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five-rivers · 2 months

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green is for envy, black is for trigger

A long BNHA oneshot!

So, they didn't realize at first what it meant when the teachers announced that Deku was going to UA. Hell, they didn't really get what it meant when it was just Bakugou that was going. Not that any of them, least of all Hideo, actually thought Bakugou would get in. The whole thing was a pipe dream. Only forty kids from the whole of Japan got into the hero course every year, and even if Bakugou was great at a lot of stuff, those were still long odds.

But Deku?

Deku, who had to have how his own name could be pronounced literally spelled out for him? Who broke down into tears whenever someone made a joke? That noodle-armed wimp with a death wish? Useless, quirkless Deku?

Not a goddamn chance. Not even with a miracle.

But Deku did get decent grades. Not as good as Bakugou, but the fact that a genetic throwback got passing grades at all was kind of freakish on its own. Shinozaki used to joke that it was because he was having special ‘tutoring sessions’ with the teachers, but both the teachers and Bakugou were so uptight about stuff like that. It was a joke. A kind of creepy joke, and Hideo was sort of glad when Shinozaki knocked it off, but still.

Anyway, inasmuch as Hideo thought about it at all, he assumed Deku got into one of the other courses. Although he only really knew about those because of the sports festival and Bakugou nerding out. Support and business or something like that. They probably only took Deku because they needed to meet some kind of pity quota. Hideo's dad was always talking about stuff like that at dinner. Mostly about mutant quirks, but Hideo figured it applied to deals like Deku, too.

But life went on, and no matter how ticked off Bakugou was about his glory being snatched or whatever, everyone else had entrance exams too. There would be time to complain about it later, or not. Hideo kinda figured Bakugou would eventually appreciate the stress relief beating up Deku would bring even through high school. He'd heard the hero course was tough. He certainly took advantage of it now. Enough that Hideo felt sort of bad about it, now and again.

The swan dive dare had been a little messed up. Sure, quirkless people usually killed themselves eventually, but let them do it at their own pace.

Hideo sort of envisioned him, Bakugou, Shinozaki, and Kanemaru hanging out together on weekends, dragging along whatever new friends they'd managed to make at their new schools. It'd be fun, hearing about Bakugou's glamorous life as a hero student, and Kanemaru's adventures at the local rich kid school.

What happened was Kanemaru drifting away, and Bakugou dropping all three of them like a hot potato.

It was– Well, for the first few weeks, he'd been mad. They hadn't been best friends or any sappy crap like that, but it was annoying to realize you'd been tolerated rather than appreciated. But then he'd heard that UA had been attacked, he'd gotten some new friends, and Kanemaru started hanging out again when he figured out all the cigarette hookups at his fancy school were trash.

And he was sort of looking forward to seeing people try to beat Bakugou up on national television.

So there was that.

But what he'd seen instead–

There was no way. There was just no way.

But there it was, on national television.

Deku.

Useless, quirkless Deku. In the sports festival. In the third event.

With a quirk.

It had to be some kind of trick. That's what he thought at first. But it'd have to be one hell of a trick to fake a whole quirk like thag out of nowhere, and there was no way Deku was that smart.

Maybe he'd been replaced or something. Hideo had heard of people with body snatching quirks. But, then, that'd be two quirks, and whatever urban legends said, Hideo wasn't dumb enough to believe in the quirk boogieman.

Could he have been faking being quirkless? The very thought made Hideo nauseous. No. No way. Not a chance. No one with power would tolerate that.

There had to be another explanation.

His phone was buzzing. The group chat was going wild.

He scanned through the messages. Shinozaki was disgusting, but he had good ideas, sometimes, and Kanemaru got rumors from his rich kid friends that took much longer to reach Gungan High, and their other friends were more of the same, but maybe one of them could see what Hideo himself was missing.

His eyes stopped on one of Shinozaki's texts.

i bet its trigger

where would deku eve get trigger, Hideo typed.

idk but its not like you can but a quirk on the street

Theres a guy in my class whose quirk makez every1 atoung him sing in tune, wrote Kanemaru, maybe its like that

with strength like tgat? r u serious rn noone like that ia gonna work for a quirkless deku unless he has more money than god its trigger ffs

But whered he get it?? asked Hideo. And would it even worj on a omeone Quiklessm?m

u cab get trigger cheap if yu know where to look

And how the hell did Shinozaki know that? He and Hideo weren't exactly squeaky clean, with the cigarettes and all, but trigger was something else. Like heroin was before the dawn of quirks.

deku prolly just has some bs weak asf quirk that hes juicing

That nauseous feeling came back, and this time, Hideo was able to identify the emotion fueling it as mostly anger. Red, hot, roiling anger.

It wasn't enough that Deku stole a spot at UA from someone who'd live past twenty, but he'd taken a hero spot? And he'd done it with drugs like the cheater he was?

If Hideo had been allowed to take trigger during his entrance exams, he'd have gotten into a hero school, too! Hell, maybe even UA, if Deku could do it. Hideo, after all, had a quirk that could be used even without trigger!

weve dot tobdon somethin

*got to do

It only took a minute for Shinozaki to reply lik what??

idk tellthe police if it's a druf thing right? Or just tell ua

He flicked away from the chat and, hands still shaking with rage, started looking up how to file a police report.

“And you think your former classmate is using trigger because…?”

“Because he didn't have a quirk like that before!” said Hideo, frustrated. No one was listening to them.

“UA's got a pretty great training program,” said the police officer at the desk, a bored-looking woman with fish scales around her eyes and ears. She reached over to a small spray bottle and spritzed herself. “Pick any one of those hero kids and you'll probably hear the same thing.”

“You don't get it,” said Hideo. “We all thought he was quirkless.”

“Well, clearly not,” said the woman.

“Yeah, but don't you think that's a little suspicious, that he never used his quirk at all before, and now he comes out with that?”

“Yeah,” said Kanemaru, who was ridiculously intimidated by the police station for a rich guy. Shinozaki hadn't even come, claiming he was too high to be anywhere near a police station. “What he said. Deku never used his quirk at school or anything.”

The woman raised a scaly eyebrow. “Did it occur to you that your classmate was simply following the law against public quirk use? Or that he didn't want to use a quirk that broke his bones. Quirk counselor probably told him not to use it.”

“He never went to the quirk counselor at our school.”

“You know private counselors are a thing right? I'd be seeing a specialist for a quirk like that.” She leaned back in her chair and looked up at them. “Do you really think a school full of heroes wouldn't notice something like that? Save yourselves some stress and go home.”

“But–”

“Seriously. Go home.”

“Any luck?” asked Shinozaki, whose eyes were indeed bloodshot.

“No,” said Hideo.

“And we haven't heard back from the school, either,” said Kanemaru mournfully.

“Figures,” said Shinozaki. “The police suck.” He twirled a blunt between his fingers, then lengthened them to offer it to Hideo. “Want a hit.”

“No,” said Hideo, wrinkling his nose against the rancid smell.

“Yes,” said Kanemaru, snatching it. “God, that sucked. What do we do now?”

“I don't know,” said Hideo. “We've got to get some kind of proof, otherwise the police won't take us seriously.”

“We could follow him,” suggested Kanemaru.

“Hell, no,” said Shinozaki. “You remember what chasing him was like in middle school.”

“We caught him whenever we wanted to,” said Kanemaru.

“Hell, yeah, we did. But he always knew when we were following him, and if he's pulling this off, he's not using where anyone can see.”

“What then?” demanded Hideo, frustrated. “Break into his house? Find his stash?”

Shinozaki snorted. “When his mom works from home? Putting Deku in jail isn't much good if we're there, too.”

“How the hell do you know Deku's mom works from home?” asked Hideo.

“Unlike you, I listened to Bakugou's ranting. She's a programmer or something dumb like that.”

Kanemaru perked up. “Maybe we could ask Bakugou!”

“After he ditched us? If he hasn't done anything yet, he's not gonna. Give me back my weed already, Kanemaru.”

Reluctantly, Kanemaru returned the blunt.

“There is one way, though,” said Shinozaki as he took another hit. “It'd be real risky, though, and it'd cost ya.”

“Yeah?” asked Hideo. “What's that?”

“Well,” said Shinozaki, “someone with a habit has a different reaction to someone taking trigger for the first time. We get that on camera, and it's all over for him.”

“I thought we couldn't follow him,” said Kanemaru.

“I'm not talking about following him, moron. I'm talking about an ambush. The freak still has to go home sometime, doesn't he?”

“Wait,” said Hideo. “You want us to, what, pin down someone high on trigger, shoot him up with even more, and then just stand around filming him? Who's the moron here, exactly? Where would we even get trigger? It's not like weed or tobacco. We can't bribe a college student to go into a trigger dispensary.”

“The trigger's the easy part,” said Shinozaki. “So long as Kanemaru can cough up the money. I know a guy.”

“I'm not fighting a guy on trigger!” said Kanemaru, shaking his head. “That's worse than roids! And he's got to be doing those, too, right? And he's got combat training or whatever, right?”

“Freaking chill already. Quirk or not, it's still crybaby Deku. No one's asking you to fight him, anyway. What’re you going to do? Pop out your eyes at him?”

“It's not like your quirk is much better,” said Hideo, trying to channel the police officer's cool skepticism. “I'm not fighting anyone alone.” According to his dad, that was the height of stupidity. You always brought backup.

“How is it that I'm the highest one here and the only one that can think? We aren't fighting anyone.”

“You know someone who takes hits or something, too?”

“No, idiot. I'm talking about your after school book club. How'd you think they'll react to someone who's basically quirkless putting one over on people with natural talent?”

Hideo's spine had gone as stiff as a board. “How the hell do you know about that?” Even his parents didn't know about that! Not that his parents knew anything.

“I listen, duh. To spell it all out, my proposal is that moneybags here gives me cash to get the trigger, then our literature lover can get his meta friends riled up and ready to do the delivery, and we stand well clear with cameras rolling.”

“I don't know…” said Hideo. He was totally behind liberation philosophy, people should be allowed to use their quirks to their fullest extent, but he was pretty sure that the people most likely to help with this kind of thing were the radical hierarchists, and they skeeved Hideo out.

“You never know anything,” complained Shinozaki. “And you say that I'm not civic-minded. Whatever. Something awful's going to happen, and neandertoe there will be right in the middle of it and you'll come crawling back to me and my plan.”

Hosu was burning.

Hosu was burning, and Stain had almost killed another hero.

Hosu was burning, Stain had almost killed another hero, and right in the middle of Stain's insane motive rant video was Deku.

Hideo picked up his phone and called Shinozaki.

Izuku wasn't so far removed from who he'd been in junior high that he couldn't tell when he was being followed. However, unlike when he'd been in junior high, there was more than one reason to follow him. In junior high, the only people that followed him were bullies, teenaged and otherwise, looking for a soft target.

But now? It could be anything from sports festival enthusiasts to the police (he had just broken a bunch of quirk use laws) to one of the villains he'd whirlpooled at the USJ, out for revenge.

The only people he was sure weren't following him were Kacchan and All Might. Kacchan, because stealth was one of the few things he was definitively bad at, and All Might, because being stalked by the number one hero had a very distinctive feeling, and this wasn't it. Besides, the figures he saw ducking out of his line of sight didn't have All Might's proportions, and he was almost a hundred percent sure that All Might only came in two shapes.

But they hadn't done any units on stealth or counterespionage in class, yet, so all Izuku had to draw on in terms of solution to his problems were his hit-and-miss strategies from junior high. He couldn't even call for help, because the fight with Stain had trashed his phone. He was hoping he could convince his mom to replace it with a mid-range hero model, but he hadn't quite managed yet.

So, his plan was as follows:

Play dumb as long as possible. If he started running, so would they. The closer he got to home before they closed in, the better.

Keep an eye out for patrolling heroes, policemen, or even convenience stores with sufficiently intimidating cashiers. He didn't think there were any suitable ones at the moment. The conbini closest to Izuku's house was staffed by a jerk who always tried to steal Izuku's change from now until midnight, but he might still come across one.

In case of being cut off, don't run randomly if there's another choice. Running randomly let the pursuers pick the route. Izuku knew paths, shortcuts, and hazards only people familiar with the area would know. He should take advantage of that.

Get home and call for help. Failing that, get to Kacchan's. If it was just bullies, they'd give up. If it was a more sinister group…

An unusually large group of older teens turned onto the road in front of Izuku, all wearing hoodies and oversized medical masks. Izuku promptly turned off the road, jogging through an alley and briskly striding onward.

If he wasn't already in trouble over the fight with Stain, he might have decided to use Full Cowl to jump his way home… except, what would he do if he accidentally ran into a person and hurt them, or broke someone's windows or something like that?

Maybe, if he went to the park, then cut through the thrift store in that one basement… No, if there were as many people following him as he thought, they'd be able to cover all the exits, even there. On the other hand, if the nicer person was at the counter, he might let Izuku use his phone.

He wished there was somewhere he could just hide until the people following him gave up, some building or business he could duck into, but that would require people who were actually willing to intervene in a beating, and most of the people around here… weren't. Some of them would call the police or hero hotline, but (with a few notable exceptions, none of whom lived or worked in Musutafu or its suburbs) even the best heroes couldn't just appear as soon as they were called. That's why they patrolled.

Speaking of patrols, finding one of those would also be good. But Izuku's mental timetable put the nearest one a mile east, if Kamui Woods was his usual amount late and not extra late, which was also possible. Kamui Woods was pretty popular, so he got stopped by fans regularly. He didn't usually come this way, anyway. The main villain hotspot in the area was the train station.

Mount Lady sometimes did surprise patrols, to boost her image, but Izuku hadn't figured out the pattern of those yet, if there was one, and he didn't have his phone to check if she was doing one today.

Although, if he had his phone, he could just call… Who would he call? Not his mom, most people who were okay with beating Izuku up wouldn't hesitate to beat uo his mom, too. Kacchan was still at his internship for another day, and wouldn't have picked up the phone for Izuku, anyway. He wasn’t sure where most of his other classmates lived. All Might would come get him if he called, and All Might wasn't busy as All Might - he had a car - but Izuku really didn't want to bother him. Calling the police, well, they wouldn't do anything unless he was actively getting beaten up, which looped right back around to the time thing.

Izuku had always thought it was remarkable, how fast you could get the crap kicked out of you if enough feet were willing to do the kicking.

At this point, Izuku had counted six sets of willing feet. Or two, if they both had shapeshifting quirks. He shouldn't rule something like that out.

But he had the sinking feeling that there were more than two. Or six, for that matter. A lot more.

He cut through the ground floor of an apartment building, ignoring how the doorman swore at him. He went out the service entrance. He wasn't too far from home, now.

But before he'd gone another street, he'd picked up another tail. Or regained one. He wasn’t sure.

Whoever or whatever was behind this was much more organized than the bullies and muggers who went after him in high school. He was- well, he'd already been scared, but now he was concerned, too, and that was a different kind of emotion entirely. Sort of. Probably.

When he got home, he'd call All Might. All of the really bad organizations who'd want to target Izuku would be connected to All Might anyway.

After this next corner, he just had to go one more block, and then–

Oh.

Somehow, Izuku hadn’t considered that the people following him might already know where he lived, and be waiting there.

He hesitated for only a minute as his brain registered a group too large for him to take on even with One for All.

There wasn't anyone for him to protect here but himself.

He ran.

New plan: Evade capture. Acquire a phone. Call the emergency line. Use One for All only if he was backed into a corner; he didn't think the police would be amused by a second quirk use incident less than a week after the first.

Hands reached out towards him. He ducked away from several, and almost ran into another, tipped with sharp claws. They raked over his arm, barely avoiding drawing blood. The owner of the hand laughed, and another person kicked at Izuku's ankles.

Izuku jumped over the feet, and he flipped the next person who tried to grab him. He could hear the crowd - and it was a big enough group to call it a crowd - jeering and calling out to him. It was nothing really identifying, unfortunately. They were calling him Deku, quirkless, and a fake, but the groups of people who would know to call him those things included both former classmates and incredibly serious villains.

The sidewalk underneath Izuku's feet crumbled, and his heart leapt into his throat - Shigaraki? No. Both the pattern of destruction and its products were different. Shigaraki powdered things. The concrete here was still in recognizable chunks.

He caught himself with his other foot, adjusted for the new terrain, and kept running. A volley of dark beams forced him to swerve and duck and turn onto another street. He thought there was a conbini up ahead– no, that was the next street down, but that apartment building left its ground floor open–

The broken concrete under his feet started to twitch and levitate. He changed direction again, now running on the street itself. There were hardly any cars here, even on a normal day. Today, the streets were dead, otherwise he'd try waving one down. How had they managed that? Bribery? Stolen construction and detour signs? He used his backpack to shield himself when the levitating chunks of concrete pelted him, then dropped it as he was strafed by a spurt of fire.

He hissed as he patted out his sleeves, then reflexively punched the next masked face that appeared in his vision. His muscles and tendons in that arm pulsed with pain, still not entirely recovered from their ordeals in both the sports festival and the fight with Stain. He switched tactics for the next person who tried to grab him, sweeping their feet.

There were some really cool quirks on display here, but they all felt rather… unpolished. Unpracticed. It kind of pointed away from these people being career villains. But then, so did their ages. Some of these people were adults, but not many.

That didn't mean they weren't working for worse villains.

A pop of compressed air went off to his left, and a pair of wires went shooting after him. They had tasers, too?

Something slammed into the ground around him, creating deep circular indentations. Telekinesis? An invisible giant? No, gravity manipulation. Izuku stumbled and was forced to use One for All just to get back up, and then he was hit over the back of the head with something.

He lashed out, caught flesh, and struggled away from the grip. But he'd lost what little lead he'd had on the main body of the pack. They were circling, now, cutting off escape routes. Could he use One for All and Full Cowling to get up on a roof? Not without fighting people with wall-crawling quirks. Still, that was fewer people than he was dealing with now. He tensed, getting ready to jump, and was suddenly hit with extreme vertigo, intense enough to drop him to his knees.

When it passed, he looked up to see a foot coming towards his face. He wasn't able to dodge.

The only good thing about the next few minutes was that One for All kept them from pinning him. He was hit with dozens of quirks and dozens of feet. He pushed them off, but he didn't have a good idea of how much of One for All was too much for a person to handle without serious injury.

But then someone - someone with at least a mild strength quirk - got hold of his right arm and twisted.

The world went wobbly, and the next thing Izuku knew, he was on the ground, restrained by a truly painful submission hold and multiple quirks, including the vertigo and gravity quirks.

“Come on, bring it over!” The movement in the crowd became more purposeful.

Left hand, pinky finger. Letting it heal naturally if Recovery Girl wouldn't help would suck, but not as much as letting these people do what they wanted to him, he was sure. He flicked his finger and the wind pressure pushed back the nearest members of the crowd, sending them toppling into one another. Izuku staggered to his feet, still dizzy. Up was the only way out, but he wasn't sure he could aim–

Something sharp sunk into his right bicep, and he punched the person holding it. Which, ow, his pinky.

He pulled the sharp thing out of his arm, which wasn't the best first aid decision he could have made but he was still learning. A hypodermic needle?

A minute later, the needle fell from Izuku's nerveless fingers. It didn't fall far. When had he fallen down again?

There was a burning sensation spreading down his arm and across his shoulders. It started as a surface-level itch, but then it went more and deeper, and–

Izuku had thought he knew pain. Shattering three of his four limbs in one go at the entrance exam, breaking his legs at the USJ, repeatedly breaking his fingers at the sports festival– He hadn’t done those things for fun. He thought he knew burning, too, from ten years as Kacchan's punching bag.

This was different. This wasn't just his skin burning, melting, his blood was on fire, his bones. He was cracking open with every beat of his too-fast heart, something terrible trying to get out.

This was agony, all the way down to his soul.

Hideo was feeling pretty good about things, actually. Elated, almost, like on a good roller coaster ride. Yeah, there were risks, but this was kind of like hero work, wasn't it? Giving the bad guy a beatdown and exposing him for the whole world to see.

As soon as they got the needle in him, everyone stepped off, giving Deku room for his freak out and Hideo and the others a clear shot at the action with their phones.

“Crap,” said Shinozaki. “Crap, crap, crap.”

“What?” asked Hideo, distracted by how Deku was writhing on the ground. It almost looked like he was fighting himself. Freak.

“It's not like I got him the good stuff that goes down smooth, but that's not– If he's a user, he shouldn't– That's not what he should be acting like!”

Hideo's good mood vanished fast. “Wait, you mean he wasn't on trigger…?”

“It's fine, it's fine, we just can't post this anywhere, we've got to stay quiet, it's not like he'll be able to identify us– We didn't touch him.”

But that wasn't the imminent problem, was it, if Deku had a quirk like that? If he had a quirk like that, and they'd just given him a shot of trigger? A quirk booster?

“Uh, um, guys?” said Kanemaru. “When you say don't post it…”

“Yeah,” said Shinozaki, backing away, “I mean don't post it anywhere, forget that it happened. Never speak of it again. All that good stuff.”

“But I, um, I sort of… livestreaming. I'm livestreaming.”

“You idiot–”

“Hey! Hey! Get away from my friend, you creeps!”

Ochako flopped down on her bed, doing her best impression of bonelessness. Her internship with Gunhead had gone great, but she was so frickin’ tired. She was glad it ended half a day before everyone else's - except for those guys who got caught up in Hosu, she guessed. Iida was still in the hospital, but apparently Deku had gone home last night.

She sighed. She'd text him, but he'd emailed everyone saying his phone broke, so that was out. So… she'd probably just scroll through the internet… it was a peanut butter and crackers for dinner sort of night…

Her phone rang. She frowned at the number, but answered.

“Uraraka! Dieu merci, I was not sure you would answer!”

Ochako sat up. “Aoyama? What's wrong?”

“It is Midoriya! I have found this, this livestream, of a bunch of gangsters chasing him through the streets. And I call the police, but they do not get there so fast, and all our classmates, they are on their internships, and he must be near home–”

“Send me the link,” said Ochako, slamming her feet into her shoes and grabbing the can of pepper spray her mom had gotten her when she first started to live alone. “Jiro and Mineta should still be in town, too, they got internships with local heroes.” Who else was still around? Ochako knew about Jiro, because she'd considered interning with Death Arms, too, and she remembered where Mineta was going, because he'd been gross about it, but there had to be others still around. “You call them, okay?”

“Oui, Uraraka, I am sorry I cannot help more–”

“It's fine, it's fine,” said Ochako, jogging down the stairs outside her apartment. She didn't remember where Aoyama was having his internship. “The police, they're sending a hero, right?”

“I do not know. They did not say, only that it would take time, that they have to confirm, that they do not know where this is, this video.”

She reached the bottom of the stairs. “Okay, okay, I've got to go now, but you'll send the link to the video?”

“Oui, it is sent. Be careful, Uraraka.”

“I will. Bye.”

She hung up, then, and quickly navigated to the link Aoyama had sent her. She swallowed back the anger she felt when she saw masked and hooded adults grappling a clearly-injured Deku, and started scanning the video for landmarks and street signs. There had to be something.

She rewound slowly, slowly. The street signs were too small and blurry in the video, she couldn't read them.

Wait.

She scrolled forward. That apartment building had its name on the front in huge kana. She plugged the name into her maps app. It wasn't too far from here. If she ran–

She was moving before she finished the thought. She knew where it was, where Deku was.

What she'd do when she got there… she wasn't sure. There were at least thirty guys in the video. But people who did stuff like this were ultimately cowards. Sometimes, if they knew someone was watching them, if they knew someone saw what they were doing, they'd stop. That's how Ochako's parents stopped a yakuza beating, once. They'd just gone out with a broom, a baseball bat, and a phone connected to the police.

… there had been a lot fewer of them, too, though, if she remembered correctly.

It didn't matter. If she had to use her quirk, she'd use it. It'd be her first public quirk use citation, and if that meant she was suspended or expelled… it didn't matter. What kind of hero would she be, if she didn't do her best to help a friend?

She turned the last corner and saw the knot of villains. She couldn't see Izuku from here, but he was visible on the livestream clearly enough.

She dialed the emergency line. “I'm on Obi Street, near the Millenium Building,” she said, once the operator had answered. “There's a group of thirty villains beating up a student.”

“How do you know they're villains, ma'am?”

“They're using their quirks.”

“Understood, I'm sending your location to the nearest hero. Please find a place to shelter until they arrive. Do not approach the villains, and stay on the line.”

Normally, Ochako would have followed instructions. Honest. But the villains moved strangely, and it was Deku. He was basically her best friend, especially since Sakura back home stopped talking to her for stupid reasons.

“Hey! Hey! Get away from my friend, you creeps!”

“Ma'am--" said the operator, but Ochako wasn't interested.

Some of the villains turned towards her. Others, apparently, hadn't heard her.

“Who the hell're you?” demanded one of them, who was clearly used to using his mass to loom. Joke was on him. It didn't matter how much mass he had when she could use her quirk to negate it. “Some kind of pervert slut who gets off taking it from subhuman freaks?”

Ochako didn't know how to respond to that, so she didn't. “I have the police on the phone, so you'd better get lost!”

“Ma'am, please–”

“You think those fascist pigs scare us? We're part of the new revolution, the–”

The big man stumbled and looked back. The other villains jostled into each other, disorganized, and for the first time since looking at the livestream, Ochako saw Deku.

He looked terrible. Of course he looked terrible. He was being beaten by a small mob. He was bruised and bloodied and panting.

His tongue was black.

There was something else black, too. Something like a gnarled, black root, growing from Deku's tattered sleeve and wrapping around the villain's ankle.

“No,” said Deku, except it didn't sound very much like him at all.

A thick, opaque fog exploded into being. And then the screaming started.

Hands gathered Izuku up. Not gentle, exactly, but careful. Not hurting. They pulled him through the dark where lights flickered, uncertainly, like memories. He opened his eyes and saw their faces, glowing, like fires that refused to be extinguished. He knew them, but he didn't. They could have been his, but they weren’t.

“Ninth,” theh said, they whispered, they chanted. There was power, there, burning and immense, and behind that power was purpose, but it was distorted, warped and shredded around the edges.

This was not how this moment was supposed to go.

There should have been triumph. This should have been sacred. A sharing of memories, a meeting of minds, a point of convergence, of singularity.

How dare they?

How dare they–

–trap them - poison this - forget history - throw away this peace - hurt the boy - call them useless - touch Toshi's child - young Midoriya - say those things to Uraraka?

Uraraka was here?

Hush.

Or–

Listen.

Feel this. Every strength they ever had. Every memory that could aid their task. Every skill, every scrap of knowledge, every quirk, every second of every year spent running-hiding-fighting. All of it, brought together and finally expressed.

They knew about trigger. They had seen it, in all its gruesome forms. Its purpose was to strengthen quirks, but the side effects - bodies twisted, quirks out of control, brains working at a fraction of their normal capacity.

One for All was a quirk. A strange quirk, a difficult to understand quirk, but still a quirk, and everything within it was part of a quirk, and every thought they had happened in the brains of their Eighth and Ninth.

At the moment, they were insane. And they knew it. And they didn't care.

The purpose of One for All was to stop All for One, but that kind of specificity was a human foible, not something so easily encoded in the core of a quirk. The end to which it put itself was the very destruction of evil and the eternal rebirth of hope. Its favorite means was violence.

“What are you talking about?”

Izuku tilted his head to one side. Had he been talking? Mumbling? Muttering? He should probably work on that. But it didn't seem to matter so much when Blackwhip and Fifth were whispering to him the secrets of how to use rage to rip an enemy limb from limb, and Danger Sense hovered around him like a protective halo, Hikage watching his back.

They were so, so, angry that it had spilled back over into serenity, like an overflow error on a computer.

A fist came flying for him out of the swirling vapors of Smokescreen. As soon as it brushed his cheek, Gear Shift grudgingly reversed its momentum. Second did not approve of their current stronghold, but that did not mean he would permit an attack.

There was a snap, and then a scream, the man– no, the boy. He couldn't be more than a year out of high school, if that. The boy grasped at his broken wrist, howling.

Izuku hadn't even done anything. It was his own fault.

Smokescreen whispered of an attempted escape, and Blackwhip dragged her back. They weren't done with them yet.

He didn't want to kill them or anything. They just wanted to hurt them a little. Ten years of quirklessness… twice. And four lifetimes on the other side, running from people who thought meta powers were curses, or a symptom of a disease. It was the same kind of bigotry, just reversed.

There was just so much pain. It hurt so much. In his chest, in their head, in their hearts.

Maybe if these little monsters felt some of it, they wouldn't do it again. Maybe some of it would go away.

Hideo stumbled through fog bank after fog bank, and started to wonder if he should call his mom. He didn't always get on with his parents, but, if he was going to die…

There was a sort of scraping sound. Then, footsteps. They had to be close, close enough to touch. The heavy fog dampened sound eerily. Hideo froze, hardly daring to breathe.

“Stop it! Stay back! How are you still moving?”

“Your vertigo quirk has its weaknesses, although it's useful for combat otherwise. I'd ask you why you aren't trying to be a hero, but it's clear the problem is temperament. Or, well, your entire personality, to be quite honest.”

There was a thump, a cracking sound and a shriek.

“Stop! Stop! What do you want? I can– my family has money. Connections. We can get you anything you want! Just stop!”

“There is nothing we want more than you never doing anything like this again.”

The voice sounded like Deku's, but the cadence was all wrong. Deku was a meek, shivering, stuttering nerd, and Hideo would have sworn that he'd stay that way, no matter what drugs they gave him.

“I won't! I won't!”

“It's nice of you to offer, but the only way people like you stop is of they're forced to stop, or if they're made to regret what they've done. A lot. All the time.”

“No, no, please! No!”

There was an ugly cracking noise, and then a wet thump.

“Pathetic.”

Oh, god. Oh, god, what kind of quirk was this, even? There was no way Deku had a quirk like this all this time.

A horrible thought came to him then. What if it wasn't Deku? Body-snatching quirks were a thing. Hell, Bakugou had been targeted by one of those guys just last year. And Deku had no friends, basically no family. Who would notice when he started acting different? Other than them, apparently.

That was actually kind of sad. Hideo would probably have had more pity to spare for Deku, though, if he wasn't using it all on himself.

There hadn't been any sounds over there for a while, now. Maybe it was safe to move again?

“Hello, Hidaka Hideo,” said Deku's voice, right in his ear. “It's been a long time.”

Kyoka wasn't entirely sure what was going on. She had only been on the phone with Aoyama for a few confused seconds before the large-scale villain attack alarm went off, and what Death Arms said to her just after hadn't helped matters.

Midoriya? Taking trigger? That didn't make any sense at all. He was friends with Iida. Totally straightedge.

But apparently, he'd been given trigger. As in, drugged, by a gang trying to beat him up. Which, honestly, made even less sense. Giving trigger to a guy you were fighting with… It was like throwing a pair of brass knuckles to a guy you just hit, and daring them to do one better. It was stupid.

It was also on video, so Kyoka had to admit that some people were just that dumb, as unbelievable as that sounded.

Whatever the Mensa squad's original goal had been, the result was… this. A fat, billowing cloud that occasionally sprouted writhing black tentacles and faint but disturbing screams. She didn't know what kind of quirks could combine to make something like this, and she didn't care. She wasn't Midoriya. The villains must have gotten spooked by Midoriya's quirk or something. She just had to hope that they hadn't gotten spooked because Midoriya had broken all the bones in his body.

What had happened at the sports festival had been… hard to watch.

“Alright,” said Death Arms, “before we go in there, let's get some things down. Earphone Jack, this Midoriya is your classmate?”

“Yeah,” said Kyoka.

“He's not going to be himself, jumped up on trigger. Don't try to get near him, or any of these villains. He won't listen to reason, and I'll bet that these guys've been taking trigger, too, for a quirk effect like this. You're going to be flanked the whole time by these two,” he said, nodding towards a pair of sidekicks. “The only reason we're bringing you with us is because we need someone who can navigate in all that crap, not for fighting. Understood?”

Kyoka nodded. “Understood.”

“Everyone else, go for restraint over injury, where possible. We don't know if there are civilians other than Midoriya caught up in this.”

He spent another couple of seconds arranging the marching order, but then he finally gave them the order to move in.

Inside the cloud, the air was cool, and drier than Kyoka had expected. Not like fog, more like smoke. Somehow, the screaming she'd heard on the outside was quieter in here as well. Must be some quirk…

“Group of three, that way,” she said, pointing.

They took care of the villains quickly. They didn't seem much older than Kyoka, and their quirk control was much worse. They were tied up in class-C restraints in seconds.

“We're going to have to carry them back out,” said Death Arms with a grimace. “We can't just leave them here.”

“Oh, thank god,” said one of the villains. “You guys are actual heroes!”

“As opposed to what?” asked Death Arms, gruffly.

“The punk is probably talking about me.”

Kyoka jumped and turned. Whoever that was, they'd managed to sneak up on them while making no sound at all. Not even breathing.

The man was bald, wearing leather, and the same sort of rugged as Death Arms. He also sort of… faded into the smoky clouds around him, almost as if he were made of them. Even accounting for mutations, his smile was a bit too wide, his eyes a little too blank.

The black, lashing tentacles around him, however, looked very real, especially when they scraped along the already-battered asphalt near his cloudy feet.

“And who're you?” asked Death Arms, readying his fists.”

“They should have stayed away from our kid,” said the man without moving his mouth. Then, in Midoriya's voice, “It hurts! “

“Where-” started Death Arms, but the man was opening his mouth, wrist and wider. Too wide. Inside was a perfectly black hole.

A faint rushing noise was the only warning before a dozen of those black tentacles came pouring out of the man's mouth. They jostled and grabbed and wrapped around, and by the time Kyoka got her wits about her again, she and the rest of the heroes had been deposited outside the cloud.

Death Arms looked shaken. “I think we might need backup for this one.”

Ochako caught another glimpse of yellow gloves and a fluttering cape. It was a hero. It had to be, even if Ochako didn't recognize her. Now, if only Ochako could get her attention…

She pushed through another bank of smoke. The smoke was… weird. When it first appeared, it looked like it was coming from Deku, but that couldn't be right. He had a strength enhancement. Like All Might. But then, those black root things weren't a normal part of Deku's quirk, either.

Maybe it was like Tsuyu's quirk. She had a lot of different things she could do, and you normally wouldn't describe it as a jumping quirk instead of a frog mutation, but it did let her jump high. She just… wasn't sure why Deku would do that. Unless he didn't know?

Ugh, all these things could wait until later, when her friend wasn't in trouble.

“Miss Hero!” she tried again. “Please wait!”

And this time, to Ochako's surprise, she did.

She was tall - but not as tall as Ochako first thought. She was floating above the ground, and the way the smoke clung to her…

“It's yours, then, the smoke?” asked Ochako, a little out of breath.

“Not exactly,” she said, in a voice as thin as the smoke.

A partner, then? “The person they were beating up was my friend, do you know where he is? Is he safe?”

The hero inclined her head, and then dissolved, the smoke that made up her body tearing away from itself. The clouds behind her patted as well, revealing a large crater, and–

“Deku!”

She hopped down into the crater, avoiding broken electrical cables and gushing pipes.

Deku looked even worse than he had minutes ago. Red and green sparks danced over his body, and his skin was a ghostly gray. He was shaking, and clutching at the ground, raw fingertips digging deep grooves into the remaining concrete.

But before she could get to him, smoke swirled out of his body, and two more figures coalesced out of it. A slender white-haired man in a t-shirt and loose pants, and a shorter, younger man in a long, high-collared coat that reminded Ochako of Best Jeanist's costume.

“Wait a moment,” said the white-haired one.

“Why?” demanded Ochako. “Who are you people?”

“It's people like this that give my brother so much power,” said the man, which answered nothing. “They could use their abilities to help, but instead they act out of jealousy and envy.”

“Unless there's been a big change recently,” said the other man, “that dosage of Japanese trigger lasts for three minutes, maximum.”

Ochako looked down at her dead phone. How long had it been?

“Wait a moment,” repeated the white-haired man. “There is still justice to be done, there are still things to be made right.”

“I'm sure you're tough. Are you tougher than concrete?” asked the other man. “We don't remember that.”

“Wait a moment. I wish my brother were here, so I could pound his stupid face in.”

“We really, really don't.”

“Uh,” said Ochako. Were these guys, like, all there? “There are villains here who tried to hurt him, so–”

“Wait a moment,” said the white-haired man. He sounded frustrated. “Wait a moment. They are being discouraged.”

“Vehemently.”

“Wait a moment. He won't remember this. Tell him we will speak again.”

“We'll try, anyway.”

Ochako looked between the two of them. Maybe she could run by them… Were their bodies even solid?

Deku shuddered, and the force behind the movement sent more cracks through the concrete, deepened the crater. Ochako threw up her arm to protect her eyes from dust.

When she lowered her arms again, the figures of the two men were dissipating back into smoke, and the smoke itself was wisping away. Deku was lying still, now, eyes closed, breathing heavily. Ochako checked him carefully for quirk effects, but didn't see any, and approached.

“Deku?”

He didn't respond. According to the first aid course she'd taken to boost her chances of being accepted at UA, she shouldn't move him unless there was imminent danger, in case of broken bones or neck injuries. The pipes and wires… that situation would probably hold for a while longer. The villains…

She climbed back out of the crater and looked around. She could see both sides of the street, now, even if it was hazy. The glass in most of the nearby windows was broken. The street itself and the sidewalks were gravel. One streetlight had been knocked over.

And scattered all over were the prone forms of the villains. They didn't look like they were moving. Ochako stared at the nearest one, frightened, until she saw that they were still breathing. So she should stay with Deku until first responders got there. Hopefully, that would be soon.

Her phone chirped as it came back to life, whatever quirk effect keeping it inoperable disappearing with the smoke. She looked down at it, briefly. It was an older model, and usually took a minute or longer to turn back on all the way.

She scanned the street again, squinting to see through the thinning smoke, and, oh thank goodness. That was Death Arms, wasn't it? And Jiro! She waved frantically.

This whole thing had lasted only a few minutes, but it had felt like forever.

In other news, the large-scale disruption in residential Musutafu today occurred when a group of thirty-two villains chased down and injected a UA student with trigger. The villains were mostly high school and college students with otherwise clean records. According to Musutafu PD, the villains believed the student was somehow using trigger to fake having a quirk. A statement released by UA with the permission of the student's guardian not only refutes those claims, but includes select medical data from the student's most recent hospital visit, only days before. These records show no evidence of the student having ever taken any form of performance enhancing drug. The student was the only civilian injured in the event, and is recovering at an undisclosed location. The police are investigating the possibility of classifying the incident as a hate crime. Now, Ms. Long with the weather–

Izuku pried his eyes open blearily. His head was pounding, his bones ached, and his mouth tasted like he'd licked Dagobah Beach. Before he'd cleaned it up. Where was he and what was he doing there?

He blinked a few times. Actually, that ceiling looked familiar…

“Ah!” said Recovery Girl, who was suddenly in his field of vision. “You're awake.”

Before Izuku could ask what had happened, she was running through a cognitive test. Despite his confusion, he answered her questions as best he could, and she didn't seem disappointed, so he must have gotten a good grade. Was that something you could get on a cognitive test?

“What is the last thing you remember before waking up here?” she asked, finally.

“Uh, um,” said Izuku. “I used one of the gyms at the school… here, I mean… for physical therapy stuff. Then sat in on one of the support classes - that was really cool - then, um, the train… and I was walking home… Was I hit by a car?” he guessed.

Recovery Girl sighed. “You were attacked by villains and injected with trigger. Trigger heavily cut with other drugs, no less.”

“What?!” said Izuku trying to sit up. Recovery Girl pushed him back down.

“The villains were all captured. They won't be doing anything like that again.” She set a bowl of broth down on the table attached to Izuku's bed.

“But did I– What did I–?” Even if he didn't remember anything, trigger made people do all sorts of weird stuff. And One for All wasn't an ordinary quirk.

“Don’t worry about that,” said Recovery Girl. “You focus on recovering your stamina, so we can do something about all those microfractures you have.”

“I thought– I thought you said you wouldn't treat me anymore,” said Izuku, bewildered.

“I never–” Recovery Girl stopped, pressed her lips together. “What I meant to say, at the end of the sports festival, is that I won't be able to heal you with my quirk if you keep getting injuries like that. There's a limit to what can be healed, even with quirks, as you well know.”

Izuku thought back to All Might's wound, and shuddered. Which. Ow.

“If you can keep that down,” said Recovery Girl, nodding to the broth, “I'll see about letting some of your visitors in.”

“Like Mom? And, um, All Might?” guessed Izuku.

“Your mother is here already,” said Recovery Girl, nodding at the green-haired lump in the neighboring bed. “Just got her to take a nap herself, after she spent all night fretting. But, yes, All Might isn’t above using his position to get to the top of your visitor list. Although he isn't the only one on it. All your classmates called in from their internships, and I had to ban that girl from the support course. I won’t have untested support equipment around my patients, no matter what the medical applications are. Uraraka and Jiro from your class were also here earlier…”

Izuku listened as she bustled around the medical wing and continued to chatter about his visitors and well-wishers, and felt… warm. Later, he was sure there would be consequences beyond missing memories, sore muscles, and broken bones, but for now… it was nice to know he had people who cared. He didn't think he'd ever get tired of that.

With a shaky hand, he picked up the soup spoon and started on the broth.

“Mr. Hidaka,” said the lawyer, more to Hideo's father than Hideo, even if the lawyer was technically representing Hideo, “I'm afraid to say that the government's case is ironclad. Between the livestream video, the messages to the other defendants, being found at the scene of the crime, the evidence of quirk use… The best we can hope for is the young villain diversion program, but that's only possible if you plead guilty and implicate any other co-conspirators. Otherwise, you're old enough to be charged as an adult, and even if they don't do that, juvenile villain facilities aren't great places to be.”

“But Deku–” started Hideo.

“Hideo,” growled his father.

“I was attacked–”

“Hideo, shut up. You'll take the guilty plea and hope you get it in before any of rhe cretins you call friends. And if you say anything about this Midoriya boy again…”

Hideo swallowed and nodded. Goddamned Deku. How come he got everything good, and Hideo was in here? It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. Goddamned Deku.

But what was he supposed to do? He wasn't an actual villain. He just wanted things to be right.

“Fine,” he said. “I'll do it.”

“Great!” said the lawyer, gathering his papers. “I just have to talk to the prosecuter.”

Goddamn Deku. Why couldn't Hideo have his life?

#bnha #fic #my fic

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demigod-shenanigans · 14 days

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Credit where credit is due because it was @poppitron360 bringing up Jason’s extended family in a fic that made me think about this.

Anyway. I think Leo deserves some closure with his extended family, too. Obviously it’s never going to happen with his shitty aunt. However. He has a cousin.

His name is Raphael. We don’t really know anything about him except that he bullied Leo when they were kids (that’s the only half-sentence mention he gets). Obviously this isn’t a great start, but I think it makes sense in context.

Rosa never liked Leo. Maybe it was a superstition thing. Maybe she took issue with the fact that his dad wasn’t in the picture. Maybe she convinced herself that he’d somehow ruined her sister’s life. Either way, of course her behaving that way and talking badly about him affected her own kid.

Raphael also didn’t really get Leo, who went on about boring machine stuff Raphael didn’t care about for ages and just wouldn’t shut up. Who’d only play in very specific ways and get upset when Raphael tried to change the rules. He was weird, and Raphael didn’t like him, so he was mean to Leo.

When Rosa tells him Leo is going away and he’ll never have to see him again, Raphael isn’t upset. He takes his mom at her word that it was Leo’s fault his aunt died.

But Raphael was nine, then.

(I’m putting most of this under the cut because it got incredibly long. Oops. Fair warning, I did make myself weep writing this.)

Raphael doesn’t think about Leo for years. They were never close. He’s just a weird kid that used to be a family member but that they’re not seeing anymore. Raphael has friends and school to worry about. Leo doesn’t even cross his mind.

But then he’s packing for college, going through boxes in the attic, and there’s two that look weirdly different from the rest. He’s curious and opens them. It’s mementos. Pictures of Esperanza, and of Leo, and a whole bunch of random trinkets taken from their apartment after the workshop burnt down. And suddenly he’s wondering what happened to his baby cousin, ashamed he hasn’t thought of Leo in so long.

So he asks his mom. Rosa shrugs and tells him Leo went into the foster system and they’ll thankfully never have to deal with him again. That if there’s any justice in the world, he’s dead, because it’s his fault that his mom died.

Raphael is horrified to hear her talk like that. Leo was eight. Even if he did make a stupid mistake that somehow led to his mom dying—and he isn’t nine anymore, he won’t just take his mom’s word for it this time—that’s more traumatizing to Leo than anything. And he was just left alone to deal with it all. A child with so much blame on his shoulders, made to feel like his family didn’t love him.

He’s kicking himself for not asking about Leo sooner. For not being nicer to him when they were kids. For not being there for him when his mom died.

He asks which foster home Leo went to, and his mom snaps at him to drop it. But Raphael doesn’t drop it. He asks his dad when he gets home, and his dad tells him.

It’s a dead end. Leo hasn’t been there in years. Ran away after a few days, apparently. It’s a miracle the person he calls even remembers who he’s talking about.

There’s nothing he can do about it now. But he takes the boxes along to college. If Leo can’t have them, the least Raphael can do is keep them far away from his mom. He puts up a picture of Esperanza and little Leo along with the ones of his own friends. Because if all he can do is carry their memory, he will.

The question of what happened to Leo never quite lets Raphael go. He tries a few avenues over the years, but it’s like Leo vanished into thin air. The only solace he has is that he doesn’t find any obituaries that fit.

Eventually, he decides to look into becoming a foster parent with his wife, and that’s how he finally finds Leo. One of the older social workers mentions she knew a Valdez boy that would be around his age now. Got into a whole bunch of trouble. Ran away from several different foster homes. He was sent to Wilderness School in Nevada the last time she saw him. Apparently ran away with a classmate—Piper McLean. Never heard from him again after that.

She only remembers because Piper is the daughter of a film star she really liked at the time. It’s just a weird random anecdote to her.

But Raphael knows Piper McLean. Not well—they’ve never really talked—but he’s seen her at an office party or two because she’s married to one of his coworkers. Reyna works in a different department, but he could talk to her. Ask her if Piper knows what happened to Leo. If maybe they’re still in contact, though that seems like a long shot after so many years.

He’s desperate and terrified to maybe, finally, get some kind of answer.

It takes him two weeks to work up the courage to talk to Reyna. She’s confused at first. They’ve only made smalltalk a few times, most of it work related.

But when he brings up Leo, something in her face changes. Yes, she knows Leo. He’s never mentioned a cousin—Raphael isn’t surprised—but she supposes a cousin could exist. She asks what he wants from Leo, and he’s honest with her about the fact that they didn’t have a great relationship growing up but tells her he’s grown since then and that he still has some stuff that rightfully belongs to Leo that’s been sitting in boxes in his house for years.

She gives him Leo’s number, albeit with some reluctance.

He calls and tells Leo that he gets if he doesn’t want to talk to him but at the very least he wants him to have the boxes with Esperanza’s things—boxes that should have been his in the first place. Leo doesn’t even have to see him if he doesn’t want to. Raphael can just drop the boxes off with Reyna or something. But he wanted to apologize for being a jerk when they were kids, because Leo didn’t deserve that.

———————

Leo is shocked to hear from Raphael, to say the least. When he first hears the name of the person on the other end of the line, he freezes up. He barely manages to keep it together for the call and afterwards, he melts into Jason’s arms and starts weeping because a part of him is terrified that this is some sort of cruel prank. Terrified to let himself hope he actually has a relative on his mom’s side of the family that cares. Terrified of whatever might or might not be in those boxes.

But he agrees to meet Raphael, if reluctantly, and he brings Jason. Maybe there’ll be some closure in it. He’s wary, because his cousin was really mean to him when they were kids, but they were also eight and they’re adults now and he realizes kids sometimes do dumb shit when they’re eight and growing up with terrible adults.

Leo is anxious when they walk into the restaurant where they’re meeting for lunch—Jason promises to lightning bolt Raphael through the nearest wall if he starts shit, which makes Leo laugh and relax a little, and they walk in holding hands.

Raphael spots them and his whole face lights up. He looks so different from how he looked as a kid, but there’s still that same scar on his forehead from the time he ran into a table when they were six. He still has the same eyes twinkling with mischief, but they’re not malicious now. He looks genuinely happy to see Leo.

Raphael is clearly nervous meeting Jason, who’s much taller and much more muscular than him, which Leo takes great joy in. And Leo gets the apology he was promised. He’s shocked to hear how long Raphael has been looking for him—shocked that apparently someone on his mom’s side of the family did care about what happened to him. And Raphael doesn’t even ask about his mom. Doesn’t ask what happened, which Leo was terrified he would. He just tells Leo he won’t believe the bs his mom is spouting about him anymore, and he’d like to be at least a little involved in Leo’s life, if Leo wants that. Even if it’s just the occasional call or Christmas postcard. But if Leo wants nothing to do with him after everything, he understands that. He’s just glad to know that Leo is safe and happy and loved.

Leo tells him he’ll think about it.

Jason sits with him when he finally brings himself to open the boxes. There’s so many pictures—several framed ones that they had up on the walls and a whole photobook with pictures of Leo, from birth until age eight. There’s several pictures of just him, and several of the two of them together. The last few pages are empty—memories they never got to make—and all of it is so incredibly painful but he can’t believe he gets to have all of this. Jason holds him through it, stroking his back and kissing his hair and telling him they can take breaks whenever he wants. Leo spends all night telling his husband so many half-forgotten stories of his mom as they look through the pictures.

There’s more in the boxes. A few of Esperanza’s tools. Her lucky screwdriver. An old folder with project sketches she made all the way back at uni that she’d sometimes show Leo drafts of. Random decorative items they had up around the house, many of them hand-crafted. There’s this tiny toy dragon his mom made him as a consolation when he was small and begging for some cool toy they absolutely couldn’t afford and Leo cannot stop crying when he finds it.

Also up there with the photos and the dragon on the list of things that make Leo weep the most is a thick notebook that’s halfway coming apart. It’s got pages torn from magazines and hastily written notes stuffed into it. Some pages have prints glued on them, others are hand-written, in his mom’s hand and different ones Leo doesn’t recognize. A lot of it is faded, and some of the pages have clearly had water spilled on them by accident, but most of it is still legible.

It’s his mom’s old cookbook.

And it’s so much less of her than he should have. But having all those memories back that he thought he’d lost forever means everything.

But after a full night of weeping in Jason’s arms and a lot of cooking (and making sure the cookbook is no longer at a risk of fading or falling into bits when you breathe on it) and even more processing he shoots his cousin a message that just says “I think I like the idea with the Christmas cards”.

And they’re never going to be best friends or anything. I don’t think Leo ever tells Raphael the truth of who he is or what happened to his mom.

But they talk to each other on the phone sometimes. Leo meets Raphael’s wife, and, eventually, his kids. Raphael meets Sofía a handful of times and sends her birthday gifts and Christmas cards every year.

He’s the reason Sofía gets to grow up with her abuela’s cooking and with pictures of Esperanza scattered around the Waystation, and Leo is always going to be grateful for that.

I’m assuming like three people total will read this all the way to the end at most! Thank you for putting up with today’s specific Leo brain worms. Not sure if this will ever be a proper fic because I have way too many ideas but have this for now

#valgrace #leo valdez #heroes of olympus #hoo #leo x jason #jason x leo #Valdez family #Raphael Valdez #Esperanza Valdez #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo next gen #< more setup for that than anything but still tangentially related to it #leo valdez headcanons #Leo Valdez angst

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daydreamerwonderkid · 1 year

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I see your vampire!Bruce Wayne AU and I raise you this:

Normal human Bruce Wayne raising his horde of vampire/dhamphir children, but because Bruce is Bruce no suspects any of the Batkids are, well ... bat kids.

Even the Batkids are confused at first when they first meet Bruce. Batman shows up and they're like:

"Oh, shit it's Batman! The very scary, very territorial Vampire Lord who's completely taken over Gotham and has managed to strike fear into the heart of all the most notorious vampire leaders! And he wants to adopt me into his coven? Sounds sketchy, but aight."

Only for them to wake up the next day and realize that not only is Batman in fact NOT a vampire, but he's also the most pitiful and pathetic human they've ever laid their eyes on and there's no fucking way they can leave him now.

Humans are already super fragile and easy to kill as is. And their new guardian is risking his life every night masquerading as an all powerful Vampire Lord!!!!

It's honestly a miracle that Bruce hasn't been killed yet and there's no way they're going to let their clueless human guardian wander off by himself. Especially after they realize he keeps forgetting that humans aren't supposed to be awake for 72 hours straight and his skin is paler than the giant hoards of case file documents he tries to sift through while barely touching his own food.

This poor idiot human is so committed to pretending to be a vampire that he's actually convinced himself he has night vision and spends more time hanging out in a literal Batcave than he does in his own fucking house!

Meanwhile, Bruce is thoroughly convinced he's got a complete handle on the whole raising vampire/dhampir children thing. After all, it's not like he's had to change much about his own personal life to that of a parent taking care of a horde of supernatural children.

He already spends more time awake at night anyway and while the kids don't mind human food absolutely love Alfred's cooking, it's not difficult to get a hold of any blood when they actually need to feed on something more substantial. Considering he's the biggest contributor to Gotham's blood donation centers, it's not like anyone's gonna tell him no.

Bruce also read somewhere that while vampires in the modern age don't actually need to hunt humans to feed anymore (considering the above mentioned donation centers), their hunting instincts haven't gone away, either. So while he was initially against the idea of letting his kids getting involved in his vigilante lifestyle, it was probably a good thing in the end that they had an alternative outlet for their growing vampiric urges. Like Alfred, he would have preferred it if they had gotten into competitive sports or something similar instead, but all his children had proven themselves to be just as stubborn as he is so he made do with what he could.

Especially considering the fact that a parenting article he read mentioned how extremely sensitive young vampires/dhampirs are towards the well-being of those who make up their coven. Dick, ALONE, had proved how absolutely futile his attempts to separate his night time and day time activities truly were. Apparently, it was detrimental to young vampires to be separated from their parents/guardians for too long. Better he trained them and supervised them himself versus having to re-experience Dick, Tim and Cass stalking him like the supernatural predators they were while doing his nightly patrols.

And if any of his children leaned a bit more into their feral nature whenever Bruce happened to get hurt on patrol, that was just kids' instincts reacting to the head of their coven being threatened. It's taken years of training, grounding and long late night discussions to convince his children to try holding back their supernatural strength and bloody acts of retribution. He still finds himself lecturing them from time to time even if he's fully aware they're all humoring him.

He still has the small collection of baby fangs that Dick had somehow roped all his younger siblings into contributing to over the years. For the life of him, he can't begin to fathom why anyone would want to collect teeth or why his children are so adamant that he holds onto theirs. But ever since he jokingly mentioned the Tooth Fairy to a horrified and offended younger Dick when his first set of baby fangs finally started coming in, it seems his children are determined to make sure no one can even attempt to think about exchanging their fangs for mere quarters.

And for the record (and despite what his children and friends keep on insisting), he never set out to actually pretend to be a "Vampire Lord." He just honestly thought designing his costume around one of his deepest fears would be a good way for him to use that fear against the criminals of Gotham.

He also won't admit that he completely forgot about the obvious association people make between bats and vampires.

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its-time-to-write · 1 year

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This is NOT Jamie Tartt slander. This is two sleep-deprived people making dumb choices because they’re tired. Also, this is so. Freakin. Long. Apologies in advance. Warnings include swearing, fighting, pregnancy? Is that a warning? Basically reader is pregnant and it goes through the first pregnancy test to like when the baby is a month old. Anyway. I never know how to write these intros.

you’re losing me

You and Jamie are young. You are not old. Sure, you’re married after only dating for a year and being engaged for another half a year, but it’s not like much changed from how it was. That band on your left hands gives you both a sense of security, and it’s fun to be the hot young married couple around Richmond. It’s nice to be able to walk around openly and to be called “Mrs. Tarrt,” and to know that this himbo dumbass is going to be making you laugh till you’re old and gray. (Said himbo dumbass told you that’s his favorite nickname). You both excel in your various workplaces and because of that, when you moved into Jamie’s house you were able to keep your flat. It turned out to be a blessing when your younger sister moved to England from another country, so she can be close by without actually being in the same house as you.

All that to say, you were not ready for the little pink stick you were holding at 4pm on a Wednesday.

“Babe?” Jamie calls from the front door, “I’m home! You here?”

Your eyes are glued to those two little lines. “In the bathroom!” you shout. You hear Jamie’s footsteps coming up the stairs into your room.

“Oi listen, Ted told this joke today that went over me head, so I remembered it to ask you and…” he trails off. “Why are you sitting on the floor?”

You turn to look at him, the same shock from five minutes ago still on your face. In an instant, Jamie is kneeling on the floor next to you cupping your face. “Are you alright? Do you need to go to the hospital? Do I need to call someone? Did something happen at work?”

You shake your head. “No, I’m fine, I just- look.” You halfheartedly lift the pregnancy test. Jamie looks down and his face shifts from concern to one of shock then back to concern.

“Are you sure?” he asks softly.

Wordlessly, you point to the sink where there are five pregnancy tests of different brands. All positive.

“Shit,” he whispers. Then: “Wait. Why aren’t you happy bout this? I thought you wanted kids?”

“I do!” you reply a little miserably, “I do, it’s just, we talked about it and I know you really don’t at least not till you’re in your mid-thirties, and I know I told you that I wanted to have them young that one time, but that was before we were dating and I didn’t want to pressure you and I don’t want you to think I did this on purpose because I didn’t but I’m actually really scared about what you’re going to think because I’m so excited, especially because I didn’t even think this was possible.”

You’re not looking at him anymore, but hugging your knees to your chest. You are excited for this baby. You didn’t think you were going to be able to have kids, based on personal issues and family medical history. Or at least, that it would take a lot of time and a lot of doctor’s appointments. The fact that you have a total of six positive pregnancy tests is a miracle in and of itself, but it’s not what you and Jamie planned. And sure, you’re married, but does that really mean you won’t split up? This is pretty big.

All these thoughts are swirling around in your head until-

“Hey.”

Jamie softly tilts your chin up. “Look at me.”

Against your will, tears have started to leak out of your eyes.

“Darling, I ain’t mad. I think mostly I’m just glad you ain’t dyin. This is amazing! We’re going to have a little baby Tartt, and I couldn’t be happier. As long as you’re alright, I’m happy.”

You grab his bicep. “Are you absolutely sure, Jamie?” You need to know.

He laughs. “Babe, yes. Yes I am. For better or for worse, yeah? Though this really is for better.”

You crack a smile. “Ok. Ok. Yeah, ok.”

Jamie twirls a strand of your hair. “We’ll be ok, yeah? Now let’s get off this floor and go get ice cream. Heard that’s a pregnancy staple. And, on the way, can you explain this joke Ted said? Everyone laughed except me and Will, so I was thinking it’s gotta be...” his voice trails down the hall as you head out the door.

—

Jamie is funny. Once he decides to do something, he’s all in. He wanted to start telling people the moment you stepped out the door for ice cream. You had to physically put your hand over his mouth to stop him from telling Mae, whom you bumped into on your way. To be honest, you’re sure she knows anyway because Jamie got out a few words and she gave you a knowing look, but she’ll keep it to herself. She’s a good one.

It was only a matter of time before Jamie insisted you start telling the team. He’d say, mid-breakfast, “Babe. You know who would be a great babysitter? Sam. Sam’s one of me best mates. Haven’t kept a secret from him in forever,” with a puppy dog face.

Or during MarioKart, “What do you think about having Isaac and Colin help with the baby’s room? Isaac’s good at all that construction shit and both you and Colin like to paint. You probably shouldn’t be painting anyway, what with all the fumes.”

Or your personal favorite, during a shower, “Babe. What about Roy and Keeley?”

You: “What about Roy and Keeley?”

Jamie: “They should know. We should tell them. Keeley would flip her shit and I want to see if Roy will cry.”

You: “That’s what you’re thinking about? Here? Now? Good lord, man, I thought you were debating which conditioner to use.”

To be entirely fair, it was about the time to start telling people. You had started stealing Jamie’s shirts claiming that they were more comfortable. They were baggier on you, so they hid the beginnings of your baby bump, and you explained away any questions by reminding people that you wore a lot of layers because you were perpetually cold. However, you were at the point where you were going to have to start telling people, which is how Roy and Keeley ended up at your house for your bi-weekly dinner that you had been delaying for two months.

You had taken approximately two bites of food before Jamie clattered down his fork and said, “We have something to tell you.”

Roy and Keeley looked at you expectantly. You reach under your chair for two bags and place them in front of their plates.

Roy’s face is saying what the fuck as he and Keeley remove the tissue paper and hold up two onesies. A black one that says, newest addition to uncle’s day and a light pink one that says, if you think I’m cute, you should see my aunt.

They look from the onesies in their hands and then back to you and Jamie. “Surprise!” you say in unison. There is a beat of silence and then Roy says, “That’s fucking great!” at the same time Keeley squeals, “Ohmygod, congratulations!” and then you’re all on your feet hugging.

“I fucking knew it,” says Keeley. She nudges Roy, “Didn’t I tell you Roy-o? I fucking called it weeks ago! You owe me ten quid.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Roy grumbles as he reaches into his pocket, but that’s as close to a smile he’ll get. “Can’t believe you’re having a kid with this prick,” he says to you, but it’s prick (affectionate) as opposed to prick (derogatory).

You smile. “You’re the first people we’ve told, other than Jamie’s mum and Simon. You’re the closest thing we have to family here.”

Keeley goes, “Aw, babe,” and Roy just squints at you and lets out a grunt.

“She’s gonna have the coolest family,” Jamie says.

“She?” Keeley asks, “Are you having a girl?”

You roll your eyes. “We don’t know. We’re going to find out tomorrow, and Jamie has been insisting that it’s a girl. He says it’s his ‘dad sense,’ or something like that. I’ve given up telling him that’s not a real thing.”

Jamie shrugs, “I know what I know. Don’t get why we have to go to some bloke with that slimy gel to be told something I’ve been saying for weeks.”

“That bloke with slimy gel is my doctor and an ultrasound, you absolute himbo!” you laugh.

Roy finally cracks a smile, and you spend a comfortable evening together, thinking about how much things are going to change.

—

A week later, you’re at the Richmond pitch. You walked over from Mae’s, because you were thinking about her chips all afternoon. You ate at least three baskets and she made a sly comment about eating for two. She pinched your cheek as she walked away and then smacked Baz, who was trying to eavesdrop.

You walk into the locker room, coat still on and reach up to kiss Jamie. He’s still a sweaty from practice because none of them have gone to the showers yet, but you don’t mind.

“You ready?” he asks.

You give your arms a shake. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

You walk into Ted and Beard’s office, where you asked Rebecca and Higgins to meet. Trent is in there as well, and he looks up in surprise as you walk in.

“Good to see, Mrs. Tartt,” Ted says as he gets up to hug you.

“Hey Ted,” you smile back, going over to hug Rebecca. “How are you all doing?” “Oh you know, biting our nails for whatever it is you guys have to tell us,” Ted replies.

“You’re not leaving, are you?” Rebecca interjects. “I simply cannot handle any more change around here.”

You shake my head. “No, no we’re not leaving. But this is about a change.”

Back in the locker room, the Richmond boys hear a big “WHAT,” from Ted and look over to see you and Jamie getting swarmed by him, Beard, Rebecca, Higgins, and Trent. Isaac looks at Sam and shrugs, bemused. You and Jamie open the door and walk out right under where the “Believe” sign used to be.

You smile and take off your coat, revealing a shirt that says “Tartt in the oven,” and an obvious baby bump.

There is silence as jaws drop and then Isaac says-

“I’m going to be an uncle?”

The locker room erupts in pandemonium with the boys slapping each other on the back firing rapid-fire questions at you and Jamie.

“How long have you been keeping this a secret?”

“Is it a boy or a girl?”

“Are you going to name it after me?”

“Can I be the favorite uncle?”

“Can we help decorate its room?”

Jamie is smiling as big as you’ve ever seen him.

“OI!” Isaac roars. “QUIET. Are we men or are we beasts? One at a time!”

Isaac looks at you two. “Boy or girl?”

Jamie’s eyes glow. “Girl!”

The room erupts once again as Jamie kisses you on the top of your head and pulls you close to him.

—

Labor was… not fun. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great. There weren’t really complications except for the fact that Jamie was almost not there. See, it’s because your water broke when you were in the shower right before leaving to watch one of Jamie’s games. You looked down at the shower drain and felt your mind race through a million scenarios. Do you text Jamie and make him miss the game? Do you push through as long as you can? Do you have Keeley and Rebecca take you to the hospital? Do you go by yourself?

As you’re considering, you think of laying in bed the night before. The baby was kicking and Jamie was tracing patterns on your stomach whispering, “Baby Tartt doo doo doo-doo doo-doo.”

He would hate to miss this.

You make a choice and call Keeley.

Thirty minutes later you’re in Rebecca’s box waiting for the game to start. You have contractions, sure, but you’ve been having them for a while. The doctor said it was nothing to worry about, so you didn’t worry.

That means that Keeley and Rebecca don’t worry as you grip the arm of your seat and blow out a long breath.

Keeley absentmindedly pats your arm and Rebecca slings hers around your shoulders.

“Don’t go having this baby now,” she jokes, “Wait till after we’ve won.”

You force out a laugh. If only she knew.

You have to get up and walk after the first half because the contractions are starting to get closer together. Rebecca notices and gets up to come inside and see you.

“Are you alright?” she asks.

You look at her without saying anything and her eyes widen.

“Shit,” she says. “How long has this been happening?”

“Since right before I left,” you gasp out, “My water broke in the shower and I didn’t want- shit.” You bend over from a contraction before continuing, “I didn’t want to miss Jamie’s game and it’s fine, right? It’s not until they’re three minutes apart that it really matters.”

“And how long are yours?” Rebecca asks.

You don’t want to look at her. “Six,” you whisper.

“SIX?” she yells. “Darling, you need to go. I’ll call Ted, he’ll pull Jamie, and then you’ll go.”

Keeley has come in by this point and fully assessed the situation. “Babes, you can’t stick around till the game ends. You have to go.”

You hold up a hand. “I’m fine. Richmond needs Jamie. It can wait.”

Rebecca clicks her tongue. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but we’re up by two and also it’s just a football game. It doesn’t matter. You are about to have a child so let me get your husband for you.”

“Ok,” you say meekly. “Can I come with you?”

Rebecca calls Ted and you wait by the entrance to the pitch. Ted has barely put out the call to switch out number nine when Jamie is sprinting across the field to you. You’re at the hospital in record time, and that’s how Beatrice Georgie Tartt is born.

—

You and Jamie had a lot of conversations about what it’s like to be parents. You had the standard “What if I turn out like my dad,” chat (easily dispelled by the fact that he takes after his mum) and the “Baby comes before football,” chat which you needed to hear but definitely did not retain. That one was difficult for both of you, because you didn’t mind pausing your career for motherhood. You knew it would be waiting for you when you were ready to go back, but that isn’t really the case for Jamie. He’s in his prime right now, and it takes a lot of work. You had worked things out on paper, but life is never that easy. Newborns require a lot of attention, and neither of you were sleeping well. Jamie had taken two weeks off training but was back by the third. The only problem was, he was back to his regular 4am training. It’s easy to get enough sleep when you can pick when you go to bed, but not so much when your daughter needs to be fed, changed, burped, whatever every single hour.

In other words, you both were tired and snippy.

Bea was four and a half weeks old when the last straw came.

It was 2:30 am, and you was so, so tired. She needed a diaper change and you felt like you physically couldn’t get out of bed so you poked Jamie.

“Babe,” you say.

“Hm,” he groans, voice gravelly.

“Can you please change her? I can’t move,”

“Don’t know if you’ve noticed babe, but I have training with Roy in an hour. I can’t get up every time she needs something. That’s your job.”

Instantly, you are wide awake.

You’ve never heard Jamie take that tone of voice with you before. Never heard it be that intentionally cutting.

You sit up. “Excuse me?”

He rolls over to face you. “You heard me. I don’t have time for this right now. It’s your job, you take care of it. This is not what I signed up for and anyway, you’re the one who wanted a baby, not me. You go deal with it.” He rolls back over to go to sleep and you just stare at him. You're too tired to fight but then Bea cries again and you say, “Jamie what the fuck.”

“Look, babe, I can always go stay in a hotel and get some sleep. You’re the one who wants me to be here with you,” he replies, voice muffled by the pillow.

“Don’t ‘look, babe’ me, Jamie Tartt,” you say, voice icy. “I’m not sure if you recall, but you were the one who told me that Bea would always come before football and you are the one who decided you wanted to get married and you were the one who made all those speeches convincing me that you’d be with me for better or for worse. Well I’ve got news for you: it’s worse.” You get out of bed. “I’m going to change our daughter, and I hope next time I see you, you’ve had an attitude adjustment.”

That must get to him because he sits up and goes, “Babe-” but you’re already out the door.

You end up sitting with Bea on her rocker until 5am, which means you hear Jamie get up to leave with Roy. It also means you notice that he doesn’t come in to say goodbye, just leaves. You stare down at Bea in your arms. She has his eyes and the beginnings of your nose. By 6am you’ve made another choice, and you call your sister to ask her to help move some of your things into your old flat.

—

You leave a note on the counter that says: Jamie. Bea and I are giving you space, and you’re gone by 1. You spend all evening looking at your phone, waiting for a text from Jamie, or a call, or something. Nothing. Your sister doesn’t need much of an explanation and it’s your flat anyway, so she was alright with you and Bea moving in. She made dinner and held Bea, then forcibly made you go to sleep. Her work is flexible, so she said she’d take care of Bea until she had to leave on a trip in two days.

Yet, although you finally had the chance to sleep, you couldn’t. You tossed and turned all night, periodically checking your phone for a text that never came.

—

A week and a half has gone by. Your sister is gone still, so it’s just you and Bea. She’s been crying so much recently, and the thought comes to you unbidden of every time Jamie has held her. She quiets down the moment she’s in his arms like clockwork. You’re running on no sleep and you need to go get groceries so that morning you pack up a diaper bag, put Bea in the car, and force yourself not to care that you look like absolute shit.

You’re almost done shopping when you hear a voice call your name. You turn, and there’s Sam.

“I thought that was you,” he says. “I’ve been meaning to check up on you so I went by your house yesterday, but Jamie said you and Bea were out and he didn’t know when you’d be back. How are you?”

You let out a snort. “Oh he did, did he? That’s rich.”

Sam’s face shifts to concern. “Is everything alright? I don’t mean to pry, but part of the reason I wanted to see how you are is that Jamie has been terrible. He’s been an absolute prick for almost two weeks now and we all just assumed it was lack of sleep.”

You smile, because right now your options are that or cry.

“I’m living in my flat right now. My sister’s on vacation, so it’s just me and Bea. It’s kind of a lot, which is why I look like garbage. I don’t have time to clean or anything either, otherwise I’d invite you around. Anyway. Thanks for asking. Good to see you, Sam.”

You walk away before you either overshare more or start crying, and in your haste you don’t see Sam watching you leave, concern written all over his face.

—

It’s the late afternoon when you hear a knock on your door. It’s Jamie your heart says, but when you open it, Sam, Dani, and Richard are standing on the step laden down with grocery bags, huge smiles on their face.

Before you can say anything, Sam says, “I hope this is not overstepping, but I noticed you had frozen meals in your cart this morning. I was thinking that we could cook you some meals to keep in the freezer, that way you do not have to worry about it.” You open your mouth to protest when Dani interjects. “Besides, we’re a family. Bea is my favorite niece and you are my second favorite sister. We should have seen if you needed help earlier.”

They look so sincere that you smile for the first time in a while and move to let them in. Richard goes to work clearing space in the kitchen while Sam and Dani organize their groceries. It looks like they’ve all gotten ingredients from their native countries, and Dani holds up a bag of chiles and says, “I brought these to make your favorite!”

You’re not sure how he knows of your love for chile rellenos, but he does and as you go to sit on the couch to feed Bea, you feel something close to relief.

Bea is done eating and the kitchen is filled with light conversation and music when there is another knock on your door.

You open it to see Isaac, Colin, Zoreaux, Bumbercatch, and Jan Maas all decked out in cleaning gear and rubber gloves, holding various cleaning sprays, brooms, and mops.

To say you are speechless is an understatement.

“Sam texted us,” Isaac says. “Said something about needing a cleaning service and a babysitter.”

You let them in without a word.

The flat is filled with chatter as they stand around the living room.

“Alright!” Isaac calls. “We’re going to divide and conquer! Colin, you’re on laundry. Zoreaux, you’re sweeping and mopping. Bumbercatch and Jan Maas, you’re on bathroom duty. Alright lads, let’s go!”

“Isaac,” Colin says, “what’s your job?”

Isaac looks at him. “I’m the captain, mate. I’m watching Bea.”

Groans go up from the boys and a chorus of “We want to hold her, why do you get to, I’m her favorite!” when Isaac silences them with an “Oi!”

“When you’ve finished your job and Bea and I have thoroughly inspected them, then maybe you can hold her after you’ve disinfected your hands and arms. Now get to it!”

“Isaac,” you say, pulling on his arm, “you don’t have to do this. Especially not the laundry or the bathrooms.”

He looks down at you, serious look on his face. “Is that for privacy reasons, or are you trying not to impose?”

You hesitate and debate lying. In the end, you tell the truth: “I don’t care about like privacy or whatever, it’s just gross. I don’t want you guys to have to do that.”

Isaac doesn’t respond, just says, “Can I wear the wrap?” so you go to get it and watch as he expertly puts it on and slides Bea in. She lets out a sigh and falls asleep on his chest.

“Right then. Now for your job,” he says to you.

You let out a singular laugh. “What do you have for me, captain?”

“I want you to go to your room, clear off the bed, close the door, and go to sleep. I’ll send Sam or Colin up to wake you if we need you. If you end up sleeping through then night, a few of us will stick around to make sure Bea’s alright. You still have Netflix, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you say. You start to head down the hall then turn and say, “Isaac?”

“Hm?” he replies.

“Thanks. This means more to me than you’ll ever know.”

Isaac waves that away then points to your bedroom door.

You walk in and shut the door, then are lulled to sleep by the white noise of having half of the Richmond team in your house cleaning, cooking, and reminding you that you are not alone.

—

You’re woken up by Sam shaking your shoulder. It’s golden hour, so soft light streams through the room. The first thing you notice is how quiet it is. You sit up.

“What’s wrong?” you ask.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Sam says, but he’s not smiling. “We just need you downstairs for a minute.”

You follow him to the living room where the boys are standing behind a couch, arms crossed and backs to you, staring down something on the opposite couch.

Sam clears his throat and they turn to look at you. Bea is still passed out on Isaac in her wrap. They part slightly and you see what they’re looking at.

Jamie Tartt gives you a halfhearted wave from where he sits on your couch.

“Got a minute?” he asks.

Shit.

You sit across from him and just look.

He has the grace to look sheepish. “Look, d’you mind if we talk- like just you and me? Without-” he gestures to the boys.

“No,” Dani, Colin, and Jan Maas chorus, arms crossed, and Jamie nods once in a that’s fair type of way.

Jamie takes a deep breath. “Look, I- I was out with Roy today and we were training, and he called me a prick and he meant it, and maybe I was being a prick, but I shoved him and then he knocked me down and was all ‘what the fuck is wrong with you,’ and I said ‘none of your fucking business,’ and then he said something about a text from Sam and made me tell him what was going on. So I told him that you left and he said,” here Jamie does his best Roy Kent impression, “‘Did she leave or did you fucking kick her out because you were acting like a little bitch prima donna who can’t handle being a grown fucking man?’”

Jamie pauses for a moment. “So I thought about it, and I did fuckin kick you out like I was a little bitch prima donna. And the reason I didn’t text ya or call ya is because I thought you’d come back when you were ready, or maybe you left for good and I fucked something else up. And I didn’t want to be like me dad who was always showing up when my mum didn’t want him to, so I just stayed away. And I said that to Roy and he told me I needed to man the fuck up because I was acting like a whiny brat.” Jamie scratches the back of his neck. “I brought you flowers and came to apologize and tell you that I’m done acting like a kid.”

You squint at him and say, “Apologize for what, exactly?” because you want to know that he knows what he did.

Without hesitation Jamie says, “For telling you that Bea was your job and not mine, and for saying that I didn’t sign up for any of this and making it seem like I didn’t care and saying that I was going to sleep in a hotel by meself.”

Oh. So he does know.

There’s a ripple of whispered oh fucks and you realize that the lads don’t actually know what happened between you and Jamie, and this is the first time they’re hearing about it.

Before you can say anything, Jan Maas says, “How do we know you’ve changed?” followed by a chorus of “Yeah, that’s right,” from the boys.

“Eh, well,” Jamie begins before he is interrupted by a piercing cry from Bea. Isaac tries to hush her, but she just keeps going.

“There’s no way she’s hungry,” he says, “She just had a bottle fifteen minutes ago and I changed her five minutes after that.”

Jamie looks questioningly at you. “Can I-”

The whole team turns to look at you. You nod, and Isaac removes a still crying Bea and gently hands her to Jamie. She’s barely settled into his arms when she has gone completely silent, lets out a sigh, and falls asleep.

“I suppose that is that,” says Richard, and the rest of AFC Richmond shrugs.

“Jamie Tartt,” you say. Everyone looks at you again. “If you ever, and I mean ever pull shit like this again, I will fucking sic this entire room on you and I will call Roy and I will not care how long you end up in the hospital. I can’t raise Bea on my own, but it turns out that I don’t need you.”

Jamie looks like he’s about to cry a little and you soften.

“I don’t need you, but I want you. And- I do miss you.”

Jamie smiles at that and you get up to sit next to him.

The boys murmur amongst themselves, and Isaac salutes you as he herds them out. You mouth thank you to him, and he waves it away yet again, leaving the three of you on the couch in comfortable silence for the first time in weeks.

—

Marriage is not easy, neither is raising a kid. Things didn’t automatically go back to how they were, but you and Jamie did get better. You got better at talking about your struggles, decided 2:30am is not a good time to fight, and began working out a healthy football-life balance. He trains with Roy three times a week instead of six, and Isaac and Colin babysit Bea once a month so you can go out. They’re the only ones besides Rebecca who are allowed to be with her unsupervised. (Not because the others are untrustworthy, but because they don’t know what to do with a baby) so by the time Theodore Dani Tartt comes around, you’ve got this thing nailed.

#jamie tartt x reader #jamie tartt fanfiction #jamie tartt x you #jamie tartt x y/n #jamie tartt imagine #jamie tartt #ted lasso

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thatlonelymushroom · 11 months

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☼ Cabin 7 ~ Apollo Headcanons ☼

Credit to Viktoria Ridzel, she drew the image above :)

Word Count: 551

A/N: Hello- , so I found that writing headcanons is wayyyy easier then oneshots (For some reason idk) so I'll probably be writing more Cabin headcanons, and stuff. So yeah, also lmk if you would like a part 2 to this, because I have so much more ideas for apollo stuff. Anyway enjoy!

Every friday they hold karaoke nights

You cannot fight me on this.

Surprisingly Will always goes up to sing (Mainly because of his nagging siblings)

No matter if you’re a good singer, a meh singer, or a OMG MY EARS ARE DYING singer nobody will judge - that’s just their nature

Since Apollo is god of the sun, all Apollo kids wake up at the crack of dawn

Yes. The moment you can see even the slightest sliver of the sun- all his kids stir and wake up

(Probably not by choice- It just kind of happens.)

On that note, they all probably start to become really exhausted when the sun goes down…

Like sure they can TOTALLY stay up longer, it’s just more draining for them, and they have less energy

(Although there are some rare cases where if the Apollo kids stay near Hecate kids, or Hades kids etc. like gods/goddesses of night- then they’ll be able to stay awake longer.)

Also no matter what time it is, almost always- whenever you go to the archery range, you’ll find an Apollo kid getting all bullseyes.

Most Apollo kids are open to giving out free music lessons

In fact sometimes on the weekends they have this thing called “Note swap” Where they all take their instruments and swap them, teaching everybody a new instrument

(And when it comes to music- Apollo kids are fast learners.)

On rare occasions, there is an Apollo kid who gets the gift of the plague, however, usually it’s not very strong- and they can only give people minor illnesses

Adding onto that, Apollo kids almost NEVER get sick. Although- when they do…. Be prepared..

Immediately the ENTIRE cabin gets sick, and oh gosh- it’s. The. Worst.

Tissues littering the cabin floor

Everybody with noses as red as rudolphs - irritated from blowing their nose so often

Most times the sickness gets so bad, that the cabin can barely speak- their throats are too incredibly sore to do so.

Usually, when this happens other campers have to volunteer to help out in the infirmary- because Will and the other healers are just too sick.

(When this type of sickness happens it affects everybody except apollo kids with the plague gift)

They just have a constant cold- but it never gets worse than sniffles

Also by some miracle, the sickness always seems to stay contained and inside the Apollo cabin, never infecting a different camper.

The cabin walls are almost always covered in posters with classics, Beatles, Queen, etc.

Although, a cabin favorite is most definitely Taylor Swift.

There is not a time where music is not playing in the cabin, even if it’s just instrumental- they always have something playing.

When they welcome new campers, they always have a kind of initiation to find what they’re best at

Will would show them around the infirmary

Austin would give them some instruments to try-

Kayla would show them archery

Etc. etc.

They would probably have a mini shrine to all the campers that passed away, leaving little offerings of candy and such

(When I say all the campers, I mean apollo campers)’

They would have photos of Micheal, and Lee

Will would probably talk to them once in a while :(

And overall it would just be really sweet

#pjo #apollo #apollo cabin #cabin 7 #trials of apollo #headcanons #percy jackson #heroes of olympus #pjo hoo toa

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uptoolateart · 1 year

Text

The Miraculous Child

So, in 'Representation', Felix talks refers to ‘the miraculous boy’ a couple times. He also calls Adrien’s conception ‘a miracle’, meaning Adrien too is ‘miraculous’.

The second I heard this, it hit me that the title of the show has had this extra meaning from day one. If we look right back to the start of the series, it has been a story about children and adults, especially parents, some a little overbearing (like Tom) and some neglectful or downright abusive.

The message I take away is - life, bringing a child into the world, is a miracle. Science tells us how it works, but the fact that it works is almost like magic. Yet, there are people out there who fail to see this and don't value the gift they've been granted.

There will be people reading this and thinking, ‘Yeah? So what about Chloe?’

I hear you.

Audrey is a terrible person, and Andre is no better. When he hauls her off at the end of ‘Revolution’ and says he needs to correct his mistakes, he just sends her away with her mother. He’s washing his hands of ‘a problem’, just like he’s done with everything else, e.g. when he resigned as mayor. He walked away from responsibilities, after creating a mess for the people who voted him into office. Likewise, he walked away from his responsibilities as a father.

Does that excuse Chloe's behaviour towards others, especially Marinette? No. Does it explain it? Yes.

So, let's talk about choice, which has been mentioned several times in the series. Chloe has a choice to become just like one of her parents...or to become something better.

Because, if you think about it, at some point in time, Audrey and Andre and even Gabriel were all children. And children aren't just born nasty. They learn nastiness as they grow up. To become who they are today, they had to have started out in a similar position to Chloe, for example. They represent the potential future for their children.

If we saw them as kids, we'd probably see them being mistreated by the adults in their lives and we'd all sympathise with them and hope for their redemption. But we're seeing them as adults and our instinct is to say oh well, too late, they're just awful people. In fact, they could redeem themselves at any point, as demonstrated by Nathalie's turnaround in Season 5. It's just that, the more awful things you've done, the more you have to atone for. Gabriel would have to do a lot - maybe even have a brain change - to be redeemed. But you see my point.

So, at the end of 'Revolution', we see Chloe at a crossroads. She's on that plane, annihilated by her mother, and hiding by herself in a corner. She browses her contacts and hovers over Sabrina's entry...and her face crumples like her heart is breaking with regrets. Oh, it’s sad.

But she passes over Sabrina and moves onto Marinette. She makes one last attempt to bring her down. It’s an act of desperation – redirecting her own suffering onto another, trying to keep control over things when she’s completely out of control of her own life.

Marinette finally puts her in her place, and we see Chloe fall apart in a real way - for the first time ever. I don't know about you, but I found that very uncomfortable viewing. It was a relief to see Marinette stand up for herself, and it needed to happen...but Chloe's despair was also painful. I think all of those were emotions were intended.

Let’s set Thomas aside here. I don't want to get into debates about what was said on Twitter. He’s not the only writer for the show, anyway. I am just speaking about my personal perception of that scene. Chloe gained heaps of sympathy, after she’d been appalling all season, which was pretty powerful.

The fact is…Chloe needed to be put in her place. But that doesn’t mean she deserved everything she went through. Even so...sometimes these moments are necessary and revelatory. They can be the catalyst for great change.

What I mean is – if you're in denial about your position, redirecting your pain onto others, sometimes you need that wakeup call. You need to hit rock bottom in order to start climbing back up into the light. So, when Chloe fell apart, it was painful...but I also saw it as her potential turning point. As long as she maintained her delusions to escape into at school, it was impossible for her to transform - because she refused to see that there was any change needed. But when you have nothing left…that’s when you might begin rebuilding yourself.

Every episode in Season 5 has had multiple meanings. Looking at 'Revolution', when Chloe was akumatised, she trapped her victims in a maze, going round in endless circles (revolutions). Notably a lot of them were adults.

I think if this had happened early on in Season 4, Adrien would have been trapped morosely in that loop with the others. We saw this kind of thing in 'Guiltrip'. So, it spoke volumes about his growth as a character when he was the first one to seek a way out of Chloe's maze. He immediately used his cataclysm and broke a hole, escaping and letting everyone else out. Metaphorically, what he did was break the cycle. If we think about cycles of abuse, this is what the next generation always has the chance to do - to revolt against the past.

it's interesting, then, that when we got to 'Representation', we saw Cat Noir completely lose it with his father. He needed to let it all out...but he was in danger of going too far...and deep down, he knew it. His worst nightmare was of losing all control, to the point of letting his rage destroy everything he loved. Unconsciously, he's well aware that he runs the risk of becoming like his father. However, his complete breakdown, begging his father to take his miraculous to make it all stop, tells us he won't become like his father - because his conscience is too strong. He wants to break that cycle.

Felix has also done some bad things - but he's begun the journey of redeeming himself and changing. He too is trying to break out of that cycle so he doesn't become like his father.

Kagami is embracing her passionate side, rejecting the coldness and isolation her mother has attempted to breed into her, no doubt due to her own upbringing once upon a time.

And I think there’s definite potential for Chloe to do the same. There’s no reason for anyone to remain caught in these patterns. The trick is to recognise the pattern is there in the first place - because you can’t break free of something if you don’t know you’re imprisoned. At the end of Revolution, I think Chloe finally saw her prison, saw that she was already trapped in her own maze, going round in circles. Now it’s up to her to pull an Adrien and cataclysm the bars that hold her in.

Because like Felix said, over and over – each child is miraculous simply for existing. And miracles should be cherished.

PLEASE NO POST-REPRESENTATION SPOILERS IN COMMENTS :)

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catwouthats · 1 year

Text

I want to preface this by saying I have a really good pattern recognition and took a film class before .

I NEVER WANTED TO LEARN THIS INFORMATION OR HAVE THIS THEORY!!

Anyways, because people are confused about the theory of Gabriel somehow having the second coming of Christ (and also why I think some of the book of Revelation will be included in Good Omens 3), I thought I’d put my evidence here.

Once again I’d like to formally apologize and this is your last warning.

You will lose all sanity past this point just like i did.

(TLDR; only read what’s in bold and look at the pictures)

When it comes to why I think season 3 might be based off of Revelation slightly, there isn’t that much evidence. (Unfortunately there is more evidence for the other part.)

First of all we have Metatron mentioning the second coming of Christ before they get on the elevator. Now for those of you who don’t know the second Coming of Christ is part of Revelation! (Also, Metatron did not bother to try and stop Gabriel from leaving… which I find suspicious…)

Where “Christ 2.0” is mentioned in Revelation? Well the Revelation is not straight forward. Some think of the Second Coming of Christ as whom was mentioned in Revelation 14:14-16 (in this chapter he comes down from the heavens and chops off heads) and some think of The Second Coming of Christ as who was mentioned in Revelation 19:11-16 (in this chapter he comes down from the heavens and helps put two of the false prophets in hellfire). For Chapter 14, they call the being “the son of man”, which is the same title people use for Jesus. For chapter 19, there is “King of Kings, Lord of Lords” tattooed on his thigh, which is what some people call God.

Luckily, considering the main point of Good Omens is to show that love and life matters most, I don’t think they will do exactly what those chapters say.

Neil also said that he got inspiration from Genesis and Revelation here: https://www.tumblr.com/neil-gaiman/728173029401788416/hi-neil-gaiman-i-would-like-to-know-if-good-omens

Side note, another reason I feel they will use some of Revelation:

Now on to the Unfortunate truth. Proof/foreshadowing that Gabriel will have the Second Coming of Christ. (Again I want to formerly apologize to both the fandom and Neil Gaiman.)

So what started this is Chapter 12 of Revelation. In chapter 12 someone is pregnant in the sky/heavens/space and gives birth to a special child. Before that child is eaten by a monster, an Angel comes in and takes the Baby away and brings the baby to God. This is why I think this is the same being as the second coming mentioned before. He was taken care of by God and raised in Heaven.

But he was also born in space…

And unfortunately for us ineffable bureaucracy is in space. And although they aren’t human, there are actually a lot of references throughout Good Omens 1 and 2 that associate Gabriel with birth and sex.

But before i get into that, I want to preface all this. I know this might upset some of you all because you might also have had the head cannon of them being asexual. To that I say, don’t worry I don’t think anything sexual will actually happen. They are kind of dumb (when it comes to human affairs) supernatural beings whom can perform miracles. A lot of this is just dramatic irony used to make us laugh and to possibly hint at the future.

So here is all the evidence of Gabriel having a kid so far (I will edit it if more comes up):

1) When he says he was there for the creation/birth of Eve in the garden. Why in the world would that be an important thing to mention? For what reason did God want him there? Why did God want him to see how to make a human?

2) The fact he is the same Angel who delivered the message to Mary that she was pregnant with Jesus. You can see this in Luke 1:26. While, this is not mentioning Good Omens I feel it is important to point out. Also, I think it would be funny if Mary was able to pull an Uno reverse card (and a +2 card because it would be the 2nd coming) and tell GABRIEL that he was gonna have the child.

Not to mention there are even more similarities between the two of them (which I mention later.) I think it shows them as having something more in common rather than just being in eachother a story…

3) The fact he was also there for the “birth” of 3 of Lot’s kids. Yet another moment of human creation that God insisted he’d be a part of.

6) The tomatoes falling in front of him as he walked to Aziraphale’s Bookshop (they did a close up which usually is a “pay attention” sign) because apparently tomatoes are a sign of fertility. (Also if you look at the extended edition of Gabriel’s arrival you will see that the tomato pile seeming bubbled up like it was multiply as he walked by.)

Not only that, but some studies show that tomatoes can cure infertility. And considering we know that angels do not at first have any reproductive organs, I think it’s safe to say that this symbolism could show how he is no longer infertile. (Link: https://www.nicswell.co.uk/health-news/tomatoes-and-fertility )

7) Everyone assumed he was a stripper that Aziraphale hired. Nina thought it was Aziraphale’s ”naked man friend” he hired. And the people around him even took pictures of him nude. They didn’t even bother to call the police they were in such awe.

The fact that they didn’t call the police or weren’t really disgusted (but rather many were quite turned on if you look at the symbolism) is very interesting to me. It reminds me of the story of Lot in the Bible. Two Angels visit Lot (in sodom and Gomorrah) and a huge crowd of people forms outside his house. The angels were so charismatic and hot that everybody wanted to do them, and that is why they were crowding around Lot’s house. I wish I was joking, but I’m not!

8) All the people that flirted with him at the ball to which he said something along the lines of “I learned something new about this body last night in bed” and also “want me to show you?”

As my friend on tiktok (cloverthegrand) said “something something Gabriel was [probably] purposefully made to be very attractive to attract a partner to fulfill the second coming requirements.”

9) He likes hot cocoa and chocolate is sort of an aphrodisiac, which is something that supposedly “turns you on”. And yes, chocolate is still a symbol of love even without it’s aphrodisiac qualities.

(Link: https://www.simplychocolate.com/learn-chocolate-aphrodisiac )

10) When they have sushi (fish), Gabriel is always(?) there. When they are in he restaurant in season 1 and at the Ball in season 2. Fish is a sign of fertility in a couple cultures like in judaism, some Native American tribes, and Celtic culture.

(Links: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/an-abundance-of-fish/ and https://www.atshq.org/fish-symbolism/ )

11) This is quite controversial, but the fact that Gabriel planned basically to show up to beelzebub completely naked is quite… odd. He probably doesn’t understand the complexities of this and what it means (or would mean to humans), yet it is still an odd flag that I feel could show us a hint. And once again, I would like to remind you all that this is not me saying that they aren’t asexual. I still firmly believe that they are both aroace spec because they are/were Angels!

12) The “I’m in the fly” on the bottom of the box that Gabriel brought is also quite funny to me. Gabriel and Beelzebub sure did not get the joke, but I know some of the audience (including me) had one Hell of a time laughing at that dramatic irony/pun! And once again it is another this that associates Gabriel with the creation of kids.

13) “Everyday” being beelzebub and Gabriels song -despite also being described by Terry and Neil as an apocalyptic song- is also interesting to me. I feel it could show that somehow their love and their romance is the start of this second apocalypse or maybe even the center of it. It’s slightly scary to me that Neil didn’t wait to use Everyday for season three, yet instead started using it here for a romance.

14) All the good luck symbolism for Gabriel. Gabriel got really lucky the season. Whether with a Aziraphale and Crowley and his memory or how everything around him went. It was as if it was perfectly planned. And it was! There were a lot of symbols for good luck, always surrounding Gabriel to make sure no harm came his way (such as the Garlic, onions, cabbage, and plum tree at Gabriel’s arrival. Also the color blue, hearts, and lions.) I feel this shows just how important and essential Gabriel is to SOMETHING. Something probably bigger than he knows.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure I remember Neil Gaiman once saying on Tumblr that he made Gabriel more of a character in season one of good omens because he was important to the next part of the story. This season definitely showed us just how important Gabriel really is (to my unfortunate mental decline.)

15) Cows. This one isn’t that big considering it is just two framed images of cows in the background while Beelzebub and Gabriel order at the bar, but I included it anyways. Cows represent fertility and strength (yippee 😐)

16) Gabriel is wearing the same blue at the Ball as Sitis(kind of) and as The Virgin Mary! They all have big blue thingy. This shows they are similar… somehow (*cough* miraculous births/“births” *cough*)

Bonus: The Proof is in the Pudding!… or at least the side dish. Here is some evidence from the extended editions/cut scenes:

A) In the extended edition of Gabriel’s arrival:

Aa) Lemon symbolism. In the extended edition, you can see an old man holding a lemon, while standing in front of a pile of tomatoes on the table. The pile of tomatoes then later, bubbles up, as if multiplying, and falls down on the floor, overtaking him and his lemon. lemons can symbolize loyalty to one other person in a sexual or romantic relationship and they were also used as a form of birth control, but consider the tomatoes -what fixes infertility- went past that man I think it’s safe to say that is no longer a thing.

Ab) Flowers. Honestly this is not that important because flowers have many different meanings (I mainly did this for fun; not all of the flowers support this theory). But mainly people use flowers to give to someone they love. Also, flowers in General (specifically Lilies and Roses) are commonly associated with the Virgin Mary. Let me quickly go over the flowers/plants in this shot that I could identify.

Black eyed Susans - encouragement, motivation, endurance, and justice

White Roses - purity, youthfulness, innocence, eternal loyalty, and new beginnings

Yellow Roses - friendship and joy

Pink Roses - elegance, refinement, sweetness, and femininity

Green Roses or Green Chrysanthemum? (I can’t tell which it is from a distance) - chrysanthemum-good fortune, rebirth, renew, and good health. Rose-renewal, fertility, growth, abundance, and rejuvenation

Eucalyptus - strength, protection, abundance, and the division between Heaven and Earth

Wreaths - not a flower I know, but they do symbolize some important things. Fertility, life after death, life, and Jesus dying and coming back

(Links (This is not all of them because I got tired): https://fiftyflowers.com/blogs/flowers/rose-color-meanings#:~:text=White%20roses%20symbolize%20purity%2C%20youthfulness,for%20weddings%20and%20romantic%20occasions. And https://blossmcart.com/blog/chrysanthemum-meaning-and-symbolism/#:~:text=Green%20chrysanthemums%20symbolize%20good%20fortune,love%2C%20longevity%2C%20and%20joy. )

Ac) THE HOSE POORING WATER INTO THE PURSE! OH MY GOSH DID THIS SHOT SURPRISE ME IN THE EXTENDED EDITION! Also they even did a close up of it so you know it’s important! This is on the nose fornication. The hose representing a pp, the purse representing somethings that “purrs”, and the water representing… human male milk. The hose fills up the purse and makes it wet in these shots.

This could just be them showing more of how everyone is thirsting after Gabriel, but than again… why specifically Gabriel? And why something so specifically representing conception?

B) In the cut scene at The Ball

Ba) The nut allergy. In one of the cut scenes Justine has a nut allergy and asks Gabriel if any of the appetizers have nuts in them. I love to interpret this as them saying they are a lesbian because of their emphasis on all nuts. I especially love this because (assumingly) the people before them were flirting with him and they weren’t (probably because he looks like a male human.)

Bb) The fact Gabriel has no idea what nuts are and asks what they taste like. It seems very innocent in the scene, but if I saw that scene back to back of the “I learned something new in bed last night” I would definitely assume that was on purpose for many reasons. And considering all the other times Gabriel is associated with sex, I think I am gonna interpret it this way. He is a very innocent Angel though (literally).

[EDITS: The bit on the side (more evidence that I unfortunately can’t add imagery for because I’ve reached my limit on this Tumblr post):

-the pornography bit in s1

-the fact Gabriel is sort of fixated on having a nice body (exercising, looking at the statue of himself)

-the way his statue holds a cross the similar to how The Virgin Mary holds a cross in images (at least at times where she is holding one)

-The fact that there is also a lot of imagery of the Virgin Mary putting her hands cross over her chest, which is similar to how Gabriel does when Aziraphale and Crowley ask to hold his hands in s2

-him “being a Virgin” being the butt of a lot of the sexual jokes. I put being a virgin in quotes because I actually have a very depressing theory about this. He most definitely did not just miracle genitals right before seeing Beelzebub, otherwise the Angels would’ve gotten a notification as he was leaving that he did that considering they were looking at his file. That means he’s had that for a while. We know he has something down there because of the crowds reaction to him being naked after he puts down the box.

-Neil said “we will never know” when asked if Gabriel made “the effort” down there… this isn’t evidence I just find this hilarious (Link https://www.tumblr.com/neil-gaiman/725238480054239232/hey-neil-i-dont-know-if-this-question-has )

-Neil offered the name Gabriel to someone that was naming an incubator in their lab https://www.tumblr.com/neil-gaiman/727942479466430464/i-need-help-naming-lab-equipment-i-work-in-a-lab

Do I think all of this evidence means Gabriel will give BIRTH? Not exactly, I mean he could just miracle a child by pulling of one of his ribs and gathering Star dust around it to shape the body. However, I do think there is a high possibility that Gabriel will somehow raise or make The Second coming of Christ (or just any child) in Good Omens 3.

And on the contrary, to all of what I said, some of the other angels and demons could also be associated with fertility (ex: stars, sand and fish as symbolism for fertility. Aziraphale has scenes with stars, sand and fish). However, in my opinion, it is not to the degree that Gabriel is associated with things like sex, birth and the Virgin Mary. He is CONSTANTLY being associated with it (even if it’s not on purpose) throughout the series. They could just be making sex jokes with Gabriel because it’s funny (and because it’s John Hamm who is/was apparently a sex symbol), but we’ll never know until season 3 I guess!

I doubt this all will help in my plea to be not weird on tumblr, considering I shared the evidence now, but it’s better than sounding like somebody who just said “archangel Gabriel mpreg” just for the fuck all.

#good omens #good omens 2 #ineffable bureaucracy #good omens gabriel #gos2 spoilers #go2 spoilers #gos2 #good omens 2 spoilers #good omens theory #good omens 3 theory #archangel fucking gabriel

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mouwrites · 11 months

Note

hi i was the one who asked ab the character match up thing but i also have a request!

could you write headcanons of being best friends with lloyd garmadon (and a slight unaddressed undertone of them having crushes on each other maybe)

like they’re really dumb and make fun of each other all the time but would die for each other easily and they have starfarrer marathons and play video games together and all that junk

totally fine if not though!! ⭐️🌟

Absolutely!!

Ninjago - Being Lloyd’s Best Friend (?) ;)

You guys met when he was on a mission

The ninjas were on the hunt for an ancient magical artifact, which you just happened to remember finding as a child

You guided them through the wilderness, secretly doubting your own navigational skills

That and the fact that you weren’t sure it was even there anymore made you obviously anxious

Lloyd, who was following the closest behind you, noticed the way you chewed your cheek and wiggled your fingers

You locked eyes once, and the look he gave you was the gentlest, most trusting yet understanding look you’d ever seen

Your anxiety melted away as you gazed into his deep green eyes

Then, realizing you were staring, you giggled awkwardly and apologized

That was how your very first conversation began

Lloyd was just trying to keep you calm so you could focus, but he completely forgot his goal when you mentioned Starfarer

“You like Starfarer?”

“Yeah, haha. I know it’s a little childish—”

“I love Starfarer!”

“No kidding?!”

Honestly, you had no idea where you were at that point

You were just taking random turns while you gushed about the series

(Much to the annoyance of the others following close behind)

By some miracle, you eventually found the artifact

On the way back, Lloyd explained what it was and what he needed it for

You thought he was so cool

You demanded to have him update you when the mission was completed

You exchanged numbers before finally departing

Less than five minutes after he left, you guys were already texting up a storm

You found out you actually had much more in common than being Starfarer fans; for one, you both loved video games

You compared which games you’d played and which you hadn’t, making vague promises to get together and play the ones you hadn’t

Needless to say, you guys text a lot

Lloyd is frequently gone on missions, but he always keeps his phone nearby

Calling you is his favorite way to pass the time when traveling

You keep him updated on more worldly matters, like when a new Starfarer comic is going to be released

He tells you about his fantastic adventures in return

Secretly, you both think to yourselves as the other speaks: Man, they’re the coolest person in the whole world…

Lloyd tries to visit whenever he can

Playing video games and goofing off with you always makes his day

He’ll lie awake at night recollecting your jokes and bursting into laughter all over again

You lie awake at night envisioning him on his missions, your heart racing as you picture him escaping peril time and time again

So, when one of you texts the other late at night, you’re both awake anyway

Your late night texts are different from daytime texts

You talk about deeper things: life, death, your pasts, anything and everything

You don’t really do this when you meet up; no, that time is reserved for teasing and goofing off ONLY

But you both sort of wish you did talk like that in real life, though neither of you bring it up

You just push down that stirring in your chests when you sit just a bit too close, or when you stare for half a second too long at your friend’s face

A rather pleasing face…

anYWAY you guys also share a huge sweet tooth

Snacks are a must whenever you hang out

And if you bake… oh man

You will immediately become Lloyd’s favorite cook

Even if you’re nowhere near Cole’s or Zane’s level, Lloyd will stand by his opinion that your goodies are better than theirs

You guys would ABSOLUTELY go to fan conventions together

Matching cosplays!!

If you cosplay a ship, you’ll awkwardly agree to do cute poses together when people want a picture

Again, just push down that stirring in your chest when you hold each other…

The other ninjas don’t tease Lloyd about you being his s/o

Mostly because they aren’t sure if you guys are actually dating or what

Lloyd doesn’t notice their skepticism though, he’s too focused on being silly with you :)

Thanks for reading! And thank you anon for the request :) take care guys <33

#ninjago #lego ninjago #ninjago x reader #lloyd garmadon #lloyd garmadon x reader #lloyd x reader #ninjago lloyd

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discowingneckline · 8 months

Note

How do you think Dick reacts to be mistaken for Damian’s father? How would Damian react if Dick didn’t correct someone making the mistake?

Okay, so before I get into that, I want to talk about how I personally see the dynamics between Damian with Bruce, Talia, and Dick. I don't accept the idea that Talia al Ghul is a bad parent or that the al Ghuls are super abusive in the way comics has portrayed them from Morrison's run and after. I think it's racist, and I think it's overall shitty writing. Damian Wayne had said he is proud of both Talia and Bruce, don't ask me where that happened. It's a miracle I even remember it happened. There's also the one thing of Dick and Damian that my pookie @confusedhummingbird reblogged one of my things with, and I'll just steal that delightful panel for your convenience.

Anyway, so basically what I'm saying is that I don't particularly enjoy when Dick is hailed as a great parent compared to Bruce and Talia. Bruce and Talia definitely have some horrible fuck-ups (with Talia's being very racist in nature, and I swear to gods if someone fucking tries arguing her character wasn't treated in a racist manner, you're getting blocked so fucking fast). Like Bruce definitely did some fucked up shit too, but in general, I don't necessarily think he does a completely shit job at being a dad. In fact, when Batman is written in a halfway decent way, he is a pretty good dad in my opinion.

While Dick definitely did a good job with Damian, I think it would be pretty out of character for Dick to just discount Bruce and Talia's role as parents for Damian unless it was something pretty big and bad for Damian, in which case Bruce and Talia are probably being written fucking weirdly.

So onto your actual question! I think Dick would be...not bashful, but somewhere in there. I also think he'd just take it in stride and not correct them unless Damian wanted him to. He definitely doesn't want to overstep those kinds of boundaries with Damian if he has them. I also think depending on where they are at/what they are doing definitely contributes to how he'd react. Like when they were out as Batman and Robin, definitely was fine with the dad-son thing there. Out as Nightwing and Robin, doesn't bother to correct them. I don't think they'd get mistaken for being father-son in Gotham or in Blüdhaven, and I don't think any hero would mistake them for being father-son unless they were like new, new. But yeah, just depends.

I don't think Damian would really correct someone now. When Bruce died, in the period he was really learning from Stephanie, Dick, and Alfred, he probably would've corrected them. I don't think so now. I think family dynamics are a lot more fluid than people like to claim they are. Personally, I have a lot of people I see in parental roles, and one of them (which I don't see anymore because they are racist) were in a similar age range that Dick and Damian are. I didn't get mad or correct people when they thought I was their kid. I was either 1) embarrassed, 2) didn't care to make the effort to correct them, and 3) happy to be seen as such close family to them. That, and all the changes going on in his life at that time, and Dick's pretty much unwavering support for Damian leads me to believe that Damian wouldn't mind being seen as Dick's kid. I think he understands that Dick took on a parental role for him, and he can understand that he still has his biological parents to rely on.

SO! Basically, Dick doesn't correct people because I don't think a lot of people in their life would get it confused, and Damian doesn't mind because Dick is a parental figure in his life, and it isn't some sort of replacement figure for his biological parents.

#op #dick grayson #dc #dc comics #nightwing #batman #robin damian #damian wayne #damian wayne al ghul #talia al ghul #bruce wayne #family dynamics #batfamily #ant's daily hot takes #ant answers

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literaila · 1 year

Text

shoes (part one)

tasm!peter x fem!reader

summary:

“apparently dating your boss is a 'conflict of interest.'"

"i can't imagine why."

warnings: haha, just lots of nothing, harry is there, peter is there, reader is there, rich people stuff, mentions of alcohol, secrets that only i know

a/n: two in one night???? yes. i’ve been sitting on this for like seven years. (cowboy like me).

peter doesn't often pay attention to people's shoes.

he's never been inclined to stare at the ground, or, at least, to stare at the ground and not watch the strange way it seems to rumble beneath him. to watch people walk like he might look up and find them smiling back at him.

no, he doesn't have time to look down and appreciate the scuff marks on someone's nikes. he doesn't want to stare at someone's wingtips and wonder where he can get a pair for himself.

his old tennis shoes are enough comfort for him to ignore the tears in the soles, and the laces are only slightly frayed at the edges. a bit black from years of neglect and errant ideas of buying the exact same pair.

but tonight, standing in this crowded room and listening to people politely chuckle, he's staring at the shoes beneath him.

there are high heels, wingtips, and fancy leather slippers that probably cost more than his rent, and amongst them all, his converse are certainly a conversation starter.

that is, if peter was actually attempting to talk to anyone.

he can hear all of these people speaking about investments, the stock market, and the kids these days that just don't want to work, and all of the rich-people-talk that he doesn't get to hear often. even staring at the floor like he's doing, looking strangely obsessed with feet, he knows whose granddaughter is valedictorian and who plans to become the next state senator.

but he doesn't hear anything necessarily useful.

nothing about strange men growing claws, or people dying in alleyways with no one around. no one's grandson has become a living wart, and no one here cares if another building gets destroyed by some strange--and necessary--experiment.

the shoes are nice, though. he can follow a person around the room just by following their footsteps. he can watch people walk and act like he's not supposed to be here.

because he's really not.

the fact that jameson happened to give him this job--begrudgingly, with a frown on his face and a hang of his head--is a miracle. and a disaster because lucy, whom peter is replacing, is going to pass her stomach bug to the rest of the office, and then peter will receive the grunt work.

but he was going to sneak in anyway. he was going to watch from the ceiling--far enough away for shoes to be a mere blur and people to be anaomlys, rather than annoying. he was going to hide in the dark and maybe steal a couple of appetizers.

instead, he's standing in the middle of the room in his converse, holding his camera like he might actually want to capture some of this.

the egos and complete ignorance of everything important happening in the world. the smell of money and arrogance.

peter is thinking about ditching the party--telling jameson that he puked all over some lady's jimmy choo's--when two pairs of footsteps head toward him, rattling like a drum roll.

high heels and tennis shoes, not unlike his own.

he's staring down at a wonderful pair of jordan's when the approaching subject clears his throat, and a flash of teeth causes peter to finally look up.

and meet wide eyes, staring right back at him.

you're wearing lipstick, bright glitter flashing across cheekbones that didn't need to be defined. you're wearing lipstick and a smirk, like you know that peter's going to get lost staring at you.

which, currently, he is.

but your eyes are grinning at him; they are warning him to run.

and he almost can't look away.

wouldn't, if not for the arm attached to yours, and a familiar voice saying his name.

"peter," the man says, clapping him on the back and pulling his eyes away from a girl that he probably should've noticed an hour ago. "didn't think i'd be seeing you here."

why would he?

harry osborn is giving peter a wide smile, his eyes are reflecting secrets from a childhood peter can't seem to remember currently.

but may pounded enough etiquette into his head for it to remain, even when everything else doesn't.

"good to see you," peter says, hugging harry back and finally paying attention, noting a new haircut that is definitely not helping his childhood friend with anything. "if i'd known you were going to be here, i would've found you hours ago."

harry steps back, straightening his back and looking around. "i'm here in my father's place. he wasn't feeling up to it."

peter swallows. "he alright?"

"just a cold, i'm sure," harry shakes his head, sharing an inside joke with peter that neither of them understands. "what're you doing here? finally hooking up with one of the girls from high school?"

peter bites the inside of his cheek, sharing a short laugh.

did you finally marry a rich girl?

"no," he answers, voice still light, eyes still leaning to his right, where you're still standing. "i'm here for work. taking pictures of the banquet for the daily bugle."

harry nods. "did you get a good one of me?"

"of course not."

when harry laughs, peter laughs with him. he looks down again, feeling weirdly comforted that he's not the only one wearing tennis shoes in a place like this. glad that he can tell jameson he spoke to someone.

he looks up again, shaking his head. and then he turns, clearing his throat. "and you are?"

when he meets your eyes again, there's a new glint. a flash of lightning beneath the clouds. your mouth opens, but harry speaks before you get the chance.

"this is y/n davis. my date."

there's a breath, a flash, and someone pops open a bottle of champagne, but peter manages to keep his full attention on you.

"nice to meet you," you say, a tight smile on your face.

your voice is soft and stern, like peter shouldn't disagree.

he's smiling back, but he's not sure that he can hide the surprise on his face. he's sure that he's seen you somewhere before. sure that he recognizes that look on your face...

"this is her first banquet too," harry adds, pulling you closer. peter can hear your shoes click as you adjust.

"there's a lot of people. not enough alcohol."

peter's lip twitches, and yours does the same.

but harry laughs. "there's an open bar," he whispers to you. "i told you i'd get you a drink whenever you'd like."

you look away from peter and to the other man. "i'm just kidding."

harry scoffs, and peter leans back, looking towards the bar that he'd mentioned. "no, i agree," he says, "i thought you guys were supposed to have waiters walking around with cocktails. i have to walk all the way over there for a beer?"

harry shakes his head. "should've brought a date to do it for you."

peter shifts on his feet. there's a beat of silence, where he remembers what he's supposed to be doing here, and then swallows. "how long do these typically last?"

"it's not polite to leave until ten."

"and if i conveniently left my manners at home tonight?"

you smile at him, leaning forward--enough so that peter gets a whiff of perfume. "i saw a backdoor around the corner that you could escape through."

harry rolls his eyes.

peter pretends to look for the door, already having known where it was. the door he came through--the one he was going to break in through.

"good to know."

"have you taken enough pictures?" harry asks, "i haven't been blinded by any flash yet."

"no one's taking pictures of you," peter says, dryly. "i'm not even sure what jameson wants. i've got a couple of shots of the chandelier, just in case."

"get a picture of senator jenkins laughing with captain stacey and you're golden," you tell him, looking over to the pair.

harry laughs. "or you could get a picture of us, and make it the cover."

peter nods, moving a step back. "good idea." he gestures for the two of you to get closer together, holding his camera up.

he watches as harry wraps his arm around your waist, and as your natural smile turns into something of a performance.

still beautiful, though.

"so, how do you know each other?" peter asks, just as he snaps a shot. he takes another step back, adjusting his settings.

"she worked for me," harry says, putting on his perfect rich-boy smile.

peter raises a brow.

"i was his assistant."

your words are overly enunciated and you sneak a look over to harry, like you're checking to see if he noticed something.

peter snorts. "i'd expect nothing less from you, harry."

"what?" he defends, rolling his eyes. "was i supposed to ignore her?"

he says it like it shouldn't be possible.

peter smiles. takes another shot, not caring how it turns out. he tries to get harry's sneakers and your high heels together.

"and now?" peter continues, letting go of his camera and taking a step toward the two of you, sure that it's time to leave.

"i work for a legal office now. apparently dating your boss is a 'conflict of interest.'"

"i can't imagine why," peter responds, eyes flashing.

you laugh.

and then someone calls harry's name, and peter blinks, looking away from you and over to his friend.

"good to see you, peter. call me sometime, we'll get together." harry offers his hand again like they're making a business deal.

but peter shakes it anyway, nodding.

"it was nice to meet you," he says to you and watches as you and harry walk away, arm in arm.

he listens to two synchronized footsteps, but swears he can hear a stutter in there somewhere. just one moment where something has fallen apart.

and then it's gone, and you look over your shoulder locking eyes with him.

a storm flashing beneath the smile you send his way, gone as soon as it appeared.

when you're out of his sight peter is back to standing in the middle of his room, watching the shoes of people he doesn't care to pay attention to.

my masterlist here.

tags:@moonlarking-blog @v1ci0us @preciousbabypeter @alexxavicry @directioner5life @inthegetawaycarwithtaylah @localrockstargf @thestudiouswanderer @take-my-hand-time-boy @thoughtsofagodlovingsunflower @nyomjoon @moo-b1tch @raindropstearsandtea @rqmanoff @hollandweather @wetcoldnoodle @urlocalavenderhazestan @valvlry @imthatcoolmom @spideysimpossiblegirl invisibletrolleyson-jeremy @sharkswaters @rowniebow @anaislfbv @take-my-hand-time-boy @mileyc111 @starsval @ratsys

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