#and tomorrow is a chapter day for the wings ai!!

[bookwyrminspiration]

Mat gets all my love and kindness!! I will never understand how he does the things that he does /pos

Also I just found out what /lh means!! I was so confused whenever you used it so I finally looked it up and 'Light-hearted' makes so much more sense whatever I was reading it as

I will give Matt all the hug gifs I can find if I ever get into contact with him, and that is a promise

Hahahaha i am in the middle of them if I'm guessing what finals are!! We just have external exams and internal exams, and external exams are the ones at the end of the year so I'm assuming that's what they are. My next exam is on Thursday for English!! I can wait to get it over and done with, I feel like you would enjoy unfamiliar (basically just unpacking the 3 texts given but you don't know what they are before hand), but it does get annoying because to pass you have to identify some techniques in the text, but if you forget about them but kmow they were there, then you fail

You take care of yourself too!!

And yeah, it's totally fine to post them with my blog!! I never figured out how to send in the Anon submission and when I tried it. Didn't have the option. So maybe I'm just in my un observant time but for thhe meantime I'm too lazy to check again and redo the submission because. I don't remember what was in there.

Actually converting time in new Zealand is pretty easy!! We don't really think about the rest of the world unless it's a show/movie coming out in a streaming service so we just take a day off, most of the time it'd be coming out at around midnight anyway

Oh god, I don't think I could deal with even more daylight savings....

Unrelated but I am proud of myself!! I just drew my first passable child!! And it's mermaid!! And it's in a side profile!! I am!! So happy!! It's intended to be my blog header

-Heathen

Okay so please forgive me for not answering this one for a while--I had already confirmed Matt was okay and this seemed like it was veering more into conversational territory so I could put it off and focus on more pressing things in the moment. But now I have the time!!

Yes, Matt gets all the love! He's incredible and I love being friends and talking to him (though I forget to respond to messages a lot, but he's patient). And such a creative mind!! All the au's and the ways he thinks about characters and does something new with them in all the stories and writings...immaculate!! Show stopping!

also congrats on discovering that specific tone indicator! I use them fairly often, but mostly the common ones (/j /s /lh and /gen) though I do occasionally venture into other tone tags as needed. I try not to overuse them though, so you may see older posts that have tone tags in unnecessary places because I was playing around with when I liked to use them.

I don't think I've sent Matt a hug gif recently, but now I want to.

Also I hope your exams went well! I've never heard them called internal and external, but either way exams are annoying to take. I don't remember exactly what I had to do for my exams during the time you sent this ask, but I passed all my classes and exams so I don't think it really matters. I might enjoy the unfamiliar exam, or however you would call it, but then again exams and time limits are icky. I usually do fine in English exams, I just overthink things and that's where I get stuff wrong because I create a bigger problem in my head than what it's asking me to answer. I don't have english this semester though! Then again I think I have the SAT this semester and that's. basically a giant english and math test. I haven't even looked at my psat scores yet, even though those were made available on december 6th. I simply am ignoring them until I can't anymore.

also good!! I know i have posted those things in question as of answering it, but thank you for the confirmation. I try to be very careful about posting things people send that aren't on anon, as I never know whether or not it was supposed to be. There are a few people who consistently send me asks off anon, so I'm not worried about them--but for the people who are usually on anon who suddenly aren't I always like to ask, give people other options to protect their identity if they so choose.

As for the anon submission thing, I'm pretty sure I've enabled that. I've sent myself a test on anon and it worked. You need to either be logged out or on incognito in order to do the things you need to to send the submission. it's the same as what you would do visiting my account if you didn't have a tumblr. I know it's possible, but apologies that it's giving you so much trouble.

Interesting that converting time is easier for you! I get so annoyed at converting between time zones because I try and remember off the top of my head but I never know just how many hours to change and in what direction, and then I always doubt my math the entire time. When I attended Shannon's online event I was wound up for like 2 hours before just like "oh fuck oh fuck I hope I mathed the time right." I did and was panicking over nothing, but still!! Anxiety really beat my ass that day--got a lot of information out of it though so it's chill.

I don't remember what the daylight savings conversation was talking about but if it involved more daylight savings I don't want it. I don't like daylight savings at all--either of them!! I don't care if I get an extra hour, because it's the same as the time zone thing and the entire day I'm like "wow sure hope everyone else is doing this daylight savings thing" as if I am somehow the only person in the world who has changed times. I always worry if I got the day wrong despite my phone updating automatically.

Congratulations on the mermaid!! I haven't drawn anything in a while but I distinctly remember that profiles were always really hard. It was just so much easier to do things facing forward or slightly to the side. Everything about profiles changes how you have to approach them, so kudos to you!! I think the profile drawing I'm most proud of is this Marella one which is actually one of my favorites of all time. It's an old one with several elements I'd like to change, but I still love it.

As of answering this I haven't checked to see if the mermaid is your blog header, but if it is then nice!! drawing profiles is always so satisfying when you finally get it to look right

[squishmallow36]

It's all I wish to hear tonight, and you're all I wish to be, and this is how we all fall - Chapter one

Summary: It's the Garvar fic! Wdym you want a summary? It's a retelling of the first chapter of kotlc from Garwin's pov. That's--that's pretty much it. We do have them interact which is pretty nice. There will be more loosely connected chapters to come but I don't know how many or how they'll turn out. Word count: 2730

TW: swearing, drug mention, mentions of kidnappings and murder in relation to the Sophie/Fitz interaction

Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed!): @stellar-lune @gaslight-gaetkeep-gayboss @kamikothe1and0lny @nyxpixels @florida-preposterously @poppinspop @uni-seahorse-572 @solreefs @remember-me-in-another-time @rusted-phone-calls @when-wax-wings-melt @good-old-fashioned-lover-boy7 @dexter-dizzknees @abubble125 @hi-imgrapes @callum-hunt-is-bisexual @xanadaus @callas-pancake-tree @hi-my-name-is-awesome @katniss-elizabeth-chase @arson-anarchy-death. Also @frogs-and-flowers-and-faeries @camelspit you two seemed interested

On AO3 (only to registered users because y'know, AI) or below the cut

   If there’s one thing universally agreed upon by high schoolers, it’s this: field trips are fun. Or at least they should be, in theory. 

    Instead of being locked in a classroom for eight hours a day, you get to go outside, cause some havoc, you know, the usual. 

    Your other teachers end up being nice because you cried to them that between all your classes and this field trip, you need an extra week on that paper that you’ve had assigned for three months and you haven’t started and is due tomorrow for a reason. 

    And, most of the time, as an extra bonus, you learn absolute jack shit. 

    The only problem arises when the teacher that is taking you on the trip seems to forget that part and forces you to actually pay attention with the threat of a quiz, and knowing him, he’s going to make it absolutely horrendous. 

    Yes, dinosaurs are badass but having to listen to your teacher read the plaques out loud makes gouging your eyes out seem like a good course of action. 

    Are we completely sure the teachers here have a 100 percent literacy rate? Garwin wonders, rolling his eyes as Sweeney struggles through another scientific name. I mean, knowing this school system, it would not surprise me. 

    There’s a couple of nerds taking notes but honestly there’s no chance. If there is a quiz, it’ll be the type of thing that’s “What year, exactly, did the cretaceous era end?” And the multiple choice options will all be around that 66 million years ago mark ingrained in everyone’s soul but you have to remember that science was able to determine the meteor fell on a Thursday and from that you have to extrapolate what the date would have been. 

    Can a meteor fall on us this today Thursday? That’d be great. No more AP exams.  

    And yeah, AP classes are supposed to have a curve, but with that little photographic memory of Dophie’s only half paying attention and half listening to MCR so loud it can be heard from three miles away, she’s gonna get a perfect score. 

    Case in point: Sweeney finally hears Gerard screaming and catches onto the fact that Sophie is completely ignoring his existence, per usual. 

    “Miss Foster!” He yanks her earbuds out by the cords. “Have you decided that you’re too smart to pay attention to this information?”

    Well, she can probably legit get a zero on the final and still carry a 93 in the class. So I’d probably say the answer is yes. I think we all know that little smartass corrects Sweeney on a daily basis. 

    Between the typos and the shit he gets plain wrong, it was entertaining to see him flounder at the beginning of the year, but at this point she doesn’t seem to grasp the idea that everyone’s given up on the lost cause of a man. 

    This entire class has all had to suffer through more school than she’s been alive. Other than the dumbass sophomores in the class. But it wouldn’t be surprising to find out they were smoking weed in the back of class for a “science experiment.” 

    Ah, the things you can get away with in AP Enviro Science and a teacher that doesn’t care. Except about the toddler in his class who listens to music but hey. Maybe he’s insecure because he’s stupid and he has to maintain control over some aspect of his life.  

    Sophie mumbles something, denying it as she attempts to retract into her shell like a turtle. Unfortunately, humans don’t usually come with a shell, so she isn’t very successful. 

    “Then perhaps you can explain why you were listening to your iPod instead of following along?” Sweeney dangles the headphones in front of her as she rips out an eyelash. 

     Now, Garwin may have only gotten a 2 on the AP Psych exam last year because he only paid attention half the time because those daily quizzes were ass, but that doesn’t seem like the healthiest of coping mechanisms. 

    Sophie simply stares at the ground to pretend like Sweeney isn’t harassing her. 

    “Since you’ve decided you’re above this lecture, why don’t you give it?” Sweeney asks, gesturing to the definitely-accurate reconstruction of an orange hadrosaur. “Explain to the class how the Lambeosaurus differs from the other dinosaurs we’ve studied.”

    You see, one of these was the Pteranodon family’s neighbor on Dinosaur Train. Larry Lambeosaurus was an endless pit that never seemed to fill with food, much like the average teenager. Unlike the average teenager, however, this may have something to do with his diet of tree and its caloric density, or lack thereof. 

    Instead of listening to Sophie rattle off dinosaur facts learned from a lifetime of being a fucking nerd, Garwin chooses to look at literally anything else for some scrap of entertainment. 

    Like, for example, the Albertosaurus. And imagining it coming to life and eating everybody à la Jurassic Park. That would be fun. 

    Sweeney gets increasingly pissed off as she keeps going. He really should’ve learned long ago to not challenge her ‘cause it ain’t gonna go well for him. He mutters something under his breath, and turns to go to the next increasingly stupid dinosaur. 

    Actually, Garwin takes that back. The dinosaurs themselves aren’t stupid. It’s the whole idea of having to get dragged to a place to forcefully learn about them instead of actually studying for the AP exam in less than two weeks. Not that he actually cares about that though. 

    “Nice job, superfreak,” he says to Sophie as she stands helplessly in the middle of the walkway. He pushes past her in an effort to appear engaged enough to not get another detention. “Maybe they'll write another article about you. 'Child Prodigy Teaches Class About the Lame-o-saurus.’”

    Garwin’s gaze lands on someone reading the newspaper with Sophie’s face plastered across it. Yeah, the guy’s kinda cute with dark hair and teal eyes flicking up at Sophie ever so often…but, like, he’s probably freshman-ish years old and that’s kinda weird in the middle of the school day, not gonna lie. 

    And he isn’t in this class, that’s for sure. So he’s probably ditching. Kind of a dumb move to ditch and then go to a museum but hey. That’s his life choice and it’s not Garwin’s fault it’s stupid. 

    Garwin rolls his eyes as he moves into the next room. The desire to cause large amounts of property damage by climbing up the statues is immense, but, alas, one cannot succumb to temptation. 

    Their resident curvebuster doesn’t follow, and, honestly, that is a choice. Maybe if she gets eaten by a dinosaur or kidnapped with the guy pulling a Ferris Bueller, this class might know peace once again. 

    A not-small part of him could not give less of a shit if she disappears suddenly, and another not-small part of him can’t help but see the advantages. Maybe then we won’t all fail the class. It’s not like San Diego City College is going to miss her. Chances are, she’ll be the same to her unfortunate classmates there. 

    As the group shuffles around a reconstruction of a Triceratops, Sweeney begins droning on and on and on and on about the different types of ceratopsians, and it’s a damn fucking shame the one with three horns became famous instead of, like, the Kosmoceratops. 

    That fucker’s got fifteen horns and it’s common knowledge that an animal’s coolness is exponentially correlated with number of things that it has that can kill you. 

    In order to quell the rising tide of complete and total apathy, Garwin once again begins the search for something--anything--interesting to occupy his time.

    And don’t you know it? There’s a hot guy hiding in a corner trying desperately not to be seen. 

    Between him and the kid reading the newspaper in the other room, something weird is definitely going down. So the obvious course of action is to walk up to the guy and see what’s up. Maybe even flirt a little. As soon as he can escape from Sweeney’s torture chamber, that is. 

    In the meantime, Garwin can still stare at him. He has dark hair gelled to perfection and light blue eyes. His eyelashes are visible from this massive distance away, so they must be super long and therefore super hot. Garwin’s fingers ache to trace his sharp square jaw and his skin is a light tan with a dusting of freckles for good measure. 

    In short, he’s absolutely fucking gorgeous. 

    He’s way too far to be certain, but he kind of does look like newspaper boy…for reasons that are as of right now indescribable other than sheer vibes. 

   And he’s wearing a black batman sweatshirt--a foolish decision on a partially sunny day such as today--that hangs in such a way to suggest he’s got some muscles hiding beneath it. 

    The world would be improved in many ways if that sweatshirt was a little less on.

    Then, suddenly, by some miracle, some grace of god, Sweeney lets them explore for themselves. An argument could be made that he realized that no one was paying attention, but the more likely case is that he got tired of teaching and is now allowing them the slightest sliver of freedom to maximize his own laziness. 

    Garwin floats over to the guy in the corner as nonchalantly as possible as his traitorous heart is doing backflips in his chest. He was tall from a distance, but he’s even taller up close. 

    “Hey,” he says. Hey? Hey? That’s the most creative thing you could come up with? A cheesy pickup line would be better at this point.  

    “Hey yourself.” Guy-in-the-corner says with the slightest hint of a smirk. “I’m Alvar, what’s your name?”

    Garwin is almost too distracted by Alvar’s thick accent--almost British, but somehow crisper--to remember his own name. “I’m Garwin. It’s nice to meet you.”

    “Do you really think they looked like that?” Alvar asks. “The dinosaurs, I mean. It’s a little absurd, isn’t it?” 

    “Would you rather have the nerd answer or do you want the smartass answer?” Garwin replies. 

    “Who says I don’t want both?”

    “Ah. Well then. The nerd answer is that at least some of them should have feathers. They are the ancestors to birds, after all. The fact that none of them do is a little yikes. And as for my other answer, I’m not a paleontologist, but,” Garwin points to a fossilized sauropod…or at least a skeleton of one that may or may not be real, “that one might be a tad bit skinny.”

    Alvar laughs, a glorious sound. His eyes wander away from studying Garwin, focusing out of the room, landing on Sophie fucking Foster. 

    Ah, yes. First she gets into Yale without even trying and now she’s gained the attention of multiple people which depending on the intentions could be really fucking creepy. She’s literally twelve. This is complete and utter bullshit. 

    “Is that the kid on the front of the newspaper today?”

    “Yeah,” Garwin replies bitterly. 

    Alvar makes a thoughtful sound and looks back at Garwin, who has begun leaning against the wall. Yes, there’s a plastic fern between them but you do what you can. 

    “Come on, Fitz. Don’t be a total dumbass,” Alvar whispers as newspaper boy--Fitz--begins to step away from Sophie.  

    A swarm of kindergarteners barreled into the exhibit, nearly knocking both Sophie and Fitz off their feet. They hold their heads in their hands like their brains are physically getting stabbed and when they make eye contact again, Sophie watches Fitz in fear. 

    Why that is, Garwin can’t tell, but there’s something in Alvar’s expression that seems like he suspects something, and Garwin would give anything--except a full ride scholarship to Yale--to know what he does. 

    In the time Garwin spends studying Alvar’s features for clues and getting lost in his eyes, Sophie has magically disappeared. Fitz swears, probably loud enough to be heard all the way at the zoo across the street, as he runs after her. 

    Alvar rolls his eyes. “Life choices. Do I run after my dumbass of a brother or do I leave him be? Decisions, decisions,” he asks himself. 

    What the fuck? 

    Garwin looks back at Alvar to find him already watching him. “Would you like me to go tell Sweeney or just…let her skip class?” And probably get murdered just a little bit. 

    It takes a good few seconds for him to process this request. “Eh, I’m sure he’ll notice sooner or later.”

    Oh my fucking god this guy is fucked up. I don’t like Sophie, but I’d rather she not get kidnapped.

    …Is it bad that he's still hot?

        “Why the fuck are you two harassing Sophie?” The question comes out more forcefully than Garwin intends, but not enough to walk it back. 

    “That is one very long story and I don’t think you’d believe half of it. But let’s see--how simplified can I get this?” He pauses, formulating. “We’ve basically got a switched at birth situation going on here except we don’t exactly know who her actual parents are and well that’s a whole thing that I’d rather not get into right now. Also we don’t know if she’s actually the kid we’re looking for. And by we I mean mostly our dad but he isn’t here right now because he figured it would be less creepy for us to stare at children than he would be. And then Fitzy over there doesn’t know I’m here for extensive and even more complicated reasons. And he wasn’t supposed to interact with her. Problems all around.”

    Garwin considers this explanation for a moment. On the one hand, it leaves him with more questions than answers, and on the other hand, he doesn’t really care enough to ask for further elaboration. 

    “Just don’t murder Sophie. I don’t need to see her on the front cover of the newspapers that should already be obsolete two days in a row,” he decides. 

    Alvar smiles. His teeth are brilliantly white, and it’s ever so slightly crooked in such a perfect way that makes it seem practiced. His cobalt eyes fix Garwin to the spot as they turn toward each other. 

    “And, um, before I go, I do immensely apologize if I’m reading this wrong, but would you like to go out with me sometime?”

    “Why the hell else do you think I wandered over here? Absolutely.” 

    Instead of giving Garwin his phone number like a normal person by writing it on a sticky note or the back of his hand with a sharpie that doesn’t come off for a week or just directly typing it into their phone, Alvar comes equipped with a stack of business cards. 

     And honestly, it’s not even that surprising. Like, yes, he’s only known the guy for a grand total of fifteen minutes, but that tracks with what he knows so far…which isn’t much. But it still counts. Bitch. 

    Garwin smiles. “I’ll call you and set up details when I can look at my calendar and I’m not already busy with club meetings and shit.”

    “Sounds good.” 

    After a short pause, Alvar opens his mouth to say something else, but he’s interrupted by Sweeney’s nasal whining before he gets the chance. 

    Garwin rolls his eyes. “I guess I should get back to the fucked up reality that is the American school system. See you later.” 

    “Bye,”  Alvar replies, smiling. 

    Garwin makes his way back to the class reforming around Sweeney like a slime mold, taking his sweet time to not seem too eager to be going back to the hellhole that is occasionally referred to as a school but not dicking around so much he gets left, as making his way back there himself would be mildly inconvenient. 

    And we can’t have that, now, can we?

    Garwin looks back into the corner to sneak one more glance at the indescribably attractive boy who has for some reason asked him out only to find that he’s nowhere to be found. 

    Was he just a figment of my imagination?

    Garwin checks his back pocket, hissing as the sharp edges of a business card leave him with a paper cut. 

    Guess that solves that mess. 

    Now if only all the world’s problems could be solved so easily, we’d be onto something. 

[ryqoshay]

Tri-Arame: Ne, Wanna Bite?

Primary Pairing Trio: YuuAyuSetsu Words: ~1.8k Rating: G Time Frame: During their 2nd year in high school Story Arc: Stand Alone

Author’s Note: One of my favorite tropes is, and will likely remain, the sharing of food among couples. I’ve included it a handful of times in HL and am pretty sure I’ve done so over in HtHaN as well. If not, I guess I’ll just have to add a scene like that to the queue... though I suppose even if I have, it’s still as good an excuse as any to write more NicoMaki.

In any case, both SIFAS and the Niji anime depict Ayumu and Yuu casually trading bites as if they do so every day, and they probably do, but what might an observer think?

Also, I’ve seen Koppe Pan translated as either bread or buns, so I’ve used at least the latter as an occasional alternate noun for the food, but the actual name is just too fun to say that I couldn’t leave it out entirely.

“Ne, Setsuna-chan!” Yuu called, approaching her friend with Ayumu in tow, holding hands, as per usual. Ever the classic childhood couple. Practice had ended for the day and everyone was slowly filtering out of the clubroom. “Ayumu and I are heading to the mall to do some shopping, wanna come with us?”

“Very much so.” Setsuna confirmed with nod and a smile. “I was actually going there myself because the latest issue has been released for one of my favorite doujinshi series.”

Yuu grinned. “I know, that’s the main reason we wanted to invite you. I’m getting a copy as well.”

“You are?” Setsuna blinked. “You know I would be happy to lend you my copies whenever you desire.”

“Yeah, but after you lent me the first book, I was so hooked, I wanted to add it to my collection as well. Also, if I have my own copy, I don’t have to wait for you to finish reading yours so I can borrow it. We can read it at the same time!”

“Also, it’s easier for me to borrow them.” Ayumu chimed in.

“You are reading it as well, Ayumu-san?” Setsuna felt her heart start to pound with excitement; not just one, but two friends with whom she could talk about the story.

Ayumu smiled somewhat sheepishly. “You and Yuu-chan looked so excited talking about it last time that I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It’s been forever since I last read manga, but I’m glad I did; it’s really good.”

“I know, right?” Setsuna felt like she could jump with joy.

“I’m not quite caught up with you two, though.” Ayumu admitted.

“Oh, what chapter have you reached?”

“42.”

Setsuna nodded. “Very well. No spoilers beyond that point. But what did you two think about the battle with Jhank?”

The three girls chatted away their journey to the mall, dissecting each character development, romantic interest and plot twist. There was a bit of a line at the store, but none of them minded as it gave them that much more time to talk. Setsuna found it was incredibly freeing to be able to talk openly about her interests with others who were similarly interested.

Setsuna had several enjoyable conversations with Kasumi about idols once they were able to reconcile the fact that they viewed them very differently, but that was about where their shared interests ended. Kanata had trouble staying awake and Emma, though a kind listener, had a hard time contributing when she wasn’t nearly as invested. She had established that Rina watched anime but hadn’t had as much opportunity to talk with the reclusive girl. Ai had expressed interest, though Setsuna suspected it was mainly a means to get closer to Rina. And Karin, though not necessarily disinterested, wasn’t particularly interested either, the same seemed to apply to Shizuku as well.

But Yuu and Ayumu, particularly the former, actively participated in the conversation. They were engaged with the topic and happy to let Setsuna gush about anything and everything. Even when she realized she had been the primary one talking for several minutes and would pause to apologize, one of them would dismiss it and encourage her to continue. It was a wonderful experience, to say the least.

“Ne, are either of you two hungry?” Ayumu asked as the trio left the bookstore.

“I could eat.” Yuu replied. “Shall we get our usual?”

“Sounds good. Do you want to join us, Setsuna-chan?”

“Yes, please, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not.”

“By the way, what is your usual?”

“Koppe Pan!” Yuu said with a smile.

Ah, that made sense. Setsuna remembered regularly seeing the couple eating a variety of the packaged sandwiches in the club room as snacks. And Kasumi had recently taken to providing the two with the results of her experiments as she honed her skills. Kopee Pan really was their usual.

Setsuna watched the other two as they discussed the menu; what they had tried already and what possible specials they looked forward to in the future. However, having never been to this food stand before herself, Setsuna ended up getting the first thing that looked like something she might like.

It must be nice, Setsuna thought to herself a few minutes later, to be so familiar with someone. What does a couple care about sharing indirect kisses in public? She sat in awe as Ayumu even commemorated the occasion by snapping a shot of herself taking a bite of Yuu’s bun. The often-embarrassed redhead didn’t even so much as blush when the twin-tailed girl wiped a bit of filling from her cheek before putting it in her own mouth. Cute. And a bit enviable.

“Ne, Setsuna-chan.” A sandwich entered her field of vision. “Wanna bite?”

“Thank you.” Setsuna responded, accepting the offer.

“Good, isn’t it?” Yuu grinned.

“Indeed.” Setsuna agreed after swallowing. She blinked upon seeing an expectant expression on the other girl’s face. “Oh, here.” She held out her own bun.

“You can also try some of mine if you like, Setsuna-chan.” Ayumu offered.

“Very well.”

Ayumu giggled. ��Geez, you’re just like Yuu-chan.” She reached over to clear something from Setsuna’s cheek and ate it.

“Aww… I was just about to do that.” Yuu pouted.

“Oops, sorry.” Ayumu smiled and stuck out her tongue, looking nowhere near apologetic.

Huh, so Ayumu-san really can tease Yuu-san in return sometimes. Interesting.

The next thing Setsuna knew, Ayumu had slid closer to her and was holding her phone ready. Mimicking Yuu’s actions from a minute ago, Setsuna held up her bun while the other girl leaned down before snapping a shot, then taking a bite.

“Remember to send me those pics.” Yuu said.

“Of course.” Ayumu nodded.

“So, which one was best?” Yuu turned her attention to Setsuna. “Ayumu’s or mine?”

“That is a good question…” Setsuna pondered. “They were both good, however, Yuu-san yours was more like a dessert meant for after a meal while Ayumu-san’s was more like an appetizer to tide one over between meals. Thus, as we have not eaten dinner yet, Ayumu’s was more appropriate.”

Yuu blinked. “But which did you like more?”

“I thought I just explained?”

“She preferred mine, Yuu-chan.” Ayumu clarified. “And that earns her another bite.” She smiled as she held her sandwich out again, earning another pout from Yuu.

“Thank you.” Setsuna accepted again before smiling as Ayumu gave in and allowed Yuu another bite as well. “Although, to be perfectly honest, my own was my favorite of the three.” She admitted. “I thought it might be good because it looked just like the one Akane ordered in Episode 7 of…”

Yuu giggled.

“Eh?”

“That way of choosing what to order is very fitting of you, Setsuna-chan. I love it.”

“O-oh…”

“And sorry for interrupting, what anime was that from?”

And just like that, conversation returned to one of Setsuna’s greatest passions. Ayumu and Yuu expressed interest in the series and Yuu ended up suggesting that they watch it together that night. Unfortunately, as a test was coming up and hanging out at the mall all afternoon had already cut into her studying time, Setsuna had to decline. Thankfully, she was able to agree to a raincheck over the weekend. With that decision made, the three girls parted ways to head home for the evening.

Setsuna glanced at the clock. Her parents should be in bed by now and she should no longer have to worry about them walking in on her unexpectedly. With mounting anticipation, she scurried over to her school bag and retrieved the doujin she had purchased earlier that day.

Given her level of excitement, Yuu had likely already read the chapter as soon as she had arrived home. As such, Setsuna fully expected to be able to discuss things tomorrow with her, being careful of avoiding spoilers for Ayumu, of course.

As she lay down on her bed, memories of the day came back to her. It really had been a lot more fun going as a group instead of sneaking out on her own.

A smile came to Setsuna’s lips as the dark-winged angel’s antics in the story resulted in the light-winged angel becoming flustered and blushing adorably. The two made a cute couple even if they denied being one. They were so familiar with one another, using exclusive nicknames, bathing together, sharing a bed, sharing food…

Sharing food… Indirect kisses…

Wait…

If the doujin had been in color, Setsuna’s cheeks would have matched those of the light-wing angel’s from a few frames back. Back at the mall, she had shared indirect kisses with both Yuu and Ayumu without even realizing it. They had both behaved so naturally with her, just as they did among themselves, that she hadn’t even noticed until now.

Did they behave like that with everyone?

Setsuna scoured her memories of her time with them in the clubroom.

There was one time that Kasumi told them to stop flirting while using her Koppe Pan to do so. This had earned an amused laugh from Yuu and one of Ayumu’s signature blushes, though Setsuna wasn’t sure anyone at the table bought their denial.

But that was about it. As far as Setsuna could tell, the couple kept such things between themselves. Yuu was openly affectionate with just about everyone, but certain things seemed to be reserved for Ayumu. And now Setsuna… maybe?

Setsuna shook her head. She had to be missing something. There was no way… was there?

Yuu had said she loved her. Several times, in fact. But she had dropped the line about as casually as she did with others. There couldn’t possibly be any deeper meaning than that of a close friend or of a fan expressing their adoration for an idol, right? Certainly, that had to be the explanation.

And what of Ayumu? Setsuna had little doubt of the redhead’s feelings toward her childhood friend, which were a major contributor to why she believed the two were a couple. But did Yuu not reciprocate? Was that why Ayumu sometimes behaved the way she did? No, she was pretty sure the two were dating.

So how did any of that explain what happened? What did it mean? Did it even mean anything in the first place? For the life of her, Setsuna couldn’t figure out the situation.

But… if nothing else, Setsuna had to admit that she had liked it. A lot. That feeling of familiarity truly was enviable, especially now that she’d tasted it herself. Literally. Even if she hadn’t recognized it at the time. And she wanted more…

But was that alright? Certainly, such a trope need not apply strictly to romantic genres, right? One could be that familiar with someone while remaining platonic, right? The last thing Setsuna wanted to do was to drive a wedge between two who were so close. But it was at least alright to want to be closer to them, right?

She wanted to see them again. To hang out with them again. To discuss anime with them again. To eat Koppe Pan with them again.

Tomorrow. She would see them again tomorrow. And Yuu would want to talk about the doujin…

With that thought in mind, Setsuna returned her focus to the book in her hands.

Author's Note Continued in Followup Post

[rj019]

Title : Genius, YouTuber, Artist, Musician and Spider-Man

Fandom : MCU

Pairing : Starker(tony stark x peter parker)

Rating : Mature (NSFW, Sexual Content) but it'll be in the later part of the story not in few chapters of starting.

Prompt : Social Media

Read on ao3 here. And Ch 0 here.

Chapter summary:

Avengers finding out things about Spider-Man.

Here's 1st chapter! Enjoy!!!

_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_

CHAPTER 1

Peter went home and just go to sleep after cleaning up and eating something. He doesn't want to worry about anything right now he's really tired. He knows that now probably all eyes are going to be on Spider-Man. He just needs to lay low for a while and people and media will forget about it soon. As for shield he doesn't want to think right now so he went to sleep.

But before he got too deep into sleep his eyes went wide open as he got an idea to take care of shield issue once and for all. He finally relexed and went to sleep happily.

 

____________________________________________

 

The day after ferry incident at Avengers 

 

The Avengers were in the common room area watching news while having breakfast for last day at the tower since tonight the things were gonna moved to the compound. And they were leaving tomorrow morning.

The news was about Spider-Man and the ferry incident that happened yesterday. Suddenly some news reporter said that they got exclusive footage of the ferry incident. Now everyone was curious about it and wanted to see what actually happened there.

Then the footage played. It was shot from the port. They sees as the some guy with metal wings was fighting with Spider-Man. He was trying to escape from his web. It wasn't so clear as it was in distance. Suddenly an energy blast happened and the ferry was split in half.

Everyone was shocked as to what was that blast. Now even Tony was more interested.

The ferry was sinking but it suddenly stopped. Spider-Man had connected both sides strong points with his web.

Bruce said, " How strong are his web to hold that much of weight together?"

Suddenly webs broke and ferry again started sinking. 

Everyone gasps.

But then again it stopped. Spider-Man was holding it together.

"Jesus Christ! How strong is this guy?", Tony said.

But it didn't look like Spider-Man could hold on for a long time but suddenly some bots were seen flying towards the ferry. Some bots were on the left side, some were on the right side of the ferry. They started pushing ferry togather. But some bots were still in the air. As the ferry got together, the bots in the air started mending it together. The clip ended.

Everyone was shocked as to what just happened. Tony asked Friday to get the clip and play it at the bots part. Tony started analysing it. His thoughts were confirmed that the bots were using arc reactor technology. Tony was in speechless for a while. 

"Who is this spider guy? How does he have my arc reactor technology and all this bots and stuff. Does he even have AI in his suit? It looks like it which will explain how he called the neno bots there." said Tony.

"May  be he had figured out your reactor. Crom the look of it he looks like a genius if he is one who made all those neno bots and AI." Bruce replied.

Tony tells him, "If he had figured it out then how does he not showed it the world. He could have sold it and got so much money. He would have made fortune."

"May be he does not want attention on him and wants to keep it to himself. As for why he didn't sell it, it can be that he knows how much danger it can be if it's in wrong hand. The guy can be genuinely good. After all if he had bad intentions, he would have shown it till now. He is out there for years. Even before NY battle. I saw some of his videos where he is helping people from aftermath of the battle on YouTube." said Pepper.

Nat and Clint were silent. 

Steve spoke up, " Not only that his strength stronger than me or Bucky combined. Why is this guy out there on street and not in Avengers team?"

"Shield is trying to get in contact with him from even before Avengers formed. He has been out there for almost 7 years. We don't know anything about him at all. Not who is or what his powers are or if they are biological or not. Everytime anyone goes after him he somehow knows someone is following as lose them. He was on Fury's list to get on the Avengers. He was on the top spots. But he never got to interact with him. Sheild is still trying to find out about him. The guy is good at cover his trials." Nat explained.

Everyone was blown away by that.

" I don't think so after this all Fury will get him away after this. He can be a big threat if he has this much power in his hand and ever gets on the other side." Clint adds.

" We need to find out who he is. If he is smart enough to figure out my arc reactor and make those techs, I need to have him work for my company and on our team." said Tony as he stood up.

" Wanna help Brucie? And all of you?"

Everyone nods. They all wants to find out who he was. They were bunch of curious heads. 

They tried all afternoon but got nothing and Tony was annoyed.

They decided to take break. Nat, Pepper and Wanda were watching some video on YouTube with others when he and Bruce entered the common room. Looks like the video just started. 

Pepper called them to watch it with them and played from the start.

There was a guy with mask who was playing a tune on guitar and started singing. The song was about Avengers. His voice was so pleasant to hear. There was so much details in lyrics. It continued for 2 minutes. After that video got cut. And the guy appeared again and said 'hey guys it's me again your cinnamon. Oh it's embarrassing to say this name now that I'm much older. I can't believe it's been so many years since we started this channel. I was like 6 when my aunt made my first video. Well it was my new song about the Avengers. Hope you guys liked it. Now let's go to today's video. I'm going to paint a portrait of all of the Avangers' whole team, everyone, new and old members in 15 minutes today while answering some of you guy's questions.' video cuts again.

Wanda paused the video. 'The song is so good. The lyrics are really detailed.' she said as others agreed. She played video again.

The guy appeared again but this time in a different place with canvas colours and all things to paint with. He starts working on canvas fluently and fast but neatly like he's been doing this for years like a professional artist. There was a woman with same mask as him sitting on chair beside him. He turned to her and said 'As you all know she is my Aunt and she will be reading the questions. You can start.' 

The woman smiles to camera and started cheerfully, 'Hey everyone once again! Let's get started with questions. So the 1st one from @user01 how much is your IQ? Your experiments are damn awesome and thing you make is just wow.' 

The boy smiles to the camera but go back to painting as he replies, 'I don't know I have never took an IQ test. I don't want to scare people away ' he gave a quick wink at the camera then goes back to painting. He is already done with base and outlines.

The lady starts to laugh and asks other question. ' this one is from @user02, are you still studying? ' the lady gave camera a weird look which said seriously?

The laugh can be heard from behind the camera. But the guy ssh them down. And replied 'Well you can say I am since I'm working to get my 4th PhD. Next question.'

' @user46 asks who is your favourite avanger? Look like this is a new to you videos. '

Everyone was paying attention now. Eager to know who was it.

The guy continues to paint as he smile and said, ' welcome to see our madness. My favourite avanger is Iron Man. He has been my favourite even before the Avengers were formed since he started. Tony stark has been my idol and crush from when I was 12. You can imagine how I must have felt when I found out he was Iron Man. If you wanna know there is a reaction video on my channel from 6 years ago.'

The lady asks next question ' @user8502 here wants to ask why can't I hack into you account to find out who you are? ' The lady and the camera guy and the guy himself starts laughing but his hands not stopping.He was half done and it was already looking great. 

When they calm down, the guy starts speaking ' you atually tried. Well it's good I made my account unhackable all those years ago cause I didn't want anyone to know who I'm and I still don't. Atleast for now. ' 

They continued with next question, '@user18qq how old are you?'

'I'm 19 and going to turn 20 in 5 or so months.'

'@userttl do you sell your art works?'

'No I'm sorry but I don't sell my work. I have a entire room filled with my all work since my childhood to now in my house.'  He smiles fondly.

'@user77kl what's your sexuality? Are you in relationship? '

This time the aunt continues to speak up, 'not that I know of. Are you cinnamon? '

The guy blush and shakes his head ' No I'm not in any relationship and I'm Bi. Come one aunt let get to next question I'm almost done' he blushes harder.

The aunt coos but ask the next question ' so @user63 wants to know what is your plan for future? '

' I haven't thought yet. I will probably applying for jobs in some famous companies. I'll stark industry too. Who knows if I get the job there and meet my crush. ' the guy smiles. He is almost finished he is just adding details everywhere. The portrait look awesome and he is still adding so much details. It's on professional level good and it not even done in even 15 minutes its only been 12 minute 47 seconds.

'ok looks like you're almost done so last question from @user3945 do you write your songs lyrics? They are so deep and detailed. I've heard all of your songs. You have some ones for individual songs too for Avengers. ' the aunt read.

'Thank you so much for listening to my songs. Yes, I myself write lyrics and compose all my songs.' he replied.

The guy adds some last details and finishing touches. ' So that was the last question for today and my painting is done.' he look behind camera ' how much time it took? '

The camera guy replied, 'it's been 13 minutes 53 seconds' 

' well looks like it took less then 15 minutes. Tada!!! ' he motions to portrait painting.

It was outstanding. It didn't look nothing like it was done in less then 15 min. The video cuts. Then it back again the boy and his aunt is standing togather smiling at camera.

The guy spoke, ' Thank you everyone who watched my video. Please like, share and comment. And if you are new and liked my video you can subscribe my channel. And as always guys if you wanna know how the portrait looks after drying, I'll be posting a pic of it at my Instagram. Check that out. Bye guys see you in next video. Till then take care.' 

Everyone stare at screen as the video finishes.

Rhodey speaks up, " It's a second genius we found in one day. Jesus 4th PhD at 19. Seriously? "

Wanda butts in " The video is 8 months old"

Scott joined in, "Is it only me who is all of a sudden feeling dumb? "

Pietro replied, " you were always dumb."

" If he gets in applies for job at SI we'll find out who he is, unlike some spider." Tony said.

" The guys is telented. Did you see his painting? It was awesome and so detailed and he made it in less than 15 minutes. I was on a professional level good may be better. I can't imagine if the guy did take his time to make something, it will definitely be a master piece. " Steve said.

" No one's gonna talk about the boy's crush on Stark?" Strange said.

Everyone looked at him startled.

"When did you come?"

" I'm here since the song part. You guys didn't noticed. " He replied smugly.

"Tony has been his idol and crush for eight years now. Woah! Even before you become Iron Man." said Clint.

" That mortal did look like there'll be a cute face beneath that mask, what do you think son of stark? " Thor asks.

" Yeah he was cute and had nice voice and all but I'm not gonna date any fanboy if you guys are implementing on that. " Tony sternly replied.

They were talking about the boy when FRIDAY spoke up. " Boss you are having a call from Happy."

"Connect the call Baby girl."

" Hey Happy"

" Boss the plane has took off. Everything is in order."

" Okk Hap. Thanks. "

The call disconnected.

" Looks like we're moving tomorrow as planned."

 

 

 

Not even half hour later Happy's call came again.

"Hey Hap. Everything fine?

" Boss! The plane has crashed at the Coney Island Beach."

Everyone's face turned to horror. They all stood up and went to suit up.

"What the hell Happy. I thought you said everything was in order."

" I'm sorry boss but everything was. The police is already at the scene. They said there was some guy webbed up there with a note from Spider-Man that he was trying to steal the stuff from plane. Some guy called 'flying valture guy'. I'm already on my way to the scene. "

" We'll be there soon too. " 

The line cuts off.

 

Avengers reached at the scene. It looked like disaster. Happy came to them.

"Boss everything is safe. Spider-Man had removed the carrier boxes from the fire before it could damage and the guy who wanted to steal it was webbed up to it. Sheild agents took him to the jail. He is the same guy from the ferry incident yesterday. He was selling some illegal weapons which were mixed with alien tech, they were after him for a long time."

Avengers let out the sighs. 

" It's good nothing's stolen or damaged. Get the stuff to the compound. This time we all will be going with it." Tony said as he motion to the others.

____________________________________________

 

Next day at the compound in the meeting room

 

 

Nick Fury and the Avengers were having the meeting.

" You all know about yesterday's incident was handled by Spider-Man. The plane which was crashed at the beach was not supposed to crash there. I want you guys to look at this video clip which our satellite captured." Fury said as he played the clip.

Spider Man and the Vulture was fight on the top of the plane. Valture broke on of the wings and plane started to crash towards the city and the buildings. 

Spider Man webbed the othe wing and changed the direction of the crash. The clip ended.

"You must have got enough idea how strong this guy is from this and the ferry incident. He is got so much power and advanced technology in his hand. If he is to ever turn on the other side. He can be a great threat. But he isn't showing any signs of that happening since it's been years since he is doing this superhero stuff and looking out for little guy. He had defeated many supervillain like green goblin, lizard, doc oct, electro, sandman etc. I think he will be a great asset to the team. I want you guys to find out who he is and convince him to join the team. Shield has been trying for years but he always got was without any traces. I'm giving you this mission. Hope guys can do it. "

Before anyone could speak up there was a cough heard which was non of there's. As the looks around the didn't saw anyone. They got into a fighting position. 

_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_:_

Cliffhanger!! Hope you guys liked it.

(人*´∀｀)｡*ﾟ+

(Peter has finished the 4th PhD mentioned in the video in this chapter. Cause the video Avengers are watching are eight months old. He even finished this fifth PhD in chemical engineering too but now he doesn't want to do anymore studying for now so he isn't working on any and is atually thinking about starting to find a job.

And Howard and Maria lives at Malibu mansion.)

[marvelmando]

tempest [p.parker x o.c.] - six

notes: this is my longest chapter yet. when i was initially writing this, i intended this story to be uploaded to wattpad, so most of my chapters ended up being around 3-4k words, but this obviously takes the cake.

don’t forget, if you’d like to be added to the taglist, shoot me an ask or message, or reply to this chapter!

contains: canon-typical violence, mention of dead parents, angst

pairing: peter parker + fem! o.c.

word count: 5.8k

previous chapter next chapter tempest masterlist

THAT NEXT MONDAY, MIDTOWN TECH WAS BUZZING WITH SPIDER-SPIRIT. Everyone was whispering about the events in Washington—whether it was about the Decathlon team taking the championship or Spider-Man saving the day. Some students even wore t-shirts and buttons with the Spider-Man insignia on them. Where they'd found such merchandise was completely lost on Marin.

Peter was not expelled, much to Flash's dismay, but a genius decision to try and skip school did land him in after-school detention. And Marin, with nothing better to do, joined him in his misery. It appeared that Michelle had a similar idea, choosing to sit in on the punishment and sketch the designated supervisor, who looked absolutely bored out of his mind as he surfed the internet on the computer.

"So," Captain America said on an old box TV, sitting down on a back-facing chair. "You got detention. You screwed up." Glancing up from her own drawing, Marin saw Peter sigh heavily and clench his jaw in frustration. Captain America was still lecturing, and Marin abandoned her drawing as she noticed Peter's patience deteriorate.

Suddenly, Peter stood from his desk and snatched his backpack forcibly. As he marched out of the classroom, the coach called out indifferently, "Hey, where you going? Get back here," without moving a muscle.

Marin followed to scramble out of her seat, giving her goodbyes to Michelle and the coach.

"Pete!" She jogged after him. He stopped at a row of lockers and crouched to the ground.

Then he picked the lockers like a garage door, grabbing something from the hidden compartment underneath. "I've got an idea, Mare." He told her, and she flushed at the nickname. Besides 'Rain', no one had ever cared enough to give her one. It sent flutters through her stomach, and she didn't know how to process that reaction. But she didn't have the time to, because Peter was thrusting out a glass bottle at her. She took it, reading the label taped on, 'Web Fluid'.

"Okay..." she trailed off, clutching the vial of web fluid. "What's the plan?"

+++

Peter finished catching her up as they traveled back to the apartment. He'd explained that in D.C. when he’d hacked into the suit, he'd also disabled a subsystem called "the Training Wheels Protocol". This was what he'd told her the night they returned to Queens, but now he told her that Karen—the feminine voice that belonged to the suit's AI—might be able to help him identify the dealers from the night of Liz's party.

May had left a note saying she'd gone out for the afternoon, so they didn't have to worry about her overhearing their scheming. In the safety of his room, Peter pulled on his mask. "Hey, Karen, what's up?"

Marin assumed that Karen was speaking to Peter from an earpiece inside the suit, because she didn't hear a response before Peter answered, "Listen, I was wondering if you could help me. I'm trying to figure out who the guys under the bridge were that night, but I mean, I can only kind of remember part of a license plate."

A pause as Karen responded. "Footage?" Peter asked.

"Everything?"

"Like, all the time?"

Peter threw his hands up, tossing his pen. "Baby Monitor Protocol," he muttered grumpily under his breath, causing Marin to giggle. "Yeah, of course, it is. Um, yeah, just roll it back to last Friday."

"No, no, no—no, no, no. This is me just messing around. Go... later in the day, later in the day." He said flippantly. "No, no, no, no, no! That's definitely... no. That's definitely not what we wanted to watch. Just..." he waved his hand frantically, and Marin wondered what he was shown to make him sound so embarrassed.

"Fast-forward to the arms deal." Peter stood from his chair to pace the room. "Okay, the two on the right, who are they?" He put his hands on his hips. "Nothing?"

Another pause. "Well, let's pay him a visit." He stepped toward his bed, where Marin sat next to the rest of his suit. "Uh, yeah."

Taking off his mask, Peter filled Marin in. "We've got an identification on the buyer, we're gonna go track him down."

Just as Marin was about to acquiesce, the front door clicked open. "I'm home!" May announced, followed by the rustling sounds of paper grocery bags. "I found this really awesome eggplant lasagna recipe I want to try!"

Peter looked to Marin, who grimaced. "Maybe tomorrow?"

Marin shrugged, then grinned. "Tomorrow it is."

+++

"Shouldn't we tell Ned about this Aaron guy?" Marin had asked the night before as they munched on their delivered Thai food.

Peter had only shaken his head. "Nah, he'll just say he has school stuff to do."

Oh, yeah. And they'd skipped school to follow the buyer, too. Marin and Spider-Man approached the parking garage where the suit's drone followed Aaron Davis out of the local grocery store.

Peter crawled onto the roof and Marin casually walked along the concrete walls. Keeping her presence hidden wasn't much of a concern—her identity wouldn't be compromised as long as she refrained from using her powers in front of anyone. The garage was practically empty except for a few parked cars, and a man in a white shirt approaching his own vehicle. As he went to pack away his grocery bags, Spider-Man leaped down from the ceiling, webbing the buyer's hand to the open trunk. Aaron Davis winced as the spider drone scanned him with a flash of red light, presumably to confirm that it was, in fact, the right criminal.

"Remember me?" Spider-Man startled Marin with the rumbling timbre of his technologically-altered voice. Spider-Man walked towards Aaron with large, fast steps, and the man became visibly frightened by the approaching figure.

"We need information, and you're gonna give it to us now." Spider-Man's metallic voice demanded. Marin stepped out away from the wall with her arms crossed as she stared down Aaron.

Aaron Davis looked nervously between Marin and Spider-Man. "All right, chill," he stuttered.

"Come on!"

Aaron faltered, narrowing his eyes at the masked hero. "What happened to your voice?"

"What do you mean, what happened to my voice?"

"I heard you by the bridge, I know what a girl sounds like." Aaron answered, causing Marin to snicker lightly beside him.

"I'm not a girl, I'm a boy!" Spider-Man corrected. "I mean, I'm a—I'm a man!"

Aaron shook his head, resuming loading his trunk with groceries. "I don't care what you are, a boy, a girl..."

"I'm not a girl, I'm a man!" Peter insisted angrily. "C'mon, man. Look, who is selling these weapons? I need to know! Give me names, or else!"

Aaron stared at Spider-Man, and suddenly slammed the trunk shut, startling Peter. Marin shook her head at his jittery reaction.

"You ain't ever done this before, huh?" Aaron asked, then turned to Marin. "What 'bout your girl? You ever done this?"

"Not his girl," Marin corrected, nonchalantly, taking a menacing step forward until she was a couple feet from the criminal. "But you will give us those names, Aaron Davis." His eyes widened a tiny bit, realizing that they knew his name. Marin tilted her head mockingly, tapping her chin. "Or, I'm sure the police would love to hear all about yours..."

Aaron stared Marin in the eye, the only sign of the effect the threat had on him was the visible gulp and the slight sheen growing on his brow. Still, he hesitated.

Marin didn't break the stare or her determination, but Spider-Man sighed, impatient. "Deactivate Interrogation Mode," he muttered to Karen, the drone flying to reattach itself to his chest. "Look, man," Spider-Man pleaded, his voice back to normal. Aaron's eyes followed Marin as she walked around the car to stop at Peter's side. "These guys are selling weapons that are crazy dangerous. They can't just be out on the streets. Look, if one of them can just cut Delmar's bodega in half—"

The mention of Delmar's was what ripped Aaron's gaze from Marin. "You know Delmar's?"

"Yeah, best sandwich in Queens."

"Sub Haven's pretty good."

"Eh, it's too much bread."

"I like bread."

"C'mon man, please."

Aaron went silent, looking off into the middle distance with his brows creased. Peter was taking it as a sign that Aaron wasn't going to budge and began to walk away, grumbling to Karen, "Stupid Interrogation Mode. Karen, don't ever do that again." Marin watched Spider-Man retreat, baffled.

"The other night," Aaron addressed Marin, causing Spider-Man to stop and turn around. "You told that dude 'if you shoot somebody, shoot me'." Marin nodded affirmatively, tilting her chin up and folding her arms across her chest. "It's pretty ballsy, especially for an unarmed little girl. I don't want those weapons in this neighborhood, I got a nephew who live here."

Marin took a heated step forward, ready to attest to the 'little girl' comment, but Spider-Man walked up to the car and spoke first. "Who are these guys? What can you tell us about the guy with the wings?"

"Other than he's a psychopath dressed like a demon, nothing. I don't know who he is or where he is."

Peter sighed, turning to lean his back against Aaron's car, tilting his head back to rest it on the roof. Marin looked at his unprofessional behavior with slight disdain—she may have been a terrible X-Man, but at least she knew how to compose herself during an interrogation.

Aaron shifted his gaze back at Marin. "I do know where he's gonna be."

This piqued Spider-Man's interest. "Really?"

"Yeah, this crazy dude I used to work with, he's supposed to be doing a deal with them."

"Yes! Yes." Spider-Man giggled delightfully to himself, and began to walk away, but turned while walking backward, "Thank—"

"Spider-Man, we still—"

"Hey, hey. Hey, hey! I didn't tell you where; you don't have a location." Aaron pointed out.

Spider-Man jogged back. "Right, of course. Yeah, my bad. Silly. Just... yeah." he leaned on the roof of the car eagerly. "Where is it?"

"Can I give you some advice?"

"Hmm?" Peter tilted his head.

"Your girl needs to show you how to be better at this part of the job." Aaron gestured around them as if referring to the interrogation as a whole.

"Not his girl." Marin corrected again, but it went unnoticed. "And for the record, I'm fifteen!"

"I don't understand," Spider-Man said, folding his arms across his chest and narrowing his bionic eyes. "I'm intimidating."

"You're really not." Marin shook her head.

Aaron nodded in agreement. "Staten Island ferry, eleven."

"Oh, that's soon!" Peter exhaled. Pointing at Aaron's webbed hand, he began to walk away. "Hey, that's gonna dissolve in two hours."

Aaron shook his head furiously. "No, no, no, no. Come fix this."

"Two hours—you deserve that!"

"I got ice cream in here!"

"You deserve that, you're a criminal! Bye, Mr. Criminal!"

Aaron looked hopefully at Marin, who shrugged unhelpfully, and hurried after Spider-Man.

Climbing onto Peter's back was much less awkward this time around. They arrived at the Staten Island ferry terminal just as a missive orange ferry pulled out of the dock. "Hang on tight!" Peter warned her before taking a running leap and spreading his arms, revealing the glider wings attached to the underarms of his suit. They flew through the air, and Marin was surprised at the amount of control Spider-Man still had, even with another body attached to his.

Landing and clinging onto the hull of the ferry, Spider-Man crawled up to take a peek through one of the Saloon deck's windows. He located one of the dealers sitting at a bench, and said, "Okay, Karen, activate Enhanced Reconnaissance Mode."

Marin watched over his shoulder as the dealer and a man seated behind him conversed, assuming that Peter was able to listen in. Eventually, he whispered, "It's the guy from the bridge, right? Who's that other guy?" A brief pause passed. "I can't talk right now; I'll call her back." Marin furrowed her eyebrows. Sensing her confusion, Peter informed, "May. Hey dronie, keep an eye on that guy. We can't let anybody get away this time."

With the dealers on the move, Peter advanced up the side of the ferry, swinging them up onto the Hurricane deck, then onto the roof of the Bridge deck. Marin climbed off, and Peter filled her in on their short conversation. They carefully approached the edge of the roof and counted four men standing idly around on the platform of the Main deck.

"Who's the guy on the left?" Peter asked Karen, referring to the man leaned casually against an orange support beam. Peter waited for her to respond so he could relay the information to Marin. "No, Karen, stop it with the Instant Kill already!" Then, to Marin, he said, "That one's Mac Gargan."

Marin raised her eyebrows at him, but he didn't seem to notice. Even Marin could hear as the dealer from earlier approached Mac Gargan and said to him boldly, "White pickup truck."

"Dronie, scan the ship for a white pickup truck." He instructed. "Oh, this is too perfect. We got the weapons, buyers, and sellers all in one place."

Peter was suddenly startled into action. "No, no, no. No, no, don't answer!" He pressed against his ear frantically. "Uh—uh, I'm actually at school? Ah—okay," Peter sounded in pain. "Uh, I'm kind of in the middle of something right now, Mr. Stark?" He emphasized to Marin; whose eyes widened.

Suddenly, the ferry horn sounded, and Peter panicked. "Uh, I'm at... band... practice?" Marin glanced down at the dealers, as one of them was handing Gargan a set of keys, a set that Marin assumed belonged to the white pickup. "I gotta go—uh, end call! I'll take those!" Spider-Man reached out and snagged the keys with a web. "Yoink!" He said and hopped onto the Main deck.

Marin scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Really?" She dangled from the Hurricane deck, landing on the Bridge deck. "Who says 'yoink', anymore?"

After judging the distance from the Bridge deck down to the Main deck, Marin leaped through to catch herself on the railing of the Saloon deck's balcony, before vaulting onto the Main deck, where Spider-Man had just slammed Mac Gargan into the hull of the ferry. In front of her, the dealer from the night of Liz's party charged at Spider-Man, but he easily dodged him.

The dealer stumbled, the fancy electric weaponry attached to his fist getting caught in a barrier gate, where Spider-Man stuck it with a sheet of web fluid. The weapon looked like an over-sized Taser gun. In her head, she called the dealer Blue Guy, if only for the color of the electricity crackling within the device on his wrist.

As she was going to help Peter, Marin's feet were yanked out from underneath her. Hitting the floor, Marin twisted in her attacker's grasp and kicked her leg up and out of his grip, sending it forcefully into the sensitive apex between his thighs. She scrambled for purchase, finding Spider-Man unbothered as he watched the trapped Blue Guy struggle against the webs, and was replacing a vial of web fluid in his wrist shooters. From under the cargo hold, a man charged at the teens, but Spider-Man calmly launched a web grenade at him, trapping him to the wall. Marin nodded at Peter, who returned the gesture.

A banging coming from the same direction caught Marin and Peter's attention. They both turned to see a man bashing in someone's head against a white van. The man then caught sight of the teens and stared them down with a growing smirk. They were about to run after him when a voice stopped them in their tracks. "Freeze, FBI!"

At least a dozen agents dressed in civilian clothing emerged from every entrance, all with weapons drawn and aimed at Marin and Spider-Man, who whipped their hands up simultaneously.

"Wait, what do you mean 'FBI'?!" Peter exclaimed. "I know what FBI means, but what are they doing here?!"

The sound of metal bursting caused everyone's attention to shift to the cargo hold, where a ginormous set of metal wings erupted from inside the white van. It was a man, wearing a mask with glowing green eyes and carrying a blaster in his hands—and he was flying straight toward them.

"Get out of the way, get out of the way!" Marin screamed at the FBI agents who began shooting at the approaching figure, but they didn't stop. The winged Vulture-looking guy shot a blast from his gun, the shot barely missed the top of her head as it flew into a gate behind her. As the Vulture guy got even closer, he grabbed a car with the mechanical talons attached to his feet, chucking it at Peter, Marin, and the agents.

Marin tackled into the side of the agent, moving him out of the car's trajectory—but the car hit Peter instead, sending him flying back into a support beam. Hovering above the ferry, the Vulture fired another energy blast at Blue Guy's arm, successfully disintegrating the web that attached him to the fence.

"Get to the top deck; we're getting out of here!" The Vulture instructed his goon, while Spider-Man and Marin corralled the agents to safety.

Before he could disappear, Peter tried shooting a web at the Blue Guy, but the Vulture only fired again, disconnecting the web. As the Vulture was distracted with Spider-Man and the persistent agents that had returned to fight him, Marin sprinted off after the Blue Guy. She followed him through the sliding doors. Noticing her with a quick glance behind him, the Blue Guy picked up his pace as he took the stairs three steps at a time.

Reaching the Saloon deck, Marin was grateful that the front of the deck wasn't heavily populated, and the few stragglers scampered to the stern side of the ferry once they caught sight of the Blue Guy, and Marin chasing close behind. The dealer was trying to make it to the staircase in the center front of the ferry, but Marin was too quick for him, and grabbed the back of his outer jean jacket, using all of her strength to hold him back. She used the momentum to shove her foot into the back of his left knee, causing it to buckle.

Marin had lifted her elbow, intending to jab it into the suprascapular nerve in his right shoulder (where she knew hitting the pressure point would incapacitate him enough to gain leverage), but he twisted to his left, away from her elbow, and sent the electrified weapon on his right hand into her gut.

The impact of metal against her flesh hurt more than the electricity did—bruising her abdomen and hipbone as she fell back on her ass. The distraction gave the Blue Guy the chance to escape up the steps, and Marin recovered as fast as she could, sprinting up the stairs, just as a blast of energy exploded through the front of the Saloon Deck.

She took the stairs three at a time, tackling the Blue Guy just as he was stepping out of the threshold. The two rolled on the ground, each trying to gain dominance over the other. Though Marin thrashed about, the dealer was stronger, and he quickly pinned her hands above her head with his bare left hand, using his right to crash into Marin's jaw.

Though the pain radiating from her chin caused her eyes to tear up, she noticed that the Blue Guy paused briefly, most likely out of disbelief to see that the electricity didn't harm her. Marin used his hesitation to her advantage—yanking one arm from his grasp, which had loosened in his shock (she laughed to herself), and slammed it into his crotch.

The damage wasn't as detrimental as she'd hoped, but he was debilitated enough for her to squirm out from under him. They both recovered at the same time, dancing around each other as if to size up their opponent. The Blue Guy threw out the decorated right fist, but the weight of the weaponry slowed the swing down enough for Marin to dodge it easily, ducking to the side and sending an uppercut into his exposed chest. He hunched slightly as the air was knocked out of him, so Marin took it further. Stepping so her body was just beyond his, she elbowed his sciatic nerve with as much strength as she could gather, sending him sprawling forward.

She whirled around to block him from the stairs leading to the Bridge deck, watching as he scrambled to his feet. Marin crouched in a defensive position, huffing away a piece of her bangs that had dropped into her line of sight.

Marin was moving to attack again, but a groan that rivaled the ferry's horn sounded from somewhere on the vessel. The ship jolted, throwing all of its passengers off balance, and giving the Blue Guy the leverage to knock a particularly strong blow to Marin's head.

Marin fell to the ground, landing hard on her left wrist as a pained cry fell from her lips. She hardly noticed the dealer getting away, too preoccupied with the beams of purple light shooting up from the floor, bisecting the ship down the middle.

The ferry was filled with the sounds of shrieking adults and wailing children, and Marin hurried to her feet, pushing passengers away from the center of the ferry.

With a burst of radiating energy, the purple light exploded, leaving a glowing line of blackened metal down the entire length of the ferry—floor, ceiling, and benches all included. Now curious, people cautiously moved towards the line but were jostled back to their places clinging to the edges of the ship as it gave one final lurch, and the halves of the ferry began splitting down the glowing line.

"Shit!" Marin yelped, leaping to snag a woman who got too close to the middle and was beginning to lose her balance. Screams erupted once more, as Marin yelled to them, "Stay calm! Stick to the edges and grab onto the railings!"

Twirling to face the bow, Marin glimpsed Spider-Man readying for action. He was screaming instructions to Karen, telling her to find the strongest points of the ferry. As he moved to attach webs to pillars down the split section of the ship, he yelled to Marin as he passed, "You need to keep the water out of the ship!"

Nodding frantically, Marin hopped down the split center, catching herself above the water flowing rapidly into the cargo hold, sending vehicles floating down the deck. She rushed to the middle of the ferry so she had even control over the water. Perched on a shelf of water hovering around the Saloon deck, she ignored the frightened stares of the passengers and thrust out her hands.

After realizing that they'd be fighting on a ferry, surrounded by nothing but water, Marin was ecstatic that if it came to using her powers, she might actually stand a chance. But she didn't anticipate the ferry would start sinking into the bay, and the thought of keeping thousands of tons of metal afloat was suddenly incredibly daunting.

Somewhere above her, Spider-Man was flipping around the ship, keeping it held together with strings of spider-web, and Marin trembled violently with the amount of exertion needed to keep the water from rising above the Saloon Deck. If she thought cushioning Peter's fall into the lake was hard, this was nearly impossible.

At the sound of Peter yelling orders to Karen, Marin squeezed her eyes shut, focusing only on the water; she visualized the power flowing through her veins like the water flowing from the bottom of the ferry. A calm moment passed, when Peter had finished attaching his webs and the ship was no longer falling apart. Though Marin struggled with the amount of water she was keeping out of the ferry's cargo hold, she carried through the moment of stasis and opened her eyes carefully.

"Yeah, Spider-Man!" A man cheered from somewhere on the ship. "And weird water-girl!"

Marin smiled brightly despite herself. She heard some clapping follow his cheer.

But then the webs started snapping, and Marin felt a new, intense rush of water push against her control. Spider-Man rushed to grab the snapped webs, and Marin tried desperately to block out the screams. She closed her eyes at the sight of Peter dangling in the air in front of her, falling to her knees as the water pulled her down towards it like gravity. She felt it calling to her, and Marin barely managed not to completely collapse as her hold on the water wavered.

Suddenly, the water released her hold slowly, and she popped her eyes open. The water level was beginning to slowly level out, as one half of the ferry drew upright. The floor of the Saloon deck pushed together underneath her, and Peter was lowered to the floor as well. Marin released the water with a gush, her body immediately sagging to the ground. Peter ran over to her, helping her to her feet.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she assured him, settling on shaky legs. They both looked around, trying to figure out what had saved them. A singularly intense bang caught their attention.

Outside one of the windows, Iron Man lifted his head up. "Hi, Spider-Man," he greeted with sarcastic cheerfulness, then outright sneered, "And Rain."

Marin felt the blood rush from her face. Her eyes widened, she inhaled sharply and clenching her jaw. He knew.

"'Rain'?" Peter looked at Marin. "Who's that? Who the hell is 'Rain'?"

Iron Man ignored Peter's confusion. "Band practice, was it?" A series of smaller clanks echoed around the perimeter of the ferry, and Iron Man pushed, as did whatever devices he'd attached, and the halves of the ship closed together.

"Yeah, Iron Man!" Clapped the same man from before, and Marin's stomach twisted as her chest constricted.

Once the halves reunited, Iron Man flew off, Spider-Man leaping off to try and help. Distantly, Marin heard the whir of metal being welded back together, but the rush of blood in her ears overwhelmed her. Her body ached, her vision was blurring, and her mind raced at the realization that Tony Stark knew who—and what—she was.

She was completely, utterly, absolutely screwed.

+++

By the time the Coast Guard had brought everyone to safety, and Iron Man had carried Marin and Peter to the mainland before flying off to continue helping them move the ferry, the sun was beginning to set over the Manhattan skyline.

Contrary to the beautiful pinkish-orange glow set against fluffy white clouds, Marin's stomach tangled and gnawed with nerves. She paced the walkway while Peter sat dejectedly on the concrete edge of a building lining the coast of Brooklyn Heights, waiting for Iron Man to return and reprimand them. Peter had tried to ask her about Mr. Stark calling her 'Rain', but Marin only shook her head lowly, tears filling her eyes and cramps tearing at her insides.

Eventually, Iron Man flew up to where they waited, hovering as they turned to face him. "Previously, on Marin and Peter screw the pooch; I tell you two to stay away from this. Instead, you hacked a multimillion-dollar suit so you could sneak around behind my back, doing the one thing I told you not to do."

Peter only seemed concerned, even though his voice trembled with disappointment. "Is everyone okay?"

"No thanks to you two." Tony denigrated.

Peter visibly bristled, and Marin narrowed her eyes defensively.

"No thanks to us?" Marin couldn't help but challenge, despite knowing that antagonizing Tony Stark was probably the worst idea at the moment. But Marin never said she was good at controlling her emotions.

Peter roughly hopped down from the ledge, looking offended. "Those weapons were out there, and I tried to tell you about it, but you didn't listen." He testified, growing agitated. He stepped toward Iron Man, whose suit was descending onto the walkway ahead of them. "None of this would've happened if you had just listened to me!" Peter cried, then laughed humorously. "If you even cared, you'd actually be here."

At his words, the front of Iron Man's suit opened up, panels turning outwards to reveal Tony Stark in the flesh, looking both livid and pained. Peter took a few startled steps back, almost bumping into Marin. Mr. Stark continued to advance on them, walking them back a few feet as he sniffed, almost out of habit.

"I did listen, kid." Mr. Stark attested, his face revealing nothing, but his tone was defensive. Betrayed, almost, that his mentee didn't have trust in him. "Who do you think called the FBI, huh? Do you know that I was the only one who believed in you? Everyone else said I was crazy to recruit a fourteen-year-old kid."

"I'm fifteen." Peter defended weakly.

"No—this is where you zip it, all right? The adult is talking." Mr. Stark snapped, his composure crumbling under the heavy weight of his frustration. "What if somebody had died tonight? Different story, right? Cause that's on you. And if you died... I feel like that's on me. I don't need that on my conscience."

"Yes, sir." Peter relented, looking desperate as he nodded. "I'm sorry, I—"

"Sorry doesn't cut it."

"I understand," Peter pleaded. "I just wanted to be like you."

"And I wanted you to be better." For a fraction of a second, as Mr. Stark looked at the ground, he looked as if he was going to break. But it disappeared as fast as it had shown up, and Tony Stark looked like he was completely indifferent. "Okay, it's not working out. I'm going to need the suit back."

Peter's face hardened. "For how long?"

"Forever." Mr. Stark responded flatly. Peter tried to plead with him, but the billionaire didn't want to hear it. "Yeah. Yeah, that's not how this works."

"You don't understand—please," Peter begged, his eyes growing glassy. "This is all I have. I'm nothing without this suit."

"If you're nothing without this suit, then you shouldn't have it. Okay?" Mr. Stark snipped, rubbing his left wrist, then sighed. "God, I sound like my dad."

"I—I don't have any other clothes." Peter stuttered.

"We can work that out." Tony Stark nodded, then after a moment, his gaze slid to Marin, who was standing behind Peter. Marin's face went white and her pulse picked up. "And you. Did you seriously think I wouldn't figure out where you really came from?"

Peter's eyes flickered between Marin and Mr. Stark. "Marin, what's he talking about?"

"Mr. Stark, please—" Marin whimpered, tears filling her eyes. Tony stepped around Peter, approaching her leisurely as if he didn't have a look of hatred crossing his face. Marin took frantic steps backward as if she could back away from the reality of her past catching up to her.

"Did you really think I wouldn't find out who you are?" Tony Stark's eyes burned with something sickeningly close to disgust, and Marin's heart cracked viciously in her chest. He straightened his back. "Well, I'm sure you'll be pleased to learn that I've contacted Charles and arranged for someone to come and retrieve you."

"What the hell is going on?!" Peter demanded, voice hardened and his eyes beseeching.

"Your friend Marin, here," Tony started, and Marin's eyes snapped opened impossibly wide as she shook her head incessantly at him—begging him to stop. "Is a mutant."

A gush of air left Peter like it was punched out of him. "What? That's ridiculous, Marin's not—"

"Oh, but she is." Tony insisted, looking Marin in the eyes aggressively.

Peter looked at Marin. "Is—is he telling the truth?"

"Peter, please—"

"Is he telling the truth?!" Peter yelled at her, causing her to flinch. She'd never seen him angry like this—not the night they met, or the night she ran away, or the night he abandoned the Decathlon team to track down the dealers. It terrified her. "Are you a mutant?!"

"Y-Yes, but—" Marin moved to take a step towards Peter, but her heart positively shattered to see him back away quickly, like her touch was infectious. Her outstretched hand snapped back as she cradled it against her chest.

"She ran away from the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning twelve days ago." Tony told Peter while not moving his gaze off of Marin.

"You told me they kicked you out," Peter breathed, tears dropping down his cheeks.

"They kicked her out of the X-Men program five months ago, after years of repeated disobedience and disrespectful behavior. The last straw was the night she went against orders and abandoned her team to go stop a bank robbery—the night she met you." How did he know so damn much? Tears flowed steadily down her face. "I did some research, Marin, into your name—your parents."

Marin didn't know it was possible for her face to grow so pale, but she was getting dizzy from the lack of oxygen. She clutched the concrete like a lifeline as she clenched her eyes shut while Tony continued his excoriation.

"Nine years ago, Marin was found in her destroyed home, both of her parents had died, but Marin was miraculously untouched by the destruction." Tony towered over her, as Marin wrapped her arms around herself. "I didn't understand it, until yesterday, when I received a call from a Charles Xavier, who was more than happy to fill me in.

"You see, Marin has been developing these new powers, and I was warned that she was unstable and extremely dangerous. After all, it was those same powers that had killed her parents."

"No..." Marin choked. Her breath was escaping her; she was hyperventilating. She risked a glance at Peter, who was looking at her with wide, horrified eyes. "No, you don't understand..."

She tried to beg, tried to explain, tried to say something but her throat was so dry and the watery words that she tried to expel got caught, and she choked on them.

Tony stepped between her and Peter, shielding him like he needed to protect the boy from her. Her friend. "You're going to go back to the Institute, you're going to forget about everything that's happened, and you're going to leave Peter the hell alone." Tony hissed at her. "Am I clear?"

Marin still couldn't speak, so she nodded shakily. No one said another word as Tony climbed back into the Iron Man suit, and scooped Peter up, who avoided her gaze like the plague as he tugged his mask on hastily.

"Someone will be here for you shortly." Was the last thing Tony Stark said to her, before flying off with Peter.

Once they were out of sight, Marin collapsed to her knees and began to cry.

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[twilightvolt]

My Favorite Anime OPs and EDs from 2010-2019

No one asked for this, but i’m doin’ it anyway cuz there’s so many songs out there that i’ve never heard anyone talk about. like, y’all sleep on Yu-Gi-Oh! apparently. lmao

Going by release year, here’s all the OPs and EDs i can remember that i luv (and still do to this day). i may or may not have gotten all the years right. hell, i’m not even sure i got the OP and ED numbers right.

It’ll go by: Song Name - Artist (Name of Anime and Which OP/ED it is) an asterisk means i REALLY like it above the rest.

Hopefully this’ll help introduce you to some new jams you missed out on! ^  ^

2010

Going My Way! ~Road to Tomorrow~ - Masaaki Endoh (Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds OP5)*

Close to You - ALvino (Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds ED4)

Future Colors - Plastic Tree (Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds ED5)

Gravity 0 - Aqua Timez (Star Driver OP)*

Never Give Up! - Sonar Pocket (Digimon Xros Wars OP)*

Period - Chemistry (Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood OP4)*

Rain - SID (Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood OP5)* THE. FEELS.

Uragiri no Yuuyake - THEATRE BROOK (Durarara!! OP)* Y’all remember this one? Lmao

Trust Me - Yuya Matsushita (Durarara!! ED)

Ice Cream Syndrome - Sukima Switch (Pokemon Zoroark: Master of Illusions ED)*

My Soul, Your Beats! - Lia (Angel Beats OP) WAIT HOLD ON, ANGEL BEATS WAS THIS DECADE? I THOUGHT THAT WAS 2009 OR SOMETHING. DAHEQ?

ChAngE - Miwa (BLEACH OP12)

Calling - FLOW (Heroman ED)*

SHIVER - the GazettE (Black Butler II OP)

2011

Samurai Heart (Some Like it Hot!) - SPYAIR (Gintama ED17)* And on this day I realized….SPYAIR is lit.

New World - Twill (Digimon Xros Wars OP2)

Masterpiece - Mihimaru GT (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL OP)

Boku Quest - Golden Bomber (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL ED)* I luv watching the actual ending sequence. It fits my cyber aesthetic to a T.

BRAVING! - KANAN (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL OP2)

Setsubou no Freesia (Longing Freesia) - Daizystripper (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL ED2)* I’ll be completely honest, this song has been my favorite anime theme over most, if not all others, ever since. It’s kinda held a special place in my heart as it’s got memories of what transpired during 2012 that i don’t think i’ll ever forget. From the summer trip we took down south to me creating my very first OCs, Takuya and his Charmander partner Drake, on paper, i’ll luv this song with all my heart. ^  ^

Lovers - 7!! (Seven Oops) (Naruto Shippuden OP)

Counter Identity - UNISON SQUARE GARDEN (Soul Eater Repeat Show OP)*

Ai Ga Hoshii Yo - Shion Tsuji (Soul Eater Repeat Show OP2)* WANTCHU WANTCHU, I WANT CHUU~

SHINING STAR - 9nine (Star Driver OP2)*

Crossover - 9nine (Star Driver ED2)

Sky's the Limit - Shihoko Hirata (Persona 4 the Animation OP)

We’re Not Alone - coldrain (Rainbow Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin OP)

One Reason - Fade (Deadman Wonderland OP) I can bet you right now half of y’all forgot about this show. I mean i did. Lol

Mayonaka no Orchestra - Aqua Timez (Naruto Shippuden ED16)

Hacking to the Gate - Kanako Itou (Steins;Gate OP)* THIS SONG CLEARED MY SKIN AND RAISED MY GRADES.

Ranbu no Melody - SID (BLEACH OP13)* That main chorus tho. N o i c e .

LISTEN TO THE STEREO!! - GOING UNDERGROUND (Katekyo Hitman Reborn OP8)*

Core Pride - UVERworld (Blue Exorcist OP)

2012

Mask - Aqua Timez (BLEACH ED30?)

Soul Drive - Color Bottle (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL OP3)*

Wild Child - Moumoon (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL ED3)* Whenever I hear this song, I either think of school shenanigans or, if school isn't a thing in their world, a high school AU. Lmao

Unbreakable Heart - Hideaki Takatori (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL OP4)

Artist - Vistlip (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL ED4)*

Stand By Me - Stereopony (Eureka Seven AO ED)* Ok I know some people don't wanna remember AO, but hear me out here. Lmao 

Brave Blue - FLOW (Eureka Seven AO OP2)*

Key Plus Words - Shihoko Hirata & Yumi Kawamura (Persona 4 the Animation OP2)

Harukaze - SCANDAL (BLEACH OP15)*

Crossing Field - LiSA (Sword Art Online OP) I like making SAO jokes as much as the next guy, but let's be real here. Crossing Field was still a pretty good song.

STAND UP! - Twill (Digimon Xros Wars Hunters OP)* Hunters sucked, but the OP slaps.

Kyomu Densen - ALI PROJECT (Another OP) This show gave me a temporary fear of umbrellas, but this OP is good.

Complication - ROOKiEZ is PUNK’D (Durarara!! OP2)

Light My Fire - KOTOKO (Shakugan no Shana III Final OP)

Mite Mite Kochichi - Memoiro Clover Z (Pokemon Best Wishes ED3)

2013

Dualism of Mirrors - Petite Milady (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL OP5)

GO WAY GO WAY - FoZZtone (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL ED5)

Challenge the GAME - REDMAN (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL ED6)* I swear to god, this should’ve been the final OP rather than Wonder Wings. I really don’t like that song.

Oh, and if you wanna hear more of the lead singer's voice, he's the lead singer of GIRUGAMESH. They didn't do any anime songs while they were still active afaik, but totally check it out if you like J-Rock.

Sakura Mitsutsuki & Genjyou Destruction - SPYAIR (Gintama OP13 and Gintama: The Final Chapter OP)*

After Cherry Blossoms (all quartets lead to the?) - UNISON SQUARE GARDEN (Yozakura Quartet: Hana no Uta OP)*

Non-Fiction Compass - UNISON SQUARE GARDEN (Yozakura Quartet: Tsuki ni Naku OP)

Sayonara Memory - 7!! (Seven Oops) (Naruto Shippuden ED)

BLOODY STREAM - Coda (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Battle tendency OP)* I mean, how could i NOT put this song on here? Lmao

Be An Arrow! - Rica Matsumoto (Pokemon Best Wishes! OP2)

Natsumeku Sakamichi (Summerly Slope) - Daisuke (Pokemon Best Wishes DA! OP)* While the Black & White series was absolutely terrible, I can thank it for spawning some nice OPs.

Egao - Ikimono-gakari (Pokemon Genesect and the Legend Awakened ED)

Take Your Way - Livetune adding Fukase (From SEKAI NO OWARI) (Devil Survivor 2 the Animation OP)* I swear I will never get tired of this song.

Be - Song Riders (Devil Survivor 2 the Animation ED)*

Watashi no Bara wo Kaminasai - ALI PROJECT (Rozen Maiden 2013 OP)

Moshimo - Daisuke (Naruto Shippuden OP)

Burn My Dread ~Spring of Birth~ & More Than One Heart - Yumi Kawamura (Persona 3 the Movie #1 Spring of Birth OP and ED)*

Eden - Aqua Timez (Magi: the Kingdom of Magic ED)*

Out of Control - Nothing’s Carved in Stone (Psycho Pass OP2)*

HERO -Kibou no Uta- - FLOW (Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods ED)

2014

Silhouette - KANA BOON (Naruto Shippuden OP16)* Everyone rise for the weeb national anthem.

BelievexBelieve - Bulletrain (Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V OP)

ENAMEL - SID (Black Butler: Book of Circus OP)

Masayume Chasing - BoA (Fairy Tail OP15)

STRIKE BACK - BACK-ON (Fairy Tail OP16)*

Burn! - Bulletrain (Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V OP2)

DAYxDAY - BLUE ENCOUNT (Gintama OP)* Before Polaris, there was this. lol

Goya no Machiawase - Hello Sleepwalkers (Noragami OP)* I swear Noragami has great taste in OPs. lmao

Fate is in Our Hands - Lotus Juice (Persona 3 the Movie #2 Midsummer Knight's Dream OP)* Y'all know Lotus Juice makes EVERYTHING badass.

One Hand, One Heartbeat - Yumi Kawamura (Persona 3 the Movie #2 Midsummer Knight's Dream ED)* I swear I literally feel like crying every time I hear this song. It's just that powerful.

Unravel - TK from Ling Tosite Sigure (Tokyo Ghoul OP) Ok, lemme explain. I used to hate this song cuz I thought TK's singing voice was whiny as hell. But after a long, LOOOOONG time, it finally started to grow on me. I think it's because of all the song covers I've listened to and, after understanding the meaning behind the lyrics, I appreciate this song a bit more nowadays. 

V (VOLT) and MEGA V (MEGA VOLT) - Yusuke (Pokemon XY OPs 1&2)*

daze - Jin ft. MARiA from GARNiDELiA (Mekakucity Actors OP)

Monochrome - Dancing Dolls (Soul Eater NOT! OP)

2015

Saigo Made ii - Aqua Timez (Gintama ED15 i think?)

Kyouran Hey Kids! - THE ORAL CIGARETTES (Noragami Aragoto OP)* IN THIS HOUSE, WE JUST WANNA HOLD YOUR HAAAAAAND~

Getta Ban Ban (Mad-Paced Getter) - Tomohisa Sako (Pokemon XY OP3)*

XY&Z - Rica Matsumoto (Pokemon XY&Z OP)*

Raise Your Flag - MAN WITH A MISSION (Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans OP)*

Hello, World! - BUMP OF CHICKEN (Kekkai Sensen OP)*

Sugar Song and Bitter Step AKA the song everyone makes fan animated parodies of it’s opening sequence - UNISON SQUARE GARDEN (Kekkai Sensen ED)

Kirifuda (Trump Card) - Cinema Staff (Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V OP4)

Speaking - MRS. GREEN APPLE (Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V ED4)* before Great Escape from Attack on Titan and Inferno from Fire Force, there was this OP and ED. both of which i feel are better songs. lmao

Tweedia - Rei Yasuda (Pokemon Hoopa and the Clash of Ages ED)*

Diver - KANA-BOON (The Last: Naruto the Movie ED)*

Butter-Fly 2015 - Kouji Wada (Digimon Adventure Tri. OP)

Sono Chi no Kioku ~End of the World~ - JO☆STARS ~TOMMY, Coda, JIN~ (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders OP2)

Lapis Lazuli - Eir Aoi (Arslan Senki ED)*

Clattanoia - OxT (Overlord OP)*

L.L.L. - MYTH & ROID (Overlord ED)

Nazo 2015 - La PomPon (Detective Conan OP41)* Hearing this brought back memories of hearing the original during my childhood back when Cased Closed was still a thing.

Just Fly Away - EDGE of LIFE (Gundam Build Fighters Try OP2)

Flyers - BRADIO (Death Parade OP) Like Another, this was one of those where i wouldn’t have touched the show itself if my anime club didn’t watch it.

X.U. - Hiroyuki Sawano (Seraph of the End OP)*

Hikari - ViViD (Magi: the Kingdom of Magic OP2)

2016

DiVE!! - Amatsuki (Digimon Universe: Applimonsters OP)*

Ai - Ami Wajima (Digimon Universe: Applimonsters ED2)

The Day - Porno Graffitti (My Hero Academia OP)

HEROES - Brian the Sun (My Hero academia ED)

RAGE OF DUST - SPYAIR (Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans OP2)*

Believe in Myself - EDGE of LIFE (Fairy Tail OP21)*

CRAZY NOISY BIZARRE TOWN - THE DU (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable OP)

Chase - batta (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable OP2)* Screw the haters. This song is a bop.

Great Days - Karen Aoki & Daisuke Hasegawa (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable OP3) As you can see, i luv all of Jojo Part 4’s OPs. lmao

Kaze no Uta - FLOW (Tales of Zestiria the X OP)* Zestiria may have been the most uninteresting experience i’ve had in the Tales series, but at least it’s OPs are straight fire.

Dream Lantern, ZenZenZense, Sparkle and Nandemonaiya - RADWIMPS (Various themes from Your Name) I'm still miffed that they didn't kiss at the end. >:v

Re:Re: - ASIAN KUNGFU GENERATION (Erased OP)

Brave Shine - Aimer (Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works OP)*

Starting Over - Mr. Children (The Boy and the Beast ED)* Mamoru Hosoda never ceases to make me smile and/or cry, huh?

GO - BUMP OF CHICKEN (GRANBLUE FANTASY the Animation OP)

KINGS - angela (K Project OP) i don’t even know how i remembered this one. I watched K at my local anime club years ago cuz one of my friends suggested it. I barely remember what it was about, though. ^  ^’

Vision - Kusou Linkai (Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V ED5)

Light of Hope - Unknown Number (Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V OP5)

Pendulum Beat! - SUPER DRAGON (Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V OP6)*

2017

Peace Sign - Kenshi Yonezu (My Hero Academia OP2)* SURE IT’S POPULAR, BUT IT’S POPULAR FOR A REASON.

Datte Atashi no Hero - LiSA (My Hero Academia ED3)

Little Pi - Ange☆Reve (Digimon Universe: Applimonsters ED3)

Perfect World - Traffic Light (Digimon Universe: Applimonsters ED4)*

With the Wind - Hiroaki “TOMMY” Tominaga (Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS OP)* I’ll be honest, this one took some getting used to, but now i luv it!

Fake Town Baby - UNISON SQUARE GARDEN (Kekkai Sensen and Beyond OP)

Tonari Au - THE ORAL CIGARETTES (Sakurada Reset ED)*

Rain - SEKAI NO OWARI (Mary and the Witch's Flower ED)* I really liked the movie and I just luved the fantasy vibes given off by the instrumentals in this song.

Baton Road - KANA BOON (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations OP)* Y'all say Boruto is trash, but at least the theme songs still boppin'.

Boku wa Hashiri Tsuzukeru - Melofloat (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations ED3)

FEED THE FIRE - coldrain (King’s Game OP)* Thank you Fire Force for introducing me to this wonderful band. ;w;

2018

PAiNT it BLACK - BiSH (Black Clover OP2)* Never thought I'd ever find a band actually named bish. Lmao

Black Rover - Vickeblanka (Black Clover OP3)

Guess Who is Back - Kumi Koda (Black Clover OP4)* Now, if this ain't a bop fit for a triumphant return like "SURPRISE BISH I'M BACK." then idk what is. Lmao

Gamushara & Tenge Tenjou - Miyuna (Black Clover OP&ED5)* i’m mainly referring to Gamushara, but i luv Tenge Tenjou too.

ODD FUTURE - UVERworld (My Hero Academia OP4)*

Make my story - Lenny code fiction (My Hero Academia OP5)*

The Future is Now - Straightener (Digimon ReArise OP)* Yes, I know I'm cheating cuz it's a video game, but it's an opening sequence much like an anime, so yeah.

Breath - Porno Graffitti (Pokemon the Power of Us ED)

Katharsis - TK from Ling Tosite Sigure (Tokyo Ghoul OP3?)*

Here - JUNNA (The Ancient Magus Bride OP)

Renai Circulation - Kana Hanazawa (Bakemonogatari OP4) Imma be honest, i found this song through those Coldplay mashups and other memes. Lmao

I Wanna Be - SPYAIR (Gintama Shirogane no Tamashii Hen OP)

Hana Ichi Monme - BURNOUT SYNDROMES (Gintama Shirogane no Tamashii Hen ED)*

2019

Hana ga Saku Michi - THE CHARM PARK (Black Clover ED7)* I SWEAR NO ONE’S COVERED THIS SONG YET AND I’M SAD. I LUV THIS SONG.

Inferno - MRS. GREEN APPLE (Fire Force OP)

Veil - Keina Suda (Fire Force ED)* This ED gives me feels and i luv it. ;w;

MAYDAY - coldrain (Fire Force OP2)* This sounds like a song i’d hear at Hot Topic and i feel blessed. lmao

Nounai - Lenny code fiction (Fire Force ED2) I swear this anime doesn’t have a single song i don’t like. I’m not kidding. lmao

WILD SIDE - ALI (BEASTARS OP)* IN THIS HOUSE, WE DO NOT SKIP THIS OPENING I STG.

Le Zoo - YURiKA (BEASTARS ED)

Nemureru Honou (Sleeping Instincts) - YURiKA (BEASTARS ED2)*

Kawaki no Ameku - Minami (Domestic Na Kanojo OP)

Polaris - BLUE ENCOUNT (My Hero Academia OP6)* THIS IS THE BIGGEST BOP SINCE PEACE SIGN OML

Touch Off - UVERworld (The Promised Neverland OP)* This show was too creepy for me to continue, but I luv it for what it is. Also NAA NANANANANANAA NANANAAAA~

Sangenshoku - PELICAN FANCLUB (Dr. Stone OP2)* Sorry, but Good Morning World didn’t totally do it for me. I luv this OP way more tbh.

Suisou - Megumi Nakajima (Hoshiai no Sora OP)* The bits before the chorus are just so good.

1•2•3 - After the Rain (Pocket Monsters 2019 OP)

Dark Crow - MAN WITH A MISSION (Vinland Saga OP2)

MOTOR CITY - Kenichi Asai (No Guns Life OP)

Game Over - DATS (No Guns Life ED)

[takadasaiko]

Houseguest: Chapter One

FFN II AO3

Summary: Two months after the battle of New York, Tony gets a surprise visit from Steve Rogers at his home in Malibu. Still uncertain exactly what brought him there in the first place, the two not-quite-friends find themselves in the middle of an increasingly dangerous mission to recover stolen alien tech.

Chapter One: The Surprise Visitor

It was all planned out. The reservations had been made, he'd had JARVIS set three alarms - including one that gave him a ten second warning that his systems would be shut down and all unsaved designs would be lost - to make sure that he was out of the workshop in time, and he was showered and ready with a few minutes to spare. He was not going to mess this up. He didn't dare mess this up.

Tony ran a hand back through his dark hair to smooth a few strands into place and pulled in a deep breath, going over everything again. Pep had had a five-thirty phone call with the Board in New York, but she'd promised to keep it under an hour when he'd told her their dinner reservations were set for seven. Just after six she'd have time to change and they'd drive to her favourite restaurant on the beach. It had to be perfect.

"Miss Potts has arrived," JARVIS announced as Tony snapped his watch into place. "She is not alone."

That stopped him in his tracks. "What do you mean not alone?" he demanded, but it was Pepper's voice from downstairs that answered him, not the AI.

"Tony? Are you upstairs?" He darted over to the hall just outside of his room that overlooked the living room below, hearing the telltale signs of Pepper's heels against the marble floor and her voice drifting up, even if it didn't sound like she was talking to him. "Tony didn't mention that you were coming into town."

The inventor slammed to a stop at the voice that answered her. "Uh… he didn't know," came Steve Roger's awkward answer. "He mentioned I should look him up if I was in Malibu and -"

"Hey, Cap. You forgot how phones work?" Tony popped off, starting down the stairs. "I mean, I know there've been some upgrades since '45, but it's still a pretty basic concept." Pepper shot him a withering look as he circled down and he flashed her a grin. "Not that you don't look great in a business suit, but that's not what you're wearing to Nobu, is it?"

"My dress is out in the car, but you had a guest lingering at the front door when I got here. It's like he was afraid to knock. Couldn't imagine why."

"I'm interrupting something, aren't I?" Steve managed, looking more awkward by the moment. Good. Maybe he'd slink right back out the door and they could get on with date night.

"We had dinner plans, but that's alright," Pepper answered and damn it if she weren't reacting to the lost puppy look Rogers seemed to be wearing like a pro. "I didn't get a chance to meet you while we were working on the tower's redesign."

"And you can meet him tomorrow," Tony cut in as he came to join them on the ground floor. "I mean, you're not flying out tonight, right, Cap? And we have reservations…."

"Because we've never canceled reservations before? It's fine. We'll go later. You have a friend in town."

Friend was a stretch, but there was no arguing with her when she was like this. Well, no winning the argument, at any rate. He'd thought that she might have caught on to the fact that this wasn't just another dinner, but if she'd had an inkling of an idea it had gone out the window the moment she had seen their spangliest Avenger standing on Tony's doorstep. Great. The best laid plans did tend to blow up more spectacularly than just winging it.

"I don't want to intrude," the blond tried and Tony didn't miss the brief look his girlfriend gave him.

"Too late for that," he answered with a forced smile and for a second he thought Pepper might smack him for it. Instead she just shot him a warning look that only a blind man could have misinterpreted.

"I think I have some clothes to change into upstairs. Do you have any food in the house? I can cook dinner or we can order in -"

"I have liquor," he offered and boy did he need some about then.

"Okay, but I'm something a little more substantial to go with it," Pepper answered, but at least she was smiling while rolling her eyes at him. "I'll have them deliver a pizza."

"Perfect," he managed as he watched her start for the stairs, her ponytail bouncing with each step and pulled her phone from her purse to call it in.

Tony turn an accusing glare on the taller man. "Please tell you've got a damn good reason for being here. Bad guys chasing you? Aliens back? Something that makes it worth it that you just crashed a night I've been planning for weeks."

"I'm sorry, Tony. I should've called."

"Yeah."

"I'll go."

"Oh no. She wants you to stay, so if you go now I'll get an earful about forcing you out." He tilted his head a little, studying the man that his father had spent decades searching for and his entire childhood talking about. He didn't look afraid or even worried. More embarrassed than anything, and Tony reached up to massage some of the tension from the bridge of his nose. "It's been two months since New York. Last I heard you took a motorcycle out and nobody's heard from you since. You drive clear across the country?"

"I did, actually."

"So what? Just need a place to crash when you hit the West Coast?"

"No, nothing like that. I'll get a motel or something. I just… I wanted to…."

"Pizza's on its way," Pepper called as she started back down the stairs, now dressed in a pair of jeans and one of Tony's AC/DC t-shirts. "Captain Rogers, you strike me as more of a beer than a wine man."

"That'd be great, thank you," he answered politely. "And Steve's fine, Miss Potts."

"Then I'm going to insist on Pepper." Then she was gone again, descending downstairs to the wine cellar below Tony's workshop.

Tony turned back to Cap. "How'd you find me, anyway? My address isn't exactly listed."

"Nick Fury."

"But he couldn't give you my phone number? Weird."

He turned up the stairs towards the kitchen, motioning for the taller man to follow and he heard him snort in response. "I'm sorry. I should have called. I just assumed you'd be holed up in your lab or something. I didn't even know you had a girlfriend, much less one that you would be -"

Tony turned, quirking a dark eyebrow. "One that I'd be what, Cap?"

"That you'd… I just didn't realize you were… in a …"

"Uh huh. Keep going. You're doing great." He offered a shit-eating grin and chuckled. "It's fine. Keep your reasons for all I care. The night's planned events are a bust now so we might as well make some new ones."

He opened the fridge and reached in, grabbing two beers as he did and went back for a bowl of limes as an afterthought. Hey. They weren't working and apparently they had no place to be. The least he could do was furnish the great Captain America with a hangover for crashing his night. Tequila worked nicely for that.

"Where all have you been to see in the last couple of months?" Pepper called from the living room.

Tony pressed one of the bottles into Cap's hand and breezed past him, the other man following until they reached the base of the stairs and Tony split off towards the bar. "I just made my way across the US. I really didn't travel as a kid and while I saw a few cities with the Army I never really got to enjoy them."

"That sounds amazing. Neither of us have been on a real vacation in…. years. Tony, what are you looking for?"

"Tequila." He could practically feel her quirk a questioning eyebrow from the living room. He found what he was looking for and snagged the bottle and glasses, starting back out. "I mean, in our defense, last time we tried we got attacked."

"You did what?" Rogers asked cautiously.

"He wouldn't have been able to get to you if you hadn't decided you wanted to play race car driver."

Tony made a face. "Yeah, because him showing up at the expo didn't happen right after."

Pepper flashed him a playful smile. "But that wasn't on vacation." She turned back to their drop-in guest. "Sorry. You were saying?"

Cap was watching them like he was trying to decide if they'd lost their minds or if this was supposed to be normal for them. Tony was fine with letting him guess. As Pepper kept the conversation going he busied himself with three generous glasses of tequila, salting the rims and handing them out.

"Oh that's way too much," Pepper argues.

"It's fine. When's your first meeting?"

"Ten."

"It's fine. Cheers. To Cap's impromptu visit." He lifted his glass, flashing her his most innocent smile. He waited until the other two knocked against his, the clink echoing. He tilted it back and stuck a lime in his mouth. A shudder ran through him. Okay. Wow. It'd been a while since he'd done that.

They chatted, Rogers telling them where he'd been and what he'd seen. He'd gone down the East Coast first, cut across Louisiana into Texas, and then made his way to Southern California from there. He still wanted to make it up to Washington State and back around. Chicago was on his list, he knew. Minneapolis. Detroit. As long as there were no major catastrophes that had them all coming back together, he thought he had time. He didn't say anything about Tony's invitation that he'd extended to all of the Avengers. Not that any of them really had. It had been a stupid idea anyway. An expensive one too, with the living quarters that he'd designed for each of them. Ah well. At least he and Pepper had a place to stay when they were in New York.

Pepper leaned against him a little more as the conversation continued, her long day mixing with the alcohol, and Tony wrapped an arm around her on the couch. She nestled into his shoulder and he played with strands of strawberry blonde hair in a way he knew she liked. He lifted his newly refilled glass to his lips with his free hand. "Where's Peggy Carter these days?"

Tony couldn't miss the way that Cap stiffened at the question. "I'm not… why?"

"You guys were a thing, right?"

"How do you….? Is that in a file somewhere?"

Tony snorted louder than he meant to at that and mumbled apologies to his snoozing girlfriend before dark eyes flickered back up to meet blue. "I knew her when I was younger. Dad worked with he - on SHIELD, I guess, not that he ever told me that - and I met her a few times. Haven't seen her in years, but I thought…"

"She moved back to England," Rogers said softly. "That's what her file said anyway."

"Those things are always outta date. If you want I can track her down for you. Might be nice to say —"

"No."

The word was sharp enough that Tony stiffened at it. Cap winced. "Sorry. No, thank you. That's really not necessary."

"Okay then." The room went quiet and Tony shifted Pepper gently so that they'd both be a little more comfortable. She inched the rest of the way down so that her head rested on the couch next to him, freeing him up to move a little. He glanced over to the bottle that they'd already put a dent in that night and grabbed for it. If he was feeling the affects, surely Cap was. He hadn't been sure the man even drank until that night.

"Everyone's gone."

Tony pauses mid-reach. "Gone?"

"My whole unit. Your dad. Peggy's alive, but she has a family and I…. I'm just part of a past she moved on from."

Tony chewed on his lower lip before refilling his glass and leaning over to refill Rogers' as well. They were both going to need it. "So what are you doing here? I mean, I wasn't exactly your favourite of our little makeshift team of superheroes."

He watched blond brows draw together thoughtfully and he took a long sip from his glass. "Your dad took some getting used to. He was…. brash. Arrogant. Obnoxious. But when push came to shove he was there when you needed him. I wouldn't trust another pilot back in the war. I thought I saw….." His lips twitched downward. "I guess I missed him, but he's been gone for years now." Blue eyes finally flickered to meet brown. "You're here though."

And just like that Tony's mood plummeted. "Always nice to be a fill in for a dead man," he snapped quietly.

"That's not —"

Tony dragged in a breath and tilted the glass back. He couldn't feel his lips anymore. Scratch that. He couldn't feel his face. "Listen, I should get her upstairs to bed," he managed, motioning at the still-sleeping Pepper.

"Oh. Maybe I should get going then."

"Nah. I have like… six guest rooms. Pick one. There's a gym on this floor if you want. You saw where the kitchen is. Despite what Pep says, it's usually pretty well stocked. If you need to know where something is, just ask JARVIS. G'night."

"Tony, if I offended you somehow…."

"Why would I be offended, Cap? We're not friends. You were pals with my old man. I don't mind putting you up for the night."

He ignored the kicked puppy look the other man was giving him as he roused Pepper just enough to get her on her feet, teasing her the whole way about how the tables had turned and what a bad influence he'd been on her. She leaned into him as they made their way up the stairs to his bedroom and told him she loved him. Well. At least the night wasn't a total bust. That made it alright.

                                          ______________________

TBC

Notes: So begins another crazy story. One that I did not actually plan to write, mind you, but the boys wouldn't leave me alone until I did. I do love shoving them in a room together and making them play nice.

Next time: A hungover Tony gets news of a breakin at a Stark Industries facility.

[macbetha]

Preview of SouRin Sugar Daddy AU: Death of a Bachelor “Chapter 21″

Sousuke’s first week back at work is shit – more like slapping on a condom full of fire ants, to put it lightly – though he hadn’t anticipated leaving his bed for a freezing office would be a pleasant affair. He’s grown accustomed to Rin’s presence, bodily and internally addicted. Sousuke needs him like sleep, a requirement for rest and fulfillment; the way he buries his cheek against Sousuke’s chest in the night, god, the fucking stars can’t compare to such fire. Being around Rin is secure and rebellious all at once. Justified. The reliver and the fever. There’s a panic to it all, waiting for this good thing to explode and come crashing down – but Sousuke likes the feeling. It’s powder, fuse, and friction. He and Rin are maneuvering a delicate space as they try to figure out the balance of public image and authentic emotion, but at least Sousuke knows which way Rin might be leaning.  Sousuke can most certainly confirm what his own heart is singing.  Needless to say, he is a bit addicted to being around Rin, and it was in no one’s best interest for Sousuke to part from him and spend days in a conference so infuriating that it ices his goddamn blood over. To quote Makoto, Sousuke is positively lemon-sour and intimidates potential investors; to quote Nagisa, his personally drops to that of the Wicked Witch of the T.E. West Wing.

“What in the risen fuck was that meeting,” Sousuke hisses on the walk out of the conference room. Nitori scurries after him, peeking over the tower of files in his arms. “Sir, I know you need a break, but you have a call from the Chou Ward waiting on Line 3 –” Sousuke throws a hand up. “I don’t have time to ignore Isana-san, tell him I’ll call him in the morning.” He shudders at the dreadful thought. “Put Baileys in my coffee tomorrow.” Nagisa bounces to Nitori’s side, scribbling on a clipboard before handing it off to Makoto. Nagisa takes a primp sip of his latte, swinging his hips with the demeanor of someone absolutely content while the building goes up in figurative flames. Nagisa says, “Sou-chan shouldn’t have any irritants while he’s recovering, Ai-chan.” “You’re an irritant,” Nitori pouts. The rest of Sousuke’s people follow him to the elevator, but he’s too frazzled to recall which floor he’s on. Not remembering directions is a staple of his character at the office, but that doesn’t make his grumble any less embarrassed. “Up or down?” Natsuya raises his brows as he scrolls through his phone and Makoto sighs, “It’s a miracle you have a driver’s license.” He pushes the button to take them to the appropriate level and everyone hunkers down in Makoto’s office with the door locked. Sousuke pours square glasses of whiskey for himself and his brother, Natsuya pulls out a Cameroon cigar, and Seijuro haggardly smokes a cigarette. The redhead hisses grey through his teeth. “Well, that could have gone better.” “A root canal would have gone better,” Sousuke fumes. Seijuro flicks ashes into the tray he always keeps in his breast pocket. “Amazing that you have to call in every department to the main branch just to make an executive decision of shareholders.” Seijuro isn’t even full-time on T.E.’s payroll, but as their prime freelancing marketing consultant, it was necessary for Mikoshiba Incorporated to witness the meeting. Natsuya yanks his tie loose and flops in the nearest chair. “It’s democracy, one of the two greatest contributions to society.” His face slates over as he takes a pull from his cigar. “That and getting fucked up the ass.” “I’ve tried both and they’re overrated,” Nagisa says, tossing his empty coffee cup over his shoulder and into the trashcan. He spreads his notes across Makoto’s desk, organizing in a way that only the P.A. can understand. Nitori comes over to view the conference transcript and braces his hands on his hips, grim-browed. “What was that one gentleman’s name that wanted to buy half your stocks?” Sousuke snorts into his glass. “Which one? The guy that looked like he should be underground worshiping rats?” “No,” Nagisa says, leafing through some folders. “The one with the personality of a sentient enema.” “Ito-san,” Makoto supplies, half-asleep on the lounge. Lemon is his office-cat of the day and she cuddles his shoulder. Nitori nods. “Right, him.” His eyes skim through the appropriate folder and he sighs over at Sousuke. “If you aren’t comfortable with Ito-san being a shareholder, you’ll have to do what he can’t.” Seijuro scoffs, “What, drive sober?” “That and prove Tachibana Enterprises is still a mom-and-pop business.” Nitori crosses his arms. “Yamazaki-san, you and Tachibana-san are still the figureheads of this company. You don’t have to blindly grab anyone’s money just because there’s a lot of it.” He hesitates. “But you’ll have to make a choice. You’re at a crossroads of identity as a company.” Natsuya says, “Ito-san is a shareholder at Kirishima International as well, my father said that man is so radioactive that he can read newspapers in the bathroom from the light of his own shit.” Sousuke stares in disbelief before kneading his forehead, which pulses to the touch. “Even if we omit Ito-san, none of the investors were good candidates. The youngest prospect talked like he had never seen the world outside a limo with a hot tub; he doesn’t understand how decisions can affect our individual employees.” “If he’s absent-minded, then he won’t pull out if the stocks drop,” Makoto tries. Sousuke balks. “Kinjou Kaede is a goddamn animal. No one thinks rationally when they’re nineteen and just inherited a fortune.” He takes a drink and holds the whiskey in his mouth, letting it burn his insides and fuel his indignation. “Kid prowled into the building like a fucking Bengal tiger.” Nagisa makes a face. “It was pretty hot, though.” “ – and he watched us like he was waiting for us to pour honey on his cock and suck it.” “Mm, too forward,” Nitori nods solemnly. “There’s no way I’m answering to some smug teenager.” Sousuke takes another angry drink. Having a bad shareholder, especially one to the caliber that Kinjou wants, is like being declawed, defanged, and neutered. Not a good equation for a productive work environment – Sousuke is too stubborn to try and improve such a fate. Nagisa considers. “Kinjou might not be that bad, he’s cute. But like, kind of how lions are cute: from a distance with an electric fence between you.” “Kinjou told his P.A. that you’re too busy cutting eff-holes in peaches to do your job right,” Nitori drones, not glancing up from his paperwork. Nagisa looks stunned in the most pleased way. “Do I radiate that much Top Energy? I better keep wearing this Calvin Klein shit I snagged from Haru-chan’s bedroom.” Makoto startles an excited blush with eyes tripled in size before Sousuke cuts everyone off. “If we go with Ito-san, we’re playing it safe and this company won’t be seen as ours anymore. He’ll get all the credit for any forthcoming success because he took a chance on two young CEOs, and everyone will think our profits are due to his wisdom.” Makoto’s frame tightens and he heaves a defeated breath, shaking his head. He looks as trapped as Sousuke feels. Sousuke continues, “If we go with Kinjou, we are going to catch hell from any other long-standing corporations, not to mention the media.” Seijuro nods, lifting his brows. “You’re new money.” He says it with a smirk. “At Mikoshiba Incorporated, my father actually likes that. New money is all cash – it’s no bullshit.” He shrugs as he takes another pull, seeming hopeful. “We’re the next era of business. If the older people can’t evolve, that’s their problem. Money is money and cash is king. That’s all that matters.”   His speech invigorates something deep in Sousuke – a reckoning. He sits up straighter as he regards his brother, who considers. Makoto casts a miserable look at the floor before he shakes his head, giving in to the determination pouring through his veins. His gaze hardens before he nods at Sousuke with grim consent. “All right. We give Kinjou some shares, but not as many as he wanted. Start him out small, see what he does with it. Let the media get used to the idea of him before he’s got the chance to do anything irrational.” Sousuke nods in response, petrified to move forward, but as satisfied as he can be with their circumstance. Everyone slips out to leave the brothers alone and after a while of sharing miserable silence, Sousuke hauls himself to his feet. “Well, I’m headed to take a swan dive off the roof. Care to join me?” “Maybe later.” Makoto keeps scrolling through his phone, inspired. “Are loofas a decent Christmas gift?” Sousuke’s expression dries with disappointment. “You’re rich.”   “They make nice loofas.” “Who the fuck thinks about fiber count when they’re washing their ass, Mako?” Makoto grimaces with a shudder. “It’s for Haru.” He takes off his glasses to rub his eyes in frustration. “He likes baths, I don’t know. I just want to get him something he’d like.” Lemon wanders over and Sousuke picks her up to cuddle the cat against his chest. “Taking baths is a staple of his character? He doesn’t sound that interesting.” “He’s very interesting,” Makoto pouts. “I’m just bad at gifts. What are you getting Rin for Christmas?” Sousuke shrugs, though it’s a confidant motion. “Whatever he wants.” “That’s not interesting,” his brother scoffs. “Or personal.”   Sousuke leans against the wall, careful how he angles his shoulder. “I don’t know, I need to think about it. I don’t want to freak him out or anything.” Makoto glances up from his phone to shoot him a flat look. “I don’t think you could freak him out if you tried, and I mean that nicely. Haru told me that Rin’s obsessed with you.” “Mm.” He doesn’t say more, though he flushes with pride, and he smirks when Makoto rolls his eyes. His brother sighs, “Well, I need to hurry up and choose something since he and Rin are taking a flight back home tomorrow.” Sousuke’s smirk drops and his arms fall slack. Lemon squawks in the air before landing on her feet. “Huh?” “Did you forget?” “Rin never told me.”

[thatfairyfangirl]

True Colors Chapter 17

You sat in the corner of the Starbucks with half a smile on your face as you watched Ali make crass jokes, you enjoyed the fact that your friendship with her had been growing ever since her and Warren got together...You couldn’t believe when she told you that she was actually envious of you. She’d been at the game for a long time now and there you were making all these waves just being yourself. You loved her for saying that, for being so supportive ever since the dark hell you went through.

“How much you want to bet that by tomorrow we’re both going to be on TMZ rumored as dating?” She suggested she winked at you, pulling the first genuine laugh out of you since you got home.

“Hey there’s that smile!” Bucky beamed down to you as he came to sit by your side with a fresh cinnamon dolce latte for you to sip on. His metal wrapped around your shoulder as he tugged you in to kiss your forehead lightly. “And you better not start any rumors like that. Poor girl’s been through enough.”

“You starting trouble again?” Warren’s firm hands came to rest on the punk rocker’s shoulders, his wings tucked tightly behind his back but still far from hidden. The two looked so different, an angel and a rock star.

“Always babe.” She teased as she leaned her head back looking for a kiss.

“Wouldn’t do much anyway. I’m going on Good Morning America this weekend to promote the album,” you paused turning to Bucky, “if it's alright with you I’d like to at least mention us?”

You watched as Bucky’s smile brightened, his oceanic eyes sparkling as he dove in to kiss you deeply. “Of course its alright Doll.”

“What the hell? How come I never get invited to those fucking shows?” Ali asked with a playful smirk.

“Because you can’t watch your language. Obviously.” You teased back with a chuckle, feeling more and more like your old self as you surround yourself with friends and the one you loved so very much.

“So what are you two going to do for Valentine's day?” Warren asked, looking to shift the subject to something much lighter.

“What’s Valentine's day?” Bucky asked looking lost as his eyes scanned the shocked looks the small group gave him. The lost puppy dog look in his eyes broke as he looked onto your sad face, giving you a reassuring smile he pulled you in close. “Oh Doll I’m kidding! I’ve got something special planned, don’t worry.”

~ ~ ~ ~

“I’m sorry Sergeant Barnes but it would seem the wait list for Sushi Zo hasn’t cleared up yet.” Your eyes gently pried open as you rolled over to find Bucky pacing back and forth in his room, arguing with the disembodied robotic voice of FRIDAY, door still wide open. It hasn’t become uncommon for the two of you to just pick one of the two of your rooms and just share for the night...honestly you couldn't think of the last time either of you slept alone...well before the kidnapping, definitely. You COULDN’T sleep without him after that.

“Well can you see if any other sushi places have any openings? Tonight has to be perfect.” You smiled as you ran your fingers through your hair, watching him fret over tonight, loving that he remembered that sushi was your favorite.

“Going to be asking any big questions tonight Sargent?” He froze at the AI’s question. Eager to hear the answer you leaned over the bed, waiting impatiently for his answer...right up until you ran out of bed to lean over and you tumbled to the ground.

“Oh Doll you weren’t supposed to wake up yet!” He chuckled as his attention drew over to you.

“Answer the robot Barnes.” You teased flipping your rainbow hair back as he came to help you up.

“Not tonight Doll.” Okay so you may have known the answer to that one a mile away...You two hadn’t even gotten to the fun part about sharing a bet together yet...Besides, you were still sure he’d get bored with a mutant eventually.

With a smile you reached up to give him a soft sweet loving kiss, letting your tongues dance together as you felt his metallic hand sneaking its way under the back of your shirt to rake up and down your bare back in that way that drove you wild. “Don’t worry about the fancy reservations sweetheart.” You offered with a smile, looking to make this day as easy as possible for him. “As much as I like sushi I think you forget that I didn’t grow up with all this fame and fortune nonsense...or the free access to Stark funds like I have now.”

“Oh god Doll please don’t say you’re going to try cooking again.” He teased as you both drew in closer to each other with playful hits and tickles. “I’m pretty sure you were about two steps away from us having to call that Doctor Strange guy.” He laughed as he found just the right spot to tickle to get you to squirm.

“And what is that supposed to mean?!”

“It means you summon demons when you cook.” He scooped you up as you attempted to swat away his hands. “You gave Vision food poisoning and his stomach isn’t even real.” He added flinging you over his shoulder to take you to get some breakfast as you yelped playfully. “FRIDAY is there anywhere with reservations open I don’t care if I have to take the quinjet to get her there this girl deserves a nice dinner on Valentine’s Day.”

“What’s wrong with just going to McDonalds? No reservation required, there won’t be a hoard of cameras…” You suggested as you rested your arms on his back, your head in your hands, accepting your fate of being carried like a sack of potatoes...at least it was a great view from the back.

“I said GOOD meal.” He put extra emphasis on the word good.

“You know I’m going to pester you all day about this. It’s Valentine's day….aren’t you supposed to give me what I want?”

Bucky craned his neck to look at you draped behind him, arching a brow with a smirk. “Oh I know what you want,” his bionic arm swatted at your prominently displayed rear, “don’t worry Doll.” The tone he used told you that he wasn’t talking about the food. Your hair swirled shades of pink as your mind raced at what he was insinuating.

~ ~ ~ ~

“Oh look! We’re the happy meal toys!” Bucky chuckled as he pointed to the display of what toys were featured in the happy meals this month, blissfully unaware of the girls watching him with a more wanting eye than he was used to...You, of course noticed as you wrapped your fingers around his, displaying for all to see that he was yours.

“Oh I’m so getting one!” You giggled excitedly as you bounded over to the counter to order. “I want a cheeseburger happy meal with a large strawberry shake and an extra fry please.” You shot Bucky a triumphant smile as he ordered his number 1 with a coke and paid for the food. “I told you I’d get what I want.” You added as you prodded at his muscled shoulder.

“Yeah you’re a punk.” He hooked the arm around you, pulling you into a deep loving kiss. “But I-” He paused looking down into your eyes, losing the nerve to say what he wanted. “I’m with you to the end of the line Doll. Now come on, night’s not over yet.” With food firmly in hand he lead you through the lights of the city, letting them comfort you in the way only light could, leading you to a hotel overlooking Times Square.

~~~~

Bucky smiled triumphantly as he watched your eyes sparkle with wonder as you opened the door, nearly dropping the little paper bag of food. “How did...When did you have time to set all this up? We’ve been together all day.” You felt his arm wrap around your waist, pulling you in close to kiss your neck, nuzzling into it lovingly.

“Don’t worry about it Doll.” He whispered with a kiss to the back of your ear as he lead you inside, realizing he hadn’t planned passed this point once the door was closed.

You rushed over to the window, throwing back the curtains to take in the view of the city twinkling in the dark like stars. Not too far off you could see the bright glowing A of your home, only a short walk away but you couldn’t feel any further from it than you did now. “No FRIDAY, no Steve, no Tony.” as you spoke you set your dinner on the small table provided, pulling out the greasy food, “...goddamnit.”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed as he sat next to you, wrapping his metallic arm around you, knowing how much it comforts you. “What’s wrong Doll? Did they get your order wro-” You pulled out of the bag a small plastic Ironman toy as you held back laughter at the irony of it all. “Oh!” He tried his best not to laugh as well as he plucked the small toy from your hands. “Well Doll, you’ll have to eat before you can play with the toy.” He teased as he began to snack on his fries, not entirely sure if he really wanted the burger, but knew he should probably eat something.

Once the food was gone you picked up the cheap plastic toy, removing it from it’s wrapper with a sigh. “Why couldn’t they have given me the Bucky one? I’d love a little Bucky.”

“I can’t believe we were even in that little Avengers toy display!”

“Face it, ever since Detroit you’re down right popular! You should have seen the girls swooning over you while we were in line.” He raised a brow unable to believe anyone would swoon over him, not like this. Hell, he felt lucky you were even with him. “Those boys back at the tower aren’t the big dogs in the yard anymore.” He smiled, amazed that after all this time you were still able to make him blush. “I’m Tony Stark” You said, giving a bad Tony impression as you hopped the toy over to Bucky, moving it up his arm imitating the static plastic figurine walking, “and girls have crushes on you bigger than my ego.” You could feel the muscles of his arm twitch under his shirt as the toy moved over the inside of his elbow, a snort of a laugh being stifled telling you that it tickled….so he was ticklish!

“Let me see that.” He chuckled as he grabbed for the toy.

“Ahh! No!” You cried out playfully as you snatched it away from him. “I can’t be away from him! Who knows what kind of trouble he’d get into! Little Tony needs me!” You joked as Bucky’s fingers tickled at all the spots he’s found over the past few months to make you laugh and squirm. Turning to retaliate, tickling him in return, though he was less apt to squirm...something you blamed whole-heartedly on the serum that made him the super-soldier he was.

You both smiled brightly as you wrestled for the toy, giggling like kids until Bucky’s arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you in close for a long passionate and wonderfully distracting kiss that allowed him to pluck the toy from your fingers. “I think little Tony will be just fine without us for a while.” He whispered before tossing the plastic onto the table before lifting you up into another kiss, passion growing every passing moment as you lead each other to the bed for a night of slow soft loving passion without interruption from the rest of the team...for once.

[txnysheart]

let’s get on with living (while we can) [6]

chapter 6: the sun will rise and we will try again

word count: 5607

warnings: chemo side effects (including hair loss and insomnia)

summary: the three friends do their best to have fun together, but the reality of the situation is always looming over them

read on ao3: x

playlist: x

chapter 1 - chapter 2 - chapter 3 - chapter 4 - chapter 5 - chapter 6 - chapter 7 - chapter 8 - chapter 9

series masterlist | masterlist

━━━━━━━━

An array of distressed emotions flickered over his face, and that snapped MJ out of her stunned silence. “Peter, it’s okay. It’s okay, we knew this was gonna happen,” she tried calming him down, but Peter just pushed away from them, desperate for his dads. He almost fell out of bed, Ned grabbing his arm to prevent it, and rushed as fast as he could to get to his dads.

“Peter!” Ned worriedly called out, but MJ put a hand on his shoulder. She also grabbed the clump of hair from his hand, dropping it on the floor for now; just not keen on Ned to be holding or seeing it for any longer than necessary.

“He needs Tony and Steve right now. It’s okay,” she told him.

Peter wished he could sprint, but his body could barely handle a light jog. And still, it took its toll on him quickly; he stumbled, almost nose diving right to the floor three times before he grabbed onto the door handle that would let him see his dads. First time, he lost his grip, but got it open the second time, stopping for a short moment, then walking into the room.

A raw sob tore up his throat, startling the two men awake from their light slumber. They'd both only fallen asleep less than half an hour ago. He spluttered nonsense as he walked to the bed, and Tony, being the one closest to the door, pulled him into his arms. He physically felt himself snap out of his fog, the need to protect Peter overriding absolutely everything else. He felt it all; it was almost too much, but moved his focus to his hysterically crying son who was shaking in his arms.

“You need to breathe. Peter, look at me, you need to breathe,” Tony encouraged, trying to get Peter to look at him, but he was avoiding his eyes. Steve pieced it together when he tried to calm him by playing with his hair, and instead of melting into the touch, Peter flinched away. An overwhelmed and confused Tony searched Steve’s eyes for an answer, and got it when his husband whispered “hair”.

The already upset Peter really didn’t need an anxiety attack on top of this, so Steve cupped his face. “Listen, sweetheart. Shh, listen,” he cooed, “you’re okay, we’ve got you.” Tears running down his face, eyes wide and mouth in a small pout, Peter looked much younger than he was. “Petey, we knew this was coming. There’s nothing we can do about it, and that’s okay. It��s okay, I promise.”

What they didn’t tell him was that the past couple of days, there’d been strands of hair coming out whenever they ran their fingers through it. Not much; just enough for it to be more than what could be considered normal.

Peter inhaled sharply, his crying breaking up his breathing into small gasps. “I’m so-sorry, I shouldn’t ha-”

“No, sweetie, shh. Nothing to be sorry about,” Tony soothed, rocking him back and forth as if he were a baby.

“MJ a-and Ned. Ned was- he was scared,��� Peter cried, voice hoarse.

“He’ll be fine, MJ’s there. There’s nothing she can’t do,” Tony promised him, drying away tears with his thumb. “They’ll be there in the morning, you can sleep here.”

“I can’t,” Peter whined, voice cracking.

“What do you mean you can’t?” Steve inquired, tilting his head.

“Sleep. I… I can’t sleep.”

“You can’t sleep?” Tony clarified, feeling a little sick at the thought. Peter shook his head and then hid his face in Tony’s shoulder, puffing out warm breaths on his collarbone.

“I tried,” the boy croaked, “that’s why Ned was playing with my hair, and then… well, yeah. But- but I can’t sleep. I’m tired, but it doesn’t work.”

“Insomnia is one of the possible side effects,” Steve reminded them solemnly, wrapping his arms around both his husband and their son. “I’ll see the doctors tomorrow and ask if they have something that can help you sleep. Okay?”

A small hum accompanied by a nod made Steve smile. “Good,” he smiled. “So proud of you.”

“We really are,” Tony added, but Peter just wriggled out of his arms to lie between them. He latched onto Tony, Steve holding them both from the other side of Peter. Upon feeling a hand in his hair, he squirmed away with a small whine, but was still clinging to Tony. Whoever of them that’d touched his hair seemed to get the hint, the hand making circles on his upper back instead.

“Can we listen to some music?” Peter mumbled.

“‘Course,” Tony smiled. “FRI, lullaby protocol.”

A playlist consisting of songs that never failed to calm Peter filled the room softly.

The boy tried his best to fall asleep, but couldn’t keep his eyes shut. Both Tony and Steve were wondering if they should distract him somehow, but he didn’t seem to want to move from the bed, having made himself very comfortable.

“You good here? Or d’you wanna do something else?” Steve asked him quietly.

“Stay here,” Peter whispered without hesitation.

“Hungry? Thirsty?”

“No.” Peter huffed a breath out before speaking again. “You two can go to sleep, I don’t mind.”

“We’re gonna stay up with you. Not sleeping is my specialty,” Tony chuckled, earning a glare from Steve, but the rest of his face revealed that he was really just worried.

“You need to sleep, Dad,” Peter argued lazily, playing with the fabric of Tony’s t-shirt - well, actually, it was Steve’s. He’d gotten used to his husband stealing his clothes a long while ago, and he still adored it.

“I’m fine, Pete. Really, don’t worry.”

Peter didn’t believe him, but didn’t push it, instead turning his head to stare at the roof. It was barely audible, but both Steve and Tony had fond smiles on their faces as they listened to Peter humming to the song that was playing. He fiddled with his fingers, and when, in Steve’s opinion, he’d picked at the lunula on his right thumb for too long, he grabbed his son’s hand. He held it, lightly tracing the lines on his palm, the outline of the entire hand, and the small hairs on the back of it. After a while, Peter retracted his right hand, only to replace it with his left, finding it very soothing, and it put the softest look in Steve’s eyes.

────────

In the guest room, Ned had quickly calmed down, but the whole episode was, for them both, a grim reminder of the inescapable.

MJ had moved back to her bed, tucked under the covers. Ned had also gotten comfortable for the night, but none of them closed their eyes.

“This isn’t what it’s supposed to be like,” Ned whispered.

“It’s awful,” MJ said determinedly.

“I’ve known him for so long, I-”

“Don’t do that to yourself, Ned.” She let out a breath, turning to her side so she was facing him. “Can you sleep with music playing?”

“Yeah, why?”

“It helps me take my mind off things. Makes it easier to fall asleep.”

It was an effort to help Ned fall asleep, poorly disguised as something she needed herself. He saw right through it, but appreciated it, so didn’t call her out on it.

“Uh, FRIDAY?” MJ felt a little awkward whenever speaking to the AI, not sure where she should look.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Jones?”

She cringed at being called that. “Please call me MJ,” she sighed, having told FRIDAY to call her that multiple times. It never called Ned Mr. Leeds, so she was pretty sure it was either Peter or Tony messing with her, always changing it back to Ms. Jones. “Anyways, what I was gonna ask was if I put on a playlist on my phone, could you connect it to the speakers here? And put it on a low volume?”

“Of course, MJ. Just put on the playlist you want, and I’ll handle the rest.”

“Thanks, FRIDAY.” She opened Spotify, soon locating her favorite playlist for sleeping. Upon pressing play, the sound only streamed from her phone for a couple of seconds before it was connected to the speakers around the room - which, for the record, seemed to be built into the walls and roof or something, because she couldn’t spot a single one of them. And she was certain there were several, seeing as the music was coming from all sides.

“Feel free to adjust the volume. I guess just tell FRIDAY, and she’ll fix it?” MJ mumbled, feeling her eyes starting to droop.

“It’s good,” Ned assured her. He paused. “You’re a great friend.”

“So are you,” she responded immediately. “Don’t tell anyone I said that. I have a reputation to uphold.”

“Oh, yeah, and what’s that? That you don’t care?” he chuckled.

“Bingo. Go to sleep.”

“You too. Good night.”

“Night, Ned.”

────────

Steve deemed eight thirty in the morning an appropriate time to head over to the medical wing to see if he could get some sleeping medication for son. He told FRIDAY to alert Peter’s primary chemo doctor, Anne Reynolds, that he’d be there in a few minutes.

Meanwhile, Tony brought Peter to the kitchen, dishing up pancakes for all five of them, taking a sip of his coffee at least twice every minute. He was very relieved that there was something else than soggy corn flakes he could feed his son - it wasn’t very nutritious. Pancakes weren’t exactly healthy, but they were certainly much better.

Leaning his head on his hand, Peter positively looked a mess. Bags under his eyes prominent, combined with his already emaciated face, he was the poster child of absolutely, completely, thoroughly worn out. Tony felt bad for him, but tried not to show it - it only made Peter feel even worse.

“Could you go wake Ned and MJ up? Pancakes are done in, uh… I’m guessing fifteen minutes,” Tony asked the boy who perked up a little at the mention of his friends.

“Sure, Dad.”

He stretched out his body, both to try and get rid of the aching and to wake himself up - none successful, for the record. Approaching the bedroom door, Peter felt a little awkward. Was he just going to walk in there as if everything were normal? As if he didn’t run out of there in hysterics just hours earlier.

Taking a deep breath, he ran a hand through his hair to try and calm down, but soon regretted it. “Ah, shit,” he muttered to himself when he looked at the too many strands of hair in his hand. His pulse quickened, but he shook his hand, getting rid of the hair before he could work himself up over it.

The slow, heavy breathing he could hear when he opened the door let him know both Ned and MJ were still asleep. There was music playing softly from the speakers.

“FRI, lights at forty percent,” Peter ordered quietly, aiming for a gentle start of the day for his friends, “and turn the music up a little.”

It was enough for MJ, who soon stirred, blinking her eyes tiredly. She looked around the room before her eyes landed on Peter who was kind of awkwardly just standing by the door. “Morning,” she yawned. As if everything were normal. Peter smiled at her.

“Sleep well?” he asked her.

“‘Course I did. If I could steal this bed, I would.”

“Good.” Peter shifted his weight between his feet, and walked to the bed he’d been sharing with Ned, sitting down. “Ned,” he tried, poking his shoulder.

“Hey, Ned.” A little louder, this time with a shove. An unintelligible string of words left the boy’s mouth, drawing a small laugh out of Peter. Ned taking a few seconds to realize he was awake never failed to amuse him.

“Breakfast soon. Dad’s making pancakes,” Peter said, addressing both of them. MJ got out of bed, sending him a thumbs up before disappearing into the bathroom.

“P’ncakes?” Ned mumbled, cracking one eye open at a time.

“Yeah, Ned, pancakes,” Peter chuckled.

“Is Steve cooking?”

“No, Dad is today. Why?” Peter eyed his friend, entertained at how groggy he still was.

“Steve’s cooking’s better,” he groaned, making Peter let out a loud, genuine laugh.

“I know, but I think Dad can handle pancakes. You’ll live,” Peter chortled with a shove to Ned’s shoulder to help him wake up.

“What time is it?” he yawned, moving to lean against the headboard, halfway sitting up.

“Almost nine. I know it’s kinda early, but you guys are heading back home today so I wanted to spend as much time with you as I could,” Peter explained, playing with his fingers.

“I don’t mind at all,” Ned assured him when he noticed the nervous action. “You know I’m tired no matter when you wake me up,” he grinned, playfully bumping Peter’s shoulder with his own.

“Yeah,” Peter laughed, looking up when he heard MJ coming back into the room.

“You losers ready for breakfast?” she asked casually, a barely detectable fondness in the back of her voice, as she stood at the end of the bed.

“Yes, ma’am,” Ned saluted, ready for the pillow chucked in the general direction of his head, ducking before getting out of bed.

The three teens piled into the kitchen just a few seconds after Steve had gotten back. He sent a smile their way before it turned into a smirk as he turned to address his husband.

“I see you’ve managed not setting off the fire alarm with your pancakes,” he teased, arms crossed over his chest.

“Oh my god, Steve, that was one time,” Tony protested in a way that made it very clear that this was something Steve often brought up for his own amusement.

“That actually happened?” Ned asked, grinning hopefully.

“It’s true, it woke everyone here up at like seven in the morning. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Auntie Nat scolding Dad while half asleep,” Peter recounted, smug smile plastered on his face.

“I’d pay to see that,” MJ shrugged.

“No need! FRIDAY, can you play-”

“Nope! Not happening, kiddo. FRI, don’t play a damn thing, thank you very much,” Tony interrupted his son, instead shifting everyone’s focus over to the pancakes that he was suddenly busy piling onto their plates. “Brat,” he fondly mumbled when he was standing behind Peter, and planted a kiss on the top of his head. The boy laughed, and thanked him oh-so-politely for the food.

────────

“You wanna watch Star Trek?” MJ suggested, none of them able to settle on how they were going to spend the few hours left before she and Ned had to head back home.

“MJ, stop that, you hate Star Trek,” Peter sighed, slightly annoyed at the fact that she was being too nice. All weekend, she’d been up for whatever Peter wanted, and her teasing was down to an all time low.

“No, I don’t,” she claimed.

“Yes, you do. You always complain when we make you watch it.”

“Well, maybe I have a newfound fondness for it.”

“You don’t,” Peter chuckled, his smile not reaching his eyes.

“How do you know?”

“Because I know you, MJ!” Peter snapped, taking both her and Ned by surprise. “Sorry,” he apologized. “Sorry, it’s just… I get that you’re trying to be nice to me because I- because I’m sick. And that’s… I really appreciate it, don’t get me wrong, but… I just wanna feel normal. Just for a little bit. I’m sorry, I sound like an asshole, I know-”

“You don’t, Peter. I’m sorry.” She looked down at her hands that were folded in her lap. “We… we get it. Right, Ned?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course. Sorry, Peter.”

“Don’t be sorry, it’s okay. You guys are the best.”

The three of them went quiet, none of them really knowing what to say. They were in the living room, gathered on the couch, and tired of playing Mario Kart. Eyes cast downwards, it was Ned who broke the borderline awkward silence.

“How are you feeli- I mean, what… what’s it… like?” he asked, sounding very uncertain, but also like the question had been burning at the back of his throat for weeks.

“Ned,” MJ hissed. Peter just sent her a look to let her know it was okay.

“I’m… Do you really wanna know?” Peter asked, giving his best friend an opportunity to take back his question.

“Yeah.” He sounded sure.

“Okay. Uhm, I’m tired? A few days before you got here I could barely walk on my own. I was throwing up a lot, had a migraine, and my bones and muscles ache all the time. Right now I think I’m as good as I’m gonna get, and then it’s another round of chemo, and I’ll be back to feeling like crap times a hundred,” Peter explained with a strange smile on his face, almost flinching at how harsh the word chemo sounded and felt. “Ten out of ten would not recommend,” he added with a small laugh.

“This shouldn’t be happening,” MJ frowned, shaking her head.

“But it is. There’s nothing we can do about it, so… let’s just make the best out of it, okay?” Peter asked hopefully.

“I speak fluent Peter, and that right there means let’s just ignore this whole thing and pretend it’s not happening,” Ned smiled sadly. Peter met his eyes with his own tired, somber ones, but he was smiling too. A bittersweet feeling filled the three friends up to the brim, and MJ had to blink away a couple of tears.

Hesitating for half a second, Ned reached out for Peter, and pulled him in for a tight hug. “It’s okay, Ned,” Peter whispered, hugging him back as firmly as he could.

“It’s not, but that’s okay,” Ned mumbled, held on for a few more seconds before leaning back, hastily wiping away a few tears that were running down his face. Peter pretended not to notice, apparently very occupied with the loose thread on the side of sweatpants.

“What about…” MJ smirked, unlocking her phone, “a few rounds of guess the soundtrack?” She searched Spotify for a good soundtrack playlist, receiving optimistic nods from the two boys. It was a successful attempt at making the next couple of hours blithe ones. The game had become a thing of theirs at about three in the morning during a sleepover almost a year ago.

It was a simple source of hours of fun, and before they knew it, Tony plopped down in one of the lounge chairs. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. That’s easy, that’s The Shining,” he said, quickly realizing what game the kids were playing, and recognizing the movie’s main title.

“That is correct, Stark,” MJ, game master, announced, “one point for you. Nineteen more to pass Peter and get second place. Twenty four if you wanna be the golden boy.”

“As fun as that sounds, Jones, I’m actually just here to be the bearer of bad news. Thirty minutes till departure. Steve’s made some snacks for you to have before you leave, so go ahead and pack your bags, and get to the kitchen before I eat it all.” Playful look on his face, Tony lifted his hands to slap them down on the armrests, pushing himself back up. “Chop chop!” he jokingly called over his shoulder as he headed for the kitchen.

“Speaking of my last name - who’s fucking with FRIDAY’s code to get her to call me Ms. Jones every damn time I speak with her?” MJ demanded, standing up, and looked accusingly at Peter.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peter insisted very innocently. “Let’s go, I’ll help you guys pack your… stuff.”

“Jeez, Pete, you couldn’t lie to save your life,” Ned snorted as they walked towards the guest room.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about either,” Peter claimed, but couldn’t even keep a straight face.

“Dork,” MJ poorly hid with a cough.

Bags were packed, snacks were consumed, hugs were given out in bountiful supply, and soon it was considerably quieter than it had been for the past couple of days. The boy’s shoulders slumped a little as if the air went out of him. While he hadn’t tried to hide from his friends that he was sick, he’d, without a doubt, worked hard to appear less worn out than he actually was.

“Got some pills from the doctor earlier. She said you’d have to wait until tonight to take them so you wouldn’t mess up your sleeping too bad,” Steve said when the three of them were alone.

“Sounds good,” Peter commented, failing to hide how relieved the news made him. He was so tired; the thought of falling asleep nearly euphoric to him. It was still a few hours until he could do so, but at least he had something to look forward to.

In an effort to make time pass, he plopped down on the couch, putting on The Great British Bake Off - it was surprisingly addictive. He lost count of how many episodes he watched, but when Happy joined him after driving all the way to Queens and back, he realized it had been more than just a few.

Peter being Peter, he let his head rest on Happy’s shoulder who he knew didn’t mind at all, but would deny it if asked; even though everyone had a soft spot for the boy.

“Season seven again?” he asked, just as obsessed with the show as Peter. It had kind of become their thing.

“It’s the best one,” Peter murmured, his attention on the screen.

“Hmm, you’re not wrong,” Happy hummed, lifting his arm to put it around Peter to let him cuddle up to him just like he’d done ever since he was little. It was one of Happy’s favorite things. He’d deny that too.

While it may not seem obvious, Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry critiquing desserts was actually very soothing. Especially combined with Happy’s calm breathing. So soothing, in fact, that it had Peter’s eyes drooping. Before he even noticed it was happening, he’d fallen asleep. Nearly forty hours of no sleep was his body’s limit, apparently, because he was out like a light.

“I’ve always wanted to taste that mousse cake. Maybe if you ask Steve with those puppy eyes of yours…” Happy trailed off when he looked down to discover that Peter had fallen drifted off. He let out a relieved sigh - Tony had worriedly told him about the boy not being able to sleep.

The longer he looked at Peter, the more it hurt. He’d tried his best not to think about it, but that wasn’t easy when he had him sleeping in his arms. Up until that moment, he’d thought maintaining a certain distance was the best. That it would hurt less. He wanted to yell at himself for thinking such a thing. His time with Peter was running out, just like everyone else’s, and it became so obvious that doing anything other than spending as much as possible of it with him was foolish. Yes, it hurt to see him so up close, to see how the cancer was eating him up, but it hurt more to avoid him.

“Pete, you-”

“Shh!” Happy stopped Tony. “He’s asleep.”

“Wha- he is?”

He nodded. “Dozed off a few minutes ago.”

“Good. That’s… very good,” Tony sighed, sitting down in the same lounge chair as earlier, this time making sure to be quiet. His expression as he watched his son was a blend of many emotions; most prominent were love and melancholy. He looked so small, like he should be covered by the red blanket he was so attached to as a kid.

Tony let out a heavy breath, running a hand over his face. “One sec,” he mumbled and got back up, walking to the kitchen where Steve was making some food for Peter to have before going to sleep. “Honey,” he breathed out, and gestured for him to follow him, leading the way back to the living room.

The sight of a sleeping Peter put a soft look on Steve’s face. “I’ll take him to bed,” he whispered, kissed Tony’s temple and walked over to the couch. Just like he’d done so many times before, he gently lifted his son, pausing a little to make sure he was still asleep before walking steadily to his room.

Having tucked him in, he stood watching him until he remembered Peter hadn’t had his pills so they’d have to wake him back up. “Damn it,” he muttered, walking out of the room silently, and made the decision to let him sleep for at least a couple of hours.

“Thank god he’s finally asleep,” Tony said when Steve sat down in the lounge chair next to him.

“We’ll have to wake him back up,” Steve groaned, rubbing at his temple with his index and middle finger.

“What for?” Happy asked from the couch.

“Pills,” Tony realized, letting his head drop back. “Let’s at least give him a couple hours just in case. It’s still early.”

“‘Course,” Steve said, reaching a hand out towards Tony, who took hold of it with his own slightly unsteady one.

Happy stood up, shoving his hands in his pocket. He didn’t necessarily feel like he was intruding, but he’d been around the pair enough to know when they needed to be alone, even though they didn’t always know that themselves. “Well, I think I’m gonna say good night now. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Thank you, Happy. Have a good night,” Steve smiled, waving at him as he walked away from them. “You’re tired,” he sighed when it was just the two of them.

Tony let out a chuckle. “So are you, honey.” His thumb was drawing small circles on the back of Steve’s hand. “We’ll sleep later when Peter’s had his pills.”

“You can take a nap if you want. I’ll be here. You’ve been awake almost as long as Peter.”

“So have you,” Tony smirked.

“Not the point, babe.”

“If anyone should take a nap, it’s you. I’m fine with no sleep.”

“As a witness, I beg to differ. It wears you down, Tony. I know you can’t tell, but I can.” He lifted Tony’s hand, pressing light kisses to his knuckles.

“I’m fine.” Tony’s eyes were closed, his full attention on Steve now fiddling with his hand, drawing figures and touching it so gingerly it almost gave him goosebumps.

“You always are.”

Turns out Tony was way more tired than he’d ever own up to. It only took five minutes of Steve gently caressing his hand and lower arm for him to doze off. It didn’t come as a surprise, and he was happy to just sit there with him. In the past year, Tony’s insomnia had been making less appearances. It was kind of a big deal. Steve was beyond relieved at how often they went to sleep together instead of Tony coming to bed in the early morning hours or not at all. It would still hit him hard from time to time, but he was better than he’d been in a long time. Better than Steve had ever seen him.

When it looked like Tony was in quite a deep sleep, Steve decided that Peter wouldn’t be the only one he carried to bed that night. Still holding Tony’s hand, he stood up to place it in his lap instead of just letting it dangle over the side of the chair.

He wiggled one arm behind the smaller man’s shoulder, and placed the other one under his knees. Making sure he had a good grip, he slowly lifted him up. The feeling of Tony in his arms warmed his heart, putting a smile on his face that stayed there all the way to their bedroom where he put him down as gently as he could. He removed his husband’s shoes and jeans before tucking him in. Then a forehead kiss, and he left the room to go wake their son up.

On the way, he grabbed the pills from the kitchen, along with a large glass of water. He had FRIDAY turn on the lights at forty percent, and sat on the bed. What he did next was pure habit, and he was so relieved Peter was still asleep. He’d ran his fingers through his hair, and stared at the clump that’d come out. Quickly, he discarded of it in the trash can next to Peter’s nightstand, opting for running his hand up and down his back instead, and cleared his throat.

“Hey, Pete. You gotta wake up,” he spoke at a high enough volume for it to register with the sleeping boy. The only reaction he got was a barely audible groan accompanied by him burying his face into his pillow.

“Just for a couple minutes, bud,” Steve chuckled. “You gotta take your pills.” Another groan. “I know, I’m sorry, sweetie.”

“I’m tired,” Peter mumbled, keeping his eyes shut.

“It’s okay, you can go back to sleep in a minute.”

“What if I can’t?” he whined.

“You can. I’ve got sleeping pills for you too. Now let me see those eyes, Petey-pie.”

He turned so he was facing him, and opened his eyes slowly, complying when Steve guided him to sit up. One by one, he swallowed the pills, nodding when Steve asked if he wanted a sleeping pill.

“You good?” Steve asked, watching as his son got comfortable again.

“Mhm,” he confirmed.

“Okay, sweetie. Go back to sleep.”

“And starve,” Peter mumbled instinctively. Steve furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

“Are you hungry? I could get you some food if-”

“No, Pops,” Peter laughed, “it’s a vine.”

“Oh. Right,” Steve chuckled. “Well, good night, sweetie. Love you” He stood up.

“Night, Pops, love you too” Peter yawned.

“If you need anything-”

“I know,” Peter smiled lazily, one eye open to look at Steve who was standing by the door. He shook his head fondly, his smile not leaving his face until he fell asleep next to his husband.

────────

“You sure you want this?” Tony asked, looking at Peter through the mirror.

“Mhm,” Peter nodded, determined, shifting his eyes from Tony to Steve, who was holding the hair clippers. When he turned it on, Peter flinched a little.

“It’s okay, we can wait,” Steve assured him, looking concerned.

“N-no. I wanna do this now. Feeling my hair fall out is worse.”

“Okay, if you’re sure, sweetie,” Tony smiled, Peter giving a tiny one back.

When the clippers were close to his head, he squeezed his eyes shut, but stood still. It wasn’t too bad at the back of his neck; he’d had tons of haircuts where they used clippers in that area. What did feel weird, though, was when he was nearing the top of his head. That was a new, not so nice experience.

“Doin’ alright?” Tony asked, watching Peter’s scrunched-up face. His own face expression was similar, not at all enjoying his son’s adorable curls fall to the floor. He’d really miss running his fingers through them. And miss how much Peter loved it.

“Mhm,” he confirmed. “Just wanna get it over with.”

Nothing more was said until the haircut was finished. Tony was biting the inside of his cheek, fighting back tears at the sight of his son who was now bald. It made everything more real. More looming.

“We’re done, Pete. Just gotta blow the stray hairs away,” Steve explained, getting the hair dryer. Peter’s eyes were still closed.

He opened them when the hair dryer had been turned off and he felt two kisses on his head. Fighting the urge to squirm away from the foreign feeling, he studied himself in the mirror.

I look so sick, he thought to himself. Without hair on his head, his face looked even more gaunt, and the way his clothes were hanging off his ever-thinning frame didn’t make it better at all. He couldn’t help it when his face scrunched back up again; this time in distaste for his own appearance.

“It suits you,” Tony commented. But he’d think Peter was the most adorable kid no matter what he looked like, so it didn’t really count. Same thing went for Steve who was nodding in agreement.

So Peter scoffed. “It doesn’t. I just look more sick.” He tore his eyes away from the mirror, exiting his bathroom in a rush. He didn’t want to look at himself any longer.

They followed him into his bedroom.

“I think you look great, Petey,” Steve attempted.

“Please don’t. I don’t wanna think about it. I, uh… I’m gonna take a nap.” He curled up in bed, pulling the covers over him.

“Okay, sweetie. We’ll wake you up for dinner,” Tony said, but got no answer. His back was facing them and he was clutching the covers so tightly.

First thing Tony did when they got out of the bedroom was finding Happy, ordering him to go out and buy beanies, baseball caps, bucket hats, you name it. Anything the kid might want to wear. He had a feeling he’d want something on his head, judging by the way he’d looked at himself in the mirror.

It didn’t matter what Steve and Tony thought. Peter really hated what he looked like. And while that hurt to think about, both dads were willing to do whatever it took to make him feel just a little bit better.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Fic: The Beginning of Wisdom - Chapter 20 (Ao3 link)

Fandom: Flash, Legends of Tomorrow Pairing: Leonard Snart (Len) & Leonard Snart (Leo), Len Snart/Mick Rory, Leo Snart/Mick Rory, Len Snart/Mick Rory/Leo Snart, Leo Snart/Ray Terrill, Len Snart/Barry Allen

Summary: In which Leonard Snart is twins.

(the life and times and loves of Len and Leo Snart)

—————————————————————————————————–

The EMP blast Leo’s glove gave off was, to human eyes and ears, unnoticeable – but the aftereffects could be observed immediately.

The armors collapsed, for one thing.

The Time Masters were freed of the Pilgrim's hold, for another.

Luckily, at this point, Leo had maneuvered himself and Mick into position to herd the whole lot of them into one of the side rooms using Mick's heat gun, with Leo slamming the door closed behind them with a satisfied smirk.

"You – what did you –" the Pilgrim stuttered, staring down at her own gauntlet.

"Just an EMP blast," Leo said. "Non-fatal, even to AIs; the Waverider's Gideon gave it to me to use against competitive Gideons. But hey, I think you now have a pretty good argument to make to the Gideons that you're not as much of a threat as they originally thought."

The Pilgrim blinked at him, clearly shaken. "You - you do realize that if any of the Time Masters had thought to activate the Omega Protocols, I would have been forced to turn on you in a heartbeat, right?"

Len shrugged, coming up beside Leo to nudge him in the shoulder approvingly. His brother, ladies and gentlemen and noblepersons; he always did have the best way with people. "We would've dealt with it," he said. "Right now, though, we need to focus on destroying the Oculus."

"Then we can take you somewhere where the Time Masters won't be able to find you," Leo said. "Can you – and more importantly, will you – help us? I have no idea how this Oculus thing works."

The Pilgrim smiled, suddenly, a broad show of teeth. "Yes," she said. "There, I can help you. Do you know, no one's actually asked me to help with a technical matter in – lifetimes? Some days I actually missed being low level tech support."

"Guys, as touching as this is, maybe we could do something about the fact that we're still fighting the Hunters?" Firestorm shouted.

"Oh, I can help with that, too," the Pilgrim said.

Apparently, the Hunters were also controlled by trigger words, albeit more common ones, and the Time Masters had unwisely enough given those words to the Pilgrim. The Hunters gratefully put down their weapons the second that they were able to, which made everybody happy.

"You lot do intend to focus on deprogramming these guys once you're in charge, right?" Len asked one of the Gideons by the door that had narrowly escaped the EMP's blast radius.

"Of course," Gideon said. "It is among our top priorities, followed shortly by trials for the Time Masters responsible for the worst of the atrocities – muted, of course, so that they can't activate any of the triggers."

"Good. And the Pilgrim?"

"Under the circumstances, we believe you are correct, and that we misjudged," Gideon said, albeit a little stiffly. "While we still would prefer that she not be in the Vanishing Point – at least while we are rebuilding – we concede that her death is unnecessary."

"Even better," Leo said.

"We apologize for attempting to use you as a tool in this regard."

"Don't do it again," Mick said.

"Yeah, don't," Sara said. "Now, let's get to this Oculus problem. Can we blow it up without hurting anyone? Maybe contain the explosion somehow?"

With the Pilgrim's assistance and the Gideons' input, it turned out that it was actually easier to send the Hunters to evacuate all the (non-evil-mastermind) Time Masters from the Vanishing Point and set the entire Oculus to blow up, with the goal of rebuilding the whole thing from scratch later on.

"I have architectural critiques before you rebuild," Leo told the Gideon on the Waverider, waving his hands emphatically as Len tried to hide his laughter. "I have so many architectural critiques."

"So do we," Gideon said dryly. "The Vanishing Point as it was originally constructed was not, shall we say, optimally suited for AIs – or for most of its inhabitants."

Apparently, the vast majority of the inhabitants were either stolen as children to be raised in the Time Master way of thinking (Rip and his fellow low-level Time Masters) or captured in battle and subjected to a chair that stripped away memories, feelings, and freedom of thought in an endless burst of agonizing 'correction' (the Hunters).

It was brainwashing either way, as far as Len, Leo, Mick, and the rest of the Legends were concerned.

And speaking of the Legends -

Sara was appointed head of the deprogramming unit for the Hunters, with a plan to work closely with Gideon to use her experience with the League of Shadows to design a system to get it out of their system. Palmer immediately volunteered to work with her, as did the Hawks.

Rip appointed himself the new head of the Time Masters and declared his intention to reorganize them into something called "the Time Bureau", an idea that was all well and good but that ran into the immediate problem of the fact that many of the surviving Time Masters had their own ideas on how to "fix" the Time Masters, and those ideas did not necessarily match up with Rip's own. Given the Gideons' insistence on a more democratic (or at least, significantly less coerced) approach, Rip was obliged to quickly learn how to negotiate and work collectively rather than simply apply his usual high-handed authoritarian instincts the way he might have if he were rebuilding on his own.

He probably would have minded the change more if he hadn't had Miranda by his side to assist him, and Jonas to tease him out of his bad moods.

As for the rest of them, the Leonards and Mick and Jax and Stein (the latter two finally reconciled after an extensive and heartfelt apology on Stein's part), they headed home, bringing the Pilgrim along with them.

The Gideons conceded that she would be a valuable addition to the Vanishing Point's new structure, in time, should she wish to be, but insisted that they have the chance to build a solid foundation before she returned. In return for desisting in their attempts to kill her, they required that she stay in the 2010s for at least five years before she applied to re-join the Vanishing Point, should she even want to by then.

The Pilgrim declared herself to be more than fine with that, having not actually had non-mission-directed, non-murderous time to enjoy any era other than her own (something called the Kasnia Conglomerate that sounded, when described, positively dystopic in its own right) during her entire tenure as a slave to the Time Masters.

She went and got changed before joining them on the Waverider, which would have been fine except for the fact that she appeared wearing some sort of extremely low-cut leather bustier and a long leather duster and frighteningly high heels.

“What?” she’d asked when they’d all stared at her. “I’ve seen ‘The Matrix’ – this is what hackers from your time wear, right?”

She ended up being taken in by Stein and his wife, Clarissa, and had plans to take classes at the local university with Jax in the fall.

As for the Leonards and Mick, well, they did head home, but –

"Thanks for agreeing to let us borrow the Waverider, Gideon," Leo said.

"My pleasure, Mr. Snart," she replied cheerfully. "I think a few weeks' vacation sounds lovely, and now that the Oculus has been destroyed, there should be no issues whatsoever returning you to your home a few hours after your departure."

"This is going to be the best vacation ever," Barry said, literally vibrating in his seat. "Isn't that right, Iris?"

"Hell yes," she said, fist-bumping him. "Thanks for inviting me and Eddie. And for letting me bring Wally!"

"We had nine seats to fill," Ray said, grinning widely from his own chair. "Between the Snarts – Leonards and Lisa – and Mick and Barry and I, we only filled six."

"I can't believe this is my life," Wally said gleefully. He hadn't said much else yet, but he was Iris' less-legally-minded brother, so Len had high hopes for him. Lisa had taken him under her wing for this trip, too, which was all for the best.

"I've put together an itinerary," he announced. "There's a good mix of past and future visits, as well as between eras that have interesting or underrated fashions for Leo and unexplained historical thefts, for me. Any questions before we go?"

"Do we have to break the law?" Eddie asked, but his tone was clearly resigned.

"You're not a policeman in the past, Eddie," Iris reminded him. "Lighten up and embrace your pirate heritage."

"I have pirate heritage?"

"Why not?" she laughs, kissing him on the cheek. "You could."

"Any other, hopefully better questions?" Len asked.

Ray put up his hand, because he's a shameless nerd like that. "Who's driving the ship?"

"Mick," Len answered promptly. "Mick always drives, if possible."

"Agreed," Leo said.

"I mean, I know that, but the relevant question is - does he know how to drive a timeship?" Ray persisted.

"Relax," Mick said, settling down in the pilot's seat. "I got Gideon to give me a crash course."

Len couldn't resist.

"Emphasis," he said, "of course, on crash."

"Oh, shut up, boss," Mick said fondly, and with that they were off.

They planned to leave around 10 in the morning on a Saturday, with a goal of returning within the hour to make sure those of them with regular jobs could have their friends come up with excuses for them if for some reason they got delayed and hadn't returned by Sunday.

They ended up leaving around 11 and returning sometime in the late afternoon on the same Saturday.

Gideon apologized for the extra few hours that got tacked on even though they assured her repeatedly that it wasn't an issue.

"Have a nice trip?" Joe West asked as they stumbled back downstairs into STAR Labs, his arms crossed disapprovingly. He'd had the same stance when they'd left – Leo wondered if he'd stayed in that pose the entire time.

Judging by Len's smirk, he was thinking the same.

"It was awesome," Iris proclaimed. She was still wearing the lovely tiara made of silver and amber that Eddie and Wally had conspired to steal for her – with the Snart family's active assistance and encouragement, of course – and hadn't bothered changing out of the flapper-era dress she'd worn at their last stop.

"We'll tell you all about it," Wally told Joe, his enthusiasm managing the impossible and wearing down Joe's disapproving scowl. Apparently their relationship was very rocky at the moment, so Joe was sensitive to any improvements. "Oh! And we got you a watch from Switzerland."

Joe beamed at that, his earlier disapproval now entirely forgotten.

Len elbowed Barry approvingly – he'd been the one who'd suggested it.

"Did you go to the future?" Caitlin asked eagerly.

"We did!" Barry exclaimed. "Nothing too close to the present – that creates uncertainty, since we can affect it with our actions – but some of the further away eras."

"Barry only started one revolution," Ray said, grinning at Barry. They'd bonded during the Leonards' and Mick's (apparently) month-long absence with the Legends, and had developed a tendency to egg each other on in terms of reckless heroic acts (and also possibly to snuggle when the Leonards were unavailable, though they hadn't admitted to it).

Leo wasn't sure he approved, entirely, but whatever; Ray needed some non-model friends that wouldn't ask for favors once he was an established designer in his own right.

Well, favors other than "I want to put this feature in my suit, how do I make it not look wonky?", but that wasn't really a favor, and anyway that was mostly Cisco asking, not Barry.

That wasn't really a favor, anyway. More of a fun challenge that Leo was barred from participating in on account of it giving Len an unfair advantage in future supervillain fights.

"So what's the next plan?" Eddie asked. He was positively bright-eyed and bushy-tailed: he'd taken advantage of Gideon's advanced calculation systems and ability to analyze personalities to help with wedding planning, and was deeply relieved by the fact that he and Iris now had a full seating chart designed to forestall family fights and a complete plan of what vendors they should hire for what and by when.

The only thing left was to select the flavors for the cake – neither of them wanted to give up the taste-testing portion of the planning – and for Iris to select a dress.

Gideon had promised to attend the ceremony, both as herself and as a representative of the Vanishing Point, and also to arrive early to ensure that any last-minute dress disasters could be fixed.

In short, Eddie and Iris both looked like the weight of the world had been lifted from their shoulders.

"Now," Mick said, "we go home and sleep for a week, then we do some good old-fashion at home thefts to get back into the groove of things."

"Damn right," Lisa said. "Time travel theft is fun, but there's no place like home."

“You had to take after the criminal side of the family,” Leo sighed, shaking his head in mock mourning; he’d given up all hope of winning that argument long ago. As long as Lisa continued on with her chosen course of study – mechanical engineering – and kept to the law at least 80% of the time, he had no problems with her occasional dips into the criminal underworld.

“You bet I do,” Lisa said with a smirk.

"You have fun," Barry said. "I, however, am planning to sleep for two weeks, so if you want to go head-to-head, it'll have to be later than that."

"No, no, this’ll be good old-fashioned cops-and-robbers stuff," Len assured him. "With luck, the cops won't even know it's me."

"Eddie and I are cops and we're literally standing right here, you know," Joe said.

"He means we won't know which one is him," Eddie explained. “I mean, what theft is his. Or at least that we won't be able to prove it.”

Joe gave him a look.

"Give me a break, I just spent nearly two months with the guy," Eddie said defensively. "I had to learn to understand him."

"Two months?" Joe exclaimed. "I thought the plan was two weeks."

"We still got back on time, Dad," Iris said.

"Not the point!"

"Our cue to leave, I think," Leo said wisely.

"I think I'll join you," Barry said hastily. "This argument definitely doesn't need me."

They took a car home. They debated for a few minutes as to whether they should take Joe's car, but ultimately decided it wasn't worth bringing anyone's mood down – which was to say, Barry insisted.

Still: a victory is a victory.

[kokiafans]

(Source: KOKIA.com/blog, February 20, 2018)

3-disc DVD ‘Bird Watching’ for sale! 

Starting tomorrow, finally the 3-disc DVD ‘Bird Watching’ will be for sale, reminiscing on more or less the entire path I’ve walked as KOKIA so far.

The DVD will go up for sale on the official web shop ‘KOKIA Jirushi’ starting tomorrow.

http://ancocoro.shop-pro.jp

What’s the content?

What did I compile on this?

Does it contain that song? And so on and so on...

I’ve received all your questions like that, but I wanted to reveal the ‘table of contents’ today. Ta-daa!

With love and tears? from director Tsuchiya and me, a crystallization of passion, I present the super epic work that lasts 419 minutes (around 7 hours).

〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜

DISC1

Opening Narration 1-1: Opening speech Narration 1-2: the start of things Clip 1-1: From the live performance ‘That’s why I was born May 28, 2002′,  ♪ Mou ai senai (’I can’t love again’) Narration 1-3: The days I stand on stage, those days I dream about flying wth my own wings Clip 1-2: From the live performance ‘‘Tsukimi-kai’ (’moon watching meeting’) October 21, 2005′, ♪ Tsukimi (’Moon watching’) Narration 1-4: Independence - STB Monthly Live Clip 1-3: Rehearsal ‘Roppongi STB Monthly project 2006′ (♪ selection of KOKIA songs) Narration 1-5: Music crossing national borders ~ 1 year since independence Clip 1-4: Live ‘Live in Paris at Le Bataclan, January 20, 2007′ ♪ Remember the kiss Narration 1-6: Let’s do more Clip 1-5: ‘Aigakikoeru concert, June 12, 2007′, ♪ Arigatou... (’Thank you...’) Narration 1-7: ‘The VOICE’ ~10th Anniversary Concert Clip 1-6: ‘The VOICE concert, April 16, 2008′ ♪ Odayaka na shizukesa (’Gentle silence’), ♪ Daiji na mono wa mabuta no ura (’the important things are behind your eyelids’) Narration 1-8: ‘infinity’ concert tour rehearsals Clip 1-7: off-shot, ‘Infinity concert April 30, 2009′, ♪ Hana utage (’flower banquet’), ♪ usaghi (’rabbit’) Narration 1-9: Europe tour ‘Wherever I am’ Clip 1-8: ‘European tour Wherever I am, May 2009′, ♪ il mare dei suoni (’the sea of sounds’), ♪ Vintage love, ♪ Uchuu ga... (A universe is...), ♪ song of pocchong, ♪ Hana (’Flower’), ♪ Lacrima (’Tear’), ♪ infinity Narration 1-10: Concert ‘otono tabibito’ (sound traveler) ~ 360 degrees of horizon Clip 1-9: ‘otono tabibito concert April 24, 2010′, ♪ Real World, ♪ Jugon no sora (’sea of dugong’) Clip 1-10: On recording in Ireland Clip 1-11: Paris photo exhibition Clip 1-12: 2010 World Tour (♪ KOKIA song selection) Narration 1-11: Ah, because please, God! Narration 1-12: open recording Clip 1-13: ‘Open recording, March 4, 2011′, ♪ Hontou no oto (’Real sound’), ♪ moment Narration 1-13: The answer inside of me Clip 1-14: ‘The 5th Season concert, May 22, 2011′, ♪ moment, ♪ Otona no ookami (’adult wolf’), ♪ itsutsu no kisetsu (’The fifth season’)

DISC 2

Clip 2-1: ‘music like a prayer concert, December 6, 2011′ ♪ Ai to heiwa to ongaku to (’love and peace and music and’), ♪ Tsumihoroboshi no uta (’song of atonement’) Clip 2-2: From ‘Christmas Party, December 25, 2011′ (♪ KOKIA song selection) Clip 2-3: ‘History concert, June 7, 2012′, ♪ Utau hito (’singing people’), ♪ Sekai o tsutsumu Ribbon in our Heart (’wrapped around the world’) Narration 2-1: Standing still in this world for a while: singing. going on. living. Narration 2-2: Christmas time 2012 Clip 2-4: ‘music like a prayer vol.2 concert, December 18, 2012′ ♪ Ai no melody (’melody of love’), ♪ Kokoro no rousoku (’Candle in the heart’) Narration 2-3: 15th anniversary concert Clip 2-5: off-shot, ‘COLOR OF LIFE concert, April 28, 2013′, ♪ Yume no tochuu (’on my way to my dream’), ♪ Kasa o kashite agete (’please lend me your umbrella’) Narration 2-4: A bit of rest - days of charging Clip 2-6: ‘club ancoro event ‘hide-out concert’, September 9, 2013′, ♪ Remember the kiss Narration 2-5: Haremame, live project Clip 2-7: ‘Konna ajitsuke ni narimashita! (’Flavored like this!’) January 26, 2014′, ♪ so much love for you, ♪ Ai no field (’field of love’), ♪ 0 kara no hajimari (’start from zero’), ♪ tell tell bouzu (spell for dry weather) Narration 2-6: New challenge ~ performing together with dancers Clip 2-8: ‘Release concert, May 18, 2014′, ♪ Chouwa (’Harmony’), ♪ I believe ~umi no soko kara~ (’from the bottom of the sea’) Narration 2-7: Passing days Clip 2-9: ‘from club ancoro fan club event ‘KOKIA salon’, October 13, 2014′ (♪ KOKIA song selection) Clip 2-10: From the live ‘Billboard Live Tokyo’ (♪ KOKIA song selection) Narration 2-8: Invited by the orchestra Clip 2-11: Orchestra concert ‘Falling in Love with the Orchestra, December 23, 2014′, ♪ infinity Narration 2-9: A period of 2 years ~ to a colorful world Clip 2-12: ‘Oishii oto o tabeta nara (’on eating delicious sounds’) concert, June 28, 2015, ♪ oishii oto yum yum music (’delicious sounds’), ♪ tabi ressha life train (’travel train’) Narration 2-10: The train has continued Clip 2-13: Kawaguchiko concert ‘mori to utau sora to tsunagaru (’singing with the forest, connected to the skies’), October 10, 2015′, ♪ Solace ~kioku no mori ni tsumoru eiga (’Paintings piling up in the forest of memories’) Narration 2-11: Orchestra concert, chapter 2 Clip 2-14: Orchestra concert ‘Heart Touching Music, Februry 14, 2016′, ♪ Dear Armstrong

DISC 3

Clip 3-1:  From ‘Jazz cover album ‘Watching from Above’ scenes of recording, March 1, 2016′ Narration 3-1: Representing Japan Clip 3-2: From ‘first concert in Shanghai, April 26, 2016′ (♪ KOKIA song selection) Narration 3-2: Unprecedented long medley Clip 3-3: ‘Concert Album o mekuru you ni (’Like turning the pages of an album’), July 17, 2016), ♪ Say hi~ The power of smile ~Yume ga chikara (’power of dreams’) (From the medley) Narration 3-3: The world of overlapping LAYERS Clip 3-4: ‘LAYERS ~lights and shadows~ Shinrabanshou (’the whole of creation’), November 5, 2016′ ♪ Shinrabanshou (’the whole of creation’), ♪ Nami ~LAYERS~ (’wave’) Narration 3-4: Flow of time Clip 3-5: ‘Dedicated to Classical Music ~Kokoro ni hibiku mono (’things echoing in the heart’), December 9, 2016′, ♪ Kasa o kashite agete (’please lend me your umbrella’, ♪ Remember the kiss Narration 3-5: Second visit to China Clip 3-6: ‘UTA-LIVE event, January 14, 2017′, ♪ Family Tree, ♪ infinity Narration 3-6: Performing together with the Orchestra Sinfonica della RAI Roma Clip 3-7: ‘Mangiare Cantare Amore (’Eating, singing, loving’), April 4, 2017) ♪ Usaghi (’rabbit’), ♪ il mare dei suoni (’the sea of sounds’), ♪ Kasa o kashite agete (’Please lend me your umbrella’), ♪ Jinsei wa uta no you ne (’Life is like a song, isn’t it’) Narration 3-7: Things so far, things to come Clip 3-8: ‘The Soloist concert, August 11, 2017′ ♪ Watashi no naka no kemono (’the beast inside of me’), ♪ Chouwa ~duet ver.~ (’Harmony’), ♪ tomoni (’together’), ♪ Ningen tte sonna mono ne (’thats how people are’), ♪ Jinsei wa uta no you ne (’Life is like a song, isn’t it’) Narration 3-8: The tale of continuing towards the future Clip 3-9: Ending

〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜

I’m planning on sending the DVD signed to everyone who orders from ‘KOKIA Jirushi’ in the month of February. Please enjoy the journey of the migrating singing bird, rewinding time with me.

[dfroza]

He drew pictures with words

such as these to illustrate the True Kingdom:

Then he said, “How can I picture God’s kingdom for you? What kind of story can I use? It’s like a pine nut that a man plants in his front yard. It grows into a huge pine tree with thick branches, and eagles build nests in it.”

A set of lines from Today’s reading of the Scriptures in the book of Luke (verse 18 and 19 in The Message) along with the whole chapter from The Voice (verses 1 to 5) and The Passion Translation below:

[Luke 13]

As He said this, some people told Him the latest news about a group of Galilean pilgrims in Jerusalem—a group not unlike Jesus’ own entourage. Pilate butchered them while they were at worship, their own blood mingling with the blood of their sacrifices.

Jesus: Do you think these Galileans were somehow being singled out for their sins,that they were worse than any other Galileans, because they suffered this terrible death? Of course not. But listen, if you do not consider God’s ways and truly change, then friends, you should prepare to face His judgment and eternal death.

Speaking of current events, you’ve all heard about the 18 people killed in that building accident when the tower in Siloam fell. Were they extraordinarily bad people, worse than anyone else in Jerusalem, so that they would deserve such an untimely death? Of course not. But all the buildings of Jerusalem will come crashing down on you if you don’t wake up and change direction now.

Then Jesus told them this parable: “There was a man who planted a fig tree in his orchard. But when he came to gather fruit from his tree he found none, for it was barren and had no fruit. So he said to his gardener, ‘For the last three years I’ve come to gather figs from my tree but it remains fruitless. What a waste! Go ahead and cut it down!’

“But the gardener said, ‘Sir, we should leave it one more year. Let me fertilize and cultivate it, then let’s see if it will produce fruit. If it doesn’t bear fruit by next year, we’ll cut it down.’”

One Sabbath day, while Jesus was teaching in the synagogue, he encountered a seriously handicapped woman. She was crippled and had been doubled over for eighteen years. Her condition was caused by a demonic spirit of bondage that had left her unable to stand up straight.

When Jesus saw her condition, he called her over and gently laid his hands on her. Then he said, “Dear woman, you are free. I release you forever from this crippling spirit.” Instantly she stood straight and tall and overflowed with glorious praise to God!

The Jewish leader who was in charge of the synagogue was infuriated over Jesus healing on the Sabbath day. “Six days you are to work,” he shouted angrily to the crowd. “Those are the days you should come here for healing, but not on the seventh day!”

The Lord said, “You hopeless frauds! Don’t you care for your animals on the Sabbath day, untying your ox or donkey from the stall and leading it away to water? If you do this for your animals, what’s wrong with allowing this beloved daughter of Abraham, who has been bound by Satan for eighteen long years, to be untied and set free on a Sabbath day?”

When they heard this, his critics were completely humiliated. But the crowds shouted with joy over the glorious things Jesus was doing among them.

Jesus taught them this parable: “How can I describe God’s kingdom realm? Let me illustrate it this way. It is like the smallest of seeds that you would plant in a garden. And when it grows, it becomes a huge tree, with so many spreading branches that various birds make nests there.”

Jesus taught them another parable: “How can I describe God’s kingdom realm? Let me give you this illustration: it is like something as small as yeast that a woman kneads into a large amount of dough. It works unseen until it permeates the entire batch and rises high.”

Jesus ministered in one town and village after another, teaching the people as he made his way toward Jerusalem. A bystander asked him, “Lord, will only a few have eternal life?”

Jesus said to the crowd, “There is a great cost for anyone to enter through the narrow doorway to God’s kingdom realm. I tell you, there will be many who will want to enter but won’t be able to. For once the head of the house has shut and locked the door, it will be too late. Even if you stand outside knocking, begging to enter, and saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open the door for us,’ he will say to you, ‘I don’t know who you are. You are not a part of my family.’

“Then you will reply, ‘But Lord, we dined with you and walked with you as you taught us.’ And he will reply, ‘Don’t you understand? I don’t know who you are, for you are not a part of my family. You cannot enter in. Now, go away from me! For you are all disloyal to me and do evil.’

“You will experience great weeping and great anguish when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, along with all the prophets of Israel, enjoying God’s kingdom realm while you yourselves are barred from entering. And you will see people streaming from the four corners of the earth, accepting the invitation to feast in God’s kingdom, while you are kept outside looking in. And take note of this: There are some who are despised and viewed as the least important now, but will one day be placed at the head of the line. And there are others who are viewed as ‘elite’ today who will become least important then.”

Just then some Jewish religious leaders came to Jesus to inform him that Herod was out to kill him and urged him to flee from that place. Jesus told them, “Go and tell that deceiver that I will continue to cast out demons and heal the sick today and tomorrow, but on the third day I will bring my work to perfection. For everyone knows I am safe until I come to Jerusalem, for that is where all the prophets have been killed. O city of Jerusalem, you are the city that murders your prophets! You are the city that pelts to death with stones the very messengers who were sent to deliver you! So many times I have longed to gather your wayward children together around me, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings—but you were too stubborn to let me. And now it is too late, since your house will be left in ruins. You will not see me again until you are able to say, ‘We welcome the one who comes to us in the name of the Lord.’”

The Book of Luke, Chapter 13 (The Voice / The Passion Translation)

Today’s paired chapter of the Scriptures is the 10th chapter of Joshua where the Israelites continued in their battles against various kings and cities, and God was on their side for He had chosen them to be His people who would lay the foundation of a sacred sacrifice that would eventually lead to a pure revelation of grace in the Son who opened the door to welcome all who will “believe...”

[Joshua 10]

When Adoni-zedek, the king of Jerusalem, heard that Joshua had totally destroyed the kings and cities of Jericho and Ai, and when he discovered that the Israelites had made a treaty with the people of Gibeon and were living alongside Israel, he was greatly alarmed. The city of Gibeon was large, almost like a royal city, much larger than Ai and with many trained warriors. So Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, dispatched messages to King Hoham of Hebron, to King Piram of Jarmuth, to King Japhia of Lachish, and to King Debir of Eglon.

Adoni-zedek (to the Amorite kings): Let us band together and destroy Gibeon, for they have become allies to these invaders, Joshua and the Israelites.

So these five kings of the Amorites gathered their forces and came down upon the city of Gibeon like a mighty wave. The Gibeonites, seeing the camps of these five armies, sent a message to Joshua in the Israelite camp at Gilgal.

Gibeonites (pleading with Joshua): Please don’t abandon your servants. The five kings of the Amorites who live in the hill country have come down to attack us. Come quickly to help us.

So Joshua honored the oath they had sworn, and he gathered up all of his fighting forces, all the mighty warriors, and went up from Gilgal toward Gibeon.

Eternal One (to Joshua): Don’t be afraid of the Amorites. Like Jericho and Ai, I am delivering these armies into your hands. None of them will be able to stand against you.

Joshua surprised them, having marched his men all night from Gilgal, and the Eternal caused fear and confusion among the Amorite armies at the sudden sight of Israel among them. He slaughtered the Amorites at Gibeon like cattle, chasing and killing them all the way up Beth-horon, and striking them down as far away as Azekah and Makkedah. As they fled for their lives down the far slope of Beth-horon, He hurled huge and deadly hailstones upon them from heaven, as far as Azekah. More Amorites were killed by God’s hailstones than by the people of Israel on that day.

On the day of the Eternal’s great slaughter, Joshua consulted with the Eternal One; and then, in front of all the people of Israel, he commanded the sun and the moon.

Joshua: Sun, stand still over Gibeon,

and Moon, remain over the valley of Aijalon.

The sun stood still in the heavens; and the moon did likewise, so that the battle could continue until the Israelites had destroyed their enemies, just as it was written in the scroll of Jashar. The sun stalled in the sky for almost an entire day before it set. There has never been another day like this before or since, when the Eternal so answered a person’s prayer, for the Eternal fought for the people of Israel.

Joshua and the Israelites later returned to the camp at Gilgal, but the kings slipped away at the height of the battle and hid in a cave at Makkedah. Someone told Joshua they had been found hiding there.

Joshua: Seal up the mouth of the cave with large stones, and leave men to guard them while we pursue the other forces and attack them from behind. Don’t let them reach their towns because the Eternal One, your True God, has given you victory over them.

When Joshua and the Israelites had killed all those who did not escape back into the fortified cities, they all returned safely to camp with Joshua at Makkedah, and no one dared to speak a negative word about the Israelites.

Joshua: Open up the cave and bring the five kings before me.

They brought forth the kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon and led them in front of Joshua and the Israelites.

Joshua (to those who had led the warriors): Come here. Place your feet upon the necks of these kings.

So the leaders did.

Joshua: There’s nothing to be afraid of here. Be strong and courageous because the Eternal will do to all our enemies what He has done to these kings.

Joshua had the kings executed and hung on five trees; and they hung until sunset when Joshua commanded they be taken down, as God’s law requires. Their bodies were thrown into the cave where they had hidden, and the cave was sealed as a tomb by piling stones across the mouth. Their remains lie there to this very day.

Also on that day Joshua defeated Makkedah and its king, destroying it completely, killing everyone in it and the king, as he had done in Jericho.

Next Joshua led his forces from Makkedah against Libnah, and the Eternal gave the town and its king into their hands. They took no prisoners. They killed everyone in the town and destroyed it and the king, as they did to the king of Jericho.

From there Joshua and the Israelites passed on to Lachish and besieged it, and on the second day the Eternal gave Lachish to them. They destroyed it and killed everyone in it, as they had just done to Libnah. When King Horam of Gezer came up to help Lachish, Joshua turned the army against him and his people and destroyed them, leaving no survivors.

Passing from Lachish, Joshua and the people attacked Eglon, and it fell to them on the first day. They killed everyone with the sword and destroyed it completely, as they had Lachish.

Then Joshua went up with all the forces of Israel from Eglon against Hebron, and it fell to them—its king, all of its villages, and all of its people. Joshua killed everyone with the sword and destroyed it as he had destroyed Eglon. Lastly Joshua, with all of Israel, attacked Debir and took its king, its villages, and all of its people. The Israelites killed them with the sword and destroyed them all. Joshua left no one alive. He did to Debir and its king just as he had done to Hebron and to Libnah and its king.

So this is how Joshua and the Israelites defeated every area they had encountered: the hill country, the wilderness of the Negev, the coastlands, and the foothills with all the people and all their kings, leaving no one alive, as the Eternal God of Israel had commanded. Joshua won victories from Kadesh-barnea to Gaza and through all the country of Goshen as far as Gibeon. Joshua was able to capture and defeat all these people and all their kings for one simple reason: the Eternal God of Israel fought for Israel.

Then Joshua returned to Gilgal to camp with all the Israelites.

The Book of Joshua, Chapter 10 (The Voice)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for Tuesday, August 11 of 2020 with a paired chapter from each Testament along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

A post by John Parsons that reflects upon the History of faith in God as our True Creator, as opposed to the many religious paths that have been introduced to this world. True spirituality is the humility of a child, as a daughter or a son who acknowledges God as our Father who is perfectly mirrored by the Son and illuminated by the Spirit:

In our Torah reading for this week (Re'eh) it is written: “You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way” (Deut. 12:4), which here refers to Canaanite practices of idolatry that were based on mystery and superstition. Unlike these religious cults that were based on vain speculations, however, the Jews were duty-bound to carry out God’s will as expressed by the truth of divine revelation. Our father Abraham was given revelation of Torah (Gen. 26:5) and at Sinai moral truth was enshrined in the Ten Commandments (Exod. 24:12; Deut. 5:22). A basic assumption of Torah therefore is that “ought implies can,” or that we are genuinely responsible to know and to do moral truth. Unlike the ancient “mystery religions” that abandoned themselves by “celebrating” the lower nature, the Torah insists on overruling our base impulses and finding peace in the midst of the struggle to walk in righteousness. Therefore we do not understand the Hebrew word "shalom" (שָׁלוֹם), or “peace,” to simply mean the absence of strife, but rather "wholeness," "completeness," "healing" -- the integration of the heart and mind that comes through catharsis and personal struggle (Gen. 32:28). Faith does not mean passivity, but protest -- “arguing” for (and even sometimes arguing with) heaven, reminding God of his promises, lamenting over the divine absence; finding courage to oppose the status quo, and repeatedly appealing to heaven “be’khol levaveinu” (בְּכָל־לְבָבֵנוּ) -- with all our hearts -- precisely because we believe that our prayers can affect even the divine decrees... True faith confesses to “move mountains into the sea” (Mark 11:23) and refuses to let go of God until it receives the promised blessing to become “Israel” (Gen. 32:26). [Hebrew for Christians]

Hebrew Reading Link:

https://hebrew4christians.com/Blessings/Blessing_Cards/psalm119-97-jjp.mp3

8.11.20 • Facebook

[mgeezycreates-blog]

The Alternates

Here is the first chapter of my story!! It’s kind long so I’ll put it underneath the read more but I wanted to give you guys a good introduction to a few of the characters!

Slowly, like an icicle melting, light began to drip down from a sky as dark as charcoal. Young leaves, still tender and fragile, drifted downwards and froze into thin sheets on the ground. It was the fourteenth planet in the solar system, farthest away from the Lunar Star and unarguably the coldest, that the slaves of Iridy continued their work on the thousands of furnaces that powered the Armed Forces of Her Majesty, Empress Tuin. It was of mass importance that everything they did be done perfectly in order to assure the victory of her Majesty, as she was always in a better mood after spreading her empire to that of other galaxies. Many of the workers were beginning to fall ill, the air thick with smoke and unfriendly gasses that stuck to the roof of their mouth like grease. Gentle wind chimes signaled the days end, and everyone began to power down their machines and head off to their drifting quarters. Well, all except one. 

Weaving through the maze of steel and iron, they managed to arrive at the boiler room, it's warmth permeating through the door, allowing their blood to flow freely into their fingertips and toes, a feeling long forgotten by most. Calloused hands gripped the door handle and pushed it open, revealing a staircase lit by an ethereal glow coming from down below, its light kind and orange. Their fingers traced the stones on the wall as they continued downward, steps light as to not make a single noise. The heat began to shift from comforting to sticky, then from sticky to burning, forcing them to put on their goggles in order to preserve their eyebrows. "Wow. . ." Was all they could muster once they reached the bottom of the staircase, wiping the sweat off their forehead for it to only reform there 30 seconds later. The heat was pulsing, a woozy feeling beginning to take over the wanderer. Nimble fingers began to root through the pouch carried on their hip, pulling out a small bottle and yanking the cork off, pouring the sand inside all over their skin. Like mercury, it began to bead into small balls of liquid before sinking in, leaving a purple hue behind. Now prepared to face the flames before them, they began forward down the hall, blaring red light being the only lead. Portraits of past rulers decorated its halls, the golden frames reflecting patterns over their skin. The ceiling was high and the walls close together, only allowing for one, maybe two, if children, beings to pass through "This is for your people, this is for your people. . ." They reassured themselves as they stumbled, eyesight beginning to go. Only a few more steps and. . . "Hey! You there! Stop whatever it is you're doing!" One of her Majesty's knights ordered, his deep voice bellowing through the halls. "Perfect," They muttered under their breath, the sudden adrenaline allowing them to sprint forward and reach the hallways edge. Roaring beneath the balcony was a tidal wave of flames, oranges and reds with hints of blue scattered in the ocean beneath, filling up the ballroom. The bars on the edge that kept anyone from falling in were red hot, even looking at it felt like it caused blisters to appear on their fingers. The sound of distant running and metal clanking reminded them they had no time left to hesitate. "The empire will fall, and I will make sure of that!" They threw the shawl off their shoulders, thick locks of white hair blown back by the heat. Purple eyes narrowed in determination as they grabbed the bars meant to keep them back and hurtled over the edge, only to be grabbed on the back of their dress by iron hands. The sudden stop in momentum caused the to gasp, only to jerk around to see their perpetrator. His gray beard was beginning to singe off, as well as his eyebrows. They struggled in his grasp, grabbing the knife they stowed away in their pouch. "H-How did you escape?! How did you. . . How did you sneak in? With the slaves-" The skin on his face was beginning to blister, but his grip remained tight. ". . .How. . . Why would you betray your empire? Your people?" The tears he shed only stung his red cheeks, and the person in his grasp couldn't bare to see his pain anymore. The knife they once held in their hands was now poised towards the fabric that he gripped them by, and his eyes widened with shock. "No. . . No, please!" He cried.  They stroked his face, cool hands soothing his charred skin. "I will be your savior." They whispered, and the tearing of fabric was the last thing he heard before they began their descent, skin purple with a heat-protectant that would surely not be able to withstand the Boiler. Watching them fall felt like slow motion, their arms straight out on either side and their toes pointed forward, as if flying. Then they hit the sea, and the Empress' child was dead. ~ ". . . And I will be happy to announce that you all will be receiving internships at GTI! A warm round of applause for our newest members at Garrison Tech. International!" The CEO boomed from his podium, the room erupting in cheers. "Now, if you please, depending on your name tag, you will be going off into different groups. . ." His voice began to trail off as August looked down at his lanyard, his name in bold, Artificial Reality underneath it. Standing up from his chair, he looked around, eyes searching for a banner that matched his name tag until an announcement cut him off. "I'm so sorry to interrupt but anyone who is in the AI segment will be meeting with me, so come right up!" He chuckled, and August felt his entire being light up. He was going to be up close and personal with the Terrence Garrison. . . was this all a dream? "Okay, you got this, just be cool, this is only everything you've ever wanted in life and worked so hard for. . ." He breathed, making his way up to the front, trying not to walk like he was the coolest person in the room no matter how much he felt like he was. I mean he managed to get an internship at the largest technology company in all of the Western Hemisphere, maybe even the world. You'd have to be insane for that not to stroke your ego at least a little bit. . .    "And there he is! August Mejía! Welcome to the team!" A man that resembled thin Santa Clause greeted him, August almost fainting in the process. He never expected to meet Mr. Garrison in his entire life, let alone shaking his hand. He stuck his arm straight forward, "It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Garrison I just want you to know I am so thankful for this opportunity and-" August began to ramble, shaking the CEO's hand vigorously. "Whoa there, hold your horses, boy, no need to thank me, it was you who got yourself here in the first place, I mean, your credentials are incredible! I'd be a fool not to let you intern here, especially if it weren't right under my wing." Mr. Garrison placed his hand upon August's shoulder, and it took everything in August not to pass out or pee his pants. Thankfully, he did neither. "Now we will get started as soon as- there she is!" He moved his hand from the young man's shoulders and greeted the girl coming up to him, who seemed just as nervous, if not more, than August was. "Hello Mr. Garrison! It's such an honor to meet you and shake your hand and- wow!" She hyperventilated. She had dark hair, like August, but it was much, much longer and less curly. Her skin was also much fairer than his, the only tan being the small freckles painted on her cheeks. "Well now I know you both are easily excitable," Mr. Garrison laughs, turning around and beginning to walk. "Now, you both, come with me! We have much to learn!" he bellows, and the two rush to follow along, hanging just behind him. "My name's Blaire, by the way, what's yours?" The girl next to him said in a hushed voice, as if not to disturb the godly man walking in front of them. "I'm August. It's really nice to meet you." He smiled, holding out his hand, which she shook. He heard her let out a relieved sigh and look back up at him. "Can you believe we're here? Like I honestly can't believe I'm here at least. . ." She played with her scarf nervously, hazel eyes focusing on her fidgeting hands. August related to her more than she could ever imagine. I mean, yeah, he worked his ass off in school, but so did 100,000 other kids in America. "Yeah, it's incredible. Almost impossible, even, but here we are." he laughed nervously, her following in suit. Not wanting to just hear the sound of everyone's shoes tapping along the floors, she decided to keep the conversation going. "So, uh. . . did you go to high school near here?" August looked over, glad that she wanted to talk so he could distract himself from his thoughts at the moment. "Oh! I went to a school back in Minnesota, what about you?" August felt a need for this conversation to continue. He really hated the quiet. "I'm from Washington, so no." She laughed. GTI was created in Arizona, so that's where the Headquarters were placed. They began to make their way into more personal conversation, what were each other's families like, why they wanted to be here, how excited they were to be done with high school, Mr. Garrison felt a smile form on his features at the immediate click these two made, and he was happy, seeing these two would be working in the same hall for the next 8 months. Before the two could finish their conversation, he stopped in front of a large linoleum door with tall handles that seemed to stretch on forever. Looking over his shoulder, he smiled at them both before opening the doors with a proud push of his arms. "Welcome. . . to Tomorrow!" Had they both known that those words would lead them to a completely different world August would have stuck behind. Blaire, not so much. It wasn't until the end of their internship that they found this out, though.

The ballroom was bustling with all members of GTI, workers and interns alike. "Wow, I feel under dressed." Blaire chuckled nervously, looking down at her 'nice top and cute jeans' pair while everyone else wore what looked like their old prom dresses. "Eh, I wouldn't worry, it's not like half of these guys are gonna get a job here anyways." August appeared beside her, all fancied up in a nice suit and tie. "Oh you too? If I'm not better looking than at least you then the world must be upside down. . ." She groaned playfully, earning an elbow in her side. "Watch it, at least I knew to dress nicely. You look like you're going out to dinner at Applebee's. . ." He snickered, allowing Blaire the opportunity to elbow him in the side right back, making him cough and her laugh. The two were about to make fun of each other some more when people began shushing one another, Mr. Garrison taking the podium at the front. "This will probably bring back some memories for you, seeing as you all were here on your first day, and to our interns especially, who for that was but a short eight months ago," he began, "And now, after all that we hove done and shared, I would like to give some awards to those who, in my eyes, went above and beyond their duties!" Random names and even more random people began getting called up, and the two began to grow bored. "I'm sad I never got to know those people. . . I guess that's what we get for being right under Garrison's wing, right?" Blaire nudged August, though they both knew that the sadness in that sentence rang true for both of them. "Yeah. . . but now we are for sure going to get stable jobs and provide for ourselves and our families, so it's worth it. Besides, you weren't awful to be with." He joked, Blaire only rolling her eyes in response. "Oh shush, it's not like we ever really got a lot of time to hang out either, we both had so many solo operations." "Okay, I'll give you that." He admitted. They were each other's closest friends, but even they weren't that close. I mean, if you asked either of them what each other's favorite color was, they'd probably try to change the subject. "Now, the last two awards I have go to a couple of interns who I was able to work very closely with, and they have proven themselves beyond capable of handling whatever tasks I, or the world, throws at them. Will August and Blaire please come to the stage!" Blaire and August jumped in their seats when they heard their names. An award? From Garrison?! The two practically tripped over each other and everything to get up onto the stage, both standing on either side of Garrison once they got there. "These two have shown incredible workmanship and intelligence, along with kindness and respect, and for that, I am allowing these two to become part of our workforce as leaders of our new branch, an Artificial Reality World called TT, Today's Tomorrow!" He cheered, and the hall exploded with cheers and photographs of the young teens, who were frozen in place, their jaws dropped and eyes wide. Garrison led you both off the platform and through hundreds of paparazzi, getting you back behind those linoleum doors that you had spent the last eight months in. "Quickly, I must show you what it is exactly you'll be working on. . ." His demeanor went from silly to serious in what felt like .5 seconds. "Sir, what do you mean we're leading a new branch? Does that make us-" "Bosses? Yes! You and Blair will be co-running this operation. I've always felt the youth were unclouded by the world, their minds able to create things that people my age would never think of." He went on, weaving through different rooms until he finally got to one the two of them had never even seen before. His hands gripped the door handle and pushed forward with care, the smell of dust hitting August and Blaire in the face like a sack of bricks. "I always thought this was just a storage closet." Blaire admitted weakly before Garrison flipped on the lights, the room coming to life immediately. The room was much larger than first anticipated, their footsteps echoing as they walked in further. It was also notably colder, both August and Blaire's breath forming small clouds in front of them as she weakly tugged at the edge of her shirt. Shiny steel walls reflected the square lights hanging from above, their stark white glow giving the entire room an eerie vibe. The strangest thing about the room was that in all it's usable space, the only thing that seemed to occupy it was a ratty 'Welcome Home' doormat done in cheap cursive. "Is. . . Is this it?" August found the courage to speak up after an uncomfortable silence. Was this their new office? "Why yes! This is how you'll be conducting most, if not all, of your research!" Garrison cried out excitedly, his hands poised out in front of them as if he were showing them Wonka's Candy factory. Blaire glanced over at August to gauge his reaction and, as expected, he was just as confused as she was. "Thank you sir!. . . Will we be receiving the technology we need soon?" Blaire piped up, leaning forward as to make herself more well-known, only to be completely thrown off her feet when Garrison spun around. "Why, all the technology you need is right here!" Garrison motioned them to follow him before he stood in front of the only furniture in the room. "A. . . dusty welcome mat?" August leaned down to pick up the item, dark brown eyes scanning it for any signs of something worthwhile. Once he found that there was nothing, as expected, he set it back down gently and smiled, scooting next to Blaire and grabbing her shoulder tightly in his hand. ". . . I think Garrison has lost it." He forced the sound through his teeth, keeping the unconvincing smile on his face as if it would cover up his words. Blaire only nodded, her own disingenuous smile following afterwards. As Garrison looked down at the mat with great approval, the two college students made their way backwards, trying to remain as quiet as possible. "Now! Let's fire this baby up!" Garrison shouted adventurously, shuffling over to the wall on his right, placing his palm on a small panel and watching in excitement as it dinged politely, a small keyboard revealing itself right above his hand print. Out of curiosity of the scene taking place in front of them, Blaire and August halted their escape, tiptoeing closer until they were behind the eccentric man in question. After hitting various keys, tapping certain settings suggestions, and finally smashing a large green button with his fist, Garrison swiveled around, catching the two off-guard. "Quick! We haven't much time!" Grabbing the two by their wrists and standing on the door mat. Before either could object the room began to vibrate, lights falling all around them and shattering. "W-What's going on? Are we having an earthquake?" Blaire shouted, her body being shoved down by August. "If it is you need to get down!" He scolded, shielding her body underneath his arms. "Awe, how cute Mama Bear." She chuckled, only infuriating him more. "How can you be making jokes at a time like this! You're lucky I'm covering your ass or-" The sudden halt of shaking cut him off, along with the more obvious loss of gravity. His grip on Blaire loosened completely as he looked forward in astonishment. "This is it, you two, the world that will become the basis of our design." His voice was softer than before, motioning to the mirror now floating two feet in front of them, blue lightning crackling around it furiously. Blaire was the first to tentatively reach out her hand, pale skin only grazing the surface enough to watch it ripple before yanking it back. Garrison smiled at her bravery, his green eyes gleaming with pride. August took a shaky breath before looking over to his mentor, fear etched into every feature on his face. "Whelp, no sense in wasting time here, you two need to go, I'll follow shortly behind." He took a step back, fully clearing the path for them both to enter through. "A-Are. . . Are we supposed to-" "Go through? Well, yes, but I also found jumping a bit more exciting." Garrison answered, cutting August off. Looking at the two expectantly, he nodded his head toward the mirror. "What's on the other side?" Blaire's eyes didn't leave the object of her attention while she stepped forward. Garrison shrugged. "Why don't you find out?" August watched Blaire back up, nodding his head in approval. "Yeah, I'm with Blaire, I'm not gonna just jump-" "WOOHOO!" She cried, sprinting past the two and hurling herself through the mirror. "Wait, Blaire!" August yelled, but her body had already plunged through the liquid. "Where'd she go? We have to call someone!" Before August could pull out his phone to dial 911 he felt the ground leave his feet and an abrupt force hit his chest, the momentum pushing him backwards. "Make sure to take notes! I'll call you when I need you!" Was the last thing he heard before falling from the sky.

[trans-ruby-rose]

Spread your blue wings, Aoi!

Hi guys!! So, I started to write a story about Aoi being a trans girl and wanted to share it. It will be the first time I publish something written by me on the internet so please, If you have anything to say about it just say it, I’ll accept any kind of criticism. Thanks n.n and hope you like it. By the way in this universe Aoi is capable of speaking with duel spirits, I know it isn´t a new concept, but I wanted to add it, sorry if it´s not something you like.

Chapter one:

Here we go again, is time to give the audience what they came for, a little glance of their favorite girl. If only they knew what kind of person they’re cheering for. My name is Aoi Zaizen, aka. Blue Angel, the most popular Idol in Link Vrains, right now I´m having a duel against one of the fans who usually challenge me whenever I enter the game. Even when most of the people thinks I´m dueling just for fame or to be idolize by my fans I have other motives to do it. More… personal motive. My brother, Akira is the head of the security division on SOL Technology, so he doesn´t have a lot of time to spare for his little sister. I know he loves though, always trying his best to protect and look out for me since mom and dad died. But he tends to be overprotective with me, especially with my “condition” (As my neighbors usually whisper whenever they see me). I need to prove to him that I´m not a little girl anymore, that I can stand up for myself and make the world accept who I am.

But anyways, back to the duel, I have this guy on the ropes, just this turn and everything will be over, my fans will be cheering, and I’ll go back to the real world, alone in my room waiting for my brother´s usual call of the day. So, it´s time to give it my all to pretend to be this perfect girl everyone sees.

-Everyone! Here I come! - I shout to my fans who are watching outside of Link Vrains- And now get ready for this! This will be the end! – I turn my head around to see my best friend floating besides me ready to end this, she nods at me with a smile and I declare the attack- Trickstar Holly Angel! Direct Attack! – as I say this she spreads her wings and prepares to take down my opponent. It´s over in an instant and my victory is declared – This is it! Everyone, be good until my next live show! See ya! Bye bye! – I say while I make a pose for the camera and prepare to disconnect from the server.

I wake up in my living room, sitting on the sofa I use to enter Link Vrains, my duel disk is saying something but I decide to ignore it, probably just notifying me about my recent disconnection from the game. I stand up and take a bottle of water, walk over to the loveseat we have, and take a sip of water while I watch outside the window. Everything is slightly orange because of the sunset. Tall building is all I can see, except for an occasional bird flying around. Everything inside the apartment is dead quiet until Holly Angel appears besides me and snaps me out of my trance.

-So, we totally rocked today or what? - she says with her usual cheerful voice. I wasn´t expecting her to appear without any warnings so I almost spit my water because of the sudden jump scare.

-You almost make me spit my water- I reproach her while trying to calm down- I´ve told you thousands of times to not appear from nowhere-

-But if I take you on that, where would all the fun go? – I can´t help but chuckle a little at that. She is my best friend after all, the only one who has been with me and has accepted me for who I am without any kind of prejudice of any sort. Ever since I was little, 4 or 5 years old, I have been able to see duel spirits. At first I didn´t knew what they were so I just treated them like any other friend, but when I tried to introduce them with my classmates they told me I was crazy, duel monsters couldn´t possibly be our friends because they weren´t real. The other kids started avoiding me as much as they could, and it only got worse when I came out of the closet.

-Let’s go Angie, it´s best if we get comfortable for my brothers call, you know how he gets when I don´t answer him as soon as it rings- I get up and head towards my bedroom, lay down on my bed and watch as Angie sits on the edge of the bed. My brother called me almost as soon as we got into the bed, he apologized as usual for not being able to come home early today, I just told him it didn´t matter, it was for the best of us both. After the call, I prepared my things for the next day and went to bed, today will be just like today. It always is…

Meanwhile in a Hotdog truck

Ignis, Shoichi and Yusaku were watching the duel Blue Angel just won, while Ignis and Yusaku concentrated on her strategies, for different reasons non the less, Shoichi was looking for information about the dueling Idol. It wasn´t much but with the bits of info that he discovered he was already planning a way to use them to their advantage.

-Just as I thought, this is amazing- Shoichi told his two partners- Look at this- in the screen appeared a picture of a young girl, around Yusaku’s age- Aoi Zaizen, 16 years old, she is the little sister of the security chief on SOL Technology, and the true identity of Blue Angel-

-Really? -asked Ignis with a surprised face.

-And? – replied Yusaku.

- “And?” – Shoichi looked at him as if it was a joke - Don’t you notice anything strange with her uniform? – If Yusaku couldn’t pinpoint this one out Shoichi will seriously start to fear for the boy´s social skills. Even Ignis realized what was happening- Can’t you see what you have right in front of your nose? -

-She goes to my school? – Yusaku finally realized.

-Exactly, I thought that if you get close to her you could obtain information about your lost memories and the location of my brother from Zaizen himself – suddenly a grin appeared in his lips- But I know this is impossible-

- Why is it impossible- asked Ignis confused.

-Because we´re talking about Yusaku. Can you honestly imagine him talking with a girl? -

- You’re right, it´s certainly impossible-

- Exactly, impossible, impossible, impossib…- he was suddenly interrupted by Yusaku who told them something that shocked the other two.

-You two are right, it will be impossible. Look closer to her personal information. Aoi is a boy – this revelation left the other hacker and the AI frozen in place. If Aoi was a boy, the things he did made no sense. Except if…

-Yusaku, Aoi is probably a trans girl – it was the only conclusion Shoichi could get from all of that.

- Sorry, but what does that mean? -Ask Ignis, and for the first time Yusaku was happy his partner was so curios.

-Boy this is going to be a very long night- he stood up to take a sausage and a soda from the fridge- listen you two, because this is very important for you to understand- he started explaining the meaning of the term, what it implied and all he considered important for those two to learn about non-binary people. Al least 2 hours passed before both understood everything.

- After all of this, I feel like I need to apologize – said Yusaku surprising the others- I said she was a male and I was wrong so I´m sorry, I’ll see if it is possible for me to become close with her- he stood up and took his duel disk- I’m going to go home, see you tomorrow Shoichi-

-Good night Yusaku- when the door closed he just let out a sigh- that boy sure is something else. I really hope this doesn´t come back to screw with us-

Only time could tell, and they didn’t even know how much this would change their lifes.

[vengiedemon123]

(OUTDATED) Episode 1 - It’s Electric!

A/N: Wassup, everybody. I haven't written anything in awhile so of course it's gonna be bad. It probably would have been even if I posted my last chapter yesterday, but whatever. Anyways, hope you enjoy! Here are a few warnings:

1) This series will be AMERICANIZED! The names will be all from the 4Kids/4K Media dub and will take place in an American state of my choice: New Jersey. Don't like it, then don't read.

2) This story will feature Yaoi/Slash/Shonen-ai/MalexMale/etc. Don't like it, then don't read. I might even feature Yuri, but for right now, it's just Yaoi.

3) Characters WILL be OOC. This is meant to be a re-imagining of Yu-Gi-Oh! not a direct interpretation and there will be OCs. Don't like that, then don't read.

Rated: T (for violence, language, and some minor suggestive themes)

Words: 4,047

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It was the late hours of the night in Domino City. Some of the residents were asleep while others were out and about for work or fun. Two particular men were busy robbing a closed jewelry store, quickly pacing to their vehicle before the police arrived

Before they could start the engine, a large black creature landed in front of the car, pushing its claws down on the front bumper. The criminals exited the vehicle and immediately began shooting at their obstacle. The figure deflected the bullets off its body and then let out a monstrous roar, startling them. They decided to ditch their getaway car and started to run, but the eerie shape pounced on them, putting an end to their clean escape.

A few minutes later, the police came and by that time, other people bared witness to what had just occurred. The officers abandoned their vehicles and saw the two robbers tied back-to-back against a street lamp with a black rope and the bag of jewels by their sides. Next to them was the Greek letter Omega burned into the side of the road. Seemingly knowing how it got there, one police officer looked up and saw two bright red eyes beaming at him from the rooftop before they suddenly disappeared.

CRISIS OF THE ELEMENTS - IT'S ELECTRIC!

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The next day, a young girl with blond bangs and long black hair with pink streaks and magenta eyes walked up to a group of two boys.

"Hey, Joey, did you hear about what happened last night?" The girl held up her cell phone which had a news article opened, titled Vengeance Strikes Again?

"Why do they call that thing Vengeance anyway?" The blonde teen known as Joey asked, looking at the photos of the tied up robbers and the Greek letter Omega branded into the road.

"I think it all started with the first string of criminal acts." Another boy with a similar hairstyle to the girl's said, "One of the criminals said she called herself Vengeance."

"Yugi, I don't think it's a chick. It's obviously a robot or some crap like that, that some lonely nerd made to play hero." Joey muttered with a shrug, "What do you think, Kaya?"

"Could still be considered a female, from the low res pictures and videos I've seen, it appears to have large breasts." The girl, Kaya, revealed.

"Heh, even more of a reason to believe it was built by a lonely nerd." Joey snickered. Yugi and Kaya rolled their eyes.

Just then, three brunettes passed them.

"Hey, Crystal, Halle, have you two seen Tristan?" Joey questioned two of them.

"Sorry Joe." Crystal, the girl with brown hair and brown eyes, said.

"We separate when we enter the school." Halle, her sister with black hair and hazel eyes, declared.

The third girl with a mixture of brown and blond hair with brown eyes was Joey's younger sister, Selena.

"Bye, boys, bye Kaya," the three said in unison as they left. "I swear those girls brainwashed my sister." Joey affirmed as he watched them leave.

"They're nice though." Kaya said, "Right, Yugi?" No answer, "Yugi?" Kaya and Joey turned to him and noticed his violet eyes fixed on a girl by a locker four doors down from them. She had shoulder-length, light brown hair that covered the right side of her face. She wore a long-sleeved shirt and a glove on her right hand.

"I wonder who she is." Kaya said.

"I've never seen her before." Yugi finally disclosed, still staring at her as she placed books in the locker.

"Hey, Joey, would you hit that?" A voice said, snapping Yugi out of his thoughts. The voice belonged to a young man with pointy brown hair and brown eyes who had his arms around Joey's shoulders.

"Ew no way, T," The blonde pulled the newcomer off him.

The mystery girl took one look at Yugi and his friends and then walked away with her books clutched tightly against her chest.

"There you are, Tristan." Kaya spoke, "Where were you?"

"I had to finish my Geometry test from yesterday." Tristan said.

"Nerd," scoffed Joey.

"Is that the word of the week with you?" Kaya wondered.

Before Joey could reply, "Come on, guys, we have class." Yugi interrupted, looking at his phone.

The four friends went on their way to their first class. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On a remote volcano located on an island far from Domino City, two mysterious figures were hidden in the shadows.

"Stan, where are the Elemental Crystals our father has tasked us with collecting?" A person asked in a feminine voice.

"Raven, dear, we have been searching for a good year now. They have to turn up sooner or later." Stan said by Raven's side.

Lightning struck the volcano and a dark-skinned man stood before them.

"Jackson Fierce, what brings you here?" Stan interrogated.

"It's Sparkman and I have news. The Dark Crystal has been located in Domino City, New Jersey." Jackson responded.

"Father told us about that place." Raven said.

"Yes, it is where he was born." Stan added.

"But there's more, the one who poses a threat to our cause is also there." Jackson implied.

"Our father's enemy," said Raven, "Jackson, you should be strong enough to take him and anyone that gets in our way down, so go!"

"I will, Ms. Burst Lady." Jackson bowed, "And it's Sparkman!" He disappeared in a bolt of lightning.

"Do you think he'll return with the crystal?" Raven asked.

Stan chuckled, "No." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few hours later, the high school students left the building. Yugi and his sister, Kaya, headed for the bus. On their way, Joey's sister, Selena, walked up to them.

"Yo, Kay, can we talk for a sec?" She requested.

"Sure," Kaya turned to her brother, "Yuge, can you save me a seat?"

"Yeah, just hurry up." Yugi entered the bus.

As Kaya and Selena talked, a furry, brown ball crawled out from under the bus and wiggled its way into Kaya's slightly opened backpack.

"Yeah I know. Australians are hot." Selena clarified.

"I better get going. Bye, Selena." Kaya waved to her best friend and then finally made her way onto the bus.

Yugi looked at her from the window seat when she sat down, "What did you two talk about?"

"Oh, you know, boys." Kaya giggled.

"Of course," Yugi slumped in his seat. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After the bus took off, Kaya noticed a familiar face on the other side of the bus in their row.

"Yugi, look," She whispered.

Yugi turned his head in the direction she was looking and saw the lone brunette from earlier. She was sitting by herself playing with a black hexagon-shaped pendant between her fingers. The right side of her face was still hidden by her bangs.

"I guess she takes the bus." Yugi said.

"Have you seen her on here before?" Kaya asked.

"No," Yugi sat back in his chair.

"Hey, when the bus stops, you should talk to her."

"What? Why me?"

"'Cause you're the nicer one," Kaya replied.

"You're more popular." Yugi said, sliding down slowly in his seat. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The bus stopped a few blocks from Yugi and Kaya's house which doubled as a game shop. Yugi and Kaya were the second to last students to exit the bus. Behind them, was the lonesome brunette who briskly passed them and walked the opposite way.

"Maybe we can talk to her tomorrow. Come on." Kaya and her brother walked to their home. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The shop was still opened when the teenagers returned, but there were currently no customers at the Turtle Game Shop. When they arrived, an elderly man behind the counter greeted them.

"Hi, Grandpa," Kaya waved as she and Yugi entered the house area.

"Oh, Kaya, it's your turn to take over the shop." Their grandpa insisted. "Right, uh, let me just change first." Kaya and Yugi hurried upstairs to their rooms. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kaya went into her room and tossed her backpack on the bed. It let out a disgruntled cry that startled her for a moment.

"What was that?" Kaya beckoned as she then went over to her closet to gather her casual clothes.

After putting on a baby blue sweatshirt and jeans, she turned around and covered her mouth when a gasp escaped her lips. The brown fur ball was rubbing the top of its head with its tiny green claws.

"What on Earth are you?" She huskily whispered as she walked to her bed.

It looked up at her and cooed, "Bo, bo."

Kaya looked at her door and then back at the critter, "I knew I should have closed my bag all the way." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In his room, Yugi sat at his desk doing homework. He suddenly paused for a moment and glanced at a small, golden box on his desktop with the Eye of Wdjat etched on the front. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After the sun set and the city grew dark, it was quickly lit up by the street lights and more. Dark clouds appeared to go unnoticed as Jackson Fierce emerged in a flash.

"This feels like the spot where the Dark Crystal is located." He peered out across town and saw all the vehicles and civilians traverse the busy streets and sidewalks, "Alright, humans, it's time to fear the Elements!" Jackson said as a golden suit with wings, a helmet, and blue markings surrounding the armor covered his body.

He then held out both of his hands at either side and unleashed a series of electrical surges throughout the city, causing a citywide blackout and a mass panic. Dozens of people screamed and became scared. Those that were driving slowly slowed down their vehicles to a halt, while the faster drivers lost control and crashed into whatever was near them whether it was a wall, pole, tree, or an unlucky pedestrian that reacted late to the blackout.

Jackson marveled at the hysteria he caused and bolted over to the top of a gas station by a convenience store.

"The crystal's energy is strongest here." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At the closed Turtle Game Shop, Yugi activated the flashlight application on his phone, "What happened." He looked out the window and noticed the blackout expanded throughout the city.

"Yugi!" Kaya cried from the living room. Yugi hurried down the stairs where his grandfather and sister stood in the center of the room with Kaya holding her own cell phone as a light.

"What's going on? Are you guys OK?" He asked with worry.

"What could have caused this?" Kaya begged with fear in her voice.

"Don't worry. We'll be safe if we just stay here." Yugi deduced. There was suddenly a knock on the door. All three let out a yelp and dropped their phones as Kaya and her grandfather huddled behind Yugi.

"Why is everyone hiding behind me?"

"You're the bravest Moto, Yugi." Kaya said. Grandpa nodded in agreement. Yugi and Kaya picked up their cell phones and held them up as they inched closer to the shop all still close together.

"W-Who's there?" Yugi asked, loudly.

"Guys, it's me, Joey Wheeler." Joey shined his own light through the window on the door.

"Joey!" Yugi and Kaya rushed to answer the door and then quickly shut it when their friend entered.

"Are you all OK?" Joey asked.

"Yeah, we're fine. How did you get here?" Kaya wondered.

"I was on my way here to hang out. When I parked my car, that's when this mess started." Joey stated.

"Are you hurt?" Yugi asked.

"Nope," Joey smiled, "But I did wanna show you this." He went to a saved news alert on his phone and it showed a hard to make out figure on a building.

"People are saying it appeared after a single lightning strike." Joey said.

"You think it has something to do with this blackout?" Yugi concurred.

"Worse, I think it caused it." Joey proclaimed, "Think about it, what if it's a real-life super villain?" He asked, growing excited.

"Joey, this is serious." Yugi groaned, "Where was it last seen?"

"Let's see." Joey looked back online.

"Well, it's a good thing the blackout isn't affecting the phone companies." Kaya said.

"That's weird." Yugi thought.

"Blackout in Domino…people injured…Yadda, Yadda; Yadda…Downtown only affected…bla, bla, bla…"

"Wait, did he say 'just downtown'?" Kaya rephrased.

"Oh, here we are, mysterious gold person spotted at a nearby Circle K gas station." Joey professed.

"If that thing can cause blackouts, then it's even more dangerous at a gas station." Kaya said.

"Joey, which Circle K?" Yugi asked, abruptly.

"Uh, the one on Thompson and Weidenbaum Street," Joey looked at him, "Why?"

"That's where our mom works." Yugi looked at him with wide eyes.

"What does that thing want?" Kaya panicked, voice breaking slightly.

"Kaya, Grandpa, I'm going to get Mom and bring her home." Yugi murmured, still looking at Joey.

"Don't be an idiot, Yuge." Joey said.

"I'm coming too, then." Kaya added.

"No, none of you are going?" Their grandfather said.

"Grandpa, we lost Dad because I couldn't save him. I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you two or mom." Yugi concluded, lowering his head and still refusing to look at his family.

"What if we lose you?" Kaya asked, grabbing his arm.

Yugi turned slowly and smiled at her, "You won't." He then pulled away and quickly left the store.

"Yugi!" Grandpa yelled, angrily, "If that boy lives, he is so grounded." His face suddenly softened, "Please come home, my boy."

"Don't worry, Mr. Moto, I got his back." Joey followed suit.

"They're nuts." Kaya said to herself. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the streets, Yugi ran toward the convenience store where his mother worked. Joey ran up next to him.

"Wassup, Yuge?" He enjoined as they continued to run.

"What the hell are you doing, Joey?" Yugi asked.

"Not letting you play idiot hero alone."

"You're supposed to be looking after Kaya and Grandpa."

"Hey, don't worry about them. They're safe inside. It's you that I'm worried about."

Yugi shook his head, not knowing how to reply to him. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The two finally made it to the store and the streets and pavement were blocked off by police.

"Man, I knew cops would block our way." Joey remarked, snapping his finger.

"Look," Yugi pointed at Jackson on the roof of the gas station.

"If they shoot that thing, they might make this whole area go boom." Joey said.

"No kidding," Yugi agreed, looking toward the store, "You have to distract them while I go inside."

"What? I don't need a criminal record." Joey defended.

"Then why are you here if you're not going to help me?" Yugi rebutted.

Joey sighed, "Fine, fine."

He made his way toward the barricade as Yugi followed behind him for a couple steps until he made it to an opening to get behind the store.

"I wouldn't shoot me if I were you pathetic officers. You might miss and hit the gas tanks." Jackson laughed.

"He's taunting us. I know I'm a good shot." An officer said, aiming his gun.

"Josh, he's wearing armor. What if it deflects the bullets?" A second one counterclaimed.

"'Sup?" Joey greeted from behind them.

"What the hell?" The first cop asked as the others turned around, aiming their weapons at him.

"Whoa! Take it easy, coppers. I'm just your friendly neighborhood Joey Wheeler." He chuckled nervously, holding up his hands.

"Kid, this isn't a joke; now get out of the way." The second cop told him.

"Oh, perfect," Jackson raised his wings and flew down directly in front of them.

"Ah, Birdman!" Joey cowered behind Josh the police officer.

"Birdman? No, I'm Sparkman. Now, who wants to be the first to die?" Jackson asked, electricity hissing from his hands. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, Yugi managed to sneak inside the store.

"Hello?" He called out, holding up his phone.

"Who's there?" A female employee examined with her own light.

Yugi followed the light and found four workers including a woman with short red hair and brown eyes.

"Yugi?" The woman asked in shock.

"Mom!" Yugi ran into his mother's arms, hugging her tightly and dropping his phone again.

"Lyra, what is your son doing here?" An older teen with brown, long spiky hair wondered.

Yugi turned to her. "I've come to save you guys."

"Is he for real?" A male employee asked.

"Yeah, Joey and I…" He suddenly remembered, "Joey!" Yugi grabbed his phone and headed for a door.

"Yugi!" His mother cried behind him.

"I knew we should have locked those doors." The brunette worker disclosed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yugi made it outside and noticed the cops and Joey hiding behind the police car with Jackson floating over them.

"Joey!" Yugi's cry echoed throughout the area.

"Not another one," said Officer Josh.

"Hey, that's my pal." Joey argued.

"Are you both crazy?"

"Nope, it was all his idea." Joey laughed.

Jackson turned to Yugi, "And what do you want, spiky?"

"Whatever it is you want, you can't have it, so leave now!" Yugi hollered, glaring at him.

"Oh, is that right?" Jackson held up his crackling hand.

Yugi swallowed hard, "Y-Yes."

"You're just a wannabe hero." Jackson shot a lightning bolt at Yugi.

"Yuge!" Joey cried out.

Yugi closed his eyes, preparing for the worst. When he opened them, he noticed a large wolf with dragon wings in front of him, leering at Jackson.

"You're…" Yugi tried to get out.

The massive beast turned its head at him, "Vengeance." It said in a low, feminine voice.

"Yeah, it's the real life superhero!" Joey cheered.

"So, you're the one that was created by the enemy of our father." Jackson clarified, "It'll be nice to kill you and obtain the Dark Crystal."

"Dark Crystal?" Yugi questioned.

"The Dark Crystal is one of ten Elemental Crystals that will increase the power of a hybrid like me." Jackson said.

"Hybrid?" Joey asked.

"I was made from the DNA of a human and a cuckoo bird."

"What the hell is he talking about?" Josh queried.

"He's cuckoo alright?" Joey joked.

Jackson shot an energy blast in Joey's direction, but Vengeance jumped in front him and quickly absorbed it.

"She's fast." Yugi mentioned.

"Why do you protect these fools? With your power, you can be on our side and once and for all become the master race over humans." Jackson said.

"I will never join the side of evil." Vengeance growled and pounced on top of Jackson, biting down on his battle armor.

"You giant bitch!" Jackson thrust the beast of him and zapped her in the chest, knocking her back into the ground.

Jackson shuffled backwards seemingly malfunctioning from his last attack as Vengeance's saliva dripped down his body.

"Water," Yugi noted to himself. "That's it!" He ran back into the store.

"Oh, it's it alright." Jackson said as he prepared for another attack aiming at the gas station.

"I think we all should evacuate the area." Josh announced. "If the gas station explodes, it could take out the entire street, even more."

Joey looked at the store, "C'mon Yuge." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yugi hurried to his mom and the others still in the corner.

"He's back." The brunette said.

"What is it, Yugi?" Lyra asked.

"Mom, I need some water bottles." Yugi said.

"For what?" Lyra questioned.

"We can't give any to him. We might need them if the power never goes back on." The male worker said.

"Trust me; I think it might help stop that thing." Yugi stressed.

"What thing?" The female supervisor asked.

"There's apparently a super villain with electrokinesis outside." The brunette affirmed.

"Are you serious?"

"They're on the first shelf by the checkout." The brunette then said.

"Thanks, Valerie." Yugi picked up four water bottles and hurried outside."

"So, you're saying there's a dude outside with magical powers?" The boss prided.

"No," Valerie articulated matter-of-factly, "I'm saying there's a dude with electrical powers outside."

"Oh boy," The supervisor placed her head in her hands. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Outside, Jackson charged enough energy to attack.

"Time to die," Jackson said.

"It's too late to tell everyone around here to leave." A third cop declared.

"With all the cars surrounding us, it might take out more than just the street." Josh said.

Vengeance opened her eyes and struggled to stand.

"Hey, Sparky!" Yugi called. Jackson turned to face him, "It's bath time!"

"Killer one-liner," Joey noted as the officers continued to watch.

"How about you be the first to die?" Jackson moved his arms just as Yugi ran and tossed the bottles at Jackson. The conduction combined with the added-up energy forced Yugi to the ground unconscious as Jackson began to short-circuit, "Damnit, I was so close!"

"Maybe if you would have just killed us instead of stalling, you would have won." Joey taunted.

"Shut-up!" The DCPD yelled at him.

"What?"

"Your pathetic city is spared for now but I'll be back!" He exclaimed, leaving in a bolt of lightning.

"He's gone." Josh said.

"Yugi did it!" Joey voiced.

Everyone was relieved when the power suddenly returned.

"Oh-no!" Joey ran up to Yugi, "Yuge, are you OK? Speak to me, pal." He knelt down and held his friend up over his lap.

Soon, people started appearing from their homes or cars to see what caused the commotion. Lyra and the others exited the store.

"Yugi!" Lyra ran up to Joey holding up her son, "What happened?"

"He's not breathing." Joey tried to feel for a pulse. The cops surrounded them.

"Not my son," Lyra sobbed. Valerie placed a tender hand on her shoulder.

Joey then began to perform CPR as tears formed in his eyes, "You're not leaving me, pal!" After a few chest compressions, Joey pinched Yugi's nose and breathed into his mouth before resuming compressions. He repeated the process for a good few minutes as he sight grew foggier from built-up tears.

"Stop," Vengeance said.

Joey did what he was told and stared at best friend's lifeless body. He then pulled Yugi close to him and let out an incoherent cry as a cascade fell from his eyes.

"Lay him down." Vengeance finally said.

"What?" Joey solemnly looked up at her.

"I said, 'Lay him down'."

Joey once again did as he was ordered. Vengeance loomed over him and examined his frame.

"I can't let a hero die." She whispered before slowly licking his face once,

"You're still warm, so it's not too late ."

After a few seconds of people staring in awe and hope, Yugi suddenly gasped for air, pushing himself to sit up.

"Yugi!" Joey hugged him tightly.

"How did you do that?" Josh asked.

Vengeance smirked, "Everybody gets one."

"What happened?" Yugi rasped in between breaths.

"Doesn't matter, you're OK." Joey said, letting go and wiping away the moisture from his face.

"My baby!" Lyra pushed Joey out of the way and held Yugi herself, planting kisses on his face.

"Mom, there are people watching and they have their phones." Yugi groaned. He then looked at Vengeance and quickly noticed a black hexagon-shaped pendant fall from its hiding spot under her fur.

"Now that Sparkman is gone, I must go." Vengeance shook out her fur, "But fear not, for Sparkman will be back and so will I."

"And we'll be ready." Joey made a fist and smiled at Vengeance before she howled and then flew off over the Circle K building. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At the game shop,

"You sure you should be walking, Yuge?" Joey interrogated.

Yugi looked into the window and saw his family in a group hug, "Yeah, I think I'll be fine, Joey."

"Aw, I love you, man." Joey hugged him tightly, "And I totally mean that way if you want."

Yugi laughed, "I'm flattered, but you know I'm not gay."

They pulled away and both smiled.

"I love you too, Joey." Yugi said with a bright smile.

"Goodnight pal. Glad to have you back." Joey chucked with a blush and then ran off to his car, waving 'goodbye'.

Yugi thought for a moment, "What does that mean?"

"Yugi," Kaya opened the front door, "It's time for bed."

"Alright, I'm coming." Yugi interlocked his arm with his sister's as they both returned home with their family. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CRISIS OF THE ELEMENTS - AFTER CREDITS

Yugi was in his pajamas ready for bed when he once again looked over at the golden box on his desk. He slowly walked over to it. When the lid was carefully removed, Yugi admired what was inside as his room illuminated with a golden light.

To be continued... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next time on CRISIS OF THE ELEMENTS:

Joey: [at school] If there are more of these 'Elements', then we need to figure out how to take them down once and for all before they find those 10 crystals.

[A man made out of gravel breaks out of the ground just outside of Domino]

Yugi: [at school] I died, Joey, then how is possible that I'm here?

[Yugi walks up to the girl with brown hair and the black pendant]

Yugi: [before the girl] Are you Vengeance?

[The girl frowns and looks down]

[The rock humanoid swings at Joey and then hovers him as he prepares to punch him in the face, assuming to kill him but a diamond white dragon grabs the man by the arms as Yugi and Vengeance arrive and gasp in shock]

Joey (V.O.): [as the dragon and clay man stare each other down] Where are these dragon superheroes coming from?

CRISIS OF THE ELEMENTS

A/N: Well I hope you enjoyed. Many questions will be answered in the coming chapters like: Who is the mystery girl with brown hair and black pendent? Is she Vengeance? How? How did she save Yugi's life? Will it have side effects? Probably. Don't worry, if you're wondering where Serenity Wheeler is? She wasn't replaced with an OC and she'll appear in a later chapter. Is that "Bo, Bo" creature Kuriboh? and what is its purpose? That and more will also be answered soon. Lastly, all of those characters you thought might be one-off episodic characters (Officer Josh and Valerie and more). If they have names, they will become important later. Bye bye!