#brother's assistant

[maweallgotohell]

Jerome Valeska - Brother's Assistant pt.1

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pairing: Jerome Valeska x fem! reader

warnings: none

summary: Jerome locates Jeremiahs residence and decides to pay his brother a visit - to kill him. But when the door opens, he is met with the prettiest and kindest woman he has ever seen. But how will Jeremiah react, especially when it turns out, that Jerome has caught feelings for her, his assistant and best friend? And how will Jerome himself react in such a situation?

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He found him.

He searched for him for all these years and now he found him. His brother. And he wanted to kill him.

For all these years he made dozens of plans and figured out the best ways to spread fear and get his name all across Gotham so his brother would notice.

He wanted him to feel unsafe.

He wanted him to be afraid.

A few weeks ago he found out what name Jeremiah now went by and after knowing that it wasn't all too complicated to find him. Well yeah, he lived in a fuckin' bunker in the middle of the woods (fuckin' paranoid bitch), but with a name like his, it wasn't very difficult for Jerome to make out his location. Just threaten the right people and you're ready to go.

And there he stood. In front of his brother's labyrinth bunker. Was he nervous? Yeah. But he was determined to kill Jeremiah.

For the last few weeks, he tried to find a way to break into the bunker without being noticed, but there wasn't another entrance. Just the main one. And so he just... pressed the doorbell?

It was weird for him because it felt like a polite gesture. He felt like a brother, who wanted to visit his twin for dinner, while he was the "evil twin", who came to kill that son of a bitch, he had to call his brother.

* ring*

To his surprise, it wasn't his brother's face, that greeted him at the door, no. A beautiful young woman opened it swingingly, her silky (hair color) hair swaying with her movements. It was quite early in the morning, which was why she was still wearing her nightgown, the dark green silk hugging her curves perfectly and the lace gracefully accentuating her (skin color) skin. Her warm and welcoming smile greeted him like a cozy hug and he couldn't help but stare at her.

" Hello?", she asked, her voice sounding soft and gentle, as if she was an angel, that came down to earth just for him.

Her face changed and turned into a frightened one immediately as she recognized his features. She must've recognized him from the news or from stories his brother told her, he thought, but that wasn't the case. Not at all.

" Omg, Xander! What happened to your face?! Are you okay?! Are you hurt?!" She rushed directly towards him.

" Uhm, hello..? No, no Miss, I'm Jerome, Jeremiah's, uh, I mean Xanders' long lost twin brother.", he answered nervously.

Why did he stutter? And why did he lie? Well, it wasn't exactly a lie, but he wasn't honest either. How could the presence of a woman make him this nervous? He should've shot her right then and there. But he couldn't. She was too. .. breathtaking and.. . interesting to kill. He somehow knew she was different. He felt it.

Her expression softened and her smile found its way back onto her face. She hugged him as a greeting, which kinda took him by surprise.

" Omg hello!", she grinned. " I didn't know Xan had a twin. Glad to meet you! I'm YN." You held out your hand for him to shake.

...Xan?

You had a nickname for him? Was he your boyfriend? Jerome came to kill his brother, only to fall for his girlfriend? Wow. That was weird, even for him. And how could someone like Miah even pull a girl like you? Tf?

„ Nice, nice to meet you too YN.", was all he could bring himself to say.

" Xan will be so happy to hear that you're here and that you found him."

She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the front door with her.

" Come in. Follow me.", she said as she closed the door behind them.

The sudden touch of hers took him by surprise as he stumbled after her into the building.

It was silent for a bit, only the sound of their footsteps against the concrete was to be heard.

Then Jerome found the courage to speak up.

" Sooo YN.. is "Xander" like.. you know... your boyfriend?" He found it so awkward to ask you that, whyever that was, but he just had to. He had to know that to contemplate, whether he had to kidnap or kill you if his brother really was your boyfriend.

She stopped in her tracks to turn around and look at him, only to burst out in laughter.

" Oh god, no.", you giggled. " I'm his assistant and we're like best friends. No romantic feelings between us, really. But I live here. We both needed someone to live with and we've worked together before since we met at St.Ignatius and became best friends there and later, roommates. And here we are."

He was relieved. You weren't with his brother. But were you single? He knew he was there for a different reason and definitely not to go all heart-eyed over his brother's best friend and assistant, but the question occupied his mind completely.

You stopped in front of a door and put your key card in front of the card reader.

" We're here.", you said. "This is the living room. Make yourself comfortable, Jerome. Do you want anything to drink?"

He nodded.

" Soo we have coffee, a few types of tea, water, hot chocolate or orange juice. What would you like?", you asked him with a genuine smile.

" Oh, uhm, coffee sounds amazing. Thank you."

You nodded.

"I'll be right back."

And with that, you turned around and left into the kitchen, which was right next to the living room.

" Xan should arrive here soon too btw. I think in half an hour or so. I'd be happy to have you stay here and accompany me while we wait for him. Only if that's fine for you, tho.", you smiled.

Jerome had always been able to accurately identify and define his feelings. He was also able to consider and assess them rationally. And right now, he felt something he never thought he could feel. Admiration and joyful excitement.

You could've told him to leave or come back when Jeremiah was home or given him an appointment to meet up with his brother. But you didn't. No, furthermore, you invited him to stay with you and said you would like him to accompany you. You weren't even a little bit scared of him, not even because of his "awful" features, which he found sometimes. No, you didn't do any of that. Instead, you were genuinely nice to him and treated him like everybody else, or rather special.

You made him feel wanted just by these small things you did and your naturally nice behavior, which was quite rare for him.

He thought he had, no, he was sure that he had developed a small crush on you. Even though it was unusual for him to trust someone that easily or feel drawn to someone, especially that fast, he wasn't afraid of it at all.

It felt like being near you lifted all the weight he carried off his shoulders without effort. And he wasn't scared to experience these new feelings, because he felt like they wouldn't do him bad at all. It was strange but exciting at the same time and he couldn't wait to learn more about you.

You two chatted a bit until you noticed that you hadn't informed Xan about your guest.

" Sorry, I hate to interrupt you, but I just noticed, that I haven't told Xan about you being here. Lemme just send him a message real quick."

He panicked immediately. What if Miah warned her about him and made her have a different view of him? I mean, sooner or later, Miah would come home and she would find out, who Jerome 'really' is, yeah. But he didn't want their nice little talk and their shared time to end so soon.

"Uhm, YN?", he spoke up, his voice rather quiet. The young woman looked from her phone, back up at him, a questioning expression on her face.

"Could you maybe not tell him I'm here?" His low voice now sounded rather hesitant. Your eyebrows furrowed a bit in astonishment.

"I...I wanted to surprise him. After all this time we haven't seen each other, you know?" He was surprised by himself. He said those words with such emotion, that even he himself would've believed that he missed his brother that much.

Her astonished expression settled again and gave way to a lovely smile.

"Oh yeah, sure! That's a very sweet idea. Xan will be so happy to see you", the young woman cheered.

Jerome exhaled in relief but then lowered his head as well as his voice.

"I doubt that. See, I wasn't always the best brother for him, you know. It may be that he doesn't want to see me at all, let alone talk to me or even have me here. Don't be disappointed then, YN. It's okay, really. I don't want to bother you two. Really, I don't."

He said that. And he sounded like he really missed his brother or felt sorry for the things he did.

Did he? No, very surely he did not. He came here o kill Miah, not to reunite with him and be like 'best buddies'.

But he didn't feel as if what he told the girl before was a lie. Because it wasn't.

The sad undertone in his voice was not a result of missing his brother so much, no. It was because he knew that when Miah returned, he would no longer be able to spend time with the beautiful young lady sitting across from him at that very moment, looking at him sympathetically.

She had changed everything for him in that short time. He had already heard that when you are in love, you no longer have control over what you feel and think. But he had never experienced it. Until this very moment.

No.

Until that moment when she opened the door for him.

" Jerome, please. How could someone, especially Xander, ever be that resentful."

He sighed.

He contemplated telling her the truth. That his brother built this whole bunker they're living in, just to protect them from him.

But he didn't.

Because he was... scared. This was the first time since he killed his mother that he was truly afraid of something.

He feared losing her. And it was more terrifying than anything else.

---------------

While Jerome and YN chatted and got to know each other better, Jeremiah just then received a text from her.

> Hey Xan! You home soon? We have a surprise guest. C ya.<

At first, he thought of it as a normal text she would send him. Everything was fine.

But then it hit him like a crash.

Nobody knew where they lived. Nobody.

He panicked immediately and quickly got in his car, so he could be home as fast as possible. What if YN was in danger but didn't know yet? He could never forgive himself if something happened to her.

----------------------------

word count: 1820

The first part of a new short series (probably gonna be 2 or 3 parts again). Hope y'all like it.

C ya

[foolsocracy]

cheeeese

[turtleblogatlast]

One of the funniest parts about the whole “Leo not giving Draxum any grace” idea is that Draxum is one of the ONLY notable older men in the show that Leo isn’t willing to give a proper second chance to OR really hear out in the first place.

No seriously it’s genuinely a Thing.

[yn-experience]

I love cool, mysterious Sung Jinwoo as much as the next person, but I also believe this guy is an absolute dumbass.

He’s so socially unaware that he could literally be in a dark room with people swinging a light as a guide and he’d still choose to walk straight into a wall in the dark because “what the fuck is that??”

If we’re looking at this romantically then the earliest example is novel Sung Jinwoo literally AVOIDING the nurses text messages. The same nurse who requested his phone number before he was discharged.

He couldn’t even fathom the idea of being known (whether romantically or not), but decided that he wasn’t going to touch that and immediately deleted the messages.

That might be the trauma talking for him, but it’s just so funny. The man literally said “nah” and returned to doing his own thing.

Now, I’m still going through the novel, finished the manwha, and have gone through the episodes of the anime so I’m still feeling him out — but I feel like Sung Jinwoo getting together with Chae Hae-in was simply because Hae-in matched his dumbass and just never left.

But with all that said, it’s why I can see him just unintentionally causing so much angst with his Reader.

And it’s all because he just DOESNT see it.

Reader could be so obviously pining and this guy would just shoulder pat cause “yeah, you’re also my friend I guess” and then turns away because a new shining notification popped up in front of his eyes.

He’s going to unintentionally friend zone SO hard to the SUN, and Reader is trying not to push, to not force anything on Jinwoo, he doesn’t even know that you like him so it’s not his fault, it’s just the way Sung Jinwoo is —

And then you hear about two S-rank hunters on a date at the amusement park.

You hear about Sung Jinwoo and Chae Hae-in together, his shadows standing at station to give them privacy.

…A date?

That didn’t sound like Jinwoo.

It had to be a friendly get together!

Jinwoo had never mentioned her before.

Jinwoo — Jinwoo has never really shown interest in others that way.

There is always a distance, a boundary of friendliness but never more.

You should know. Always the friend, never the lover. Having watched him since forever, not only with you but with others. You had come to expect the way Sung Jinwoo would avoid romance like a blind man trying to view the sun.

You knew —

But then you see them.

There’s a closeness there. It’s almost how it is between Jinwoo and you, but something is different. Something is… strange there.

Is it the way Cha Hae-in looks at the man with a softness in her gaze, a warmth that speaks of care?

Or is it the way Jinwoo is looking straight back at the woman, his gaze steady, unwavering, a smile that seemed just as fond?

You knew Jinwoo, you knew Sung Jinwoo, but had he ever once shown a face like that before? As if he was so very comfortable where he was?

… Oh.

Oh.

You understood now.

It wasn’t that Jinwoo didn’t know you liked him, it was that he didn’t want to be with you.

[crabboytahomaru]

I NEED a crack fic about Mydei Argenti brothers

[babyblankyerror]

Stanley Pines finds a stable job...as a crime scene cleaner

[maxstrahanart]

SISTER REVEAL!! (SPOILERS!)

I am freaking out so much! I absolutely loved the 40th anniversary comic!

That being said, major spoilers for Big Mama's Assistant unmasked!

______________________________________________________________

I tried getting as close to the official colors as I could.

[tizeline]

Damn, they really squeezed in as many lore reveals as possible in those eight pages huh

[kreeeeeez]

childhood

[kirbro]

day 7: community

bothering himmmm

[fredmundo]

every couple on the heart killers really is just freak4freak

[oynonrings]

No bc why did they add mr. Little in quarantine when we coulda had daniil mentor sticky. Boy woulda been busy as hell during that plague tho LMAO

okay im not an artist but im imagining a comic of a patient coming back two consecutive days at the makeshift theatre hospital where the first day daniil is accompanied by sticky and he says "hes my assistant." and the next day daniil is accompanied by artemy and he says "hes my assistant." and the patient has a thought bubble thinking ".....damn that blond kid grew up fast"

[tokyo-daaaamn-ji-gang]

The Haitani brother's and Kakucho fighting together is 10/10 and I really wish we'd seen more of them fighting together as a trio/ hanging out

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

Everything about the battle at yokohama was Amazing, I love all of your thoughts and world building in pez dispenser. If you have time (and feel like it), could you explain ‘this entire sub-analysis on Idaten’s internal culture and how it intersects with broader heroics standards’. (i was ENRAPTURED by your hero economic analysis)

ps. when i saw in the tags about how the class just. broke down. and asked for their parents, it was like sucker punch to the face, i couldn’t imagine how the actual heroes felt when they saw them. if the public saw that side of class 2a, would they lay off? probably not, but damn. your world building and ideas are just. so good

So my decision about Idaten and its subculture actually hinges on one question about canon: Why did Stain go after Tensei?

Stain was all about attacking people who had committed some kind of perceived failing of heroics. But Tensei seems to be legitimately above the board. He didn’t seem to engage too heavily in the consumerist culture around heroics. He did good work. He was a good hero. So what about him made Stain decide to go after him?

I didn’t want it to be an “IDK he thinks all heroes but all might is fake” thing because 1) that cheapens the character and 2) it doesn’t match what canon shows. Don’t get me wrong, he was a lunatic who thought he needed to kill a fucking kid over his extremist ideals, but he let Izuku go the second Izuku established he conformed to his moral system.

Stain kills when he perceives a reason to. That doesn’t mean he’s always right. But he needs an excuse first.

I decided that there was one detail about Idaten that would be his most likely motive: the number of sidekicks he had.

Tensei is canonically taking up his parents’ mantle. This is a family business he’s heavily suited to and excels at. He has working beneath him a much higher than average number of sidekicks. And we know from canon that he’s not the type to take advantage of his team. Fuck, he seems to emphasize taking care of his team and working together above all else.

But we know that from canon. Stain doesn’t. What he sees, from the outside, is a young hero who took over his parents’ agency and is bolstering his own career on the backs of his sidekicks, which is what so many heroes were doing at that time.

Because stain is an extremist. He doesn’t once consider that maybe Tensei is the exception to the rule. He didn’t think to ask the sidekicks who he was, in a way, taking action on behalf of what they thought of Tensei.

Which is consistent with his character. It took him less than five minutes to decide “yeah I need to put down this grief stricken fifteen year old boy” do you????

Iida becomes the kind of hero that meets his ideals. Stain would have killed him the first time Iida gave him a reason. He’s shown to not always be right or do due diligence to determine if someone is even consistent with his crazy fucking moral system. He was just wrong when he went after Tensei.

And a big reason why he was wrong is because Idaten, as a culture, is far from the typical agency experience. It’s just that no one knows this, because Idaten is shown to be all about maintain a strong and confident facade. It’s not releasing its fucking employment contracts. The public only gets the calm, in control demeanor of the team. It doesn’t see how the sausage is made.

Do you know that millionaire ceo who realized his employees lives sucked and voluntarily took a huge pay cut so that way he could raise all of their salaries to a huge degree and the company as a whole got much, much better because the workers cared about it now and they made more profits and his salary eventually increased too as the company improved and all of his employees loved him? And he published the results thinking maybe other ceos would follow them after it was proven to make their companies more successful? And literally not one single one of them did?

Yeah that’s Idaten.

We talked in the earlier post about how heroics culture, for the most part, is abusive and built on the backs of sidekicks who are being widely taken advantage of. Idaten just… isn’t. Their compensation is incredibly fair and above board. People get credited for busts based on who was in charge of that particular bust or went above and beyond. They genuinely take care of their team, which is consistent with how Tensei seems to treat his team in canon.

For the most part, the sidekicks don’t want to even leave Idaten and become big name heroes themselves. They are all so genuinely happy and fulfilled that most of them happily spend their whole career as a sidekick.

But that’s the exception, and not the rule. And from the outside, Stain saw another sidekick farm propping up a pretend hero.

Which is one of the reasons why all of the Idaten sidekicks got together to hunt him down like a sick dog when he escaped. Tensei was babygirl to them and Stain hurt babygirl. He besmirched babygirl’s name over something he didn’t even do. Tensei didn’t even coordinate that mission the sidekicks made a group chat without him and went out to kick that fucking guy’s ass.

Idaten is a model of what heroics could be if it wasn’t focused on self profit and promotion. It made sacrifices to be this way. But it resulted in a team of excellent heroes who are all able to focus on protecting society without going home and feeling like they got fucked.

Stain has this mental image of heroes who should be helpful and good and save everyone without any personal incentive. But when you’re breaking your fucking back and going home to a shit apartment while your boss does 3 hours of work per day and has five houses, you start to ask yourself why you have to fucked for society to be safe. The sidekicks’ “greed” took the blame for the meltdown with Tartarus, but really, people should have been pointing fingers at every single agency head who refused to treat them fairly.

Idaten is this sparkling model of a business that is incredibly successful because the company heads are actually fair and good. They are the exception. And they are operating within a system where many of the other agencies are treating their talent like disposable cogs in a machine. The system needs to be regulated to force everyone else to act like Idaten—Idaten’s independent success is not a sign that the system works on its own.

As to your second question—no. The world saw little snapshots of Class 2A melting down in the aftermath and it got traded around like every other moment. Someone took a picture of the moment I talked about with Iida just sitting on the curb and crying when his brother’s men came to relieve him of command, and it was just another famous picture of many on the internet do that incident.

It was just—a horrifically public event. All of the kids had to be hospitalized in the aftermath. The world knew that. Izuku took a hit during his big fight with Mirio against the major villain team. He got stabbed, and it was poisoned. He knew from the villain’s history that the poison they produced was slow acting, though, so he quietly took Todoroki aside, had him cauterize the wound, and kept fighting until more heroes came. There’s a fuck ton of photos of him lying down on the sidewalk with his head in Todoroki’s lap in terrible shape waiting for the ambulance to come get him. And the world took that as a “Look At How Strong He Is, All Might Reborn, He Fought All Night With That Terrible Wound And He Still Prevailed” not “wow, that actual child had to fight for hours through the night not knowing if he’d live long enough to make it to a hospital.” Which is like. What happened. Izuku didn’t tell anyone but Todoroki that he took the hit. They both knew that if he didn’t get the antidote in time, he was dead. And they also both knew that there was no way he was going to be able to have even a shot at a hospital until morning, so they just had to keep going.

The world also took that as fuel for the ongoing ship war around Izuku and Todoroki, that they are only marginally aware of. Which like. Would not be comforting, that that’s what they took from a picture where both of them were legitimately afraid that Izuku was going to die.

The world knew they were young. They knew they were a bunch of amazing kids who had done something spectacular. To a lesser extent, they knew that those kids struggled in the aftermath. But that was never going to save them from the media machine. The fact that this fell to kids who visibly struggled in the aftermath was picked apart and used as a bat to hit opponents with in the debates that followed.

The picture of Iida crying on the curb with his brother’s sidekicks around him is considered one of the seminal photos documenting modern Japan’s heroics. It is the kind of thing that is probably going to end up in a textbook down the line.

Iida hates that photo. He hates that he had one moment of vulnerability in the aftermath when he managed to keep it together the entire rest of the event, and people still pass it around like a trading card. He had worked so, so hard not to lose it, and right when he thought it was safe to, it got posted on the internet.

When Iida sat on the curb and started crying, he was barely standing. He was injured himself. Momo had a tremendous fight that left her in terrible shape, and everyone was afraid that she was not going to make it. Izuku had just revealed, by the way, guys, This Happened, and now everyone was afraid he wasn’t going to make it. Bakugou was like two days out of the medically induced coma Uraraka put him in when this happened and apparently the doctor’s warnings that he could only be on light work was a hard requirement because he was completely non responsive for the since the fighting stopped and now everyone was afraid he wasn’t going to make it. The entire class was concussed, exhausted, and wanted their parents.

And he just really, really wanted his brother. He wanted his big brother to come in as the hero he had always admired, sit down with him, and tell him it was over. That he did good, and he could rest now. His brother’s sidekicks were the closest second available to him.

That picture made Iida feel like he had failed. He hadn’t held it together, and he hadn’t had the same strong facade as his brother always did. His anguish became another thing for the world to chew on. And that was true for all of those kids at that fight.

[chaoscontrol50]

I’ve never been good at drawing environments, mainly to my short attention span and ADD telling me that details are too tedious. So, anyone got any ideas for less steps when drawing an environment? So this is kinda a test run. I hope you like it…🙈

[3416]

not to be serious and in a bad mood mid-game where my boy is doing well, thank god, but mitch deserves fanfare this year from the leafs and people demanding his extension and getting recognized for what he's doing, esp w our generational scorer out, and it's annoying to not see it as much, lol. idk what's up w the leafs socials and stuff this year bc they're worse but