#anyway design things i want to point out. the mask gets flipped after link cuts it open during a miniboss fight which serves as the first

[blueskittlesart]

Maybe draw Ganondorf from your au?

i was sincerely hoping someone would bring up sof so i could show off all the designing ive been doing in my free time LMAO here's ganon as of rn :)

[abarbaricyalp]

hi. you still taking prompts? sambucky meet cute: the lobby of some kind of really tall building and they both have to get to the to top floors. bucky gets to the elevator first, pushes the "door close" button cause he's in a hurry even though he sees sam rushing towards it, but sam gets there just in time. he saw what bucky did so in retaliation he just pushes every single button to make bucky late. now they're stuck in the longest elevator ride, having to stop at every floor

Friend, this is not a meet cute. This is full on meet ugly 😅

AO3 link in the reblog

Push All My Buttons

Bucky was being haunted. That was the only logical explanation for how someone followed him from Brooklyn to Manhattan, mostly on foot. He’d seen the same guy on two trains, across approximately a thousand city blocks, and in the dumb cafe that Bucky squeezed into five seconds after it opened.

And now, the same handsome young black man was standing in the middle of the Stark Tower lobby, looking lost. Bucky quickly hit the close door button of the elevator that he blessedly had to himself. Apparently, he hit it too loud because the guy’s gaze snapped over to him and recognition lit on his face.

Bucky hit Close Door again.

“Hey! Could you hold that!” the guy called, jogging across the lobby floor and avoiding milling people. The fucking tourists on the ground level were killer.

Bucky was not letting a stalker into the elevator with him when he had 91 floors to get up. He hit Close Door for a third time.

Finally, the guy seemed to realize what Bucky was doing and he scowled before tossing his army bag towards the closing doors. They hit the bag and opened up just in time for the guy to jog over, grab his bag, and step inside.

“You’re kind of an asshole,” he said as he slung the duffle over his shoulder again.

“I’m late to a meeting,” Bucky said, which was true. Mostly what he wanted to say was ‘don’t kill me and wear my face as a mask’ or whatever someone who’d followed him over three boroughs would want to do.

The man looked over at him from the corner of his eyes, looked at the highlighted 91 and then reached over to smooth his hand up every single button on the machine. 2-93 lit up.

Bucky stared.

The man crossed his arms. “Now we’re both late.”

92 and 93 unlit themselves. Those were Stark’s personal suites. 2-91 remained lit.

“You fucking asshole,” Bucky groaned and dragged his hands over his face. “Why would you do that? I’m meeting with Stark. I’ve got his-his-his fucking coffee. Jesus.”

“Because I’d rather be late and piss you off than be on time and let you get away with trying to close the door in my face.”

“What was the point of following me all the way around the city? Are you trying to make my life difficult?”

Now the man fully turned to look over at him. The elevator stopped on the second floor and no one was waiting. “I’m not following you. I don’t even know who you are.”

“Are you kidding?” Bucky asked. “You’ve been on my ass since Lloyd’s, in Brooklyn.”

The man frowned. The elevator eased up to the next floor. “Why would you stop at Lloyd’s if you were coming all the way in here?”

“I like to eat on my commute, that’s not the point! You followed me!”

“Pal, I dunno how to tell you that anyone coming from Brooklyn to Stark Tower’s gotta take a pretty similar route.”

“It’s Bucky, pal.”

“Sam,” the guy said and then honest to God offered his hand out like he wasn’t actively ruining Bucky’s life.

On the fifth floor, someone stepped into the elevator, looked at the buttons and stepped back out. Bucky shook Sam’s hand with a resigned sigh.

“Where’d you get that piece of machinery on your arm?” Sam asked around floor eight.

“It’s not on my arm,” Bucky answered. “It is my arm.”

Sam rolled his eyes and punched the door close button. “Fine, where’d you get that piece of machinery on your torso?”

“It’s not Stark tech,” he answered because he knew that was actually what Sam was asking about. He let his eyes slide over Sam’s body quickly, trying to discern if Sam was here for a prosthetic. The bag on his shoulder and the silver ball-chain around his neck gave away that he was military. Stark Industries had a veterans program, so there was a good population of soldiers walking around the building at any given time. Sam was wearing pants, so Bucky couldn’t be totally sure he didn’t have a bad leg, but he hadn’t clocked any limp or awkward gait since Brooklyn. “You here for a prosthetic?” he asked anyway.

Sam snorted and shook his head. The door opened again and someone got on before reaching to press the ground level button.

“Shit,” the woman said, upon seeing everything else lit up. She quickly hit the door open button and jumped back out. “You know, if you two wanted extra time together, having the doors open on every floor was probably a bad idea.”

“That’s not what we--” Bucky started to argue, but the doors slid shut in front of him.

“Anyway,” Sam started again. “I’m not here for a prosthetic. I’m here with Colonel Rhodes.”

“Wow, big man on campus,” Bucky said drily.

“Oh, right, you’re so unimportant, going up to the 91st floor,” Sam shot back.

“I work here,” Bucky said. He held up the quickly cooling coffee in his hands. “Glorified secretary most days, but I’m supposed to be an engineer.”

“What kind of machines do you work with?”

“Not the planes or the suits. Military tech, mostly. I try to stay away from weapons when I can.”

“Did you serve?” Sam asked.

Wish I hadn’t, Bucky wanted to say. “Nah, actually I lost my arm when Stark flew into an uncaffeinated rage and threw a saw at me.”

“Whatever, man. There’s a thousand ways to lose an arm. It ain’t gotta be out in the desert.” His cheeks didn’t quite color, but he crossed his arms and stared ahead.

“Mountains,” Bucky corrected. “Special OPs.”

“Oh, right, but I’m the big man on campus,” Sam said, holding up his hands in mock surrender.

“Rhodes is a big deal around here. You think Stark’s letting him out of his sight for just anyone?”

“The Air Force is testing a new gadget. Rhodes is involved ‘cause Air Force. Maybe you worked on it.”

“Yeah, maybe. It’s a big program. Stark’s got a lot of things going on all at once. Lots of engineers and designers.”

The elevator stopped on the 25th floor and Sam and Bucky both said, “We’re going up,” at the same time to keep the group of suits from crowding into the elevator with them.

Sam kicked his bag into the corner and sat down heavily in front of it, leaning back and closing his eyes. “So you’re a soldier who works for Stark Industries but didn’t get your prosthetic from him, even though he’s the cutting edge of prosthetics and has a full-paid program for those injured in duty.”

Bucky gave up and sat down too. He cradled the coffee cup between his legs, which was probably a bad idea, but this whole morning had been bad. “My story’s a little more complicated than that,” he said. “A lot more twists and turns. My arm is still high tech, though. I asked for a flamethrower, or at least a saw hand but I didn’t get it.”

Sam laughed and, for the first time all morning, Bucky thought maybe he wasn’t so angry at him anymore. Sam laughed like nothing had ever hurt him before, which made it feel like maybe nothing had hurt Bucky either. “Well, there’s your problem. Stark would’ve definitely given you that, from what I hear about the man.”

Bucky grinned over at him and dropped his head back against the wall. It was uncomfortable and the jostling of the car every few seconds rattled his brain, but it beat standing up, or keeping his eyes on Sam for too long. “You’re still in the service?”

“Well, not all of us are so lucky to get a medical discharge on our first tour.”

“Oh, yeah, real luck of the Irish, me. And it was my second. I wasn’t SpecOps until I finished my first stint in the army.”

“Right, right,” Sam said. Then, “You joined up young.”

“So did you. I mean, I assume you’re on your second or third tour too, if you’re being asked to work with Rhodes.”

“Second. I took a long leave to do some school stuff.”

“Oh, so working with Rhodes and you’re smart. You really are the whole package.”

“I’m working with Colonel Rhodes because I’m smart,” Sam corrected. “I could probably take your job. I’m real techy.”

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t. I’m fond of my apartment and I definitely can’t afford it without being here.”

“Right, I assume you make buck working for Stark.”

“Eh, he’s still a multi-billionaire, he could pay us more.”

“What’s that say about the military then?”

“I’ll drink to that, bro.”

Sam chuckled again and opened his eyes to glance over at Bucky. “How does someone go from losing their arm in a SpecOps mission to working for Stark Industries.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. It’s at least a three course discussion.”

The elevator dinged on level 39 and paused, though there was no one there.

“Almost halfway up,” Sam pointed out.

“You are good at math,” Bucky joked just to see Sam roll his eyes again, which he did. “Why Air Force?” he asked when the doors decided to shut again.

“It’s gonna sound so stupid, but I’ve been dreaming about flying since I was a little kid. I wanted to be an astronaut and a lot of astronauts were in the military. So, air force. Figured if I never got to space, at least I spent years in the air anyway.”

Bucky didn’t think that was stupid at all. “You’re right, that’s pretty dumb.” Sam flipped him off with a laugh. “Are you a good pilot?”

“Pal, I’m one of the best out there.”

“God, you chair force guys are all the same,” Bucky said. He squawked as Sam leaned over to tackle him down. “Coffee, coffee! Sam, if you spill Stark’s coffee I’ll make you explain it to him!” he threatened as Sam pulled him away from the cup that had managed to remain upright by an unlikely bout of luck and physics.

Sam was fucking strong, wrangling Bucky down and holding him still. Sure, he was on his knees and Bucky’s legs were mostly trapped under him, but still. Bucky wasn’t a small guy and the prosthetic wasn’t light either but Sam had tugged him out of the corner anyway.

“Oh my God, seriously?” a guy asked on the next floor.

Bucky took the moment of distraction to dig his knee into Sam’s ribs and flip them over as the doors shut again. He locked his fingers around Sam’s wrist and held it to the floor. Sam tugged at the hold futilely.

“Shit, what’s that made out of?”

“That’s another three course answer.”

“At this rate? No chance,” Sam said and got his foot braced against Bucky’s shoulder before shoving him off. Bucky sat back and made sure the coffee was still standing. Sam leaned up against the wall by the doors. They both took in heavy breaths.

“What are you doing with Rhodes?” Bucky asked at floor fifty, when he was pretty positive they weren’t about to leap at each other again.

“Maybe that’s a three course answer,” Sam responded with a small smirk.

“I didn’t know Stark was working on planes with the Air Force.”

“Did I say plane?”

“Helicopters, whatever,” Bucky amended with a wave of his hand. “What do you fly?”

“I’m pararescue.”

Bucky let out a low whistle. “Shit, that’s more impressive than working with Rhodes, maybe. You a doctor?”

“I’ve got triage training, but I’m not, like, ready to walk into an E.R. as soon as I get home or anything.” Sam ran his hand over his buzzed hair and Bucky suddenly wanted to know what it looked like grown out, or if he’d ever kept it long. How he styled it and if he had facial hair and what he was hiding under his shirt and Jesus Christ, he needed to think about anything else.

“Well, from what I’ve seen, your beside manner probably sucks.”

Sam kicked out his foot lamely, missing Bucky’s by a mile. “You ain’t hurt. I don’t gotta give you no bedside manner.”

“What floor do you want off on?” Bucky asked after a glance at the rapidly dimming lights on on the button panel.

“85.”

“Right, yeah, Rhodes works there. We’re at 70 now.”

“What’s it like? Just offices?”

“Nah, he’s got a whole training floor. There’re a few offices, a reception area, but there’s also a gym and some space for simulated battle, sparring rooms. It’s pretty cool. You’ll have a lot of room for whatever he’s doing.”

Sam nodded and looked over at the gaping doors with the first look of unease he’d had all morning.

“You nervous?”

“You would be too,” Sam answered. “If you knew what I was doing. But, hey,” he looked away as the doors shut, “my partner’s already up there, so I can’t make any more of a fool of myself than he probably already has.”

Bucky grinned and shrugged. “I dunno about that. You seem pretty incapable,” he said sarcastically.

Sam kicked out his leg again and then stood up and grabbed his bag from next to Bucky. “You work here every day?”

Bucky nodded and took Sam’s hand when he offered it down to him to haul himself up. “9 to too late.”

“Well, I’m around for a few weeks. Maybe we could walk together instead of around each other next time,” he suggested.

Bucky ignored the swooping of his stomach. “Yeah, if you can keep up.”

Sam jostled his ribs with an elbow. “I can keep up. You’re the one with the machine on your arm.”

“Yeah, and what about it? I could hand-walk faster than you could run.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Sam snorted. The door opened on floor 80 and Sam’s mouth screwed to one side briefly before he looked at Bucky. “Maybe you’ll get my number out of all of this eventually.”

“Maybe I don’t want it after this stunt.”

Sam placed his hand on Bucky’s metal shoulder solemnly. “You want it.”

With a grin, Bucky shrugged Sam off and shoved him forward. “Get outta here, Wilson.”

“How’d you know--?” Sam asked, taking half a step back to the doors.

Bucky reached over to trace his fingers over the name patch on the other side of the bag. “I’m just a good guesser.”

“Hey, that’s not fair. What’s your--”

The door shut between them and Bucky sagged back against the wall with a sigh. His heart was racing like he was a teenager again and his head felt cloudy. This meeting was not going to go well at this point. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to focus on anything but Sam’s smile or the way he looked in boots or the weight of him above Bucky’s body.

When the elevator dinged on 91, he grabbed Stark’s coffee and let himself off and then almost immediately ran into Rhodes.

“Oh, hey, sorry. Hey, I was just on the elevator with your meeting,” he said. “Sorry he’s late. I hit a bunch of buttons on accident when I got in,” Bucky lied as he passed the coffee to Stark.

“No harm, no foul,” Rhodey said easily. “Clearly I wasn’t even down there. I was actually waiting on you.”

“Me? What for? I’m not working on anything military.”

“You’re not?” Stark asked around a mouthful of coffee. “You assigning yourself projects now?”

“You didn’t say anything about the wings being military. I mean, how would that even work? It’d put a soldier in the air bare.”

“Yeah,” Stark agreed sarcastically and clapped a hand down on Bucky’s metal arm. “What kind of soldier runs around without full body protection.”

“What are you calling the project?” Rhodey asked, guiding the discussion back to where it was supposed to be.

“EXO-Falcon,” Bucky said. “I was modeling it after some of Stark’s EXO-skeleton suits, but it’s much more compact, situated on the back with all support sitting around the chest and ribs.”

Rhodey nodded. “Can I see them?”

Bucky quickly dashed to his work bench and came back with the wings in their case. “They’re carbon fiber, which makes them a little more flexible and keeps them a little lighter weight. I had thought about doing interlocking plates like my arm, but it wasn’t working. I took some of the more basic structures of my arm and modeled a folding mechanism out of it instead. The wings retract into and out of the case.”

He pulled the jetpack on and stepped away from the other work spaces before clicking the wings open. They snapped out behind him, grand and proud. Not unlike how Bucky was feeling at that moment.

“And the jetpack? Is that ready to go?” Rhodey asked.

Bucky shifted from foot to foot. “Well, in theory. I haven’t tested it out yet ‘cause I’m not trained to do things like that, but I’ve put DUM-E into the air and nothing blew up.”

“Well, the Air National Guard guys here today will be thrilled to hear that,” Stark said. “Shall we?”

“You don’t wanna test the jets before you put it on someone?” Bucky asked, a little strangled. He trusted his design. But he really, really hadn’t put as much time into the whole human safety element as he did the ‘up and running’ element.

“We’ll strap a crash test dummy to them in over the mats. It’ll be fine. The fire suppression system on 85 is better than up here.”

“No it isn’t. It’s just further from your suites,” Rhodey said.

Stark shrugged and tossed a piece of pastry in his mouth. “It’s my building. I say we go down to 85.”

“Well, that’s where I left your trainee or whatever too,” Bucky said as he shrugged off the pack and packed it all back up. “Do you want me to grab the other pack?”

“No worries, I’ve already moved it,” Stark said. “I knew Rhodes was coming by. You’re welcome, those things are heavy.”

“Don’t act like you didn’t have DUM-E move it,” Rhodey teased. He made his way over to the elevator and Bucky followed with Stark on his heels. The ride down to 85 was much faster than the ride up to 91. It was a miracle what not hitting every button could do. They stepped out onto the floor and made their way to the training mats, where two other people were already standing.

“Barnes, I’d like to keep you on the Falcon project,” Rhodey said. “No one knows the wings like you do. That being said, you’ll be working with live test subjects now, so it’s a little more critical.”

“Hey, you don’t have to say it that way!” the blond man in the middle of the room said. “Call us, like, Top Guns or something.”

“You don’t get to choose your nickname around here,” Stark called over, propping himself up on a stack of sparring mats to watch from afar. “Ask Manchurian Candidate. He definitely didn’t choose his.”

Rhodey rolled his eyes. “Barnes, this Sergeant Wiatrek and Sergeant Wilson.”

Fuck.

“It’s Barnes, huh?” Sam asked, smugly crossing his arms over his chest.

“Oh, Sammy, you didn’t hook up with this guy already did you?” the blond asked in teasing horror.

“Screw you, no. I met him this morning.”

“Ah,” Rhodey said with a grin. “This was the meeting you made late,” he said to Bucky.

“Yeah, we met this morning,” Bucky confirmed with a raging blush. How was this his life?

“Well, good, you can get right to work on the wings,” Rhodey said. “Let me go find a crash dummy.”

“DUM-E,” Stark called as Rhodey started away.

“I’ll find that doll first,” Rhodey challenged.

Bucky turned from their bickering and looked at Sam, then the blond next to him.

“It’s Riley,” the other man said and offered out his hand. “I’m better conversation than this one.”

Bucky doubted it. He shook the guy’s hand and then held out the briefcase like a shield between him and Sam’s teasing gaze. “Do you wanna see the wings?”

Riley nodded eagerly and Bucky moved to another stack of mats to open the case. Riley and Sam stood on either side of him. As Riley pulled the jetpack free, Sam pulled out his phone. Bucky thought he was going to film his friend inevitably crashing, but instead he turned on the auto-help.

“Hey, where’s the nearest three-course restaurant?” he asked without looking away from Bucky, without his grin faltering.

Bucky dragged his hands down his face as he looked at Sam. Riley yelped behind them after the tell-tell whoosh of the jet pack, but Sam still didn’t look away. Bucky couldn’t either.

[snowdice]

Folds in Paper (Chapter 6: You Try to Cut Her Wires)[Folds in Time Universe]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Janus/Patton, Remus & Roman, eventual Logan/Virgil (maybe more)

Characters:

Main: Janus, Patton, Remus

Appear: Remy, Emile, Virgil, Logan, Roman

Summary: Janus, a disillusioned senior agent working for the Time Preservation Initiative, struggles to find meaning in a world where time travel could change everything about your life’s history in less than a moment. When time distortions start popping up, threatening the timeline and the fabric of reality as he knows it, it becomes a race against the clock to fix the damage before everything unravels. And the problem with time travel… you never how long you have before the clock strikes 12 and your time is up.

With a partner who has more mysteries in his past than Janus had anticipated and an enigmatic free agent time traveler mucking about time always with a clever pun or a time appropriate pet name on his lips, Janus will need to figure out what went wrong with time, and more importantly, how to fix it.

Chapter Summary:  

You try to cut her wires but you're way too late.

-from the song “Time Bomb” by Iration

Notes: Time travel AU, mystery, enemies to lovers, alcohol

This is a fic I’ve been writing on study breaks that you have probably all already seen at this point. I’ve slightly edited it for wording and grammar, but not for content from my previous posts. Feel free to send in asks to direct it because I’m not 100% sure where this is going and you can help decide if you feel so inclined! You can see the process I went through to build this at this link.

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted).

AO3 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

“Really, Khalid,” Janus said, storming into his boss’s office before even sitting down at his desk that morning. “A yellow?” It had been about a week since the 1920s incident, and his incident report had finally been cleared. Sure, it wasn’t a red or a black and he wasn’t facing any reprimand, but it should have been a green.

She looked up at him, clearly unconcerned. “There was an incident,” she said. “You handled it well, but there was one. Therefore, yellow.”

“It wasn’t a time period incident! It was a rouge time traveler.”

“Janus, you helped me make these rules,” she said impatiently.

“Which is why I know this is bullshit,” he snapped.

She rolled her eyes. “If it was anyone else, you would agree with me. While you didn’t go against protocol and had no time related incidents, the fact of the matter is, you were still distracted by this ‘rouge time traveler,’ didn’t complete your mission, and were arrested.”

“He was good,” Janus said. “You can’t fault me for that. He also could be dangerous and you’re busy handing out yellows instead of working to track him down.”

She raised an eyebrow. “We are working on tracking him down,” she said. “We have done an analysis on the mask and found fibers dating to the 2010s and some DNA. Though it isn’t exactly a high priority.”

“We have no idea who he is or what he’s planning to do. Why is that not a high priority?”

“At the moment?” she asked. “Because we have reports of a time bomb being activated.”

“What?” Janus asked straightening up. “When?”

“New Years Eve going into the year 3,000 in Brazil,” she said. “Which you’d know about if you’d bothered to check your integration port this morning before storming into my office.”

“It’s my mission?” Janus asked.

“The incident investigation is over and your active again despite the dreaded yellow,” she said, clearly making fun of him a bit. “So, yes, and it’s a high priority mission, so it is our mission. I’m leading it.”

“Who all is going?” he asked.

“Other than the two of us, Remus, Lena, and Fred,” she told him. “We leave in three hours, so, you might want to run off to Rhi before Fred gets to her and ties her up for an hour on details.”

Janus nodded and got to his feet. He turned back at the door. “I still don’t deserve the yellow,” he hissed.

She waved him off. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Picani.”

He ground his teeth a bit about the dismissal of his worries, but his resentment was slightly soothed by the fact that she’d assigned him to go on such a high priority mission and with only other senior agents.

He took the advice and grabbed Remus from the office, noting Lena hadn’t been able to wrangle Fred yet as she was still at her desk, and they both headed off to see Rhi.

A few hours later, they were all in decontamination together, decked out in truly god-awful costumes. The turn of the third millennia had been a wild event, and the best way to fit in was to look like you’d grabbed something from every century in recorded human history, dyed it in neon paint, and rolled around in a vat of glitter.

Remus had opted to stick his head in a vat of thick glow in the dark green paint that costuming had offered them. It was so caked on that Janus couldn’t even recognize him on sight, and it wasn’t even going to be slightly disruptive to their covertness.  In fact, costuming had frowned when Janus had insisted he not get his hair dyed and instead wore a bowler hat. They had required him to have flowers made out of glitter on it.

There were five people waiting for them when they landed 6 hours before the turn of the millennia. Three were touchdown agents, including Remy, and two were on location tech support. Usually it would be overkill to have that many people there just for support even with five agents in the field, but today the TPI needed to be cautious because they were planning on instituting a time lock.

Time bombs were dangerous things that would ripple through time if not contained. They were nests of anywhere between 10 and 50 bombs that were set off by one core explosion. This core explosion would punch through space-time and spew the multitude of bombs across different places and times. Beyond just causing huge explosions where they landed, they would also pose a danger to any time travelers that accidently traveled through them and they could cause disruptions in the timelines around the source and where each one ended up. Once they went off in their source time, there was very little one could do to stop the damage. Thus, the time lock. The time lock would make sure that even if it did end up going off (killing everyone in its reach), the damage wouldn’t extend outside of the city and, more importantly, the year it was planted.

Janus had only been in two time locks before, and he was one of the most senior agents in the TPI, outranked only by the founder: Lia Khalid. Time locks were designed to keep all time linear in a certain fixed time and geographical area as well as prevent any time travel in and out. Once it was engaged, all forms of time travel would not work for the duration, bar the pin device. Khalid was already switching out her regular timepiece with the slightly bigger one that was designed to support the time lock.

There was a failsafe back at the TPI that could be engaged in an emergency, which was why tech support was here, but other than that, the only thing that could break the time lock was that timepiece, and said timepiece would break the moment the time lock ended, making it impossible to return to the inside of the timelock.

 As soon as it was on Khalid’s wrist, she looked up at them all. “Our information says the time bomb was planted in the costume of one of the ‘Millennium Birds’ who are the organizers of the different events,” she said. Janus had seen a photo of the identical costumes in the mission details. They were all robe like garments with giant fans of feathers coming from the neck that coalesced in a peak a foot above their head to hold a fake bird egg. At least they’d be easy to find. “There are 25 of them throughout the city. We need to find each of them. So we don’t double count, you’ll need to subtly,” her eyes touched on Remus, “scan each one you find for the bomb and tag them with a tracker if it’s not on them. You can view the already tagged ones, as well as the rest of us on your timepiece even once the time lock is engaged. When you find the bomb, call it in.”

They all nodded, and Khalid looked over at one of the techies. She nodded at her and then the techie flipped a couple of switches. “Three, two, one,” the techie said. There was a slight shift in the air that most people would disregard, but Janus, as a seasoned time traveler, could feel the change even before his wrist buzzed. He glanced at his timepiece to see it had a big red ‘X’ across its display. He tapped it and was still able to bring up the map of the city with 10 green dots on it all clustered together in their current location.

After that, he tested the scanner on his timepiece that he would use to search for the bomb, just to make sure the time lock hadn’t messed anything up with his equipment. He glanced up to see everyone else was doing the same.

“Keep in contact,” Khalid said before everyone split up. Janus and Remus started by going North while Fredrick and Darlene were to go South. Khalid was a floater who would tag any Birds she saw but was mostly there for backup and orders.

Janus and Remus stepped into the chaos of New Years Eve before the turn of the third millennia. The streets were already swamped with people and it would only be getting worse the later it got.

“Where should we start?” Remus asked.

“Let’s go all the way North to the games area,” Janus said. “We can work our way back here.”

“Okay!” Remus said. “I wonder if they have those fun little genetically modified goldfish as prizes. I’ve always wanted to eat one and see if I end up getting whatever design was on the fish on my body.”

Janus gave him a disgusted look.

“What?! People eat fish all the time!”

Janus shook his head. “We’re not playing the games anyway. We have work to do. Important work.”

“Boo,” Remus replied. Janus chose to ignore him.

A few minutes later, he spotted one of the Millenia Birds letting people into the gaming area.

They walked over towards the entrance. Janus got in range first and moved to subtly scan the Millenia Bird, Remus doing the same the next moment. After a second, Janus’s timepiece buzzed and lit up red, meaning the bomb was within range. “Well, that was easy,” he said. “It was on the first one we found.”

“Uh…” Remus said. “Jan.” When Janus looked, he was holding up his wrist to show his green lit time piece.

“What?” Janus asked. He quickly moved to rescan the Millenia Bird, and his timepiece came up green as well. Which, meant the bomb was not in range, even though the Millenia Bird had not moved. “But…” He and Remus’s eyes met, and they quickly both started turning in a circle to look at the crowd around him. No one looked like they’d just stolen a time bomb off the Millennial Bird, but then Janus’s eyes caught on a man.

He blended in perfectly to his surroundings. He was wearing the disgusting garb of the times, a large light blue piece that bubbled near his hips, and he had most of his skin covered in rainbow neon paints. Yet, something about him, the curl of his hair or the way he moved, drew Janus’s eyes to him. He recognized the man immediately even in a completely different dressing style. Yet, what cinched it was the moment Janus’s eyes met his, and they seemed to sparkle slightly in the afternoon sun. The next moment, the person Janus knew as Pat, turned to disappear into the crowd.

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AO3 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

[fishfingersandjellybabies]

Legacies - dad!jason au

Characters: Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne, Jason Todd, Barbara Gordon Pairings: jaydick Summary: Dick was Batman now, and as a certain someone always said - Batman always needs a Robin. A/N: After All’s Fair by a few months/a year and before Worst Nightmare. Also ignore the a/n on Worst Nightmare/edit it to be talking about being Bruce’s Robin, not Dick’s. Damian is 13 in this. Can’t believe I haven’t updated this au in OVER a year, so if you only read this series from me, reminder I now have a Patreon and Ko-Fi if you like my work and would like to support me further or get stories written for you/commissions! I’d be forever grateful!

Other things for Nevolition’s Dad!Jason AU

~~

“…This is weird.” Jason’s voice cracked through the communicator. It was a slow night, thankfully, and the two had been talking via comm. link for about an hour.

“What is?” Dick asked, shifting slightly to rearrange the cape across his shoulders.

“This.” Jason reiterated. Laughed breathily. “I’m sitting here flirting with the fucking Batman.”

Dick laughed too. Leaned back and stared up at the moon through the cloudy skies. “Don’t freak out too much when you remember you’re married to the Batman too.”

“Oh my god, I’m married to the fucking Batman.” Jason mimicked with fake shock. Dick kicked his feet against the brick of the building in glee. The cape, this legacy, was heavy. Too heavy, sometimes. But Jason sitting up and talking to him about mundane things like soups and shoestrings made it lighter. Made it bearable.

Dick let out a deep sigh. Listened as Jason plopped another folded shirt of their clean laundry into the basket.

“…Any word from Tim tonight?” Jason asked softly.

“Of course not. He still isn’t speaking to me.” Dick mumbled. He heard voices below him and leaned forward, making sure his cowl ears didn’t cast a shadow. It was a couple leaving a nearby bar. “Still thinks Bruce is alive, and I don’t think he’ll speak to me until I agree with him.”

“Kind of hard to agree with an idea that’s absolutely nuts.” Jason huffed. “It’s just his grief, Dick. Don’t take it personally.”

“I’m trying not to.” Dick promised. “At this point, I just want to know he’s okay.”

“Mentally or physically? Because you know my opinion on the former.”

“Both.” Dick stressed. “I mean, if he thinks Bruce is still alive then obviously he needs help mentally. But if he’s out there trying to fight criminals on his own, I’m afraid what could happen if he’s ever outnumbered.”

“Well, what’d Babs say?” Jason asked. “She know where he is?”

“Says he’s still in Gotham.” Dick murmured, swinging his legs wildly in front of him, in a kind of stretch. “Says he’s going by the name Red Robin now too.”

“Why? He didn’t want to be your Robin?” Jason asked. The dryer dinged in the background, and he heard Jason shift to go get the new load. “That’s kind of surprising, honestly.”

“I told him to his face that his theory about Bruce wasn’t real, and he needed to find a new way to cope. Probably not in the nicest way either.” Dick mumbled guiltily. “So of course he wants nothing to do with me.”

“Still…Robin has become a lot more independent to Batman in recent years.” Jason thought out loud. “Working with Batman isn’t exactly a necessary part of the job anymore.”

“That’s just what Babs said, not that she or Steph have talked to him about it.” He heard the dryer door slam. “Sorry for taking a patrol on laundry night. I know you hate that.”

“Eh, I hate it less these days.” Dick could practically see Jason shrug. “You’ve got a lot more important things on your plate right now then making sure Damian’s clean underwear is folded correctly.”

Dick snorted. “Well hopefully he’s making up for my absence.”

Jason paused. Then: “What do you mean?”

“I mean I hope he’s sitting there helping you, not sitting in his room on the computer.”

Another hesitation, then a chuckle. “Dick, did you forget he’s spending the night at Colin’s tonight?”

Dick frowned. “No he’s not.”

“Yes he is. That’s what he told me this morning.”

Dick’s gut began to churn. “I asked him what he was doing tonight before I left for the manor. He said nothing, because Colin’s out of town.”

Jason remained silent.

“Jason, is Damian not home?”

“Let me call him.” Jason said hurriedly. Dick checked the projection in his mask, making sure he didn’t miss a text from his son. A moment later, Jason exhaled nervously. “…It went straight to voicemail.”

“Don’t panic, Jay. Let me call Oracle.” He pushed the switch on the side of his cowl. “Babs?”

“Yes, Man Wonder?”

“Do you have a read on Damian? He appears to have tried to pull a fast one on Jay and I.”

“Ah, the joy of teenage rebellion. Just like all three of his dads.” Barbara hummed. She too seemed to switch communicator channels. “Batgirl, Black Bat and all other Bat-related friends and foes. Be on the lookout for a certain thirteen-year-old that we all know and love very dearly. He’s apparently lied to his dads and is gonna be in some deep shi-”

“Hang on, hang on.” A new voice drawled boredly across the line. “Don’t panic, I’m almost there.”

Dick blinked, and even Barbara seemed stunned into a momentary silence. Damian had a communicator, just like Jason did. One to call Dick, and Dick only. Not the open line. “…Damian, almost where?”

There was a thud behind him, and Dick immediately fell into attack mode. Pulled batarangs from his belt as he flipped backwards and twisted into a fighting stance.

And his weapons immediately slipped from his fingers, clattering to the rooftop.

Because it wasn’t an enemy. Oh no. At this moment, he’d have preferred an enemy. He’d prefer the Joker over who was standing in front of him.

Robin.

Damian dressed as Robin.

“No.” Was the first word out of Dick’s mouth, even as he took in the costume. It wasn’t thrown together, wasn’t a fake. He could see Alfred’s careful craftsmanship in the stitching of the red tunic, the thick green gloves. “Absolutely not.”

Damian grinned anyway, holding his bright yellow cape out and giving a single spin to show it off. “Cool, huh?”

“Opposite of cool.” Dick found himself already floating into the Batman voice. “Dames, we talked about this.”

Damian frowned. “No, you and Baba talked about this. I listened.” He crossed his arms. “Reluctantly.”

Dick bit his lip. “Babs. Get Penny-One on the line. Ask him why he allowed-”

“Alfred didn’t allow anything. He just made the uniform when we asked.” Damian cut off.

Dick tilted his head. “We?”

“Tim.” Damian said simply. “He and I talked about it. He helped me with the design. He passed the legacy of Robin on to me.”

Dick’s stomach dropped. This…explained a lot. Maybe. Explained the Red Robin part, at least. Maybe the radio silent part, and why Damian had an open line communicator too.

Damian seemed to see the confusion on Dick’s features. Uncrossed his arms and placed his hands on his hips. “I’d brought the idea up to him before, when you were thinking about taking over for…for Father.” He paused, seemed to swallow a lump in his throat. “And then you two fought, and he said he was leaving town. I asked him who was going to watch your back, and he stopped. He said he didn’t want to do it, that he couldn’t. Not with how things were right now. And I reminded him of what he always said.”

“And what did he always say?” Dick asked, hearing the bitterness in his own voice.

“That Batman needs a Robin.” Damian said firmly. “And in my opinion, that doesn’t change, even if the guy wearing the cowl does.”

“But not you.” Dick countered. His communicator beeped, reminding him of Jason on the other line. And great – that was going to go just swell. Hey honey, found our kid! Turns out he wants to fight crime! “Robin was never supposed to be you.”

“That’s what Tim said. And I asked him who else was going to do it?” Damian grinned again, overly pleased with himself. “He still wasn’t going for it exactly, so…”

“So?”

“So I told him if he didn’t help, I’d just go out on my own anyway.” Damian tilted his chin up. “He said that’d happen over his dead body, so he helped me design the suit and new weapons and everything, to make sure I was safe.”

“Well thank god for that.” Dick mumbled.

“And when it was all ready to go, he…he said he was proud of me. That there was no one else he’d rather take the title after him.” Damian’s cheeks seemed to redden a little bit at the memory of the praise. “He even went out with me the first few times so he knew I was ready.”

“You’ve gone on patrol already?!” Dick fumbled. He heard someone snort in amusement on the line. “Oh my…when? How many times?”

“Last month.” Damian countered. “Remember all those late nights at the Gotham Library with Nell for that project?”

“Oh my…” Dick sputtered, turning away. “Oh my freaking god…”

“Still got that husband on line two, Bats.” Barbara almost sang in his ear.

“So much for World’s Greatest Detective, eh, Didi?” Damian hummed with a laugh. “Don’t worry, I can pick up the slack on that.”

“You little…” Dick sighed, moving to run his hand through his hair, and remembering too late that he couldn’t. “Your baba’s going to kill me.”

“He’ll understand.” Damian tried, moving forward. “I’m…Didi, I’m not doing this to go against you or anything. I’m doing this to help. To help people, to protect the city you and Father love so much and…and to make sure you come home safe.”

Dick looked down at him.

“I won’t let the Court of Owls happen again, Didi. I won’t.” Damian whispered. “I won’t let someone hurt Stephie again, or Tim, or anyone else.”

Dick’s heart melted a little at that. And hurt, too. Goddamn, their son was so kind. So smart. So perfect.

He sighed, and reached out to reel Damian in, wrapping his arms tightly around his shoulders. Closed his eyes to hold back the tears, remembering when Bruce would hug him too, when they were Batman and Robin. And now, here, this…

“We’ll…have to talk to Baba about this. He’ll take a lot of convincing.” Damian looked up at him, smile threatening to crack his face in two. “Not that I’m saying yes, either, but…I understand.”

“…I’d have pointed out the hypocrisy of you saying no, if you didn’t.” Damian admitted.

“I have no doubt.” Dick laughed. “Again, I’m not saying yes, but…I suppose you can stay with me for tonight’s patrol.”

Impossibly, Damian’s grin got wider.

“A-hem.” Barbara reminded. “Husband – and dad – still on line two.”

Dick groaned as Damian stepped away from him with an awkward grin. Jason really was going to kill him.

He hit the button to switch frequencies. “Jay-”

“I swear to fuck, Dick, if someone’s already linked him to your Batman, I’m going to-”

“He’s with me!” Dick cut off, cringing in the immediate silence that followed. “He’s, uh, with me. On…this…rooftop.”

“…Why.” Jason demanded, though Dick already knew he was putting the pieces together. “Why is he on a rooftop with you.”

“Because…” Dick started. He stopped there, though, because how do you explain it? Even to someone who formerly wore the colors? “Well…apparently…he, uh…he approached Tim a little while ago and…I guess we raised him too well, so…”

“No. Absolutely not.” Jason all but screamed. “Tell him his little ass is not going to be Robin and he is fucking grounded until further notice.”

“Now, Jason-”

“Nope.” Jason countered. “Drag his ass home, right now. Or else you’re grounded too, you Bat fuck.”

If he was going to try and plead any more of his or Damian’s case, he didn’t get the chance before Jason disconnected the line. He sighed, dropping his head back.

“What’d he say?” Damian asked nervously. Dick was almost surprised he didn’t try to eavesdrop on the call.

“Exactly what I’m sure you’d think he’d say.” Dick droned. He looked back down at his boy. “He wants me to bring you home, stat.”

Damian pursed his lips and crossed his arms once more.

“But…” Damian perked. “He clearly needs some time to cool down.” Dick smiled. “Probably will take him a few hours.” In the moment of silence, as luck would have it: “And I think I hear sirens a few streets over.”

Damian slowly smiled as Oracle patched the police scanner into both their communicators.

“You ready, Robin?” Dick whispered. And even for all his fear and hesitancy about this partnership, he felt his chest fill with pride.

“I was born ready, Batman.” Damian promised.

“Last one there has to wash the Batmobile.” Dick teased. Damian laughed.

Batman and Robin jumped into the night – together again for the first time.

[writewithurheart]

The Next Generation

for @writetheniteaway (a belated birthday fic) from your prompt: Prompt: “I want Spidey, Groot, and Shuri on a dream team with Morgan as the tag along.” 

... 

Summary:  Morgan Stark is 16 and working on her masters, which is great, but she still can't do what she wants most. Peter Parker is living the life he always wanted, with a healthy dose of girl troubles. Maybe? Or maybe not? He isn't realy sure what's up with SHuri and MJ. Groot is Groot. And Lila Barton is just about fed up with all the nonsense, thank you very much.

Read on AO3 

<Spidey to Groot, I could use some back up over here.>

<I am Groot.>

<That’s great, but who has eyes on the sorcerer?>

<I thought that was you, Shuri.>

<Sorcerer located. Heading towards seventh. No clear shot.>

She absolutely supposed to be paying attention. Morgan Stark knew that. She’s sure Professor Foster is talking groundbreaking astrophysics, but to be fair, she’s already completed the rest of her assignments for the semester and all the required reading. She absolutely deserved a study break, and class was always so slow anyway.

What Mom doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

Morgan adjusts her earpiece and quickly activates the T.O.N.I. implant so she can pull up the information on the New Avengers’ current battle. Tiny Optic Neural Interface responds to her fingers tapping on the desk, just quiet enough to be unnoticable or to pass for a neural tic.

She sets the program to track the sorcerer and quickly taps into the team’s suits using the backdoor her dad built into Peter’s. The information pops up at a map, blinking green dots to represent the team, and a swarm of red to represent the bogeys.

From the camera feed, they look normal civilians with some glazed over looks.

<Guys, I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. Where are we on breaking this spell?> Peter’s face pops up in the corner of her optical overlay to coincide with his voice.

<I’m not so sure it is a spell. Whatever it is effects their brainwaves.> Shuri falls back from the fight to type something into her wrist display.

A crash and muffled curse bring Lila on screen. <Whatever it is, we need to end this before more civilians get hurt.>

<I am Groot.>

Morgan pulls up the information Shuri has collected so far. While the Panther looks for a way to end the sorcerer’s control, Morgan frowns at her display. Not all the civilians are attacking. There are plenty running away in panic.  

Quickly she runs the images back to the point of origin, when the first civilian attacked. She slows down the video. The sorcerer in question emerges on video first walking out of Hammer Industries. Or rather, he’s thrown out by two burly security guards and what look like a couple of lawyers. She speeds up the video even as the man’s information pops up on her display: Arthur Reynolds. Age 43. No history of metahuman activity.

It’s only as he gets closer to Stark Expo 2035 that civilians start to act odd. They start rioting and attacking each other. Morgan pulls up as many specs as she can on the aggressors. Visuals give no indication as to similarities between them.

Then she notices the finger twitch.

Morgan pauses and glances at her own hand. Oh.

He’s got something that resembles T.O.N.I. Not a sorcerer after all then, which means…

A couple taps later and she can confirm that all the aggressors are owners of Hammer’s latest gadget: an implant that links your phone directly to your neural system. Stark passed on the technology as it actually implanted a device that was potentially unstable into your body. They used her father’s nanotechnology to create a similar device that apparently didn’t have the same hackable back door.

She glances around her lecture hall, like tuning back in to the world after hours spent in her lab, and catches Doctor Foster hold up a card that says “see me after class.” Morgan nods and drifts back to her display.

Hammer tech, as always, causes her no trouble. Their system works on a subscription basis. Everyone susceptible to the attack is laid out in a grid that she can see worldwide. The virus itself is fascinating. It basically uses neural overlays to send the body incorrect signals or in some cases hijack their systems altogether. All in all, it’s pretty damn close to sorcery.

But still completely human.

She shuts it down and then ends the neural display. Her comms are still open so she can hear the team in their final takedown. All in all: a job well done.

Now if only they would let her join the fight.

She could argue that she’s older than any of them were when they wore their first suits. Hell, she’s arguably more educated too. How many of them are working on advanced engineering and science degrees?

Okay, maybe a bad point. Shuri probably has her beat there.

If she’s old enough to attend college, she should be old enough to make her own decisions. Peter was fighting Thanos at 15. Shuri was the same age and a genius. Groot’s age is irrelevant because he’s a space tree. Lila was fighting at seventeen.

Yet somehow she’s the one left behind. Legacy, or not.

She fiddles with her metal bracelets as lecture hall empties. When they’re only two students left, Morgan stands and walks to the front desk. “Doctor Foster.”

“Morgan.”

She’s got a couple inches on Doctor Foster. Her tone of voice, however, reminds Morgan that this woman once dated a god.

“Is there somewhere you’d rather be than my class?”

Morgan sighs. “No.”

“I get that you’re a Stark and you’re probably too smart for this, but that doesn’t mean you can do other things in my class.”

“Got it, Doc.”

Foster frowns. “What are you doing here, Morgan?”

“Biding my time,” she answers honestly. “Can’t put on the suit, can’t work in the lab, can’t fight until I’m eighteen. I designed my own suit at twelve, trained with the Winter Soldier at fourteen, I can hack an advanced system in class at sixteen, but they won’t let me fight. So I’m here, waiting.”

Doctor Foster sighs. “Your parents just wanted you to have a normal childhood.”

“I’m a genius who’s dad died saving the universe from a madman. Normal was never an option.”

…

“That was so cool! How did you manage to do that, Shuri? One second the civilians were all like ‘aaaaarrrrggghhhh’ and then they were like ‘ahhhhhhh’. I mean, amazing.” Peter gushes as he pulls off his mask.

“I am Groot!”

“Exactly!”

Lila Barton stares at the two of them, then at Shuri who is frowning at her display. She drops into her chair and crosses her combat boots on top of the table. She pops a piece of gum and flips through the logs in the computer system. If Shuri didn’t do it, there’s one person who could. Lila has a feeling Shuri’s been covering for the brainiac. Sure enough, the logs change just as Shuri announces:

“He was using Hammer neural relays. I just crashed the system.”

“Awesome,” Peter says.

“Apparently he was trying to prove a point to Hammer, that his invention was dangerous.”

“I am Groot.”

“Sending the data to the authorities now,” Shuri announces. She shuts down her display with a triumphant smile. “The New Avengers strike again!”

Lila rolls her eyes as the others exchange high fives, but lifts hers for an obliging fist bump with Parker before he disappears to shower before his very exciting lunch date with MJ. Groot heads for the garden where he’s probably flirting with some flowers or something and Lila twists to straddle her chair to stare down Shuri.

The princess does an admirable job of ignoring her. She fidgets with her designs and alters calculations that Lila can’t begin to understand. Except Lila is the daughter of a spy, the goddaughter of an assassin, she learned circus tricks at her parents’ side. She’s good at seeing through facades and Shuri’s been flipping through schematics without reading them.

Lila pulls a throwing knife from her thigh holster and starts to clean under her nails. It’s an Aunt Nat trick she likes to use.

“I suppose I shall rejoin my brother,” Shuri says abruptly.

Lila sighs, not looking up from her nails. “Why are you covering for little Stark?”

“If she wants to help, we should not push her away.” Shuri crosses her arms over her chest. “I fought Thanos at her age.”

Lila chews her lip. “And I was an expert marksman, but I didn’t join the team until I was 18. It’s like enlisting in the military.”

“That’s what I do not understand,” Shuri says with a frown. “She is a genius, she’s had to grow up faster than any child. She grew up in the thick of things as much as we did. She should not be sidelined.”

Her hand stills. The knife feels heavier in her hand. She might be Hawkeye but the Widow hourglass stares back at her from the handle of the blade. It’s part of Lila’s inheritance - Aunt Nat’s knives, the video diaries, the training, her legacy. “Her mom said no. Not until she’s at least 18.”

They both know it’s the company line. Neither of them have outed Morgan’s contribution to Pepper. Hell, it was one of the team’s worst kept secrets. Except Peter probably had no clue. He tends to be a little blind when it comes to his surrogate sister.

“We all wish to protect our loved ones…” Shuri says quietly.

“And if Pepper knew we were enabling,” Lila cuts in, “she would skin us alive. Heck, Peter would-”

“Peter would hold his tongue if he knew what was good for him,” Shuri responds firmly.

Lila raises an eyebrow. She’s not touching that will a ten foot pole. Peter and Shuri dancing around each other was cute, once upon a time. Then Peter had a girlfriend that Shuri was “absolutely fine” with. Maybe it’s because Lila remembers her parents and Aunt Natasha and the way their relationship blurred lines. She sees the way Shuri mixes well with both MJ and Peter and wonders why they don’t just get over societal restrictions and love each other openly.

If MJ’s flirting is any indication, she agrees with Lila.

“Looks like the fight got a little nasty.”

Speak of the devil and she shall appear. Lila grins at MJ, not the she noticed Lila, her eyes too busy looking Shuri over for injury. Shuri’s eyes widen in surprise.

“Oh, looks worse than it is. Peter’s just taking a shower.” Shuri uncharacteristically avoids eye contact. She waves her hands and looks for an exit. “He’ll be out soon. I just have to-”

“Sure you’re okay?” MJ runs her hand down Shuri’s arm and then cups her cheek to get the genius to look at her. “Looks like you’re starting to bruise.” She brushes her hand over Shuri’s temple and the girl looks like she’s going into shock.

“I-I-I’m good.”

MJ smirks. “Then you probably need some lunch. Wanna join Pete and I?”

“Oh, um, I’m not hungry.”

Lila smirks as Shuri’s stomach audibly rumbles in direct contradiction. MJ just grins like the cat that caught the canary and pats Shuri’s cheek. “Get changed. We leave in twenty.”

Shuri looks to Lila for support and she just grins. “Don’t look at me. I’ve got class.”

With the helpless look of someone who can’t come up with an excuse (probably because she doesn’t want one), Shuri straightens her spine and attempts some form of control. “Very well. I shall join you. But I warn you: we Wakandans eat vast quantities after combat.”

She sweeps from the room with all her royal dignity and MJ drops into the seat beside Lila. “They’re both idiots.”

Lila returns her knife to it’s holster. “Yup. What’re you going to do about it?”

MJ sighs. “Lock us all in a room?”

“FRIDAY can jam the elevator, but they could probably hack their way out.” Lila shrugs. “I would just lay one on Shuri. Okoye says she’s like her brother: they freeze up around their crushes.” Lila rises from her chair and winks at MJ. “Have fun.”

MJ grins as she considers the new information. “Oh, I will.”

Lila regrets nothing.

…

“You need to be more careful.”

Morgan drops her pencil on her open pad of graph paper and frowns at the brunette sipping a non-descript coffee across the table. Lila Barton is, of course, wearing a bright purple hawkeye shirt, jeans and combat boots.Her aviators even have a slight purple tint. Her bare arms are littered with scratches from the earlier fight. A couple even have Avengers themed band aids.

“No one’s going to just grab me off the street,” Morgan counters, going back to her sketch of a dimensional portal. “TONI is programed to alert me if a threat approaches.”

“I could be a threat.”

Morgan snorts.

“Also not what I was talking about. I meant this morning.”

Her pencil continues to draw straight lines on the paper, assisted by the overlay in her glasses. She planned it out in class, even though it’s technically homework, and her teacher is a peon who insists on all work being done with pencil on paper. Highly unnecessary in Morgan’s opinion, but what does she know.

“I was in class this morning,” she deflects.

Lila hums. “Right. And you never multitask.”

“Say, if I did intercede,” Morgan concedes as she adds another line, “you wouldn’t be able to prove it.”

Lila nods. “Shuri erased any data you missed.” She leans forward. “Look, Shuri and I get it. You want to be out there, but your mother has to agree.”

Her pencil skitters across the page, creating a jumpy line. “Mom won’t agree.”

“So bargain,” Lila says. “Don’t ask to be in the field, ask to be back up from the tower. It’s what you’re doing anyway. Train with the team. You’ve got two years and you’re already prepared.”

Morgan rolls her eyes. “You don’t think I’ve already tried that?”

Lila leans on the table and clasps her hands. “Pepper is scared. She needs you to reassure her. If you want to do this, you need to do it right. Your mother knows she won’t be able to stop you. She’s just trying to protect you for as long as possible.”

“I don’t need to be protected.”

An agitated hand taps on the table. “Our parents will always try to protect us. It’s their job.”

Morgan has stopped drawing but hasn’t looked up from the paper, not yet. She hates this feeling of helplessness and she hates disappointing her mother. She leans back. “How did you convince Clint?”

“I recruited my mom, convinced them I could handle myself. Not to say it was easy. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Dad put me through every test, made me train with the Winter Soldier for months and then I was still on probationary status for close to a year. I think Dad wanted to scare me off.” She stretches out, legs straight as she slouches back. “You can offer that.”

“Yeah, training with the man who murdered my grandparents won’t worry her at all.” Morgan closes her notebook. Her plan is already online. If her teacher throws a fit with that, well, she did already did the homework at 3am while half asleep.

“That’s a load of shit and you know it. Bucky is the best trainer we’ve got.”

She shrugs. “I’m already training with him on weekends and breaks.” Morgan shoves her notebook into her bag. “Mom wants me to get this degree before we talk about this again.”

Lila purses her lips. “Then maybe she needs to know what you’ve been doing.”

Morgan smirks. “Why do you think I left any trace at all? If Shuri didn’t keep deleting them, maybe she’d be coming to talk to me.”

Because that was the plan: for her mother to find out while she was being useful. Shuri and Lila were trying to help her operate in secret, which was nice. It made them great friends, but it didn’t help her agenda.

“If I get Mom on board, then it Pete will have to accept it. Right now, the two of them are blocking me.”

“Probably because they’re worried you’ll follow in your father’s footsteps,” Lila points out. “Not intentionally,” she says quickly, “but they don’t want to lose you.”

Morgan rolls her eyes. “And we’re going in circles, which we’ve been doing for the past year, and it leaves me biding my time until I turn eighteen. Which Pete is a hypocrite for enforcing. Mom, I understand. Did you know I could be legally emancipated?”

Lila stares, unimpressed. “You’re not getting emancipated.”

“But I could,” she points out victoriously. She lifts her cup in a salute and takes a sip. She grimaces at the cold liquid and puts the cup back on the table.

“You’re not.”

“Want to get lunch?” Morgan asks suddenly. “I know a great place around the corner. Not too fancy. Great for a first date.”

She watches Lila’s face at her offer. Lila blinks and then looks at Morgan. There’s a moment when she looks pleasantly surprised before she relaxes and rolls her eyes. “Maybe in two years, jailbait.”

Morgan grins. “Can I hold you to that?”

Lila purses her lips in contemplation. She stands and leans forward into Morgan’s space. “Ask me again in two years.” She winks and saunters away.

Her steps have a bounce, her smile never leaves her face, and Morgan finds herself walking to the Tower instead of to class. She uses TONI to pull up all her recent activity in a log to show her mom.  Maybe it is time to have that talk.

[frankbelloriley]

top ten wrasslin’ matches of 2018

So before I get into this, I’m gonna lay down some ground rules--well, more like tell you the rules I gave myself and those rules are 1) did it make me laugh a bunch and forget about how stupid the world is? (which is the basis for every one of these kinds of lists really) 2) would I show this to someone who had never seen wrestling before? and 3) one (1) match per episode/pay-per-view with one (1) exception for a good reason With that in mind, I’m going to get some honorable mentions out of the way:

Kazuchika Okada vs Tetsuya Naito for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, Kenny Omega vs Chris Jericho for the IWGP US Championship, and the Fatal Four Way for the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship between Marty Scurll, KUSHIDA, Hiromu Takahashi, and Will Ospreay from Wrestle Kingdom 12-- they’re all really good and fun and worth checking out, but another Wrestle Kingdom 12 match is going on this list

The other two Chris Jericho NJPW matches versus Tetsuya Naito and EVIL--not on this list literally only due to the “one match per ppv” rule, but they’re all very fun, Chris Jericho is delightfully dickish and you should watch them in order to see Chris Jericho become a progressively more goth dad (he out gothed a dude named “EVIL” (all caps theirs, not mine) that’s how goth Chris Jericho got)

As much as it pains me and as much as it is a testament to what good wrestling there was in 2018, none of the Johnny Gargano-Tommaso Ciampa matches (1, 2, 3, which I can’t find online and whatever) are on this list (my favorite is probably their second match), and neither is Velveteen Dream-Tommaso Ciampa which rips (can I interest you in a fight between a Prince inspired wrassler who refers to himself in the third person and whose act became a giant subtweet of Hulk Hogan against just the biggest asshole in the world?). There is only one Johnny Gargano match on here, and if I’m writing a list of the best character arcs in 2018, the list goes Gargano’s redemption only to succumb to the dark side, Kazuchika Okada’s existential crisis after losing the championship, and Becky Lynch becoming The Man in that order. Becky’s arc really only started four-five months ago and much of it was spent by creative trying and utterly failing to get the crowd to boo her, and Okada’s arc was, by design, slow and frustrating after he lost the championship, but Gargano basically started the year as Luke Skywalker getting his hand cut off and ended the year as Kylo Ren yelling at a ghost on the salt planet, with every character turn making sense. It’s fascinating.

Speaking of, no Aleister Black-Johnny Gargano at NXT War Games 2 match which might be as pure a classic wrestling story as there is, second only to the Gargano match that is actually on here. (In real life, Aleister Black hurt his leg, so in story, they explained it that he got attacked in the parking lot by an unknown person, so the mystery of who attacked him would go on for months (coincidentally the same amount of time it would take someone to recover from an injury like Aleister Black’s) until Johnny Gargano fessed up to the act by kicking him in the face, so now Aleister is seeking justice. Wrestling is delightfully extra.

Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair vs Asuka TLC match for the Smackdown Women’s Championship (no link, couldn’t find)-- whew (not “woo” in this house we boo the woo) Asuka was finally Asuka again (her first and last ppv matches in 2018 (this and against Charlotte at Wrestlemania) are super great and everything else is super not), Becky Lynch continued being the actual greatest, and I literally do not know how Charlotte Flair did not end up in the hospital after this. It’s not making the list for how the match ends in bullshit fashion even though it ends perfectly in character with consistent story logic (a pleasant fucking surprise from WWE especially considering, again, the rest of Asuka’s year)

None of the Shayna Baszler-Kairi Sane matches (can’t find NXT Takeover Brooklyn 4, but I found Evolution and NXT War Games II) (NXT was really good this year), which is a shame because all of which are great, but my personal favorite is on Evolution, and another match beats it out. As I’m writing out the list, I realized there aren’t a bunch of women’s matches, but that’s because WWE’s creative ideas for its women’s division was garbage until the Becky Lynch turn happened in August and got a crowd reaction they super didn’t want and tried to change until they were finally forced them to lean into it. However, Evolution was easily the best main roster WWE ppv.

Nothing from All In literally only because that show is for Wrestling Fans, and this list is supposed to be a “if you’ve never watched wrestling in your life” list. All In is good good fun, but if you show it to someone who’s never seen wrestling before, they’re gonna ask why are there dick druids, and you’re gonna have to explain that Joey Ryan, a dude who wrestles with his dick, came back to life after being murdered and the number one suspect was the guy from Arrow (really). Get into wrestling, then watch that PPV.

Good god, that’s a lot of honorable mentions. Anyway:

10. Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Owens, an open Intercontinental Championship Challenge on Monday Night RAW, August 27th - this is just a really fun wrestling match between two talented guys who were stuck in other feuds that were prolonged needlessly in 2018, and it was just fun to see these guys branch out, do something different, and tear the house down against each other like, “oh yeah, these two are really good at what they do, I almost forgot.”

9. Andrade Cien Almas vs. AJ Styles - Smackdown Live on September 18--Like Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins, AJ Styles was stuck in bad storylines that meant to make him look like a strong champion but ended up making him look like a plot armored goober. Here we have the story of the cocky upstart Almas taking the veteran champion Styles to his absolute limit with a finish that is smooth as hell.

8. Hiromu Takahashi vs. Will Ospreay, IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship at NJPW Dominion on June 9th - Spoiler for the number two entrant but this is where I’m breaking the “one per ppv rule” because Hiromu Takahashi has a broken neck and no one knows if he’ll ever wrestle again, so this might be his swan song. (He doesn’t break his neck in this match, I wouldn’t introduce him like that) These are two dudes who flip with zero caution to themselves with some incredible flippy shit. Watch it and pray for Hiromu to make a full recovery.

7. Six Man Ladder Match for the NXT North American Championship with Adam Cole, Ricochet, Velveteen Dream, EC3, Killian Dane, and Lars Sullivan - Okay, so, about this. Excepting Killian Dane and maybe Lars Sullivan, everyone here has had a better match elsewhere this year (Lars probably had a better match against Keith Lee, Adam Cole had his best match against Ricochet, Ricochet and EC3 had their best matches against Velveteen Dream, and Velveteen Dream had his best match against Tommaso Ciampa), but everyone gets a moment to shine here, and this is the NXT introduction of Ricochet who is basically a flippy videogame cheat code who is made out of some sort of alien substance. At one point the two large men Lars Sullivan and Killian Dane toss Ricochet across the ring to each other like they’re playing fucking catch. It’s hilarious and maybe the fifth most insane thing that happens here. If someone was to come up to me like, “I know nothing about wrestling, what should I watch to find out if I like it?” I would probably show them this.

6. Kenny Omega vs. Tomohiro Ishii,  G1 Tournament Match - I’m laughing just thinking about this match. I don’t think anyone would call Tomohiro Ishii the best wrestler in the world, but I love him with my heart. Kenny too, but a boyish giggle comes out of me every time Tomohiro no sells someone slapping the utter shit out of him and he says (presumably) something like “that it?!” (I’m a fan of this gif of Pete Dunne slapping a no-selling Tomohiro for Pete Dunne shaking his hand afterwards. Physical comedy!). Anyway, the story here is Kenny Omega has gone 6-0 in this tournament, Ishii (who he has a competitive history with) has gone 0-6 in the tournament, so Kenny takes him for granted and when he realizes his opponent won’t go down that easily, it’s too late. It’s quick, it’s fast paced, and very fun.

5. Meiko Satomura vs Mercedes Martinez, Mae Young Classic Quarterfinals - I had no idea who these women were before the Mae Young Classic, but I loved Meiko with her first match in it, while Mercedes was just, you know, fine. But this? Wheeew. Two veterans giving it their all, and if you don’t turn into a Michael Scott crying gif after when they show each other respect, we ain’t the same.

4. Johnny Gargano vs Andrade Cien Almas, NXT Takeover: Philadelphia -  Going with this one because it’s the most newbie friendly match, it kicks off Johnny Gargano’s year storyline at the finish, and Andrade Cien Almas is really really good at his job. It’s a simple “good guy versus arrogant heel” match, and Andrade comes out to a masked mariachi band as his entrance.

3. Kota Ibushi vs Cody Rhodes, Wrestle Kingdom 12 - there are probably better matches from Wrestle Kingdom 12 but this is my list so fuck you but this is the match where pro wrestling finally clicked with me after starting to watch it because of GLOW. Folks, this is a 20 minute Jackie Chan fight with Kota as the daffy Jackie Chan-like hero and Cody as Anime Biff Tannen. It is fast, has some wild acrobatics, and it is funny as hell.

2. Kazuchika Okada vs Kenny Omega, 2/3 Falls Match for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship (Part 1, Part 2), NJPW Dominion on June 9th - If the last one was a comedy, this is an epic. This thing last an hour and a half, and it goes by in a flash. The entire Okada-Omega series is basically wrestling’s Lord of the Rings, and this is its Return of the King. The only reason it’s not number one because of the match’s lack of follow through in the months since, but man, this is great.

1. Becky Lynch vs Charlotte Flair, Last Woman Standing Match at Evolution (start at 29:45 then watch the end here)- *types then deletes a bunch of unintelligible vowels* Okay, so this is the first match that really took advantage of the NXT Horsewomen since their call up in a good long while and it rules. I’d say Bayley, Sasha Banks, Charlotte Flair, and Becky Lynch had been given nothing for 2018 until August, but “nothing” would be a step up in some cases *cough* group therapy *cough* *cough* Nia Jax injuring every single one of them plus others and the only reason she still has a job is that she’s The Rock’s cousin *cough* Charlotte had her Wrestlemania match against Asuka, but this? This is mean, this is rough, this is the story of a girl, no this is the story of two former friends wanting to throw the other through a table. When pro wrestling is bad, it’s “what the fuck am I doing with my life watching this shit” bad, and when it’s good, there is nothing like it. This is the latter (not the ladder, but there are those here).

[releasehipflexors-blog]

Top 3 Best Stretches To Boost Your Hip Flexibility, Relax Your Tight Hip Flexors and Cut Down Back Pain

Hello,

Ron Bernie here.

Before we get to the good stuff...

...I'd like to educate you a bit about a situation in which have been forced into and may be unaware of how seriously it affects your overall well-being.

In this brief body science intro, you will better understand your pain, why your body makes your hips so tight...

...And how all this prevents you from feeling your best, no matter how diligent you are with your workouts or how well you eat.

The foam roller exercises for your hips outlined in this article will help you loosen knots and help release stuck fascia, to a decent extent.

Sitting Is Disfiguring Your Fascia and Leaving You with Extremely Tight Hip Flexors

Because your spine and hips are stuck in a shortened "L" position, sitting is causing your hip flexor fascia to contracture and progressively develop inflexible scar tissue that will not only reduce your range of motion, but...

...It will literally pull you out of alignment and warp your anatomy into unnatural positions, causing perpetual muscle strain which then triggers even more thickening of the fascia and so on.

This consistent muscle tension will keep you stressed, fatigued and overweight. The tight psoas muscle is switching your brain into constant survival mode.

There's no magic pill that can safely shut it off.

The most devastating part of this cycle, that sitting sets in to motion, is that even if you were a professional athlete or manual laborer,constantly moving on your feet, you would still be affected.

No one can not sit.

Stand-up desks are really only a band-aid solution. They may cause other misalignments because we will get stuck into one position while working, anyways

They are only masking the symptom,not targetting the root cause. They do not release hip flexor fascia.

What is Fascia?

In case you are unfamiliar with the term (if you already are, scroll down to the next section)...

...Fascia is a white, fibrous, sheet-like connective tissue that permeates your whole body. It's literally everywhere, under your skin, within and around joints,on all sides of your muscles and organs.

It’s like your body’s natural plastic wrap, which also functions as a a protective brace.

Fascia is what gives abs their 6 pack shape and what prevents your organs from sloshing about and hitting your rib cage when you jump on a trampoline.

Another way to think about it is like this:

If you were an orange or a tangerine, your fascia would be the white rind, or pith...

...that keeps the skin or peel attached to the soft fruit inside.

Fascia also acts like the white membrane that separates each of the citrus’ sections.

It keeps everything in place, organized and in its own compartment.

That is fascia in a nutshell...err...orange peel

Fascia is a double-edged sword that can hinder us. It supports and protects all our body structures and it automatically reinforces areas prone to repeated injuries of small and large scale; but it can also imprison.

It's bit like one of those Venom or Carnage symbiotes from Spider-Man, now that I think about it.

Anyways, with that anatomy lesson learned and without much further ado...

...Here are the Top 5 Best Exercises to Foam Roll Your Hips and get a Deep Myofascial Release for Your Tight Hip Flexors

For a well-rounded and balanced hip flexor myofascial release, start at the main problem spot, foam rolling the hip flexors, then migrating down to the secondary thigh areas, that also contribute to tight hips.

Keep these principles in mind and foam rolling for effective myofascial release of tight hip flexors will be simple:

Before you start, be sure to warm-up for 5 minutes, alternate between knee-ups, jumping jacks and butt kicks to cover all angles; also cool down the same way

Keep the foam roller perpendicular to the muscle that will be rolled

Roll one side at a time. Only the target area rests on the roller

Post your hands and non-rolling leg's foot on the floor, to get wide base of support

Use short, repetitive motions only rolling out a few inches at time, before moving along the limb. Think of a tired caterpillar

Stop and hold whenever you find a knot or trigger point

Roll each target muscle for 20-60 seconds

Also...

...If it hurts, move more slowly and get some weight off by pushing through your non-working limbs

Number 1a: Foam Roll the Hip Flexors

Place the foam roller on the floor and lie top front part of your hip on top on

Angle your body to the side, pressing at the top of your hip bone

See-saw back and forth on the roller, turning your body slightly with each pass

Once you feel some loosening follow the stretch below

Roll and stretch only one side at a time

Number 1b: Foam Roll the Hip Flexors

Flip yourself over so that the roller is now supporting your low back, level with the crease where shirt and shorts meet, as a guideline

Keep your shoulders and the back of your head on the floor

Grab non-rolling leg and bring that knee to your chest

You will feel the stretch on your rolled hip flexor

Repeat 1a plus 1b for the other side

Let's see it in action, with the video below.

How to Properly Foam Roll the Hip Flexors

Read my Unlock Your Hip Flexors review by pressing this button here

One thing to correct the advice with the video above: Do not hold a static stretch before you lift or run, your performance will dip and your risk of injury will rise.

Perform static hip stretches AFTER your workout.

Number 2: Foam Roll the Glutes

Sit one glute onto the foam roller, angled to the side

Cross your ankle onto your non-rolling side

Keep the knee of the target side bend

Swing back and forth until you feel the pain fade or knot undo

Repeat with the other side

Number 3: Foam Roll the IT Band and TFL

The exercise is similar to how the hip flexor foam rolling video showed; but this time, the target areas are the dense iliotibial band and the tensor fasciae latae on the outside of your hip and thigh.

Lay sideways on the foam roller, with your ankles touching while supporting yourself on one hand

Cross and bend your top leg over the bottom one

Plant that foot in front of the rolling side and maintain that sidelying position

Roll down towards the outside of the knee and up towards the outer hip

Do the same thing for the other side

Number 4: Foam Roll the Quads

The quadriceps primarily straightens the knee; but because it (rectus femoris, specifically) attaches all the way from the front of the hip to past the knee cap, it also flexes the hip.

Imagine a halfway line across the width of the foam roller. Use only one half

Lie face-down with your thigh resting near the end of the foam roller

Rest your non-working knee on the floor

Pushing and pulling with your toes and forearms, maneuver your way down and then up the quad

Repeat with the other leg.

Number 5: Foam Roll the Hamstrings

Pretty straightforward, it is the reverse of foam rolling your quads.

Sit the back of your thigh on the roller

Use one half of the foam roller, like you did for quads

Post the foot of the non-rolling leg and your palms on the floor

See-saw back and forth

Do the same thing with the opposite side

You may have noted that the hip adductors (groin muscles) are left out.

That is because with a foam roller we cannot achieve enough leverage to do anything meaningful to the adductors, except make your skin a little red.

Foam rolling adductors would be a waste of your time and effort.

Foam Rolling Your Hip Flexors and Surrounding Hip Muscles is a Step in the Right Direction but...

...It's not enough.

Truth be told, while these conventional foam roller exercises are excellent additions to your self-care routine. They are not cure-alls that will get to the root of the problem.

Just the distal tendons are released by foam rolling your hip flexors.

A foam roller cannot reach deep enough to fully relax your deep hip flexors, the psoas, which are behind your internal organs, abdominal muscles, dense fascia and fat tissue.

The mighty psoas are the prime pair of muscles that are subjecting you to back and hip joint pain, decreased energy and making your belly bulge out out even though you eat healthy and hammer in those core exercises.

Releasing the psoas hip flexors wrong can lead to negative consequences.

There is a specific order of operations that you must follow in order to succesfully unlock your hip flexors.

Using the analogy of a combination lock, you need to not only know the right numbers, but also input them in a specific order.

If you want to use your foam roller to the greatest effect and implement these cutting-edge fascia stretching techniques to finally release those stubbornly tight hip flexors...

...Take a look into the Unlock Your Hip Flexors Program.

It has been meticulously designed and tested by leading injury and rehabilitation specialist Rick Kaselj in collaboration with premier strength author Mike Westerdal and his team at Critical Bench.

This proven system has helped myself and the friends and family I recommended to, immensely...

...The Unlock Your Hip Flexors method will:

Eliminate back pain and joint discomfort

Shed stubborn, clingy body fat

Let you regain the energy you once had when you were younger

Sleep deeper and wake up ready to seize the day

Increase digestion, immunity and sexual health

And more...

==>To read my detailed Unlock Your Hip Flexors review, click this link.

Frequently Asked Questions About Foam Rolling Hip Flexors

Q: What kind of foam roller should I use? Smooth or textured?

A: Both. There are hybrid 2-in-1 foam rollers that are half flat and half bumpy, which can be easily found and bought on Amazon for fitness stores for around $30.

Scroll up, for a visual. It would be the yellow foam roller pictured in the how to foam roll hip flexors exercise instructions.

Q: How firm should my foam roller be?

A: It depends on your pain tolerance. I'd recommend a medium-high firmness; because a soft one won't really give you a proper myofascial release for hip flexors.

Q: What is the best size for a foam roller?

A: I recommend one with a length of around 13 inches and a 6 inch width. Anything significantly bigger than that, is awkward to handle and makes it difficult to get into those hip flexor trigger points.

Q: When should I foam roll my hip flexors?

A: Everyday. The best times would be after your regular workout, even it isn't leg day, and on rest days.

Q: How long do I foam roll my hip flexors for?

A: Aim for 30 seconds up to 3 minutes each side; hip flexor myofascial release takes time.

Q: When will I start feeling the results?

A: Again, foam rolling hip flexors takes some time. The benefits will become apparent after a few weeks of diligent self-care.

If you would like to learn a faster, more efficient hip flexor release method, click this link for my in-depth Unlock Your Hip Flexors review.

If You are Truly Motivated to Release Your Tight Hip Flexors and Eliminate Back Pain...

...Invest in the program.

Click the review link above, read it so you are well-informed, then one the next page click the gold button on the top right side of the homepage.

It will appear as a new tab, so it doesn't take away from your learning.

I speak through my own experiences and from the feedback I got from my friends and family, whom I recommended this program to; Unlock Your Hip Flexors will be of great benefit to you.

Experiment with the program for 60 days, risk-free. You can thank me later.

Also...

...Thank you for Reading my page, How to Foam Roll Your Hip Flexors Using These Top 5 Best Exercises to get a Deep Myofascial Release for Your Tight Hips

You did a good thing for yourself.

The routine provided may involve a tiny bit of work and some sorting through anatomical and fitness jargon; but getting to know your body is never a bad thing.

Remember to check with your physician before you start any exercise routine.

With all that said, I hope the hip flexibility tips detailed in this blog post has proven useful and informative for you.

Remember: You always win when you invest in yourself.

Best of luck on your mission to a pain-free life.

-Ron Bernie

[deathwillreign]

WHELMED | robin X reader

You read the newspaper's headlines: THE DARK KNIGHT AND BOY WONDER STOPS CRIME. Seriously, could these headlines get any more creative? You've seen this headline ten times already since you started living here last month (well minus the "Boy Wonder"), and that says a lot. However the citizens doesn't seem to mind. Heck, you don't know if they even notice. Or if they even actually read the headlines. Or if they had already seen the headlines so many times, they've grown accustomed to it...? You face-palmed. Now wasn't the time to think these. Ugh, you were so close to getting the gem last night -- why did the Dark Knight and Boy Wonder have to spoil your fun? Though, you wondered why all of the sudden Boy Wonder was here. Usually it was just Batman stopping you, but now, Boy Wonder joined too. Actually, yesterday was the first time you met him, and you can't help wondering if he'll be here again tonight. ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ You are determined to get that gem tonight. Actually, nah. You don't exactly know why you're here. Sure, you had to get the gem but at the same time, you wanted to see if Boy Wonder would be there. He was interesting, you daresay. You knew all the villains, villainess, heroes in the city...except Boy Wonder. Where did he come from? You've never heard of him before. And he just -- appeared behind you yesterday without your expectation. Usually Batman would confront you himself, which was what you were expecting. Not some 'Boy Wonder' to kick you from behind. Which was why you were here in Gotham Public Library. You needed -- had to -- know more. And no, you weren't going to read up about Boy Wonder from dusty, old, falling apart books. Nope, you were going to use their state-of-the-art computers (courtesy of Wayne Technologies). You sat at the desk that was secluded from everyone else's. It was way to the back of the library, a lonely desk all by itself. You booted up the laptop and went to Google, keying in Boy Wonder. About 43,700,000 results in 0.37 seconds. Huh. Not bad. You clicked on the first link you found that wasn't about the movie, and started reading. ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ So apparently 'Boy Wonder' goes by 'Robin' -- yes, the Robin from Young Justice team. It was stated Robin still returns to Gotham to assist Batman when he really needed his sidekick, or when things got "too dangerous". Huh. Wonder what got so "dangerous" this time. You stared at the beautiful gem in your hand. It was the first ever: a mixture of amethyst, diamond, ruby and sapphire. Many people thought it'd turn out horrible but, it actually turned out to be the most beautiful gem ever and bids went up to as high as two million. Or so you'd heard. Anyway the point is, you would definitely be able to sell it at a way higher price. You used you diamond knife and cut out a piece of glass, big enough for your hand to slip through but small enough to not trigger the alarm system. "I have better things to do." You whipped around, shocked. However your shock slowly faded away and you smirked. You reached in, pulling the gem out effortlessly. "Where's daddy bats?" you cooed. Robin scowled, pulling out his staff-thing. Was it called a bo-staff or something...? You ducked effortlessly and the staff sliced the air above you. "What's the hurry?" you said loudly, taking out your stilettos as you jumped back and back flipped over him. "Can't wait to finish me and leave?" You jumped out of the way again. "Last time I remembered, you didn't take things so quick. Thought we're going steady." Robin groaned, sending you a kick to the stomach, which, unfortunately, didn't miss. And boy, did that hurt. Robin quickly said, "I'm leaving you to the cops", before disappearing. Wow, he really was in a hurry. And did he really think that some cops would be able to hold you off? You weren't going to let them try anyway. ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ After you reached home you couldn't help feel unsettled, and angered. You don't understand why he'd left so quickly. But at the same time you were extremely worried. You "gut feeling" was awake now, and it was telling you Robin wasn't alright. Your gut feeling never lied, so... Would it this time? You bit your lip and retrieved you laptop from its bag, hacking every surveillance camera in the city to check if any showed Robin. None did. You do now which place in Gotham didn't have surveillance cameras though. Only, you hoped you were wrong. ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ You shivered as you stepped out of the car. You really had to start designing a winter costume soon. You checked all the weapons you needed and took a deep breath. This was it. If Robin really was here... Wait, stop. Why were you here? Why were you, a criminal, a villain, here helping heroes? Because Robin needs your help... Robin doesn't even matter much -- heck, you met him like what? Yesterday? Oh, wait. Not yesterday. Robin. Robin. That name was so familiar now... Why? And then, it hit you, like a wave. Because you--- "Come here, pretty boy," you taunted, smirking at him. He growled, picking up his staff and punching you in the face. You groaned, falling to the ground. He offered you a hand, and you gladly took it. "I think you broke my nose," you stated, voice a little off. All your memories came flooding back in a tsunami wave. Robin, joining the Young Justice team -- everything. It was too much to comprehend and you fall to your knees, head throbbing. You blacked out for a couple seconds. ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ You set up bombs over the pillars, setting the timer to one minute. The time slowly started counting down. 0:10. You shut your eyes tightly, hoping against hope this works. 0:01. BOOM! The force of the explosion threw you back, causing you to land in a heap on the hard ground. You heard a shriek and saw someone come out from warehouse 8. You scowled. Joker. He ran towards the explosion and this was your chance. You sprinted towards warehouse 8 and ran in. Batman and Robin were both tied and gagged. What really disgusted you was the fact that Robin was all covered in blood, and cuts. Batman was too, but not as severe. You saw Batman's eyes widen a fraction when he saw you. Mask-less. You hurried over to him, using your rainbow knife to cut through the gags and ropes. "Take Robin, a-and go," he breathed. "What about you?" "I'll be fine." You frowned, but nodded nonetheless. You cut through Robin's bounds and, with much carefulness, lifted him off the table. Only then did you realise he was unconscious. You ran out of the warehouse, Robin over your shoulder. You laid him down gently on the backseat of your car and covered your ears as a loud explosion happened. Turning back, you saw warehouse 8 in flames and Batman walking out with a raging Joker -- tied, by the way -- slung over his shoulder. Wow, that was fast. You grinned at him and got into your car and stared the ignition. ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ "You're alright!" you exclaimed, hugging Robin. He winced a little and peeled you off him. Disbelief coated his eyes as he stared at you. "[Y/N]...? You're-you're alive?" "Yes, Robin. I was never gone," you whispered, tears streaking down your face. You explained to him how the Light had kidnapped you, erased your memories and faked your death. They instead trained you for a couple months on how to be a criminal, and that was when Temptation was born. "How did you get your memories back, though?" "Well..." You blushed slightly. "Well, after the encounter with you and you left so quickly, I was pretty angered and felt hurt you wouldn't tango with me longer. I left before the police came, and went back home. I started getting an unsettled feeling, it telling me that you weren't alright. And then, the memories -- they just came back. I really don't know how. Maybe they were triggered by strong emotions? Because I was really pissed at you then. Honestly I think it already came back before that. I just didn't know. See the reason I went back to steal the gem was so you would come. I wanted to meet you again. And then I felt angry when you wouldn't stay longer was because -- because I love you, Richard." He was shocked. His face went blank, and you started to panic. What if he doesn't---? Your panic, however, was short-lived as he said, "You know what? I love you too." Now it was your turn to be shocked. He chuckled, "Stay whelmed." You playfully smacked him. "Don't ever leave again," he scolded lightly. "I won't," you giggled, kissing his forehead. He smirked and pulled you in for a real kiss. His lips were chapped and dry but what the heck, who cared. It was perfect. You heard the door open and faintly registered M'gann squealing, Wally going "What the heck?!", Conner's cough and Batman's throat-clearing. You grinned and just kissed Robin harder. You knew you had to answer to them later, but oh, well. You were just staying whelmed. — READ MORE HERE: http://my.w.tt/UiNb/w1SVaGDHaD —