s realization that a person’s gagging in disgust of the poor is truly disgust of humanity, an impulse towards insulation from the lives of others. We must come together in empathy, and not lose sight of each other in dreams of individual elevation. In this sense, the film is art as wisdom – learn from the mistakes of the characters on screen so our own real-life crucible won’t have to be so soul-crushing. It took death and horror and misery for Mr. Kim to learn this lesson: what will it take for us?

#parasite #socialism #capitalism #sanders2020 #films

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azvolrien · 6 years

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Berlin - Day 6

There weren’t too many school groups, and Museumsinsel seems to attract the more respectful ones.

Got up at the usual time and set off for the museums, then waited around on the front lawn for a while as they opened half an hour later than I thought they did. Then when the doors opened, I went into the first – the Altes Museum – and bought a day pass. This is a pretty solid investment; €18 gets you into all the museums on the island for the whole day, when each museum individually costs about €10 for a ticket (and there are several).

The Altes Museum has two floors housing the better part of the Classical Antiquities collection, mostly sculpture but also some ceramics. The ground floor houses the Greek artwork, while the first floor houses Etruscan and Roman art. Both sections were interesting, more so than I expected; the Greek floor included more of a focus on the archaic era than I remembered seeing in any of the Athens museum, while the upper floor did a good job of illustrating how Etruscan culture influenced the later development of the Romans. All in all I spent about two hours in the Altes Museum, which also sports a large rotunda but this was closed for some kind of media event.

I left the Altes Museum and moved on to its younger sibling, the Neues Museum. This was probably my favourite museum of the day, and the biggest: although the Bode and Pergamon museums might have larger footprints, the Neues Museum has four floors including the basement and all of them are packed with artefacts. The majority of the museum, or at any rate the largest single part, is the Ancient Egyptian section, which easily equals and may outstrip the collection on show at the British Museum. They have a fantastic selection of Egyptian artefacts, including mummies, sarcophagi, reliefs, papyrus – with two separate copies of the Book of the Dead – the ever-present canopic jars, and statues, with a small room given over entirely to the world-famous Bust of Nefertiti. This reminded me a little of the Mona Lisa, in that it’s undoubtedly a beautiful piece of art, but is smaller than you expect from its renown: no bigger than life-size, and possibly a little less. Photos weren’t allowed in the bust room, so I bought a postcard of it instead.

Aside from the Egyptian stuff, the Neues Museum houses the Pre- and Early History collections, from the Stone Age right up to the Dark Ages. Granted, this makes up quite a lot of history. A few rooms were given over to finds from the remains of Troy, discovered by Heinrich Schliemann. The museum proudly described him as one of the 19th Century’s most influential archaeologists, not mentioning that he did this by providing later archaeologists with a long list of things they should never, ever do.

I took a break for lunch at about this time, and had a toasted croissant with cheese in the museum café. I’m not used to museum cafés having table service.

Other non-Egyptian sections looked at ‘Rome’s Northern Neighbours’, with a hoard found buried in the Rhine, the ‘Migratory Period’ showcasing some beautiful jewellery including a gold diadem found on the Crimean Peninsula, and the Prehistory section on the top floor. Although there were a lot of interesting artefacts there including the usual Palaeolithic hand-axes and stone arrowheads, the two highlights for me were the Hansaplatz Elk and the Golden Hat. The former is the complete skeleton of a bull elk (i.e. a moose, not a Megaloceros) found in Berlin, with antlers much more impressive than I’ve seen on any other specimen; the latter is what it sounds like, a beautifully engraved conical hat of pure gold around 1 ½ feet tall. The display mentions that it probably held ritual significance. Usually this is just archaeology-speak for ‘we have no idea’ but the evidence suggests that it actually was used for ritual purposes, possibly some form of sun worship. The circumstances of its discovery – buried with great ceremony, not accidentally thrown in a river – certainly hint that it was more than just some rich dude’s party hat.

My tour of the Neues Museum complete, I moved on to the Pergamon Museum. More than half of the sizeable building is currently closed for an extensive renovation, including the hall housing the Pergamon Altar that gives the museum its name. This was probably why it felt like the most crowded of the museums. However, what remains on show is definitely worth a look. The upper of the museum’s two floors – not including the undercroft through which visitors currently enter – contains the Museum of Islamic Art, which is exactly what it sounds like and mostly similar to things I’d already seen in Andalucia, including a small wooden dome from the Alhambra itself as well as some wonderful textile work.

The lower floor contained a little more Roman stuff, focussing more on architecture than statuary with an original mosaic floor and the imposing Market Gate of Miletus, while the rest of the floor is given over to the Museum of the Ancient Near East. Most of this was also familiar in theme to the British Museum: tomb monuments, stelae, reliefs of authoritative beardy guys, and two of the classic Assyrian winged lion-men, which are actually casts from examples in the British Museum itself. However, there is one exhibition you definitely won’t see anywhere else: the Processional Way of Babylon, leading up to the Ishtar Gate itself – by some lists, one of the Wonders of the Ancient World. Berlin does seem to like its massive gates.

Amazing what you can get your hands on when you’re pals with the Ottomans, eh?

I’m not sure exactly when the Pergamon renovation is due for completion, but I’ll have to come back when it is – perhaps a long weekend. I’d like to see the eponymous Pergamon Altar as well.

After leaving the bustle of the Pergamon, I walked to my last stop for the day, the Bode Museum. This houses the Sculpture Collection, the Museum of Byzantine Art, and the Numismatic Collection (i.e. old coins). I paused for an apple juice in the Museum café – table service again! – before moving on to see the exhibits. These mostly consisted of statues from the late Middle Ages onward, mostly religious and including what I consider to be an excessive number of crucifixes, but there were a few sculptures that I liked including a lovely one of a dancing woman.

There was also a fascinating temporary exhibition called ‘Beyond Compare’ which ironically did exactly that: comparing different pieces of African and European art to look at how the different cultures had approached similar themes and concepts in their art, for example one European water jug shaped like a lion and a Benin water jug shaped like a leopard.

Overall, the only thing I skipped on Museumsinsel was the Alte Nationalgalerie. Time wasn’t the issue – the museums are open until 8pm on Thursdays – but 19th Century sculpture and paintings aren’t really my thing. I finished up on Museumsinsel at about 5.30 – a solid 7.5 hours of museuming – and returned to the hotel for a quiet evening.

I still have one more day in Berlin, and I’m really not sure how I’m going to spend it.

#holiday diary #berlin

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meshugana1 · 7 years

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How about I am your gassy room mate and I accidentally find your universal remote while you’re out, first I accidentally turn myself into Cara Delevingne when fiddling with it. Then I give myself a huge butt and boobs. I make myself heavily pregnant with octuplets. I change my outfit into a skimpy cheerleader outfit. Finally I change my hair into very long and super soft and silky blonde hair that reaches my ankles . Finally you walk in.

Jack sat lazily on the couch doing nothing but channel surf as he tried to find the will to do anything. Everything just seemed boring as shit, he expressed his displeasure with everything by ripping an impressive fart into the couch. It smelled like it might eat through the stitching in his pants, that made him giggle slightly. His roomie was out which was nice because that meant he didn’t have to hide his farts. Mike was a real stickler about that and it tended to piss Jack off with all his rules and incessant cleaning.

Granted it was mostly Jack’s mess that needed cleaning but he paid his half of the rent and he shouldn’t have to do all that crap. He at least had a job, all Mike did all day was cock about in the basement of the house “inventing” shit. Also granted it was winter now and he technically was unemployed but all the union had to do was call and he needed to be ready so he could’t really get a regular job now could he? Jack dozed off for just a moment, but it was long enough to lose the remote. How? He thought, I didn’t even move. He reluctantly got up and searched in between the cushions and behind the couch but when that didn’t help he started looking in the weird places like in the fridge, the oven, and in the pantry.

Those turned up nothing though and Jake decided to check in the last place it could possibly be, in Mikes “Lab”. Jake wasn’t technically allowed in but he needed to find that remote, he wasn’t gonna be stuck watching the young and the restless all day. The door was nothing special but inside was like something out of Dexter’s Lab. He had machines and bunsen burners and all the good shit. Jake let another loud fart flap out of his ass and her hurried along not wanting to leave more evidence behind. It didn’t take long before he found a remote, it wasn’t the one from the living room but all remotes were universal these days and he needed one bad. It looked a little weird like Mike had taken the plastic off and replaced it with metal and took off most of the buttons, now it only had five buttons and a tiny screen like on an old flip phone.

Jake didn’t care though as long as it worked, he plopped back on the couch and started pressing buttons but nothing happened. He hit the remote a few times and it finally started working and he at last returned to his channel surfing. Jack was breezing past showtime when that valerian movie started playing. That girl was pretty hot and he was all alone, so he figured he’d hit the pause button and enjoy himself. It was a little more difficult to find the button though, with this things confusing layout. He tried hitting the big yellow button on top and a beam of bright pink light came out and zapped the tv, then it bounded back and hit Jake square in the face.

Jake was afraid he’d been electrocuted because of how tight and constricted his body felt, like all his muscles were spasming and contacting. It ended soon and he was still breathing, he got up and ran to the mirror to see if he was burned or anything but when he made it to the bathroom he nearly fainted. His reflection didn’t match his body, or at least it didn’t match what he should look like. He looked like that girl from the movie, Cara something, his face was round with sharp high cheeks and a large forehead. His eyebrows were thick and strong and made his eyes look sultry and small. His lips were already painted a ruby red color and his hair was a dirty blond that ended just past his shoulders.

He looked down and saw his body had changed with it, he was now thin and had an athletic figure with small curves. Jake was freaking out and yelling in his new voice, racking his brain to find out what happened. It dawned on him that this happened when the remote went nuts so he ran out and grabbed it. Its display was crackling with static but Jack could make out the word “copy” on it. He was confused but then he looked at his tv and saw the frozen image of Cara Delevingne and a lightbulb went off in his head. Somehow the remote did this, it was like that movie with Adam Sandler. This remote could do anything! Mike finally invented something good, if this could turn him into a hot actress what else could it do? After a little more fiddling he figured out how to scroll through the options, there were so many he really could do anything. He decided to start with a classic and gave himself a stet of knockers so big he would cause car accidents. He selected the option for breasts and hit the plus button a dozen times.

Every time he pressed the button his breast shot up a cup size, each time they just popped up like popping corn from B’s to colossal L cup breasts! It was like his tiny frame was carrying medicine balls as his tits tented his shirt, straining it to its limit. Jake wasn’t one to leave a job half down so he scrolled down until he came across the option for asses and gave himself a real badonkadonk. He actually felt his pants tear as his ass grew to titanic proportions and balanced out his top heavy body. Jake giggled helplessly as he caressed his new insanely curvy body, he continued to scroll through the options and came across one he really didn’t expect to see titled ‘pregnancy’.

He always wanted to see a pregnant chick in the flesh so he selected the option but didn’t quite know how it would work. He pressed the plus button and was rewarded with an intense pressure in his abdomen. His belly surged outward and he was soon carrying a nine month pregnancy belly. Curiosity got the better of him though and he continued to press the button and his belly began to grow even more. He may have been a little overzealous as he looked like he carried a beachball, his distended belly now even eclipsed his breasts. His clothing was all but useless so he looked and found this thing could even affect clothes, he saw an option that looked super fun and a moment later he was wearing a perfectly fitting cheerleaders uniform.

Jake waddled over to the mirror and burst out laughing, he looked like a parody of a cartoon pregnant woman. Something was missing from his look though, he spent a few minutes scrolling through the options and found hair, the style he had was nice but he really wanted to keep the silly thing going so he lengthened it to such a degree that it nearly hit the floor and tickled his ankles. That was better, now it looked like he could give rapunzel a run for her money. Suddenly Jake heard the front door open, that must’ve been Mike. He was gonna have a helluva surprise when he saw the fruits of his labors.

Mike was tired and beat, he hated going to the grocery store but he needed food. Somehow it always managed to be crowded when he needed to get in and out quick but thank god it was over. “I’m home” he said to no one in particular, he knew his lazy roommate wouldn’t much care but when he entered the living room the person he saw was definitely not his roommate. It looked like that actress from Suicide Squad but her proportions where insane and she looked like she was too pregnant.

“Hey pal, recognize me?” Jake said. Mike saw the remote in the girls hands and wheels began to turn. “Jake?!”“Yup! Why the hell didn’t you tell me your inventions worked? You could be a bazillionare with this stuff.”“Jake, listen that remote doesn’t work.”“Um…Mike, look at me. I’m pretty sure it works.”“No Jake, that remote can only change things. It can’t change them back!”“…Wait what?”

The End. Hope y’all like it! Now you guys know what my writing looks like on cold medicine!

#Breast expansion #ass expansion #hair lengthening #hyper-pregnancy #request

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marypsue · 7 years

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let's break it (just because we can)

Hey! Guess what! It’s more of my bullshit!

Content warnings for suicidal ideation and canon-typical alcohol abuse. I still haven’t seen S3, so just pretend anything canon-noncompliant is happening somewhere else in the theoretically-infinite multiverse. Someday I’ll actually watch shit when it airs.

I’m also on AO3, as MaryPSue.

...

It’s got a white picket fence.

Sure, the house itself looks like some kind of giant house-eating alien shat it out after a particularly difficult digestion. Sure, the yard has apparently been used to store dead cars for the last millennium. Sure, that fence is faded, warped with age and rain, rotted out or broken in places and, in a big chunk out front beside the gate, fallen right down flat. Doesn’t matter. It’s still a white picket fence.

Love’s a little like cocaine. It’s great at the beginning, an overwhelming rush. It turns you into somebody better, smarter, cooler. Somebody else.

“It’s got a little white picket fence,” she says, and she’s a little bit in love with it already, and you’re so in love with her that yeah, maybe you’re a little bit in love with it too.

And that’s why you make the mistake of thinking - yeah. this could be good.

…

“Hey. Beth, isn’t it?”

Beth looks up. The girl who’s sat down across from her and is currently leaning across the library table like she wants to leap over it shakes out her mane of honey-blonde curls, smiling. Her hair gleams like burnished gold under the fluorescent lights, and Beth has to stop herself from self-consciously winding a strand of her own brittle, bleached hair around a finger. She wonders, briefly, if her roots are showing.

“Yeah?” she asks, and the other girl’s smile grows brighter. Heather, Beth thinks, or maybe Jennifer? The other girl’s so often part of a group of equally tan and beautiful people, it gets hard to tell them apart.

“You’re the one who told Lucas that your dad is out of town touring because he’s a rockstar?” Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer asks, leaning in closer like she’s sharing some scandalous secret. She smells like vanilla. Beth leans back in her seat.

“Sounds like me,” she says. She doesn’t know which one of the golden boys Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer hangs around with is Lucas, and frankly, she doesn’t care unless he wants to buy weed.

Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer looks gloriously confused for half a second, before the smile returns full force.

“We’re having a bonfire Saturday night,” she says. “Out by the point? You can come if you want.”

Beth leans forward, until her forehead is nearly touching Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer’s.

“You’re just inviting me because you think I can get you booze, right?” she asks.

The look on Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer’s face says it all.

Beth basks in Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer’s discomfort for a moment longer before leaning back in her chair again, crossing her arms and tilting the chair back on its back two legs. “Make a list of what you want and tell me what time to be there.”

Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer breaks out into a relieved smile, pushes herself up out of the seat across from Beth, and heads back over to the table where her people are waiting. Beth waits until she’s sure they’re not looking before she lets her chair fall back to the ground and buries her nose back in her anatomy textbook.

…

The fence is easy to fix. The house takes more work, but eventually you’ve got it looking less like a gigantic turd and more like an average human dwelling. She plants flowerbeds under the front windows. Ninety percent of everything she puts in there dies, but it’s the thought that counts.

She's beautiful. The baby, when she arrives, is beautiful. Your home is beautiful. Your life is beautiful, and perfect, like a Norman Rockwell painting or one of those collectible china figurines old ladies like to keep around their houses. It's perfect. It's beautiful. It's so far removed from anything you recognise as 'real life' that it scares you.

You never claimed to be perfect. (Just cooler. Smarter. Better.) And love's a little like cocaine. It keeps taking more and more to get you high.

...

“I don’t get why it’s supposed to be such a classic, anyway. It’s just some jerk acting all superior and whining about how much his perfect life sucks.” Heather (or maybe Jennifer) sits back on the log, tossing her bush of curls over one shoulder. The firelight-shadows turn her laughing face grotesque. “The only way this book could possibly be as good as everybody says it is is if Holden gets punched on the last page.”

“Hey, you just don’t get it,” the polo-shirted young Adonis that Beth thinks is Lucas protests, withdrawing the arm he’d wrapped around Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer’s shoulders.

“What, because I’m a girl?” Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer teases, poking possibly-Lucas in the middle of the chest with one finger, and possibly-Lucas shrugs.

“I’m just saying, it’s a novel about the fundamental pathos of existence and the inescapable sadness of the human condition,” possibly-Lucas rattles off, like he’s reading it from a textbook, and Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer bursts out into a fresh fit of giggles.

“Oh shut up, Mr. Winters isn’t here to see you kissing his ass.” She gives possibly-Lucas another halfhearted shove in the middle of his chest, before leaning in to rest her head there, still giggling. “Don’t worry, you’ll still get that letter of recommendation to Harvard if you admit that Holden Caulfield is a giant jerk.”

Possibly-Lucas just laughs, and nuzzles his face into Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer’s hair. Beth takes another sip from her can of soda, stares into the fire. It’s kind of fascinating how the burning logs don’t seem to visibly change, even while they’re being consumed.

“Ugh, what are you two, teachers?” the dark-haired girl who might be named Jennifer complains, from the other side of the bonfire. “We should be having fun, not talking about stupid Catcher in the Rye.”

“She’s got a point,” Heather-or-maybe-Jennifer giggles, through a mouthful of hair.

Possibly-Lucas nods, and then calls, “Hey! Beth! Truth or dare!”

Beth stares into her drink. On her desk back at home, the latest module for the correspondence course she’s taking on organic chemistry is sitting, waiting. She can’t think of anywhere she’d want to be less than here.

“Dare,” she says, to her soda.

…

The show’s in the shitty basement of a shitty dive bar and, looking at the crowd, you think you’ll be lucky if you can play two sets and get out of here without anybody chucking a Molotov cocktail at the stage.

You told her things were picking up. That you had some real promising prospects on the horizon. That you’d let the fading dye job grow out. That you’d get a real job. Take out patents on some inventions, sell them to the highest bidder. That at the very least you’d start playing some places that actually paid. Weddings, and shit.

You didn’t exactly lie.

But here, tonight, it’s cheap beer and bad weed and stony glares and a bassline that thrums like a heartbeat. Here it’s a dusty spotlight and a guitar that you play like you’re making love to it, because maybe, maybe it’s the only lover who’ll ever understand you. Who’ll never chain you down.

(there’s a difference between fucking and making love. you think maybe you’ve only ever done the second one onstage, with a screaming crowd and a guitar.)

You promised her. You promised, and the baby needs new clothes and shit and the upstairs toilet hasn’t worked for a month and the fence is starting to fall down again but here you are, in a shitty basement, playing a shitty punk show. Because you need this. Everything back home is glossy and pastel and perfect, and you just need this one goddamn thing in your perfect fucking life that still feels raw, still feels broken, still feels real.

She catches your eye halfway through the second set. Headbanging along, like your shitty garage band is the fucking Stones or some shit. Cherry red mohawk nearly a foot tall, bleeding hairspray in shining trails down her face. Almost looks like she's crying. Like agony. Like ecstasy. Like you're playing her and not just the guitar.

You think, afterwards, that it's the best show of your goddamn life.

...

Somebody brought a boom box. Somebody brought hot dogs. Somebody brought half the football team, and the cheer squad, and somebody thought it would be cool to see how big they can build the fire.

Beth can feel the heat of it on her face from five feet away, can feel the cold of the sea air on her back. It’s almost cold enough that she wants to put her top back on. Almost, but not quite. Besides, the beer really does warm you up from the inside out.

(It’s a lie. Just like the confidence it fills her up with. It’s just blood rushing to the surface, losing body heat to the air even as it makes her feel warm. She could get hypothermia and die like this, and never even know she was cold.)

She sways, in time to the music, bumping hips with dark-haired probably-Jennifer-unless-that’s-Heather, spinning to stand face to face and letting her hips swivel with the beat. Probably-Jennifer’s wearing some kind of lipgloss that sparkles in the firelight, her lips full and slightly parted, her eyes half-closed. The fire is scorching hot and the beer is a warm glow in Beth’s veins and everything is soft, is distant, is safe.

Probably-Jennifer doesn’t even seem startled when Beth goes in for the kiss, just puts her hands (so warm, almost burning) on Beth’s hips and pulls her closer. It just feels natural, inevitable.

The cheers and hoots from all around them are the only reminder that it’s not.

Probably-Jennifer pulls back, flushed and grinning, a few strands of hair sticking to her glitter lipgloss.

Beth pulls away, from her, from the fire, and starts to tug her top back on.

…

You ditch your friends after the show and catch mohawk girl at the bar. Same old song and dance - buy her a few drinks, take her back to the van or the motel or her place, fuck her brains out, never see her again. Except something goes wrong somewhere and instead of taking her someplace where the two of you can get a little privacy, you end up at an all-night breakfast place. Maybe it's the looks you got from your two best friends, the only two other people in this vast, cold universe who've always had your back before. Maybe it's just that this is how you met the woman who's now your wife.

"We - we gonna fuck or what?" you blurt, as soon as that thought crosses your mind, and mohawk girl looks up like you just blasted an air horn in her ear.

"What, right now?" She waves her fork at her half-eaten waffle. "Can I finish this first?"

"Nope," you say, putting down your own fork with a clatter and pushing yourself out of the booth, crossing your arms over your chest and wishing you'd worn something with a little more intimidation factor than the navel-revealing neckline on this shirt. "Limited time offer. Take it or leave it."

Mohawk girl looks from you, to her waffle, back up at you again. She doesn't get up.

"Fine," you say, wishing you had something to throw, or shove, or smash, or slam.

Mohawk girl watches at first as you storm out of the restaurant, but by the time you reach the door, she’s gone back to her waffle.

...

The light and the heat and the music start to fade as Beth walks along the beach, her feet sliding in the sand, clutching her arms against the chill. There’s just enough of a breeze to ruffle her hair and raise goosebumps on her arms. She can’t quite feel her hands, and she’s not sure if it’s from the beer or the cold.

Everything seems very dark, at first, close to the bonfire. It's nearly impossible to see anything the firelight doesn't touch. Beth almost trips over a couple lying in the sand, in the middle of moving from making out into something else entirely. She shuffles farther away from the ring of firelight and from the rising moans of the couple she just left behind. The water is black as ink as it laps at the shore, and there doesn’t seem to be a horizon out there. Just endless void, as far as the eye can see and farther. Nothing and more nothing.

Beth wanders around one of the bigger rocks that dot the beach, shivering in its shadow as it blots out the firelight, and there is the sky.

…

You don’t go home.

You don’t go back to the bar where your friends are almost definitely getting plastered, either. Instead, you get in your rustbucket of a car and start it, and then sit there, with the engine running. Trying to decide where to go, when you’ll have to be home by morning. Wondering idly what would happen if this falling-apart piece of shit you call a car had malfunctioned somehow and the tailpipe was plugged.

The radio’s on your favourite rock station, blaring “Highway to Hell”. You growl a little under your breath and wrench the knob, flipping feverishly through the stations until you find some mindless, banal pop song, and then throw the car into drive. It doesn’t really matter where you go. You just need to go.

The sky overhead is dark and endless and strewn with stars, an infinity of possible worlds, possible lives. If you didn’t know better, it would be beautiful. Awe-inspiring. Just plain inspiring. That eternal tableau of untamed possibility. If you didn’t know better, you’d believe that anything could be out there. That anything could happen. That you could be anything.

But you know better.

The pop song bops along for about thirty seconds before its polished, prepackaged bubbliness finally gets on your last nerve and you turn the radio off.

...

The ocean is a silent, freezing mirror, replete with the reflected cosmos.

The tide is loud, here, the muffled bass of the music and the occasional shout the only sounds from the bonfire that carry back to Beth. She looks back over her shoulder, sees the fire. From right beside it, it had been so big and bright and hot that it had seemed to fill the whole sky. She’s barely walked for five minutes, but looking back, it already seems tiny, dwarfed by the ceiling of endless, limitless stars. So insignificant. So infinitesimal.

…

The house is dark, the sky is going grey around the edges, by the time you pull back into the drive. You clip the corner of your white picket fence on your way in, knock the corner post askew. The fence lists like it’s almost as drunk as you are.

You kick at it on the way to the door, misjudge the distance.

The lawn’s slick with early dew, and you barely avoid faceplanting into the flowerbed by overbalancing and landing flat on your ass instead.

…

“Hey, you’re – Beth, right? Beth Sanchez?”

The voice breaks the quiet rhythm of the tide lapping gently in and out, and Beth jumps. She hadn’t heard anybody coming up behind her, lost in the star-studded expanse of forever. She realizes, for the first time, that her feet are freezing. “Yes. And yes, I did take my top off, and yes, I did kiss a girl. No, I won’t repeat either performance unless you bring me another beer, and even then, no promises.”

The boy standing back on the beach stuffs his hands in the pockets of his knee-length shorts with forced casualness, looking anywhere but Beth’s face. “Actually, I recognized you because I think we have chemistry together.” He turns his head to grin at her, pulling both hands from his pockets to point in her direction like he’s waiting for her to laugh at his incredibly witty punchline.

It takes Beth a moment to process. “Third period, right? You’re the guy who’s always asking about covalent bonds.”

Covalent bond guy deflates a little, shrinking around his smile. He stuffs his hands back in his pockets, shuffling over to where the water laps at the shore. “Jerry. It’s Jerry. What’re you doing all the way out here, anyway? Party’s back by the fire…” The way he says it is almost more of a question than an invitation.

Beth turns back out to the ocean. “Did you want something?”

“Well, I saw you walking away from the bonfire, and, I don’t know, just wondered what you were up to.” He shrugs. “With…your…bare feet in the water. Isn’t that cold?”

“You get used to it,” Beth says.

“Well, if you say so,” covalent bonds guy – Jerry – says, and then there’s a rustle and the scrunch of sand underfoot, and his voice coming up behind her. “Perfect night for a little oh holy fuck that’s cold.”

Beth can’t help but smile as he dances back along the beach, away from the surf, like the soles of his feet have been burned. “I tried to warn you.”

“What are you, a polar bear?” Jerry grasps his upper arms, hunching over shivering, his skinny chest glowing pale in the dim starlight.

“Maybe,” Beth says. “I mean, there might be some polar bear DNA in there. I was grown in a lab.”

Jerry stares at her like she’s just grown a second head.

“You’re joking, right,” he says, and Beth just grins. “Ha. Hilarious.”

“Almost as good as your chemistry line,” Beth shoots back.

Jerry lets out a discontented huff, and thankfully, finally, shuts up for a couple of seconds.

“Well, I guess skinny dipping is out,” he says, just when Beth is starting to relax again. “What a beautiful night for stargazing, though.”

“There’s no moon,” Beth agrees.

Jerry nods, and for once, says nothing, looking up instead. There’s something a little wistful in his expression, and Beth catches herself thinking that he’s not actually bad-looking, as generic teenage boys go.

“Don’t nights like this just make you want to be in love?” he asks, without looking at Beth, and if he gets any more blatantly sappy Beth’s going to drown him.

“Most of those stars died trillions of years ago,” she says, maybe a little less sharp than she intended, because Jerry looks at her and smiles.

“Not for us, they didn’t,” he says, and holds out a hand in Beth’s direction.

There’s smoke on the salt breeze and the distant sounds of laughter. Overhead, the stars glitter cold through the atmosphere.

Oh, what the hell, Beth thinks, and starts to wade up out of the surf. What’s the worst that could happen?

…

Your daughter’s asleep, her tiny chest rising and falling peacefully, her little fat baby face wrinkled up in a frown. She hiccups loudly as you turn to leave the nursery, and you freeze, holding your breath. She doesn’t cry, though, just looks through you with those enormous eyes that you’re biologically programmed to find adorable, before blinking them closed again and turning her face away. Her tiny thumb finds its way into her tiny mouth, and then she’s fast asleep again.

You exhale, and try not to trip over anything as you creep back out of the room.

The lamp on the bedside table on your wife’s side is lit, but she’s passed out with her face smooshed into the pillow, a book half-sliding out of her grip. You think about taking it from her and putting it on the bedside table, decide against it. You’d only wake her up.

You strip, as quietly as you can, and only stub your toe on the nightstand once before turning out her light and falling into bed beside her. The dark and the quiet settle down on you like six feet of black earth, thick and suffocating.

Your last conscious thought is that love’s a little like cocaine. Even when you know it’s killing you, you still can’t quit.

#this is mary's fic tag #rick and morty #one day I'll finish a published WIP; but this is not that day

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goldronin · 7 years

Text

Shortcuts

So I’m back. The First 5 Year story arc is done, and we’re rolling right along into the next arc. I’ll be getting back to actual props soon, but in the meantime, I want to take a moment to talk about a few shortcuts.

When you’re dealing with fast deadlines, you’re inevitably going to come up against some walls you can’t get around without doing things ‘not quite right’. You can’t reason with a too-short deadline. You can’t reason with weather, or shipping times. You have to make do with limited space if you live in an apartment.

A lot of this can be managed with good planning - Start projects as early as possible. Order your materials ASAP or keep them stocked. Know your local suppliers, and which online suppliers will be able to deliver on short notice without you paying out the nose for shipping (we use Amazon Prime, and if I am on a tight deadline I’ll keep my Ebay search parameters to sellers within 100 miles of me, though that can be risky). Check weather reports, find friends with a garage or basement you can borrow for crafting in so you don’t have to breathe fumes or particulate in your home.

**** The following notes are from my own experience, specifically for LARP props (mostly EVA foam ones) that can be less than perfect. YMMV. If you’re making something for sale or for a customer, or something you want to last a good long while, I really suggest doing things as ‘right’ as possible. ****

CUTTING AND SANDING - How neat do you want it?

The Right Way: For clean foam work, there is really nothing that beats a sharp knife and sanding tools to make that surface perfect (OK, -maybe- a laser cutter). The Problem: Sanding foam throws up a ton of non-friendly dust, and if you’re stuck indoors and don’t have a dedicated workroom this can be a huge pain. It’s also going to take time to get it to look right... which is fine.... if you have that time. The Shortcut: I don’t sand. There are cases where a design might require it, but I design to avoid those. For thin and medium foam, I will sometimes use scissors for cutting. I will not, however, skimp on a sharp knife for thick foam. A few seconds every 3 cuts or so with a sharpening tool is entirely worth it. Consequences: Potentially ragged seams if you don’t cut well. You’ll have to make sure your angles are right ahead of time.

GLUE - Grab fast, Stick well.

The Right Way: Arguably, contact cement is one of the better adhesives for foam work. You get a crisp looking seam and consistent adhesion between the surfaces you are gluing, right to the edges. The Problem: But, oh, those fumes, and that 10-15 minute dry time (which can be reduced slightly with heat), and that sticky mess if you’re not careful. Meanwhile, super-glue sticks like heck at first, but can snap off or eat away at your materials or paint. The Shortcut: My go-to for foam has always been hot glue. It sticks as quickly as superglue and has no fumes. Adhesion doesn’t seem to be a problem - if your glue is sufficiently hot when applied you’re more likely to rip the foam than to get the glue to let go, particularly if you score the two surfaces with a knife before gluing (like with pottery). I haven’t had anything come unstuck in hot weather. Consequences: Again, your seams will probably not be pretty, and you have to be careful with thin craft foam because the hot glue is hot enough to deform it, leaving lumps where you applied the glue.

COATING - A step you can skip entirely.

The Right Way: Much debate is had over what base coating is best for foam. Plastidip and rubberized coatings are a go-to for many (again, an issue with fumes being toxic, and 'dip is fickle when it comes to weather), and some still use layers of wood glue or mod podge (I don’t recommend these, they are time consuming to apply and tend to crack or crease badly). The Problem: This is another coat, or coats, of something you need to have the correct weather for and time you can spend waiting for it to dry. Is it worth it? The Shortcut: For LARP NPC costuming, my favorite coating is none. Heat-seal the foam, and paint that sucker up. Don’t bother with a top coat, either. Consequences: Your paint job will possibly crack (more likely if you coat it heavily with paint) and scuff more easily.

To be fair, this armor took a serious beating over the course of a year.

PAINT - As fast as you can?

The Right Way: Use plastic-friendly, indoor/outdoor spraypaint/primer combos, of the same brand, follow instructions regarding coating times, weather conditions, and dry times. Don’t paint indoors. The Problem: Uncooperative weather conditions, lack of time, limited materials. The Shortcut: Yes, you can paint in any weather conditions. Yes, you can mix brands or use paints without primer or plastic adhesion. Yes, if your event is tonight, you can paint it now and be okay. (No, do not do this in your apartment. You will regret it.) Consequences: Your surface finish will not be perfect. If it’s humid in your garage, or raining outside, you’re going to end up with paint that will run or stipple. If it’s very cold, the paint may bead and run. Use a heater or fan to help reduce the extremes, or at least wait until it isn’t raining. Mixing brands? Be aware not all brands like each other, and may react to each other in an undesirable way. Non-Plastic and Non-Primer paints will work okay, but will not coat your prop as well. Not enough dry time according to the label? If you have given it at least the minimum “to handle” time, it should be okay. Your project will smell strongly of paint and might be mildly sticky. Additional: If I can skip painting, or reduce it to something I can do by hand with acrylic paint, I will. I try to use foam that is the final color I want, or close to it. Even if you are painting, having a base foam that is gray or black is preferable in most cases, so no ‘funky’ colors show through at the edges, seams, or anyplace the paint gets damaged.

Rainy weather and humidity combined with a rush paint job caused this paint to run and pool at the bottom of the foam.

Again, these shortcuts may or may not work out for you. Test them, consider what you are willing to sacrifice in terms of quality in exchange for the ability to finish your project on time, or to get a few more hours to work on other things... like getting a reasonable amount of sleep.

#larp #larp props #doomsday larp #larp costume #crafts #EVA Foam

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stevedonnellyfaith-blog · 5 years

Text

A Visit to Pam (Post 97) 7-15-15

Natalie still gets the giggles whenever she thinks about the incident. Let me explain. Because I usually have to be out of the house so early in the morning for work, I am pretty meticulous about preparing my clothes for the next day before I jump into bed. Saturday night was no exception. We were staying overnight in a Maryland hotel and didn’t have to be at my in-law’s house until 10:30 Sunday morning to join the caravan to Mass, but I still had my two little piles of folded garments ready to go, when I received the auto-voice reveille from the Best Western BWI front desk.

That morning, for some reason, my socks were giving me trouble. After my workout, one of them seemed to be playing hide and seek with me, as I moved the second pile into position in the bathroom for my after shower adornment. After shuffling through my stack of garments for the third time, I finally retraced my steps back to my suitcase and found the sock about half way back up my back trail. Without further incident, I took my shower with my now recovered pair of socks at the ready atop my belt and shoes. Clothed but unshod, I woke Stephen and Natalie and began raking together our belongings into neat piles ready to be stuffed back into the appropriate piece of luggage for the haul to the checkout transaction. Worried about the schedule, I chivied my two roommates out the door, with orders to wait for me at breakfast while I began the full final cram of the pack up.

With everything in the bags, I went to recover the final essentials of my outfit in eager anticipation of my own turn in the buffet line. To me extreme aggravation, I discovered that now both my socks had left their perch on my shoe and belt pile and eloped to parts unknown. I checked under everything in the room and began to seriously consider unzipping one or two of the soft luggage pieces into which I had power stuffed everything from my rake up. I figured the dirty clothes bag was the more likely candidate and was busy size up the operation. Would some kind of head gear be advisable to protect me from the likely concussive force that would surely be unleashed like the boxing glove on a spring that knocks Wylie Coyote in the face at least once in each episode of The Roadrunner? Instead, choosing the cowards path, I just donned my shoes without socks. Not very stylish, but I supposed that I might pretend they were sandals for the two hours until Mass was completed and I was able to switch into shorts and a tee-shirt at Pam’s parents’ house for the drive back to Ohio,

About then Natalie and Stephen marched back into our room, saying that all the seating was full downstairs and that the line was too long anyway. Irritated by their lack of commitment to the concept of free breakfast, I prepared to invoke the ancient Donnelly tradition to rally my family back to the abandoned buffet. I implored both of them to perform an immediate about face. Then a non sequitur idea struck me full in the forehead.

I ordered Stephen to pull up one pant leg. I discovered that he was wearing a pair of socks that was suspiciously of the white variety. I had purposely packed him only black socks for the trip. The only pair of white socks available would have had to have come off my prepared pile. I had caught the felon with the goods on his person, quite literally.

Now came the difficulty of solving the equation that would result in my having a shovel-ready Styrofoam plate of eggs and sausage in front of me with the least possible expenditure of time and hassle. Rather than go through the trouble of swapping, I told Stephen to retrieve and surrender the pair of clean black socks I had packed for his use this Sunday morning. He procured and prepared to deliver the required merchandise, but then noticed that I was in the process of removing my shoes. In obvious consternation, he looked at my with an expression that was a Fro-Yo mix of confusion and offense. His very visage asked, “Why would anyone use someone else’s socks?”

As I stood idly contemplating a suitably painful end for the life of my oldest my son, I must have had a silly look on my face because Natalie erupted in a giggling fit that relieved the tension of the moment. For the rest of the day she breathlessly described the scene for each new audience while repeatedly interrupting herself with impromptu peals of laughter. Because she had no idea what led up to the great sock standoff, her story left everyone who heard it very confused as to what the little girl thought was so outrageously funny.

Other than the sock theft, we had a good visit. It was the first time that I have been back to Maryland since Pam’s funeral. Abby, Nick and Natalie made a short visit in June, but, for the most part, we have been very busy getting our life restarted here in Ohio. Work has mostly devoured my time since Stephen and I arrived. Nicholas and Abby have both been busy as well. Nicholas was working for some family friends that sell and distribute fireworks, kind of a dream job for him. Abby started a chemistry class with a full lab during the short summer session at a local community college within days of her arrival. She is also occupied with some office assignments at my sister-in-law’s dentistry practice. Summer vacation has been a Barbie-fest for Natalie as she has a willing best friend with similar interests living right across the street. Stephen and I also made our trip to Gettysburg last week. Summer is flying by.

So it took a while for me to meander back to Maryland where my marriage and family life began long ago under a bridge of swords and a shower of rice. My in-laws still live in the same house where I visited each weekend during my trips back from Rhode Island as Pam and I were completing our wedding preparations. The basement at 5110 Kramme Avenue in Baltimore became like an apartment to me over those several months. The Zauggs have made many improvements to the house in the quarter century since I was courting their daughter, but the basement is mostly used for storage now. They had a flood in their cellar several years ago and had to remove the carpeting. The odd mix of old and new in the basement mesmerized me for a good while on one of my forays downstairs to use the less popular of the two household bathrooms.

I stood there in the dark downstairs for several minutes while staring at the position on the back side of the staircase where a desk used to sit on which Pam and I used to assembly 1000 piece puzzles when we weren’t arguing about whether a cream or white color was more suitable for invitations. The desk wasn’t there anymore. I was disappointed. I wanted to the place as it was at the very second when Pam discovered the case with an engagement ring on the floor under the desk. Slyly I had asked her to pick up a non-existent puzzle piece that I didn’t really think I had dropped by her foot. She was delighted with the simple diamond and band and said yes to my proposal. I expected she would; Pam had dropped plenty of hints that our relationship had reached ring-time.

It was sad to be in the dark basement staring at the place where missing furniture had once sat. Things change and joy passes. After a while I ascended the stairs again having not found the wardrobe back into Narnia for which my subconscious had scanned my former living area. As I climbed I waved a silent goodbye to an old friend, the dated green couch that had accommodated me each weekend for those eight happy months an impossible tunnel ride back twenty-six years into the past.

That odd spiritually amputated feeling seems to be my lot in life, most of the time, since losing my bride to cancer two and a half years ago. Now back in Ohio, I drive around the streets of my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood with vague feelings of unrest, half recognizing houses to which I think I used to deliver newspapers on wintry mornings for customers long since moved. Mostly my memories are vague unscratchable itches. Houses have been painted, trees have grown, businesses have changed hands, buildings have been erected, and eighth grade classmates are receiving AARP cards in the mail. The venues of my youth no longer match the photographs that I find in the albums that my mother keeps in the sea chest coffee table in her living room.

I think that the scattered condition of my memories is a natural process which has been accentuated by the fact that our family has moved around way too much. The effect of all the moving coupled with Pam’s death is that the figurative pieces of my love for her has been scattered about the country with as if shot from a pneumatic stadium tee-shirt mortar. For instance, Nicholas and Abby drove miles out of the way to swing by our former house in Fort Wayne, Indiana on their way back across America. I would never have done that, as the closed front door would have been needlessly anguishing like a diabetic peering in to the window of an ice cream parlor or an old man returning to the scene of his engagement.

An admission: on my weekly drive to Mass I do travel mildly out of my way to pass by the house in which I resided from age five until my matriculation to USNA. There is always a part of me that wants to stop, knock on the door and ask to search the premises for the missing pieces of myself. I know that I wouldn’t find them no matter how long I looked. I also know that I would never knock on the door, because all I would find would be a house of other people’s stuff, while if I choose to just ride on by, my memory can remain vague but whole like a cheap snow globe of my childhood.

My life has become a little like one of the partially finished puzzles that Pam and I used to work assembling to pass our time while we waited to begin our life together in earnest. I think it is the same for everyone; some people may have done a better job of keeping track of their pieces, but by the time you reach fifty there will certainly be some permanently missing ones. Natalie’s puzzle was thoroughly scrambled at the age of seven and her pieces have been tossed about throughout the last three years. I expect that she will be eventually assemble a gloriously beautiful landscape as she progresses through adulthood towards the later period of her life when the pieces of her life begin to slide off the edge of the table for her again,

Certainly, we are not the only family that has suffered loss. As I drive my meandering path through the neighborhood where I grew up, I sometimes think about the other families that lived in this or that faculty house and when they departed for retirement or different schools over the nearly five decades of my father’s tenure at Western Reserve Academy. Two former faculty members died over Father’s Day weekend. Another faculty wife suffered a massive stroke in the last couple of weeks. She is unlikely to recover. I’m sure that many of the men and women with whom I grew up with also feel like their life’s pieces are begin removed and lost.

For me, my expectation is that I won’t be able to reassemble a complete and coherent life in this world. When I sat at the little desk with Pam, I was in the process of building my life. As I type from the guest room of my father’s house, I understand that time will slowly erode what I had thought I had put together so firmly. While I am no longer hope for wholeness on Earth, I do hold a guarantee that the pieces I am now missing will be restored in the many rooms of My Father’s house in the world to come. I’m not sure what that really means at this point. Will the little puzzle desk be present in the basement of my apartment in the new Jerusalem? I have no inkling, no expectation of knowing, and really I just trust in Jesus’ promise that I will be whole again. So I move forward to the best of my ability, assembling a new corner of the mosaic of my new life as the trailing edges of my old life seems to fall away into eternity.

#God #Jesus #The Holy Spirit #The Virgin Mary #grace #hope #faith #love #bereavement #joy #change #engagement #USNA #memories

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sanctferum · 7 years

Text

Dangan Ronpa V3: Chapter 4. Let’s see what bullshit we got this time.

A few days ago…a video is being watched by someone. A video from Rantaro Amami, TO Rantaro Amami. Is this how he knew about the Ultimate Hunt? He made a video before repressing his memories?

We skip over the important stuff via static. We’re at the end of the video now.

The killing game will continue until only 2 people are left. The important part of that regulation is, static again.

And one other thing…this isn’t Rantaro’s first, more static. First killing game, perhaps?

Anyone who finds out Rantaro’s true identity will come for him…so trust no one. And don’t forget…static.

Rantaro wanted the killing game to happen…but why?

No matter what, Rantaro had to win. But he didn’t. He died…the first one to die.

Chapter 4: Live And Let The Languid World Live

What does languid mean? According to the dictionary, slow, tired, exhausted. Is that it? Did the world die of exhaustion? What?

And if Rantaro’s pre-memory wipe self wanted the killing game to happen…what does that mean? Having lost his memory, he must have watched this video and found out the truth. Does that mean he was the one working with the mastermind, the one who used the hidden bookcase door? He definitely couldn’t have been the mastermind himself, but…maybe Kaede killing him off wasn’t such an awful thing after all. Maybe.

Rantaro’s talent is connected to the truth. But we still haven’t found his lab, or anything to indicate what his talent was.

We also have not found Shuichi, Kaito, Tsumugi, Kokichi, or Keebo’s labs yet. So there’s six undiscovered labs.

Well, I’m gonna make a list of who will live and who will die, in all likelihood. I say: Shuichi, Maki, Gonta, Himiko, and Tsumugi have a good chance of surviving. Keebo, Kaito, and Kokichi, not so much, but it’s possible Kokichi will survive. Miu I’m not sure about, possibly switch her with Tsumugi or Himiko.

Out of my original guesses...only Maki and Gonta are still alive. Shuichi, who I predicted would be the first one to die, is most likely gonna survive until the end. After Kaede, I’m not willing to say anything like that with certainty, though.

Let’s continue, then!

It’s the morning after the class trial. Everyone seems very moody, what with yesterday’s 3 deaths. Gonta isn’t here, so I’m guessing he’s out looking at the graffiti to see if anything new is there.

Kaito and Kokichi seems to be in higher spirits than the rest. I do think Kaito’s situation, whatever it might be, will come to a head in this chapter.

Everyone is gloomy, but then, someone says something.

“Heeey! You guys have no energy! You need to look alive! You’re all still teenagers!”

I mean, it’s true, but coming from Himiko, being called energyless is a bit…

Oh wow, she really meant it when she said she wasn’t gonna say things were a pain anymore. She’s fired up, for the first time in the game!

Miu keeps groaning. She sounds annoyed at something…at least, it sounds more like that than anything sexual.

Himiko has to keep moving forward, or else the dead, including Tenko and Angie, won’t be able to rest in peace. Time for a new Himiko, one who lives life positively! She’s using up a lot of energy doing so, though. She’s already out of breath from her proclamation.

Kokichi is still viewing this as a killing game, so I gotta keep my eye on him.

Gonta bursts into the dining hall just as Kaito is about to yell at Kokichi. Lemme guess, more grafitti appeared.

“The_s wor_d _s __ine O_ic___ma”

This world is…something something.

Maki plans to just ignore it, but…I’ve had many suspicions about “this world” and “new world” for quite some time.

Maki still hasn’t gotten over her habit of saying “Do you want to die?” to stuff she doesn’t want to hear.

The only one who could have written it and then conveniently found it is Gonta, and I believe him when he says he didn’t. This isn’t being written by any of the Ultimates.

There isn’t much we can do with it for now. Not till more writing appears.

Gonta might still be a gullible guy, but he’s at least wised up to Kokichi’s trickery.

Monokuma shows up, likely to get the Kubs to give us new items. With only two Kubs left, there should be two items, one of which will likely be used on the wall scroll on the 4th floor.

The Kubs come, but it’s a lot less lively with only two. And they’re bickering and bullying each other. Monophanie whacks Monotaro over the head with a frying pan, causing various amusing personality changes to occur.

Kokichi just wants the reward already. He’s way too into this. He’s the only one left who wants there to be a killing game…so I gotta keep that in mind.

A levistone, an octobrush, and a card key. The brush should go to the wall scroll, and the levistone…I have no idea. We don’t have an airship, after all. As for the card key…well, I only know one place, behind a certain bookshelf, that can be opened with a card key.

Oh good, the card key is the motive too. Definitely related to the bookshelf then.

What motive lies behind the Monokuma door, though?

Keebo says that in that case, they won’t use the card key. Kokichi grabs the card key and declares that he wouldn’t mind if another murder happened. This is a game, and games are meant to be played.

Kokichi leaves with the card, and Kaito runs after him. After they leave, Monokuma mentions the flashback light being hidden somewhere, and he leaves. The Kubs do so as well.

So, seven people to search for Kokichi, while Shuichi alone looks through the new areas. And Kaito’s chasing after Kokichi as well, on his own. We can’t go to the library in the basement, since there’s no mysterious objects there. We also can’t tell the others where to wait for Kokichi to inevitably come to. Oh well.

The octobrush automatically paints the scroll, revealing the stairs to the fifth floor. Hoo boy.

The fifth floor is like a middle age chapel, but with two Monokuma statues representing god and the devil. Tsumugi is concerned by a strange door. Is this…her lab?

Inside what is indeed the Ultimate Cosplayer’s Lab, there is…a sewing machine, work tables, two filming set for photoshoots (one with elaborate abckgrounds), and a third set, a replica of a bar.

The drinks here are real. Tsumugi mentions she used to make cocktails at her part-time job. Which was what? Do tell.

Whatever these part-time jobs were (it sounds like it wasn’t just one), Tsumugi would turn on the charm at these and ask for help with her financial troubles. Then she got sponsors and didn’t need to do that anymore, I guess.

Tsumugi makes us a cocktail (virgin, on the rocks). Nice!

Tsumugi likes her lab, but doing cosplay by herself isn’t fun. So she invites Shuichi to cosplay with her. We have no option to decline, but we manage to delay it till after the investigation of the new areas is done.

Maki is near the other side of the floor, musing on how the floor is basically a Monokuma chapel. Considering what the killing game has done to people’s beliefs in God, Atua or otherwise, this feels like a sick joke.

There’s two rooms at the end of the hall. One of them is clearly an Ultimate Research Lab. Turns out, it’s ours. The Ultimate Detective Lab…it’s about damn time.

Something about the lab is giving Maki a bad feeling…

Maki is a better detective than the Ultimate Detective. We need to step up our game.

The lab feels made for like, Sherlock Holmes or someone. Not a high school detective like us.

A bookshelf containing 50 or so files. Each one containing photographs of murder scenes, and descriptions of the murders. Someone could easily take a look at these for inspiration as to what tricks to use in a murder. But with each trick detailed in the file, there’s an explanation as to how it was carried out. And with everyone able to check these files, any trick taken directly from them would be easily solveable.

This file doesn’t have photographs. Just drawn illustrations? The older files all have illustrations, and the newer ones have photographs. Odd. It’s like they aren’t real cases.

And on the other shelf, there are chemicals. Most likely poisons.

We could pour em all down the drain, but nothing’s stopping Monokuma from restocking em once we leave.

The poisons in here are varied. Some cause instant death, some inflict various symptoms.

This is awfully strange. All the other labs were tailor-made to suit the needs of the Ultimates. But Shuichi’s lab doesn’t feel like a detective’s lab. It feels like a criminal’s lab. Hmmm.

Everything in here is related to one common theme: death. A detective can find out what killed someone, but they’re useless if nothing has happened yet. Conversely, they can’t save anyone. They become useful only when it’s already too late…

Kaito randomly shows up to encourage Shuichi. Maki has a warning, though. Shuichi has been the one solving these cases, as the Ultimate Detective. If someone wants to stand a good chance of escaping, one thing they could do is choose a victim who would otherwise be able to reveal the truth. Anyone looking to become the blackened could very well try and kill Shuichi.

Kaito pledges to protect Shuichi and Mako both. Even when Maki says she could potentially be a future blackened, Kaito immediately dismisses the possibility. Because he believes in us.

Kokichi escaped Kaito and is currently…somewhere. Where could that be, though?

Kaito did find something in his search – the flashback light. We’ll meet later on to use it, Maki included this time. If Kokichi doesn’t show up to use it with us, he’ll just have to deal with not having the relevant memories.

As for the other door in this hall, it’s a grand one, with a big ‘ol old-fashioned keyhole. We must get the key next chapter, right?

Nothing else on this floor. To the dining hall, to maybe get a hint on where to use the levistone, and to look at the flashback light. Actually, let’s see if the levistone works on the Othello door first. Nope…and we can’t go to the dining hall till we find out what the levistone unlocks. It’s gotta be something outside…

Monokuma originally said this whole place was built for us…we still don’t know this place’s true nature.

Himiko is teaching herself how to make facial expressions. Gonta still keeps occasionally seeing that tiny bug. Miu’s glad that no one’s talking about Atua anymore, and is shit-talking Angie.

Keebo couldn’t find Kokichi, and he thinks Shuichi’s comments on the matter are robophobic.

An object with an indentation that wasn’t here before. HMMMM.

After we put the stone in the indentation, the stone starts to levitate, shoots up towards the End Wall, and a building comes crashing down onto Miu’s lab, combining with it into a bigger building. Weird. Could this be Keebo’s lab? Why is it in such close proximity to Miu’s? Is it because she’s the Ultimate Inventor and he’s basically the Ultimate Invention?

Woah, this lab looks so cool. There’s nothing we can investigate in here beside the monitor, and nothing we can shoot. Dammit.

Upgrade parts for Keebo? Well, sounds good to me, except I don’t trust Miu to not make the new functions pervy in some way.

Keebo doesn’t like sci-fi technology (uh-huh. Got some bad news for you, buddy.) and does not like his lab at all.

Shuichi’s lab is perfect for a detective, and Keebo’s lab is perfect for a robot…but a generic detective or robot. Were the two labs not made for Shuichi and Keebo specifically?

Keebo would prefer a more Japanese-themed lab, since that’s his favorite type of food. Too bad he can’t actually eat! But he appreciates the aesthetics of it.

Keebo’s image of a perfect lab includes kimonos, and a porch with wind chimes. OK. Guess this lab is free for anyone to use, since Keebo isn’t gonna use it.

Everyone gathers in the dining hall to use the light. Except Kokichi. Well, too bad for him, then.

He might be in a place we didn’t look, because we couldn’t. Whatever the card key unlocks. Hey, anyone wanna take a guess what that could be? Such as, secret bookcase door?

Tsumugi’s a bit worried about the flashback lights, but if we don’t use them, how will we regain our memories and learn more clues?

Miu calls Himiko fish dicks. Himiko mishears it as fish sticks. Before the two of them can get into a spat, a familiar voice rings out…hello Kokichi.

Kokichi claims he couldn’t use the card key. After all, he had no idea where to use it. You little liar, you know exactly where that goes.

Kokichi baits Kaito into turning on the light. Which he was gonna do anyways, but now we have no loverage over Kokichi…dammit.

The light restores our memories of the world. The world, with meteorites raining down on it from above. With rioters and looters in the streets and everyone panicking as the end draws near.

A researcher said that similar meteorite impacts happened millions of years ago, destroying all life on Earth.

And within that chaos, strange groups started forming. Groups claiming that mankind deserved their imminent destruction. Cults.

But since we got here, not a single meteorite has been seen.

There was a plan, too. A plan to try and save the world…the Gofer Project. All countries banded together, but it failed.

As for why it failed…we’re once again at a loss. We don’t know what exactly the project was, why it failed…there’s no clues about the Ultimate Hunt, either.

Miu starts to freak out. Mankind deserves damnation? Living in this academy, forced to kill each other…the Ultimates are already damned. This is a hell of its own. And she wants out.

Everything will probably start to connect after the next flashback light. But that means someone becoming a blackened…

Kokichi wouldn’t be surprised if the explanation for all this was that everyone was already dead, and the Ultimate Academy is the afterlife. My theory about the situation seems to be something that’s possible. If this is all a computer simulation, and we’re AIs created from the memories of the real deals…programs that don’t know we’re programs (except for Keebo, who I guess would be a double program)…if that’s the case, we could make sense of a lot of things. The only thing about this is how it would differentiate itself from Dangan Ronpa 2…other than there being no physical bodies to return to.

Also, the V in V3 would have to stand for virtual, right?

If anything is possible, then everything is possible. If meteorites can happen, us being already dead could happen too. A mysterious space virus, or some weird technology, or some unknown substance brought to Earth, capable of bending time and space…

Perhaps Kokichi’s just using his vivid imagination. But on the other hand, the flashback lights, the Exisals, Monokuma and his Kubs…none of that makes any sense either, so aren’t all “common sense” theories out the window?

Gonta put the manhole cover back next to the manhole and removed the boulders. But there’s no way we can get through the Death Road with only nine people…

We head back to our rooms for the time being…

*Silver the Hedgehog voice* IT’S NO USE

Yes, I’m gonna type that every time that particular Shuichi voice line gets used.

Free time. Let’s check out the casino first.

All the minigames have normal mode unlocked! Before it was just easy that was available.

Next, to the library! Where we don’t seem to realize what the card key could unlock, no matter how much we click on the bookcase. Ugh.

Well, Free Time with someone, then. Next time!

#Dangan Ronpa #Dangan Ronpa V3 #Danganronpa V3

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